It's December 1st
Remember the name Casimir Pulaski
Basic boilerplate language for newbies:
Each day I send a thoughtful quote on the holiday season, followed by a film review of my choosing . Sometimes there are interactive games, sometimes there are not. This is the way.
Today’s Quote:
“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”
Charles Dickens
Reviews:
Holidate (Netflix, 2020): LETS GO TO THE MALL (Feat. Robin Sparkles)
Have you ever seen a bad movie? Do you want to? Have you gone outside today? Do you think maybe you should do that?
Those are the questions I’d pose to anyone who is scrolling through Netflix after putting away their work laptop and opening up their “fun-time” laptop and sees the promo for “Holidate”. Cheerfully starring a not-yet pregnant Emma Roberts and a less-attractive Hemsworth cousin, this movie has everything going for it and yet none of it works!
This is a movie where there are THREE (3) major scenes that happen at an American mall in the compact-sized city of Chicago. Do you remember the last time you were at a mall? (Going for a movie theater or Target doesn’t count). The last memory I have of a mall is sipping an Orange Julius as I strolled into Abercrombie and Fitch, serene in the knowledge that I would soon become deaf and need to depart for the calmer pastures of Bath and Bodyworks, home of the American classic “Cucumber Melon” scented lotion.
The plot of “Holidate” is simple, two generically attractive people are “so bad” at relationships during the holidays that when they meet cute at the MALL they immediately become each other’s “Holidate’s, a situation where they go on dates during every holiday to prevent their families from asking them why they aren’t yet married and procreating (Amy Coney Barrett’s recent elevation to the Supreme Court likely complicates this type of relationship in the future). Emma Roberts spends literally (and I do mean literally) every minor/major holiday with her family, where her deranged mother only talks about her getting a boyfriend and has no other topic of conversation.
American Hemsworth seems like he’s just along for the ride, casually blowing his finger off on the Fourth of July, requiring him to become intimately familiar with the injustice that is the U.S. healthcare system. Did you know that according to ishn.com (industrial safety and hygiene news), re-attaching a finger can cost between $20k-$60k? I assume the Yankee Hemsworth had the world’s greatest low-deductible plan because otherwise this event would single handedly (fingerly?) be financially CATASTROPHIC to a young Australian immigrant just looking to make it in the world.
I don’t know what I expected (a better movie), but I do know that the writer got her big break starring in 1989’s “Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan” as Suzi, who was cruelly impaled by Jason mere minutes into the movie. After watching “Holidate” I can empathize with that feeling, as I too felt impaled by the wanton disregard for any coherent plotline.
The most glaring weakness of the movie is the absolute ERASURE of the hallowed Chicago holiday “Casimir Pulaski Day”, which is generally celebrated on March 1st. As every single resident of the ant-sized city of Chicago knows, Casimir Pulaski was a Polish-American Revolutionary War cavalry officer who is known in polite circles as “the father of the American cavalry” and was a subject of aptly-titled Sufjan Steven’s song “Casimir Pulaski Day”.
This movie also stars Kristen Chenoweth (slutty aunt, naturally), one of the still-alive gay lady surgeons from Grey’s Anatomy, and a white man from SNL. It’s not the worst way to spend one hour and forty-four minutes of your life and in these trying times, who am I to say no to a little levity?
Musings:
