Neil Patrick Harris Sings One Helluva "Silent Night"

We’ll wax sentimental about how yet another semester flew by and how the spring semester is going to be so different for all parties involved, but I just want to ramble for a while. Perhaps I should have hung around school for another night, but you can only be done with finals for so long before you want to hit the road, crank some Christmas carols and roll through the terrible, horrible plains of Ohio.

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The Holiday is decent Christmas fare, relatively harmless and totally predictable, not entirely unlike The Family Stone last year. If you enjoy Jack Black, he has some great lines and even better deliveries when working with Kate Winslet and the old guy that was on Studio 60 earlier in the season. On the other side of the split storyline – do people actually trade houses? - is Cameron Diaz, who I’m pretty much “meh” about all the time and who serves up a solid “meh” here, and a surprising Jude Law. Why surprising? I found him oddly not repulsive, and I generally find him to be one of the sketchiest, least inspiring “leading men” in Hollywood. He’s almost legitimately charming, and his story has the only actual twist in the entire story, which plays out exactly like you’d think it would, but hey, it’s a cheesy, feel-good Christmas movie.

(The best part of the movie? The boom mikes! They’re in at least a dozen shots! How does this happen? Caitlyn and I started noticing them like a quarter of the way through the movie, and there’s some shots where they’re a foot or two onto the screen. How did the editors not catch this? Amazing.)

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The Office hour-long Christmas extravaganza was great Thursday night, but for my money, How I Met Your Mother did just as much, if not more, in 22 minutes than Carrell and company did in their forty-plus. So far this season of The Office is a solid B+ - not a single amazing episode since the season premiere – while HIMYM is at least an A-, maybe all the way up to an A if the first few episodes weren’t so morose. This is really The Office’s second full season – the first season, as you probably know, contained only six episodes – and according to my comedic scorecard, it’s losing, just barely, to the more traditional sitcom on CBS. Although, as long as the first is being fought at this high of a level, we’re all winners.

versus

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Still haven’t seen Stranger Than Fiction, still angry about that and pretty sure this might be my last weekend before it starts disappearing from theaters, if it hasn’t already. Also, I couldn’t be happier to see the early review for Rocky Balboa claiming that it’s cheesy and nostalgic, but very watchable. Opens on Tuesday night, and barring some sort of familial catastrophe, my dad and I will be there.

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Since the 76ers are pretty much stuck trading Allen Iverson for a bunch of expiring contracts and maybe a draft pick, although apparently Denver is making some rather tasty advances, here’s the three deals/teams I’d love to see tried out:

1) Minneosta – The T-Wolves could send Marko Jaric, Ricky Davis, their number next year and a throw-in – as long as nobody offers a great deal that makes the group of players just mentioned look as bad as they truly are – and we get to see KG ad AI tearing up the West together for the next couple of seasons.

2) Miami – Pat Riley’s like the king on the Island of Misfit Toys, only he deals with NBA veteran headcases who’ve never won a title. So let’s say Miami sends Dorrell Wright, who’s supposed to be some sort of freak but never gets consistent minutes, a draft pick and one of their big expiring contracts to make the best backcourt in the NBA – AI and Wade. Like the Heat or not, that would be a blast.

3) Orlando – Nobody talks about the Magic, and apparently they’re not interested, but why not? Send Jameer Nelson, Grant Hill and his expiring contract and a throw-in, and the AI/Dwight Howard combination is a match made in “Lots of shots, lots of rebounds” heaven.

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Flipping through to HDMovieNet – did I mention how much I miss seventy inches of HD when I’m away from the Ranchero? – I stumbled onto Heath Ledger and Ten Things I Hate About You. I forgot how good Ledger is as slightly-crazed, slightly-calculating, which gives me all sorts of confidence he’s going to make a fine Joker opposite Christian Bale and under the watchful eye of Christopher Nolan. I shouldn’t doubt my superhero franchises until something goes wrong with them.

(That being said, the new Spiderman 3 trailer? Extremely uninspiring. Muddled, confusing, too revealing, perhaps? Not impressed.)

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I’m yet to watch the Chrismukkah episode, which is waiting on the Tivo and would be only my second OC of the season, but allow Alan Sepinwall to turn the tables, using a sports analogy to discuss Autumn Reeser’s work this season in place of Mischa Barton:

“The shift from Barton to Reeser, whom Fox wisely signed to a development deal even as it neglected the show she was saving, has been like the Nets' swap of Stephon Marbury for Jason Kidd, dumping a moody, self-absorbed player who contributes nothing to the offense in favor of a gifted passer who makes everyone else better. Who knew Benjamin McKenzie was funny? Or that anyone could plausibly render Peter Gallagher speechless?”

Didn’t realize that FOX had already wisely locked Reeser up, so even if The OC dies, we’ll have a Taylor Townsend equivalent somewhere on network television. Was this whole thing just a reason to put up another picture?

You betcha.

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Just incase you were unsure, just a little over two weeks until New Orleans. WOOOOOOO. Whether you’re getting in for New Year’s Eve, New Years Day or just coming down for the clash with JaMarcus’ merry men, it’s going to be a blast.

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No matter how well Drew Brees does in New Orleans or how ineffective Daunte Culpepper is in Miami, there’s no way you can say the Dolphins taking Culpepper over Brees is worse than what the Texans did with the first pick. Hindsight’s 20/20, and Brees was coming off rotator cuff surgery. When we didn’t get Brees, I was sad, but happy with Culpepper-for-a-second-rounder. The Texans not taking Reggie, Bush or trading the pick for multiple selections in what’s looking like an extremely deep draft? Considerably worse.

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Why did nobody tell me that Ugly Betty’s magazine patriarch was played by Alan Dale, aka The OC’s Caleb Nichol? And his son, the sleazy, womanizing editor-in-chief is being played extremely well by the guy who was Dean Hess for a short period of time. I’ve only seen the replay of the pilot from last week and the second episode, but I enjoyed them both. I don’t have time to watch it, but after some investigating, this looks like a fantastic show to enjoy in HD, since, you know, it revolves around a fashion magazine and now involves Salma Hayek and Vanessa Williams. Reserve the ability to change my mind, but I’m warming to it.

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And finally, the war between Deadspin and the total freaking idiots that leave prayers for a horse on a messageboard continues. Incase you ever wonder why maybe you should have to take some sort of sanity test before being allowed onto the expansive realm of cyberspace, check out some of the original posts that were made to America’s favorite crippled horse. And please, if you don’t read anything else I link to, please READ THIS RIGHT HERE. Horse people are only slightly below Steeler fans in my hierarchy of annoyances.

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Safe travels to everyone heading home or elsewhere for Christmas break. Blog posts and hits always sink during break since people aren’t on their computers as much, but there’ll be stuff going up here and there. I also want to investigate having random essays from people scattered across the world (including South Bend), something I wanted to do this semester, but didn’t have time to organize due to Rakes and just not knowing nearly as many people that are going to be abroad. We’ll work on this.

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