Mainlining Christmas

If you've been reading this site for any length of time, you probably know that interesting Christmas genre mashups are highly sought after around here. Christmas horror is so common as to be unsurprising now, but Christmas science fiction is rare. Christmas crossed with epic fantasy is extremely rare. It turns out there are some reasons for that. We start our tale on Christmas. Or Christmas Eve. Or something. Ayden receives a kite in a dirty sock, and her parents tell her to thank Father Christmas. Cut to Ayden flying the kite outside on a sunny, warm day. It's unclear how much time as passed. Some villains in black - backed up by a bunch of mooks decked out in cheap gear and swords that your average ren faire attendee wouldn't be caught dead with - accost Ayden's parents for some tax money. (Spoiler: the idea that there is a king or other person in charge of this place is never mentioned again.) Her dad accuses them of skimming off the top, and a fight ensues.

This year I spotted two types of Holiday Tic Tacs: Candy Cane and Merry Elf Mix. The box designs are kind of cute. The Candy Cane Tic Tacs each have a little candy cane printed on them, which is an extra nice touch. They taste... minty. What else do you want? I'm not sure I think they're candy cane specifically, they're closer to peppermint Altoid with a smidge more sugar. The Merry Elf Mix is more interesting. It's advertising the flavors as green apple, white lime (whatever that is), and cranberry. I don't often like apple flavoring, but I think this is pretty decent. It's a paler color than it looks in the picture, and it's a decent balance of tart and sweet for me. The lime is even better. It's got enough citrus for the flavor to be clear, but sweetness as well. (It might even be better than orange, Tic Tac fans.) I'm not sure cranberry is a great choice for a mint flavor, although it is nicely seasonal. However, I don't

This is not only a really solid album as far as cartoon-character-driven holiday music goes, it's also solid for holiday music in general. This shouldn't be a surprise; much like My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, one of the major attractions of the Phineas and Ferb series is the music. The first eight songs are all from the Christmas special . Well, including one that was apparently written for the special but cut for time. These include the more show-centered songs which won't make much sense to those who haven't seen at least some of the series. "Winter Vacation" is a parody of the usual theme song. "What Does He Want?" Candace is singing about her boyfriend, but this actually works fine as a standalone song about the difficulty of shopping for someone you want to impress. "That Christmas Feeling" A solid original Christmas tune. "I Really Don't Hate Christmas" This song by series villain Dr. Doofenshmirtz is

I've long championed the theory that any premise, regardless of how seemingly juvenile or misguided, can be elevated to greatness if the core concept is simply taken seriously and complex emotion is added. Movies like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and shows such as My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic lend credence to this idea. It is a good theory, or - more accurately - it was  a good theory. In the space of 44 minutes, this idea was tested and soundly, undeniably refuted by a corporate cash grab so cloying, the very core is beyond salvation. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you about the show, Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures. This is a CG science-fiction/superhero adventure based on the characters from the 1980 arcade game. This isn't the first time someone's attempted to adapt Pac-Man into a television series , but it might be the first time someone tried giving it a relatively serious tone. Note I said relatively serious - this is still

Those of you with unusually good memories still won't recall that I reviewed Jack from Series 1 of Diamond's Nightmare Before Christmas line a few years ago, because - frankly - it wasn't that memorable. So, given that, let's take a moment to recap. We're now around thirteen years out from when NECA produced the first wave of their Nightmare Before Christmas line. Over a few years, they produced damn near every significant character (along with several insignificant ones) from the film. With one notable exception. For whatever reason, they didn't make Santa. They did Jack in a Santa suit, but skipped the big guy himself. Fortunately, Diamond decided to rectify this omission, which brings us to today's review. If you remember my write-up of Jack (which we've already established you don't), you know I wasn't overly impressed with the quality control. The arms and legs were too thin to support sturdy joints, so we were left with something

I've been meaning to get around to this for a few years now. All I really knew about it was that it was set around the holidays, and it's something of a cult classic. In hindsight, I had no idea what I was getting into. Where to begin? This was written and directed by the Coen Brothers, along with a little help from Sam Raimi. It's sort of a love letter to classic Hollywood love stories - I'm pretty sure I caught echoes of Christmas in July , Meet John Doe , and The Apartment  - delivered with a twisted sense of humor. The movie doesn't hold back on style - from the beginning, this is unapologetically grandiose and stylized. Everything from the music to the acting to the set design sets out to create a world that's a living, breathing caricature of its source material. For those of you who don't know me, all that means I absolutely loved this bizarre, quirky movie. I'm not going to delve into quite as much detail around the plot this time, both

Dreaming of a White Wolf Christmas Terry Spear, 2017 New Release! I received a copy of this book from NetGalley for the purpose of review. I sort of hate that I'm spending any more time and energy on this godforsaken turd of a book. The heroine starts out on a camping trip, where she's bitten by what honestly sounds like a fluffy puppy. After some terrible description and confusion on my part, I guess that must have been a wolf because now she's a werewolf. She sees a mysterious wolf across a river. And that's the set-up. Two years later, she has abandoned her friends and family to live alone and write paranormal romance. The author spends endless pages introducing the male lead by recapping what sounds like at least a dozen earlier books, none of which have any bearing on the events of THIS book. The male lead is a PI who's been hired to find her because her adoptive parents died and left her money. It's mentioned a few times that the heroine is a