It’s free on Hulu and I don’t know a single person who has FEARNet. Just in case you were wondering why I watched this Christmas special in spite of the fact I’m not a humongous fan of the horror sitcom “Holliston.”
Now that that’s out of the way, in spite of my reservations with the series, “The Holliston Christmas Special” is a very solid and often entertaining affair. Granted, the humor is still somewhat hit or miss, but the hour long special that’s set during Christmas avoids all the pitfalls of the holiday special and works on its own track. Corrie and Laura are still really damn good looking, so much so it’s distracting, and they stop by Adam and Joe’s house to ring in the holidays with them. In spite of Adam’s refusal to celebrate since he’s Jewish, the girls inflict Christmas cheer on them with a Chinese dinner. When the lights go out all over Holliston the group has to huddle together to wait out the outage, and the cold.
Director Sacha Gervasi’s treatment of the life of Hitchcock is very much in the tone of Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood.” I gather there will be numerous comparisons and parallels drawn, as this new look at Hitchcock’s career is very much like Burton’s own tribute to Ed Wood. There’s the breaking of the fourth wall, the satirical look at filmmaking, the focus on the madman behind the director, the glimpses at studio politics, and ultimately the way women affected these two famous directors. This time around Alfred Hitchcock is worn by Anthony Hopkins who doesn’t quite convince as the rotund director, but has a ball as the perpetually repressed and lovelorn creative genius who expressed his inner most desires and fears through his own creative work. For Hitchcock aficionados, “Hitchcock” doesn’t quite inform you of facts about the man’s life that you haven’t already seen or read before.
Allegedly Michael Miner’s “Deadly Weapon” was supposed to be a sequel to Charles Band’s notoriously awful cult riot “Laserblast.” But when Empire pictures fell, Band basically turned the sequel in to its own film. Really, “Deadly Weapon” feels so much like a remake of “Laser Blast,” and an unnecessary one at that. Like its predecessor it’s hilariously bad and filled with so much horrible editing and acting, it’s more funny than it is entertaining.