CreativeJamie.com

Zach should get back together with Kelly.

Before we get into this mess, when did the ABC Family channel (formerly The Family Channel?  I can’t remember…) decide that it’s target demo was going to be women 12 and up?  It’s all chick stuff, nearly all the time, and it’s far from family appropriate.  I’ve seen ads for the following shows during various Harry Potter Weekends.  (Note:  that’s about every other weekend.)

Greek
Pretty Little Liars
Desperately Seeking Santa

More like Desperately Seeking Satan…  Eh?  Right?

The Plot

This holiday season, ABC Family brings us yet another original movie:  12 Dates of Christmas.  It’s essentially a Groundhog Day ripoff – well, not essentially, it is a Groundhog Day ripoff.  Instead of Phil Connors, a self absorbed weather man with ambitions of leaving his regional TV station for a national broadcast, we have some other character (played by Amy Smart) who is not nearly as interesting and twice as insane.  The Rita character from Groundhog Day is played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who gets first billing in this piece of crap despite not being the star.  The plot is pretty cut and dry:  Amy Smart is obsessed with her ex boyfriend and wants him back, but he is about to propose to his new girlfriend.  She now has 11 more chances to get over the old guy and realize she loves Mark-Paul Gosselaar (who she just met), while fulfilling other peripheral character’s Christmas wishes and other desires.

The Craziness

The crappy screenplay aside, the movie is weird.  Amy Smart’s character needs to be locked up in a mental institution.  Like Phil Connors, Smart goes to see a doctor to check for a tumor after she starts tripping through time, and he suggests that maybe she has some unresolved anxiety issues.  This is by far the most astute observation anyone makes in the film.  He probably built this theory after he asked her that if she could change anything about her life, what would it be?  She answered without hesitation:

“Get Mark back.”

The doctor character didn’t respond with, “Wow, it’s not a tumor, you’re just crazy,” but he does try to tell her that she needs to get her mental house in order.  But, because he can’t be too helpful this early in the film, he gives her some sleeping pills and told her to move on with her life rather than recommending a shrink.  That’s the perfect prescription for someone who is obsessed with their ex:  I’d guess she’s either going to overdose or grind them up and slip them into a fruit cake she gives to the ex so she can kidnap him, but this movie takes place in a world completely divorced from any semblance of reality and poorly written, so I don’t think we ever see the pills turn up.

The Time Travel

In Groundhog Day, Phil Conners goes to sleep each night and wakes up on the previous morning.  This movie uses a similar device, but, I guess just waking up in bed to an alarm clock isn’t visually exciting enough for ABC Family and doesn’t hit the audience over the head with the fact that she’s gone back in time.  A few minutes before midnight, the dog wakes up and the TVis showing a home shopping channel and the item for sale is a partridge pendent (Like the first day of the 12 days of Christmas song – isn’t that clever?!?  We’ll get back to that…) and when the clock hits midnight, time rolls backwards.  Before time travel, the dog barks at the TV and the partridge’s eye glows and then time rolls backwards…  I thought it was inferring that the dog was activating the pendent, as they did this for the first few nights, but somewhere around “6 geese a laying,” the director must have said, “Fuck it.  Let the dog sleep.”

The Reset

Instead of waking up in bed to the alarm clock playing, “I’ve Got You, Babe,” Amy Smart always wakes up in the mall by the perfume counter.

See, the counter lady sprayed her with perfume and she passes out and on day one, she gets up and the day moves on like normal.  Some weird camera shit happened as well as some sound effects – this was supposed to indicate that something meaningful happened, I guess.  It’s not done well, and the transition from the end of the day to the mall gets stale quickly.  “I sprayed you and you passed out.”  Gotcha.  The first five times.  Oh, six more times?  Great.  Actually, they skip one, but I’ll get to that…

The 12 Days of Christmas Imagery

In an effort to tie the movie in with the song, we see each item listed on the particular day:

Twelve drummers drumming
Eleven pipers piping
Ten lords a-leaping
Nine ladies dancing
Eight maids a-milking
Seven swans a-swimming
Six geese a-laying
Five golden rings
Four calling birds
Three French hens
Two turtle doves
And a partridge in a pear tree!

But, they got lazy.  The most forced was probably the 3 french hens, or as it was, 3 roasted french hens being carried out of a building and onto the street by some chefs.  The funniest was probably the 9 ladies dancing – or, as it was, 8 ladies in a conga line.  They looked pretty drunk to me – score!  If I recall correctly, 7 swans a swimming were just some kids with weird swan hats.

The Laziness

Somewhere around 10 lords a-leeping, she was chasing somebody and they got away and she didn’t look in the camera, but she said, “Lets try this again” and then the scene reset without a dog, a partridge pendent or anything!  I was not having this and yelled at the TV, “Wait what about the pendant?  What about the dog?  For god’s sake, what about the dog?!?”  As if the writing wasn’t already lazy, the pathetic attempt to get the 12 Days of Christmas images into the appropriate scenes ham-fisted, then they just started deviating from their own format for a scene that was even more forced than the rest of the ridiculous movie.

The Title

Amy Scott and Mark-Paul Gosselaar do not go on 12 Dates in this movie.  I guess you could argue that it refers to the 12 experiences on the same date… or something.  Or are there 12 peripheral characters that she helps?  I only get 9 (she hooks her friend up with Toby the bar guy, makes friends with her step mom, helps the dad have the Christmas party he wants, helps the snowflake lady and snowflake man get engaged, hooks up the cake lady with the lonely man from the department store and the shelter kid who wants to keep the dog), but if you add Amy Scott and Mark-Paul Gosselaar, that’s 11, but maybe I missed somebody… maybe it’s the dog?  I don’t know.

What else can I say?  If you’re nostalgic for Mark-Paul Gosselaar, you should watch this movie.  If you want to see a Christmas version of Groundhog Day, you should watch this movie.  If you don’t think Romantic Comedies are dying as a genre, you should watch this movie.

Pretty much everybody else should steer clear.  It’s not as bad as The Room, but it’s not as entertaining either.  2 stars is generous – watch at your own risk.

More Movie Reviews at creativejamie.com/category/movie-reviews/

More Christmas at creativejamie.com/category/christmas/

In case you’re curious, I understand these are the reasons why the gifts mentioned in The 12 Days of Christmas are so friggin weird:

True Love refers to God
2 Turtle Doves refers to the Old and New Testaments
3 French Hens refers to Faith, Hope and Charity, the Theological Virtues
4 Calling Birds refers to the Four Gospels and/or the Four Evangelists
5 Golden Rings refers to the first Five Books of the Old Testament, the “Pentateuch”, which gives the history of man’s fall from grace.
6 Geese A-laying refers to the six days of creation
7 Swans A-swimming refers to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacraments
8 Maids A-milking refers to the eight beatitudes
9 Ladies Dancing refers to the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit
10 Lords A-leaping refers to the ten commandments
11 Pipers Piping refers to the eleven faithful apostles
12 Drummers Drumming refers to the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle’s Creed… or Animal from the Muppets.