November 23, 2024 • 67 mins
The girls head on a road trip to Christmasland with Great American’s Journey to Christmas. Supermodel Callie and her limo driver Jack are forced to take a cross-country road trip together on the week of Christmas (naturally). Will they find love and the true meaning of Christmas? Or will impossible deadlines, vindictive storms and L.A. talent agents stand in their way?
Journey to Christmas starring Ash Tsai and Joey Heysworth, Great American Family Channel https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29270965/ (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29270965/)
Journey to Christmas starring Ash Tsai and Joey Heysworth, Great American Family Channel https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29270965/ (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29270965/)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
FCB Faith is your rhythm and preystation.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I listen, my mom listens, pretty much the whole family.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Cannot listen to FCB Faith on iHeartRadio Odyssey at FCB
(00:40):
faith dot com, or tell your smart speaker to play
FCB Faith on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
This is the FCB Podcast Network. Merry Christmas, everybody, Welcome
(01:11):
back to another episode of a very Merry podcast. I'm
Kira Davis, you'r very merry host, and I'm here with
my very merry co host, Amelia Hamilton. Happy Holidays, Amelia,
Merry Christmas.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Merry Christmas. Kiara.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well, we're going to get right into it because we're
a little behind in the schedule, so we've got to
get going. But I I think we might have a
little bit of a disagreement about this movie. I think
I might have enjoyed it more than you did. But
let's get into today's movie. Today's movie is called A
(01:46):
Journey to Christmas, and I believe it's on Great American.
Am I right?
Speaker 3 (01:51):
A Journey to Christmas in Great American? And I did
enjoy it. It wasn't like my absolute favor, ever, but
I certainly enjoyed it. The description in a charity press tour,
a model ends up stranded by bad weather at the
family home of the driver she hired to help her
during the week. I would like to clarify that in
googling this movie and looking it up on IMDb, Journey
(02:13):
to Christmas is not the same as a Journey Back
to Christmas, the twenty sixteen Hallmark movie starring kandas Cameron Beret.
It's also not Journey to Christmas Star Jingle Jangle, a
Christmas Journey, Journey to Christmas from twenty eleven Loves Christmas Journey,
Our Christmas Journey, the Christmas Journey, Christmas Journey Home, Journey
of a Christmas Tree, Journey of the Last Christmas Dance,
(02:36):
or an Unforgettable Christmas Journey.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Okay, just to be clear, this is.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Just Journey to Christmas.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Well, I need to be there. We're now at the
point where there are hundreds and hundreds of these movies.
At some point they're.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Gonna exactly what are you gonna do? But I just
thought it was funny because I pulled it up on
IMDb so I could have like the names of the
actors and not forget and I was like, Wow, did
not realize.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
A lot of Christmas journeys have been taken out there.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
It is a time, it is a time. I mean
the original Christmas you know, they were on a journey.
So it's fitting.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, let's get into this because I actually liked this movie.
Felt like a bit of a throwback. Yeah, and it was.
It was also to me the perfect amount of wooden,
you know, like it's it's a perfect amount of bad
good bad movie. Yeah, I wade it. But let's get
into it, all right.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
So we start with Callie, who I thought she was
beautiful first of all, this actress. I loved her and okay,
so her name is Callie and I am trying to
look up the actress so it's a it's ash t
s A I sy.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I'm thinking I'll be SI.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Callie called well, she is a model. We start, she's
on the set and we know she's sweet. She is
being nice to everyone on set. She does not have
that model attitude. We love her.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I did. I did love her, by the way, and
she's definitely going on the top of my list as
as like Christmas Land Girls, I'd like to see more.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Of absolutely she is going places. She had this warmth
and this genuine quality that I really liked. Yes, and okay, okay,
So she's leaving the set and she has this manager, Max.
He is all business and he is like, listen, we
are on a schedule. You need to be in Philly
in two and a half hours, which seems tight to me.
(04:37):
But okay, And.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Was she in New York?
Speaker 3 (04:40):
I was assuming New York, but they weren't super clear.
So maybe she was only in Scranton.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Maybe, or maybe she just had to be at the
border of Philadelphia and.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
She was already in the suburbs. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I could probably do that from New York. You take
that the train, but you've got to be in the
Philadelphia border through Okay. And yes, so she is, she's
got to be in Philly very soon. And we also
know that Max is a very busy businessman, right because
(05:13):
he apparently lives in his office office, which is clearly
in Los Angeles somewhere. Yeah, And he wants me to
know he's a hard ass because he's eating all the time.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yes, And he wants her to have that busy business
woman vibe. And she she just has a heart of
gold and she doesn't have it in her So here's
what we know by on the twenty third Emerald em
Like it's called like Emerald Glam. They're having a party,
and well, first of all, I'm sorry that I said
(05:46):
party because he told as he said to her, it
is not a party. It is the pinnacle event of
the season and they're going to name her the face
of the brand. So he actually wants her in La
by the twenty second, be there the night before, have
that face rested and beautiful, and so he wants her
there by then he's like, just fly, but no, she
wants to drive coast to coast so that she can
(06:09):
do a bunch of charity stops on the way. And
as the description says, it's a charity press well in
a different description, yeah, charity press tour. Not exactly a
press tour because there's really no press involved. She's just
quietly doing good deeds along the way. So they've hired
this driver who enters now Jack and we know that
(06:31):
he's also a good guy because this is not the
usual driver. He has actually taken over from the usual
driver because that guy has kids and he wanted to
be home at Christmas time, so he was like, I
will do it. Soart of Gold yeah. So Max has
a talk with him and it's like, listen, I don't
know what you're gonna do, because you have to go
to Philly, Chicago, Kansas City, and Denver. And now Kelly
(06:55):
wants to add something in Nebraska, and Max says, kind
of ominously, it's not just that, but there is this
bad weather coming in so done.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
There's a storm coming in Amelia right over Christmas, right
while they have to drive across the country. That's hugely inconvenient.
I will also say that their route is hugely inconvenient.
I have driven across the country and that is not
the direct route.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Right well, and that's even he says. They're like, now
she wants to add to stop in Nebraska, which, first
of all, there's no mention of a city Nebraska.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I'm sorry, you don't just stop in Nebraska. You have
to go to Nebraska, Nebraska.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
And that he even says, when between Chicago and Kansas City,
or between Kansas City and Denver, because it's so out
of the way, he doesn't even know where it's supposed
to fit.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I don't even know how you're getting from Denver to
Kansas City and then down the route is already like
blowing my mind. There is no I'm imagining that the
that they paint this guy like a million dollars to
do this, because that's what you have to baby, to
take that route across country in a in a timely
(08:06):
manner because he's obviously got aver there for this big
Christmas deadline.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah, I mean, you know it is. It is the
pinnacle event of the season.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
It's a pinnacle event of the season. And Amelia, don't
you think that we're going to get to this pinnacle
event of the season and it's not going to be
the most extraordinary set you've ever seen in your life.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
It's going to be stunning.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yes, it's a pinnacle event of this.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
You know what it's not going to look like is
like a hotel conference room.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
No, it's not gonna look like that. It's definitely not
gonna look like the lobby of a Canadian launch.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
So Max also wants to be clear with Jack that
this isn't just about driving, but also about managing the
wild hordes of fans that are going to be waiting
for her everywhere, right because Cally is she's send in
mind because she she's a super model. So as they're leaving,
(09:01):
so she's as Kelly's getting her stuff ready because they've
got to be in Philly from wherever they are in
two and a half hours. She's like, listen, Max, I've
got all these sketches because I'm not only a model,
I am a fashion designer. And Max is like, I
don't have time for this, which kind of fair because
you have to be somewhere in two and a half hours.
You have a commitment, right.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
He also has to be across the country in apparently
like five days.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
I feel like it wasn't clear how many days, which
was one of my questions. I don't know what day
it is now. I know she has to be there
by the twenty third, but I'm not clear what day
it is now. I should also, we should come clean
that I cannot find my notes for this episode, so
it's possible that was written down somewhere, but I do
not remember.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I don't either, so all.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Right, So he kind of brushes off her drawings and
along with it, her hopes and dreams, and they're like,
all right, let's get in the car.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
What she says is I think he does kind of
say like, oh, those are nice or something, and then
she's Then she indicates, well, this is like a stupid dream.
Obviously modeling is the more secure profession than designing and
creating clothes that people wear. It's just a silly dream.
It will never go in any dream. It's a silly dream.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
So they go out to the car to start this
road trip to get to Philadelphia, and the hordes of
fans outside are four very polite tween girls who are just.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Like, Hi, Kelly, can I have a picture?
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Can I have your autograph?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
They're Canadian fans.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
They're Canadian fans, but there are is not even a
crowd of Canadian fans. It's just four little girls asking
for a selfie.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So we only crowd at hockey games. Everybody every all
the rest of the time, you got out of your space,
especially after COVID.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah. Yeah, So she signs her autographs and takes the
selfies and gets in the car, and then he calls
her miss whatever last name is, and she's like, call me,
tell ya, call me Kelly. So it's you know, she's
super polite, is all we need to know, because she's
probably also Canadian.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
She's super polite, he's super nice, and they're both super attractive.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Exactly, although you know she's still gonna sit in the
back seat though, because we're still professionals.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, absolutely, this is This was my other thing. When
I was it took me like a hot second to
wrap my mind around the fact that they were actually
driving across country for Christmas, like and not on a
road trip where because we've done road trip movies. We
love road trip movies. Yeah, but usually it's like, you know,
(11:41):
people who know each other already. So the idea of
like driving in essentially a limo in the back seat
across the country that I was like, that's weird. I
don't know if I could do that all the way.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Yeah, I feel like I would have to be like
really rude, either put up the divider or put in
my earbuds or something like. I couldn't just sit there
and like I would either have to be in the
passenger seat just like on a road trip with this guy,
or like fully separate because it wasn't like a full
stretch limb where she was far enough away. She was
(12:16):
just in the backseat like in a town car.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Or it was talking hours Amelia, it's no days. It's
a freaking week. That's like a week of her just
sitting in them. Anyways, that's how they start, that's how
they decide to do it. He and there also jack
is a consummate professional.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yes, yes, so we stop with the first stop, which,
as we know, Philadelphia. She's inside, you know, hanging out
with this it's like an after school program for kids.
And Jackie gets a call from this mysterious Talia and
sends it to voicemail no Talia and late, and then
(12:59):
his mind phone calls and we find out that he
is the owner of this company, but he has not
even told CALLI, so she is going to feel silly.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Later she just the hired help.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
How embarrassing, and she's like, you're not coming home for
Christmas again. You're taking a job. And he's like, I
have got sixteen employees and they count on me. And
she's like, listen, jack we know this is really about
It's about Talia, who he sent a voicemail minutes earlier.
And she's like, I just think you should know that
(13:35):
Talia and Lawrence broke up. And while she's having this conversation,
this blonde woman just like walks into his mom's house.
So we know we can assume this is Talia, and
we know she's extremely comfortable with Jack's parents because she
just walks in.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
It was so odd. It was like, Okay, clearly, clearly
this girlfriend or ex girlfriend has a close relationship with
the family. Clearly she's left him for somebody else, right,
and yet the family is still like, come on in,
(14:12):
we loved Talia. We wished you guys were married this
whole time. She and she's just lurking. She's like, oh,
you're talking to Jack. She just like sort of she
sort of like floats into frame.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah, are you talking about me?
Speaker 2 (14:29):
And also Amelia, by the way, color me shocked to
find out that Talia is not black or Latino, that
she's actually some red, reddish, blonde white woman.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Yahalia.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
That name said a lot of different things to me,
but not not Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Interesting, but maybe we but maybe we should say the
leading woman in this is not an average white woman.
She's so so maybe they had to make the evil
woman white. I don't know, so you.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Could do something. She's definitely ethnically ambiguous, yes, beautiful lead Yes.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
So Jack is like, so she's like, you know, maybe
maybe if you came home for Christmas, you and Talia
could just sort of you know, you guys could talk
and sort things out, and she's like and He's just like, listen,
Talia should feel really guilty. I hope she feels bad.
I don't want to talk to her whatever, which I mean,
I don't know what happened here, but you know, we
can pretty much tell from this conversation that he was
(15:27):
with Talia. She broke his heart to be with Lawrence,
and now that she's done with Lawrence, she can She
thinks that she can just like befriend his mom and
get that. No, I'm on team Jack here.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I'm on team Jack too. But I will say that
I was surprised by the intensity of his resentment towards Talia.
It's not something that we see very much in Christmas Land.
Mostly people have, you know, the closest to negative that
they feel about a breakup is well, it just didn't
work out or I thought I deserved better. But he
(16:00):
is clearly hanging on to resentment. And I was like, wow,
this is this is actually very uh nitty gritty for
a Christmas Land. That's a good point negative feelings.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
That's true, or if there is resentment a lot of
times it's like, you know, she wanted to move to
the big city and I didn't or something, and there's
some kind of misunderstanding frequently, and then when they talk
about it fifteen years later and finally have a conversation,
they're like, what you thought you were holding me back?
You know it was all for you?
Speaker 2 (16:31):
So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
So they continue on this weird press tour that has
no press involvement, and but the storm just keeps on storming,
and they're trying to figure out how they're going to
stay ahead of it, how they're going to stay on pace,
and he is realizing that the weather is pushing them
off route closer and closer to his hometown. So he
is like, we are going to have to spend the
(16:57):
night at my parents' house.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Obviously, they're going to have to detour to their parents.
His parents' house in the mountains, the mountains of Illinois.
I don't know where it is is that where in Illinois?
I could not tell where they were at this point,
Like there's no geography really in this movie at all,
which that's not what you're watching it for anyways. But yeah,
(17:23):
it was so funny, like, oh, we've got to be safe,
We're going to pull over to my family's house, as
if there aren't a million different routes across the country.
And you know, it's never a good idea in winter
to get off of the interstate, right going to be
the most likely to press through a storm. But conveniently
(17:45):
or inconveniently, for our two leads, the storm is basically
chasing them. It's basically forcing them into a cozy Christmas situation.
Right these days, it seems like everybody's talking, but no
one is actually listening to the things they're saying. Critical
(18:06):
thinking isn't dead, but it's definitely low on oxygen. Join
me Kira Davis on Just Listen to Yourself every week
as we reason through issues big and small, critique our
own ideas, and learn to draw our talking points all
the way out to their logical conclusions. Subscribe to Just
Listen to Yourself with Kira Davis and FCB Radio podcast
(18:26):
on Apple, on Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
So it's interesting that you said that, because you know,
it's one of those kind of fish out of water
movies where like the famous model is forced into like
a small town family Christmas. And at the beginning, I
thought Okay, is this going to be some kind of
hybrid with a road trip movie, which we always love
because it's kind of a way to get people into
(18:52):
a bunch of weird situations and people who don't know
each other. You know, they're going to bake something, they're
gonna do karaoke, or they're gonna have to fix something.
It's like a reason to force people into weird situations
on the road trip. And we didn't really get that
in the road trip section. But now I'm thinking maybe
we also missed an opportunity for like natural disaster movie
(19:12):
of a storm, like actually chasing them.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
That's that sounds more lifetime, That sounds for more like
Christmas Land's neighbor holiday Land.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
True, true, Okay, just something to think about.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Well, there's some fear involved with that, and we don't
we don't like a lot of fear in Christmas Land.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah, okay, Well there wasn't a fear because they got
there safely.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
They got there safely. Oh thank gosh. It was an albier,
but he was able to navigate. He's an expert car driver.
I don't know if we said, yeah, he does own
the place, it's his company. He owns it.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
So they get to the house and have not like
tell told anybody that they're so they just show up
late at night. Everybody, I think is in bed.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah, it's evidenced by the fact that everyone then immediately
gets up in the crispist of pajamas, and I just
it took me again. Time and space in this movie
are almost non existent. I can't figure out like how
far anyone's gone, how much time has passed. I did
not understand that it was night when they got there,
(20:28):
so it was so confusing when everyone came out in pajamas.
I was like, is this family just hanging out and
no judgment because we live in a post COVID world
where we all basically live in pajamas now. But I
was like, oh, this is what an odd I guess.
I thought it was an odd costuming choice, yeah, to
everyone in brand new pajamas. But then I realized, oh,
(20:50):
they're there at night.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Right, Yeah, it was nighttime, so I think you might
have to remind me. So I think the first thing
we see is I think the first person we meet
is the brother. Okay, so I think that it's his
sister and his brother in law, right, because honestly, I'm
not sure I brother and sister in law. I'm not
sure I was ever clear brother and brother in law. Okay,
(21:15):
So his brother's just like, okay, so you're here, is
this your girlfriend? And he's kind of not clear on that.
He's like, it's a client, but it's kind of like
a little bit of a wink wink, like I think
he maybe didn't want his brother to know if it
was necessarily only a client. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
I guess, yeah, I guess. And always, well, that is
the that's the forgive the pun. The hallmark of Christmas Land,
isn't it that family members never just assume that the
person of the opposite sex that is with their loved
one is just a friend, always immediately, without any clues,
(21:50):
without reservation, or without any sort of contact, they're like, oh,
she's nice.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Wake wait, yeah, like you guys here, something's going on here?
When you literally told us all you were driving a
woman across country.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
You've literally just told them her name, and they're like, oh,
are you guys in law?
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Right?
Speaker 3 (22:14):
So she so then the sister in law, you know,
has to get in on it, and she's like, what's
going on here? And then the niece comes downstairs and
her Christmas jammis and she of course knows exactly who
Kelly is and cannot believe this major celebrity is in
the house, standing in front of her Holy Cow. This
(22:38):
is really happening.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
It does seem very unbelievable. Now, this child, it's gonna
be around for a while. She's she's got a little role.
And I will say, we did another when we did
I think we had this issue when we were doing
Bringing Christmas Home and with Little Haunted Greta Thunberg. There's
(23:03):
something very odd about the way Christmas Land writers write
children and the way Christmas Land directors film children, because
the children always seem like they're written to be four
or five.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Right there, and then they cast them like an eleven
year old.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
And this child, the whole all our lines, all her
added to everything was like she should be five years old,
but she was basically a teenager. Yeah, yeah, it was
so odd. It is odd.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Of course, the family's delighted to have two extra people
for Christmas, of course, with no notice in the middle
of the night, right and and they just kind of
roll with it. Okay. Now, of course we have the
third potential could be an entire plot line, which is
(23:56):
that there is the time Christmas festival coming up. Oh yes,
the niece, can you remind me? Do you remember her name?
It's like I want to I don't know. I want
to say Olivia or something, but I could be wrong anyway,
niece is extremely excited for this and has ordered a
new dress. It is Sophia. I just found it. So
(24:18):
Sophia is really excited about this new dress, cannot wait
to show the whole town. And just keep that in mind.
There's a new dress coming and it's extremely exciting, extremely exciting.
Keep that in mind.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Waiting for this new dress to come to their romot remote,
remotely located home in the wilds Illinois during the worst
national snowstorm of the century.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Right, Max, the manager is freaking out because Kelly has
just is just not like answering her phone and telling
him where she is. And I think we're supposed to
think Max unreasonable, but that actually seems like a reasonable
(25:05):
complaint to me. Yes, you do need to know where
she is, and you might potentially even be worried if
your client, slash, maybe even friend is driving through a
snowstorm and just stops answering the phone.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah, I agree. I mean it's not just that there's
money on the line, but also her safety, and he
seems to be the only person in her life that
cares for her. I think she says at one point
she's an orphan. Yeah, she doesn't really have siblings, so really,
who she's got is Max. Yeah. I did find him
(25:43):
to be it's not unreasonable. Now, of course, we do
know that he's sort of a jerk because he's always
in an office.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Right, because he's always doing his job, which is managing her.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Right. I hate it when people do their jobs. It's
the worst, Oh Max. But anyway, he's pissed. He's pissed
off that she's not worth where she's supposed to be,
which all this could be avoided if she had just
gotten on an airplane. She could have done the charity
tour on the way home. But then I guess we
don't have a love story.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Right, And of course we need to get our Christmas
moments in so we have what's what's first? I think snowmen.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Yes, And let me tell you, I was so excited
when they even when they just started whispering the words
we're going outside. I was like, yes, there is either
snowman building or a snowball fight, or if we're lucky both.
We did not get the snowball fight, but we did
get the snowman building and Amelia, it was real snowmen.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
It was real snowmen.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
And all I can think about is how brutal it
must have been to shoot that scene in the snow.
Some poor production assistants had to gather up enough snow,
enough good snow to build those snowmen, and then they
had to hurry up and film before they melted away
or birds or whatever. I just I think that might
(27:17):
this might be the first time I've seen real snowmen
in christ movie.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Yeah, it's a good point. That's a good point, I think.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
So we might need to really note this episode. Yeah,
that's a that's a serious uh marker right there. That
is that's a big deal, real snowmen. They clearly filmed this. Also,
they did film this in winter, and we are noticing
a lot of the great American films right now are
(27:46):
in winter settings. They were obviously filmed in the winter season.
Clearly that's not ideal for production, but it's fun to watch.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Yeah, So while they're doing that. You obviously she's bonding
with the family. The family's noticing some vibes.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Because she's a woman and he's a man. So clearly
they're in love.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Clearly they're in love. This is not professional. Not only
is it not professional, but they can't just be friends.
So no, certainly, certainly not.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
It's certainly not. Yeah, although well anyway, go on, no
tell me, I'll see it.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
So we're we're continuing on with just general merriment. We've got.
I mean, of course the house is full Christmas, we've
got snowman building, We've got oh, so I think is
it I think later that night we get is when
(28:54):
we start getting a little more serious because we have
the fire pit. Is that that evening? I think it is. Yes,
So we're warming up from the snowmen. They all get
around the little fire pit on the back deck.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
They're going to make some more So that's a family
tradition too. They've done all the stuff, like the decorating
for the day. They split up and you know, each
took a different task and so now yes, yeah, they
get to do so sores by the fire pit. I
had a real problem with how they were building the
fire because I'm actually an undercover pyromaniac. I love building
(29:31):
fires and starting fires. I'm not an arsonist right now,
but I do enjoy starting good fire and I know
how to start a good fire from pretty much almost anything,
just with bare minimum fuel. And I was watching him
build that fire and I was like, there is not
(29:53):
enough oxygen or fuel underneath. Yeah, and he put the
kindling on top.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
No.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
I was just really put out by that. It took
me on the movie all the way.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
I mean, do you want the marshmallows to toast or not?
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Well, you've got to light this thing on fire. You're
just gonna have a bunch of candling that's on fire.
It's gonna go out, and you're lot I mean, Amelia,
it very much stressed me out.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
I understand, I understand it should have.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, they build, they build their jankie fire out. This
is another thing that's happening. S'mor's time is coming, smar.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
So, And I did appreciate that that sounded a little
bit ominous because we had kind of a weird joke
here and I'm trying to remember exactly how it went,
but there was a joke about like burning people at
the stake, and.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
I was like, oh, and I actually I actually had
it pulled up here, and then of course my window
refreshed itself for no reason and now it's gone.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
But but yeah, there was kind of a weird joke.
And I was like, Okay, yeah, yeah the brother the
brother made the joke or the brother made yeah, made
a weird joke. And I was like, oh, by the.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Way, that there there is a father, by the way
in this cast. And he I don't think he says
one thing the entire movie. They didn't even do the thing.
We're usually like, you know, every character has got to
get some line in, so you usually get people one
line or something. He was just sitting around in a
(31:40):
Christmas sweater the entire movie. At one point I was like, oh,
is the mom a widow? And then I was like, no, no,
that older guy.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Is that silent man?
Speaker 2 (31:51):
He didn't say anything.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Yeah, all right, I just found it. So the so
he says, you know, you're on fire pit duty, be
sure to watch the fire, and they're like, why you
don't burn guests at the stake, do you. The Kelly
says that, and he goes, oh, yeah, it's a Swanson
family tradition and they all like laugh about it, which
like it wasn't a big deal at all, but I
(32:15):
was just like a little bit.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Dark for Christmas land humor.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Yeah, there we go, that's Christy a little bit. Oh
and that also reminds me, oh, oh wait, oh hold on,
we haven't gotten there yet. Never mind, there was just
another creepy thing. But that's that's later. That's later, moving on. Okay,
So anyway, also though, at the fire pit, this is
where Kelly finds out that Talia exists, I think, and
(32:41):
they kind of talk about, like, you know, you haven't
been home in a while, are you avoiding Talia? You know, boy,
that sure was messed up. I'm not sure. Do you
remember like the extent of the details that she gets
at this point. I think she kind of finds out
some of the tea.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, she finds out yes, the mom says, because he
rushes off, and then the sister or the mom says, yeah,
they Talia. They were engaged and they were in love
and then she left him, I think for his best friend.
I think Jack or the other guy was like his
best friend friends Lawrence, and so she broke it off
(33:19):
and he was heartbroken. Oh no, they were going to
move to New York together, right, Yes, she didn't want
to go, he wanted to go. She ended up having
a relationship with his friend. Yeah, and then he took
off without her to escape. That's what Callie finds out. Meanwhile,
(33:41):
Telia just again just shows up.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Yes, the family has just completely embraced her, like they
never broke up and it's not a situation, like they
were married and it's been twenty years and they have
children together and they're gonna just you know, No, she
was the girlfriend and they were probably gonna get married,
and then she left first friend and like she's no,
(34:11):
she's not.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
You're on teen Jack, Like, did she give Maybe that's
why the dad doesn't talk. Maybe kind of like trauma
from the situation. Maybe Talia gave the dad a kidney
or something like that. So he just doesn't want to
get like into the mess because it's like she's got
this weird hold of her family. Because the other thing
I noticed is that, of course Calli is staying in
(34:34):
Jack's old room at the house, which has pictures of
Talia all over it.
Speaker 5 (34:40):
Yes, yeah, oh yes, I don't I believe I didn't
mention that yes, when they first show her to the
guest room, which is Jack's room, it's still like a
couple pictures everywhere, and that is yeah, yes, that is
Tally's real first introduction or Callie's real first introduction.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
She's like, who is this woman?
Speaker 2 (34:58):
So weird? Yeah, I don't know everybody? People?
Speaker 6 (35:02):
Is this.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Acceptable? I don't. I don't think so, Amelia. I think
it's got to be difficult. It is difficult as a family.
I mean, my son's starting to be dating age, although
he lives far away from us now, but I get it.
It's difficult. You bring someone into your family like you
embrace them, because if your child loves this person, you're
(35:25):
gonna love this person, and then the relationship breaks up
and it's like you're having a breakup too. I understand that,
and I understand that it doesn't seem right to just
sort of cut off a relationship because they don't have
that relationship with your child anymore. That being said, I
don't know. I just think it's it's just a reality.
You just kind of have to deal with it. I
(35:46):
don't think it's appropriate unless, like you said, Amelia, you've
got twenty years behind you you've got kids, you've got
all the you're basically already family, right Otherwise, No, I
don't think it's appropriate for the family to stay friends
like that. At what do you think?
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Not at all? And I don't understand how this is
supposed to be helpful for Talia, because she can't move on,
because this family is like, you belong here, get in
our house. You don't need to knock, you know, I don't.
It's not helpful to her.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
She can't move on.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
It's probably why Lawrence Dumpter. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
It is It is very it is very weird. I
my husband's my first love, is first college sweetheart, was
a favorite of his parents, and they really wanted her
to marry him. And when we got engaged, years after
(36:44):
that relationship, but even still, thanks to the power of
the Internet, she knew where he was. She was still
reaching out to his parents, talking to them, telling them
she wished that they were her in laws. And yeah,
it's really weird. And then I remember before this was happening,
before we got married, and I told my mother in law,
(37:05):
who was not my mother in law at the time,
I think this is inappropriate. Yeah, I'm going to marry
your son, and I don't know that it's right that
she's clearly and she was making other advancements too. She
was still in love with them anyways. They were like, well,
she was a big part of our lives for a
(37:25):
long time, and we can't just sort of.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
Yeah, you can put a boundary and be like, listen,
we can be friends, but we're not talking about you
and Jack.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Like that is over. And that's what Mark's parents eventually did.
Eventually everybody got their act together. And what happened was
Mark had to step in and tell the girl like,
just chill out, back off, you're being too weird. And
then and I ended there, but so sort of get
the situation. But Talia is like, she's like Kramer. She's
(37:56):
like a Cramer, just sliding in.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Hey, door bursts open, she slides in. She's up Swanson's
you want to burn anybody at the steak?
Speaker 7 (38:10):
Okay, did Paul Revere really say the British are coming?
And how is George Washington chosen to leave the First
American Army. Join us for the Growing Patriot Podcast, a
place for curious kids to ask the big questions about
our nation's history and get kid friendly answers from the
(38:30):
country's top experts. Help your child learn about and cherish
America's exceptional history. Subscribe to Growing Patriots on Apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts today.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
All right, so meanwhile in the background, we've got this
whole party situation going on. The dress has not arrived,
and we predicted it's not going to because this storm
is common. The storm is hit, they're not going to
get out, and of course they're all, okay, So we've
(39:05):
got two issues with this. Now they can't get out,
and they've been talking about, you know, alternatives. So either
we can just try to fly to California. We can,
you know, if we cancel a couple of the tour dates.
You know, we can you know, maybe still drive. What
if we do this? What if we do that? But
part of the issue is Kelly kind of wants to
(39:27):
go to this Christmas festival now, so she's like, well,
what if I can be there and then we can
do this, you know, because she's like sucked in. She
loves this town, she loves his family, she wants to
be at the Christmas festival.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Okay, Collie's really busy Kelly woman, and but she wants
a normal life, and she doesn't a normal life with
this family.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
And she wants to be absolutely everything to everyone, so
she has to stop at every single charity along the way,
and at every women's shelter and after school program and
soup kitchen. But all so, now that this dress isn't
going to make it, guess what, she has that book
full of sketches and it doesn't really matter that the
(40:08):
thing is in two days. She's just gonna make a dress.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Hang on, hang on, hang on. Are you telling me,
Amelia that Callie's secret hobby of designing dresses is actually
going to come in handy? Yeah, at the the Christmas Festival.
Get out of here. I didn't even see it coming.
When she pulled out that sketch book. I was like, well,
surely we'll never see this again. No.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
Yeah, you thought her dream was dead, but turns out
it's useful.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
No, well we know. And here's the other thing we
know about Christmas Land. Every seamstress is trained at the
project or Runway School, which means you can make anything
out of anything in literally.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Yes, So that was my other thought about this, which
is designing and creating the dress are two different skill sets.
But like you said, this is project runway Land. She
can do both, can do it right now? Yeah, So
she gets up early the next morning and she and
Jack go into town and just pick out fabric without
(41:09):
the child. They pick it out themselves.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Well again, here's another little thing about how the child
is written as like a five four or five year old,
like with no agency, no common sense, and no ability
to reason at all. And then and then the cast
is a mirror. This young lady is probably about twelve
years old. Yeah, I mean at least I've met older.
(41:35):
I bet you older who looks younger? I just but
the way the script treats her, it treats her so
again just buying fabric, Well, it's just like obviously we're
picking out the outfit for this little girl, right, But
I mean I would think that even at like five
or six, like you probably asked your daughter an opinion,
(41:58):
like do you want pink? Do you want green? Do
you I don't know? Maybe not, but she did, but
that she did. She did. She had a conversation with
the girl because she had asked that very first night, what.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
Oh what color is? Yeah, you're right, and look what
colors will look beautiful on her. Yes, that's true. I
just looked up the actress. She is thirteen, so yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Yeah, it's so weird.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Yeah, so all right, so they go and pick out
this fabric with but still without her. There's more than
one shade or one pattern or whatever, so they pick
it out. Jack is still like being stalked by Talia
while he's in the fabric store. She's just like I
think Kramer is probably pretty good analogy. She's just like
(42:45):
showing up. She is, love her everywhere.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Yeah, I don't know. She she's definitely and she has
an odd look also, so it's always like I'm not
sure exactly what are her intentions are. And then we
don't hear very much from her as well. We don't
really know if he's nice, if she's mean, you know,
just a weird thing. But the purpose of this fabric store, though,
(43:12):
it gives us a chance to see Jack and Kelly
actually have some bonding time. They learn a little bit
about each other. Right, we see that Jack is we
hear a little bit more about Jack's relationship with Talia. Again,
(43:32):
I was surprised by the amount of resentment that this
character has for the other character, not that that's not
a situation that would cause resentment. But just in Christmas Land,
we don't ever really see people hanging on to negativity,
and this guy is clearly hanging on to unforgiveness for
(43:53):
this woman, And I just thought, wow, that's it just
was notable to me.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely. They get their fabric.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Yeah, they head.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
Home, They show Sophia and the family, and of course
they're all delighted that they've just taken this upon themselves,
gotten the fabric. They show her the drawings. She's excited
and she's like, I'll just make it tonight.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Yeah, like you do just I mean the festivals the
next night.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Yeah, yeah, so okay, and then here's what we're talking
about the fire pit. And I said, there was one
other creepy thing here. It is she makes the dress
and she tells Jack. She's like, it's done, Like, let's
surprise her. So when she comes downstairs in the morning,
she could just see the dress and he's like, oh,
I have the perfect thing. Goes in like the basement
(44:50):
or the attic or something, comes out with this like
life set while thirteen year old girl size clown.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Yeah, it was so weird. It was so weird. They
go to the basement storage room. Yes, and he's got
like a clearly one of those huge Halloween decorations, like
you had put this giant thing in your front yard.
It's a clown and yeah, so he pulls that out
(45:18):
and and they have this moment where it's like, oh,
isn't this funny? Terrifying? Ha ha ha. But it was
so out of place, right, it was so out of place.
I couldn't figure out if was there gonna was this
gonna be called back later? Or did I miss something? Right?
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Why? Just why?
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I expect the only rational reason, The only thing I
can think of is that they called someone in to
punch up the script afterwards, and they're like, we need
some more goofy spots here, and that's where you get
the jokes like the burned at the stake or this
little clown, or like there's a couple of other little
(46:05):
spots where there's like a little especially between the brothers,
where there's like a little ribbing. Sounds like maybe they
were like, oh, there's not enough humor in this script.
Let's just bring someone in to punch it out a bit.
And this is Christmas Land's version of punching up a script. Yeah,
crazy clown. It was very odd. It was very oddly placed.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Yeah, so they put the dress on the clown, scare
the niece in the morning with it, or she's delighted
the dress.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
I it was okay.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
I did not think that a thirteen year old girl
would particularly want to wear it, in my opinion, But again,
I was a little girl dress.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
A little girl dress. It was a dress for like
a five year old girl. I would put that on
my five year old daughter. Yeah, thirteen year old girl.
But again, she wasn't playing thirteen. You know, that's not
the attitude of her character. I would say, would place
her right.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
And then there was the question of when Kelly was
designing it. I would have thought she was designing it
for a grown woman because she just grabbed it out
of her sketchbook.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
So and did she design it? I mean, it was
very simple. Everybody like, this is so beautiful, But it
was basically just like I bought. I used to buy
my daughter a dress like that every Christmas.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
That cost right, So I don't know. Everyone's delighted though,
and that's what matters. Everyone's happy dress.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
She's happy and she got a handmade dress from a supermodel.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
So right, So they all go to the Christmas festival
and things are going well. Okay, things are good. Kelly
and Jack are super bonding. They're great, there is some chemistry,
things are heating up. But but then she sees Talia
(48:07):
making a move on Jack and she's like, oh, is
there still something there? What's going on? And again, as
happens in Christmas Land that night, she overhears a conversation
between Jack and his brother and she thinks that it's
about her, but it's about Talia and it's about how
(48:28):
like it's just never gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
No, I know, I think what the conversation was if
I recall this, it is one of those misunderstanding situations.
I think with the conversation is the brother is saying,
you know, what's your issue with Talia? And he's saying,
she really hurt me. YadA, YadA, YadA, we wanted different things.
And he's saying he's telling his brother, I have realized,
(48:54):
like I'm moving on from this relationship. I realized it
was never the right one in the first place. But
I'm still hurt. And his brother says like, don't you
ever think about what could be, and then he says
something along the lines of I do wonder about Talia,
and you know, if we I think we could have
been happy together. Like he says something that she just
(49:15):
comes in on the tail end, and it sounds like
what he's saying is I really wish I could still
be with Talia. But what he really is telling his
brother is there was a time when I wished we
could be together, but now I've realized I have to
move on. Yeah, but Ali thinks that basically what he's
saying is I have still had feelings for Talia, and.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
Being Christmas Land, they're not going to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
Oh, why would you do that? Why?
Speaker 3 (49:42):
Although, to be honest, in this situation, I might not either,
because like he's my driver and we kind of just
sort of have a crush, So it's not like your boyfriend,
you know.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Well, she, as we've pointed out several times in this
episode of Milia, she is a woman and he's a man.
So they're obviously in love.
Speaker 3 (50:01):
That's true. That's a good point. That's a good point.
And they barely have a chance anyway, because the next
morning Max shows up to do his job and it's like,
excuse me, I don't know why you're just sitting here
acting like you're in an idyllic Christmas movie, because you
actually have a job and you need to get to California,
(50:21):
So get your butt in the car and we're getting
on a plane. Jack, you're fired as a driver because
you haven't been driving. And the storm is over.
Speaker 6 (50:31):
And you literally took my client to your home and
the storm is well like four days goodbye, And he's like,
he's like Italian.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
No, He's like, if we cancel this and we can
do the charity stops on the way back, and she's like, no,
he's right, I'm just going to actually do my job. Goodbye.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Well, I think it's important to note this. We've sort
of skipped over a couple a little bit, but they're
during their bonding time because one thing they did is
they went out to pick a Christmas tree. And during
their bonding time, she tells Jack, you know, that she
wants to slow down. Actually she doesn't want to be
working so hard, but MaTx pushes her all the time,
(51:13):
and he's the only person that's really taking care of her.
After her parents died, it was just him and her,
you know, And he asked her manager. And also he's
a friend, and and you know, she has responsibilities to
people as well. People count on her for showing up,
and Max counts on her for his income. So she
doesn't want to go, but she feels obligated. And that's
(51:36):
that's important to note that he is not necessarily excited.
But it's like, well, I guess this is what a
supermodel does, works all the time.
Speaker 3 (51:51):
Yeah, And at this point she's also just like, you know,
Jack is a lovely early with Talia because she overheard
one sentence yep, and so she's like, I might as well.
Max has been here for me. I have a job
to do. I just I'm just gonna go do it.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
Yeah, And Talia zel was hanging around anyway, like you
can't get rid of her. She's like a sticky booger,
just can't shake her off. Gross.
Speaker 3 (52:21):
So so she gets on the plane, she goes.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
Jack is sad.
Speaker 3 (52:29):
Jack is sad.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
You know, said too because by this time, I mean,
what a fickle family. By the way, they were all
up Talia's but like the whole time, and then when
Jack shows up and they're like, get back together, get
back together. As soon as Jack shows up with a
famous supermodel. They're like, we love CALLI.
Speaker 3 (52:47):
Yeah, that's a good point. She's not a loyal family.
They just want Jack to be with anyone, right.
Speaker 2 (52:58):
Literally, just pick someone Jack. So they're they're sad, Jack said,
everyone's sad, but they're still a festival.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
They yeah, and there is still the pinnacle event of
the season.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
Oh my gosh, I can't believe that I forgot about
the pinnacle event of the season at the not Canadian
mid Level Lodge.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (53:26):
Right, So Talia is a little out of sorts because
she's also sad, but she is putting on her game
face of Emerald Glam makeup. She is wearing her dress,
not Talia Kelly. Oh yes, sorry Kelly, that would be weird.
Although Talia shows up everywhere else, so why not. So
she is wearing her green dress looking beautiful. She is
(53:48):
wearing her Emerald Glam brand makeup. She is in the
hotel conference room and you know, doing her job, working
in the room. Matt and acts is like, it's just
not yourself because he cares about her person.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
Well, he cares about her as a person.
Speaker 8 (54:08):
Now that she's at her job, right, and she's doing
her job right, which is you know, his job, right,
She's named the face of arm old Glam and she's
you know, she's happy because it was her goal.
Speaker 3 (54:21):
But it just isn't it's just kind of it's just
a little bit of a hollow victory.
Speaker 2 (54:26):
Yeah, something's emits. Meanwhile, though, back at the festival in Illinois, right,
I think Illinois. Okay, I have no concept of space
or time in this movie. California might as well be
right next to Illinois, which is on the border of Philadelphia. Clearly,
(54:53):
he he doesn't. He have a moment. We skipped over this.
He has a moment with Alia at the Christmas festival.
Speaker 3 (55:03):
I thought I did mention that because she saw Maybe
I didn't go into great detail, though, I don't.
Speaker 2 (55:09):
Think you mentioned their conversation, and I think that's important.
We skipped over this part. But at the Christmas festival
where the little girl slash change or where's the dress Talia?
And that's oh, yes, you did mention the tal I
mentioned it.
Speaker 3 (55:25):
Yeah, I think I only mentioned it from Kelly's point
of view. Yeah, And I think this is important.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
We shouldn't skip over this because they do have a
nice conversation which all all relationships end well in Christmas Land,
and although we've seen we've set up Jack having very
out of place negative feelings for Talia, they have this
moment where Talia says, look, I'm still in love with you.
(55:50):
I think maybe we could give it another shot, and
he says, I think we've moved on. And the truth
is they have a very mature conversation. The truth is
I ran away to New York because I was running
away and that was never going to be a great
life for us. And you were. You know, I didn't
give you the things you needed. It's not just your fault.
(56:11):
And she says, you know the same. We just had
different goals and I want you to be happy, and
he says, I want you to be happy. And then
they hug and go their separate ways as as friends
and friendly excess and he forgives her and he tells
his brother that too, which I thought was very Christian.
Speaker 3 (56:34):
I thought in this film.
Speaker 2 (56:36):
Where he talks about how I have this unforgiveness for
her in my heart and I need to forgive her,
and he forgives her. I made a note of it.
I made a mental note.
Speaker 3 (56:46):
Yep, absolutely no, I'm glad you brought that up because
I only mentioned it from Kelly's point of view, where
she saw them talking, you know, likely not romantically, but
she saw them having like a prime personal conversation and
then hugging, and then misunderstood that, and then it was
compounded with the snippet that she heard with the brother.
Speaker 2 (57:05):
So yes, So that's what's going on as Callie is feeling,
you know, not quite herself at this pinnacle event of
the season. These days, it seems like everybody's talking, but
no one is actually listening to the things they're saying.
(57:26):
Critical thinking isn't dead, but it's definitely low on oxygen.
Join me Kira Davis on Just Listen to Yourself every
week as we reason through issues big and small, critique
our own ideas, and learn to draw our talking points
all the way out to their logical conclusions. Subscribe to
Just Listen to Yourself with Kia Davis and FCB Radio
podcast on Apple, on Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get
(57:50):
your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (57:53):
So, of course we know it needs to happen. Jack
needs to show up.
Speaker 2 (57:57):
Yeah, but he's all the way in Illinois.
Speaker 3 (57:59):
Though, can't happen?
Speaker 2 (58:02):
How's it going to get there?
Speaker 3 (58:03):
Well, I don't know because we don't do planes and
he's a driver. But guess what, somehow, somehow, some way.
Speaker 2 (58:11):
Because he just took the express train cross the border hills.
Speaker 3 (58:19):
There across the crowded room, their eyes meet and there
it is, they see each other. They can make it work.
A driver and a supermodel a at the pinnacle event
of the season. And he's not just a driver, by
the way, he is the owner of Swan Limousines.
Speaker 2 (58:39):
God forbid. No, he can't just be the driver.
Speaker 3 (58:42):
She is going to start designing more. Max is going
to take her more seriously as an artist. She's going
to take some more time to you know, take deep breaths.
He has put his heart back together and now he
is giving it to her and they kiss and scene.
Speaker 2 (59:08):
And scene very good. Well, I have to say, Amelia,
I enjoyed this movie. I thought the performances were were
not that great, and that's just how I love it.
But they were perfect. They were all like perfect. The
male lead maybe not one of my favorite buddies, he
(59:29):
was definitely was like nice to look at and had
a nice personality. I loved the female lead. I think
we said ash Side or Ashley Side I'd love to
see more of her. I have a perfect Christmas Land lady,
leading lady countenance, and I appreciate it. Though. I appreciated
(59:52):
everything that they tried to do with the script, all
the little punching up moments, the little jokes here and there.
I appreciate it, all the effort that they put into
just making this quirky as quirky as possible in places.
And there were a lot of tropes. Let's go down
the tropes. Yes, let's do it, all right, I just
(01:00:14):
wrote down the tropes that we have.
Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
We have a Christmas nedline, heck, yeah, we do.
Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
Now. We have several busy business people too busy for
love in this yeah, all of them basically, except she's.
Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
Her entire life is trying to get Jack back. That
is her business though, so in that sense.
Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
So uh, all right. We have a precocious child somewhat
even though she's in the body of a thirteen year old. Yes, right,
we have a we have decorating m h. We have
a we have a dress moment I think Kelly does,
(01:01:02):
have a moment.
Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
At the top before the festival, yep.
Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
And we have a kiss at the end.
Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
We didn't get a snowball fight, but we had a snowman, So.
Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Snowman, I think we can count.
Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
Half a point for that. Maybe picking in the.
Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
Snow I feel that counts. So it could be snow
it could be a snowball fight. However you want to
work that. The details of that are up to you. Writers.
You know, we don't want to decovate that to you.
But yeah, prolicking in.
Speaker 3 (01:01:32):
The snow I think absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
Yep. Check, I can't think of anything.
Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
Did we have a fall? I don't remember a fall.
Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
Nope, we did not have a fall. There was one
moment and I thought we might get a fall where
he sort of takes her arm so she she won't
slip in the snow because she's walking in heels or something.
And I remember at the time thinking this would be
a good moment for her to fall. But she doesn't. No,
(01:02:01):
I don't know how. I don't know why. It's so
hard just to put that in. You can literally put
it in anywhere, writers, anywhere. Okay, so we've got seven
seven troupes in this movie. I think, yeah, we've got
some awards to hand out, Amelia, Yeah, we do. All right, Well,
let's see our first award is a Christmas Maam award.
(01:02:23):
This award goes to who you feel was just squeezing
all of the juice out of this role, so out
of their role. So who do you think squeeze the
most juice out.
Speaker 9 (01:02:34):
Of their role?
Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
I kind of want to give it to the Dad
because I think that he was cursed by a sea witch.
But he's the runner up. I think it might go
to the brother.
Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
Ooh, good one.
Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
Yeah, yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
The brother is a good one. Okay, I had Max
really satisfied with that answer, and now I which I
had thought about the brother. You're absolutely right. I think
the brother wins the Christmas vamp all right. Next is
the tree Topper. That's who who was the star came
out on top in this movie.
Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
I think Kelly.
Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
I liked her.
Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
I want her in more movies.
Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Me too. I have her. I think she has all
of the elements of a great leading lady and just
stunning also to look at, but very sweet. And you
know what, Christmas Land women have to be very specific.
It's part of the it's part of the trope, it's
part of the charm. There are a couple of leading
(01:03:43):
ladies that sort of it can twist it a little
bit like CCB has like a little sarcastic streak that
works really well. Jill Wagner, I think is kind of
the same way. But other than that, mostly you've got
to have this really sweet and innocent quality, and I
(01:04:06):
think it's hard to act that. I don't know. I
loved this woman. I hope we see more of her. Okay,
Robert A. Baron Award, I feel.
Speaker 3 (01:04:18):
Like it's got to be Max.
Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
I mean, yeah, yeah, it's the Robert A. Baron Award
we give to the villain of the episode and the
Robert A. Baron. What was the name of the movie?
Was it The Ghost of Christmas?
Speaker 3 (01:04:34):
I think it was called The Ghost of Christmas? So
this goes back to our first episode of season three,
the Ghost of Christmas Always.
Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
Yeah, the Ghost of Christmas Always.
Speaker 3 (01:04:46):
And I think that was the Ghost of Christmas Always.
Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
Is that what it's called? Yeah, it's the Ghost of
Christmas something. It's it's the.
Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
And Robert Baron is supposed to be the bad guy,
but he was the only person in the whole show
who had any sense.
Speaker 2 (01:05:03):
It was like his son was mad at his dad
because his dad wanted him to do things like go
to work and open the store and pay employees.
Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
Also Christmas always.
Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
Yeah, anyway, and of course his name was Robert A Baron,
so yes, so we give the Robert A. Baron Award
to a villain who is actually maybe an undercover good guy.
And I think underneath Max is a good guy because
he was the only person interested in actually finishing the
(01:05:37):
job they were getting paid to do. Right, Yeah, all
of his he he was just trying to keep their
business afloat, and for that he was a villain. Well
all right, so that is that. That is a journey
to Christmas. Any final thoughts, recommendations, anything like that.
Speaker 3 (01:05:58):
A million No, I did like it. I know that
you had the impression that I didn't, but I did.
Like I said, It's not probably one that I feel
like I need to rewatch over and over again every year.
It's not like my absolute favorite, but I definitely enjoyed it.
I would recommend watching. I liked it, and I hope
to see Ashles why in many more to come.
Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
Yeah, I would recommend it too. I have fun watch
it with somebody so that you can post on it
some of the stuff in there. But I definitely enjoyed
this one. It felt like I'll throw back. Well, all right, Amelia,
tell everyone how they can reach out to us and
let us know what they thought.
Speaker 3 (01:06:36):
Yes, you can reach us at a very Merry podcast
at gmail dot com, a very merry podcast on Facebook
and Instagram, and a very merry pod on Twitter.
Speaker 2 (01:06:48):
Well that is fantastic, Amelia, it's time for us to depart.
Before we leave, I would like to wish all of
our listeners a very merry Christmas this year and going
into the new year, we wish you the best. This
is the season when we celebrate our favorite Christmas movies.
(01:07:10):
We celebrate all of the wonderful things at Christmas, but
ultimately we know we are celebrating the birth of our savior,
Jesus Christ, and so we are wishing you a very
merry Christmas from our family to yours. Merry Christmas.
Speaker 9 (01:07:26):
Merry Christmas, Kiara.
Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network,
where Real Talk Lives.
Speaker 7 (01:07:45):
Visit us online at Fcbpodcasts dot com.
FCB Faith is your rhythm and preystation.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I listen, my mom listens, pretty much the whole family.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Cannot listen to FCB Faith on iHeartRadio Odyssey at FCB
(00:40):
faith dot com, or tell your smart speaker to play
FCB Faith on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
This is the FCB Podcast Network. Merry Christmas, everybody, Welcome
(01:11):
back to another episode of a very Merry podcast. I'm
Kira Davis, you'r very merry host, and I'm here with
my very merry co host, Amelia Hamilton. Happy Holidays, Amelia,
Merry Christmas.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Merry Christmas. Kiara.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well, we're going to get right into it because we're
a little behind in the schedule, so we've got to
get going. But I I think we might have a
little bit of a disagreement about this movie. I think
I might have enjoyed it more than you did. But
let's get into today's movie. Today's movie is called A
(01:46):
Journey to Christmas, and I believe it's on Great American.
Am I right?
Speaker 3 (01:51):
A Journey to Christmas in Great American? And I did
enjoy it. It wasn't like my absolute favor, ever, but
I certainly enjoyed it. The description in a charity press tour,
a model ends up stranded by bad weather at the
family home of the driver she hired to help her
during the week. I would like to clarify that in
googling this movie and looking it up on IMDb, Journey
(02:13):
to Christmas is not the same as a Journey Back
to Christmas, the twenty sixteen Hallmark movie starring kandas Cameron Beret.
It's also not Journey to Christmas Star Jingle Jangle, a
Christmas Journey, Journey to Christmas from twenty eleven Loves Christmas Journey,
Our Christmas Journey, the Christmas Journey, Christmas Journey Home, Journey
of a Christmas Tree, Journey of the Last Christmas Dance,
(02:36):
or an Unforgettable Christmas Journey.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Okay, just to be clear, this is.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Just Journey to Christmas.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Well, I need to be there. We're now at the
point where there are hundreds and hundreds of these movies.
At some point they're.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Gonna exactly what are you gonna do? But I just
thought it was funny because I pulled it up on
IMDb so I could have like the names of the
actors and not forget and I was like, Wow, did
not realize.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
A lot of Christmas journeys have been taken out there.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
It is a time, it is a time. I mean
the original Christmas you know, they were on a journey.
So it's fitting.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, let's get into this because I actually liked this movie.
Felt like a bit of a throwback. Yeah, and it was.
It was also to me the perfect amount of wooden,
you know, like it's it's a perfect amount of bad
good bad movie. Yeah, I wade it. But let's get
into it, all right.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
So we start with Callie, who I thought she was
beautiful first of all, this actress. I loved her and okay,
so her name is Callie and I am trying to
look up the actress so it's a it's ash t
s A I sy.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I'm thinking I'll be SI.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Callie called well, she is a model. We start, she's
on the set and we know she's sweet. She is
being nice to everyone on set. She does not have
that model attitude. We love her.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I did. I did love her, by the way, and
she's definitely going on the top of my list as
as like Christmas Land Girls, I'd like to see more.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Of absolutely she is going places. She had this warmth
and this genuine quality that I really liked. Yes, and okay, okay,
So she's leaving the set and she has this manager, Max.
He is all business and he is like, listen, we
are on a schedule. You need to be in Philly
in two and a half hours, which seems tight to me.
(04:37):
But okay, And.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Was she in New York?
Speaker 3 (04:40):
I was assuming New York, but they weren't super clear.
So maybe she was only in Scranton.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Maybe, or maybe she just had to be at the
border of Philadelphia and.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
She was already in the suburbs. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I could probably do that from New York. You take
that the train, but you've got to be in the
Philadelphia border through Okay. And yes, so she is, she's
got to be in Philly very soon. And we also
know that Max is a very busy businessman, right because
(05:13):
he apparently lives in his office office, which is clearly
in Los Angeles somewhere. Yeah, And he wants me to
know he's a hard ass because he's eating all the time.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yes, And he wants her to have that busy business
woman vibe. And she she just has a heart of
gold and she doesn't have it in her So here's
what we know by on the twenty third Emerald em
Like it's called like Emerald Glam. They're having a party,
and well, first of all, I'm sorry that I said
(05:46):
party because he told as he said to her, it
is not a party. It is the pinnacle event of
the season and they're going to name her the face
of the brand. So he actually wants her in La
by the twenty second, be there the night before, have
that face rested and beautiful, and so he wants her
there by then he's like, just fly, but no, she
wants to drive coast to coast so that she can
(06:09):
do a bunch of charity stops on the way. And
as the description says, it's a charity press well in
a different description, yeah, charity press tour. Not exactly a
press tour because there's really no press involved. She's just
quietly doing good deeds along the way. So they've hired
this driver who enters now Jack and we know that
(06:31):
he's also a good guy because this is not the
usual driver. He has actually taken over from the usual
driver because that guy has kids and he wanted to
be home at Christmas time, so he was like, I
will do it. Soart of Gold yeah. So Max has
a talk with him and it's like, listen, I don't
know what you're gonna do, because you have to go
to Philly, Chicago, Kansas City, and Denver. And now Kelly
(06:55):
wants to add something in Nebraska, and Max says, kind
of ominously, it's not just that, but there is this
bad weather coming in so done.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
There's a storm coming in Amelia right over Christmas, right
while they have to drive across the country. That's hugely inconvenient.
I will also say that their route is hugely inconvenient.
I have driven across the country and that is not
the direct route.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Right well, and that's even he says. They're like, now
she wants to add to stop in Nebraska, which, first
of all, there's no mention of a city Nebraska.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I'm sorry, you don't just stop in Nebraska. You have
to go to Nebraska, Nebraska.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
And that he even says, when between Chicago and Kansas City,
or between Kansas City and Denver, because it's so out
of the way, he doesn't even know where it's supposed
to fit.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I don't even know how you're getting from Denver to
Kansas City and then down the route is already like
blowing my mind. There is no I'm imagining that the
that they paint this guy like a million dollars to
do this, because that's what you have to baby, to
take that route across country in a in a timely
(08:06):
manner because he's obviously got aver there for this big
Christmas deadline.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah, I mean, you know it is. It is the
pinnacle event of the season.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
It's a pinnacle event of the season. And Amelia, don't
you think that we're going to get to this pinnacle
event of the season and it's not going to be
the most extraordinary set you've ever seen in your life.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
It's going to be stunning.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yes, it's a pinnacle event of this.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
You know what it's not going to look like is
like a hotel conference room.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
No, it's not gonna look like that. It's definitely not
gonna look like the lobby of a Canadian launch.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
So Max also wants to be clear with Jack that
this isn't just about driving, but also about managing the
wild hordes of fans that are going to be waiting
for her everywhere, right because Cally is she's send in
mind because she she's a super model. So as they're leaving,
(09:01):
so she's as Kelly's getting her stuff ready because they've
got to be in Philly from wherever they are in
two and a half hours. She's like, listen, Max, I've
got all these sketches because I'm not only a model,
I am a fashion designer. And Max is like, I
don't have time for this, which kind of fair because
you have to be somewhere in two and a half hours.
You have a commitment, right.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
He also has to be across the country in apparently
like five days.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
I feel like it wasn't clear how many days, which
was one of my questions. I don't know what day
it is now. I know she has to be there
by the twenty third, but I'm not clear what day
it is now. I should also, we should come clean
that I cannot find my notes for this episode, so
it's possible that was written down somewhere, but I do
not remember.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I don't either, so all.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Right, So he kind of brushes off her drawings and
along with it, her hopes and dreams, and they're like,
all right, let's get in the car.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
What she says is I think he does kind of
say like, oh, those are nice or something, and then
she's Then she indicates, well, this is like a stupid dream.
Obviously modeling is the more secure profession than designing and
creating clothes that people wear. It's just a silly dream.
It will never go in any dream. It's a silly dream.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
So they go out to the car to start this
road trip to get to Philadelphia, and the hordes of
fans outside are four very polite tween girls who are just.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Like, Hi, Kelly, can I have a picture?
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Can I have your autograph?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
They're Canadian fans.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
They're Canadian fans, but there are is not even a
crowd of Canadian fans. It's just four little girls asking
for a selfie.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So we only crowd at hockey games. Everybody every all
the rest of the time, you got out of your space,
especially after COVID.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah. Yeah, So she signs her autographs and takes the
selfies and gets in the car, and then he calls
her miss whatever last name is, and she's like, call me,
tell ya, call me Kelly. So it's you know, she's
super polite, is all we need to know, because she's
probably also Canadian.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
She's super polite, he's super nice, and they're both super attractive.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Exactly, although you know she's still gonna sit in the
back seat though, because we're still professionals.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, absolutely, this is This was my other thing. When
I was it took me like a hot second to
wrap my mind around the fact that they were actually
driving across country for Christmas, like and not on a
road trip where because we've done road trip movies. We
love road trip movies. Yeah, but usually it's like, you know,
(11:41):
people who know each other already. So the idea of
like driving in essentially a limo in the back seat
across the country that I was like, that's weird. I
don't know if I could do that all the way.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Yeah, I feel like I would have to be like
really rude, either put up the divider or put in
my earbuds or something like. I couldn't just sit there
and like I would either have to be in the
passenger seat just like on a road trip with this guy,
or like fully separate because it wasn't like a full
stretch limb where she was far enough away. She was
(12:16):
just in the backseat like in a town car.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Or it was talking hours Amelia, it's no days. It's
a freaking week. That's like a week of her just
sitting in them. Anyways, that's how they start, that's how
they decide to do it. He and there also jack
is a consummate professional.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yes, yes, so we stop with the first stop, which,
as we know, Philadelphia. She's inside, you know, hanging out
with this it's like an after school program for kids.
And Jackie gets a call from this mysterious Talia and
sends it to voicemail no Talia and late, and then
(12:59):
his mind phone calls and we find out that he
is the owner of this company, but he has not
even told CALLI, so she is going to feel silly.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Later she just the hired help.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
How embarrassing, and she's like, you're not coming home for
Christmas again. You're taking a job. And he's like, I
have got sixteen employees and they count on me. And
she's like, listen, jack we know this is really about
It's about Talia, who he sent a voicemail minutes earlier.
And she's like, I just think you should know that
(13:35):
Talia and Lawrence broke up. And while she's having this conversation,
this blonde woman just like walks into his mom's house.
So we know we can assume this is Talia, and
we know she's extremely comfortable with Jack's parents because she
just walks in.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
It was so odd. It was like, Okay, clearly, clearly
this girlfriend or ex girlfriend has a close relationship with
the family. Clearly she's left him for somebody else, right,
and yet the family is still like, come on in,
(14:12):
we loved Talia. We wished you guys were married this
whole time. She and she's just lurking. She's like, oh,
you're talking to Jack. She just like sort of she
sort of like floats into frame.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah, are you talking about me?
Speaker 2 (14:29):
And also Amelia, by the way, color me shocked to
find out that Talia is not black or Latino, that
she's actually some red, reddish, blonde white woman.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Yahalia.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
That name said a lot of different things to me,
but not not Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Interesting, but maybe we but maybe we should say the
leading woman in this is not an average white woman.
She's so so maybe they had to make the evil
woman white. I don't know, so you.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Could do something. She's definitely ethnically ambiguous, yes, beautiful lead Yes.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
So Jack is like, so she's like, you know, maybe
maybe if you came home for Christmas, you and Talia
could just sort of you know, you guys could talk
and sort things out, and she's like and He's just like, listen,
Talia should feel really guilty. I hope she feels bad.
I don't want to talk to her whatever, which I mean,
I don't know what happened here, but you know, we
can pretty much tell from this conversation that he was
(15:27):
with Talia. She broke his heart to be with Lawrence,
and now that she's done with Lawrence, she can She
thinks that she can just like befriend his mom and
get that. No, I'm on team Jack here.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I'm on team Jack too. But I will say that
I was surprised by the intensity of his resentment towards Talia.
It's not something that we see very much in Christmas Land.
Mostly people have, you know, the closest to negative that
they feel about a breakup is well, it just didn't
work out or I thought I deserved better. But he
(16:00):
is clearly hanging on to resentment. And I was like, wow,
this is this is actually very uh nitty gritty for
a Christmas Land. That's a good point negative feelings.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
That's true, or if there is resentment a lot of
times it's like, you know, she wanted to move to
the big city and I didn't or something, and there's
some kind of misunderstanding frequently, and then when they talk
about it fifteen years later and finally have a conversation,
they're like, what you thought you were holding me back?
You know it was all for you?
Speaker 2 (16:31):
So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
So they continue on this weird press tour that has
no press involvement, and but the storm just keeps on storming,
and they're trying to figure out how they're going to
stay ahead of it, how they're going to stay on pace,
and he is realizing that the weather is pushing them
off route closer and closer to his hometown. So he
is like, we are going to have to spend the
(16:57):
night at my parents' house.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Obviously, they're going to have to detour to their parents.
His parents' house in the mountains, the mountains of Illinois.
I don't know where it is is that where in Illinois?
I could not tell where they were at this point,
Like there's no geography really in this movie at all,
which that's not what you're watching it for anyways. But yeah,
(17:23):
it was so funny, like, oh, we've got to be safe,
We're going to pull over to my family's house, as
if there aren't a million different routes across the country.
And you know, it's never a good idea in winter
to get off of the interstate, right going to be
the most likely to press through a storm. But conveniently
(17:45):
or inconveniently, for our two leads, the storm is basically
chasing them. It's basically forcing them into a cozy Christmas situation.
Right these days, it seems like everybody's talking, but no
one is actually listening to the things they're saying. Critical
(18:06):
thinking isn't dead, but it's definitely low on oxygen. Join
me Kira Davis on Just Listen to Yourself every week
as we reason through issues big and small, critique our
own ideas, and learn to draw our talking points all
the way out to their logical conclusions. Subscribe to Just
Listen to Yourself with Kira Davis and FCB Radio podcast
(18:26):
on Apple, on Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
So it's interesting that you said that, because you know,
it's one of those kind of fish out of water
movies where like the famous model is forced into like
a small town family Christmas. And at the beginning, I
thought Okay, is this going to be some kind of
hybrid with a road trip movie, which we always love
because it's kind of a way to get people into
(18:52):
a bunch of weird situations and people who don't know
each other. You know, they're going to bake something, they're
gonna do karaoke, or they're gonna have to fix something.
It's like a reason to force people into weird situations
on the road trip. And we didn't really get that
in the road trip section. But now I'm thinking maybe
we also missed an opportunity for like natural disaster movie
(19:12):
of a storm, like actually chasing them.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
That's that sounds more lifetime, That sounds for more like
Christmas Land's neighbor holiday Land.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
True, true, Okay, just something to think about.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Well, there's some fear involved with that, and we don't
we don't like a lot of fear in Christmas Land.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah, okay, Well there wasn't a fear because they got
there safely.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
They got there safely. Oh thank gosh. It was an albier,
but he was able to navigate. He's an expert car driver.
I don't know if we said, yeah, he does own
the place, it's his company. He owns it.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
So they get to the house and have not like
tell told anybody that they're so they just show up
late at night. Everybody, I think is in bed.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah, it's evidenced by the fact that everyone then immediately
gets up in the crispist of pajamas, and I just
it took me again. Time and space in this movie
are almost non existent. I can't figure out like how
far anyone's gone, how much time has passed. I did
not understand that it was night when they got there,
(20:28):
so it was so confusing when everyone came out in pajamas.
I was like, is this family just hanging out and
no judgment because we live in a post COVID world
where we all basically live in pajamas now. But I
was like, oh, this is what an odd I guess.
I thought it was an odd costuming choice, yeah, to
everyone in brand new pajamas. But then I realized, oh,
(20:50):
they're there at night.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Right, Yeah, it was nighttime, so I think you might
have to remind me. So I think the first thing
we see is I think the first person we meet
is the brother. Okay, so I think that it's his
sister and his brother in law, right, because honestly, I'm
not sure I brother and sister in law. I'm not
sure I was ever clear brother and brother in law. Okay,
(21:15):
So his brother's just like, okay, so you're here, is
this your girlfriend? And he's kind of not clear on that.
He's like, it's a client, but it's kind of like
a little bit of a wink wink, like I think
he maybe didn't want his brother to know if it
was necessarily only a client. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
I guess, yeah, I guess. And always, well, that is
the that's the forgive the pun. The hallmark of Christmas Land,
isn't it that family members never just assume that the
person of the opposite sex that is with their loved
one is just a friend, always immediately, without any clues,
(21:50):
without reservation, or without any sort of contact, they're like, oh,
she's nice.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Wake wait, yeah, like you guys here, something's going on here?
When you literally told us all you were driving a
woman across country.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
You've literally just told them her name, and they're like, oh,
are you guys in law?
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Right?
Speaker 3 (22:14):
So she so then the sister in law, you know,
has to get in on it, and she's like, what's
going on here? And then the niece comes downstairs and
her Christmas jammis and she of course knows exactly who
Kelly is and cannot believe this major celebrity is in
the house, standing in front of her Holy Cow. This
(22:38):
is really happening.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
It does seem very unbelievable. Now, this child, it's gonna
be around for a while. She's she's got a little role.
And I will say, we did another when we did
I think we had this issue when we were doing
Bringing Christmas Home and with Little Haunted Greta Thunberg. There's
(23:03):
something very odd about the way Christmas Land writers write
children and the way Christmas Land directors film children, because
the children always seem like they're written to be four
or five.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Right there, and then they cast them like an eleven
year old.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
And this child, the whole all our lines, all her
added to everything was like she should be five years old,
but she was basically a teenager. Yeah, yeah, it was
so odd. It is odd.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Of course, the family's delighted to have two extra people
for Christmas, of course, with no notice in the middle
of the night, right and and they just kind of
roll with it. Okay. Now, of course we have the
third potential could be an entire plot line, which is
(23:56):
that there is the time Christmas festival coming up. Oh yes,
the niece, can you remind me? Do you remember her name?
It's like I want to I don't know. I want
to say Olivia or something, but I could be wrong anyway,
niece is extremely excited for this and has ordered a
new dress. It is Sophia. I just found it. So
(24:18):
Sophia is really excited about this new dress, cannot wait
to show the whole town. And just keep that in mind.
There's a new dress coming and it's extremely exciting, extremely exciting.
Keep that in mind.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Waiting for this new dress to come to their romot remote,
remotely located home in the wilds Illinois during the worst
national snowstorm of the century.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Right, Max, the manager is freaking out because Kelly has
just is just not like answering her phone and telling
him where she is. And I think we're supposed to
think Max unreasonable, but that actually seems like a reasonable
(25:05):
complaint to me. Yes, you do need to know where
she is, and you might potentially even be worried if
your client, slash, maybe even friend is driving through a
snowstorm and just stops answering the phone.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah, I agree. I mean it's not just that there's
money on the line, but also her safety, and he
seems to be the only person in her life that
cares for her. I think she says at one point
she's an orphan. Yeah, she doesn't really have siblings, so really,
who she's got is Max. Yeah. I did find him
(25:43):
to be it's not unreasonable. Now, of course, we do
know that he's sort of a jerk because he's always
in an office.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Right, because he's always doing his job, which is managing her.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Right. I hate it when people do their jobs. It's
the worst, Oh Max. But anyway, he's pissed. He's pissed
off that she's not worth where she's supposed to be,
which all this could be avoided if she had just
gotten on an airplane. She could have done the charity
tour on the way home. But then I guess we
don't have a love story.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Right, And of course we need to get our Christmas
moments in so we have what's what's first? I think snowmen.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Yes, And let me tell you, I was so excited
when they even when they just started whispering the words
we're going outside. I was like, yes, there is either
snowman building or a snowball fight, or if we're lucky both.
We did not get the snowball fight, but we did
get the snowman building and Amelia, it was real snowmen.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
It was real snowmen.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
And all I can think about is how brutal it
must have been to shoot that scene in the snow.
Some poor production assistants had to gather up enough snow,
enough good snow to build those snowmen, and then they
had to hurry up and film before they melted away
or birds or whatever. I just I think that might
(27:17):
this might be the first time I've seen real snowmen
in christ movie.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Yeah, it's a good point. That's a good point, I think.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
So we might need to really note this episode. Yeah,
that's a that's a serious uh marker right there. That
is that's a big deal, real snowmen. They clearly filmed this. Also,
they did film this in winter, and we are noticing
a lot of the great American films right now are
(27:46):
in winter settings. They were obviously filmed in the winter season.
Clearly that's not ideal for production, but it's fun to watch.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Yeah, So while they're doing that. You obviously she's bonding
with the family. The family's noticing some vibes.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Because she's a woman and he's a man. So clearly
they're in love.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Clearly they're in love. This is not professional. Not only
is it not professional, but they can't just be friends.
So no, certainly, certainly not.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
It's certainly not. Yeah, although well anyway, go on, no
tell me, I'll see it.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
So we're we're continuing on with just general merriment. We've got.
I mean, of course the house is full Christmas, we've
got snowman building, We've got oh, so I think is
it I think later that night we get is when
(28:54):
we start getting a little more serious because we have
the fire pit. Is that that evening? I think it is. Yes,
So we're warming up from the snowmen. They all get
around the little fire pit on the back deck.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
They're going to make some more So that's a family
tradition too. They've done all the stuff, like the decorating
for the day. They split up and you know, each
took a different task and so now yes, yeah, they
get to do so sores by the fire pit. I
had a real problem with how they were building the
fire because I'm actually an undercover pyromaniac. I love building
(29:31):
fires and starting fires. I'm not an arsonist right now,
but I do enjoy starting good fire and I know
how to start a good fire from pretty much almost anything,
just with bare minimum fuel. And I was watching him
build that fire and I was like, there is not
(29:53):
enough oxygen or fuel underneath. Yeah, and he put the
kindling on top.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
No.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
I was just really put out by that. It took
me on the movie all the way.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
I mean, do you want the marshmallows to toast or not?
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Well, you've got to light this thing on fire. You're
just gonna have a bunch of candling that's on fire.
It's gonna go out, and you're lot I mean, Amelia,
it very much stressed me out.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
I understand, I understand it should have.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, they build, they build their jankie fire out. This
is another thing that's happening. S'mor's time is coming, smar.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
So, And I did appreciate that that sounded a little
bit ominous because we had kind of a weird joke
here and I'm trying to remember exactly how it went,
but there was a joke about like burning people at
the stake, and.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
I was like, oh, and I actually I actually had
it pulled up here, and then of course my window
refreshed itself for no reason and now it's gone.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
But but yeah, there was kind of a weird joke.
And I was like, Okay, yeah, yeah the brother the
brother made the joke or the brother made yeah, made
a weird joke. And I was like, oh, by the.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Way, that there there is a father, by the way
in this cast. And he I don't think he says
one thing the entire movie. They didn't even do the thing.
We're usually like, you know, every character has got to
get some line in, so you usually get people one
line or something. He was just sitting around in a
(31:40):
Christmas sweater the entire movie. At one point I was like, oh,
is the mom a widow? And then I was like, no, no,
that older guy.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Is that silent man?
Speaker 2 (31:51):
He didn't say anything.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Yeah, all right, I just found it. So the so
he says, you know, you're on fire pit duty, be
sure to watch the fire, and they're like, why you
don't burn guests at the stake, do you. The Kelly
says that, and he goes, oh, yeah, it's a Swanson
family tradition and they all like laugh about it, which
like it wasn't a big deal at all, but I
(32:15):
was just like a little bit.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Dark for Christmas land humor.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Yeah, there we go, that's Christy a little bit. Oh
and that also reminds me, oh, oh wait, oh hold on,
we haven't gotten there yet. Never mind, there was just
another creepy thing. But that's that's later. That's later, moving on. Okay,
So anyway, also though, at the fire pit, this is
where Kelly finds out that Talia exists, I think, and
(32:41):
they kind of talk about, like, you know, you haven't
been home in a while, are you avoiding Talia? You know, boy,
that sure was messed up. I'm not sure. Do you
remember like the extent of the details that she gets
at this point. I think she kind of finds out
some of the tea.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, she finds out yes, the mom says, because he
rushes off, and then the sister or the mom says, yeah,
they Talia. They were engaged and they were in love
and then she left him, I think for his best friend.
I think Jack or the other guy was like his
best friend friends Lawrence, and so she broke it off
(33:19):
and he was heartbroken. Oh no, they were going to
move to New York together, right, Yes, she didn't want
to go, he wanted to go. She ended up having
a relationship with his friend. Yeah, and then he took
off without her to escape. That's what Callie finds out. Meanwhile,
(33:41):
Telia just again just shows up.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Yes, the family has just completely embraced her, like they
never broke up and it's not a situation, like they
were married and it's been twenty years and they have
children together and they're gonna just you know, No, she
was the girlfriend and they were probably gonna get married,
and then she left first friend and like she's no,
(34:11):
she's not.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
You're on teen Jack, Like, did she give Maybe that's
why the dad doesn't talk. Maybe kind of like trauma
from the situation. Maybe Talia gave the dad a kidney
or something like that. So he just doesn't want to
get like into the mess because it's like she's got
this weird hold of her family. Because the other thing
I noticed is that, of course Calli is staying in
(34:34):
Jack's old room at the house, which has pictures of
Talia all over it.
Speaker 5 (34:40):
Yes, yeah, oh yes, I don't I believe I didn't
mention that yes, when they first show her to the
guest room, which is Jack's room, it's still like a
couple pictures everywhere, and that is yeah, yes, that is
Tally's real first introduction or Callie's real first introduction.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
She's like, who is this woman?
Speaker 2 (34:58):
So weird? Yeah, I don't know everybody? People?
Speaker 6 (35:02):
Is this.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Acceptable? I don't. I don't think so, Amelia. I think
it's got to be difficult. It is difficult as a family.
I mean, my son's starting to be dating age, although
he lives far away from us now, but I get it.
It's difficult. You bring someone into your family like you
embrace them, because if your child loves this person, you're
(35:25):
gonna love this person, and then the relationship breaks up
and it's like you're having a breakup too. I understand that,
and I understand that it doesn't seem right to just
sort of cut off a relationship because they don't have
that relationship with your child anymore. That being said, I
don't know. I just think it's it's just a reality.
You just kind of have to deal with it. I
(35:46):
don't think it's appropriate unless, like you said, Amelia, you've
got twenty years behind you you've got kids, you've got
all the you're basically already family, right Otherwise, No, I
don't think it's appropriate for the family to stay friends
like that. At what do you think?
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Not at all? And I don't understand how this is
supposed to be helpful for Talia, because she can't move on,
because this family is like, you belong here, get in
our house. You don't need to knock, you know, I don't.
It's not helpful to her.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
She can't move on.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
It's probably why Lawrence Dumpter. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
It is It is very it is very weird. I
my husband's my first love, is first college sweetheart, was
a favorite of his parents, and they really wanted her
to marry him. And when we got engaged, years after
(36:44):
that relationship, but even still, thanks to the power of
the Internet, she knew where he was. She was still
reaching out to his parents, talking to them, telling them
she wished that they were her in laws. And yeah,
it's really weird. And then I remember before this was happening,
before we got married, and I told my mother in law,
(37:05):
who was not my mother in law at the time,
I think this is inappropriate. Yeah, I'm going to marry
your son, and I don't know that it's right that
she's clearly and she was making other advancements too. She
was still in love with them anyways. They were like, well,
she was a big part of our lives for a
(37:25):
long time, and we can't just sort of.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
Yeah, you can put a boundary and be like, listen,
we can be friends, but we're not talking about you
and Jack.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Like that is over. And that's what Mark's parents eventually did.
Eventually everybody got their act together. And what happened was
Mark had to step in and tell the girl like,
just chill out, back off, you're being too weird. And
then and I ended there, but so sort of get
the situation. But Talia is like, she's like Kramer. She's
(37:56):
like a Cramer, just sliding in.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Hey, door bursts open, she slides in. She's up Swanson's
you want to burn anybody at the steak?
Speaker 7 (38:10):
Okay, did Paul Revere really say the British are coming?
And how is George Washington chosen to leave the First
American Army. Join us for the Growing Patriot Podcast, a
place for curious kids to ask the big questions about
our nation's history and get kid friendly answers from the
(38:30):
country's top experts. Help your child learn about and cherish
America's exceptional history. Subscribe to Growing Patriots on Apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts today.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
All right, so meanwhile in the background, we've got this
whole party situation going on. The dress has not arrived,
and we predicted it's not going to because this storm
is common. The storm is hit, they're not going to
get out, and of course they're all, okay, So we've
(39:05):
got two issues with this. Now they can't get out,
and they've been talking about, you know, alternatives. So either
we can just try to fly to California. We can,
you know, if we cancel a couple of the tour dates.
You know, we can you know, maybe still drive. What
if we do this? What if we do that? But
part of the issue is Kelly kind of wants to
(39:27):
go to this Christmas festival now, so she's like, well,
what if I can be there and then we can
do this, you know, because she's like sucked in. She
loves this town, she loves his family, she wants to
be at the Christmas festival.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Okay, Collie's really busy Kelly woman, and but she wants
a normal life, and she doesn't a normal life with
this family.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
And she wants to be absolutely everything to everyone, so
she has to stop at every single charity along the way,
and at every women's shelter and after school program and
soup kitchen. But all so, now that this dress isn't
going to make it, guess what, she has that book
full of sketches and it doesn't really matter that the
(40:08):
thing is in two days. She's just gonna make a dress.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Hang on, hang on, hang on. Are you telling me,
Amelia that Callie's secret hobby of designing dresses is actually
going to come in handy? Yeah, at the the Christmas Festival.
Get out of here. I didn't even see it coming.
When she pulled out that sketch book. I was like, well,
surely we'll never see this again. No.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
Yeah, you thought her dream was dead, but turns out
it's useful.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
No, well we know. And here's the other thing we
know about Christmas Land. Every seamstress is trained at the
project or Runway School, which means you can make anything
out of anything in literally.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Yes, So that was my other thought about this, which
is designing and creating the dress are two different skill sets.
But like you said, this is project runway Land. She
can do both, can do it right now? Yeah, So
she gets up early the next morning and she and
Jack go into town and just pick out fabric without
(41:09):
the child. They pick it out themselves.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Well again, here's another little thing about how the child
is written as like a five four or five year old,
like with no agency, no common sense, and no ability
to reason at all. And then and then the cast
is a mirror. This young lady is probably about twelve
years old. Yeah, I mean at least I've met older.
(41:35):
I bet you older who looks younger? I just but
the way the script treats her, it treats her so
again just buying fabric, Well, it's just like obviously we're
picking out the outfit for this little girl, right, But
I mean I would think that even at like five
or six, like you probably asked your daughter an opinion,
(41:58):
like do you want pink? Do you want green? Do
you I don't know? Maybe not, but she did, but
that she did. She did. She had a conversation with
the girl because she had asked that very first night, what.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
Oh what color is? Yeah, you're right, and look what
colors will look beautiful on her. Yes, that's true. I
just looked up the actress. She is thirteen, so yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Yeah, it's so weird.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Yeah, so all right, so they go and pick out
this fabric with but still without her. There's more than
one shade or one pattern or whatever, so they pick
it out. Jack is still like being stalked by Talia
while he's in the fabric store. She's just like I
think Kramer is probably pretty good analogy. She's just like
(42:45):
showing up. She is, love her everywhere.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Yeah, I don't know. She she's definitely and she has
an odd look also, so it's always like I'm not
sure exactly what are her intentions are. And then we
don't hear very much from her as well. We don't
really know if he's nice, if she's mean, you know,
just a weird thing. But the purpose of this fabric store, though,
(43:12):
it gives us a chance to see Jack and Kelly
actually have some bonding time. They learn a little bit
about each other. Right, we see that Jack is we
hear a little bit more about Jack's relationship with Talia. Again,
(43:32):
I was surprised by the amount of resentment that this
character has for the other character, not that that's not
a situation that would cause resentment. But just in Christmas Land,
we don't ever really see people hanging on to negativity,
and this guy is clearly hanging on to unforgiveness for
(43:53):
this woman, And I just thought, wow, that's it just
was notable to me.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely. They get their fabric.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Yeah, they head.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
Home, They show Sophia and the family, and of course
they're all delighted that they've just taken this upon themselves,
gotten the fabric. They show her the drawings. She's excited
and she's like, I'll just make it tonight.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Yeah, like you do just I mean the festivals the
next night.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Yeah, yeah, so okay, and then here's what we're talking
about the fire pit. And I said, there was one
other creepy thing here. It is she makes the dress
and she tells Jack. She's like, it's done, Like, let's
surprise her. So when she comes downstairs in the morning,
she could just see the dress and he's like, oh,
I have the perfect thing. Goes in like the basement
(44:50):
or the attic or something, comes out with this like
life set while thirteen year old girl size clown.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Yeah, it was so weird. It was so weird. They
go to the basement storage room. Yes, and he's got
like a clearly one of those huge Halloween decorations, like
you had put this giant thing in your front yard.
It's a clown and yeah, so he pulls that out
(45:18):
and and they have this moment where it's like, oh,
isn't this funny? Terrifying? Ha ha ha. But it was
so out of place, right, it was so out of place.
I couldn't figure out if was there gonna was this
gonna be called back later? Or did I miss something? Right?
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Why? Just why?
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I expect the only rational reason, The only thing I
can think of is that they called someone in to
punch up the script afterwards, and they're like, we need
some more goofy spots here, and that's where you get
the jokes like the burned at the stake or this
little clown, or like there's a couple of other little
(46:05):
spots where there's like a little especially between the brothers,
where there's like a little ribbing. Sounds like maybe they
were like, oh, there's not enough humor in this script.
Let's just bring someone in to punch it out a bit.
And this is Christmas Land's version of punching up a script. Yeah,
crazy clown. It was very odd. It was very oddly placed.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Yeah, so they put the dress on the clown, scare
the niece in the morning with it, or she's delighted
the dress.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
I it was okay.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
I did not think that a thirteen year old girl
would particularly want to wear it, in my opinion, But again,
I was a little girl dress.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
A little girl dress. It was a dress for like
a five year old girl. I would put that on
my five year old daughter. Yeah, thirteen year old girl.
But again, she wasn't playing thirteen. You know, that's not
the attitude of her character. I would say, would place
her right.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
And then there was the question of when Kelly was
designing it. I would have thought she was designing it
for a grown woman because she just grabbed it out
of her sketchbook.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
So and did she design it? I mean, it was
very simple. Everybody like, this is so beautiful, But it
was basically just like I bought. I used to buy
my daughter a dress like that every Christmas.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
That cost right, So I don't know. Everyone's delighted though,
and that's what matters. Everyone's happy dress.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
She's happy and she got a handmade dress from a supermodel.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
So right, So they all go to the Christmas festival
and things are going well. Okay, things are good. Kelly
and Jack are super bonding. They're great, there is some chemistry,
things are heating up. But but then she sees Talia
(48:07):
making a move on Jack and she's like, oh, is
there still something there? What's going on? And again, as
happens in Christmas Land that night, she overhears a conversation
between Jack and his brother and she thinks that it's
about her, but it's about Talia and it's about how
(48:28):
like it's just never gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
No, I know, I think what the conversation was if
I recall this, it is one of those misunderstanding situations.
I think with the conversation is the brother is saying,
you know, what's your issue with Talia? And he's saying,
she really hurt me. YadA, YadA, YadA, we wanted different things.
And he's saying he's telling his brother, I have realized,
(48:54):
like I'm moving on from this relationship. I realized it
was never the right one in the first place. But
I'm still hurt. And his brother says like, don't you
ever think about what could be, and then he says
something along the lines of I do wonder about Talia,
and you know, if we I think we could have
been happy together. Like he says something that she just
(49:15):
comes in on the tail end, and it sounds like
what he's saying is I really wish I could still
be with Talia. But what he really is telling his
brother is there was a time when I wished we
could be together, but now I've realized I have to
move on. Yeah, but Ali thinks that basically what he's
saying is I have still had feelings for Talia, and.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
Being Christmas Land, they're not going to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
Oh, why would you do that? Why?
Speaker 3 (49:42):
Although, to be honest, in this situation, I might not either,
because like he's my driver and we kind of just
sort of have a crush, So it's not like your boyfriend,
you know.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Well, she, as we've pointed out several times in this
episode of Milia, she is a woman and he's a man.
So they're obviously in love.
Speaker 3 (50:01):
That's true. That's a good point. That's a good point.
And they barely have a chance anyway, because the next
morning Max shows up to do his job and it's like,
excuse me, I don't know why you're just sitting here
acting like you're in an idyllic Christmas movie, because you
actually have a job and you need to get to California,
(50:21):
So get your butt in the car and we're getting
on a plane. Jack, you're fired as a driver because
you haven't been driving. And the storm is over.
Speaker 6 (50:31):
And you literally took my client to your home and
the storm is well like four days goodbye, And he's like,
he's like Italian.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
No, He's like, if we cancel this and we can
do the charity stops on the way back, and she's like, no,
he's right, I'm just going to actually do my job. Goodbye.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Well, I think it's important to note this. We've sort
of skipped over a couple a little bit, but they're
during their bonding time because one thing they did is
they went out to pick a Christmas tree. And during
their bonding time, she tells Jack, you know, that she
wants to slow down. Actually she doesn't want to be
working so hard, but MaTx pushes her all the time,
(51:13):
and he's the only person that's really taking care of her.
After her parents died, it was just him and her,
you know, And he asked her manager. And also he's
a friend, and and you know, she has responsibilities to
people as well. People count on her for showing up,
and Max counts on her for his income. So she
doesn't want to go, but she feels obligated. And that's
(51:36):
that's important to note that he is not necessarily excited.
But it's like, well, I guess this is what a
supermodel does, works all the time.
Speaker 3 (51:51):
Yeah, And at this point she's also just like, you know,
Jack is a lovely early with Talia because she overheard
one sentence yep, and so she's like, I might as well.
Max has been here for me. I have a job
to do. I just I'm just gonna go do it.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
Yeah, And Talia zel was hanging around anyway, like you
can't get rid of her. She's like a sticky booger,
just can't shake her off. Gross.
Speaker 3 (52:21):
So so she gets on the plane, she goes.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
Jack is sad.
Speaker 3 (52:29):
Jack is sad.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
You know, said too because by this time, I mean,
what a fickle family. By the way, they were all
up Talia's but like the whole time, and then when
Jack shows up and they're like, get back together, get
back together. As soon as Jack shows up with a
famous supermodel. They're like, we love CALLI.
Speaker 3 (52:47):
Yeah, that's a good point. She's not a loyal family.
They just want Jack to be with anyone, right.
Speaker 2 (52:58):
Literally, just pick someone Jack. So they're they're sad, Jack said,
everyone's sad, but they're still a festival.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
They yeah, and there is still the pinnacle event of
the season.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
Oh my gosh, I can't believe that I forgot about
the pinnacle event of the season at the not Canadian
mid Level Lodge.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (53:26):
Right, So Talia is a little out of sorts because
she's also sad, but she is putting on her game
face of Emerald Glam makeup. She is wearing her dress,
not Talia Kelly. Oh yes, sorry Kelly, that would be weird.
Although Talia shows up everywhere else, so why not. So
she is wearing her green dress looking beautiful. She is
(53:48):
wearing her Emerald Glam brand makeup. She is in the
hotel conference room and you know, doing her job, working
in the room. Matt and acts is like, it's just
not yourself because he cares about her person.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
Well, he cares about her as a person.
Speaker 8 (54:08):
Now that she's at her job, right, and she's doing
her job right, which is you know, his job, right,
She's named the face of arm old Glam and she's
you know, she's happy because it was her goal.
Speaker 3 (54:21):
But it just isn't it's just kind of it's just
a little bit of a hollow victory.
Speaker 2 (54:26):
Yeah, something's emits. Meanwhile, though, back at the festival in Illinois, right,
I think Illinois. Okay, I have no concept of space
or time in this movie. California might as well be
right next to Illinois, which is on the border of Philadelphia. Clearly,
(54:53):
he he doesn't. He have a moment. We skipped over this.
He has a moment with Alia at the Christmas festival.
Speaker 3 (55:03):
I thought I did mention that because she saw Maybe
I didn't go into great detail, though, I don't.
Speaker 2 (55:09):
Think you mentioned their conversation, and I think that's important.
We skipped over this part. But at the Christmas festival
where the little girl slash change or where's the dress Talia?
And that's oh, yes, you did mention the tal I
mentioned it.
Speaker 3 (55:25):
Yeah, I think I only mentioned it from Kelly's point
of view. Yeah, And I think this is important.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
We shouldn't skip over this because they do have a
nice conversation which all all relationships end well in Christmas Land,
and although we've seen we've set up Jack having very
out of place negative feelings for Talia, they have this
moment where Talia says, look, I'm still in love with you.
(55:50):
I think maybe we could give it another shot, and
he says, I think we've moved on. And the truth
is they have a very mature conversation. The truth is
I ran away to New York because I was running
away and that was never going to be a great
life for us. And you were. You know, I didn't
give you the things you needed. It's not just your fault.
(56:11):
And she says, you know the same. We just had
different goals and I want you to be happy, and
he says, I want you to be happy. And then
they hug and go their separate ways as as friends
and friendly excess and he forgives her and he tells
his brother that too, which I thought was very Christian.
Speaker 3 (56:34):
I thought in this film.
Speaker 2 (56:36):
Where he talks about how I have this unforgiveness for
her in my heart and I need to forgive her,
and he forgives her. I made a note of it.
I made a mental note.
Speaker 3 (56:46):
Yep, absolutely no, I'm glad you brought that up because
I only mentioned it from Kelly's point of view, where
she saw them talking, you know, likely not romantically, but
she saw them having like a prime personal conversation and
then hugging, and then misunderstood that, and then it was
compounded with the snippet that she heard with the brother.
Speaker 2 (57:05):
So yes, So that's what's going on as Callie is feeling,
you know, not quite herself at this pinnacle event of
the season. These days, it seems like everybody's talking, but
no one is actually listening to the things they're saying.
(57:26):
Critical thinking isn't dead, but it's definitely low on oxygen.
Join me Kira Davis on Just Listen to Yourself every
week as we reason through issues big and small, critique
our own ideas, and learn to draw our talking points
all the way out to their logical conclusions. Subscribe to
Just Listen to Yourself with Kia Davis and FCB Radio
podcast on Apple, on Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get
(57:50):
your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (57:53):
So, of course we know it needs to happen. Jack
needs to show up.
Speaker 2 (57:57):
Yeah, but he's all the way in Illinois.
Speaker 3 (57:59):
Though, can't happen?
Speaker 2 (58:02):
How's it going to get there?
Speaker 3 (58:03):
Well, I don't know because we don't do planes and
he's a driver. But guess what, somehow, somehow, some way.
Speaker 2 (58:11):
Because he just took the express train cross the border hills.
Speaker 3 (58:19):
There across the crowded room, their eyes meet and there
it is, they see each other. They can make it work.
A driver and a supermodel a at the pinnacle event
of the season. And he's not just a driver, by
the way, he is the owner of Swan Limousines.
Speaker 2 (58:39):
God forbid. No, he can't just be the driver.
Speaker 3 (58:42):
She is going to start designing more. Max is going
to take her more seriously as an artist. She's going
to take some more time to you know, take deep breaths.
He has put his heart back together and now he
is giving it to her and they kiss and scene.
Speaker 2 (59:08):
And scene very good. Well, I have to say, Amelia,
I enjoyed this movie. I thought the performances were were
not that great, and that's just how I love it.
But they were perfect. They were all like perfect. The
male lead maybe not one of my favorite buddies, he
(59:29):
was definitely was like nice to look at and had
a nice personality. I loved the female lead. I think
we said ash Side or Ashley Side I'd love to
see more of her. I have a perfect Christmas Land lady,
leading lady countenance, and I appreciate it. Though. I appreciated
(59:52):
everything that they tried to do with the script, all
the little punching up moments, the little jokes here and there.
I appreciate it, all the effort that they put into
just making this quirky as quirky as possible in places.
And there were a lot of tropes. Let's go down
the tropes. Yes, let's do it, all right, I just
(01:00:14):
wrote down the tropes that we have.
Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
We have a Christmas nedline, heck, yeah, we do.
Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
Now. We have several busy business people too busy for
love in this yeah, all of them basically, except she's.
Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
Her entire life is trying to get Jack back. That
is her business though, so in that sense.
Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
So uh, all right. We have a precocious child somewhat
even though she's in the body of a thirteen year old. Yes, right,
we have a we have decorating m h. We have
a we have a dress moment I think Kelly does,
(01:01:02):
have a moment.
Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
At the top before the festival, yep.
Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
And we have a kiss at the end.
Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
We didn't get a snowball fight, but we had a snowman, So.
Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Snowman, I think we can count.
Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
Half a point for that. Maybe picking in the.
Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
Snow I feel that counts. So it could be snow
it could be a snowball fight. However you want to
work that. The details of that are up to you. Writers.
You know, we don't want to decovate that to you.
But yeah, prolicking in.
Speaker 3 (01:01:32):
The snow I think absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
Yep. Check, I can't think of anything.
Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
Did we have a fall? I don't remember a fall.
Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
Nope, we did not have a fall. There was one
moment and I thought we might get a fall where
he sort of takes her arm so she she won't
slip in the snow because she's walking in heels or something.
And I remember at the time thinking this would be
a good moment for her to fall. But she doesn't. No,
(01:02:01):
I don't know how. I don't know why. It's so
hard just to put that in. You can literally put
it in anywhere, writers, anywhere. Okay, so we've got seven
seven troupes in this movie. I think, yeah, we've got
some awards to hand out, Amelia, Yeah, we do. All right, Well,
let's see our first award is a Christmas Maam award.
(01:02:23):
This award goes to who you feel was just squeezing
all of the juice out of this role, so out
of their role. So who do you think squeeze the
most juice out.
Speaker 9 (01:02:34):
Of their role?
Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
I kind of want to give it to the Dad
because I think that he was cursed by a sea witch.
But he's the runner up. I think it might go
to the brother.
Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
Ooh, good one.
Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
Yeah, yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
The brother is a good one. Okay, I had Max
really satisfied with that answer, and now I which I
had thought about the brother. You're absolutely right. I think
the brother wins the Christmas vamp all right. Next is
the tree Topper. That's who who was the star came
out on top in this movie.
Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
I think Kelly.
Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
I liked her.
Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
I want her in more movies.
Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Me too. I have her. I think she has all
of the elements of a great leading lady and just
stunning also to look at, but very sweet. And you
know what, Christmas Land women have to be very specific.
It's part of the it's part of the trope, it's
part of the charm. There are a couple of leading
(01:03:43):
ladies that sort of it can twist it a little
bit like CCB has like a little sarcastic streak that
works really well. Jill Wagner, I think is kind of
the same way. But other than that, mostly you've got
to have this really sweet and innocent quality, and I
(01:04:06):
think it's hard to act that. I don't know. I
loved this woman. I hope we see more of her. Okay,
Robert A. Baron Award, I feel.
Speaker 3 (01:04:18):
Like it's got to be Max.
Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
I mean, yeah, yeah, it's the Robert A. Baron Award
we give to the villain of the episode and the
Robert A. Baron. What was the name of the movie?
Was it The Ghost of Christmas?
Speaker 3 (01:04:34):
I think it was called The Ghost of Christmas? So
this goes back to our first episode of season three,
the Ghost of Christmas Always.
Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
Yeah, the Ghost of Christmas Always.
Speaker 3 (01:04:46):
And I think that was the Ghost of Christmas Always.
Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
Is that what it's called? Yeah, it's the Ghost of
Christmas something. It's it's the.
Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
And Robert Baron is supposed to be the bad guy,
but he was the only person in the whole show
who had any sense.
Speaker 2 (01:05:03):
It was like his son was mad at his dad
because his dad wanted him to do things like go
to work and open the store and pay employees.
Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
Also Christmas always.
Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
Yeah, anyway, and of course his name was Robert A Baron,
so yes, so we give the Robert A. Baron Award
to a villain who is actually maybe an undercover good guy.
And I think underneath Max is a good guy because
he was the only person interested in actually finishing the
(01:05:37):
job they were getting paid to do. Right, Yeah, all
of his he he was just trying to keep their
business afloat, and for that he was a villain. Well
all right, so that is that. That is a journey
to Christmas. Any final thoughts, recommendations, anything like that.
Speaker 3 (01:05:58):
A million No, I did like it. I know that
you had the impression that I didn't, but I did.
Like I said, It's not probably one that I feel
like I need to rewatch over and over again every year.
It's not like my absolute favorite, but I definitely enjoyed it.
I would recommend watching. I liked it, and I hope
to see Ashles why in many more to come.
Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
Yeah, I would recommend it too. I have fun watch
it with somebody so that you can post on it
some of the stuff in there. But I definitely enjoyed
this one. It felt like I'll throw back. Well, all right, Amelia,
tell everyone how they can reach out to us and
let us know what they thought.
Speaker 3 (01:06:36):
Yes, you can reach us at a very Merry podcast
at gmail dot com, a very merry podcast on Facebook
and Instagram, and a very merry pod on Twitter.
Speaker 2 (01:06:48):
Well that is fantastic, Amelia, it's time for us to depart.
Before we leave, I would like to wish all of
our listeners a very merry Christmas this year and going
into the new year, we wish you the best. This
is the season when we celebrate our favorite Christmas movies.
(01:07:10):
We celebrate all of the wonderful things at Christmas, but
ultimately we know we are celebrating the birth of our savior,
Jesus Christ, and so we are wishing you a very
merry Christmas from our family to yours. Merry Christmas.
Speaker 9 (01:07:26):
Merry Christmas, Kiara.
Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network,
where Real Talk Lives.
Speaker 7 (01:07:45):
Visit us online at Fcbpodcasts dot com.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!