Why Santa may not have been to your house (yet)

I hope everyone had a Happy Christmas or possibly even a Joyous Chrismakwanzaka. If there are those out there who Santa hasn't visited yet (like me... sigh), he was delayed in California.

Santa was arrested after allegedly insulting a female police officer when he said "Ho, Ho, Ho!" after she stopped him over to make sure he had the proper licenses and business permits to operate an aircraft powered by flying raindeer in California air-space.

Santa, however, was not going to be kept from his Christmas Eve rounds, even by the people in the Land of Fruits and Nuts.... and he soon made his escape from jail and was back on the job!

to transport flying raindeer over California

Santa's Christmas Surprise!

Actress Kate Hackett went to the mall to have her picture taken with Santa. She posted the result to her Facebook page.... :)

Click here to visit Ms. Hackett's official website, and here for stills from her TV projects and samples of her modeling work.

And now for a heart-felt Christmas greeting from our Muslim friends....

'Jihadist' issues Christmas bombing threat: "'Your (Christmas) fireworks will act as an alarm for the time of our devices to blow up -- devices that we, not Santa Claus, are going to offer to you as gifts, to turn your night into day and your blood into rivers."

Merry Christmas to all my readers!

I hope everyone out there is having a great holiday weekend with family and friends. (And if you're one of those people who don't like being wished a Merry Christmas, please accept the alternative well-wishes at my Multi-cultural, Ultra-hip Holiday Page!)

And here are some Christmas tunes and videos for you to enjoy!















(In case you can't tell, "Little Drummer Boy" is one of my favorite Christmas tunes.)

The Christmas Gargoyle that appears outside a friend's house every December!

Christmas Movie Round-up 2010

Over the past few years, I've reviewed numerous Christmas movies on my blogs. Here's a list of them, so, if the Spirit of Chirstmas moves you, you can check Amazon.com or some other instant online rental outfit for the films.

Each film is rated on my usual 0-10 scale. Click on the titles to read the actual reviews.



Christmas Comedies and Action Flicks

Deck the Halls (1/10 Stars)
Starring: Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito

Die Hard (9/10 Stars)
Starring: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman and Bonnie Bedelia

Home Alone (7/10)
Starring: Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, and Daniel Stern

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (3/10 Stars)
Starring: Jim Carrey and Taylor Momson

The Ice Harvest (8/10 Stars)
Starring: John Cusack, Oliver Platt, and Billy Bob Thornton

Jingle All the Way (6/10 Stars)
Starring: Arnold Schwartzenegger

Kiss Kiss, Bang, Band (9/10 Stars)
Starring: Robert Downey, Jr., Val Kilmer, and Michelle Monaghan



Christmas Horror Flicks

Jack Frost & Jack Frost 2 (5/10, 2/10)
Starring: Christopher Allport

Santa's Slay (6/10)
Starring: Bill Goldberg

Silent Night, Deadly Night (6/10)
Starring: Mary Woronov and John Carradine

My letter to Santa....

Dear Santa,

I've been pretty good this year, at least compared to years passed.

I've not made (much) fun of insane Muslim terrorists and their admirers--in fact, I have tried to foster greater understanding among them and the rest of the world with my Tectonic Tuesdays series.

I have also tried to say something nice about every graphic novel and movie I've reviewed this year, even the ones I featured at Movies You Should (Die Before You) See. And you have have to admit that one has to look damn hard to find something nice to say about many of those cinematic miscarriages.

I know you are very busy and that it might be hard to reach my house, given my proximity to air force bases and airports--no one wants to see your sleigh mistaken for a hostile aircraft and blown out of the sky by fighter jets--so I suggest you just go ahead and get me something of my Wish List at Amazon.com and just have it delivered through the post.

You are of course welcome to stop by, and I will have the usual milk and cookies waiting for you. But if you still think I've not been good enough to warrant a present, can you please at least wrap the lumps of coal in paper? Last year, the cats walked on them and tracked paw prints all over my best table cloth.

Your friend, fan (and hopefully on the Nice List this year),

Steve Miller

PS: If you need a suggestion for what to get those who like bad movies and to whom you won't be able to give cloned love slaves of Jeri Ryan, Fabio, and/or Ava Gardner, I think you should get them copies of 150 Movies You Should [Die Before You] See. I'm sure they'll love it, and you can get it to them in the traditional hard-copy or in electronic format for the Kindle! (The book can also serve as an alternative to lumps of coal for self-important film snobs on the Naughty List! I hope you'll find the suggestion useful, and I hope it will make it even clearer to you how good I've been this year. I am a changed man. Seriously!)

Not much Christmas for the Grinch to steal here

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
Starring: Jim Carrey, Taylor Momson, and Jeffrey Tambor
Director: Ron Howard
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

In "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (a movie that has about as much in common with the Dr. Seuss book of the same name as "Bram Stoker's Dracula" had with the book it was supposedly based on), the Grinch (Carrey)--a lifelong outcast from the terribly vicious, self-centered and materialistic Whovian society devises a plan to destroy Christmas and the 1,000th Whovilation after one final insult too many.

When watching "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", I was aghast at by how wide a margin the filmmakers seemed to miss the message of not only Dr. Suess' original book but even the cartoon. (Yes, I can envision some Hollywood types not feeling up to reading even a picture book, but they had the cartoon to go by.) The Whos have got to be the most evil, self-centered species in all of creation--the 10-year-old Grinch gets teased by classmates, vanishes, and no one cares to bring him back into the community, just to mention the worst of the characterizations of the Whos in the film--and where they pretty much lived the Christmas spirit in the Suess' book, with the feasts and the parties being an enhancement to their joy not the source of it, in the live-action film, a tiny minority of one (Cindy-Lou Who) has any Christmas spirit at all.

I was also very annoyed at the way the film was written. It shifted back and forth between a straight adaptation of Suess' story and a bunch of extra stuff, but one didn't seem to have an impact on the other. The most glaring of these was after the Grinch comes down to Whoville and takes part in one of the pre-Christmas celebrations only to be humiliated by the Whoville's mayor and his sycophantic sidekick (extra stuff), he returns to his mountain lair and schemes to destroy Christmas in a direct adaptation (line by line in some cases) of the book... but there is no sense or reflection in what he says that he's already been down to Whoville. It's as if no one bothered to go through the entire script and made sure that all the scenes fed properly into one another. It's as if they decided that all the movie needed was a slip-shod adaptation and Jim Carrey doing schtick in a very well-done Grinch suit.

Speaking of Carrey. I've never been a huge fan of his post "In Living Color" comedy... I find him more annoying than funny. I thought that he'd make a good Grinch--based on memories of the previews I saw when the film was originally released--but unfortunately, all he really does is his standard routines wearing a furry suit. Some of it IS pretty funny, but it would have been nice if someone (Carrey... or maybe even the film's apparently MIA director) had bothered to develop a character for the live-action Grinch, aside from "it's Jim Carrey doing schtick in a very well-done Grinch suit."

On, and I won't get started on the absolute butchery they do to the wonderful "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" song.

On the surface, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" seems like a well-done adaptation of Suess' fantastic children's book, and what rating I'm giving it beyond Zero is for the sets and costumes. In actuality, though, it's an embodiment of everything that book was trying to speak AGAINST--empty flash and commercialism that's devoid of heart and true spirit. This Howard-directed abomniation basically takes Suess' message and turns it on its head. In the original story, the Grinch was mean because he had no Christmas spirit... in the movie, he's mean because the Whos neglected him in every possible way and stripped him of all Christmas spirit. The Whos as portrayed in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" deserved EVERYTHING the Grinch wanted to do them and much more.

The cartoon, although nearly 40 years old now, is still the only good adaptation of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", and I recommend you avoid this version. I make my recommendation even more strenuously if you have young children. How will you answer the question "Why didn't his mommies and teacher go looking for him?" after the Grinch runs away from home? Do you really want to explain to your child why a Christmas movie casts such a heartless bunch of creatures as the Whos as the sympathetic characters in the film?

A Christmas tid-bit...

Merry Christmas from Full Moon Features

With this little Holiday themed promo for the forthcoming "Evil Bong 3-D: Wrath of Bong", one gets the sense that Charles Band and Full Moon are trying to give Lloyd Kaufman and Troma a run for their money.

(Note: This video is Rated R for drug-related content, strong language, and ridiculousness.)

Christmas caroling of a different sort

I wonder what the Great Imam Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi would make of this?


EMBED-Girl Plays Jingle Bells With Cleavage Kazoo - Watch more free videos

There is no doubt that, no matter how festive, the Cleavage Kazoo may have greater potential as a weapons of mass-destruction than the atom bomb!

'Home Alone' is an excellent holiday flick

Home Alone (1990)
Starring: Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, and Daniel Stern
Director: Chris Columbus
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

In "Home Alone", Kevin (Culkin), the youngest child in a large and chaotic family goes to bed one night shortly before Christmas with an angry wish that his entire family would just vanish. When he wakes up the next morning, everyone has indeed disappeared, and Kevin happily goes about his new life as an "emancipated minor." (His family hasn't magically vanished; they simply forgot to wake him for the Christmas trip to visit far-away relatives... much to the mother's shame and horror when she discovers what has happened.) Kevin's is enjoying his total freedom... until two house-prowlers (Pesci and Stern) targeting homes that are empty for the holidays mark his house for break-in. What follows is a battle of wits and skill between a bratty--but creative--kid and two less-than-sharp criminals.


Some reviewers and critics pan "Home Alone" as not being dark enough and too silly. These are commentators who truly don't get this movie. and who fail to recognize that they are NOT the target audience for the film. "Home Alone" is a kid's movie and its target audience are kids. And kids LOVE the idea of being independent, and kids love the idea of fending off criminals with bizarre traps and slapstick.

Personally, I spend the climax of "Home Alone" wincing because the cartoon violence visited upon the hapless burglars trying to invade Kevin's home makes my bones ache, but I guarantee that kids will love it. The messages that the film works in about Christmas and the value of family also make the film worth seeing.

I think "Home Alone" is an excellent Christmas movie, and I think that the critics that panned it need to remember that kids really aren't just mini-adults. Or maybe they just need to try to remember what it's like to be a kid.

Whoever green-lit 'Deck the Halls' should be decked

Deck the Halls (2006)
Starring: Matthew Broderick, Danny DeVito, Kristen Davis, and Kristen Chenoweth
Director: John Whitesell
Rating: One of Ten Stars

"Deck the Halls" revolves around a pair of fathers feuding over who's going to have the best Christmas decorations in town... and the supposed hilariaty that ensues when the feud gets out of hand. I say "supposed" because this film is over-long, unfunny--even the slapstick is more groan-inducing than chuckle-inspiring--and populated by characters that are so badly written that, struggle as they may, the actors simply can't imbue them with life, let along the Christmas Spirit.


Oh... and you can add to the fact that most of what happes in the movie feels like it was cribbed from "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation." So, if you want to see a whacky, somewhat uncouth Christmas comedy, why not stick with the film "Deck the Halls" was copied from?

(All that said, it's been pointed out to me that the movie did redeem itself ever-so-slightly at the end. But, as nice an ending as it is, with a little bit of good cheer creeping in, it is far too little to make up for the rest of the film.)

If anyone starts a class-action suit so the poor souls who saw this film on its opening day, please keep me in the loop. I want my money back AND something for my pain and suffering. Meanwhile, though, you out there who are reading this should take my warning and NOT see this movie. (Although recommending it to relatives you'd rather not have to spend the Holidays with would be a sure-fire way to get out of it. It'll be Guy Faulkes Day (or later) before they'll be wiling to speak to you again.)

Underrated holiday film

Jingle All the Way
Starring: Arnold Schwartzenegger, Phil Hartman, Sindbad, Rita Wilson, Robert Conrad, Jake Lloyd, and Jim Belushi
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Howard (Schwartzenegger) feels guilty for having neglected his son, Jamie(Lloyd), in favor of work. In an attempt to make it up to him, he vows to get any gift Jamie wants for Christmas... and Jamie asks for a Turbo Man action figure. On Christmas Eve, Howard goes in search of the toy, only to discover that it's the hottest gift of the season, and EVERY parent in town seems to be looking for one, and no stores have any in stock. What follows is a quest that makes Frodo's trip to Mordor look like a walk on the beach.


As a film mocking the obsession we have in American with making up for our shortcomings in our relationships by going overboard on gift-giving during Christmas, this film succeeds admirably. It also serves as a nice bit of commentary on the rampant commercialism during the Christmas season.

It's a little less successful as a comedy. I love the way the movie keeps escalating and the way the situaitons Howard finds himself in trying to get a Turbo Man doll get more and more absurd, but I find virtually every character in the film more annoying than amusing. The exception is Wilson, who is funny and sympathetic as Howard's wife who has to fend off advances from her sleazy neighbor (Hartman) while Howard searches to the toy.

The film's lead, Schwartzenegger, is passable in the part of the ever-increasingly crazed Howard, but he did a far better job in "Kindergarten Cop" and even "Twins" than he does here.

Still, the film offers some nice chuckles. It may not be the best of Christmas movies, but it's passable. (Oh, and make sure sure you watch all the way to the end of the final credits. There's a bit more of the film after them.)