The Santa Project: The Ref

    

Not too far down the road, I'll be posting a piece about Italian film director Lucio Fulci and his Gates of Hell trilogy.  But right now I'm going to be talking about one piece of another trilogy.  A trilogy I like to call The Unleashing of Denis Leary's Talent trilogy.  Those 3 films are as follows:

Monument Ave.

Judgment Night

The Ref

The Ref is a great 1993 comedy that also fits into my Top 5 Christmas films list.  For posterity's sake, here are those:

Gremlins

Die Hard

The Ref

Grumpy Old Men

Black Christmas (1974)

The Ref feels like a traditional holiday film at the jump.  During the credits, you get a sweeping long take of an adorable Connecticut town warming up its Christmas Eve activities.  As the credits end, the camera swings up to a marriage counselor's office (a young BD Wong, for all you Jurassic Park and Law & Order: SVU fans) dealing with what must (God help him) be his final clients of the day.  These two venomous individuals are Caroline and Lloyd, played by a spellbinding Judy Davis and snarky Kevin Spacey (yeah. I know.).  Davis' performance is so wide-ranging and powerful, shredded with emotion, that it kind of pissed me off that she was passed over for an Oscar nom that year.  Truthfully, Its strength helps draw your attention away from Spacey.  Anyway, Caroline and Lloyd are on the back end of a 15 year marriage, and both are so gifted with the verbal jab, that there's no way they can possibly find a way to cooperate, much less mend. 

The Ref gains its momentum when Denis Leary botches a robbery, and is forced to abduct Lloyd and Caroline as a ride and eventually providers of a place to hole up while he resets.  Unfortunately for Leary's character, Gus, he has to try to balance his criminal escape while Caroline and Lloyd are practically tearing each others' throats out. This is all in the midst of waiting for Lloyd's family to arrive for an annual Christmas dinner gathering, and the return home of the couple's juvenile delinquent son. Also, our darling Connecticut town is on the lookout for Gus as the botched robbery is following him like the plague. 

The true joy of The Ref is not just the whip-smart dialogue, verbal repartee, (which explodes when Lloyd's annoying family arrives pushing Gus to the edge of madness) and sharp-as-hell casting, but its heart.  Gus seems to be just soft enough to inadvertently provide Caroline and Lloyd with the ability to truly see each other, but fashions himself into a sword to be used to defend themselves in ways they have been needing to do for many years against many people.  Miracle on 34th Street it aint, but The Ref definitely has enough holiday lift to warrant repeat viewings over the years. 

Or maybe I'm just a sick bastard who has known too many people like this, and likes to see just desserts given, even if in fictional form.

Santa Project Season 2: Charlie Brown Christmas

Last Night was the 58th anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas.   When it comes to Christmas, it's one of my earliest memories.   And it would continue to be one of my fondest.  Remember the days when you only had one shot to watch it? 

No Cable, no VCRs, no DVD. 

If you missed it, you had to wait until Christmas rolled around again, tough underpants. 

So last night Frani and I watched it. 

Guess what, folks, it pretty much holds up.  And not just for nostalgia's sake.  Charlie Brown's battle with holiday depression, and inability to get into the spirit rings true with me. It has in the past quite often, and even does today, even in this moment.  I've been battling getting into the mode: listening to Christmas music, watching holiday films, trying to reminisce about what the season meant to me as a kid.  This blog is part of that, every year, as I make an effort to document what made the season so great for me over the years. 

 It's getting there, however.  I can feel it growing on me as December crawls through us. 

 

As far as Charles Schulz' Peanuts gang goes, Lucy's presence as friend/quasi-nemesis to Charlie is the one thing that the Thanksgiving episode doesn't have.  When she's not trying to help Charlie, she's needling him with verbal barbs, as the rest of the cast begins to do until the true meaning (thanks, Linus) rolls out for Charlie Brown. Charlie finally has the ability to cast aside his fear of commercialism ruining the holiday. There's a lot of laughs here from most of the Peanuts gang, and a chunk of "Good Griefs!" for flavor.

Speaking of flavor, who doesn't love a Zinger!!  My favorite is the coconut raspberry, and that's odd, because I can't really stand Coconut.  It's not the taste, it's the consistency. (Fans of Zombieland and Woody Harrelson know what I'm gettin' at there.) 

 

The peanuts gang advertising all hours on television for Dolly Madison brand cakes was kind of something fun to watch for, if not for 60, maybe 30 seconds of your day. Now I think Dolly Madison only has their name on cakes that end up in vending machines or convenience stores because the big box bears the hostess label.  So I’m really not sure of what the legal standing is of Dolly Madison, but I know it’s still floating around out there.

I don’t know about you, but I take comfort in that. 

Back to the special, you have to mention the genius of the Vince Guardini Trio's kickin' jazz driving the special along.  In 1965, that had to be a bold stylistic musical choice, and I'm glad they went with it, because the music just seems to help the special breathe in a unique way. 

Santa Project season 2: holiday flavors

As I’ve mentioned before on this blog I’m a really huge fan of seasonal packaging and seasonal variants of products from food to drink. 

Mountain Dew takes their cracks at the seasons quite often, although they are not doing it this year with Christmas, sadly. The last two years of holiday Mountain Dew flavors are a mixed bag. Two years ago they released Gingerbread Snap’d Mountain Dew, which took me the better part of a year to finish the 12 pack. Gingerbread and citrus did not go well together, and it was a difficult go to complete it. 

On the other hand, the following year’s Mountain Dew Fruitquake was delicious. It says it’s a mixture of Mountain Dew and fruitcake, but really it comes across like a holiday fruit punch. It was quite delicious, and I have to say it had a fruity zing to it that really accompanies Mountain Dew’s natural citrus flavor very well. 

Unfortunately PepsiCo is not providing us with a Mountain Dew Christmas specialty this year; so to them I say this one thing: 

You can suck on a chili dog out behind the tasty freeze.

Santa Project Season 2: Bound to the Past : "Twas the Night"

 

Last year I had written about how Little Golden Books were a key to Holiday storytelling as a kid.  Check that out here: Little Golden Holiday

However, as a wee sprite, I had a couple of copies of Twas the Night Before Christmas.  They were identical in terms of cover art, lettering font, and artwork.  One was a standard Little Golden Book, the other what they called a BIG Little Golden Book.  The BIG one was oversized, had a glossy and hard cover and the same interior, just bigger. 

I was fond of the story by Clement C. Moore to begin with, but dug the art work of Corinne Malvern, particularly as Pa leaves Ma in bed as their long winter's nap is interrupted by either Santa Claus or his Ring going off.  He leaves his cap on.  This was one of the big mysteries of the story to me, and I remember asking my own Ma about it.  Who goes to bed with a cap on, yo?  I think my Mom and Dad read this book to me countless times from toddler to Elementary youngster.

What the hell was a kerchief?

I usually have to ask my dog Bloo for permission to read the book now; however, as he has become attached to a certain extent:   

Anyways.  My introduction to this classic was the books my parents gifted me which came long before I viewed reruns of the Rankin/Bass animated special of the same title which was released in 1974.  It featured the voice talents of George Gobel and Joel Grey, and I remember watching it in the early 80's, along with some of my sister Pee Wee's friends who had come over to hang.  They found it hilarious.  Especially the goofy mayor.  For some reason they got a kick out of that dude.  

Strange for high schoolers, eh? 

Anyway, "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night...."

Santa Project season 2: Christmas profanity memories and Brenda Lee’s Return

At one point, years ago, my oldest child Aidan was in the Cub Scouts. We had attended a late fall Boy Scout event that we were driving home from, and listening to Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” on a Milwaukee radio station.

Incidentally, I’ve read recently that her classic has actually unseated Mariah Carey‘s “All I Want for Christmas is You” from the top of the charts. That’s an amazing and groundbreaking event in and of itself, and it should be cherished as a great moment in history. 

But I digress. 

So, as I was saying, in early November radio stations in Wisconsin begin playing Christmas songs. Despite this being late fall, we were listening to the Brenda Lee tune that  I just mentioned. At one point I hear Aidan‘s soft giggling in the backseat . I turned and quickly looked into the back. 

“What’s so funny, bud?”

“She swore!”

“I didn’t hear any swearing!”

“She did”

“It’s OK man, you can say what she said, you won’t get in trouble”

“Later we’ll have some fucking pie”, he chuckled.

I listened.  I could hear that too.  

At which point we both started “laughing like a bastard”, as “Drugs” Delaney would say from the underrated film,  “Outside Providence”.  

Decades later, whenever I hear that Brenda Lee classic, I still hear “Later we’ll have some fucking pie” and I have my beautiful child to thank for that. 

Listen to it, you’ll hear it. 

It really does sound like Ms. Lee is singing that word instead of “pumpkin”, and I still laugh like a bastard. The idea of ol’ Brenda changing the connotation of the song as if the pie were an irritant, as opposed to a treat is half the fun of the lyric change.  Now we just need to rock around the “shittin’ tree” and we’re good!

I love you Aidan, merry Christmas!

Santa Project Season 2: That Christmas Feeling ( A Vinyl Destination entry)

                           November 30, 2023

Many years ago when I was a kid my parents had an end table in the living room. It was octagonal shaped with two ornate doors that opened from the left and right. 

Inside was where my parents record collection was stacked on top of each other horizontally. Any record collector would find that to be a sin of the most unforgivable order. Included in their vinyl collection was a smattering of Christmas albums.  That Christmas Feeling was a JCPenney record that was among those holiday records of my folks that also included a Jim Nabors classic, the legendary Bing Crosby White Christmas, and The Glow of Christmas various artists album (which I also incidentally ran across at a local record store this last week.)

Beyond its yuletide silliness with the Yule log and the candle and the pinecone, That Christmas Feeling contains some great tunes. The songs include the legendary Andy Williams It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen by Johnny Mathis, No Place like Home for the Holidays by Robert Goulet, (ROBERT GOULEEEEET!) among many others, including a couple from Lennie Bernstein and the New Christy Minstrels. 

So when I found this at the local record store, I wasn’t only buying a piece of my childhood back from the time vacuum, (as I can still remember sitting on my butt and going through those Christmas records in front of that little end table), I bought a pretty good collection of vinyl Christmas tunes.  What a great way to start  the holiday month of December.  I began it with not only the warmest piece of nostalgia I could even imagine, but the music for the season to back it up.

The Spectrum Files : Shock Waves. (Samhain Project addendum)

 

When I was 9 years old I didn't know a zombie from a Byrd.  I came home one afternoon from school and flipped on Spectrum to see what was on, and the channel was between features.  I sat there in the falling afternoon sun and viewed the trailer for the Ken Weiderhorn fim Shock Waves.  

Between the eerie Richard Einhorn synthesizer score, and the images of the walking dead emerging from the waters of the Florida coast, I was kinda creeped out.  I hadn't seen Night of the Living Dead or Dawn of the Dead yet, so the whole thing seemed alien and made me uncomfortable.

 

The cast is led by a very young Brooke Adams, who most of you would know from the Philip Kaufman Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The Dead Zone, among many others.  Horror legends Peter Cushing, very late in a career that began back in the gothic Hammer Horror days, and one time Dracula John Carradine lead the way.  Carradine's career dates back to the 40's so there's a pedigree of sorts here.  From what I've read, neither cinematic icon worked very long on set but were paid fairly well for short hours, and they didn't phone in their performances at all.  Both gentlemen brought it 100 percent, and considering that the budget on this film floated somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000, they probably could have gotten away with sleepwalking through it. 

Regardless, the images of what I would learn later to be morons running from goggled Nazi SS underwater zombies trained to murder, were unsettling for sure. These things were wandering around under the waters of the Florida coasts without emitting so much as a bubble, and raised up out of the water in a very unnatural way.  Richard Einhorns swirling score added an essence of creepiness that had to work on whatever grindhouse audiences would have seen it during its 1977 run, because it sure as hell was working on me.  I stood on our living room carpet, completely entranced in fear.  I probably couldn't have run from one of those soggy, water-logged Nazi goons if I wanted to.

And this was the goddamn trailer!

Oddly enough, the film was rated PG.  These zombies didn't eat people.  They were trained to kill in warfare for the Nazis.  So no blood and guts.  

Still, this makes a good Halloween view, if only for its creepiness.  So toss it in the Samhain Project file while you're at it.

It was pretty cool to see Joe Bob Briggs bring this movie up over my Thanksgiving break while watching his Lucio Fulci retrospective.  Of course he was referring to the ridiculous zombie versus shark scene that takes place in the movie zombie or zombie 2 or zombie flesh eaters.  Whatever you wanna call it, 

In other words Fulci’s underwater zombies concept was beaten to the punch by two years by Ken Weiderhorn who would go on to direct Return of the Living Dead Part 2.  

Shock waves was a low key groundbreaker.