Mainlining Christmas

Right now, Lindsay's sitting beside me on the train back to Queens, typing her love letter to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. I can appreciate that reaction. But mine was perhaps more... complicated. The Radio City Christmas Spectacular was, I think, the best and the worst thing I've ever seen. It was madness. It may be the last surviving vestige of vaudeville; this is a show which has lasted since the 1930's. But make no mistake: it paid a horrible price for survival. It sold its soul to Christmas. The show is a blur of dancers in skimpy outfits being pimped by a fat man in red while multi-colored lights and projections of the New York City skyline whirl by. And then the 3D glasses come out. A mother and her daughter learn the true meaning of Christmas by hunting digital Christmas fairies and blasting them with holiday cheer. The Rockettes dress as reindeer, Christmas presents, and - worst of all - tourists in a series of dances masquerading as family enter

OMG! THAT WAS AWESOME! I mean, it was awesomely weird, and awesomely impressive, as well as awesomely awesome. The Radio City Christmas Spectacular may be the most purely Christmas thing I've seen ever . It was entirely made up of shiny shiny sparkly things, spectacle, and ridiculousness. I loved it, in case you didn't notice. From the first number, in which the lovely Rockettes danced impressively in some disturbingly sexy reindeer costumes... and then their antlers LIT UP , I knew I was going to like this. There were low points, of course; the 3d movie of Santa's sleigh was pretty corny, the all-teddy bear Nutcracker had moments, but went on too long, and there was one awkwardly heartfelt song that was just boring given what had come before it. However, since nearly every odd or out-of place moment was clearly a vamp so that the Rockettes could change their costume, I can't judge too harshly. Besides which, the Rockettes got to star in a 'video game&

This movie makes me think of Equilibrium. No, stay with me here - I'm going somewhere with this. In Equilibrium, the government is more or less run by Nazis who have outlawed emotion. As such, the point of the movie is that emotions are good and Nazis are bad. Surprisingly, I've never seen another situation arise where this moral has been especially enlightening. The 12 Dogs of Christmas takes place during the depression in a town where dogs have been outlawed. The moral of the story is that dogs can be good and sadistic dogcatchers who use captured animals in dogfights are bad. Once again, while I don't disagree with this assertion, neither do I feel particularly enlightened. This is - unfortunately - a full length movie. I'm not entirely certain whether this was made-for-TV or released direct-to-video. Usually, I just get trivial details like that from Wikipedia, but this movie doesn't actually have a Wikipedia page. Having just watched the movie, this

The Nutcracker and the Mouse King E. T. A. Hoffman, 1816 Translation by Joachim Neugroschel Crossposted at The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf So, after watching several different versions of the Nutcracker Ballet for Mainlining Christmas, I wanted to go back and read the original story. That proved to be harder than it sounds, but I finally got access to a Penguin classics edition at the library. (This volume also included the slightly sanitized retelling of the tale by Dumas that the ballet is technically based on, but I'm only looking at the original.) As a work this story seems to consciously evade categorization. The story is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek fairy tale, a surrealist fantasy, with a story within a story that seems to want to mock the conventions of fairy tales but is still a fairly classic example. I found it intriguing throughout, but a bit exhausting to read. The basics of the story are the basics of the ballet: Marie becomes obsessed with the Nutcracker tha

I think this is the second episode of Parks and Recreation I've seen, but I can't actually remember the first, so it's possible I'm imagining it and this is actually the first. Either way, this is a really bizarre show. I can't decide whether or not I enjoyed watching it. The show felt very character-driven, so I expect it's better the more you see it.  Not that I have much interest in testing that theory, mind you. The plot focused on an imagined sex scandal involving the main character and a local politician. Most of the humor revolved around the absurdity of a small town trying to pretend it's a big city, and it worked most of the time. This one was more set at Christmas than it was Christmas-themed. For what it's worth, the backgrounds contained plenty of decorations, and a few of the B-plots were holiday related. Still, if you're looking for something to fill you with Christmas cheer, you'd best look elsewhere.

I went in expecting the worst and was pleasantly surprised. Actually, this was kind of engrossing. I haven't seen a full episode of Bewitched since... well, since I was far too young to remember it. Among other aspects, I was kind of surprised by the show's portrayal of Samantha's magic, which she secretly uses against her husband's wishes. For some reason, I'd assumed this would be portrayed as a negative (i.e.: the man knows best), but in reality, he was kind of a bumbling - though well intentioned - fool, while her powers were effective. Anyone know off hand whether her powers were intended as a metaphor for the squandered potential of women in the era? There was a genuinely touching interaction between her and her magical daughter at the end regarding their shared secret that hinted at some larger themes. Or maybe I'm reading too much into a light sitcom. Regardless, the plot was sort of a Scrooge template, with Samantha standing in for any ghosts, and

I suppose even the Muppets can have an less-than-stellar special. This is far from terrible, but not actually all that good either. Really, the big problem is there aren't enough Muppets. Whenever the Muppets are on screen, the energy picks up, the jokes are actually funny, and the acting improves. When the camera is focused on John Denver and legions of bland back-up dancers, it's dull as dirt. Now I generally like John Denver, or at least don't dislike him. But here he's incapable of acting like a human being, and he looks sort of like a robot. Plus he keeps adding boring religious stuff in between scenes of Muppets being sweet. Also this isn't particularly well directed or well shot. Or even well structured: this special flirts with the idea of having a plot, but ultimately abandons it for ill-thought out musical numbers. It's not all bad: Rowlf and Kermit both get in pretty songs, the opening Twelve Days of Christmas is classic, and Miss Piggy