Last year I shared that I had decided to stop belittling Kwanzaa for being a made-up holiday, which I had been doing for years mostly because I was completely ignorant of what it was really all about, beyond the parts that were all too easy to poke fun at. This sentiment seems to be gathering some press here and there; this Slate piece by Melonyce McAfee, for instance, describes firsthand the positive part Kwanzaa played in at least one person’s upbringing. If you’re as ignorant as I was about the details of the holiday, you can of course hit Wikipedia, but I’m personally looking forward to watching The Black Candle, an award-winning documentary directed by author and filmmaker M.K. Asante Jr., and narrated by Maya Angelou. It’s available on DVD, but it also is making its TV debut on TVOne on Saturday December 26. If – like me – you’re in the Detroit area, there are also special free screenings on the 26th, 27th and 29th at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. If you’re elsewhere in the country, find a screening here. The official trailer is below, and there’s an extended unofficial nine minute preview on YouTube.

Sadly, for some people the holiday season is a time of frustration, anxiety and resentment. And apparently, this is especially true for Flash game developers, who probably all grew up as misunderstood misanthropes who never got what they wanted at Christmas because their parents didn’t understand their genius. Well, they’re silently eeking out their revenge; we went looking for fun and happy holiday-themed games to keep you amused this week, but were surprised by how many were based instead on violence and vengeance. We could understand Rudolphs Kick n’ Fly, in which Rudolph kicks elves into the air (much like Kitty Cannon), because no one really gets hurt, and Rudolph has every right to be upset after the abuse he received as a child. But Rudolph’s Revenge is downright ruthless, with a scrappy, gun-toting Rudolph that looks like he’s been working at the North Pole meth lab for too long. And why does Santa need a gun? The truth is, both Serious Santa and Santa’s Vegneance tease your inner psycho with sinister Santas who look like they’re out for blood in intense first person shooters, and then the games actually serve up silly little pixelated Santas that only move in two dimensions. Jingle Ballistics is doubly misleading; there are no bullets, and not much jingle, just a choice of a snowman, an elf, or a sullen Santa for one-on-one boxing matches. In the continued mind-numbing search (I say mind-numbing because I for one really am not a gamer) for something a little chippier to keep you amused, we thought maybe we’d find a clever or cute snowball game like Snowcraft, and ran across a little journey into psychosis misleadingly called Snowball Holiday Flash Game. It took a minute to realize that the the weird things hanging in the viewframe weren’t curtains, but an anime girl’s hair, and the little penises that kept popping up were little arrows telling you where to go. Not having much interest in dressing up to pretend to be a little Japanese girl, we didn’t get far enough to see if there actually WAS a snowball game somewhere in there. Weird. If you try it, let us know. Game designers also seem to have a certain fascination with Santa or the elves falling off roofs, so we have games like Elfquilibrium or Sober Santa (again, a misnomer, he’s DRUNK!), and there are also a lot of games where you shoot people, elves, or other things as you collect presents, as in Christmas Attack Game or Wrap Attack. The latter, like the Santa games mentioned, teases with heavy metal and sinister images, and disappoints with crappy country rock guitar and sissy graphics. Inevitably there are also games this time of year developed by tech or media companies (that’s where Snowcraft came from back in 1999) and this year we have Santarider, brought to you by PPC management software company Acquisio. I have a feeling someone over on the development team derives a perverse pleasure from knowing how hard it is to not kill their fellow employees as you try to keep Santa’s sleigh aloft. So anyone know of any nice holiday games we can play? Feel free to share. I’m feeling a bit scrooged.

No, those aren’t window dressings, it’s a girl’s bangs, and that’s an arrow, not a penis. Snowball Holiday Flash Game is more like surreal anime girl version of Being John Malkovich:

No wonder Rudolph wants revenge. I think he’s been spending too much time at the meth lab.
And what is it with gamers and spelling, anyway?

Games like Serious Santa and Santa’s Vegneance promise this…..

…but give you this:

Likewise with Wrap Attack, which promises a bad-ass elf….

…but gives you tinkerbell:

And see how many Acquisio employees you can take out with Santarider:

Santa Claus Conquers
the Martians

Star Wars Holiday Special

The Hebrew Hammer

Tired of the same old holiday movie fare like “It’s A Wonderful Life”, “A Miracle On 34th Street” and “A Christmas Carol”? Well, beyond the cultish and clever movies like A Christmas Story, The Ref, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Rudolph (which we already touched on here), there’s another entire layer of holiday weirdness waiting for you, and we’re taking a quick look at three…

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians Conquers My Criticism

You may have heard of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, or if you’re old enough, and your childhood was abusive enough, you may have even seen it as a child. If you have seen the film, you more likely rented it or viewed it as a joke, or as a bit of pop culture archaeology. The movie is often compared to the films of Ed Wood because of its amazing ability to pass itself off as an actual feature film in spite of its seemingly incoherent and implausible storyline, cheesy sets, and bad acting. The problem is, over time, the storyline has become a spot-on cautionary tale, and many of the sets, props, and costuming look almost hip in a weird way. Especially the 60′s furniture. And the acting? Although some of it is simply overwrought or on the other pole – a little flat – more of it is just “big acting”, which is simply a style that comes and goes. If you don’t appreciate the performance of Vincent Beck as Voldar (the cranky Martian that looks like Tom Selleck in green-face), then you probably didn’t like Daniel Day Lewis in “There Will Be Blood”. Especially when Voldar hisses lines like “All this trouble over a fat little man, in a red suit“. As a kid, that delivery really, really, creeped me out. And before the Martians head out for Earth, there’s a riveting scene with Carl Don as Chochem, an ancient and wizzened Martian they summon from the underworld. Looking remarkably like Christopher Lee as Saruman in the “Lord of the Rings”, Chochem delivers a monologue about what’s wrong with Martian children, though he could easily be describing your average iPod-toting millenial: “They have children’s bodies, but with adult minds. They do not have a childhood….They are born, our electronic teaching machines are attached to their brains…information is fed into their minds in a constant stream…they’ve never played…they’ve never learned to have fun! And now…now, they are rebelling!” Can you think of a better description of the average 16-20 year old? And the costuming and sets? Yes, the Martians are all wearing what looks like FM radio-enabled teapots designed by HR Giger on their heads, but this film wasn’t shot in Hollywood, it was shot in warehouses in New Jersey. Given that fact, even the weird “are-they-green-or-did-they-just-finish-working-on-their-car” makeup can be excused. And although the story line spins totally out of control about 12 minutes in, they do an amazing job of maintaining some kind of continuity. As ridiculous as it all is, part of what gives the film a cohesively Twilight-Zone-like quality is a strong sense of back story. A really BAD back story, but a solid one that miraculously holds together somehow. This film may just become a holiday tradition for me. If you’d really rather not watch it, there’s a pretty accurate text summary here, and a 10 minute YouTube summary here.

Vincent Beck (as Voldar, left) chews up the scenery like Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood:

Is that Christopher Lee In Lord of the Rings? No, it’s Carl Don as Chochem, an ancient and wizzened Martian

The Hebrew Hammer Invents The Expl-oye!-tation Film

Who’s the kike who won’t cop out? The Hebrew Hammer. If you enjoy seventies blacksploitation films, and you’re not sensitive to the spiritual beliefs or cultural values of blacks, Christians, Chinese people, anglo Americans, Jews, the disabled, or pretty much anyone else on the planet, you simply must pick up a copy of The Hebrew Hammer. Especially perhaps if you’re Jewish. In it, Adam Goldberg plays a Jewish street hero in the style of Shaft, a self-proclaimed “certified circumcised private dick”. In an effort to get her son married, The Hammer’s mom tricks him into taking on the task of saving Hannukah from the evil new-generation Santa, played by another certified dick, this one named Andy. To accomplish his goal, The Hammer partners with the leader of the Kwanzaa Liberation Front, Muhammad Ali Paula Abdul Rahim, played by Mario Van Peebles, which is just one of many tributes to blaxploitation as the movie creates its own genre, the expl-oye-tation film. This flick is rife with really, really bad vaudeville-inspired deadpan and puns that made it almost unbearable to watch the first time around, but will probably grow on you with repeated viewings, in the way that movies like Undercover Brother tend to do. The Hebrew Hammer spares no-one; from a Manischewitz-driven barroom slaughter of neo-Nazis to African American sex dwarves, The Hebrew Hammer has it all. One of the most powerful tools put to work by the evil young anti-semitic santa is the video equivalent of Chistmas Crack: free copies of “It’s A Wonderful Life” flooding the streets, which before you know it has otherwise sensible Jewish kids believing in angels, trinities, and wanting Christmas trees. Personally, I’m still hoping for a Halloween followup called “The Hand That Rocks The Dreidel”.

The Unspeakable Horror of the Star Wars Holiday Special

I’m not gonna say much about this program, partly because it was too painful to watch all the way through, and partly because you can watch it below yourself. George Lucas virtually denies its existence, and Harrison Ford will walk off the sets of talks shows when asked about it. Watch it yourself, and tell me all about it if you can make it through….

If you’re someone who celebrates Christmas because you’re, um, maybe a little bit Christian or something, you may wonder why you should concern yourself with the annual celebration of Hannukah. I mean, beyond being all Christian-like and tolerant of other people’s faiths and whatnot. Well, let’s take a moment to remember a few things, some of which you may already know, some of which will surprise you. First, you wouldn’t even have a saviour, if it weren’t for those Hannukah celebraters. Jesus was Jewish, you know. Very Jewish. And for that matter, if you believe what you read in scripture, the WHOLE WORLD might not be here if it weren’t for those folks who wrote the bigger part of your favorite book. Moses? Noah? Yup. Jews. So while you’re all busy being tolerant, remember that they were here first, and so actually they’re being tolerant. They don’t believe in your God man, but rarely give you any crap about it. In fact, as this Slate piece points out, they’ve gone out of their way to play nice and do the gift giving and tree thing. I don’t think Jesus recommended those activities anyway, but whatever. It’s the thought that counts. So if you don’t know anything about Hannukah, take some time to read up, kids. Because without the people that celebrate it, you wouldn’t have on the Levis you’re wearing while you sip that Starbucks coffee as you take a break from buying DKNY and Kenneth Cole gifts at Macy’s. And while you’re reading up, put on some nice Jewish music. This will be easy, because as we pointed out the other day, most of your favorite Christmas songs were written by Jews.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not touching Henry ’til he finishes that shower…