How to ring in the New Year.

Step 1. Select the snack of your choice. (In my case, Cheetos -- the crunchy ones.)

Step 2. Choose the adult beverage of your choice. (I'm having a White Russian.)

Step 3. Insert THE NIGHT STALKER DVD into your DVD player. (An episode you haven't seen ever/in a long time/last night, but it was really good. You could also go for one of the two TV movies.)

Step 3. Enjoy.

A Wonderful Life It Ain't.

It's late Christmas Eve. Presley's in bed. Jennifer and I are getting everything ready for Santa Claus' arrival. I decide to turn on the TV to give us something to watch as we wrap presents that will be unwrapped in just a few hours.

Maybe there's some kinda holiday thing on. A CHRISTMAS STORY. The Grinch. Charlie Brown. One of those Jesus documentaries on A&E.

What do I come across? THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE.

Now, I think this is a great film. A landmark. But I question the widsom in scheduling this one on December 24th.

Did that keep me from watching a bit of it? Not at all.

"You're ruining Christmas!"

It's an absolute fact that A JOLLY CHRISTMAS FROM FRANK SINATRA from 1957 is the greatest Christmas album ever made. Hell, even Santa Claus would agree with that.

I'll nominate THE VENTURES' CHRISTMAS ALBUM as #2. One of the Elvis ones (take your pick) holds down the #3 spot.

And the list goes on. Sorry, Phil Spector. Please don't shoot me.

Every year, Frank, the Ralph Brewer Singers and conductor Gordon Jenkins provide the soundtrack to my holiday -- and it's pretty much impossible to have a blue Christmas when this thing's on.

Up top is the original LP's cover art. Pretty, ain't it? That was the way it looked when Capitol sent it to stores back in '57. It had a "high fidelity" thing in the upper right corner.

Then, in 1963, after Frank had split Capitol for his own Reprise label, the album was re-released as THE SINATRA CHRISTMAS ALBUM. That's it to the right. Kinda lame cover, but that same great music. Now at a slightly discounted price.

Then things start getting confusing. Along comes this thing called the compact disc. Capitol puts out A JOLLY CHRISTMAS FROM FRANK SINATRA, giving us a couple extra tunes -- and they return to the original cover art! In the meantime, another Sinatra holiday CD is put together, this one on Reprise, called THE SINATRA CHRISTMAS ALBUM, pulling together various holiday tunes recorded for various things -- he never recorded a full Christmas album for the label. No relation to the retitled JOLLY CHRISMAS that Capitol had once released. (You may have seen this CD. It's got an artsy shot of a red Christmas ornament on it.)

Then we get to 2007. A JOLLY CHRISTMAS FROM FRANK SINATRA is now 50 years old! So an anniversary version of the CD is prepared, which turns out to be just the regular thing with a new cover. No new tunes. No alternate takes. Not even some kinda different-numbered-bit remastering. Just a bastardization of that cool old cover art and some shiny slipcase thing. Sorry, not impressed. (It's always bothered me that the artist is never credited, and his signature on the LP cover is illegible.)

So the music is as great and timeless as ever. But are future generations gonna be stuck with these tacky new graphics? Let's hope not. I'd like to think that my grandkids' Sinatra Christmas music (who knows what format they'll hear it on) will look like the one I had -- and my parents had. Tradition is such a huge part of the Christmas season. This is one I sure hope we don't screw up.

By the way, Frank followed A JOLLY CHRISTMAS FROM FRANK SINATRA with the fabulous COME FLY WITH ME. He was on a roll that would last damn near a decade.

Ring a ding ding!

And a jolly Christmas from me, too!

[The title of this entry thing is bellowed by one of Ned Beatty's bratty kids in Spielberg's 1941 (1979).]

"You can never go fast enough."

And you can never own this movie too many times.

My Dad's laserdisc company, The Roan Group, put TWO LANE BLACKTOP (1971) out. It was the last laserdisc he released before making the switch to DVD. It's also one of my all-time favorite movies (Warren Oates gives one of the greatest film performanes ever), and having anything to do with it (and I did VERY little as far as the laserdisc was concerned) was indeed an honor.

At the same time Dad did the laserdisc, Anchor Bay released the same transfer on DVD. It's long out of print, but Criterion has just put it back out in a more deluxer deluxe edition. Came out last week -- just in time for the gearhead movie freak on your Christmas list. Man, I can't wait to get one.

I've recommended this film to countless people. And reaction to it has been split right down the middle: people either love it or hate it. There's no "it was OK" with TWO LANE BLACKTOP.

Once I get my copy, I'll give the three people who read this a full report on its splendid-ness.

Freddie Francis: 1919 - 2007

Every December, Turner Classic Movies does this montage-y thing where they give you a runthrough of all the film people who've passed away over the last year. I always dread it, because each year I find that someone I really respect and admire has made the list -- and I had no idea they were gone.

This year was no exception. It was Freddie Francis, the British ace cinematographer and horror director. His specialty was black-and-white widescreen stuff, and THE INNOCENTS (we lost Deborah Kerr this year, too) and THE ELEPHANT MAN show what a master he was. Francis claimed to approach everything as if it was black-and-white, thinking in shade and texture rather than color. His color work in stuff like GLORY, Scorcese's CAPE FEAR and THE STRAIGHT STORY demonstrate that.

But he also directed. Typecast pretty quickly as a horror director, he made several films for Hammer (EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN in 1964 and 1968's DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE, for example)and the bulk of the anthology films like TALES FROM THE CRYPT that Amicus cranked out in the Seventies.

He quickly learned that even a good director has a hard time rising above a bad script, and this plagues a lot of his directorial work. But they always LOOK great, with a lot of the story told visually. THE SKULL and CREEPING FLESH are good examples of his visual flair making the most of a lackluster screenplay.

Over the course of my film-geek adulthood, I've searched out almost anything he ever touched -- from great pictures like SONS AND LOVERS to trash like VAMPIRE HAPPENING -- and I've always been fascinated by his use of shadow and the incredible places he decides to place his camera. These days, Freddie Francis is well-served by DVD, and something like THE INNOCENTS would make an ideal way to discover what a great artist he was -- and show off the spiffy widescreen HD TV you got for Christmas. And, of course, THE SKULL has that cool device where the camera looks out, POV-style, through the eye sockets! Good stuff.

I can feel a real Hammer Horror binge coming on.

Happy Birthday, Pally!

Francis Albert Sinatra
December 12, 1915 - May 14, 1998

Do the right thing. Light up a Chesterfield and pour yourself good stiff drink. And by all means, through something Nice N Easy on the hi-fi.

"Here by the sea and sand"

The Who, Virginia Beach, 1968. A former co-worker of mine was at this show. And I will forever hate him for it.