Chasing Christmas (2005)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Finally something different in the Christmas genre. This made-for-TV movie has Dickens' A Christmas Carol getting all shook up to give it bunch of different situations not in the original story. Tom Arnold is excellent in the "Scrooge" role. He, of course, is visited by three ghosts meant to show him how he has every reason to stop being a scrooge. But all does not go as planned and that's what makes this refreshing. Unfortunately a low budget hinders this kinda unique story. Bright green grass with foamy looking snow covering portions of the ground? Just terrible. Throw in more money and a more talented director and you really coulda had something much better here. Still it's refreshing. Even though it was made for the ABC Family Channel, it's not exactly charming nor is it really family-friendly unless the family consists of only adults! It's still PG but does contain adult themes. Barely any Christmas music in it so not very Christmasy. But it kept my interest especially compared to so many repetitive and formulaic takes on the classic tale.6.4 / 10 stars--Zoooma, a Kat Pirate Screener

Another typical movie for the season. I like it. It is a take off on Scrooge and the three spirits of Christmas with a twist. Tom Arnold plays the grinch who hates Christmas because he found his wife cheating on him at his daughters Christmas play. He is chosen to be visited by the three ghosts of Christmas. The glitch occurs when the ghost of Christmas Past flakes out doesn't want to leave. This sends Present back to retrieve both the ghost and Tom. They end up having to chase him down, hence the title I suppose. They finally get him and return to the present but during the chase Tom and Present kind of fall in love but separate when they return. Tom has now relearned the true meaning of Christmas, pleasantly shocking his daughter. Christmas Present is given the job of Christmas Past and the old Past is demoted to toy elf. A nice movie for the season.

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.

Chasing Christmas is an interesting turn on A Christmas Carol. Arnold is a single dad that decided not to observe xmas because his wife left him around that time. The ghosts of xmas past and present try and get Arnold to relent, but they screw up their jobs and send themselves on a wild ride through time showing up at various times in Arnold's past. As they try and rectify the timeline and get back to the real present, they change some things. I think they successfully pull off the updated story because of the comic relief and the talent of the actors. There are quite a few lame parts, but overall a good watch. I'd give this film an A- for content and execution.