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I enjoy a good black comedy as much as anyone, but Bad Santa just didn’t work for me—and I can’t quite pinpoint why. It’s better than any recent holiday film that comes to mind. Billy Bob Thornton is outstanding as the truly distasteful Willie, a safe cracker who poses as Santa each year to pull off a master robbery. The movie’s ultimate triumph is that you find yourself caring about Willie by the end, not because he becomes much more likable but because his flaws are put into perspective as other characters’ true natures are revealed. Still, in the end, it just didn’t generate enough laughs to offset the cringes.

Somewhere back in the dusty corridors of time, in a house in New Jersey, a child found an old radio in the basement. It was a Sears Silvertone with a dark brown plastic chassis. No FM, just AM, and therefore not of much interest to the increasingly music-aware child. But he--oh, all right, I--was fascinated by the tubes inside. Unlike all the other radios in the house, which immediately started blaring when turned on, this one took time to warm up. When ready to play, its single speaker emitted a rich tone. Not exactly a silver tone. More of a chocolate tone. But I did love it, and was sorry when it suddenly disappeared from the house, as so many artifacts of my childhood did in those days.