Holiday Movie Guilty Pleasure: A Diva’s Christmas Carol

I’m going to admit right here and now that I watch “A Diva’s Christmas Carol” every year right around Christmas.  It’s not the best version of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”, but I think it’s one of the more fun versions.

If you haven’t seen it, I think it’s worth a viewing.  It solidifies the fact that Vanessa Williams makes a great diva (as further evidenced by her  “Ugly Betty” character Wilhemina Slater).  Let’s face it, she’s good at being bitchy, and there is plenty of that for most of the made for TV movie.

Williams plays Ebony Scrooge, a famous pop-singer who started out in a trio called Desire.  But she ended up more successful as a solo artist, stepping on practically everyone she cared about along the way to diva-ville.  Because of her wicked ways, she is warned by the ghost of one of her former band mates (played by Chilli from TLC) that she will be visited by 3 spirits in the hopes that she can mend her diva ways.  Hilarity ensues, you get the picture.

My favorite parts of this movie come in the form of those spirits:  Kathy Griffin is the awesomely snarky ghost of Christmas past;  John Taylor of Duran Duran is the ghost of Christmas present (who plays a has-been rock star spirit with and exaggerated cockney accent); and finally, a “Behind the Music” VH1 special featuring Brian McKnight and Niles Rogers is the ghost of Christmas future. 

I don’t care what anyone says, I love John Taylor’s rendition of the ghost of Christmas present.  It looked like he had a lot of fun playing that part, and I’m glad they cast him.  Just by the premise of the movie, this wasn’t going to be a Golden Globe or Emmy winner, so I’m taking it all for what it is.  It’s also not the most clever part (those all go to Kathy Griffin), but my inner Duran Duran fan goes all a flutter when I see him on the screen. 

This has now become a holiday tradition for me and my sister, who called me last night to inform me that it was on TV so that I could be sure to catch it again.  Yes, there are much better versions of this classic Dickens tale, but the holidays are all about happiness and good cheer, and this movie always gives me a good dose of both.