It’s that magical time of year again. The time when customers start getting offended by the phrase retail monkeys use to wish them cheer for the holidays.

I worked retail for more years than I’d care to admit to. I remember having team meetings where they would tell us what seasonal phrase was acceptable and that we had to use it. The phrase, of course, was “Happy Holidays”. It’s viewed as the most innocuous of the holiday greetings and doesn’t reflect any one holiday based around religious beliefs. It’s a big deal in retail that you execute this directive and don’t deviate to phrases like “Merry Christmas”, “Happy Hanukkah” or even “Happy Kwanzaa”, lest you offend someone.

Personally, I like the phrase “Happy Holidays”. It’s aesthetically pleasing to the ear and has a nice bit of alliteration going for it. However, I am in no way, shape or form offended by any other holiday greeting I receive. I frankly don’t understand why ANYONE gets offended by any phrase that’s meant with good cheer.

Of course, there’s the flip side of the coin with the people that lament how the phrase “Happy Holidays” is killing Christmas. How in the hell do you figure that? If anything is killing Christmas, it would be the bastardization of the holiday into a retail extravaganza that holds very little of the real sentiment the holiday is supposed to bring.

Good will to all, now get the fuck out of my way, my kid wants that toy.

Instead of complaining about the wording of any given holiday greeting, how about you stop and think about the intentions behind it. Are they wishing you well? Are they hoping you’ll enjoy whatever holiday you choose to celebrate? These are the things that really matter. I don’t really care what the poor kids working the cash register say to me so long as it’s not “screw you”. (Though some of them are probably thinking it because working retail at that time of the year sucks.)

The holidays have been commercialized and sanitized almost beyond recognition. It’s because we’ve let it get this way. Religious or not, you should rejoice during a time when some people are trying to be a little less dickish than they are the rest of the year. See your family, see your friends. Give and receive. Be happy and grateful. Remember it’s the thought that counts. If someone celebrates the holiday by putting out a nativity scene or a menorah in public view, let them. Even if you don’t agree with it, know that they are not symbols of hate and you should have no real reason to be offended. Get the hell over it.

Now play nice or I’m throwing a plate of figgy pudding and/or latkes at your head.

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I recently read an article that I found a bit depressing, which said that Disney was closing shop on producing any faerie tale features for the foreseeable future. Essentially, they said they weren’t hitting the mark when it came to getting an audience outside of little girls. It also noted that while “The Princess and the Frog” was critically acclaimed, it was one of the poorest performers of Disney’s more recent faerie tales. However, I don’t think all of the blame can be placed on the genre of faerie tales and the idea that it’s burned out.

Disney has gotten dumped on a lot in recent years for the animated films they’ve been churning out. Disney hasn’t felt like Disney for a while it seems. “The Princess and the Frog” was the closest return to it that I’ve seen in a long time. Now, I’m not talking solely about a return to the princess line, I mean a return to the sort of enjoyable family movies that Disney has come to stand for over the years. Recent Disney films like “Bolt” just seem to be missing something.

I also think some people have unfairly bagged on Disney’s faerie tales in particular for a number of reasons. I believe one of the biggest reasons is that they don’t think about when the film was made. Historically, the Disney princesses/faerie tales have reflected the general mentality of whatever era they hit the silver screen in. This is why some parents get upset about characters like Snow White and Cinderella being bad influences on their daughters. They don’t stop to think about when the movie was produced and what the mindset of the time was. “Enchanted” came out not that long ago and poked fun at the classic Disney stories that preceded it, but still managed to be an amazing movie with a princess that could be a role model to a modern day girl. I think it stands as proof that the genre can still be done and be very relevant. I also know a lot of men who enjoyed the film. (Of course, it helps that Amy Adams was hot.) It wasn’t just for little girls.

I don’t think Disney should start thinking to themselves, “Gee, what faerie tale should we do now?” However, I don’t think they should absolutely remove them all from the table of possible feature films. They should be looking for the movie that will be the best one to make, princess or no.

I’m personally quite anxious to see how “Tangled” turned out. I know the project was practically scrapped and restarted to get it to where it is now. I’d love to see it be another win for Disney in the faerie tale category, and that might make them take another look at a couple of other faerie tale films they decided to wipe from their slate.

I know the bigger issue is that they don’t feel that they’re reaching a male audience as much as they would like, but “faerie tale” doesn’t automatically mean there will be a princess involved. That’s far too narrow a definition. A “faerie tale” can encompass a lot of things. Just take a look at all of the stories in the Grimm’s collection for starters.

I am still pro-Disney. I grew up on it, and the films of my childhood still hold a big place in my heart. In this economy, the dollars count, but better than money (to my mind) is lasting power. There are a number of Disney movies that weren’t commercial successes when they launched, but they stuck in people’s minds and are still a part of merchandise programs today.

I hope Disney sees that faerie tales aren’t dead. Like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, they just need to be woken up again.

UPDATE: There was an update posted from Ed Catmull saying that the LA Times article was erroneous and that Disney faerie tales are “alive and well”. However, no real specifics were given. This leads me to wonder if it was solely a PR play or not. Only time will tell unfortunately.

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I consider myself a “Harry Potter” fan. I’ve read all of the books as soon as I could get my hands on them. Spent many a night reading until my eyesight blurred the words on the pages to an undecipherable mess. However, I cannot stand the movies. This seems to be a point of confusion for a lot of people, so allow me to explain some of my feelings.

I really, REALLY wanted to like the films. When I first heard that “Harry Potter” was being made in to a movie, I was very excited. My excitement pretty much vanished half way into the first film. I think I dislike the films for a number of reasons.

First, I find the movies exceptionally boring. They seems slow and there is so much time devoted to special effects sequences when they could have allotted more time to plot and character development. As an example, think to the first movie and the sequence with the moving staircases. It really wasn’t necessary. What I found brilliant about the books (and what my understanding was) is that rather than physically moving, sometimes the staircases just lead you somewhere else. There’s not so much rhyme or reason to it.

Second, while I’ve tried to view the movies as their own entities instead of concentrating on how closely they follow the books, there comes a point where I can’t make that separation anymore. I don’t think any adaptation could ever truly live up to the magical imagery conjured in my mind by the books, but the movies fall far too short of that mark.

Third, a lot of the effects seemed really rubbery to me, when I know they could have been better. Think about it. The first “Harry Potter” movie and the first “Lord of the Rings” movie came out around the same time. Both had a troll in them, and the one in “Lord of the Rings” was rendered way better. Granted, they were two different creature designs, but I found the “Harry Potter” one lacking.

Fourth, some of the little things they changed bother me. Maybe there’s an explanation on the DVDs, but I don’t understand why they didn’t stick to Harry’s description in the book. We’re told time and time again that he has black hair, green eyes and a scar in the middle of his forehead. In the film, he has dark brown hair, blue eyes and a scar to the side of his forehead. Why? I know it may seem like a quibble, but what was really the point of the changes? Would it have been that hard to get some hair dye, a pair of contacts and shift the scar a nudge?

Fifth, is that I love the casting of the teachers but they always feel shoved into the background when they should be featured more as they are in the books. The casting of the teachers is where I think the movies do a smashing job, but we hardly see them it seems. In fact, there are a lot of important characters we hardly see. Case and point: the other contestants in the Twi-Wizard Tournament. They felt like such minor characters when they played such larger roles in the book.

Sixth, I have an issue that likely bugs me more than most other folks. I hate the design of the Lupin werewolf. The third book is my favourite in the series. I adore Lupin. It is made clear in the books that there are very small distinctions between a werewolf and an actual wolf. So much so that Snape makes them write a paper on how to recognize a werewolf. That says to me that it might be easy to get them confused. There is no way that grey, cracked out chihuahua of a werewolf is going to get confused with a regular wolf. It is hideous.

I know that books generally need to be condensed when they make it to the screen. I get that. I just felt that they condensed the wrong things and added others that were unnecessary or not even in the books. There is so much in the books already that I can’t imagine why they’d need to make up more.

I still want so badly to love the movies. I want to see what other fans are seeing when they line up at the theatre. Much as I try, I still can’t bring myself to enjoy them. I really, honestly think that they could have been so much better. If only I had a time-turner so that I could go back and ask them to make better movies.

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While I was pleased with my last round of site updates, the functionality simply wasn’t there. I also felt the site could stand to look a bit cleaner with better division between elements. So, a few short days after announcing the 2.0 of my website, we’re already looking at 3.0.

I still have more plans in the works, and you may note the mysterious “Shop” button that has appeared at the top. Will it be a link to shirts or to souls for sale? Only time will tell.

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Head over to ThinkLeet.com to check out my newest guest blog about the Green Lantern trailer.