christmas is sexier than you think

Have you ever noticed that for every "Frosty the Snowman" and "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" there are an equal number of sex-ay holiday tunes? As much as Christmas is (mostly) for the kiddies, there are also plenty of adults who want to get both naughty and nice around the holiday season.

The crown prince of  sexy Christmas songs has got to be "Baby, It's Cold Outside," a three-minute anthem to a man (nicknamed Wolf in the lyrics) using every wintery excuse in the book in order to convince the not-too-unwilling lady (nicknamed Mouse in the lyrics) to spend the night with him. It's become a favorite duet, with everyone from Ray Charles and Betty Carter to Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jourdan doing their own version. The most recent incarnation has Cee Lo Green and Christina Aguilera dueling it out on his holiday album, Cee Lo's Magic Moment.

Also full of double-entendre is the teasing classic "Santa Baby."

Come and trim my Christmas tree
With some decorations bought at Tiffany's
I really do believe in you
Let's see if you believe in me
...
Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight

The original and best version is the 1953 recording by the inimitable Eartha Kitt, who can do more with phrasing and diction than just about anyone. A must-to-avoid is Madonna's Betty Boop-ish version. It would have been interesting if Marilyn Monroe had had the chance to give the song a shot, but Eartha's will always be "the" version.

Maybe a little more about romance than sex or commerce, but still decidedly more grown-up holiday songs are Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" and The Eagles' "Please Come Home for Christmas," which have love, not presents, on the singers' minds.

I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas is you

Both songs are nods to old-style Christmas music, with Carey paying homage to the Ronettes and the Eagles' bluesy honky-tonk version tapping into the blues that can frequently accompany the holiday season.

Bells will be ringing this sad sad New Years
Oh what a Christmas to have the blues
My baby's gone
I have no friends
To wish me greetings once again
Choirs will be singing Silent Night
Christmas carols by candlelight
Please come home for Christmas
Please come home for Christmas
If not for Christmas by New Years night

It's nice sometimes to have an alternative to fa la la la la and pa-rum-pa-pum-pum.

it may not be easy being green — but they make it look easy

Cee Lo Green and Kermit sang a duet on last week's The Voice. This just makes me smile.

welcome to the hotel transylvania

The more Adam Sandler movies that I see (and I seem to be seeing a lot more these days than I ever thought possible) the more I think that I get his appeal. Of course the easy answer is that he makes people laugh. But I think there is something else going on in his movies. Sandler, whether consciously or not, is trying to hold onto what it feels like to be a kid, to be silly. That makes for some seriously juvenile humor at times, which can be a turn-off for many. But being in touch with your inner eight year-old also creates a feeling of goodwill. Sandler's comedies are silly and fun. Just as many jokes miss as hit their mark, but no one, especially Sandler, takes things too seriously. His approach seems to be that if this bit doesn't work, sit tight, something else is sure to. This comic benevolence extends to his roster of acting cohorts, who keep turning up to work with him.

Hotel Transylvania takes this relaxed approach and cast full of familiar Sandler pals and matches it with some truly colorful and attractive animation, courtesy of director Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack) in his feature film debut.

Sandler voices Dracula, a widower and extremely overprotective parent who is raising his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) in the Hotel Transylvania. Tartakovsky has Dracula glide around the castle — calm on the outside, but anxious and desperate to protect his only child in his every word and action. The hotel has been designed as a place where the world's monsters, who are actually fairly non-violent, can be safe from the dangerous and dreaded human population.

Once a year Dracula invites his fellow monsters Frankenstein (Kevin James), the Invisible Man (David Spade), the Mummy (Cee Lo Green), and the Werewolf (Steve Buscemi), among others to come and celebrate Mavis's birthday. This year Mavis is turning 118 and is getting curious, to point of distraction, about the world outside the castle walls. Dracula and Mavis will find both of their world's rocked when an unexpected human guest, a backpacker named Jonathan (Andy Samberg), shows up at the castle one evening.

Reviews have been mixed, but as usual Sandler can laugh all the way to the bank, as Hotel Transylvania had the highest-grossing September opening weekend, and is still going strong in its second week. Like Tim Burton's Frankenweenie, the makers of Hotel Transylvania have a love of old horror and monster movies, and viewers will have to pay attention to catch all of the many film references and movie monsters. The hotel is staffed by witches, zombies, and shrunken heads. I also spotted  a giant spider and octopus and a crawling hand, all favorites from '50s horror films. The kid loved the movie, so I'm sure I'll get plenty of chances to catch all of the other creatures when it eventually comes out on DVD.

When I was about my daughter's age I remember seeing The Mad Monster Party on television. I loved it, with all of the monsters and goofy, silly humor. I suspect that Sandler & Co. did too, and this is their take on the movie monsters they loved to be scared by as kids.

forget you

Article first published as Forget You on Blogcritics.

A recent article by New York Times music critic Jon Pareles, "From Cee Lo Green to Pink, Speaking the Unspeakable", had me shocked at how out of touch he must be. It was all about the F word and his apparent dismay at how prevalent it is in recent music. I know the Times insists in staying firmly entrenched in its mid-19th century stylistic roots by calling people "Mr." And "Ms." in its articles — most of the time — Cee Lo was addressed as "Mr. Green" in the article, but Pink was just "Pink." Hmmm. Anyway, the fact that in 2011 a music critic is put off by a bunch of hit songs with "fuck" in the title just tells me he needs to get out of his office and take a walk around the block. Not a walk on the wild side, Mr. Pareles, but just a stroll through the world we live in. I guarantee he would hear quite a few "fucks", a couple of "shits" and a few other choice words from George Carlin's top seven just on the way to the local deli.

Folks may lament how our spoken language has declined. I have been known to do so myself at times. I wasn't thrilled the other day when a couple of young dudes were cursing loudly in the vicinity of my kid. But she's heard the words before, even from me. (I was driving, the jerk cut me off.) I could try and blame my occasionally colorful speech to my dad, who used to curse when he got angry, or an ex-boyfriend, who taught me some colorful phrases, or my years living in metropolitan areas, where spicing up the speech can help a girl cope with fear and danger in a tough town. Obscenity-peppered speech could be a result of all of those things. Or it could just be another evolution of the English language, which never stops growing and changing.

"Fuck" is no longer the ultimate curse word. It has become a versatile noun, verb, and adverb. "Fuck" is no longer the "f-bomb," as Pareles quaintly refers to it. It's just a word. Pareles suggests that rap music and The Sopranos may have contributed to this social decline. He holds pop music up as the last bastion of musical lyrical propriety. I'm not so sure about that, and he even admits that musicians have been sneaking in curse words forever (Prince, The Who).

Cee Lo is not using "fuck" in the lyrics as a gimmick. Has Pareles even seen the video for the song? Cee Lo has a wicked sense of humor. People aren't downloading his song or turning it up on the radio because of that word. Maybe in spite of it. It's hardly the first time Cee Lo has used the word in one of his songs and it's naive of Pareles to suggest so. Cee Lo's "Fuck You" is so good that it is just as enjoyable in its radio "Forget You" version. Yes, the savvy listener has probably downloaded the original and is singing along with those lyrics. But maybe not. It's a fucking good song, whatever version, one of the best out there. Cee Lo is just singing in the vernacular.

Related articles

• 'You see what you get' with Cee Lo (cnn.com)
• Cee Lo Green's neon video for "Bright Lights, Bigger City" (salon.com)