Christmas Time rolls along with another Christmas Song. This time it’s The Twelve Days of Christmas by Relient K.
Tag Archives: Christmas Season
THE CHRISTMAS KID (1967)
Jeffrey Hunter as The Christmas Kid
I always think of this bizarrely-themed Spaghetti Western as The Gospel According to Sam Colt or Paul’s Letter to Smith & Wesson. Our title gunslinger is played by Jeffrey “Captain Pike on Star Trek” Hunter. As Jesus in the movie King of Kings, Hunter’s youthful appearance brought on ridicule from wags who called the film I Was a Teenage Jesus.
Once again Jeffrey plays a character who is born in a manger at Christmas and gets visited by three wise (well … no) men. The Christmas Kid‘s half-assed Jesus parallels continue from there in sporadic fashion. The little babe – called Christmas Joe at first – grows up to be a philosophical boy who practices pacifism.
When our hero’s home hamlet of Jaspen, Arizona becomes a Boom Town after copper is discovered, the place turns into a proverbial web of sin and vale of tears. Michael Culligan (Louis Hayward), the greedy town boss, builds an empire for himself out of crime and greed as the copper rush continues.
This being a western, the day comes when Christmas Joe must strap on a gun and pin on a badge for a three-year mission – I mean term in office – to fight the forces of evil in Arizona Territory. Now called the Christmas Kid our hero spreads the Good News of Gunplay as he blows away various bad men who leave him with no other choice. Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, Spaghetti Westerns
PATRICK STEWART’S ONE-MAN PERFORMANCE OF A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1988)
A CHRISTMAS CAROL: PATRICK STEWART’S ONE-MAN STAGE SHOW (1988) I’ll come right out and admit it – I’ve always been a sucker for any version of A Christmas Carol. Trouble is, most adaptations distort the story or are produced by people who don’t seem to “get” the story or treat it like it’s a children’s tale. Anyone who thinks that needs to read the novel.
My love of mythology is partly why I love the story so much. A Christmas Carol is the closest thing to an Epic Myth the Industrial Age has produced. The language Dickens uses is very close to prose poetry but precious few adaptations of the story preserve enough of it.
That brings us to Patrick Stewart’s one-man stage presentation of A Christmas Carol. (NOT the made-for- tv movie he did on TNT) Stewart does all the voices and pretty much all the sound effects and his presentation is magnificent. It’s NOT a book-on-tape, it’s Patrick Stewart acting out the story by himself, like he did on Broadway in the Continue reading
Filed under A CHRISTMAS CAROL
TOMMY WISEAU AUDIOBOOKS: BALLADEER’S GIFT BAG
Since it’s Christmas Season I figured I would start posting gift suggestions for like-minded eccentrics.
TOMMY WISEAU AUDIOBOOKS – Yes, we all loved Tommy in The Room … well, actually, we loved Greg Sestero more. In fact we had no more feelings at all for Tommy Wiseau, we loved Greg. Yeah, we were all much more into Greg Sestero, to the point where we didn’t love Tommy at all anymore. Greg was the one we loved.
Putting that aside, though, Tommy Wiseau uses his inimitable delivery to bring to life some of the world’s greatest literary works. Whether it’s Finnegans Wake (“River run past Eve and Adam’s, HHHUUUHH?”) or Hamlet (“To be or NAAAAAAAHHHHT to be …”) they take on new meaning as interpreted by the enigmatic Mr Wiseau (Still thirty after all these years!). Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, humor
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