Tuesday, December 15

Schlock-Mas: Day Fifteen



FINDING MRS. CLAUS
 
Santa Claus travels to Las Vegas when his wife goes there to help a little girl and her mother.

Some little girl is visiting the local mall Santa in Las Vegas, and he can't be bothered to pay attention to this kid's inane prattling because he's too busy checking out the kid's mother, who looks a lot like the lady who played Supergirl back on Smallville. The little girl, Hope, doesn't even believe this leering prick who reeks of cigarettes and hard liquor even is Santa Claus, so she hedges her bets by dropping a letter to Santa in the magic mailbox she finds next to a penny slot machine. Her mother, Noelle, chides the child for not including proper postage on the envelope, but Hope sets the dumb broad straight, because everybody knows that your letters to Santa Claus don't need any fucking postage. What don't you understand about the words "magic mailbox"? People can be so stupid.

Surprise, surprise, the letter finds its way to the North Pole (not to be confused with Northpole, which is located slightly to the west) and into Santa's magic mail bag, which is delivered via a particularly salty she-elf named Moondust or Sprinkles, I guess. But Santa's pulling a double shift down at the toy shop and hasn't come home yet, which is really cramping Mrs. Claus' style, because tonight is their 500th anniversary, and the bearded prick hasn't even dusted the cobwebs out of his wife's knickers since the 1880's. Mrs. Claus (played by Mira Sorvino in some of the most atrocious old-age make-up I have ever seen in my life) even went to the trouble of making her old man's favorite dinner on this festive occasion, but as soon as Santa gets home he locks himself in the bathroom and doesn't come out again.

Mrs. Claus eventually picks the lock and finds her husband passed out on the toilet, his pants around his ankles, flaccid cock in his wrinkled hand, a crumpled elf-centric nudie magazine at his feet. Tired of being treated like dirt, she rummages through the magic mail bag and finds a letter addressed to her, which is surprising because nobody writes letters to Mrs. Claus anymore, not since her pen pal Abraham Lincoln died, anyway. Turns out the letter was from Hope, who desperately wants Mrs. Claus to help find the perfect man for her sad, sad mother this Christmas. Hope knew to write to Mrs. Claus and not her husband, because she read the script in advance and saw how much of an unappreciative son of a bitch the fat bastard really was.


This letter inspires Mrs. Claus to get the fuck out of the North Pole for a while to make this little urchin's holiday wish come true, so she absconds with some reindeer and some magic powder and lights out for the territories Las Vegas. The next time she appears onscreen, she appears conveniently young again thanks to the magic powder she snorted between scenes, which made me a very happy man because I don't think I could have handled an entire movie with beautiful actress Mira Sorvino covered in that abominable make-up.

She checks into the hotel and casino where Noelle works and gets to work with her matchmaking skills, which really aren't all that good, seeing as how she's been out of circulation for the better part of a millennium and has no idea how modern relationships work. It doesn't matter, anyway, because Noelle's already found the perfect man in the cowboy hat-wearing bartender with the face and personality as bland as cold oatmeal who works at the same hotel and casino as herself, but they're not dating because there would be no plot if they were already together.

Santa Claus (Will Sasso) sobers up and realizes that his doting wife has finally wised up and left his sorry ass, so he snorts some magic powder and youngifies himself, saddles up the remaining reindeer and drags along his Pip Boy-wearing elf friend Calvin (Calvin) to ride to Las Vegas and find his dear Mrs. Claus before she trades up for a newer, sexier model.

Plenty of shenanigans ensue along the way, including Santa getting propositioned by a hooker, Santa getting arrested for assault, a smarmy hotel manager plying a naïve and vulnerable Mrs. Claus with vast quantities of alcohol in an effort to get her too drunk to put up a fight when he tries to rape her later, Santa and his wife renewing their wedding vows with the help of the worst Elvis impersonator in Vegas, 900 identical tracking shots through the same casino floor with the same actors because the production couldn't afford more than one location permit, little kids talking about Santa Claus' sex life, a bizarre and pointless jewel thief sub-plot that makes no difference to the overall narrative, a stretch limo with antlers that transforms into a giant glowing sleigh on a deserted highway in the middle of the night, trusted elf Calvin falling in love with and abandoning his life at the North Pole for the aforementioned hooker, and padding, padding, padding!


Finding Mrs. Claus is another Lifetime original movie, and I don't know what I'm supposed to say about it. I feel like I should hate it, but I don't. It's not really a good movie. It's not even that well-made. And I don't think I ever needed to see all of this weirdly inappropriate sex comedy stuff with Santa and Mrs. Claus. I'm not a prude by any means, but it's just uncomfortable seeing some oily prick trying to date rape Santa's pleasant and trusting wife. The movie definitely crosses a few lines of good taste, despite its family-friendly rating, and I wouldn't want to have to explain some of the story's more adult situations to any children. But as I said, I didn't hate the movie. I'm not sure if I really like it, either. Golly, I'm so ambivalent about this bizarre experience. What a conundrum.

I must mention that it pained me to see Mira Sorvino in this movie, because she's a very talented actress and frankly, this kind of project should be beneath her, and it's a crime that she felt otherwise. She deserves a much better career than this.

Can I recommend Finding Mrs. Claus? I don't know. It's not good. But it might be worth checking out if you're a weirdo like me and need to satisfy your morbid curiosity regarding Santa Claus finding himself in rather inappropriate situations. It is an oddity, sort of a cinematic car wreck, and sometimes we just can't help but stop and stare at that stuff.

VERDICT: RUBBERNECK AWAY

 

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