Take it from Snee: Dickens couldn’t take this

When it comes to movies, I can see where I come across as a bit of a jerk. In the past, I’ve accused Roland Emmerich of international terrorism (twice), Harry Potter movies of insidious Britishness and Michael Bay of not understanding the sounds and shapes that make up the world as we know it.

So, yeah, maybe I’m equal parts film alarmist and snob. And you know what? I’m trying to become a better man.

But, then I have to sit through previews for:

• Another remake of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
• Another unsettling motion capture flick from Robert Zemekis.
• Jim Carrey embracing his inner Eddie Murphy … and Eddie Murphy … and Eddie Murphy.

All in one movie. (F#%k off, self-improvement.)

That’s right, coming this November, the worst elements of modern film, brought to you by the most repetitive actor in comedy and Disney are going to force you to sit through Charles Dickens’ most boring morality tale, yet.

You will be visited by three thousand ghosts to date

Every holiday has its thing. Thanksgiving does turkey. Halloween is the Super Bowl for sexual predators. (Power Rangers and Naughty Nurses?! Score.) Valentine’s likes to pretend it’s about cards, but cards alone won’t get you laid.

If the holidays are a family, then Christmas is the cousin with Down’s Syndrome that wants to wear the same clothes and watch the same movie every day.

For some families, the annual movie is It’s a Wonderful Life. For others, Showgirls. And if your kin have nothing to talk about because you barely associate with each other anymore, TNT will fill your emotional void with 24 hours of A Christmas Story.

But, Hollywood didn’t get those memos. They’re still operating off of the old musty orders that are suspiciously written in German: “Give ‘em more Dickens.”

I tried to compile a list of all the Christmas Carol movie adaptations to date. If that list were a geological history of the Earth, it would extend past the core, out through China and flap like a joyous dong at Neil Armstrong’s footprints on the moon.

However, no less than three of those renditions have been done by Disney alone: one starring Mickey, another starring the Muppets (who are owned by Disney) and this latest sodomized angel perched atop the tree of Dickens.

Christmas in the Uncanny Valley

When you think of Robert Zemeckis only one thing should come to mind: Back to the Future. And if you recovered from over 2 million Tom Hanks impersonations from 1994-1999, maybe Forrest Gump.

Zemeckis, however, didn’t want to end it at that. He pioneered movie techniques like making Gilligan’s Island without the hot chicks and turning Harrison Ford into a villain whose weakness is Michelle Pfieffers. But his crowning achievement was the digitalization of live actors, which he tested out on his favorite lab rat, Tom Hanks.

Christians complain about a War on Christmas. I’m pretty sure they consider The Polar Express the opening salvo. By beaming Tom Hanks into a computer like Tron, Zemekis used his tortured digitized soul as the template for six different characters, including Ebenezer Scrooge.

A couple of years later, he tried again with Beowolf. English majors around the country hanged themselves in the broom closets of the various fast food franchises they mopped.

Now he’s returned to familiar ground, only this time, Jim Carrey’s the model for Scrooge and three other characters. We’d like to think that when Carrey travelled into the Compumator 6000, his file was titled “Hanks 1.1.”

Fun Fact: Did you know that the only movies that Robert Zemeckis has written in the 21^st Century are both Christmas movies? Name the last one he wrote before 2000. (Answer at the end.)

We’re not sure why Zemeckis is married to a method of filmmaking that manages to less attractive than peeling off her skin (though her liver is the perfect handhold). What’s even more puzzling is that he seems to earnestly believe that Christmas is best portrayed by the Hall of Presidents.

When does Christian Bale become the face of Christmas?

You can define periods of Hollywood Christmas by the face of its holiday movies.

Tim Allen reined (get it!?) Chrinema from 1994 through 2006, starring in the Santa Clause series and Christmas with the Kranks. In 2000, Jim Carrey made his move with How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and then threw everyone off the scent with Horton Hears a Who so we’d think he was trying to be the Dr. Seuss guy.

But is Jim Carrey really the guy we want to represent Christmas? Tim Allen may have gone to prison for cocaine, but Carrey used to pretend to talk through his ass.

But the scary part is that Carrey is reaching the Eddie Murphy phase of his career. Not the Beverly Hills Cop Eddie Murphy, but that downward spiral Eddie Murphy that plays multiple characters in a movie and and makes questionable sexual decisions. (Murphy’s transvestite is still better than an anti-vaccine Jenny McCarthy, but you get what we’re saying.)

A: Tales from the Crypt: Bordello of Blood.