LET’S GET PHYSICAL: A DIVA’S CHRISTMAS CAROL (2000) ***

FORMAT:  DVD

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on December 27th, 2010)

Ah yes… A Diva’s Christmas Carol.  If ever there was a guilty pleasure Christmas movie, it’s this one.  I mean you all know my movie-watching tastes.  You know it’s not in my DNA to like this sort of flick.  The funny thing is though; A Diva’s Christmas Carol actually has more wit and genuine holiday cheer in it than a hundred other Christmas Carol knockoffs you’ll see this month.

 

Eboneeza Scrooge (Vanessa L. Williams) is a top-selling R & B diva who bosses her staff around and pinches pennies like a motherfucker.  She used to be part of a Destiny’s Child style trio (named “Desire”), but she went Beyonce on their ass in search of fame and fortune.  Of course, on Christmas, she gets haunted by the ghost of her dead band mate (Chili from TLC) who warns her she’ll be visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past (Kathy Griffin), Present (Duran Duran’s John Taylor), and Future.  Predictably, she sees the error of her ways, learns to care, regains her Christmas spirit, and all that shit.

 

I really like A Diva’s Christmas Carol because of its clever twists on the Dickens’ classic.  I think my favorite part was that the Ghost of Christmas Future was nothing more than a VH1 Behind the Music special that showed what would happen if Eboneeza didn’t change her ways.  And speaking of Eboneeza, I liked the way they played with the familiar characters’ names.  Even though her name was Eboneeza, they just called her “Ebony” for short, which I thought was pretty funny.  Then there’s the Jacob Marley character who is now a female named “Marley Jacobs”. 

 

Marley actually gets the best moments of the movie when she confronts Ebony about her miserly ways.  To prove she’s a real ghost, she rips off her own head and pulls her face off to let Ebony know that there are “no facials in the afterlife”.  I’m sure Charles Dickens himself would approve of that particular rewrite.

 

You guys are probably thinking it’s April Fools and not Christmas but I’m telling you, this one is pretty funny.  Do yourself a favor and don’t be such a Scrooge and check it out.  You’ll be glad you did.