Movies

Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, a production of the Jim Henson Company based on Russell and Lillian Hoban’s 1971 book of the same title, is a delight in every sense of the word. Packed full of  American folk music-inspired songs composed by Paul Williams, who went on to write “The Rainbow Continue Reading

  Oh my but does Santa have secrets! I mean it stands to reason right? He lives in hiding up on the North Pole, spends his time with reindeer and elves, neither of whom are exactly the stuff of everyday life – unless you’re a reindeer herder in which case Continue Reading

  It’s a rare person indeed who hasn’t, at some point in their life, felt bored with their existence, numbed to the once-transcendant novelty of something that used to be an overriding passion. Jack Skellington, the “Pumpkin King” of Halloween Night and the ring master extraordinaire of everything ghoulish, goblinish Continue Reading

  Office Christmas Party wants to be funny. Desperately, festively, stick-everything-into-the-script-that-isn’t-nailed-down funny. And yet for all the (usually) luminously hilarious comedic talent hired, staging of over-the-top Christmas festivities and provocative posturing – allusions to a Human Centipede in the mens’ room anyone? No? Good choice – the film consistently fails to Continue Reading

  It would be a rare person indeed who would describe Christmas as a quiet, reflective time of the year. But there’s something about Amy Grant’s fourth Christmas offering – it follows 1983’s A Christmas Album, and A Home For Christmas and A Christmas to Remember (both 1990s releases) – that Continue Reading

  If you were to imagine a Calvin and Hobbes Christmas, the odds are you wouldn’t imagine a traditional Norman Rockwell moment. Oh sure Calvin’s parents would love that kind of Christmas with everyone grouped around the table in blissful, festive repose, but the reality is that Calvin, who never Continue Reading