What Were They Thinking? 12.25.07: BB Guns and Small Hearts

Posted by William Bumgarner on 12.25.2007

This week, I break the wrestling mold and look at a pair of the worst Christmas movies ever made (at least in my opinion).

Welcome once again to What Were They Thinking?. I'd like to apologize for the lack of a
column last week; things got rather hectic what with Christmas shopping, DragonBall Z Budokai
Tenkaichi 2, Capcom Fighting Evolution, and writing a review for the Underdog
DVD for the TV/Movies section (cheap plug; I know) and I simply forgot about it. However, to make it
up to you, and in the spirit of Christmas, rather than doing something about wrestling, I'm going to
take (re: steal) a page from RD Reynolds' book and review some classic Christmas specials that,
indeed, are among the worst mankind has ever seen.

Yeah; I know. Sounds like a cop-out article. Well, frankly, it is, kinda. I was going to review
WrestleMania 21 for the Xbox, but the thought of playing more of that game to give an
in-depth review was more than I could handle; ended up selling it to gameStop to try and get rid of
the bad, bad memories.

The first Christmas catastrophe I'm going to look at is 1983's A Christmas Story. We've
all seen it; nothing more than a ninety-minute piece about the boy (Ralphie) who wants a Daisy Red
Ryder BB gun and will do anything to get it. Oh; where to begin here? First off, all this kid is
concerned with is getting an expensive toy for Christmas. He doesn't really care about his family's
problems throughout the movie, nor does he stop to reflect on what Christmas is about (family,
togetherness, love, etc). It's all about what he wants. (Sounds about like Christmas as
Stephanie McMahon's house, doesn't it?) There are a few "lessons" learned by young Ralphie, such
as 'let the buyer beware' (when he drinks who-knows-how-much Ovaltine to get his "Little Orphan
Annie Secret Society Decoder Pin" and discovers that the "secret message" is an advertisement for
Ovaltine) and that an eight-year-old shouldn't say a certain F-word in front of his mother, but the
main plot is the damned BB gun. Aside from his desire to acquire this item, the most common thing
heard throughout the movie is "You'll shoot your eye out!" (spoken, and in one case written, by an
adult who hears said desire). We are also treated to over-the-top, poorly-written fantasy sequences
ranging from Ralphie stopping villains with his BB gun to him getting an A on his essay entitled
"What I Want For Christmas" (and you can guess what he wrote about) and horrid sub-plots like a
lamp shaped like a woman's leg in a fishnet stocking, the father's never-ending battles with the
furnace, and the aforementioned decoder pin. On top of all that, whenever Ralphie says what he
wants, he repeats, virtually word for word, an advertisement for the gun, showing that he has
memorized the advertisement and further displaying his obsession with this one item. When
he finally gets the thing, the first thing he does is go outside to "try it out". All he succeeds in doing,
however, is causing the BB to ricochet and break the lens in his glasses, though his eyes were
unharmed. Rather than risk letting his mother know that, in a way, she was right, he then concocts
a lie (not the first one he told in the movie, by the way) that an icicle had fallen from theeaves of the
house and hit him.

Not only is this movie nothing more than a symbol of how much commercialism has taken over
the Christmas season, but there isn't even a moral learned here. Ralphie got what he incessantly
pestered his parents for, hurt himself the first time he used it, and left it laying outside in the snow
when his mother took him back in the house. He doesn't learn anything about "be careful what you
wish for" (and even Don Knotts picked up on that one. Poor writing and horrendous plot
aside, the other reason I hate this movie is because of the overuse it gets. TNT, TBS, ABC, FOX,
NBC, CBS, and even local cable-sponsored Network West Virginia seem to think that this is the
only Christmas movie to show every year. For as long as I can remember, TNT has shown
the thing in a twenty-four hour marathon every single year. Nothing but this movie over and
over and over and over again. The other networks air it at least twice a day and you can
hardly channel-surf without seeing at least part of it. If you're going to see this movie, see it with
someone you hate; that way, they'll never wanna come around you again.

Next up on the chopping block is Jim Carrey's disaster The Grinch. While not as bad as
A Christmas Story, this is a crapfest in its own right. For starters, they cast Jim Carrey
because of his acting ability, and he used it well, but they didn't give him a lot to work with. It only
superficially resembled the original Seuss book and the first cartoon, with the "Grinch hates
Christmas" storyline expanded to ridiculous proportions in flashbacks to the Grinch's childhood
living in Whoville amongst the Whos, including a crush on Martha May Whovier (pronounced with a
long "a" sound at the end), a rivalry with the child Augustus Maywho (who, despite only being a
child in the flashbacks, still has a name that suggests he is the mayor, which he is as an adult),
and being laughed at due to his homemade Christmas gift for Martha and the fact that he had a
beard as a child, attempted to shave it off, and was laughed at even more due to the "hack-job" of a
shave he gave himself. Are you starting to twitch already? Good. The Grinch apparently also makes
trips down to Whoville to cause chaos and mayhem, wearing a brown cloak and a horribly-fake-
looking mask. His green, hairy hands and feet are uncovered, however, as is his neck and a portion
of his chest.....and yet, nobody notices this and thinks he's just another Who. (And to think, people
call Vince Russo stupid.) Most of the movie's time is taken up by Cindy Lou Who (ugh; I
hate these names) wondering what Christmas is all about and then deciding that the Grinch
is the one that can save Christmas for the Whos. Sorry, kid, but this is Jim Carrey, not Jim Varney.
Cindy eventually convinced the town to invite the Grinch to be their "Holiday Cheermeister" and then
convinces the Grinch himself to accept the award. He reluctantly agrees, accepts his "award", and
we are treated to a montage of events such as "The Who Pudding Cook-Off", and a race (a sack
race, if I rememeber correctly) which the Grinch wins and then begins to lord it over everyone who
lost. After this is over, the whole town starts to exchange gifts. The Mayor then hands the Grinch a
box which, when opened, reveals an electric razor and calls it "the gift os a Christmas shave". This
reminds the Grinch of why he hated the Whos and Christmas in the first place and he goes on a
tirade about how much they have distorted the meaning of Christmas with their obsession with light
setups and trees and presents. He then utters the only funny line in the movie when he bends over,
holds some mistletoe over his posterior, and says "Pucker up and kis it, Whoville!". He then goes
on a rampage which involves stealing a tiny, tiny car and racing through the streets. He goes back
to his cave and attempts to steal Christmas, finally getting back to the original plot. It then
concludes as everyone expects; he steals everything related to Christmas (trees, lights,
decorations, toys, food) and plans to drop it off the highest cliff around. He then hears the Whos on
Christmas morning, still celebrating without all of their gifts and the like, and realizes that he was
wrong and ends up returning the stolen items and winning the affections of Martha May.

I saw this movie once and the pain never went away. It's not Carrey's fault; an actor can
only do so much with a bad script. If they'd kept the movie shorter and not included so much of
Cindy Lou (a very minor character in the original story but a major player here), her song
Where Are You, Christmas? (a traumatizing scene if there ever was one), the ridiculous
names for pretty much everything in the movie (a sousaphone? a munkle? a phant? shoot me now,
please), and the terrible, terrible rhymes, this might have been tolerable. But, when all is said and
this movie's done, all I want to do is into traffic run. (Damnit! Now they've got me doing it!!!)

Well, that's it for this week. I realize this won't go up until after Christmas, but it's all I've
got for now. If I'm right about what Grandma picked up for me, however, then I'll be back in a week
with a review of SmackDown! vs. RAW 2008. If it's as bad as '07......oh, it'll be a
loooooooooonnnnnng column, folks. (Also, I'm sorry about Reader Feedback not being up
this week, but Gmail arbitrarily decided that everything in my inbox was to be deleted, so I don't
have it anymore.)

Oh yeah; before I head outta here, it's time for me to plug some columns by my fellow authors.

First, don't forget about TigerFlashGames.Com.
Ashish put a lot of work into this site, so you might as well use it. (Honestly; this stuff gets
addictive fast.)

Also be sure to check out JP Prag's Hidden Highlights. He does the
column solo these days with the help of a slew of guest-hosts and occasional help from the Ghost
of JT. (Hm; could you call that a ghost host>?

High Road/Low Road from
Sat & Uncle Trunx show both sides of the coin on any issue, and is quite thorough. These guys
know their stuff and don't mind letting us know.

Finally, the most shameless plug of them all: mine. My review of Disney's
Underdog, available now on DVD.

Seriously, I'm done now. Honest.