We were down with justice until the call for the excreta of Rangifer tarandus. That's just nasty.

h/t: passive-aggressive notes.

Christmas is a time where an overweight immortal man pilots a sleigh of flying reindeer across the globe, an angel shows a suicidal man the impact he’s had on the world, and spectral entities show misers the error of their ways. So, we’re used to Yuletide tales of strange and in some cases frightening phenomenon. Watching these tales unfold on the silver and small screens has become a holiday tradition for many, but there’s another medium that tells these kinds of stories in a powerful, unique, and exciting way that Hollywood can’t approach, and that’s comic books and graphic novels. We'll start this list with some hilarious, warped, and bloody Yuletide fun:

The Last Christmas by Brian Posehn & Gerry Duggan, artist Rick Remender

Imagine a mash up of Rankin-Bass Christmas specials, The Road Warrior, and The Walking Dead. If you're horrified by that, then move along! But if you like your Christmas cheer blended with twisted black humor and over-the-top violence...

Duggan, Posehn, and Remender's tale takes readers to a violent, post-apocalyptic world being ravaged by marauding gangs and zombie mutants. When the gangs hit the North Pole and murder Mrs. Claus, Santa decides to give up on Christmas and life, but the belief of one good boy keeps him alive. So will Santa be able to over come his personal demons to save the boy from an army of evil and bring back Christmas to the world? That's the central question in this story that blends festive delight and post-apocalyptic carnage into wickedly funny, perverse, and exciting holiday cocktail.

[More visions of sugarplums and flying horses ahead...]

See the proof for yourself:

The outfitter also points out that once you've got the $6499.00 of gear (including items like a full winter ghillie suit, hearing enhancer, tactical vest, thermal and night vision cameras, knives, camping and survival gear, etc.) you're not merely ready to bag proof of the fat man. Oh, no. You're geared up for more challenges ahead, including:

• Tooth Fairy
• Boogeyman
• Aliens
• Creepers
• Monsters in your closet
• Annoying sisters
• Unscrupulous babysitters
• Dogs pooping in your yard
• Strange activities of your cat
• Hundreds more!

Last minute gift crises solved? You're welcome.

My reactions to the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead were all over the place (a bit like Season 4 so far, and episode 7, for which I couldn't even find a public-suitable reaction.) While I was watching, my heart was in my mouth and I was completely absorbed in the action, but during every commercial break (and there were so many!), my brain caught up to my heart and started arguing about ... well, everything.

Let’s start with the fact that this should have been the Season 3 finale. I would have believed the animus that the people of Woodbury held against Rick’s group, which had raided their town, killed some of their townsfolk, and generally actually done things to them. Moreover, they’d known the Governor for a while, and were used to obeying him; in the end, even that group that knew and trusted the Governor to keep them safe, balked at attacking the prison, whereas I’m expected to believe that people he met just a few days earlier would follow him into massacring a bunch of people they never met before. (?!)

Of course, there will be more incredulity and spoilers ahead.

[I will weep and cheer and rant with you...]

The Sentinel is a movie that evaded me for decades. I love religious horror films like The Omen, The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, and most recently This is the End. So I should have loved The Sentinel, with the tagline She's living in the gateway to hell. It also stars many of my favorite actors: Burgess Meredith, Chris Saradon, Eli Wallach, Jerry Orbach, Christopher Walken, John Carradine, and Beverly D'Angelo. The problem is not that it's not terrible, but that it's not terrible enough.

I love a good bad movie, see. The problem is the ones that aren't good enough or bad enough, and just sort of limp along like a dog wiping itself on the carpet for 120 minutes. And that's what The Sentinel felt like. In fact, if a dog ate the famous religious horror films mentioned above, and then wiped itself on a white shag carpet for 120 minutes, it would be easier to watch than The Sentinel.

Let me synopsize the movie for you, and I had to read two different sources to do this, because the direction by Michael Winner (Death Wish, The Mechanic, The Big Sleep '78, but also, tellingly, Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood) is so confusing that it often feels like watching disjointed reels with missing footage. But here goes...

Editor's Note: Strange images and spoilers ahead...

[If that doesn't convince you to read on, what would?!]

From the magnificent site Lowering the Bar:

After a series of “twists and turns” that began Tuesday afternoon, the judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in Calcagno v. Springfield, just before the case was to be sent to the jury. The judge has reportedly given both sides 90 days to investigate dramatic new evidence relating to the night that Vicki Calcagno claims Rick Springfield “struck her with his buttocks” during a 2004 concert.

Springfield, who is best known for the 1981 hit “Jessie's Girl,” and now possibly for his buttocks, was performing at the New York State Fair when the incident allegedly occurred. Springfield's act included segments in which he entered the seating area and interacted with fans. Calcagno alleges that during one of these segments, Springfield contacted her with his buttocks and knocked her down, causing significant injuries.

Her evidence included a photo of the alleged weapon[s], which she claims to have taken just before she was knocked out...

Go over to read the whole, strange tail tale for yourself.

More fan albums of Rick Springfield's body parts here.

Bradley Cooper's ridiculous perm and other bad hair decisions aside, American Hustle promises to be a knock-out of '70s proportions, and reunites some great talent in Hollywood. Jeremy Renner looks amazing as a sleazy politician, and Jennifer Lawrence (playing con-man Christian Bale's wife) couldn't be better suited as the ballsy woman who threatens to tear their delicate scheme apart.

What do you think? Will you be seeing it when it hits theaters December 13, 2013?

The holidays are a time for peace on Earth and good will towards man. So movies set at that time often involve heartwarming and cute scenes like Tiny Tim saying, “God bless us everyone;” Jimmy Stewart running through Bedford Falls wishing everybody a, “Merry Christmas;” and the guy from The Walking Dead telling Kiera Knightly that she’s perfect. That’s fine, and those are some scenes from good movies, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a good action sequence at Christmas time. In fact, it can be a lot of fun to watch brave heroes and heroines battle to preserve the spirit of the season. So, if you’re in the mood for some mayhem to go along with your cheer, here are several exciting holiday classics to consider:

Die Hard  (1988) & Die Hard 2 (1990)

These are the two films that probably come to mind when most people think about Christmas action movies, and for good reason, too. Watching a lone everyman (granted, his everyman quality tended to diminish as the film franchise went on), John McClane, try to save Christmas from an army of bad guys is a lot of fun, especially when their leader is Alan Rickman. The tension, humor, and Rickman’s villainy make the first film one of the greatest action movies of all time, but the sequel where McClane tries to liberate a busy holiday airport from the grip of William Sadler’s rogue military unit is a lot of fun, too.

If the first Die Hard is already a regularly part of your holiday viewing, you might want to try reading the novel it's based on, Roderick Thorp's Nothing Lasts Forever, which is a much darker and grittier story. It features an older protagonist named Joe Leland, but it's still fantastic. I'm currently reading 58 Minutes by Walter Wager, which was the inspiration for Die Hard 2.

[KaBOOM! Santa's got a half dozen more to drop on you...]

In not-surprising-in-the-least news, Tom Cruise is set to return as Lee Child's silent but intimidating hero, Jack Reacher in a sequel to 2012's Jack Reacher. This new film is reported to be based upon the newest Reacher thriller, Never Go Back. Irony, of course, being something completely alien to Hollywood execs.  

The newest book has Reacher returning to Virginia to find a friend under arrest, himself a suspect in an assault case, and a child that a woman swears is his. That last bit may be what is driving the rumor that Reacher will have a “smart teen female sidekick” in the film. Despite how you may feel about Cruise as a not so towering, not quite physically intimidating Jack Reacher, it can't be argued that the first film didn't preform at the box office. So the question remains, will you watch?

Roger Ebert said of Invasion of the Bee Girls, at the time of its 1973 release, “[it] is the best schlock soft-core science fiction movie since maybe The Vengeance of She." Wow. And did Ebert invent a genre there?

In writing about this movie, which is my personal top 10 all time favorite cult films, I don’t want to get bogged down with a long rundown of its plot. For one thing, anyone reading this could get that from IMDB or 20-30 other places on the web. For another, people who haven’t seen the movie, and want to, should experience it the way I originally did: with only a vague sense of what it is about. Let it surprise you.

But, for some reference, here are a few particulars: the tale is set in a place called Peckham, in California. It’s a small town that’s home to a scientific research complex. Men, both inside and outside of the science center, are dying of heart failure. And none of them had cardiac conditions before. Autopsies reveal that they were all into some intense nookie at the time of their passing; or, as one character states, they were “coming and going at the same time.” Because the research center is government-sponsored, the feds get interested and send in one of their agents to investigate.

The cast is ideal. Anitra Ford, one of the original “Barker’s Beauties” models on The Price is Right, portrays a sultry, remote, dangerous lady scientist. 1968's Playboy Playmate of the Year Victoria Vetri is another researcher, and is the good-girl sexy scientist, to balance out Ford’s bad girl-sexy scientist. William Smith, who has an acting CV that goes on forever and who had played badass motorcycle dudes prior to Bee Girls, is the federal agent. That trio makes up the main players, but there are several enjoyable side characters.

Smith, who was gracious enough to answer a few questions of mine about the movie, describes how he came to take on the role of the hunky agent Neil Agar.

Editor's note: Just in case you weren't sure yet... like many other theatrical releases of its era, this film contains abundant skin and frankly sexual references.

[Even suspicious G-men are sexy in Peckham...]

It's a rare thing to know of someone who gets money stolen from them only to have the reaction: “They must have needed it more than I did.” But that's exactly the reaction one coffee shop owner had last week when a thief nonchalantly grabbed money out of the tip jar and walked out of the store.

After the theft, instead of pressing charges the owner (who had caught the thief in security footage) decided to hold a food drive to give to the man if he elected to come forward. The decision created polarizing opinions—for some it restored their faith in humanity, for others it was rewarding bad behavior.

What do you think? Is the owner rewarding bad behavior or are they helping out a fellow man during hard economic times?

Tip jar image courtesy of torbakhopper via Flickr.

Or are elves secretly applying for new gigs as imps? If so, one of the 7 unbreakable codes this isn't, but then again, centuries of whittling alphabet blocks may dull the mental edge somewhat.

Hat tip: Cheezburger's Fail blog.

Iron & Velvet by Alexis Hall is the first book in the Kate Kane: Paranormal Investigator romantic suspense noir series (available December 16, 2013).

My name’s Kate Kane, and when an eight-hundred-year-old vampire prince came to me with a case, I should have told her no. But I’ve always been a sucker for a femme fatale.

It always goes the same way. You move too fast, you get in too deep, and before you know it, someone winds up dead. Last time it was my partner. This time it could be me. Yesterday a werewolf was murdered outside the Velvet, the night-time playground of one of the most powerful vampires in England. Now half the monsters in London are at each other’s throats, and the other half are trying to get in my pants. The Witch Queen will protect her own, the wolves are out for vengeance, and the vampires are out for, y’know, blood.

I’ve got a killer on the loose, a war on the horizon, and a scotch on the rocks. It’s going to be an interesting day.

Iron and Velvet by Alexis Hall livens its contemporary urban fantasy setting with a strong noir voice.  Detective Kate Kane, the first-person narrator, could easily slide into a black-and-white movie and begin flirting with Lauren Bacall, so long as a few vampires and fae and werewolves also showed up.  The overall tone is less dark than classic noir novels, such as those by Raymond Chandler, but Kate still shares a number of characteristics with those detectives, including drinking and women.

[Two great pasttimes...]

San Francisco has always embraced the weird, the outrageous, and the rebellious. From the raucous times of the Barbary Coast, to the howling poetry of the Beats, to the free love of the hippies, letting your freak flag fly is not just a slogan in the City by the Bay, but a way of life.

All of that uninhibited freedom, though, has at times fostered a sense of lawlessness in San Francisco. For every sailor who awoke in a brothel in the Barbary Coast, another awoke on a ship, kidnapped by “Shanghai” Kelly; while the Beats were reciting poetry in North Beach, Sonny Barger was forming the notorious Oakland chapter of the Hells Angels; and as the hippies were frolicking in Golden Gate Park, the Zodiac Killer was tallying victims all across the Bay Area.

It’s not surprising, then, that two great crime books to come from San Francisco were written by authors with checkered pasts. You Can’t Win by Jack Black, and Shake Him Till He Rattles by Malcolm Braly, were penned by career criminals who straightened out in time to capture their respective eras in San Francisco history. Though written decades apart, the books share a voice that is particular to that of an ex-con. It is a voice that is tough yet empathetic, unflinching yet forgiving. It is neither self-pitying nor self-flagellating. It is the voice of a life lived hard.

You Can’t Win, first published in 1926, is the autobiography of Jack Black, who was at various times a burglar, a convict, a dope fiend, a “yegg,” and a member of the Johnson Gang of thieves. Black crisscrossed the country at the turn of the 20th century, learning his craft (thieving, not writing) from a cast of characters so vivid, their names alone will make you smile: The Sanctimonious Kid, Salt Chunk Mary, Sticks Sullivan, Foot-and-a-half George, and Montana Blacky, to name just a few. After many visits to San Francisco, Black eventually settled down in the city, his decision no doubt influenced by his stay in nearby San Quentin prison.

Open to any page in You Can’t Win and you will see why it was the favorite book of William S. Burroughs, who wrote the introduction for the AK Press reissue. Black’s teeming prose, his rat-a-tat-tat rhythm, and his use of street slang are obvious influences on the Beats, especially Jack Kerouac. You Can’t Win is also stuffed with delightful old time colloquialisms: professional thieves were “yeggs,” cops were “bulls,” opium was “hop,” and everyone was addressed as “kid,” no matter their age.

Black tells us at the beginning of the book that he is going to write about the things he stole during his life as a thief just as he took them, “with a smile.”

[How Cities and Criminals Evolve...]

We just delivered this to @amazon HQ in honor of a 3 year overdue invoice. Can we please get this mess fixed? —ruaok http://t.co/K6OJWis3NK

— MusicBrainz (@MusicBrainz) December 3, 2013

Using mom's lesson “If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all” paid off when the open music encyclopedia site, Music Brainz, decided to say something nice and send this passive aggressive cake to Amazon to celebrate the third anniversary...of not getting paid! Most criminals would just go for the knee caps (and not have the patience) if they had to wait THREE YEARS for an invoice, so this is the better way to go. In the end, Music Brainz got paid, and Amazon got a free cake. Win/win, yes?

Oh man, O Man.

I need to come clean on something before I get going. And that is that I was only nine or so when this very incredible, very thoughtful TV show first came on the scene. I was too young to stay up that late. I only vaguely remember the second half of the first season, when the show was moved from San Diego to Los Angeles. Some sort of money thing, as shooting in San Diego quickly became too costly. Harry, played to the hilt by David Janssen, was the penultimate private eye. Harry Orwell had been a cop but was wounded in the line of duty. However, getting shot in the back didn’t kill him; it killed his career as a policeman instead. What I love about that bullet is that it serves as a powerful symbol for the wounding that Harry’s view of the world took. In an even more powerful bit of symbolism, he owns a derelict boat named The Answer. Can you get any more symbolic, right? And of course, he’s always working on The Answer. (Yes, I just had to get that in, sorry.)

Harry of course has a cop friend on the force (which private detective doesn’t?). Captain Manny Quinlan, played by Henry Darrow. He was given a difficult role, was Henry, having to play the foil for Harry’s character. One moment he’s a source of information, then in another he’s the cop who threatens to yank Harry’s private eye license. I would like to add here one totally bad-ass bit of awesomeness in the Captain Quinlan character: his ties rival Michael Douglas’s in The Streets of San Francisco. After the show moved to Los Angeles, Darrow’s character was replaced by Lt. Trench of the Santa Monica PD, played to perfection by Anthony Zerbe (who won an Emmy for his role).

[Put these all together and what do you get?]