There's no doubt a smarter, meaner movie tucked inside director Gerard Johnstone's M3GAN, but the largely dopey, relatively tame one we're given is a lot of fun, too.

Over the course of three hours and nine minutes, there's one sensationally effective, entertaining, and even educational sequence in Damien Chazelle's Babylon – even if, like everything else in this wildly indulgent and obnoxious old-Hollywood saga, it, too, eventually gets royally effed up.

As a special year-end gift for the Quad Cities theatre community in general and fans in particular, the Haus of Ruckus duo of T Green and Calvin Vo will deliver one final 2022 evening with their comedic counterparts Johnny and Fungus in A Very Ruckus Holiday Special, which will be staged at Davenport's Mockingbird on Main on December 30 in tandem with a live-streaming option. And if you thought the team responsible for the nutty adventures “Pants” Labyrinth in the spring and Random Access Morons in the summer was done for the year after their November presentation Spooky Pete, you're not alone, because as Vo admits, “We also thought we were done for the year.”

Before discussing the very, very Bad Santa at the heart of director Tommy Wirkola's Violent Night, I want to address this grisly action comedy's other heroic perpetrator of bloody mayhem. Because despite the commitment that David Harbour lends to his portrayal of a jolly old elf by way of The Northman, seven-year-old Trudy Lightstone (endearingly enacted by Leah Brady) is easily the film's more interesting figure, largely for being the only movie character I can think of to truly call out the insidious irresponsibility in that holiday “classic” Home Alone.