2000-06-05()
You might have heard that Jim Carrey is starring in a new version of the Dr. Seuss "classic", How the Grinch Stole Christmas, directed by Ron Howard (Apollo 13).
Apparently the new version is an "adult" version, meaning that it will be considered too scary for little children. This is kind of a strange idea. Dr. Seuss books are so absolutely, definitively, repetitively pre-school. How can you take that kind of raw material and turn it into something so scary you wouldn't want your five-year-old to see it?
But what is really scary is the fact that the Grinch was about how a heartless, bloodless, cruel old pimpish wreck decided to steal everything from the charming if rather monotonous inhabitants of "Whoville".
We are "Whoville". Hollywood is the Grinch. It is amazing to me how utterly shameless Hollywood is when it comes to cashing in on the true spirit of Christmas. Every consumer tie-in imaginable is rolling out at once. Every effort is made to manipulate and deceive your children for a few shekels more.
The true spirit of Christmas? Canadian Tire with its "Give like Santa, save like Scrooge" campaign? Coca Cola with it's pseudo-humanitarian pop tunes?
Shameless shameless shameless.
But like those anonymous and not too inspiring citizens of Whoville, we buy it.
And by the way, I never bought the part about the inhabitants of Whoville all trotting out to the tree at the end, singing away joyfully even though all of their treats and presents were stolen. It is the one farcical element of the original "Grinch" that just doesn't wash and never did.
But using Boris Karloff's voice for the Grinch was a stroke of genius.
Jim Carrey-- you are no Boris Karloff.