[rating: 4] This film is a pleasure to watch. I'm just going to come out and say it. It's charming, it's funny, it's about Christmas, and the weird looking little kid who stars in it tricks you into thinking that he's cute. Most of all, it reminds you of how awesome it is for everyone to be gone and for you to have the whole house to yourself. Watch what you want, wear what you want, eat what you want -- and it's five times better if you're a little kid, meaning you wear pajamas, watch violent movies, and eat ice cream, instead of sitting around naked, watching porn and drinking beer, as an adult would do. Ah, the innocence of youth. Anyway if you don't know the plot, all you really need to do is ask yourself: what would be the most awesome thing ever? Chances are, whatever you come up with is going to be pretty close to the experiences of young Kevin McAllister (MaCaulay Culkin--what the hell kind of name is this?) Kevin has a crazy family, who, as families will do, just love to ignore and walk all over the young kids (Kevin). Well, after an evening of getting shit on ...

Far be it from me to malign the animated version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It's thoroughly wonderful, perfect in every way, and I wouldn't dream of saying anything to the contrary. BUT! I worry that perhaps it's too perfect. By being so fully phenomenal, it's basically rendered Dr. Seuss' original book obsolete, hasn't it? Does anyone still read it, for themselves or to their kids? After all, it's so much easier to just let Boris Karloff read it to you, right? And you get to hear Tony the Tiger sing, to boot! It would be tempting to introduce a child to the Grinch by way of this cartoon. And it's certainly something that I support children watching from a very young age, not only because of its intrinsic greatness but also because of how much a part of our cultural consciousness the cartoon is. Nonetheless, I hope we'll all remember that there's a great book called How the Grinch Stole Christmas out there, too. So when it's time to give a wee bairn his or her first exposure to the character, start with the book. And let's remind the bairns that are somewhat less wee that they can get this story ...

[rating: 0] For whatever reason, I assumed that Prancer would be a delightful film loaded with heart-warming fantasy and Christmas jocularity and that I'd totally dig it because it's about one of Santa's reindeer and whatnot. I don't exactly know what I expected the story to be, but I was sure it would lend itself to all those wonderful things that make Christmas movies so enjoyable. But it turns out I could not have been more wrong. Essentially, Prancer is just a second-rate E.T., with a little girl instead of a little boy, a reindeer instead of a space alien, and utter nothingness instead of charm. From start to finish, the picture is completely flat; it never pulls you in or makes you glad that you're watching. It's ostensibly about faith restored and positive holiday lessons learned, but really it's about nothing. Watching a test pattern for two hours would leave you with the same impression. Our hero is Jessica (Rebecca Harrell), the only one who believes that the reindeer she's found is truly one of Santa's legendary team. When it comes to children, the line between appealing and appalling is a thin one indeed, and this girl comes down firmly on the ...

[rating: 4] This film is easily the best Christmas movie to have come out of Hollywood in the past ten years. What makes it so good? Well, that's a fair question to ask. There's a lot of things that make a movie good. The way it's shot, the pacing of the plot, the acting, the writing, originality--all sorts of things. This film certainly does them competently. Probably the writing, is the most obvious strong point. But what makes this movie truly great is the fact that it's not about what you think it's about. It head-fakes you with a romantic comedy veneer, and then breaks right, creating the illusion of a family-centered comedy, before finally stepping back and revealing itself as a pitch-perfect seasonal drama. It's funny and it's warm and it's about family... but mainly it's about what it's like to be wrong, and how easy it is to decide to be right. We open on Everett Stone and his girlfriend Meredith (Dermot Mulroney and Sarah Jessica Parker), and boy do they look like a couple of stiffs. Grey business suits, perfectly parted hair, lots of serious talk as they drive down the road toward his family's woodsy New England home. They're going to ...

[rating: 4] A Christmas Carol has, by conservative estimate, been adapted and dramatized about ninety billion times; everyone from Patrick Stewart to Mr. Magoo has taken their turn at the lead role. That's no surprise, though. It's easily Charles Dickens' most imaginative and well told novel. Sure, it may seem obvious and unthinking to proclaim such a done-to-death story as Dickens' best, but it's true. You can take my word for it, too, cause I'm a big fan of the man, insanely roundabout though his words may be. Oddly, when one considers how formal and old-timey is Dickens' style, of all the various adaptations this version with a cast full of irreverent Muppets is one of the best and most faithful to the original material. They managed to pull this off by including Gonzo in the role of Dickens himself, acting as our narrator. Out of Gonzo's mouth comes much of the genuine Dickens prose that is often left out when the material makes the transition to the screen. It's through this use of Gonzo, and by partnering him with a sarcastic-as-always Rizzo the Rat, that The Muppet Christmas Carol most successfully stays true to the spirit of both Dickens' work and ...

[rating: 0] Upon seeing the movie North, Roger Ebert famously remarked: “I hated, hated, hated this movie.” I had precisely the same reaction the first time I saw A Christmas Story. As time has passed and I’ve had a few more viewings of the picture, my thoughts have changed. Now, instead of just hating this movie, I also loathe, despise, detest and abhor it. And I especially hate the fact that one of the cable channels shows it over and over for 24 consecutive hours on Christmas day. I can’t imagine wanting to watch it but one time; even if you like it surely that’s overkill. Since the movie was reviewed yesterday and since so many have seen it, there’s no need to do a plot synopsis. Also, I doubt I could discuss the entire plot without taking my life in some grandiose fashion, perhaps by leaping from a cliff or dropping a piano on my own face. Instead, let us look at specific elements of the film. Let’s look at Things I Hate About A Christmas Story. First of all, this movie is just filled to bursting with Ugly Children. I can hear the cries of protest now; from the mouths of ...

I'd like to talk for a moment about the song "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." It's a good song, to be sure; you won't hear me saying otherwise. But it's a real downer of a song, about how this Christmas is really gonna be pretty much a bummer. Or, at least, it's supposed to be. See, there are two sets of lyrics used for the song. The changes are small and subtle, but they alter the whole meaning. Now, in my collection I've got nine different recordings of the song: versions by Carnie and Wendy Wilson, James Taylor, Twisted Sister, Dave Sevillie of Alvin and the Chipmunks, John Denver and the Muppets, Frank Sinatra, Amy Grant, Linda Ronstadt and, of course, the original version by Judy Garland. Of these, only Judy's uses the superior, more somber lyrics. (James Taylor's kind of does, but I'll come to that in a minute.) Consider these lyrics as you probably always think of them: Have yourself a merry little Christmas Let your heart be light From now on our troubles will be out of sightNow look at the key difference in how Judy Garland first sang it: Have yourself a merry little Christmas Let ...

[rating: 4] All Ralphie wants for Christmas is “an official Red Ryder carbine-action two-hundred-shot range model air rifle.” And there it is. It’s the single most annoying, over-quoted, underwhelming, completely irrelevant quote in the entire canon of Christmas fare. It has somehow captured the hearts and minds of adults and children everywhere. In one of the finest Christmas films ever recorded, full of Christmas tree haggling, soap bar biting, electric leg lamps, tongues stuck on flagpoles, and Little Orphan Annie radio hours, that ridiculous little line about a damn BB gun is all that anyone ever talks about. Well, I’m here to stop it. This is not a film about a kid who wants a particular present. That’s certainly a theme, and it may come up three or four times in the film, but much more so, this film is about Christmas, plain and simple. Family Christmas. A child’s Christmas. Perhaps the film’s original tagline said it best—it’s “A Tribute to the Original, Traditional, One-Hundred-Percent, Red-Blooded, Two-Fisted, All-American Christmas.” The story does indeed concern young Ralphie Parker, a typical American boy from Hohman, Indiana, with a typical American family from the very same place. It’s based upon a collection of short stories by Jean Shephard, particularly ...

[rating: 3] If we're all in agreement that Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, The Little Drummer Boy and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer are the four essential Rankin-Bass Christmas specials, then I have to declare that Frosty is my least favorite of the classics. That doesn't mean it's not still pretty great or that you can skip it. Heavens no. If you go through a December without watching it, it means you're a total jerk and should be banished from the planet. If you know the song, you know the basics of the cartoon. The essential story is taken right from the classic tune. A two minute song, however, is hardly adequate for a full half-hour of animation, so there has been some significant fleshing out. The fleshiest of all is the narrator, voiced by the notoriously big-schnozzed Jimmy Durante. He rants on and on like a maniac about how the first snow of the season is full of magic and mystery and who knows what. The town's schoolchildren all believe him, seemingly, because instead of attending to their math studies so we can beat the Russkies to the moon they're looking out the window at the snow and ...

I've been waiting for years to be formally introduced to Squishy the Christmas Oyster. No, I haven't been drinking (much). I'm serious. I first heard about the impending arrival of a Christmas oyster years and years ago when I was a small but still very fat child. Every night I'd watch Jeopardy!, because I had no friends. On one particularly memorable occasion, while Alex was meeting-and-greeting with the contestants, one of them announced that he was tired of "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" being the dominant Christmas novelty song. Sure, there are many others, but that's the only one that really gets played on the radio, and this guy had had enough. He said he was writing a song called "Squishy the Christmas Oyster," which he planned to unleash on the world and knock "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" right off its hilarious yuletide throne. That was close to two decades ago, and that song has yet to materialize. It's certainly not being played on any ordinary radio stations and I've never even heard it on any of the Christmas-themed Dr. Demento episodes that delight us all each year. So I ask you, ...