Happy Christmas!

First things, first...as promised at the beginning of the month, the pictures of both my family and I's trees, both decorated by me, myself, and I.

Got to kick off my festivities through watching an "encore presentation" (original presentation being two weeks ago in my home's "Great Room", a combination of the kitchen and living room) of Gremlins with commentary from the cast AND the deleted scenes with even more cast commentary. This turned out to be even more of a hoot that I imagined it to be...

- Zach Galligan is my new favorite guilty pleasure actor...actually, I don't think I really had a favorite guilty pleasure actor before that statement. But yes, I couldn't help but love Zach, his geekiness, and his comments throughout the picture.

And the fact that in Gremlins, he looked like a young Hartford-era Ronnie Francis, except for the clefted chin, certainly didn't hurt either. ;D

- What made Gremlins' cast commentary different from the rare other cast commentaries to which I've listened is the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 quality it had in parts. Galligan's comments *really* added to that feel. Come to think of it, Galligan and Joe Dante (the director) were the only ones *really* getting into doing the commentary. Coming in second place was Howie Mandel (the voice of Gizmo and a few gremlins), who, along with Galligan, was not afraid to make fun of certain aspects of Gremlins AND the commentary itself. Third place was Phoebe Cates...and that was only made possible thanks to Galligan, who had to constantly jog Cates' memory AND vocal chords. Last place was Dick Miller, whose presence in the commentary really baffled me...yeah, he was/is a good actor and all, but it was not like he had a super-huge part other than his character mentioning that he believed in gremlins.

- I was not the least bit surprised that Dante said his most favorite part of the movie was the one that drags the most...where Cates' character explains to Galligan's character why she hates Christmas. It can't be a Dante movie without some sort of sucky part...even with Steven Spielberg's supervision.

- Whenever Howie Mandel used his Gizmo voice...I kept thinking more of Bobby from Bobby's World than Gizmo. And that's not helped by the fact that Howie admitted to using the same voice for Gizmo, Bobby, and imitating children during his stand-up comedy act.

Overall, in addition to the Gremlins movie itself, I highly recommend the cast commentary for sci-fi/fantasy film lovers, geeks, and/or people who just want some totally different Christmas viewing. Yes, after all of that, I *do* consider Gremlins a Christmas movie. Hey, quit looking at me like that...

Speaking of DVDs/videos...here are a few fun Christmastime YouTube videos...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVhZS1-WZZc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=putnlqW2pKg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3NhDtfZmd0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QSTcOHe3lE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AC3sZB-v7Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVENmQqQyx4

And some YTMNDs...

http://miamichristmas.ytmnd.com/

http://mythbusterchristmas.ytmnd.com/

http://bbnutcracker.ytmnd.com/

http://patrickswayzechristmas.ytmnd.com/

http://whatischristmas.ytmnd.com/

http://christmastimegman.ytmnd.com/

http://santaclaus.ytmnd.com/

This has got to be the most generous Christmas post I've done ever since I have gotten into blogging. That said, hope today and tomorrow are just like this post to you and your friends and loved ones! :)

Current Music: "Merry Christmas Baby" by B.B. King