+5
All American Christmas Carol - 1/10 - An unofficial Christmas tradition of mine is that I review a movie each Christmas season based on "A Christmas Carol". 2014 was Scrooged; fantastic movie. 2015 was the 1937 A Christmas Carol; good solid film.
2016 was, unfortunately, this heaping pile of refuse. Nothing about it was good, and it barely stuck with the whole "Christmas Carol" theme, aside from the ghosts. It's centered around a trailer park mother of I don't remember how many kids, who refuses to work and just wants to party, drink, and have sex all the time. Well, as you could imagine, the ghosts come by to try and make her change her ways.
All in all, so forgettable, but I guess that's to be expected from a random Christmas movie on Netflix.
The Ref - 5/10 - This movie was pretty average in everything that it did, but I would be lying if I said I didn't laugh. Good lord, this film is pretty funny, almost hilarious but not quite.
It's about a thief who is on the run after a semi-successful/semi-failed robbery of a rich man's house on Christmas Eve. What does he do? He takes a married couple hostage. What he didn't plan on was being a referee (hence the title) for their ridiculous, over-the-top arguments. Things continue to escalate as the couple's family trickles in, as well as near run-ins with cops and a drunken Santa impersonator.
I would recommend it if you want a funny non-traditional Christmas movie. Don't let the kids watch, though, unless you're okay with them hearing a ton of F-bombs among other things as well as being exposed to sexual references.
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Coming in 2017: two short films and (maybe) another feature-length film. More details another time.