well, it was gonna be 25 days...

but i'm lazy. i might do a quickie the lazy 11 days thing, on christmas (assuming a) i bring my laptop to PA to my parents' house and b) i remember....)

but i had to post this link, cos i find it funny, and it ties in very well with.... day 2? the superman one...

http://againwiththecomics.blogspot.com/2007/12/secret-origin-of-santa-claus.html

(i'd just post the images, but i still have presents to wrap and it's late... presents before bloggers.)

day 14a

this isn't a full post, i just for some reason find this funny. full post will be something more... rodenty.

day 13 - s-a-n-t-a c-l-a-u-s hooray for santa claus!

ok.

it's often one of those "worst movie" list movies.

mst3k did an episode around it.

it has pia zadora! (as a kid. but still. other than her appearance in hairspray, and the references on mathnet, pia zadora sucks.)

but, come on, this is just one of the best movie plots i have ever seen:
"The story involves the denizens of the planet Mars, including Momar ("Mom Martian") and Kimar ("King Martian") who are worried that their children Girmar ("Girl Martian") and Bomar ("Boy Martian") are watching too much Earth television, most notably station KID's interview with Santa Claus in his workshop at the North Pole. Consulting the ancient 800-year old Martian sage Chochem, they are advised that the children of Mars are growing distracted due to the society's overly rigid structure; from infancy, all their education is fed into their brains through machines, and they are not allowed individuality or freedom of thought. Chochem sadly notes that he had seen this coming "for centuries", and states that the only way to help the children is to allow them to have freedom, to be allowed to have fun. To do this, they need a Santa Claus figure, like on Earth. Leaving the sage's dwelling, the Martian leaders decide to kidnap Santa Claus from Earth and bring him to Mars to make toys for the children of their planet. One warmongering Martian, Voldar, is in constant disagreement with this idea and repeatedly tries to kill Santa Claus, as well as two kidnapped Earth children, as he believes that Santa is corrupting the children of Mars and turning them away from the race's original glory. Throughout the movie, Santa Claus makes several jokes to the kidnapped children, laughing to himself and met with silence. He then slowly laughs in disappointment each time.

When they arrive on Mars, Santa and the children build a factory to make toys for the Martian children. However, Voldar and his assistants, Stobo and Shim, sabotage the factory and change the programming so that it makes the toys incorrectly. Meanwhile, Dropo, a Martian who has been acting silly ever since Santa came to Mars, puts on one of Santa's spare suits and starts talking and acting like Santa Claus. He goes to the toy factory to make toys, but Voldar mistakes him for Santa Claus and kidnaps him. When Santa and the children come back to the factory to make more toys, they discover that the machine has been tampered with. Voldar and Stobo come back to the factory to make a deal with Kimar, but when they see the real Santa Claus in the factory they realize that their plan has been foiled. Dropo, held hostage in a cave, tricks Shim, who was guarding him, and escapes. Kimar then arrests Voldar, Stobo and Shim. Santa notices that Dropo is acting like him, and says that Dropo would make a good Martian Santa Claus. Kimar agrees to make Dropo a Santa Claus on Mars and sends Santa and the children back to earth.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus_Conquers_The_Martians)"

yes, i am talking about "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians!"

ok. it's bad. worse than bad. but this was the early/mid 60's. comic-surrealism in sci-fi was in. best of all, it's a christmas movie that lacks a lot of the sappiness and moralizing that christmas movies do. yeah, it's shit. bad acting. bad effects. bad directing.

but could they make a movie like this good? no. not at all. it's kind of like ed wood at his best/worst (before he sunk into porn and westerns) where it really tries to be a good movie, which probably makes it worse. it's certainly made with good intentions - were there any sci-fi/comedy/christmas movies yet? no. and it was at worst an appeal to its target audience - the kids who were spending a buck or two on a saturday matinee with their friends, looking for dumb, entertaining, cinematic fodder to waste their time and money on, while mom and dad were at home decorating the tree and thinking of nice "good" christmas stories for the kids.

it's absolutely the kind of movie you would expect to see on basic cable/uhf stations during the holiday weekends (see the included video). i particularly love their co-opting of the star wars music for their commercial... and it does include the awesome theme song!

day 12 . well, something is vile...

the grinch.

awesome. at least the book, and the original animated speciel. boris karloff! the guy who did the voice of tony the tiger! awesome!

the movie with jim carey?

travesty.

why?

(no, not why is it a travesty. why did they even bother? was it nescessary??)

first, why give the grinch a back story? why make his hatred of christmas and the whos a result of some childhood issues? do we live in such a touchy feely age that a grinch can't just be a grinch, with a two sizes two small heart and a nasty disposition? and isn't cindy lou who supposed to be only 2? do we need jim carey's hamming it up in bad makeup?

ugh. ron howard, i know you like money and stuff but why on earth would yo do this? it's ridiculously cynical. not to mention just really poorly done . i'm glad that the horton hears a who movie coming up is animated, so that regardless of what they do with the story, it won't have the weird, awkwardness of live action actors trying to play dr seuss characters (seriously, the animation looks much more dr seussish and even a little like the animation from the original horton animated thing, which is cool).

sadly, this is is the crap that gets shown on tv - i'm looking at you abc family - and pressed on us as a christmas classic (by the cast of kyleXY, no less!). i'm sure these kids have seen the original and are just contractually required to say how awesome the one that the family channel owns the rights to show is...

sigh.

holy shit, what?

thanks to wikipedia's article on Rankin Bass:

"The company is now in production with a new holiday film scheduled to be released in 2008. The film will be titled "Rudolph vs. Frosty". It is to fall in line with the recent films depicting classic characters from different series facing off with each other such as "Freddy vs. Jason" and "Alien vs. Predator"."

umm...

ummm......

fuck.

day 11- how would they know it's christmas?

band aid. nice idea - popular recording artists getting together to aid the starving in africa. bob geldof may be a little bit of a sanctimonious cunt (sorry, but he is. lily allen is right.) but it WAS a nice idea. and where/when else would you have bono, sting, simon le bon, george michael, paul young, and boy george all singing lead together? really.



but... umm... don't they see how it's just a little "white man's burden"-esque?

"well tonight thank god it's them instead of you."?
"There will be no snow in Africa this Christmastime"??

well, first line might be meant ironically. maybe. but is so easily taken as serious - after all, bono sings it with such damned passion. and they do talk about saying a "prayer for the other ones."

and of course there will be no snow in Africa. it's AFRICA. except maybe on mt kilamanjaro there IS no snow. especially since, i'm pretty sure it's summer down there at christmastime.

and, really, other than the ones christianized by the brits and the dutch, a lot of Africans wouldn't know it was christmas, or at least wouldn't care much, because they are muslims.

and really, shouldn't we be thinking of them all year, and not just at christmas?

the song, however, is kind of awesome. and both musically, and in it's sentiments, very thatcher-era britain (just as "we are the world" was very reagan-era USA). and really, what else would you expect? this was still before celebrities actually tried earning points by travelling to Africa, including mr bono. and the little synth line? fucking awesome, though for some reason in my head it sometimes morphs into the intro of "the final countdown."

hmm.

mtv get off the air, now! (not christmas)

everyone write nasty letters to eMpTyV NOW and demand they rectify this (from the State official website):

"* * * NOTE (Nov 1, 2007): We are sorry to report The State DVD is now NOT being released this fall. We worked closely with MTV to make a great DVD set with lots of extras for the show, and the DVDs are completed, but they have chosen not to release the set at this time. We don't know why."

seriously. what is this bullshit? they have chosen not to... what? the time is NOW! while things like reno 911 are hot. while christmas is coming. while...

i want it!

(i'll still want it 3, 6, 9, 12 months from now but....)