With the holiday season kicking up, especially at our own TaraNormal Shop (CHEAP PLUG!), I like to watch movies that aren’t considered your typical Christmas movies. First up is Gremilins.
Released in 1984, Gremlins tells the tale of an earnest inventor who wants to buy his white man fro’d kid Billy a present that no one else has. What better gift to get an accident prone, careless teenager than a strange creature with a ridiculous set of rules to abide by or he transforms into a hideous, murdering monster?
Mogwais are like pugs except you can get them wet. Or expose them to sunlight. Or feed them after midnight. Do they drink? I don’t know. How would a slight mist on a Monday morning affect them? Not really sure. What if you sneeze on them?
If you get them wet, they will procreate ON THEIR OWN. Little mogwai puffballs will pop out of their backs. Now, if you own a nice Mogwai like the star of Gremlins, Gizmo, then the puffballs will be pure evil. If your mogwai is already evil, then your puffballs will be also evil.
Gizmo may be the last good Mogwai left on Earth. Unfortunately he lands in Billy’s care and Billy is friends with Corey Feldman.
The Feldmeister drops a whole friggin’ glass of aqua on Gizmo causing him to procreate some evil Mogwais. The evil Mogwais conspire to rig Billy’s clock so it reads before Midnight so they can get their KFC on. If Mogwais eat after midnight, they enter a cocoon stage and transform into amazing lizard-like creatures who are cute in their own right. And in the sequel, even HOT!

Yada, yada, yada…Long Island is almost burnt to the ground by Gremlins.
The whole thing takes place right before Christmas and it really gets the spirit of the holidays going around the Noel household. So do yourself a favor and watch Gremilins. You’ll thank me when the Santa story is told by Phoebe Cates. You’ll never think of a chimney in the same way.

You can get a copy of Gremlins here:

Hello and welcome to part 2 of my Christmas movie series featuring movies you might not automatically think of being Christmas movies, but they really are.
Part 1 was Gremlins, and this week’s movie is 1992′s Batman Returns directed by Tim Burton.

This Batman movie is so Christmas it should be played side-by-side with the Christmas Story marathon-style.
Let’s get to it!
Batman Returns begins with the loving story of a deformed child born with webbed hands to a family of rich snobs during the Christmas season. After the child basically eats a cat from his crib/cage, the riches dump their newborn in the Gotham City river. Cue the titles!
This web-handed child grows up to be the Penguin, played by Danny Devito. This is actually my favorite version of the comic book character (apologies to Burgess Meredith). I love how disgusting and vile he is. You can practically smell him from your TV. The Penguin was raised by a bunch of circus freaks and actual penguins in the sewers below Gotham so you can guess he’s pretty pissed by the time he wants to reach the service 30 years later. What better time to see revenge than Christmas?!
Max Shreck (played by Christopher Walken) is a Gotham City billionaire with the exact opposite morals of Bruce Wayne. The Penguin and his crew of circus thugs kidnap Shreck and blackmail him to help the Penguin. The Penguin goes public and the people love his sad story about being tossed in the dirty city water. It’s like Annie but with a penguin boy who eats cats!
Bruce Wayne (the awesome Michael Keaton) is cool with the Penguin because he knows all about the orphan life. He wishes the Penguin the best but soon it becomes obvious the birdman is up to no good.
Shreck pushes the Penguin to run for Mayor. This part of the movie features an amazing scene of Danny Devito biting the nose of the guy who played Skippy in Family Ties. I laugh every time I see this part. Oh, the holidays!

So remember that when you’re down over the holidays, it could be worse…you’re nose could be gushing blood.

So far from my rundown of events, I’m sure you’re all like ‘Wow! That’s a lot of Christmas cheer already!” But we haven’t even gotten to Catwoman yet! The city is covered in white snow and Catwoman is decked out in black latex and she’s absolutely hot. Played by the eternally attractive Michelle Pfeiffer, Catwoman is actually Selina Kyle, the disrespected personal assistant of Max Shreck. When she forgets to give Max his speech, she heads back to the office to find it only to stumble upon an energy stealing scheme Max is plotting. Max isn’t the type to just fire employees but rather push them out of windows. A bunch of floors later, Selina is presumed dead. A bunch of stray cats creepily circle her lifeless body and begin chewing on her fingers! Selina is resurrected (shoulda saved it for Easter) and is reborn as the Catwoman.
Selina returns to work with Shreck soley to creep him out. Bruce Wayne is taking a meeting with Max and falls head-over-heels for Selina’s hot new crazy look.
Between Catwoman busting up department stores and the Penguin’s insane circus posse creating havoc in the streets, Bruce’s alter ego Batman has his hands full. That’s why Michael Keaton’s Batman is the best dude for this job. He relentlessly kills people. He straps a bomb to one of the circus guys, smiles and pushes his down a sewer shaft. This Batman has no rules. Plus, he could care less about property damage. He’s a maniac.
The Penguin and Catwoman have had enough of Bats, so they team up to take him down. At the city’s tree lighting festival they kidnap a beauty queen and make it look like Batman killed her. She falls right on the tree and dies! Merry Christmas!
Catwoman didn’t know the plan would get this out of hand. She thought they were only going to scare the girl but as the Penguin points out, the beauty queen was pretty scared on the way down. The Penguin and Catwoman have a falling out and it’s madness from here on out. We won’t spoil any of the death for ya!
One of my favorite exchanges in this movie is between Catwoman and Bruce Wayne when they see some mistletoe. Batman points out that mistletoe is deadly if you eat it. Catwoman responds with “A kiss can be even deadlier if you mean it.” And proceeds to lick his face.

So please add Batman Returns to your Holiday movie rotation this year because it’s a different kind of Christmas movie and it should be celebrated as such!
You can pick up a copy of Batman Returns cheap from Amazon. This is the edition I have!

Here’s the trailer!

I’m now ready for the holidays. Here is WWE Hall of Famer, legend, alien-ass-kicker (They Live) and all around awesome dude, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper singing his version of the 12 Days of Christmas.

Enjoy.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Here’s a present for you from all of us at TaraNormal.com. Ghost Hunters Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson team up with Tara Normal to help Scrooge with his paranormal problem. Thank you so much for reading Tara Normal and helping support us through our caricatures, shirts, art and books. We appreciate it greatly. 2012 is going to be the biggest, best year yet for Tara Normal so get ready!