Movielogr
Christmas with a Capital C (2011)
Directed by Helmut Schleppi
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Overview
An attorney returns to his small home town in Alaska and quickly rocks the boat by getting an injunction against the nativity display tradition and attacking Christmas.
Rated NR | Length 81 minutes
Actors
Ted McGinley | Daniel Baldwin | Nancy Stafford | Brad Stine | Paloma Peterson | Cooper Peltz
Viewing History (seen 1 time)
| Date Viewed | Device | Format | Source | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12/19/2011 | TV | Other | Other | 0 stars |
| (Average) 0 stars |
Viewing Notes
If you’ve ever wanted to see Brad Stine’s stand-up “comedy” in the context of a dramatic movie, then CHRISTMAS WITH CAPITAL C is your chance to do that…and then go smash yourself in the face with an ebola-smothered brick as you bathe in the insistence that there’s a War on Christmas.
The central message of this film, and one evoked in one short line through the voice of a Trapper Falls city council member, is that anyone who either celebrates a faith-based holiday around the same time as Christmas and would like to see their faith represented, or doesn’t want to see a government prescribing a faith through a direct religious device, is a “God hater.” My response: No. No no no no no.
Most of my vitriol is reserved for one man though: supposed comedian Brad Stine, who plays McGinley’s eccentrically annoying brother. Stine uses this Jack Chick tract as a platform to setup a new drinking game; every time Stine climbs upon a metaphorical and one time literal pedestal to shout his stand-up routine line by line, take a shot. You’ll be drunk half way through the movie.
Director-with-an-awesome-name Helmut Schleppi should be slapped by the double dead Moe Howard and sent back to directing kindergarten for allowing this, and not just because Stine is one of the most annoying actors on the planet with his speed-freak-like twitchiness. No, Stine’s pietistic, unctuous rants completely rip you out of the dramatic flow; Schleppi may as well have lowered the stage lights and put a glaring spotlight on him. You can almost see Stine worshipping at the altar of Dennis Miller and saying, “Now I don’t wanna get off on a rant here….” Ugh.
The little bit of the movie that wasn’t written by Stine is clearly a product of the Kirk Cameron-ilk. There’s the upright, mild-mannered hero in Ted McGinley. There’s a sappy little girl who is the perfect little angel, literally. To appeal to the teens, there are Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez clones who are competing in a five-yard long skiing race that serves as a giant flirting plot device. The only person who does anything wrong in this movie is the villain of the piece, Daniel Baldwin, who is only a not-Christian because he lost his job. It’s all very contrived and propagandistic.
No one ever really stops to seriously consider the other side in CHRISTMAS WITH A CAPITAL C and if there’s a supposed War on Christmas, the continued inconsiderate attitudes by people like Trapper Falls’ city council are what give fuel to the other side and inspire anger. But there is no real War on Christmas in the United States, only the perception by those who continually and incorrectly feel themselves persecuted by those who would only seek inclusion of all of this country’s faiths and/or government independence from religion; believe it or not, this group includes people who love God, or at least their flavor of it. Given the extreme volume of the vitriol in this country on both sides, I count myself lucky to be friends with several Christians who actually adopt Jesus’ attitudes of kindness and inclusion and atheists who don’t begrudge someone their religion or their holiday symbols. They are a rare sight, indeed, in a time when there is so much anger on both sides of the supposed war.
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