Mainlining Christmas

Camp Candy was, apparently, an animated series where John Candy voices a character based on himself at a fictitious summer camp he runs. I don't recall ever having seen or heard of this series before in my life, though if I still remember this episode an hour from now, I'll be both surprised and disappointed. The Christmas in July episode opens the same way Wikipedia assures me every episode in this series starts, with Candy trying to teach the kids a sport, leading to a flashback of something that happened earlier in the summer. This is portrayed as a story being told by Candy, though it's unclear why he's telling the kids about an adventure they were present for. It's also unclear how he's able to provide descriptions and commentary for other characters' dream sequences. Actually, this episode features dreams within dreams within a story. But don't get excited: it was all crap. Once we're firmly entrenched within a flashback, the kids and C

Christmas in July is an extremely odd black & white comedy written and directed by Preston Sturges, who adapted it from a play he wrote in the 1930's, which wouldn't actually be produced on stage until 1988. Astonishingly, all of that is less convoluted than the movie's plot. That isn't a criticism (though I will have a few later on) - the movie's refusal to follow convention makes it more interesting than most comedies I've seen from the period. Apparently, Sturges is remembered as something of experimental filmmaker, testing his boundaries and playing with structure in his comedies, at least if I'm understanding the Wikipedia article I just skimmed. That certainly seems fair: Christmas in July definitely played with expectation, tone, and theme. The story centers on Jimmy, a young man interested in advertising who has entered a contest to create a slogan for a coffee company. The contest carries a twenty-five thousand dollar prize, but the movie

YOU WON! Yes you, you lucky people. What did you win? MORE CHRISTMAS. It’s July, and this year we’ve decided that 32 days of holidays in the winter just aren’t enough, so we’re bringing you some special Christmas in July content. According to Wikipedia , “Christmas in July” has a few different contexts: First, starting in the 1930s, some American summer camps would hold a special Christmas in July celebration, including decorations, presents, and Santa. Second, places in the Southern Hemisphere where July is the middle of winter sometimes hold bonus Christmas in July parties to make up for the fact that it’s boiling hot on December 25th. Third, and perhaps most familiar to us, it’s a lovely excuse for a sale at a time when marketers are stuck in a lull between the Fourth of July and the Back to School season. We may touch on all these areas, or not. It’s summer, we’re not making too many promises. Maybe we’ll go to the beach and send you pictures of starfish photoshop

Home is a CG science fiction comedy from last year that’s ambiguously a Christmas movie. It’s loosely based on the 2007 novel, The True Meaning of Smekday . It’s not a clear enough example to be covered in the normal season, but we felt it deserved a spot in our archives. We’re trying something a little different on this one: instead of posting a review written by one of us, we’re presenting this as a discussion. Let us know what you think of the format: we're thinking of adding it to our standard repertoire. Erin: Let’s start with the story. The movie is set immediately after the events of a disappointingly bloodless alien invasion where the human race is transported to Australia. A girl’s left behind, and she befriends an outcast alien who’s inadvertently endangered the planet by sending a party evite to another alien race. The girl’s trying to find her mom, and the alien’s trying to undo the damage he’s done. You get the idea. Unlike me, you actually read the book. How

I'd hoped to get to this by Christmas, but the eighth day didn't reach me in time. I just got it today (12/26), so I'm wrapping up this article and posting it now. I've only played Cards Against Humanity once, and I'd describe the experience as somewhat mixed. Cards Against Humanity is an intentionally offensive card game where players try win points by shocking or disturbing each other. I don't actually own a copy of the game though I do now have an expansion (more on this later). This promotion ostensibly has nothing at all to do with the game, though. The company advertised that, for fifteen dollars, they'd send people eight "sensible" gifts over the month of December. While I'm not a huge fan of the game, I've been extremely impressed with other promotions the company has done over the years, so I signed up. I honestly had no idea what to expect. I hoped for something fascinating but half expected eight pairs of socks. N

It was a close one this year, what with the Grinch armed with a machine gun holding Santa Claus hostage in the old McCallister home. For a while there, it looked like Christmas might have to be cancelled. But some quick thinking from Dooley and the Christmas Narwhal saved the day, and... You know what? I don't need to recap this. You caught the news last night; you know the gifts were delivered, the Grinch is safely back in Arkham, and Santa Claus destroyed that asteroid before it reached orbit. We don't need to go over all the details or spend more time mourning Donner. What matters is Christmas 2015 came on schedule, and - aside from a few mishaps - it was a merry one. Here at Mainlining Christmas, we spent the season as we always do, force-feeding ourselves holiday cheer. Overall, our slate of movies was surprisingly good this year: we really weren't expecting that. That's not all, though. We hung out with reindeer, marveled at sculptures of Christmas dinosa

It seems like it was just Black Friday last week. Even though we crammed a lot of holiday cheer into this season, our list-of-things-to-watch is only getting longer. As I mentioned this year, researching one holiday special keeps leading us to more and more. Netflix sees our patterns and recommends more Christmas-themed stuff. We buy obscure movies and specials all year long whenever we find them cheap. So don’t worry about us running out of material anytime soon. The thing that most surprised me this year was how many honestly enjoyable, quality movies we watched. Some of the highlights of this year for me were: Meet Me in St. Louis - a classic movie musical, expertly crafted and gorgeously filmed The Apartment - another classic, this one quietly subversive, biting, and extremely clever 8 Women - a french film about family, anger, passion, and the judgement of women by women Mrs. Santa Claus - a sweet family musical about feminism and social justice in the 1910s, s