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'Twas the week before Christmas, when all through our house

Not a creature was stirring, not even that big mouth

Our stockings were hung by the chimney with care

In hopes that the MPD would stay in the Square

The renters were nestled all snug in their beds

While visions of alchy bums danced in their heads

And mummy in her Star Market smock and I in my head spin hat

Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter

I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter

Away to the window I flew like a flash

Tore through the plastic and threw up the sash

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow

Gave a lustre of midday to objects below

When what to my wondering eyes did I see

But a rented U-haul and my brotherly thieves

With their friend Paul as the driver so lively and drunk

I knew in a moment this was more than a funk

More rapid than eagles these coursers they came

And one whistled, and shouted, and gave them all aim 

To the top of the porch and to the back driveway wall

Now stash away! Stash away! Stash away all!

As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly

If police should appear, they'll slip away sly

So up to the back of the house the coursers they flew

With a truck full of trees, and all those wreaths too

And then, in a twinkling, I heard all the proof

The prancing and pawing of each Chippewa boot

As I drew in my head, and was turning around

Down Spring Street came the throngs with a bound

They weren't dressed in furs, but heard something afoot

And their money was crisp as in our hands it was put

Departing with a bundle of pine they had flung on their back

Bought from the neighborhood peddlers open round back

Their eyes—how they twinkled! Their dimples, how merry!

Their cheeks were like roses, their noses like a cherry!

Their droll little mouths drawn up like a bow

While bolt cutters and work gloves lay muddied in snow

Held was the stump of a lead pipe tight in his hands

To make them believe the trees were shorn from our own Robbin' Hood land

Some even sold by a broad with a slim little face

Our mother the matriarch known to put all in their place

The chubby and plump, the blind and the deaf

And we'd chuckle when at our back door she'd offer a right or a left

As occasionally with a wink of an eye and a tilt of a head

Some renters were left on sidewalks thought to be dead

Jamie spoke not a word, but went straight to his work

Knocking out redwood Big Bob; without even a smirk

Now back to the telling of our story at hand, the one of the boys selling trees minus the brand 

Rarely giving a wave, from the peak of back porch stairs

Knowing the close shave averted from one of their dares

He reached for his pocket, to his team he gave a bundle

Knowing those fine trees were now homed with the humble

Then I heard him exclaim, ere he walked out of sight—

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good fight!”

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It’s Thanksgiving, and we're carving up some Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and it’s not just as a holiday classic, but as a masterclass in comedic discomfort delivered by two legends at the peak of their powers: Steve Martin and John Candy. Martin is a symphony of simmering fury. A brilliant performance of the slow-motion dissolution of a WASP executive’s sanity. Meanwhile, Candy's a bulldozing force of good-natured, oblivious optimism. Martin’s precise, explosive rants are only possible because of Candy’s seismic, childlike sincerity. Elevating what could have been a simple road trip comedy into a biting, yet ultimately heartwarming, testament to the fact that even the most insufferable human beings deserve a little mercy... but only after they’ve endured absolute hell.

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The Monster Squad (1987) is what happens when a bunch of middle school monster nerds decide to take on Dracula, the Wolfman, and the rest of Universal’s greatest hits — armed mostly with sarcasm, bike helmets, and the power of friendship. The film was unfairly dismissed when it came out, possibly because audiences weren’t ready for a movie where a kid yells, “Wolfman’s got nards!” and somehow, it becomes cinematic poetry.

Over the years, The Monster Squad has crawled out of its coffin and earned its cult status — a true hidden gem for anyone who loves practical effects, 80s charm, and kids who apparently skipped all adult supervision. It’s equal parts monster mash and love letter to classic horror, proving that sometimes the movies we ignored at the box office are the ones that stick around in our undead hearts forever.

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Another pull from one of The Malden Chronicles episodes that's worth a revisit. 

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Jacob’s Ladder is part psychological horror, part spiritual breakdown, and all sweaty paranoia. Tim Robbins nails it as a Vietnam vet whose post-war life turns into a fever dream of demons, flashbacks, and truly bad subway etiquette.  It's the kind of movie that makes you question reality, mortality, and why anyone would trust a chiropractor named Louis with existential advice. 

Come for the psychological trauma, stay because you can’t tell what’s real anymore.

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People, places and things. 

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Grab your flamethrower and your blood test kit, because we’re thawing out John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) — the frosty freakshow where Kurt Russell, Keith David, Wilford Brimley, and the gang learn the hard way that trust is dead and the dog is definitely not okay. And remember, it’s not paranoia if your best friend’s head just grew spider legs.

And that Entertainment Tonight intro music I used just happens to be from June 25, 1982. Youtube is a strange and wonderful place.

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Groovy.

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This is a special double header is brought to you hot from theater to loft. Bask in the greatness of a franchise that we're glad to see propagate through the decades. From Leslie to Liam, and Priscilla to Pam. Chef's kiss.

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July 3, 1984, 5:30 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time.

"Burt, I...I think things are gettin' outta hand!"

If that isn't the understatement of the '80s. Return Of The Living Dead is serving up more brains, just in case all that mystery meat in them hotdogs you ate on the 4th whet your appetite. James Karen, Linnea Quigley, Clu Gulager and Don Calfa bring the heat in this comedy horror. Sure, pitting punks against zombies might be a staple of the genre now, but at the time it was a radical idea. Like chocolate and peanut butter, give me more please. Now!

The heat in the barn made us a little lethargic on this July episode. If I didn't know any better, I might have thought there was some 2-4-5 Trioxin in the air.