They’re Dreaming of a Sluggish Christmas

‘Tis the season to be buying holiday music. The arrival on the charts Wednesday of Christina Aguilera’s “My Kind of Christmas” album will start this year’s pop holiday-music season rolling. We’ll also see new seasonal recordings by other young singers, including British classical-pop crossover sensation Charlotte Church and 12-year-old country newcomer Billy Gilman. But the days when new renditions of “White Christmas” turned the holidays green for retailers may be gone. Except for some high-profile artists and compilations, such as Jive Records’ new “Platinum Christmas” collection with tracks from ‘N Sync, Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees and other chart-topping acts, holiday music isn’t ringing silver bells on cash registers the way it used to. “The catalog has dropped off tremendously,” says Tower Records’ buyer Bob Feterl. “We used to bring in almost every single [holiday music] CD in print, and there’s thousands. But for the last couple of years, we’ve probably sent back more than we’ve sold.” Now Tower stores usually stock just the 100 to 150 most popular older holiday titles. Church’s “Dream a Dream,” released Oct. 17, is expected to be among the hottest sellers this season, along with the “Platinum Christmas” compilation (due Nov. 14), “A Very Ally [McBeal] Christmas” (Nov. 7) and Aguilera’s album, which is projected by one major chain to log first-week sales of about 25,000. That’s enough for it to debut around No. 50 on Billboard’s pop album chart, a respectable start for a Christmas album. “Catalog albums had always sold pretty well, up until the last couple of years,” Tower’s Feterl says. “I don’t know why, except that by now most people probably have the older stuff they’re looking for.”

When Director Grows Up, What’s He Wanna Be?

Director Nick Panama is explaining the plot of his latest film, “Kung Fool,” which will be screened at Paramount Studios: “There is this kind of wimpy, puny kid. At school, he gets pushed around by this bully, especially in the water fountain line. He’s not going to take it anymore, so he trains in the martial arts. They basically have a showdown and, in the end, the wimp wins and the bully is on the ground. He has a bloody lip or nose--I can’t remember. We used hot fudge from Haagen-Dazs because it’s a black-and-white movie.” Did we mention that Nick Panama is 12 years old? Or, that he is a seventh-grader at the Brentwood School? Or that his five-minute film is among 34 finalists competing Friday and Saturday at the Backyard National Children’s Film Festival? The festival is a chance for children 18 and under to show their work on a big screen while competing for prizes. A jury of industry professionals screened more than 200 films submitted in three categories--elementary, middle and high school--and the Lego Co., which this month unveiled the Lego & Steven Spielberg MovieMaker Set, is providing winners in each category with cash prizes ranging from $500 to $5,000, along with film school scholarships and trophies. The festival kicks off Friday at 7:30 p.m. and continues Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The festival, which will include booths manned by industry professionals, is open to the public with a suggested donation of $25 on Friday and $50 on Saturday. So, how does Panama, who lists his favorite movies as “Gladiator,” “The Matrix” and “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” feel about participating in a film festival at 12? “It will probably be a little weird having one of my works screened in front of a lot of people, but I think I’ll also be excited about it,” he said. “I’ll have to get used to it if I make movies.”

‘Black & Brown’ and Improving Relations

The problem of erupting tensions between youths of different cultures will be examined Friday at 10:30 p.m. on KTTV-TV in “Black & Brown: When Colors Collide.” The program, hosted by reporter Christina Gonzalez, looks at a group of 19 African American and Latino teens in Los Angeles as they complete a program designed to improve race relations. The young people met twice a week for six weeks earlier this year for a series of seminars sponsored by the National Conference for Community and Justice, a nonprofit group devoted to creating harmony and understanding in diverse communities. Gonzalez and her camera crew attended all of the sessions and also followed up with some of the kids in their homes and neighborhoods. “It was really amazing--and a bit scary,” she said. “There were these two kids who we thought were going to kill each other, and they wound up being best friends.” The program originally aired Sept. 29 but is being repeated because of the positive response KTTV received from viewers.

--Compiled by Times staff writers