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☃️ Holiday Hypotheticals and Reviews
Let's ask the really important questions this holiday season about fictional character Secret Santas you'd welcome and gifts you could steal from the screen!
Michael Ahr
December 27, 2024
Friday Edition December 27, 2024
Now that we’re in limbo between Christmas and New Year’s with Hanukkah in full swing, it’s time to explore some of the deep philosophical questions that haunt entertainment lovers at this time of year. Read on to decide what you’d do in these hypothetical situations involving on-screen gift-giving, from Yankee Swaps to Secret Santas!
We’ve also got a few reviews to share with you before the year ends, including our thoughts on the Doctor Who Christmas Special, A Complete Unknown, and Squid Game season 2!
— Michael Ahr
MOVIES & TV
Which Fictional Character Would You Want as Your Secret Santa?
Photo: New Line Cinema
Let’s face it. Some gift-givers in movies and television shows are way better at knowing what you really want than some of your relatives or co-workers. I mean, remember the cool daggers Merry and Pippin got from Galadriel in The Fellowship of the Ring? Now that’s a gift!
What other presents would you claim if you could from the entire lineup of on-screen giving? Our staff took on the task of answering this important question so that you could join them in wishing they had such generous friends!
MOVIES
What Christmas Gift Would You Steal From the Movies?
Photo: Warner Bros.
Gift-giving scenes are often the most emotional in a festive movie or TV special. They’re usually a quiet moment among the madness, when one character shows another how cherished they are, and why they needn’t have obsessed about the turkey or the decorations or their missing Christmas bonus, because what truly matters at Christmas is love and the spirit of giving.
And on that note, here’s what we’d steal from them if we could!. From Gremlins to Harry Potter to The Snowman, Lord of the Rings, Batman and more, here’s what the Den of Geek staff would love to reach into their screens and grab.
TV
Doctor Who Christmas Special Review: Joy to the World
Photo: BBC Studios/Lara Cornell
The Doctor Who Christmas Special has been a mainstay of the franchise for nearly twenty years, and “Joy to the World” is the second offering from the Fifteenth Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa.
Although our reviewer thinks this year’s special plays it a bit safe, the episode does, as she puts it, “give us a bunch of fun concepts and gags, provide Ncuti Gatwa with some opportunities to remind us that he has more charisma in one tooth than most British actors working today, wrap it all up in a nice big sentimental bow, and send us off to pick at the Christmas leftovers with a warm feeling in our hearts.”
EDITOR’S PICKS
Squid Game season 2 is a contrived, yet thrilling, continuation of a global streaming phenomenon.
Bob Dylan’s interactions with the traditionalists at the Newport Folk Festival make more for myth than history in A Complete Unknown, but that's the way the folk singer likes it.
Abraham Van Helsing has portrayed by great actors over the years, but never better than Willem Dafoe's odd and understanding version in Nosferatu.
Skeleton Crew may be set during the New Republic era, but its biggest mysteries keep pointing us toward the Republic's past.
TODAY’S QUIZ
In the Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life, who gives George Bailey a secondhand suitcase as a gift? |
LINK TANK
In Other News…
🦑 Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk breaks down the season 2 finale with one season to go.
📴 Dune director Denis Villeneuve explains why phones are forbidden on his movie sets.
💥 Actor Jack Quaid talks about his busy movie schedule ahead, including Novocaine, in which he plays an action hero that can’t feel pain.
👵🏻 Downton Abbey 3 will pay homage to the late Maggie Smith, according to producers.
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