I crammed in a bunch of flicks last week, the new seasonal fare in cinemas and on streaming services. I caught up with two that have been in cinemas for a few weeks — Red One, which is a fatally flawed Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson vehicle but maybe not quite as abysmal as reviews have suggested, and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, a surprisingly fun faith-based seasonal comedy.

On Netflix I saw Hot Frosty, which is silly but self-aware enough to be a good time. I also saw Dear Santa, which is about a kid who accidentally writes to Satan (Jack Black) rather than Santa and gets a weirdly charming guardian devil who offers him three wishes. It’s a solid concept, especially when it focuses on the talented child actors, but is unfortunately scuppered by tonal shifts and ill-advised sub-plots about marital strife and dead children.

I talked about all of this with Portia Clark on CBC Information Morning last week. You can listen to our chat here.