Stocking Stuffer 10.5 Three Wiser Men and a Boy with Brandi and Dave Jackola

Parenting a baby is apparently easy: it’s kindergarten when things get really hard, or so sayeth our leads in Hallmark’s 2024 sequel to Three Wise Men and a Baby, Three Wiser Men and a Boy. Rejoining Emily are Hallmark experts Brandi and Dave Jackola. Follow their various ventures via @brandiwine and @djevildave, and be sure to check out Shield Podulation for random coverage of Star Trek and Brandi’s live youtube show, The Undready Room. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, well, welcome to another stocking stuffer. And this
is not just like a single stocking stuffer. This is
not even just a double stocking stuffer. This is a
triple stocking stuffer in more ways than one, because I
am joined by two people, So there are three of
us here that are going to talk about a movie
that also is about three individuals, and then a fourth

(00:22):
and it's a sequel. So if you multiply that, I'm
not good at math, I think we're at something like
nine hundred and twenty seven. And the movie in question,
as you heard, is Three Wiser Men and a Boy.
But more importantly my yesterday are the wonderful, lovely Brandy
and Dave.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Welcome, thank you, hell going to have us again.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Well, when we saw that there was a sequel to
the twenty twenty two hit film Three Men, Three Wise
Men and a Baby, which is really annoyingly, the sequel
is not called three Wiser Men and a Baby. It's
now three Wiser Men and a Boy. And I have
not been able to I know, every time I say it,
I keep saying baby, which is not a baby, it's
a kid now. But it's fine. Uh yeah, there was

(01:04):
no way we could not revisit that because the first
one was a delight. You two have been brought me
nothing but good film so far. So there's also that, right,
because last year, do you remember the film we covered.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, it was Mystic Christmas with.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
The seal and with great pea coats and with like
cute leads and so you know, you guys are on
a roll. So hopefully this one continues that that trend
with the same kind of the same crew, but not
entirely right, it's the same director. It's a Terry Ingram.
He directs a lot for us, Yes he does. Yes,

(01:42):
And weirdly, I don't think aside from Three Wisemen and
a Baby, I don't know that I've seen any of
the other ones he's directed, unless they're ones that were
like kind of generically titled to where I just don't
remember them anymore because I'm but the writers I was
going crazy was the first film was just written I
Paul Campbell and Kimberly Susten, Right, and now this one

(02:04):
they brought in a third. Now do you recognize the
third screenwriter? Russell Hayneline. He's he's having a big year,
a big year this Christmas year.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
I've thought his name on some things.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Uh uh, I don't know about you guys. Now to me,
what I keep anecdotically hearing, like from what I call civilians,
You know, people that don't spend hours at a time
watching these movies and tearing them apart. They keep saying
to me, Hey, I know you watch those movies. Have
you watched Hot Frosty?

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Right?

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah, so he is the screenwriter of Hot Frosty as well, Dear,
I'll leave that there. Then, I I rather enjoyed Hot
Frosty with Fozzi. Yes, yeah, it is the Snowman come
to life. But he's still a snowman. So what happens
if I have my friend, I'm gonna shout out my
friend Pam, who could just kept having a real problem

(02:58):
without Frosty thinking if he eats pizza, he's gonna die,
If he has sex, he's gonna die. Anything heat into
his inner body is gonna kill him. We don't get
into those territories. And three wives are men and a boy.
Although again I'm laughing because I keep seeing Hallmark is
always tvg right, all the movies PGG. And yet I'm like,
there are things in this movie and like, I mean,

(03:20):
I'm saying this as if like I am clutching my
church pearls. But it's like, oh, a character he drinks wine.
There was a day where if you had a character
drinking wine, it could not be TVG.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Yeah, they actually have wine and beer in Hallmark movies
a lot.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, there was a movie, A very Vermont Christmas. I
don't know if you guys saw that one, where the
entire plotline is a brewery. It is a local brewery
that has to come up with a new Christmas recipe.
And I'm like, but it's alcohol, Like, I just isn't
there supposed to be some supervision? And I don't know
what this has done to me because there was a
time when I mean, I was five years old watching

(03:57):
a spit on your grave, and yet now I'm bothered
by the fact that he might see a beer anyway.
Three Wiser Men and a Baby, So why don't can
we get first a recap of the first film like
in a nutshell, and then we'll talk about a recap
of this one.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Uh yeah, I'll go for that. Three Wise Men and
a Baby. So three brothers who are all at different
places in their lives, but two of which lives still
at home, one in the basement and one in the
carriage house or you know house, uh, back behind Mom's house.

(04:34):
And the oldest brother, who is a fireman, has a
baby dropped off at the firehouse with a note saying,
please take care of Thomas. I will be back before Christmas,
and they decide not to call child services because it's
at night he's on the overnight shift, and instead they

(04:55):
take the baby home to Mom, and wackiness ensues because
none of them, except for Mom, knows how to care
for a baby. But Mom has to go out of
town because her sister has a concussion and someone needs
to be here with her, so that gets Mom out
of the way for the antics of these three guys
learning how a baby works. Yeah yeah, and end up,

(05:19):
of course falling in love with the baby. And there
I could go on for like half an hour, but
I don't want to go over the entire plot. Basically,
the mom comes back towards the end of the movie,
oldest brother falls in love with that mom, and you
don't actually see that happen so much, but you see

(05:41):
it in the what I call visual epilogue.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Yes, and what was it a one year later visual
epilogue or was it just a like, yeah, it's Christmas,
and like, clearly now they're a.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Family yet No, it's the kid's definitely older.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Okay, so it was one year later. They're together now,
and that's where we pick up now with three wiser men.
It's the oldest son is Chum Terry Barry, Brian you
thank you.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
The eldest son is Luke Lucas. I remembered this because
I went, okay, I'm going to remember these three names.
I went, well, they're alphabetical. So there's Lucas. There's Stephen
or Stephan Stephan, yes, because they call him Steph for short,
which I thought it was.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yes, which was very I could I'll go on about Stephan,
but yes, it was an odd way of of nicknaming
a man. Yes.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
And then finally we have Taylor because of his sign
that he had in the coffee shop because he got
kicked out of his actual office.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yes apartment grammatically incorrect sign.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
I mean taylored with the n apostrophe and seven E.
But yes, yeah, that's nice.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
Figure what that what that was? Because it was like
Taylor At first I thought it was supposed to be
like some kind of icon apostrophe ass and but then
I thought, I'm like, oh, is it is that it?
Because then the shape next to it didn't look like
an ass, So it was one of those poor graphic
No wonder why he hasn't sold his video games, right,
he have good designers on staff, so that's a problem.

(07:16):
And now tailored games but without an E why not
A yeah? I mean I guess with the ta y
is the pun because his name is felled that way,
so it's not tailored. But still it just it didn't
quite work the way they were hoping. So at the
start of this movie, now Luke is married, right or assumingly,

(07:36):
I mean he's with the mom of the baby. They're
raising the kids five, five or six. Now Stephan is
still with the woman we left him with, sus They
are not engaged. They have presumably been together now for
five years, and it's one of those relationships where she's
clearly expecting him one day to propose, but has never
actually said anything about that, so he has no idea

(07:57):
what happened. And then here's the first thing I really
appreciated is that the end of the first movie, because
I didn't get to watch it again. So a lot
of it was in the very very back of my head,
but I remembered enough to remember, like, oh yeah, at
the end of the first movie, they all had love interests, right, right,
And in this one, like Taylor's love interest is gone,

(08:18):
but there's no mention of her because like, yeah, it's
been five years. This isn't the kind of guy that's
gonna stay with like a woman he was kind of
compatible with five years ago, Like there's no reason to
harp on, like, well, remember what happened with her, like
like eight different girlfriends since then.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, youngest, youngest child.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Yes, we get around.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
The interesting thing is is that in that final scene
in Three Wise Men and a Baby, the Taylor and Fiona,
not to be confused with Fiona Room who plays right,
played Fiona played by the amazing Ali Liebert. She's the writer, director, producer, amazing.

(09:01):
They they were talking, but there was no intimacy going
on there, Like we see Luke Kiss's wife, we see
Susie and Stephan Kiss, but those two we do not kiss.
And in fact, this is still to date the only
movie where Tyler Hines playing Tyler has not kissed the
woman in a movie.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
Oh yeah, kiss a lot.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Yeah. I mean, what is interesting? I still think something
that is very fresh about this particular movie or franchise.
I guess because I'm sure they'll make a third one,
I feel like they kind of have to just kind
of have an off. Yeah. I guess it's like three
wisest men and a teenager, right, it's gonna be the
next progression is I like thinking of how it's like

(09:46):
three men who I guess probably wanted to work together
and they figured out like how to make a project,
and they brought Kimberly Slustad on to help write it.
And I was thinking to myself, I'm like, oh, like
they know each other from being in the movies together.
And then I realized, like, rarely would two of them
have been in the same movie, right, because usually, like
all of these guys always played the love interest. Maybe

(10:08):
there was a movie where like one was like the
fiance that gets left for like the new love interest.
But for the most part, it wasn't that they probably
worked in a specific film together, but that they were
just like around each other, filming on the same set
at different times of the day, or doing the conventions
together and probably like kind of figured out their chemistry
that way.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
Actually, they've known each other for a long time time.
In fact, Andrew Walker, who plays Luke, he is married
to Tyler Hines's cousin.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Oh wow, this gets wild. Okay, the webbs we weave,
I love it.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
So he's married to Tyler's cousin, Cass and they have
two sons. And Tyler and Andrew already knew Paul. Like
all of them, they're not just friends at conventions. They
are friends always. And that's the interesting thing about a
lot a lot of these Hallmark people is that they
are friends always. And Kimberly, Sustad and Paul have been

(11:06):
friends for a long time too, So all of these
all of these perfect things. Basically, those three boys decided
they wanted to be in the same movie together because
they're like, we would have so much fun. You know,
they're basically family to each other, and basically they wanted
to do it. I think it was during a sort

(11:28):
of behind the scenes thing when The Three Wise Men
and a Baby premiered two years ago, because they were
doing these little short things that they put during the
commercial breaks, and I think Andrew asked Paul is like,
why why did you want to do this movie? He said, yeah,
I wanted to work with Tyler. And it works well.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
Too because their friendship, their closeness that they're brothers is
believable completely when they're pointing fingers at each other because
they're blaming themselves for the whole fiasco that happened, and
during that little rehearsal, oh.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, yeah, they have chemistry. They have absolutely believable brother
friendship chemistry. And they play off each other really well.
And I think they all too, like because they've been
in so many of these movies, Like they know the tone,
they know like the rhythm, they know it so well
that like they they can play off different actors very well.

(12:25):
That's funny because I just watched Paul Campbell, who I
was not like, had not seen him in many things
and a lot to say later, but I just watched
him in the Santa stakeout, which was from I think
two or three years ago, and he's very different in that,
like he is playing like, you know, like unshaven police
guy who does who's really dirty? Like complete one hundred

(12:46):
and eighty flip of Stephan And it's one of those like,
oh I wonder also how much at this point because
they do so many of them, like they do get
to like pick and say like no, I'm gonna go
for a big swing and do something very different. So
it's I don't know, it's they have more range, I
think than they're often given credit for.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
I agree completely, especially where Paul Campbell is concerned, because
the first time I ever saw him was in Battlestar Galactica,
the New battlestarglet Oka, of course, and he, in fact,
I would recommend one of his My favorite movies of
his is with Kimberly Sustead and it's called Christmas by
Starlight and it is a great movie. Dave loved it.

(13:28):
So so Dave loved it, then you know.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
It's good all right, and I'm putting it on the list.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yeah. He was just like, I'm invested in this. I
want to know what happens.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
Every now and then it will happen where like if
my husband's there in the room, he's like, oh this
is that it was actually funny, And it's like just
a way of saying like that was not Hallmark funny.
That was funny for a movie, and it's excited, So
why don't we go into the story of three wiser
men in a baby if one of you could take
over give us the plot synopsis of this one.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
Uh, mom's dating a new guy. Yes she is dat, Yeah,
Pastor Roy, And good for her because she has been
alone for a really, really long dam and she deserves this,
especially after her can I say, asshole husband left her
and the kids.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
So mister Roy has this kind of Jason Bourne energy
where he can do anything.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
I have a complete set of skills in every single
area that this movie is going to require. My only
flaw it's that I am wearing, in my husband's words,
a Ronald Reagan wig. In that first scene, he has
got there like gray Pompadour esque girl going on that.
I just had to look. I'm like, I don't I
I I did. What was the choice here? Why? Who? Who?

(14:47):
Let that happen? But again, it was probably filmed in
ten minutes, so they didn't have much time to tame
a wig or whatever it was.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah. So basically all three of them are at points
in their lives where Luke Snell fire chief and we've
got problems. Yeah, that maybe why he became fire chief,
not going on on the trucks as off.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, well he's forty two, which the movie makes a
big thing about, which makes me flinch because I too
am pretty too and that and Lacy Shaver is also
I believe forty two. And this was the whole year
of Hallmark. Maybe somebody in Hallmark saying Lacy Schabe is old,
but then thinking in this movie, I'm like, wait, so
how old can a man be? And so on? But yes,

(15:34):
Lucas feeling his age.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, Lucas feeling his age. We've got Stephan writing a
new book about anxiety and having a very terrible radio
interview don't ever do morning shows?

Speaker 1 (15:45):
Scene was very funny too. Again, it was just like
this belongs in any comedy movie, like this isn't just Hallmark.
It is funny.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
Well, and chestnuts on the open fire can kill you.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Can kill you.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah. The The interesting thing is he talks about how
this process helped him conquer his anxiety. That's not how anxiety.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
You know, it is not well, And again credit to
the movie that he treats it correctly, like it is
very easy to put a button on, like, oh, we'll see,
everything's fine because he found his partner and things are good. Now.
And this movie opens with like, yeah, no, it doesn't.
You don't. It's an ark. It's it's always gonna be
there and you're gonna manage it, but that it's the
part of life.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
So yeah, appreciate I should know I have anxiety. Sure
I could identify with the poor man, But at the
same time, I'm like, ohn it already, yes, come on,
and I haven't you put a ring on that?

Speaker 1 (16:38):
Exactly? Exactly?

Speaker 3 (16:40):
Come on? When you go bends down to tie his
shoe in the park after giving flowers to his girlfriend,
it's like, hello, can't you see her reaction is like
marry me?

Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yeah, well, he's too tied up in his anxiety that
he's pretending he doesn't have. And then we have Taylor,
who is again alone, has no apparent girlfriend. We think
he's in an office trying to sell his video game
online to an investor, and they don't want They don't

(17:13):
want him to partner with them. They want to just
buy it and market it themselves, and he doesn't want
to do that. This is his baby, you know, And
turns out he's you find out later he's not in
an office. You don't see that in this sort of
opening thing. But he's getting evicted from his apartment yep,

(17:35):
so gets an eviction notice and the landlord is not
taking any of his stuff, his platitudes, I guess. So
now he's going to be homeless. And that's yeah. It's
interesting because we think Taylor's got his stuff maybe a
little more together at the end of the first movie,

(17:55):
but no, no, he still.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
Does he did five years ago. But you know, life's hard.
So then we get the kind of the main I
guess plot of this movie. It's a very thin plot
in many ways. The whole trajectory is the boys that
accidentally destroy the Thomas is the kid's name right, yep?

(18:20):
His Christmas pageant. They drive the director away from the production,
and now the three guys have to direct, produce, choreograph
the big Christmas show. Well those are.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
Basically considering how they reacted to taking care of the
baby in the first movie. Is it really any surprise?

Speaker 1 (18:45):
Now? This is just making me hope the next film
is about puberty and I know.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah. Well, the thing is that Hallmark fans are very
particular and they really really love these boys, and they
really really love these boys together. So because there was
not a sequel, planned when the movie aired and there
was outcry from so many viewers.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
So I'm picturing the petition that went around on the
same Christmas holiday letterhead that the landlord used to evict Taylor.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
In this movie, I definitely had a lot of a
lot of signatures. Yeah, so it does feel a little
bit like a And even this is something I both
like and then also could maybe fault the movie for
is the each character's kind of arc is not that
like And I watched it today and I couldn't easily
tell you so where do character go from A to B?

(19:41):
Like who are they change at the end of the movie,
And it's not that easy to kind of walk through
each one and figure that out. Because also it's like, well,
it feels like they really did just want to get
everybody together again and make the move and make another
one of these. And I wonder even in the script
writing how that worked. I went back to see if
it was, like because on IMDb a lot of times

(20:03):
for Hallmark movies, they don't have like up to date credits,
so they have the three screenwriters just listed together, and
I was curious. I'm like, oh, did Paul Campbell and
Ghiberly Sustin actually write it or was it like based
on the characters, and then Russell Hanlan actually wrote the script.
But it's like looks like it's all three of them.
But I wonder if it was like they did a

(20:23):
draft and it was like, Okay, now we have to
we have to start filming soon. So Russell Hanlan take
a take a swipe through it and maybe put it
together more carefully or something. But it does kind of
like this is like the definition of like a hangout
movie in some ways, you know, like a dazed and
confuse where it's like we just wanted to see these
people interact together.

Speaker 3 (20:41):
I see it differently. I actually caught a theme and
that was about aging. Okay, these these three brothers, they're
aging up and they still have this idea of who
their mother is. And that's another dating is weird to
them because you know, they're adults and they're still thinking
somewhat like children and they still have somewhat of, you know,

(21:04):
a childlike view of the world. Is the you know,
the firefighter becoming fire chief and not being included in
the stuff the firefighters are doing, going out on calls,
right doing the fundraising the.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
Little activities that like managers or bosses don't have to do.
It's intended for the lower levels.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah, he's doing paperwork while everybody else is doing the
fun stuff, and he feels left out and also overworked
because there's stuff that you know, he's doing as a
dad that's getting overlooked, like he accidentally took his son's
lunch with him to work yep. And with Stephen, he's
not committing to the relationship.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
He's unaware that his girlfriend wants to marry even though
they're living together and there's several references that they're living
together and have been for like five years. He's not
putting a ring on it. Is that kind of arrested development.
And then Taylor, you know, he's got that you know,
youngest child baby child syndrome where he's not achieving and

(22:07):
he's not going that step that you have to compromise
sometimes as an adult you can't have it all. It's like,
if if you have a game that's going to sell
and somebody wants to buy it, go ahead and sell it.
You know, does your name mean that much? Does your
attachment to the game mean that much? When you know

(22:27):
you can just go and work on the next project
and maybe that will be the thing for you. Just
make the money now so you can survive and then
go on to the next project. So they're all kind
of locked into this arrested development thing, and I think
the arc of the story is that they learn that, yeah,
they're a bit older, and some of that is accepting
Roy into the family. Yeah, is a new father figure.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
But even with that, Taylor, I'm going to I can't
remember if he's Taylor or Tyler, so I'm just gonna
end up rotating between both. He doesn't sell right at
the end. He is still holding on to that game.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
Yeah, he still holds on to it. But that's his
love interest too, is just him but female, and she's
she's doing the same kind of thing. Is she got
kicked out of the band because she thought she was
better than them and claims that she is, and she's
waiting around for this miracle record deal that might never happen.
And she's also living in her parents' basement, and so

(23:22):
I I think that's the same kind of scenario, is that.
And when they're having that that talk to talk, you know,
the minivan scene, which is a mirror of the previous
mini van scene when they're just speaking truth and they
even make a choke and hang a lanner on it.
What is with this minivan? Is there a gas week

(23:43):
or something that just yeah, it becomes a confessional and
they all something about that.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
The positioning of maybe it's like sitting where you don't
have to directly look at somebody, like somebody's in the backseat.
The two if you are next to each other, so
you can kind of look in different directions, but you're
in a contained space and you can there or pour
out your deepest feelings and fears about life.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yeah, they just lay it out. And even Taylor says,
I probably should sell the game. So he's, you know,
he's thinking about it. He knows that it's the right
thing to do, but he still doesn't do it. So, yeah,
he doesn't necessarily grow, but at least he's aware a.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
Little more aware situation. Yeah. Well, and I think the
relationship that he ends up in, which it will be
very funny. As much as I loved it, like I
thought that they were great, I thought they had chemistry,
it would be funny if the next movie we never
hear about her again and again. It ends with him
on Christmas morning, bringing a new love interest to the
Christmas Morning the way which seems very awkward to me,

(24:39):
but that sometimes when you see somebody who is doing
what you're doing, it's like the you need that mirror
in order to see it in yourself of Oh, I've
been complaining about things. Oh I you know, I manage
a certain way. Oh look at that manager. Oh oh
wait a minute, am I Oh I need to I
can't be that person, so adjust So in a way

(25:01):
like there's like a dangerous when too kind, not toxic,
but like when two people in a bad place are together,
it can be bad if they bring each other down,
but can also mean Oh when you're that close to
something you you it helps you see what you're doing wrong.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
It's like when two creatives form a relationship, you get
this With actors, a lot is there becomes this kind
of competition, is who's getting the more work, who's more
in the public eye, And that can put a strain
on the relationship. And so when you find somebody who's
an actor married to a director, an actor married to
a cameraman, there's something about, you know, the solid worker

(25:40):
married to the creative type where you know that seems
to work better. Yeah, you'll often find, you know, somebody
in the creative world married to somebody with the really
stable more job.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
That makes sense.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
I will say this, Tyler Hines has chemistry with everyone.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
He does with every great yep.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
So there's never any doubt that if Tyler Hines is
in a movie, he's going to have charisma. He's going
to have a connection with that female, even if the
female is not a great actor, He's going to do it.
That's just how he rolls.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah. No, he's got that thing. I mean, I think,
and it's a combination of like natural charisma but also
impeccable timing. And he absolutely knows how to have a
dialogue scene with somebody and make it pop and make
it sexy or make it funny. Like he You're right,
he is somebody that throw him with anybody and it's

(26:42):
so watchable.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah. Well, he's been doing this since he was eight,
so it's not like experienced.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
Well, they say the same thing about Robert Downey Junior
is that he has that way of like he's in
a scene with Gwyneth Paltrow and getting something from her.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
It's amazing because.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
She is a hell and he hasn't invested in her company.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
Yeah, so yeah, that you can draw something out of
the actor you work with because you're that good that
they kind of step up to meet you at your level.
So I think he's got that going for him very much.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
And he's extremely humble, which is really.

Speaker 3 (27:19):
Well he is Canadian, Yeah, but they really.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
Were not humble.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
You never would have guessed that there were Canadians in.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
This movie, yeah, never, never.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
Yeah, the what are you talking about?

Speaker 2 (27:33):
That accent slips out a little bit here.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
And there, mostly with Andrew Walker. I would say I
think he's he's by far the biggest and maybe it's
just because like I don't know, Like, look, if you're
trying to hide it, then just like have a list
of words that you don't put in your script, right,
don't have s O R R Y, and don't have
a b o ut, Like just don't let a Canadian

(27:57):
say sorry, and the Canadian then won't say so, and
then you won't immediately go Canada.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
So yeah, Tyler spends a lot of time in uh
Los Angeles. Actually he on his IMDb profile it says
that he lives there now. So he's worked his way
out of that. Uh that constant here.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
Yeah, the thing as you moved to la as an
actor and then you end up filming everything in Vancouver anyway.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yeah, at that point in Utah, Utah, we get a
lot of Hallmark movies filmed here.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
Park City, parks. Okay, not just Park.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
City, they filed a hell of a lot of them. Yeah,
well Bountiful, Bountiful, Utah. Really, yes, yes, there are so many.
Anytime you see a suburb in a movie that was
played that was filmed in Utah, it was filmed in Bountiful,
I promise you that. And that is the city next
to the city where I grew up.

Speaker 3 (28:55):
So yeah, they're practically one city now. They just flow
into one another.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
All right. So now this one doesn't quite follow all
the tropes just because it isn't a direct love story.
But I think we could still talk through that. So
number one usually being our lead need of a lesson.
I mean, we have three, and I think we covered
a lot of it. But so do we feel like
they all did grow in this?

Speaker 3 (29:22):
Uh two of the three at least?

Speaker 1 (29:25):
Well.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
The interesting thing about Taylor is most people when they
meet a well in this case, I pegged it before
it was even spoken in the script, I said, oh,
she is basically him in female form yep. And then
the next scene that's when the both of the guy's like, yeah,
she's you dude. And I think that most people, when

(29:51):
they come up against someone who is so much like them,
they usually repel each other, right, And so it's interesting
that he is compul lately into it.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
Well also like, isn't that just like the sign of
a narcissist? But I finally found the perfect woman. She's you, right.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
It's like the Loki with Loki kind of thing, right right.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
Right right.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
But sometimes that means that you can just understand each
other better. They seem to be pretty open about their
own flaws.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
So yeah, he has confessed that he's basically homeless to
her and she's like, yeah, me too, so am I.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
But it's kind of cool because I don't they're rent.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
I'm living in my parents' basement.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
Do you think that relationship is going to last? Or rather,
let me ask how long will that relationship last?

Speaker 3 (30:45):
Maybe a year.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
If if one of them gets their their big deal.
I'm thinking maybe that would be the end of it,
But I don't know. It's hard to say, because it's
such an un likely pairing that I don't know how
it's how it would work out.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
I think weirdly. I think the one way it could
work out is if they become business partners and she
does music for his games.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
Oh okay, Dave, you and your imagination.

Speaker 1 (31:14):
I love you.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
That's so great.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
I love that.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
That would be so cool.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
It also would be beneficial for both.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
Also, Tyler gets to kiss the girl, and man that
man knows how to kiss, well kiss.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, I need to add like a bonus for that,
because the almost kiss is that it is very fun
to see sometimes like how contrived the interruption is, right,
But in this one it's it's cute because it's just like, oh,
there are a dozen children staring at us as we
almost kiss.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
And that makes sense because they go to this arcade
as a first date, and of course, you know, the
kids have a good chance of being there.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, and also an arcade is a very good first date.
I'm going to vouch for that.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
I agree. I agree completely.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
So now it's okay, we kind of come the love
interest then, so let's talk about the setting. We are
back in Spruce Scrove. Do we know where this one
was filmed? Is it filmed in Canada?

Speaker 2 (32:07):
I'm sure it was filmed in Canada.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yeah, it felt like it, but I don't see it
on the IMDb page.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
Yeah, I'm I honestly, I should just go back and
try and watch the credits because sometimes they do that
thing where they squish the credits into one side.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
It's so hard to watch the credits on these movies.
You kind of have to wait for it to be
on Petecock a year from now, where it like you
can actually see it full screen because on these it's
just always like immediately going into the next movie, so
it just gets into that TV tiny window.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yeah, Or you could get a Hallmark Plus, which I
h well, no.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
Wait, wait, so question because you have Hallmark Plus. I
was under the impression that twenty twenty four movies were
not going to be on Hallmark Plus, that you had
to wait next year they'll show up on Hallmark Plus.
Or did Hallmark change it because they got into so
much trouble when people realize that.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
It's interesting because there are things that are exclusive to
the streaming service that you will not ever probably see on.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
The movies though, or like, yes, is that were the
Ohn movies.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah, I watched a whole series, well four movies about
these four girls who in college came up as their
term project to make a business plan for a rapping story.
You know, not just all year round, not just Christmas, but.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
All right right, all your around rapping.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
They decided to try putting it into practice, and they're
successful at it, and you know, these are the women. However,
many years later, ten fifteen years later, and they each
get their own love story, and each love story is
a movie, but all of them intersect with each other.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
Okay, interesting, Yeah, I I cause I don't have I
have enough streaming that I'm not paying for any more
streaming services. And I had figured on the Hallmark Channel.
Because here's what's funny too, and this is still happening.
I have cable. I don't have the fancy cable, but
I have like decent cable where I get like sports

(34:04):
channels and a lifetime but I don't get TCM, let's say.
But the weird thing is I don't get the If
I flip to the Hallmark channel, I get the screen
that tells me I have to call Cable Vision and
pay or Optimum and pay for this channel, but I
can DVR that channel all day long. Hard to record
a movie that's gonna be on the Hallmark channel, and
it's there and it's fine, but I can't actually watch

(34:27):
it that way. But I had read somewhere early on
that Hallmark channel, the app for it, which you have
to pay for, that they weren't putting this year's countdown
to Christmas new movies on there, that it was all
older stuff and that the movies weren't showing up until
next So I don't know if that and people were

(34:49):
I rate because people are like, I just paid for
this to watch Christmas movies from this year. Now you're
telling me I have to watch them on cable, But
what is the point of this. Meanwhile, some of these
show up on Peacock regardless US, so it just seems
like a wild web.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
Well, it's interesting because I have watched in advance Christmas
movies this year that had not premiered on the network yet. Okay,
it's not all of them, it's not all of them
by any means, but like I think it was back
in October before the actual Christmas movie started airing, that

(35:26):
there was one that was available because I just check
in like every church day is when they tend to
drop stuff, and so I just check in as like, oh, oh,
I haven't seen this one yet, and and then later
it was on Hallmark like three or four weeks later.
So they are doing that sort of piecemeal, but not
for every single movie.

Speaker 1 (35:47):
Okay, interesting, Yeah, all right. So number four is our
dead parents or dead wife, which, yes, we don't really
get any of it here.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
There's kind of the dead dad in the replacement father.

Speaker 2 (36:04):
He left, Oh he just left, okay, abandoned.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, that's the closest we get, I guess.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
Yeah, So number five are sassy sidekick. Again. It's confusing
because in these you know, where you have like three
main characters slash sassy guys, it's hard to say, oh,
is there anybody else kind of filtering around there that
serves that role. I think there might be. Well maybe
it's tough. I am torn between putting Mom as number

(36:33):
five or as number nine because she kind of there's
aspects of what she does that's sort of like there
to be the kind of instigator moving things along, and
she's wearing big earrings. But I think she also has
like a very direct scene where she's kind of laying
out themes of the movie. So perhaps she's better served
at number nine.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
There's briefly Mark mcclark.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Mark Leclark la Clark mclark.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
Who's Mark laclark named wait, oh, is he the the
the director of the school pageant the first one.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yeah, this is the one that they they bring in
as a yeah, brings in all the inflatables. He's the
one that in the previous movie they had the whole
light that competition with the decoration contest and he keeps
winning like five years ago.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yeah, yeah, they bring in because after the okay, so
it was mister b Right. So first there's the school
the play director who I also loved, who is there
sort of almost as a villain, like he's there just
to be obnoxious and then quit the play when they
break everything. And then you're right, they bring in the

(37:44):
ringer of Mark la Clark. How can I forget Mark Leclarke.
It's the best name ever as the right to come
save the show. And yeah, I mean it's a little
a little element of chaos I think is a better
maybe a way of thinking of him.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
Yeah, he's that actor is really good because I have
seeing him in a variety of things, and he is
a different person every time, so I think he needs
to get more lead roles. Frankly, I like him a lot.
If I were going to choose someone sazzy, I would
put it to the principle honest plea well.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Because that moves us into number six, which is our
villain usually evil woman. But here the women are fine.
It's there's a few men in like authoritative roles who
are scary, and the principal is certainly one. Yep.

Speaker 3 (38:33):
The landlord is another one.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
Yeah, that's the other one I was thinking of. Yeah,
very scroogey. Yeah, montage number seven. There's several I know
of too, But what are some of the ones you
guys clocked?

Speaker 3 (38:48):
Well, there's the arcade. The dance thing was kind of
a montage. There's, of course, anything revolving around the Christmas pageant,
with doing the rehearsals to that building things, all the
construction and stuff like that. That's montage.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
My favorite was probably the pictionary montage.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
Oh yeah, that's great with the claw for missus claws
just a circle for five golden riments.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
I am a sucker for good pictionary jokes because I
am notoriously very both passionate about and bad at pictionary.
So I will like get very into. My husband just
cackled because he's seen me do this. I will get
very into, like come on, I'm doing and I'm doing it,
and I draw something and I think it's so clear
and nobody understands it. So then when I watch people

(39:40):
like magically you know it's the Simpsons episode, right, dignity
there it is, I always admire it. So I enjoyed
this round that I thought it was done there.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Yeah, I feel like if Stephen had drawn a base
for his snow globe, they probably would have gotten it.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
It would have helped. Yes, Yeah, Also this is I
just realized that this is the second movie in a
row that had Dictionary with Paul Campbell steak out. There
is also a pictionary Mountbush.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
There is.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
There is let's see number eight slapstick.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
In this movie, right, yeah. The complete destruction of the
pageant stuff in the early part of the film.

Speaker 3 (40:21):
As Luke trying to stand up the tree yep.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
Yep, complete with I think, like zany sound effects when.

Speaker 3 (40:27):
You tried the final pageant, Oh.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Of course, yes, And I do like that early on,
like they're going crazy trying to figure out like how
to make this work, how to write out of this?
And I love when one of I can't remember if
I think it was Susie, was like, they're little kids.
You just put them on stage and everybody goes ah
and you're done, Like, which is true, Like that's all
you need to do for these kinds of pageants. Yeah,
let's see the preaking a set. Oh the this is

(40:53):
less slapstick but was just kind of like a like
easy joke, but it can work well, I think when
done well. Early on, when they're zooming with Mom and
like the whole like nope, you're on mute. Nope, you're
on mute. Like it's like we've seen the jokes, but
like they do them well. And then you know, she
refers to it as zooming and they're like, it's so
cool zooming, But I mean, why not we're zooming at

(41:15):
that And I would say this is kind of physical humor,
if you will. But the Principal's office scene.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
Yes, oh yeah, I'm trying to get out of the
chair and it's like why would you both, why would
you all three sit there? Why? Because you could have stood.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
I feel like they knew they had to sit. I
feel like this was it's the same principle that was
there when they were kids, and I like the whole
like just idea of that of oh no, this is
us and we're we're definitely stuck and cannot move. I
don't know the last time you sat in a chair
intended for like elementary school. The struggle is real. Like,

(41:54):
I'm short, so getting out of a short chair should
not be hard, No, it is. Knees are not supposed
to do what they do when you sit in one
of those chairs. So I feel the same.

Speaker 3 (42:04):
What there's Stephen fainting, there's little cutting up the food
on Thomas's plate, there's just little bits of physical humor throughout.
There's you know, bringing in the lumber and Taylor just
not helping.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
Yes, yeah, it's I mean they they get it, they
know what's funny and they make it work. So now
number nine is the sage old person.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
Oh pastor roid, no doubt, definitely.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
Yeah, that's right. I mean I think Mom has a
very tune where she gets to kind of lay out
how they've been acting. And Margaret Colin is back and
she's very good.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yeah, I've always loved her, and I love that she did.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
This still to me looks so I cannot. I don't
understand how she's not how her and Elizabeth Perkins are
two different people, like how they're they're not though, right,
like they're just the same person and one of them
goes to Canada and one of them goes to the US,
Like I just it's just uncanny to me. But I you.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Know, I could, I could go into this whole thing
of my theory on that because but I won't do
that here because it would involve the Buck Rogers television
series and I don't think people are ready for that.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
So it's a deep cut. I look forward to reading that,
like full novel dissertation on it. Power point give me
a power point number Tennis, Santa Claus, we do not
have laws.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
Yes, we have a grump.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
We do.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
We do have a grump. Okay again, this is where
you can tell, oh, no, this movie is written by
like people who actually have senses of humor, because the
it jumps ahead to product placement, which is like I
don't know number four in the next round. But the
way they have they blatantly like say no, it is
not a Grench. We cannot afford Grench. We're doing the

(43:57):
grump in what it was it what Ville instead of
Who's Ville and all of that like it. That's that's
very funny, and that is that is done by somebody
that you know can wink at this stuff.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
Yeah, and in fact, the persons saying grinch was cut
off before saying the full word.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
They know they are legal limits. They are very aware,
all right. So other bonuses public domain holiday songs.

Speaker 3 (44:29):
I think we Wish You a Merry Christmas was there briefly.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
I think it might have been in the opening when
they're uh maybe.

Speaker 3 (44:36):
When you're practicing, you know, trying to practice Christmas songs
with the kids. I think that might have been one
of them.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
Yeap, deck the Halls is definitely used. Then there's a
very jazzy god Rescu Marry Gentleman.

Speaker 3 (44:49):
There was that.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
I've I've heard that like arrangement before it's I'm trying
to think it's like three quarters of the way through.
I think it might be when it's one of the
scenes where the character's name I don't didn't write down
where the were Taylor's girlfriend to be Carolyne Caroline when
she starts like playing, and then it's sort of like
is she playing or is at the soundtrack of the movie,
But it's just very like, I don't know, it's it's

(45:12):
it's an odd song to turn into jazz, but I
have heard that jazz rendition many a time, right, And
then of course, I mean, we can't have three wise
men without having the Nutcracker sweet right, right, and the
choreographs dance of the sugarplun ferries.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
Yes, with a little bit like the little dubstep kind
of oh yeah, tweaks to it the remix.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
That's no secret family recipe or holiday cocktail, not particularly.
I mean, we have the Luke's partner making cookies that
don't get brought to the school, which is a problem
because they probably didn't have peanuts in it, and the
other ones do.

Speaker 3 (45:55):
But there's the gingerbread houses. But that's really more decorative
than something to eat, true, true?

Speaker 2 (46:01):
Why why would you waste gingerbread like that?

Speaker 3 (46:03):
Yes, just eat that gingerbread.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
I've I have never like, I don't think I've ever
actually built a gingerbread house. I don't think I've ever
been in a scenario where people really did that, you know,
and it's something I don't like. I see it in movies,
I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool, but also, like
you just it sits in your kitchen like it sits
like in your living room as a decoration. It does
feel like a complete waste of every It's okay, I

(46:26):
every year I find a way to rant about the
Food Network's Holiday Wars. No, do you know the show
I'm talking about?

Speaker 2 (46:32):
Yes, it's okay.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
I love the Food Network. It's my background TV. I
can turn almost anything on and be like, all right, good,
I'll cook while Chopped is on whatever it is except
Food Wars. And my husband knows this, and he will
if he sees it on, he will just like grab
the remote and change it. Because Holiday Wars and they
have a Halloween one and they have a Christmas one,
and it's like, what are you doing. You're building a
really extravagant display of the holidays out of food, but

(46:59):
it's like you're not eating it because it's sitting I
don't know, on the street or sitting in a library.
But there's a taste element. But why does it have
to taste good if you can't eat any of it?
And who are these people Are they artists? Are they sculptors?
Are they bakers? What is this team you're assembling? And
just the logic of it makes my brain explode. And

(47:20):
every year when I see it, I just get angrier.
And that's kind of what I think of gingerbread houses.
I guess, right, what.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
Swing?

Speaker 1 (47:31):
I didn't see that that's adorable? Okay, I take everything
I said about gingerbread house building back. If you can
build a gingerbread house and have a tire swing and
maybe like like in the Adu to the back of it,
the way they had a cabin, like, Okay, I know
it could be very charming and cute if you do
it right, I guess it's worth it. But then still,
like if you like go like if you go and

(47:54):
invited over somebody's house in the holidays, and like you're
sitting around, maybe you're sitting in there a living room
and you're having a drink, and you're and there's Christmas
plame and there's like in the middle of the coffee
tables a gingerbread house. Is it rude at some point
to just like lean over and like break a piece
off and take a bite of it? Is that I
just asking for a friend. I guess in case I

(48:14):
ever get invited to a house like this is it
because to me, like, if food is in front of me,
it's rude not to eat it. But am I never
gonna be invited back because I like broke the gingerbread chimney.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Yeah, they are never for eating.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
Never because there should go ahead and eat this, pretend
to your Godzilla.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
Yeah, that would be nice. I would I would love
to see a human just destroy a bunch of gingerbread
houses like Godzilla.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
Oh, that would also be very like the way they
have rage rooms, right, like you know, you pay thirty
bucks and you go in and just like break stuff.
If they have that for gingerbread houses.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
That would be amazing. But I think they're I don't
think they're ever supposed to be eaten because they're going
to sit out. That frosting is gonna get hard, the
gun drops are gonna get hard. It's not gonna be
fit to eat.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
It's just very wasteful feeling.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
Yeah, the gingerbread will goes stale too. Just yeah, being
out and about just not.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Not a good idea. If you want a gingerbread house,
get one that you know looks like a gingerbread house,
but isn't actually made of food?

Speaker 1 (49:19):
I suppose, But then don't make sure everybody knows it's
not edible, because what if somebody comes over and they
break if he's off, and they eat it and then
they're swallowing like toxic foam.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
That's also so then that's on them for not asking.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
That's true, that's true, all right. So then our number
three is our small business in danger, which I I mean,
did Delor have a business? You call that a business?

Speaker 3 (49:41):
Independent?

Speaker 1 (49:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (49:43):
I mean yeah, he basically had a sign.

Speaker 3 (49:47):
It's like he has a name for his business. You
think he's just it's like a freelance game developer is
what he is. So it's it's really it is a business.
It's just he's doing it.

Speaker 2 (49:56):
Out of his own home that he doesn't have anymore.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
Yeah, better, yes, all right, So we talked to oh,
product placement, there's there's there is some actual, very blatant
product placement.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Did you clock it balsam fer?

Speaker 1 (50:09):
Ope?

Speaker 2 (50:09):
Yes, Oh if you think that's bad, I have seen
far worse balsam fur product placement. In fact, the movie
Unexpected Christmas, which also had Tyler Hines in it very
blatantly has a close up of him opening the Balsam
fur box gently pulling out an ornament and hanging it

(50:31):
on the tree, and I'm like, wow, you guys could
make it a little more subtle.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
Yeah. They they get their money's worth when they and
I mean they're a regular advertiser Hallmark. Almost any movie
you watched the will be a commercial at some point,
but this one, because I watched it, my DVR has
been acting funny, so I didn't fast forward through any
commercials when I watched this. So at one point there
was a commercial that actually started Baltom Hill presenting Three

(50:57):
Wiser Men, which that was funny because then at one
point there's Finding the Perfect Tree where it's like a
little bit of like, oh, look they brought the tree
and I was and it was odd that it was
not a Balsam Hill tree, that it was an actual
real tree. But yes, yeah they still they. So Boston
Hill not only sponsored this movie, they sponsored the Spruce
Grove Fire Department, right, yep, okay, important, all right, So

(51:21):
Cloying Child is the next one.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
We do have to what do you think of lots
of kids?

Speaker 1 (51:27):
Quite a few? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (51:29):
Uh, the one that they said, he's a tiny adult
one talking about being claustrophobic, and yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
And corporate malfeasins. That made me chuckle.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
My dad quit his job because of corporate malfeasts.

Speaker 1 (51:46):
Uh. There's the the girl that we think is going
to be like the problem girl. Right when they first
see the pageant. There's a girl that's like singing and
we're like, oh no, here we go. But then I
guess she's allergic peanuts and then we never see her again.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
Presumably as soon as the director left. They pulled her
out of it because the show would be doomed and
they didn't want to embarrass her.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
Yeah, well it can't happen on your credit.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
She was scooping into all of her notes anyway, which
is you know that, don't just hit the note, honey.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:15):
Song reminded me of something, and I think it's kind
of like muse that kind of style of song. The
way it was arranged.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
Look for any pre k to Grade five Christmas pageant
by far I like Kimberly Sastad, do not have children,
but go to see local children's theater just to make
sure that things are running smoothly.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
Yep, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, that was.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
What did you think of? So we had Miles Marthaler
as Thomas so adorable. It's cute.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Look, kid, he's really cute, and for being as young
as he is, he did really really well.

Speaker 3 (52:58):
Yeah, when he didn't want to be in arrested by
the show and he knew he wasn't good enough for
extra lines and stuff like that, you could really feel it.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
Yeah, And I think it was nice that it wasn't like, oh, no,
we're gonna make him a star, like he just needs
a spotlight. Like no, like some some kids are you know,
not comfortable on stage with a lot of lines, and
and even like that being a whole thing of like,
oh the kids are still in the pageant are the
ones that like weren't the stars and didn't necessarily want
to be the stars. And when the you know, the

(53:27):
the uncles are trying to like rewrite the show to
be like, hey, now you've got all this dialogue, they're
like I don't want that. No, And it's nice just
because you do usually have like oh no, the real
secret is that they're all talented. It's like, no, they're
just little kids, Like they probably can't sing. They just
have to be cute and that's all people need.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
Yeah, and Thomas has a really nice moment with Taylor
because trying to explain that and Okay, so again, I'm sorry,
I guess you about Tyler Hines because he's amazing. He's
he was the baby whisper in the first movie. Anytime
that there was a baby who was there was one
twin that was great all the time. There was one

(54:05):
twin that was angry all the time because she was
teething and so and he would just take that baby
and just walk around and calm her down because he's
not he's a single man. He doesn't have kids, and
he does he's like the child whisperer as well, because
you can see the connection between that little boy and

(54:26):
Tyler throughout.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
Well, they have a secret handshake even they'd like high
five and then do this kind of upward snow motion.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
Yep. And so it was really nice that they had
that moment where he admits that he doesn't want any
more lines. He just wants to do his and Christmas
was saved. Yeah, and that he didn't want and he
was worried because he didn't want to disappoint people. And yeah,
it was just such a nice sne cute.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
Yeah, no, greed, so we did. We talked about finding
the perfect tree, which all goes to pastor roy h.
I did not clock any empty coffee cup back, did
you guess?

Speaker 3 (55:01):
They did pretty good with all the food and beverages.
I mean the wine glasses had wine in them.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
Oh, completely, and I feel that was probably real wine.
Like this, cas is the kind of cast that's like, no, no, no,
give us the good stuff. We're we're filming this for
a while.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
Yeah, give me a nice mere low okay, Yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:19):
That aid is actors trying hard not to actually eat
or drink on camera. But I don't know. I mean
I feel like a lot of candy canes are consumed
members of this cast.

Speaker 3 (55:28):
The ones kept behind your ear.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
Yeah yeah, well, if you haven't opened it yet.

Speaker 3 (55:36):
I hope it's wrapped.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
Yeah, if you haven't licked it yet, you're okay.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
And I mean, it's it that what doesn't kill you
makes you stronger when it comes to germs. But again,
this this is extra. Yeah, it depends you know, your stomach,
I think, is all. We're all go with that, all right, canadianisms.
We talked about the mini stories you know these these
are Canadian actors.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
And you know a little bit o it was.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
I heard it the warm Weather Watch. How cold do
you think it was when they were filming this movie?

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Not very I'm gonna go with not very. Here's here's
the fun thing. Whenever you have outdoor scenes in a
Christmas movie, you can tell whether it was filmed in
winter because people's breath will show.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
And did you catch it in the non proposal proposal scene?

Speaker 2 (56:31):
I don't recall, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
I was because I I even like, wait, is that
what it? Because it didn't because they're wearing like fairly
light clothing, but you could really see like there was
there was white coming out of his mouth, and I
don't you know, I mean, I would go so far
to say, like maybe they find a way to like, okay,
I'm gonna chew this gum so that i can puff
it out and make sure we get that effect, because

(56:57):
it did seem like I don't think it's cold, but
that is definitely uh what is that like? Not air?
But like what do you call it when there's frost
you know, paper whatever, the hot frosty coming out of
your mouth.

Speaker 2 (57:10):
Yeah, But at the same time they are Canadian.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
So they did that dog through the mud, which is like,
what are you doing?

Speaker 1 (57:18):
It's an ugly day. It was a very ugly day
to be out to like film a cute romantic scene
with flowers and a non proposal. But again they had
They probably filmed this in nine days, so.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
I would guess it's probably more like three weeks because
of the child.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
I don't think it's the past. I mean, I know
that I can't remember this was a hallmark or light.
There was an article I had read. It was in
Vulture magazine two years ago, and it was like a long,
in depth dive into making these movies, and I think
it was a Lifetime had kind of very publicly cut
production time down. I think they used to do like

(57:55):
eighteen days and they cut it down to fifteen days. Maybe,
so this one, you have a point like when you're
dealing with that many kids, like they might have had
a little more time. But I still can't imagine this
went more than three weeks. Would probably be the max.
I'd be surprised if it if they allowed it to
go that long.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
Well it yeah, it depends because you know, Okay, again,
here I go in an interview with Tyler. He was
talking about they He was being asked about, what's the
process of, you know, getting a role in the Hallmark movie,
because you know, he's one of their standards, like he's
the fan favorite, and he would you know, there's like,
is it a negotiation thing with salary or is it

(58:36):
a set amount for the entire time? Do you get
paid that day? Et cetera, ad nauseum. How long does
it take? And his answer was, you know, most movies
take two weeks, sometimes three, depending on the situation.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
Okay, okay, interesting, Hallmark might be I mean, Lifetime could
be cheaper than Hallmarket, so it's possible too.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
Yeah, I don't watch the Lifetime movies anymore because they
tend to always annoy me.

Speaker 1 (59:03):
I feel like I've seen some good ones. It's hard
to remember which is which. Lifetime generally will be just
a slightly more adult. There may be a little more
like double entendres or something, but it's never much. A
few years ago after that initial like Hallmark do like
kind of I think it was twenty twenty when Hallmark

(59:26):
aired the Zola commercial with that had a lesbian bride
couple and then pulled it when people complained about it.
A couple of like big name Lifetime actresses I know,
like Hillary Burton, I forget who else. I kind of
like said like, nope, we're not saying at Hallmark if
they're not going to support LGBT. So they kind of
like left for Lifetime. But then Hallmark since like I

(59:48):
think like a year later, they kind of reverse track
and really did like seemingly have worked to incorporate more
gay stories. They've like Jonathan Bennett now like is very
public on their So I don't know. I haven't watched
any Lifetime this year. I feel like last year I
was also a little disappointed. I didn't find anything great there,

(01:00:09):
but I should give something to try this year. I
just have to find one.

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
Yeah, the thing about that whole you know, not not
allowing people to be gay that went out the door
with the CEO who went over American Family which ye yeah,
which is a yeah, and a lady got put in

(01:00:33):
and that's when everything started to change.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
And it really has been much better. I mean I
speak as a as a heterosexual person, so I'm not,
you know, washing still saying like yeah, no, I think
everybody should is feeling seen now, like I wouldn't say that,
but you can tell. Like the first movie I watched
this year was Holiday Mismatch, which was a you know,
standard romantic blah blah, but they had they had a

(01:00:56):
supporting character who was gay. It's just there now, like
it's it's just treated very, very matter of factly, which
is really refreshing. And there was an interview with Jonathan
Bennett that I had posted on the Facebook page that
was really lovely because it was him talking about how like,
oh yeah, now it's great. He's like, I can you know,
every year I come to Hallmark and I say, here's

(01:01:16):
here's what I want to do. And he talked about
how many people have written to him, how many you know,
moms in Ohio have said like, oh, I I'm really
glad that my son has like has somebody like him
that he can watch now on these movies and and
all that. So I think they have made very good.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Strides, agree, And I think they're going to continue making
bigger strides, as I hope so because even even if
there's not like a it's a shown character that is LGBTQ,
they will you'll often see like in a group scene
with people dancing you'll see a lesbian couple, you'll see
a gay couple. Yeah, you know, and it's just normal.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
Yeah, and they're finally accepting that. I will say because
I know I said it the first time we watched
Three Wise Men, and watching Three Wiser Men, my husband
was in the room watching it, and I didn't say anything,
and he said to me when I can't remember the
exact moment, but when Stephan or Steph as they call him,
at one point when like his he's with Susie and

(01:02:19):
my husband looks at me, he's like, well, they're not
gonna get married because he's obviously gay, which is what
I thought in the first movie. And it's so funny
to me because I've seen now Paul Campbell do a
lot of different movies. And I said nothing, and my
husband also read his character in this movie is gay
when he clearly isn't. But it's just another funny thing
of like, okay, so at least it's not just me.
My gator isn't completely like it might be off, but

(01:02:41):
so are other people. So Paul Campbell just confusing us
left and right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):
He's just that good, I guess. Yeah, yeah, he is married,
has children, so.

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
And it would be fine if he was or was not.
It just it was like refreshing for me to be like, okay, good.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
So it wasn't just me no, No, it's interesting. It's
just I've had a lot of experience with Paul Campbell
and so I didn't actually read that as a gig character.
But I can see how people who are not familiar
as much.

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
If that's your introduction, I think in particular, then its yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
I see where that. I see where you're coming from.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
Because he's also dressed very well. We'll get to the
fashion in a minute, but he has like he's dressed
very sharply in one scene where I'm like, street man,
what do a pocket square?

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
That?

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
Well, well, he was introduced in the first film as
a like a pet psychologist. You're like, well, okay, saying something.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
Okay. Eleven is when we have old people very aggressively
matchmaking in this case, not really, we just have our
old people who want to like you know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
Them exactly, like just leave them alone. Your mom has
not gotten any in decades, seemingly.

Speaker 1 (01:03:54):
All those and she's like, no, I've been dating for
a while. And I kind of like that too, because
it's that thing of when you remember were like, oh right,
adult children sometimes just do not think of their parents
as like other adult bees. Yeah. Yeah, all right, So
now we close with the fashion watch, right, we talk
about our favorite outfits or some choices. I will throw

(01:04:17):
out the one that I caught, which was that my
husband actually again pointed out in the opening scene, and
maybe this was intentional.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
That.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
Luke's fire chief outfit feels very like ill fitting to him.
It's very baggy, and my husband said, like, oh is
he Is he a stripper? The kind of looked like
a tear away like, oh yeah, he's gonna go like
I'm going to work hunt and then goes like, you know,

(01:04:47):
I'm like, this is Hallmark, it's not Netflix. So no,
it's no, He's just a fire chief and a very
poorly fit Like was that the costume that his colleague
that like his former chief in the last movie or
the guy in Kittens of Christmas War kind of is
what it felt like to me.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
Yeah, especially when you look to like the extras in
the scene and you know, the supporting actors and they're
all got these fireman arms. It's like some of them
are probably actually the firefighters from that city because that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
Might have just been an actual firefighters arms.

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
Yeah. My fashion thing had to be the arcade scene.
And Brandy noticed this is that Taylor and his girlfriend
are both wearing these shirts that are black and white stripes. Yeah,
black and white cords on those stripes. Just hammering that
nail that they're the same person.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
Yep, that they absolutely belong together because they can share clothing. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
Yeah, for me, it's always going to be Tyler and
a cardigan. You cannot put Tyler Hines in a Christmas
movie and not put him in a card again because
he wears them as so well.

Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
Okay, yeah, and Paul Campbell's pocket square and they're like,
I look.

Speaker 3 (01:05:57):
Chic, Yeah, Pastory, you well dressed.

Speaker 1 (01:06:01):
Yeah, definitely, like again, once I got past the hair,
which I think was really only in that first scene.
And if you look at his IMDb picture, the actor
is Christopher Schier and like chic man in his IMDb picture,
he's got like a tie that's a little loose. He's
got his hair is like, you know, not Reagan wig esque,

(01:06:24):
you know, he looks like, oh yeah, kind of like
silver Fox type. But boy, did we have to do
something about about that early on. It was upsetting, really
all right. So, having said all of this, where do
we fall in three wiser men? Is it recommended? Is
it a worthy follow up? What do you think?

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
I feel like it's a worthy follow up. And I
especially loved because I was waiting the entire movie for
kimber Lisa Stad's cameo and the fact that she comes
out and starts talking about, hey, it's a kind of
a danger. You know how good it was last year.
Trying to raise the bar and get that same sort

(01:07:05):
of reaction this time.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
Is just so so meta.

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
And so Chef's kiss of course to Kimberly sus dad
because I love her in everything anyway, So I think
I would recommend this. I think it's a lot of fun.
I think there's a lot of atypical stuff that goes
on there that isn't your typical Hallmark fair and it's
it's fun for everybody, how about you, Dave.

Speaker 3 (01:07:30):
It's a great film that's constructed on top of what's
a pretty flimsy plot about the whole Christmas pageant, which
anybody who knows anything about like how theater works, is
how few days they have to create this show, and

(01:07:50):
that they're leaving it just to these like three inexperienced
not uncle. Yeah, and that they're even allowing them with
that around these children without any background checks, Like.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
You can't walk into a school these days without being
like officially signed in by you know, a security guard.

Speaker 3 (01:08:12):
Yeah, yeah, you just have to take on that. Okay,
the the I guess the principle has allowed it to happen,
and therefore it's okay, is the only way to like
kind of sign off that Okay, it's got this this mark,
you know that the stamp of approval. But otherwise it's
like what are they doing?

Speaker 2 (01:08:32):
It has more like a punishment actually, right, but who
punishes people with looking over kids?

Speaker 1 (01:08:40):
And like who has the right to do that? Like
the school principle is like, okay, now you are caretaking
for these children. You are taking them out at night
to an arcade without other kings. Like it's like yeah, no, okay,
eight different children between the ages of you know, five
and eleven. You're gonna hang out tonight with the bachelor's

(01:09:01):
at the arcade. Hey, Luke's married, but like again none
of them are twinny I I don't know. I would
not feel comfortable being like like okay, yeah, I'll just
come and chaperone a field trip. I don't know these child.
I don't know their allergies. Literally don't know the kid's allergies.

Speaker 3 (01:09:19):
So I mean that, Yeah, one of them did poison
the kids with BLA and they still and then they.

Speaker 1 (01:09:25):
Said, Okay, now you're gonna build a set for this
kid to step on and climb. Yeah. Very poor administration,
I guess is the issue here.

Speaker 3 (01:09:34):
Uh now you kind of overlook that, then everything else
is great. It's just that that's a hard pill to swallow.

Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
Yeah, I don't know that it For me, I think
it is step down. I think it was more like
it didn't step up from the first film. I think
the first film felt really fresh, had clearly like had
a lot of energy behind it of like, hey, we're
gonna tell a story because we want to work together
and we want to do something a little different, but
we're respect like what you came here for and this

(01:10:03):
one and I dave, I think you made some really
good point about the sort of like no, there is
a theme here, and it's a more adult theme and
because of that, it's like overall a little bit less
fun to get to So I did enjoy it. I
think it's recommended. I think if you like the first one,
definitely watch this one. I am hoping to do another

(01:10:23):
one and kind of just like go bigger, go funner,
and like close it out in a really satisfying way.
But this was enjoyable, and I'm very glad that I
watched it. I'm very glad I got to watch it
with YouTube.

Speaker 2 (01:10:34):
Love you yay.

Speaker 1 (01:10:37):
So now tell the world, and by the world, it
means whoever you know is listening to this where else
they can find more of you?

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
Dave, you go first.

Speaker 3 (01:10:46):
Okay, we co host a podcast. It's fairly due for us.
We're on episode nine. We're almost to the ten. We're
almost to that benchmark that these eight podcasters rarely reach
the tenth episode. But it shield podulation and it's a
random Star Trek podcast in which we just randomly choose
an episode a movie of the Star Trek franchise and

(01:11:10):
review it. And that includes two partters. We'll do half
a two parter. We already did part one of one
two parter it was Redemption the Next Generation, and this
next one we're going to do is Birthright Part two,
which is also next generation, but we've done like three Voyagers.

(01:11:31):
We haven't done a lot of New Trek yet, which
is disappointing because I'd be excited to talk Discovery.

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
How are you picking them? Are you like, do you
have a giant bucket with like tiny little pieces of
paper written everything in there.

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
We have a spreadsheet that my friend Dan made for
his own purposes which has every episode, movie, short, et
cetera of Star Trek in order of air date or
release date. And so basically I asked my echo device
for a number between one and I guess we're at

(01:12:03):
nine hundred and forty one now and then and if
we get to the point where we're where it's picking
a number that we've already used, then we do a
fifty to fifty And if it's uh, if it's a
the one the number above then or the number before that,
then we we do that or if it's basically if

(01:12:25):
it's like, if it's heads, then we do the the
number before it. If it's tails, we do the number
after it. So basically that's what it will come to.
So but we have we're having a lot of fun.
I like the system, and we don't edit it. Your
cass fine, Yeah, we are old and tired and sick

(01:12:46):
of editing, and so we just decided because that's what's
the thing is say like, yeah, but the editing, and
I'm like, well, what if we don't.

Speaker 3 (01:12:52):
Edit mistakes and all? Yeah, any kind of vocal tics anything,
because that's the way people talk. Why edited out true now?

Speaker 2 (01:13:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:13:03):
See. Also, I go by dj Evil Dave in a
few places. I have some Spotify playlists that are available
if you're interested in that. I've got like a cyberpunk
one if you're into that kind of genre. I've got
a goth one that's one song per artist. I think
it's a thousand and one songs now kind of goth,
dark wave, post punk, that kind of stuff. So yeah,

(01:13:25):
that's available to you if you happen to enjoy that.
I've got even got a nerdy one if you are
a very nerdy person that's got a lot of soundtrack
songs stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:35):
Awesome and very much associated you know, dark goth Christmas
chair perfect.

Speaker 3 (01:13:39):
Oh yeah, I've got one called Bleak Midwinter that's specifically
for this kind of time of year.

Speaker 1 (01:13:44):
Very nice, very nice.

Speaker 2 (01:13:46):
Yeah. You can find me on basically Instagram or Blue
Sky on Blue Sky and just Brandy Wine. I got
in early so that I didn't have to put any
numbers after it as same and it's Brandy with an
just so you guys know. And then also on Instagram,
I'm just my name Brandy Jakala altogether, and I do

(01:14:08):
a live show with my friend Dan when new Star
Trek episodes are running, and we do that usually on
Saturdays at twelve pm Mountain time. You have a clock
in your phone, figure it out for your time zone.
It's not that hard.

Speaker 3 (01:14:23):
And this is a live YouTube.

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
Showtube show I was getting to that, thank you, Dave,
called The Unready Room, and it airs. It airs live,
but of course people do watch it after the fact
as well. But if you get there live, you watch
it live. You can jump in the chat and we
have a lot of fun with the chat. And that's
on Dan's YouTube channel that is Kurt Rats Productions, which

(01:14:44):
is Kurt Rats is just Star Trek spelled backwards, so yeah, that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:49):
Works out, Yeah, Star Trek. When that happens, you can
very easily make a fun pronounceable word from words that
are not meant to be interpreted that way.

Speaker 2 (01:15:03):
Stands cool like that, it's just really cool comedian.

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):
Hey, no doubt about it, as we know. Well, thank
you so much for joining. We will be back hopefully
next year. I wonder if they have any timeframe planned.
I mean, I would think, don't come back next year
for three wiser men, maybe like give it another year
or two for three wisest men and a teenager as

(01:15:27):
I'd like to see. But hopefully we'll have you guys
again next year, and in the meantime, have a merry
and wise Christmas.

Speaker 3 (01:15:35):
Yep, happy holidays, Happy Holidays.