Chasing Christmas (2005)

A lot of fun.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Jack (Tom Arnold) despises Christmas. Not only are his memories from childhood painful, his acrimonious divorce didn't help matters, either. So, even when his daughter is visiting, Jack doesn't want to go shopping for the trimmings or presents. Naturally, the Yuletide "powers that be" believe Jack needs a visit from, you guessed it, Christmas Past (Leslie Jordan), Present (Andrea Roth) and Future. But, what they don't count on is Past, very tired of his role, running away from Jack with his magic Christmas wand, in 1965! Now, lovely Present steps in to help Jack track down Past and work his way back into the present day. As they do so, they hop-skip to various Christmas pasts, including the one Jack spent with his new bride on a ski trip. What revelations appear! Therefore, will Jack get out of the past, lessons learned, and will Past return to save the day? This is really quite an entertaining take on the Dickens classic, where new versions come out every season. One of the reasons is that Arnold is extremely likable and humorous in the main role, as are Jordan, Roth and all of the others. Then, too, with the settings fluctuating from the fifties to the sixties, seventies and beyond, it is delightful to observe the fashions, hot gift ideas, et cetera. Also, the direction is lively and the script is cute. Ho, ho, ho, what fun it is to see Jack tied up with a string of Xmas lights and such! Need a new funny bone tickler for the holidays? Chase down this one.

Every once in awhile, I decide to watch a movie knowing full well that I'll hate it. Usually I'm hoping it'll be bad enough that a little booze and some similarly critical friends will turn a tedious ninety-minute torture-fest into something that's at least amusing, if not hilariously bad.We poured some wine, dimmed the lights, and settled in with Chasing Christmas, a made-for-TV movie that should have been gloriously bad but was instead just boring. Tom Arnold stars as Jack, a bitter, angry man with a bratty teenage daughter, a failed marriage, and the worst case of rhinitis since the entire cast of Scarface sniffed their way through years of cocaine addiction.It seems Jack hates Christmas because he caught his wife shagging some guy in the coat closet at his daughter's Christmas play. The wife, who is unapologetically skanky and slutty throughout the movie, left him for another man and moved to London. At one point, this subplot is showcased in a ridiculous green screen scene with her new paramour, some champagne, and Big Ben seen through the windows beyond.Like most terrible Christmas films, the movie's plot loosely and tiresomely follows the plot of A Christmas Carol. Except this time the ghosts of Christmas Past and Present have personalities. Past, played by a creepy little man with the soft Southern drawl of a registered sex offender, wants to stay in the past, and leads Jack and Present (played by some blonde Amazon who is neither funny nor sexy) on a series of repetitive, madcap dashes through the decades. Hamfisted homages to other Christmas movies abound and the sets, costumes, and extras are about what you'd expect from a TV movie; that is to say, they are shamefully bad. The "Goofs" section for this movie should be the longest in IMDb history.Look for Tom Arnold and the slut wife actress playing younger versions of themselves in the latter part of the movie; despite a cheap wig on Arnold and some bad vintage costumes, both are clearly middle-aged and wrinkly. Typical Baby Boomer conceit or mere low budget corner-cutting? You decide! Also amusing is a scene in which Tom Arnold decries the lack of Santa-less Coke cans in a drug store; in the next shot, there's a huge display of non-seasonal Coke cans in the background. Oops.Chasing Christmas drags on and on and by the end, we were drinking heavily, solemnly, white-knuckled grips on our glasses. All mirth was gone and even Arnold's embarrassing, desperate reformation couldn't bring the smiles back. This movie was tawdry, cheap, ill- conceived, and worst of all, boring. Avoid it.

I like this twist offered on the take of "The Christmas Carol". It is a refreshing change from the normal Christmas movie. It was touching, funny, and sentimental. It offers you a message of the importance of family without the usual archaic bore. Despite how Tom Arnold became to be known, he still delivers a believable performance. Leslie Jordan gives an outstanding performance. Andrea Roth was just adorable. The cast is above average in their roles. If you want the standard old stuff usually offered up for Christmas movies, then this is not the film for you. If you want something different and unexpected, then you can't miss.

This TV film's attempt to make Tom Arnold appear attractive and appealing to Andrea Roth was creepy. Young Tom Arnold from 1978 was creepy. I like Tom Arnold, but not in this wreck of a film. The original idea of the Charles Dicken's Christmas having ongoing annual projects was likable, at first. But the movie went nowhere and the obvious ripoffs took funny lines from some classics and made them not funny.(You'll shoot your eye out kid from A Chritmas Story, and Chuck Berry's cousin calling Chuck, from Back to the Future were the obvious ripoffs I noted. I'm sure there were plenty more, I just became uninterested.) I turned it off, you should too. There are too many good Christmas shows out there to waste your time with this one.