Scrooged

In update on the Dickens classic, with Murray as a miserly TV network president who rejoins the human race following spectral visitations. The tone is set by a machine-gun assault on Santa's North Pole toy workshop and the timely arrival of the first of a series of guest star drop-ins. Miles Davis and David Sanborn busk in the wintry streets beside a needy musicians' sign, the usually elegant Forsythe turns up as a disintegrating ghoul, a golf ball embedded in his skull. Scrooged is not subtle stuff, and since Murray's comic persona is uniquely hands-off in terms of emotion, his final impassioned speech about the true meaning of Christmas is as embarrassing as Chaplin's at the end of The Great Dictator. Rowdy stuff for the light in head.