Surviving Christmas dir. Mike Mitchell

Opens Fri Oct 22.

Surviving Christmas is like Gigli, but with Christmas. By that I don't mean that it's about a lesbian falling for a low-level mobster--I mean it's a piece of shit.

Of course, you had to know that would be the case with any Ben Affleck comedy. His schmaltzy character, Drew Latham, opens the film as an advertising hack convincing his superiors that the best way to hock spiked eggnog is to remind people to drink their way through family reunions. From there he quickly becomes a cardboard yuppie whose life is as empty as his downtown loft, using his checkbook to compensate for the fact that dry saltine crackers possess more flavor than his relationship. When his girlfriend leaves him just before Christmas, Drew decides to rent a family for the holidays.

His dreams are quickly dashed as Drew discovers the relatives he's selected are typically American in thaeir dysfunction. The marriage of his new "parents" Tom (James Gandolfini) and Christine (Catherine O'Hara) is on the rocks. Their son Brian (Josh Zuckerman) spends his days--shocker--masturbating to Internet porn, and their daughter Alicia (Christina Applegate) has a candy cane up her ass because she balks at the idea of whoring out her family.

As this oatmeal of a concept continues to lump along, you'll find yourself wondering what kind of holiday debt these actors are using this crap film to finance. Surviving Christmas is every bit as predictable as it is painful. Of course Drew helps bring the spirit of Christmas back to the Valcos. Of course they teach him that money can't buy love--but wait, it does buy him into Alicia's life. In the words of little Brian when he clicks on a porn site featuring his mom, "There are some things you just can't unsee." Waste two hours on this Christmas, and Affleck laughing all the way to the bank with your lost money will be one of those engrained visions.