12DC - Day 12: Merry Christmas
In 1897, Virginia O'Hanlon sent a letter to the New York Sun asking a simple question: is there a Santa Claus? You see, she had a bad father. He didn't want to answer the question, so he transferred his fatherly responsibilities to the newspaper, claiming that "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." An editor at the Sun, Francis Pharcellus Church, took the opportunity to answer Virginia's question and also addressed the deeper philosophical quandry. His now famous response can be summed up as "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."


Merry Christmas, all!



12DC - Day 11: The Night Before Christmas
This 1933 Disney short is a bit... unenlightened (check out that soot gag), but it was a different time then.


That's all for tonight. Merry Christmas Eve!



12DC - Day 10: Santa Slashers
Last year I checked out some holiday horror films and found myself enjoying them quite a bit. This year's crop turned out alright as well, though I wasn't able to get to Don't Open Till Christmas (very long wait on Netflix - the same fate that befell Silent Night, Deadly Night last year).

• Santa's Slay: It's hard to believe that a film written and directed by a protégé of Brett Ratner could be entertaining at all, but then, here we are. Of course, it's not fine cinema or anything, but it's quite a bit of fun. Former professional wrestler Bill Goldberg plays Santa and does a reasonably menacing job in the role. Interestingly enough, the movie attempts to build in some history to the story of Santa and why he is the way he is... It turns out that Santa lost a bet with an angel around 1000 years ago, and thus he had to act nice and deliver presents to the world. But now that agreement has lapsed and Santa goes on a murderous rampage. The flashback that tells this part of the story in the film is done in a rather awesome stop-motion animation, reminiscent of the old Rankin/Bass stuff - a nice touch.
  
  
  Indeed, there are a lot of little things that I really liked about this movie. Some of the jokes are actually funny and the pop culture references are present without being overbearing. I would have liked to have seen more Santa slayings, but ultimately, this film was a lot better than I expected. Again, it isn't especially brilliant, but it's rather well put together and worth a watch if you go in for this sort of thing. ***
• Christmas Evil (aka You Better Watch Out): I had no idea that this was a Troma film until I saw it during the opening credits. However, despite the Troma reputation, this film is much more deliberate and measured than you might expect (there's not even much in the way of gore). The story follows Harry Stadling, a guy who works at a toy factory and has an unhealthy obsession with Santa Claus. For instance, he observes neighborhood kids and makes naughty and nice lists, tabulating all their deeds into two giant books. Eventually, Harry snaps, dresses up like Santa, paints his van to look like a sleigh, and heads out on Christmas Eve to give presents to the nice kids... and punish the naughty ones. Unlike Santa's Slay, Harry actually makes a distinction between naughty and nice, and does not harm the nice people. The naughty, on the other hand, well, they get what's coming to them. Harry is portrayed in a surprisingly sympathetic light, no doubt a result of a rather good lead performance by Brandon Maggart. The film was quite low budget, and it shows, but it's still a very interesting movie. Also, I rather loved the ending, despite the fact that it kinda comes out of nowhere and makes no sense. It's still fun. ***
  
  
  
• Dead End: Not sure where I heard of this, but it takes a familiar premise and... doesn't really do all that much with it. A family driving to Christmas Eve dinner takes a "shortcut" and find themselves on a mysterious road through a mysterious forest where they pick up a mysterious woman who mysteriously disappears, but then someone sees a mysterious car that looks almost like a hearse driving away with one of the kids and it's all very mysterious. This sort of thing could work if there was some sort of reasonable explanation for all the mystery... or if the dialogue were good or if the plot progressed in a fashion that made sense in some way. Some serious horror movie tropes here. Like people walking off by themselves or other seriously stupid stuff. For a low budget film, it looks pretty good, and they did manage to find some reasonably good actors, but some of the dumber plot points and the ending just left a bad taste in my mouth. *1/2

That's all for now. Coming down the home stretch, we've got the night before Christmas and the big day itself!

12DC - Day 9: Rantlers!
Sometimes brilliant moments in cinematic history appear in the most unlikely places. Case in point, Rocky V, where Rocky coins a new holiday term: Rantlers! Take a listen:

• Rantlers! (mp3) - The full speech.
• Rantlers! (mp3) - The term, isolated.
• YTMND Rantlers Page - Give you some of the visuals, as well as a shortened clip.

A portmanteau of reindeer and anters, it's just another example of the genius of Rocky.



12DC - Day 8: Eggnog!
Last year, I posted about my family's eggnog tradition. Every Thanksgiving, we all bring a few eggnogs and have a tasting. We're pretty bad about organizing it, but this year things went reasonably well, with 12 varieties and even a few new ones. I'm determined to do a true double blind taste test next year... Anyway, here's this year's lineup:


For reference, these are the eggnogs pictured (from left to right):

• Wawa
• Swiss Farms
• Turkey Hill
• Lucerne Farms
• Southern Comfort (Traditional)
• Hood (Golden)
• Hood (Pumpkin)
• Hood (Sugar Cookie)
• Southern Comfort (Vanilla Spice)
• Wawa (Pumpkin Spice)
• Lactaid
• Rice Dream Rice Nog

Just like last year, there wasn't particularly scientific or comprehensive about the process, but a general consensus arose. First, "flavored" eggnogs (like Vanilla Spice or Pumpkin, etc...), while tasty and a nice change of pace, were generally considered to be out of the running for the prize. For the most part, I don't think we'll be pursuing flavored brands in the future. This will lessen the quantity of egg nogs, but it will also make it easier to conduct a double blind taste test. Anyway, there was actually a tie when it came to decide the best eggnog. The winners:


Wawa brand and Swiss Farms brand eggnogs came out on top, with 5 votes apiece. For those of you non-East-Coasters, Wawa is a popular convenience store (a la 7-Eleven, but better) and dairy farm, and their Eggnog is great. Swiss Farms is also a local dairy, and their stores are these strange drive through affairs... Their eggnog was a new addition this year, and obviously a successful one. It's quite good. On the other end of the spectrum, there was a unanimous decision to crown Rice Dream Rice Nog the most disgusting, though quite surprisingly, Lucerne eggnog did quite poorly. I'm not sure how Rice Nog would compare with Silk Soy Nog (last year's loser), but they're both pretty foul.


One of the funniest things about Rice Dream was a little warning label that was on the side. I took a picture, but Kelson's is much better, and I won't ruin the surprise.

Anywho, it was a good year, and I'm looking forward to next year's tasting!

12DC - Day 7: Treevenge!
On Saturday, I posted a picture of the traditional Kaedrin Christmas Cactus. I've been delayed a bit due to some server host issues, but today we're going to see a reason not to have a tree (though honestly, in my case, it's more due to laziness than to what you're about to see). It's a short film made by Canadian filmmaker Jason Eisener (he also made this bit of insanity, which I may have posted during the 6WH last year), and a word of warning, it starts out pleasant enough, but it eventually gets very gory, so proceed at your own risk.


Of course, that's complete fiction. Everyone knows that our bloodthirsty lust for Christmas trees leads to the extinction of the pine tree.



12DC - Day 6: The Christmas Cactus
Last year, the strand of lights I had on the cactus burnt out, so I had to replace it... And now I remember why I never took lights off the thing before. Taking them off and putting them on can make for a painful experience. In any case, I present you with the 2009 traditional Kaedrin Christmas Cactus:


There you have it. Later in the 12DC, we'll go over some reasons not to have a tree (even though, hey, I love Christmas trees too).



12DC - Day 5: Friday is Holiday List Day
Even though it is infrequently observed, Friday is list day, so here's a couple lists...

Not So Random 10
Holiday music generally gets overplayed, but let's see what comes up:

• Shostakovich - "Suite #2 For Jazz Orchestra - Waltz #2"
• Vince Guaraldi - "Linus and Lucy"
• Bobby Helms - "Jingle Bell Rock"
• Weezer - "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"
• John Lennon - "Happy Xmas"
• Tchaikovsky - "The Nutcracker Suite"
• Gary Hoey - "Carol of the Bells"
• Bruce Springsteen - "Merry Christmas Baby"
• Vince Guaraldi - "Christmas Time Is Here"
• Sufjan Stevens - "Come on! Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance!"

Yeah, so some of those are reallly overplayed, but what the hey.

Holiday Link Dump

• Faux Fire - Do they still put that fireplace thing on TV these days? I don't think they do, which makes this site fun.
• White Christmas: Zack Kim plays the song using two guitars (at once!)
• The Mr Do and Mr Don't Holiday Special - Some good advice in here.
• It's an MST3k Christmas - Compulsory viewing!
• The 10 Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time - John Scalzi recounts some less than appealing specials, including The Lost Star Trek Christmas Episode: “A Most Illogical Holiday” and A Canadian Christmas with David Cronenberg. Awesome.
• Nine Inch Noels - Words fail me.
• 13 Days of Christmas - Those Needcofee folks have upstaged me by doing a whole extra day of Christmas (and have been doing it for several years too).

Well, that's all for now. Stay tuned for what passes as a Christmas tree around here as well as Egg Nog madness.



12DC - Day 4: Christmas Light Hero
Apparently only 1.1 million of you have seen this, so I better do my part:


That's a lot of lights. I'm disappointed that the kid is only playing on easy though!



12DC - Day 2: Peter's Christmas Album
I think one of the funny things about this clip is that it appeared in an episode that was aired in September (i.e. not even close to the Holidays). Typical Family Guy.


Stay tuned for this year's edition of Incidental Christmas Movies...



12 Days of Christmas: Day 1 - Tarzan, Tonto & Frankenstein
It's that time of year again, and in keeping with the tradition of seasonal posts (i.e. last year's 12DC and the 6 Weeks of Halloween), today marks the first of twelve holiday themed posts. As with last year, most will be short posts (usually just a pic or video), but Wednesday and Sunday posts will tend to be longer. And so we begin with a bit of a softball, but for some reason one of my favorite SNL holiday gags growing up. I give you: Season's Greetings from Tarzan, Tonto & Frankenstein!


I don't know why, but this seriously cracked me up. Another vid in the extended entry (unfortunately, the best part gets cut off at the end, but it's still awesome).

Hilarious.



Merry Christmas
And so we come to the last day of the twelve days of Christmas. I hope you had a good one! To mark the occassion, here's Eric Cartman's rendition of "O Holy Night":


Merry Christmas all! And now we return to our normally scheduled posting...



12DC: Day 11 - The Night Before Christmas
Today, we kick it old school with The Night Before Christmas, a 1905 silent film (loosely) based on the classic poem by Clement Moore.


Only the big day remains! See you tomorrow...



12DC: Day 10 - Seasons Eatings
I'm sure you've already seen this, but it's always worth watching again:

Pete Schweaty's Balls - watch more funny videos

Aside from holiday balls, 'tis also the season for Pizzelles (or Italian death cookies, as my friend Dave calls them)... alas, I do not have any good pictures of my mom's famous Pizzelles. Perhaps later. Anyway, we're getting close now!



12DC: Day 9 - One of these is not like the other...
Seen while Christmas shopping:


Apparently T2 has entered the ranks of Christmas Classic. That endoskeleton skull fits right in on that shelf, doesn't it?



12DC: Day 8 - Holiday Horror
It seems that even after the Six Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon, I couldn't really stop. It doesn't help that there are plenty of Christmas themed horror films... though I must admit that I wasn't able to get to the infamous Silent Night, Deadly Night (very long wait on Netflix). Oh well, there's always next year. In the mean time, here's a trio of other Christmas horror films...

• Gremlins: First up is a little bit of nostalgia for me. One of my favorites as a kid, this movie still works pretty well even today, though perhaps it's not as great as I remembered it. On the other hand, now that I've seen a lot more films, I started to pick up on a lot of the references in the film (and there are a ton of them). Director Joe Dante had a lot of fun with the referential nature of the film, and it shows. As Christmas films go, it is indeed a bit dark, but still a lot of fun. ***
  
  
  
• Jack Frost: It's important to note that this film is not the heartwarming 1998 film starring Michael Keaton as a father who comes back to life as a snowman so he can visit his kids again. I imagine the fact that these two movies share a title has lead to at least a few memorable video rental store blunders. This movie is about a serial killer who crashes into some toxic waste truck during a blizzard. The toxic waste fuzes him with the snow and voila: murderous snowman! This movie is about as good as you'd expect it to be (which is to say it's bad, but a fun bad). You know you're in for a treat when our sherrif hero gets some oatmeal cookies from his daughter. The secret ingredient? Anti-freeze? If there's a more subtle technique for foreshadowing, I certainly can't think of one. The other notable aspect of this movie is that it marks the first appearance of Shannon Elizabeth, who shares an intimate moment in the shower with our abominable friend. Bad puns and ironic Christmas decorations abound. In the end, you get what you expect out of this one... in my case, I had some fun with it, but it's clearly a bad, bad movie. **
• Black Christmas (1974 version): Interestingly enough, this film was directed by Bob Clark... director of the polar opposite A Christmas Story. I guess Clark had a lot to say about Christmas. In this case, things are darker and less nostalgic than his other film, but this one is no less a classic. Indeed, it deserves to be recognized as one of 3 or 4 films that created the slasher subgenre... but strangely, it's only really achieved this status in the horror aficionado world. Mainstream audiences don't seem to have heard much about this one, and it's a shame becaues it originates several of the key elements of slasher horror: the long POV shots, the creepy phone calls (and requisite police trackers who shockingly realize that the calls are coming from inside the house!), the final girl syndrome, and more. All of this was done 4 or 5 years before both Halloween (which is still a classic and deserving of all the praise heaped upon it) and When a Stranger Calls (which is perhaps not so much of a classic). Despite being aped by every 80s slasher movie, this film still retains its edge somehow, and is actually pretty effective. The film was remade in 2006, and of course, that didn't go so well (though I have to admit that I liked some of the ideas, I can't say it was executed all that well), but it did have the rather positive effect of getting more people to see the original, which is a plus in my book. It really is a great movie, and probably deserves more mainstream recognition than it gets. ***1/2
  
  
  

That's all for now... only a few days left!



12DC: Day 7 - Weird Holiday Music
The 12 days of Christmas continues with a couple of strange Holiday songs for your enjoyment. First up is an animated Bob & Doug McKenzie singing The 12 Days of Christmas:


Next is the Carol of the Bells as performed by guitarist Gary Hoey:


Ok, so not that weird so far, but here's a genuinely odd one from Jonathan Coulton (with Paul & Storm) called Chiron Beta Prime. Just his description of the song, before he even starts singing, is worth watching...


Well that's weird enough for me. Special thanks to Widgett, who is one-upping me by doing 13 days of Christmas. Anyway, he's responsible for the Bob & Doug McKenzie and Jonathan Coulton songs and has a few other demented holiday songs too...



12DC: Day 6 - The Spirit of Christmas
During my freshman year of college, a friend called me into his room to show me this video he downloaded from the internet (Dude, it was 50 megabytes! That's huge!) The video featured crudely animated kids with hilarious potty mouths chearing on a fight between Jesus and Santa Claus. This was probably among the first internet video memes out there, and it's fully deserving... A few years later, the creators of this short got their own TV show, which became South Park. This original video still holds up though, even after all these years...


More tomorrow!



12DC: Day 5 - It's an MST3k Christmas
There are lots of great Christmas movies, but of course, there are lots of really bad ones too. This is why these Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes are so great - they make bad Christmas movies into great experiences. Without further ado, here are the full length episodes of both Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (with Joel Hodgson and including the infamous Patrick Swayze Christmas carol) and Santa Claus (with Mike Nelson).

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians:


Santa Claus:

Over 3 hours of brilliant stuff going on there... enjoy!



12DC: Day 4 - Eggnog
A family tradition has grown over the past few years. Every Thanksgiving, we have an Eggnog tasting. Nothing fancy or scientific (though perhaps that can be arranged next year!) and we're pretty bad about organizing this. Point of fact, this year, we only had 4 varieties to try out. Last year, however, was a different story. Again, due to poor planning, several people brought several different varieties, which lead us to have 14 different brands of eggnog.


For reference, these are the eggnogs pictured:

• Turkey Hill
• Southern Comfort (Traditional)
• Southern Comfort (Vanilla Spice)
• Organic Valley
• Shop Rite
• Hood (Sugar Cookie)
• Hood (Pumpkin)
• Hood (Gingerbread)
• Hood (Cinnemon)
• Axelrod
• Wawa
• Tuscan Dairy Farms
• Soy Nog
• Borden

Like I said, nothing particularly scientific or comprehensive about the process (heck, we don't even add alcohol), but a general consensus arose. First, "flavored" eggnogs (like Vanilla Spice or Pumpkin, etc...), while tasty and a nice change of pace, were generally considered to be out of the running for the prize. Second, Soy Nog was unanimously declared the worst egg nog evar. This may have had something to do with the fact that it didn't actually have egg in it, and thus isn't really eggnog, but still. And finally, the winner (not unanimous, but it scored a decisive victory), was actually Wawa brand eggnog. For those of you non-East-Coasters, Wawa is a popular convenience store (a la 7-Eleven, but better) and dairy farm, and their Eggnog is great.

Up until this event started, I'd never been much of a fan of eggnog. There's just something unappealing about a substance that is so scary-bad-for-you that you can only consume it for a limited period of the year. But I've grown into it and am looking forward to next year's tasting...



12DC: Day 3 - The Christmas Cactus
What do you use, a tree? Pfft!


The traditional Kaedrin Christmas cactus strikes again. Also striking again, my poor photography skillz! More to come...



12DC: Day 2 - The Lost Ending of It's a Wonderful Life
A few years ago, the lost ending to the holiday classic It's a Wonderful Life was found. It's brilliant.


Tomorrow, we'll handle christmas trees... sorta.



12 Days of Christmas: Day 1 - Incidental Christmas Movies
In keeping with the tradition of seasonal posts (i.e. 6 Weeks of Halloween), today marks the first of twelve holiday themed posts (not all will be about movies, I promise!) We start off with what I'm calling Incidental Christmas Movies, meaning movies that take place during the holidays but aren't about the holidays.

• Die Hard: "Now I have a machine gun. Ho, Ho, Ho." Okay, so that line sounds a lot better with Alan Rickman's eurotrash accent. In any case, the story takes place on Christmas Eve when a bunch of "terrorists" take over an LA highrise building, but neglect to count on NY cop John McClane. It's one of the best action movies of all time, and has spawned its own sub-genre (i.e. Die Hard on a plane, Die Hard on a boat, Die Hard on a bus, etc...) Not at all a holiday film, but there are a few songs and holiday decorations that set the mood...
• Trading Places: Probably my favorite incidental holiday movie of all time, I watch this to kick off the holiday season almost every year. It takes place in the timeframe between Thanksgiving and ends just a few days after New Years, and it has some very memorable holiday related scenes. In particular, the scenes where Winthorpe dresses up like Santa and crashes the Duke & Duke party are classic. Unlike a lot of comedies, this movie seems to have something to say and it doesn't do so in a stupid fashion. It kinda resembles the classic comedies of the 30s and 40s, but with a modern sensibility. Fantastic movie...
  
  
  Winthorpe Claus
  
• Eyes Wide Shut: Stanley Kubrick's final film is perhaps not his best work, but I also think it's underrated. It takes place during the holiday season, and Kubrick takes full advantage of the high contrast lighting opportunities. I suppose the movie is something of a downer, and thus doesn't really make such a great introduction to the holiday season, but it's gorgeous to look at...
  
  
  My house is decorated like this...
  

That's all for now, stay tuned for more tomorrow...

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