December Media

Holiday Stuff

Most of the usuals are in here. One thing missing, though, was The Office Christmas episodes. This is the first time in a few years we haven’t subscribed to the streaming service that allows you to watch the episodes of your choice. Maybe they’ll be back somewhere real (i.e. not Peacock) next year. Or I’ll just record them all off Comedy Central over the course of 2024 and save them for next holiday season.

Elf, A
Christmas Vacation, A
A Christmas Story, A
A Christmas Story Christmas, B
Die Hard, A
Home Alone, B-
SNL Christmas Skits – Once I again I picked-and-chose my favs from YouTube rather than rely on the stale NBC special. A
Seinfeld, “The Strike,” A

Bojack Horseman: Sabrina’s Christmas Wish
I only watched a couple early seasons of Bojack so had never seen this. Fit what I knew of the show perfectly: in some ways very funny, in others just didn’t fit my flavor of humor. B

Pee-wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special
A newly restored version of this 1988 special hit the YouTubes this holiday season. This was the first time I had seen it, which is probably the best way to see it, as it is outrageous and full of surprises. Hopefully it remains available online for future screenings. A

Holiday Baking Championship
A key part of our Decembers every year. I ruined the end, though. As we were watching the finale I looked up how long they actually take to film the show – the entire competition takes place over roughly ten days – and while doing so found multiple articles that prominently mentioned the winner. Oh well, still worth our time.

A-

Movies, Shows, etc

Wind River
I started watching this a year or so ago, maybe on a flight somewhere, and the Netflix app glitched and would only play the opening minutes. It got the red, Netflix, Leaving Soon tag in early December so I decided to finally knock it out. A pretty good, emotionally tense thriller about the exploitation of Native American women.

B+

Fargo, season five
When I started this, I didn’t realize Hulu is going old-school and releasing it one episode per week. I likely would have waited a month to start it had I known that. Through seven episodes, it’s pretty good. We’ll see where it ends up.

Incomplete.

The Killer
This was weird. It had all the stylish trappings that David Fincher movies often have. But when we reached the conclusion, I wondered what the point had been. I mean, I figured it would be about a psychopath based on the title. But this guy was especially psychopathic. That poor cab driver… I later listened to a podcast that discussed the movie and suggested if you are really into Fincher the movie might make more sense. And multiple viewings seem to help. One was enough for me.

Casino Royale
Last Christmas night I believe we watched Glass Onion as a family. This year L had her boyfriend over and they were watching Community together. M and C were doing their own things in their rooms. S had reflux and went to bed early. I decided to keep it Daniel Craig with this modern classic.

Pearl Jam, Live From Safeco Field 8/8/2018
This was free on Amazon for the week between Christmas and New Years. Like so many of their shows, it was fantastic. Still bummed Covid wiped out their Indy show in September. Maybe I’ll see them in 2024?

Shorts, YouTubes, etc

John Krasinski & Rainn Wilson making each other break for 8 minutes 21 seconds
Steve Carell’s Best Bloopers from The Office
Seinfeld Bloopers Season 3
Classic sitcom fun.

Turning a 9kg pumpkin into a 100km adventure
I planted a forest two years ago
Is this the worst filmmaking I’ve ever done?
A triple shot of Beau Miles bullshit.

The Insane Engineering of the Space Shuttle
This got too technical for me but since I’ll watch about anything related to space travel I stuck with it.

Music/Podcasts

The Rewatchables: Christmas Vacation
The Trap Draw: Home Alone
A couple pods about classic Christmas movies. I need to go on one of these because it drives me crazy when the hosts/guests get little details wrong. Which would probably make me a terrible guest. Also hated that one guest on The Trap Draw – who to be fair was born in 1995 – didn’t know that John Hughes wrote other movies until she did some research for this pod. 🤦‍♂️ How old does that make me?