Jeez, this is going to be the worst Christmas ever. Last year produced Will Ferrell’s fun romp Elf and Billy Bob Thornton’s outrageously dirty Bad Santa. But now, after suffering through The Polar Express and Ben Affleck’s Surviving Christmas, we have to watch actor Chazz Palminteri make his directorial debut with this doozy. Yes, five heartbroken and lonely New Yorkers somehow get chatty and find each other on Christmas Eve. Yes, a Scrooge named Rose (Susan Sarandon) grabs an open mike at a bar and tells everyone that she hates the holidays because her child was stillborn on Christmas Eve. Yes, it goes downhill from there—as Rose befriends a beautiful woman (Penélope Cruz) by walking into her brownstone uninvited (!). Three holiday duds, one to go: In Christmas With the Kranks later this month, Tim Allen—cinema’s Burl Ives—will explore ground left uncovered in The Santa Clause and The Santa Clause 2. We must have been very naughty this year, because the coal just keeps coming.

Noel
By Chazz Palminteri.
Flexplay Group. November 12.

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