Mainlining Christmas

You might think a direct-to-video sequel to A Christmas Story would have no chance of living up to the original, but I thought it was a worthy successor. Granted, I consider the original one of the most overrated pieces of crap ever produced, but I think it says something that WB's home entertainment division was able to meet the same level of quality. Specifically, it says they're two-bit hacks who could barely figure out which way to point the camera, and even then I spent most of movie wishing they'd get that wrong and save me from at least a scene or two of utter agony. Watching this on DVD is enough to make one nostalgic for the days of televised movies, where you at least get the soothing respite of a commercial break to dull the pain. A Christmas Story 2 , referred to in its trailer as  A Christmas Story 2: The Official Sequel is set 6 years after the original, and Ralph is about to turn 16. If such a thing is possible, the plot is slightly less defined than it

Let’s start with something positive: this movie is better than any of the Home Alone films. That is to say, it isn’t terrible, but don’t look so surprised-I’m not saying it was good either. The people who worked on this were stuck adapting Richie Rich, but I guess the best way to handle it is to do what they did and just embrace the insanity. The sets are insane, the characters way over-the-top, and the plot ridiculous. The movie opens with Richie’s first Christmas, just to establish that his parents planted a special Christmas tree for him in their front yard. Fast forward to the ‘present’, and Richie is excited to go play with his friends on Christmas Eve. He races down a bunch of endless hallways, taking and leaving bits of outerwear with an endless row of servants seemingly without any rhyme or reason, and then he and his friends race about in some fancy snowmobiles, only to have their fun cut short by Richie’s social obligations. Ducking his responsibilities, Richie goes

Still on the lookout for last minute gifts? This little lady is just three bucks at Target this year. Monster High dolls are VERY popular, and thus they're expanding rapidly from the original doll line into every conceivable bit of merchandise. These little Christmas-themed figurines aren't fantastic quality, but again, they're only three bucks. The back of the package shows all the choices. Each one is an established Monster High character, with a few appropriate holiday-themed additions. I chose Abbey because she already had a bit of a winter theme, being an abominable snowwoman and all. It's just a short step to give her a little holly and her friend there a Santa hat to make her a Christmas character. She stands about 3 inches tall, and is permanently attached to her base, which features the Monster High logo. The paint work is far from perfect, but I've seen much worse on things this size.  The snowflake piece is made of flexi

Do you remember the scene in the first Home Alone movie where Kevin tied a bucket of paint to a rope and swung it at the robbers? Have you ever stopped to consider what the entire movie would have been like from the perspective of the paint inside the bucket? I mean, I assume it would have started absolutely still and sat that way for hours on end, before being slightly jostled. Then, a few hours later, it would have sloshed around, before splashing against the wall. Finally, it would have settled again. Mostly, it would have just been still. It would probably have dried a little as the movie progressed. Not a lot and certainly not quickly, but an imperceptible quantity of paint would have dried up. While that's not the plot of the fifth Home Alone movie, I think it offers a nice encapsulation of the experience of sitting through the film. That's another way of saying this movie isn't as shockingly awful as its predecessors. And that this improvement is a very, ver

This movie can best be described as a pretentious art film trying to masquerade as a cult hit. The vast majority is in black and white and attempts to duplicate science fiction films from the 50's and 60's. They actually did this pretty well, setting aside the copious cursing. Oh, and the marching band with vaginas for heads. Sorry. Probably should have put a *spoiler* warning before that. At any rate, most of the visuals were in line with old movies. Based on still images, you could even be convinced you were getting ready to watch something campy or at least interesting. Instead, imagine a dimly-lit empty corridor made to look like a 60's SF set. Now imagine someone walking down it slowly while looking downcast. That's about two-thirds of the movie. God! I'm sorry. Again, I forgot that *spoiler* warning. There's very little narrative glue holding this together, and it's a bit of a stretch calling the malformed story line a plot at all. With tha

This year, I am taking on The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, a 674 page tome containing 59 individual stories about the Christmas season. Conveniently, it’s broken up into blog-post sized sections. Here’s the seventh post, section nine. A Puzzling Little Christmas Sister Bessie , Cyril Hare - Not bad. Not awesome. Somewhat expected tragic twist. That’s the Ticket , Mary Higgins Clark - Ha. Not a bad little story, cute resolution. Death on the Air , Ngaio Marsh - Fine resolution, pace was a bit off. The Thirteenth Day of Christmas , Isaac Asimov - Super cute bit of fluff. The Christmas Kitten , Ed Gorman - A lot of buildup for not much substance. The Santa Claus Club , Julian Symons - *snurk* the butler did it, naturally. These were a little bit of a let down after the last section, but most of these stories were still pretty decent. Similar to the “Surprising” section, all of these stories had at least a bit of a twist or a reveal near the end. “Sister Bessie” follo

For the last week and a half leading up to Christmas, we're posting a "Nerdtivity" scene every night at midnight. Tonight's picture features spacecraft* from six different geeky properties - go ahead and look. Five are pretty obvious, but I'll be impressed if you can spot the sixth. *Okay, so technically the Batwing isn't a spaceship. But it counts anyway, because Batman can breathe in space .