The Boys Christmas Gift Guide Continues: Ugly Dolls and Blu-Rays! / Plus, The Weekly Box-Office Report!

"Ugly Dolls," a series of odd-looking designer plush dolls, are one of the hot items this year (for both girls and boys). Created by a pair of "love-struck artists," the toys view the idea of "ugly" as meaning "special and unique." One is called Wage, "the homely supermarket checkout girl." (www.allbusiness.com).

Chip: "I thought dolls were intended solely as a means of giving young girls a sense of the 'ideal' woman, meaning thin and hot and blonde. I shudder to think what my Quinton's waitresses may look like in a decade if they grow up playing with these things."

Richard: "All considerations of attractiveness aside, it's important during these troubled economic times that we teach children that they will probably not grow up to be successful."

Also hot this year is the "Blu-ray player." Just when you thought DVD's were here to stay, along comes Blu-Ray, and if you want to see The Godfather in the best possible condition (until the next product comes along) you better pony up the cash this Christmas! Here's a bit of their advertising commentary: "The name is a combination of 'blue' (blue-violet laser) and 'ray' (optical ray)."

Richard: "In terms of the quantity of available discs right now, owning a Blu-ray is little better than owning a Betamax. But there's no denying that blue lasers are cool as fuck and I will pay any amount to own this."

Chip: "I still own a Betamax and four working tapes, including E.T, and it suits me perfectly fine."

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The holiday comedy Four Christmases, critically considered mediocre at best, held its own in first place for the second weekend in a row, grossing $18 million.

Richard: "Critics like to claim that an audiences' embracing of such hackneyed material signals the death of 'real' cinema, but the truth is that most people who see this film actually know that it sucks. Still, such films provide an important service for families who can then relate the exaggerated comic antics on-screen to their own less interesting lives, bringing them closer together and ultimately enhancing the very fabric of American life."

Chip: "I enjoyed the parts where Vince Vaughn got hit in the balls."