Surviving Christmas (2004)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Featurette-HBO First Look: Surviving Christmas Credits-Alternate Opening Sequence Gallery-Storyboard Gallery
Rating
Year Of Production	2004
Running Time	87:00 (Case: 91)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (52:55)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Mike Mitchell
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Ben Affleck James Gandolfini Christina Applegate Catherine O'Hara Josh Zuckerman Bill Macy Jennifer Morrison Udo Kier David Selby Stephanie Faracy Stephen Root Sy Richardson Tangie Ambrose
Case	Amaray-Opaque-Secure Clip
RPI	$34.95	Music	Randy Edelman Jani Lane

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired German	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    Highly paid executive Drew Latham (Ben Affleck) suffers a breakdown when his girlfriend (Jennifer Morrison) breaks up with him a few days before Christmas. Afraid to spend the holiday alone, Drew hops a cab to his childhood home and offers the family now living there, the Valco family (James Gandolfini, Kathryn O'Harrah, Christina Applegate and Josh Zuckerman), $250,000 to be his family for Christmas. The one catch being that they have to act as his family always did so that he feels like he really is back home for the holidays - no matter how ridiculous his requests. Hilarity ensues (or doesn't, as is actually the case).

    Surviving Christmas is a train wreck from beginning to end. Virtually every aspect of the film is flawed to the point that you have to wonder how anybody involved in the production could have agreed to take part. I guess there were some hefty cheques made out by producers who were looking for a sure-fire way out of the movie business. While I could go on all day ranting about the faults of this movie it simply isn't worth my time writing such a rant, nor your time reading it. Instead I will just rattle off a few of the big problems:

• Ben Affleck is not a comic genius. In fact, it is hard to even call him a professional actor after seeing this movie (he must have been saving it up for his rebound film Hollywoodland). Most of the time it looks as though he really doesn't want to be in the movie at all. The crappy character he has been handed doesn't help matters either.
• The movie cannot decide whether it wants to be a black comedy or fluffy family entertainment. It bounces back and forth between the two like a schizophrenic bunny rabbit, to the point that you are almost dizzy from trying to follow the plot. The end product is an M rated film that most six year olds would be too mature for.
• The story is rarely comprehensible (not really a surprise given there are four credited screenwriters) and the few scenes that probably should have worked don't thanks to a mash of sloppy editing and direction.
• Christina Applegate looks 10 years older than she should for her character to make any sense at all.
• In what I can only guess is a misguided attempt to be "zany" or "wacky", virtually every event in the film is just plain stupid.
• Jokes about teenagers using the Internet for porn ceased being edgy about 10 years ago. Sure, they're still funny but not when you are cracking that same joke every five minutes.
• Did I mention just how bad Ben Affleck is in this movie? It bears repeating.

    To be fair, James Gandolfini and Kathryn O'Harrah manage to wring one or two chuckles out of the jumble of words that appears to have passed as a script, but this only goes to make you wonder how much they were paid to appear in this mess when they could have been doing something worthwhile. Now, back to drilling that hole in my head (much more fun than watching Surviving Christmas again).

Video

    The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The film is given the mediocre video transfer that it probably deserved. The image is a little soft and mild grain is visible in many scenes. There is a reasonable level of detail in shadows and into areas.

    The colours are a little dull and occasionally appear slightly washed out.

    Mild pixelation is visible, particularly in scenes with a lot of movement. Occasional film artefacts are visible throughout the film, though none are bigger than a fleck of dust.

     English subtitles for the hearing-impaired present. They appeared to be accurate and well timed based on the portion I sampled.

    This is a RSDL disc. The layer break occurs at 52:55 but was not noticeable on my equipment.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The film features an English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 Kbps) audio track and a German Dolby Digital 5.1 (384 Kbps) audio track.

    The dialogue is clearly audible throughout (which isn't necessarily for the best given these lame jokes) and is reasonably well synchronised to the video.

    The music for the film is a rather vulgar and crassly festive orchestral score, by Randy Edelman.

    The surround speakers are used sparingly, though that isn't much of a surprise given the production values of the film, as is the subwoofer.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Main Menu Audio & Animation

HBO First Look Featurette (11:34)

    A painfully generic press kit featurette. It really shows you nothing you wouldn't have seen or figured out from the movie itself.

Alternate Opening (2:18)

    This extra is actually quite interesting. It provides a degree of insight as to how much meddling the producers of the film must have done late in the piece. This opening is actually very similar to the one in the actual movie, only much blacker and much funnier.

Storyboard Gallery

    A series of six storyboard galleries depicting early scenes of the movie. These are actually not too bad - maybe the movie would have worked better as a comic strip.

    The Region 1 and Region 4 versions of this DVD are identical, save for PAL/NTSC differences.

    Surviving Christmas was nearly a career killer for Ben Affleck, and deservedly so. Think of the title as a challenge, only substitute "this movie" for "Christmas".

     The video quality is mediocre. The audio is serviceable. The extras are almost adequate.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall