You are already aware of whether or not “A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas” interests you. “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” is a bit of a stoner classic, possessing the sort of random logic that strings the best weed-fueled movies together. The sequel, “Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay,” was raunchier and had some hilarious bits, but never really came together as a complete product the way a lot of modern comedies fail to do. This third outing fares better than the second, adding a Christmas-driven plot to the stoned “After Hours” shenanigans.

This time around, Harold & Kumar have gone their separate ways as friends. Harold is a big-shot executive on Wall Street and lives in mortal fear of his father-in-law, which is completely understandable since the in-law is played by Danny Trejo. Trejo’s fearsome father has an intense love of Christmas, with special attention reserved for the magic of his homegrown Christmas tree.

While his wife is out with the family for midnight mass, Harold pledges to decorate the tree, hoping to make into a magical display and win the respect of his in-laws. His hopes are dashed when Kumar, still a bloodshot walking disaster, shows up to give him a mystery package, which contains a magical joint. One thing leads to another, and Trejo’s Christmas tree is destroyed in a freak accident, leading Harold & Kumar on an evening excursion to replace the tree, even if it means getting attacked by Russian mobsters, going on a claymated acid trip, or having yet another run-in with Neil Patrick Harris.

Again, you know what you’re in for with a Harold & Kumar movie, and while not as fresh as the original, it’s a more coherent sequel than the last film in the series. Inserting them into a Christmas setting gives it a sweet holiday flavor to go with the raunch-factor, which is always almost cranked up to John Waters levels of nasty in these films. A Rankin/Bass-style sequence of claymation high jinks allows them to indulge the Christmas-special vibe the story already has, while showing stuff you probably otherwise couldn’t get away with in an R-rated comedy. I giggled like an idiot through the last two films, and I did the same through this. Unlike a lot of stoner comedies, you don’t need to be high to enjoy them.

The Blu-ray ain’t loaded in terms of extras, it features an extended cut, as well as deleted scenes, which is par for the course. There’s a segment on realizing the claymation sequence, but it’s just a storyboard-to-film comparison. The only bits that are really worthwhile are some short “interviews” with Tom Lennon, where he crafts an argument that “A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas” is superior to the work of Dickens, Hemingway, and Faulkner, asking whether or not they thought to depict showering nuns in their work. He does admit that Victor Hugo explored some of their ideas first in “Les Miserables,” though. Can’t win ‘em all.

I find it strange that they’ve decided to go ahead and release it in February, as most Christmas movies don’t get their home video release until the next Christmas season is upon us. Not that I mind, I don’t need to be in the Christmas spirit to chuckle at some good ol’ fashioned stoner antics. This ain’t a candy cane for the easily offended, but I’m sure most of you know better than to put it on during the next family gathering, because we all know this is more of a treat for an ugly Christmas sweater party with some friends.

Available on 3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray, DVD, and Amazon Instant

Other Noteworthy Releases

The Twilight Saga – Breaking Dawn Part I: I’ve never seen any of these, but one day I plan to get loaded and have a marathon once they’re all available for home consumption. Anyone care to join me? Mark Kermode described this movie as “bonkers,” which sounds promising on several levels. Look for it on Friday, February 11th.

Available on Blu-ray, DVD, and Amazon Instant

Lady and The Tramp: I watched this movie a lot when I was a kid, which is why I’m shocked I remember hardly anything about it, apart from the memorable spaghetti-date scene and the “we are Siamese if you please” bit with the cats. Time for a refresher.

Available on Blu-ray/DVD combo

Anonymous: Roland Emmerich took a break from Irwin Allen films writ large and sub-Spielberg/Cameron offerings to do a movie about nutty conspiracy theories regarding whether or not Shakespeare actually wrote his plays. The movie drew the ire of Shakespeare experts and plain ol’ film critics alike, but it’s interesting to see a guy who loves to blow stuff up as much as Emmerich does take such a dramatic turn.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World: If you were alive in 1963, and had ever appeared on film with the intention of making others laugh by that point, chances are you were in this movie.

Available on Blu-ray

Casino Royale: Not the Bond debut of Daniel Craig, but the Bond spoof with the likes of David Niven, Woody Allen, Peter Sellers and Orson Welles.

Available on Blu-ray

Love Story: No, moron, love DOES mean having to say you’re sorry.

Available on Blu-ray

The Sunset Limited: A two-man show written by the great Cormac McCarthy, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones, who also directs. I’m in.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

Project Nim: A man versus beast documentary about an ape raised as a human, directed by “Man on a Wire” filmmaker James Marsh, which goes well with a side of “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.”

Available on DVD

A Fish Called Wanda: Kevin Kline’s Oscar-winning turn came from this unlikely Monty Python-populated film, which gets its Blu-ray release this week.

Available on Blu-ray

La Jetee/Sans Soleil: I own this set on DVD for “La Jetee” alone, which is one of the more interesting science fiction films out there, even if it is comprised almost entirely of still photographs and voiceover. Speaking of Monty Python earlier, one of their veterans, Terry Gilliam, took the plot of “La Jetee” to new heights by remaking it as a feature with “12 Monkeys.” Mark Romanek also referenced it heavily in his video for David Bowie’s “Jump, They Say.” This set showcases the most significant film work of Chris Marker, whose work has found much renown across various mediums.

Available on Blu-ray

A Star is Born: The film likely to win big at The Oscars this year, “The Artist,” owes its basic plot to this film directed by “Wild Bill” Wellman, starring Janet Gaynor and Frederic March. Kino is presenting it just in time for the Academy Awards, with all the bells n’ whistles they’re wont to give.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

This piece originally appeared over at Parcbench.

W. Scott Howard, an associate professor at the University of Denver’s English Department, contends “Anonymous” only scratches the surface of the mystery, but it might just make a few ticket holders brush up on their Shakespeare as a result. (Warning: Spoilers ahead)

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Big Hollywood: What was your overall impression of “Anonymous?” What impact do you think the movie will have on the subject matter? Could the film move the needle one way or the other on popular opinions regarding Shakespeare?

W. Scott Howard: I think that “Anonymous” will most likely do more to support idealized notions about Shakespeare’s authorial genius rather than to subvert those views. Most Shakes-screen fans will measure director Roland Emmerich’s zealous and muscular, noir-conspiracy-thriller against “Shakespeare in Love,” for example, finding this latest production far too Will-full for anonymity’s sake.

BH: How much creative license did they take with the historical record?

WS: Either too much, or not nearly enough, as William Blake might say.

“Anonymous” dramatizes the so-called Prince Tudor I and Prince Tudor II versions of the Oxfordian theory concerning the Shakespeare authorship debate, which has been circulating in various communities since the 19th century. The Prince Tudor I theory (also known as the Tudor Rose theory) holds that Edward de Vere (the 17th Earl of Oxford) wrote the plays that we attribute to William Shakespeare; further, that Oxford and Queen Elizabeth I were lovers and had a child who was raised as Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton. (The Prince Tudor II theory holds that Oxford himself was a bastard son of Elizabeth). Emmerich’s film merges those two theories, heightening the shock value for audiences when it is revealed, late in the film, by Robert Cecil that Edward is among Elizabeth’s bastard sons: thus, de Vere committed unintended incest with his mother, begetting a son (the Earl of Southampton).

But, with so many interesting conspiracy theories available, why stop there? Why limit “Anonymous” to just the Oxfordian camp? For example, yet another theory holds that Francis Bacon was also among the bastards of Elizabeth I, and that Bacon was himself the author of Shakespeare’s plays.

Since the 19th century, when the vexed topic of Shakespeare’s authorship was first seriously challenged, the debate has generated a sub-field of dubious research and publication revolving around a long list of alternates, most notably: Francis Bacon; William Stanley, the 6th Earl of Derby; Christopher Marlowe; and Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. (A few years ago, I participated in a panel discussion on this
topic with Stephen Greenblatt and Robin P. Williams. The radio broadcast of that conversation is available at my DU Portfolio site:

“Anonymous” would have been a real roller-coaster thriller if the film had only dared to engage with even more of those controversial theories. The notions of hyper-authorship or heteronymic creativity could have been seriously entertained. Those meta-narratives worked well for “Being John Malkovich” and, more recently, for “Inception,” so why not for “Anonymous?”

BH: Does the film enhance the argument that Shakespeare was not, in fact, the author behind those iconic plays?

WS: If the plot had been more imaginative, as I’ve suggested, then I would have said yes to this question, but the film limns a monomaniacal interpretation, at times so forcefully orchestrated that most viewers, I think, will want to return to the comforting notion that a very different Shakespeare—certainly not the illiterate pretender portrayed by Rafe Spall—wrote the plays and thus deserves the laurel wreath for universal genius.

BH: Were there any particularly egregious moments that clashed with what we know for a fact about that era or the plays themselves?

WS: I was especially irritated by Emmerich’s choice to use Shakespeare’s “Richard III” to frame the story of the infamous Essex rebellion.

“Anonymous” uses an exaggerated public portrayal of Shakespeare’s character, Richard III, to deliver a thinly veiled attack on Robert Cecil (who was actually a hunchback) which then incites a mob to attempt to oust Cecil from his position of influence in the Court (thus weakening his efforts to promote the Scottish James VI as heir to the English throne). Richard III was, of course, not a hunchback in real life, but depictions of him often appear as such (thanks, in part, to Sir Thomas More’s monstrous representation of Richard III) which leads us to yet another complicated and fascinating tale of analogical historiography, political allegory, and egregious acting styles (most brilliantly and delightfully satirized by Richard Dreyfuss in “The Goodbye Girl”).

In “Anonymous,” I must say, the hackneyed hump device is really a cheap trick. There was even a moment when I heard others around me in the theater say: “Oh, so that explains it. Richard and Cecil both have humps.” “Anonymous” would have been so much more exciting, daring, and interesting if the film had engaged with a more historically-accurate version of the Essex rebellion in which Shakespeare’s Richard II (and the marvelous deposition scene in particular) played a discrete and dynamic role.

Supporters of the Earl of Essex’s planned revolt sponsored a performance of “Richard II” on February 7, 1601 at the Globe Theatre. That performance included the deposition scene (sometimes called the “mirror scene”) in which Richard “un-kings” himself by giving away his crown, sceptre, and the sacred balm that is used to anoint a monarch to the throne. His famous breaking of the mirror “in an hundred shivers” shatters the King’s Two Bodies theory of the monarch’s Divine Right of Rule, thus initiating the problematic rise of Bolingbroke, who becomes Henry IV (Elizabeth’s almost great-great-great grandfather) first King of England from the Lancaster branch of the Plantagenets, one of the two family branches that were protagonists in the War of the Roses.

The spectacular fall of Richard II—the breaking of the spell of the monarch’s divine right—could have served as a more accurate, deft, and powerful metaphor, in “Anonymous,” for the film’s deconstruction of Shakespeare’s reputed authorship.

I think that U.S. film audiences are capable of handling that sort of historical and artistic complexity, and I wish that more directors and producers would raise the bar at least one level higher. “Anonymous” seems to have been shaped quite strongly by the LCD factory and that’s predictable (if rather disappointing).

BH: Put on your Roger Ebert glasses—was it a good film, and why or why not?

WS: Thumbs down, except for the film’s mise-en-scène (especially costume and set designs) which are arguably the most interesting elements. The CGI recreations of London, for example, are often stunning.

Roland Emmerich, when he still used to make movies that entertained, pitted nerdy Jeff Goldblum, heroic Will Smith, and sensible Bill Pullman against massive enemy spaceships that were all but invincible until, ala War of the Worlds, Smith and Goldblum –  the Marine fighter pilot and the computer programmer — fly a captured alien fighter ship up to the mother vessel to impregnate it with a computer virus.

Smith’s lines remain classics to this day: after opening the hatch to a downed enemy fighter, he punches the slithering alien in the, well, face, and says “welcome to earth,” and while dragging the tentacled, smelly creature back to the base, he shouts, “I coulda been at a barbecue!” While ostensibly the movie pitted “humankind” in a struggle for survival, which Pullman, in one of the film’s lamest scenes, likened to our Independence Day, audiences knew the truth: the United States solved the problem with good old American insight, practicality, innovation, and Big Hollywood’s own Adam Baldwin.

Two relatively average people, not the speechifyin’ president,  account for the victory, with a great deal of help from a suddenly sober Randy Quaid, who has a few of his own choice lines (“Hello, boys. I’m baaa-aack.”)

Those of us old enough to remember the theatrical release also recall that in those days of Bill Clinton’s falling popularity, audiences cheered when the aliens blew up the White House. But President Whitmore (buffed up in the movie as a former fighter pilot himself) escaped the death ray, and more than a few noticed how conveniently the first lady was wiped out in the attack, leaving the president free to, well, date.

Despite the preachy subtext of environmental-wacko-ism, and the unlikelihood of a hungover Quaid winning the day, Independence Day reminded us that even if it is only survival itself, there are things worth fighting for.

In the world of Barack Obama, that message seems much further distant than a mere 14 years.

But if you just wanna see stuff blow up on an epic scale and watch the world fall apart in a good old-fashioned disaster movie, then check out nearly any Roland Emmerich film: “Independence Day,” “Godzilla,” “The Day After Tomorrow” and “10,000 B.C.” provide hours of jaw-dropping action to go with hilariously poor logic in plotting and laughably bad dialogue. Yet they are often undeniably entertaining despite their faults, and with his new film “2012,” Emmerich has fashioned his biggest, craziest cinematic opus yet. 

This time, the entire world is coming apart at the seams because sunspots are shooting nuclear radiation into the Earth’s core and making it overheat, so viewers will get the thrill of seeing landmarks from the White House to the Vatican and every major world hotspot in between fall to pieces in stunning fashion – all on December 21, 2012, the day that the ancient Mayan civilization predicted the world would come to an apocalyptic end. 

Starring John Cusack in a bizarre yet brilliant change of pace after spending most of this decade making depressing dramas (“Grace Is Gone”), direct-to-DVD action films ( with Morgan Freeman) and romantic-comedy retreads like the awful “Must Love Dogs,” the film rips into first gear within minutes. Picking one of America’s most lovable Everyman movie stars for the lead role of Jackson Curtis, a divorced limo driver who’s fighting to stay on his kids’ radar by taking them on a weekend camping trip that leads to them stumbling upon clues to the impending end of the world, is a casting masterstroke that keeps viewers rooting for our hero no matter how implausible the circumstances get. 

And the circumstances definitely get crazy. As the streets of Los Angeles rapidly buckle and form gaping holes just behind his limo, Cusack races to pick up his family – even including his wife’s new live-in boyfriend, Gordon – and race them to the private Santa Monica Airport in the hopes of taking off in a private plane and buying some extra time to figure out where to travel next. This race through the streets is one of the most staggeringly silly yet cheer-inducing action scenes I’ve ever seen, topping even the best chases from the “Lethal Weapon” series – albeit with some rather obvious CGI effects. 

Once in the air, Jackson and Gordon – who conveniently had some flight training in his past – head to Yellowstone National Park, where Cusack first noticed things were getting strange in the Great Outdoors and had just met Alex Jones-style talk-radio host Charlie Frost. Played to hilariously crazy perfection by Woody Harrelson in what might be his ultimate crackpot role, Frost is thrilled with the world’s impending collapse, since it validates the wild predictions he’s been making for years on his show. More importantly for Jackson, Frost has a series of secret maps that will reveal where 400,000 of the world’s most elite people are gathering for a chance to escape the cataclysm and relaunch life as we know it. 

This movie has everything but logic in it: outrageous car chases, absurd flight stunts, massive earthquakes, a tsunami that slams a naval carrier into the White House, and even volcanoes that launch massive, rapid fireballs through the sky. Add in world landmarks being decimated wholesale, and the hoot-worthy sight of the world’s largest animals including giraffes and elephants airlifted over the Himalayas by helicopters. If you’re willing to suspend disbelief enough to see an elephant suspended over Mount Everest, you will be entertained by this film. 

On the plus side, no one can complain that the filmmakers short-shrifted them on special effects. And in a refreshing side note, there is little or no bellyaching from propagandistic characters railing that this is all mankind’s fault due to pollution and CO2 emissions – it’s purely the sun that’s at fault for this one. Well, that and the weird stroke of fate tying in with the Mayan calendar, of course. On the downside, the film is 2 ½ hours long, with the last half-hour becoming nearly as exhausting to viewers as it is for our heroes, leaving one to wonder “What else can go wrong?” 

I’m sure Roland Emmerich is laughing at a computer screen somewhere right now, plotting the answer to that very question.

“Independence Day” is one of the most profitable films in history — and after the original “Poseidon Adventure,” one of the greatest bad films ever — but there was no sure-fire, money-making blockbuster sequel because President Bush — The Abraham Lincoln of the Middle East — won the presidency:

“In Independence Day, it was about a king who leads his country into a fight against an outside invader. I didn’t want to make that movie during the Bush years. It was not thought that George W. Bush would have made a great king. Now with Obama, it’s another story.”

That’s straight from the director, the ball-less Roland Emmerich.

Sure, Hollywood is packed with the worst kind of greedy people who demand higher taxes as they shelter millions — who intend to hang on to their platinum health-care plans as they push rationed care – who demand Big Business pay their “fair share” as they beg for tax incentives… Sure, Leftist Hollywood wants to make money, bucketloads if possible, but…

….not at the expense of The Leftist Cause.  

If “G.I. Joe” and “Superman Return”s can make money, great! But if Americanism is necessary for them to make money, no way in hell.

Make a gajillion off an “Independence Day” sequel? Not if it helps Bush. In other words…

No Obama. No sequel. No gajillions.

Hollywood understands this is an ideological war. And if you look at their behavior through that lens, it all makes sense.

In the flick, the director enlists every CGI trick in the book to destroy various religious icons– including the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica and the Christ the Redeemer statue. And for those of you who worship at the altar of Obama, the White House gets nailed as well.

But there was one thing missing among the carnage: an Islamic target.

Emmerich at his London home.

According to Sci Fi Wire, by way of Cinematical.com, this was no accident. In an interview, the director said he hoped to destroy the Kaaba, an Islamic holy site, but his fellow screenwriter Harald Kloser persuaded him not to.

Here’s what the hack had to say about crushing the Kaaba:

“Well, I wanted to do that… but my co-writer Harald said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie. And he was right. … We have to all … in the Western world … think about this. You can actually … let … Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have … a fatwa, and that sounds a little bit like what the state of this world is. So it’s just something which I kind of didn’t [think] was [an] important element anyway in the film, so I kind of left it out.”

And so, he echoes what I said nearly two years ago on this show: Hollywood screws with Christians because Christians don’t behead people. But tweak Islam, and you could end up like director Theo van Gogh – dead on a street with a flag impaled on your chest. Roland picks the safe target because he’d rather live, and by “live,” I mean “beat our brains to death with yet more effects-laden dreck.” As my guinea pig, Captain Whiskers might say, “All hail the dependable cowardice of our film industry!”

He might say that, if he could talk.

Anyway, the difference between good and evil is pretty clear. Good people might annoy you about having prayer in schools; evil people throw acid in girls’ faces if they wish to go to school. Trashing the former, while ignoring the latter – proves that Roland has the gonads of a shrimp.

(Note: I haven’t actually seen gonads on a shrimp, but I imagine they’re really small.)

And if you disagree with me, then you’re probably a racist.

Tonight we have Annabelle Gurewitch, Dr. Drew Pinsky, Andrew Breitbart, and Damian Abraham of F*cked Up.

Later!