Jingle All the Way

Amazon.ca As far as Hollywood's holiday offerings go this Yuletide season, I'll take Schwarzenegger and Sinbad doing slapstick over a bunch of spotted puppies running amok any day, and the soundtrack to Jingle All the Way is not too bad, either. There are a few standards- Chuck Berry's "Run Rudolph Run," Nat King Cole's "Christmas Song," and Charles Brown's "Merry Christmas Baby"-but the real draw is the Brian Setzer Orchestra doing the ol' Buster Poindexter routine on some of your favorites, including "Sleigh Ride" with vocals by the great Darlene Love (the driving force behind Phil Spector's A Christmas Gift to You). The former Stray Cat's new band also backs velvety- voiced Lou Rawls on a version of "So They Say It's Christmas" which is pretty darn swell. The album gets docked a notch, though, for being a little skimpy at only 10 tunes plus some filler from the instrumental score. --Jim Derogati