Well, it’s closing in on All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day, Halloween, or October 31, depending on your preference. By tradition sweets are handed out to miniature cowgirls, Supermen, Frankenstein Monsters, and fairy princesses by the handful.

If all that sugar isn’t enough to keep you or your youngsters bouncing off the walls for the next six months, you might try taking a peek at Little G’s Halloween, a short movie available as a free download from the iTunes Store.

Little G’s Halloween

This is a short movie, emphasis on short, so I won’t tell you more about the plot, such as it is, but I will say that you may need to spend more quality time with a toothbrush after watching. This little movie is so cutesy sweet I think I’m getting a cavity just thinking about it, and I don’t mean sweet in a good way.

My biggest complaint is the music, which tinkles and wafts through the movie as if it were a Christmas piece about some forgotten elf that Santa remembers at the last minute.

Swap out Christmas for Halloween and... Oops! I’ve given away the plot of Little G’s Halloween.

Ah well, no matter. It’s short, cute, and, if you turn down the sound (no words spoken), very watchable and worth the few minutes it take to download.

If you’ve already overdosed on sweets and you need something exciting to help you burn off that sugar rush you might try The Nine, a pilot for a new series on Wednesday nights this Fall on ABC.

The Nine

The first 10 or 12 minutes of the pilot episode does a great job in setting up the situation. The premise is interesting as well: during a botched bank robbery, nine hostages are taken by the bad guys. In the first 10 or so minutes you get a glimpse of the lives these nine people lead before their appointment with fate, each markedly different than the other.

As I watched the pilot, two things kept finding and flicking a raw nerve. The first nerve-flicker deals with the camera work, which is so jerky in many of the transition shots that I just wanted to turn the show off. I know this quick-zooming, then pull back and shaky panning is popular these days, but why does everyone feel the need to do it? I guess it’s suppose to add excitement or edginess to the show, but it wound up just being annoying. Fortunately, it’s not annoying enough to dismiss the whole show.

The second nerve-flicker is the bank manager. Not that he’s badly played by Chi McBride of Undercover Brother fame (he was The Chief), Mr. McBride does a fine job on the show. The problem is that he is the bank manager, and he is Black, with a daughter who acts like an overly tanned Buffy. I know there are Black bank managers, and Black Buffy wannabes, but, in this show, which takes place in a very nice bank in what looks like Beverly Hills, Mr. McBride’s character seems out of place. It seems that the producers are over compensating for the lack of ethnic faces in the show by putting the two in high positions. There are also two Hispanic tellers in the show, but their characters are about what you might expect in real life.

Am I being overly sensitive? Nah. As I said, Mr. McBride does a fine job in the pilot, and brings warmth and believability to an otherwise unbelievable character.

It would be better if the show got people beyond this stretch of unreality by addressing it openly instead of leaving it up to the audience to make heads or tails of it. For instance; there’s a scene where a distraught woman is complaining about some contents of her safety deposit box that are missing. When the bank manager appears to address the issue she doesn’t miss a beat, as if Black bank managers in Beverly Hills (or where ever) are a dime a dozen.

As I said, if the bank manager is to be Black then at least acknowledge it and let the audience get past it. As it is, at least to me, the bank manager and his daughter stand out like a raisins in a bowl of milk.

The Nine pilot is still definitely worth your time, so download it and enjoy.

Happy Halloween.

Other Treats for free at the iTunes Store:

Vern Seward is a writer who currently lives in Orlando, FL. He’s been a Mac fan since Atari Computers folded, but has worked with computers of nearly every type for 20 years.