{"id":1518,"date":"2008-12-23T17:09:04","date_gmt":"2008-12-24T00:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/?p=1518"},"modified":"2008-12-23T17:09:04","modified_gmt":"2008-12-24T00:09:04","slug":"jingle-bell-grok-genre-related-visual-mix-tape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/?p=1518","title":{"rendered":"Jingle Bell Grok: Genre-Related Visual Mix Tape"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other night, Bravo had a pretty cool back-to-back double feature going on: Ghostbusters II<\/em> and The Princess Bride<\/em>. It aired these two movies over and over again, a repetition-happy tribute to mood-sensitive slime and “as you wish”-ing. I love blocks of entertainment like that — stuff that sort of goes together just because, that you can marinate in for hours on end. Kind of like a mix tape, but with movies and TV (that sounded dumb — yeah, neato, with movies and TV! — but you know what I mean).<\/p>\n

So here’s my very own Holiday Genre-Related Visual Mix Tape — with quick clips from each offering. The things I’ve chosen are slightly offbeat, and yes, sometimes I’m stretching to get them to fit into the delicate matrix I’m attempting to construct. But they all say “holiday” to me and are a perfect mash-up for those woozy hours after all the food and booze and presents.
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\nMy So-Called Life<\/em>: “So-Called Angels”<\/p>\n

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Angela and her melancholy flannel deal with a missing Rickie. Why is this genre? Because most excellent ’90s alternasongstress Juliana Hatfield appears as an angel (tell-tale flash of wings at the end of the eppy, for real). I love seeing Juliana Hatfield in just about anything, but my favorite part of this episode is actually when Angela’s mom, Patty, finds runaway Rickie and they have a tearful exchange in which much is said without either of them uttering a word. I bawl like a big fucking baby every time.<\/p>\n

Deep Space Nine<\/em>: “Fascination”<\/p>\n

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In the grand tradition of “The Naked Time” and “The Naked Now,” this is the episode where something CRAZY happens and everyone lets their inner horniness out — makes for a nice, giggle-inducing palate cleanser after all the angst of MSCL<\/em>. We don’t usually see our Star Trek<\/em> folks celebrating the olde thymey Earthly holidays — “Fascination” seems like a good sub for your traditional Very Special Holiday episode as the whole thing takes place during the “Bajoran Gratitude Festival” (hey, it’s better than Life Day). Anyway, it’s basically an excuse for the Trek writers to indulge in all their secret fantasy fanfic pairings, but I enjoy that sort of thing. This particular eppy also features the late, great Majel Barrett Roddenberry — naturally, lovely Lwaxana has a thing for Odo. Peldor Joi!<\/p>\n

Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas<\/em><\/p>\n

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Let’s put some good old-fashioned Muppety antics right in the middle here. Confession: I don’t remember ever watching this as a kid. My friend Chad<\/a> invited me over for a special holiday viewing one year and I’ve been hooked ever since (although I think part of the fun is watching Chad — who has every song, line and gesture committed to muscle memory — semi-mime along as Emmet and Friends do their thing). Anyway, cute critters singing about BBQ. If that doesn’t say “holiday,” then what does?!<\/p>\n

X-Men<\/em>: “Have Yourself a Morlock Little Christmas”<\/p>\n

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We’ve reached the point in the mix where a serious guilty pleasure is needed — the equivalent of that super-shiny, overproduced pop song I insist on including every damn time. Look, I’m pretty sure this episode is kind of awful (there’s some heavy-handed Jubilee\/sad lil’ Leech morality play going on). But I am powerless to resist the hilarity of Gambit and Jean throwing down over who makes a better Christmas meal, especially when it shows the cartoon Gambit at his most cringe-inducingly over-the-top — seriously, the weird accent is the least of it. Gambit DOES NOT make TV dinners, OK?<\/p>\n

Xanadu<\/em><\/p>\n

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Big finish time — the ending selection of any good mix must strike that wonderfully sublime chord, leaving the listener\/viewer exhilarated and ready to either move on or rewind and listen to\/watch the whole thing all over again. I allow this movie in the “holiday” category for a couple reasons. 1) My husband and his cousins\/family friends apparently used to happen upon it on TV all the time during Christmas, and it has had a loose December holidays association for me ever since and 2) it really is the perfect thing to watch as we hurtle into a new year, hoping that we can find a place where nobody dared to go, the love that we came to know, they call it Xanadu. Or maybe that’s just me. Anyway, I love this movie in a completely unironic way — its sheer earnestness, its glittering jumpsuits, its complete commitment to being awesomely ridiculous. Xanadu<\/em> doesn’t really give a shit if you think it’s stupid, it just keeps doing its own thing, secure in the knowledge that legwarmers and ribbon barrettes are eternally awesome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other night, Bravo had a pretty cool back-to-back double feature going on: Ghostbusters II and The Princess Bride. It aired these two movies over and over again, a repetition-happy tribute to mood-sensitive slime and “as you wish”-ing. I love blocks of entertainment like that — stuff that sort of goes together just because, that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,102,27,4],"tags":[107,108,109,35,110,111],"class_list":["post-1518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fandom","category-jingle-bell-grok","category-movies","category-tv","tag-deep-space-nine","tag-emmett-otter","tag-my-so-called-life","tag-star-trek","tag-x-men","tag-xanadu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}