MY MOVIE SHELF: The Ref

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 162  Days to go: 156

Movie #221:  The Ref

Obviously I love Christmas movies; I own quite a few of them. The Ref is a Christmas movie unlike most, however, and I love it all the more for it. This is a movie about the frustrations of Christmas, the resentments of family, and ripping off insults as fast as you can think them up. Also, there’s a burglar on the loose.

In 1992, I watched Denis Leary’s No Cure For Cancer so many times I could recite it from memory. I probably still could, it was pounded into my brain so many times. I can definitely still sing his “Asshole” song. I bought the album, too, and listened to it incessantly. It was one of the funniest things ever. In The Ref, Denis Leary plays Gus, who is basically an entire character based on the comic ideology of No Cure for Cancer, and it’s fantastic.

Gus is a master thief who falls into a “roadrunner booby trap” and has to improvise on his getaway by taking Caroline and Lloyd Chasseur — “that’s 18th century French Huguenot” — (Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey) hostage on Christmas Eve. Lloyd and Caroline are a married couple who hate each other, hate their lives, and bicker incessantly. (“I don’t believe it. You want to have sex with him!” “What??” “‘Use the ouchless. We have bungee cords.'” “I’m frightened. Humans gets frightened because they have feelings. Didn’t your alien leaders teach you that BEFORE THEY SENT YOU HERE?!”) But Gus has a gun. “Married people, without guns — for instance, you — DO NOT GET TO YELL.”

Gus is hiding out until his partner can secure them a boat to escape on, but Lloyd and Caroline’s son, Jesse (Robert J. Steinmiller Jr.) — who “has the kind of imagination–” “that the mafia gives scholarships for” — is heading home from military school (where he’s blackmailing Lt. Siskel, played by J.K. Simmons), and Lloyd’s oppressive and meddling mother Rose (Glynis Johns) is en route with his brother Gary (Adam LeFevre), sister-in-law Connie (Christine Baranski) and their two children for Christmas dinner (after they stop to eat first, because “God knows what disaster your Aunt Caroline is making.”) It makes for one hell of a dinner party, and that’s without taking into account the wreath of lit candles everyone has to wear — “in honor of Saint Lucia” — for their “traditional Scandinavian Christmas feast.” (“My forehead is blistering.”)

There’s a bit of a knock-down drag-out eventually, with everyone getting involved. (“Just who do you think you are?” “Slipper socks. Medium.”) And it all works out in the end, in the spirit of Christmas. (That is not the spirit of Christmas. The spirit of Christmas is either you’re good or you’re punished and you burn in hell.”) “We should unwrap them in the morning. It’ll be more festive.”

Everyone — and I mean everyone — is fantastic in this. Dialogue flies back and forth, joke after joke, insult after insult. Davis and Spacey are unsurprisingly phenomenal, and Leary is very comfortable in this particular persona, so there are no fumbles on his part either. And while I enjoy all the supporting cast, extra attention should really be paid to Johns and Baranski, who go completely balls-out committed to each character’s own particular pathologies. (“Don’t make me nuts today. It’s Christmas!”) “And I still say getting laid by an eighteen-year-old linebacker is JUST WHAT SHE NEEDS.”

Add in a drunk Santa Claus, and it’s a Christmas movie for the ages. Ho ho ho!

MY MOVIE SHELF: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 228  Days to go: 233

Movie #149:  Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

We join our program already in progress.

I’m not so out of touch that I don’t know there are a slew of Ice Age movies, but without checking the release dates on IMDb, I would have no way of knowing which Ice Age movies precede other Ice Age movies, except it’s pretty obvious Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs falls somewhere in a series of sequels.

I think I’ve probably seen the original Ice Age at some point, but I’m not sure I’ve watched any of the sequels before — including this one, until today. I got this disc years ago from my mother, when the older kids were younger and maybe watched it at some point. As far as mindless children’s programming goes, this movie is just fine. As far as movies go, it’s a mess.

Not to bemoan a cartoon for being historically inaccurate or anything — I mean, The Flintstones coexisted with dinosaurs and saber-toothed tigers and whatnot just fine — but I’m fairly certain the dinosaurs didn’t dawn during an ice age, and I’m positive they didn’t exist in the time of wooly mammoths. Dinosaurs were millions of years extinct by the time mammals rose to be the dominant species on earth, so I doubt Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo) happens upon three t-rex eggs in an underground ice cave. I get that it’s a stupid cartoon, but it doesn’t have to be a stupid cartoon.

From the original Ice Age movie, I remember Manny the mammoth (Ray Romano), Sid the sloth and Diego the saber-toothed tiger (Denis Leary) teaming up for some reason or another. Well, at some point in some previous sequel to Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Manny gets a wife, Ellie (Queen Latifah), Ellie is pregnant with baby Peaches, and there appear to be a couple of possums named Crash and Eddie (Seann William Scott and Josh Peck) hanging around as well. Even the dumb squirrel who can never catch that acorn has his eye on a lady flying squirrel, who has her eye on his acorn (not a euphemism).

With the impending birth of his child in sight, Manny is a nervous dad-to-be, Sid is feeling left out, and Diego is having some sort of panic attacks when he chases things. Or maybe it’s just a heart murmur, I don’t know. Sid fumbles around doing Sid things and manages to fall into an ice cave, find some eggs, and decides to keep them as his children so he draws faces on them and carries them around. As you do. Not sure how he found the eggs in an ice cave when there’s an underground tropical jungle of dinosaur habitat, but whatever. The eggs hatch and tiny dinosaurs emerge, and Sid pretends he’s their mother, then gets taken off by the real mama dinosaur and the rest of the gang goes to save him. With the assistance of insane weasel Buck (Simon Pegg), they travel through the underground jungle, fending off reptiles and saving Sid. Oh and Peaches is born. Then they go topside again and I swear to god this movie is so stupid.

I would say I could keep this one around for my youngest child to eventually enjoy, but I have enough movies for her — much better movies that don’t make me want to rip my hair out. And Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs can go the way of the dodo.