Stocking Stuffers 11.1 A Cozy Christmas Inn

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and you know what that means: Stocking Stuffers are back! Emily starts the season with a solo visit to Garland, Alaska, where Hallmark decides to get vengeance on Candace Cameron Burre by making a sequel without her to 2014's Christmas Under Wraps. This episode includes a far too detailed dissection of 2022's A Cozy Christmas Inn, complete with diversions to Gene Siskel and Emily's new favorite IMDB bio of all time. Have a listen, and be sure to grab your live or live/laterstream tickets to Emily's December Christmas show!

The Lost Hallmark Christmas Movie LIVE!
https://www.caveat.nyc/events/the-lost-hallmark-christmas-movie-live--12-7-2025
Instagram: @feminine_critique_pod
The world's best IMDB entry: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2036202/?ref_=fn_t_1

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Temperatures outside getting low. I hear a snowblower starting to float.
It's ginger, blood flowing abistoles.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
To marsh bell lows is my hot coat coat, the
snowman wave and a handheld glow Aurora borealists starting to stroke.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Warm it up inside my long part road for Christmas
memories fill my frontal low.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Oh, its like Christmas. It sounds like Christmas.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
It feels like Cristmas. So it feels like Christmas. It's
gotta mean one thing. I mean, it means a lot
of things, but to me primarily one thing, and that
is that it is stalking stuff for a season. Everybody,
Season eleven, Welcome to the feminine critique. I'm Emily with

(01:04):
me is not Christine. She will be back at some
point in an episode or two, most likely. But this
is that time of year when I think some listeners
get excited and some just say, Okay, I am going
to unsubscribe and subscribe again in one month's time. For
those who are new around these parts, I have started
doing this eleven years ago, and I was a younger

(01:25):
woman in another decade and era of my life where
I watch cozy Cardigan Christmas movies off in Hallmark, but
there are many many others out there, and I bring
on guests and we'll have a whole bunch of people,
some you know, some you don't, and we just will
each time watch one of these movies and talk about it.

(01:47):
We talk through a guideline of the things that you
expect to see in all of these movies. We'll go
through that checklist. Some of the other little bonus rounds
that also come up, we'll go through all of it. Yes,
I was doing the Hallmark bingo card before there was
a Hallmark bingo card. I didn't call it a bingo card.
I called it a checklist. Maybe I should have trademarked
it and then things would be different. But here we

(02:10):
are eleven years later, and we're just still doing this. Now,
before we get to the movie, because you might have
noticed there was no trailer, there will be a trailer.
This is a prologue. Yes, we've gotten fancy this year.
I wanted to do an announcement and it's going to
be one of those annoying announcements that I'll make a
couple of times, probably throughout the entire run of this season.

(02:30):
But there is something really exciting that I'm doing that.
I cordially invite all of you to join in for
I mentioned this last year, I did a live Hallmark
parody that I co wrote, co directed with Kevin Maher,
very funny guy of Kevin geeks out. You know him,
you love him. He's been on this show too, and

(02:51):
we are bringing it back. People. We are doing a
live show, So if you were in the New York
area at all on December seventh to thirty pm at
the Caveat, which is in Lower Manhattan, we are doing
it there live with lights and sound cues and minimal costumes.
It's gonna be fabulous. It'd be great to see you there.

(03:11):
You can find those tickets at caveat dot NYC. I'll
put the link in the show notes. Obviously, use discount
Emily in caps for five bucks off. But more importantly,
because I don't know how many of you would ever
leave your house on a Sunday in December. I mean,
believe me, it's not my top of the line to do.
But that's okay. You don't have to go anywhere because

(03:33):
this is going to be streamable and video undemandable, rentable.
I don't know what you call it. These days instagrammable guys.
I'm old. I'm getting very old. And all this is
to say at the same link caveat NYC. I'll put
the link in the show notes in case I haven't
said it already. You will be able to rent it

(03:53):
for a whopping eight dollars plus. I think it's like
a dollar thirty seven service fee, so for that it's
like nine thirty seven. That is less than the price
of a blue banana. You get to watch it. It
will run through December twenty sixth, so you don't have
to watch it live. You can watch it later streamed,
as we'd like to say, And it would be really
cool for people to see it, for people to give

(04:14):
us feedback, people to tell us what they liked, and
hopefully that's all and nothing more of what they didn't.
We've been doing the show for a long time. We
have never really asked for anything. As far as you know,
Patreons seem very complicated to me, So this is just
a chance to support me, which would be nice if
you know you wanted to do that. I don't know

(04:35):
why you've listened to me if you didn't actually like
hearing me. So now you also get to see me.
Can you handle that? I don't know if I can
anyway hope to see or hear many of you there.
And with all of that being said, now let's hear
the trailer for this week's episode.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Tadda Garland. It's this adorable little town. It's all about Christmas.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Wow, that's Garland for you. Can a random reunion long
time no see Erica reignited Christmas romance each.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Maybe it's I don't plan on staying very long, that's
what they all say.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
What's that? There? Does seem to be unfinished business between
you two? Are you going to sell the inn?

Speaker 4 (05:19):
Call me?

Speaker 1 (05:20):
I want to show you some a cozy Christmas in?
There you go twenty twenty Two's a cozy Christmas in?
Sounds very generic, right, sounds like most of the other
Hallmark movies we have watched over the years. Nothing special
about this one, it seems to already from the trailer

(05:40):
you can tell it hits a lot of the tropes
that we're gonna look for. But guys, this there's a
very specific reason I picked this one to do. I
caught about thirty seconds of this movie last year when
I was just flipping around TV and I had this
very like this weird deja vu sense of what, wait
a minute, this is odd because on one hand it

(06:02):
felt very much like the show that I wrote, But
also I was watching thinking Garland, Garland, why does this
sound familiar? Did they just reuse the name and do
that thing that is easy to happen where you realize
you've kind of written the same thing you've already written
because a lot of these movies are very similar. No,
this is a sequel to Hallmark's most successful Christmas movie

(06:23):
of all time. That movie was twenty fourteen's Christmas under Wraps.
Many of you know it. It is considered like, I don't
know that it's like the peak of Hallmark, but for
it was kind of the movie that put Hallmark in
a broader audience where people started taking notice because for
whatever reason, this movie connected with people. Had like a

(06:43):
six million rating, which for a network like Hallmark was
a lot, especially back in twenty fourteen. Although it's probably
that was who knows what numbers are anymore, who can say,
but this movie was just a huge hit for Hallmark
and people still watch it. It is in regular rotation on
the Hallmark network, so makes sense to do a sequel, Right,

(07:04):
why would you not eight years go by? Okay, sure
we can bring back the town, bring back the characters. Sure,
let's see where they're at now, give them another soft,
gentle conflict that we can finesse through. But guys, that
is not what this movie is doing or why it
was made. Why did they make a sequel to twenty

(07:24):
fourteen Christmas under Wraps eight years later in twenty twenty two. Well,
this movie is essentially designed to be a big fu
to the former deposed Queen of Hallmark, herself, Candice Cameron Beret. Now,
if you have followed the show, you know that I
am not a fan of hers, both as a person
and as an actor. I don't think she's I don't

(07:46):
get it. And this happens a lot, right, There's always
the like star that everybody kind of gravitates to you,
and you just you're like, I don't why are they
famous when other people are not? I don't get it.
But I've never understood it. I don't think she's a
great actress. I don't think she's that anything on screen.
It's never made sense to me, especially when you compare
her to someone like Hillary Burton, who I think is

(08:09):
actually a great actor and is very funny Alaci Shaver,
who absolutely knows what she's doing in these movies. CCB
is just there, usually with very little range. She kind
of does the same thing. Her voice never changes, her
mannerism has never change, and yet people like her. I
don't get it. But something very dramatic happened in twenty
twenty two. If we go back a couple of years,

(08:29):
this was when CCB left Hallmark. Why well, Hallmark started
incorporating more alternate storylines in their films. They had a
lot of kind of back and forth around that time
with whether or not they were supporting LGBT. There were
kind of moves forward and moves back, and by this

(08:50):
point I think they had kind of said, like, no, no, no,
We'll make sure we have a gay movie every year.
It's I mean, these are like gay in very big
air quotes, because you know what I mean, Like these
are still not overly pushing any boundaries. But they did
kind of say, like, well, I guess we're gonna do this.
CCB is a terrible human being who has you know,
quote unquote family values, and so she defected to the

(09:13):
Great American Family Network. GAF as they call it. I
think Gaff is still around. It has never come near
Hallmark's numbers, and Hallmark itself has also gone down quite
a bit over the years, but Gaff is there. She
has not worked with Hallmark since then, and clearly Hallmark
decided that they wanted to just kind of stick it

(09:34):
to her. This is weird. This is very weird. Now.
This is also side note. One of my favorite things
that any piece of art can do is be I
guess it would be called petty revenge. When a movie
is made and just decides I'm going to find a
way to just like poke somebody that can't respond because

(09:56):
they're not in the movie. My prime example of this,
We're gonna take a little diversion, but Christmas are really
did so it's okay. Back in the day, best example
of a filmmaker taking vengeance on somebody, all right, So
we're gonna go back in time a little bit to
nineteen ninety one when the movie The Fisher King comes out.
Fisher King, big hit and a big Oscar nominee got

(10:19):
quite a few nominations, including Best Screenplay. Not everybody was
happy about this, though, so Siskel and Ebert my heroes
film critics of the time. They would do a special
every year called If We Picked the Winners, and it
would be them doing like an Oscar's them naming their
best picture and everything else. Sometimes they would wear tuxedos

(10:40):
and it'd be adorable. But for the nineteen ninety one
Academy Awards, one of the categories they'd always have was
their worst nomination, the nomination that they felt was not acceptable,
and Jeene Siskel chose the screenplay for The Fisher King
as his so cut. Two three years later, Richard Lagravin's
who wrote The Fisher King I'm Ready for an Oscar

(11:00):
and is writing a Christmas movie, The Ref and decides
to get his vengeance on Gene Siskel by naming a
kind of unlikable villainous character after Siskel. In the movie.
He is a like military instructor who is also being
blackmailed by a kid for pictures of him with sex workers.

(11:21):
Not a flattering portrayal. And not only that, they go
and cast somebody that kind of, you know, looks like
Jeane Siskel and who is that person? That is a baby?
Young JK. Simmons in his film debut, So we have
like JK. Simmons Oscar Winner, possibly because Richard Legravinice was

(11:41):
holding a grudge against Gene Siskel my favorite thing. Anyway,
how does that relate to a cozy Cardian and Christmas. Well,
let me tell you, guys. This movie, as I said,
is kind of made as a way to say you
can't juste Cameron Beray. It is a sequel to Christmas
under Wraps. And yet, as you noticed from the trailer,
never do they say that in the marketing for this movie.

(12:04):
I looked on Hallmark's website, and you would think they
would say a follow up to Hallmark's classic or Everybody's favorite,
a movie that you've seen, But no, they don't actually
acknowledge that this is a part two. Now if you're
watching the movie, and also because there have been so
many movies like this, it's easy to not even think it,

(12:25):
like to not notice it and clock it. But it
is very much a sequel now where Christmas under Wraps
left off and give a quick wrap up of Christmas
under Wraps, a movie that was also kind of in
some ways at the start of my journey with these
because it was on TV and I was watching it
and I remember distinkly. My husband walking by and looking

(12:47):
and saying, Wow, these people aren't even in the same
room together. And this is twenty fourteen. It's not like
a COVID thing. And I realized I'm watching it. Oh yeah.
There's a scene where CCB is talking to her parents
at their house, and her and her father are like
clearly in the scene together and talking back and forth,
but every time they turn to face her mother, the
mother is on like in a different kitchen, standing there

(13:09):
talking and never in the same shot. And it was
just fascinating to me. And then I kind of had
to watch the rest of the movie because it's a
weird one. CCB was a doctor who ends up in
Alaska because it's the only fellowship she can take, and
what do you know, it's this charming small town and
it's great and she falls in love with the guy there,
who is the son of Santa Claus, and the entire

(13:31):
movie there's like a kind of there's his father, played
by the great Brian Doyle Murray, and you're like, well,
he's Santa right, it's gonna prove like when are we
gonna get to Santa Claus? And this entire movie goes
and I'm like, this movie is almost over and we
still haven't oh no, thirty seconds, with thirty seconds to go,
we get the reveal of him and a sled and
it's like h Mary, Christmas, everybody, and he flies away

(13:53):
and she's like, oh, okay, this is now. I'm staying
in Alaska with my new boyfriend who is also the
son of Santa Claus. Okay, that's where it ended. We
pick up now eight years later, whether that's real time
or not. Uh, and the man who was our bland
love and interest in the first film is still there

(14:14):
in Alaska, but obviously there's no CCB. CCB is nowhere
to be found. Her character left him for a fellowship
in I think it's San Francisco, and it was very like, yeah,
well you know, she left me for the big city,
that fucking bitch. It's I mean, they don't say that,
but it's there, right and it's just a strange thing,

(14:36):
and as you can imagine, the audience is not happy.
We'll get to some of the reviews and write it
threads at the end, because right now all of that's
to say, let's put that aside, because some of you
might be watching Goes in Christmas in without any you know,
kind of awareness of Christmas under wraps. And you don't
need it to see this movie. It's not Wicked Wicked

(14:59):
Part two for good like you. You can get through
it without having any context of the fact that there
was a hit movie eight years ago about the same character. No,
because he is not our lead. This story focuses on
Erica McNichol. I know her name because they say it
a lot. This is sort of the school of the
Ann Perkins school of saying a character by her full

(15:22):
name at all times. So Love Interest keeps saying Erica mcnickel,
Erica McNichol, Eric McNichol, and Erica is a okay, what
is she exactly? A businesswoman? She is definitely a businesswoman.
She is angling to be executive vice president. She wants
that EVP that those initials on her business card, and

(15:45):
how is she going to get that? Well, she I
guess works or you stay mobile of some kind. Played
by the Great Vivica a Fox who is reading in
Flight magazine one day, as you know, business mogils do,
and sees that there is a charming Christmas inn up

(16:06):
in this tiny town called Garland Alaska and Erica, you
need to go to Garland, Alaska, get the innkeeper to
sell the inn, and then we'll make it a big
company and everybody will start going to Alaska for their vacations.
This is a town that you have to fly to
Anchorage and then get a tiny little like private jet
to then fly to And I guess I don't know

(16:27):
what can I say. I'm not a business mogil. I
don't know how things work. But the logic seems sound okay. Well,
this is a setup of many a movie we've had, right,
we know this story. You send a big city business
person to a small town, and we know what work goes.
But here's the twist. Guys Erica knows Garland, Alaska. She
hasn't been to Garland, Alaska, but she knows one of

(16:48):
its seven residents because guess what. Her and Andy Holliday,
the innkeeper of this cozy Christmas in, used to be
a couple back when he lived in the big bad city.
But he had to go back home and help with
the family business, and he was not into a long

(17:08):
distance relationship. And she was not about to leave all
of her business dreams behind to go to this tiny town.
So they broke up, and you know what, do you know?
Fate brings them back together and she goes there and
there he is folks and all of his very very
bland glory, and he doesn't want to sell the in

(17:30):
because he, I guess likes it even though he doesn't
really seem to be very good at it. He has
two guests there. How they're keeping the lights on, I
don't know, but he's there, and she's like, well, if
I sell this in, I get a big promotion and
that'd be great. And he's like, yeah, ah, but I
don't want to sell the in. Okay. Well that's okay.

(17:51):
I don't want you to sell the in Okay. Cool. Meanwhile,
the entire town obviously is pushing them together and trying
to get this sordid and there's like we even moments
where the characters stop and explain the plot of the
gift of the Magi to other characters. So the entire
time you're like waiting for that to be the big finish.
Right that she realizes, well, I if I need him

(18:15):
to sell, and that would make me happy, but it
wouldn't make me happy because him selling would make him unhappy.
So you're thinking, like, Okay, they're both going to give
something up in the scenario and spoiler alert to how
this movie ends, and everything is happening as normal, and
finally towards the end, she's like, I'm I'm not gonna

(18:36):
let you sell because I'm gonna help you market this
place better. You know, we will have an Instagram page,
I think is kind of what she goes with. And
you can get people to come if you have a
Christmas mixer with everybody in town. We'll get the word
out about the fact that there is one hotel in
this tiny town that's really hard to get to. And

(18:57):
we can save the inn and you don't have to sell,
and you know what, I love it here. I'm gonna stay.
And to his credit, Andy is kind of like, you
don't have to. You don't have to give up everything
you've worked for and your entire career and life in
Seattle to be with me. And that's a lot to ask,
and she's like, no, I'm doing it. And separately, he's like, oh, also,

(19:21):
there's something I should tell you, by the way about
my family. She's like, yeah, sure, your family's kind of cooky,
ha ha, And he's like, yeah, okay, did you talk
to my mother? And she does. She talks to his mother,
who's like does the thing where she's like, okay, I
have something to tell you about her family and cuts
to commercial and we know what the mother has said
is by the way, Andy's father is Santa Claus, and like,

(19:41):
the one kind of actively funny moment in the movie
is when Erica mcdu nicoll is telling Andy like, ha,
your mother is a little cogee. She said your dad
Santa Claus, which I mean, admittedly is a really like
that's probably would be my reaction to if Brandon was like,
out of nowhere told me, by the way, or parent
are actually the Easter money? I don't know. But then,

(20:04):
of course, much like Christmas under Wraps, the final moment
of this film ends with Santa and his leg going
like all right, by everybody, Merry Christmas and flying away
and she's like, oh you really areas and guys, that's
a cozy Christmas in as basic applaud as you can
go and leaves us in the same place that Christmas

(20:25):
under Wraps did. So what about this movie is going
to tell us that this relationship obviously ambitious, you know,
urban woman who's tasted the successful life is now going
to stay in this tiny, tiny town, much like cec
Bid b did in Christmas under Raps. And at a

(20:46):
certain point do we think she's like not gonna get
the you know, an offer somewhere and she's gonna be like,
all right, peace out by well it will, I guess
entirely depend on whether Jodie Sweeten pisses off Hallmark the
same way that Cantus Cameron Braid did. That's the movie.
So now what we do is we want to go
into the tropes of the movie. Before we do that,
I should mention one other kind of fun thing to

(21:08):
look out for if you choose to watch a cozy
Christmas in This movie's twenty twenty two. So it was
surprising me because I couldn't remember timelines anymore. But this
was definitely a COVID shoot. You can tell this by
the fact that no characters are ever really near each other.

(21:28):
We get a lot of phone calls. About probably thirty
percent of this movie is just one person talking on
a FaceTime call to the other person in a different scene,
all alone with nobody else near them. That itself is
entertaining if you are looking for those kinds of things.
I should also mention this is written and directed by
the same team who brought us Christmas under Raps, so

(21:49):
that is writer Jennifer Notus Shapiro, who has written lots
of these kinds of movies. Director Peter Sullivan, also of
Christmas under Raps, and like many of these directors, rotates
between happy Hallmark Christmas, cozy Christmas fun, a Christmas romance
party with things like killer fortune teller trapped in her

(22:12):
dorm room, and something that I really do have to
look out for Silent Night Fatal Night. Okay, but now
we've gotten the story behind us, so now we go
into the tropes. Right. Ten things that we expect to
find in all these movies. I'll run them down very quickly.
You'll hear them every week from here on out. One
female lead need of a lesson to a bland love interest.

(22:32):
Three are setting being very specifically a big bad city,
a terming small town, or a magical winter water lamb
Four dead parents are a dead wife, five a sassy sidekicks,
six a villain of a very particular sort seven montages,
eight slapstick, nine A sage old person. Ten Santa Claus
Bonus points if that sage old person is indeed Santa Claus.
So starting with number one, our lead in need of

(22:52):
a lesson, so Erica McNicol, how do you poke a
jab at? Can just Cameron Beret? What do you do?
Who's like the closest actor you can cast that is
making a statement against her? How about somebody who starred
with her in the series that they are both best
known for, and who has politics completely on the other

(23:15):
side of CCB. That is Jody Sweeten. He will remember
her from Full Ouse, Stephanie Tanner herself. Jody Sweeten has
had a reader Wikipedia entry. She's had quite a life,
seems to have come through a lot of rough things,
seems in a good place, seems to have helped a
lot of people. Great, has very liberal politics, has been

(23:37):
very active and vocal in Black Lives Matter and abortion
and in LGBT. So it's great to see her in
one of these movies. Having said all of that, you
will see none of those things in this movie, as
you might guess, but still it's a nice like okay
good And how is she as an actor? I don't
think I have ever seen her in anything other than
Full house, which I was, you know, kind of cool

(23:58):
for my age and didn't actually like. But as a
kid actor, she was, you know, she was a fine
kid actor. She's fine. I think she's she's good on camera.
I don't think she has that like wow factor that
I think some other maybe actors do on where like
they're in these roles and you're like you really just
naturally kind of attune to them. But I think she's capable.

(24:23):
She's fine. So that's where I'd kind of leave that.
I could see her being more interesting in a better script,
but for this she's there, and that's that the character itself.
Does she need to learn a lesson guys? I mean,
the the gender politics of this movie are troubling. Now again,

(24:44):
I want to say, this is a situation like if
you've ever had a friend who is dating somebody who
you feel is beneath them, but it's not like their
partner is like actively bad. It's just that they're not
like up to their level, and you can't really blame
the partner because he's not doing anything, but you're just annoyed.

(25:07):
And that's a situation here. She is. Everything we know
about her is she is very good at her job,
whatever that is, it's unclear. At one point, somebody calls
her a real estate developer and she's like, no, I'm
more like an investor. But it's not her money. She's
an investor assistant for a real estate developer. It's unclear.

(25:30):
She's a businesswoman, though she wants cappuccino not coffee. Okay.
Side note, isn't that a very like nineties joke? Because
do you know business women in the twenty twenties who
drink cappuccino. That's a lot of dairy. I don't think
women like that are doing it, but maybe I'm just judging.

(25:51):
I don't know. The other I guess interesting ish thing
about her is she likes astronomy. That will serve as
a somewhat defining characteristic and it's really all we get.
I mean, she does. She has a line at one point,
I'm supposed to prioritize work above all else in my life,
and for the first time, I'm not doing that again.

(26:11):
It's unsettling because I kind of wrote some of these
lines for aforementioned Christmas movie that you can see on
December seventh, and I felt a little bit like, did
I accidentally see this movie without knowing it and write that,
but it just speaks to you kind of the typical nature. Again,
this woman is fine, she's not like I don't know,

(26:33):
she's not trying to undersell this property, like apparently the
offer is very generous and she's doing her job and
then she decides. But I really like the end, and
I like that it has an astronomy tower, so it
would be bad to prioritize work, and that's where we're
left off. So it's kind of annoying. I wish she

(26:55):
was a little bit more ambitious. I think that's always
something that to me. There's different levels obviously of Hallmark
romance stories and something I find the most frustrating, as
dumb as it is, like just be extreme so that
the movie in two hours can actually have an arc

(27:15):
as opposed to being I'm kind of a businesswoman and
I'm doing my job, but I don't want to do it.
I'd rather it be I am a stereotypical cappuccino swilling
assistant who wants to make big and then I have
a much bigger fall when I decide I actually love
Christmas in this like the movie opens with her decorating
Christmas tree and then hiding from her boss thinking, oh

(27:37):
my god, I'm not supposed to like Christmas in this office.
You'd think that's going to be a thing throughout the movie,
and it's not at all. So I don't know. It's
like sometimes when Hallmark tries to make a person not extreme,
it's just so boring. And that's what we have here.
And speaking of that, moving on to number two, our
bland love interest, Andy Holiday right Erica mcnigole doesn't really
have a Christmas sounding name, although you could say Nick

(28:00):
Saint Nick. Oh, isn't that perfect. Andy Holliday obviously has
a Holiday name because he's the son of Santa Claus,
although you would not know that because he is a dull,
dull man played by David O'Donnell who shows up in
so many of these movies, so many of the ones
that it's funny. I looked at z IMDb expecting it
to be all of these movies. It's not. It just

(28:21):
so happens that all of the movies that he has
done like this are movies I've covered, including I have
another one this season that he's going to be the
love interest in. He is a little bit older and
like he kind of feels a lot older than Jody
Sweet in this movie. The age gap isn't that big.
I think it's like eight ten years. But there's something
about him and part of it so that we saw

(28:42):
him eight years ago doing the same character.

Speaker 4 (28:44):
That feels a little bit like, I don't know, dude,
Like you own an inn and you haven't done anything
with it, and like you I don't know, like what
are you doing with your life?

Speaker 1 (28:54):
You're not that impressive. You position to telescope in uh
in a tronomy tower. You didn't even build the in,
I don't know. Not that impressive a man. And again
I think he knows that this man seems to have
very low self esteem, which is fine because I don't
think he's that impressive. He should have low self esteem.
And yet he's uh, you know, I no, no, whatever,

(29:15):
he's there. That's it Number three. Our setting. Obviously we
have like tidbits of big bad city. We open with
stock footage of Seattle. We also get stock footage of
the Anchorage Airport. But of course this is Garland, Alaska.
This a town that even has its own tagline, which

(29:35):
is that's Garland for you. It comes up about eight
times in the movie, with different characters saying it. Whenever
they kind of explain away it's very so, so okay,
did anybody else see Eddington this year? I'd like to know,
because I keep I have not decided if I liked
it or not. It's good. It's rolling around in my
head in a lot of ways, but I keep thinking

(29:57):
to myself, can we just do it like Eddington? A
Christmas movie in Eddington? What would that be? I kind
of feel like it might be a little bit of
a cozy Christmas in. This town has one diner, Hattie's Diner.
It has one inn, but it does have a thriving
economy because it has the Christmas Shipping Company I think

(30:19):
is what they call it, and it's obviously Santa, but
that employs most of the town. So that's that number.
Four dead parents or dead wife occasionally dead husband. Here
is our first douse. Eg. We do not have them
in this In the beginning, when Erica is being told, like,
you're gonna fly to Alaska for Christmas, She's like, oh, okay,

(30:39):
I'll just tell my parents I won't be there, and
we never hear about her parents again. Andy's parents are
obviously alive, although they are never in the same room together.
But that's you know, that's a different story. So it's
kind of disappointing. No dead elders here, and that takes
something away from the overall art. Here Number five our
sassy sidekick. We make up dead parents with multiples. And

(31:02):
this movie does like the thing that I want these
movies to do, which is employ a poor, young, attractive
woman to just exist for the soul's sake of saying, well, okay,
what do you really want? And in this case, Erica's
best friend is a chef. She's black. We actually have

(31:25):
a couple of people of color in this movie, which
is also nice to see something we took a long
time for homework to get to. But this poor woman
is only ever filmed with one exception on the phone.
She's a chef, so we get a lot of like
her mixing things her on the phone while she's holding
a muffin, that kind of stuff. And there is one
scene where she is sitting down with Jodie Sweeten and

(31:47):
they are sharing a dessert tray. The table they are
sitting at is a good six feet long. The dessert
tray is a good four feet long. And they're like
laughing about like pulling. You know you're gonna take it. No,
you can't because your arms wouldn't reach that far. Again,
definitely COVID shoot. And I will point out that never
once in all of these phone calls does Erica say like, hey, friend,
how are you doing. Maybe we just don't see that part,

(32:09):
but it does always irk me in these movies. We
also have another assistant I'm unclear who she is assisting.
I think her name was Claire. She is in Garland
and just keeps kind of showing up to move plot
along or to interrupt kissing, which is something that we
get a lot in these movies as well. And then
last we have a Okay, I don't remember if this

(32:29):
was part of Christmas under Raps. I don't think it was,
But in this scenario, Santa, we'll get to him is
always like sitting at a desk, and he has a niece,
Andy's cousin, Joy, who is this like young woman who
like is really into helping Santa, like she's doing all
the work. And she also makes ugly holiday sweater. So

(32:50):
we get a couple things there. Number six are villain,
which we don't often get anymore. It used to be
a really easy thing to do, was like have an
evil business woman and you've got a story, and they've
kind of moved away from it and got like nicer.
In this case, we have Vivica a Fox who is
also like Royalty in not I didn't think so much Hallmark.

(33:12):
I think she does more Lifetime or just other production
companies that probably gets sold to either one of them.
But she shows up in a lot of these kinds
of movies, as we know. In this case, she is
always on the phone. She is never in a scene
really with anybody else. She is, you know, a business suit,
Christmas numbers money, very like hard ass professional woman just

(33:36):
doing her job seemingly because that's what she's supposed to
be doing. So she's a capitalist, which, of course, in
the world of Hallmark is evil, and I mean it
is evil for other reasons. But she does get to
be what I would call the Mariah Christmas Melody lighting treatment,
where if you another high recommend for going back to
some of the older Hallmark movies, a Christmas Melody with
Mariah Carey is just there's so much going on there.

(34:00):
Most importantly is the way Mariah Carey is a lit
in that movie is like almost like there is like
a snow globe blowing like fresh air around her face
at all times. Vivica gets that here, so you go, girl,
That's what I would say to that number seven montages.
I was worried at first because it's a good hour
into this movie before we get one. There's a tease

(34:23):
of one where you think we're gonna have a cooking
montage and we don't. But then finally we get a
we have to advertise the inn, so then it's a
montage of people like decorating, reading in the local paper
about a mixer that the inn is gonna have, and
I have to say, again, this town has seven people.
I feel like you don't need a local paper to

(34:44):
communicate the one event the town's gonna have. After that,
right after that, we get a mingling at the mixer,
which is a lot of people, just a lot of people.
I should put do air quotes. It's everybody we've seen
in the movie so far, talking and laughing and patting
each other on the back a lot. The Then right

(35:05):
after that there is a gift exchange that is just
a lot of like unwrapping, patting each other on the
back and lots of mugs. We're gonna get to that
in the product placement, but the gift of the Year
twenty twenty two was apparently a Christmas mug. We're gonna
talk about the songs that played during all these montages
when we get to the music, Don't worry. Number eight
is Slapstick, and I gotta say, maybe this was a

(35:26):
symptom of COVID and how like you couldn't do as
many you weren't physically in scenes together, so maybe it
was harder to execute. But there's like no slapstick, which
is again fine when you can't do it. Well. There's
like this ongoing joke about her boots and how she
which again was something in Christmas Underraps two, how she

(35:47):
comes to Alaska and like I don't know, like dsw
little booties, and everybody's like, well, you'll never survive here
in those. Meanwhile, everybody else is wearing sneaker, so I
don't know what the fuck they're talking about. But you
think the entire time like, oh, there's gonna be something
happens where she steps in a poddle, but no it doesn't.
So that just is one more thing that's there. Number
nine are sage old person, and similar to how we

(36:09):
have multiple sassy sidekicks, we also have multiple sage old people. First, well,
we're gonna circle back to our zoom performance of the
year Brian Doyle Murray. But we have Hattie of Hattie's Diner,
who is the kind of cheery Mary matron who wears

(36:29):
the ugly christmasweaters and who's always just feeding people constantly.
Guess this is probably who I would be in the
actual Hallwark universe. But she gives a pep talk to
Erica right when she needs it most, and then this
movie also gives her a little side romance of her
own with the town's only pilot and printer. I think
he gives a print shop so nice to at least,

(36:51):
you know, give her something. Andy's mother, who is also
never in a scene with anybody else, never in a
scene with her husband, and at one point is in
a scene with Erica and is just as far away
from there she's serving her breakfast again a good eight
feet away. She also gives sage advice as the sage
old person does, and as I mentioned, we have sage

(37:15):
old mister Holiday played by Brianduel Murray, who, of course
we saw Christmas under Wraps and here he is again
and he is Santa, and the movie kind of tells
you that at the end, I don't know that he No,
he talks about dreams at one point, or she talks
to him about dreams. He's there. It's important that he's

(37:38):
there as a presence, and you know, closes everything up.
So we had eight out out of ten. In this case.
We did not have a dead parent's dead wife, and
we didn't have any slapstick. But that's okay because we
make up for it in the bonus round. All of
these other things that show up in this movie. Starting
with so much public domain holiday music and or Christmas

(37:58):
word salad pop songs, this one weirdly does more of
the latter than the first. There's little cuts of jingle
bells and such early on, but for the most part,
this is a movie that where they rated the Hallmark
CD bin of pop music and the songs. I do

(38:18):
this thing sometimes because when I'm watching it on cable.
When I recorded it, it's harder to do close captions,
So I'm just luckily I type fast, so I am
just typing the lyrics as it sings, and I'd like,
please if you'd allow me to read out these lyrics.
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, the best time of the year,
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, my favorite time of the year.

(38:40):
When it's cold, the fire is warm, and your home
with those that you adore, and the lights upon the door,
then you know Christmas is here for sure. When the
snow starts falling down. You might have noticed in that
song that those words don't rhyme. That happens a few
times in the words solad Christmas songs. In this case
where you listen closely and you realize, oh man, this

(39:03):
is They're not even writing a song. There's really hard
talking about what they're seeing outside the window. It's great.
I love it. Don't never change, Never change tell mark
number two, secret family recipe or needlessly complicated holiday cocktails,
or using hot chocolate to represent something sexual. We don't
get that, But we do get a lot of Hattie's Diner,

(39:24):
where she's like big on wild Christmas fusion cuisine, including
a yam and fruit cake casserole, cocoa stuffing, and pork
belly braised an eggnog. I would try all of it.
It'll all would raise my blood sugger significantly, but I'd
certainly try it. Number three small business in danger. Obviously

(39:44):
the inn, which is like not a Historican, it's oh
and people were very mad online about whether you call
this a hotel or a bed and breakfast. So I'm
just putting that out there because it seemed to be
very controversial. Number four Product places. This meant again, I
don't know for sure, but it felt like a lot

(40:05):
of these mugs. Whenever characters were holding them, they were
facing them towards the camera, so you could see it
was like believe in Christmas, and I would gather a
lot of that is probably Hallmark product. There's another moment
where Andy like grabs a cereal box and it looks
like it's it's very distinct. You can read the title
on that cereal box and cereal box. I figured it

(40:29):
at first, I'm like, oh, okay, that's Product Place, and
then I thought, oh no, it's the opposite, because the
whole point is like you can't eat cereal, I'm gonna
cook you pasta. And it makes sense because I googled
it to see if Apple Smacks was a real thing. Obviously,
we have apple jacks and we have honey smacks, and
the cereal box looks like both of these things combined.
It's beautiful, but not so much a real As far

(40:52):
as I can tell from googling, it's not real, which
means somebody made that box. Which that's a that's a
separate interview one day. Find somebody who is on the
like prop team or our guest art direction of a
Hallmark movie and talk. Number five everybody's favorite, The Cloying Child. Hey,
guess what in this tiny town where Santa Claus lives?

(41:16):
You know what doesn't live there? Children? No children, not
a single child in this entire movie. On one hand,
I respect it because again it was COVID. Why expand
your cast and put people in danger if you didn't
have to? But also like, why this is a Christmas
like it's a Santa Claus kid? No? Nothing, okay anyway?
Number six Finding the Perfect Tree. No, but I do

(41:38):
want to call out again something else in the art
direction of this movie. If I were to rewatch it,
which I will not because guys, there's a lot of
these that are I'll watch at some point. But if
you were, then I would call upon anybody zero in
your eye on this very fake like there's a skinny
fake Christmas tree that early out of the film caught

(42:00):
my attention because it's outside of the inn, like you're
walking in the walkway to go inside, and right standing
there is this. Clearly it's a fake tree. You can
see the stand at the bottom. You can tell it
is a skinny, fake plastic tree, and I thought that's
a weird thing to have in Alaska, where you have trees,
and I feel like you would just put lights on
one of those trees. And then that tree appeared at

(42:24):
least three other times in different locations. So it's just
fun to look out and see, you know this this
prop doing triple duty. Number seven empty coffee cup acting
so weirdly because you'd expect it in this movie, but
there isn't that much because I think again everybody was

(42:44):
instructed that these mugs are what's funding the actual production.
So whenever somebody's holding a mug, it's very like hold
the mug with two hands and position it towards the camera,
which I'm doing, but you can't see me, so it's
kind of the reverse in this case. Number eight actress
trying hard to not take a bite of something on camera. Oh,

(43:04):
there is a lot of food in this movie, and
nobody eats any of it. My favorite I mentioned earlier
the scene where Erica mcnicholl and her sassy sidekick are
like sitting there arguing about dessert and they don't touch
anything or don't actually eat anything. And of course at
Hattie's Diner, like all of this food talk, but we
barely even see any of it. At number nine, Canadianism's

(43:26):
slash signs that it's not filmed on location. It's not Canada.
There are definitely Canadian actors in this movie. I definitely
clocked the next center two. But I believe this was
filmed in Utah, and it was definitely filmed in I
don't know, June, maybe because warm weather. Watch number ten again,

(43:47):
Like everybody's wearing coats, which is nice, right, they are
wearing coats and pants. We don't have short skirts and
we don't have like T shirts. But this movie is
set in Alaska, like in like Upper Alaska, right, So
I don't know. You tell me, can you just wear
a jean jacket and no hat and no gloves and

(44:10):
be fine? I don't think you can up there. You
can't even do that in New York these days in December. Well,
I mean now you can with global warming, if that's
a different story. They do try, though, and I will
say that at one point they're walking through Erica and
Andy or Erica mcneckle excuse me, and Andy Holliday are
walking through snow and I don't know, maybe Jennie Sweeten

(44:32):
just got out of the shower and they were shooting
quickly and they're like, oh no, no, we'll make this
work because her hair is wet, like, which makes sense
because it's snowing, but his hair isn't, So make of
that what you will, Okay. Winding down Number eleven is
our old people aggressively matchmaking our leads and doing everything
they can to make sure they have sex the entire town.

(44:53):
In this case, like there is a party where they
have like clearly scheduled things in this party to end
with pushing the two of them together, like it feels
like they are going to suddenly like literally push them
into a room that where the door locks in a
giant bed with a mirror on the ceiling comes down.
Of course it's Hallmark. We don't get that but you

(45:14):
doubt that's what they want here anyway. The last thing
that we like to always mention if it's there, is
the sprinkle sound effect. We get so many of them
in this even a at one point one of I
think it's the Sassy Sidekicks says about Erica. Oh, she'll
be there with bells on jingle bells, and then there's

(45:35):
a sound cue of bells, which, again, you know what
you gotta do, what you got to do, homework. Lots
of sprinkle sound effects, including at our big fashion moments.
So I always like to call out, what is the
you know, because the thing about these movies in a
perfect world, right, these are designed to ease your stress
during the holidays. Right, you are busy, you were worried.

(45:57):
You are dealing with scheduling and parties and gift buying
and finances and end of the year blues and decorating
and all the stuff. That's that's a lot, right, It's
a lot on everybody, and some people thrive, but for
a lot of people, the holidies are really stressful. And
the reason this genre has thrived is because at the

(46:19):
end of the day, it's there for you to know
that a pretty visually attractive story is going to happen
on screen and you don't have to worry about it
turning out. Okay, you don't have to overthink anything. It's
gonna be seasonal, there's gonna be Christmas music, everybody's gonna
look pretty, there might be some baked goods, and at

(46:39):
the end everybody ends up happy. Right. That's what these
That is the charm of these, and I think the
reason why for many people these are an important part
of their lives this time of year. But all that
is to say is simply like, okay, so be pretty
and give me cool feshion stuff. Right. So I divide
these now into favorite fashion moment peacoat based and non

(47:02):
peacoat based, because there's always a peacoat here. If in
the case of your Laceyship Berry, you can get thirteen
pea coats in one movie, it's beautiful. In this case,
Erica mcnicholl has a peacoat. Guys. It's pink, like bubble
gum pink, and it's cute. It's perfectly cute. It's fine,

(47:24):
but it's a Christmas movie. Like it doesn't feel right,
So I'm of mixed. It looks good on her too,
I would say, Jody sweet and I think she's got
the complexion for pink. Not everybody can pull it off.
She does, but it just, you know, at the risk
of sounding so old fashion, I just I didn't, you know,
I want a jewel tone. I want a deep green

(47:45):
or a Christmas red. But hm, anyway, now the non
Peacoat based fashion and this movie is kind of yeah,
like I said, disappointing. There's a big moment sprinkle sound
effects scored of course, where it's the party and it's
the like wow reveal where she's dressed for a party

(48:05):
and like walks in and of course like the lighting
does a thing. There's also like a lot of camera
work in this movie where scenes start blurry and fade in,
and I think a lot of that is again COVID based,
where you're doing a lot of like what is it
called foreground rear ground, that kind of shoot where people
are not together. But this is a like very like
who just a sniggle sound effect to her in a red dress,

(48:28):
like it's it's fine, it's just like a very you know,
there's no embellishment. She's not wearing great jewelry, just like
a little v neck not that deep.

Speaker 4 (48:36):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
It goes like cast links. It's not a wrap, it
just ties. There's a tie in at the waist. She
looks fine like, but she looks like she could also
be at a work of it. It's not like Christmas
Ball and everything stops for it. And I just feel
like it was a missed opportunity because I want sparkle.
I want great dangly earrings or something that makes me think, oh,

(48:58):
did J. C. Penny sponsor this and do the sell that?
And in this case, like I don't know, it's like
something you everybody has us in their closet. So disappointing there.
Now all that is to wrap us up, because we're
at the point now where we're gonna look at whether
I recommend this movie and also see if there might
be an IMDb review that I found amusing and wanted

(49:18):
to share, and guess what there is because I framed
this episode so I knew this was coming. This user
for context, This person on IMDb had this comment. This review,
which was one star out of ten, has twenty two
helpful votes and fifteen down votes, So kind of split.

(49:40):
But I admire this person's passion and I think again.
It just is an interesting snapshot of the Hallmark audience.
The title of this review is a slap in the
face exclamation wide exclamation point. There's gonna be a lot
of exclamation points, so I quote this movie is a
slap in the face and middle finger to Candice. Two

(50:00):
exclamation points. The writing is crap. One exclamation point. The
same woman that wrote the screenplay for Christmas under Wraps
wrote this, but SEEUW. She had people telling her what
the story was not on this two exclamation points. Here
is an example of what I mean. In See Christmas
under Wraps, the town of Garland is remote and three
hours from Anchorage. Exclamation point. In this it's two hours
away and you can get there from Anchorage by driving.

(50:23):
Two exclamation points. The town was in Mountainous Valley in
Christmas under Wraps. One exclamation point. This you see the
tundra of northern Alaska as they get to town. Two
exclamation points. They didn't even film in the same location
as Christmas under Wraps. One exclamation point. This town is
completely different. One explation point. They call the inn A
B and B in the description, but you can see
it's an actual hotel. That's been decorated. One it'slation point.

(50:44):
The room Jody's character is staying in is clearly a
hotel room when you see it. Two exclamation points. The
chemistry between the cast is non existent too. If you
have seen Jody and Mary and bright and even when
she was younger on Full House, you saw a bright,
happy actor. One. In this she is just acting to
get a paycheck. Same with the guy playing Andy and
his dad too. How do he's overacting compared to to
Christmas under Wraps? Two? The poor excuse for why Andy

(51:08):
wasn't with CCB is laughable. To exclamation points. The trolls
and fakers will hate hearing the truth about this. To
exclamation points, this is the most honest review you will
get from someone who actually watched the movie on Hallmark
at eight pm last night, Dated ten eight, twenty twenty two.
To exclamation ones. I, like I said, I am somebody

(51:30):
that you know might sometimes get very invested in things,
and I can be opinionated. I can have very strong
feelings and strong loves and dislikes on something, So I
respect this reviewer's passion. In this case, I kind of
find it amusing that anybody would get that worked up

(51:52):
about a cozy Christmas in, because here's my review. It's
fair when I try to close these out by kind
of saying, do we recommend this right? Should you watch
it or not? And this always I have to kind
of do eight different versions of that depending on who
you are and why you watch these movies. This one

(52:13):
is for the people that like, don't watch these unless
there's something wild or interesting about them, where it's a
genuine or they might be a genuine good movie. It's
not for you. If you don't like the Hallmark thing,
don't watch this movie. It's not gonna change your mind
in any way. If you are a Hallmark person, this
is fine. It's there. It doesn't look that great. It

(52:36):
has doesn't have that much charm or actors don't have
a lot much chemistry. But it's not offensive, it's not annoying.
It's just very very bland, I guess is where I'd
go with it. So make of that what you will.
That was a cozy Christmas in. And don't worry if
you are very tired of hearing my voice, it will
not just be me going forward. I always like to

(52:57):
do the first episode myself so I can kind of
get back into the rhythm of it, remember the list,
prep everybody for what we do here. And then going forward,
we have guests, special guest stars, which is always very
exciting to me. It's a great way to have conversations
with different people. So we will do that. And last,
before I forget, there is a an extra in this

(53:18):
movie who has the best IMDb photo that I've seen
in a long time. It is him, shirtless, staring with
intent away from the camera. The actor's name is el
Alarisa Mermontazeri. In the show notes, you'll enjoy it. With
that being said, that's how we'll close out. I'm looking

(53:40):
forward to a wonderful season here at season eleven of
stocking stuffers. For the feminine critique, I'm Emily and we
will see you very soon.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Woke up in.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
The morning that day on Christmas.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
See turned on the stoves, you make some fresh coffee.
Outside of my window was ten feet snow.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Oh no, the temperatures ran.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
Out at thirty belows. It's a fairy Alaska Christmas. It's
not a lad to shine down on me. It's a
fairy Alaskan Christmas. There's nowhere else that I rather be

(54:34):
eyebrushed from the oven on the window.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
Sill the crew.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
But what happened next just made me feel loud of
fool when that Risley came along and it was me,
all the packs that's slowly backed away.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
With the tear dropping my eyes.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
It's a fairy Alaskan Christmas. Look at the way its
frosted to the tree. It's a very Tamsk on Christmas.
There's nowhere else that I'd rather be