Mainlining Christmas

Love Actually is to romantic comedies what absinthe is to spirits. It represents the essence of a genre distilled to a point where it no longer tastes likes a romantic comedy, but even in small doses will still mess with your head. For better and for worse, Love Actually does not come packaged in small doses. This clocks in at around two hours and fifteen minutes. While I did enjoy the movie on this viewing, I would have thanked its editor for amputating forty-five minutes of that. I say "this viewing," because this is the second time I saw the film. I didn't care for it much after the first, though I slid it into that rare category of movies I didn't like but thought were quite good. I was actually someone distressed to find myself enjoying it this time, as I like having a handful of movies fitting that description I can whip out in conversation. Love Actually is about love. The theme is "love." The plot is "love." The characters are a...

Let me preface this one by saying that I'm not sure the final product is more horrifying than the original figurines.  Here's what I bought: Scary, right? I added some sculpture with Crayola Model Magic. This was a bit of an experiment, but it worked okay. I had to use super glue to reattach the dried pieces to the little ceramic figures, though. After some layers of paint and gloss, here's the final results: Aww, now they're cute little tentacled monstrosities from beyond space!  Much improved, I think.

Hey, did you guys know there's a tipline on the right of the page you can use to email us suggestions of things we should watch? Yeah, we didn't, either. Well, one of our readers found it and convinced us to try something she loved when she was young. Thanks for the suggestion, Loquin. And, uh... sorry in advance for the damage to your childhood memories. This is the 1986, made-for-TV re-imagining of Babes in Toyland , starring Drew Barrymore, Keanu Reeves, and Pat Morita. It is bad. Astonishingly bad, in fact. But, between the iconic statuses its leads would go on to achieve and the utter lack of talent behind the camera, it's kind of hilarious. The producers must not have believed in the source material, which has been heavily modified. To their credit, the premise of Babes in Toyland is utter crap. However, the logical reaction would be not to adapt it, rather than trying to shoehorn in the frame story from The Wizard of Oz . Drew Barrymore, 11 in 1986, is essen...

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 .

Back in 1982, there was an animated series based on Pac-Man. You might think there's not enough material to justify an entire series, but I can assure you that's a faulty opinion: there wasn't even enough to fill a single episode. The episode begins with Pac-Man and family going out for a sleigh ride. It's Christmas Eve, but they have no idea since no one in PacLand has heard of the holiday. They run into some ghost monsters, which they drive back with snowballs before eating power-pellets and "chomping" them. I should add that "chomping" is a very popular activity in PacLand. The ghost monsters (I'm not sure why they're "ghost monsters" instead of "ghosts," but the show seems adamant) are obsessed with "chomping" Pac-Man. More on this later. Between getting chomped and putting on new ghost outfits, the floating ghost-eyes run into Santa Claus and inadvertently spook his reindeer and cause him to crash. B...

I just posted a review of a Christmas novelty toy we found on clearance in a gift shop. Check it out now and enjoy repeats in your worst nightmares:

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...