Stocking Stuffers 11.2 Jingle Bell Heist with Elizabeth Katheryn Gray

Isn't it weird to see Cozy Cardigan Christmas movies made with budgets? Long-time beloved Special Guest Star Elizabeth Katheryn Gray joins Emily to shop around Sterling's Department Store in Netflix's Jingle Bell Heist. There are twists, turns, and actual songs that cost money!

Deep South Wrestling: https://www.wearedeepsouth.com/
Don't forget to use some of that those stolen jewels to get your ticket for Emily's streamable Christmas movie!
The Lost Hallmark Christmas Movie LIVE!
https://www.caveat.nyc/events/the-lost-hallmark-christmas-movie-live--12-7-2025
Instagram: @feminine_critique_pod

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
We are you we media.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Okay, so we're doing this.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
It will be off to better lives. So how's your
day been so far? Or two chefs and king vomit
out of sand's working off?

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Get this cleaned up.

Speaker 4 (00:27):
Twice Sterling hired me to upgrade the security system and
he didn't pay me.

Speaker 5 (00:32):
Put on a nice face for the public. But the man's.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Next week for you.

Speaker 4 (00:37):
I'm good to stick it to him.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Have no idea. Sterling has about five hundred thousand pounds
in his office. I can get us under the store
and avoid the security vice.

Speaker 5 (00:49):
How are we going to break into Sterling's penthouse?

Speaker 1 (00:51):
His wife Lisben known to bring home a young man
out of Gayhew. You just got to get an invite
up to the penthouse, get the bob, and then leave.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
I'm going to need a Tony.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
There showtime. Ask her something be charming?

Speaker 3 (01:08):
A big fan of these policies.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Oh yes, teeny, that's your best game. You were ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Hi e Seras, Hello and welcome to the Feminine Critique.
I'm Emily. It is our next stocking stuffer, and as promised,
I am no longer alone. It's the holidays.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
I open my doors, I let friends in and on
today's episode, I have one of our classic traditions. I
have the wonderful Elizabeth Catherine Gray here to talk movies.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Elizabeth, welcome, Hello Lily.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
I would not be Christmas without doing this. They be
honest always, Oh my God, and thank you for I'm
gonna say this ahead of time now, thank you for
letting me off a little easy this year with this choice.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Well, I I mean late what I've done the last
couple of years.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
The way I've done it is instead of being like,
you're gonna do this movie with me, I always I
do that thing that I'm not a parent, but I
feel like this is a good parent thing to do
where you always make your child think that they get
the choice in the matter. Okay, here are three different options,
which one would you like? And of course by now
I've already down to three that I actually want to do.
But there's an art to doing it to where like

(02:30):
you're gonna get the right answer.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
But yeah, so but.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
We started with our Netflix, a Netflix movie. Like That's
actually how I got into this was do it was
reviewing the three Christmas Pristmas right, those are all Netflix.
And this was my first Netflix since then, so it
felt like coming home now.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
Well, and it's interesting because I think Netflix, you know,
you have obviously identities to different networks, and Hallmark has
a very clear identity.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
I think Lifetimes is sort of often feels.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
Like a slightly grungier Hallmark where they can be able
to push a little harder, be a little more adult,
but also seems like less pretty and a little bit
less budget.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
And then you have, you know, the ones that kind
of get made for Amazon or get made and acquired.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
But Netflix has a particular aesthetic, i'd say, And what
are your thoughts on it? Having seen a few of
the Netflix.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Ones, they first of all, and they've even hinted at this,
so I'm confirmed by the powers of Netflix beyond that
they actually have a continuity to them, like they're all
relatively the same universe. And if you think about it,
it kind of is, if you think, you know, it's
one of the reasons why the look is so similar

(03:43):
across even you know, so I see I see it
as like a world building in a really weird, backwards
quiet kind of way.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
So they've they tended.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
It to be that way, I think when they started
that initially, Yeah, I think it really was so. And
I thought it was like an offhand joke that an
intern made about like all these fake European countries. I
wonder if it's any of them, you know, were interconnected,
and somebody there was like, well, I guess we could
just make it that way, because then you had the
Vanessa Hudgens ones that even then did a wormhole with

(04:16):
other Vanessa Hudgens ones and it somehow all worked.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Well. Here we are, yeah, another one, and uh so,
welcome to Christmas twenty twenty five.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Here we are with jingle Christ you.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Know, and a Thieving from the rich seems like a
very timely uh subject matter for this year.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
There are some politics in this one, I agree.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
There are some like aes socio economical statements to be
made with this movie, which again is not generally something
you're going to find in Hallmark. So it's kind of
refreshing when you have that push a little harder, you know,
ask questions.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, but it's it's no worse than the muppets fighting
a corporate greed, you know, it's not really that peep.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
Yeah, I mean there's less, I guess there's more healthcare
concerns with human beings and muppets assuming Oh god, now
now I want that movie.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Now, I want this movie done with muppets.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
So that not just because like, oh it's always cute
if you know, if everybody has played by Miss Piggy.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
But what is muppet healthcare?

Speaker 4 (05:20):
Like?

Speaker 3 (05:21):
Surely there are doctors, obviously you have you have doctor.
You know, you have Beaker and doctor Honeydew. It's like
you have scientists, but like muppet medicine.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Do you think it is.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
A doctor that works on all muppets or is it
like a a muppet human doctor who is gonna work
on like Beaker and Doctor Honeydew for example, and a
Muppet veterinarian who works on Camilla and Miss Piggy and Kermit.
Have you ever thought about this?

Speaker 1 (05:51):
I never have it. Now I can't stop.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Oh my god, now I yes, I actually because I
grew up with The Muppet Show Season one. There's this
machine and when the Muppets need help, they go and
they put themselves in the machine and it takes their
parts off and rearranges them.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Okay, so it's a machine.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
Okay, all right, good.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
I'm glad we established that because I know we talk
about with the movie, but I would have been stuck
just coming back to this point throughout.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
So no Muppets in Jingle ba Heist.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Although no, no, it would have benefited. But then again,
everything benefits from muppet It's especially London. Great Muppet Caper
is still my favorite.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah, I get it, and it does.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
It feels like London feels like a very Muppet place,
like it's kind to them and it works.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
It's also a very Christmas place. I think has a
very like easy.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
To do a Christmas movie in London because it automatically
feels like Christmas.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
I've never been to London during Christmas time, but I
have been there during Easter and they throw it down.
So I would assume that Christmas in London is a
party in its own right. I mean, come out, it's
Chris brigging dickens Man.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
I mean that of much of Christmas lore that we
know today.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
So this one is directed by Michael Phil mcgnauri, who.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
Has not directed these kinds of movies before.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
The thing that struck me about him was that he
did four episodes of The Mike Flanagan House of Usher.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Who I you know, I still need to see that
I haven't read that one yet.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
It's fund I really loved it, yeah, because I hadn't
been that. I hadn't loved the last few he did.
I loved the First Hill House, I liked Midnight Mass.
I did not like the Second hill House, although that
wasn't really him.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
But Usher for me was really fun.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
So it grew on me with each episode and I
was like excited each time to sit down and watch it.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
So I recommend cool.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
I recently rewatched the Vision Price one, so maybe nic
It's a.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Nice good time though.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
And the thing that I think struck me about this
when you had named a couple of options was that
this was its big like trivia bit was that it
was on the Blacklist for Best screen Best Unproduced Screenplay.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
It's written by Abby McDonald, who.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
I think this is her first film, and then I
think the actual film has a co writer to it,
so it was probably her script that then somebody else
came in as well.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
On Amy Reid is the other credited screenwriter on.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Amy Reid also has other yeah, not really Christmas stuff,
So right away it's kind of different from like the
typical Hallmark where everybody is just in.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
This camp and constantly doing Christmas movies.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
This feels like these people have not made necessarily a
Christmas movie before.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
No, they're being hired for their actual talent in filmmaking
and crazy yeah, and being able to come in under budget.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Yes, So obviously we're gonna go into the tropes. We're
gonna go into all the bonuses. But why do we
start with walking through the movie? Kim give us a summary?

Speaker 2 (08:53):
All right? First of all, I'm gonna give a huge
spoiler alert for this particular movie because there's a couple
of big twists this film.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
So anybody like there, we are going to spoil this
because you you have to in order to talk about.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
It, to talk about this, especially when we get to
the tropes, because when it comes to the evil villain,
there is an evil villain in this movie. Yeah, like
like even even for one of these films, he's like,
oh God, for.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
A lot of that I'm excited to talk about.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Okay, So we do establishing shots of London and wonderful
public domain parlassical music brings us to these two cute
people playing in the street and they get kicked off
by some evil like you know, shop worker, and he
like you know, go away, go away, I don't care

(09:42):
if it's Christmas, go play somewhere else. This young lady
walks up to the little kid and steals the shop
owner's wallet and gives it to her. And that's where
we get started. And that's our lead, our lead. Her
name is Sophia, which, by the way, is a low
Creek Christmas. We'll talk about that during the during the tropes.

(10:04):
Who is a heaty thief but with a heart of gold.
These were yeah, very good pickpocket. And she also establishes
she can do locks and safes and things like that
that's gonna be and has.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
The blood of a magician running through her veins.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yeah, apparently her maradician grandfather in Philadelphia tolerant. There's things. Now,
I will say there is some truth to that in
the sense that when I first started learning magicians work,
the first thing you do learn is how to pickpockets
and sleight of hand because that actually helps with doing
your own shirts and stuff like that. So so so, yeah,
it's plausible, even though she's much more than that, Like

(10:41):
she's a petty thief, And it's okay because she's working
at Sterling's, which is basically Harod's in London. It even
kind of looks like Harod's, like the establishing shot with
the lights and everything. I've actually been to Herod's, so
it looks a lot like Harod's. It's clearly what it's
supposed to be. So Sterlings and she works on the
floor in the jewelry department and she steals she steals

(11:07):
some rich chicks dog's collar and goes into into the
storage hold. And like all cycle paths, she has a
good like dextra relationship with her coworkers where she bribes
them with coffee and and donuts. I do think that
she is a bit of a psychopath. Okay, we can
talk about that, you know. So she walks to the

(11:27):
back she likes, steals a bunch of money from the locker.
But there's some blot twist. There's some guy that's tapped
into the security cameras and has seeing her stealing the
money and calls her out on it. And as this
young very British guy you know, and uh you know,
and he supposedly he actually was fired and sent some

(11:49):
jail time for stealing from Stirlings before he set up
their security system, and he was strown in jail for
some robbery. Uh she was, She thinks about she's never
done anything big, she's always been petty, and so he propositions, hey,
let's go ahead and steal from the locker. There's a
bunch of jewelry down there, and she was looking at it.
There is a bunch jewelry down there. She reluctantly agrees

(12:12):
to it, because not twist. She's not a bad person
after all. She her mom is cancer mom. He has
the cancer mom. Yeah, so he has cancer mom. And
she's just been told that cancer mom is so bad
that they have to actually go private, that the public
health service can't take care of her if she needs
this experimental treatment.

Speaker 3 (12:33):
But she even though she's moved to London because of
the healthcare situation, which worth they didn't have the United
States because again, if we have international listeners, yeah, we
don't really have health care in the United States.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
It's all at all. It's a whole thing.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
And her mom is duels super American and British, which
is actually an important point point of this story too. Yeah.
So so she's there with the public health service. Public
health Soler said, hey, she's a good candidate for this treatment.
But she's gonna have to pay out the money for it,
because you don't have time to wait. So she agrees
reluctantly to do to bank heist this guy, and of
course it goes hair probably wrong, and you know, they

(13:09):
nothing's there, somebody robbed it, a good friend got got fired,
and she's really upset about that nothing went the right way,
and she goes and accuses him straight up and finds
out Pop number two he has a family, you know,
and a sassy sidekick, and so she suddenly feels bad
and realizes, well, maybe they can help each other out.

(13:31):
So they're gonna go and steal all the money from
his personal vault in his office. Mister Sterling, the guy
owns this thing who has a bitchy wife who wants revenge,
and it turns out that everybody wants revenge.

Speaker 1 (13:44):
Everybody hates everyone.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
Hates Sterling, and because of that, eventually, I'm not gonna
get into the details because it's a long Commo limit.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
It's like one of those twisty reveals where it's like
you get two twists in the final like eight minutes
of not just like the details of what the heist
is actually doing. But then in further detail about like
motivation and the heightst So there's so much going on.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yeah, there's so much going on. But eventually her and
the strange wife and the vank heist guy, who, by
the way, they find out was framed. He actually never
did it and he took the fall for it, and
it's like awful, and they joined forces and they rob
the guy Binde and get him arrested and happily ever

(14:29):
after everyone gets some money and runs away.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Yes, because they don't actually have to rob him.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
Instead, what they do is because they discovered that he
was doing insurance fraud, so Sterling was robbing from himself
reporting good stolen people were going to jail because of it,
and then he was getting that insurance money those payouts.
So then what they do is, rather than steal money
from him, instead they put what he had reported stolen

(14:53):
back in his vault, call the cops so that the
cops come and see, oh, none of this stuff was stolen.
Insurance fraud alert are going to jail, and they don't
actually like get.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Jewelry from this.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
Instead, it's just like, oh, his wife, who like hopefully
we can trust in this scenario. I was like, Okay, Yeah,
Now I have all this money, so I'm gonna give
you both a lot of.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Money, right, because I think that's like, ultimately what it is.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, that's what she said. She's like, look, you guys, yeah,
there's sure there's five hundred thousand in that vault that
I want it all right, and I'll set you both
for life? Is that the deal? And I guess she
held up her into the deal because during the credits,
which was actually really lovely credits, you get to see
a get to see a Christmas morning and clearly Mom's
hair has grown back, so she's doing.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
Well.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
Yeah, and everyone it's like, you know, he's reconciled with
his estranged family even though he's in love with you know,
Mss Sophie and Nicholas.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
We might have forgotten to mention in love along the way.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Yeah, you know. And the and they do one of
those classic final kisses at the very end of the film,
and you know that part of it is definitely a
Christmas move. Uh, but you know there's twist, but we
should I was totding those off tail the tropes. So anyway, anyway,
so Sterling goes to jail, gets flipped off for very
lot of twisty reasons. The wife inherits everything, Sterling's is

(16:14):
in the black for Christmas, moms cured for cancer and
they all moved to Birmingham, Happy ever after.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
Yeah that's pretty much it. So, yeah, it's an odd
because it does. It's one of those movies that you
wonder if the script was even a Christmas script now
that I'm thinking about it, because it feels because I
was watching this like with a bit of a higher
expectation on this was on the Blacklist, right, and scripts

(16:41):
on the Blacklist are usually like really well written scripts,
whether it's a really good writer with dialogue or it's
like a really great story, and I'm watching it like
kind of trying to figure out, like, wait, this is
like okay, but like it's not. Is it Blacklist? Okay,
not so much.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
And then so by the end, when you get to
the twists, it made me wonder was this did this
start as like a harder story with maybe a more
elaborate heisty element, or was it a more like Christmas
movie with these elements that elevated what is normally a
very bland Christmas movie.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
And I don't know because I didn't.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
Really look up more from that, but it feels a
bit like I could almost see this as just having
been like an Ocean's eleven type script. And then somebody
at Netflix was like, you know, if we make it Christmas,
we've got we got we know people will watch it,
because I can't imagine this getting much attention if it
was not like, you know, airing in the same you know,
your window of you might like because you watched Hot Frosty.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
Well, I mean there's this hot there's this plot twist
which we'll talk about when we talk about the lead actress.
That means that clearly she was in there for revenge
the whole time, right, it was she was coasing, she
was Casey Sterling's and it wasn't just about Petty. That
she was up to something. We will never know what
that is because everything turned into such a jolly, happy rop.

(18:05):
But she's been be embedded for a while, she had
two jobs. But you know, clearly, I mean she was
she knewho Stirling was. She was fully aware of what
he who he was, and what her relationship was with him.
So why was she there? Why was she there? Creepy?

Speaker 3 (18:23):
Right, There's a lot more, and it makes it does
make me wonder then, like was the original Blacklist script
much heavier, much more adult, much darker.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
Like I think there's.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
Little things that happened in this movie that you could
do an R rated version of and not like, oh,
we'll just throw a boobs it, not that, but.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
Like there's themes going on here were.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
Like you could tell a kind of like much harder
edged version of the story.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Let's go straight into the tropes then, because it really
has to do about the actress herself. You know, you
have you a wholt stars in this and you're talking
about our rated version of this, but she was in
the R rated version of it. She stars and Hard Eyes,
which was all a Valentine's Day one of these movies
that came out this February. I went to see it
in the theaters, and she understands the romance holiday movie

(19:15):
with the with the with the couple that doesn't get
along at first and eventually slowly warms up. In Hard Eyes,
they're being chased by a slasher villain, but in this one,
there's no slasher villain, just a real big asshole. But
that's so that's Olivia Holt plain Sofia. So she's extremely
likable person. But I still think, yeah, she, like I said,

(19:37):
she I told you this, she understands the assignment because
she's done this before. She's done this on you know,
here's a legit one she did want that was a parody.
But she plays basically, she knows how to play it
straight because if you don't play it straight, it's not
gonna work. She has pappoo dog eyes out to eleven
and it's like, you know, yeah, she's just like, oh,
you know so. And she looks amazing. Whether you put

(19:58):
her in a class, you know, form or a ball
gown for the gala, she looks amazing. And Sophia is okay.
Sophia is the name of Hope Matt. That's the latinate Hope.
Met is the Hebrew name for the Holy Spirit. I
know this because my daughter's middle name is Sophia. So

(20:21):
that's so she is a religious name in a backhanded
kind of way. And of course Nicholas is Nicholas, right,
so you know, the bland, the bland love interest in boys.
He bland in that British kind of way.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
Yeah he did.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
I will say he grew on me. But for the
first half hour I was like this is what we're
working with. This is what we got because she's so lovely, right,
she's adorable, she's great, she's very funny, she's got great
timing and like as a character too, Like she's impressive. Right,
she's a great thief. She's really like quick witted, like
she's somebody I want, like a man to be worthy

(20:59):
of her. And this guy I'm like for a while,
like first of myth I don't I don't like he
got more attractive as the movie went on, but he
felt very like this guy. Like also, he's always wearing
like a sad winter hat and he's not dressed well
and like he's just sort of there. And it felt
like I didn't feel like he deserved her.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
Well, I mean he was, to be fair, he was
down on his luck and he got thrown in jail
for something that didn't do.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
And you know, yeah, there's a lot of work on
her side.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
And it's a Christmas movie, Like I don't want I
don't want the woman to have to work to bring
the guy up.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
You know, well, okay, but I will give them credit
for trying to subvert true sure true that so and
this movie does attempt to subvert Troe quite a bit
so I but no, Nick reminded me. I think he
was in a completely different movie. He was in like
the if Train Spotting was on Wish. Yeah, yeah, that's funny.

(22:00):
He was a different movie. But yeah, I think as
the movie goes on, their chemistry gets stronger and the stronger,
and the kids at the end is earned. Absolutely feels earned.
Do you feel like they went through it? They got
through it. He wasn't widowed, but he was divorced with kids,
and he was about to lose his kid and of
course was about to move away. That seems to be

(22:21):
a more common Christmas trope we're getting nowadays too, besides
the uh uh you know they're dead so you know, Well,
when you.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
Can cast an actress that looks like a British Jennifer Connelly,
I feel like.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
So much like same God, the same, Like what.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
Is the thing that Jennifer Connelly does, like where she
just has that like resting, intense face.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
I guess is what I like?

Speaker 3 (22:46):
She just looks like somebody, like you know, like in
your you're in a supermarket, you need to ask somebody
for help, and like it might just be like you
look at the person next to you.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
You're like, oh, sorry, can you reach that for me?
If I did that and I turned around and it
was her, I'd be like, oh, oh god, no, no, I'm sorry.
I didn't.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
I didn't mean to disturb you. You're clearly very very busy.
Like that's always what I get from her, and I
got that very much from this woman.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
Yeah, no, I did too. Actually, I mean I was like,
oh wow. And actually at one point I looked at
that family and I go, you know, you don't really
deserve this family. Yeah, even after he was innocent. That's
not how you're supposed to feel about your lead. And
I don't want I don't want to say he was unlikable.
He wasn't unlikable. He just was for one of these films,

(23:25):
he just even felt out of place.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
Yeah yeah, you.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
Know, but to be fair, I have seen him in
other work, and I've liked him in other things. So
and and and you know, and and the supporting cash
is all very British and that makes me happy. A
lot of British character actors, including the Sterling and his
wife and you know, so you know, what am I
to say? They guys got work and you know, hey,

(23:53):
they they followed the script as written.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
All right, so our setting in this case, obviously we
have a big bad city, right, We've got.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
London, London, London.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
Well, it's a big bad apartment store because that's kind
of a villain. The apartment store is just as much
as villain as Stirlings.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
Well, I mean capitalism, I think is kind of the
big villain.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah, yeah, because yeah, so so yeah, I would say that,
you know, you know, I'd also kept the apartment store
in that too. Nope, we're setting so all.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
Right, it's number four number of parents or wife.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Not this time, not time.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
We have a dying mother. I feel like that's even
more points.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
Yeah, yeah, we have Importantly, we have a dead grandpa
who's very important in a lot of the like. And
it's I guess it needed to be the grandpa because
it couldn't be the dad for for reasons we'll get to.
But it was like a very like I kept waiting
for that to be something, right, I kept waiting for
like the Grandpa's magic to like really pay off, or

(24:57):
for like a picture of the grandpa to be somewhere,
and it's not. It's just like they just keep it's
like that part where it makes you realize this was
a movie as opposed to a Christmas movie, where in
a Christmas movie, like everything would have to be there
for a reason because you're not like wasting time otherwise,
whereas in this I'm like bet in the original script,
like there were flashbacks to the grandpa or or something
else on that.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
Well and cancer mom tweet fair, we did not you
know honestly the type of cancer her mom had. There's
this movie, this story I cannot believe in the original
draft wit well, right, like what do they say, Chris,
what cancer it was? Or it was just like no,
but it's it's it's movie cancer. But you know, but

(25:41):
but the way she looks, I would lean towards pancreatic.
Possibly that would make sense. It would also be why
they would have to go to experimental treatments because that's
the third leading killer in the world right cancer wise,
But let''s not tough. Yeah, cancer in my Christmas moved.

Speaker 3 (25:57):
Welcome Christmas Christmas with cancer. That again, as somebody who
lost her mother to cancer during Christmas, I am totally
the one to make jokes about it. So come here
for all of that stuff. But that I feel like,
if you're gonna do a Christmas movie like one day,
we need and maybe we just need to write it.
We need Like Christmas with Cancer as.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
A movie is very I mean, your mom died during Christmas,
which I remember that was horrible and my condulessness once again,
my father he died during spooky season for me, and
you know, that's a busy season. So you know, it's
just as you know, I understand it completely.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
Yeah, but it's sometimes the best way to do it
is to joke about it. And I mean, I don't
know about you.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
My father was so gallows humor. I'll tell you off
camera about that. But we were making jokes. Oh yeah,
the last six weeks of life. He was dark humor
and dry because he loved Monty Python, so his humor
was as dry as a bone. So you know, recipes Dad.
His birthday, by the way, is December twenty sixth.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
A celebration of all of our dead parents. We love them,
they fire us, and they allow us.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
To make jokes about such things.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
And there's no dead parents in this movie except for
a no, but there is a dead grandfather, but I
you know, but he's really more just to throw away
line to excuse why she's so good at pictures.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
True.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
So all right, so all right, so we're to number
four then right, Yes that's a sidekick. Ralph I think
is the sassy sidekick this year.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, Ralph is his roommate. He's more wealthy, but he's
obviously gameer lazy, Like that's the whole joke, Like he
has one joke. He is gameerlazy.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
He just sits on the couch playing video games the
entire movie.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
Did you see the size of that apartment? Oh my god,
that's like worse than a New York apartment move in
a movie. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
But like if I was bringing my daughter to my
exes and I knew, like, oh my ex doesn't have
a place of his own, but he's living with his friend,
and I showed up to that apartment, I'd be like, oh,
actually this isn't so bad.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's a huge apartment. So he has
rude uh you know, and and I will say nice
guy to help his and he totally he totally knows
about the theory and and everything with that, you know.
But they're really that's really it. I Mean, there's a
lot of side characters.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
There's a lot of characters that I thought might like
because she has a lot of like female coworkers who
who are named and who have moments of dialogue, and
I kept thinking like, oh, one of them will have something,
but then they're all just there purely so that she
can manipulate.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
For like you said, she is a sociopath in many ways,
and she is like using every single person around her.
She's very friendly.

Speaker 3 (28:46):
Everybody likes her because she is nice to people and
she gets to know them, and she's smart about you know,
like knowing what to do to distract them. But I
mean it's all in service of what she's trying to do,
so which.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
We will never will know because she got distracted by
this whole hest thing, but she had her own plan.
Like and yeah, okay, I called her psychotic, but you
call her sociopath, that'd probably be more correct. She's yeah,
but still lading that she has some kind of conjects
with you. You know, it could be working. She she
could be functioning. I'm not saying she's a bad person,

(29:21):
you know everyone Okay, So oh and speaking of sociopaths,
we do have one for sure. And it's like like
like the villain is so good, like he's do you
boot him? Like he's like wrestling bo like villain. He
like you just want you just want to boot him
the whole you're Sarawitz.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
He looks so familiar and yet like he's a really
long IMDb so it's hard to kind of like pull
out exactly what you know him from. I guess Guarding
into the Galaxy is probably his big thing.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
He was in one of the John Wicks. He's in
he does.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
The voice, No, yeah, he does. He did Dark Mall
and Clone Wars uh and uh. I think Random Menace
actually the voice not because Ray Park didn't do his
own voice. But you've seen him everywhere I would see. Yeah,
he's absolutely everywhere. I believe he's in a Mister Bean movie. Also,

(30:18):
he's always Yeah, he's always one of those comedy villains
like Leslie Nielsen. If you need a straight guy to
say absolutely hysterical things, you hire him, you know, then
that's what he's, you know, And it's nice to see
him have the supporting role. And I'm sure he made
a bit of a chunk of change on that, so yay.
But boy is this character vile like he is like

(30:40):
one of the worst Christmas villains so and I think
this is probably why it was on. The black twist
is the big plot twist between him and the main character.
You know, because I will say when when it happened,
in the moment happens, I I didn't see it coming
and it was like plot twists and I should have.
I should have seen it. It was they've been there.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
Yeah, I felt dumb too, because they hint on right,
we know that you know she's got cancer mom, and
that she was she mentions like, oh, yeah, I was.
I was born here and we moved because my father
didn't want anything to do with my family.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
And the entire time.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
Like okay, you know, and you kind of goes out
of your mind because you're just not thinking much about it,
and so much so that there is a Christmas gala
where she is there trying to you know, there's a side.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
Part of their plan is for Nick to seduce the
villain's wife in order to get access to the codes
and the fobs and the closet and all that stuff.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
And while that's happening, she bumps into this man who
proceeds to hit on her right and again you don't
think much because you know that she's just trying to
get the money, So this isn't anything. But then would
you like to give the big reveal as she goes
to complete her mission and open the safe.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, So they get to they finally get to the
safe and realize it's the biolock they need. She they
need a genetic sample from the from the family, not
from very important to say, from the family, and not
from the owner of the actual walk, or it wouldn't work.
So I don't know if that's a plot hole, but
that's it's but it's just the Yeah. So she pushes

(32:23):
her finger and it accepts her, and it turns out
that she is the daughter of mister.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
Sterling, the father of the You are.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
The father, and she remembered him when she was four
years old her her mom took him to see her
and and so she actually knew who he was and
her whole life. And he knew who she was as well,
and rejected him and then flew away. But she didn't
recognize her as right.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
He didn't know her as an adult. He wouldn't RECOGNI. Yah,
But he figures it out at the end, I thought.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
But he he knows, he knows she's you know, she
he knew where as a kid, and and she knew
who he was, so you know, and he did and
she kept that from her partner, from from Nicholas. And
I don't know that was a pretty big quiet to
keep apart from well Nicholas.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
But do you think she knew because she does go
and find she finds out about the safe right, she
goes to the safe company and basically says, I want
what he has and learns all the details. Supposedly.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
Do you think she knew that she'd have to give
the DNA sample or do you think she just didn't
know when it was a happy coincidence that obviously it
would work for.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
Her, I would say, a little column, a little Colmby.
I think she she she was holding on to that
information and only giving it if she was gonna have
to not it. That's that's what I think. Like, like,
you know, you don't volunteer information, and a good thief
never does, so, you know, So that's why that's why
I think, once again she's a sociopath. He tells people

(33:50):
what you need to hear, you know, so you know,
I see such total utter sociopath but but but a
likable one. And then but yeah, but look at her father.
You know, the genetics so far from this tree here.
You know, her father's kind of a sister pat and
she had a really loving mother raised her. That's why

(34:11):
she has empathy. Right, So there's nature versus nurture going
on too. It's such a deep Christmas movie. You're right.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
It is a variation of Dexter.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so all right, so female, and there's
no real other villains in this movie. I mean, the
city maybe itself.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
You know, we're gonna have one because we think maybe
his wife is gonna also be either kind of in
the way or cause problems, but she ends up being
an ally.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
So yeah, and but I still wouldn't trust that woman
as far as I can throw her.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
Oh completely. I hope they got things.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
I mean, she's not trustworthy. And that was by the way.
That's Lucy Punch, who has played the ugly stepsister in
so many versions of Cinderella I cannot count. So she
really is just delightful and it was nice to see
her have such a good featured role. So I love
her to dad. You'll see you if you look at her,

(35:06):
you're like, oh my god, I've seen her and everything. Yeah. Yeah,
so you know she's she's always that. She's always like
the evil stepsister, the best friend or one of those characters.
So okay, so where are we at.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
We're at number seven the montage.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
Okay, did you record montages because I really only saw
one or two and they weren't very long.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yeah, I had, there weren't many.

Speaker 3 (35:32):
I would say there is an early what I thought
was gonna be like a full one where I wrote
it down as heist montage, but then it kind of
didn't go the way I thought it would.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
I think this was the first when.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
They first tried to do the safe and I think
it's going a certain way, and it's kind of like
I'm like, oh, good, do the ocean's eleven, right, do
the split screen, do the talking up here?

Speaker 1 (35:52):
Do this?

Speaker 3 (35:53):
Like I'm like, I'm not the biggest heist movie person,
but if it's on and I get if I can
get to the heist montage, the gathering, the team, like
the planning, the like where it's like one thing is
moving this way and another thing is moving this way.
Like I love that stuff and I was hoping we
get that and I thought we were, and then it
kind of doesn't.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
We were also denied a tuxedo fitty montage. Yeah, that
was that's I was actually angry about that. The second
time we've watched a movie where they've hinted at a
montage for clothes and not done it.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
And I thought like, because I feel like I thought
it was going in a direction and I don't know
if I just blinked and missed it or not. But
he says, like, they're gonna go to this gala, and
he says, why I need a tux And I thought
it was gonna be my dead magician grandfather is dead tux.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
And it is.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
It is right.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
It was like, yeah, you.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
Should have then been like, oh, but I have to
remove the cape and I have to sew up the
sleight of hand thing like missed opportunity.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
No, it's said he finds out by finding the scarps
in the Yeah. So, but but the way she did it,
she threw her car, She drew a credit card down
and said, well, we need to get you a text.
And I thought we're going to something, We're gonna steal
something from We're in it. We're in a department store. Yeah,
no shopping montages.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
Right, yeah, that's a shame.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
Then there is a kind of it again, it's it missed,
missed opportunity.

Speaker 3 (37:21):
But we do have the Christmas Eve montage of the
daughter comes over, they open present, she's opening present, mom,
like yeah, and it's not enough, but like there's something.
And then I guess you could say the closing scene
over the credits, it's not a montage.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
Actually, that's just that's not a montage. That's just that's
just a stinger. Yeah no, but oh well, you know
it's not the worst. It didn't really need a montage.
Family it might have elevated, you know, yeah, exactly. But
it did have the next thing in space.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yes, it had quite a lot of slapstick.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
Oh my, people are fighting, people are falling, and there's
classical music and trees be knocked down, people going through
roofs of a.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
Lot of decorations on the ground that you slip on.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Uh sneezing and dropping bases on your.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
Computer, flower allergy related slapstick, a.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
Lot of hiding behind desks. There's that going on too.
I mean it was filled with that kind of stuff,
like you got that in spades. I guess that made
up for the black on montage.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
All right, it's number nine or sage old person.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
You know there, really is it?

Speaker 1 (38:36):
One?

Speaker 2 (38:37):
The closest I could get was her boss at the bar,
and I don't even know her name. Did she have
a name? I could not figure it out. I even
rewatched the scene with her in it, tried to figure
her name. Was.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yeah, I could not get sing right, she's an early
on and then yeah, yeah, yeah she doesn't really no.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
Not much.

Speaker 3 (38:54):
Yeah, I'm kind of like, but I'm gonna go to
a just I think going going forward like Sage old Person,
Slash the merry Matron. It was kind of the way
I see it as like often it's the same person
or like it's like the older woman who is not Slash.
She's not sidekick, right, she's definitely a different field, but
she's very particular, like the woman who's there when food
is involved or when a beverage is involved, so kind

(39:16):
of sometimes it's one in the same well.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
And she does have beverages. Yeah, exactly got that, you know,
but you know, and a cancer mom is not this
age older because she's sick all the time.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Anything.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
I mean, she I think she gave maybe one or
two sentences about being happy.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
Yes, but I mean I give it all right now
you don't.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
Know, Oh my god, what goes? When was the last
time you had unprotected sex? Emily?

Speaker 1 (39:43):
Yes, I remember when my mother asked me that under death,
but I was like, what the fuck again. That's where
it's like, we're not Hallmark, We're Netflix. We can see yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
Yeah, they even even us too. There's two two characters
say ship yeah at one point too. So there's hussing
in our Sometimes.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
You feel like it's just them being like, yeah, that's right,
that's right, we did that. We did that.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
We're edgy. Yeah, we're rebels.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
They're cool Christmas movies.

Speaker 4 (40:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
And and because of that are Santa Claus. He just
sits in the background and laughs as all.

Speaker 1 (40:15):
I mean, we do have Santa Con, which.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
I good.

Speaker 3 (40:21):
God is there When you think of like the ten
plagues that are like unleashed upon humanity in the Bible,
I feel like if we were to do that today,
one of them would be Santa Con. I think Santa
Con is the worst thing that has ever happened to
humanity in my lifetime.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
Oh, I mean, I but it's very the very first
Santa con happened in San Francisco Bay area when I
grew up there, and they actually ended up having tours
because they got filmed. It's the white famous videos footing
around somewhere. But but and we do have Father Christmas
at the mall, like like you know, the department store.

(40:56):
Like I said, all he does basically is sit there
and laugh at the fighting, which I would honestly that
was kind of funny. I would have it was funny.
So you know they're fighting over a Mushie Fox.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
Yeah, and again I thought that would come into play
more because they have this like fake toy that I'm
like thinking, like, oh okay, like this is gonna be
a thing somehow, Like the actual reveal is gonna be
like I don't know, like a golden Moushi Fox or
a Mushie Fox is gonna save the day.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
And like it's used once in the heist of like.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
As a distraction because I guess it's kind of like
a tickle me elmow type thing where everybody's going crazy
for it or if they say they ran out, they can.
But it just was like it's here and like it
doesn't do anything like or it could have been really funny.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
You could have made it where like it tells.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
Jokes or it's just funny, and like then like something
serious happens and a character accidentally squeezes it and it.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
Has a one liner, just like there was something there. Otherwise,
why was it so prominent?

Speaker 2 (41:48):
I don't know, A Mashie Fox I thought was gonna
be a lot more prominent than it was. Yeah, but
but we did get a good ball fight see out
of it. So why don't they thought they were going
jingle all the way with it for a moment the same? Yeah?
So yeah, all right, all right?

Speaker 1 (42:05):
Would we have eight out of ten kind of seven
out of ten?

Speaker 2 (42:08):
Yeah, because I don't really honestly, I don't think we
can really give it the montage point. I really don't.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Think the present montage was a montage.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
Okay, it's true, it's true. And and and we did
have the establishing montage shot of London, which all these
movies have. The big city movie always has the establishing
series of shots to show where they are with some
landmark and some Christmas maybe a sannah ringing a bell.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
That goes along.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
We did get that, so okay, So so eight out
of ten, So it pretty close to the card Christmas.
And there are some pretty interesting bonus stuff too. Let's
do it all right. So I want to first of
all say I'm going to give this a star for this.
I thought the score to this movie was good. It

(42:57):
was like I actually think it was the highlights of
this movie. Uh. The original stuff that they wrote was
jazzy and very hip hop. They actually they actually paid
for songs like Christmas House Queens.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
Uh, Charlie Brown Christmas, the Peanuts Christmas song was in there,
and I was like, wait, that's not free.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
They also had clips of uh, what was that that
famous Snowman of London and.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
I wonder, Oh, yeah, from domain or not.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
I don't know. I don't know it did say with
Purtesy from a studio because I read the credit that's
at the end, because.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
Like one of those videos they would show us elementary
school all the time, and I remember that would rotate
with Steamboat Willie, so in my mind like, oh, but
probably because it was public domain, although that wasn't public
domain back then.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
So yeah, no, they paid for stuff.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
No, they paid for it. So that being said, there
is some number one public domain holiday songs sprinkled in
and there. Now I looked at the credits, and the
credits said deck the Hollege, jingle bells and oh Christmas
tree right was in there. I did not hear those.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
Oh no, I did. I wrote down, there's a techno
jingle bells during the Santa.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
Con Okay, that must be what. Okay, there's a little bit.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
Of like a slight piano a Christmas tree just during
one of the transitions.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
Mm hmm. Okay, so you did catch that.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
Yeah, and then the lounge singer singing.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Joy to the World, Joy to the World. See, that
was the one that I have circled was Joy to
the World, because that was very, very prominent right in
the middle of oh yeah, that's a.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Big like stop and look at the guy.

Speaker 3 (44:28):
Yeah, you had you had a fair amount of word
salad Christmas songs.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
If you watch the credits, then you probably saw this too.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
That Like I didn't really go through all of them,
but there was at least two or three that were
credited to somebody called Lil Cheesecake.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Yeah, I saw that. I did see that. So, like
a lot of these songs seem to be they actually
paid money for songs, and that actually is what defines
a Netflix movie I think over the other ones is
because they will pay for music.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
And sometimes there's just showing off to do it that
they can.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
Well, yeah, because music often is lot of people don't
realize one of the most expensive things about your movie
is your sound is your soundtracking, what music are allowed
to use. I mean.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
It always goes back to that commentary on twenty eight
days later when Danny Boyle says the most expensive like
two seconds of his movie is that they have a
Christmas decoration.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
Playing Frosty the Snowman.

Speaker 3 (45:19):
Yeah, like it had to be that song because it
was a snowman And he's like, that almost made our
movie unfilmable because of the budget.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
M yeah, so there you go. So yeah, but but still, yeah,
I give him credit for giving you know, a actual
like smart They actually they actually paid money to to
music musicians. Yeah, not Ai Slot.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
It's very immuch in the day and age that they
do that.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
You're right, Oh my god, it's gonna be terrifying next
year you do this, your music might not just be
Christmas words lap Salid.

Speaker 3 (45:53):
Yeah, yeah, but no, yeah, Aid Tour. Something that is
awful right now is that A couple of years ago,
during the Olympics. Now, figure skating has always obviously used music.
The rights issues were never really that much of an
issue because it's not like it's used very briefly. It's not,
you know, often like resold or anything. And during the

(46:15):
Olympics a couple of the twenty twenty two Olympics, a
band got basically, we're like, wait a minute, there's there's
somebody skating to our music at the Olympics. They need
to pay us, and they sued this team and ever
since then, music rights in figure skating have been really
hard to get because now suddenly it's like you have
to go through the.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
Same channels you'd have to go and you didn't have
to previously.

Speaker 3 (46:36):
And so what they did this year for one part
of figure skating and ice dance, there's a rhythm, there's
the short program that this year the theme was the nineties,
so it has to be nineties music. But then they
amended the rule to that to say it has to
be music from the nineties. It could be a cover
of a nineties song, or it could be AI generated
in the style of a nineties music And guess what,

(46:59):
there are teams do that and it's awful and yet
you vaguely understand because you're like, it's a lot of
money to license a song that you have to use,
but like this is what hell has wrought upon us,
Like of all the places, now, did you're skating?

Speaker 1 (47:12):
Are you kidding me?

Speaker 2 (47:15):
It's the same for professional wrestling, because you know, wrestlers
come out to music, and even our theme song to
my wrestling promotion, Deep South Wrestling is Ai Nickel black Slop,
you know, and I no, no, I I don't like
that world.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
No, no, I'm with you. I'm a broken record on it.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
So I'll give you a hug. I will support you
next year and give you hugs while you have to
go through these movies because you know it's gonna be
a problem this year. This year is it's still with
people are still filming over a year ago to get
these films in, so it's not as prevalent next year.
I think it's ex fitting everywhere.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
Yeah, we don't need screenwriters. We can generate this And like, okay, fine,
yes I could.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
I could compile all the things we've talked about right
through scripts of paper and pull them out in order
and have a Christmas script right there that's still not
the same as just eating things into a friggin technolo. Anyway, anyway,
we don't have.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
To way well happier stories or things or maybe not.
There is no secret family recipes. No, there's not no baking.
It's not there's not even really food at the uh
at the department store that the coffee and donuts.

Speaker 3 (48:29):
There's like they talk about it a lot. It's like, oh,
the carts here, go get your gingerbread. Oh I love
that gingerbread.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
We don't see the gingerbread.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
Yeah. So that also means nobody's trying to eat on
camera either, so that goes away not necessarily.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
There is really uh huh yeah, yep, we'll get to that.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
There is, Okay, we'll get to that in a minute.
There's there's no small business in danger.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
No, it's just well health care, it's just you know,
my is in danger because of capitalism, so.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
It's h and my and my kids is going to
be moved away because of capitalism. So you know. Yeah,
product placement was all generated fake shit. It was actually
kind of cool. Nothing was real. They're all like Stirlings
isn't real, This is not I.

Speaker 3 (49:11):
Just googled it to make sure because I was like, wait,
what if it's a British thing that we just don't
know about.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
Nope, it's not.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
No, No, it's supposed to be Herod's. It's standing in
for Herods. It even looks like Harrod's. Like I said,
on the outside for sure, on the inside a little bit.
So have you ever been to Herods?

Speaker 3 (49:26):
Nope, I've I've only been to England in passing. I've
only been in the airport while doing a layover.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
I've never had You got to go to London yet, dude, Emily,
if you go to England, I have a feeling because
I know you you will just stay.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
It is so your city. You you love it everything,
the moment of it.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
Yeah, on the longland.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
So yeah, so yeah, don't roll out going to London.
It's not actually not that hard from your part of
the world.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
But it's a five hour flight.

Speaker 2 (49:56):
I think, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've done it. It's not bad.
So all right, So chloeing child, you get a kid,
but she's not that bad.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
She's really cute.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Yeah, she's like only what two three lines tops, and
they're all about hi daddy, I love you daddy, that
kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
So I don't know if anything four or five thereabouts.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
I was a five.

Speaker 3 (50:20):
Yeah, And I think what I liked about her was
she didn't feel like she was a kid actor at all.
It felt like it was like, just put the kid
on camera, just have the kid play with the guy
ahead of time so she's comfortable with him, have her
walk into the room and like not say anything, just
kind of like play off and let everybody play around
her like And I thought like she felt like a kid,
which I liked.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
Yeah, I like that too. So yeah, she wasn't bad that.
It could have been so much worse, you know. Yeah,
we've we've got through that one.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
Dancer Boy, Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
Still still that was I'm still scarred from that one, seriously.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
Oh and that was the year that he wasn't even
the worst one. There was a worst kid in another
movie that year. I was thinking about that because as
it was, it came up on like a the Cinematrix
grid I do, where it's like movie trivia, who can
you put what movie can you pull for something? And
I was like, what was the brock Shield one Holiday Harmony?

Speaker 1 (51:10):
Oh my god?

Speaker 3 (51:10):
Remember the child from that movie? And then it made
me think of the child's and stepping into the holiday. Yeah,
children never die.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
They stayed in their brains.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
Oh well, it's all good. That whole movie scarred me.
But anyway, so this one didn't. That's why I said.
That's why I thank you said for going off easy,
because that one was for me. That was the worst.
I did not like that one at all. All right,
So all right, finding the perfect tree, no, we do
not get that. No, but but cancer mom. Christmas Eve

(51:45):
they decorate a little tree for in the hospital, which
I thought was so yeah, and I think that counts
for the brain.

Speaker 1 (51:51):
But there is a little acknowledgment of we need a
tree for Christmas, and I thought I was cute.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
Yeah. Same.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
All right, So MV coffee got back to everybody's favorit
my favorite.

Speaker 2 (52:01):
Oh but god, have you noticed that other things now
have brought the attention of the empty coffee cupany like,
it's mainstream now you were first. Yeah, now you see it.
The people pointed out everywhere.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
Now, so you know, I need to trademark this stuff.
It's it's getting upsetting.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
Yeah, I know they read your brain. But there's there's
a fair share of it. It's not terrible, but there
is a fair share of it in this movie.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
So, and there's one where, like when they're at the
diner where she does like, I feel like, I don't
think it's I think it's actually deliberate where she's like
picks up her mug and does like a like deep
deep slurp, and I think it's actually like to kind
of button the scene.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
So yeah, so yeah, So it wasn't egregious, you know,
it wasn't people like practically throwing them at each other
or like balancing them on top of each other. It's
even better than what I saw yesterday at the Thanksgiving
Day parade. Starbucks gave a bunch of people a coffee
on the side for a ad. But if you notice

(52:57):
a lot of them are just kind of going back,
it's a raahal, oh my god, it's it will always
be part of Christmas is empty coffee cup.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
Act it's not Christmas with that empty coffe cups. So
number eight, so actors trying hard not to eat something. No, no,
like they But there is at least two times where
Nick eats on camera, Lizzy. Yeah, one is at the
Yalla where like he just grabs an appetizer and.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
Like shoves it down his mouth, but the other is
in the diner, so they are sitting down and this
this caught my eye because of this is when I
started thinking too much about it. They both have what's
like a breakfast sandwich. It looks like a roll with
egg and like stuff on there, or I think they
like it looks like burgers at first, but then they
like say something about it being breakfast, so I'm like, okay,
it's a breakfast sandwich. And he does take a bite

(53:47):
of it. He actually does take a bite out of it.
But what caught my attention more was like they're in
a sit down place and they're at the table and
these sandwiches are just sitting on top of napkins, and
I'm watching it, thinking, why don't they have plates. It'd
be one thing if it was like, oh, you go

(54:08):
up to the counter and like you get it in
tinfoil and you sit down and unwrapping, Yeah, right, like
McDonald's sandwich. But it was like, but it wasn't rapping.
It was napkins. And I just thought to myself, how
did that work? Did the waitress.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Hand them like a napkin and slide it on their hand?
Did they sit.

Speaker 3 (54:26):
Down and the waitress was like, oh, we ran out
of plate, so here, tip your your napkin this way
so I can get it on there without taking my
hand and putting on them there.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
It was very distracting to me, look for it.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
I mean, they have what is those There's like these
petite or what I know the name of it. There's
these like really weird little French grabbing girl places in London.
Maybe it was one of them and they just didn't
grab a plate. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (54:54):
Again, if it was a rapper, i'd be fine, but
it's a napkin, and that just seemed very strange to me.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
You know, who knows it's a new London pestin. You know,
we're lucky. They were eating beans and tomato and bacon
and all that kind of stuff, which you know, which
is actually is not as bad as people think it
is in English breakfast. But I don't know. Now I'm
all confused and weirded out. Yeah, so okay, so I

(55:23):
missed those. And so number nine definitely not Canadian. This
was actually shot on location. Oh yeah, it feels like somewhere.

Speaker 3 (55:33):
Yeah, all right, And then number ten is our warm
weather watch. I don't know how cold it gets anywhere anymore.
I've realized, like this was something very sad. It's like, well,
global warming is happening. December used to be very cold,
like in New York, and it's not anymore. So maybe
you don't need gloves in London in December.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
When I was there, it was pretty it was April
and it was pretty cold, you know it was. But
it's London. London is always kind of cold and wet.
I mean, it's it's just kind of how it works.
It's I don't know if we can even give this
one account because you know, there's no snow. We didn't
have any snow, so it does snow for Christmas there.

(56:14):
But you're right, with global warming, London gets hit before
we do with the with climate change. Climate change is
gonna affect London a lot faster than us, So maybe
I don't know. But and they were, but they weren't
really dressed very heavily like like she had. She had
a peak coat on sometimes, and he wore scarf and
gloves and a hat, but and and glasses, but it

(56:35):
was more for disguise than actual function.

Speaker 3 (56:37):
True. So so yeah, yeah, all right, number Levin is
our old people, uh, matchmaking and trying to push our
leads together.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
Well, I would say that the line about when's the
last time you had unprotected sex? When's that point? Because
that is just when's that? Like? Who? Like what mom
would actually ask that? Well?

Speaker 3 (57:02):
I feel like this mom like probably you know, like
there are some moms who likes a lot. I feel
a lot because that's why this girl knew growing up
my dad is was an awful deadbeat and it's my
mom got pregnant because she wasn't careful and this guy
wasn't taking care of her.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
And she trusted him. So I bet this mother drilled it.

Speaker 3 (57:22):
Into her head all of her life, but was also like,
but it was fun and I had you, so it
was all worth it.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
That's my theory about this family.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
Well, and also she she also might be rushing it
because you know, she's dying and maybe she wants to
know that her mother her daughters settled down with a
nice London boy.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
Yes, mother, m all right. So now last we talk
about the fashion.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
We have both Peacoat based and non Peacoat based, so
peacoats in this she has like a tan pea coat.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
Right, yeah, I mean the coats were really like I said,
it wasn't. There was sweaters, but not a lot of coats.
I will say that the uniforms at the apartment store
where we're Super Christmas, like the red and green with
a little they were brown though, well they're the skirts
were beige, but the the top shirt was red and

(58:13):
green with a little tie like like, yeah, look at it.
It's red and green. It's it's it's it's a pastel color,
but it's red and green. It's absolutely Christmas color. They're
all dressed in Kissel's color because.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
Those are flattering, but they look more brown. Red.

Speaker 2 (58:29):
No, no, no, no, no, they're red and green. They're
they're they're absolutely Christmas color. It's the kind of uniform
because I actually double checked it before I came on air.
It's a type of uniform you would wear around Christmas
time in a high end department store. So so there's that.
And the Galla had a lot of nice uh I mean,
I mean, London, London can rock suit. We know this,

(58:51):
like like uh, you know, Londoners know how to rock.
There their male attire and there's a lot of nice suits.
The Costan women's costumes were nights, but nothing really stood out.
I didn't even think that her her dress was pretty,
but not like I've seen her wear less flattering things
and look more of a knockout.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
Yeah, so this is Olivia so far.

Speaker 3 (59:11):
The I guess another thing I'm gonna start look out
for is the like sprinkly wow moment on the female
like reveal in a formal wear because this is the
last movie ha happened in this one where it's like,
you know, the whole like oh, like she turns around
and it's like and you see it from the man's
point of view of what she looks like, and she's
kind of like it was.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
It red or brown? I thought her dress was brown?

Speaker 2 (59:32):
Is brown chocolate?

Speaker 3 (59:34):
Right?

Speaker 1 (59:34):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (59:35):
Yeah? It was a golden brownish color. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:37):
I mean she looked lovely.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
She's a good looking woman, but also like, it wasn't
anything like popping. However, there is a fabulous fashion moment
at that gala.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
It just is not oh please tell us our missus
sterling the.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
Ell Yeah, missus wife, she had the missus white second.

Speaker 3 (59:59):
Oh ah, it was a high low, which is something
I never would wear because it short.

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
Women don't look at high lows, but it was.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Like, huh would have this like witchy feel to it,
and I couldn't quite tell the color, but like then
it like because it keeps going. So you see her
at different angles, like as she takes off her coat,
and so you could see that, Like her tights were
like black with gold kind of like up coming from it.
So it was like very like looked very expensive. And

(01:00:28):
she had that incredible peacock hat.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Right, she's got the hat. That's what she left that
hat on when she was gonna have sex with him.

Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
So you wear a hat like that, you were wearing
that through the night, You wear that to get to
the bedroom, and then you keep it on in the bedroom.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Yeah, you know I'd be okay with that. So yeah, no,
sh she she got. That's why I really was happy
for for uh, you know, for her, you know, like
I said, she's what she looked great. Lucy Punch looked
amazing in those outfits, and she was the high and
the highlight of the fashion of this movie. I also
want to say a shout out not to the fashion itself,
but to the Christmas decorations, especially inside the department store.

(01:01:10):
I thought they it looked the Christmas was nailed inside
the department store. I really liked all the trees before it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
Yeah, and that's one of those things where I feel
like a movie like this, especially a Netflix version of it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
Kind of pays for itself because you.

Speaker 3 (01:01:29):
Can turn this on and even put it on mute
or put it like low and have it on the
background while you're wrapping, presence, while you're cooking, while you're decorating,
and like.

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
If you just happen to, like look at it in
the background.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
It looks like Christmas, right, it feels and it's pretty
like it's a again, it's it's had a budget unlike
a lot of the other ones, so it has that
like kind of visually pleasing aesthetic throughout the film that
is something of note.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
I guess there's a reason why.

Speaker 3 (01:01:57):
This is one to like, yeah, like have it on
your list because it's fine and it's again a little
more interesting, but also like it looks pretty.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
I would, you know, recommend this one. I think that
if you're a fan of this subgenre, this one is
actually going to be a pleasant surprise because it's gonna
go places you don't expect it to and in a
good way, because a lot of these people I know
that watch these love these films. They're like warm fuzzy
blankets to them, Like, I like, why I watched Terrifire three.
It's a warm fuzzy blanket of blood. You know, I'm
with you. Yeah, So you know, so I think they'll

(01:02:30):
like it. And I would also say this is a
good icebreaker for people that don't really like these kind
of movies. Yeah, so so you know, The Christmas Princes
was the same way. I think it was one of
those kind of films that's made for a wider audience
than just the people that go to hallmart yeah and
watch these movies.

Speaker 3 (01:02:45):
And it's so funny when you think about it, when
you have something that has such a clear, dedicated, specific
audience and you know that you can make, you know
what to make for them, and they're gonna come and
they're gonna watch it. And then the challenge is like,
but how do how do we get the people that
actively don't think they're part of that group? And I
feel like you're right, this is a good kind of

(01:03:06):
bridge to that because it does feel like a movie, right.
There is absolutely a script here, there are twists, there's
a story. They're good actors, and it looks nice and
so you could get the person to sit down and
be like, no, but it's a movie. You can watch
it like, you're not gonna unlike a Hallmark movie. You're
not gonna be able to tell me the next line
when I pause it like it does go in surprising places.

(01:03:28):
It grew on me as I watched it at first,
I was kind of like, well, oh, man, like this
is kind of not hitting me.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
And I think it's not at the level of some
of the ones that I think really do.

Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
Kind of push past and become something that you're like,
this was a great movie. I think this was good,
And that's a lot for I think this genre of movie.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
I would put it with like Red One, like like
some people are gonna like watch that movie every year,
and some people might even watch this film every year.
But I don't think it's gonna be classic like the
first Christmas Christmas Prince movie is gonna it has become
you know, or or any you know. But I enjoyed it.
I like I said, I watched it one and a

(01:04:09):
half times. I didn't feel like like I wanted to
stab myself in the eyes like I did with the
Mario Lopez one. Yeah, but I would still say of
all the films that we reviewed, the two Bruce Capell
movies have still been my favorite. I'm with you, even
with even with even with Santa Johs in there, But
I brought you Santa Johs back.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
What a gift? What a gift?

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
Saying Santa Claus felt John's is probably closer to Trope
than this film.

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
Is this.

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
Anyway? So thank you for the cozy Cardivan Christmas. I
am now officially the tree has literally arrived since we
were talking. So I'm gonna when I when we're done recording,
I'm gonna go put a Christmas tree up.

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
So that's the way to do it. So tell everybody
at home where else they can find you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
Well, right now, I am retired from my podcast, though
there is rumors that we might be starting another one
related to the works of Jess Franco if you know
who that is. But I also right now I am
actually making live appearances. I am helping with a whistling
promotion here in Atlanta called Deep South Wrestling. Yes, my

(01:05:20):
boy my boyfriend's on commentary and I am the hype
girl on the front and I sell merch during the show,
so you can come. Our next show is on the thirtieth,
so just in a couple of days from now. We
run shows once and twice a month, and they're free.
We don't pay a dime, so come see them.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
Glorious all right, well, thank you, and of course, Merry Christmas.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
Merry Christmas. I'm happy New Year.

Speaker 5 (01:05:54):
At twelve o'clock on Christmasy, she deeptoed up the stairs.
She stood beneath the missiletoe cone. Her silken hair then
sent to close slip down the flue and caught her runawares.

Speaker 6 (01:06:05):
And this is what she said. The Christmas do not
touch me, Fa. The Christmas do not touch me.

Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
FA.

Speaker 7 (01:06:20):
The Christmas do not touch me. She stood beneath the
missal to.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
Only name is Father Christmas.

Speaker 5 (01:06:32):
He informed her as he met her. She said, good Greek.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
Seven years since I said you a letter.

Speaker 5 (01:06:38):
He said, I can't stand little girls.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
Bigger ones are better.

Speaker 4 (01:06:42):
And they says what she said, Ah, the Christmas do
not touch me, FA.

Speaker 1 (01:06:53):
The Christmas do not touch me.

Speaker 4 (01:06:56):
FA.

Speaker 7 (01:06:57):
The Christmas do not touch me. She's don't winning the
misslet for the Christmas do not touch Pa, the Christmas
do not touch.

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Ah.

Speaker 5 (01:07:12):
The Christmas do not touch and.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
She's done winning the mistlet for the Christmas do not

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
Christmas