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.

catching up with ... burlesque

A movie I missed in theaters but was intrigued to see was Burlesque. Seeing it now after watching Christina Aguilera weekly on The Voice was a bit surreal. Chistina's "persona" on The Voice is very similar to the character Cher plays in Burlesque, a mamma-hen to young performers. But Christina's styling on The Voice is so over-the-top burlesque glam. There seems to be some life/art crossover happening that Aguilera hasn't completely reconciled.

All that aside, she looks and sounds great in Burlesque, which is a also a very fun movie. The glittery eye shadow budget clearly was greater than the one set aside for the scriptwriter (actually writer and  director Steve Antin, who has also acted and is the brother of Pussycat Dolls founder Robin Antin). The plot strings together so many show-biz cliches that anyone in the audience could have written better dialogue for the actors in their sleep. But none of that really matters. Burlesque is about Cher and Aguilera getting to look fab and have fun a in a series of splashy musical numbers.

Christina Aguilera - Show Me How You Burlesque - Official Music Video - Burlesque Vidéo

The supporting cast is amazing. Stanley Tucci plays Cher's gay factotum, and as always, is just wonderful to have around. Kristin Bell plays the resident bad girl rival for Aguilera, and for some reason looks a lot like Parker Posey — was she the original choice for the character? She gets quickly shuttled into the background, as her story and her character is never a real threat to the main plot, which is about Cher maybe losing her burlesque club and Aguilera climbing to the heights of ... singing in Cher's burlesque club.

And that is where Burlesque gets all of its goofy charm and fun. Aguilera's Iowa waitress wants to leave her boring existence and go to L.A. She pounds the big city pavement for about one afternoon and then is attracted to the bright bulbs on the flashing "Burlesque" sign. Once inside, sipping a free drink from a cute bartender (love interest Cam Gigandet), her world is rocked. She turns to look at the girls lip-synching on-stage in their glittery eye make-up and their spangly costumes and watered-down Bob Fosse choreography and she is transported. She is in heaven.

It's this twist from the typical "I'm going to Hollywood and make it big" movies that makes Burlesque a little confusing, yet endearing. This girl doesn't have big career aspirations. She's got this amazing, powerhouse voice, and there are intimations that she could quickly move on to the big-time, but she never gives any indication that she is in the least bit interested in doing so. Its kind of refreshing. She just wants to sing and take her clothes off in front of an audience. It's weird, but it's kind of empowering, too.

Aguilera's character gets to sing and dance and wear a succession of amazing outfits and wonderful wigs. She also frequently daydreams, seeing herself in extravagantly staged burlesque numbers, belting out a song. In some ways the entire movie is one long fevered daydream of a girl from Iowa who can really sing.

The musical numbers are ridiculous and ridiculously entertaining, mining moves from music videos and old movies. The only sore spot was the criminal underuse of Alan Cumming, who could have really added something — at the very least one show-stopping musical number — to the movie. This is the guy (who I was lucky enough to see) who reinvigorated Cabaret on the stage. He could have taught them all to out-Fosse Fosse. The people behind Burlesque clearly are aware of this, as they stage one risqué background number with him and two girls, but it's frankly not enough.

Burlesque - You Haven't Seen the Last of Me. 

Cher gets a mid-movie number, "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me," which is lit beautifully, looking at times like a colorized BW clip. She has a nice rapport with both Aguilera and Tucci. The movie plot requires her to spend most of her time being pissed off about something, so her main expression is to purse her lips and then for scenes when she's really fed up, purse them some more, but she's Cher and she's fabulous and she should make more movies. But Burlesque belongs to Aguilera. Now if she could just start styling herself in her real life (or at least her role on The Voice) as she looks in this movie. One can dream.

the voice

The kid's new favorite show (and mine, too) is The Voice. It has so much more personality than juggernaut American Idol. It had me at Cee Lo, but I like rest of the celebrity mix. They seem a lot more invested in the singers' success, and seem to like each other more than the Idol judges, who only seem there to hawk their latest album or book deal. Not that I don't enjoy Steven Tyler, I do, but he is entertaining just standing still. If he ever does that.

I think the main reason that singing shows do so well is that almost anyone can sing  — along to a song on the radio or in the shower — not necessarily well, but the majority of the audience can at least relate to singing in some way, as opposed to the dancing shows, which requires a lot more physical skill and training.

I'm not sure where The Voice will go after it's opening "blind taste test" gimmick. The "deathmatch" preview seems even wackier than the celebrity spinning chairs, but I'm interested and willing to find out.

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