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Directed by Joe Roth |
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| Jamie Lee Curtis |
Tim Allen |
| Dan Aykroyd |
Julie Gonzalo |
| Tom Poston |
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| Once
their daughter leaves home, the Kranks decide to
skip Christmas in lieu of a cruise. |
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| One-word
View: Festive |
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| This
was my mother's choice, as I had no interest in seeing
John Grisham's Skipping Christmas on the screen. But,
as is usually the case with my unplanned viewings, I happened
to enjoy it even though Tim Allen is far from one of my
favorites. Understandably, I am not sure that this will
appeal to the masses, which would be a shame because it
is fun, not a great movie, but a lot of fun. Christmas
with the Kranks has all the key components of an
acceptable movie for the season: a troubled relationship,
surprises, internal conflict, comedy, and a saved soul
from the mire of scroogedom.
We meet the Kranks as daughter Blair (Julie) leaves
for an eighteen-month Peace Corps stint, missing Christmas
at home for the first time in her 23 years. Her parents,
Nora (Jamie Lee) and Luther (Tim) really miss her and
decide to take a Caribbean cruise instead of celebrating
Christmas. This is all Luther's idea and he makes sure
that everyone knows that Christmas is off. But, this
is not so easily done as they are expected to throw
the annual, very popular holiday party and make sure
that their Christmas decorations help the neighborhood
to win the annual community prize. No one, including
the Kranks' minister, the local boy scouts troop, and
the neighborhood watchdog Vic Frohmeyer (Dan), along
with his son Spike are going to let them get away with
this plan to ignore Christmas.
Everything changes when Blair calls to say that - -
Surprise!! - - she will be home in 18 hours along with
her new fiancé. What?!?! Nora and Luther shift
into comical high gear to find a ham, get Frosty on
the roof, figure out who they can invite to the party
and what they will feed them.
Will the neighborhood pull together and help them out?
Will Luther have a change of heart and stop being so
grumpy? Will Santa Claus appear in the form of a very
unlikely subject? Well, it's a Christmas movie, so I'll
bet you know the answers.
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