Mainlining Christmas

"Peace on Earth" is an animated short from 1939. It was made by Hugh Harman, one of the founders of the Warner Bros. animation studios. "Goodwill to Men" is a remake made by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera fourteen years later. The two pieces are extremely similar, so I'll talk about them together. As works of animation, these are beyond topnotch. "Peace on Earth," in particular, is absolutely breathtaking. If this had been made a half-century later, it would still have been cutting edge. The remake is also great. You can drop every association you have with Hanna-Barbera: this is beautiful work. Both versions were clearly labors of love, stories the animators and directors clearly believed needed to be told. If you've never seen these, the fact they exist is utterly shocking. In fact, if you've never seen either of these - and especially if you've never heard of them - you owe it to yourself to stop reading and watch the original. I

This is a Christmas dramedy starring Anna Kendrick. It's a small movie, focused on a handful of characters and their relationships. The dialogue was improvised, which results in very believable interactions. There's less a story than a premise behind the picture. A woman in her twenties who's just broken up with a boyfriend goes to stay with her older brother, his wife, and their infant for the holidays. Obviously, the younger sister's irresponsible nature creates conflict, but they sidestep sitcom shenanigans. Instead, we're shown the fundamental disconnect between someone still fixated on what happened and grown-ups more concerned with what could have happened. There are a handful of other factors. The wife's desire to write more, the brother's attempt to juggle the various aspects of his life, and the sister's issues coming to terms with her new life. None of it really slides together in much of a story, but that's kind of the point. The cha

Here's a BONUS Nerdtivity for you. It's relatively straightforward, but at least now we know the answer to one of the Universe's greatest mysteries.

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. This is post eight, section ten, the end! A Classic Little Christmas The Flying Stars , G. K. Chesterton - Oh, I actually quite liked this. Christmas Party , Rex Stout - Really good except for the unfortunate racism. The Raffles Relics , E. W. Hornung - Unlike others starring a ‘classic character’, it makes me want to read more about the character. The Price of Light , Ellis Peters - Definitely a favorite in this book. Classic Cadfael: just lovely and sweet and Christmassy. A Present for Santa Sahib , H.R.F. Keating - Odd. I guess it could be charming in some lights. Not sure about the dialect.. The Christmas Train , Will Scott - A charming crook fools the police. Not amazing but decent. Markheim , Robert Louis Stevenson - Huh. takes a while to get going and the language is

First of all, I'm pleased to report that our first Nerdtivity, Away Team in a Manger, has won the democratic portion of the Nerdtivity contest . Victory is ours! Today's Nerdtivity is inspired by my all-time favorite video game, Super Smash Bros. Melee. They should really include this level in the next version. In case anyone's wondering, all the Nerdtivity scenes we're posting were done without digital alteration beyond cropping and/or minor color correction. All objects were physically present at the time the image was taken. I know I said we were going to do one a day, but got a little carried away creating Nerdtivities and ran out of days to present them. To that end, we're adding three bonus Nerdtivities to tomorrow's schedule. Look for them throughout the day.

First off, a disclaimer: I have never before in my life seen an episode of Doogie Howser, M.D . I knew of it later, when NPH hit the spotlight, but didn't hear much when it was on. Can anyone tell me why the theme song is MIDI? It’s… I can‘t explain it. Anywho, we’ll take the premise as presented in the opening: kid genius becomes a doctor, deals with being both a practicing physician and a teenager. I don’t know whether that’s the plot of every episode, but ot was the plot of this one. The episode opens with a lot of establishing material: Doogie (I’m sorry, side note. I cringe every time I type this. It’s terrible. Why on Gaea’s green earth would anyone call another human being Doogie when they weren’t actively shoving said person into a locker at the same moment? Okay, we’re back.) talks a lot of medicine and runs about being efficient and reminding the audience that he’s good at his job and his colleagues like him. I was actually surprised and happy to see that he’s j

The title of Brazil is drawn from its theme song, despite the fact the movie is not set in Brazil, and the nation of Brazil has absolutely no bearing on the movie, nor is it even mentioned. It should be noted that they considered several alternative titles while the movie was in development, and - miraculously - Brazil seems to have been the best they thought of. You can read a bunch of the others on Wikipedia . If I could be so bold, I might suggest calling this the Metropolis Christmas Special, which is how I'm going to think of it from now on. Recently, I found this on a couple of lists of science fiction Christmas movies, which surprised me, since I didn't recall it having taken place at Christmas. Granted, it's been more than a decade since I saw this, and I didn't think much of it at the time. For years, my summation was simply: any ten minutes of Brazil is gorgeous, but there's no reason to watch more than that. Maybe I'm just mellowing as I age,