LOVE AT THE THANKSGIVING DAY PARADE
A woman who is planning a Thanksgiving parade in Chicago clashes with a consultant brought in to keep the event's expenses in check, but it's not long before sparks start to fly between the pair.
Just to clarify right off the bat: this is not a Thanksgiving movie. I thought it was a Thanksgiving movie when I sat down to watch it, and I think it's understandable to feel more than a little misled by watching a movie with "Thanksgiving" in the title and thinking the holiday itself might have something to do with the plot of the film, but alas, there isn't even the barest hint of Thanksgiving at any point in this movie. 2012's Love At The Thanksgiving Day Parade is a Christmas movie, The film takes place throughout the month of November and ends with the titular parade, but it's all Christmas, all the time. The only reason anybody even breathes the word "Thanksgiving" is in relation to the big parade the whole movie is building up to, as though the holiday itself doesn't matter at all, like it's just some placeholder for that bigger, better holiday that just so happens to be right around the corner.
That's what these big Thanksgiving Day parades are all about anyway, right? They don't have anything to do with Thanksgiving. They're all about Christmas. Does everybody gather in their huddled masses on sidewalks, freezing their miserable butts off, to catch a fevered glimpse of some poor sap in a fucking turkey costume on a festively decorated float? Absolutely not. These simpletons have congregated to pay homage to their one true god, and when that jolly old elf brings up the rear on his cheap fiberglass sleigh being pulled by a worn-out, pollution-spouting diesel truck, and he starts throwing cheap old candy canes out to these drooling cretins, it's like taking holy communion at the only church that matters. But what even is Thanksgiving anyway, if not a sort of dress rehearsal for Christmas?
If you celebrate Christmas, of course. If not, then I don't know what to tell you. I don't celebrate a religious Christmas, myself, and over the past few years I've found that I care less and less for even that much, but it is what it is. If you live in America, no matter what religious beliefs you hold in your heart, you can't escape the ever-growing black hole that is Christmas. It's like an antibiotics-resistant infection, this holiday. We can't contain it to one day, or one week, or even one month. It keeps spilling out of its borders like a very suspicious mole, and if we're not careful it will consume everything else that we hold dear on our calendar. Although I guess I don't give a flying fuck about Thanksgiving either, if I'm being honest. I guess I'm thankful to still be alive, and to not be living on the streets, but why do I have to commemorate that feeling by spending time with people I don't like, preparing food and cooking for days and stressing myself out for no discernible reward? What kind of holiday is that?
If you undercook the turkey, Aunt Agnes might die of salmonella, so don't fuck it up. And if you forget the cranberry sauce, your grandmother that you only see twice a year and don't even really know or like very much will be incredibly cross, even though she's the only person in the family who still eats cranberry sauce, and only just a little bit at that, so you end up throwing ninety percent of that garbage right in the dumpster, and it begins to feel like you're actually throwing away money after a little while. And don't make a pecan pie, because your Great Uncle Julius can't even look at anything with nuts on it, because one time a squirrel brushed against his leg at the park when he was a young boy in short pants feeding the jerk ducks in the pond, and he never really quite got over that horrible incident, and you don't want to trigger his squirrel-related PTSD.
And once everybody's gathered around the table, the racial slurs start flying, because all of your fucking relatives are vile, unrepentant bigots who think that crook Joe Biden stole the election and January 6th was a wake-up call for the heroic militias to take up arms and make America great again, again, and climate change is a pyramid scheme that was dreamed up by George Soros and Al Gore one night while they were jerking each other off at a secret meeting where all the devil worshiping elites gather together twice each year to sacrifice Christian children and drink their innocent blood while blaspheming and reading vintage colonial-era pornography and drawing their plans to transform the world into a big communist, homosexual fuck-fest, and COVID's just the flu, and I've already got antibodies because I eat at Arby's, and what the fuck ever else. Thanksgiving is a fucking nightmare like Christmas, with the only difference being nobody gets any presents and everybody gets higher blood pressure, and I'm pretty sure I just hate it.
So let's talk about a movie, shall we?
Love At The Thanksgiving Day Parade, directed by Ron Oliver, a repeat offender of mediocre holiday entertainments here at the ol' blog, tells the story of Emily Jones (Autumn Reeser), the coordinator of the big annual Thanksgiving Day parade in Chicago, which I guess is a real thing, even though I've never heard of it. I'm sure Chicago of all places has its own Thanksgiving Day parade, right?
A quick Google search confirms that it is indeed a real parade, with a website and everything. So...
Anyway, Emily works for... I dunno, maybe the Chicago parade committee? Is that a thing? I'm not looking that up. Whatever organization she works for is the organization that puts on the parade each year in Chicago, so whatever that company is, Emily works for it. She plans the parade down to the smallest detail, so Emily spends a lot of her free time vetting potential acts to be included in the parade, like terrible local high school marching bands, random gangs of balloon animal-slinging clowns, and silent cults of elderly people who gather each month to dance underneath a gazebo for reasons that are never made clear. Are they gathering in hopes that the mother ship will someday take notice and help them all ascend to a higher sphere of existence? The world may never know, but Emily sure wants these kooky old folks slowly dancing to copyright-free show tunes at her parade!
Emily's a big fan of the parade because her mother died when she was a baby, and her racist prick cop father died of a heart attack when she was a teenager, and that has something to do with this parade, I'm sure. I think there's a moment in the middle of the movie right after she nearly has an orgasm eating the best pizza in Chi-Town where she mentions how her daddy would hold her atop his broad, misogynist cop shoulders so that she could get a better view of Santa Claus at the parade when she was a child, and that was one of her happiest memories, but I may have imagined that. Not the pizza thing, that was burned into my memory. She definitely had an out-of-body experience when she ate a slice of this obscene-looking pizza she called The Buddha because it was... "one with everything".
The name of the place was Jim's Pizza but it was owned and operated by some Italian stereotype named Luigi or Giovanni or Gino or something like that. This guy sounded just like the literal cartoon Luigi who still pops up in episodes of The Simpsons from time to time, because it's still okay to indulge in racist white caricatures on television. I'm surprised nobody has actually raised a fuss over that character. I mean, I'm sure somebody did, but who really cares? I don't recall that story ever making the news. The guy's name is literally Luigi Risotto, by the way. Just a little more useless trivia to brighten up your miserable day.
Emily is dating some aloof marine biologist, and I'm sure he has a name but it never left any impression in my mind, and this fuckhead spends most of his time at sea neglecting the girl he's been dating for over five years, and he's recently self-published a book on whales and he's a conceited asshole who doesn't really give a shit about anybody or anything but himself. It's so funny that she's dating a marine biologist, because Emily hates boats! That's a literal sub-plot in this movie. She's deathly afraid of boats, and won't even set foot on one, much to the consternation of a local beleaguered ferry captain who angrily watches Emily try in vain to board at least once a week. She's not afraid of the water, mind you, and is actually an accomplished swimmer, but the woman is just terrified of boats.
This makes absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever to me, and I have no idea why it's even a minor plot point in the movie. I understand that Emily's boyfriend has been pushing her to join him on an extended ocean voyage in the near future, and her... reluctance to even board a taxi ferry on Lake Michigan may present a small problem, but there are plenty of other, more immediately legitimate reasons the screenwriters could have dreamed up to keep Emily's feet firmly planted on dry land. I'm sure there are people out there who are somehow afraid of boats while having absolutely no problems with water in general, but it's just a weirdly specific trait with which to saddle your character.
But none of that shit matters now, since Henry (Antonio Cupo) has hit the scene. Who's Henry, you're not asking? Why, he's some wealthy construction guy who grew up in Chicago and moved away to go to college and never really came back, and he actually doesn't have a fixed residence since his work sees him travelling all over the world and he's been living out of a never-ending succession of hotels since he graduated, and he's just been hired by... the city of Chicago, I guess... to take a closer look at the parade's finances and see if there any measures that could be taken to save the city a little money in the future. I would humbly suggest simply not having a big Thanksgiving Day parade anymore, since it's just a big waste of time and resources that could be better allocated feeding and clothing the staggering homeless population of the city, but I guess I'm just a dreamer.
So this rich asshole who used to watch the parade each year from some cushy skybox in a high-rise growing up is back in town to basically tell these money-burning nitwits to tighten their belts and right this festive ship before it runs aground and ruins Christmas for everybody in Chicago. Apparently. That's what Emily thinks, anyway, since she's already met this suave goon in a three-piece suit earlier. Emily and her friend were just out and about, gabbing like a couple of fashionable ladies out on the town, when they happened upon the local bookstore they used to frequent, now closed up for good and set to be demolished and replaced with something like a state of the art sporting goods store, I dunno. The ladies are obviously very upset about this development, even though you'd think they'd know if this shop they both claimed to visit regularly was in any financial trouble, but whatever, and this douche bag Henry comes sauntering out of the building in his fitted hard hat, telling these two haughty broads that there's no future in books since print is dead, and he's doing the world a favor by tearing down this eyesore historical landmark of a building and everybody benefits from yet another Cabela's in their neighborhood, and then he fucks off back to wherever rich pricks go when they're not harassing innocent women, leaving Emily (and her friend, to be sure, but mostly Emily because she's the only female character in this film that actually matters) absolutely gob-smacked.
So when Henry's sharp-dressed ass walks into the parade... company... committee's meeting as their new temporary financial adviser a little later on, Emily's first reaction is an immediate, involuntary and very audible negative declaration that I refuse to repeat here because it was very rude, shockingly so for a Hallmark Channel movie, but I confess it was amusing. But hey, you know how these things go.
Come on. I know you know.
What usually happens when a movie like this brings together a pair of folks who, on paper, have next to nothing in common? No, they don't battle to the death in an underground fight club broadcast on the dark web for the amusement of the world's elite power brokers who bet truly obscene amounts of money on the duel's gruesome outcome, although that's a pretty good guess. They, uh... they... you know... they fall in love. You know this! It's not a surprise!
Emily and Henry have to spend a lot of time together as Henry observes how all the money is spent, and shenanigans inevitably occur. There's even an egregious paid sponsorship from The Cheesecake Factory shoved into the events completely at random at some point, which just left me holding my head since I felt a migraine coming on. Emily just produces a big, shiny cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory to all of her colleagues at a meeting, making sure to keep that bold logo on the box center-frame, and before her co-workers can get their dirty mitts on that sweet, sweet cheesecake, Henry shows up and Emily quickly hides the cheesecake and tells everybody that the meeting is now adjourned, despite the meeting only just beginning! What fun! Than Henry wanders off, very confused, because he was sure that he was on time for the meeting, but as soon as that rich asshole's out of sight, out comes that gorgeous The Cheesecake Factory box once again! Holy shit! Product placement!
Henry even gets Emily to overcome her crippling fear of boats in what turns out to be an incredibly easy and honestly insulting little scene. He just gets Emily on the ferry, and she's fine. That's it. That's it?! That's it. Emily takes Henry's hand, climbs aboard, and she's totally cured of her bizarre psychological affliction. I don't understand why the movie bothered to include this nonsense. It's like you make your story's main character agoraphobic, and that's a pretty big deal, and then at some arbitrary point in the middle of your story, they just go outside and get the mail and move on with their life, completely unfazed.
So Henry finally gets his greasy hands on The Buddha and it changes his life, and he tells Emily all about the greatest day of his childhood, when he was a young boy who hit a homerun in little league and ate three hotdogs later without puking, and I know it doesn't sound very glamorous, but the way actor Antonio Cupo describes this memory is actually very effective and it got to me just a little bit, I won't lie. Later on, Emily's dickhead marine biologist boyfriend returns from his most recent sojourn at sea and takes his lady out to dinner (at Jim's because it's apparently the only fucking restaurant in this city) and he says some thoughtless shit, so Emily just lights out because she thought this prick was going to propose and instead he just prattled on and on about himself forever, and she just doesn't want to deal with this dumb asshole's horseshit anymore, and she coincidentally runs into Henry, who happens to be parked outside in his limousine because he just ordered a pizza from Jim's because he's addicted to this shit now, and she hops in his swanky ride for a night that neither one of them will ever forget.
They mostly just get drunk at a nice club, then Emily gets up and sings "Heart Of Glass" because it's karaoke night, and she has a blast hamming it up for the crowd, who all surprisingly are really into her performance, and Henry watches this sloshed broad having the time of her life butchering Blondie in front of a bunch of drunks at two in the morning and instantly falls in love. He falls hard, man, and who could blame him? She's adorable! After Emily vomits all over the establishment's expensive marble floor, Henry drags her out to the roof to catch some fresh, crisp November air. Henry shortly realizes that he's accidentally locked them out of the building, trapping them on the roof for the night, and a sullen Emily wanders slowly toward the ledge, lamenting her sorry lot in life, and I was momentarily convinced that when Henry eventually turned from the locked door to console his colleague that he would find her standing precariously near that ledge, potentially considering a more... permanent solution to her problems.
Alas, Love At The Thanksgiving Day Parade didn't have the stones to get that dark, so instead Henry simply finds Emily passed out on the ground, snoring loudly. Henry takes off his jacket and wraps it around Emily as he settles in for a long, cold, late November night on an exposed rooftop in downtown Chicago. A handyman discovers the pair sleeping underneath a tarpaulin in the morning and wakes them up, and they make their way back into the real world under the harsh light of day, a little bit older, a little bit wiser, a little bit closer, and a lot hung over. This whole sequence is just a lot of fun, and it's easily the highlight of the entire movie. The chemistry that Autumn Reeser and Antonio Cupo share during these scenes is palpable, and their comic timing is actually on point, making the simple act of watching these two get into mischief on their little night out a rare delight.
Am I laying it on a little thick? Maybe, but I don't care. When you watch movies of this ilk for any amount of time with a critical eye, you will begin to spot the many, many seams with little effort. The lazy direction, the wooden acting, the shoddy production design, the uninspired writing, the lethargic music, etc. will all become readily apparent if you pay even the bare minimum of attention, and at times it can all really start to feel like a heavy, suffocating blanket. So whenever one of these movies presents you with characters, or a situation, or something else that breaks from the norm, you can't help but latch onto those laudable efforts with a white-knuckle death grip, because these small oases in a seemingly endless desert of festive pablum can keep you from completely losing your mind to this dreck that threatens to drown your sanity.
I'm being overly dramatic, but I just keep having flashbacks to the years that I spent subjecting myself to 25 Days Of Schlock-Mas and all of the detritus I had to sift through in an attempt to find the so-called "Christmas Spirit" and just how miserable and soul-crushing some of those viewing experiences left me. Sure, I did this to myself, so I have nobody else to blame, but I was trying to accomplish something, and in the end, instead of feeling like I'd actually done anything, I just felt drained, like these movies were vampires, slowly stealing my sense of joy and wonder. I'm doing it again. So let's just say that there are a lot, and I mean a lot of terrible Hallmark Channel holiday movies out there, and it's always a nice surprise to find one that isn't a complete pile of reeking shit every now and then.
Was that it? Was I done? Oh wait, I didn't talk about the third act.
Henry's totally in like with Emily, but his ex-girlfriend(?!) just shows up out of nowhere and lets herself into his hotel room while he's sleeping or taking a shower or on the phone in the other room, I honestly can't remember, and Emily, who has shown up at Henry's hotel to throw herself at this rich dude she just met, is surprised when this strange lady opens the door to his room and introduces herself as Henry's ride-or-die, so she runs back into her dickhead marine biologist boyfriend's trembling arms, and he proposes marriage because he knows it's what she wants and he's trying to shut her up, and she says yes even though she's not really in love with this waste of space and wants Henry to fill that space under her waist, but she's at a crossroads in her life and has no idea what else she should do since this is that kind of movie, the one where a woman needs a man because otherwise she will never be able to serve her purpose as a woman or some shit.
But Henry doesn't want his ex-girlfriend and tells her to get lost as soon as he finishes taking a shit and flees his hotel bathroom, because he wants to get lost in Emily's business class accommodations, if you catch my drift. It's Thanksgiving Day, and Emily is informed by Pop Tate from TV's Riverdale that Henry has recommended no changes to the parade group,,, company... whatever's operations, which I suppose is a relief, but the movie forgot all about that plot over an hour earlier, so simply bringing it up right at the end really threw me for a loop since I'd forgotten all about it, as well. And we also learn that Henry has decided to let the old bookstore building stand, having it renovated to become a new Ronald McDonald house, which is a wonderful thing. If you don't know what a Ronald McDonald house is, just Google that fucker because I don't have the time or the inclination to explain this shit to you.
Then, seemingly at random, Emily looks across the street from her current location and sees the building Henry claimed he spent numerous Thanksgivings as a child, watching the parade from the comfort of a private viewing box. She approaches the building and asks the doorman about the place, and this chatty old fuck just dumps a truckload of convenient exposition all over the fucking street, explaining that the owners of the building have donated the space above to destitute children every year at Thanksgiving, so that they can view the parade in safety and comfort, and Emily realizes that Henry, the man she assumed was some elitist jerk born with a silver spoon wedged firmly up his ass, was actually one of those poor kids growing up, making his way through the world solely on his merits and not through any wealthy parents pulling strings to give their son all of the advantages their money and power could buy. In short, old Henry's a self-made man.
I'm not sure why the movie felt the need to clarify this point, to be honest. It's as though Love At The Thanksgiving Day Parade doesn't want its intended audience to be fully on Henry's side until we're told in no uncertain terms that Henry wasn't born rich, and that's supposed to make it okay that Emily falls in love with him, because if he were born into money, that would somehow be a deal-breaker. I'm not exactly a fan of the wealthy elite, but that's still kind of a messed up message to deliver, if you really think about it. If Henry were born to a rich family, that wouldn't somehow be his fault. And he seems like a decent human being who does the right thing in the end and donates the space he was going to transform into some modern eyesore office park or whatever else so that it could become a fucking Ronald McDonald house, even though he had absolutely no financial incentive to do so. So he saw the light! Why is it important that the movie stress Henry was also an impoverished youth? Emily already wanted to be Henry's one and only, so why did we all have to learn that the guy didn't come from money? It's just some weird little story element that was clumsily shoehorned into the final moments of the movie, to somehow alleviate Emily's non-existent guilt over having fallen in love with a rich guy. He's still rich, but he just wasn't born rich, and that apparently makes all the difference.
And Henry's also inexplicably playing Santa Claus in the parade, because the plot just decided that it should be so through a series of contrivances that would make the screenwriters of the Saw franchise blush. So these two crazy kids get together on Santa's parade float, making out in front of a bunch of children who are all way too excited to watch Kris Kringle get to second base with that one lady from The O.C. and the movie ends.
Love At The Thanksgiving Day Parade is a decent enough way to kill a few hours, all things considered. The romantic leads are solid and they have great chemistry. The music by Peter Allen (an industry veteran with a résumé as long as Jack Kerouac's original scroll for On The Road) is actually surprisingly fantastic, often jazzy and playful, feeling more in line with the score for a quirky French comedy and very memorable, indeed. The story is pretty standard fare and none of the supporting characters leave the slightest impression, but lead actors Autumn Reeser and Antontio Cupo are more than capable of carrying this movie across the finish line on their sturdy backs, and I was perfectly happy with the end result, despite my initial disappointment that this was not actually a Thanksgiving movie. After all, I only chose to watch this movie because I thought it was Thanksgiving-related. Why would I deliberately watch another made-for-TV Christmas movie? I told myself, hell, I told all of you that I'd never do that again, nor do I want to. So I get tricked into watching a damned Christmas movie for Thanksgiving, and now I've learned my lesson.
I hope you've enjoyed this bloated, rambling "review" for a movie that I never should have watched in the first place and yet somehow ended up enjoying, despite everything. At least I don't have to do this again next month, since I've officially closed the book on that whole Schlock-Mas thing once and for all. Yep. So I guess I'll just come back when I have something else to chat about. Something not related to terrible, made-for-TV holiday movies. Since I don't do that anymore.
Happy Thanksgiving?
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| Happy Schlocksgiving! |
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