Mainlining Christmas

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...

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...

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...

The original Prep & Landing continues to rank among my all-time favorite holiday specials. I love the way it reimagines Christmas elves through the lens of secret agents and high-pressure missions, building to a tense climax with stakes that feel important while still remaining within the scale of the story. Likewise, while Operation Secret Santa was only a short, it manages to capture the magic of the original, giving us the excitement of a life-or-death spy movie in the package of a sweet Christmas cartoon. Good stuff. After that, we got Naughty vs. Nice , a full-length special that sort of abandoned the tone of the original. There are still some good moments in there, but it's missing the sense of suspense. It's more a kid's cartoon playing with spy movie concepts, while the first two were legitimate spy stories told within a world of Christmas specials. But at least it remembered its roots. The third special in the series, The Snowball Protocol (directed by Shane ...

On one level, I appreciate what directors Zac Moncrief and Steve Trenbirth, as well as writer Jon Colton Barry (who co-wrote this with Moncrief), were trying to pull off here. These are all industry professionals - Moncrief and Barry are both veterans of Phineas and Ferb, which almost certainly ranks somewhere on the top ten list of animated series of the last twenty-five years - so this isn't going to be a by-the-numbers exercise in bland, inoffensive kid's media. You can tell they wanted to subvert expectations, push boundaries, and create something with a bit of an edge to the humor. And, again, they have experience in that department. I thought about that a lot while I watched A Chuck E. Cheese Christmas, the new 50-minute special currently streaming in a couple spots (including free on YouTube, in case there was any doubt this was financed as some sort of marketing promotion). I also thought a lot about the writing and the jokes, because... I think the writing might be oka...

I probably don't need to tell you what Poker Face is, but in the unlikely case someone finds this review in a couple decades, here goes: this series, created by Rian Johnson and starring Natasha Lyonne, is a throwback to episodic mystery-of-the-week detective shows in the vein of Columbo or Murder She Wrote, combined with a healthy mix of related genre tropes drawn from movies. The gimmick here is that Lyonne's character, Charlie, isn't a detective, nor does she have any professional expertise or background connected to the subject matter. Instead, she has a virtually superhuman ability to detect lies. The show is, in no particular order, bizarre, funny, and absolutely fantastic.  Consider that a recommendation for the series as a whole. This is good stuff, and if you're not already watching... actually, scratch that: you're probably already watching this. So... keep doing that, I guess. With that covered, let's talk about "One Last Job," a rare entry ...

I feel like I have to start this review by saying I don't know anything about the Jonas Brothers, and I don't think I could name a single one of their songs. I'm not stating that up front to be negative or confrontational: I just don't want anyone thinking that my recommendation for this is in any way connected to me being a fan or something - I'm not. It's just... this is a good movie. I didn't expect that. Hell, I didn't expect it to be good or for it to be a real movie. And yet it's both: a musical comedy that emphasizes the comedy, to the point it borders on parody but stops just short of crossing over the line into farce. It walks right up to that line, though, allowing the title characters to play comically exaggerated versions of themselves who are the butt of the movie's jokes but avoid faltering into unlikability. In that respect, the movie's a choreographed balancing act that could have - and by rights probably should have - gone ho...

It's weird Netflix dropped this in April, right? Particularly after having so much success with Carry-On last year (assuming their reporting can be trusted), you'd expect they'd want to hold something like this over to December and try to build a reputation as a service providing Christmas action flicks. Perhaps executives felt Havoc's less-than-jolly ending wouldn't play as well in the holiday season, or maybe there were business reasons for wanting to get Gareth Evans's film out as soon as possible. But whatever the logic, it strikes me as odd that they had a Christmas movie starring Tom Hardy, Forest Whitaker, and Timothy Olyphant directed by the guy behind The Raid movies and couldn't see the value in putting it out during that season. I should note I didn't love The Raid movies. I know, I know: heresy, but I feel I should be upfront about these things. Now that I've killed my credibility among fans of that genre, I'll say I actually did lik...

Novocaine is, at least on a surface level, a high-concept action/comedy about a timid man physically unable to experience pain turning his disability into a superpower in order to rescue his girlfriend after she's taken hostage by a group of bank robbers. I say "surface level," because the movie's focus is fixed as much on the character journey of its protagonists as on the comically brutal sequences you'd expect from that premise. Though before we get into that... Okay, first of all, I like this movie overall - I'd give an at least tentative recommendation. However, part of me is a little uncomfortable with the premise. CIPA, the condition the movie's hero supposedly has, is real (though the film conveniently leaves out details such as the inability to sweat and associated health issues). You can read about it here - it's terrifying. The movie does pay lip service to some of the more frightening aspects of the rare condition (the possibility of bleed...