Here's a link to all eighteen installments
Here are all of the albums, available on Spotify, from this year's collection of Festive Faves. Despite listing over a hundred works in multiple genres this is still just fraction of the wonderful Christmas music I try to listen to, or at least sample, each season. Hopefully my dear readers have found a new favorite or rediscovered a forgotten gem over these past few weeks.
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So, this Yule Logged is literally that, a log. I'm just listing every holiday related show I watch and dividing them up into two categories. The first category are shows / movies that I'll keep on my main holiday hard drive (or in the case of physical media my main Christmas bookcase) while the second category are things that will get archived to portable drives and kept for reference / posterity. The idea being that the stuff on the main drive/bookcase I'll be wanting to comeback to in Christmases yet to come, the other stuff, not so much.
This will likely be the first of many such posts over the next, quite a few I imagine, months. Hopefully this will help me in putting together some "best of" lists for next year.
(Shows on streaming that I don't plan on purchasing I add to a list and hopefully they'll still be available somewhere whenever I get the urge to watch them again.)
In this post the stuff I'm keeping gets marked with an asterisk. Each list is a single viewing session. If any of the programs listed sound interesting simply give them a google (or better yet a duck duck go) or try Justwatch or Reelgood, many are available online.
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A very quick roundup of some new releases that have made it into the rotation this year. No individual reviews - I like them (thought the first two are my favorites).
Didn’t expect to like this at all, let alone as much as i did. I mean, it is what it is, but it was still a lot of cheesy fun. I don’t want to oversell this this thing though so I'll just move on…
Pretty much the only decent animated show left and they usually do quality holiday episodes. This isn’t the best of the bunch though. It’s okay.
Nope.
Meh, but not terrible. If your a fan I’m sure its great. I’m not a fan.
Why did they make this. Never mind, I know…IP exploitation for easy money. Unnecessary by definition, it’s just a remake of the film but lesser in every way imaginable. The animation’s quite nice but that's bout it.
Seasonal episode of Josh’s talk show. It’s good, as one would expect.
The first one was fairly good, this one was fairly crap, No, really crap.
From the Crowdfunded / Netflix reboot that is sadly just an overthought, overwritten, under funny shadow of the original (and its spiritual successor RiffTrax.
The invention exchange, always hit and miss, is a miss but the riffing is, for the reboot, pretty good. The film being riffed, an Italian fantasy wherein Santa is facing foreclosure from the evil new owner of the North Pole, isn’t nearly as bad as the usual fare but is odd enough to provide decent riffing fodder. Heck, it’s a better film than CCII.
A festive flick from the distaff side of RiffTrax. There are no host segments or skits in a RiffTrax joint, just pure riffing goodness. Bridget and Mary Jo are IMO the second-best riffing crew out there, just nudging ahead of The Mads but trailing behind Mike, Kevin and Bill (no shame in that).
From stage to small screen specials to small screen series the Mischief Theatre’s “Goes Wrong” universe wherein an incompetent theater troupe makes frequent appearances on the BBC is, for me, one of the funniest comedies in ages. These two Christmas themed episodes, one from each of the two series thus far, aren’t the absolute best the show has to offer but they’re still both quite good - so much better than 99% of rest of the field in comedy today.
If you’re unfamiliar with the GoesWrongverse track down their first two specials featuring benighted productions of Peter Pan and, rather apropos for us, A Christmas Carol where they literally take over a Beeb production of Dicken’s holiday classic by force.
Excellent holiday episode of John “Inspector Morse” Thaw’s "divorced dad lumbered with adult kids" sitcom
Terrific episode with the bonus of Are You Being Served’s Frank Thornton as a snooty travel agent.
Festive, food themed, clip show,.tending towards the edgy, much of which hasn’t aged all that well. Disappointing.
Christmas kids chaos and cartoons.
More kid’s Christmas chaos of a more refined cacophonic variety. Charming for its lack of polish and professionalism.
Yet Moore Christmas chaos with this wonderful vintage variety show.
The first 2021 release to go straight into heavy rotation in the Kringleverse…