In brief

It's supposed to be winter - I am supposed to be skiing right now - but the weather gods are not cooperating, keeping our skies clear and dry and mostly too warm for the resorts to make much man-made snow.  Our ski area is open, with just two trails available, so that's enough to get Mr. Mouse out of the house, at least for the mornings (if he doesn't ski, he gets fidgety).  I prefer a greater snow-to-rocks ratio in my skiing so I've opted out and opted for holding down the couch to watch some movies.  Here are some recent successes:

Josie and the Pussycats - Yes, I watched it.  And it is ridiculous in all the right ways (early 2000s fashion! A very young Rosario Dawson! Excellent soundtrack with "Josie's" vocals done by Kay Hanley of Letters to Cleo!), plus it is completely subversive/satirical with respect to all those manufactured pop acts from that time period with their sponsorships and product-placement.

Split - In which former golden boy M. Night Shayamalan puts together an excellent B movie about three girls who get kidnapped by a dude with multiple personalities (twenty-three total, we're told).  It is suspenseful and tense, with interesting cinematography, and James McAvoy is just outstanding as Kevin, the dissociative identity disorder guy.  We only get to see about eight of the alters onscreen but McAvoy plays each one as a separate character and it's fantastic.

Krampus -  'Tis the season!  I think I was hoping for more scares from this admittedly PG-13 flick but the movie has a strong cast (Adam Scott, Toni Collette, Allison Tolman, David Koechner, Conchata Ferrell) and visually it looks great, with some wonderfully twisted takes on holiday classics.  Krampus is an actual folkloric baddie, the yin to St. Nicholas's yang, doling out punishment to naughty children.