A Cooler Christmas - Raving Playlist

It's hard to believe but the holidays are upon us once again. This week we'll celebrate another Thanksgiving and then there's Black Friday and the Christmas music - well it's already started. It's hard to believe that we'll have to endure the same versions of the same holiday classics everywhere we go for the next six weeks or so - again. Or will we...  Perhaps we can experience a Cooler Christmas this year - one that allows us to hear the season's classic music in a way that won't cause our brains to melt. What we need is a much cooler Christmas. Now, the weather may not cooperate with all that darn Global warming going on - Penguins and Polar Bears eating each other etc, but even with our ever-warming winters we can remain cool with some better tunes to take us through the holidays. It's in that spirit that we present today's playlist.

As usual it's available on Spotify as well.

Al Green and his most excellent advice below...

A Cooler Christmas

Al Green – Put A Little Love In Your Heart
Jimmy Eat World – Last Christmas - Studio Version
The Pretenders – Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Barenaked Ladies – Sleigh Ride
Vampire Weekend – Holiday
Diana Krall – I'll Be Home For Christmas
Bruce Springsteen – Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town - Single Version
Jack Johnson – In The Morning
Barenaked Ladies – Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
Lady Antebellum – Baby, It's Cold Outside
August Burns Red – Frosty the Snowman
Enya – The Spirit Of Christmas Past
Luke Bryan – Run Run Rudolph
The Beach Boys – Merry Christmas, Baby
Counting Crows – Holiday In Spain
B.B. King – Back Door Santa
Lady Antebellum – On This Winter's Night
Elvis Presley – Santa Claus Is Back In Town
Tom Petty – Christmas All Over Again
blink-182 – Happy Holidays, You Bastard
Barenaked Ladies – Auld Lang Syne
Blues Traveler – Christmas
Lou Ann Barton – Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree
Christmas On Piano – I Got The Jingle Bells Blues
Sex Pistols – Holidays In The Sun
Norah Jones – Peace
Denis Solee – Up On The Housetop
AgesandAges – We Need A Little Christmas
Jackson 5 – I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
Kenny G – Silent Night
The Almost – Little Drummer Boy
Lady Antebellum – Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow
Piano Christmas – Ave Maria
The Walkmen – Seven Years of Holidays (for Stretch)
The Maine – Santa Stole My Girlfriend
Sister Hazel – Your Winter
Kay Kyser – Jingle Jangle Jingle
Beach House – New Year
Death Cab for Cutie – The New Year
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Snow [Hey Oh]
Craig Duncan – Frosty The Snowman
Ugly Casanova – So Long To The Holidays
Piano Christmas – Greensleeves - Piano Reprise
First Aid Kit – New Year's Eve
Mykola Leontovich – Carol Of The Bells
Straight No Chaser – The 12 Days Of Christmas
Beyoncé – Ave Maria
Barenaked Ladies – God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen / We Three Kings - feat. Sarah McLachlan
Piano Christmas – Amazing Grace
Calexico – Green Grows The Holly
Cyndi Lauper – Home for the Holidays
Harry Connick Jr. – The Happy Elf
Luther Vandross – This Is Christmas
Madonna – Holiday
Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys – Christmas Time's A-Coming
Wild Nothing – Summer Holiday
Dead Kennedys – Holiday In Cambodia
August Burns Red – Carol of the Bells
10cc – Dreadlock Holiday
Lady Antebellum – Silent Night (Lord Of My Life)
Madonna – Santa Baby
Fitz and The Tantrums – Santa Stole My Lady
"Weird Al" Yankovic – The Night Santa Went Crazy
The Ronettes – I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
Bob Dylan – Here Comes Santa Claus
Mumford & Sons – Winter Winds
Lady Antebellum – Blue Christmas
August Burns Red – Winter Wonderland
Dave Matthews Band – Snow Outside
U2 – New Year's Day
Parachute – The New Year
Fall Out Boy – Yule Shoot Your Eye Out - Bonus Track
Louis Armstrong – Cool Yule
The Almost – Yule Be Sorry
Christina Perri – please come home for christmas
Luther Vandross – The Mistletoe Jam (Everybody Kiss Somebody)

The late, great Luther Vandross

Copyright 2012 - Raving Reviews - All Rights Reserved

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Why do Bad Shows do Well?

While truly great cinema and television fail to make it? This is today's question. A question that comes in the wake of:

• The massive Twilight opening
• The biggest Bond film ever
• The impressive showing for Lincoln

Of the three movies listed above we attended two of the premieres. We won't attend the third (Twilight) on principle - the first Twilight movie was Ok, the follow-ons have gotten sillier and seem to represent an opportunity to see the main characters again in a sort of teen worship scenario. The other movies listed above seemed very promising from the initial reviews and trailers yet we walked out of both highly disappointed. 

If these three were ugly, how many teens would go to watch their movie?

Lincoln, which we just saw on Friday was a relatively lifeless and unimaginative take on Lincoln which chose to suck in every oddball piece of Lincoln mythology developed over the past 150 years. Skyfall was a movie that didn't seem to know where it was going for more than half of the picture with a James Bond who seemed as though he was doing his best to get out of his contract by turning in the most apathetic Bond performance in a generation  Yet both films have done exceptionally well. On the other, Cloud Atlas, which was remarkable on many levels, fell flat in the box office (at least here in the US, it did much better internationally).

Now, there are exceptions where great shows are actually recognized as being great these days, although most of that is coming from television cable networks. The best example of this is AMC who have developed and stuck by Mad Men, The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad in just the past 5 years. Other great television shows over the years haven't fared so well with comedies like Outsourced being cut, shows like Firefly being ditched and so on. Often times, truly great shows need time to build up audience or need at least not to be pitted against top-rated nonsense like American Idol. 

Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Twilight - Kid's books and Comic Books now dominate Hollywood

Before Twilight, the last big hit at the theaters was the Hunger Games. It was perhaps even sillier than the Twilight saga and worse yet had stolen its entire concept from a Japanese movie called "Battle Royale" (a film which turned out to be more entertaining by far than hunger games - it's on Netflix). 

The book "Hunger Games" was a Ripoff Royale

So, this brings us back to our original question? Why do so many crap movies or shows do well while truly remarkable cinema and television get ignored? Here's our thoughts:

1. More and more decisions on what gets produced (and how it is produced) is being based on demographics rather than story. 
2. We have a precious few really talented writers these days in Hollywood. 
3. People respond to trailers - and most of these trailers represent false advertising. Lincoln is a good example - it includes fully half of the most dramatic scenes of its entire 2 hours and 29 minutes in the two minute preview. Instead of watching the 2 hours of riveting cinema we expected there was maybe 5 minutes of real drama in the whole movie.
4. People respond to brand and are afraid to try new things. Hunger Games is a brand, Twilight is a brand - they were both brands before they were movies. Lincoln is a brand as well - sort of. 
5. People going to movies don't like to think too hard - or so Hollywood assumes. Sequels, brand franchises, re-tellings of the same old stories represent perhaps 2/3 of all Hollywood revenue. During Looper, which in fact wasn't even that complicated, we personally witnessed people acting as though their heads were about to explode.
6. When people come to the movies expecting it will be good, often they're unwilling to admit that it wasn't. That's real loyalty - but it doesn't help guarantee that future movies will be made with any skill if you reward films that are flimsy and un-entertaining. 
7. There seems to be lowered expectations for film quality these days. In this regard, cinema and politics seem to be competing with one another to see how dumbed-down they can get. Contrary to popular belief, however, the United States doesn't operate at a sixth grade level. 

There is nothing worse than going to a movie expecting to enjoy oneself and end up being stuck for two hours wishing you were somewhere else. We're grateful for gems like the Cloud Atlas when they do occur, but we think it's about time that Hollywood started raising the bar again in general on their major releases. Stephen Spielberg is a genius, we credited him with the best movie of all time, yet in Lincoln he makes the high point of the movie a bathroom - sorry - wash closet joke. 

That's just sad.  

Copyright 2012 - Raving Reviews - All Rights Reserved

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