Day Three: Scrooged

SCROOGED

Starring:
-Bill Murray
-Karen Allen
-Carol Kane
-and many more

Directed by: Richard Donner

Screenplay Credits: Mitch Glazer & Michael O'Donoghue

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Our film opens with some long-haired, hippie-looking elves running around the North Pole. Something falls out of the sky, causing a gigantic explosion, and people leap out of the snow banks and start shooting icicles off the workshop. Mrs. Claus and the elves throw open the cupboard and whoop out some big guns to defend themselves with. Suddenly, Lee Majors arrives to save the day, and we realize that we're watching a film trailer for the new holiday action movie "The Night the Reindeer Died" on television.

Television network president Frank Cross (Murray) is a very grumpy, sadistic little person who cares nothing for family, friends, or holidays. In fact, his main concern seems to be ratings, and bullying the helpless and meek. He fires a little man who looks like Paul Simon (anybody besides me remember Bobcat Goldthwait?), blows off his well-meaning brother, steals a cab from an old lady, then has the audacity to make the following acceptance speech at the Humanitarian of the year awards banquet:

"I got into broadcasting because I like to give. Sometimes I found myself hurting... from giving to much. And I'd say.... stop it." - Frank

After tipping his cabbie about 20 cents, Frank leaves his award in the backseat and enters his office building. Meanwhile, across town Frank's assistant Grace (Alfre Woodard) is lugging her son home from the doctor and mumbling about how he can't speak, effectively setting up the whole Scrooge, Cratchitt, Tiny Tim thing they've got going on.

Alone and getting sauced in his office, Frank hears a knock at the door. He looks, but there's no one there. The walls begin to shake and the door explodes. A decomposing golfer enters, dragging his bag of clubs behind him. He fixes a drink and Bill Murray tries to shoot him. A mouse crawls out of his head, then goes back in, and the corpse introduces himself as Lou Hayward, Frank's former boss and "best friend" who has been dead for seven years. The corpse warns Frank that he's in big trouble. Lou tells him that he'll be visited by three ghosts, then dangles Frank out his office window. Lou's arm snaps off - and it's gross- and Bill Murray falls to his death, but lands in his office chair. Mysteriously, his phone begins dialing a number all by itself and we hear the voice mailbox of Claire Philips, a woman Frank hasn't spoken to in *consults his wrist* "fifteen years." Frank then spits out a golf ball and faints.

Cut to the black Cratchitts (Grace and her family). Seriously, did they have to make the poor family black? Did they?

Back at the studio there's some discussion of nipples and Karen Allen shows up and starts shouting, "Lumpy!" She and Frank reminisce, and Frank shouts at Grace's mute son. Frank meets Robert Mitchum for lunch and meets his new network "partner," a young upstart who's looking to snag Frank's job. The clock strikes 12 and Frank starts having disturbing hallucinations of waiters catching on fire and eyeballs in his drink.

As a side note, Robert Mitchum's voice is just as sexy as ever.

Frank runs out of the restaurant and gets a cab which is, of course, driven by the Ghost of Christmas Past, who, in this incarnation, reminds me a lot of Ron White and is a maniac behind the wheel. The cabbie takes Frank to 1955 and his childhood home, where Frank witnesses his father giving his four year old self five pounds of veal for Christmas instead of the choo choo train he wanted. Frank cries when he sees his mother, then tries to prove to the cabbie that he had childhood memories, but the only thing he can come up with are television show memories, like episodes of Little House on the Prairie.

Ghost Cabbie then takes Frank to his office building circa 1968 where an office party is in full swing and a dejected young Frank is walking around sporting a mullet 'fro. I don't know how this hairstyle is even possible but trust me, it is. Frank then watches himself meeting Claire for the first time and her giving him the nickname "Lumpy."

Fast forward to 1969, where Claire and Lumpy are living together and opening presents on Christmas Eve. Lumpy, we find, is an atrocious gifter, a weakness that probably harkens back to his days with his amazing veal-giving father.

"I've never liked a girl enough to give her 12 sharp knives." - Frank

The cabbie takes Frank to 1971 where he is frolicking around in a dog suit on a kid's television program. Claire is fed up with his bad behavior and breaks it off with him. Frank comes to in the studio and goes to find Claire at the homeless shelter where she works. Three homeless people accost him and accuse him of being Richard Burton. Frank has a mini-meltdown and runs back to the studio where creepy Carol Kane (aka the Ghost of Christmas Present) kicks him in the crotch. There are bubbles everywhere so it's like a twisted episode of Lawrence Welk, but with more slapping.

Abuse, it seems, is Carol's main method of transporting her victims, and she slaps Frank to the fire escape outside Grace's apartment where the Black Cratchitts are having a tickle fight in the kitchen floor. Carol starts blowing raspberries on Frank's chest and you can't help but feel bad for Alfre Woodard because she is way too good for this. Remember when she was on Desperate Housewives? Yeah, me too.

Here the message really begins to be hit home, and that message is this: CAROL IS WITHOUT A DOUBT THE MOST ANNOYING SPIRIT ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET. The only thing worse than more Carol Kane, in my humble opinion, would be the love child she had with Gilbert Gottfried.

Carol takes Frank to his brother's apartment where she hits him in the face with a toaster then dumps him in the sewer with the dead frozen body of one of the homeless guys from the shelter. Frank freaks and breaks down a door to escape, winding up in the studio again. Everyone is getting ready to go live with their Scrooge special, so they send Frank upstairs to cool off. Unbeknownst to any of them, the creepy little dude Frank fired earlier is there waiting for him... with a shotgun. And he's drunk. And nothing he ever does will ever be as widely accepted as his work in Police Academy. Such is the nature of celebrity.

The Ghost of Christmas future arrives just in time to save Frank from the fate of the shotgun, but shows him disturbing images of Grace's son locked in a padded cell, Claire being cruel to orphans and looking all Cruella de Ville, and his own cremation.

Once returned to the present, Frank's transformation is complete and he has resolutely turned over a new leaf. He goes about spreading Christmas cheer, rehiring the annoying shotgun boy and interrupting the Scrooge Special to spread a little Christmas Cheer of his very own. Robert Mitchum kicks a cat, and the mute black child finally says, "God bless us, every one!"

The credits roll and, strangely, Bill Murray approaches the camera and cries, "Feed me, Seymour! Feed me!" and tried to goad the theatre audience into singing.

No thank you, Bill.

This was my first time watching Scrooged and, I've gotta be honest here, I'll be totally okay if it's my last. I did not care for this movie one bit. Still, it's not the worst thing I've ever seen, so I'm giving it a C-. With the cast it had and the basic premise, it had a lot of potential. Sadly, for me it didn't live up to that potential and fell short.

Now more than ever, I am

Off in search of popcorn,

M. Hollywood