Stocking Stuffers 11.4 Christmas Trade with Elwood Jones

It's a freaky festive Friday when Emily and guest star Elwood Jones team up for a body swap! Today's movie is 2015's Christmas Trade, starring William Baldwin as a stiff lawyer dad to a perfectly normal 11-year-old who becomes a stumbling buffoon when an ugly magical teddy bear pulls a Vice Versa. Be sure to follow Elwood's various projects:

Blog: https://fromthedepthsofdvdhell.wordpress.com/
Asian Cinema Film Club Podcast: https://tinyurl.com/bde6ayzk
Movies and Tea Podcast: https://link.chtbl.com/YBnqQymr

And remember, you can stream Emily's show through December 26th!
https://caveat.stellartickets.com/events/the-lost-hallmark-christmas-movie-live/occurrences/e11259f6-84cd-437a-b4d7-6c56bbd565b1

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
I miss your two kiddoth hot widowed dad understating facts.
He's hot, he's a widow.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Robbie's school. I'm lady Ali.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
The holiday party is in three days. I want everything
to go off without a hitch. When he took your
milk money last weekend and melvined you in front of
the whole.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
School, and that was me, I just wish once you
could see how tough it is for me to pull
all of this together all the time.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Oh yeah, well, I wish you could see all the
crowd that I have to go through.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Why don't we.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Look like you? Oh my god, Robbie on you? What's happening?

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Him totally for you?

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Will you stop looking at me? Why? Because it's wearing
me out? That's why. What does Brockie brother have got
to come in? Mister Taylor, it's a start kip you dad.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
You're run up and boring and local.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Who the whole office is talking about it. They said
you had some kind.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Of meltdown Ploe. Wait, I can explain.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
You're a very good lawyer. I'm sure you can. Mitch Taylor.
I see, look who are you? I'm the guy who
called the fixture bear here? I am. I don't worry too.
As soon as the part comes in, I'll have your
bear all fixed up as good as Jim. Welcome to

(01:43):
another episode of The Feminine Critique Stocking Stuffer, Season eleven.
We have reached the moment in the in the season
we're gonna go back in time a little bit, a
good decade to a movie from twenty fifteen. You heard
the trailer, and this has a lot going on and
I can't do it, so I have brought in the
one and only Elwood Jones to talk and dissect Christmas

(02:06):
trade with me. Hello, Elwood, how are you?

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Hello, Eily, It's very nice to see you again.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Indeed, we have to be careful what we say around
these parts, because if we say it too loud and
use that that terrible wish word, then we may end
up body swapping. It's a long flight. I have no
problem with like living your life and seeing what it's like,
but it feels like it'd be really inconvenient for us

(02:34):
to then swap back being continents away.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah indeed, well I don't. I don't know that it
would be like one of those perfect like setups for
like a freaky Friday swap it's so flight. We live
on such different lives. Obviously, you leave the exciting life
in the States. I live the family life here in the.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
UK storal life.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
It's held chaos and ta over here, and of your
side came coffee.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
And hot dogs. Now here's a question I hadn't I
hadn't really thought of. Uh, if we were to body swap, right,
if we were to encounter a magical Teddy Bear from
Santa's Workshop, probably, although we're not going to say that
in full, would you speak with a American accent? Would
I speak with a British accent? Or would like or

(03:24):
is our body like already prone to speak a certain way?

Speaker 3 (03:29):
You would speak whatever accent of the person whose body
you swapped into. Okay, the same way when we look
at like Freaky Friday, that their voices voices, but the
personality is what changes. It just happened. So was he
Freak Friday came out the same year we're doing this one. Yeah, Well,

(03:52):
you know, disadvantage.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Let's let's let's be clear their body swap. We don't
get enough body swap movies. I love a good body swap.
I grew up with vice versa. That was probably like
my prime body swap. I didn't see Freaky Friday until
I was like babysitting one day, and then the Lindsay
Loewen movie came out when I was a grown up,
so I wasn't really like it wasn't a movie that

(04:15):
defined me then. But Vice Versa, which I think this
movie owes a lot too, I think it is. That's
the vibe it's going for.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
Have you seen Vice Versa with Yeah, I saw Vice
Versa back in the day.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
I think savage.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
It wasn't like one of those like going to this
going to the theater to watch Vice Versa. It was
still like one of those things. It was just on
one night and you think, oh, I just takee that
and it just becomes part of your background, still childhood watching.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Oh yeah, and it's one we watched a lot for
whatever reason. And I still, for me, the funniest stroke
in that movie is still when they fight about what
the plural of moose is and that it should be nice.
I don't know why. That's what stuck in my head
from that movie. It did. I don't know that we
have anything as memorable Christmas Trade. And I also find
the title very like it should be more playful, and

(05:05):
I can't figure out what it should be. But I
kept wanting to write because when I saw this movie
was on and here in the States, it's on Canopy,
which is a streaming service you can get through your library,
through most of your public library. It's not every library participates,
but it's there that way. It might be on two
B and some others. And I knew. I'm like, oh,
it's the the body Swap movie with Billy Baldwin. Great,

(05:25):
I won't forget it. But yet every time I went
to look it up or write it down, I kept
changing the way. I'm like, it's trading Christmas, a Christmas trade,
a trade for Christmas. Like I could not remember the title.
It's a very generic title, but I don't know what
it should be like Christmas versa.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
I don't know I have full Christmas swap swap.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
It sounds so much better than trade, right.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
Because there was the one where you like, you like
al sit around you exchange gifts and you can swap them.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Was it. There's a white elephant. It has a bunch
of different names. I know, white elephant is one of
the terms for it, where it's had.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
Something into that, but like, Christmas Swamp just sounded better
than Christmas Trade.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, and I'm looking because I'm like, well, there probably
was a movie called Christmas Swap. The answer is yes,
there are, there are multiples, but the Christmas Swap came
out in twenty sixteen, a year after this movie. They
could have taken it then. And then it looks like
there is something. Just Christmas Swap is on Amazon. I

(06:25):
can't find out the year, so it's possible they just
didn't have the availability. But still, Christmas Trade also like
trade being like a term used in different ways, and
this is a like for all intents and purposes, a
family film about a child and his widowed father. So
it just seems weird. And then along with that is
the people behind the movie. So I was curious. As always,

(06:47):
I look up the you know, director, and it's the
writer director in this case one person doing double duty
a Jewels SUSA. Does that name mean anything to you?
Did you look up what else the director had done?

Speaker 3 (06:57):
I looked at what else he had done, and then
surprised they had seen anything else he'd done. I must
say he looks like a young kinsky, though on his
profile he does have.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
A very It's like Kinski had an affair with Billy
Bob Thornton and they had a child, and that's that's
what this matters. Oh yeah, right, he's likely the Billy
Bob Bibra out thing going.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
He's like, that's or the guy who looks like Jim
Jimush at the start of Escape from New York.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, I see it. So I didn't recognize most of
what he did, except for his twenty twenty four credit,
which unfortunately I'm sure he wishes he was not involved
in either. He is the writer and director of Rust,
which is the western where in Alec Baldwin, star of
this movie of Christmas Trades, brother Alec Baldwin shot a

(07:49):
prop gun that was not a prop and the ridiculously
horrific tragedy it actually did. He got shot, the director
was also shot, and then the cinematographer who died from
the gunshot. So like, oh, I feel like, now if
I am this guy, I want to talk more about
Christmas Trade. It's a ten year anniversary of Christmas Trade.
He should have done a special edition like Q and

(08:11):
A and interview so that he could, you know, kind
of clear some of the karma and such. But yeah,
from the director of Rust. If you wanted to see
what the director of Rus could do with a Christmas movie, Well,
we watched it, and we can tell.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
You this is the second time we've watched a film
with a director a weird link, because last when we
hung out was from the director of Awaken Frightened, Yes, Blood, Yes.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
And I didn't even look at that. I just purely
like saw the like body swap movie Billy Baldwin. I'm
in and I gave you a choice of like two.
You were like, iep that one.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Yes, oh yeah, and it was like the weirdest choice,
because you gave me this or you gave me the film.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
Greece Olivia Newton Johnson.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yeah, it's a literary and john and I have a
very weird grudge against Living Newton Jump because she did
a cover of ELO's Xanadu.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
Okay, well.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, I mean so many times I'll be like, listen
to radio and so oh we'll play Zion and you're like, oh, great, Elo,
and then they play the Olivia Newton john version and
it's like, no, no, no, no, no. Elo is the
only version of the song.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Sadly, we don't have any Billy Baldwin covers of Xanadu.
I did look up to see if I could find
him singing anything I can't. I couldn't, but I did
find an interview he gave about this movie, so I
will play really at the end, yeah, he doesn't have
much to say other than like, because they're like, oh, so,
how do you play a child, He's like, oh, I'm
kind of a cute and hort Uh so why don't
we go into the the plot of the movie, and

(09:41):
then we'll obviously go through our lists, So Elwood, could
you give kind of a plot synopsis? Spoilers are fine
because I don't know that anything will be shocking in this.
You know, made for TV, not Hallmark. I don't know
where it aired, but it's definitely not a Hallmark production,
although again it follows many of the same shared things.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
You'd find yeah with this film, with its three hundred
and seventy eight people who have actually logged in on
love box sees. William Baldwin played Mitch Taylor. He's a
career orientated single father who's raising his eleven year old
son Robbie here played by Michael Campion. Both are dealing

(10:21):
with the fallout of his wife dying. It's the owner
of a small town bakery and he's been Basically both
of them are dealing with it in their own ways.
He has obviously moved on and found a new go
friend in Deonise Richards Chloe, who put Turns up for
about the grant of fifteen minutes in this film, and

(10:45):
they're basically at loggerheads because both feel that the others
ada and at the same time proposed it's all of like, oh,
if you could walk a mile in my shoes, then
you would see how hard I have it, Like I
have to work for a living and make Christmas happen.
Dad's like saying, and you get to just hang out
and goof off at school with your friends. They find

(11:08):
a bear dumped on their doorstep, which unwittingly grants them
their wish, and then they end up swapping places. And
now the son has to deal with trade that his
dad's doing as a lawyer, and dad has to go
to school and deal with being in a Christmas play

(11:31):
and school bullies and that sort of fun things. Tedium ensues.

Speaker 1 (11:39):
Pretty much I.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
You know, you go into these movies where like a
base level and somehow imagine is to exceed at the
base level. That was my first thought with this movie.
It's all like, just how lazy is this movie? Even
for a DTV movie?

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, it's one of these I watch and I think
I wish you were a worse movie, because then you'd
be more fun, because there's elements that are pretty bad
that made it fun. There are some supporting performances that
I like, am so thankful for some of the women
in this movie who are giving it there all and
just saying like I need a real so I am

(12:19):
going to be big in my one scene. Bless them
because they keep this movie at least interesting. But it
does like there's little conflicts that's one thing and then
the other thing. And I feel like this happens in
other body swap movies, like how how young is this kid? Right?

(12:42):
The kids? What? What would you say? Like he's like eleven,
ten or eleven?

Speaker 3 (12:46):
Yeah, thing it's like eleven or twelve? Yeah, I think
they mentioned in this film.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
So if you are eleven or twelve, are you a buffoon?
Because when he's Billy Baldwin, like in a professional setting,
he's just like he's more like a dog body swapped
with Billy Baldwin and now he's a Golden Retriever puppy
and he's shoving marshmallows in his mouth and he's drinking.
He's like slurping juice boxes and like just acting like no,

(13:13):
I'm not gonna say, oh, acting like a child. Well, yes,
obvious he's supposed to be acting like a child, but
like the kid in this movie is like an eleven
year old kid. He's not three. And that's what Billy
Baldwin feels like he's doing.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
It is weird, isn't it, Because with this kid that
they've hired, it's clearly like this Bieber lookerlike I guess
at the time.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
I guess that was the the haircut at the time.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
It's not just say his haircut is is like fashion choices.
He's like very like young Biber, not you know, Karen Bieber.
So that was the main sort of vibe I got
off him. But it also felt like so much of
this film is like did he have no clue what
he was like signing up for that they built this
body swap around him.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Well, because as the kid, I think when the kid
is playing adult, he's fine, Like I like the kid
actor I think is fine. I think he's perfectly capable
of doing what he's doing. And when he is playing
the body swapped version, I thought he was good. I
thought he was playing it like a like an adult
in a child's body, and that worked for me. But
him before when we see him as a kid, like

(14:22):
he's not a puppy, like he's a kid. And so
when Billy Baldwin is then like channeling him as now
I'm you know, now now I have the child in
my body, it's not it's just so weird because it's
like you're not you weren't in the same movie. You
weren't watching this kid's performance. You don't know what he
was doing.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yeah, he's the Billy Bulban is trying to do like
the child thing, but he's just like going much younger
than the child he's actually body swapped with. And as
you said, already, he's like they're asking for like jukes
boxes and redvines and right, it's not because we see
we see enough for examples of like you know, the

(15:03):
kid in the Grandit body when.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
We's a big being probably like like my was I
thinking of it?

Speaker 3 (15:09):
Even if you like cook hit Vice Versa or Friday.
They're not devolving. It's as much as this the kid
is at least trying.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
That's and that's the thing.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
It's like, it.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Doesn't feel like this that the kid here is in
any way taking cues or or acting like like he
would be trying to do this. And it's very frustrating
because I feel like the kid is doing like the
child actor is playing it correctly. He's playing it as
I'm Billy Baldwin inside my body, and Billy Baldwin is

(15:41):
just like, no, I want to be goofy, but it
doesn't fit the writing of the movie. And it's very like, dude,
come on. And again that's where direct like, and I
am sure Billy Baldwin is probably not the easiest guy
to direct on a movie like this. It's very low
budget for a you know, young director, but like, just
find it, find a line, because then you have other
like who are Denise Richards in this movie? Like it

(16:05):
was she in the middle of of funeral arrangements while
filming this, because she's so dour and so sad and
is barely in it, And it just again feels like
why is everybody else operating at a three and Billy
Baldwin's like I'm going fifteen.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
It's funny as well because in this one he's not
Billy Baldwin. Now he's William baldwinim you know, he's classing
out the same way that Larry Fishburn became Lawrence fish
Ben because he's now a serious actor.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
I wonder if you can like put a bar down
in his career of when he made that change, because
I remember being confused back in the day because there
were so many Baldwins. And I'm from Long Island, where
like the Baldwins are like, I guess probably your version
of royalty, right, like you have actual royalty. We have
Long Islanders had the Baldwin. Everybody had some connection to

(16:55):
a Baldwin, like he called your house to raise money
for animal welfare at some point in your life time.
And there were so many of them, so that then
when you would meet, like when you would see there's like, oh,
there's an Adam Baldwin that I didn't know there was
another Baldwin. No, he's not related to the Baldwins. Oh, okay,
that's confusing. And even though I am fully aware that
William and Billy are the same, like, if your name
is William, you might be called Billy. There was a

(17:17):
period of time where I thought, are these two different?
Is one of them a Baldwin and one of then
unrelated Baldwin because of the way it was used, Like
usually actors aren't interchangeably using their names in credits, but
in this case, yes, he's going for William, but yet
he's playing it as Billy. I'd say that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
It's the thing with the Baldwins is that you look
at Alex and then you look at his brothers and
it's like you know when you breed dogs too much. Yeah,
and makeup is sort of running out and it looks
progressively dumber.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
Yeah. Alien four, Alien Resurrection, the scene where Ripley discovers
all of the clones and they're clones at different levels
of like Houscs's while the cloning was That is always
what I think with the Baldwins, because they look very
much alike. And there's the interview I watched with Billy
Baldwin where like he's fairly like clean, like he's clean shaven,

(18:08):
he's sitting up straight, like I if you looked at it,
it would be hard to realize he wasn't Alec Baldwin
in that in that moment, like they very much are alike,
but at the same time and again, Alec Baldwin has
his own thing going on. There are times when I'm like, yeah,
you go, Alec Baldwin. Other times I'm like, oh God,
please stop talking. But the one thing you have to

(18:30):
say about him is that Alec Baldwin's a really good
actor and a very charismatic man and a very funny performer.
And it feels like all the other Baldwins occasionally have
moments of that but just can't get there. And so
now I ask you, how different would this movie be
if it was Alec Baldwin in this part?

Speaker 3 (18:48):
Oh, I think you could have had Adam Baldwin flight
and they would be impassable because you got there's a
couple of the low down brother you Billy and the
one I mean, yeah, Daniel's enough when he also turns
up in like Christian movies like Christmas we have a
capital C and yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
Well, and then Stephen is the Christian one. Because Alec
and Billy, I don't know about Daniel are very liberal.
Stephen Baldwin is the conservative Christian born again whatever whatever, Yeah,
we gets very I don't know where Daniel falls or reform.

(19:31):
I think Billy falls on the left. But it's hard
to say I have.

Speaker 3 (19:35):
More grasp on the scars Guards than I do the Baldwins.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
There are more of them than you realize. Too. He
was watching a very low budget horror movie recently and
I see the name scars Guard in the beginning, and
I'm like, I wonder if that's the scars Guard. And
then I'm watching the movie it starts, I'm like, no,
this movie was made for five dollars, it can't be
a scars Guard. But I'm watching it realizing, oh no,
that's definitely a scars Guard. Or all the men in

(20:00):
was it Denmark? Like they all must look exactly like that, yes, Sweden.
But it turns out no, he's another scars Guard. Just
again down that row there's like number seven is currently
doing very bad horror movies.

Speaker 3 (20:11):
So yeah, yeah, can have a scars Gard now exact, yes.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
The scars Guard for every budget. All right, so let's
dive into the tropes. Now, this is not a Christmas romance,
so we do you know that not everything quite applies
at the same time, A lot of stuff does apply.
So the first thing being our lead in need of
a lesson. Now, in this case, obviously this is sort

(20:36):
of mixed because we have co leads. Their lesson is
not love, but they do need to learn something, would
you agree.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
Yeah, Yeah, both have got a perspective to learn of
the other because they've still very much sort of like
locked into their own little perspective following the death of
the mother. It was obviously clearly the lynch pin of
this family. Yes, And while he's just trying to be
I assuming he's more sort of ground because he felt

(21:05):
like more like a normal, sort of twelve year old.
He just felt that his dad had no time for him. Ye,
which is a very traditional trope. We've seen it many
times before. Dad, I think just needs to learn to
loosen up a bit and stop being such a workaholic.
And I think the only sort of thing for the
son is just that, you know, Dad's new girlfriend not
so bad.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah, seems very nice. Actually, Denise Richard's playing a normal
human being.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
I was so I mean, I was so excited to
see Denise Richards because like one of the very first
records we ever did was starts at Troopers, right, yeah,
and it's like, oh great Wenn Denise Richards. But it's
a DTV era. She's when she's not making weird OnlyFans
content with her daughter that she now makes DTV movies.
I was like, what does the Denise Richard DTV movie

(21:52):
look like? And now I have my answers. She just
turns up and looks kind of bored.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
And I have seen her in one other of these.
It's funny is her and Dina Meyer also have Starship Troopers.
Also does a lot of these movies. So does Patrick muldoon.
And it's one of those things when ever Dina Miner
shows up in a movie, I'm excited, and she's always great,
like one of the an actor who will seems to
have never gotten Like no, it's not that she gets
bad parts. She's never in a good movie, but yet

(22:18):
she's always good whenever she's in And even these bad
Christmas movies usually if Diana Meyer is there, I'm like,
oh good, she's gonna bring something. I've seen Denise Richards
in one other movie where it was similar to this,
where it was like, ooh, we got Denise Richards. We
can put her name in the opening credits. People are
exciting for Denise Richards and they gave her nothing to do,
and so that's odd. I'm sure there are movies where
she is the romantic lead, but I just have not

(22:40):
put them on my radar as of yet. So I
guess that is in a way the love interest. Right.
So Mitchell is a widowed dad and he's called out
for being a hot widowed dad in a kind of
fair to me. That was like one of the funny
things in this movie was the other women, like the
other moms, who were like, oh, we got one. There's
a single dad and he looks like a Baldwin. He's

(23:03):
like a decent bald when he's like a number number
two Baldwin. That then they just keep referring to him
like with we're like, oh, hot widow dad is here.
So that that itself was fun.

Speaker 3 (23:12):
But there's there's a noticeable lack of men in this town,
so the options are kind of limited. But even like
the Sun has his own romantic fingering on or more,
he's told he has a relationship, but he's never really
mentioned again. Oh you're gonna get me, gonna get me
a necklace and some stickers because it's what boyfriends do.

(23:33):
And it's like it's just announced. It's like, yes, you
have a girlfriend now.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah, and it could have been cute, but they like
just forgot about it as a movie went on. Yeah,
all right, so let's talk about our setting, because this
is no and typically it's a big bad city, a
term small town, or a magical winter wonderland. Where was
this movie set?

Speaker 3 (23:54):
Uh, is some small town that's all like going for it.
It didn't seem to how like a name as far
as I was aware, I I could.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
Have sworn they said in the beginning that it was
Los Angeles. But yet to your point, like there's one
department store in town, right when you go anywhere, you
bang into people, you know. So it's treated like a
very small, small town version.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
Of LA And we have that drive through the town
at the start where we see Mubbum's old cupcake store,
and I felt more like small mountain town, like the
outside the house like mountain town.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
And it makes sense. Yes, dad has to go into
the city to do work. It doesn't feel it doesn't
feel white Los Angeles.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
It didn't. Yeah, except for the fact that like they
get away with it not being winter, right, Like everybody's
wearing light clothing. They don't have to, like, they don't
have snow on the ground, so it kind of I
don't know, and I and I'm like, I grew up
in a four seasons. I grew up in New York,
so to me, like, it's always weird when it's hot
at Christmas. So unless you're gonna really make it work,

(24:59):
like I kind of hate when movies set themselves in LA.
No offense to anybody in LA has to deal with
this weather and Christmas. Sorry about that. So number four
is our dead parents or wife? What do we get one?

Speaker 3 (25:11):
Yeah, we go dead mom in the.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
Very first scene, and you you clocked it. I had
actually forgotten this. What was mom's job?

Speaker 3 (25:21):
She owned a bakery, a cupcake store.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Yeah. How much more Christmas strategy can you get than
a dead mom baker? Now let's talk about number five,
our sassy sidekick.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
There's not a sidekick. There is two. There's a sassy
assistant who's sassy and her jumpers.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
Oh yes, lots of very, very tacky, very I think
she has three scenes. In every scene she has a
different Christmas jumper.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
Yeah, she has like that apron thing happening in the
first one.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
Which she's got a kitten one and another.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
And for the Sun's side, we have.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
A kookie teacher, yes we do, you're right.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
Who even announces to a class that she's going to
sleep for thirty minutes where they have a test. She's
got an eye mask and everything does within my type.
I got the vibe from her. That was my main
takeaway is let's cooky side cake potential.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
Dating, like right, doing it right?

Speaker 3 (26:21):
Yeah, the right, the right sort of cookie for me.
But there isn't like a sidekick as such, so and
I really thought like with his assistant, she would like
become more prominent, but instead she's sort of like the
headless chickens who sort of runs around and it's like, uh, yes,
I can get you a juice box, but what are

(26:41):
we going to do? And then he's like giving the
when he's planning the party at the end and it's like, oh,
we've got this violinist and we've got high schooltures and
he's like, oh, that sounds really boring. What we should
do is get like marshmallows and the bouncy castle and stuff.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Five year old a twelve year old isn't into bouncy castles. No, right,
all right, so let's talk about our villains, because we
actually have villains in this movie, and that's exciting because
we don't always have them. I'd say we have two, Okay,
well we have three two and a half.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
We've got the high school bully, which is to be expected,
who I was sure had a Scottish accent when he's
the first introduce I thought he was like Linus, like
her from Rushmore. But then then like Frankenstein's Monster in
that Del Toro version, he loses the accent completely that
you've introduced with. And then for Dad's got a boss

(27:40):
who's clearly been based on the mom from Rugratslica's mom
because she was always on the phone, but she's always
on the head piece.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
Well that's the best way, especially in like this era,
the best way to establish somebody as a workaholic jerk
to give them like a big blue, prominent bluetooth type
thing so that they're always talking like you don't know,
and they can do the thing where like they look
at you and they're talking and then like you gold
answer them and they go no, or like they don't
have to say it. They just point their finger at
you because clearly they're talking to the person on the

(28:13):
phone who's more important. I loved her, Oh really, yes,
I needed something to hold on to. And suddenly when
you had an over the top, like angry lawyer woman
who was just going for it, I thought, I'm like,
you know what this is giving me? Like you raise
the pulse of the movie from being dead to being something.

(28:35):
So I was happy to have her.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
I liked her assistance that she walks around with yes,
all like.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
Six like beautiful young women who.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
Assisted a scowl. Yes, it's like.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
And then I'd say, we do have again, not really
a villain, but like a character that get that can
cause trouble. Francis's mom, right, Trish we mentioned earlier? Oh yeah,
who was just another mom from school who has a
crush on Mitchell. Did you recognize that actress? Do you
know who's this is interesting? So she is sort of

(29:07):
lineage royalty because she is. That actress is named Jennifer Grant.
So her most probably notable like performance was on nine
or two and oh she played Steve's girlfriend. She's the
one that there when Brandon and Steve are on a
dating game show. She's the bachelorette, uh, and then Steven
her date for a little bit. That's all well and good,
but more importantly, she is the daughter of Carrie Grant

(29:30):
and Diane Cannon really and she actually does look and
like speak like a combination of the two of them.
So that was just a fun like, oh, look, Jennifer
Grant is in this movie. That's cool. She doesn't get
much to do, but I thought she was also like
kind of funny in what she was doing.

Speaker 3 (29:46):
The supporting actors in this film fell a lot better
than the main actors. So anyone who's like you would
recognize to have been the main actor don't do particularly
well here. But like all the supporting sort of casts,
she was good. I mean, as a sa she's got
that cougar mom vibe. But yeah, she was. She was
perfectly fine. I didn't really see her as so villain

(30:10):
by I suppose she is, because obviously she's there to
mess up the relationship with Denise. Rich Is his character
because we have that scene where he's in the departments
store and he's playing with all the kids, because there's
many scenes of him playing with kids, yes, in this film,
and soccer skills yeah, he but he's not just playing

(30:31):
with the kids. He's acting like a child. And apparently
this is very attractive to the women in town.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Well, obviously that is deep down what every woman wants,
is they want to look at a man and see
a Baldwin who's actually seven years old, a seven year
old puppy.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
Who's also making lightsaber sounds with a role of Christmas wrap.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
Haven't you done that? Though? Haven't we all done that?
I thought everybody doesn't.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
I would have thought that that would have been out
of like with been out of style for when this
film came out twenty fifteen.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
Well, this is a kid that probably grew up with
the prequels, right, oh right, this kid's like it was
born probably like that was probably on rotation. So yeah,
I'd buy.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
It because obviously, you know, being kids in the eighties,
like Star Wars is very much like at the background.
Even as much as like Disney and the Prequels tried
to kill your enthusiasm for I think they've just about
succeeded now.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
At all. It's a whole it's a whole new world.

Speaker 3 (31:30):
I guess. But at the same time they're just pumping
out alien and Predator movies and that's really good. So
again it's like a living Newton John. I've got this
whole conungeum with the Disney Corporation. It's like it's like
you're killing Star Wars and Marvel, but you're giving me
a more Predator. It's like, oh, this is sort of

(31:50):
balancing out.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
I know. They found like they find a way to
get everybody right. For me, it's the Muppets. It's like, no,
I'm don't need Disney. Oh crap, you did another Muppet thing. Yeah,
it's it was so good.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
The Muppet Office thing they did last.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
Time, the one from like two thousand and I was fourteen,
the one that was Yeah that the Muppets, the TV
show that was the documentary.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
Yeah it was yeah, it was like watching the Office.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
It was no brilliant. That was the year that ABC
somehow was catering to me because they had the Muppets,
they had Gallivant, and they had Agent Carter, and all
three shows were not doing well at all, and yet
they like kept they were like, no, we're we know
they're good, so we're going to keep them going. And
all three of like stood the test of time even
though they were all eventually canceled after another year, but still,

(32:39):
I just I can't.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
Believe how many times of rebooted the Muppets now and
they gave it one season and then they like bring
it back in it like, yeah, we're bring the Muppets back.
It's like you've done it at least two times in
recent memory.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
But the same time, it's one of those things where
I think when something is aimed at a younger audience,
there is something to the idea of like you can
reboot something every four years because the target has sort
of aged out and now you have another target. Like
I have a niece who's twenty years old, and for her,

(33:12):
the Muppets and Muppets most wanted are like the way
Muppet Muppet State Manhattan was for me, Like she grew
up with them, and those are like definitive to her.
She has since gone back and watched other Muppet things
like that's gonna be her Frozen and Amber moment. So
in another five years, my younger nieces and nephews will

(33:33):
have a new Muppet property. So it's you know, good
good entertainment stands a test of time, just like Christmas trade, right,
Oh yeah, yeah, montages. We're up to number seven.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
I don't think we have montages as such because everything
just seems to happen in real time.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
Yeah, there's a lot that seem like they're gonna be
montages that aren't that much. Like the opening credits is
so of like here's what the here's how the kid
gets ready, here's how the dad gets ready.

Speaker 3 (34:04):
Because they have like sceince you would assume would be
a montage, like when he goes in the shopping street
with dad's credit card.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
True, yeah, it's yeah, it's yeah, but it's still him
moving around in the location, right, It's like him going
to buy a necklace and then him playing with wrapping
paper and him picking up a toy and so on.
So i'd classicate with that. But there is a good one.
The when child Billy Baldwin, uh is I think he's

(34:39):
going to school but he's trying to keep adults. Billy
Baldwin with child in him home and the dog walker
comes by and he's like, dog walker, I'm gonna pay
you to babiesit my dad, And it's basically the dog
walker just like in the house wild jingle bells plays
and Billy Baldwin acts insane. Right, Okay, so there's a

(35:02):
few and then I guess there's a Christmas pageant. We're
like the twenty five year old children seeing jingle bells.
Those kids are really old.

Speaker 3 (35:10):
Yeah, nobody, nobody seemed to have any commitment to the
bit whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
Yeah. Yeah, I think they like realized they needed kids
on stage and found some short adults and tried to
put them in bad lighting so you wouldn't actually tell
that they were in their thirties.

Speaker 3 (35:23):
The when he gets the end, and it's sort of
like where you've got adult child who's sort of like
then he's trying to remember the bits and he's like
comparing it to his bar exam and it's not like, yeah,
they're comparable.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
Makes sense, all right? So number eight is slapstick? I
don't know was there slapstick in this movie.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
I think he thought he was doing slapsticky style comedy.
He clearly thought that he was being a lot funnier
than he was like, And there's so many bits where
you can see the going well, the joke they were
going for, and it falling flat, like he's been rushed
into the meeting and he's like, I need folders I
need post its and fings. And then you obviously got

(36:07):
the back and forth where he's the assistant guys holding
onto the onto the folders. He's like, oh, one minute,
one of these let go and it's all gonna flap.
But these posters just like flap on the air and
then just fall flat.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
It's not a scattering I feel like a lawyer actually,
And it might have been ad lib. The lawyer says
something right after. He's like, well, that that made a mouse.
That was again one of the few like funny moments
in the movie, and I don't think it was scrpted.

Speaker 3 (36:32):
Yeah, And weirdly, when they go into the meeting, and
my mind just went to like burdemic for some bizarre reason.
I was just like looking in the background and like
looking for like actors trying to like get a talking
bit in like improvise something just they can get their
sad card. Yep, yep, because that's basically how your sad

(36:55):
card works is if you have a talking bit in
a movie, you can get sade cards. Yeah, and a
lot of these guys looked like they really wanted to sack.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
Well, we do get a spit take that again, like
I don't remember it, but I wrote down it's more
uncomfortable than funny, Like it felt like that, Like it
made me like like I could feel like being in
that meeting and being like, oh god, we get a
I just feel like a cat. But walking in front

(37:26):
of me. I love it. It's I have to close
my door is closed back here and I have barricaded it.
I have to move like a heavy box in front
because there was my cat tries to break her way
in and she just won't stop talking when she's in.
So a cat, a nice cat, but walking across my screen.
Love it?

Speaker 3 (37:41):
Yeah, yeah, we have that. The same way, he's like
supposed to be drinking the juice box and it just
goes on and on and it's like the w was
smallest juice box, but he's drinking it like he's like
got one of those big bottles everyone has in the gym,
and still imagine is to like do the panic squeeze,
spit take, and it's like how much juice is in

(38:03):
this juice punks.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
And like he ends up spitting like on the client
in a way that again like it's not funny, it's
just gross, like and granted it like this is post COVID.
It's you know, we I think we probably like think
of it different, but it like it really was just
like like you could do that in a funny way,
but this doesn't. We do get Chekhov's law of a
swimming pool right. If there's a swimming pool, then Billy

(38:26):
Baldwin's gotta fall into it. We don't see him in
the water, but we hear him fall.

Speaker 3 (38:32):
We falls into Was it in the pool? Was it
a moat that he falls into it?

Speaker 1 (38:37):
It was some form of water in a place it
shouldn't have been.

Speaker 3 (38:41):
Yeah, yeah, because he's playing football with the local kids.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
Yea.

Speaker 3 (38:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
And don't forget the last one that I had noted
was the treadmill. Cause again, if you put Billy Baldwin
on a treadmill in a comedy, he better fall off
the treadmill, which we here happen. Do you think he
has ever walked in a treadmill before? Because it did
not look like he understood, but he was like I'm
guessing it was like I'm kind of imitating what he

(39:12):
was doing. Now, Like was that essentially like his version
of walking on a treadmill?

Speaker 3 (39:17):
He seemed to use it to pull this energy in
that opening shot where he's just like running on the
treadmill and then it's like, yeah, that's about all the
exercise I'm going to do today. It just seemed to
then realize, oh, wait, the scene's going on longer. Yes,
and I still had to be on the treadmill.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
Yes. And the idea that like it's like his lunch
break where him and Denise Richards I guess work out
on their lunch break, but like she's on the treadmill
with like her hair all done and her makeup on,
just like again walking like the long walk style, like
three miles an hour. Just like I don't believe that
that's how Denise Richards works out based on her body
in this movie, Like she's not ambling on a treadmill.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
It was so when when she turns up because she's
so it disappears from this movie for the longest time.
She's there, start and then she disappears, and then it
felt like, oh, I was going to the gym and
I'll put some time in on this movie.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
It's like she had other things to do, Like she
had a guest fast for the gym, so she's like, yeah,
sure you can come and film with me.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
That's basically it's so like, yeah, I'm going to move
to Tassie. It's like, I've got to go to the gym,
so let's just create a scene where I go to
the gym. Yeah. And they were pretty just so like yeah, whatever.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
Okay, well we'll take it. We have three days to film,
let's do it.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
She seemed to be on a much more limited like
contract and I don't know where Denise Richards had to
be that she couldn't like fully commit to this movie,
but it felt very much like we had her for
like a day or so. Yeah, definitely, And it really
says a lot when Tom Arnold is the shining point
of your movie.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yeah, so let's talk about that because I feel like
that's kind of where nine ten come in, which is
Sage old person, it's Santa Claus. I it's when I
looked at the description of the movie, I didn't see
Tom Marnolds. So then when I turned it on and
like I see him like third build or whatever it was,
I'm like, oh, okay, we got something going now. So
to tell me about who Tom Arnold is in Christmas Trade.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
Uh, tom Arnold is the customer support. He or the
it's the best way today basically because with this bear
they find a number and their phone only help support
and he just randomly turns up at the door and
it's like, Oh, I see what's wrong here. Someone set
this bear to evil pretty much because and it felt

(41:34):
so weird because the Bears seemed to be like working off. Oh,
if you make a wish, then I'm going to come
to life. Same with like all these sort of like
totems and things for body swam. But no, according to
Tom's character, is like, oh, it's it's faulty. It must
have got like damaged in shipping, right, So I've got
to wait for this part to come, but it's going

(41:55):
to take three days. So you've got to like keep
this going for three more days and then come back
with the part and and fix this. And he really
commits to his beds. He's only a very small part
in this film, but he's fun yeah with it. He's
really lighthearted in it and does his his lines well

(42:17):
and his whole performance as well. And I was very
surprised because Tom Manold is not this is a guy
you expect to be the shining point to your movie.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
It doesn't speak well to your movie.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
If he's violent, he's either awful or really like giving
us sort of like a true lies tom Oland tweets
I switched on and he's sort of like really lays
it in on his lines, and.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
I would gather like because this was again clearly like
an afternoon of having Tom Martle on set. I bet
he's one of those guys who, if he's in a
good mood, you're gonna get a great Tom Mardol and
everybody's gonna love him, and he's gonna be great on set,
and he's gonna just like, lighten up your movie. It's
gonna be great. And if he's in a bad mood,
you are getting like just a pile of poop. Because

(43:00):
I have seen both versions and it's not like, oh,
he couldn't do this part, like no, no, no, he's playing
the same part in this other movie. And yet he's insufferable.
And I wonder how much it is just like you
gotta get him on the right day.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
Yeah, exactly. He's such a a long his longevity has
been incredibly surprising. He's my divorcedxann to Rozanne Man.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
I remember I watched and I loved and it was
probably what like nineteen ninety four or so when they
were married, and he had a sitcom on Fox I
think called The Jackie Thomas Show, where it was a
one season show where he played like the lead of
a sitcom who was really dumb and the show is
about all the writers trying to like work around him,

(43:46):
and I remember being very funny and it aired for
one season, and that's that was my fold experience.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
And then he did that that show where he for
Vice where he was going to expose the truth about Trump,
and it's like, do we really think tomld He's going.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
To have like all that's something I'm kind of like.

Speaker 3 (44:06):
Trump's first run as president, and he was sort of
like it's I knew him back in the eighties and
he was an idiot then, and it's just basically.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Only we could all listened to Tom Arnold, everybody.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
Him going through like footage and documents that were out
there already, and he was sort of like just doing
the Louis thru bit where he was just sort of
like presenting information but like interviewing interesting people about the
topics and like the videos being shown and stuff.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
And then as his lunch break, he would go and
film a movie like Christmas Trade.

Speaker 3 (44:41):
Yeah, I mean I don't hold it against him. I
mean we all got to pay the bills. And actually say,
with so many of these, it's like the actors who
aren't getting offered other parts, but they can go and
do like three or four Christmas movies. And like, he
works a.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
Lot in this, in this very particular genre. Again, he's
not on homework. He's he's in the mar Vista ones
and the Lifetime ones, and he sometimes can really like
bring life to it, which he does here. And the
one thing I couldn't figure out. At one point he
says like, oh, your dad doesn't remember, but he had
a bear like this when he was a kid. Right.

(45:15):
Did you catch that?

Speaker 2 (45:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (45:17):
It seems like they were hinting that this is some
alternates sort of like a plot where the bear is
sort of dropped off at families who need it. So
I think the bird gets dropped off with the businessman
at the end. It wasn't too clear whose door is
stop it was because you know the dad's doing that.
He's handling the case for that businessman. And it's established

(45:41):
that he's got a younger son, but a much younger son,
So I don't know if they were like setting they
were trying to set that up, and it was sort
of like, oh, it's sort of like this secret plot
where we're going to steal festive cheer in people by
body swapping.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
It's like the Box but Christmas.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
Yeah exactly, it's it is the Box.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
I like it. I like it all right, So we
kind of we don't officially get Santa Claus, but I
feel like Tom Martole is very heavily hinting that like,
of course this is this is from Santa Claus.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
He's more like Elf viae Busney.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
Yeah, very much like he's head Elf and he's just like, yeah,
well you know what the guy in charge had to
say about this. So again, like it's not explicit, but
I think we can safely assume that we have Santa
Claus here.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
Oh yeah. Even like dud jokes he makes, he twists
them so that charming is sort of like, oh, yeah,
we once had a rocking horse, so it was supposed
to go to like Divada, but it ended up in Alaska?
Can you believe that? And it's like that's an awful joke,
but you've turned it into a charming He made it.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
Yeah, he made it very very charming. Ready for the bonuses? Sure,
all right, So our public domain holiday songs, we have
a lot of them. Did you catch them?

Speaker 3 (46:57):
I certainly called them because they were like like punk versions.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
Of the think yep very much.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
But they went like obvious choices. I want to say
there was a little drum boy in there, but I
could be mistaken.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
There could have been.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
I didn't catch that one, but they went they went
the usual offenders.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Oh, I mean the ones I might have missed some
because the ones I caught were all like rock jingle
jingle bells, rock Joy to the World, rock Deck the
Hall or no Deck the Halls were just the kids
singing Deck the Halls. But then there was a rock
version of Deck the Halls during the shopping montage.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
Yeah, and we.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
Had Silent Night like we had I feel like they
like hit all the all the big ones, and you're
right to an extent. Some of them were more like
I do the world like that kind of attitude.

Speaker 3 (47:47):
Yeah, it's very much like YouTube pop punk bands. We found.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
There was one word salad Christmas song in the beginning
the opening credits were I didn't write all the words,
but it was Christmas lives in each and everyone to
come out and bring the fun. I don't want to
know if you're covered in snow. That's all that I
got from the lyrics.

Speaker 3 (48:09):
I was fully expecting Billy Bowl when to a rap.

Speaker 1 (48:12):
I just wanted more in that regard.

Speaker 3 (48:15):
Does it as either as the child version or as
the adult version that he would find it. He would
burst into a rap because we see on the cover
he's there with the skateboard and the backwood cap, and
it's so like you got to do a rap.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
The cover of this movie is and the and the
little boy is wearing this really oversized suit with like
you know, the arms hanging down, and but it's like
Billy Baldwin, like you're saying, he's there with a skateboard
over his shoulder. It's very how you do in Fellow Kids.
Like it's very like the Saw, you know, the Jigsaw
in Saw seven when when Saul goes to the book

(48:48):
signing and he's wearing a backwards baseball cap, like e's
so that And I was so hoping we'd get more
of it, and we don't because instead the kid he
plays it like he's seven, as opposed to playing at
like a ten year old trying to act like he's fifteen.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
Whether plant lines are so detached that neither of them
really help each other. No, which is what you normally expect,
is that you know that they have to find ways
to creative ways to help each other.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
I understand one another.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
Yeah, but they just basically set up on their own
pass and it's like, you're a kid. You've got to
do your dad's job. Your dad, you've got to do
the kid's job. Yeah, there's no crossover, there's no.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
There's no real moment of like, wow, I didn't realize
how hard you have it. Wow, I like now I
understand what you're why you do what you do. Like,
it's just kind of like, hey, dad, I approve your girlfriend.
Here's an engagement ring for her, Like right, oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (49:38):
It just basically boils down to, oh, I can just
basically go on a shopping spree, get the dog that
I want, and have all these things I want, and
it's going to be all Fun's gonna remark, Dad's gonna remark, Wow,
my credit card got quite the workout and.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
I almost got fired. So we should have thought about that.

Speaker 3 (49:57):
But to give it a little bit moraty like, but
I kept the receipts.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
Yes, yes, even though I left all my stuff there
when I thought that when I accidentally kissed Jennifer Grant.
All right, So number two is our family recipe, which
I didn't really get all the holiday cocktails. Instead, it
was more the idea of like kids like juice boxes
and marshmallows.

Speaker 3 (50:21):
Uh what that makes pancakes? Oh, it's been surprised of.
And it seemed like the sort of recipe that he
had practiced or that he had got from the wife.
Because the kid comes down in sort of like pancakes,
and it looks so skeptical and it's like, wow, pancacakes.
I don't think pancakes are going to help, and the

(50:43):
pancakes and the like really good pancakes.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
Were you married to a baker or something?

Speaker 3 (50:50):
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
Let's see. Number three is our small business in danger? No,
just like yeah, well, I mean I guess the bakery closed,
so we know that.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
Yeah, that's yea, the small business. But his law firm
apparently all hinges on his performance. Yes, that presented is
a big law corporation. Because she's speaking to international clients.
There's probably only two lawyers in this firm, ones are paralegal,
and it all hinges on him handling this case.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
So I guess there is a probably very high cost
law firm in danger. Let's see the next one. Product placement.
I don't think anybody would have paid to be in
this movie. Or I don't know why my cameras uoming
or suddenly I'm getting like a my cat's be giving

(51:47):
me an attitude, like for those at home. My camera
is doing this like like extreme close up, extreme zoom
out on me.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
I don't know why, but yes, as soon as your
head turns, it's.

Speaker 1 (52:03):
Like I know I have a new camera. So the camera,
the built in camera to my Mac just died on me,
and briefly the one it work did too, and I
thought it was like did my face kill computers? But
it turned out my computer, my MacBook, it's like nine
years old and it's perfectly fine except for the fact
that the camera won't work anymore. So I had to
get this very crappy little extended camera that is now

(52:25):
possessed and acting on its own. Anyway. Product place meant
nothing that I clocked you.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
I was sure that there was something on the juice box.
I thought they were like minute yeah, yea yeah, And
the juice boxes also turn up at the party at
the end the camera around in a silver tray.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
Yes, which again like could have been cute if they,
like if this movie was written, I guess, because the
idea is fine, like oh see, like it actually it's
kind of fun to be at an adult party, but
to be like eating like you're a kid. But like
if it was a juice box, like in a wineglass
or something, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
There was elements to the party which like works, like
the big mock presence, and then you have things like
the pedal car plane. Yeah, and it's like, why is
that that that's even too small even for child? You
to think that's a good idea.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
And a bouncy castle for the one child that's there,
and a bouncy castle that's like young child's size, not
like one of the ones that you could get for
adults at a drunk party.

Speaker 3 (53:30):
It has to be the most famous bouncy castle in
the world. It looks so solid. It was a very
sad look that child was not getting any bounces with
that thing.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
You're very right about that, all right. So after that
we have cloying.

Speaker 3 (53:42):
Child's Despilly Bowlwyn playing one Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
Yeah, because the kid's fine. I wrote down the annoying
little girl scouting one liners at the department store, but
I don't remember what that meant.

Speaker 3 (53:57):
Oh, she's basically when he goes to buy the necklace,
he's buying a necklace and he's buying a tie. Yeah,
and she's making making comments. And I thought she was
gonna be much more of a character, but she just
never appears again.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
Yeah, because it's the boys trying to buy a necklace
from the jewelry counter and the jeweler counter is just
ignoring him completely. And there's a little girl that's just like, yeah,
it's hard to be a kid, and then just keeps
having lines like that, and thankfully we don't see her again.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
Now we have his girlfriend that's thrust upon him, who
like the Poplar girls, but they don't really do much.
They just make demands for stickers and necklaces. We got
the bully who's got that line, got the wicked burn
of the up in a tree. It's like because fast

(54:50):
and it's funny.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
Well, I mean, I'm laughing now, but that's because I
just didn't have much to laugh at during the movie.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
It's as I said before, it's all like you expect
this very base level with these Christmas movies, and you
think I'm gonna find this like enjoyable into some like
base level. I'm gonna switch my brain off and just
go with the clone this. But this just felt lazy.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
It was and it was ugly, Like it just wasn't
pretty in that way that at least you can like
kind of forget that you have to pay attention and
just look at stuff like. It wasn't attractive, it wasn't charming.
It was just like and it was very heavy a movie.
I think, like it didn't have a light foot to
it in a way that I want frost to my movies.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
No, it was it was missing peril. I think it's
the biggest there's no big like drama. There's no big
villain of the pieces antagonistic characters, but there's no like
big villain.

Speaker 1 (55:47):
There's no like what's the stakes here? If Mitchell gets fired,
like I have a feeling you can get another job.
He's a pretty good lawyer. If boy gets in trouble
at school, like he gets in trouble at school and
will be okay, with it because it was Dad like,
I don't know, we gotta like normally, I don't know,
I can't even remember some of the stakes in other movies.

(56:07):
But you could have like the big concert like Freaky Friday, right,
it's a big concert and it's a wedding, and it
could be like one of those like you have to
save the town, you have to save the small business,
you have to like impress the girl. I know, there's
just nothing and it's like it's three days and then
it's over.

Speaker 3 (56:24):
And normally when you have like the parent in this
sort of position where it's over, he's like this high
pressure job that they've got and that the boss is
such an ogre and it's all like you're gonna work
Christmas Day and at the end they just like you
can take this job and cram it. And I was like,
that's what's gonna happen here. He's gonna like walk out
on the job. He's gonna tell him where job, take
the job, and then we're gonna have a scene of

(56:46):
him in town where he's now like small town lawyer
is gonna wear played and he's gonna hang out with
the locals who by that point they will have cast
a few more.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
But in this it doesn't because instead it's like, well,
lucky for you, the client you were supposed to press
is also a bad dad, and you got to make
him feel like a good dad for five minutes, so
everything's okay.

Speaker 3 (57:06):
I kept hoping that be like the town square scene. Yeah,
of like all the all the local townsfolk around a
big tree is singing cows, and there's nothing like that.
The only party we get is that sterile party that
a kid thinks is really cool.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
Well, at least we do have number six finding the
perfect tree, right, the boy is very insistent on getting
a tree.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
That's true.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
That's something.

Speaker 3 (57:34):
Which is just more foundation for you. Don't know how
hard it is to be an adult in this. You
just picked the first one that you saw dad, and
he's still like you think Christmas just happens. It's clearly
not happening a toll in your house.

Speaker 1 (57:50):
Let's see number seven, empty coffee cup acting. We don't
get it, but we do get We get spittakes right
with like him drinking coffee and.

Speaker 3 (58:02):
Oh that's a really precise bit take he nails that
planet from quiet distance. Yeah. I think it's because we
had that one joke about the fact is DCAF coffee. Yep,
and that's that's it, really, But I assumed there was
something in it because he'sbviously got to do a spit take.

Speaker 1 (58:23):
So but then he switches to juice. So let's see
actors trying hard to not take a bite of anything
on camera. No, I feel like Billy Bodman's the kind
of guy who's gonna eat when he wants to eat
on camera, so I don't.

Speaker 3 (58:38):
He's eats marshmallows, the kid eats pancakes, and there is
no other substance in this film whatsoever. Yeah, he did
not have a catering budget.

Speaker 1 (58:48):
Yeah, I didn't clock. Again, I'm pretty sure it was
filmed in La so I didn't clock any canadianisms. Yeah,
warm Weather Watch is number ten, and obviously it's in California,
So they're justified the entire time, right, Uh, Next one
old people aggressively matchmaking. No, but we do have a

(59:10):
child buying an engagement ring for his dad's girlfriend without
his dad's consent.

Speaker 3 (59:17):
Right, Yeah, because the girlfriend is sort of like, oh,
I don't know he's gonna accept me, and the dad's
self like, well, I've not brought a woman around in
all this this time, I don't know how.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
It's gonna hurt, right, not judging right, like everybody recovers
on their own time, but like it's it's it's pretty
soon to be engaged.

Speaker 3 (59:45):
I got really lost in her character art because it's
all my mom saw me with my niece and she's
there give me the thumbs up, and it's where she
really wants me, And it's so like, does she even
want to be a step mom? Or is she just
doubted your ability to be a step mom?

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
Yeah, it's there's another movie there that also wouldn't be
very good, but feels like it needs to be told somehow. Now,
the last part is where we do the fashion like
our favorite fashion moment now And unfortunately, like I didn't
write anything down and this is usually my favorite part.
Nobody looked like we had a party, right. I love

(01:00:25):
a party. A Christmas party in a movie means you
get to wear dresses. And I don't remember anything from it.
I think Harper was wearing blue. Like there wasn't even
like red velvet to be found anywhere. Anything you clocked.

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
The only one that I clogged is to see assistant
in Christmas jumpers.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Yeah. See.

Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
Everyone else seemed to be like doing their own wardrobe.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Yes, and as if they were going on like a
job interview.

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
Or to the gym, or like not even to the gym.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
To like lazy mom yoga like it right, because it
wasn't like a like a real like. I don't think
she would hear a sports brawl like. She's just there
and like a because she's got her hair down and
not in a way that you'd wear when you're working out.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
She does have a nice dress when she turns up
with the past at the end. Okay, okay, But other
than that, you see the assistant who's just got got
prime game. I think the assistant in the Kookye teacher. True,
I've got the best the two best outfits in this.
Everyone else is sort of like whatever you got in
your wardrobe, you want a suit, just.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
Come, you're gonna film it all your scenes. So if
you can bring a card again to make it look
like you're in another time, that'd be great. But we
don't even get a pea coat. No pea coats. What
is a Christmas movie without a pea coat?

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
No? No, no, no. Even the bear which is creepy
as all.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
Hell, freaking creepy bear.

Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
Its eyes light up.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
Yeah, and it's very like patchworky, but not in a
charming way, right, It's not like it's sort of like
Scarecrow like in a way where it just feels like
different material over the year was so despair together. And
again there could be a story there. But again, hey,
if you turn this into a movie, I would take it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:08):
I would totally see that as a colored dole bear
of ingots. So o.

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
Well, So, having said all that, do you recommend Christmas trade?

Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
Oh no, no, no, no, it's a good god though, No, no, no,
this is this is bad.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:02:27):
And this is coming from someone who has very rock
bottomed tastes yep, like for someone who'd like, like, just
like yourself. We spend a lot of time in like
the depths of DVD. Hell, and this is bad.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Yeah. Yeah, and it's not bad enough to be fun.
I think that's the problem I have.

Speaker 3 (01:02:42):
Yeah, it's not.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
It's just kind of it's very low energy and it
has a big concept, but it doesn't know how to
make it work or do anything of interest, so it
just ends up like this isn't ninety minutes. It does
not feel like ninety minutes. It feels so much longer,
so very much.

Speaker 3 (01:02:59):
It suffers because it's lazy, and it also doesn't give
you anything to latch onto. Yep, Like even if you're
watching like the sci fi shark movies and things like,
you know why they made so many Sharknado movies because
there's like likable characters you can latch onto, or there's
funny bits that keep you engaged in it. There's nothing

(01:03:21):
happening here and it just feels just so I just
keep going back to it. It just felt very lazy. Yeah,
there's no stakes, there's no one to really engage with,
and the comedy is just torturous at best because it's
like Billy Baldwin trying to be funny. He clearly thinks

(01:03:45):
he's being like.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
This. He thinks he's given a big performance. He thinks
he is going big and taking chances and it you know,
he's not phoning it in give him that much. He's trying.
He's just not very good.

Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
No, he's It's surprising how you can be out your
depth in a DTV Christmas movie.

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
Yeah no, but it also it also goes to show
that this is not as easy as it looks. And
when you you know, you watch some of these movies
with your lacy shibers with like Hallmark has this stable
of male actors, like I can't remember their names offhand,
but they like appear in a lot of these movies,

(01:04:32):
and it does teach you something of like, oh, no,
there is there's a way to do this right. And
you're still especially the male roles are never going to
be the roles that you remember, but there is a
way to hold your own and to make it work.
And I just don't think Billy Baldwin knew how uh
and you know, so this is there. It's on canopy.

(01:04:53):
You don't have to pay for it. I would still
not suggest you watch it. But we've both seen worse.

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
Yes, I'm just trying to I'm trying to think of
like where is my rock Bottom? And I'm thinking, like,
the worst movies I've seen have been like that. No
Clark's kid Olthood or pretty much any film with No Clark.

Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
In Okay, I don't know it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
Oh basically, No Clark, prior to being outed as a
sex pest, was not doctor who is Mickey? He was
like the comedic psychic and He got very upset because
everyone swim as a clown. So his counter was to
create this tough guy persona that worked in his head.
Then he made these movies called Kiddothood because it's you're

(01:05:36):
not a kid, you know a don't it's kiddlethood. Okay, he's
actually justifying this. I had the unfortunate pleasure of having
to like sit there an interim while he's wheeling this
off and just you know how you sit there when
the cars coming at you, just just sit there with
that frozen expression. It's like, Okay, that's.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
When you say, you know what, I have a movie
to recommend to you Christmas Trade. Yeah, exactly, so you
can recommend it to someone, just not might be for
the right reason.

Speaker 3 (01:06:08):
I try to remember, like, what's the worst thing I've
ever seen? I think it's that Albert Pun's movie The
Wrecking Crew. We did with like ice Cube and maybe
like of in Love. He did like a bunch Room,
and they were like well with rappers, they were old
DTV ones. You did one with like Snoop Dogg and

(01:06:29):
he did one with sl like The Corruptor or whatever.
But I think that that was my baseline for like
bad movies, and I think this somehow might surpassed that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
Oh no, I mean I've seen worse of these.

Speaker 3 (01:06:44):
Would you say it's worse than this?

Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
Oh god, I'd have to go back through the list again.
I put movies in very specific camps, like I'm not
going to compare this to a bad horror movie. I
can't compare this to an action movie like this has
to sit in the mar Vista Christmas movie cannon of
really like fairly not super low, but like low ish budget,

(01:07:06):
low ambition, make it for Christmas film. It quickly put
it out there like the thing. The one thing I'd
say for it is like, there's nothing offensive in this,
Like there's no I've seen ones that are so very
much pushing certain agendas, and this one, at least, it's
like I feel like it's heart was was somewhere. It
just had no soul to it. So it doesn't actually

(01:07:27):
do anything. But there's moments that are okay, And I've
seen worse performances than Billy Baldwin in this. I just
have to go back and figure out what they were.
But probably the low point for the year. But let's hope,
Oh god, I hope it's the.

Speaker 3 (01:07:40):
Low points for the year, I would say, wwe put
out another.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
You know, they put out one about ten years ago
called The Christmas Bounty that was actually kind of fun.

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
Yeah, there was. I think they did that one, and
they did the Jingle the Way sequel the same year.

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
Yeah, and then they did one more that was like
an ELF one that I did not see.

Speaker 3 (01:08:01):
Oh yeah, this one with Page.

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
Wasn't it with Page and with I want to say
it was with.

Speaker 3 (01:08:07):
The Acts Miss remake?

Speaker 1 (01:08:09):
Yeah? Yes, the Mis wasn't that one. The Miss was
also in Christmas Bounty, and Christmas Bounty was was actually
like for again for this genre, for the Christmas romance crowd.
Christmas Bounie had some charm, so even them, you know,
you never know what You just gotta know who your
audience is and do it. And I think with this one,
I don't think it knew who its audience was because

(01:08:31):
I don't think it's aimed at kids. I don't think
it's aimed at like women that want to watch some
escapist entertainment for Christmas, Like this doesn't really feel like
it so kind of a goose egg but or you know,
some poop and your stocking. But it happens sometimes. But
to all that being said, where can the people find you?
What else are you working on this holiday season?

Speaker 3 (01:08:52):
Oh? Well, open the Asian simm Film Club. We've got
a annual tradition of Kaiju Christmas. This year we're doing
Attack the Super Monsters, which is a weird blend of
Kaiju footage which has been badly dubbed an animation. It's
actually three episodes of a TV show that have been
like spliced together, like those Planet of the Eighth movies

(01:09:15):
that used to turn up where they'd like put three
episodes of a TV series together and called it a movie.
But that's what's happening over nations in a film club
we have obviously movies in Tea were gearing up for
our food porn season in the new year, where there's
so many things were so far ahead with like recording
and the stuff. It's hard to say like what's coming

(01:09:36):
out of the moment. But currently we're releasing the last
three episodes of our wes Anson season there as well.
But if you want to follow me, you can find
me on letterbox. I'm Elward Underscore Jones, or you can
check out the blog which is from the ditch DVD
help dot WordPress dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:09:51):
Excellent. Well, with all that being said, have yourself for
mery little.

Speaker 3 (01:09:54):
Christmas, and to you too.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
That narrative never gets off.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
I know, welcome, Thank you so much, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
What do you use to play a twelve year old boy?
I wish that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:12):
I wish that it was a lot of research and
preparation and stuff. But I've got such a huge little
boy streak in me, my whole life. And you know
when you I was describing to a friend before, that's
scene in Big when Tom Hanks reaches into the salad
bar and he pulls up the little piece of court,
And that had to be improvised because there was probably

(01:10:35):
a dozen different moments in this film where it wasn't scripted.
And somebody walked by with a whole big bowl full
of marshmallows, and I'm like, I'm going to find something
fun to do with those marshmallows because I'm eleven years old,
and I say roll camera, and I just just this
stuff just kind of happened organically. It was a lot
of fun. A lot of the little gems in the
movie were not scripted, and of course this script was

(01:10:57):
fabulous too, but.

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
Growing up in a family of brothers too, you know,
and as little kids, all theis just draw from little anecdotes.

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
Yeah, but nobody wants up to the emergency room in
this really right. Yeah, you get four concussions at a
fractured skull before I was eight, Wow, And that was
just jumping off the buildings, or from what one of
the brothers.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
Child services would have been.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
Not to change the subject, but I wanted to say
that I star in this film with Denise, who's Charlie's X,
and I do know her very you know, never but
I know her well and I know her better than Charlie.
But I do know Charlie, and it's it's a really
complicated situation. I'm not here to defend him in any way, really,
but I will say that, like many people that I

(01:11:45):
know personally in show business and outside of show business
and members of my own family, have very very complex
personalities that are that I misunderstood. And I'm not defending him,
and he's a very complicated guy, but he's got some
really really wonderful cool qualities. And it's anybody in Hollywood,
the

Speaker 1 (01:12:06):
Weird and way Median