Okay, I’ll say it upfront, I’m not a big fan Christmas movies, so the thought of sitting through Debbie Macomber’s Mrs. Miracle wasn’t exactly my idea of a perfect night in. The Hallmark Channel film, which premiere Saturday night, starred James Van Der Beek as a widowed father of twins desperately seeking nanny, while Doris Roberts played the geriatric version of Mary Poppins. (She didn’t crinkle her nose or snap her fingers to make magic happen, the sound mix took care of that.) You could predict the formulaic plot line of this special ten minutes in. The 6-year-old boys redefined over-acting and the bad fake snow, crappy camera work and baby-doll-substituting-for-infant reaffirmed this was a movie-of-the-week.

Yet. It wasn’t horrible. Van Der Beek, all these years after Dawson’s Creek, is still pretty cute. His love interest, played by Erin Karpluk, sported a fantastic wardrobe and I coveted her hair. And Doris Roberts is still charming, though I was looking for a little more bite after loving her for years on Everybody Loves Raymond. Maybe the moral of the story is that — during Christmastime, at least — TV movies don’t have to be very good. Mrs. Miracle did its job. It made me nostalgic for the holidays, kept me interested for its two-hour run-time and, in the end, I was rooting for the lovebirds. What do you think? Did any of you watch this? Do you lower your standards when it comes to Christmas movies-on-tv?

Today it’s a festive holiday dance number. Tomorrow, they enslave our species.

I leave in fear of the robot take-over, PopWatchers.

ABC has taped an interview Chris Brown for 20/20, according to the AP. GMA anchor Robin Roberts conducted the interview, which is scheduled to air Dec. 11. Yes, Brown does indeed have a new album coming out right around then.

Last week on the Music Mix, we wondered if Chris Brown’s career rehab was working — and the answer seemed to be a tentative yes. I guess it makes sense that 20/20 would be on his image rehab tour, but I wonder if there’s actually anything Brown could do or say that would alter the public perception at this point. Are there really people whose minds could conceivably be changed by an interview?

I seriously doubt it, PopWatchers, but maybe you feel differently: Could a candid interview affect how you feel about Chris Brown — or change how likely you’d be to buy one of his albums?

Happy Turkey Day, PopWatchers! This year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade had a few new balloons, a revamped Santa float, and more NBC promos and placements than I can wrap my head around.

Highlights

Broadway! I’m a sucker for a show tune, and it was kind of nuts to see Hair being performed outside Macy’s. My conflicting cultural institutions, let me show you them! John Stamos’ Bye Bye Birdie performance, while, yeah, horribly lip-synced, was still charismatic and cute, and Billy Elliot and Shrek were completely serviceable. Fun times.

Cream-colored coats Jane Krakowski, Andrea Bocelli, Katharine McPhee — you heard it here first, PopWatchers. Winter whites are in!

Jimmy Fallon Was anyone having more fun than Jimmy Fallon? His medley was so goofy and enthusiastic, but I really wished it had included that stupid Christmas song from SNL back in the day.

Lowlights READ FULL STORY »

Do you approach the so-called “holiday” season with a wary eye and a crate of Pepto Bismol? Then you’ll probably enjoy the History Channel’s Surviving the Holidays with Lewis Black, which debuted yesterday and is being shown again this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Why? Because Surviving… finds the Daily Show comedian and a host of other gagmeisters (including Craig Ferguson and Bob Saget) ripping apart the festive spirit with the enthusiasm of a fat kid tearing into a Thanksgiving turkey that’s been stuffed with chocolate (which has itself been stuffed with more turkey).

Yes, much like the holidays themselves, this two-hour show is twice as long as any sane person would wish and the sight of the famously Scrooge-ish (and Jewish!) Black dressed as Santa Claus is only half as amusing as the show’s makers seem think. But Surviving the Holidays is packed with chucklesome bon mots including Ferguson’s assertion that, “My favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal is sweet potatoes, because it sounds like a dancer I once knew,” and comedian Joe Mande’s suggestion that the traditional Thanksgiving Day football match should feature, “the Patriots defeating the Redskins and then taking their stadium.” However, my favorite moment came when brainiac humorist Sarah Vowell shamefacedly admitted that the only reason she had heard of “Chrismukkah” was because she used to watch The O.C.

Did you see Surviving the Holidays with Lewis Black? Or do you intend to do so at some point this week between tryptophan-induced food comas? Let us know!

Regis Philbin has to take some recovery time in December and January — and while I’ll certainly miss Reeg and his special kind of crankiness, Kelly Ripa has welcomed some great guest hosts in the past. Who should replace Regis this time? A returning visitor (Anderson Cooper gets my vote – only if he dances this time!) or someone completely new? Would you watch Kelly on her own?

If the fireworks in this clip are any indication, movie star James Franco kicks off his two-month arc on General Hospital with a bang tomorrow. His character, Franco, seems to be the mysterious voyeur who’s been watching the mob activities in Port Charles, including Claudia Zachara’s murder/cover-up. This time it looks like he’s witness to a shoot-out involving the town’s premier hit man and his boss, Jason Morgan and Sonny Corinthos. And he’s making sure he gets noticed.

Franco is likely also an artist in town for an exhibit. The mysterious woman giving Franco a shave in the second clip  (played by Lost‘s Marsha Thomason) may be the agent-type heard in an earlier episode on an answering machine cryptically cautioning the artist to avoid any problems.

Check back tomorrow for Ken Tucker’s take on Franco’s first day.

Despite its ungainly title, there really isn’t anything all that “new” to New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the umpteenth entry in Nintendo’s vast Mario empire. If anything, it’s a deliberately nostalgic, graphically updated throwback to the mustachioed plumber’s old 2-D, side-scrolling adventures. Yet again, Princess Peach is kidnapped by the big bad Bowser and his odd little coterie of mini-Bowser minions. (Are these horn-shelled doofuses his offspring? Brothers? Nephews? Water-induced clones a la the gremlins in Gremlins?) Yet again, Mario and his brother Luigi must save the helpless maiden by flattening toadstools and dodging slow-moving giant bullets through multiple levels on eight distinctive themed worlds (i.e. the desert world, the jungle world, the Mount Doom world). And yet again, the brothers Mario are aided by special mushrooms, flowers, and animalized suits that embiggen and/or imbue them with the power to throw balls of flame or zip through the air. READ FULL STORY »

Sarah Palin continued her book promo tour this morning with a stop at Good Morning America where she and two of her daughters got to enjoy the gentle breeze from the softballs Barbara Walters lobbed at them. Mmmm, breeze. (This is on the heel’s of yesterday’s Oprah interview, which covered much of the same ground.) For someone who claims to dislike “the media,” Palin is doing an awful lot of interviews — but since her debut on the national level, she’s hardly been a shrinking violet. Between her RNC speech, the iconic Katie Couric interview, and the equally iconic Tina Fey impression, there’s no way around it: Love her or loathe her, there’s no denying Sarah Palin’s a media star. When did you know she was here to stay, PopWatchers?

Read Tina Jordan’s review of Going Rogue.

More Sarah Palin:
Gallery: Sarah Palin’s top pop culture moments
Sarah Palin book: Rep for Alec Baldwin and Katie Couric responds to ‘Going Rogue’=
Sarah Palin on ‘Oprah’: ‘Annoyed’ with the McCain campaign and ‘the perky one’ (Katie Couric), plus Levi’s ‘aspiring porn’ career

I was introduced to Snow Patrol through Grey’s Anatomy (I sit at my computer during my favorite TV shows Googling lyrics because I can’t wait until the next day for the song list to post), and have since downloaded most of the songs on their greatest hits collection, which released this week. There are tons of gems on the Scottish/Irish rocker’s 30-track, two-CD complication, Up to Now, including three new songs. For anyone who likes to spend their days believing their life is a scene from a movie or television show (the world is so much more fun that way), it is a definite MUST.

But enough about that. What are YOU Musting over in the world of TV/music/books/movies/online? Submit your suggestions by Thursday at noon ET. Remember to tell us why you think your pick is awesome and to leave us your e-mail address (in case we put your pick in the magazine!).