How the Grinch Stole Christmas

MOVIE TITLE: How the Grinch Stole Christmas

DIRECTOR: Ron Howard

YEAR: 2000

GENRE: Holiday Fantasy

RATING: PG for comic mischief and bullying

GRADE: Pass

There’s a reason why people who hate Christmas in real life are referred to as Grinches. They’re also called Scrooges and Bah-Humbugs, but being called a Grinch is a special kind of dishonor. Not only do you not want to enjoy the Christmas spirit yourself, but you’ll do anything humanly possible to make it miserable for everybody else, whether it’s playing cruel pranks or stealing presents. That’s the story Dr. Seuss got us all used to. But in this movie, we don’t see evil for the sake of evil. Sure, the Grinch was bullied as a kid and that’s what made him hate Christmas. Adding a traumatic back story doesn’t always equal goodwill, but this time it does. A green hairy monster loved by nobody and shunned by the wicked. If we’ve learned anything from The Joker in 2019, it’s not to mess with the disenfranchised. You will feel for the Grinch. You will cheer for him. And when he causes mayhem, you’ll laugh your head off.

A lot of this sympathy for the Grinch was helped magnificently by Jim Carrey’s performance as the title character. He’s not just an angry green monster. He’s eccentric. He’s comedic. He’s delightfully villainous. Whether it’s something as simple as the way he walks, eats, and dances or his witty dialogue that rolls off the tongue naturally, Jim Carrey has you by the throat the instant you start watching the movie. If Ace Ventura, The Mask, and The Riddler were injected into The Grinch’s rotten, yet damaged soul, that’s how Jim Carrey’s version of this character would be. But he’s not just comic relief. He’s nuanced to the point where everything he says holds water. This movie is often categorized as a drama-comedy and that combination of genres embodies Jim Carrey’s character perfectly. I’m not sure if he won an Oscar for his performance, but it’d be a crime not to give him one. I know, I know, it seems laughable to do so, but is it really?

You know who else had a convincing performance in this movie? Taylor Momsen, who portrayed little Cindy Lou Who, the only character in the Who village with enough commonsense to see Christmas for what it really is: capitalism in disguise. She knows full well that Christmas should prioritize family love and friendship over materialism, which is why she nominates The Grinch to be the Cheer Meister, because if anybody needs love, it’s him. Taylor Momsen portrayed her character as a sweet, bubbly, optimistic child who wouldn’t hurt a fly. That makes her message of family love more believable than the bombastic Mayor’s “buy, buy, buy” rhetoric. Sure, she’s not taken seriously at first because she’s a child and there’s ageism running rampant. But don’t worry, because Taylor Momsen would eventually grow up to become the lead singer of The Pretty Reckless. Not bad for a little one!

Movie reboots get a bad rap for being worse than their source material, but that’s not the case with How the Grinch Stole Christmas. In fact, I’d say it surpasses the original cartoon from the 1960’s. The Grinch has a more colorful personality, Cindy Lou Who is as sweet as a bug’s ear, and everybody else is living in those two lead characters’ world. Step aside, Mayor; you’re the real Grinch around here. A passing grade will go to this holiday classic. Wow. I can’t believe I’m calling a movie made in 2000 a classic. I’m getting old! Then again, if growing old was a bad thing, there’d be no Pretty Reckless and boy, do I need my rock and roll!

"Like Nobody Else" by My Darkest Days

“September 7^th and she’s headed for school. She’ll probably leave me for some college fool, and I know that’s just the way it goes.” While I wasn’t in a romantic relationship during my college days, I still had people who I was away from for five days a week. Port Orchard may be a crappy town, but it still had the one thing I needed most in those days: my family. Mom, Dale, James, Susan, Reina, the animals, they were all a necessary part of my life. When I went to school in Bellingham for five days a week, my access to these people was very minimal. I had nobody in Bellingham who I could go to for help. My roommates moved out because I snored too loudly. The few friends I did have didn’t stick around long enough for a cup of coffee. I didn’t know of any therapists that were in Bellingham nor did I have a way to get to them. So here I was in this strange little town all by myself. Who would want this kind of loneliness and isolation? Isn’t that what prisoners feel every time they get locked up in solitary confinement? And what was it all for? Forced extroversion? A degree employers don’t care about? Hard-to-understand course material? Classmates who ignore me? I often wonder why I would put myself through this torture in the first place and the only answer that seems plausible is that it helped my writing. Actually, my experiences after college were more helpful to my writing than any class I could have taken. After college, I became a born-again bookworm and started reading fast-paced novels (as opposed to the boring literary garbage we were assigned). I also decided that the only critique I would ever accept from my audience was a hybrid of honesty and sensitivity. Constant reading and openness to gentle critique were what saved me as a writer in the end, not college. In fact, I learned more from joining writing groups on Good Reads than I did in those classrooms. Granted, I was highly immature in those old days, but immaturity eventually goes away with age and experience. So what does “Like Nobody Else” by My Darkest Days mean to me? It may have been the song that convinced me to come home if it was released earlier than 2010 (I went to college from 2007 to 2009). Now that I’m home with my family indefinitely, I still feel bouts of loneliness and depression, but these bouts don’t last as long as the ones in college did. I’m never going away again. Ever. If I do go away, there better be something or someone out there waiting for me. I shouldn’t need a high speed sports car to find whatever’s out there. If there does happen to be someone there for me, I still won’t forget where I come from.

　

***DR. SEUSS QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“That Cat’s gonna suffer like never before!”

-The Grinch-