Mainlining Christmas

I'm still a little unclear what we just sat through. I understood the basics, of course. It was an episode of a reality show about a wealthy family who somehow managed to catapult themselves into cultural relevancy without offering anything of real value - no art, no philanthropy, nothing but a series detailing their attempts to stay in the public eye. But I don't understand why it was put on television, or why anyone turned it on. Was it some kind of a freak show? The editing seemed to portray the Kardashians that way, though it's difficult to make that assessment after just one episode (and I have no intention of ever sitting through another). It was an hour and five minutes, and that's without commercials - God, how I longed for the sweet respite of a merciful commercial break. Every time the streaming paused to buffer was a gift. A GIFT. Are they really as vapid as they seemed, or were they simply acting like dimwitted socialites for the camera? I have no idea

I can't even remember for sure where we caught the trailer for this thing. It was some DVD or another. At any rate, we saw this starred Harry Connick, Jr., Kris Kristofferson, and Willie Nelson, and were morbidly curious what that combination would yield in a low-budget family-friendly Christmas dramedy. The plot centers around Connick's character, a middle-aged college professor with a vendetta against the holidays. Turns out, when he was a kid, his brother died after saving his life on a lake they were skating on with their new Christmas skates. The flashback scene depicting this, incidentally, was  hilarious . At any rate, he's a father now, and his son, who's about the same age he was when he lost his brother, loves Christmas. He wants to spend the holiday with his grandparents, presumably because his grandfather used to hunt vampires with Blade, but his dad's too horrified with the whole thing. Meanwhile, their family needs a new house. After narrowly

Aww, Sofia. I wanted you to be fun. I wanted you to be clever. I like the idea of a Ur-princess narrative. But you were only sticky-sweet and not-too-terrible. Sofia the First is an animated series from Disney Junior, about a girl whose mother marries into the royal family of a fairy-tale kingdom. According to Wikipedia, she is the bearer of a mystic amulet that connects her to advice from other Disney princesses. In this episode, we're introduced to their traditional winter-gift-giving holiday: Wassailia! It's a fairly simple fantasy Christmas. There are presents, decorated evergreen trees, and traditional foods. The most prominent point unique to Wassailia is the lighting of a special candle in honor of the season that...it's not quite clear, but it seems to bring blessings on the family. The kids (Sofia and her step-siblings James and Amber) sing about how they celebrate the holiday to open the episode. Sofia is excited for her first Wassailia in the castle, but

There are the Christmas episodes you seek out, then there are the ones you trip over. I've been slowly making my way through the series, Wilfred , and I stumbled across a holiday episode in season 3. First a few words about the series. More specifically, this is the American remake of an Australian show with the same name. It follows Ryan, played by Elijah Wood, a disturbed former lawyer who perceives his neighbor's dog as a grown man in a dog suit. Just describing the bizarre premise doesn't do the series justice. This is far stranger and darker than it sounds. It regularly delves into existential questions, as Ryan attempts to determine whether his experiences are mystical in nature or if he's simply losing his mind. The series's tone oscillates between dark comedy and psychological horror. This episode is surprisingly restrained, though it ventures into some dark territory. It's Christmas, and Ryan's family is reuniting for the first time in years

All is Bright centers around a paroled thief played by Paul Giamatti, who returns to his home in Quebec to discover his wife is seeing his best friend (Paul Rudd). She's told his daughter that he died of cancer, and doesn't want her to learn otherwise. Despite being furious with his friend, Giamatti's character approaches him for a job. Together, they drive to New York City to sell a truckload of Christmas trees. It sounds like a premise with some comic potential, but the movie goes in a different direction. It's generally described as a dark comedy, but it doesn't really fit in that category. It has a handful of jokes - some of which are hilarious - but they're few and far between. For the most part, the movie skews closer to drama. This is a Christmas movie about poverty and desperation. It's about people who want to put their lives back together, but have no real chance of succeeding. Even if the world wasn't completely apathetic to their situa

People have been telling me I have to play the Arkham games since the first one was released. For years, I've heard that they were fantastic, that they offered the experience of being Batman, that the writing and voice acting were great, and so on and so forth. But I just ignored them, not because I thought they were wrong, but because I was worried they might be right. Then, last year, I heard something about the third game in the series that made me pay attention. The story is entirely set on a single night when eight assassins are hired to try and kill Batman. And that night is December 24th. I knew it was just a matter of time. That time, incidentally, was the duration it took for Steam to mark Arkham Origins down to $7.49 during one of their ridiculously amazing sales. I bought it and set out to experience the holiday-fueled mayhem. A few words of warning before I continue. I am not remotely qualified to review video games. I certainly played my share back in the d

Christmas is past, but we're still working our way through a backlog of online holiday shorts. The Brain Scoop is a Youtube series hosted by Emily Graslie, the Field Museum of Natural History's "Chief Curiosity Correspondent," a custom-made title that makes a lot more sense after you watch a few episodes. The series is sort of a science education show on speed. It delivers everything you loved about shows like Bill Nye, but doesn't dumb down the subject matter. The show feels like it's primarily aimed at adults who grew up watching PBS, though - for the most part - the subject matter's appropriate for kids, as well. This episode focuses on various decorative Christmas plants, with a focus on toxicity levels and side effects. If that doesn't sound awesome to you, I don't know what you're doing on this blog.

I found the final Matt Smith Doctor Who episode to be engaging, though it lacked a satisfying payoff. That is to say, it's a good example of his entire run. Fortunately, it was a Christmas special, so I can discuss it here. Oh, and just so no one complains later, discussing it will include details. So then. Spoiler. Warning. Got it? Good. They certainly went to great pains to establish this as Christmas-related. The doctor follows an unknown transmission to a planet besieged by all his enemies. Once he gets down, he finds a town named Christmas. They play with this quite a bit: there are no shortage of lines about how the Doctor is protecting or saving Christmas. This is in addition to a Christmas dinner playing out in Clara's apartment in the present. In some ways, a Christmas special is the perfect time for a regeneration, at least from a symbolic standpoint. They play with this, as well: the days in Christmas are almost impossibly short. In the town, he come

Our never-ending quest for the shiniest sparkliest Christmas-ness brought us, in time, to the Evergreen Community Church in Bothell, WA. This is the second year they have hosted a synchronized light show for the holidays. You walk through a pretty cool tunnel to get to the viewing area. (The guy at the end is handing out candy canes.) A sign on site said that the tunnel alone contains 7,600 lights. There's a little side display with trees and reindeer that's pretty cute. Inside the building pictured is a train set, some informational signs, a place to donate to the YMCA, and free snacks: cider, hot chocolate and cookies.  But the real show is the front of the church itself. 270 independently controlled sections of lights, 2 miles of extension cords, 2 "Mega Trees" with 12,800 lights each... Enjoy some excerpts: All in all, it was a damn fine display!

We had never seen an episode of Grimm before this. From this viewing, it’s… okay. I mean, it’s a quirky procedural, spin the dial and land on a quirky procedural these days. A show like this depends on viewers getting invested in its particular set of actors/characters and its particular gimmick. Without that investment, it’s just a mediocre mash up of tropes from X-Files and Buffy about a guy pretending to be a cop in between monster hunting. The monster of this week is Krampus, which we were excited to see. While the visual design is very nice, the plot is sort of blah. The episode opens with a couple of punk kids stealing presents, then Krampus sneaks up on them under a bridge. He snags one, but the other is just injured and hides in a car. Cut to the next morning, when the cops are investigating a dead kid. Only the kid isn’t dead. He’s really, obviously, not dead. This is the point where we started to really doubt the professionalism of the emergency responders on this s

This one's short - very short. And that's a shame, because I could really watch hours of this. It features very fantastic character design, beautiful stop-motion animation, and an awesome spin on Krampus. The short is between 50 seconds and five minutes long, depending on how many times you re-watch it. Enjoy! "A Krampus Christmas" eCard from Screen Novelties on Vimeo .

In my search for more holiday cheer, I heard that there is a street in Ravenna (a neighborhood here in Seattle) which goes all out for Christmas. Looks promising. Now, the big thing you have to know about this is how busy it was. It's a small, residential street, and you can either drive through or park nearby and walk. It was around 9 p.m. on a Saturday when we stopped by, and the line of cars to get there was blocks and blocks long. We parked and walked. Almost all the houses had pretty cute decorations. Giant candy canes and the word "peace" in many languages were prominently featured. The most impressive bit was the centerpiece, a 'carousel' around a hedge: In motion: The houses were very cute, although I'm not really sure why anyone would wait in that line of cars to drive through. When we left after about 15 minutes, we saw that the line had died down a little. However, some of the cars that we

Hey, look, two new holiday shorts from Simon's Cat! WHOO!

In what may be the single greatest Fox News clip ever recorded, Megyn Kelly hosts a frank discussion about race with a bunch of white people. This video is required viewing: To recap, Jesus and Santa Claus are historical figures. And they were white. This actually contradicts the prevailing view that Jesus's precise ethnicity is unknown (though probably not "white") and Santa Claus is a mythical being representing an amalgamation of figures from folklore, as well as stories about a fourth-century bishop. But according to Kelly, both are historic figures, both are white, and this is a "verifiable fact." Break out the champagne, people, because this is the best news we could have hoped for. You see, there's only one way she could possibly be that certain about Jesus's skin color: time-travel must have been invented. That's right. Time travel. Because no self-respecting journalist - really, no human with even a shred of integrity - would eve

Sarah Palin's new book is, more or less, a long-winded, nonsensical rant from someone who has absolutely no idea what she's talking about. I'll pause to let the shock sink in. The book is largely driven by a pervasive misunderstanding of the war on Christmas, who's fighting it, and what it's over. In her worldview, those fighting Christmas are offended atheists who want to push Christ out of Christmas and replace it with a Solstice festival, ceremonies venerating sun gods, and even Islamic holidays. She doesn't mention push from Jewish households - both liberal and conservative - who are bothered by the holiday's status in schools, nor does she acknowledge the sizable numbers of conservative Christians who boycott the holiday because of its pagan roots. She seems to have at least a passing familiarity with those roots. There's a brief mention that Jesus probably wasn't born on 12/25, and that the holiday's date was likely co-opted from

I stumbled across a story for this on CNN and thought it needed to be shared. This is a commercial ostensibly addressing kids. Since that's the intended audience, you should probably call them into the room if they're home. In fact, you should do that NOW, before you've viewed the video yourself to ensure it won't traumatize them for life or ruin this Christmas and future Christmases to come. I mean, if Greenpeace put this on Youtube where anyone could come across it, it must be appropriate for all ages, right? I'm going to set questions of morality, politics, and whether or not we're irreparably destroying the planet aside and focus on the video. In particular, I want to focus on this interpretation of Santa Claus. I've long been a fan of more realistic versions of Saint Nick, and this certainly fits that description. I like the actor's take here - he seems to be taking this seriously, which is a nice change of pace from what we usually get.

Let's take a moment to ponder, in all its complexity and multitude of facets, the phrase, "missed opportunity." I'm not a fan of Lady Gaga, but I respect her for what she is. I just don't really think she's a singer. It's not that she can't sing - she can. It's just that there's nothing special about her singing, and less than nothing special about her songs. Her music is generic, and her lyrics are gibberish. But that's okay, because - like I said - she's not a singer. She's a performance artist. And a damn good one, if her popularity is any indicator. Hell, she's practically a Muppet herself. She should be juggling porcupines with Gonzo - she'd be awesome at that. Why didn't she hang out with Animal or hire the Swedish Chef as a costumer? Her interactions with Miss Piggy should have been legendary, not trivial. Like I said: missed opportunity. Instead, we got an hour of her singing songs off her new album, b

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

NOS4A2 Joe Hill, 2013 Crossposted from The Blue Fairy’s Bookshelf Premise: Victoria “Vic” McQueen has a special talent: she can use her bike and a bridge that isn’t there to find lost things. Unfortunately, Charlie Manx has a talent too. Vic is the only child to escape from Manx’s one-way trip to Christmasland, but it takes more than luck to break an evil man, and every power comes with a price. I thought this book was good, but I’m not sure I actually enjoyed reading it. The tone wasn’t quite my cup of tea, and it needed to be more tightly written. Some positives: Vic herself is a great protagonist. She’s broken and flawed in completely believable and sympathetic ways. She’s brave when she has to be, even if she has to talk herself into it. The talents are interesting. Broadly and only vaguely defined, they hint at much more out of sight. The writing is quite good: the descriptions of the supernatural and creepy as well as the mundane and everyday were evocative and often p

Aint it Cool posts a weekly list of short films , which is usually worth glancing through. Like the drug stores around here, they're not waiting for Halloween to wrap up before mixing in some Christmas offerings. "M is for Merry Christmas" is only about three minutes long. It stars Krampus, a Christmas demon who really needs more exposure. It's a dark, fun little piece that's definitely worth the time. Check it out: M is for Merry Christmas from Holomax on Vimeo .