Speaker 1: Before we dive in, here's another show you can enjoy
Speaker 1: in the True Story FM Family of Entertainment podcast, Hey
Speaker 1: there are True Believers. Andy Nelson here from the Marvel
Speaker 1: Movie Minute Podcast with the rest of the team, mate Wright,
Speaker 1: Kyle Wilson.
Speaker 2: Rob Cabosco, and Matthew Fox.
Speaker 1: This is the podcast where we dissect the Marvel Cinematic
Speaker 1: Universe one minute at a time, exploring every detail of
Speaker 1: this epic superhero franchise.
Speaker 3: From the nods to the comics to the electrifying performances.
Speaker 3: We've had a blast diving into every aspect of the MCU.
Speaker 3: Right from the start, we're talking about them having to
Speaker 3: earn their wizards, and I think we've made a good
Speaker 3: argument that they do. We have our favorite recurring bits
Speaker 3: like five stars or spar because every character deserves their
Speaker 3: moments in the spotlight.
Speaker 4: Oh, Kyle, you know, speaking of spotlights, did you know
Speaker 4: that the term advertisement actually comes from the Latin advertire,
Speaker 4: meaning to turn toward. That's exactly the kind of fascinating
Speaker 4: detail we love to uncover on the show.
Speaker 5: But it's not all trivia and recurring bits. We also
Speaker 5: dive deep into the ethico dilemmas our hero's face. Lowki
Speaker 5: alone provides enough material for a whole season on Superhero Morality,
Speaker 5: not to mention that I can't wait till we get
Speaker 5: to Civil War.
Speaker 2: In our season.
Speaker 4: Looking at Ironman three, we're.
Speaker 2: Gonna mix things up a bit.
Speaker 1: That's right, Rob and I are your guide, but instead
Speaker 1: of our usual minute by minute format, we dive into
Speaker 1: five minutes of the film in each weekly episode.
Speaker 4: It's a totally new approach, but one that still allows
Speaker 4: us to explore all the depth and detail that makes
Speaker 4: these movies so special, even if Ironman three isn't all
Speaker 4: that's special.
Speaker 2: Hold on, that's where you're wrong, extremists, Shane.
Speaker 4: Black, Yeah, would you like to look at the Mandarin?
Speaker 4: And Maya Hanson?
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Speaker 1: Because in the Marvel Cinematic universe, every minute is packed
Speaker 1: with excitement.
Speaker 2: Enough said, I hope you like Mustard Bye.
Speaker 6: Ever, wonder where the devil got his horns?
Speaker 2: How about those clove and hoovers for that pitch for it?
Speaker 2: An angel?
Speaker 6: No, he was a snake.
Speaker 2: No, he's the great red drag. No, he's the beast.
Speaker 6: He's the Prince of this world, Prince of Darkness, believes
Speaker 6: the Prince of dark Good morning, Star lovelyi'es One of
Speaker 6: my names is Lester Ryan.
Speaker 2: Clark, and I sometimes go by Keenan Dias and.
Speaker 6: We're the hosts of the brand new podcast The Devil's Details.
Speaker 6: What comes to mind when I say Lucifer?
Speaker 2: How about Satan? What about just the Devil?
Speaker 6: How did the big bad of the Western world end
Speaker 6: up with so many faces? Join us as we dig up, decipher,
Speaker 6: and deconstruct the Devil's many forms throughout history.
Speaker 2: Take a guided tour with Dante through the Nine Circles
Speaker 2: of Hell.
Speaker 6: Or revisit Satan's angsty bad boy years in Paradise Loss.
Speaker 2: Learn the ins and outs of a Faustian contract.
Speaker 6: Easier than a ten ninety nine, but with a hell
Speaker 6: of a lot more fine Prince.
Speaker 2: Slither on over to The Devil's Details on True Story
Speaker 2: FM and join us in the Die of and.
Speaker 6: His What didn't Alphaco play him in a movie.
Speaker 2: Sure, there wasn't. Robert didn't the rest one that Elizabeth
Speaker 2: go down to Georgia and some.
Speaker 3: You better watch out, you better better watch out. You
Speaker 3: better not cry.
Speaker 7: Thank you, you better.
Speaker 5: Watch out, You better not cry. I'm telling you why,
Speaker 5: because the Rock is coming to get you.
Speaker 7: Friends.
Speaker 5: We're talking about Santa Claus and the Rock and JK.
Speaker 5: Simmons and working out a lot because random fat phobia.
Speaker 5: We are talking about the movie Red One. It's going
Speaker 5: to be myself, Matthew here, your host of the Superherothics podcast,
Speaker 5: along with Pete Wright, host of the film Board podcast.
Speaker 7: We're kind of doing a joint presentation.
Speaker 5: In other words, I said, hey, can anybody talk to
Speaker 5: me about Red One?
Speaker 7: Pete went Red One? Is that really worth watching? Okay? Sure?
Speaker 5: And I draggooned him into being on this podcast with me.
Speaker 5: So Pete, uh has the dragooned party?
Speaker 7: How do you feel?
Speaker 3: Let's just say your invitation was essentially, Hey, this movie's terrible,
Speaker 3: come talk about it with me on a podcast. I
Speaker 3: don't know why I said yes, but I did, and
Speaker 3: I am here, and I am thrilled to be here.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 5: I described my feeling about this movie as the cinematic
Speaker 5: equivalent of oh my god, this smells so bad.
Speaker 7: Here smell this.
Speaker 5: And I think you're on because over the many generations,
Speaker 5: many millions of people have said, Okay, I will smell this,
Speaker 5: I will have this highly unpleasant experience, except you decided,
Speaker 5: except for two seconds of olfactory torture, you would engage
Speaker 5: in ninety five minutes of cinematic torture.
Speaker 3: Yes, and here's the thing, this is what may come
Speaker 3: as a surprise. I watched this with my wife and
Speaker 3: daughter and they both were all smiles throughout this movie.
Speaker 3: And I have to say, like the surprise was when
Speaker 3: they would look over at me, say why am I
Speaker 3: having fun at this movie? This movie has no right
Speaker 3: to make me smile like this? Why am I smiling
Speaker 3: like this? And that I think is the is the
Speaker 3: the the illusion of red one that actually makes it play.
Speaker 3: And so I know we have several different sort of
Speaker 3: angles we want to approach this movie, and so I'll
Speaker 3: I'll see my points until later, but I'm.
Speaker 5: Will get interesting, like do you want to say you've
Speaker 5: presented a very intry experience where you the great cinophile
Speaker 5: have said that they.
Speaker 7: Were all smiles.
Speaker 3: How you caught that right?
Speaker 5: How do you, mister Pete Wright, are you going to
Speaker 5: admit on national podcast, international podcast heard all around the
Speaker 5: world by at least five hundred people.
Speaker 7: What did you think of the movie?
Speaker 3: I liked it more than you did. How about that?
Speaker 3: If you are the bar, I crested it a bit.
Speaker 7: That's fair. That's fair.
Speaker 5: So for those who've been living under a rock, this
Speaker 5: is the movie that stars the Rock, and Chris Evans
Speaker 5: didn't even mean to do that.
Speaker 7: The Rock is just ubiquitous, like rock.
Speaker 3: This is fascinatingly that they make Chris Evans look small.
Speaker 5: Yes, So the premise of the movie is that in
Speaker 5: what I think is actually a really interesting bit of
Speaker 5: folklore and world building that I would be behind if
Speaker 5: it got its own show without the Rock in it.
Speaker 5: That there's kind of a torch Wood like organization, a
Speaker 5: secret organization that is tasked with the protection of mythological beings,
Speaker 5: and that one of those mythological beings that's tasked with
Speaker 5: protecting is Saint Nicholas Santa Claus as he is known
Speaker 5: to the rest of us, or just read one as
Speaker 5: this is code name, and the Rock is an entity.
Speaker 5: His name is cam I think Cameron Canyon something like that. Oh,
Speaker 5: he's call cal Callum Rift Drift, which sounds like a
Speaker 5: name that would only be found in a nineteen ninety
Speaker 5: video game or being played by the rock YEP.
Speaker 7: And he is preternaturally old.
Speaker 5: We're never actually told why, whether that's because he lives
Speaker 5: at the North Pole where people age differently.
Speaker 3: Or what they to imply he's not human.
Speaker 7: They imply he's not human.
Speaker 5: He's clearly not the size of an elf, and we
Speaker 5: do see elves the size of Christmas elves that they're
Speaker 5: off portrayed. So who knows what he is? But he
Speaker 5: wants to retire. He wants to return to a normal life.
Speaker 5: And why is that? Because there's just too many people
Speaker 5: on the naughty List these days and he just he's
Speaker 5: not seeing things in humanity that make him want to
Speaker 5: do his job right. And Santa Claus, in a horrifically
Speaker 5: anti labor message, spends most of the movie trying to
Speaker 5: convince him that he doesn't get to go have his
Speaker 5: own life, but that he should spend his life working
Speaker 5: for the capital establishment. That is Santa so first problem there,
Speaker 5: but he also reminds him that of course it is
Speaker 5: their job to visit every boy and girl on Christmas
Speaker 5: Eve around the world. Problem which we'll discuss in a moment,
Speaker 5: because use flash, there are non Christian boys and girls
Speaker 5: somewhere in the world.
Speaker 3: Nobody told the movie.
Speaker 5: Mates who don't celebrate Christmas. Atheist whatever it is anyway,
Speaker 5: plot unbiased plot summary that someone else would give but
Speaker 5: I wouldn't give. So we then find out that Chris Evans,
Speaker 5: who is both the very best at his job but
Speaker 5: also a down on his luck ne'er do well have
Speaker 5: fun squaring that circle, is very very good at finding people,
Speaker 5: and he's able to pierce the protections of the dome
Speaker 5: of secrecy that they have around Red One in the
Speaker 5: North Pole. But of course he doesn't know what's going on.
Speaker 5: He doesn't believe in the North Pole or anything like that.
Speaker 5: He only just knows that he's had a kid for
Speaker 5: a number of years, which I'm not even gonna get
Speaker 5: into my problems with that. I'll get to that later. Okay,
Speaker 5: So the point of all this being that he has
Speaker 5: he's not really a good guy.
Speaker 7: He's he's a Level four naughty Lister.
Speaker 5: But when Santa Claus is kidnapped, he's the only one
Speaker 5: they can bring in, and so him and the Rock
Speaker 5: go on adventures where they fight lots of CGI nonsense
Speaker 5: and they encounter Crampis, and actually Crampus is portrayed kind
Speaker 5: of awesomely in a way that I really like. And
Speaker 5: it turns out the villain behind this is someone you
Speaker 5: wouldn't have thought was the villain. And it's all about
Speaker 5: a plot to stop having Santa, because Santa is too
Speaker 5: nice and rewards too many people for being nice and
Speaker 5: that's not okay, and the bad people should be punished.
Speaker 7: So this is sort of like if Batman took over
Speaker 7: Santa Claus, except you know, a very bad version of.
Speaker 3: It, right, And I don't even think the movie's ideology
Speaker 3: is that the Santa shouldn't exist. It's just that Santa
Speaker 3: doesn't punish the naughty listers. We need to have balance
Speaker 3: between it. We're gonna punish the bad people forever at
Speaker 3: the hands of the Christmas Witch, and you know, we
Speaker 3: need Santa's juju to do it now.
Speaker 5: Of course, part of the whole point of this is
Speaker 5: that Santa is a mythological being, and thus most people
Speaker 5: don't believe in Santa. Pete, you have children, I believe
Speaker 5: you also don't seem like a grinch. So I have
Speaker 5: to imagine that your children, I think you've said you're
Speaker 5: at least Christian in some form or another, that your
Speaker 5: your children got gifts under a Christmas tree at some
Speaker 5: point in time. Oh yeah, yeah, And I'm guessing that
Speaker 5: you and your spouse or whoever it was, provided that
Speaker 5: you put those gifts under the tree, and then other
Speaker 5: people helped put them there under.
Speaker 3: Yes. Yes, So all of that is this is a
Speaker 3: grueling line of interrogation.
Speaker 5: Okay, okay, well we're get I'm sorry it's personal, but
Speaker 5: I had to make sure establish it to make you
Speaker 5: the every man on.
Speaker 3: The street question. I am that if.
Speaker 5: Presents had magically appeared after you had gone to sleep
Speaker 5: while visions of sugar.
Speaker 7: Plums danced in your heads, and you'd.
Speaker 5: Woken up and there were more presents out there, would
Speaker 5: you believe in Santa Claus?
Speaker 3: I would check the locks on my doors.
Speaker 7: But if everyone at the PTA said, oh, yeah, we
Speaker 7: had the same thing.
Speaker 3: Did you get your delivery? Yeah, you know, there's a
Speaker 3: certain uh, there's a certain degree of uh of just
Speaker 3: sort of separating my personal experience from the microculture that
Speaker 3: we've created in our home and with our family around
Speaker 3: how we handle, you know, the spirit of generosity at
Speaker 3: Christmas time that I have to separate because this movie
Speaker 3: would be an antagonist to that microculture. And uh and
Speaker 3: so you know, I try to look at these Chris,
Speaker 3: all of the Christmas movies really that have this sort
Speaker 3: of vibe where a red suited man breaks into your
Speaker 3: home and leaves stuff. It's just part of the you know,
Speaker 3: I say, heavy air quotes ancient tradition and mysticism that
Speaker 3: is the commercial Christmas industry. And as many problems as
Speaker 3: I have with that, how well do the movie execute
Speaker 3: on that mysticism in like playing the hits in kind
Speaker 3: of a new way? Is this is the question for
Speaker 3: this movie.
Speaker 5: I guess that's part of why I asked it, because
Speaker 5: I thought it I thought it did that spectacularly badly.
Speaker 5: That's honestly one of my biggest problems in the movie,
Speaker 5: in part because excuse mean. The circle of people who
Speaker 5: don't live at the North Pole but who are aware
Speaker 5: of the existence of Santa Claus is expanded dramatically in
Speaker 5: this movie. Among other things, one of the first things
Speaker 5: we see is that it's the real Santa Claus at
Speaker 5: a mall, and yeah, sure, he's pretending to be the
Speaker 5: fake Santa.
Speaker 7: Who's the real Santa. It's very miracle on thirty fourth Street.
Speaker 7: I'm fine with that.
Speaker 3: I actually thought that was clever. I thought that was fun.
Speaker 5: It was a nice way of tying it into a
Speaker 5: long tradition of Christmas movies. But then as he's leaving
Speaker 5: this entity that I think we didn't agree that there's
Speaker 5: now a secular American holiday called Christmas.
Speaker 7: And yes, for sure, it is for the most.
Speaker 5: Part divorced from the religious holiday that made Christians such
Speaker 5: as myself celebrate. And there's a lot of people who
Speaker 5: are non Christian, I think, who don't like the fact
Speaker 5: that there's a secular American holiday that is directly derived
Speaker 5: and uses the iconography of a Christian holiday. And that's
Speaker 5: part it will discuss in a moment. But even as
Speaker 5: fairly secularized, the fact that it is still the origin
Speaker 5: of it is the birth of a Prince of peace,
Speaker 5: I feel like should in some way be a little
Speaker 5: bit of discussion.
Speaker 7: When Santa Claus is escorted by two fighter jets armed
Speaker 7: with missiles of the United States Air Force.
Speaker 3: Yes, because Allelujah. Amen.
Speaker 5: The pilots know that Santa exists. Yeah, the flight controllers
Speaker 5: know that Santa exists.
Speaker 3: Oh, the circle of awareness is broad with this movie.
Speaker 3: Many at the international leader, world leaders know that Santa exists.
Speaker 3: There is no question that Santa exists. That's the sort
Speaker 3: of table stakes of the film.
Speaker 5: I guess that's on of my point, because I think
Speaker 5: you're right, most Santa films have that agreed degree of disbelief,
Speaker 5: of suspension of belief that you're willing to say, Actually,
Speaker 5: if Santa was real, that would mean every parent of
Speaker 5: a child who celebrates Christmas in the world would know
Speaker 5: that Santa was real, and the world would be a
Speaker 5: very different place because of it, and probably would not
Speaker 5: be a mythological being.
Speaker 7: It would be like, you know, the Super post Office once.
Speaker 3: A year, the Super post Office.
Speaker 5: Yes, and most movies are allowed me to suspend that disbelief.
Speaker 5: But I feel like this movie, by by trying to
Speaker 5: make it more realistic, by trying to say like, here's
Speaker 5: the mythologic here's the group of humans that work for this,
Speaker 5: here's the politics around it, just shattered the disbelief for me.
Speaker 3: I think that I get where you're going and I
Speaker 3: think the thing that I struggle with is that in
Speaker 3: order to make it more realistic, they have to introduce
Speaker 3: bureaucracy to the Christmas industrial complex. Yes, right, yes, And
Speaker 3: that becomes a challenge because that runs headlong into personal
Speaker 3: and cultural belief systems around as you say, the Birth
Speaker 3: of the Prince of Peace. So this movie presumes that
Speaker 3: the only people who don't understand Santa are the people
Speaker 3: who once believed and then lost that belief somehow, and
Speaker 3: Jack in Chris Evans is the character that is sort
Speaker 3: of our avatar for that that the in between, like
Speaker 3: the people who ideologically don't even have a Santa in
Speaker 3: their belief system, are completely ignored. That's a thing that
Speaker 3: the movie decided we're not even going to pay any
Speaker 3: attention to that. This movie is for the believers and
Speaker 3: the people who don't believe anymore that we're trying to
Speaker 3: bring back, and they talk about our numbers are down
Speaker 3: year over year. Like that level of bureaucracy I think
Speaker 3: just runs headlong into the piece and generosity thing.
Speaker 5: And I would say that leads to perhaps my second
Speaker 5: biggest problem with this movie, which is how aggressively it
Speaker 5: universalizes the idea of Santa, and because I would say
Speaker 5: it actually what you said of it to ignore, I
Speaker 5: don't think it ignores. There are a couple of times
Speaker 5: where like one direct statement is that Santa is able
Speaker 5: to visit every child on Earth, which I think is
Speaker 5: probably a great surprise to a lot of Hindu children
Speaker 5: and Buddhist children, and his children celebrate Christmas.
Speaker 3: Well, I will say, I'll correct that statement. It presumes
Speaker 3: all children of all nationalities are of the same ideology,
Speaker 3: right right, Yeah, Wait, that's the false presumption.
Speaker 5: And even when it gets to like all these world
Speaker 5: leaders who are like, oh my gosh, what's going to happen? Yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm going to guess that the president of India and
Speaker 5: the president of China and other places where Christianity is
Speaker 5: a small minority are not terribly troubled by the idea
Speaker 5: of that Santa Claus is not going to exist.
Speaker 3: Right, right, And so to have this secret sort of
Speaker 3: underground teleportation system that brings you from from a toy
Speaker 3: store in New York to a toy store in Bangalore
Speaker 3: is maybe not a thing that would be welcome by
Speaker 3: the industrial state.
Speaker 5: I wild also say that, as someone who has been
Speaker 5: a part of you know, working in game stores for
Speaker 5: a while and been in there for an email contact
Speaker 5: with a lot of very remote game store owners who
Speaker 5: have great problems getting packed, getting product to their store. Yes,
Speaker 5: store in New York could simply shove a box through
Speaker 5: the closet, you know, and let it up here in Mangalore.
Speaker 7: I think that would save a lot of problems.
Speaker 3: That would save a lot of problems. So, you know,
Speaker 3: all of those things are are a bit troublesome when
Speaker 3: you stop and like really interrogate the movie and the movies,
Speaker 3: you know, report a belief system, and then we get
Speaker 3: to the the sort of retribution for past sins. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I imagined as I was watching it that that's a
Speaker 3: part you would have a significant challenge with.
Speaker 5: Honestly, I'm still on the universalizing of Christmas, one or
Speaker 5: two other things on that, and then we will get
Speaker 5: to that a promise, Yeah, I think for me. The
Speaker 5: other reason why I find it so problematic is if
Speaker 5: this was about a Chinese holiday, a Chinese New Year
Speaker 5: or something like that, I would feel very simp because
Speaker 5: the thing is, this movie doesn't exist in a cultural
Speaker 5: context where the idea of pushing Christmas onto people who
Speaker 5: don't want to celebrate Christmas is just fine and dandy.
Speaker 5: We live in a world in which people on social
Speaker 5: media believe there is quite literally a war on Christmas
Speaker 5: and are therefore fighting a war against non Christmas, and
Speaker 5: so all of that, I think just added to why
Speaker 5: I was like, this is just not a fun movie
Speaker 5: or a good movie, as well as all of it's
Speaker 5: breaking the suspended to disbelief, and I just wanted to
Speaker 5: add one more thing, and I promised to get off
Speaker 5: the soapbox and go another Did you see the movie
Speaker 5: Noel Spelled n Oe.
Speaker 3: L e Yes with Bill Hayter and Anna Kendrick.
Speaker 5: Yes, it's one of many many Santa movies that you've
Speaker 5: made that you've seen.
Speaker 7: I don't.
Speaker 5: I don't know how many you've made, but you reference
Speaker 5: the fact. There's many many, and it's not the best
Speaker 5: by any means, but it's cute and has some nice points, sure,
Speaker 5: but it deals with this issue so much better in
Speaker 5: a three second scene that just I want to remember
Speaker 5: because it shows why it can be so different. Because
Speaker 5: in the movie, the idea is that there's sort of
Speaker 5: a new Stanta of every generation, and this time, why
Speaker 5: can't it be a girl? I think I think it's
Speaker 5: somewhat heredity or heredity hereditary and like the Daughter of
Speaker 5: Santa or something like that.
Speaker 7: I don't remember.
Speaker 5: But this woman Noel becomes Santa Claus Anna Kendrick, and
Speaker 5: it's great, and she has some problems and foibles, like
Speaker 5: your classic first day on the job, no one believes
Speaker 5: in me kind of stuff, fun movie. And there's one
Speaker 5: scene where she's still figuring out exactly what homes to
Speaker 5: go to.
Speaker 7: She goes down a.
Speaker 5: Chimney and finds a family that is playing dradl and
Speaker 5: is very clearly very Jewish, right, and she just says
Speaker 5: to them, oh, sorry, wrong house, and they all kind
Speaker 5: of smile and nod and maybe offer her some socks
Speaker 5: or something, and then she goes about a way. Yes
Speaker 5: to me, that is now kind of to me the
Speaker 5: bar of just what I want a Santa Claus movie
Speaker 5: to meet is just like, because I guess that showed
Speaker 5: that you can have a very fun Santa Claus movie
Speaker 5: without having to say that every single child in the
Speaker 5: world celebrates Christmas.
Speaker 3: Yes, right, And I think I think this movie, any
Speaker 3: of that nuanced sort of even three second sequences would
Speaker 3: have gotten so in the way of the marvelization of Christmas.
Speaker 3: That is this movie that I don't think they could
Speaker 3: have made time for it. I just don't even think
Speaker 3: it crossed the minds of the filmmakers to approach with
Speaker 3: that sensibility. I mean, at no point did I feel
Speaker 3: like there was any generosity of spirit to these other
Speaker 3: you know, holiday world views.
Speaker 7: H I think it's where ill. I'm just gonna say,
Speaker 7: for all.
Speaker 5: Those who are conspiracy nuts who say Jews control Hollywood,
Speaker 5: watch this movie because the real they don't, right.
Speaker 7: So tell me what.
Speaker 5: I love that phrase, though, What do you mean by
Speaker 5: the marvelization? Because I know you don't mean making marvelous,
Speaker 5: you mean making like Marvel.
Speaker 3: The MC oh yeah, marvel is as well. I mean,
Speaker 3: look at who you have. You have Captain America, you
Speaker 3: have shez or what's his name, Black Adam, She's Zam
Speaker 3: Black Adam.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: You have these these heroes of of like hero screen
Speaker 3: and what else are you going to do with them
Speaker 3: in this kind of movie? This is I think the
Speaker 3: the we have these characters and we have a holiday,
Speaker 3: what can we do with them? What if Captain America
Speaker 3: and Black Adam were in a movie together and we
Speaker 3: were and we just wanted to throw a parade of
Speaker 3: pixels at the audience. This is what you would get,
Speaker 3: and it is it is. It is a two hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty million dollar Christmas movie. That is the most
Speaker 3: absurd statement we can make about this movie.
Speaker 7: It's absurd born in a manger because they were so poor.
Speaker 3: You goes onto right right, Like, this is not a
Speaker 3: story that needed to be told. If I never see
Speaker 3: Massive Alpha Snowmen on a beach again, I'll be okay.
Speaker 5: Because it was Also it was a movie that was
Speaker 5: very much about saving Christmas, to save the kids, and
Speaker 5: that kids have the innocence that they're still on the
Speaker 5: nice list, and that that's why Callum should continue to
Speaker 5: be a wage slave in the industrial capitalism that is
Speaker 5: known as the North Pole.
Speaker 7: But it's also that aggressively not a kid's movie.
Speaker 5: Yes, like there's cursing, which is fine, but like there's
Speaker 5: a moment where they're on the beach in Antigua, as
Speaker 5: you said, because that's where they go to fight the snowmen,
Speaker 5: And we get a couple scenes of women walking by
Speaker 5: in the kind of bikinis that people often wear in
Speaker 5: which a lot of butt cheek is exposed. Sure, and
Speaker 5: I just felt like, yeah, it's a marvelization because it's
Speaker 5: a way of being like, no, we don't want parents
Speaker 5: to bring their eight year olds.
Speaker 7: We want fourteen year olds to come to this movie
Speaker 7: on their own.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and tell mom, oh, mom, I'm going to a
Speaker 5: Santa Claus movie.
Speaker 7: It's fine. Oh look at the butt cheeks on that woman.
Speaker 3: Well, and the fact that this movie, I mean it
Speaker 3: even in theatrically, I think it's just about you know,
Speaker 3: one hundred and seventy five million dollar box office on
Speaker 3: a two hundred and fifty million dollar budget. But now
Speaker 3: it's on Amazon right now, it's it's it's a draw
Speaker 3: for subscriptions and it's a parade of shopping and products
Speaker 3: and so we'll never know how it truly fares. But
Speaker 3: now it's available for everyone. Now it's available for other
Speaker 3: kids who just want to see the rock and you
Speaker 3: know in the movie. So, you know, is that a
Speaker 3: is that a neutral good in the world. I don't,
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 7: I don't know. You know, it's hard to say. It's hard.
Speaker 5: I'm the only one who's like, you know, back off
Speaker 5: with the sexist ideas of what kind of bikinies people
Speaker 5: should wear and stuff like that. I'm just saying it
Speaker 5: just seems so it's not even that, as you said,
Speaker 5: this movie lacks of generosity of spirit is it just
Speaker 5: feels like such a cynical cash grab, you know, the
Speaker 5: inclusion of stuff like that, or like having curse words
Speaker 5: very specifically and like, look, we're an adult movie, we
Speaker 5: can have curse words.
Speaker 7: It just felt like, I don't know, it's just it
Speaker 7: was all the reasons.
Speaker 5: I was like, there's nothing about the spirit of anything
Speaker 5: in this movie except capitalism and commercialism, which I guess
Speaker 5: is what Christmas is today.
Speaker 7: So that's probably.
Speaker 3: That's your secular holiday, right, that's the secular holiday of Christmas.
Speaker 5: Right, yeah, right, which is not quite the holiday of
Speaker 5: the generosity that you were talking about. Yeah, so let's yeah,
Speaker 5: let's get into the retribution and punishment of it all.
Speaker 5: First of all, ask have you seen the movie Crampus
Speaker 5: or have you seen other things about the story of Crampus.
Speaker 3: Yes, oh, yes, say a little bit.
Speaker 5: More about that, because this was the first time I
Speaker 5: was seeing a Crampus on screen.
Speaker 3: The Crampis movie is, So you haven't seen the movie
Speaker 3: cramps I have not Okay, the Crampis movie. It was
Speaker 3: fascinating because it portrays the relationship with Crampis as a
Speaker 3: generational horror, as a thing that haunts families for their
Speaker 3: past ills, and it is a it's a horrifying creature.
Speaker 3: It was a horror movie and it comes with minions
Speaker 3: in the forest, and it is it was a deeply scary,
Speaker 3: uh generational trauma processing experience. And so I don't have
Speaker 3: a like, I haven't done any sort of scholarship on
Speaker 3: Crampis as a as a historical, you know, creature, but
Speaker 3: I do I do have a sense of what they
Speaker 3: were trying to go for here, and the fact that
Speaker 3: it ends up being a parade of essentially like Clyde
Speaker 3: Barker's Night Breed characters, I thought was low key fantastic.
Speaker 3: Like that part of the movie I thought was was
Speaker 3: pretty fun.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So in the movie, we learned that Crampis is Santa's brother.
Speaker 5: They were adopted, but they're no longer speaking with each other,
Speaker 5: and it used to be that the two of them
Speaker 5: were partners on Christmas and that Crampis was the one
Speaker 5: who came up with the whole idea of the Naughty
Speaker 5: List case Santa just wanted to bring gifts and presents
Speaker 5: to everybody. There's a whole Christian debate over universalism in
Speaker 5: two different schools of that, which I won't even get into,
Speaker 5: but that like you can kind of do an interesting
Speaker 5: thing on the theology of those two. Yes, but that
Speaker 5: somewhere along the line they had a falling out, and
Speaker 5: that Santa still keeps the naughty list to some extent,
Speaker 5: but that for the most part, Crampis now has his
Speaker 5: own area that is just him and him alone and
Speaker 5: hits his people, and honestly, it looks kind of fun,
Speaker 5: like they just party all the time. They're basically like
Speaker 5: scary looking vikings, Like they party and they drink and
Speaker 5: they play games where people get hurt and maybe occasionally die,
Speaker 5: but everyone's kind of in on the joke and enjoying it.
Speaker 5: And the fear is that when Santa is kidnapped, that
Speaker 5: it must be them, and so our heroes go and
Speaker 5: invade this world in breaking the treaty that was made
Speaker 5: between Crampus and Santa that neither one would ever enter
Speaker 5: the land of the other again, making me like, give
Speaker 5: me a Torchwood style show about this mythological organization I'm
Speaker 5: here for it, especially if you don't just do Western mythology.
Speaker 7: I'm so all over it. Give me an Easter buddy
Speaker 7: who's not Hugh Jackman, please.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And they even tease it with the headless horseman,
Speaker 3: like I thought that was a really nice little nod.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and that scene felt straight out an episode
Speaker 5: of Torchwood, you know, for any of.
Speaker 3: The other Minutehouse thirteen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, exactly, and with me now as as the
Speaker 5: person who's ahead of it, you know.
Speaker 3: Of course she's natural.
Speaker 5: You know, sure, But but it winds up that like, yes,
Speaker 5: they seem to believe in more retribution, and I have
Speaker 5: definitely some thoughts of that, but I appreciate that he's
Speaker 5: not presented as evil and that forgives spoilers. We eventually
Speaker 5: learned that he is not the reason why this all happened,
Speaker 5: and that he helps Santa fight the actual villain, who
Speaker 5: does seem to have much more of a.
Speaker 7: Like everyone is naughty.
Speaker 5: We're just going to assume that, and we're gonna like,
Speaker 5: it's not that naughty means you're not gonna get gifts,
Speaker 5: which I think is all Crampus ever wanted, but that
Speaker 5: naughty means you're actually going you're going to get full
Speaker 5: on retribution and punishment, and we're going to punish everyone
Speaker 5: with the same hammer.
Speaker 3: So a form of isolation for the rest of eternity.
Speaker 7: Right, it's a slob.
Speaker 5: You know, if you told a little fib about your sister,
Speaker 5: or if you murder ten people, same thing, you're isolated
Speaker 5: for all of eternity.
Speaker 3: Well, and what they're robbing there is not just like,
Speaker 3: it's not just individual punishment, and it's the theft of community,
Speaker 3: which is the soul of this sort of holiday experience,
Speaker 3: right that we come together, and this presumes to take
Speaker 3: away togetherness from so many, so it becomes a punishment
Speaker 3: not just for the people who are put into snow globes,
Speaker 3: but a punishment for the world. She goes around saying
Speaker 3: we're going to make the world a nicer place, but
Speaker 3: everybody's being taken from someone, and that is a setup
Speaker 3: for massive, unsettling grief.
Speaker 5: And I think that was part of why, Like I
Speaker 5: think it was hard for me to get that because
Speaker 5: I was so angry about all the other stuff from early, right,
Speaker 5: But as you talk about it, you remind me, Yeah,
Speaker 5: that makes sense, because that actually is you know, I
Speaker 5: think I once heard someone say, like, everything about Christmas
Speaker 5: comes down to do you see it as a holiday
Speaker 5: of giving or a holiday of getting?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 5: And I really love that idea, because you know, yeah,
Speaker 5: it's about like is the joy in finding gifts and
Speaker 5: giving gifts to others or is it joy and the
Speaker 5: kind of like I want to get all the gifts.
Speaker 5: And I'm not going to blame an eight year old
Speaker 5: for being materialistic, but I think that, like, whether secular
Speaker 5: or not, gift giving holidays of all sorts can be
Speaker 5: a way of helping kids through that, you know, And
Speaker 5: like my mom would always tell me before my birthday,
Speaker 5: she'd be like, yes, you're gonna get a lot of
Speaker 5: gifts today, but remember today, you know the happiness that
Speaker 5: you feel from.
Speaker 7: The gifts you're giving.
Speaker 5: Keep that mind every time we're going to go shopping
Speaker 5: because you're going to Little Johnny's birthday party, because that's
Speaker 5: that's the joy.
Speaker 7: You're giving them.
Speaker 5: And Christmas is my mother's favorite holiday, and I cannot
Speaker 5: help but associate with her, And I think that that's
Speaker 5: it's so funny that so much of the other parts
Speaker 5: of the movie don't get this, because I do think
Speaker 5: you're right. The meaning of that, the theology of it,
Speaker 5: the philosophy of it is very much what Christmas should
Speaker 5: be about. It's the coming together of people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, right. And I think the movie it spends
Speaker 3: so much time on the pixel parade that it is easy,
Speaker 3: to your point to get lost in the multiple messages
Speaker 3: that feel like are sort of shoehorned in when you're
Speaker 3: standing in a forest of ideological sort of fortitude, So.
Speaker 5: Where where what do you think of cramp As as
Speaker 5: sort of the one kind of standing in the middle
Speaker 5: of these two.
Speaker 3: Well, as always with these characters, I like the I
Speaker 3: like the presentation of him that he's he's less of
Speaker 3: a of a a horrific monster in present he is
Speaker 3: a monster in presentation, right, the many horned Crampus, he's giant.
Speaker 3: He is presented as he's almost a low key character, right,
Speaker 3: He's he's playful. They're playing a game called Crampis Slap,
Speaker 3: which I found low key delightful. Like that just seems
Speaker 3: like a thing that would be fun. And you know,
Speaker 3: I'm one of the people that absolutely loved like Mary
Speaker 3: Slapsmiths on How I Met your Mother that was like,
Speaker 3: I don't know why I have such an affinity for
Speaker 3: slapping games. But I saw this and I thought, this
Speaker 3: is really fun. And then he is presented as the
Speaker 3: Savior at the end, but also the ex of the
Speaker 3: Christmas witch right that they had a deeper relationship, and
Speaker 3: I thought, okay, now this is Santa Barbara. Now this
Speaker 3: has gone upbridge too far.
Speaker 5: Right, Like this is CW doing this ant mythology world.
Speaker 3: What are we doing here? This was an example of
Speaker 3: people writing themselves into a corner as a game to
Speaker 3: see if they could write their way out, and not
Speaker 3: really being able to do it. And so we have
Speaker 3: to do a lot of hand waving to get to
Speaker 3: the end, which.
Speaker 5: I will say is one of my other like a
Speaker 5: small little issue, but actually I think is a much
Speaker 5: bigger thing. Fat phobia is a part of our world
Speaker 5: and certainly is a big, big issue in cinema, and
Speaker 5: like you know, it's so brave of an actor or
Speaker 5: actress to gain weight in order to play a part.
Speaker 7: And JK.
Speaker 5: Simmons is an interesting choice for Santa and it is
Speaker 5: generally not seen as a you know, fat, jolly old man,
Speaker 5: and they make a point of this, like he doesn't
Speaker 5: even wear a fat suit when he is the Santa
Speaker 5: in the mall, and then they make a point later
Speaker 5: to show him working out and to show how important
Speaker 5: it like it's not just that he's buff, it's that
Speaker 5: they like they have kind of like that training scene
Speaker 5: where him and the rock or like lifting weights together.
Speaker 7: What was your take on that, Like, why was that
Speaker 7: in there? And what did it mean to be in there?
Speaker 3: Okay, my first thought was this is uh And I
Speaker 3: should say I'm a huge fan of JK. Simmons. He
Speaker 3: is principal in my top favorite movie, in my top
Speaker 3: four on letterbox Whiplash. I adore JK. Simmons.
Speaker 7: He's the best ja Jon and Jamison. I think whatever, guess.
Speaker 3: Oh for sure, for sure. I My first thought was,
Speaker 3: this is an interesting exercise in ego that we're gonna
Speaker 3: take a guy. And those pictures of him training for
Speaker 3: this movie leaked a long time ago, right, he has
Speaker 3: been working to get cut for a long time, and
Speaker 3: I wonder how much of this was I Can I
Speaker 3: do it right? Can I be a different kind of
Speaker 3: Santa in a way that tests my own personal ability
Speaker 3: to shred? And that was my first thought, that this
Speaker 3: was an exercise in ego. I did not consider this
Speaker 3: as a hyper reactionary approach to fat phobia until you
Speaker 3: look at the rest of the movie and realize this
Speaker 3: movie is this is the again, I have to fall
Speaker 3: back to marvelization, right there are the marvel is the
Speaker 3: same aesthetic, right, we don't get any of the characters
Speaker 3: that are alternate bodied are not heroes, right, and that's
Speaker 3: this movie. Look, the alternate bodied characters who are not
Speaker 3: heroes are elves that are the more of the sort
Speaker 3: of fairy tale elves. They are in their own way
Speaker 3: compared to Santa and family. They are grotesqueries in this film.
Speaker 5: And I think that's a really good way to put it.
Speaker 5: And everything would say is I don't think this is
Speaker 5: intentional in the slightest, but I think it's one more
Speaker 5: way that they were sort of like, let's pick up
Speaker 5: any parts of the Santa mythos that we want without
Speaker 5: any consideration for what the choices we're making means.
Speaker 7: Yeah, because there.
Speaker 5: Is a reason why Santa is portrayed as fat and jolly,
Speaker 5: And you can get very deep in like human sociology
Speaker 5: and psychology that like, you know, originally like you wanted
Speaker 5: to be fat in the winter because there was less
Speaker 5: food and unless you consume the fact you had, you
Speaker 5: would die.
Speaker 7: Yeah. And if you were thin on November first, you
Speaker 7: were not living to March first.
Speaker 3: Right, And that's one thing we can guarantee. This Santa
Speaker 3: was colled af a lot.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's not an issue. But also I think
Speaker 5: there is something about and here again I am going
Speaker 5: to draw on the Christian themes of it, but I
Speaker 5: think it applies even as it becoming secular. One of
Speaker 5: the basises of Christmas, which is also the basis of
Speaker 5: the winter solstice that a lot of it is drawn from.
Speaker 5: It's also the basis of Hanuka, It's the basis of
Speaker 5: a lot of different cultures. Middle of the winter holiday
Speaker 5: is that in the middle of the winter, when resources
Speaker 5: are at their scarcest, we think we should all we
Speaker 5: have to hoard our resources, that they're not given.
Speaker 7: Enough for us.
Speaker 5: And so the idea of celebrating generosity and of giving
Speaker 5: to others is very intentional at a time when you
Speaker 5: should be keeping it all for yourself. And from my mother,
Speaker 5: that was one of the most essential things, you know.
Speaker 5: And like, yes, diet culture is not healthy and the
Speaker 5: slightest but also like OBEs can be a real thing,
Speaker 5: Like I'm not even to touch all that. But I
Speaker 5: know there's a lot of different sides. But like you know,
Speaker 5: my mother's biggest atagee was there's no there's no diets
Speaker 5: on Christmas. Like Christmas is abundance. Christmas is eat what
Speaker 5: you want, enjoy what you want. All the little things
Speaker 5: that say, oh, I'm gonna feel guilty for eating that,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna feel guilty for playing this game instead of working,
Speaker 5: Like none of that exists on Christmas. And to me,
Speaker 5: the fat, jolly Santa Claus is the is the living
Speaker 5: representation of so much of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's a so I agree with with
Speaker 3: all of that, and I think in my core that's
Speaker 3: that's that aligns with my belief system. If I take
Speaker 3: a step back and just look at the movie and JK.
Speaker 3: Simmons portrayal in the film, I enjoy the swing that
Speaker 3: they take with the character, right, I enjoy the presentation
Speaker 3: of him. There are certain shots that I think are
Speaker 3: illuminating to the character of Santa and the joy that
Speaker 3: this Santa gets in doing the job. In this film,
Speaker 3: the close up with the super wide like a twelve
Speaker 3: twelve millionaire lens where he's in you just get his
Speaker 3: face with the goggles and he's in like slave warp
Speaker 3: is delightful, Like there is just no doubt it is
Speaker 3: a delightful and exuberant expression of the role that he
Speaker 3: plays in this universe. So there are these moments in
Speaker 3: this film that I think actually sell the message of
Speaker 3: that we're talking about with this portrayal of Santa.
Speaker 7: But it's hard.
Speaker 3: I think the challenge is wrecked is reconciling that with
Speaker 3: you know what it's what it's saying to you know,
Speaker 3: the marvelization of our holiday.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I think that's fair and I'm not
Speaker 5: against that. Like I'm not saying they needed to put JK.
Speaker 5: Simmons in a fat suit or hire a larger actor,
Speaker 5: the whole other ethical questions about fat suits.
Speaker 7: You're not even to get into that.
Speaker 5: I think you could have had him and even have
Speaker 5: him looking very buff and just not on it. It
Speaker 5: was the fact that they made a big deal of
Speaker 5: it and showed him working out and all that, where
Speaker 5: I was like, are you gonna leave us anything about Santa?
Speaker 3: Like what are you okay? But Devil's Advocate, he's with
Speaker 3: the rock right, Like there is some comedy, I think,
Speaker 3: some intended comedy of having him say, okay, let's go heavy,
Speaker 3: like he is the star of the gym while standing
Speaker 3: next to the Rock, who is objectively a fortress of
Speaker 3: a human being.
Speaker 5: You know, who are some of the biggest weightlifters in
Speaker 5: the world. People with beer guts. Oh yeah, Like you
Speaker 5: can be incredibly strong and incredibly good at those things.
Speaker 7: Yeah, without having flat you know, washboard apps or whatever.
Speaker 3: It is absolutely but that's what I mean, Like the
Speaker 3: joke has to exist with the performers that we have.
Speaker 3: And Hollywood has said the Rock is an example of
Speaker 3: a fortress, right right, and JK. Simmons next to this
Speaker 3: you would never expect you would just never expect him
Speaker 3: to do that. So I you know, I sort of
Speaker 3: feel like, you know, we're separating the art from the artists.
Speaker 3: I kind of applaud JK. Simmons for taking on the
Speaker 3: role for as little as he's in it. He's not
Speaker 3: actually in the movie all that much.
Speaker 7: No, he's the mcguffin much more than he's a protagonist,
Speaker 7: for sure.
Speaker 3: And there's a lot about Okay, let's talk just briefly
Speaker 3: about Chris Evans and the setup that they give us
Speaker 3: for this role that Chris Evans is. Says you said
Speaker 3: in the in your opening, he's the guy you can
Speaker 3: find anyone. He is useless in this movie, right, we don't.
Speaker 3: He is under skilled. He's constantly talking about how he's
Speaker 3: never done this before. Why is why did we need
Speaker 3: him in this movie? Were it not for the spectacle
Speaker 3: of putting Chris Evans next to the Rock like it was?
Speaker 3: His part was weirdly underwritten for this film.
Speaker 7: Oh see. I think part of this may be I
Speaker 7: just don't like the Rock. I don't find the Rock entertaining.
Speaker 5: I am always like for me, Vin Diesel and The
Speaker 5: Rock have kind of had similar career paths, except that
Speaker 5: Vin Diesel has always been in the shadow of the Rock,
Speaker 5: and I forever think that's the fault. That's that's the
Speaker 5: best sign of the failure of big Hollywood, because I
Speaker 5: think Vin Diesel is just an amazingly better actor, much
Speaker 5: better looking, and frankly doesn't have all the nonsense in
Speaker 5: the contract that The Rock does. He always has to
Speaker 5: be the hero and well and look ruined Black Adam,
Speaker 5: And we have a whole podcast about that you can
Speaker 5: go check out.
Speaker 3: Of course, and look at the the legacy of this
Speaker 3: movie will forever be that The Rock costs this movie
Speaker 3: an extra fifty million dollars for his craziness, his tardiness,
Speaker 3: his his shenanigans.
Speaker 5: And so so there's a part of me that's like,
Speaker 5: if Hollywood had a naughty List and wasn't just putting
Speaker 5: everyone on the Night List, at some point, wouldn't say
Speaker 5: that someone say The Rock, You're not worth the money.
Speaker 5: But even so, take it back to what you were saying.
Speaker 5: I think this goes to a larger question in filmmaking,
Speaker 5: which is what is your responsibility in telling an original
Speaker 5: story versus picking up pieces that have a lot of
Speaker 5: meaning to other people and telling your version of a
Speaker 5: story with them. Because if you gave me a story
Speaker 5: about JK. Simmons as a completely fictionalized not Santa being
Speaker 5: that still was a better weightlifter than The Rock and
Speaker 5: Chris Evans in The Rock and told us all of
Speaker 5: that outside of the realm of a Santa story, I'm
Speaker 5: totally fine with it. I'm not gonna watch it because
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna enjoy it. But if it makes two
Speaker 5: hundred million dollars or five hundred million dollars, sure. I'm
Speaker 5: glad people had fun with that, and I might actually
Speaker 5: see because I love Chris even so much though his
Speaker 5: acting talent, as you said.
Speaker 7: Was horribly underused in this.
Speaker 5: But when you pick up the mantle of Santa, which
Speaker 5: does have a lot of meaning for people and probably
Speaker 5: should be parodied more, and like if this was actually
Speaker 5: just full on skewing Santa and it was about like
Speaker 5: a labor rights fight at the North Pole, and it
Speaker 5: was that he worked out all the time, but he
Speaker 5: wears a fat suit when he goes out, Like, I
Speaker 5: would love that, give me that any day.
Speaker 3: Well, for instance, what's your perspective on Arthur Christmas? Right,
Speaker 3: Arthur Christmas does a change of hands in an animated format,
Speaker 3: but it changes it. It does approach some big swings
Speaker 3: about the nature of Christmas and what the symbols mean.
Speaker 3: I think it's fascinating.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I haven't seen that, but I'm sure it is.
Speaker 5: I just mean, like, it's fine to take a symbol
Speaker 5: and take it in a new way, but have some
Speaker 5: respect for what the symbol originally means, even if you're
Speaker 5: disagreeing with that.
Speaker 7: Right, And it just felt like the whole body shape
Speaker 7: body thing, you.
Speaker 5: Know, in a world where people are just told again
Speaker 5: and again, don't you shouldn't eat so much of Christmas
Speaker 5: because look at your weight or this kind of stuff. So, yeah,
Speaker 5: it's a small thing, but I think it's just why.
Speaker 5: It's why it kind of oversized feeling for me. Yeah,
Speaker 5: no unfortunate way to phrase that. But last thing I'll
Speaker 5: say is, I do think there is one important aspect
Speaker 5: to Chris Evans's character, even if I think the whole
Speaker 5: thing with him and his son was ridiculously schlocky and
Speaker 5: over the top, but I think it's supposed that.
Speaker 7: To me, the failure of the.
Speaker 5: Christmas Witch ideology is once you do a naughty thing,
Speaker 5: you are forever on the naughty list.
Speaker 7: Yes, and it's.
Speaker 5: The most trop troped story in all of Hollywood. But
Speaker 5: the idea that a person who is bad can become good,
Speaker 5: I think that's the role Chris Evans's character plays more
Speaker 5: than anything. It's the movie and he does a fine
Speaker 5: job of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, the ultimately the message of the
Speaker 3: movie is that every moment is is a moment of
Speaker 3: to choose to do good right right, And and I
Speaker 3: like that message, Like in everything that we're talking about
Speaker 3: that's sort of a seed that is good for humanity's
Speaker 3: let's do more of that.
Speaker 7: Yeh.
Speaker 3: So there are pieces in here that I think are good.
Speaker 3: I have to ask you, like, with all that is
Speaker 3: frustrating about this movie, can you give me something you legitimately.
Speaker 7: Liked about it? Yeah? Crampas awesome? Yeah, okay, good.
Speaker 3: So we're we're de only in the bag on campus.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I think it is pretty well. This
Speaker 5: is not the worst movie I've ever seen. It is
Speaker 5: probably the worst Christmas movie I've ever seen and the
Speaker 5: one that made me angriest.
Speaker 7: But you know, it's it's it's got something redeeming.
Speaker 3: Okay, we have a Bonnie Hunt was one of those.
Speaker 3: It was a felt stunt castie to me. For some reason.
Speaker 3: She's a face that a lot of people know, especially
Speaker 3: coming from Sabrina and or not Sabrina. Anyway, She's just
Speaker 3: a comic face that I think a lot of people know.
Speaker 3: She was great, Lucy.
Speaker 5: The best comment I saw is that she was doing
Speaker 5: her best January Jones impression, which January Jones is the
Speaker 5: character from The X Men who and that this actress
Speaker 5: played Sally Draper. January Jones was played by Sally Draper's mother,
Speaker 5: so that's kind of fitting that she is like doing that.
Speaker 3: But yes, sure, Lucy Lou was interesting to see her again,
Speaker 3: an interesting casting choice and I think she plays the
Speaker 3: ming Now.
Speaker 7: When I said win and I met Lucy Lou, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Well, that's why I brought it up because I think
Speaker 3: I think she and ming now Wen have a corner
Speaker 3: on authoritative Asian women in film and TV. And so
Speaker 3: she did great. Nick Kroll, we're just stand on Nick Kroll.
Speaker 7: Who's that?
Speaker 3: Nick Kroll is?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 3: He was the protected by the Carmenians on the beach.
Speaker 3: He was.
Speaker 7: Oh, yes, he is the guy who's often banned. He
Speaker 7: comes from the League. He comes from the League of
Speaker 7: a web show about.
Speaker 3: Stand up and it's It Is The League is And
Speaker 3: I have to admit I am a huge fan of
Speaker 3: the League. I watched every episode. It's a very very
Speaker 3: funny show. It is completely foul mouthed and and you know,
Speaker 3: I loved it. He is a stand up He is
Speaker 3: a consummate creator and I think a genuinely funny guy.
Speaker 3: I always have an interesting kind of relationship when I
Speaker 3: see him in films that aren't that Yeah, right, he's
Speaker 3: a bit of a sore thumb.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think the thing is he's playing himself.
Speaker 5: He's playing the same no, he always plays, and I've
Speaker 5: seen that a million times. What I haven't seen is
Speaker 5: a grown up Sally Draper.
Speaker 7: Yeah. And we we learned very quickly that it is
Speaker 7: Sally drape.
Speaker 5: Tell me the actress's name again, Bonnie Hunt, Bonnie Hunt,
Speaker 5: thank you, that it is Bonnie Hunt speaking through him,
Speaker 5: and we get every now and then we get Bonnie
Speaker 5: Hunt speaking through him.
Speaker 3: No, that was the I'm sorry, we're crossing names. Bonnie
Speaker 3: Hunt was missus Claws. Okay, it was Kiernan shipkaa okay,
Speaker 3: thank you.
Speaker 5: So I may have confused things before earlier when I
Speaker 5: was talking about that, but like, yeah, to me, knowing
Speaker 5: that it could be her saying all these lines and
Speaker 5: instead it's coming through his mouth, I was just annoyed.
Speaker 5: I was just like, you've got a much better choice there.
Speaker 5: Why not just it could be his face and he
Speaker 5: makes very humorous faces, but why not make it her voice?
Speaker 3: Yeah. I thought it was interesting because he's such I
Speaker 3: think your point is well taken that this was a
Speaker 3: Nick Kroll performance and it was very much about like, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, we know Nick Roll, he's a friend of ours.
Speaker 3: Let's we're shooting for a day, come on in right
Speaker 3: right there?
Speaker 5: Well, And I think that it very much fits the
Speaker 5: the the audience are going because if we're going for
Speaker 5: as teenage boys, yeah, which it seems a lot of
Speaker 5: the way they are, that's that's who he very much
Speaker 5: is an audience for.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think as again, if you if I separate
Speaker 3: myself from the from the undercurrent of ideological consternation that
Speaker 3: I bring to it. I was smiling during more of
Speaker 3: this movie than I was not, mostly because, as I
Speaker 3: call it, the pixel parade, I thought was fun. I
Speaker 3: enjoyed the the uh just the visual depiction of the
Speaker 3: North Pole. I enjoy the slides. I enjoy the in particular,
Speaker 3: I always enjoy I think this is a the the
Speaker 3: depiction of Santa delivering presence is a fascinating thing in
Speaker 3: film and television. And I liked the choices they made
Speaker 3: in that montage. In the end, it just was fun.
Speaker 3: It was fun going through the cooking events and like
Speaker 3: answering questions that everybody says, how does Santa do all this?
Speaker 3: And they tried to include some new swings. Here's how
Speaker 3: Santa does these things in you know, condos and buildings
Speaker 3: and things that don't have chimneys. And so there were
Speaker 3: things in this movie that they tried that I do
Speaker 3: think works. So it's like you said, it's not the
Speaker 3: worst movie I've ever seen, It's absolutely not. It is
Speaker 3: a middling to fair popcorn movie that requires, I think,
Speaker 3: especially for younger people, a little bit of discussion.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I would say for me, I think it's
Speaker 5: probably in my worst five movies of all time, like
Speaker 5: I did think time. And part of that's because I
Speaker 5: think I just didn't find joy in the those things
Speaker 5: that you didn't. And it may be because I do
Speaker 5: have very strong feelings about Christmas, and I think part
Speaker 5: of that religious import that it has nothing to do
Speaker 5: with religion. It's just about the like my mother loving
Speaker 5: it so much, my loving the family aspect and all that.
Speaker 5: But also I just I don't find the rock enjoyable.
Speaker 5: I don't find that I've seen the CGI Snowman stuff,
Speaker 5: not actual Snowman, but i've seen CGI monsters so much
Speaker 5: like I don't really like Marvel stuff anymore.
Speaker 7: I started a podcast called.
Speaker 5: Superherotics because I loved the MCU and I've not liken
Speaker 5: it beating, so CGI's so, yeah, I think it's great.
Speaker 5: Like I wanted to know more about why someone would
Speaker 5: enjoy this movie, and so that's awesome. And I don't
Speaker 5: think it's good or bad, it's just you know, different tastes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. And you know, here's the
Speaker 3: biggest question of these movies that get released at this
Speaker 3: time of year is does it become an annual staple?
Speaker 3: And I can say with out qualification, this is not
Speaker 3: an annual staple at all. It's one done and it's
Speaker 3: fine because I gotta go watch Spirited.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, so if you want to know what are our
Speaker 5: annual staples, you should become a member because we're going
Speaker 5: to talk about that for just a few minutes in
Speaker 5: our bonus member content. You become a member for only
Speaker 5: five dollars a month or fifty five dollars a year,
Speaker 5: all the informations on our show notes, you get bonus episodes,
Speaker 5: bonus content, add free content. If you want to listen
Speaker 5: to a highly commercialized movie without commercials, that's the way
Speaker 5: to do it. And of course this being the holidays,
Speaker 5: you can even give someone a gift of a membership.
Speaker 5: And not only can you give someone a gift of
Speaker 5: a membership by and also help out this podcast, you
Speaker 5: could give them a gift of an audible subscription.
Speaker 7: Do you listen to books on.
Speaker 3: Tape, Pete, Yes, exhaustively.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Like it's just you're doing the dishes, you're on
Speaker 5: a drive. I find it so much easier to consume
Speaker 5: media that way. You can give a gift of an
Speaker 5: audible subscription through our podcast. Again, the link is in
Speaker 5: the show notes. And like, okay, for every if you
Speaker 5: have a kid in your life, have you watched that
Speaker 5: kid pick up a roll of unwrapped wrapping paper or
Speaker 5: even wrapped wrapping paper and hit people with it and gosh,
Speaker 5: they're not pretending it's a sword, they're pretending it's a lightsaber.
Speaker 5: What if you could get them an actual lightsaber lights
Speaker 5: up and makes noises and it's good in a fight.
Speaker 5: If you want to use it for like martial lights fighting,
Speaker 5: you can do all that at level up lightsabers.
Speaker 7: Show link is in our show notes.
Speaker 5: I'm trying to demonstrate to Pete that I'm doing a
Speaker 5: good job of inserting these ads all through the episode.
Speaker 5: And so I did a terrible job of leaving them
Speaker 5: all to the end of the episode, But please help
Speaker 5: me look good in the eyes of Pete by bagging
Speaker 5: up those numbers. Become a member by an audible subscription,
Speaker 5: by a lightsaber, but whatever you do, remember you're.
Speaker 2: A role model.
Speaker 5: Probably