Mainlining Christmas

This surprisingly intelligent British fantasy opens a few days before Christmas. Steve is being released from prison after serving two years: he was a getaway driver in a botched robbery. All he wants is to spend some time with his son, Tom, who's terrified his father will disappoint him. After a brief argument with his mother, Tom writes a letter to Santa and places it in the fireplace (a British tradition which frankly makes a hell of a lot more sense than dropping it in a mail box). As soon as the room's empty, a gust of wind carries it up the chimney then promptly takes it to the shed behind his house. Because that's where Santa Claus is hiding out. After a test flight gone bad, he was knocked off his sleigh. His deer are lost, and he needs help. Before long, Tom finds him and gets the whole story. Santa specifically wants Steve's assistance - he remembers him from when he was a child and believes he'll be able to make things right. Tom calls his father and

Oh yay, something else from that dark time for Disney characters I mentioned in the review of Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas . I had always been sort of curious about House of Mouse, the show that this special is spinning out of, because it plays with the idea that all the Disney characters live and work together. (For other spins on this, see Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Bonkers.) However, after seeing it I feel as though I dodged a bullet by avoiding this until now. The set-up is simple: House of Mouse is always a clip-show, consisting of short cartoons bridged by a flimsy frame story set in the nightclub that Mickey and company run. This special is structured the same way. The first half-hour has three shorts, one from 1952 and two from 1999. It's astonishing that anyone was stupid enough to put these disparate pieces of animation together, because the difference in quality was so pronounced. The minute the 1952 piece started (it's one we've touched on before,

We found this at Toys R Us last weekend marked down 50%. Retail price would have been $17, and I'm not stupid enough to pay that much for a stupid musical "snow globe". But $8.50? Now that's just about precisely how stupid I am. You'll not the quotes above around the word, "snow globe." That's because, as far as I'm concerned, this isn't a snow globe. I'd contend that, to qualify for the term, a clear globe must be filled with water and flecks, and that's not what this is. Instead, they've scattered tiny styrofoam pellets that are blown around by a loud fan when this is activated. To accompany the fan, the globe loudly (extremely loudly) plays midi versions of Christmas songs. This comes with ten clips, listed on the back of the package. Unfortunately, that's all it's got - there's no Star Wars music on this thing. That seems like a missed opportunity: my guess is they didn't want to pay John Willia

Our music buying habits changed last year when Amazon added streaming music to Prime membership. We picked up a couple of new CDs this year, but for the most part new holiday tunes are pulled from digital options. While it's nowhere near as massive as last year's additions, here are the albums I'm listening to, in addition to the 50 or so holiday playlists I've assembled out of the thousands of songs we own or stream. I want to stress that these aren't intended to be full reviews in any meaningful sense: I don't consider myself qualified to review music. Instead, view these as an opportunity to appreciate the depths I'm willing to sink to in order to experience the holiday season. A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector (Various) In today's installment of horrible rich people, we've got this collection of Christmas music produced by convicted murderer, Phil Spector. Spector may be scum, but he was influential scum, thanks to his "W

This is unexpected. There's an extra gift here, and it's addressed to  you . I know we usually wait until Christmas, but it says to open now. We probably shouldn't argue. But what in the world could it be? It looks like a book. Only... I think there's more here. I was right! It's a whole bunch of books. In fact, it's ALL MY BOOKS! And you're getting them absolutely free. Well, the Kindle copies, anyway. Hey, what do you expect - paperbacks don't grow on trees. But, from now through December 26th, you can download free copies of  For Love of Children ,  Facsimile ,  A Count of Five ,  Tide of Ice , and  Tending the Fire . Get them now; read them later. And the best part of digital copies is you can keep them and still re-gift them. Just send your friends the links in lieu of a real gift and remind them it's the thought that counts.

This is the first of two ALF Christmas episodes. We actually did the second one, a double-length special , back in 2010 when we started this blog. For those of you who didn't just click on that link, let me sum up our feelings: we hated it. Despised it, in fact: it was sappy, cliche, and just plain idiotic. With those kinds of expectations, it shouldn't be a huge surprise to hear this episode from the series's first season was better than I anticipated. That's not to say it was good - but, compared to the show's more ambitious attempt, mediocre is a huge step up. It probably helped that this was earlier in the series. Just as shows with great premises and talented writers tend to get better as they go, those with uninspired concepts and weak writers have a tendency of burning through their one-note jokes almost immediately. No surprise, really. The premise of ALF is much more on display here. Gordon is an alien lacking in manners, common sense, and shame. The

If I were more charitable, I'd say this aged poorly, but I don't think that's the case. Instead, I suspect this was always boring. The series is about a successful New York attorney who moves away from the city to try and live a simpler existence as a farmer. He drags his wife along with him - she's a wealthy Hungarian immigrant who wanted to stay in New York. The show mainly uses her as comic relief, portraying her as a dimwitted fool, but at least she had the common sense to want to stay put. I've lived in New York, and it's far better than the dump they ended up in. This episode is about the husband, Oliver, wanting an old-fashioned Christmas. That's the title, premise, theme, and most of the plot synopsis. It opens with the couple shopping for a Christmas tree in New York a few years earlier. This is done mainly to establish that Oliver wants an old-fashioned Christmas, complete with a real, old-fashioned Christmas tree, unlike the flocked and/or