Movie Review

Cherished Nintendo proves elusive in 1980s-set 8-Bit Christmas

In this day and age, it’s extremely difficult to create a classic holiday/Christmas movie. Ones like It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and Home Alone have become so ingrained in the public psyche that it takes something extremely memorable to make a dent in the regular rotation.

The latest holiday movie contender is 8-Bit Christmas, which takes more than a little inspiration from A Christmas Story. The film is built around an adult Jake Doyle (Neil Patrick Harris), who has come home for Christmas, telling his daughter the story about how he got a Nintendo Entertainment System in the late 1980s.

Just like in A Christmas Story, the younger Jake (Winslow Fegley) is desperate to receive this certain item for Christmas. Seemingly every adult in his life, from his parents (Steve Zahn and June Diane Raphael) to his teachers, say that video games are bad for kids. Naturally, that only spurs Jake and his friends to use a number of increasingly bold measures to try to get the popular item themselves.

Directed by Michael Gowse and written by Kevin Jakubowski, the film has all the hallmarks of a fun holiday movie, with a few twists thrown in. Having parents or kids vying to secure the hot holiday gift has been done before (Jingle All the Way), but having it be a Nintendo (and for Jake’s sister, a Cabbage Patch doll) creates that extra bit of nostalgia for a certain generation, many of whom are now raising kids of their own.

The filmmakers also do a great job of striking the balance between adults being a frustration for the kids by denying them what they want, and the kids being proactive and taking matters into their own hands. Their solutions — a wreath-selling contest and a field trip excursion that has the feeling of a heist — are a lot of fun and go down roads that haven’t been explored in other similar films.

Because it’s a movie aimed at kids, you have to just go with certain elements. Parents banding together to try to stop all video game systems from being sold is far-fetched, as is the presence of a giant, 6-foot fifth grade bully. But even over-the-top things like that add to the pleasure of the story, giving it a tall tale feel that makes their quest seem more impossible than it was.

A movie like this require great casting for the kids roles, and they do well across the board. Fegley is part of an acting family (his brother Oakes starred in films like Pete’s Dragon and Wonderstruck), and he has a presence that keeps his heightened role grounded. Harris, Zahn, and Raphael fill the adult roles well, doling out sincerity and exaggeration in equal measure.

8-Bit Christmas is not the most original holiday film, but it earns points for the fun in its storytelling and performances. Time will tell if it joins the holiday movie rotation, but it’s good enough to be given a chance.

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8-Bit Christmas is now streaming on HBO Max.

Winslow Fegley in 8-Bit Christmas.

Winslow Fegley in 8-Bit Christmas

Photo by Sabrina Lantos

Winslow Fegley in 8-Bit Christmas.

Vinyl Record News

Dallas record store chain Josey Records spins new location in Garland

Josey Records

Josey Records

Vinyl at Josey Records

Dallas music maker Josey Records has extended its reach east: The record store chain, whose empire includes one of the largest single independent record stores in the U.S., has opened a location in Garland, at 1005 Northwest Hwy., at the intersection of Centerville Road, where it's selling its trademark assortment of vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, turntables, music posters, new releases, and music accessories.

This is the sixth location and the third in the Dallas area, joining the original in Farmers Branch which owners Waric Cameron and Luke Sardello opened in November 2014. They've since opened locations in Plano, Tulsa, Kansas City, and Vidalia, Missouri.

The original location is a giant place with 16,000 square feet devoted to vinyl, 45s, CDs, turntables, and T-shirts. They do a good job showcasing new releases and collector vinyl — they made CultureMap's list of 5 best places in Dallas to buy vinyl records — and are known to host album release and listening parties such as a recent blockbuster celebrating Linkin Park.

They made headlines in June 2020 when they acquired the vast musical inventory of Bill’s Records following the death of owner Bill Wisener; Cameron and Sardello both worked at Bill’s, and knew the sprawling collection first-hand.

"It has taken us years to even start going through it, but in last two years, we've made some headway," Cameron says. "Bill's has its own audience, so we created a specific Instagram account, just for Bill's Records merchandise called @billsrecordsvault."

For this new store, they chose Garland because they saw it as an area that was under-served.

"There are very few record stores in that area of northeast Dallas, Casa View, Garland, Rockwall, Mesquite," Cameron says. "We have customers who live over there, so it seemed like a good place for a store."

The storefront they're in was most recently The Music Store, which sold and rented musical instruments and accessories; but coincidentally, it's next to an address that was once RPM Records, a hip record store from the '90s.

The Garland store follows the same model as their others: selling new and used records and merchandise, and buying used goods, as well.

"One thing that's cool is that each location takes on its own identity," he says. "We buy used CDs, vinyl records, cassettes — we're a used resale business — and what we buy from our customers dictates what that store becomes. For example, our Plano store has a lot of classic rock. So we're looking forward to seeing what Garland gravitates to."

Garland does have one thing that the other locations do not.

"Right now, Garland has this incredible collection of jazz," Cameron says. "We bought a great collection of jazz records — someone called and wanted to sell it. We get that a lot, we buy major collections from all over the U.S., we even make house calls. So we saved it for the Garland store."

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