On Strike for Christmas

 I recently received a review copy of best-selling author Sheila Roberts' new book The Nine Lives of Christmas just released in late October.  I'm excited to read it because Roberts' previous work On Strike for Christmas was adapted for the TV movie of the same title which aired on the Lifetime Movie Network in 2010. 

The TV movie On Strike for Christmas includes a familiar cast with loads of TV credits.  It stars Daphne Zuniga (Melrose Place) as Joy, David Sutcliffe (Gilmore Girls) as her husband Stephen, Julia Duffy (Newhart and Designing Women) as Grandma Erna, Victor Zinck Jr. as the son, Jeremy, and Evan Williams (Degrassi and the Christmas TV movie The National Tree) as the son, Mark.

l to r: Sutcliffe, Williams, Zuniga and Zinck.

In the days before Christmas, mother Joy Robertson is frustrated and overwhelmed with the amount of work needed to prepare for the family Christmas celebration.  She isn’t receiving any help from her husband, Stephen, and teenage sons Mark and Jeremy.  Yet the men expect her to bake cookies, decorate the house, trim the tree, and organize two holiday parties on their behalf.  Inspired by picketers she sees outside of a local market, Joy decides to go on strike until her demands are met.  Her strike gathers attention from other over-burdened wives and mothers and Joy’s story ends up on the front page of the local newspaper.  Now publicly embarrassed, Stephen and his two sons begin to take Joy’s strike more seriously as they take up the effort to organize the Christmas dinner, buy gifts and decorate the house and tree.  Along the way, Joy learns a lesson about what a perfect Christmas really means.  She also has to embrace the fact that when she asks her husband and sons to share in preparations for their holiday, they may not do it the same way she expects them to.

On Christmas Eve, Joy is finally willing to settle the strike when chaos fills her house:  Stephen’s holiday party for his co-workers is being hosted in the home at the same time Mark and Jeremy’s holiday party for their friends!  Adding to the mayhem, television news reporters are on the front lawn asking Joy to comment on the success of her strike and escalating the divisions in the community between women and their families.

Joy finds support and encouragement from her friends in her knitting group

This TV movie has the potential to be a holiday favorite for female viewers for years to come.  It doesn’t just provide two hours of escapist fun but acknowledges a common problem many viewers experience each Christmas.  Fortunately, this movie offers the right solution:  wives and mothers need to be appreciated more for the long hours and hard work they give to creating the Christmas traditions for their families each year.  At the same time, we all need to recognize that the perfect Christmas is never about the trappings but about bringing families closer and spending time together.

Check out the official site for the movie On Strike for Christmas.

Something else I liked about the movie was that it reminded me of a favorite Afterschool Special I'd seen before: Mom's On Strike from 1984, starring Mary Kay Place.  Apparently a similar concept inspired a 2002 TV movie starring Faith Ford.  Though On Strike for Christmas is an original story, it draws upon the spirit of personal conflicts becoming public discussions and an openness to ask for change in one's life.  The story in On Strike for Christmas also reminds me of the Christmas TV movie  Holiday in Handcuffs about a woman who emotionally and mentally breaks under the weight of feeling like she must construct the perfect Christmas with her family.  The 2007 comedy movie Holiday in Handcuffs starring Melissa Joan Hart and 2010's On Strike for Christmas remind us that the quest for perfection at Christmas is missing the spirit of the holiday season.

Next:  I'll review author Sheila Roberts' latest book The Nine Lives of Christmas.  Will it become a Christmas TV movie as well?

A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas by Bob Ignizio

The editor of Cleveland Movie Blog, Bob Ignizio, is a good friend to this blog.  He not only comments frequently but guest blogged during our Christmas in July celebration about the Christmas scene in the 1997 movie Boogie Nights.   Click here to see that again.  He and I were invited to participate in a panel discussion of blogging and podcasting at the Akron Film + Pixel Festival this past October.  On Friday, he wrote a review of the new Christmas movie released into theaters, A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas.  Bob was gracious to share it with us today.  Thanks Bob!  Please feel free to check out Cleveland Movie Blog for the latest movie reviews of independent films and popular movie reviews each week.

Review by Bob Ignizio

A VERY HAROLD AND KUMAR 3D CHRISTMAS is the third film to star John Cho and Kal Penn as the titular comedic stoner duo. Series creators/writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossburg are back again as well, and while they aren't quite scraping the bowl for resin just yet, they're definitely getting near the bottom of the bag. Which is not to say their product won't get the job done if you're a fan; the guys deliver a fair number of laughs here, even a few big ones, but nowhere near as many or as big as in the first two movies. If you haven't thought much of the series prior to this, or you have a general aversion to movies in which most of the humor derives from the characters consuming copious amounts of narcotics (including in this case a toddler), this won't be much of a holiday treat.

Harold and Kumar, once the best of friends, haven't seen each other in years. Harold is now a successful businessman married to Maria (Paula Garcés), but he still hasn't won over his wife's father Mr. Perez (Danny Trejo). Kumar, on the other hand, failed a drug test at work and is still living the life of an aimless stoner, which is beginning to look kind of sad. Of course the movie contrives a reason for the two to get back together (a package for Harold shows up at Kumar's apartment) and a quest for them to go on (they need to get just the right Christmas tree to impress Mr. Perez). And at some point Neil Patrick Harris is going to show up to play himself as a womanizing scumbag (who poses as gay as a way to pick up girls) whose drug habits make Harold and Kumar look like teetotalers.

As the title implies, A VERY HAROLD AND KUMAR 3D CHRISTMAS is indeed in 3D, and it actually makes good use of the process. Director Todd Strauss-Schulson isn't ashamed to use 3D as the gimmick it is, and he executes some effective gags with the technique. Not sure if those scenes will play as well when seen flat, so this is a rare case where I'm recommending you fork over the extra couple of bucks for the glasses if you're going to see the movie.

I don't really know if most fans of this series care or not, but the first two films had more heart and even a little more substance to them than this one. There's some attempt to deal with the notion that maybe Kumar could be a little more mature and responsible, and maybe Harold needs to grow a pair, but basically the movie is about drug jokes, dick jokes, ethnic jokes and religious jokes, all with an irreverent (but not mean) sensibility. And really, does a movie like this need to be anything more than that? I mean sure, it can, but no, it doesn't need to be. It's not as if all the Cheech and Chong or Abbot and Costello or even The Marx Brothers movies were 4-star comedy classics, but plenty of people still get a kick out of watching even the lesser film in their respective oeuvres.  And I imagine plenty of people will get a kick out of watching Harold and Kumar have a green Christmas, even if it isn't quite as much fun as watching them look for a Whitecastle. 2 1/2 out of 4 stars.

Snowglobe (2007)

The ABC Family channel's 25 Days of Christmas schedule has recently been posted--have you downloaded your copy yet?  Did you ever watch the 2007 TV movie Snowglobe?

starring Christina Milian

The movie Snowglobe is a fantasy story about a girl named Angela who is tired of her annoying family and their seemingly strange ethnic Christmas traditions.  Angela dreams of celebrating what she considers a "perfect" Christmas.  When she receives a snowglobe in the mail depicting an ideal Christmas village, Angela begins to withdraw into the fantasy within the snowglobe.  She spends more and more time away from her family, friends and her work in Brooklyn to be with the ideal, ever-happy people in the village of the snowglobe.  But when she doesn’t return to the magic of the snowglobe as promised, her boyfriend Douglas from the village finds himself able to enter her world in Brooklyn!  Trying to get Douglas back home inside the snowglobe, Angela becomes trapped in the village and realizes the perfect, ideal life there isn’t as happy as she dreamed it would be.

The cast includes: Lorraine Bracco as Rose; Christina Milian as Angela; Matt Keeslar as Douglas; and, Ron Canada as Antonio.



Do you remember seeing this? Don't fret--I'm pretty sure ABC Family channel will air it this December.  Though it's not currently listed on the highlights schedule of the 25 Days of Christmas, I'm hoping it re-airs on the marathon on Saturday, Dec.10th.  We'll have to wait until it's closer to that date to know for sure.  But I have my fingers crossed.  Have the new 25 Days of Christmas schedule yet?  What are you waiting for?

The Waltons Reunion: Coming Soon!

The Waltons reunion is just one month away!  In case you haven't heard yet:  this year is the 40th anniversary of the Christmas TV movie The Homecoming, based on the story written by Earl Hamner Jr.  In 1971, The Homecoming was such a success and earned such high ratings that it lead to the creation of the TV series The Waltons.  The long-running TV series about the Depression-era Walton family living in the mountains of Virginia changed not only TV history but the lives of it's viewers.  I'm very proud to include myself as one such viewer.

What is exciting is that Friday Dec. 2, 2011 there is going to be showing of the movie The Homecoming in Jersey City, NJ at the legendary Lowes Theatre.  Tickets are $20 each.  As if that's not special enough, there is a Waltons/Homecoming cast reunion with a Q&A panel discussion after the film.

The cast reunion includes:
~~Richard Thomas
~~Michael Learned
~~Judy Norton
~~Mary McDonough
~~David Harper
~~John Walmsley
~~Kami Cotler
~~Eric Scott
~~David Huddleston
~~Leslie Winston
~~Lynn Hamilton
~~Hal Williams
****just added: Radames Pera

This is a once-in-a-lifetime special Christmas event.  I'll be there, as well, as the moderator of the Q&A panel discussion after the film.  There's no way I would want to miss this opportunity!



Tickets are on sale now.  I'll see you there! www.WaltonsHomecoming40th.com

Please feel free to share this post and the links with anyone you know who would appreciate this special event!

Happy Halloween!

My pumpkin this year (2011)

Happy Halloween everyone!  Don't eat too much candy corn :)   Please indulge me while I remind you of the posts this past month in which I wrote about spooky and creepy entertainments with a Christmas cross-over. Click the link to return to those posts if you missed any of them.

Gumby's Santa Witch

The 1972 British movie Tales from the Crypt

The 2010 Hallmark Channel movie The Good Witch's Gift

The movie musical Scrooge with Albert Finney

TV Movie Munsters' Scary Little Christmas

photos of pumpkins

2010 episode of R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour

photos of costumes

horror movie Black Christmas and the recent remake

instances of The Boogeyman in Christmas entertainments

1971 horror/thriller movie Who Slew Auntie Roo?

The Grinch's Halloween TV special

horror/dark comedy, British TV Christmas special from The League of Gentlemen

Leach/Rankin's animated Halloween TV special Witch's Night Out

What a fun month of October and Halloween it has been!  My two favorite posts were 1) "Scrooge in Hell" about the 1970 musical Scrooge with Albert Finney and 2) the appearances of the Boogeyman in Christmas entertainments.  This weekend begins the Christmas programming on television.  What are you looking forward to watching in November?

This past weekend was a flurry of Halloween parties--what was your costume this year?  I was Loretta Castorini (Cher) from the 1988 movie Moonstruck and my boyfriend was Ronnie Cammereri (Nic Cage).  I was shocked to discover just how many people haven't seen that movie!  Cultural illiteracy runs amok in America. Oh well.  We had fun and it gave me an excuse to drink champagne with sugar cubes all night long.  Happy Halloween!

"Snap out of it!"

"I LOST MY HAND!"

Witch's Night Out!

box of VHS release

Happy Halloween!  Do you remember this 1970's animated Halloween TV special?

Witch's Night Out was created by John Leach and Isobel Jean Rankin in 1978 as a follow up to the 1974 Christmas TV special The Gift of Winter.  Both holiday specials feature many of the same characters as well as the same imaginative but simple character design and style.  Though first made for Canadian TV, both holiday specials were broadcast in the United States. 

Watch it here on Veoh. (Sorry, I tried to embed it but it would only copy corrupted).

If you watch just the beginning of this video, you can see how the characters are rendered simply but not without their own original and distinctive style.  The backgrounds are amazingly complex and colorful.  They look like watercolor paintings.  This Halloween special is not to be forgotten.  I believe Witch's Night Out has only been released on VHS.  But this cult classic is well worth watching. 

Witch is voiced by Gilda Radner

The story of Witch's Night Out attempts to explain the true meaning of Halloween and the joy of wearing costumes.  Two children, Small and Tender, are disappointed with their Halloween costumes which fail to scare anyone while they trick-or-treat.  Witch hears their pleas to become real monsters and she magically turns Small, Tender and the babysitter Bazooey into a werewolf, a ghost and Frankenstein's Monster!  Witch escorts the three monsters to the town Halloween party where they frighten away all the party guests.  Eventually, the three monsters learn that it's not as much fun as they had thought to be truely scary and to ruin everyone's fun.  The fun is having the opportunity once a year to step outside your normal self and dress like someone or something else.

Warning: video footage created by putting camera up to TV screen.  argh!

Have you ever seen Leach/Rankin's The Gift of Winter?   I wrote about in both my books The Christmas TV Companion and Tis the Season TV.  The TV special The Gift of Winter attempts to provide a delightful, imaginative explanation for the origin of snow.  I just happen to have a brand new, factory sealed DVD of The Gift of Winter.  The first person to comment below and to ask for it can have it.  Please, North American residents only. 

The League of Gentlemen Christmas (2000)

The League of Gentlemen TV series (1999-2002)

 Do you watch and enjoy British television?  I do.  There are some British shows that do quite well over here in the States and then...there are some shows that don't seem to quite catch on.  The strange and dark comedy series The League of Gentlemen is one of those TV series.  But if you watch alot of British comedies, you have a better chance of understanding and enjoying this style of humor.  The members of The League of Gentlemen are Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith, Jeremy Dyson and Mark Gatiss.  The TV series is a collection of sketches about the bizarre residents of the fictional town of Royston Vasey.  Words fail to capture the weirdness of the series except to say that it's definitely not for everyone.  However, I actually like The League of Gentlemen and the 2000 Christmas special entitled "Yule Never Leave" makes a great cross-over for Halloween.

This Christmas special brilliantly takes its inspiration from anthology horror films for this most unusual holiday show.  (Think 1945's Dead of Night and 1972's Tales From the Crypt movies).  These funny men weave three vignettes into one story, as the characters from the small village of Royston Vasey confide in the vicar on Christmas Eve.  The first vignette is about a woman seeking revenge against her line-dancing obsessed husband.  However, her revenge may cost her more than she intended to pay.  The second vignette is a hilariously perverted story with a twist--a German choir director stands accused by the new boy in the group of being a vampire.  The third segment concerns itself with a nineteenth-century veterinarian who is cursed by a magical spell to bring harm to the animals he treats.  Additionally, the irreverent vulgar vicar herself is visited by a terrifying vision of Santa Claus from her own Christmas past.

Youtube has a few clips from the Christmas special, but the videos disappointingly don't capture the essence of the story.  Luckily, Netflix has The League of Gentlemen Christmas special.  I feel safe in saying you've probably never seen anything like it.  But that's also why I'm a fan.

Stella approaches the mysterious masked committee to ask for revenge on her husband 

The choir master Herr Lipp welcomes a new member to his singing group

Spirists fill the air in the 2005 episode "The Unquiet Dead" on Doctor Who

Even if you don't appreciate The League of Gentlemen, you may already be familiar with actor/writer Mark Gatiss' work.  He has since become the writer for Sherlock, the hit mystery series from last year (2010) from the BBC--which ran here in the States on PBS.  Gatiss has also written for the latest Doctor Who series--including the 2005 episode "The Unquiet Dead" in which the Doctor and his companion Rose arrive in London on Christmas Eve 1869 where they follow a walking corpse from a funeral parlor to a public reading of the book A Christmas Carol by author Charles Dickens.  It is a fun Christmas episode if you haven't seen it!

Actor Simon Callow as Charles Dickens in "The Unquiet Dead."