2K Replay: CHRISTMAS WITH THE KRANKS

 by Adam Riske

Nominated for “Most Intrusive Musical Score” (John Debney) at The Stinkers Bad Movie Awards. It lost to Vanegelis for Alexander.

• Best Scene/Moment (tie): Luther Krank (Tim Allen) gets a Botox injection and whenever Blair Krank (Julie Gonzalo) appears on screen. She’s my 2004 movie Helen of Troy. Sorry, Diane Kruger.

• Best Song: I could choose one of the familiar Christmas standards but instead I’m going with the effervescently cheesy “Merry Christmas (To All of the World)” by Jean Beauvoir.

• Best Merch: A “Christmas With The Kranks Original Ornament…” for $99.99. Holy shit! I can put an ornament seen on screen in Christmas with the Kranks on my own tree? This is tempting. Does this get me closer to being an honorary Krank?

• Director Grade: Christmas with the Kranks was directed by Joe Roth.
Great Movies: Christmas with the Kranks
Good Movies: N/A
OK Movies: Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise
Bad Movies: N/A
Unseen By Me: Streets of Gold, Coupe de Ville, America’s Sweethearts, Freedomland
Overall Grade: B

• Double It with This 2004 Movie: Surviving Christmas

• Year 2004 Movies to Trailer Before Them: 13 Going On 30, The Polar Express, White Chicks

• Color of Night or Christmas with the Kranks? Christmas with the Kranks

• Mall Movie? It would start at the fancy theater in town but eventually make its way to the mall theater a couple of weeks into its run.

• Only in 2004 (tie): Cheech Marin and Jake Busey as buddy cops and the Kranks trying to skip Christmas.

• Scene Stealer (tie): Dan Aykroyd and M. Emmet Walsh.

• I Miss (tie): M. Emmet Walsh and enjoying Tim Allen comedies without thinking about politics.

• I Don’t Miss: The cat burglar subplot. No one asked for it.

• 2004 Crush: Julie Gonzalo as Blair Krank. One of G-D’s masterpieces.

• 2024 Crush: Blair Krank Forever.

• What I Thought in 2004: I’ll always have nostalgia for Christmas with the Kranks. The weekend it was released I got my first car, and I took that 2005 Honda Civic right to the movie theater to see Christmas with the Kranks and Alexander back to back. I didn’t like Kranks the first time I saw it, partly because I saw it in a theater with very few other people and no one was laughing.

• What I Think in 2024: I love it. I watch it almost every holiday season. One of the first examples of me going from not liking a movie, to ironically liking a movie, to unironically liking a movie, to the movie becoming a page in the book of my life.