This film is also entitled National Lampoon’s Thanksgiving Reunion which clarifies which holiday is involved, as I discovered when I watched it after Thanksgiving and totally ruined it.
Well, not really. This made-for-cable movie features Judge Reinhold as a California anaesthesiologist whose family is consumed by materialism and modern society who wants to have an old fashioned Thanksgiving, but he lacks family outside his immediate family–and has for a while, apparently, as eating out is the family’s general practice. But he receives a letter from a distant, forgotten cousin (played by pre-Walter White Bryan Cranston) inviting them to the old family homestead for Thanksgiving. So we have a fish out of water comedy as the spoiled and upper class family from southern California meet the hippie cousins in Idaho, where the Snider name has a bad reputation ever since the country cousin made an error in a state championship football game decades earlier.
So hijinks ensue, and the town Sniders discover that the country Sniders have invited them because they need some money as country Snider pere has had some bad luck with his businesses around his inventions and his washing machine repair services. So the town Sniders have to determine what to do, but their car disappears and then their daughter disappears–she’s discovered the joys of country boys and their hillbilly deluxe trucks. But all’s well that ends well when the country Sniders and town Sniders team up to save the day and reconcile the Snider family with the townsfolk.
So an amusing bit of clearly television fare. Not destined to be a holiday classic, but then who knows? Although the fragmentation of culture might mean that “All I Want For Christmas Is You” is the last Christmas classic ever.
A couple of pieces of the film resounded with me: first, Bryan Cranston does battle with a washing machine at one point, and I know the feeling. November and December weekends here at Nogglestead has seen me inside both my washer and my dryer multiple times trying to keep the commodity-level things operating for another year or so. Or maybe just a couple of weeks. Second, the story line about the football championship took place whilst the local high school football team made it to the state championship ever. No game-losing errors, but they did lose to a Catholic school from the St. Louis area which, as a private school, can recruit football players. So no curses on my boys’ friends.
On the scale of “National Lampoon” branded movies, it’s not amongst the best, but still not a bad hour and a half.
Also, note this trivium: The DVD sold for $.99 at Vintage Stock at some point, but I bought it for a dollar at the antique mall. Which means it appreciated in value, but the person who had the booth at the mall probably paid fifty cents or less for it.
