After I posted about the classic movie Snow Day, my friend presented me another winter film challenge:
@cjhannas do the movie with Jonathan Taylor Thomas & Jessica Biel next. Home for Christmas ?
— Nurse Bailey™ ⚾️❤️ (@heartRN13) December 5, 2015
Netflix assumes I will hate this movie. They are usually correct about such things, but let’s enjoy the ride!
This is supposedly taking place at a college, so why do they have lockers? I should also note there is a kid locked inside like any good high school college movie. It also appears they hired 14-year-olds to play most of the students. Except Jessica Biel.
Guess which of those two is older? I was surprised to learn (according to Wikipedia) the answer is JTT by six months. He turned 18 the year the movie came out, which was also the final year of Home Improvement.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have antagonists! I’m pretty sure one of them is in No Doubt. But let’s not be too quick to cast them as the bad guys because JTT’s character is a total punk. I wondered how such a bad person came to be, but then he called his dad and it was all so clear.
Bill.Freaking.Lumbergh. (If that name means nothing to you, I need you to put down your device and watch Office Space. I’ll wait here.) If it wasn’t clear already, there are some excellent 1998 things in this movie, like when people had pagers.
These were carried in a school, which if 1998 high school freshman me remembers correctly would have earned me a suspension or expulsion for being a drug dealer, or something. Anyway, JTT did the “bad” guys wrong and they responded by putting him in a Santa suit and dumping him in a desert.
Rock that weird santa mustache thing with shame, young man. Our story is not odd enough yet, so let’s add in the other element of any good 1998 teen movie: the other dude.
“What should we listen to? Jewel? Sarah? Fiona?” Late ’90s other dude is working hard to steal this girl. Meanwhile, back with our hero…
Old ladies took pity on him and gave him a ride. THINGS ARE GETTING ZANY NOW. Oh now he puked in the car and they kicked him out. He’s at a place where there are tons of people…and yet he walks back to a desolate spot to try to get another ride?
JTT, we need to have a talk about your hitchhiking skillz. First of all, you need people to get a ride, so stay where they are. Second, you’re trying to make a trip from Los Angeles to New York (to be with his family at Christmas…sorry I forgot to mention the goal of all of this). HOW IS THIS SIGN HELPING?
Dude. We just talked about this. Why did you go stand on the side of the highway now? This is how you spend a day watching cars fly by at 70 miles per hour until one hits you. Also, I’d like to point out that despite being very much alive in 1998, I have not recognized a single song in the first half of this movie.
Let the ZANINESS continue! Our hero(?) got picked up by a thief in a van, they got pulled over and told the cop they were actually on their way to give the stuff to kids lol and the cop said ok cool I’d love to see Santa do that I’ll come watch. So kids are getting microwaves.
Now one of the kids told a sad story and all adults are reevaluating their lives, including JTT who called home and I think we’re supposed to root for him now? I refuse. The cop doesn’t, he’s giving JTT a ride to Nebraska to help him win back his own lady. Also, it’s been 15 minutes since we checked in on the other storyline and I think Jessica might have killed that other kid?
“Marjorie it wasn’t me kissing her, it was the Jagermeister!” K. Now JTT is writing a parody of O Christmas Tree with lyrics to impress Marjorie and he’s doing it on the fly? GET RIGHT OUT OF HERE. Somehow this worked and JTT got a bus ticket out of it.
Update: other kid is not dead, but may be soon. JK she just had a little snowball fight with other dude and they’re totes getting married now. Back to the bus.
JTT “found” an unattended cooler with a human liver in it and is demanding the bus detour to its proper home and wouldn’t you know he put the cooler there and the place is really the hotel where the girl and other dude are…and when he gets there he admits to the girl he’s really rushing home to beat a deadline his dad set so he could get a Porsche because these are likable people.
Hoooboy the dudes decide to travel together, stuff happens, JTT gets kicked out, and miraculously comes across a Santa 5K with a $1,000 prize?! Seems pretty generous for a race with like 40 people and a $10 entry fee, but whatevs. Oh and I don’t even have to tell you he won because of course!
But guess what? Something ELSE went awry and he is at the airport with no ticket. No problem, because JTT has a knack for immediately seeing the next really convenient thing right in front of him!
What’s that? A dog crate I can climb inside that’s going on that very flight?! Fret not, my friends, this was basically the final step in the hero’s journey. Everything is going to be fine.
And most importantly…
Thank.Goodness.