Jack Cameron (Tom Arnold) hates Christmas. In fact, he’s banned it from his and his daughter’s wife. It’s because some years ago, his wife cheated on him with her dentist at their daughter’s school pageant. Switch to a heavenly place where the director is instruction the ghosts, present (Andrea Roth) and past (Leslie Jordan) that Jack is their newest contact. But they are not the Christmas ghosts of Charles Dickens. In fact, they are pretty angry with him because he was told never to tell anyone what happened, and he wrote a book about it and embellished it pretty good. I guess the ghosts go visit a lost soul every year for over 2000 years now and Dickens was the only one who broke the rules and wrote about it. Anyway, Christmas Past is getting really tired of going back to the past, and wants to be alive again, so he breaks the rules, and strands Jack back in his past, so present is sent to the past to find them and try to bring them home. Turns out that he doesn’t want to go back, and it turns into a brawl. If he doesn’t get back by midnight, he’ll cease to exist.

This modern take on the Christmas Carol story is a bit loony. The ghosts are normal people, and not at all like the traditional story goes. And things get all screwed up and twisted around in weird way. Since it’s Tom Arnold, it’s a bit silly. Ok, not a bit, it’s a lot silly. This is good, maybe for a single viewing, but it’s not something you’re going to watch again and again. As much as I love the Christmas Carol story, I just can’t get into this version. It was a nice try to freshen it and make it new again, but it’s just so stupid that it doesn’t cut it. I don’t recommend this, unless you’ve never seen it, and you’re a Tom Arnold fan.

This is a short segment showing the opening titles and the very beginning of the film:.

==Written by Ed Goettman ==

==From: Ed's Review Dot Com (www.edsreview.com)==

A clever twist on the classic story A Christmas Carol, Chasing Christmas finds its Scrooge in the bitter Jack Cameron (Tom Arnold, Happy Endings), whose wife cheated on him during their daughter's performance in a Christmas pageant and now he does mean things like throw Christmas decorations in the street. Naturally, he becomes the target for the Bureau of Yuletide affairs, who send the Ghost of Christmas Past (Leslie Jordan, Will & Grace) to take Cameron on a tour of his previous holidays. But when the ghost has a personal meltdown and abandons Cameron in 1965, the lovely Ghost of Christmas Present (Andrea Roth, Rescue Me) has to rescue the sourpuss--only to find that romantic sparks arise twixt ghost and man. Chasing Christmas won't win any awards, but it's a modest, enjoyable movie with a theme everyone can agree on: Life must be embraced to be fully lived. Tom Arnold isn't the most charismatic actor, but he has his talents; Roth and Brittney Wilson (Dinosapien) as Cameron's daughter are charming; and the story clips along at a sprightly pace. --Bret Fetzer