Mainlining Christmas

We saw this on a VHS tape we dug out of a box in Lindsay's parents house in Massachusetts.  It wasn't the worst thing we saw that weekend, but it certainly deserves an honorable mention.   First up, this deserves a spot on the list of unintentionally creepy animated production.  Some of the expressions the bears display are downright horrific.  Also, there's a scene towards the end where an eagle, upset that Papa Bear was considering turning his home into a Christmas tree, chucks an axe at the Bear family.  Almost got them, too.   For what it's worth, that eagle wound up having a change of heart.  After Papa Bear realized the inherent hypocrisy in cutting down someone's home for a holiday that was supposed to honor all life, the eagle, along with a brigade of other animals, did some Christmas decorating to ensure the Bear family had the best Christmas ever.   I think if I have to watch another special where a family, down on their luck, miraculously wi

I'm convinced that Elf was supposed to be a bad movie, but that, somewhere along the line, someone screwed up and wound up creating something brilliant. Consider the concept for a moment: this was obviously green-lit to be a Will Ferrell vehicle, where he plays a human raised in Santa's workshop who travels to New York to meet his family.  In addition, the script included one or more jokes based on each of the following: belching, vomiting, and eating disgusting and/or discarded food. Yeah.  Clearly, this wasn't supposed to be a good movie.  It was supposed to be the lowest level of childrens entertainment: something that comes out, parents brings their five year-olds to see, then everyone - kids included - goes home disappointed.  That's all it had any right to be. But apparently some producer at New Line didn't get the memo, because they hired Jon Favreau to direct it.  By the way, if you're looking for evidence that Favreau is a visionar

Awww.  This is a sweet movie, with a few weaknesses. Casting Gonzo and Rizzo as tag-team narrators was the main stroke of genius here.  It worked so well that they were asked to carry the next few movies as well.  Their comedy is pretty great, and as a fan I appreciate that their personalities are consistent, not drastically changed to play "Dickens".  Without them, this could have been pretty dour. Also it gives surprising gravitas to Dickens' words to hear them coming out of Gonzo.  Or maybe that's just me. Erin appreciated that Michael Caine could be playing Scrooge in any version of A Christmas Carol.  He resists the temptation to ham it up for the Muppets and plays it just as straight as could be.  Erin didn't much like the music, though. I like the songs: I think they're sweet, but that could easily be due to long familiarity. Also, the TV edit we saw cut "When Love is Gone", the most boring song in the movie, but that did put a hiccu

This pretty much just tells it like it is.  At two minutes and change, you can't lose. Special thanks to Beth for pointing this out.

At one point during this Lifetime Original made-for-TV movie, Lindsay pulled my hand away from my head to keep me from literally pulling my hair out of my head.  I tried to explain that I knew what I was doing, that it was distracting me from the pain.  She stopped me anyway.  I think, in time, I'll come to forgive her. This one was hard for me.  It's not that I'm a guy: I can take dramas, chick flicks, what have you.  But the thing is, I'm also a writer.  And, as such, there's a level of bad dialogue that will hurt me.  In high enough doses, it might even kill me. Like most Christmas dramas, this was actually a science fiction film, though it buried that fact beneath five metric tons of melodramatic nonsense.  Even so, the plot was a pretty straightforward time jump: the main character, a self-obsessed career woman, jumps forward ten years in her life to find herself a wife and mother, dutifully living out her husband's philanthropic dreams.

This is a BRAND SHINY NEW Prep and Landing short.  It's only about 7 minutes, but it's 7 minutes of pure win. If you didn't see Prep and Landing last year, you missed the best new Christmas special probably for decades. It's from Disney, now that they've had a heart and charm upgrade courtesy of Pixar.  What else would you expect? This new addition to the world introduces Betty White as Mrs. Claus, and she's got a special mission for our favorite Prep and Landing team. So see the original first, and then add to your cheer with Prep and Landing: Operation Secret Santa. Streaming on both Hulu and abc.com