Mainlining Christmas

 I suppose the theme here this year was horror, but then wasn't that the theme for 2025 everywhere? Regardless, we mixed things up by starting far earlier than we ever have in the past, posting a Christmas horror movie review every day in October. I'm not planning on doing that again next year, but then again I wasn't planning on it this year, so who knows? There's certainly more than enough holiday entries in the genre to make it possible. We are planning to come back in some capacity next year, though I'm not sure what that will look like in terms of duration or frequency of reviews... or even if I want reviews to remain my focus. Over the past decade or so, I've been interested in exploring the ways that holiday media evolved, and I actually think I'm starting to get a grasp on that. At some point, I should probably consolidate those theories into a form that's intelligible. But that sounds like a "next year problem." For now, let's take...

The Merchants of Joy is a documentary looking at several families operating Christmas tree lots in Manhattan. It focuses much more on the personalities of those involved than it does on the business side, in no small part because none of those profiled were willing to open their books and reveal trade secrets. We get a little behind the scenes information surrounding the bidding process for lots, how hard it is to turn a profit, what they do during the off-season (mostly operate other seasonal stands), and that big box stores operating at low margins are an existential threat to this business. We also learn several of the sellers largely source their trees from the Pacific Northwest, which surprised me a bit (I'd have assumed Maine or Canada). But the bulk of the documentary was focused more on them as people. It all works because it's an interesting, quirky collection. The year the documentary was recorded (I'm assuming 2024) also turned out to be a significant one, as two...

This was a nice surprise. I'm not talking about the quality - I expected this to be good - but I'd more or less given up hope of ever getting a third season of this show. The first two installments streamed in 2019 and 2020 , so I assumed the promised finale was yet another victim of the pandemic. But it turns out this was either popular enough or those involved were invested, because the show's back after a five-year hiatus. That break does affect the tone, as well as the story and characters. This is no longer about a woman in her early 30s trying to sort out adulthood - when we catch up with Johanne (Ida Elise Broch), we find she's matured quite a bit in the intervening time. Well, okay, when we're first  reintroduced to her, it's en medias res , she's dressed as a giant rat, and she's frozen in place on a stage surrounded by kids. But once that teaser's done and we back up to the start of December, we find she's grown quite a bit between sea...

My best five-word description of P2 is " Turbulence in a parking garage," which could almost pass for a complete review. There's very little substance in this horror/thriller, which hinges on its ability to create psychologically believably characters and create a convincing frightening scenario... but ultimately comes up just a little short on both counts. Decent production values, a solid performance from Rachel Nichols, and some well-meaning themes prevent this from being a total loss, but the movie's merits are overshadowed by its shortcomings to a degree that's hard to overstate. The premise is about as barebones as these things get: a woman is trapped in a parking garage on Christmas Eve by the attendant, who she discovers has been stalking her. The two of them are the only characters with more than a minute or two of screentime: this is by design a barebones story meant to focus on the attendant's psychosis and her reaction. But maybe the filmmakers re...

We reviewed this twelve years ago and at the time more or less agreed with the consensus that it's a good movie, slapped a recommendation on it, and moved on. We never mentioned The Three Godfathers, because at the time we'd never seen a single adaptation or read the book ( we've rectified that since ). At some point, I picked up a copy of the film on blu-ray and dropped it in the "rewatch this soon" pile of discs sitting beside my television. That was probably three or four years ago. Last night I popped it in, hit play, and discovered a few things. First, I discovered my memories of the movies were comically inaccurate. If you'd asked me to give you a brief rundown of the plot, I'd have given you a synopsis bearing absolutely no resemblance to anything after the first ten or fifteen minutes of this movie. Second - and related - I discovered it is not, in any meaningful way, an adaptation of The Three Godfathers, but rather inspired by that story (or m...

This is another in a long line of films straddling the line between "Christmas movie" and "has Christmas in it," to the point I'm torn which bucket to drop it in. The holiday sequences don't take up a significant portion of the runtime, and seasonal elements don't really permeate the movie in ways that make it feel particularly seasonable - I probably wouldn't recommend this specifically for holiday viewing, though I would recommend it as a movie. However, the holidays are referenced enough to signal the filmmakers considered them significant, and I have some thoughts on why that might be. In fact, the use of the holidays might be the one subtle thing in an otherwise fairly unsubtle dramedy. To clarify, I'm not describing the bulk of About a Boy as unsubtle as a criticism - I liked it quite a bit. But the movie as a whole is fairly upfront about the points it's making and the ideas it's playing with. For example, it's clear from the s...

I guess you can add "Home Alone" to the growing list of Christmas movies the British do better than us. That seems to be the primary point of reference in Bad Tidings, with the caveat the protagonists are adults, not kids. Still, the premise of this TV movie centers on unlikely protagonists alone on Christmas Eve dealing with ostensibly dangerous robbers. The complication here is the heroes are engaged in a bitter feud and need to overcome their issues with each other if they want to survive the night and save their neighborhood. Oh, right: it's a neighborhood this time, rather than a house. At any rate, that's the gist. This is fusing an enemies-to-friends motif ( take your pick ) with the Home Alone home-invasion-lite template. If it had been made here a decade ago, I have no doubt it would have been awful. But the UK, for whatever reason, seems preternaturally good at this stuff, so the movie winds up delivering something funny and entertaining. It doesn't rea...

I really want to force a bunch of Hallmark executives to sit down and watch Jingle Bell Heist. Conceptually, the movie is built on a similar framework to the one used in last year's The Christmas Quest  (both also feature a Notorious-style kiss), but this delivers what Hallmark's attempt lacked: a bit of actual payoff in the genre department. Before you read this as too complimentary, I'll add that this is also within the ballpark of what Hallmark could achieve. It's a solid little Christmas romantic comedy with a significant number of heist elements, but I don't expect it to land on anyone's top 10 lists in either genre. Still, it's a good pick for anyone looking for a holiday romance delivering the warmth of Hallmark that doesn't need to adhere to every regulation regarding sex and language. So basically a lighthearted, PG-equivalent romantic holiday adventure. This was directed by Michael Fimognari, who's main claim to fame is frequently serving a...

A Mannequin for Christmas Timothy Janovsky, 2025 New Release! I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in return for an honest review.  After thoroughly enjoying a couple of this author's holiday romances last year, I was happy to give this one a shot. I was a little skeptical of the set-up, but soon won over by the consistent heart and humor.  Henry thinks he'll never find love. He feels like he'll always be that socially awkward kid who just wanted to hide away in his great-aunt's vintage shop and let the world pass him by. He had thought he had something with his only long-term boyfriend, but he was cheated on and dumped unceremoniously. In desperation, he makes a wish, and that night, one of the mannequins in the vintage shop (he now runs it) comes to life. Henry, understandably, freaks out and doesn't believe it at first, but eventually accepts that he accidentally created a person. A person who doesn't know anything, but learns fast. He names himself ...

Early this year Fresh Monkey Fiction released the third wave in their "Naughty or Nice" line of Christmas action figures, and in the process added something fans had been hoping for: reindeer ( I grabbed a couple of those, myself ). In addition to "normal" deer, they also produced a couple variants playing into the "Naughty" side of the line. One, called Rottenhoof, seems to be a companion for Zombie Santa . The other, Gorgon, isn't a deer, at all (or at least its primary head isn't), though it uses the same body. I skipped Rottenhoof due to limited display space but grabbed Gorgon. In theory, Gorgon is a demonic goat intended as a companion (or, if you shell out an extra $20 for the saddle, a mount) for Krampus. He's also got an alternate decaying reindeer head we'll get to when we talk accessories, but neither relates to why I bought this. While I don't know for certain where they drew inspiration for this character, there's a gre...

The best summation I can offer for the tone (and therefore the experience) of The Baltimorons is a cross between a '70s dramedy and When Harry Met Sally . This is an independent production from director Jay Duplass and comedian Michael Strassner. They scripted the movie together, and Strassner plays a character whose backstory is loosely based on his own life, including struggles with alcoholism, attempted suicide, and disappointment stemming from nearly making it big. There's some real drama here, but the movie finds humor within it. This is, after all, ultimately a romantic comedy, albeit one grounded in believable emotion. The leads are deeply flawed, and - like When Harry Met Sally - this understands the goal is to help them come to terms with those flaws and find a way forward together, rather than pretend they can (or should) be wiped away. All of which is a longwinded way of saying I liked it a great deal and absolutely recommend it as a funny, melancholy alternative to...

  Over the past few years I've been looking at action figures from Fresh Monkey Fiction's "Naughty or Nice" line of Christmas-themed toys. Wave 3 arrived in January of this year and for the first time included reindeer. They made four basic deer, and anyone so inclined could order two of each along with a pack of heads to round out the team (and if you wanted to get one extra, the head pack included one with a red nose, as well). That's in addition to a couple alternate versions of the deer (one of which I'll be getting around to in a later review), some optional accessories (which I decided I didn't need) as well as new variations on Santa and Krampus. The deer were around $45 each, which is about what I'd expect given the size. Or rather that's what I'd expect it to cost if it were produced by a larger toy company. I continue to be impressed with Fresh Monkey Fiction's ability to produce collectibles that don't feel like they're p...

There's virtually no information about this on its Wikipedia page, but between the fact this came out in 2022, the isolated setting, and the cast almost entirely consisting of three characters, it seems like a safe bet this was produced and filmed during the Covid lockdowns. It was ultimately released by Shudder, where it received a tepid response from viewers and critics. I can't help but suspect some of that reaction may have been due to exhaustion with minimalist productions at the time - for a few years there, it felt like everything  was made with a couple actors and a skeleton crew to comply with restrictions on crowds. In addition, horror fans tend to react poorly to non-horror movies marketed in that genre, and The Apology is ultimately more a psychological thriller. That's my guess for why this didn't get a better response at the time, because I thought this was quite good as a suspenseful character drama. Just be warned it goes to some dark places... though it...

We probably should have watched this back in 2021. We must have run out of time or something. Or maybe we deprioritized it on the grounds it felt a year late - this Netflix-produced Hallmark-style Christmas romantic comedy constructed around a same-sex couple was released on the heels of several similar high-profile entries from Hulu , Lifetime , and (with caveats) even Hallmark , all of which delivered in this sub-sub-genre a year earlier. And while Single All the Way may be the first gay Christmas romantic comedy produced by Netflix (I've seen that honor bestowed upon it in several places), it's certainly not the first of its kind released  by the streamer. The distinction between in-house productions and acquisitions may mean something to executives, but to those of us watching, it's hard to differentiate between something like this and, say, A New York Christmas Wedding , which came out on Netflix in 2020. Okay, maybe not that hard: Single All the Way is, by virtuall...