The Skeleton Key

Although the big surprise twist isn’t that much of one, The Skeleton Key is still a very entertaining and stylish supernatural thriller, with an all-star cast, wonderfully spooky scoring and great directing like they aren’t supposed to do any more. And what’s more, it gets the difference between voodoo and hoodoo right.

Kate Hudson and especially John Hurt absolutely sell the story, and the entire conceit of hoodoo not being dangerous unless you believe it teases viewers not to believe.

Recommended for fans of supernatural thrillers like the Serpent and the Rainbow, the Ring and the Sixth Sense.

The Dukes of Hazzard

The good news and the bad news: The Dukes of Hazzard movie is extremely similar to the television series it’s based upon. No one ever gets hurt through all the stunts and cartoon violence, running moonshine comes off as a harmless bit of fun and most of the movie is watching amazing car stunts and ogling Daisy Duke.

It could have been a lot different: Johnny Knoxville could potentially have brought a gritty vibe, and Seann William Scott could have brought a real gross-out appeal, but except for momentary nods in that direction, the show stays mostly true to its roots.

Changing the tone more than the two leads is Willie Nelson as Uncle Jesse. In a nod to real life, Jesse sneaks in a little marijuana smoking (hinted at, more than shown in the rated version, explicitly shown in the unrated version) and brings a love of silly jokes to the proceedings — the ad-libbed scenes of Willie Nelson telling Johnny Knoxville one silly joke after another, as he lobs flaming jars of moonshine behind the car is one of the highlights of the movie.

Jessica Simpson does very little in this film, but it’s exactly what you’d expect and, to be fair, she does it very well. Daisy remains sexy-but-not-slutty, just as she was in Catherine Bach’s original version of the character. The 2005 rendition just is a hard-bodied version showing even more skin.

In a nice update, the General Lee doesn’t start off with the Confederate Battle Flag on the roof of the car, and once it appears, Bo and Luke are ambivalent about it being there (and it appears to be gone in the final sequence where the car is hidden in a field), and they get an earful about it while on the highway into Atlanta, both positive and negative.

Burt Reynolds, whose Smokey and the Bandit movies are almost certainly responsible for the creation of the original TV show, is mostly wasted here, showing little of the oily charm he’s been able to show even in lesser movies, like Striptease. Still, the Bandit turning Boss Hogg is worth a look, and a definite shout-out to the fans who’ve been watching this mini-genre of movies and television shows since the 1970s.

A recommended viewing for fans of the original show or Smokey and the Bandit. A recommended purchase only for those who want to have footage of Jessica Simpson writhing around in a bikini (check the music video on the DVD for more) close at hand at all times.

Pandora for the holidays

One of the most interesting (and useful) sites to come along in 2005 is Pandora. Using the power of the Music Genome Project, the program slices and dices songs into their essential components, and makes surprisingly accurate guesses about what else a user would like, based on what song or artist was entered. You may not think of Hanson‘s music when you’re a Todd Rundgren fan, like Peter is, but it turns out they have a song very similar to some of his work.

What’s especially interesting this time of year is that you can get any sort of holiday music out of Pandora that you’d like. I entered “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” by Harry Connick Jr., and discovered a Louis Armstrong holiday song (“Christmas Night in Harlem”) that I’d never heard of before, and currently have jazzy Christmas music streaming across my work computer.

And if the ads on Pandora didn’t give it away, you can buy any of the songs you hear through iTunes. In other words, Pandora is just a really, really smart (and portable, if you register with the site so you can pull up the stations you create from any Internet connection) record store listening station.

Neat.

The Holiday Music Top 40

As played on my iPod:

1. Joy to the World – The Butties
2. The Christmas Song – The Raveonettes
3. Father Christmas – The Kinks
4. Jingle Bell Rock – Brenda Lee
5. Frosty the Snowman – The Charms
6. Christmas Island – Jimmy Buffett
7. Joy to the World – Moses Kahumoku
8. Jingle Bell Rock – Ozzi Kotani
9. Fight Tonight – The Ramones
10. Christmas Wrapping – Save Ferris
11. Please Come Home for Christmas – Unwritten Law
12. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Mambo – Alvin Stoller
13. Baby, It’s Cold Outside – Dean Martin
14. Blue Christmas – Elvis Presley
15. White Christmas – Elvis Presley
16. I’ll Be Home for Christmas – Elvis Presley
17. Jingle Bells – Jimmy Buffett
18. A Sailor’s Christmas – Jimmy Buffett
19. I’ll Be Home for Christmas – Jimmy Buffett
20. All I Want for Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth) – Nat King Cole Trio
21. Winter Wonderland – Peggy Lee
22. White Christmas – Tina Sugandh
23. Navidad – Austin Pendleton & Rene Lavan
24. Frosty the Snowman – The Beach Boys
25. I’ll Be Home for Christmas – The Beach Boys
26. Hey, Santa Claus – The Chesterfield Kings
27. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – Chris Isaak
28. Feliz Navidad – Davie Allan
29. Let it Snow!/Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer – Eddie Dunstedter
30. Silent Night – Elvis Presley
31. Here Comes Santa Claus – Elvis Presley
32. I’ll Be Home for Christmas/Baby, It’s Cold Outside – Jackie Gleason and Jack Marshal
33. Merry Christmas to All of the World – Jean Beovoir
34. Up on the Housetop – Jimmy Buffett
35. Mele Kakalikimaka – Jimmy Buffett
36. Merry Christmas, Alabama – Jimmy Buffett
37. Silver Bells – Led Kaapana
38. We Wish You a Merry Christmas – Leonard Kwan
39. Exotic Night – Martin Denny
40. The Christmas Waltz – Nancy Wilson

I’m reasonably sure almost all of these can be found on iTunes. Merry Christmas, happy Hannukah, joyful Kwanza, happy Festivus!

Danni wins Survivor: Guatemala

Well, another Survivor is in the can and it’s hard to argue with its winner, Danni Boatwright, who played as smart as anyone could who didn’t tell everyone up-front he was a used car salesman and win anyway.

But seriously, if we ever see Jeff Probst superheroing his way to the reunion show again, whether it’s waterskiing in, parachuting, digging his way up through the earth after being buried alive, or whatever, I’m killing him with a shovel, as well as any CBS execs I can find.