This is How Movies Should Be Made

i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Home for the Holidays (1995) *** (out of 4)Claudia Larson (Holly Hunter) is having a string of bad luck starting with her losing her job. Over the Thanksgiving holiday she agrees to go home but it doesn't take long for her annoying family to start eating at her.Jodie Foster's HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS takes a rather formula plot and manages to make it something quite memorable thanks in large part to her direction as well as some really great performances. We've seen these type of family-get-together-at-the-holidays movies throughout history yet Foster manages to make this film feel quite original and real.I think what I enjoyed most about this film is the fact that you feel as if you're watching a real family react to one another. So often characters are just thrown into movies for drama or laughs but the characters in HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS feel real and this helps the laughs and the drama. You just really do feel as if you've dropped in on these characters, their problems and you pretty much just go along for the laughs and the drama.The performances are certainly a major factor with Hunter once again delivering some great work. Most people remember here as a dramatic actress but I thought her comic timing here was flawless and especially her chemistry with Robert Downey, Jr. Both of them are excellent in the film and even better together. You've got vets like Anne Bancroft and Charles Durning doing great work and also a strong supporting cast with the likes of Dylan McDermott, Steve Guttenberg and Geraldine Chaplin.

For a movie I had no interest in viewing, I came around by the end. I blame the talents of Durning, whose emotional speech about what moments matter most in life really stayed with me.

Entirely appropriate for Thanksgiving because this has got to be one of the worst turkeys ever made. Characters, dialog, music...it's all a train wreck. Billed as a comedy, it lacks that quality of humor the ancient Greeks called "being funny." Or even remotely so.I'm not of the school that has to like characters, though it's helpful. But if they're not likable, there should be something interesting, something that provokes thought, incites something beyond a mere "Eeeuw!" reaction.Not sure where we obtained this DVD, who inflicted it upon us. We made it about half way through.I haven't written a review in quite a while but I logged on just to add a "Beware, turn away while you still have time" notice.

This move was about two self-centered self-indulgent family members who could care less about whether they are making the rest of their family miserable. Sure the family may not be the Brady Bunch but whose is? And some movies manage to be humorous about that but not this one. Claudia and her brother were just mean spirited, not funny. Can't believe Jodie Foster was involved in this. The performances and production are good. I haven't watched it since reading that Downey was on drugs but I didn't notice at the time. Essentially I think this movie missed the mark of holiday movies that poke fun at dysfunctional families with the idea that we all have them but love them. I couldn't stand the two main characters. I felt sorry for the sister.