Nothing Like the Holidays

Freddy Rodriguez, John Leguizamo, Debra Messing, Alfred Molina, and Elizabeth Peña star in Washington Heights director Alfredo de Villa's earnest family drama about the importance of familial relationships in times of personal crisis. The snow is falling and Christmas has come to Chicago. For the ...more

Let's get this out into the open: holiday's are pretty rote. They endure as your memory of them endures. Stories play and replay, food always tastes the same. Your crazy aunt gives you crazy aunt gifts: a lobster hat, a used woman's windbreaker. It's all very Pavlovian in that you know what is going to happen each and every year, yet your mouth waters and your heart races a bit at the thought of family. This is half of the joy of the holidays: it is a safe time, a comfortable time, a time when ...more

Everybody has a favorite Christmas carol: a song that if by chance you hear it anytime during the year you'll recall wonderful winter memories of family and friends. Everybody also has a 37th favorite holiday tune: one that they never think about, but don't mind hearing when it comes on the radio some time after Thanksgiving. In that regard, Nothing Like the Holidays is more "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" than "Silent Night." For a while, director Alfredo de Villa whips up a light and ...more