Holiday films rarely surpass mediocrity

By Julia Bursten and Margaret Tung | Thresher Editorial Staff

With Oscar season just a few months away, it would make sense for production companies to use the holiday movie boom to release some of their best work of the year.

Unfortunately, the 2005 crop of films released between Thanksgiving and New Year’s failed to produce any particularly outstanding performances, screenplays or movies in general. A few met the expectations given by the trailers, fewer still exceeded them; but for the most part, this holiday film season was, well, a bust.

So, with a mildly disgusted sigh, the Thresher presents highlights of some of the less disappointing movies still circulating around big-screen box offices.

‘hostel’

True horror movies seem to disappear at this time of the year, as Oscar hopefuls and feel-good holiday fluffs take over the screen. Hostel, directed by Eli Roth, gives those who want yuletide violence and gore what they wished for — but, disappointingly, no more.

The film tracks the backpacking trip of Paxton (Torque’s Jay Hernandez) and Josh (Bring It On Again’s Derek Richardson), which lands the pair in the middle of Eastern Europe. Lured into a hostel in search of beautiful women, the adventure comes to a head when initial niceties are replaced by torture sessions.

Horror films, like movies in all genres, have two chief responsibilities: to entertain and to bring a new perspective or voice to the filmmaking world. This movie fails to accomplish either task.

As unknown and exotic as Eastern Europe may be, taking a movie to an untouched location does not guarantee a new and winning formula.

The violence in the movie grows increasingly gruesome, undermining attempts at suspense. The particularly squeamish should watch out for a certain eyeball scene toward the end of the film.

Hostel is a fine movie for those interested in far-flung attempts to cause mass public nausea, but ultimately even the most gruesome tricks in the book will not make up for its lack of substance.

‘the producers’

There’s a reason Broadway plays have not been made into movies more often. Like another recent musical-turned-film starring Rosario Dawson that shall go unnamed, The Producers, based on Mel Brooks’ 1968 musical of the same name, is a well-intended flop on the big screen.

The namesake producers in the film are Max Bialystock (The Birdcage’s Nathan Lane) and Leo Bloom (The Stepford Wives’ Matthew Broderick). The producers are caricatures to begin with, as are many of Brooks’ most successful characters, but Broderick in particular flounders as he tries to convert Brooks’ stage character into an appealing on-screen persona. Needless to say, he fails miserably.

Lane does a little better, but the only real saviors of the movie are a particularly slapstick Will Ferrell (The Wedding Crashers) as the neo-Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind and a sultry, neurotically tidy Uma Thurman (Kill Bill: Vol. I and II) as starlet-to-be Ulla.

The Producers survived the holidays on sheer pomp and circumstance, but it will not leave a lasting impression on most viewers who go to the movies more than once a year.

‘fun with dick and jane’

Man loses job. Man and woman have been irresponsible with money. Work is scarce. Man and woman stick it to the man by discovering all they need is love. Right? Wrong.

Man and woman, namely Dick Harper (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’s Jim Carrey) and his wife Jane (Spanglish’s Tea Leoni), instead decide to take revenge on society for the misfortunes they have been dealt: They commence a lifestyle of petty crime in director Dean Parisot’s (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”) Fun with Dick and Jane.

The plot is surprisingly unorthodox, the comedy is an unexpectedly insightful mix of slapstick and wit, and the resolution is as unpredictable as a family-friendly holiday comedy could be. The bland snippets Dick and Jane’s public relations lackeys threw together for trailers were misleading — the movie was actually really good.

No movie starring Jim Carrey has had a bad box-office run since before the Ace Ventura series. His talent can range from the very high-brow, as in Eternal Sunshine and Man on the Moon, to the very low-brow, as in Ace Ventura and Dumb and Dumber.

In Dick and Jane, Carrey entertains a broad range of audiences with both styles of comedy and leaves viewers feeling like they have just seen two brilliant movies for the price of one.

‘the family stone’

In case viewers found themselves lacking personal family drama over the holidays, The Family Stone provides more than enough for a year.

An all-star cast heads this enjoyable film in which a familiar story — the lover is brought home to meet her handsome suitor’s large and dysfunctional family for Christmas — is given a modern spin, throwing the unlucky Meredith Morton (Sex and the City’s Sarah Jessica Parker) into an even more hellish nightmare.

When her boyfriend, Everett Stone (Must Love Dogs’ Dermot Mulroney), takes her back to his family’s home, she faces off with smart-mouthed younger sister Amy (The Notebook’s Rachel McAdams), disapproving parents Sybil (Something’s Gotta Give’s Diane Keaton) and Kelly (The Devil’s Advocate’s Craig Nelson) and even has trouble making a good impression in front of deaf brother Thad (A Lot Like Love’s Tyrone Giordano) and his boyfriend Patrick (Dirty’s Brian White).

As the movie progresses, it becomes painfully evident that Meredith is causing much of the nightmare herself, as her uptight persona and attempts to overcompensate for her mistakes further lower the family’s opinion of her.

Unable to take the pressure, Meredith asks her sister Julie (Romeo and Juliet’s Claire Danes) to come to the Stone house for support. Julie ends up saving not only Meredith but Everett as well, in an only semi-predictable plot twist.

Although sappy at times, the beauty of the film lies in its ability to avoid a cliche resolution. Just like in real life, families grow and shrink but somehow still manage to come together for the holidays.

January 20, 2006

The Student Newspaper of Rice University

Holiday films rarely surpass mediocrity

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