December '25
First and foremost, I'd like to apologize for the epic delay on this entry. To put it bluntly, I've been getting my ass kicked by work and personal stuff. Now, a full two weeks into the new year, feels like the first time I've really been able to sit and catch my breath but I can't rest yet. My loyal readers deserve a December round-up.
I think I said somewhere in my last one of these (bear with me as I try and find a better way to describe what I'm doing here than just "month-in-review" or "newsletter" or whatever) that I have mixed feelings about the holidays. It's hard to put into words why, in part because of the reaction I anticipate. I think of Gremlins when Phoebe Cates laments, "You say you hate Christmas and people treat you like you're a leper." It's hard to go against the torrent of festive joy but it's no use pretending this time of year isn't hard for a lot of people. For me, I work in retail so it's hard for me to get wrapped up in the festivities when I'm dealing with hordes of rude and angry customers on a daily basis (who, I should mention, are probably themselves stressed and dealing with something brought about by the season). Still, I tried my best to have fun where I could by observing some of my favorite holiday traditions, including, naturally, watching Christmas movies.
Of course, I watched some of the classics. Do I even need to mention A Christmas Story? I must've watched it every Christmas since I've been conscious, sometimes multiple times. Still, I never really tire of it, even despite its boomer rose-tinted glasses bullshit and the painfully unfunny racist joke at the end that I always forget about. It's one of the few movies that manages to capture the Christmas magic I remember from my childhood, before I became hardened to the forced joy and the ritualistic consumerism of the season. This film acknowledges some of the less glamorous realities of Christmas, like the anxiety about whether you've been good and just how scary Santa is, but it does so lovingly. In doing so, it paints an overall pleasant, Rockwellesque picture of Christmas, one that, despite it all, never fails to make me smile. It was admittedly weird that they played it on a loop all Christmas day, though. Once is enough, guys.
Another classic that I'm bound to revisit every year is Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas. This is one that I also don't really know how to speak about objectively. I also have a hard time recommending it to people. There's admittedly not much to it if you didn't grow up watching it (or if you're not into the work of Jim Henson like my girlfriend, with whom I had the pleasure of watching this with for the first time). It just so happens that my family would watch this while we decorated the Christmas tree every year and so feelings of coziness and warmth are inextricably linked with this little oddity from the seventies.
I have the feeling, though, that a new classic has entered the rotation. That's right. We watched Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special and it was incredible. Frankly, I'm surprised I've never had much to do with Pee-wee's Playhouse. I probably should. After all, I really like Pee-wee's Big Adventure. It's one of my favorites. They're obviously kind of different but I felt the same infectious joy I associate with Pee-wee watching this Christmas special. Its cast is basically a who's-who of the 80s, including Cher, Whoopi Goldberg, and Magic Johnson but as usual Paul Reubens is the star. It's crazy that he could match and frequently surpass the magnetism of these figures. I guess this speaks to the cultural staying power of Pee-wee. Since I didn't grow up in his heyday, it's easy for me to forget just how ubiquitous he was. Nowadays, it's hard to imagine an act like Pee-wee taking hold today. Maybe I'm just getting old but I'm noticing that there's just nothing for anybody over the age of ten in children's media anymore. Anyway, I had a blast watching this. It was so kitschy and brilliant. I'll definitely be watching it again next year.
Enough about the old standards, though. I made a point this season to watch what I've been referring to as "alt-Christmas" movies. You know, movies like Die Hard, Gremlins, or Lethal Weapon where Christmas imagery is present but subverted in some way. In fact, I'm often partial to films that go out of their way to defile such imagery. I think that's why I enjoyed Silent Night, Deadly Night so much. Call me a Grinch but it's always refreshing to see the hollow and sinister nature of Christmas as interpreted by the capitalist machine exposed in such brutal fashion. Obviously this isn't the most nuanced of explorations of trauma (if you're looking for that in your killer Santa movie, I recommend the glorious Christmas Evil) but it is brutal and ultimately quite entertaining.
I also watched Santa's Slay, a more modern take on the killer Santa trope. This movie definitely isn't for everyone. In fact, I don't really recommend watching it if you don't think you'll enjoy it. It's not gonna change your mind, nor is it trying to. It'll offend your senses and probably disgust you. What I suggest instead is doing some soul-searching. What went wrong in your life where you can't let yourself enjoy a movie in which Bill Goldberg plays a jacked Santa (who's actually the son of Satan, if I'm remembering the incredibly stopmotion sequence correctly) and does things like punt a dog into a ceiling fan and shove a turkey leg into the mouth of screen legend James Caan (let it be known that this is the best Christmas movie featuring James Caan)? This is all in the first five minutes, by the way. Once you have your answer and you get that shit worked out, go pop on Santa's Slay and have yourself a good time. This is a movie that delivers better on its premise than most of these kind of movies. Typically they don't have the guts to actually follow through and are only trying to grab your attention with a ridiculous title. This movie goes for it, though, and it never lets up throughout its lean eighty-minute runtime. Any longer might've been a bit much but this movie doesn't overstay its welcome. There's some feeble attempts at character development, of course, but the filmmakers thankfully know that's now what we're here for.
I wish someone had told Full Moon Features this while they were making The Gingerdead Man. Obviously it wasn't gonna be good but it could've at least been more fun. Instead, we spend an agonizing amount of time on the romantic tension, or lack thereof, between two profoundly uninteresting characters whose lack of chemistry is frankly impressive. It's not like this is a long movie. It's actually only seventy minutes! It felt much longer, though, likely also due to the relatively little screentime devoted to the titular Gingerdead Man. I do like what they did visually with this guy. He's definitely something to behold. In particular there's this great shot, easily my favorite in the movie, in which we see the Gingerdead Man's hand rising out of the batter while he's being mixed. It's awesome. The character himself is fine, I guess. He could've been a lot funnier and the writing could've been smarter. In particular I feel like the baking puns could've been better. I don't know. I just feel like they needed more time in the oven (please hire me, Charles Band). It doesn't matter, though, because, like I said, he's barely in the movie! Maybe they were going for a Jaws effect where you barely see the antagonist at first and it builds suspense. It's safe to say that this approach failed, though. There's also very little to the kills at all. It's not really that kind of movie but it also fails at being a horror-comedy. It just feels very lazy and that's ultimately what stings. Hell, I only watched this because I thought it was a Christmas movie! It's not, though, so this was largely a pretty big waste of time.
Of course, that didn't stop me from watching Gingerdead Man 2: The Passion of the Crust. Luckily for me, I think they got it right this time. I mean, it was definitely more tasteless and cheaply made but, respectfully, the types of people who're watching Full Moon Features probably see this as a good thing. Personally, I think this was a great direction for the sequel to go. I guess my expectations were a little low going in but this movie actually did a lot of things better than the first one, if you can believe it! Of course, it's not all good. Though the Gingerdead Man himself is definitely more of a presence in the movie, I still think his full potential as a slasher villian isn't being reached here. The jokes just aren't there. In fact, he's a bit, shall we say, problematic with some of his "dark" humor. Said dark humor is just a lot of gay jokes. I guess this was 2008. Six-year-olds were undoubtedly saying worse in Call of Duty lobbies. To me, though, this generally achieves the same effect as, say, a John Waters film. It's trying to be tasteless, after all, and I'd say it succeeds brilliantly at that. The kills are much more disgusting and inventive. The movie's not exactly funny but maybe I could get away with calling it irreverent. Obviously a lot of questionable jokes are made. See above. If you're not looking to be disgusted and offended then I would not suggest watching something like this. I also would not suggest watching something like this if you are looking for something that is traditionally good. That much should be obvious. In many ways, this movie is offensive and repellant to the senses. It's like a fart in that it's loud and obnoxious. As I'm sure you know, though, farts have the capacity to be quite funny when timed right and anybody who says otherwise is lying and living life in fear. Loosen up a bit, man. Farts are funny.
Alt-Christmas movies aren't just about defiling the imagery of Christmas in tasteless fashion. Sometimes it's about examining the bittersweet nature of the holiday. Sure, it can be absolute hell to get through, but there's a lot to love about it, as well. Two movies (both from 2015, strangely) that I feel accurately depict this dichotomy (I'm not sure if that's the right word to describe this phenomenon) are Carol and Tangerine. I don't want to say too much about these movies in part because I've been writing for the past two hours and I'm ready to be done but also because I think you should go into these knowing as little as possible. Just let yourself be swept up by the magic of these movies. I'm not talking about holiday magic, although that is definitely there in some form, rather the magic of the human experience. Mic drop.
I watched some other stuff that isn't related to the holidays but I wanted to keep this one on theme. I also just don't have the time or energy to write in-depth about every movie I watched in any given month. I do have a Letterboxd, though, where I log everything and occasionally post some thoughts or funny quips. You can find that here.
November '25
November is always a bittersweet time for me. On the one hand, it marks the end of the Halloween season, which is my favorite time of year. It's always sad to see it go knowing that it won't be back for another year. That's why I'm typically still watching horror movies at the beginning of November. Holdovers from Halloween, I suppose. Anyway, I watched a couple of the Children of the Corn sequels. I've had this old DVD with seven (!) of these movies on it for years but never watched it. I think I got it at one of those Halloween flea markets at Now That's Class. Frankly, I don't know why I bought it. There was just no way these movies could be good at all. For one thing, they already biffed it pretty hard with the first one. They took a bleak and chilling story and made it into a bland cheesefest. Just look at the differences between the movie and Stephen King's original short story. Instead of a quarreling husband and wife sacrificed to a demon by a cult of possessed children, Burt and Vicky are a happy couple who convince the children that their religion is nothing more than intolerance and defeat He Who Walks Behind the Rows in a hail of explosions. In my opinion, these changes rob the premise and the original story of its power. According to the film's Wikipedia page, King actually wrote the initial screenplay but writer George Goldsmith was hired by Hal Roach Studios to rewrite it. Interestingly, there's also this weird section on there that focuses on Goldsmith's assertion that the film was actually a metaphor for the Iranian Revolution. The town of Gatlin being taken over by "quasi-religious zealots" is a stand-in for "the Ayatollah Khomeini and his revolutionary guard taking over Iran." This was meant to be a cautiounary tale about the evils of religious fundamentalism, although the Wikipedia points out that this is something that "few critics recognized."
All of that to say is that the movie is pretty dumb and on this basis I couldn't really conceive of the possibility that the sequels were any good, either. I already knew that they were made purely so Dimension Pictures could hold onto the rights and I also couldn't imagine what they could possibly do with this story. The second one, Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice, which is a hilarious subtitle for obvious reasons, starts off fairly unremarkably. In it, a reporter travels to Gatlin to cover the events of the first film. For some reason he brings his son, with whom his relationship is strained. Meanwhile, the surviving children of Gatlin are sent to live with concerned citizens in the neighboring Hemingford, who are about to learn the hard way that He Who Walks Behind the Rows isn't done just yet. A series of brutal killings follow. Two reporters are slashed and impaled, respectively, by levitating corn stalks. An old woman is crushed by her house which was supported by hydraulics. Another old woman on a wheelchair that the kids have somehow taken control of is steered into incoming traffic, struck by a semi, and thrust through a storefront window. Another guy bleeds to death after a kid uses a voodoo doll on him in church. These kills alone are more entertaining than anything that happens in the first movie but it doesn't stop there. This features some great acting and writing of the "so-bad-it's-good" variety and, while obviously failing to capture the grounded but otherworldly horror of King's original story, succeeds where the first one failed in being, well, entertaining. It's stupid, straight-to-video fun, except this was somehow a theatrical release in 1992. Mind you, this is about eight years after the release of the first film. I guess they really wanted to hold onto those rights.
I also watched Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest. This one was even better than the last. The movie itself is, as you can imagine, quite dumb but it has pretty great kills, featuring incredible special effects work from two absolute legends, Screaming Mad George and Kevin Yagher. They've done amazing work on some of my favorite horror movies and their work here is actually pretty incredible. I'm specifically referencing the last fifteen to twenty minutes, an absolutely relentless torrent of blood and goop and guts and slime on the level of Society or The Substance. We even finally get a good look at He Who Walks Behind the Rows and He does not disappoint. He's basically a kaiju. It's awesome. This one is actually highly recommended. It's got this funny 90s feel to it and is really a good time. Don't just take my word for it, though. Stephen King himself said that he actually likes this one.
After that, though, I actually moved onto something else pretty quickly. Normally I watch horror movies for a little longer but I happened to go up to the library to grab some movies. Lately I've been trying to take advantage of my library's pretty awesome selection of movies and CDs. One of my favorite things is the monthly display shelf they do. October was obviously horror and for November they did noir films, or "Noirvember," you see. I've watched some noir films before but haven't really done a deep dive on the genre before. They always seemed a little too tropy to me, which is funny because I'm a huge fan of slashers, the tropiest of movies. Whatever. Consider me a noir fan now because I watched some bangers. I watched some classics, of course. I watched Double Indemnity and The Night of the Hunter. The former checks all the boxes for film noir tropes, namely Barbara Stanwyck's iconic femme fatale and the hardboiled crime narrative. It was a good time, though! The dialogue and performances were great. The Night of the Hunter was also excellent. I could see it becoming a favorite of mine, actually. I found the battle of wills between John Harper and Harry Powell to be utterly captivating. Robert Mitchum is easily in the pantheon of great "evil guy" performances, sitting comfortably next to Peter Lorre in M and Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs. I also really loved Lillian Gish as the hardheaded but caring Rachel Cooper. She brought a welcome warmth to an otherwise truly eerie and unsettling film. Seriously, it got under my skin at times, something I wasn't really expecting going in. In addition to Mitchum's performance, the stark, black-and-white photography has a lot to do with it. It's incredible. There's also some great shots of various creatures and critters in this one, mostly in this great sequence where the two kids are traveling down the river by boat. That part was incredible. It was so vibey.
I definitely want to watch more of these classic films. I mostly watched what would be called neo-noirs. There were a lot of bangers in this lineup, as well. Funnily enough, I picked out two movies where Michael Douglas trips over his own dick, Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction. I guess this genre of "erotic thriller" really took off in the late 80s and early 90s and Michael Douglas was in a couple of them. Fatal Attraction wasn't all that good but I did really like Basic Instinct. It was an absolute roller coaster of a movie. It was constantly playing with my emotions. I felt like I was being gaslit. I suppose that's what happens in these noir films. Though it came out in the 90s, it basically functions as a noir. It's got the crime narrative, detective of dubious morals (that's putting it lightly, Douglas's character is an absolute piece of shit), femme fatale (Sharon Stone is honestly probably one of the most famous femme fatales of all time, on the level with Rita Hayworth or Barbara Stanwyck), beautiful cinematography, and the like. It also had incredible car chases for no reason. Those winding hills of San Francisco look terrifying.
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Two other movies I watched were Blue Velvet and Chinatown. Both were excellent. Here are two more great "evil guy" performances in Dennis Hopper and John Huston, respectively. They're obviously very different performances. Hopper as Frank Booth is an endlessly watchable villain. Though he does a lot of truly repellent shit you can't help but watched transfixed as he huffs gas and screams obscenities, among other things. He's quite a dynamic character, undeniably goofy yet deeply sinister. Huston, meanwhile, is practically a portrait of pure evil. As opposed to Booth, I was cringing and shivering everytime Noah Cross was onscreen. His brand of evil, as opposed to the utter lunacy of Booth, is more mundane but almost more terrifying. The ending was similarly bleak and probably closer to reality than the radiant optimism of the ending of Blue Velvet. Both are incredible movies, though, movies I'll hopefully be watching for years to come.
One more film I watched for Noirvember this year (hopefully I do this next year and for many years to come) that I think is worth noting is Under the Silver Lake. This is one of those movies I'm always recommending to people because I want to hear what other people have to say about it. Personally, I think it's long and a little boring and can see why they put David Robert Mitchell in director jail for this one, but it's also such a fun movie. I love any movie that accurately captures the experience of reading a Thomas Pynchon novel, even if I think the film uses its Pynchonesque qualities as a postmodern screen, so to speak. Andrew Garfield is genuinely so good in this movie. He gives a very dynamic performance, ping-ponging effortlessly between this sort of stoner-noir vibe and unhinged insanity. The movie is definitely a bit of a mess and probably could've used more time in the oven but it's also a pretty wild ride. I mean, I personally had no idea where this was all going. I'm still on the fence about whether the movie is merely a postmodern riff on the noir film as well as conspiracy culture and modern paranoia or actually has more under the surface to decipher among the various codes, ciphers, Easter eggs, and subliminal messages or whatever. Personally, I think it's the former but would probably be really happy if it was the latter.
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Speaking of Thomas Pynchon, I read his new book, Shadow Ticket! It was so great to hear from him again. The Crying of Lot 49 is one of my favorites and I love all of his work that I've read and this was no different. As with all his novels, it's incredibly funny in a postmodern sort of way but never insufferably so. Postmodern literature can be a tough pill to swallow for a variety of reasons but with Pynchon the dense prose, metahumor, and historical allusions are more rewarding than annoying. Though Pynchon is pushing ninety at this point his prose is still absolutely electrifying and as always probes deep into American culture and the rise of fascism. That's why the interpretation of Pynchon's work as silly postmodern satire has always rubbed me the wrong way. Humor is obviously one of the defining traits of his work (and even Thomas Pynchon is never above a good, old-fashioned dick or even fart joke) but Pynchon has always been writing about some very serious shit. Look at The Crying of Lot 49. In my opinion, this is probably his most accessible book and a great place to start with Pynchon's work if you haven't yet. It's a lean, mean one-hundred and fifty pages that somehow manages to touch on examinations of paranoia, secret societies, MKUltra, and Operation Paperclip. It's crazy that he even knew about this stuff back in the sixties. It really makes you wonder what he saw when he worked at Boeing.
Anyway, I really enjoyed Shadow Ticket. It was difficult at times but overall immensely rewarding. It's also, despite taking place in the 30s, a deeply and troublingly relevant book given the state of things in America. I'm glad we finally got to hear Pynchon's take on Trump. His views on, well, anything are always appreciated.
I also read Stephen King's Night Shift. I'm less inclined to listen to what King has to say these days but I'll always be a huge fan of his writing. This is a collection of King's early work that, for one thing, features "Children of the Corn." There are definitely some misses but overall I had a lot of fun with this one. My favorite stories in it were probably "I Am the Doorway" and "The Last Rung on the Latter." The former felt very similar to the Dark Tower books' vibe and the latter was one of King's more "literary" stories. I always appreciate those. I wouldn't be surprised if you had a different favorite, though. There's a little something for everybody here. If you're reading this, we should start a book club.