I'M NOT READY FOR CHRISTMAS
Holly's world is turned upside down when her niece's wish to Santa comes true.
Alicia Witt has struck again. The star of no less than three of the movies I watched during last year's festivities, is back once again with I'm Not Ready For Christmas, named after a song written and performed by Alicia Witt herself, which is featured on her debut album, entitled Revisionary History, an album I own and enjoy. Named after the song, but not based on the song, which is about a woman who is fed up with the trappings of the holiday season and wants nothing to do with any of that jolly stuff. No, the movie I'm Not Ready For Christmas is about... well, let's just push forward for a few moments and see if you can figure that out for yourself.
Alicia Witt stars as Holly, a driven career-oriented sort who is too wrapped up with getting that big promotion at her ad agency to spend any meaningful time with her big sister Rose or her precocious niece, Billy. She also lies a lot. She's out of control with the lying, from relatively small fibs like telling a boring-looking dude waiting for a cab that she needs it to get to the hospital on time so as not to miss her very real sister giving birth to an imaginary child, to big whoppers like pretending to have an intimate relationship with a potential client in order to convince her boss that she would be the best person to handle the account.
Holly promises Billy that she won't miss the little girl's big Christmas recital while never intending to go, because while Billy's mangling the lyrics to "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" on stage at her elementary school, Holly's hobnobbing with Maxwell Caulfield at a fancy restaurant, trying to convince him to let her handle his... new clothing line. That's not a euphemism for anything; he's really trying to market a new clothing line that he promises will be made in the USA, and he's very excited about sharing his ill-fitting sweaters with the world.
After the recital, little Billy meets a kindly old man dressed up as Santa Claus outside of her school, collecting pocket change for charity. She asks the man with the most ridiculous-looking fake beard I've seen in a while if he could grant her one big Christmas wish, and Santa (who is actually Santa, because of course he's actually Santa) happily agrees. Billy's wish is for her auntie Holly to be unable to tell anything but the truth, no matter what. Holly finds herself unable to hide her true feelings from her co-workers, her new client, her family and the guy she tricked out of a taxi ride, who just happens to be the music teacher at her niece's school, and you'll never guess what happens-
It's Liar Liar. It's fucking Liar Liar. I'm Not Ready For Christmas is a hideous knock-off of 1997's Jim Carrey blockbuster comedy Liar Liar. I realized the movie was going in this direction two minutes after it began, with Alicia Witt's character trying to break some sort of record for speed-lying on-screen, but I had to believe that the movie would go in a different direction. There was just no way the people behind this movie could be so creatively bankrupt. I gave the movie the benefit of the doubt. But I was wrong. I was so wrong.
She did it to me again. Alicia Witt tricked me into watching another unoriginal bootleg version of an older, better movie. She did it to me last year with Snow Globe Christmas, and now it's happened all over again with this fresh hell. But this isn't an Asylum production. Oh no. This is all Hallmark, baby, so it's all their fault. I actually thought they were above such shameless theft of intellectual property (I can't believe I'm using the term "intellectual property" regarding the film Liar Liar, but this is just our new reality), but I've just been proven wrong.
What a complete and utter joke. It really is a joke, and it's on me because I sat through this entire fucking production, wondering when it was going to do something different with the same premise and plot of a well-known and relatively beloved comedy, but the movie just follows the same damned story all the way down to the bottom of this septic tank of shame, without ever attempting to break away from the formula in any meaningful way.
Why did they even go this route when they had a ready-made plot for their film in the lyrics of the song they named their movie after? It's not rocket science, children. Write a story about a woman who's had enough of Christmas and everything that goes with it. She's in no mood to decorate a tree, or sing carols, or go gift shopping. All she wants is to be left alone this holiday season, despite the best efforts of her family and friends to break through her Scrooge-like shell. Throw in a sappy backstory involving the protagonist getting her heart broken by her fiancé last Christmas, which would sew the seeds for her reawakening to the joys of the most wonderful time of year when she finds someone new and allows herself to love again.
It's a tale as old as time, but it actually fits with the lyrics of Alicia Witt's song, and it's not fucking Liar Liar. I came up with that shit in thirty seconds, and it's better (and more original) than anything in the movie I just watched. The producers, screenwriter, and director of I'm Not Ready For Christmas have no valid excuse for what they've done, and it makes me sick.
I like Alicia Witt. I've liked her since Dune, and I bought her album because I was genuinely excited to listen to it. I wouldn't have forced myself to sit through three of her mediocre holiday movies last year if I didn't like her. I know she's a good actor. She can do so much better than this. I'd say that I would refuse to watch any future Christmas-themed made-for-television projects from Alicia Witt, but I have a funny feeling that I'll just be playing the same tired old record next year, because I'm an optimistic fool.
It doesn't even matter if I'm Not Ready For Christmas is any good on its own terms, because it shouldn't have been made in the first place. I refuse to discuss the movie any further, because I've already given it more space on my blog than it possibly deserves.
VERDICT: JESUS WEPT
Alicia Witt has struck again. The star of no less than three of the movies I watched during last year's festivities, is back once again with I'm Not Ready For Christmas, named after a song written and performed by Alicia Witt herself, which is featured on her debut album, entitled Revisionary History, an album I own and enjoy. Named after the song, but not based on the song, which is about a woman who is fed up with the trappings of the holiday season and wants nothing to do with any of that jolly stuff. No, the movie I'm Not Ready For Christmas is about... well, let's just push forward for a few moments and see if you can figure that out for yourself.
Alicia Witt stars as Holly, a driven career-oriented sort who is too wrapped up with getting that big promotion at her ad agency to spend any meaningful time with her big sister Rose or her precocious niece, Billy. She also lies a lot. She's out of control with the lying, from relatively small fibs like telling a boring-looking dude waiting for a cab that she needs it to get to the hospital on time so as not to miss her very real sister giving birth to an imaginary child, to big whoppers like pretending to have an intimate relationship with a potential client in order to convince her boss that she would be the best person to handle the account.
Holly promises Billy that she won't miss the little girl's big Christmas recital while never intending to go, because while Billy's mangling the lyrics to "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" on stage at her elementary school, Holly's hobnobbing with Maxwell Caulfield at a fancy restaurant, trying to convince him to let her handle his... new clothing line. That's not a euphemism for anything; he's really trying to market a new clothing line that he promises will be made in the USA, and he's very excited about sharing his ill-fitting sweaters with the world.
After the recital, little Billy meets a kindly old man dressed up as Santa Claus outside of her school, collecting pocket change for charity. She asks the man with the most ridiculous-looking fake beard I've seen in a while if he could grant her one big Christmas wish, and Santa (who is actually Santa, because of course he's actually Santa) happily agrees. Billy's wish is for her auntie Holly to be unable to tell anything but the truth, no matter what. Holly finds herself unable to hide her true feelings from her co-workers, her new client, her family and the guy she tricked out of a taxi ride, who just happens to be the music teacher at her niece's school, and you'll never guess what happens-
It's Liar Liar. It's fucking Liar Liar. I'm Not Ready For Christmas is a hideous knock-off of 1997's Jim Carrey blockbuster comedy Liar Liar. I realized the movie was going in this direction two minutes after it began, with Alicia Witt's character trying to break some sort of record for speed-lying on-screen, but I had to believe that the movie would go in a different direction. There was just no way the people behind this movie could be so creatively bankrupt. I gave the movie the benefit of the doubt. But I was wrong. I was so wrong.
She did it to me again. Alicia Witt tricked me into watching another unoriginal bootleg version of an older, better movie. She did it to me last year with Snow Globe Christmas, and now it's happened all over again with this fresh hell. But this isn't an Asylum production. Oh no. This is all Hallmark, baby, so it's all their fault. I actually thought they were above such shameless theft of intellectual property (I can't believe I'm using the term "intellectual property" regarding the film Liar Liar, but this is just our new reality), but I've just been proven wrong.
What a complete and utter joke. It really is a joke, and it's on me because I sat through this entire fucking production, wondering when it was going to do something different with the same premise and plot of a well-known and relatively beloved comedy, but the movie just follows the same damned story all the way down to the bottom of this septic tank of shame, without ever attempting to break away from the formula in any meaningful way.
Why did they even go this route when they had a ready-made plot for their film in the lyrics of the song they named their movie after? It's not rocket science, children. Write a story about a woman who's had enough of Christmas and everything that goes with it. She's in no mood to decorate a tree, or sing carols, or go gift shopping. All she wants is to be left alone this holiday season, despite the best efforts of her family and friends to break through her Scrooge-like shell. Throw in a sappy backstory involving the protagonist getting her heart broken by her fiancé last Christmas, which would sew the seeds for her reawakening to the joys of the most wonderful time of year when she finds someone new and allows herself to love again.
It's a tale as old as time, but it actually fits with the lyrics of Alicia Witt's song, and it's not fucking Liar Liar. I came up with that shit in thirty seconds, and it's better (and more original) than anything in the movie I just watched. The producers, screenwriter, and director of I'm Not Ready For Christmas have no valid excuse for what they've done, and it makes me sick.
I like Alicia Witt. I've liked her since Dune, and I bought her album because I was genuinely excited to listen to it. I wouldn't have forced myself to sit through three of her mediocre holiday movies last year if I didn't like her. I know she's a good actor. She can do so much better than this. I'd say that I would refuse to watch any future Christmas-themed made-for-television projects from Alicia Witt, but I have a funny feeling that I'll just be playing the same tired old record next year, because I'm an optimistic fool.
It doesn't even matter if I'm Not Ready For Christmas is any good on its own terms, because it shouldn't have been made in the first place. I refuse to discuss the movie any further, because I've already given it more space on my blog than it possibly deserves.
VERDICT: JESUS WEPT
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