Posts

Ruby Gloom: Happy Yam Ween (2007)

Image
Man, when December rolls around, it’s hard out there for a kids’ show not set on Earth. You want to have a holiday episode, of course you do, but if it’s totally unbelieveable for your characters to celebrate Christmas (or Hanukkah, etc.) what do you, the writer do? You could shoehorn Christmas in there anyway (See: He-Man and She-Ra ) and you might get some camp value out of that, but even most kids’ll see the excuse for what it is. Or you could make up your own original holiday that just so happens to resemble the winter-gift-giving-season we all know so well. Now, sometimes this works really well, sometimes it sort of works, sometimes it’s just pathetic. Sometimes it’s just, well, strange. Enter: YamWeen. Ruby Gloom takes place in an undefined Halloween-esque dimension, with a bunch of supernatural characters who are also kids. It’s not at all scary, just a little gothic in its aesthetic. One of the kids is a cyclops, one a skeleton, one friend is a talking raven and one

Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972, 1973, or 1974, depending on who you ask)

Image
Nothing says "Christmas" like absurdly low-budget horror. Silent Night, Bloody Night (not to be confused with Silent Night, Deadly Night, which I still have to get around to) is a cheaply made horror movie revolving around an abandoned mansion in Massachusetts. If I cared one bit about spoiling this thing, I wouldn't tell you that the mansion used to be an asylum, a fact which only comes out in a flashback making up the majority of the movie's last act, nor would I let it slip that the asylum's supposedly dead owner is actually less dead than everyone supposes. But if didn't reveal all that, this review would be absurdly short, so you see my dilemma. Before they reveal the mansion or town's dark history, we're treated to a Psycho-style bait-and-switch. A big city lawyer comes to town with his mistress (the movie makes a point of having him call home at one point, in case we didn't know he was married) to offer some of the locals a chance to

A Special Black Friday Message from Mainlining Christmas

Image
From all of us here at Mainlining Christmas, we'd like to wish you and your loved ones a Happy Black Friday. Remember who makes the season possible while you're macing a crowd of strangers tomorrow.

My Little Pony Friendship is Magic: Hearth's Warming Eve (2011)

Image
YAY PONIES! This is an unusual sort of Christmas episode. Since Equestria has no relation to Earth, their midwinter festival is a bit different. It’s a holiday in honor of the founding of their land, and the friendship between the different sub-types of ponies. It’s clearly a Christmas-type holiday, though, complete with garlands, ribbons, bells, and a story from long-ago. The main plot is that the characters are starring in a holiday pageant in Canterlot which dramatizes the story of the founding of Equestria. Most of the episode is this story-within-a-story, dramatizing the legend of the original leaders of the Unicorn, Pegasus and Earth clans. It’s about how their differences nearly destroy Equestria before it starts, but then their friendship saves the day. The warmth of their friendship drives away windigos, evil ice-creatures that feed on hatred and come close to starving all the ponies in an endless winter. I kind of love that under the ‘friendship’ story, it’s a classic w

Welcome Back

Welcome back. I type those words, but they're misleading: none of us ever really left. How could we, with the Christmas season slowly stretching towards eternity ? No, we've been here all along, keeping the yule log burning, the eggnog pouring, and the DVD player humming. But, still, we've crossed a threshold. Black Friday's Eve is upon us once more, with turkey, mashed potatoes, throngs of screaming shoppers trampling each other to death, and cranberry sauce. A lot of people don't like cranberry sauce, but I've always been a fan of the stuff. This year brings us something special. Well, really, it brings more of the same. But when the same refers to endless Christmas specials and a never-ending supply of holiday music, well... that's pretty special in its own right, isn't it? You may be wondering what we still have left to watch after three years of this blog. If so, you're a poor, misguided fool with no conception of the depth this holiday

Frozen (2013)

Image
Cards on the table here: Lindsay and I don't agree on whether this even qualifies for the blog. She thinks it's not a Christmas movie because it technically takes place in the summer, has nothing to do with Christmas, and never once mentions the holidays by name. And those are valid points. But here's where I'm coming from: I'm looking at a movie with five main characters where one's a talking snowman and another is a reindeer. A full 40% of the leads are Christmas tropes. "Are there bells?" you may ask. Yes - hanging ice bells that the reindeer gets tangled in. "But does the reindeer appear to fly ?" you'll respond. There is a scene where the reindeer leaps over a ravine that's reminiscent of flight. Let's add this all up: xMY = (1.25 Talking Snowmen * Reindeer * Winter Wonderland)  / (No Santa * No X-Mas mention) If I'm doing the calculations right, that still comes out to 2.71 megayules, which is well above th

The Sequel

So, they're making a sequel to It's a Wonderful Life . The actress who played the kid in the original is going to be an angel this time (I'm not sure whether she's playing a different character or if Zuzu met some unfortunate fate and is returning from the great beyond). Regardless, she's assigned to the grandson of George Bailey, and the twist is that she's making a case against his life. In other words, the world actually would have been better off if he'd never been born. I'm of two minds about this. On one hand, it's a better premise than simply redoing the original. In fact, when I don't think too hard about it, it seems like a great premise. The problem is that, when you invert It's a Wonderful Life, you wind up with A Christmas Carol. The angel is demonstrating to the lead that he's lived his life poorly in order to get him to change his ways: sound familiar? In fact, it's so similar, you'd almost think that It's