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Cirque du Soleil: Fire Within: Christmas (2002)

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This was a Canadian reality television show about several Cirque du Soleil performers in Montreal. I expect the part of that sentence that leapt out at you was "Cirque du Soleil". Sadly, the part you should be focusing on is "Canadian reality television," which - judging by this - is roughly analogous to a PBS documentary about the production and distribution of toothpicks. Perhaps this series would be better seen from the beginning. Or perhaps the Christmas episode was unusually dull. But, whatever the reason, this was far more boring than you'd imagine anything about people performing in a Cirque could possibly be. By its nature, the plot was extremely thin. Several characters appeared, but I only recall two threads that could even generously be called "plots". To be fair, I could easily be forgetting something, as the episode has almost entirely faded from my mind in the five minutes that passed between watching it and writing this review. F

Book Review: Ho-Ho-Homicide

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Ho-Ho-Homicide Kaitlyn Dunnett, 2014 (Note: Many of the Christmas books I am reading this year have one notable thing in common -- they were all cheap or free on Kindle some time in the last few years. No other qualifications.) Premise: When Liss’ old friend Gina blows into town with a request concerning an inherited Christmas tree farm, Liss thinks it’s a good opportunity for a casual vacation. It’s been years since she stumbled into a murder investigation, after all. This is a perfectly serviceable mystery novel. The characters are fine, the writing is good, the plot is interesting even though the villains are too obvious. The best part is the fact that it is set on a Christmas tree farm. It actually takes place in late November, and Liss and her husband are tasked with figuring out whether Gina can turn a profit that year, and eventually with figuring out what happened to the previous owner and an unknown man killed on the property years ago. Some of the minutia of grow

Vinylux Recycled Record Coasters

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Every now and then, Barnes & Noble will try to unload their old crap by marking it down by 50%. When that doesn't work, they push it to 75%, and when that fails, they let everything go for $2, regardless of its original price. I'll let you take one guess where these were in that life cycle when we picked them up. The concept here isn't bad - these are recycled records which have been cut down and laminated, so they'll function as coasters. They're a decent enough size, so it makes a degree of sense, though I imagine guests will be hesitant to set their drinks down on what really look like CD's at a glance. Each pack contains six coasters. Oddly enough, these weren't marketed as Christmas-themed. I just noticed the visible covers on both packs were holiday music, and took it on faith the others would be, as well. I was in luck - all twelve were festive. There's even the remains of a Chipmunks album in the mix. As far as novelty coaste

The Magic Snowflake (2013)

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Depending on where you see this film listed, it might also be called "Santa's Apprentice: The Magic Snowflake," since it's a sequel to that film, a fact we didn't realize until after watching this. At the time, we assumed that was why we didn't understand what the hell was going on, but after seeing part one, I'm really no closer to understanding. Maybe if I track down the animated series they're based on, it'll all make more sense. Eh. Probably not. Like part one, the plot of this thing is an incoherent mess. Actually, compared to this incoherent mess, the plot of part one looks rational and considered. This opens by introducing a new character, a Intuit boy who delivers mail to the North Pole. He meets up with Beatrice, who I guess is living at the North Pole while the hours tick away towards her prophesied marriage to Nicholas. The whole thing is really kind of creepy. At any rate, it's against the rules for kids to be at the North

Santa's Apprentice (2010)

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This is an animated French/Australian/Irish production that was produced (in part) by Cartoon Saloon, the company that made the brilliant, groundbreaking films The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea. And if there's one thing I learned watching this, it's that not all of Cartoon Saloon's work is brilliant and/or groundbreaking. This is actually based on an animated series called SantApprentice. I'm not entirely clear on whether this is a reboot or a prequel, since information on the forty-eight episode show seems hard to come by. Either way, the premise is pretty old hat at this point: Santa's titles and responsibilities are passed down from one Saint Nicholas to the next. If this deviates from the norm, its in failing to offer a reason why. Typically, movies that go this route use provide the obvious explanation - that not even Santa can live forever. But that doesn't seem to be the case here - the previous incarnations are alive, relatively well, and mak

Toy Review: Doctor Who: The Impossible Set

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Today, I'm looking at a set of action figures that is 50% Christmas, which is a much cleaner, easily identified break than usual. Specifically, I'm looking at a 2-pack of five-inch figures, The Impossible Set, where the Doctor's appearance is based on the Christmas episode, The Snowmen , while Clara is based on her surprise appearance in an earlier, non-Christmas episode, The Asylum of the Daleks. It's kind of an odd pairing, honestly. Clara dies in both episodes due to temporal shenanigans that wouldn't be explained until later (and even then, barely). In The Snowmen, The Doctor pieces all this together and goes off in search of another incarnation of Clara. From a conceptual standpoint, it would have been preferable to get a Doctor/Victorian Clara, as opposed to the version from the distant future who'd been turned into a Dalek (I'm not even going to try and explain all this). Clara had a distinct look in The Snowmen, and I expect most collect

Masterpiece Mystery: Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (1994)

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I know I read the book this is based on, I have the review to prove it , but I have no memory of it. A quick read of my review tells me it’s a common Christmas mystery plot - family gathering, locked-room murder of the head of the family. See also: The Santa Klaus Murder , 8 Women ... The episode opens with some unnecessary backstory to establish the twist ahead of time and confirm that Simeon Lee is a murderer and a rake, so we won’t care when he gets murdered. Then it jumps ahead to Simeon as an crotchety old bastard bent on emotionally torturing his spineless kids over the holidays. Everything is very by the numbers and all of these characters are morons. Simeon made his money in diamonds, and a lot of the red herrings in the plot follow some uncut gems he receives. It’s funny, because uncut diamonds don’t look like much, so it’s hard to remember why everyone’s so wound up over them. Finally we bring in Poirot, who is invited along to the holiday party because Simeon claims