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Speaker 4: Keenandias and we're the hosts of The Exorcist Minute. A
Speaker 4: show a week exam extrapolate and excavate the scariest movie
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Speaker 3: Each episode covers a single minute of William Friedkin's nineteen
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Speaker 4: If you like deep dives, this show is the deepest.
Speaker 3: Did you know the film's iconic theme song, Jubular Bells
Speaker 3: wasn't written specifically for the movie.
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Speaker 5: Hello, Superhero Ethics fans, I'm Matthew. I'm your host. As
Speaker 5: this is coming to you at the holiday time, We
Speaker 5: and the crew at Superhero Ethics are taking the week off,
Speaker 5: taking the holidays off, but we wanted to rebroadcast one
Speaker 5: of our fasavorite episodes, very relevant for the time, an
Speaker 5: episode specifically about Christmas movies. What are they about, what qualifies,
Speaker 5: why do we love them? And what are the questions
Speaker 5: they raise? So please enjoy this episode. I hope you're
Speaker 5: enjoying the holidays, whatever you celebrate, and have a happy
Speaker 5: New Year.
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 right,
Speaker 1: Kyle Wilson.
Speaker 5: Rob Cobosco, and Matthew Fox.
Speaker 1: This is the podcast where we dissect the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
Speaker 1: one minute at a time, exploring every detail of this
Speaker 1: epic superhero franchise.
Speaker 6: From the nods to the comics to the electrifying performances.
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Speaker 6: earn their wizards, and I think we've made a good
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Speaker 3: We have our favorite recurring bits like five stars or
Speaker 3: spar because every character deserves their moments in the spotlight.
Speaker 7: Oh, Kyle, you know, speaking of spotlights, did you know
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Speaker 4: In our season.
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Speaker 5: by searching Marvel Movie Minute on your favorite podcatcher.
Speaker 1: Because in the Marvel Cinematic universe, every minute is packed
Speaker 1: with excitement.
Speaker 3: Enough said, I.
Speaker 7: Hope you like Mustard Bye.
Speaker 4: Ever, wonder where the Devil got his horns?
Speaker 3: How about those clove and hoovers for that pitch for
Speaker 3: an angel?
Speaker 4: No he was a snake.
Speaker 3: No, he's the great Red Dragon.
Speaker 4: No, he's the beast. He's the Prince of this world,
Speaker 4: Prince of Darkness, believes the Prince of dark Good Morning,
Speaker 4: Star Lovelies. One of my names is Lester Ryan.
Speaker 3: Clark, and I sometimes go by Keenan Dias and.
Speaker 4: We're the hosts of the brand new podcast The Devil's Details.
Speaker 4: What comes to mind when I say Lucifer? How about Satan?
Speaker 4: What about just the Devil? How did the big bad
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Speaker 3: Take a guide and tour with through the nine Circles
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Speaker 4: Or revisit Satan's angsty bad boy years in Paradise Loss.
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Speaker 4: Easier than a ten ninety nine, but with a hell
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Speaker 3: Slither on over to the Devil's Details on True Story
Speaker 3: at Them and join us in the Diabolic discussion.
Speaker 4: Love and His is Wah didn't al Pacino play him
Speaker 4: in a movie?
Speaker 5: Sure? There wasn't.
Speaker 3: Robert didn't there els one?
Speaker 4: It was Timper, That was Elizabeth hur He go down
Speaker 4: to Georgia and something.
Speaker 5: Hello and welcome to the special Holiday edition of the
Speaker 5: Superhero Ethics Podcast. Today we are talking about one of
Speaker 5: the most controversial ethics ridden always a debate about it
Speaker 5: genre of movies, the Christmas movie. We're gonna be discussing
Speaker 5: what is a Christmas movie? What are some of our
Speaker 5: favorite or least favorite examples, what needs to happen or
Speaker 5: shouldn't need to happen? And why is this such an
Speaker 5: incredibly strong genre for one particular holiday of one particular
Speaker 5: religion in this country and to some extent all around
Speaker 5: the world. And joining me, I have two different experts.
Speaker 5: First of all, I have Abbie Nyman, who has been
Speaker 5: on this podcast a number of times before and is
Speaker 5: a Christmas movie expert extraordinaire. Abbe you want to say
Speaker 5: hello and just give a little bit of your background.
Speaker 8: Hi, I don't know that I would go with Christmas
Speaker 8: movie extraordinaire, but certainly a Hallmark movie a fishnado.
Speaker 5: Okay, Well, that's a very particular shub genre that often
Speaker 5: has thought of as part of the you know, the
Speaker 5: how that plays in the large genre is very much
Speaker 5: the topic we'll we're getting into. And uh Andy, what
Speaker 5: is I think of you as just a film guru?
Speaker 5: Say it about who you are and what your perspective is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I, you know, as a passionate lover of film,
Speaker 1: you know, with you know, our film podcasting that we
Speaker 1: do over on the next reel and all of our shows,
Speaker 1: I see such a wide variety of movies, and I
Speaker 1: certainly do and always have loved Christmas movie. But as
Speaker 1: as I've gotten older, and I guess as the genre
Speaker 1: has broadened in so many ways, I do find that
Speaker 1: I'm I'm you know, I I have a particular I
Speaker 1: like a lot of them. I just don't I'm not
Speaker 1: like any Christmas movie I'll take. But I do like
Speaker 1: quite a variety, and I always like that it does
Speaker 1: create such such a variety of interesting debates. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I grew up in a loosely religious household.
Speaker 1: I guess that's fair to say loosely, you know, Christian
Speaker 1: based household, never very strong, and certainly is something that's
Speaker 1: faded in in my life as I've as I've grown,
Speaker 1: I to the point where I wouldn't even call myself religious.
Speaker 1: I not being said, I I think that there. It's
Speaker 1: what I enjoy about the season itself is that it
Speaker 1: just is a warm and well coming season that feels
Speaker 1: like it's something that's you know, it's close to the
Speaker 1: end of the year, and so that, paired with New
Speaker 1: Year's always feel like a period to like, you know,
Speaker 1: reflect and you know, be surrounded by friends and family
Speaker 1: and gear up for the big shift that is the
Speaker 1: new year and all of those resolutions that you have
Speaker 1: and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 5: So I suppose that's.
Speaker 1: Kind of my draw to it still, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: we still hang some decorations up on the house and
Speaker 1: things like that. I'm very minimal compared to many people
Speaker 1: these days, but it's one of those things where it's
Speaker 1: just there's a vibe that I think, you know, we've
Speaker 1: always kind of connected with.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, and I love what you said, because I
Speaker 5: think you're getting at something that I think is actually
Speaker 5: a very important part of you know, the question of
Speaker 5: Christmas in general, but especially of Christmas movies and also
Speaker 5: like music, and how big it a role it plays
Speaker 5: in our culture, say our United States, but also in
Speaker 5: many parts of the world. Certainly not all though, which
Speaker 5: is that for many people, Christmas is now much more
Speaker 5: of a secular holiday, and that it is, you know,
Speaker 5: it kind of has these religious overtones, but it's much
Speaker 5: more about family and togetherness and generosity and light and
Speaker 5: hope in the midst of darkness and sadness and things
Speaker 5: like that. And kind of give my own background. I
Speaker 5: am a Christian, I'm a religious person, a person of faith.
Speaker 5: I used to be a pastor, and I've always had
Speaker 5: kind of a weird relationship to Christmas media. From the
Speaker 5: other perspective, which is that for me, this holiday is
Speaker 5: a very very theological one, and I absolutely don't care
Speaker 5: if anybody else doesn't, you know, appreciate that, Like, no
Speaker 5: one has to celebrate my religious holiday by any means,
Speaker 5: and I love that everybody has a holiday about gift
Speaker 5: giving and secularness and trees and all this, but it's
Speaker 5: always been kind of weird to me that all this
Speaker 5: stuff that I know is the basis of the holiday,
Speaker 5: which again I don't ever want to like, we shouldn't
Speaker 5: have a public holiday that's out there. It's all like
Speaker 5: Jesus is born. Everyone in the country has to care
Speaker 5: about it, but I certainly care about it, and so
Speaker 5: it's always been a little weird to me that all
Speaker 5: these movies are much more about like the one level
Speaker 5: of derivation or even two or three levels of derivation
Speaker 5: from that. And thus I think it is very funny
Speaker 5: that one of the movies that we watched to get
Speaker 5: ready for this is the one of the most theological
Speaker 5: movies that I've seen a very long time about Christmas
Speaker 5: from a source I would have never expected it from,
Speaker 5: which we'll get to when we talk about our own
Speaker 5: individual movies. But so that's way. But I certainly have
Speaker 5: always loved Christmas movies, I think, particularly those that I
Speaker 5: think while not in any way being explicitly and it's
Speaker 5: not again, I don't want there to be mass market
Speaker 5: movies that are Christian, Like, my faith is my faith
Speaker 5: and should not be what everyone has to deal with.
Speaker 5: But it's just weird to me that there's stuff based
Speaker 5: on my faith but not really. But I do love
Speaker 5: the like the messages that often of the season, of
Speaker 5: like family coming together or of like you know, the
Speaker 5: you know generosity. As one of my favorite memes of
Speaker 5: this time is that the Christmas Carol perfectly captures the
Speaker 5: Christmas spirit, which is that billionaires must be supernaturally terrified
Speaker 5: in order to be nice to their workers, you know,
Speaker 5: but like, you know, whatever it is, I love that.
Speaker 5: So so let's actually start there and Amby, I'll start
Speaker 5: with you what is a Christmas movie? What what makes
Speaker 5: something a Christmas movie?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's always such a debate. And you know,
Speaker 1: there are there are movies that are clearly obviously Christmas movies,
Speaker 1: you know, things that involve Santa Claus or you know,
Speaker 1: people coming together and like the family. And I think
Speaker 1: when you think of Christmas movies that are like definitive
Speaker 1: Christmas movies, it's the setting. It takes place like during
Speaker 1: the season, it's a story about family and relationships. It
Speaker 1: often involves actual like Christmas elements that we kind of
Speaker 1: tie into it, whether secular or religious, you know, but
Speaker 1: just usually it's it's the movies tend to be a
Speaker 1: little more on the secular side as far as like
Speaker 1: it's about Santa Claus and the reindeer on the roof
Speaker 1: and hanging up Christmas lights and things like that, and
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of I don't know where I
Speaker 1: would go with kind of your typical Christmas movie, and
Speaker 1: they certainly come in all shapes and sizes. You know,
Speaker 1: you look at something like Christmas Vacation, which takes the
Speaker 1: vacation franchise and ties the comedy of the Griswolds into family,
Speaker 1: but it's very specifically their Christmas story. And then you have,
Speaker 1: you know, broader ones that kind of explore things like Elf,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's I mean, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: comedy with those, and there's romantic comedy, and you know,
Speaker 1: there certainly is the drama ones and things like Miracle
Speaker 1: on thirty fourth straight about you know, reinforcing your belief
Speaker 1: in Santa Claus. And so that's I think for me,
Speaker 1: I'd say the definitive, easy to define, easy check box,
Speaker 1: even easy checkbox Christmas, you know, as opposed to things
Speaker 1: like die Hard, which, as you brought up, brings so
Speaker 1: much more debate into it.
Speaker 5: Abby, What about for you, what makes something a Christmas movie?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 8: I think kind of along the same lines. To me,
Speaker 8: it's the plot has to be affected by it being Christmas,
Speaker 8: whether that's a story about Santa or you know, have
Speaker 8: people hanging up the lights on their house or whatever.
Speaker 8: It's there has to be some connection to Christmas other
Speaker 8: than this is a movie happening at Christmas, and the
Speaker 8: fact that it's happening at Christmas makes absolutely no difference.
Speaker 5: I'll a die Hard so for you, so that can
Speaker 5: be start to get in the question. So for you,
Speaker 5: something like die Hard or Batman Returns, those are not
Speaker 5: Christmas movies because they just they have this sort of
Speaker 5: accoutrement of Christmas, but the christmasness isn't a fundamental part
Speaker 5: of the movie.
Speaker 1: Yes, are we starting our debates now or should we
Speaker 1: save that?
Speaker 5: I think let's here, here's the way I want to
Speaker 5: get into it. I want us to try and go
Speaker 5: through and see if we can name and then discuss
Speaker 5: a bit what we think the different subgenres of Christmas
Speaker 5: movies are. And I think when we I think one
Speaker 5: of the possible subgenres is movies that just take place
Speaker 5: at Christmas time, and so that's when we can get
Speaker 5: into that one. Sure, So let me kind of just
Speaker 5: throw some out and then you all can also add
Speaker 5: ones that you don't think I have, but also just
Speaker 5: like let's talk about each one as I name them. So,
Speaker 5: first of all, I think kind of the most basic
Speaker 5: is what you're talking about. Andy. I think your definitely
Speaker 5: is actually named a couple ones, but I'll kind of
Speaker 5: try to summarize those quickly. I think there is the
Speaker 5: family coming together because the family or the friends or
Speaker 5: someone like that are celebrating Christmas, and the spirit of
Speaker 5: Christmas is like a part of that. A second thing
Speaker 5: I think you mentioned is the you know, the movie
Speaker 5: is about the sort of characterizations that have been built
Speaker 5: up around Christmas, and that's Santa Claus and Elves and
Speaker 5: some of the other kind of like maybe supernaturally things
Speaker 5: around that. And then a third one that I mentioned,
Speaker 5: and what kind of start with these three is basically
Speaker 5: retellings of either a Christmas Carol or It's a Wonderful Life,
Speaker 5: which I think at this point kind of constitutes its
Speaker 5: own subgenre with a lot of overlap. More thoughts on
Speaker 5: those three. Do those three like make sense you all
Speaker 5: as genres? Yeah, I mean I think so.
Speaker 1: I think there's there. I mean, I mean even just
Speaker 1: looking at film genres in general and then going okay,
Speaker 1: can I apply these over to Christmas movies and then
Speaker 1: I think, yes, you can see how they're they do
Speaker 1: kind of fit in with those different things, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean I think, I mean, there are certainly more examples.
Speaker 1: You know, there are very religious Christmas films, things like
Speaker 1: the Nativity Story. I mean, those also exist a genre
Speaker 1: that we're probably not gonna spend too much time talking about,
Speaker 1: as fun as it is. But there are plenty of
Speaker 1: horror Christmas films, which yep, you know, I just watched
Speaker 1: Violent Night last night and had a wonderful time with
Speaker 1: it and and so it was also sorry, and you know, musicals,
Speaker 1: animated films. I mean, there's so many different ways that
Speaker 1: you can approach this. But I think, you know, in
Speaker 1: the broad scope, like there's the comedy, the drama. You know,
Speaker 1: there's there's a few of those that I think will
Speaker 1: work well. And yeah, I think I think you're right.
Speaker 1: The telling of you know, Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol
Speaker 1: has become so key in just kind of Christmas lore.
Speaker 1: Let's just say that it almost is a genre as
Speaker 1: like into its own, as you said, like, there are
Speaker 1: so many versions of it, reiterations of it, even something
Speaker 1: like I'm blanking on the name of it. But the
Speaker 1: Will Ferrell Ryan Reynolds one that just came out last
Speaker 1: year is in some way another version of that, where
Speaker 1: you know, the character actually is of a user Scrooge
Speaker 1: later in life, you know, and things like that. So
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting how that really has become so defining
Speaker 1: of kind of the Christmas character arc.
Speaker 8: Really right, And there are certainly a lot of good
Speaker 8: There are certainly a lot of retellings of a Christmas
Speaker 8: Carol out there, but I feel like the category should
Speaker 8: be maybe larger to also encompass like Christmas lore in general,
Speaker 8: because you get a lot of movies about like how
Speaker 8: Santa became a thing, like Klaus or like Rootolph the
Speaker 8: Red Nose Reindeer. Those are all very connected to Christmas,
Speaker 8: and you see a lot of retellings or different interpretations,
Speaker 8: but they aren't a Christmas Carol.
Speaker 5: One thing I was thinking is I mentioned It's a
Speaker 5: Wonderful Life as part of this, and certainly I don't
Speaker 5: know if this is still true, but it used to
Speaker 5: be that starting around December fifth, there was never a
Speaker 5: point in the twenty four hours of the day every
Speaker 5: day from that until Christmas, but there wasn't at least
Speaker 5: one channel showing It's a Wonderful Life. And as I
Speaker 5: think about it, I can think of numerous TV shows
Speaker 5: that have had a character have sometimes very explicitly, sometimes
Speaker 5: kind of as a parody, their own version of the
Speaker 5: It's a Wonderful Life Christmas story. I don't know that
Speaker 5: many movies have there been movies that you all can
Speaker 5: think of that are retellings of it It's a Wonderful Life,
Speaker 5: or people kind of thought like Jimmy Stewart did best
Speaker 5: and let's just leave it alone.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, there's all you know. As we were
Speaker 1: recording this, there's a brand new one that has just
Speaker 1: been released called It's a Wonderful Knife, which is the
Speaker 1: It's the horror comedy version of that that's made by
Speaker 1: the people who did like the New Freaked, you know,
Speaker 1: and the kind of like this, there's that group of
Speaker 1: people who's taking like some classic genres like they did
Speaker 1: the Groundhog Day and now that's Happy Death Day. And
Speaker 1: they're turning these these great like key films and turning
Speaker 1: them into horror. And so that's the newest one. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think if there are any other abbey you
Speaker 1: might know of some I'm trying to think of any I.
Speaker 8: Can't really think of any movies. Yeah, I can come
Speaker 8: up with like probably five to ten TV shows off
Speaker 8: the top of my head.
Speaker 5: M h yeah, and some where they did quite seriously
Speaker 5: Married with Children did a parody of it where Sam
Speaker 5: Kinnison is the angel, which is hilarious. I think like
Speaker 5: Featurama have done it. But yeah, not too many movies.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, actually, would you say the Nicholas Cage
Speaker 1: movie The Family Man? That's my recollection of that one
Speaker 1: is kind of similar, Like, yeah, I guess he's remembering
Speaker 1: or he sees a different version of his life where
Speaker 1: he's married because he was like a stone cold businessman
Speaker 1: sort of thing. That's one that comes to mind the
Speaker 1: only one that's actually coming to my mind right now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's fair. That's fair. I'll also mention good,
Speaker 5: go ahead, I'll say I'll also mentioned as another subgenre
Speaker 5: that probably explore too much, but it's worth naming because
Speaker 5: as far as I can tell, it's fairly recent. I
Speaker 5: think Arnold Schwarzenegger started it. But it is the it's
Speaker 5: Christmas Eve and you haven't bought your child the perfect
Speaker 5: toy yet, and so now you are fighting with other
Speaker 5: parents to get the last version of the g I
Speaker 5: Joe Doll or the Cabbage Patch Kid or whatever that is.
Speaker 5: Jingle all the way with Schwarzenegger and Sidbad I think
Speaker 5: started that, but now there's been like five or six,
Speaker 5: So I'm willing to call that a subgenre in and
Speaker 5: of itself of for a very anti capitalist holiday, perhaps
Speaker 5: the most like all hail capitalism. But I'm going to
Speaker 5: keep my religious thoughts as farfwyd as I can.
Speaker 8: Abby he's the general rating of this podcast.
Speaker 5: Yeah we can curse. That's fine, okay.
Speaker 8: I think that that genre you're mentioning, I think can
Speaker 8: be again broadened too just Christmas fuck ups, because there's
Speaker 8: also movies like Christmas with the Crank and things like
Speaker 8: oh what is it called? It's a kids movie where
Speaker 8: they all get stuck in an airport over Christmas with
Speaker 8: no adults because of course they do, but it's just
Speaker 8: generally like Christmas mayhem.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's fair for me. The anti capitalist nest is
Speaker 5: what makes me focus on the like we have to
Speaker 5: buy the perfect thing. But you're right, I think there's
Speaker 5: a lot of overlaps there. Let's talk about a genre
Speaker 5: that probably has always been with us, but I think
Speaker 5: has gotten a lot more tension in recent years. Now
Speaker 5: there's a cable channel mostly dedicated to it. Abby tell
Speaker 5: us about the Christmas romance and Christmas rom com I
Speaker 5: think is often it's thought, but you've had some conversation
Speaker 5: with me about how Christmas romance might be the more
Speaker 5: appropriate term sometimes.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean there's definitely Christmas rom coms, but I
Speaker 8: do think just Christmas romance is a fairly strong subgenre.
Speaker 8: The most recent movie that I can think of was
Speaker 8: one that was leased last year. It's called The Noel Diary,
Speaker 8: I believe, and the story is all about this man
Speaker 8: whose mother died and he's going to clean out her
Speaker 8: hoarder house and in doing so, he finds a journal,
Speaker 8: and the journal belongs to this reporter's birth mother, who
Speaker 8: she never knew, and so they go on this trek
Speaker 8: to like meet her birth Father from this diary and
Speaker 8: it is there are comedic moments in it, but it
Speaker 8: is very strongly a drama, like a romance drama, right,
Speaker 8: And I think there are other stories like that, and
Speaker 8: they've become very popular kind of along with like the
Speaker 8: resurgence of romance novels, especially with like TikTok Book Talk
Speaker 8: is very into the romance novel, very into the romantic tropes, right,
Speaker 8: So I can very closely see the connection of why
Speaker 8: people are suddenly gearing back into this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and talk a little bit more about that. Why
Speaker 5: Because the Hallmark movies, especially which I think in some
Speaker 5: ways it's kind of its own subgenre of the subgenre,
Speaker 5: you know, the joke is always that they're incredibly predictable
Speaker 5: in terms of like there's the stock characters you have,
Speaker 5: and it's almost always the big city woman and the
Speaker 5: small town guy, although not always is the in Priggies
Speaker 5: the movie that you had us watch does not follow that,
Speaker 5: but he's almost always wearing a plaid shirt and all that.
Speaker 5: What do you think it is that that drives the
Speaker 5: kind of appeal of these more recently, especially ones where
Speaker 5: there is so much predictability that I think often gets
Speaker 5: made a fun of but as I've understand, it is
Speaker 5: actually really positive for those who really love these.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think one of the big things about the season,
Speaker 8: like people were talking like you guys were talking about
Speaker 8: of like bringing people together and seeing the light and
Speaker 8: the darkness. Especially for those of us who live in
Speaker 8: areas that get real cold, it is very dark, very cold,
Speaker 8: very hard to find the happy and the joy, and
Speaker 8: it just turns into stress. So these Christmas movies are
Speaker 8: almost a stress free watching experience because you know generally
Speaker 8: the storyline it's gonna take, and you know that the
Speaker 8: couple's gonna end up together in the end. Sometimes it's
Speaker 8: not the couple you expect, but the couple's gonna end
Speaker 8: up together and everyone's going to be happy and celebrate Christmas.
Speaker 5: So it's kind of the value of the predicta. The
Speaker 5: predictability is itself a virtue of those in many ways.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's like going back and watching your favorite TV
Speaker 8: show over and over again. It's just you know what happens,
Speaker 8: but it's still fun to watch.
Speaker 5: Anny. What's your thoughts on this particulars of John. I
Speaker 5: don't know how much you've explored the Hallmark Christmas or
Speaker 5: even like I will say the Hallmark but also I
Speaker 5: mean like Love actually was a huge movie, and I
Speaker 5: think that's very much a Christmas romance. Like there's realy
Speaker 5: been a lot more big mass market ones as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's definitely a place for those films
Speaker 1: and like that that style of romance during the holiday season.
Speaker 1: Obviously in the whole idea of Christmas movies having this
Speaker 1: element of family relationships, connection, you know, healing, all those
Speaker 1: sorts of things. You can you can see how it's
Speaker 1: really kind of a perfect genre for a lot of
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. I've generally have never really been
Speaker 1: too much of a fan of TV movies in general.
Speaker 1: There are there are some that I really do enjoy,
Speaker 1: but and the Hallmark movies, like the phenomenon, let's just
Speaker 1: call it of Hallmark movies, the way that it like
Speaker 1: turned into the it's its own behemoth. I don't know,
Speaker 1: like in the past decade, it seems where it's like
Speaker 1: as soon as December rolled around, it was like a
Speaker 1: new movie a day is really what they seemed to
Speaker 1: be cranking out. And you know, I mean I enjoy
Speaker 1: you know, being a part of the process. I've I've
Speaker 1: been involved off and on in the film industry. I
Speaker 1: have friends who actually make Hallmark movies right now. In fact,
Speaker 1: they just they're what was it called A Builtmore Christmas
Speaker 1: or something like, they just worked on that one which
Speaker 1: just came out was huge and A Merry Scottish Christmas,
Speaker 1: which also is this year, and so now they're at
Speaker 1: this point where they they're basically making Christmas movies year round,
Speaker 1: which I think is really funny that like they can't
Speaker 1: get away from Christmas and so anyway, but I think
Speaker 1: that the genre in and of itself, though, I think
Speaker 1: is a really interesting one because it I think it
Speaker 1: has created something that is very consumable, let's just say
Speaker 1: where it's I mean, they put them out at such
Speaker 1: a furious rate that I think it's not really designed
Speaker 1: anymore to be something that is watched annually. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of like Christmas movies. You know, well, growing up
Speaker 1: it was a different thing. But even today, like from
Speaker 1: my generation, I feel like there's this draw to having
Speaker 1: those same movies that we'd all put on every year
Speaker 1: and like, let's sit around and watch Elf, let's sit
Speaker 1: around and watch Christmas Story, Let's watch it's a wonderful life,
Speaker 1: you know, And that's I think that for me, that
Speaker 1: was always a part of the joy of the Christmas movie.
Speaker 1: But it's it's kind of like they've taken on a
Speaker 1: different thing, which is like we're just going to tweak
Speaker 1: the story over and over again and give people similar
Speaker 1: versions of the same story with a lot of the
Speaker 1: same beats, all the tropes, but there's a little bit
Speaker 1: of a difference with it. And so it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: my cup of tea. But that being said, you know,
Speaker 1: I having watched the movie that Abby recommended, you know,
Speaker 1: just as a as a note, I walked into it
Speaker 1: in a like a low point. I was not very
Speaker 1: having a bad day, let's just say when I went
Speaker 1: in and watched it, and as much as it didn't
Speaker 1: click with it, I was certainly cheered up by the
Speaker 1: end of it. And so that's I think that the
Speaker 1: interesting magic that they've tapped into with them is it
Speaker 1: doesn't it can be consumable, you know, It's like a
Speaker 1: candy cane. It tastes good once it's it's like one
Speaker 1: and done, and you know, and then you can kind
Speaker 1: of move on to the next one. And so I
Speaker 1: find it to be such a fascinating shift that has
Speaker 1: allowed these movies to kind of propagate in a way
Speaker 1: where it's different than before, but in a way it's
Speaker 1: creating the same feeling.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I really get that. I think I think Abby
Speaker 5: way explained it, and any what you're adding really helped
Speaker 5: me to figure them out more because like one thing
Speaker 5: I'm thinking of is I kind of have the reversal
Speaker 5: seasonal effective disorders. So I don't know why standing under
Speaker 5: a giant ball of fire is so much fun for
Speaker 5: the rest of you, but for me having it gone
Speaker 5: most of the time is great. But I certainly would
Speaker 5: understand that like Christmas itself, the holiday season itself, like
Speaker 5: is incredibly stressful. You have to get the right gift
Speaker 5: for all people, you know. I think this is even
Speaker 5: more so true for parents, but for anybody. You know,
Speaker 5: what holiday party is you're going to go to. What
Speaker 5: are you going to say to different people dealing with
Speaker 5: all the family stress of you know, either going to
Speaker 5: be with your family or just like people who aren't.
Speaker 5: You know, Abby, I love you're talking about, you know,
Speaker 5: and you're certainly not the only Jewish person who loved
Speaker 5: these movies. And I've a friend of mine who asked
Speaker 5: about this, said, you know, it's the one way she
Speaker 5: gets to deal with the fact of, like, everyone is
Speaker 5: telling her about Christmas all season long, something she has
Speaker 5: no interest in and no participation in. And here's one
Speaker 5: way to like, it's a nice escape from the stress.
Speaker 5: And so I, yeah, I can totally get that is
Speaker 5: why it's a I think as the season has become
Speaker 5: much more stressful, it seems like that that's at it.
Speaker 5: That's a big quart of why they're so much more
Speaker 5: popular as well as I think this is probably a
Speaker 5: smaller reason, but I do think it's a thing. I
Speaker 5: know a lot of folks who like they go home
Speaker 5: to see their family and there's hey, mom, how you doing.
Speaker 5: It's good to see you, And then once it starts
Speaker 5: getting around too, well, why don't I have grandkids yet?
Speaker 5: Or you know, what do you think about what's happening politically? Oh,
Speaker 5: let's turn on a movie, you know, and the Hallmark
Speaker 5: Christmas movies are just very safe to watch together. And
Speaker 5: so I think that that can be one more way
Speaker 5: of just the like, it can be your own personal
Speaker 5: way you escape the stress. But it could also be like, yeah,
Speaker 5: let's get together as a group and like we'll do
Speaker 5: a puzzle together, or we'll watch a Hallmark movie and
Speaker 5: that way we won't we'll remember that we're family who
Speaker 5: loves each other instead of people who want to tear
Speaker 5: each other's throats out because of who you voted for
Speaker 5: last time or whatever it is.
Speaker 8: On that topic, I think it's important to note that
Speaker 8: like the Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas movies have been getting
Speaker 8: more progressive. We've seen gay characters, we've seen Jewish characters.
Speaker 8: Sometimes there's a black lead very early, but it happens.
Speaker 8: But because of that, there has been big drama in
Speaker 8: the Christmas movie world where some of the stars have
Speaker 8: broken off into form the what is it called the
Speaker 8: Great American Family Network, which.
Speaker 5: Candace Cameron all right, Kirk Cameron's brother, Kirk Cameron helped
Speaker 5: support sister. Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but they created what is essentially a Christmas a
Speaker 8: Christian Christmas movie network that upholds and I say this
Speaker 8: with the largest of air quotes, American family values. AKA
Speaker 8: it's very white and very straight.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah. And it's funny because any when you were
Speaker 5: mentioning that, there have been some movies that do mention
Speaker 5: the religious aspects of Christmas there have been, and some
Speaker 5: that are great, but an awful lot of them, including
Speaker 5: one that I know is out in theaters right now
Speaker 5: that I might watch, just so I can tear apart
Speaker 5: how horribly inaccurate it is. I mean to the folklore
Speaker 5: of the story. I'm not claiming big accuracy, but often
Speaker 5: they're made also by the very conservative parts of the
Speaker 5: Christian right, and I think that, you know, it's interesting,
Speaker 5: there's a whole other thing about that we can get into.
Speaker 5: So as a way of talking about this, like how
Speaker 5: far did the edges go? In terms of what is
Speaker 5: or isn't a Christmas movie? Do you think something has
Speaker 5: to have a message in order to be a Christmas movie?
Speaker 5: Does it have to have some kind of like family
Speaker 5: is great, or you can always change and be a
Speaker 5: better person, Like I'm naming some of the kind of
Speaker 5: morals that a lot of Christmas movies have, and there
Speaker 5: are others certainly, you know, but do you think it
Speaker 5: has to have something like that to be a Christmas movie?
Speaker 1: I think the idea of that lesson that the character
Speaker 1: undergoes is generally kind of a key part of it,
Speaker 1: you know. I think of George Bailey we've already talked
Speaker 1: about Ebenezer Scrooge. You know, there is this element of
Speaker 1: that character kind of learning that lesson. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a story element anyway, the idea of character arc,
Speaker 1: you know, of a character actually going through a change,
Speaker 1: and that's what we're really drawn to. But in a
Speaker 1: Christmas story, when we do see that person go through
Speaker 1: this change of you know, learning that they are important,
Speaker 1: or learning to give instead of take, you know, there's
Speaker 1: I think there's a value to that. I don't know.
Speaker 3: If it's.
Speaker 1: Always critical, but I do think that that I don't know.
Speaker 1: For me, I feel like it's one of those things
Speaker 1: that really helps it get there. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think when you have that list of checkboxes that you're ticking,
Speaker 1: they don't all necessarily need to be ticked, but as
Speaker 1: long as most are ticked, I think it can fit
Speaker 1: into the kind of Christmas genre. That's one that I think.
Speaker 1: You know, generally, I do like to see ticked in
Speaker 1: my Christmas movies. But it's I guess it's not always there,
Speaker 1: but I do like that sure.
Speaker 8: Like you said, it's to me that's an essential part
Speaker 8: of any movie is having something that you're trying to say, so,
Speaker 8: I don't necessarily consider it a key aspect of a
Speaker 8: Christmas movie so much as a key aspect of an
Speaker 8: enjoyable watch experience.
Speaker 5: That's fair. That's fair. I think for me the idea
Speaker 5: that it is a message, but even more specifically that
Speaker 5: it is a message that I kind of associate again
Speaker 5: not necessarily with the religious aspects of Christmas, but the
Speaker 5: kind of just general like family togetherness, but also like
Speaker 5: renewal and rebirth and like you can always start again,
Speaker 5: you can always make up for the things you have done.
Speaker 5: The learning to have empathy, and that like giving is
Speaker 5: better than taking, and all those kind of things. I
Speaker 5: think those are for me essential to it being a
Speaker 5: Christmas movie. But I think it's part of the point
Speaker 5: is that, you know, we all get to see it differently.
Speaker 5: But I'm going to use that, OK, go ahead.
Speaker 1: I was just going to say, and I think it's it's,
Speaker 1: you know, like any story, as we've kind of been saying.
Speaker 1: But I do think that it's it's key to note
Speaker 1: that it can be the main character who goes through
Speaker 1: that transformation, or you can have a story where the
Speaker 1: main character is already you know, on the line let's
Speaker 1: just say, and by the process of being such a
Speaker 1: good person in the world, they're the one who's actually
Speaker 1: changing all the other characters around them. I'm thinking of
Speaker 1: something like Arthur Christmas is whereas kind of using as
Speaker 1: a reference point for that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I think that's totally makes sense. The sec
Speaker 5: way I was going to do, though, is that as
Speaker 5: a way to start the debate, I would like to
Speaker 5: suggest that I for me, at least a movie being
Speaker 5: set at Christmas time is not enough to make it
Speaker 5: a Christmas movie. So, for example, I would not describe
Speaker 5: Batman Returns as a Christmas movie. It very much happens
Speaker 5: at Christmas, and it has the aesthetics of Christmas. Absolutely,
Speaker 5: But there is a movie in which the two main characters,
Speaker 5: or the main character and his sidekick, both are people
Speaker 5: who are estranged from something that they really care about
Speaker 5: because of mistakes they've made in the past. One is
Speaker 5: estranged from his family, the other is estranged from the
Speaker 5: part of his career that he most wants to do,
Speaker 5: and in the course of the movie, they find ways
Speaker 5: to learn to be better, to learn to forgive themselves,
Speaker 5: and to seek forgiveness of those things from the people
Speaker 5: that they've been disconnected with, and I'm talking about Diehard.
Speaker 5: So I would put forward that die Hard is a
Speaker 5: Christmas movie because it's an action movie, but it holds
Speaker 5: up the spirit those spirits of Christmas. Debate has been opened.
Speaker 5: Respond to tell me how wrong I am. Go off
Speaker 5: on a whole other direction, because I'm my DC is
Speaker 5: not even worth discussing as you would.
Speaker 1: Well, do you want to debate four or against first,
Speaker 1: because I have a feeling I'll be four and Abby
Speaker 1: won't be against.
Speaker 8: I'll admit it's I've seen die Hard once and I
Speaker 8: can't say I was awake through all of it.
Speaker 5: That's so that's fine.
Speaker 8: I don't know that I get a full opinion here.
Speaker 5: I guess Abby, I feel like I'm kind of strapped
Speaker 5: because I know you and I talked about this before,
Speaker 5: and you help me. I think come to the idea
Speaker 5: that it just being during Christmas time isn't enough to
Speaker 5: make a Christmas movie. And what I'm sort of saying
Speaker 5: is that, like I agree with that, but that one
Speaker 5: of the movies I think that has often thought of
Speaker 5: that way. Die Hard, I actually do think is more
Speaker 5: of a Christmas movie than people give it credit. For
Speaker 5: so maybe it's not a debate, it's a three way
Speaker 5: discussion Andy, where are you? And all this?
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 1: I it's a film that I think because it does
Speaker 1: have the kind of the family values. It's a broken
Speaker 1: family that feels like through the process of this traumatic
Speaker 1: situation that they go through, they are brought back together.
Speaker 1: I feel like there is this this reconnection that we
Speaker 1: have between John and his wife by the time we
Speaker 1: get to the end of the film, and so that
Speaker 1: to me, you know, feels like we're learning some lessons.
Speaker 1: We have Al who kind of goes through his own
Speaker 1: growth because of his conversations with John and and getting
Speaker 1: past some issues that he's had. I mean, again, it
Speaker 1: ties into general film characters journeys that we have. But
Speaker 1: because it is this story of you know, it's a
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve party. I don't know why they're having any
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve, but they are. It's a Christmas Eve party.
Speaker 1: It's all like, the music has Christmas elements in it.
Speaker 1: Everything feels very tied into Christmas. John McClean has some
Speaker 1: great Christmas one liners that he throws out. Now I
Speaker 1: have a gun ho ho ho, you know, things like
Speaker 1: that that I think it just feels like they're pulling
Speaker 1: on Christmas in a really fun way. That sure, it
Speaker 1: is an R rated action film with tons of action
Speaker 1: and blood and violence that you don't normally associate with
Speaker 1: Christmas film, but I do think that it is that
Speaker 1: family connection that we end up growing into towards the
Speaker 1: end of the film that does for me help it
Speaker 1: really kind of be defined as a Christmas film.
Speaker 5: Like you know, I am being a little bit tongue
Speaker 5: in cheek here. I'm not saying that the slaughter of
Speaker 5: this movie is very much in line with the celebration
Speaker 5: of the birth of the Prince of Peace. And and
Speaker 5: when you mentioned the kind of the feel good like
Speaker 5: it's Christmas times, so it's time to watch these movies.
Speaker 5: I was very troubled that you didn't mention them up
Speaker 5: at Christmas Carol during that, But I assume that you
Speaker 5: meant to. You just didn't get a chance. But it's
Speaker 5: not gonna be one of those movies to me. I'm
Speaker 5: just saying I think it's a little more of a
Speaker 5: Christmas movie than some people might give it credit for.
Speaker 1: Well, and it's funny because I mean, Bruce Willis himself
Speaker 1: said it's not a Christmas movie. It's a got damn
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis movie, which is very funny, and you know,
Speaker 1: as a franchise, typically in a franchise you would have
Speaker 1: if it's a Christmas movie, like it would continue developing
Speaker 1: with Christmas movies. None of the sequels, I mean, the
Speaker 1: second one is at the Wind in Winter, but it's
Speaker 1: not really defined as a Christmas story so much as
Speaker 1: the first one is, you know, and I say all
Speaker 1: of that. It's the same thing with the the you know,
Speaker 1: Christmas Vacation, which is very much I think a Christmas movie,
Speaker 1: but it's not like any of those other Griswold films
Speaker 1: have felt the need to go Christmas. So it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it is hard to I think this is just these
Speaker 1: are all elements that give it the the endless debate
Speaker 1: is this going to be a Christmas film or not?
Speaker 1: And yeah, you know, I'm okay with the debate because
Speaker 1: I think that's part of the fun of the whole thing.
Speaker 5: I think, Yeah, when you're kind of sick of other parts,
Speaker 5: you know, like, hey, Grandpa, stop talking about Trump, what
Speaker 5: do you mean the Christmas movie? Like that's a good
Speaker 5: one to segue. We can go a lot deeper on this,
Speaker 5: but I want to talk about the individual movies each
Speaker 5: one of us had us watch, because I think that
Speaker 5: they're they're gonna bringing up a lot of the same
Speaker 5: discussions we're having. To give little more specific abby, let's
Speaker 5: start with yours. Tell us a little bit about the
Speaker 5: Enchanted Christmas Cake.
Speaker 8: Okay, So I picked this movie because I remembered watching
Speaker 8: it last year and thinking this is such a fun,
Speaker 8: stupid romp. There's nothing serious happening here, it's just silliness.
Speaker 8: Basic storyline is this woman her grandmother. She's taking over
Speaker 8: the bakery. But this grandma has this epic love story
Speaker 8: with her husband where they fall in love with this
Speaker 8: enchanted Christmas cake. And so the woman is trying to create,
Speaker 8: recreate this Christmas cake that her grandmother has become famous
Speaker 8: for just in time for Christmas, to keep her bakery afloat.
Speaker 8: And she is met by a movie or a TV
Speaker 8: producer who's kind of unhappy with his job and who
Speaker 8: they just genuinely like each other. So they hang out
Speaker 8: and then they solve the mystery. Just because there's so
Speaker 8: little drama in this movie. Yeah, it's just let's bake cake.
Speaker 5: Mm hmm. Yeah, it's sort of like proof of concept
Speaker 5: of the Hallmark movie. I thought it was a great example,
Speaker 5: you know, it's it had some fun moments. It's the
Speaker 5: conflict between once the couple has established they want to
Speaker 5: be together, but now they have to have a will
Speaker 5: they won't. They felt ridiculously contrived to I roll worthy levels.
Speaker 5: But I think that's kind of the point. Like one
Speaker 5: thing I've kind of learned is that even among the
Speaker 5: people who really really love these laughing at the silly
Speaker 5: moments is kind of part of the joy. You know,
Speaker 5: they're very un I don't think there's anyone out there
Speaker 5: being like Hallmark movies should be OSCAR nominated, like I
Speaker 5: love them for that reason.
Speaker 8: No, the hate Watch is definitely a part of it.
Speaker 5: I can see it, and I guess I imagine that
Speaker 5: the writers and actors know that, you know, because everything
Speaker 5: just seems a little over the top. But you know,
Speaker 5: I I watched it. It made me think happy thing.
Speaker 5: As you said, you know, Andy, it's kind of hard
Speaker 5: not to smile after it. I really wanted cake at
Speaker 5: the end of it, which is not the best thought
Speaker 5: for me to be having it at one o'clock in
Speaker 5: the afternoon, But it definitely put it there. Yeah, it
Speaker 5: felt like a fun, silly movie that I didn't take
Speaker 5: anything away from but just got a happy feeling from watching.
Speaker 1: My wife and I watched it, and one she could
Speaker 1: not stop talking about how much she hated the woman's hair.
Speaker 1: She's like, what is up with her hair? Like she
Speaker 1: had such an issue with the hair, and I'm just
Speaker 1: hair blind apparently because I don't know, I thought it
Speaker 1: looked okay. But we walked away obsessed with the idea,
Speaker 1: so obsessed with the idea of making a leb cook
Speaker 1: and that we started digging up recipes and we're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: how do.
Speaker 5: We make this delicious cake?
Speaker 1: We need to have some right now, let's start ordering
Speaker 1: ingredients we make it. It's kind of like, yeah, it
Speaker 1: pushed us into that place where like, now.
Speaker 4: We have to have this.
Speaker 5: This could be.
Speaker 1: An annual tradition at Christmas. We're going to make leb
Speaker 1: cook and we still have to make it and see
Speaker 1: if we like it. But it's funny, like that's the
Speaker 1: sort of thing that this movie did to us. And
Speaker 1: it's I mean, it is so silly and all of
Speaker 1: the plot points are so obvious and expected, and that's
Speaker 1: why it's just like not my type of movie, and
Speaker 1: I really like look for things that usually have a
Speaker 1: little more meat to them. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: like I said, I walked away, I'm like, I'm no
Speaker 1: longer in a bad mood. This movie what it needed
Speaker 1: to do. It cheered me up. It gave me a
Speaker 1: little slice of of of cheese, and I ate it
Speaker 1: and really enjoyed it afterwards. So it's that sort of movie,
Speaker 1: and it's it's it was so funny to kind of
Speaker 1: look at it and just kind of get that connection
Speaker 1: from something like this, because I think, I think this
Speaker 1: may be the first Hallmark Christmas movie that I've actually
Speaker 1: seen Hallmark or a lifetime.
Speaker 8: Technically it's a lifetime, Okay.
Speaker 1: I guess I'm not really sure where the difference is,
Speaker 1: if there is one, or if it's just purely because
Speaker 1: it's on those particular networks.
Speaker 8: It's just different networks.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it did feel like some of the tropes this
Speaker 5: didn't quite hit. Like, first of all, it's the big
Speaker 5: the guy is more from the big city, and she's
Speaker 5: kind of like she's not from a big city, but
Speaker 5: she seems more just like from a decently affluent suburb.
Speaker 5: And not quite like small town and there wasn't quite
Speaker 5: so much of that, like you got to put down
Speaker 5: your cell phone and learn to embrace small town folks
Speaker 5: see Christmas values like, but still had a lot of
Speaker 5: the same those same plot points and things.
Speaker 9: I think, Yeah, Andy, let's talk about yours, because, as
Speaker 9: I said, yours winds up actually being like very specifically
Speaker 9: naming some of the theological ideas behind Christmas in the
Speaker 9: first couple minutes in a Japanese anime about a homeless
Speaker 9: trans woman and her two friends.
Speaker 5: So it was not the movie I was expecting on
Speaker 5: all sorts of levels. Tell us about Tokyo Godfathers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Toshi Cone is such an interesting filmmaker who
Speaker 1: sadly passed away at a very very young age and
Speaker 1: only ended up making I think four or five films total.
Speaker 1: They're all incredibly well made, really interesting stories, definitely worth watching.
Speaker 1: But this is like the Christmas story that he told
Speaker 1: Tokyo Godfathers, and it is pulling a lot of these
Speaker 1: Christmas elements from kind of from like the religious well
Speaker 1: there's the religious story inclusion of things like the three
Speaker 1: wise Men that we have here, the baby that is
Speaker 1: you know, you could essentially say that little baby is
Speaker 1: kind of like the baby Jesus of this particular story.
Speaker 1: It takes place at Christmas time. It's Christmas Eve in Tokyo.
Speaker 1: As we're having all of this, there's definitely that sense
Speaker 1: of kind of this magical realism throughout that kind of
Speaker 1: ties into a lot of the Christmas stories. But I
Speaker 1: definitely think that the main crux of kind of what
Speaker 1: you're bringing up is this sense that we you know,
Speaker 1: it is the story of these three homeless people, but
Speaker 1: it is like a transwoman, an alcoholic and a runaway child.
Speaker 1: Who are the three homeless people who end up finding
Speaker 1: this baby as they're looking for something to eat or
Speaker 1: I can't remember what they're searching for, But they find
Speaker 1: this baby and end up kind of one. They want
Speaker 1: to take care of it themselves, and then realize they
Speaker 1: need to find the mother and it turns into this
Speaker 1: journey story worry for them, much like the three Wise
Speaker 1: men going to you know, following the star and everything,
Speaker 1: as they're trying to figure out the mystery of finding
Speaker 1: you know, who the baby's mother is, where the baby's
Speaker 1: mother is, and along the way, And this is again
Speaker 1: a key element of the story is each of our
Speaker 1: characters has this sense of redemption as they're working on
Speaker 1: their journey to help help this baby find its mother,
Speaker 1: and you know, you've got just it's a beautiful like
Speaker 1: there's this real message of hope with the story and
Speaker 1: how good people can be despite their differences. I think
Speaker 1: all of these elements have kind of come together to
Speaker 1: tell a story that's so completely unexpected. But I mean
Speaker 1: it just grows in estimation with me every time I
Speaker 1: see it, and I just feel like more and more
Speaker 1: drawn to it, like every holiday season.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it's really beautiful the way it like the
Speaker 5: you know, there's definitely some very strong illusions of Christmas.
Speaker 5: The trans woman starts out kind of telling a joke
Speaker 5: about like if a virgin can get pregnant, then why
Speaker 5: can't she? You know, she's just so much a woman
Speaker 5: as Mary. And then they find this baby. The baby's
Speaker 5: name is and also that woman I should name the characters.
Speaker 5: Her name is Hannah. Jin is the alcoholic and Miyuku
Speaker 5: and I may well become the wrong name is wrong,
Speaker 5: in which case I apologize. Is the homeless teenager the
Speaker 5: real teenager. And then Kyoko is the name they give
Speaker 5: to the Baby, which is the Japanese translation of Silent Night,
Speaker 5: which also means pure child. But as you said, it's
Speaker 5: not like it doesn't feel like a Christian movie for it. It
Speaker 5: feels like these characters who are encountering a Christmas folklore
Speaker 5: the way that as people who encounter like a lot
Speaker 5: of different folklores in their life. You know, a lot
Speaker 5: I can say about that. But Abbi, first, why don't
Speaker 5: you time in? What was your take on this movie?
Speaker 8: Well, if mine, the movie I chose was the lightest
Speaker 8: thing in the world. This was maybe the hard opposite.
Speaker 6: To me.
Speaker 8: It was, you know, it tugged on the heartstrings hard.
Speaker 8: I will say. You know, as a Jew, I probably
Speaker 8: missed a lot of the Christmas story illusions that were
Speaker 8: going on there. My experience with the Wise Men is
Speaker 8: like singing the when they saw the Star in choir.
Speaker 8: That's about it. But I really enjoyed the movie. I
Speaker 8: thought it was like heartfelt and it was nice to
Speaker 8: see these characters kind of get that redemption and figure
Speaker 8: out their stories. Yeah, but at the same time, watching
Speaker 8: people be sad is not always the most fun Christmas
Speaker 8: movie for me.
Speaker 5: It's a rough movie. I mean, there's there's ideation, there's
Speaker 5: suicidal ideation. There's a big part of the movie. There's
Speaker 5: a lot of depression. There's a lot of really bad
Speaker 5: fighting and discussion of just the horrible things these people
Speaker 5: have done in the past. So yeah, I I can't
Speaker 5: imagine this being another one of those feel good movies
Speaker 5: I want to watch, but I do think it's a
Speaker 5: very wonderful Christmas story. I also feel like and A
Speaker 5: your comments were interesting on this. I don't know much
Speaker 5: about the person who wrote who wrote this, but I
Speaker 5: do know that you know, there are Christians in Japan,
Speaker 5: and I think, but like, these three characters aren't Christian necessarily.
Speaker 5: They're just going to a nativity because that's where they
Speaker 5: can be warm and get food, because there's a church
Speaker 5: that's doing that. And I in some ways, I feel
Speaker 5: like this is one of the only movies I think
Speaker 5: that could get away with having this much of the
Speaker 5: religious aspects of Christmas because it's told from me in
Speaker 5: a community that is not Christianity is the overculture the
Speaker 5: way it is here in the United States.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's an interesting Yeah, there's an interesting
Speaker 1: element that with that, for sure, And I think at
Speaker 1: the same time, I think that there's something really interesting
Speaker 1: with the the choice of the characters that that Cone
Speaker 1: uses here that allows it to kind of reflect I
Speaker 1: think what, you know, a lot of people, certainly the
Speaker 1: three of us, you know, would argue that the idea
Speaker 1: of Christmas is one of welcoming you know, all kinds,
Speaker 1: all people, and it's it's a very it's you know,
Speaker 1: a love that embraces everybody, you know, and that's you know,
Speaker 1: the idea of the whole thing with religion that's kind
Speaker 1: of been I don't want to, uh, it is, it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of gone down different roads, let's just say.
Speaker 1: And and that's something that I think even with characters
Speaker 1: that aren't you know, that aren't Christian, that are not
Speaker 1: what you'd expect in a story like this, I think
Speaker 1: that it certainly isn't going to be something that's going
Speaker 1: to play on Canvas Cameron's network, but it's it is
Speaker 1: the sort of thing that I think still allows it
Speaker 1: to end up feeling more you know, welcoming overall to
Speaker 1: just you know, so many it just it feels like
Speaker 1: like a much bigger hug, you know, it's grasping so
Speaker 1: many more types of people than you normally would get
Speaker 1: in some Christmas stories.
Speaker 5: You know. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 8: I think one of the things that did pull me
Speaker 8: in was the fact that Hannah was queer, because I
Speaker 8: am queer and was not expecting that in this kind
Speaker 8: of story.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: One of the things I loved most there is maybe
Speaker 5: cry so much during the movie and I may cheer
Speaker 5: up again. One complaint I sometimes have about Christmas movies
Speaker 5: is they're very much about family. They specifically mean blood family,
Speaker 5: and I think that can kind of leave out sometimes
Speaker 5: the families of choice that many of us build, sometimes
Speaker 5: just because we're distant from our physically distant from our family,
Speaker 5: but a lot of times because we're emotionally distant, either
Speaker 5: you know, in small or very large, or you know,
Speaker 5: completely cut off from our families, and particularly in queer communities.
Speaker 5: That has meant so much. And so when Hannah, excuse me,
Speaker 5: I'm sorry. When Hannah goes to the club that she
Speaker 5: used to perform at, Angel Tower and meets her mama,
Speaker 5: and it's very clear that this is not her biological mother,
Speaker 5: but this is within trans women, particularly drag clean societies.
Speaker 5: In the movie, the TV show Drag is a great
Speaker 5: description of this. I'm sorry pose. Uh, the mama is
Speaker 5: often just an older also trans woman who adopts younger people, uh,
Speaker 5: queer queer kids and and and both trans women and
Speaker 5: queer men and everyone. And to have that be honored
Speaker 5: as family as her family, it meant so much to
Speaker 5: me and that that felt like such a like, yeah,
Speaker 5: that family connection is just as powerful at Christmas time
Speaker 5: and is one that we've that that when all you're
Speaker 5: seeing is blood relatives, I think you can feel really
Speaker 5: left out of And I just thought that was like
Speaker 5: such because it wasn't made a huge deal of It
Speaker 5: was just like this is her mama. And I just
Speaker 5: loved that so so much.
Speaker 1: That, yeah, that that connection that you have there with
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's exactly what you just said.
Speaker 1: It's it's these people that you that become your family
Speaker 1: and they are there that bond is so important and
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter who it is, how they came into
Speaker 1: your life, just the fact that there is that bond
Speaker 1: there and we certainly also have it with the three
Speaker 1: are three characters, you know, the three homeless people, you know,
Speaker 1: and that that connection that they each have with each
Speaker 1: other and the draw and you know, at the very
Speaker 1: end you get that that reconnection between the young girl
Speaker 1: and her her dad who's the police officer, and and
Speaker 1: all of these different stories. I mean, it's just it's
Speaker 1: so full of these connections. And again it's just it's
Speaker 1: like welcoming all of them and they are they're all equal,
Speaker 1: and that's what I think is powerful about it.
Speaker 5: Two other just quick things. Have you there anything else
Speaker 5: you want to add on that?
Speaker 8: No, I think what you've both said has covered pretty
Speaker 8: much everything I felt about it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, two other quick things I'll add about the theological
Speaker 5: side of it. One just like a small thing but
Speaker 5: that I really loved is that there is one small,
Speaker 5: kind of like supernaturalist moment in the story and anybod
Speaker 5: it feels very magic realism, and maybe it's just a
Speaker 5: very lucky coincidence, but basically, like when there's this you know,
Speaker 5: horrible moment where the baby is falling and Hannah leaps
Speaker 5: after the baby to try and catch her, this wind
Speaker 5: comes up and catches them in the awning, and it's
Speaker 5: I think it's supposed to be kind of like a
Speaker 5: Christmas miracle of some sorts. And what I loved about
Speaker 5: that is, like, sure, there's lots of like Christian Christmas
Speaker 5: miracle stories, but in Japan the idea of a sacred wind,
Speaker 5: like the wind itself in particular, being a locus of miracleness.
Speaker 5: This is something I know very only a very little
Speaker 5: bit about, so please correct me if I get the
Speaker 5: details wrong. But I've looked at this a little bit
Speaker 5: more and make sure I had some of the ideas right.
Speaker 5: Like even the term kamakazi, which is, you know, we
Speaker 5: associate just with these Japanese pilots. It's a reference to
Speaker 5: a wind that in theory destroyed a fleet that was
Speaker 5: supposed to be invading Japan in the Middle Ages, and
Speaker 5: that was the idea was that these pilots would be
Speaker 5: a new version of that. But that's just one example
Speaker 5: of like divine wind being a very important thing in
Speaker 5: Japanese mythology often, and so the idea that was a
Speaker 5: Christmas miracle, but in a way that has nothing to
Speaker 5: do with Christianity, and it's very much more about the
Speaker 5: aspects of Japan. I just thought that was really beautiful, that.
Speaker 1: Is, yeah, and I didn't know, I guess thinking about
Speaker 1: some other you know, anime and other Japanese films, I
Speaker 1: see that in there now I guess it's just something
Speaker 1: you know, I've never really looked into very much. But
Speaker 1: you know, I'm glad that you looked into that and
Speaker 1: pointed that out, because that's actually a really interesting element.
Speaker 1: I just kind of took it as that magical realism element,
Speaker 1: but coming from the Japanese culture that way makes it
Speaker 1: all the more powerful and interesting that they did it
Speaker 1: that way.
Speaker 5: Definitely the last thing I'll say, and this is kind
Speaker 5: of a nice segue into my movie that I want
Speaker 5: to do, which will do pretty quickly. The only other
Speaker 5: critique I often have, especially some of the older holiday movies,
Speaker 5: is that it always feels like everything is so perfect,
Speaker 5: Like even in Home Alone, where they literally leave a
Speaker 5: kid behind. They're in this like very nice, affluent, wealthy
Speaker 5: family and that's often what Christmas looked like, which to
Speaker 5: me like watching my mother with holes in her shoes
Speaker 5: go out into the snow to buy us gifts like
Speaker 5: didn't relate to And I really love the idea that
Speaker 5: this is. This is about Christmas in the midst of brokenness,
Speaker 5: which is both I think just a wonderful, like completely
Speaker 5: secular idea, but also as a part of the Christmas
Speaker 5: story that the evangelical, like Christ is King and glory
Speaker 5: and all of this forgets It's supposed to be about
Speaker 5: these like two starving teenagers who can't find any room
Speaker 5: anywhere and are literally homeless when they give birth, and
Speaker 5: so I just thought that was just a really beautiful
Speaker 5: thing and just about the idea of like the Christmas
Speaker 5: magic in the midst of the brokenness. My favorite Christmas
Speaker 5: movie is hands down Them Up at Christmas Carol. I
Speaker 5: think it is just a phenomenal movie all overall. But
Speaker 5: the one I pick because it's probably my second favorite,
Speaker 5: is Scrooged. If you haven't seen it, Scrooged. It's a
Speaker 5: Bill Murray movie. It's a nineteen eighties movie. In some ways,
Speaker 5: it's a wonderful movie. In some ways, it hasn't aged
Speaker 5: very well, I'm sure, and it's a much harsher telling
Speaker 5: of the Christmas Carol story. There's a lot of meanness
Speaker 5: in it, but it is It is exactly the Christmas
Speaker 5: Carol story. There's the three ghosts, and it's all this
Speaker 5: kind of meta story because it's about this TV executive
Speaker 5: who's producing a version of Christmas Carol, but then his
Speaker 5: own version of it happens and I just really love
Speaker 5: it because it's like I am, at heart someone who
Speaker 5: has a very idealistic core and really loves everything about Christmas,
Speaker 5: but is also deeply, deeply cynical, and so to have
Speaker 5: like that core of a beautiful movie wrapped up in
Speaker 5: all the cynicism in New York andness of this movie.
Speaker 5: I just absolutely love.
Speaker 1: It's a fun movie. I haven't seen it in a
Speaker 1: very very long time. I saw it in the theaters
Speaker 1: when it came out. I probably saw it in one
Speaker 1: other time after that, and then I just hadn't seen it.
Speaker 1: I always remembered it was there. I love the music.
Speaker 1: Danny Elfman's score is fantastic, but it's just something that
Speaker 1: has kind of it's always sat there as like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's another version of screwed of you know, a Christmas
Speaker 1: tale story. And Bill Murray is you know Bill Murray.
Speaker 1: He's funny. He plays that the awful you know TV
Speaker 1: exact perfectly, like he's great, just like he you know,
Speaker 1: this is kind of the same character he's playing at
Speaker 1: the start of Groundhog Day. Really and yeah, I mean there
Speaker 1: are elements that that now you're like, eh, you know,
Speaker 1: you kind of roll your eyes out a little bit,
Speaker 1: but on the whole, I think one of the things
Speaker 1: that I enjoyed so much about it is it's it's
Speaker 1: an adaptation of a Christmas Carol that also is tying
Speaker 1: in so many things that I remember growing up as
Speaker 1: a as a child of the seventies and eighties, where
Speaker 1: you have all of these like kind of cheesy Christmas
Speaker 1: specials on TV, Like they're doing this. Their whole thing
Speaker 1: is they're doing this live broadcast and tying that into
Speaker 1: the story and just how commercialized Christmas is becoming and
Speaker 1: everything and all the celebrity cameos that you have, like
Speaker 1: you know, Mary lou Retten is tidy dim doing her
Speaker 1: little backflips and everything, like it's just it. Those were
Speaker 1: elements that I had forgotten. And you know, I love
Speaker 1: the story of a Christmas Carol. This is another version
Speaker 1: of it. It's it's not my favorite version of it,
Speaker 1: but I had a lot of fun with it, so
Speaker 1: I was glad to revisit it.
Speaker 8: I hear that, Abby, I guess, yeah, so you didn't
Speaker 8: like it. Say if my movie made me smile and
Speaker 8: Andy's made me cry, Matthew's yours made me want to yell.
Speaker 8: I really hate a Christmas Carol stories.
Speaker 5: So much.
Speaker 8: I think that they are bad and their their little
Speaker 8: lesson is bad. I have had enough of watching rich
Speaker 8: white guys get saved by acknowledging the poor.
Speaker 5: Uh huh. That's very fair. That's very fair that there is. Like,
Speaker 5: as much as I love even I'm up at Christmas Carol,
Speaker 5: the there's a very condescending attitude I think often of
Speaker 5: like I have come to lower myself to be with you.
Speaker 5: All that is in all of the versions.
Speaker 3: And also sorry, go ahead, sorry.
Speaker 8: The story itself just doesn't lend itself to having interesting
Speaker 8: female characters, and I think Scrooged was definitely affected by that.
Speaker 5: That's very fair.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very of its era.
Speaker 5: Yeah, generally there's just the love interest that he lost,
Speaker 5: and that's and then maybe his mother, and those are
Speaker 5: the only female characters that ever show up. That's really fair.
Speaker 8: Yeah, at least we got the aggressive ghost of Christmas Present.
Speaker 5: Yes, she's so played by I know, the woman because
Speaker 5: she's been in so much Caro Carol Caine, thank you. Yes,
Speaker 5: the wife of the Wonder wonder Worker in Princess Bride
Speaker 5: and many good things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's you know, I'm glad that you brought that up, Abby,
Speaker 1: because that I mean, I absolutely do love the story
Speaker 1: of Christmas. Carol is just something that I've grown up
Speaker 1: with and I really enjoy. But I would I think
Speaker 1: that it's so important to acknowledge some of the the
Speaker 1: elements within that story that like people nowadays should take
Speaker 1: that as a challenge to say, how could we take
Speaker 1: this story and crafted into something that is more inclusive,
Speaker 1: and that's it's not just about this rich, rich white guy,
Speaker 1: but do something else with the story. And I think
Speaker 1: that's actually a really interesting thing that I have. Like
Speaker 1: I am thinking now through all the different versions of
Speaker 1: the story I've seen, and I'm like, nobody's really done that,
Speaker 1: and I think that would actually be worth exploring and
Speaker 1: something that could make for a valuable modernized retelling of
Speaker 1: that that would you know, work for more people than
Speaker 1: just you know, the people who connect with that original story.
Speaker 5: Because certainly, I think that this I think it has
Speaker 5: become very much the focus is on Ebenezer Squea Ebenezer
Speaker 5: Scrooge as a rich man. It has been pointed out
Speaker 5: that the wealth disparity between Ebenezer Scrooge and Bob Cratchett
Speaker 5: is far smaller than between for example, Jeff Bezos and
Speaker 5: the lowest paid Amazon worker Bob crasheyt is much better paid,
Speaker 5: and Vane's a screwage is nowhere near as rich. But yeah,
Speaker 5: I think there are the kind of larger ideas of like,
Speaker 5: you can still change and do better than you have
Speaker 5: in the past, and that you can like I even
Speaker 5: mentioned the poor. But to me, one of the biggest
Speaker 5: meanings of Christmas is the idea of abundance, and there's
Speaker 5: theology to it, but it's also the idea of, like,
Speaker 5: in times of scarcity, it's very easy to fall into
Speaker 5: the idea of I have to get mine and you
Speaker 5: go get yours, and I don't care about you. But
Speaker 5: instead the idea of like we're going to build the
Speaker 5: table together instead of building walls between us is to
Speaker 5: me very much of both a theological and secular idea
Speaker 5: of Christmas time that the Christmas Carol story I think
Speaker 5: can point to. And it doesn't have to be about
Speaker 5: a rich white guy, you know, it can be about
Speaker 5: someone else who has abundance in their life in different ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it'd be interesting.
Speaker 5: So much more we could say on this topic. So
Speaker 5: I just want to let each of you if you
Speaker 5: have kind of a last Christmas thought Christmas mo be
Speaker 5: thought to share and then also just let us know
Speaker 5: kind of where we can find more of your stuff.
Speaker 5: So Abby, I'll start with you.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'll just say, give the stupid Hallmark movies a try,
Speaker 8: even if you think it's not your thing, give it
Speaker 8: a hate watch, you know, mock it relentlessly. Sometimes they're
Speaker 8: fun and they'll light in your day. So that is
Speaker 8: my last Christmas movie thought on the internet. You can't
Speaker 8: really find me anywhere. You can follow me on I
Speaker 8: was gonna say Twitter, but x whatever at clutching my
Speaker 8: pearls pearl spelled p u r ls. Maybe if people
Speaker 8: follow me, I'll actually start tweeting.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I will never did name a human being, no
Speaker 5: matter how horrible they are. I will happily dead name Twitter.
Speaker 5: It is Twitter, it remains Twitter, and I'll just say
Speaker 5: I will echo check out Hallmark movies. But also, if
Speaker 5: you're gonna do it, you're worried about it, have someone
Speaker 5: either watching with you live or like you know, watching
Speaker 5: with you that you can text about it. Because, as
Speaker 5: Abby pointed out, I think being able to a little
Speaker 5: bit like roll your enjoying the bad parts as well
Speaker 5: as enjoying the good parts, I think actually makes the
Speaker 5: movies a lot better and being able to be like
Speaker 5: it's okay if I think this plot point is really contrived,
Speaker 5: right and abby when you're like, yeah, no, no, no no,
Speaker 5: I love this movie, but that's a ridiculous reason for
Speaker 5: two people that mad at each other like that helped
Speaker 5: make it a lot better for me to watch. Andy,
Speaker 5: what's your kind of last thoughts here?
Speaker 1: You know, I mean it's I do think that the
Speaker 1: danger of Christmas movies can be that they fall into
Speaker 1: a lot of the same tropes. And I mean there
Speaker 1: are a lot of even even outside of like the
Speaker 1: Hallmark Lifetime World, there are a lot of holiday movies
Speaker 1: that I don't even bother watching. Like I see the
Speaker 1: trailer and I'm like that they're just playing on all
Speaker 1: the same old tropes. They're not doing anything unique and different,
Speaker 1: And that's I think, like, why do you have to, like,
Speaker 1: you know, just tap into all that stuff again do
Speaker 1: something a little more interesting and so like looking for
Speaker 1: things like Tokyo Godfathers, which you know, just like once
Speaker 1: I saw it, it's just like burned into my brain.
Speaker 1: Is like there's a unique telling of something that is
Speaker 1: for you know, a Christmas story that that feels different,
Speaker 1: and that's that's what I really enjoy. So there are
Speaker 1: plenty of them out there, you know. And again, you know,
Speaker 1: as a fan of horror movies, you know, the Christmas
Speaker 1: horror movies are awfully fun. And you know, even even
Speaker 1: with the bad parts, you know, I still had a
Speaker 1: great time with Violent Night, and so yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you know the debate about Christmas movies, is it a
Speaker 1: Christmas movie? Is it not a Christmas movie? I think
Speaker 1: that's just part of the fun. And the point is
Speaker 1: that you're watching stuff together and enjoying and I think
Speaker 1: that's the key thing.
Speaker 5: So and where can we find you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I podcast over a True Story FM.
Speaker 1: I'm on the next reel. We do a movie podcast
Speaker 1: over there. I'm also doing one called movies Like where
Speaker 1: we bring on somebody from the industry and talk with
Speaker 1: them about one of their favorite movies. And yeah, and
Speaker 1: so you know, you can check me out there. I'm
Speaker 1: on a lot of the socials as Soda Creek Film,
Speaker 1: So you can find me over there. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that pretty much covers it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I really echo what you're saying there. I think
Speaker 5: one thing I've realized is that for me, the commercial
Speaker 5: commercialization of Christmas is something that I've always really had
Speaker 5: a problem with. Part of that is because like my
Speaker 5: own theology, but even putting that aside, like as a
Speaker 5: kid of divorced parents who had very different economic backgrounds,
Speaker 5: watching my mother feel like she had to compete with
Speaker 5: my father of who would give the best holiday gifts.
Speaker 5: He gave Hanukah gifts. But you know, uh so I've
Speaker 5: always did like a lot of the Santa Claus Elf,
Speaker 5: like any movie that's about the gift getting side of things.
Speaker 5: And I've heard ELF is much better, and I'll give
Speaker 5: it a try one day, but I've mostly stayed away
Speaker 5: from those. But yeah, you know, we all get to
Speaker 5: enjoy whatever we want to enjoy about Christmas movies, and
Speaker 5: I think that's awesome. I would say that, of course, Andy,
Speaker 5: you may well know, not only for all the awesome
Speaker 5: stuff Andy does, but the True Story podcast, True Story
Speaker 5: FM podcast network is what this podcast and my other podcast,
Speaker 5: Star Wars Generations are proud members of. Andy will give
Speaker 5: me a dirty look because I should have said this
Speaker 5: at the very beginning. But you can become a member
Speaker 5: of my podcasts from only five dollars a month fifty
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Speaker 5: little bit about that at the end of this about
Speaker 5: other holiday movies. But mostly you just get to know
Speaker 5: you're supporting us. This is a labor of love. But
Speaker 5: you know, the Internet, the microphones, the hosting, like all
Speaker 5: of it costs some money, and the time and effort
Speaker 5: and getting all these great guests. I'd love to be
Speaker 5: able to thank them a little bit more. And so
Speaker 5: every membership that you guys give, not only does it
Speaker 5: just help physically and monetarily make this possible, but it's
Speaker 5: such a great reminder to me and to the folks
Speaker 5: who are helping me at True Store that you really
Speaker 5: care about these podcasts. And so if you do, like
Speaker 5: I said, it's just five dollars a month, fifty five
Speaker 5: dollars a year, really be a great thing. All the
Speaker 5: information is on the show notes, or you can just
Speaker 5: search for the ethical pana dot com and I'll take
Speaker 5: you right there and there again. Also you find all
Speaker 5: the other stuff about this podcast. My other podcast, Star
Speaker 5: Wars Generations, has really had a great reboot. We will
Speaker 5: not be talking about the Star Wars Holiday special. I
Speaker 5: did that once and I will never do it again.
Speaker 5: But we are going to be talking a little bit
Speaker 5: about twenty twenty three wrap up of like what Happened
Speaker 5: a Year in Star Wars, which will be a lot
Speaker 5: of fun. So please check out all those things, check
Speaker 5: out all the other great podcasts that Andy and Pete
Speaker 5: and others are doing on the True Story FM network.
Speaker 5: If you're a member, stick around for some more bonus content.
Speaker 5: In just a second, we have spoken