2003-12-15 | 12:01 a.m.

corduroy licorice and his mom were arguing over why their pet dog was acting odd. corduroy's mom thought it must be mating time, but corduroy figured it was the unusual tropical weather they'd been having. "it's not the heat," he explained to her, "it's the humidity."

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movie review:

in honor of the season, i went to see the new black comedy bad santa, which was produced by the coen brothers and was directed by terry zwigoff, who brought us ghost world.

billy bob thornton stars as an alcohol-swilling, expletive-spewing loser who has found a way to work playing a department store santa into his criminal lifestyle.

funny, yes. hilarious, not so much. most of the laughs coming from the audience i was with seemed to be kneejerk guffaws in reaction to the crass 'n' crude language. i did laugh here and there, though. especially when billy bob has his life-changing epiphany in the dept. store lockerroom with his dwarf sidekick sneering nearby.

it was fun to see such a bitter twist on the typical holiday movie, but it could have been even more viciously delightful in my opinion. billy bob was spot on as the kringle you love to hate. even though he was a crappy husband to angelina, he's a damn good actor. seeing him do his hangdog thing made me want to watch the man who wasn't there again.

the supporting cast offered some of the most fun in the movie. john ritter was perfection as a stodgy store manager and bernie mac was juicy good as head of security. brett kelly who played the requisite, (literally) snot-nosed child gave a superbly understated performance, stealing all his scenes in way the bad santa could only dream of.

i noticed that the poster tagline for this movie was pretty lame: "he doesn't care if you've been naughty or nice." i'd like to suggest a rewrite that is much more fitting for the four-letter forest that is the script:

"he doesn't give a %#@! if you've been naughty or nice."

feel free to insert your curse of choice. it's called interactive marketing, thank you very much.

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