A Spooky Adventure Isn't So Scary After All

The Pixar movie Monsters, Inc. is all about monsters who come into the bedrooms of little children at night, initially to scare them. In the level two Step Into Reading book A Spooky Adventure, fears of such monsters and other spookables have another group of Pixar characters all riled up.

Written by Apple Jordan and illustrated by Alan Batson and Lori Tyminski, A Spooky Adventure is set after Toy Story 3, so it includes not only cowboy Woody, space ranger Buzz and several other members of the classic Toy Story gang - namely, neurotic dino Rex, the Potatoheads, loyal Bullseye and Slinky Dog, vivacious Jessie and practical piggybank Hamm - it also features triceratops Trixie, unicorn Buttercup, hedgehog Mr. Pricklepants and clown Chuckles, their new friends from Bonnie's room.

These new friends are very important in this story because, having lived with sweet, energetic Bonnie much longer, they know how things work around her house. Bonnie's vivid imagination leads her to make up the game Haunted Bakery, where prop ghosts figure prominently, and this gives most of the new recruits a case of the willies. They begin to see sinister beings lurking everywhere, especially when they are left alone on a rainy night, and it's up to these longtime residents to reveal the man behind the curtain, whether it's a pair of bunny slippers they mistake for a monster or a mop that resembles a dragon.

This is a story that could help comfort a child feeling anxious about strange noises or shapes that surface at night. Jordan strikes a good balance here, showing that spookiness of the variety that Bonnie introduces can be fun but urging kids not to let their imaginations run wild at nighttime if the result is anxiety and sleeplessness. It's a Scooby Doo kind of ending, but without anyone being villainous. All we have here are simple misunderstandings.

The pictures are a lot of fun to peruse here. Retaining the computer-animated look of the movies, unlike some tie-in books that recreate the characters in a flat, retro style, it feels like it could be an animated short. Granted, it lacks the rapid-fire banter and sight gags of those shorts, but for the format, it's still a funny read, and the pictures are great fun, with the dark shading making it all feel just a bit scary. While that makes it an especially appropriate choice for October, this is really an any-time-of-year book.

The wording in the story is simple without being particularly repetitive, though it does follow a basic formula throughout most of the book. One member of Woody's gang identifies something scary, and one of Bonnie's toys reveals that it actually is something completely innocuous. There's always a picture that gives us the toys' perception first, so kids can have fun guessing what the object might actually be, which makes the book more interactive.

It seems likely that the Toy Story franchise won't include any more feature films, but I'm glad to see that there is a place for new mini-adventures with these wonderful characters, especially when they are done as well as this book is.

Get Acquainted With the Ghosts of Disney World's Haunted Mansion

Earlier this year, I joined my aunt, uncle and cousin on a trip to Florida that included Universal and Disney World. We spent one full day and one evening in the Magic Kingdom, where I went into a bit of sensory overload at a place I’d wanted to visit all my life. There was too much to take in on even two trips, but one ride I definitely experienced to the fullest was the Haunted Mansion, which we rode three times – the first time because it was on the Must List, the second and third because the line was so short when we happened by and the ride was just so much fun.

Our first time around, there was a bit of a wait, partly because we opted to go the long way around in line, which allowed us to see more of the grounds. The spooky but comical statues erected outside the mansion itself are a lot of fun and present plenty of photo opportunities. I especially liked the ornate organ that we encountered about halfway through our wait. It was a leisurely walk, and we didn’t mind the wait because there was so much to see. On the other hand, it was nice to be able to get on the ride almost immediately by going the other route the second and third time.

The inside of the Mansion, like the movie it inspired, is creepy but in a purely fun way. I don’t think any guests but very young children are likely to find it truly frightening. The first portion of the ride is walk-through as guests are ushered into a large room with portraits on the walls, which expand as the ghostly narrator speaks. The paintings are comical, with each deceased person having a strong personality that comes across in two-dimensional form. The host’s voice is suitably spooky, and with the room changing and the lights turning off and on, I’m pretty sure I jumped a bit while I was standing there, and I know I grabbed onto my aunt’s hand when the room went pitch-dark, at least the first time.

It’s after this point that we loaded up into the buggies and got to the riding portion of the ride, which is full of intricate displays of ghosts engaged in all sorts of different activities. There are so many displays that it’s hard to see everything on the first go-round. Bibliophile that I am, I especially liked the ghostly library, and the ballroom where so many of the ghosts converge for some musical revelry is the most raucous part of the ride. Tombstones, candelabras and other eerie props help to set the mood. Parts of it put me in mind of my hometown park’s dark ride, the Whacky Shack, but the Haunted Mansion is much more sophisticated, and it is character-centric rather than relying mostly on loud noises and disorienting lighting effects. There’s a bit of twisting and turning, but nothing likely to cause much trouble for the sensitive rider. I’m prone to motion sickness, and I didn’t have any problems.

When my mom went to Disney World on a choir trip in the 1970s, this was one of the only rides she had a chance to go on, and she sang its praises. Having finally gotten a chance to ride it for myself, I have to agree that it’s top-notch, and the scary factor is outweighed by the fun factor. I went in March, and it felt like I was getting a foretaste of Halloween. I would imagine that the Haunted Mansion is particularly popular with guests at the park today, but no matter what time of year it is, this ghostly ride is grand and shouldn’t be missed.

A Ghost Is on the Loose at the Plaza Hotel in Eloise's Rawther Unusual Halloween

The Plaza Hotel is the stately building at the heart of the Eloise series of picture books and the movies and specials that have followed from them. It’s an elegant structure whose abundance of rooms and passages would make it a potentially very spooky location on Halloween. The animated special Eloise’s Rawther Unusual Halloween turns the Plaza into a genuine haunted house for the occasion.

Eloise (Mary Matilyn Mouser) is the energetic six-year-old who lives with her nanny (Lynn Redgrave) at the hotel. She pretty much has free run of the place, though she irritates certain guests and staff, particularly the persnickety Mr. Salamone (Tim Curry), whose job it is to make sure everything at the hotel operates smoothly. In this 45-minute-long tale directed by Wesley Archer, he is especially stressed out because the man who intends to buy the Plaza Hotel is staying for a couple of days. Naturally, he meets Eloise almost immediately, and they don’t exactly hit it off. Could this one little girl ruin his plans for the hotel?

Eloise, meanwhile, has other things on her mind. Ever since her nanny told her a creepy story about Diamond Jim Johnson (Brad Garrett), the prominent citizen who died en route to the Plaza Hotel’s grand opening and who allegedly returns each year “with a hunger that can never be satisfied,” the little girl has been obsessed. At first the story startles her. Then, after she is sure that she sees Diamond Jim for herself, fear gives way to indignation. No one believes her, and when strange things begin to happen in the hotel, they blame her. Will tracking down this ghost and giving him a piece of her mind put an end to all the shenanigans?

Mouser does a fine job of capturing Eloise’s boundless energy, and Redgrave brings just the right mix of warmth and easy-going authority to the one person who can keep a rein on Eloise’s mania. Curry, who played a similar live-action role in Home Alone 2, is excellent as always, and Garrett, who never fails to crack me up on Everybody Loves Raymond, sounds robust with a splash of melancholy as the ghost whose presence stirs up all the trouble. The rest of the voice work is great as well, but these four are the stand-outs.

The animation is modeled after the illustrations by Hilary Knight. I love the stylized credits, but the rest of the movie is great as well. There’s a certain simplicity to the animation style that fits the movie’s picture book heritage. The depiction of the ghost, with his bluish-black tint and translucent quality, is especially interesting. Aside from him, there’s a lot of pink in the color scheme, since that is Eloise’s favorite color. This special also involves two of her best friends, both of whom are very feminine, so I’m not sure this special would appeal to most boys very much, though they might well enjoy it if they gave it a chance. There’s certainly a lot of mild mayhem to keep the plot moving.

I’m always on the lookout for Halloween movies that are primarily cute rather than scary. Eloise’s Rawther Unusual Halloween, released just this year, definitely fits the bill as a short but sweet bit of ghostly fun.

Trixie and Honey Get a Little Spooked in The Mystery of the Whispering Witch

When I think of mysteries involving haunted houses, the team of teen sleuths most likely to pop into my head is Scooby Doo and the human quartet accompanying him. However, Trixie Belden and her fellow Bob-Whites of the Glen are the ones on the creepy case in The Mystery of the Whispering Witch, the 32nd book in the series started by Julie Campbell and continued by several ghostwriters using the pen name Kathyrn Kenny.

This isn’t the first time that ghosts have been a part of the Trixie Belden series. Spirits allegedly roamed free in the Ozarks in the 11th Trixie adventure, and based on the titles of some of the Trixies I’ve temporarily skipped over, they seem to have made appearances in a few other books as well. In fact, recollections of some of these adventures surface here when the fear of supernatural entities becomes acute. However, this was the first book in the series that I have read in which the predominant focus is upon the possible existence of ghosts. Specifically, some worry that Sarah Sligo, an 18th-century woman burned alive inside her mansion by townspeople who branded her a witch, is haunting the house now that it is occupied by a single mother, Mrs. Franklin, and her daughter Fay.

The last several Trixie mysteries I’ve read have taken place in the summer, so it was a bit startling to crack this one open and find myself in late November. The setting is the week before Thanksgiving, which turns out to be a significant date in Sarah’s life. It also means that all but one of the Bob-White boys are involved in a school Thanksgiving play, though, to my disappointment, this doesn’t really come into the story. As is often the case with Thanksgiving tales, Christmas comes up, since Trixie’s younger brother Bobby goes to visit Santa Claus, prompting a discussion demonstrating that the Christmas Creep isn’t exactly new. Mostly, though, the book feels like a Halloween story, with all its talk of hauntings and possessions.

It’s the latter that makes the mystery especially ghoulish, as Fay, who is about the same age as Trixie and her best friend, Honey Wheeler, truly fears that Sarah is taking over her. There are moments when the story almost seems to veer into the territory of Poltergeist and The Exorcist. Even though I was pretty confident that it would all turn out to be smoke and mirrors and end with an unveiling of the “And I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those darn kids” variety, I found some of the scenes quite unsetting. In The Mystery at Bob-White Cave, I often got the feeling that locals attributed strange weather and other natural phenomena to ghosts, but in this case, it’s clear that some real malevolence is afoot, and it could have lasting psychological consequences. What’s not entirely plain is who is behind it.

The author does a good job of introducing several characters who could potentially be responsible for the enigmatic events at the house. I changed my mind a couple of times as I tried to figure out what was going on. I found Fay a mostly likable chum for the Bob-Whites, though she’s incredibly jumpy, and it almost seems to rub off on Honey. While she remains consistently kind throughout the book, her nerves often get the better of her and she isn’t much help in calming Fay down. It’s a little odd to see Trixie trying her best to be tactful for Fay’s sake while Honey keeps blurting out any dismaying thought that pops into her head.

While all of the Bob-Whites – including Trixie’s brothers Brian and Mart, Honey’s adopted brother Jim and their neighbors Dan and Di – appear in this book, Whispering Witch feels mostly like Trixie and Honey’s story, one that they must share with Fay as they try to relieve their new friend of her jitters – or determine whether her fears are even genuine. I enjoyed the camaraderie among the three girls, and I found it oddly appropriate that a week after my mom’s hip surgery, I happened to pick up a book in which one of the major characters winds up in the hospital with a broken hip. While a few scenes didn’t sit that well with me, this is still a mostly fun installment. You just might want to save it for Halloween.

Mostly Ghostly Is Mostly Cheesy

In late October, I watched Safe Haven, the Criminal Minds episode starring Sterling Beaumon as a teenage serial killer. Beaumon caught my attention back in 2007 when he first played young Benjamin Linus on LOST, and I was once again impressed with his acting abilities in this even darker role, but I found myself wishing I could see him playing a kid who didn’t have quite so many issues. I got my wish, sort of, when I stumbled upon Mostly Ghostly, a direct-to-DVD movie airing on the Disney Channel in which Beaumon stars as an aspiring magician who discovers that he can see and hear ghosts. Yeah, that’s a little weird, and he has to put up with bullying peers, an obnoxious brother and an overbearing dad who wishes he was more into sports, but Max Doyle is a pretty typical kid, and there’s nothing very unsettling about this movie.

Unless it’s maybe the fact that Beaumon agreed to be in it.

No, the movie isn’t that atrocious, but it certainly is not movie theater quality. This flick, based on the books by R. L. Stine and with a screenplay by Pat Proft and director Richard Correll, features some of the stupidest dialogue I’ve ever heard uttered in a movie, and everything about it, from the performances to the special effects, is hammy and over-the-top.

That means Beaumon, too, though at least I thought he made the most of opportunities for physical comedy with his expressive gestures and awkward gait. This movie came out in 2008, so I’m not sure whether it was filmed before or after LOST’s The Man Behind the Curtain, but the role of babbling, dorky Max definitely seems a step backward from the sullen, nearly silent Ben we saw in that episode. All the same, he is the most tolerable part of the movie.

Adam Hicks is the stereotypical lunk-headed older brother who reminded me very much of Buzz from the Home Alone movies. Everything he says seems to come a couple seconds too late; perhaps this is to emphasize that Colin is a little slow on the uptake, but it had the effect of making it seem like Hicks was always forgetting his lines and only recovering at the last minute.

Tara and Nicky, the two ghostly children who end up befriending Max, are played by Madison Pettis and Luke Benward. The latter generally just sort of fades into the background, while Pettis’s most notable trait is her impish giggle, along with her tendency to shriek. She also has a toothy grin that she flashes quite often. Tara is a cute and spunky kid, but a little of her goes a long way. Meanwhile, Brian Stepanek plays Phears, the ghoulish spook to whom Tara and Nicky represent a great threat. He’s vaguely menacing but far too cheesy to actually creep anyone out, except perhaps very young viewers. The moments in which he comes so close to the camera that he seems likely to burst through the TV screen are especially absurd.

Like so much typical Disney family fare, this movie involves a child struggling to be more popular and especially to earn the romantic regard of an attractive fellow student. On the home front, he mostly wishes that he could make his dad more appreciative of his interests. Plus, he’s caught up in a mystery that involves reuniting his new friends with their missing parents. The movie delivers some degree of resolution on all those fronts, though in true Stine fashion, the final frame gives us an indication that evil, in the form of Phears, has not been wholly eradicated.

Mostly Ghostly is a movie to watch if you’re in the mood for something incredibly goofy. I always thought of Stine as pretty spooky, but this most definitely isn’t, and it’s written in such a way that every word out of every mouth sounds totally unnatural. Even if there had been more genuinely scary elements here, I think I would have been too distracted by the bad dialogue to notice. And I was on the verge of throwing the remote at the TV if I had to hear that dumb rhyme Max recites ad nauseam throughout the movie one more time. So while it’s good to know that Beaumon’s career has allowed him the occasional reprieve from playing such deeply tormented characters, Mostly Ghostly is nothing to boast about.

If You Like The Lovely Bones, You Should Try Dead on Town Line

Back in July, I read Waiting for Normal, a novel by Leslie Connor, an author with whom I had no prior familiarity. I found myself unable to put the book down and hoped that she had written other books as well. My search yielded two results: the picture book Miss Bridie Chose a Shovel and Dead on Town Line, a novel in verse. I have limited familiarity with this unusual form, the best other example I can give being Love That Dog, a lovely reflection on the power of poetry to shape young lives and aid in the grieving process. But while that explores some similar themes, it aims at a much younger audience.

Dead on Town Line is the story of a 16-year-old girl who is murdered. Just how, and by whom, we gradually discover as she reveals the details one poem at a time. Like Susie in The Lovely Bones, Cassie Devlin speaks to us from beyond the grave, but instead of inhabiting some celestial almost-heaven while she awaits closure, she remains at the scene of the crime, occasionally feeling a tug leading her to "the next" but unable to follow while those who loved her search for her in vain.

Through Connor's carefully crafted free verse, we get to know Cassie, a girl similar in some ways to Addie, the 11-year-old narrator of Waiting for Normal. Both girls are compassionate, eager to extend kindness to the marginalized. Both live alone with their mothers, though unlike Addie, Cassie enjoys a tranquil home life with a mom who is entirely capable and devoted. Perhaps most of all, Cassie and Addie are united by their love of music. While Addie plays the flute, Cassie is a pianist, and a composer to boot. Her most precious possession is Morning of the Moths, a work in progress and the object at the heart of her untimely demise.

Cassie's poems are short, generally one or two pages long with terse titles printed in all capital letters. Connor is quite as successful at capturing a teenager's voice as an 11-year-old's. We also hear another young woman speak frequently. Waiting with Cassie is Birdie, a Southern, dark-skinned mother-to-be who was also buried nearby, more than sixty years earlier. Murdered by the man who impregnated her, she is dour from years of abuse and neglect and merely wants solitude in her afterlife.

But Cassie is curious, and eventually Birdie begins to open up as together, they explore the possibility of manipulating the matter around them, reminding me of Sam and the spooky longtime subway dweller in Ghost. There's nothing quite so dramatic as avalanches of paperwork or invisible fingers on a keyboard, but they find that a gentle, well-directed breeze can have a powerful impact.

Other characters come to light as well. Kyle, the gentle boyfriend upon whom suspicion rests. Abel Sorrenson, the music teacher and mentor who searches most diligently. Gail Sherman, the problem student Cassie took into her Composer's Workshop. Jory, her cowed brother. Mrs. Devlin, whose life is empty without the daughter who defined it. And from many years before, the corrupt preacher who kept Birdie in a state of near-slavery and the unborn infant who vanished while her mother stayed.

The decision to include Birdie adds considerable depth to the story. It gives Cassie someone to converse with; it presents two girls who have been burned by previous relationships slowly building a friendship with one another. Learning to trust again, which is particularly difficult for Birdie, who has not had love in her life for a very long time, if ever. It's a gruesome tale in some ways, with two murders described and frequent discussion of bones and blood and death. But for all that, the reflections, often tinged with the extended metaphor of music, have beauty.

"Death's hard to explain," Cassie tells us early in the book. "Even now, / When I should know. / It reminds me of / A dog bite..." She goes on to recall her experience of being bitten and watching the resulting bruise grow ever darker. "I was almost relieved / To find out: / Okay. / So this is a / Dog bite. / And okay, / So this is / Death. / But like the bruising, / More seems to be coming. / Being dead / Isn't being done."

I don't know whether Connor was influenced at all by The Lovely Bones, but despite slightly different approaches, the two books cover enough of the same territory with similarly lyrical writing for me to suspect that those who like one will enjoy the other. Dead on Town Line is much shorter at just over 130 pages, with empty spaces, full-page illustrations in stark black-and-white and lines scarcely more than a few words long. I read it in little more than an hour, but it again cemented in my mind the fact that Connor is a writer of great talent and heart whose name I intend to seek out on library shelves for years to come.

My Top Ten Movies of the Early '90s ('90-'94)

I'm a child of both the '80s and the '90s, and many of my favorite movies come from those decades. In the first half of the '90s, I was between 9 and 13, and my pre-teen years were filled with some terrific cinema. These are my ten favorites. Give or take a few...

The Rescuers Down Under (1990) / Beauty and the Beast (1991) / Aladdin (1992) / The Lion King (1994) - Okay, so I'm totally cheating on this one because Disney could do no wrong in the early '90s. The sequel to The Rescuers rates just below the others only because it isn't a musical. I like it much better than the first; the animation of all that glorious Australian wilderness is fantastic, especially during the flying-on-the-eagle's-back sequences, and George C. Scott marvelously voices one of my favorite Disney villains. The last three all have amazing songs to go along with the brilliant animation and terrific stories. Beauty and the Beast boasts my favorite Disney heroine, Aladdin the most manic Disney sidekick ever and The Lion King my all-time favorite Disney opening sequence. I saw them all in the theater, and I have them all on tape. Disney doesn't get much better than this.

Ghost (1990) - Seems to me we bought this one on a whim at McDonald's for five bucks one time, and it quickly became a favorite, mostly due to the hilarious antics of Whoopi Goldberg as a crackpot psychic who can suddenly talk to dead people and the touching finale, which features a gorgeous orchestral version of Unchained Melody. Oh, and it's pretty darn romantic too.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1992) / Star Trek: Generations (1994) - Neither is my favorite Trek movie, but I think Undiscovered is the first one I saw in a regular theater. I seem to remember it being sold out the first time we tried to see it and being so frustrated about it that I bought the novelization. It's a landmark movie since it's the last to include the full original cast, and it's one of the most philosophical of the Trek films. Spock has some great moments with his protege, and the scene in which Uhura must pass herself off as a Klingon is hilarious. And all that Shakespeare isn't bad either. Generations is the first to feature the cast of The Next Generation, and it probably is my favorite of their films, partly because of the prominence of Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg again), an uncharacteristically serene character who tended to be underused, partly because of the chance to bring the two greatest captains of the Enterprise face to face with each other, partly because of the idyllic quality of the Nexus scenes, but mostly because I absolutely love Brent Spiner's performance as Data, my favorite character, learns to deal with his acquisition of human emotions.

Far and Away (1992) - I'd never heard of this before we watched it in my eleventh grade history class, but I quickly fell in love with it, and shortly after we finished it at school, I insisted we rent it at home. My family loved it as much as I did, so it wasn't long before we bought it, and watching it has become a St. Patrick's Day tradition. I love the humor, the sweetness of the opposites-attract romance, the cinematography, the historical interest, the score, the cast and of course all those Irish accents, even if some of them are phony. It's a movie that my brother and I still quote to each other frequently, and no matter how many times I hear it was a flop, it will be one of my favorites.

Sister Act (1992) - This was a second choice when Mom and I saw it on our annual back-to-school shopping outing. We'd planned to see 3 Ninjas, but it was sold out, so we gave this a try even though Mom had an idea that I'd find it boring. Well, it was anything but. Whoopi Goldberg had me in stitches again, and I found the real nuns at the convent where she goes into hiding to be wonderfully touching as well as funny. This is the movie that introduced me to Harvey Keitel and the formidable Maggie Smith, as well as a lot of great Motown music. I was singing the sisters' hit renditions of those songs for days, and I couldn't wait to get this one on video. Awesome music, side-splitting humor and a moving story of redemption. And nuns! What more could I ask for?

Free Willy (1993) - I saw this one on the next year's back-to-school outing and loved it just as much. I've always been a "save the whales" kind of gal, so I liked the premise, and I found the characters endearing and the film surprisingly free of objectionable material. A tough-on-his-luck kid name Jesse abandoned by his mother gets a new shot at life thanks to a similarly alone orca, his understanding trainers and a couple who want to welcome Jesse into their home despite his issues. It's a heartwarming movie, and that shot of Willy leaping over the barrier is as iconic as E. T. and Elliot flying across the moon. And its theme song, Will You Be There, still stands as my all-time favorite Michael Jackson song.

Angels in the Outfield (1994) - Probably my favorite sports-related movie, this film about a boy whose prayer for divine assistance for his favorite team is motivated by a desire for a family is a great tale of friendship and faith. Christopher Lloyd is his usual zany self as the main angel with whom young Roger communicates, and I love Danny Glover's performance as the cranky coach who begins to reassess his worldview when his team suddenly starts winning. The angels provide some terrific visuals as they help the players pull off some amazing stunts, but what I really love are the ways in which a little bit of faith transforms the characters for the better. And the image of the crowd standing en masse and giving the angel signal is one of my favorite movie moments.

Forrest Gump (1994) - I remember hearing about this movie on Good Morning America and thinking it looked interesting but probably wasn't a movie for kids. It stayed in the theater for ages; it seems inconceivable to me now that a movie could have lasted in the cinema for nearly a year, but I saw it in April of '95 with my mom and grandparents, the only movie the five of us have all seen together in the theater. And I really got what all the fuss was about. Tom Hanks is absolutely pitch-perfect as Forrest, a Bear of Little Brain But Much Heart. He might be a little slow, but it doesn't stop him from making his mark in a multitude of ways. Hanks' performance, an outstanding (and very quotable) screenplay that is as touching as it is hilarious, impressive special effects planting Forrest into historical footage and a soundtrack featuring a couple dozen of the best songs of the sixties and seventies are just some of the reasons I love this movie. I can't go more than a couple of years without watching it; from the moment Alan Silvestri's delicate feather theme begins to play, I am transported. I simply cannot watch this movie without emerging feeling a little better about life.

Charles Dickens Might Want to Haunt the Makers of Ghosts of Girlfriends Past...

There are few stories that have affected me as deeply as A Christmas Carol, the Charles Dickens classic that was one of the first to introduce to me the idea of a villain finding redemption. I've seen oodles of adaptations, and most have been very agreeable, with the Muppet version and the George C. Scott version taking top honors. I've now found one to occupy the bottom of the barrel: Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore and directed by Mark Waters.

This movie is a mild PG-13, but in some ways it's raunchier than many R-rated comedies. It takes the basic plot of A Christmas Carol but makes the pressing issue not miserly greed and outright misanthropy but insatiable lust and veiled misogyny. Connor Mead, played by Matthew McConaughey, is our Ebenezer Scrooge of sorts, a bachelor who makes a living taking shots of scantily clad women for famous magazines. His conquests seem to loathe him and desire him all at once; not a single female, it appears, is immune to his charms, but when they get together, these ladies have plenty of venom to spill about his callous nature.

While Ebenezer is deliciously acidic, spouting off pithy zingers with the force of a 19th-century Simon Cowell, Connor never has anything particularly eloquent to say. He's just thoroughly obnoxious, though the lechery that condemns him is overshadowed somewhat by the fact that very nearly every other character in the movie is absurdly oversexed. The movie centers around the wedding of Connor's younger brother Paul (Breckin Meyer), who, as Bob and Fred rolled into one, is far more likable than most but still guilty of cheating on his fiancee before they were engaged. If there's a "Tiny Tim" of the movie, it would be his impending marriage, the state of which becomes increasingly fragile from the moment Connor turns up, to the shock of most, for Best Man duty.

Filling the role of Jacob Marley is Wayne, the swingin' uncle who taught Connor everything he knows. Wayne has a much larger role in the film than Marley generally does; we see him playing a pivotal role in flashbacks, and his ghost turns up frequently throughout the film to talk things over with Connor. Michael Douglas plays Wayne as comically despicable, with his affection for his nephew his only really redeeming feature. Even once Connor has learned the lesson Wayne strove to teach him, his deceased uncle is still up to his old tricks, prowling the afterlife for Connor's cast-offs. Those would be the three ghosts - except two of them are clearly not dead, while the other takes the form of a braces-laden teenager, making Wayne's pursuit especially creepy.

As usual, the ghost of the past is the one with the most screen time. It would be nice, then, if she weren't so irritating. Granted, this character is usually a bit of a nag, but in this case, she also appears to be slightly deranged, making her commentary hard to take after a few moments. Luckily, Connor's one true love is much more tolerable. Her name is Jenny, and she is played by Jennifer Garner, which is part of the reason this aspect of the story reminds me of the far superior 13 Going on 30; another is that the teenage version of Jenny is played by Christa B. Allen, who also played the younger version of Garner's character in 13 Going on 30. (I also got a hint of LOST, with pre-adolescent Jenny, like Ben-loving Dharmaville dweller Annie, giving a birthday gift while on the swing set that the recipient still cherishes years later.) In both films, a boy and girl grow up best friends, but a longing for the popular crowd sweeps the girl away. In 13 Going on 30, the girl turns her back on the boy, while he moves on, broken-hearted but still true to himself. In this movie, Jenny never has the chance to make a long-term, conscious decision like that, since at the first whiff of heartache, Connor gets whisked off for indoctrination into his uncle's intensive school of Love 'Em and Leave 'Em. As an adult, she's bitter but otherwise nice enough, while he's the one with major personality defects. The movies wind up in a pretty similar place, but between sullying a beloved classic and making us put up with all sorts of saucy shenanigans, The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past doesn't earn a genuine desire for a happy ending.

McConaughey is an actor who seemed to teeter between endearing and insufferable. In We Are Marshall, the former characteristic was on display, but here, it's definitely the latter. Certain scenes with the lovelorn Jenny and the sweet - but never Bob Cratchit-force - Paul, whose high-strung but devoted fiancee Sandra (Lacey Chabert) is much like Mrs. Cratchit, make him tolerable, but it's too little too late. While those who love A Christmas Carol will have fun pointing out parallels (and M*A*S*H fans should keep an ear out for references to that show courtesy of Sandra's dad, Sergeant Volkom (Robert Forster), a gung-ho Korean War veteran), they might also want to listen for the distant but unmistakable sound of Charles Dickens rolling over in his grave.

Scooby-Doo Has a Goony Time with the Harlem Globetrotters

A couple of weeks ago, I went to see the Harlem Globetrotters for the first time. They're regular visitors to the area, showing up about once a year to entertain crowds of kids in the middle of winter. I decided it was time to get in on the action. Then, as a way of extending my basketball wizardry experience, I hopped onto Netflix, hoping to rent The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island. Alas, I had no luck in that department but stumbled upon something else potentially promising: Scooby-Doo Meets the Harlem Globetrotters.

There was a time when I watched Scooby-Doo fairly regularly with my brother. We watched it largely because it was so corny, and we got a kick out of making fun of it. This collection of two 40-minute-long Scooby-Doo cartoons is every bit as ridiculous as I expected. Both involve a chance encounter between Scooby's gang and the Globetrotters that lands them in a haunted mansion. Of course, neither house is actually haunted; there's always a perfectly logical explanation for everything that initially appears to be supernatural activity. But a spooky old house is a Scooby standard, so it's not surprising to find one in both episodes.

Other recurring elements: Shaggy (Casey Kasem) and Scooby (Don Messick) stuffing themselves, Fred (Frank Welker) making pointless observations, Velma (Nicole Jaffe) scolding Shaggy and Scooby for their silliness and Daphne (Heather North) not doing much of anything. And, because of the special guests, both episodes feature the Harlem Globetrotters doing fancy tricks with their ever-present basketballs. There are half a dozen team members that meet up with the gang, the most striking of whom are the effeminate-sounding Bobby Joe (Eddie Anderson) and the bald Curly (Stu Gilliam), whose abrasive voice reminds me of Gilbert Gottfried. Meadowlark (Scatman Crothers) seems to be the most level-headed of the bunch and tends to assume the leadership role among them.

The Mystery of Haunted Island is the more outlandish of the two tales. In this episode, Team Scooby and the Globetrotters bump into each other at an abandoned shack (where Fred is convinced they will find a can of gas for their car and a working telephone). The Globetrotters have a big game tomorrow but accept the gang's invitation to join the for lunch on Picnic Island. Except the boat they board doesn't take them to Picnic Island. No, instead they wind up on Haunted Island, after a long trip with only themselves as crew. It's already dark, so the picnic idea is out the window and all anybody is interested in is finding a place to sleep. Cue creepy mansion.

This episode is one of the more ridiculous Scooby-Doo episodes I can remember seeing, particularly once we find out who is causing all the strange happenings on Haunted Island and why. It's completely convoluted, an elaborate series of circumstances orchestrated as a very complicated solution to a simple problem. Unlike in most Scooby episodes, there's a fair bit of story left after the unmasking of the villains, and this part is probably the most entertaining aspect of the episode, as it allows the Globetrotters to really show off all their fancy tricks in some creative ways. The good-natured guys are fun to watch throughout, whether they're all huddled together under the covers hiding from spooks or ransacking a library looking for a secret exit, but they're most in their element in the last few minutes.

Loch Ness Mess is a much more typical episode. Shaggy and his friends are off to see his uncle in rural Massachusetts. On their way there, they stumble upon the Globetrotters, who are having a roadside barbecue. The sleuths load up on hot dogs and burgers and invite the guys to join them for some R&R at Shaggy's uncle's expansive farmhouse. Before they get there, they encounter ghosts in Revolutionary garb who warn them to stay away. Later, a trip to the lake brings them face to face with a Loch Ness-style sea serpent. Who are this mysterious beings, and what do they want? The solution this time around makes more sense; the downside is that the opportunities for the Globetrotters to do their tricks are more limited.

Included on this disc are a couple of uninspiring extras. One is a music video about Scooby taking on Hollywood, and it's sung by Shaggy, whose voice seems even creakier when he's attempting (poorly) to carry a tune. Less grating but barely worth accessing is a game promising some fancy Globetrotters antics if you follow a series of hints about the direction in which the featured player should toss his ball next. There are only a few panels, and they're completely two-dimensional, so it's hard to get too excited about a freeze frame that doesn't so much resemble fancy basketball-playing as one of those Family Circus strips in which Billy wanders all around the neighborhood, with dotted lines indicating the path he has taken.

Renting Scooby-Doo Meets the Harlem Globetrotters was a fun addendum to my evening, but it really is woefully silly. If you're a Scooby fan, it's pretty typical stuff, but if you haven't acquired a taste for his show, you might just find this collection a bit too much to take.