Moldy Cheese In Your Stocking: Christmas With a Capital C

Allow me to quote something ridiculous from (cough) comedian Brad Stine: 

“Now conservatives and liberal mind-sets even see sex different. The purpose of sex from the liberal POV is to have pleasure. The problem is, that presupposition is wrong. There are many things our bodies find pleasurable, but the pleasure is a wonderful by-product to the actual purpose of the act. We find pleasure in eating, yet we don't consider the purpose of eating to be able to keep Krispy Kreme Doughnuts in business. No, the purpose of eating is so that you don't die!”

Totally sound argument, right? Don’t you wish this same brilliant mind wrote a book or, I don’t know, combined his standup comedy talents with a Christian rock band to create a TV movie about evil liberals trying to secularize Christmas? Don’t you wish it starred not Alec, not Stephen, not Billy, Not William (who I assumed was a separate Baldwin back in the day), not unrelated but far more awesome Adam, but DANIEL Baldwin?

Well kids, this Christmas With a Capital C (and please tell me there’s an easily titled adult film to be harnessed from that title) you can--but shouldn’t--watch Christmas With a Capital C.

Quick Plot: Welcome to Trapper Falls, a town of 4,000 Christians nestled in the heart of Sarah Palin’s Alaska and lorded over by Mayor Jefferson Darcy--I mean, The Ted McGinley Curse--I mean, Dan Reed. Every Christmas, the town spends a nice chunk of its budget presenting the annual nativity scene complete with hand-carved wooden magi. 

Every Christmas...until now.

Cue the ominous organ with the arrival of Mitch Bright, a big city liberal lawyer returning from San Francisco (where he graduated from Berkeley, of course) to his hometown to take the Christ out of ...

Ugh. I can’t even say it.

When I was in fifth grade, the big project for our art class was to sculpt a small clay bust, paint it, then hand it off to the teacher to bake in the kiln overnight for the color to set. We were excited to see the results, but the next day, Mrs. Jones reported that the janitor had accidentally turned the kiln off prematurely and as a result, our Michaelangelos in the making came out slightly shriveled, weirdly discolored, and as my friend once said about the Rugrats, as if someone had eaten them and vomited them back up.

That’s kind of what Daniel Baldwin looks like.

And yet, he’s one of the least sickening things in the movie.

Darcy--er, Dan, has a brother. A brother played by famed Christian comedian Brad Stine, a horrid little man who likes to whine about how sex isn’t for pleasure but procreation and Krispy Kreme doughnuts keep us alive (or something). Maybe that explains why the film sets up a romance between his character and a cute barista but then never seems to want to acknowledge that it might blossom, perhaps because there’s not a single audience member who would actually want to think about Brad Stine experiencing his holy procreational orgasm.

Christmas With a Capital C is, according to the end credits, “Based on the hit song by Go Fish Christmas With a Capital C.” As I’m sure The Christmas Shoes will soon reveal, that’s always a good thing, right? Especially when the song is aided or inspired by (gag) the standup of Stine, whose proudest moment of the film comes when he gets up on a table in a coffee shop to shout about how Christians started the United States of America (coughcough by killing a lot of Native Americans coughcough) and now they represent 98% of the country who believe Jesus is the reason for the season. Since that’s the case, we shouldn’t even try to pronounce the word “Hanukah” (it has two spellings, for goodness sake) or bow down to these “god haters” who have the nerve to drink coffee with soy milk.

Yup, Baldwin drinks coffee with soy milk and Stine takes it black, because he’s apparently a real man and his beard and Christianity prove it.

Lessons Learned

An Alaskan can hang outside in a t-shirt in the middle of December quite comfortably

Christmas is an awesome time of year. AN AWESOME TIME OF YEAR I SAY!

Stoning completely ruins your makeup

Seasons Greetings works for everybody. Except for jerks

Stray Observation

So the whole instigating plot device of Christmas With a Capital C is that there are some beautiful wooden statues of the full manger scene. When we finally see them, the wise men are certainly impressive. But let’s face it: Baby Jesus, kinda ugly.

Montage Mania
You KNOW we need a 'tear down the Jesus stuff to replace with cold secular images of holiday cheer' sequence

Token Slapstick Alert 
Having Mr. Darcy's son cast a skiier gives ample opportunity for falls

Stocking Stuffer or Stuffed With Coal?

I don’t mean to write this review as an anti-religious rant. I respect the right for everyone to celebrate (or not celebrate) Christmas in their own way, be that midnight mass or a trip to the movie theater. The problem is that Christmas With a C doesn’t respect that there is that “2%” (which trust me, is bigger) who get a whole lot else from December and more importantly, aren't aggressively close-minded and so dang ANGRY about it.

Or gross. These dudes? Kinda gross.