I had never seen this before, so Devon made me watch it. It's a 1988 retelling of A Christmas Carol.
Santa's workshop-- the elves have pointy hats like David the Gnome, and I'm confused as to why we're in Santa's workshop. They get attacked (it's not clear by who), so they bust out the firearms. Lee Majors shows up to protect them. This is, of course, a promo for a movie: The Night the Reindeer Died. Corrupt executive Frank Cross (Bill Murray) is not impressed. Next he sees the promo for the live televised production of A Christmas Carol that the station is airing on Christmas Eve. That seems like a terrible idea, but one that would probably draw in viewers.
He pronounces the promo sucky, and I kind of agree. He screams at his minions, and demands a violent, frightening promo. Minion with glasses doesn't understand why they would scare people. So Frank fires him, because he's Scrooge. Get it?
Frank is getting towels for everyone he knows for Christmas . Including his secretary and his brother. His secretary has a son, who can't speak.
A rotting corpse busts in on Frank. Frank shoots at him, but he's unaffected. He has a golf ball stuck in his head. It falls, and a mouse runs in and out of the hole it left. Ew. He's Frank's former boss, and the Marley figure. He tells Frank to expect the first ghost at noon. Daylight ghosts? Weird. Bill is thrown from the window, but wakes up in a chair. With a golf ball in his mouth. Ew again.
We see Secretary (Grace) at home with her kids, of which she has many. They don't have a Christmas tree because they can't afford one. I guess she's the Cratchit of this piece. Meanwhile, an old woman has died watching the violent promo, and Frank sees this as a good thing.
Love Interest (Claire) is in town. She won't let Frank staple antlers to a mouse. Seems reasonable to me. Grace brought her son to the studio. Frank yells at her, of course.
Business lunch-- eyeball in the water glass. Frank screams bloody murder, and everyone thinks he's insane. A gentleman across the restaurant appears to catch fire. Frank throws water on him, but he wasn't on fire at all. Frank hops a cab, and who should be driving it, but the Ghost of Christmas Past. It's on his license and everything! In the past, we see Frank as a four-year-old glued to the TV, receiving only veal for Christmas. Then we see him at a workplace Christmas party, rocking a mullet. Then he meets Claire when she hits him in the head with a door. Then, another Christmas with Claire. He gives her knives, she gives him the Kama Sutra. They're happy, but it's not to last. She dumps him, while he's dressed as a dog.
When he comes back to the present, Frank is watching Belle dump Ebenezer Scrooge in the dress rehearsal of the live show. Weird... they're just beating me upside the head with the parallels. This is a very different approach to retelling a story. Frank screams all the way to Claire's workplace-- a homeless shelter. The homeless people welcome him with open arms. Claire is also happy to see him, but when she won't stop working for him, he storms out.
The Ghost of Christmas Present looks like a combination of the Sugar Plum faerie and Glinda the Good Witch. And has a very annoying voice.
We see Grace's family celebrating. Ghost explains that the little boy hasn't spoken since he saw his father killed. Frank never even knew that anything happened to Grace's husband. Next, Frank's brother's house, where they are making merry. Frank's brother toasts to Frank-- interesting variant on the original.
The ghost hits Frank with a toaster. He sees a homeless man that he spoke to at the shelter, now frozen to death.
The actual live broadcast is starting. Frank freaks out at seeing the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, but it's just the costumed one for the show. The actual ghost is coming out of the monitors and looking terrifying when the guy who was fired at the beginning comes in with a shotgun-- but that's resolved rather quickly. The actual ghost is freaking creepy. It shows Grace's little boy as a teenager, locked in a mental institution, then Claire looking and acting like Cruella De Vil. Then we see Frank's funeral, with only his brother and sister-in-law in attendance. Somehow, Frank gets trapped in the coffin and is about to be cremated alive, when suddenly he's in the elevator and happy to be alive.
He makes amends with Fired Guy, then takes over the live show while Fired Guy uses the shotgun to make sure nobody stops him. Why, he asks, are you people watching TV on Christmas Eve? And he makes pleas for forgiveness. And really, babbles incoherently for quite a while-- it's an awkward scene. But when he's done babbling, Grace's little boy speaks-- to remind Frank to say "God bless us, every one." Aww...
We see all the Christmas ghosts partying, along with the homeless guy. Aw again!
Bill Murray ends the movie with more babbling, including randomly saying "Feed me, Seymour!" I definitely think he was improvising.
Visuals: 5 out of 5
Spirit: 4 out of 5
Nostalgia: 1 out of 5
Humor: 3 out of 5
Music: 0 out of 5
Overall: 3.5 out of 5
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