Here in America, the Winter Olympics are being broadcast by the de-Conan’d NBC. For that network, the Olympics are yet another case of make-or-break for the number-crunchers. So, especially with the crazy stuff about ex-Olympian Nancy Kerrigan’s family going on, you can bet that the Olympics aren’t exactly going to be chocked full of fun.

But for the BBC, that’s not necessarily the case. They take their Olympics with a little bit of whimsy, just like they with their Beijing opening sequence.

Following a similiar pattern, the BBC has released its “Winter Olympics Trailer,” which you can see below:

PQH! has to say this, we’d watch a full-length animated feature based on the Beijing or the Inuit cartoons.

As for winter Olympics coverage here at The York Dispatch, look for it coming up in our sports section, where you’ll find regular game stories and reports, and Junior Dispatch, for athlete profiles, medal counts and any variety of interesting tidbits that pop up.

– JOHN SIMCOE

With lights flashing and music blaring, the new Paladin self-propelled Howitzer sat there like a pile of scrap, rather than roll out under its own power.

It was probably quite embarrassing for plant officials, but it could have been worse.

In fact the story reminds PQH! of this amusing, but very, very violent, R-rated scene (and, yes, that’s a warning to you hypersensitive readers) from 1987’s “RoboCop.”

So, yes, BAE can take heart that their little problem could have been much worse.

And for you “RoboCop” fans, keep an eye out for the remake due out in 2011.

 – JOHN SIMCOE

They’re all good movies; if you haven’t seen them at least once, then maybe you’re not ready to branch out with your holiday season viewing.

But if you’re like me, you prefer your holiday movies more like the movies you watch year-round: full of action, fights, shootouts, sarcasm and bitterness. The Christmas spirit is just a bonus that highlights the contradiction of hatred and violence on a holiday known for peace and good will.

That’s why my Christmas movie marathon looks more like this:

The Nightmare Before Christmas

This is the least action-oriented of my picks, and its stop-motion animation style isn’t to everyone’s taste. However, if you squint a bit, you could describe it as a terrorist attack on Christmas by the loyal followers of Halloween. Just because it’s a misunderstanding doesn’t mean that Santa Claus isn’t kidnapped or that children aren’t terrorized by scary gifts. Would you like a shrunken head as a stocking stuffer?

In Bruges

Hitmen take a holiday near Christmastime in Belgium after one accidentally kills a child. Yeah, this movie doesn’t pull any punches. It’s brutal and darkly funny, and there’s no happy ending here. Betrayal and shootouts are the order of the day; the climax includes a fantastic bit of action in a bell tower and through the streets of Bruges.

Die Hard 1 and 2

No action fan’s Christmas movie list can leave off these two films. Their quotables litter the pop-cultural lexicon. (”Yippee-ki-yay,” anyone? How about “Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho.”) The series degenerated into lesser sequels, but the first two are pure gold. I’m more partial to the second with its airport shenanigans than the high-rise building of the first Die Hard, but even I have to admit it’s hard to beat running barefoot on broken glass. I still wince every time I see it.

The Ref

Hands-down, this is my favorite comedy movie ever. Remove the boring bits from the typical dysfunctional family holiday film, add in Denis Leary as a burglar who takes a not-so-happy couple hostage, and bam, slicker’n snot, you have 93 minutes of side-splitting laughter (minus the obligatory happy-sappy ending). It’s not quite an action flick, although there is some violence and a gun, but it’s darkly sarcastic and it co-stars Kevin Spacey. Even the minor characters get some great lines.

The Long Kiss Goodnight

In the grand scheme of things, this is a minor action flick that never led to a franchise and had the temerity to thrust a woman into the lead role instead of a lone guy or some buddy cops. In my book, though, it’s one of the top 10 quietly awesome action movies of all time. It’s insane, it’s ridiculous, it’s over-the-top; it has an ice-skating shootout and a kid thrown into a treehouse for crying out loud. It has Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson and a disturbing Brian Cox, all tossing sarcastic lines out by the bucketful.

For further viewing

My suggestions lean toward Lethal Weapon and Batman Returns for more action, Gremlins for action-comedy, Monty Python’s Life of Brian for pure comedy, With Honors for drama and The Muppet Christmas Carol for family viewing. For off-the-wall insanity, I’ll have to skip ahead to New Year’s and suggest Four Rooms.

An office-mate favors the Christmas romance, with recommendations for Love Actually, Desk Set and The Bishop’s Wife

If none of these are your cup of tea, maybe you’ll find something more to your liking in lists of unconventional Christmas movies elsewhere. Some overlap my picks, others list some I enjoy but had forgotten as being Christmasy (L.A. Confidential and The Lion in Winter, for example) and still others touch on films I’ve never seen.

• The Washington Post’s 2009 picks (with links to 2006-08 picks).
• Cinematical’s 2008 picks
• Top Tenz.net’s 10 Unconventional Christmas Movies
• Wired’s GeekDad picked 10 Unconventional Winter Holiday Movies in 2008
• AMOG’s 12 Unconventional Holiday Movies You’ll Want to Watch Before Xmas

What’s on your Christmas movie list?

– MEL BARBER

Recently, BB called attention to an amazing set of Star Wars Lego-themed photos on Flikr. They look so real that they almost look digitally manipulated:

But the creator gives us a behind-the-scenes look in a post that’s even more interesting than the photos themselves. Things that would be difficult to achieve in a regular setup are suddenly much easier when the whole project moves underwater.

Check out how Avanaut got the perfect snowy look for his Lego on Hoth series, then watch the slideshow of images here.

– MEL BARBER

To the tune of All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth… All I want for Christmas is a Tom Servo, a Tom Servo, see a Tom Servo. Gee if I could only have a Tom Servo, then we could mock some awful movies. Awful movies.

Clearly, Shout! Factory has heard the pleas of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans. The company’s latest set, Mystery Science Theater 3000 XVI, comes packed with a collectible Tom Servo figure to match the Crow T. Robot figure that came in last year’s 20th anniversary set. Crow and Servo are silent, immobile, 4-inch-high plastic companions — so if you want them to mock the movies with you, you’ll need to invite some friends to play their parts or take up ventriloquism as a hobby. (That’s them above, standing *gasp* on the wrong sides.)

Like Shout!’s other four-pack DVD sets, MST3K XVI also comes with four faux mini-movie posters featuring Crow and Servo as cast members in some truly awful films. Artist Steve Vance does a great job of capturing the movies’ ridiculous, campy nature in roughly 5×7 posters.

The premise of MST3K is that a man and his robot pals are tormented with terrible movies as part of a science experiment. The details vary a bit between seasons, but the only important things to remember are that the movies are awful and you have three witty friends making snide remarks to keep you entertained.

This set is balanced between MST3K’s two hosts, featuring original host Joel mocking The Corpse Vanishes and Warrior of the Lost World while replacement host Mike gets to tear into Santa Claus and Night of the Blood Beast. Here’s a rundown of each disc:

The Corpse Vanishes

Made in 1942 and mocked in 1989, Corpse is a Bela Lugosi vehicle in which a man kills brides and steals their bodies to keep his wife young and beautiful. He would have gotten away with it, too, if not for that feisty female reporter ferreting out his secrets! No worries, though — that liberated woman learns her lesson and decides to settle down with a husband of her own. It’s a heartwarming horror story.

Since Corpse isn’t long enough to be a full episode, it starts with Commando Cody and the Bridge of Death, the third section of Commando Cody and the Radar Men from the Moon.

The disc also includes the original trailer for Corpse.

Fun exchange:

“That guy’s speaking into a cruller.”

“Maybe he’s Danish.”

This entry is heavy on the geek factor; if you long for a Foundation trilogy boxset, a Tiger Bot magazine and friends with whom to debate the merits of positronic brains, this episode is a must-watch.

Warrior of the Lost World

Made in 1983 and mocked in 1993, Warrior is a post-apocalyptic nightmare — moreso for the viewers than the characters. The protagonist is a reluctant hero, an aloof jerk with an annoying talking motorcycle. He’s played by Robert Ginty, whom Joel and the ‘bots call “the Paper Chase guy” so often that viewers will be forgiven for thinking they’re advertising for Shout! Factor’s Paper Chase DVDs.

Don’t be surprised if you find yourself cheering when the protagonist gets shot; in fact, you might wish death was still permanent in the future. This terrible Mad Max wannabe has two things going for it: 1) strong skit segments featuring slot car races and a parody of the film as a teen comedy and 2) Donald Pleasence as a villain who looks exactly like Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers franchise (both borrowing from James Bond’s nemesis Dr. Blofeld, also played by Pleasence).

The disc also includes a new interview with director David Worth, the man responsible for this monstrosity. He’s surprisingly candid about the film’s flaws. The good-natured director invites MST3K viewers to contact him with their opinions, good or bad, about his film. Worth also provides commentary for a series of production stills on the disc. Sadly, the promotional poster that pushed the movie into production is several orders of magnitude better than the film itself.

Santa Claus

Made in 1959 and mocked in 1993, Santa Claus is by far the best episode in this set. It’s also perfect for Christmas viewing. The skit segments feature a gift exchange, a rock concert by the Santa Klaws band and an original Christmas carol.

In Santa Claus, ol’ Kris Kringle lives in a castle in the clouds and must fight the devil for the souls of children. Before he leaves to visit the children of Earth, though, he needs to give every region of the world the chance to share its Christmas joy. If you thought nothing could be worse than hearing It’s a Small World over and over, you will change your mind after this. The good news is that it leaves plenty of time for equal-opportunity mockery. Santa Claus is, after all, one of the MST3K episodes that inspired the Nightmare Fuel page on TV Tropes. (Warning: If you follow that link to TV Tropes, you will find yourself still awake and clicking at 2 a.m. It’s that addictive.)

The bonus features on the disc are in-depth and worth watching. In addition to the original trailer and radio spot and a stills gallery, the disc has a hilarious trailer for the Wonder World of K. Gordon Murray (in Colorscope) and a 20-minute documentary, Santa Claus Conquers the Devil: A 50-Year Retrospective.

The documentary covers a lot of ground. Film historians discuss the cult attraction and the Mexican vision of Santa Claus. MST3K writer-actors Paul Chaplin and Kevin Murphy get in on the act, too, with sections on director Rene Cardona, producer Guillermo Calderon, the characters, the original release of the film, a deleted scene and more. Murphy describes the movie as “like getting hit in the face with a clown.” Regarding the Small World montage, he says “we took care to make sure we insulted everybody on the planet for Christmas.”

Night of the Blood Beast

Made in 1958 and mocked in 1996, Night of the Blood Beast is more memorable for its skit segments than its film content. Shout! Factory has included two complete versions of the film, one with the everyday skit segments and another with the live Turkey Day ‘95 segments. The Turkey Day ‘95 intros are included separately, as well; those are the segments that introduced each movie in the Thanksgiving Day marathon. The disc also includes the (less impressive) original trailer for Night of the Blood Beast.

Blood Beast is another movie that runs short for the 90-minute show, so we start with Once Upon a Honeymoon, a short that seems to have been created for the purpose of selling telephones. I might be concerned about the state of my marriage if my spouse’s deepest desires centered on having a phone to match the curtains in every room.

“Awful” probably isn’t a strong enough word to describe Blood Beast itself; as the mockery goes, “this is like Night of the Ground Squirrel.” An astronaut dies — or does he? — when his rocket crashes to Earth. His support team must battle the alien creature who hitched a ride home with him. Given that Blood Beast is a Roger Corman movie, it’s fair to say that viewers have to keep their expectations low. Very low.

Overall

MST3K can’t escape the march of time; inevitably, some of the cast’s wisecracks lose their sting after a decade or two. Of course, others only get funnier with age (is there ever a year when California isn’t in a budget crisis?).

If there’s someone on your holiday shopping list who enjoys movies and mockery, you can’t go wrong with an MST3K DVD set. If you’re just looking to get your feet wet, though, try a free episode on Hulu before jumping into the DVD sets.

The XVI set with Tom Servo figurine retails for $65; Shout! provided a review copy for PQH!.

– MEL BARBER

If you haven’t seen it, take a look; the voices are golden and the mashed-up medley is hilarious. (Click here if you can’t see the embedded video below.)

You can hear the rest of the group’s Christmas tunes at their official site and order the album at various places online, including direct from the group as bundled holiday packages.

Those who’d rather sip than gulp can get a taste of Straight No Chaser during the group’s PBS special, Straight No Chaser: Live in New York, Holiday Edition, at 8 p.m. Thursday and again at 10 p.m. Sunday on WITF.

But the best news of all for York-area fans is this: The Strand-Capitol will be one of the group’s tour stops in the spring. The 10 men will bring their beautiful voices and their humorous delivery to the Strand at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 20. Tickets are $29-$33, but they aren’t on sale just yet, so keep watching the Strand’s site for details.

UPDATE: The Strand, via Twitter, says tickets will be going on sale Friday, Dec. 18, so have your browser (official site), phone (846-1111) or feet (50 N. George St.) ready.

– MEL BARBER

They aren’t too interested in going bald, spare tires and Viagra jokes unless it’s packaged as a sitcom, and yet somehow, TNT’s “Men of a Certain Age” works.

The new show, which stars Ray Romano, Scott Bakula and Andre Braugher and debuts Monday at 10 p.m. on TNT, doesn’t dwell on the little things that a sitcom would — and yes, it is mercifully free of jokes about erectile dysfunction.

Instead, it tries to carve out its own place and show the trials, no matter how trivial, of being on what may — or may not — be the downward slope of life.

The show focuses on three characters:

• Joe (Romano) is a recently separated husband and owner of a party-supply store. He’s struggling with a gambling addiction and often grapples with his own neurosis as he tries to restart his life.
• Owen (Braugher) is a car salesman with a loving wife and two slightly hyper kids. His problem? His father, who also happens to be his boss, doesn’t feel his son has ever measured up.
• Terry (Bakula) seems to be happy with his bachelor lifestyle, but his acting career is at a standstill and he’s merely a part-time yoga instructor and office temp.

Through the first few episodes of the series, viewers see their lives through marginally connected stories. The guys trod through their life where sometimes they end up the winners and sometimes they look like dopes in desperate need of their wives’ motherly guidance.

While the pilot episode is a bit of a snooze, the follow-up episodes dig deep into the characters, especially Romano’s Joe, whose gambling habit snapped his marriage in two but allowed his personal relationship with his bookie to flourish. Romano, by the way, is the creator and one of the show’s writers in a fairly bold step from his familiar “Everybody Loves Raymond” persona.

While “Men” isn’t cutesy black humor a la “Desperate Housewives,” it is comparable to that show in the sense that all the main characters from both shows seem to be asking the same question: “Now what?”

I, for one, have been eager to see just how that will be answered.

– JOHN SIMCOE

Years ago, such trips into these new realities were called “Elseworlds” titles. Now, they’re just part of what DC calls its multiverse.

It’s in these worlds where writers and artists are allowed to explore different takes of characters that can’t be fussed with, or else risk the wrath of the Warner Bros. merchandising department.

You want to mess with relative nobodies like the Creeper or Elongated Man, and you don’t get any guff. A writer can turn those guys into zombie astronauts and nobody bats an eye.

But cut Wonder Woman’s hair? Put Superman in a new suit? Kill off Batman? Then you’re in for it. The media calls. Fans get upset. The world collapses into a black hole.
So, when someone gets a classy idea for one of DC’s heavyhitters, the company has learned to spin it as a “What If” story or, as mentioned above, toss it into a whole new “universe” and let them play around.

Such is the case for the latest Batman experiment.

In “Batman/Doc Savage Special” No. 1, Batman is knocked back to the earliest roots of his crimefighting career: That of a pulp fiction hero.

You see, Batman was pretty clearly inspired by the crimefighting pulp heroes such as the Shadow, the Spider and a multitude of others. Heck, there was even one actually called “The Bat.”

Just like Batman, all these guys relied on a good right hook, a variety of gadgets and a bellyful of revenge in their quest to right wrongs.

In this comic, dubbed the first issue of DC’s new “First Wave” universe, introduces us to a Batman who lives in a pulp fiction world.

Most notably, DC secured the license for Doc Savage, one the pulp era’s most-loved heroes.

The story unfolds as the stunningly skilled Savage comes to Batman’s hometown, Gotham, to fight corruption, which he thinks is being lead by the Caped Crusader.

Gleeful Batman moments come and go, but more importantly, comics readers get a chance to see Doc Savage in action, and learn a little more about him. A text and sketch section in the back of the book also outlines other characters that will appear in future issues, including The Spirit, Justice Inc., Black Canary and the Blackhawk Squadron.

Written by Brian Azzarello, the dialogue is tight, well-paced and amusing at times. Art is handled smooth and sexy by Phil Noto, whose style looks great as it portrays the art-deco look at its finest.

I stumbled over an interlude that included the future Commissioner Gordon, but otherwise, it’s a solid book, and I can’t wait for more.

– JOHN SIMCOE

The celebrities listed on the stock exchange game are overwhelmingly British, but there’s also a few Americans here and there, so it’s still pretty simple to keep abreast of what’s hip to the British press.

A few months ago, I got an e-mail from the good folks at Celebdaq. They wanted to know what I like about the game and what I wish was better.

I promptly fired off an e-mail and just this week, they responded with an invitation to the Beta-test to the all new Celebdaq.

The new Celebdaq is brighter and more — uhm — peppy compared to the Celebdaq of old. It still features pretty much the same info as the older version. Above, for example, is Robert Pattinson’s biography with a fancy fever chart to assess his public activity.

The features for the new program include better descriptions of how your shares are doing too. Here, we can monitor the “break even” point for earning money on Simon Cowell. These listings (which ought to be collapsible in my opinion) also show you the current share price and its gain by percentage and its gain in fantasy British Pounds.

The new Celebdaq also revives a past tradition of snarky articles on celebrities, which is half the fun of the game.

Don’t ask me to explain the British obsession with American Katy Perry. Sure, she’s dating Russell Brand, but beyond that, I’m in the dark.

– JOHN SIMCOE

It’s one of 127 semi-finalists in the MovieHatch Makin’ Movies Feature Film Competition.

It’s also by York County native Shane Free. The West York grad’s first full-length film, Investigating the Afterlife, is out on DVD now. The script for Gabriel’s Curse, if chosen by fan voting, could be one of 10 films heading into the hands of Hollywood decisionmakers.

Gabriel’s Curse is a horror flick that mixes the young-adults-on-a-mission vibe of The Blair Witch Project with the creepy-outcasts-defending-their-home motif familiar from The X-Files episode “Home” and The Hills Have Eyes. It’s a safe bet that viewers will be terrified.

Check out the trailer and sign up at MovieHatch to vote by Nov. 15.

– MEL BARBER