DragStrip

Do you know why "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" is guaranteed a to be shown every year when Christmas comes around? It's because it is probably the only Christmas comedy to produce major laughs. As James Berardinelli said, if we take it away, what do we replace it with exactly? There have been several attempts to usurp its position in recent years, and Fred Claus is one of the least successful. To keep it succinct, the comedy is generally unfunny and the sentimentality grating, aside from a couple of nice moments. Giamatti and Richardson give good performances, but Vaughn and Weisz are fairly awful. To give the film its credit there are a couple of scenes which work brilliantly; the first meeting between Spacey's bureaucrat character and the Clauses, and Fred's "siblings anonymous" meeting. These are fantastically inventive and witty scenes, sadly unrepresentative of the movie.

To be fair, it's not that much worse than the overrated "Elf".

"Count Duckula" is my all time favourite cartoon, and I believe it to be one of the very best too. I loved it as a very young kid but I doubt I could have appreciated just how special it actually is. Cosgrove Hall produced 65 episodes of consistent quality over a remarkably short period of time. The weakest episode of Duckula would be the highlight of many another TV series. The animation varies a little, it was obviously worked on by more than one company. At its best it was about as good as TV animation ever got. At its worst it was far above average. The backgrounds in particular are immaculate, with imagery that was often witty or spooky. But what makes this show truly special is the comedy. The show is frequently, hysterically, funny; even after multiple viewings. Not only that but the humour goes into territories often overlooked in cartoons, it is primarily verbal humour with frequent diversions into black and surreal comedy.

If I have not described the show well enough it is mostly because I could never do it justice. Thankfully, we live in a world where all 65 episodes are available, at quite affordable prices too, on DVD. Even if you think you are too old for cartoons, you are not too old for "Count Duckula". Believe me!

Pac-Man was one of the trailblazers of the video game boom, and an effort was made here to keep the franchise on the cutting edge. "Pac-Mania" is basically an adaptation of the original game, so you know its fun, but the key modifications are what make it particularly interesting. Firstly, Pac-Man can now jump over ghosts, which potentially makes the game easier; yet the game operates in an expanded side-scrolling environment. This allowed the developers to give this Pac-Man game a 3D feel with the maze, the ghost and even Pac himself getting a three dimensional makeover. Though of course nothing like the three dimensional graphics of today the effect really works. Indeed, this game, perhaps boosted by the simplistic game-play and environment defining of Pac-Man, works better than another attempt (the rather clumsy "Sonic 3D") at adapting a classic game character to the 3D format nearly a decade later. Overall, a successful and enjoyable experiment. Pac-Mania is available on Namco's Pac-Man Collection on the Game Boy Advanced, and it transfers to the portable medium well.