First day of my holiday hiatus, thought I’d pop my head out of the

ground and give you a bunch of thoughts Larry King style. “King Kong”

is three times more movie than has ever been made before, and that is

its greatest achievement and biggest flaw. (“Hey, maybe Kong could

fight a T-Rex!” “I know, but how cool would it be if he fought two

T-Rexes!” “I’m the director and I call the shots! Kong will fight

three T-Rexes!”)

I am so glad John Miller wrote about Father Christmas and Narnia

today, because that was really bugging me, but I thought maybe I was

being a nit-picker. I am one of those people who like crossover

episodes of TV, like when the Fonz needed help from the Big Ragu in a

fight. But Santa seemed very out of place to me in a magical kingdom

where beavers talk. And why couldn’t his reindeer fly?

If you want a disappointing experience, convince your 7 and 12 year

old boys that the greatest movie in the world is “Planet of the Apes,”

then get it on DVD and show it to them. Yikes. Time has not been

kind. I think maybe when I saw it edited for TV in its day, they cut

out a lot of the windbaggy yakking. My elder son gave it a minus 5 on

the 1 to 10 scale. The little one was suitably freaked out by the

ending, however.

Damon to the Yankees. Not cool. Just not cool.

Merry Christmas to everyone! (At this point, you would normally say

Merry Christmas back. Then I would pause, think about whether it’s

worth the effort, and say “actually, we celebrate Hanukah.” Then you

start to apologize, and I have to stop you, say it’s fine, and what

I’m getting to is, here’s one vote for…) Happy Holidays!