MovieChat Forums > Deck the Halls (2006) Discussion > Big names doing this makes no sense

Big names doing this makes no sense

posted 10 months ago by avortac4 (3478)
2 replies | jump to latest

I have never understood it, but they keep doing it.

You see all kinds of big names in movies that barely qualify to be really crappy B-movies without any originality or imagination, or reason to exist.

Why is that? How do they get these big names signed to these amateur movies?

Of course, by 'big names', I mean 'famous actors that have been in really successful movies and/or TV shows'.

This particular movie is one of those mysteries, where you just shake your head in disbelief that Matthew and Danny actually read THIS script and said 'oh yeah, this is exactly what I want and choose to do!'.

I mean, were these people in some kind of gambling debts, and thus their desperation was exploited? Does ANYONE need money _THIS_ bad?!

I got this movie for free, because I found it on the grocery store 'lobby section' shelf, where they have a small 'community project', where people can bring in whatever they want, and people can also take anything from the shelf as well.

I love this sort of 'communityism' (careful..), because it gives real people the chance to do good deeds anonymously, and I have sometimes found something of real value in there as well - there are music CDs, computer games, movie and documentary DVDs, books, toys, clothes - you name it. It's like a tiny thrift store, but everything is free.

I think USAians have something similar with 'take a penny, give a penny'-system.

I still think this movie cost me too much. It was telling that it was still wrapped in the original plastic, never opened. Just like a typical fool, I looked at the cover, saw Matther friggin' Broderick and Danny 'Taxi, Romancing the Stone, Ruthless People' De-holycow-Vito - in the same movie?! - and just had to have it.

This is the kind of movie even I couldn't find much to write about, because there's almost nothing there. There's no proper story, no content of any kind that you haven't seen a zillion times in better movies, done better and so on. Was this supposed to be a comedy, a drama, a buddy movie, a neighbour war-style experience, a family holiday cheer or what the fjord?

It's hard to tell, because this movie doesn't work on any level. Almost none of the characters are sympathetic (the women are, OF COURSE, 'perfect angels', because of course they are, sigh). The 'pretty' girls look so generic, it's hard to even see their faces properly. The 'slutty daughter' is too ugly to be in a movie (no offence, but it's true).

The only bright spot (no pun intended) in this whole mess was Kristin. Not the Seinfeld Tootbrush-Kristin (still nauseated about that - BTW, 'nauseous' is similar in meaning to 'noxous', it CAUSES nausea), but the impossible-to-remember-named Kristin Chenoweth. How are you supposed to remember a name like that?

I wondered why she always seems so different, so sparkly, so likable and charming, and of course - she's a Leo. I know people deny that particular science, because women's magazines have driven it to the mud with all the horoscope crap (an actual astrologer doing a proper, detailed horoscope still isn't supposed to be a 'fortune about your future', but can tell you a LOT about yourself personality-wise), so now anything related is just scoffed or laughed at, sigh.

Leo-women, purely from my experience, often have this very radiant 'aura' about them, and just as often, they are not 'beauties', but they have something interesting about their looks, sometimes it's a striking smile even if they look generic when not smiling, sometimes it's just a 'friendly' look. It's hard to describe, but every time I have been stopped by someone's charm, I have looked her up, she has been a Leo. It never fails.

She can look plain or even slightly ugly, but if she's a Leo, she will eventually charm your pants off and you wonder how the heck she does that.

The problem with this movie is, Kristin was ALREADY very lovely, likable and charming in a better (but similar) movie, 'RV' (Runaway Vacation). I don't think any heterosexual man would mind being married to someone as charming and likable as her. If most women were like that, there would be almost no problems between the 'sexes'.

In any case, this movie doesn't get my usual treatment of 'makes no sense', because the whole existence of this movie doesn't make any sense, except from the 'greed' perspective. Danny's character starts off as very weird and continues even weirder, Matthew's character is almost indistinquishable from the pu55y-whipped, joyless 'Cable Guy' character (what the F happened to 'fearless Ferris that can handle anything with a smile on his face'?! Heck, I'd take David Lightman over any of these death-wishing depression examples, at least he has a personality and passions)..

It's a very depressing movie, and the whole Christ-Mass [sic] -theme doesn't help, as it's always about the American Dream (murdering trees and animals and indulging in the sins) rather than what that particular Mass was originally supposed to be about.

[–] avortac4 (3478) 10 months ago

When you think about it, this is basically 'The Cable Guy' without Jim Carrey.

That movie wasn't particularly interesting, the story was all over the place with mean streaks to it, and the only thing that brought it somewhat to life was Jim Carrey's eccentric performance, as expected.

Matthew's character is just as unlikable, terrible, joyless, depressing thing to look at, as he's character in this movie is. Who the heck wants to watch THAT, when we could be watching David Lightman or Ferris Bueller?

Heck, Cameron is more interesting and less depressing to watch than Matthew's 'adult characters'!

What the Lichtenstein happened to Matthew Broderick? How can he go from playing the most interesting and cheerable socially superpowered characters to these wimpy, soulless, depressed adults that wallow in their own misery, chores, adult life's sad and worrisome side...?

Danny DeVito has also been so energetic and funny in other movies, you have to wonder what the heck happened here. He is SO unlikable in this movie, you want to punch him. He is not funny, even accidentally. Not even once. It's terrible to look at someone genuinely amazingly talented to waste all his talent and not be funny, when you KNOW he can be hilariously comedic in a very powerful way.

It's almost like that movie doesn't know what to make him - at one point, he's a 'typically bad dad', at another point, he's 'super skilled car salesman', and then he becomes suddenly obsessed about... LIGHT BULBS?!

The only part where I noticed a typical 'makes no sense' moment, was when they never explained WHY his house can't be seen 'from space' (as if the 'space' part was important - they DO know how Google Earth/Maps photos are done, right? Some are taken from planes/drones, only SOME are taken by satellites).

I know it wasn't really Google Maps/Earth, but come on. All these 'map' things work in the same way. There's also no need to dive in all the way from 'zoomed-out Earth'..

[–] avortac4 (3478) 10 months ago

..just to do a crappy crossfade just when you'd start seeing something recognizable, only to arrive a weirdly NIGHT-time photo of the area, which, for SOME (?!) reason, doesn't show their house.

Now, if it can show A house (and you could see the street and everything, WHY wouldn't their (by the way, MASSIVE) house be shown?), it can show ALL the houses on the street. The house size difference is not as relevant as the altitude/elevation and zoom factor, the camera/map resolution and such.

Also, why the heck would anyone think it's a LIVE camera, when it's just some satellite/plane/drone photo that might have been taken YEARS ago? Google Maps doesn't show you in REAL TIME what's going on, and you could ALWAYS see houses from the very beginning, it's just that the resolution and photo quality wasn't always there, so it would've looked blurred, but you could still see it.

All you'd have to do is just WAIT a while for them to get better cameras and better quality systems to make the maps show more detail, BAM! problem solved.

I kept waiting for the movie to tell me the REASON their house can't be seen.. and for them to try OTHER map systems, there are many competing ones, you know. It's also weird that they didn't use Google Maps, as it was already announced on February 8, 2005, and was online the very same year.

To add, NONE of the houses on this planet can be 'seen from space', so the whole 'space' thing is PURE HOKUM! Just because a satellite can ZOOM IN and then take pictures that show houses, doesn't mean your house can be 'actually seen from space'. Even 'The Great Wall of China', supposedly can't ACTUALLY be seen from space, but whatever - I guess it depends also on the definition of 'space'.

As I mentioned, many such photos are obtained by using airplanes and such methods, so they're not necessarily even photos taken from space, so there's that as well.

This one detail bothered me throughout the whole movie - what were they thinking?