Last night I put up the Christmas tree at my parents' house. Since that's the kind of thing that puts you in a Christmasey mood right quick, when the tinsel was strung and the ornaments hung I put in my copy of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and sat down to watch it. And of course I enjoyed it, as I always do. I love watching Rudolph and Charlie Brown and the Grinch, and I love being able to watch them whenever I feel like it. But I also miss the days before everybody had everything on video tape and then DVD. There was an added fun about watching these various Christmas specials when they were on TV exactly one time a year, and if you missed them you were screwed until the next December. Watching the major specials was a huge event when you only had one opportunity each winter. Further, with the specials only being on one time each year, when you sat down to look at Rudolph's adventures with Yukon Cornelius and the Bumble, you knew all your friends were doing the same thing. When you watched Linus tell Charlie Brown what Christmas is all about, you knew that kids and ...

[rating: 3.5] Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is perhaps the very epitome of that saying about what audiences want from a sequel: more of the same, only different. If you've seen Home Alone, you've seen Home Alone 2. They differ in the particulars but, rest assured, it's the same movie. Fortunately for we audience members, that means that, for the most part, this is a fun movie with a heartwarming Christmas message about acceptance and the importance of family. Instead of being left behind when his family goes away on Christmas vacation, this time young Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) accidentally boards a plane to New York while the rest of his kith and kin head to Miami. Alone in the Big Apple but, thanks to the machinations of the plot, carrying his father's credit cards, Kevin reckons he'll make the best of the situation and enjoy his stay. So instead of charming sequences of Kevin having the house to himself, we're treated to charming sequences of Kevin staying in a fancy hotel and shopping in toy stores. All the memorable bits from the first movie are reprised—Kevin outsmarts adults using his wits, Kevin outsmarts adults using an impossibly quickly assembled marionette, Kevin outsmarts ...

[rating: 3.5] Die Hard is every testosterone-crazed male's favorite Christmas movie, but we mustn't overlook the fact that Die Hard 2 also takes place on December 24th. Thus, it falls into that wonderful "Christmas movie on a technicality" category that's perfect for early in the season. I only liked the first half of Die Hard with a Vengeance and didn't like Live Free or Die Hard at all, but this first sequel was a worthy successor to the original. It knew what ingredients were needed to make not just an action movie but a Die Hard movie, things like John McClane (Bruce Willis) having to work essentailly alone to stop the bad guys and the action involving a relatively localized, confined space. Granted, the movie's totally absurd, even by the bonkers standards of big action flicks. We'll accept that John McClane is involved in another terrorist hostage-taking situation. That kind of improbability is the nature of sequels. But then there's the fact that this takes place on the precise anniversary of the events of the previous film, and that's a little tougher to swallow. Add in the fact that McClane's wife (Bonnie Bedelia) is again one of the terrorists' captives and that the ...

[rating: 3] The record shows that I'm a defender of Batman Returns and I stand by my earlier remark: Batman Returns is better than you remember. That's not to say it's an overlooked masterpiece, just a good but by no means great movie about people in silly outfits getting in fistfights. But when people talk about the Batman movie series of the 80s and 90s, they tend to say something like, "Oh, the first one, the one with Nicholson, that was pretty good. Forget the rest." Well, I've seen all four of those Batman movies in the past year, and I can tell you that not only is this first sequel the best of them, it's the only one that's watchable at all. That includes the first one—of Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, only the second avoids being utterly unbearable. Of course, thanks to the new Batman series, particularly The Dark Knight, most people don't think about the previous films at all. That's 75% okay, but in the case of Batman Returns it's at least a little bit unfortunate. Michael Keaton plays Batman, Danny DeVito plays the Penguin, Michelle Pfeiffer plays Catwoman. They fight and/or scheme for a couple of ...

[rating: 2] While the original Frosty the Snowman cartoon was good but not exactly excellent, this 1992 TV cartoon is bad but not exactly terrible. The project was doomed from the outset, I suppose. The first Frosty cartoon told the entire story of the song and then some. There was nothing left to fill another minute, much less 22. At the end of Frosty the Snowman, Frosty went to live at the North Pole with Santa. I guess that's why as this cartoon starts he's just hanging out in the town of Beansboro, standing around waiting for the unlikely event that a magical hat blows onto his head. Sure, that's what happens, but it still seems like an awfully big gamble. But you know the real problem with this cartoon? It's not about Christmas at all! It's about winter. A mean old businessman has invented a product that will melt snow instantly. Frosty and his child-friends want to put a stop to his plans, what with melting snow leaving Frosty not so much a jolly playmate as a burden you tote around in a bucket. Which is why he moved to the friggin' North Pole in the first place! Jeez! I don't think I'll be surprising ...

Please read this story immediately, because it's the most excellent set of words ever assembled. If you're the sort who doesn't like clicking on links, allow me to quote the opening sentence: "Seven bulls being used on the set of a film starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz have broken free in Spain and slightly injured two people." Can you believe it? No less than seven angry mancows are rampaging across Iberia and it's essentially Tom Cruise's fault. Four out of five scientists agree, that is freakin' hilarious. (Come on, it's okay to laugh. They were only slightly injured.) Now consider this further information: The bulls "broke free from the downtown location and ran through streets to a nearby beach." They're party animals, these bulls! They couldn't wait to hit the beach. Soak up a few rays, ride the wild surf, maybe get in a few games of volleyball while "All Summer Long" blares from somebody's boom box. But most importantly, the article makes no mention the escaped bulls having been rounded up. And consider the tense in that opening sentence: "Seven bulls...have broken free." Oh please oh please tell me these bulls are still on the loose, terrorizing townspeople before retreating to their hideout in the ...

I recently came across a truly awesome piece of information. Somebody from South Africa came here to Melted Reel after doing a Google search for: HOW TO MAKE APE TRAPS Is that not incredible? This is how I imagine the circumstances that led to this memorable visit. Onward Came the Apes Tumelo Buyskes sat huddled in a corner. He'd always thought of himself as a man in control of fears rather than someone whose fears controlled him. Yet there he was, actually shaking in terror, cowering in a corner like some craven animal. He clutched his knees tightly to his chest, trying in vain to stop the shaking. He couldn't help feeling disgusted with himself and with his situation. The light above him flickered. Tumelo's breath caught in his throat as he stared up at the bulb, sure that this time the light would go out and stay out. After an eternal second, the light managed to stay fighting the good fight, but dimmer than it had been before. Shit, Tumelo thought. Why didn't I set aside more fuel for the generator? He knew these thoughts did no good, but he couldn't help himself. It would have been such a simple thing, to make sure the emergency ...

Whether you're decorating a dorm room or your first apartment after moving out of a dorm room, you're going to need movie posters. Everybody loves a good movie poster. It's like art, but it doesn't require you to go to a musty museum, and sometimes it has Dustin Hoffman on it! Sometimes a poster gets you totally pumped for the movie it advertises, sometimes your love of the movie bleeds over into love of the poster's images, and sometimes a poster is totally awesome in spite of the movie it's shilling being a real turd. Posters! What fun! Anyway, here are some of my favorites. The Sexy Click for big time imageThe Seven Year Itch, 1955 They've never come any sexier than Marilyn Monroe, and here she's depicted at her most iconic. That's Tom Ewell in the background, but it could be a burning Sasquatch doing the jitterbug and it'd be a long time before anybody noticed. Click for big time imageAttack of the 50 Ft. Woman, 1958 Those people on the overpass are totally getting a look at the goods. Click for big time image The Sin of Nora Moran, 1933 I know you've never seen this flick; it's a totally forgettable B thing from Majestic Pictures. But ...

No amount of work could ever make the abominations that were the Star Wars prequels into good movies. This is obvious from the beginning. I have, however, noticed a way in which at least part of Attack of the Clones (Episode II) could have been enhanced by making a change in The Phantom Menace (Episode I). Of course, the movies would still suck, so there's really not much point in this discussion, but bear with me. Not long ago, I tried to read the novelization of The Phantom Menace. I don't have any idea why I even bothered, so don't ask. Novelizations of screenplays are always of much lower quality than their movie counterparts, and this movie sucked. I couldn't bring myself to finish the book, but that's hardly a surprise. There was, though, a scene in the book that was either added by author Terry Brooks or removed from the script sometime between when the novel was written and the movie was made. That's unfortunate; had it been left in, it would have lent some emotional weight to a scene in Attack of the Clones that is supposed to be highly dramatic but is just, like everything else in this trilogy, stupid. The ...

Christmas is everywhere by now. There's no avoiding it. All the stores are bedecked and festooned, all the TV commercials have tinkly carols playing in the background, all the children are thinking greedy thoughts. But it's not even Thanksgiving yet! For me, this is no problem. Christmas lights and music and decorations and dancing Santas can't possibly come soon enough for me. But I understand there are some people out there who prefer to get into the holiday season slowly, not really acknowledging it much until after December's halfway point. But I'll bet even people like that start to feel the yuletide pull when every storefront is red and green and every newspaper is filled with Christmas ads and every impulse-buy section at every checkout counter has those Reese's peanut butter cups shaped like Christmas trees. They may even find the pull so strong that they feel a little bit like listening to some Christmas music, but they just can't see themselves throwing on Bing Crosby or Brenda Lee in the third week of November. Well, is there ever a solution for people in that situation, I tell you what. How about the 2006 Twisted Sister album A Twisted Christmas? Holy eff is this album ...