December 2006 Archives

12 Bad Movies of Christmas, Part Three

By The Vidiots on December 21, 2006 11:01 PM

We admit -- we got worried as we approached the three-quarter mark of our march through the worst holiday movies that TV has to offer. We went into this exercise, expecting to hate everything we laid eyes on, to snicker derisively at these half-witted fish swimming aimlessly around their barrel as we blasted them into kingdom come.

Then we came across movies Nos. 7 and 8. And we sorta, kinda liked them.

Was it the spirit of Christmas charity clouding our brains and turning us into saps? Was it all that expired eggnog? Or had the preceding six movies broken our will, making us ready to grasp any picture that seemed like it had been filmed by sane, English-speaking professions to our collective bosom?

Fortunately, before we had to do some serious soul-searching, we started watching movie No. 9. And it's terrible -- I Love Trouble terrible. And suddenly, the world seemed right again. --Philip Michaels and Lisa Schmeiser

Mr. St. Nick

WHEN IT'S ON:	Saturday, December 23 at 11:00 a.m. on Lifetime.
PREMISE:	Bon vivant and man-about-town Kelsey Grammer is actually bon vivant and man-about-town Nicholas XXI, due to take over the family business from his dad. As in any dynasty, there are succession issues and parent-child misunderstandings. What saves this from being the Lifetime update of The Lion in Winter: the Miami setting, the considerably less complicated love lives of everyone involved and the fact that Christmas arrives when someone breaks out of jail as opposed to being sent back.
IN WHOSE CREDITS IS THIS A LUMP OF COAL?	Wallace Shawn, who revisits what he apparently thinks is the winning combination of fright wigs and Christmas schmaltz to play a Christmas wizard. Why does he do this? Doesn't he have My Dinner With Andre money to fall back on?
RELATIVE YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS WITH:	The two who have the most deeply screwed up father-son relationship. Watch it with both of them. Actually, watch them watching it.
THE SCRIPTWRITER'S PRESENT TO YOU:	"I haven't served you faithfully for 30 years, to see you strangled by a cheap piece of red spandex." -- Jasper, Kelsey Grammer's effete elfin manservant. We went with this line rather than the more prosaic exchange between Santa and Mrs. Claus: "The sleigh won't fly. I can't get it up." "That's all right dear. that happens to everybody sometimes." C'mon, Mr. St. Nick writers, don't make this a blue Christmas.
THE MOMENT WE KNOCKED BACK THE WASSAIL:	The moment when Kelsey Grammer-love interest Lorena (Ana Ortiz) came on-screen. Because her arrival was accompanied by a hammer that the scriptwriters wielded mercilessly for the next 100 minutes, lest we forget that Lorena was virtuous and kind and strong and delightful.
THE STAR ON TOP OF THE TREE:	Let's go back to Jasper the elfin gentleman's gentleman. That means a quarter of the movies we watched as part of this exercise have posited that Santa's would-be heir is assisted by a fussy elf who doesn't need Christmas magic to out-fly the reindeer.
SO WHAT DID SANTA'S ELVES THINK?	Oh, how we wanted to dismiss this movie. Then everyone showed up and did their thing -- Kelsey Grammer did his foppish gent with a heart of gold, Elaine Irwin did her beauty who's up to no good, and Katherine Helmond managed to pull out another double entendre-laden performance as Mrs. Claus. We even liked the dandy elf. This may force us to turn in our membership card at the next meeting of the Cynical Left Coast Elitists' Club, but we were genuinely amused by this picture. Enough to make it a holiday tradition? Probably not. But enough to make us not curse Kelsey Grammer's name the way we denounced Steve Guttenberg and Kathy Ireland before him.
SANTA RATING:	Ho ho ho ho.

Unlikely Angel

WHEN IT'S ON:	Sunday, December 24 at 7 p.m. and Monday, December 25 at 12:25 a.m. on the Hallmark Channel.
PREMISE:	Dolly Parton is a struggling country-western performer who is killed by her own evasive driving maneuvers after she swerves to avoid hitting a deer. She then ascends to Heaven, only to be told that her life of self-indulgent behavior would have consigned her to Hell had it not been for her selfless act of putting a deer's life above her own. (The idea that Dolly was trying to avoid car damage caused by ramming into a big animal is apparently never considered.) Anyway, Dolly has a week to turn around some grouchy family or else she'll be opening for Milli Vanilli in Hell.
IN WHOSE CREDITS IS THIS A LUMP OF COAL?	Gary Sandy, who cuckolds Dolly in the first five minutes of the movie and then disappears from view. Sort of a metaphor for his entire stint on WKRP in Cincinnati, really.
RELATIVE YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS WITH:	Your mom, so you can listen her cluck about how the then-50-year-old Dolly was still running around in low-cut minidresses and six-inch heels.
THE SCRIPTWRITER'S PRESENT TO YOU:	"Maybe we better find somewhere we won't get noticed," says Dolly. "Maybe you should have thought about that before you wore that dress," says her dour, eight-year-old charge. And another painful adolescence begins!
THE MOMENT WE KNOCKED BACK THE WASSAIL:	The moment Dolly walks into the office of the female executive making goo-goo eyes at the head of the household who she's been sent to save and notices the office is decorated in a way that suggests a Hummel factory mated with a Thomas Kinkade gallery, then gave up the child to be adopted by the Franklin Mint.
THE STAR ON TOP OF THE TREE:	When Dolly is dropped back down to Earth to act as the children's nanny, dressed in full Maria Von Trapp drag.
SO WHAT DID SANTA'S ELVES THINK?	Sure, St. Peter -- played with elfin fussiness by Roddy McDowell -- alleges that Dolly Parton's big problem is that she did as she pleased without thinking of anyone else, but from where we're sitting, the only crime we can see is that Dolly loved the menfolk and the menfolk loved her back. And can you blame them -- it's Dolly Parton! So far as we're concerned, she already dispenses sparkling trails of rainbows and butterflies in her wake just to make us mere mortals happy. We simply cannot buy the idea of Dolly Parton as black-hearted sinner who must prove her heavenly worth by reforming a brood of motherless brats. That is not a heaven we care to ascend to, quite frankly.
SANTA RATING:	Ho ho ho.

His and Her Christmas

WHEN IT'S ON:	Saturday, December 23 at 7 p.m. on Lifetime.
PREMISE:	Columnist Liz (Dina Meyer) works for a cozy local paper in Marin. The paper's facing a buyout from the mean, heartless company that owns the going San Francisco paper. The big, mean company plans to shutter the Marin paper to free up money for San Francisco columnist Tom's (David Sutcliffe) new TV show. However, Liz's cozy holiday-themed columns prompt a surge in circulation, threatening the show. It's a good old fashioned newspaper war -- with only a fraction of the wit and nerve displayed by New York's tabloids. We don't think we have to tell you that the warring columnists fall in love. Or that it's insipid.
IN WHOSE CREDITS IS THIS A LUMP OF COAL?	Paula Devicq. After building a career by playing brainy women with big hearts, she decides to ring in the yule tide by playing Vicki, the castrating career bitch who hates small town newspapers.
RELATIVE YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS WITH:	The one who works in the media, so you can catch their reaction when they see the Marin paper's "newsroom," complete with gleaming antique farm table and tasteful centerpiece, yet curiously missing actual paper anywhere.
THE SCRIPTWRITER'S PRESENT TO YOU:	"Maybe this is just a big, fat paycheck to you, but some of us actually have hearts and we care about what we do." --Liz, the columnist whose deathless prose is supposed to be turning the San Francisco Bay Area on its collective ear. Also delightful: Paula Devicq's observation to David Sutcliffe that "Every woman wants to hang on your arm. People want to hear what you have to say." We know columnists. They do not look like Dina Meyer and David Sutcliffe. They do, however, reek of bad cheese, cheap booze, and shattered dreams.
THE MOMENT WE KNOCKED BACK THE WASSAIL:	The moment when Liz, who begins the film as the Marin paper's advice columnist, waltzed into the quaint farmhouse that serves as the paper's HQ and headed to her corner office with its acres of space and exquisite heirloom desk in one well-lit corner. Everyone knows that the sales team gets the best offices. The advice columnist is lucky if her colleagues haven't papered her cubicle in old Mary Worth strips.
THE STAR ON TOP OF THE TREE:	To our knowledge, no on has made a sequel, so there's no His and Her Arbor Day, in which Tom and Liz set off sexual sparks sparring over the true meaning of tree-planting.
SO WHAT DID SANTA'S ELVES THINK?	We think that this is the last alleged "holiday" movie you want to show to two Bay Area-based journalists. Let us set aside for a moment the contention that this movie is "holiday" like the first Die Hard, only in that they both take place toward the end of the year. And let us focus on the following point: you're going to tell us that in the Bay Area -- epicenter of citizen media, loci of social networks, producer of blogs -- the entire region is going to be riveted by a print-based newspaper columnist "war"? Assuming everyone has unwrapped their digits from their sidekicks and re-embraced print, you're also asking us to buy the idea that people in San Francisco actually read some fishwrap in Marin? Even more hilariously, you're asking us to believe that everyone in Marin county is a country bumpkin compared to those big-city San Francisco types? The willing suspension of disbelief is complicated only by the fact that none of the characters -- not even the ones ostensibly living in this county of simple rustics -- ever pronounces "Marin" properly. Also, Marin is where rich San Franciscans go to live when they tire of stepping over slumping hobos. Other than that, His & Her Christmas producers, you nailed it. And you certainly get points for making a movie that gets so many things wrong about an industry where accuracy is prized.
SANTA RATING:	We're fresh out of Hos.

12 Bad Movies of Christmas, Part Two

By The Vidiots on December 20, 2006 5:07 PM

If we've learned anything from our brief foray into the world of holiday movies, it's this: do not expect miracles from the supernatural forces behind Christmas, for they are are screwed up as we are.

How else to explain why one entire movie revolves around a bureaucratic error at a ghostly dispatch office, a second movie reveals Santa's inconsistent parenting practices and a third exposes the dangers inherent in nepotistic hiring practices at the North Pole?

Frankly, we find this trend depressing. Learning about the problems the Ghost of Christmas Past has with his boss does not make us feel better about our own coworkers. Learning that Santa's son is disliked by the colleagues who do not have the last name "Claus" does not make us feel better about living in a world where people with the last name "Walton" control many U.S. dollars. And we have no truck with any movie where Santa bails on us and goes to Hawaii. The point of Santa is to effect the kind of holiday magic that sends us to Hawaii.

Ah, but the point of these movies is to make us grateful. Did it work? Read on. --Philip Michaels and Lisa Schmeiser

Karroll's Christmas

WHEN IT'S ON:	Sunday, December 24 at 10 a.m. on A&E
PREMISE:	Curmudgeonly greeting-card writer Allen Karroll (played by Tom Everett Scott) is busy sabotaging his personal and professional lives when an administrative mix-up in the afterlife's dispatch office sends three ghosts to his house instead of his even-more-jerky neighbor's (played by Wallace Shawn). Allen then fixes his neighbor's life -- and, of course, his own. Less cynical people might call this a clever reinvention of A Christmas Carol that extols the virtues of helping others. We call it a cautionary tale about the perils of outsourcing and the possibility that 21st-century scrooges will be looking for subcontractors to field the goodwill conversions on December 24.
IN WHOSE CREDITS IS THIS A LUMP OF COAL?	Wallace Shawn, whose succession of fright wigs brings new meaning to the word "Inconceivable!"
RELATIVE YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS WITH:	Your cousin the McKinsey consultant, because when they take the Scrooge-outsourcing idea public, you're going to want in via the friends-and-family stock options.
THE SCRIPTWRITER'S PRESENT TO YOU:	"You're breaking up with me for Daryl the Donkey?" -- uttered by Tom Everett Scott with the sincerity of a prayer. We hasten to add he utters this line while in caribou costume. Acting isn't all about the glamour, kids.
THE MOMENT WE KNOCKED BACK THE WASSAIL:	The moment Alanna Ubach appeared as the ghost of Christmas present. Fine actress -- and we still feel sorry for her from her appearance as the Straw Woman in the West Wing episode entitled "The One Where We Learn That Your Lady Coworkers Love It When You Comment Salaciously Upon Their Appearance." But holy cow, does she overdo the Bridget-Jones-in-the-Afterlife schtick.
THE STAR ON TOP OF THE TREE:	Verne Troyer's casting as the Angel of Death. At last, he has shattered the glass ceiling for all little people in holiday movies. No longer do they have to play nothing but elves -- now they can play ghosts too!
SO WHAT DID SANTA'S ELVES THINK?	We think if you're going to do an nearly-original take on A Christmas Carol, you can go in one of two wildly divergent directions: unrelentingly dark or nerve-wrackingly manic. You cannot do both without producing the a movie roughly analogous to living with a rapidly-cycling, unmedicated manic depressive. Halfway through this, one of us blurted, "What is this, Requiem for a Candy Cane? Is the next ghost going to hand Tom Everett Scott a giant, red-and-white striped marital aid and tell him to bend over?" Maybe in the sequel.
SANTA RATING:	Ho ho Ho ho. Larry Miller shows up about halfway through as the Ghost of Christmas Past -- yes, the ghosts arrive out of order in this film -- and basically is the only reason we didn't crack open a vein.

Once Upon a Christmas

WHEN IT'S ON:	Friday, December 22 at 7 a.m. on ABC Family.
PREMISE:	Kathy Ireland proves yet again that supermodels should be seen and not heard. Oh, wait -- that was just the takeaway message. The premise of the movie is that Kathy Ireland is Kristen Claus, and she hopes to convince her burned-out father not to cancel Christmas so that he can go surf in Hawaii instead. Kristen's challenge: convert a family on the ever-growing "naughty" list to the "nice" list. Kristen is then sent down to Earth to work as a nanny to a den of motherless monsters and in a Christ-like moment, sacrifices her immortality for in order to save the life of one her especially monstrous charges. For this, she is rewarded with the prospect of becoming his stepmother. But at least, now that she's no longer immortal, one day she'll die. So there's the hint of a happy ending there.
IN WHOSE CREDITS IS THIS A LUMP OF COAL?	Nobody you've ever heard of. And for Kathy Ireland, this is totally a step up from her Alien from L.A. days.
RELATIVE YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS WITH:	The one you like least.
THE SCRIPTWRITER'S PRESENT TO YOU:	"But goodness always outweighs badness." -- Kathy Ireland. Not when you're on-screen, dear.
THE MOMENT WE KNOCKED BACK THE WASSAIL:	The moment Kathy Ireland opened her mouth. Seriously -- if you can watch this movie on mute with the closed-captioning, do it. Or maybe ABC Family, which will air this movie and its sequel in perpetuity, can hire someone like Glenn Close to come in and dub over her dialogue.
THE STAR ON TOP OF THE TREE:	Kristen's evil sister Rudolpha trading the promise of sexual favors with an elf for his untiring work on her new, tricked-out sleigh. When she later turns the elf into a reindeer and whips him, the movie goes in a whole new dark direction.
SO WHAT DID SANTA'S ELVES THINK?	We think we're lucky to have made it through the movie. This was the first one we considered bailing on, it was so plodding and dull. And the weird conflation of Santa Claus with God -- "He sent his daughter to save us!" -- struck a weird, not wholly appropriate tone.
SANTA RATING:	No Hos. Not a one.

Santa Junior

WHEN IT'S ON:	Saturday, December 23 at 5 p.m. and 10:45 p.m. on the Hallmark Channel
PREMISE:	Yet another scion of Santa is forced to interact with the un-festive citizens of Southern California. This time, Nick, Jr. is caught ostensibly stealing toys, then booked downtown. It's all a misunderstanding, of course, but until the trial, Nick has to live with his public defender, Susan. (Lawyers out there: is that common practice in criminal cases?) The lawyer, played by Lauren Holly, hates Christmas -- until Nick comes along and redecorates her entire house, shows her he's good with kids, and helps her hook up with police detective Judd Nelson. Oddly, this does not make her hate Christmas more.
IN WHOSE CREDITS IS THIS A LUMP OF COAL?	That'd be Nelson, who plays a shy and cynical cop. Remember when Judd Nelson used to play belligerent and slightly creepy? Ever think you'd miss that?
RELATIVE YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS WITH:	That annoying Gen X-er cousin or sibling who can, and still does, quote dialogue from The Breakfast Club verbatim. "This is what happened when Bender reformed and grew up," you can say. "His heart died."
THE SCRIPTWRITER'S PRESENT TO YOU:	Susan: "Why wouldn't I remember seeing Santa or you?" Nick Jr: "Christmas powder." And what would the street value of that Christmas powder be, mister?
THE MOMENT WE KNOCKED BACK THE WASSAIL:	The moment that the recrimination-filled elf Stan assigned to watch over Nick, Jr. slid down the chimney and began bitching at the house-arrestee. It was like watching Jiminy Cricket turn into an ugly drunk.
THE STAR ON TOP OF THE TREE:	Police Lt. George Wallace thrusting his pelvis on top of a table and handing out presents to San Diego's grabbiest cases, as a funky beat plays in the background. George Wallace is Black Santa, coming next Christmas to your UPN. UPN's out of business now? Well, crap.
SO WHAT DID SANTA'S ELVES THINK?	We think Santa's got a lot of nerve, passing judgment on our family dynamics with this naughty and nice business, when not a single movie has shown him capable of raising kids that aren't either creepy (hi, Nick of Single Santa!) or drippy (hi, Kristen of Once Upon a Christmas) or incompetent legacy hires (here). Who does Santa think he is? And why is he apparently reduced to slipping people Christmas roofies -- excuse us, Christmas powder -- to get his job done?
SANTA RATING:	Ho ho.

12 Bad Movies of Christmas, Part One

By The Vidiots on December 19, 2006 2:04 PM

On some level we understand the reason for so many cookie-cutter Christmas specials. So long as there's a working television in the room, no one's gathering around the fire to roast chestnuts. Which means that kids from 1 to 92 are sitting in front of the tube expecting to find programming that appeals to everyone from the kids to the elderly. And that means programs that ultimately satisfy no one. We're not expecting to flip on the tube and catch the closing minutes of A Very Deadwood Christmas -- "And a very joyous Noel to your nearest and dearest, cocksucker!" -- but we expect something a bit more substantial than, say, Rob Lowe mouthing platitudes about the innate goodness of the human heart in The Christmas Shoes. In this effort to avoid offending anyone, the makers of this shlock only wind up offending anyone with two brain cells to rub together.

So that's where we come in: As our gift to you, we've watched a dozen Christmas movies infesting your television this season, and we're here to let you know which ones may wring some merriment out of the experience -- and which ones will have you sobbing, "No, no, no, scary Christmas!" as you reach for the heavily-doctored eggnog. We'll trot out three movies each day, carefully sanitized for your holiday protection and rated on our patent-pending Ho Ho Ho scale -- 5 Hos for movies that made us particularly jolly and zero Hos for movies that have us planning a beach-front assault in Bill O'Reilly's War of Christmas.

Let's get this Christmas party started.

A Carol Christmas

WHEN IT'S ON	Saturday, Dec. 23 at 3 p.m. and Sunday, December 24 at 12:45 a.m. on the Hallmark Channel
PREMISE	Talk-show host Tori Spelling is the anti-Oprah -- in terms of size, temperament, and uncomfortably close relationship with Gayle King -- and, as such, is ushered through a Dickensian nightmare before Christmas by William Shatner and Gary Coleman.
IN WHOSE CREDITS IS THIS A LUMP OF COAL	At this point, these sorts of things are probably a step up for Coleman, Shatner and La Spelling. So let's go with Nina Siezmacko, who goes from being Kellie Martin's crime-fighting gal pal in the Mystery Woman series to playing a spineless Bob Crachit to Tori Spelling's lantern-jawed Scrooge.
RELATIVE YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS WITH	The fortyish, TrekCon-attending uncle you don't really like, just to watch him seethe over what's become of William Shatner.
THE SCRIPTWRITER'S PRESENTS TO YOU	"I could fly anywhere, but this is where I land/You can just take Highway 1, and stop to smell the sand/It's nothing like we're planned." -- Lyrics from the musical montage in which a not-yet-Scroogey Tori makes goo-goo eyes at a man sporting nearly as prominent a jawbone as her own. Stop and smell the sand? Wouldn't that cause considerable nostril irritation?
THE MOMENT WE KNOCKED BACK THE WASSAIL	The moment when we discover that Nina Siezmacko, personal assistant to the famous TV talk show host, apparently commutes to her job at the studio from a bullet-riddled hovel in one of L.A.'s less upwardly mobile neighborhoods and that she apparently can't swing a $20 tree. Last time we checked, indentured servitude wasn't standard operating procedure for any TV employee who wasn't a non-unionized reality show writer.
THE STAR ON TOP OF THE TREE	The chilling vision, courtesy of The Ghost of Christmas Future, of Tori Spelling stuffed into a coffin. For reasons that don't make us feel very good about the state of our souls, that made us more giddy than we care to admit.
SO WHAT DID SANTA'S ELVES THINK?	Well, it isn't often that you get the pleasure of Tori Spelling's company without David Silver tagging along, and this is Gary Coleman's best work since California's gubernatorial recall campaign. Plus, how many Christmas specials are willing to take on the subhuman conditions that personal assistants must endure in Hollywood these days?
SANTA RATING	Ho ho ho.

Single Santa Seeks Mrs. Claus

WHEN IT'S ON	Saturday, December 23 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, December 24 at 10:45 p.m. on the Hallmark Channel
PREMISE	Son of Santa Claus Steve Guttenberg stands to inherit the vast Christmas empire from his old man, but because the North Pole is not bound by the U.S. legal code and its many protections against discriminatory hiring, he's barred from assuming the job until he can marry. Off to find a bride, Guttenberg picks the one woman in Southern California who doesn't believe in Santa. A sexless, tension-free courtship follows, with Guttenberg seemingly more interested in hanging out with young children than in wooing and winning Crystal Bernard's affections
IN WHOSE CREDITS IS THIS A LUMP OF COAL	Everyone's. Steve Gutenberg, we can almost give a pass to because he looks crocked to the gills throughout -- it's not just his belly shaking like a bowl full of jelly -- so there's a remote possibility that he literally had no idea he was making this. But Thomas Calabro, who plays Crystal Bernard's workaholic creep of a boss, needs to better safeguard the legacy of Dr. Michael Mancini.
RELATIVE YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS WITH	The sister who has been fielding all the inquiries about why she's not married already.
THE SCRIPTWRITER'S PRESENT TO YOU	"It seems to me that little girls do much better if they're relaxed. They'll enjoy it more." -- Words of wisdom from Mr. Steve Guttenberg, after wandering on to the set where a Christmas commercial is being filmed and trying to soothe the jangled nerves of the prepubescent actress. Oh, and: "You are a little girl inside. You've just got to let her out." -- Guttenberg again. And... "I never met a kid I didn't like." Yeah, we were kind of getting that impression. Seriously, we understand what the filmmakers were trying to do -- Of course, the son of Santa Claus loves children! -- but it's undeniably creepy and off-putting to witness in action. Try reading through this description without adding the word "Officer" to the end of each sentence: "We were filming a commercial, when suddenly this man in his early 40s whom we had never seen before. He wanders on to the set, and sits down next to the young girl starring in our commercial. Then, he starts telling her to relax and to have a good time." Such a tableau should end with said stranger face-down on a cruiser's hood while someone shouts the Miranda into his ears, not with Crystal Bernard panting heavily at his way with kids.
THE MOMENT WE KNOCKED BACK THE WASSAIL	The first time we saw Gutenberg on-screen -- Kris Crinkled! -- resplendent in plaid golf pants, a bulky turtleneck and a mullet. And then we kept drinking.
THE STAR ON TOP OF THE TREE	The scene where Ernest -- Santa's flamboyant man servant -- attempts to school Gutenberg in the art of pitching woo. For a moment, it looked like the Single Santa would be seeking Mr. Claus.
SO WHAT DID SANTA'S ELVES THINK?	We thought we were watching To Catch a Predator: Holiday Edition.
SANTA RATING	Ho.

Meet the Santas

WHEN IT'S ON	Saturday, December 23 at 9 p.m. on the Hallmark Channel.
PREMISE	Following up on the film nobody needed to see comes the sequel that nobody asked for. Having gotten engaged at the end of Single Santa Seeks Mrs. Claus, Steve Guttenberg and Crystal Bernard now have to get married by Christmas Eve or else Christmas gets canceled under another one of the byzantine regulations that govern life at the North Pole. Crystal Bernard brings her intended home to meet her mother (Mariette Hartley), who is something of a control-freak social climber who despises Christmas and all it stands for. Cultural clashes ensue, Beth's cold feet bring Christmas to a screeching halt, but at the last minute, the world realizes that the holiday is actually connected to a religious festival and -- Just kidding! Although Christmas is cancelled for 10 minutes because a heartbroken Santa bums out the whole world, the wedding's soon back on and the movie ends with Steve Gutenberg hitched to his fidgety midget bride.
IN WHOSE CREDITS IS THIS A LUMP OF COAL	Mariette Hartley, who makes us long for the days of the unresolved sexual tension with James Garner in those Polaroid ads..
RELATIVE YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS WITH	The sibling who's just been jilted. "See what a bullet you've dodged?" you can ask.
THE SCRIPTWRITER'S PRESENT TO YOU	"Do you have any idea how much of an unbeliever Beth's mother is?" -- a line repeated so many times we kept expecting to see some elfin version of an auto de fe. Though we were also impressed with Mariette Hartley's ability to deliver the line, "I have gone to great lengths to throw a formal party, to present you to all of Elizabeth's friends, and you go crazy with the cream whipper," with nary a muffled sob.
THE MOMENT WE KNOCKED BACK THE WASSAIL	Really, we never stopped after the first movie.
THE STAR ON TOP OF THE TREE	When, during the marriage ceremony at the end, the participants ask their Christian pastor to drop the religious ritual and just pronounce them as married because they've got to get to the real meaning of Christmas -- handing out the presents. This is only slightly less daft than the Cadbury company asking the Pope to knock off the midnight mass on Easter because the Easter Bunny has some cream eggs to deliver.
SO WHAT DID SANTA'S ELVES THINK?	We think we can never, ever make fun of our in-laws again.
SANTA RATING	Ho. Armin Shimerman as the testy, possibly gay Ernest continues to be a delight.

Battlestar Galactica is kind of a drag, man

By Monty Ashley on December 11, 2006 3:44 PM

It has come time for me to admit that I don't really care about Battlestar Galactica. Well, I don't mind reading articles about it and talking to people about it. Specifically, I don't much enjoy watching the show.

It's not that I think it's bad. It's obviously a high-quality show with Important Themes and Bitchin' Special Effects. However, it is also a massive downer, which means that I don't look forward to watching the next episode. Actually, the episode I'm currently not looking forward to is the one from two weeks ago, followed by the one from last week. One of the interesting things about having Tivo is that it takes awhile before I have to admit that I'm not watching a show anymore.

Part of the problem is that I don't like any of the characters. They're pretty much all insane or incompetent or both, right? If these 40,000 people are the last remnants of humanity, I don't think there's much of a future even if the Cylons vanished immediately. That settlement on New Caprica was a depressing hellhole (with, apparently, union problems even though I would have thought it would be a most agrarian society) without the robot overlords. I can't bring myself to care if the Galactica finds Earth because I'm pretty sure they'd just screw everything up anyway. Besides, won't the Cylons still be right behind them, all set to enslave humanity again?

I'm perfectly willing to accept that the problem might be with me. I like my science fiction to be at least a little bit escapist, and I can't imagine actually wanting to live in the Battlestar Galactica universe, where nothing good ever happens. Seriously, it seems like there's only a happy ending once in every three or four episodes and then it's something along the lines of "Well, another few thousand people died, but at least some of us are more or less free. For now. Although we hate each other and are mostly crazy." I'd start rooting for the Cylons, but as soon as they started getting a fleshed-out society, they started going crazy too, to the point where I think Baltar might be the sanest one there. At least his imaginary girlfriend seems rational, which is more than I can say for the main Cylons.

So the last two weeks of Battlestar Galactica are sitting unwatched on my Tivo. I know that I "ought" to watch them, but I can't help feeling that my television-watching time would be better spent with something I enjoy

Gomen Nasai, "Heroes"

By Nathan Alderman on December 10, 2006 9:50 AM

If you're pressed for time, and can only read the first sentence of this piece before clicking off to your favorite blog, hardcore pornography, or hardcore pornography blog ("pornblography"?), here's everything you need to know: I'm basically completely wrong about everything.

And by "everything" -- thanks for sticking around, non-pornblography readers! -- I mean my initial impressions of NBC's Heroes and Studio 60. The former has snowballed into an mighty juggernaut of relentless entertainment, while the latter ... well, I'll get to that in a bit.

I still maintain that Heroes' pilot was a dismal, frequently inane hour of television. My theory is that creator Tim Kring -- who'd reportedly never read a comic book before coming up with the show, and may perhaps have wanted a taste of that sweet, sweet comic-book-movie zeitgeist -- devised a terrific concept for a series. He just completely lacked the skills to actually carry it out. Thankfully, he had the good sense to hire people who did -- people like Bryan "Wonderfalls" Fuller, and screenwriter/comic scribe/man responsible for both Teen Wolf and Commando Jeph Loeb, whose entire warehouses' worth of absolutely wretched comic books are still somehow counterbalanced by his handful of superb ones. The result? While Heroes may not have gotten any better since its lame-duck pilot, it's gotten exponentially more fun with each passing week.

For starters, most of the characters have gotten steadily more likeable and well-rounded. Cheerleader Claire and split-personality stripper Niki have both displayed welcome courage and vulnerability. Claire in particular has gone through a believable and entirely winning character arc that revealed the intelligence and goodheartedness behind her cheery pep-squad facade.

Masi Oka -- who, as if he could not be more awesome, actually supplements his acting career with his original job designing complex CGI effects for Industrial Light and Magic -- has only gotten more endearing and sympathetic as Hiro. James Kyson Lee's Ando has evolved from horndog jackass to wise and loyal counselor, and it's neat to see him grow more noble and idealistic as Hiro gets sadder and more jaded.

Greg Grunberg's psychic-cop-as-Everyman is every bit as awesome as I hoped he'd be, especially when paired with Clea DuVall's delightfully grouchy FBI agent. (Also, hooray! The show finally has one female character with an actual career! Even if it's implied that said career makes her a dour, unattractive harridan with no perceptible social life!)

Heck, even Milo Ventimiglia's marble-mouthed Peter Parker -- er, I mean, Petrelli -- is growing on me. Perhaps that's because he started showing up to the set entirely awake, just for a fun change of pace. Or maybe it's because they've been pairing him more with interesting characters, and less with his Tawny Cypress as his horrible, simpering love interest. Seriously, whoever actually wrote the line "I need some time to catch my breath before you take it away again" -- I refuse to believe it was credited writer Bryan Fuller, unless he was phoning his rewrites in from the midst of some emergency dental appointment -- deserves to be beaten roundly about the head and shoulders with a hardcover edition of Watchmen.

To my considerable surprise, Heroes has also shown surprising skill in the portrayal of its villains. Adrian Pasdar's Nathan Petrelli does some pretty lousy things -- cheating on his crippled wife, taking money from the Mob for his congressional campaign, treating his brother like dirt -- but somehow, you can still sympathize with him, and cheer for the brief flashes of his better nature whenever they surface. And Jack Coleman, as Claire's secret-agent dad, is rapidly becoming one of TV's most compelling bad guys. He's creepy, manipulative, and ruthless, but you never stop believing for a second that he really loves his daughter.

Best of all, Heroes never fails to make fun and fascinating use of its premise. The writers have found all sorts of delightfully icky ways to show off Claire's regenerative powers, though they'll have to work hard to top her waking up in the midst of her own autopsy. Hiro's unexpected jump six months back in time made an outstanding vehicle for a flashback episode. And Sylar, the brain-eating superpowered serial killer, is terrific, as charismatic as he is genuinely unsettling.

Unlike Lost, which too often goes around in circles in the jungle, waiting for its next shocking and increasingly pointless character death, Heroes feels like its going somewhere. The characters are actually showing growth and development. The plot twists are surprising, but they make sense, and always lead to fun new places. And there's genuine suspense in the show's countdown toward New York City's date with nuclear armageddon.

In short, Heroes has shaped up into one magnificent guilty pleasure, a blast of popcorny goodness that's got me waiting for Monday nights with only a modicum of shame. And with Christopher Eccleston, last seen kicking five kinds of ass on Doctor Who, reportedly coming aboard in the New Year, I'll be surprised if the show's fun quotient doesn't continue to soar up, up, and away.

If only I could say the same for Studio 60. What seemed like a promising if formulaic drama has rapidly devolved into a terrifying high-speed funhouse ride through the sordid depths of Aaron Sorkin's brain. Better minds than mine have catalogued the many, many ways in which Sorkin has used his nationally televised drama and its hugely talented cast to deliver a series of petulant schoolyard insults and flimsy moral justifications to everyone on his real-life spit list. And the whole "the comedy isn't actually funny" bit has pretty much been beaten into the ground, through the earth's crust, and somewhere into the middle of the mantle by now.

Yet somehow, there's still more strangeness to write about! Take the show's approach to romance, for example. In the latest episode, Bradley Whitford's character magically falls in love with Amanda Peet's network president the very instant he discovers she's impregnated with another man's baby. So he drags her out of a meeting with the her boss, with her mouth full of sandwich -- she's pregnant, and she can't stop eating! Hi-larious! -- to declare his love with a page right out of Ted Bundy's Guide to Wooing Women: "You can run away if you want, but you'd better get a good head start, 'cause I'm comin' for you." In the real world, this sort of behavior would be greeted with a thorough Tasering and at least five restraining orders. In Sorkinland, it means Bradley's character is the awesomest man alive.

This is, of course, the same episode in which Matthew Perry's character drags Sarah Paulsen away from the set, with mere seconds to go before she goes live on the air to do sketch comedy in front of an audience of millions, to suddenly stick his tongue down her throat. Having effectively sexually harrassed his own employee and ruined her concentration, thereby jeopardizing his own broadcast, he then becomes even creepier when we realize that he did the whole thing not as a sincere expression of his feelings, but as a smug, juvenile bit of one-upmanship to spite the hunky director who wants to date his lady love. Yes, in Sorkinland, nothing says romance like using the object of your affection as a bargaining chip in your latest insecure, alpha-male pissing match.

I'd also be remiss not to mention the show's patronizing, vaguely creepy treatment of black people. I'll freely admit that my own melanin-deprived status hardly makes me a natural or apt champion for racial equality, but I hope I'm not the only one bothered by the way that Sorkin seems to think all black people come from the 'hood. I mean, criminy, D.L. Hughley's character can't shut up about his childhood full of drive-bys, heroin dealing, and other things Sorkin probably saw in Boyz N' Tha Hood.

And then there's the weird way the show treats Darius Hawthorne (Columbus Short), the black comedian -- also from the 'hood! -- who isn't so much hired as press-ganged into service for the Studio 60 writing staff. Seriously. Hughley and Whitford's characters show up backstage after he's delivered a profoundly unfunny set of stand-up comedy at a local improv, tell him he's working for them whether he likes it or not, and basically explain that if he keeps his mouth shut and nods a lot, the overwhelming brilliance of Matthew Perry will shape him into a Great Writer. Like the rest of the show's truly superb cast, Short's a fine actor, but thus far his character has existed primarily to timidly make suggestions for unfunny sketches, or tell Matthew Perry's character how awesome he is.

Also, I think it must be some sort of crime to bring the wonderful Lucy Davis, from the BBC version of The Office, all the way to Los Angeles, and then do nothing with her save having her kiss Matthew Perry. (Perry may, of course, disagree.)

I'm not sure why I keep watching Studio 60, except perhaps for the morbid train-wreck appeal of it all. (God knows my entertainment time would be better devoted to the hugely funny 30 Rock, which proves week after week that Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, and Tracy Morgan are vastly more amusing than their respective appearances on Saturday Night Live would ever have suggested.) Heroes keeps viewers hooked with the promise of an all-consuming firestorm of destruction, but why wait? Studio 60's got it every week, provided you replace "New York City" with "Aaron Sorkin's reputation and career."

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