+
upworthy

marvel

Music

The legendary Kevin Bacon has given us the surprise Christmas song of the season

Time to add 'Here It Is Christmastime' to the holiday playlist.

Kevin Bacon sings 'Here It Is Christmastime' with Old 97's.

Holiday music is a funny thing. On the one hand, there are the old classics that we replay year after year—Bing Crosby's "White Christmas," Nat King Cole's "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire," Burl Ives' "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas" and so on. On the other hand, we have the ever-increasing repertoire of modern Christmas music, since every artist seems to feel the need to release a holiday album.

If it weren't for modern Christmas music, we would never have been blessed/cursed with "Last Christmas" or "All I Want for Christmas Is You," and there's no question that such songs can be a mixed bag. But this year's surprise breakout holiday hit comes from a rather unexpected source—the one and only Kevin Bacon—and it's simply delighful.

Even more unexpectedly, Bacon's Christmas song comes from Marvel's "The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special." If you didn't know there was a "Guardians of the Galaxy" Christmas special, you're not really missing much—except this Kevin Bacon song.

Keep ReadingShow less

It's not often you see a bowling alley promotional video in general, much less one that grabs the attention of millions of people. But that's exactly what a video made for Bryant-Lake Bowl, a bowling alley in Minneapolis, has done. Not only has the spot gone viral on social media, but it's also caught the eye of top Hollywood directors who are praising the tricky direction and camerawork it involves.

The almost-90-second footage begins with a drone camera hovering above the street outside the bowling alley before swooping down through the front doors and zooming around inside the building. It starts off "Okay, this is cool," but by the time it's halfway through it's clear that this isn't your average drone camera work.

With impressive speed, we're taken through small openings above the bowling lanes, back behind the pin machines, through narrow corridors no one ever gets to see, under people's legs, through people's conversations, around the bar and theater, and ultimately right smack dab in the middle of some flying bowling pins. It's impressive.

So impressive, in fact, that it caught the eye of Lee Unkrich (director of the hit Pixar film Coco), who retweeted the video from James Gunn (director of Guardians of the Galaxy), with both men sharing their gobsmacked reactions to it.

Keep ReadingShow less

Lately, Twitter has been a rough place for famous Chrises. First Evans had his day on the trending side bar, and now it's Pratt's turn. With the way things are going, we cringe for what's in store for Hemsworth.

Earlier this week, Warrior Nun writer Amy Berg posted a photo on Twitter of four famous Chrises - Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pine, and Chris Pratt. "One has to go," Berg captioned the photo.

Pratt started trending as he was quickly dubbed the "worst Chris." And things just got worse from there. Until some real-life heroes stepped in and tried to address the situation, defending their co-star and friend.


Keep ReadingShow less


Hollywood is finally moving closer to equality. The past few years have seen a growing number of films starring, written by and directed by women. There's still a lot of progress yet to be made, of course. But there's one area where women have been kicking butt and taking names for decades: action films. Ironically, action films are stereotyped as the launching pad of the manliest of manly men: Schwarzenegger, The Rock, Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone and so on. But some of the biggest action hits, both critically and commercially, are led by women.

If you're looking to expand your home video library for the holidays or just searching for a great holiday playlist while taking out some healthy aggression, here are 12 of our all-time favorite films featuring strong women front and center.

Keep ReadingShow less