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Episode 013 - Resting Grinch Face
7 Plays1 year ago
In the first of our two part holiday special, we discuss "holiday adjacent" films; movies set in the holiday season which lack the festive spirit. We cover films from Billy Wilder's The Apartment to Die Hard and Krampus as well as some lesser known holiday cinematic offerings.
Sifting through decades’ worth of mass media consumption, my friend and fellow cinemaphile Scrumpy joins me in discussions on film from the low to high brow
CREDITS:
Intro clip from John McTiernan's "Die Hard" (1988) from Gordon Company and Silver Pictures, distributed by 20th Century Fox
Opening music: https://pixabay.com/music/id-116199/
Closing music: https://pixabay.com/music/id-11176/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Authority
00:00:05
Speaker
Two oceans. Two oceans will begin. We can go anywhere you want. You can walk out of here or be carried out. But have no illusions. We are in charge. So, decide now, each of you.
00:00:37
Speaker
And please remember, we have left nothing to chance. Now I have a machine gun.
Holiday Special Introduction
00:01:14
Speaker
Welcome to the Tuishins Podcast, where myself, Sufire, along with my friend and festive colleague, Scrumpy, discuss film and other media through a decades-long lens of mass media consumption. In this episode, we'll be starting our holiday special, beginning with Christmas-adjacent movies. These are films set in the holiday season, but the festive spirit is definitely not there.
00:01:34
Speaker
Oh, oh, oh.
00:01:36
Speaker
This is the tuitions podcast. So climb in the back of the limo and chill with the bear as we begin episode 13.
Episode 13 and 'The 13th Warrior'
00:01:48
Speaker
Oh, do you know what I was going to do on this? I was going to come up with another list of 13s. And the only one that I could think of was the 13th warrior. It's an Antonio Banderas with Vikings. Oh, yes. And I realized last week we missed one of the biggest 12th floor as well.
00:02:09
Speaker
13th floor. But last week we missed out the dirty dozen. Oh, true. We could have had a big obvious one. Right. Yeah. Cool. But yeah, I can't think. We're just assuming people, you know, that's, that's, that's too pedestrian. That's too beneath us, you know.
00:02:25
Speaker
Yeah.
Podcast Growth and Algorithms
00:02:26
Speaker
Well, this is a big week because as, as, as we got people listening now, well, let me tell you, we got a hundred plus people who have listened to the podcast now. So what the heck?
00:02:40
Speaker
That's, yeah, I don't know where that's come from. Some algorithm somewhere likes us, but like I said- You must know 100 people, I don't know. No, it's not. I didn't tell people and the number got to that. Why would you do that? It pretty much stayed the same. Yeah, I think there's probably some enclave somewhere in the world where they've picked up two oceans. Russian hackers sitting all day in a cave and
00:03:08
Speaker
Oh, it's good discussion. Porto. Crafting statues of us, but because they don't know what we look like, it's kind of a Zardoz type situation. Right, right.
Sight and Sound Top 100 Films Debate
00:03:22
Speaker
Okay, I've got a few bits of movie news straight off the top. So we got the Sight and Sound top 100. Sight and Sound, the controversial Sight and Sound top 100. Controversial to white guys.
00:03:36
Speaker
Mm. Yeah, that that that definitely is is the problem here. Because if you look at the comments, people are saying things like this list is wrong. This is not the right list as if the right list exists. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I could care less if someone's top 100 has Citizen Kane or bad grandpa at the top. You know, that's up to them. I might be worried about them if it was a bad grandpa. I got to say, yeah.
00:04:02
Speaker
That's a cry for help. And some of the comments, I might even agree with if they think, oh, well, this film should be on there. And I might agree with them. But I'm not going to say that the list there is wrong or start attacking the people who participated in it because it's an aggregation. Some of the people who took part, who were part of the calculations of the top 100,
00:04:28
Speaker
probably had a few of their films drop out because what they depend on is other people voting for the same thing that they did. So... Oh, okay. That's how it works. Yeah. Yeah. So they can have these top 100 lists and basically that's why the numbering is so weird. So the number one is the one that showed up the most in the list.
00:04:50
Speaker
And, you know, it starts getting a little bit weirder as you go down. But, you know, I mean, I like these lists just because I think it's a good way of being introduced to new movies and sort of spot the ones, see how many you've watched for one. Right. Do me a favor, though. You're the French speaker. How do you pronounce the one that came up the controversial number one there?
Film Analysis: 'Jeanne Dielman'
00:05:14
Speaker
The controversial number one. The Gene Thelemon.
00:05:18
Speaker
Gene Diehlman, yeah, yeah, and then the rest is just basically the exact address of Gene Diehlman. Yeah. I think it's referred to as Gene Diehlman on its own most of the time. Okay, now, 23, Qadu Comas, 1080 Proxels star, you know.
00:05:34
Speaker
And I found out about that movie through the last list. So that was on the list last time. And it's one of those movies that's quite meditative. It wants to make you bored. That's part of the point. And Tarkovsky actually had a great quote, which I can't remember exactly how it goes.
00:05:57
Speaker
When you look at the screen and you're bored, after a certain point, it changes into something else if you're paying attention. And his movies do that. And yeah, that movie is kind of the same. And it kind of sets you up as you go through the movie. Yeah, no, it's really good. I mean, I think people were making comments like,
00:06:24
Speaker
Well, do you know what the whole thing about the idea that there's a right list? It's like that scene where they're learning how to chart what a good poem is. If you have this or the y-axis, you have this. Look, a good poem is up here in this quadrant. And then Bob and William rightfully tells them to rip those pages out of their books. So yeah, it's frustrating to see some of the comments. But I think most people know better.
00:06:53
Speaker
And oh, yeah. And Celine Shiyama, who I've mentioned a few times, her portrait of a lady on fire seems to upset quite a few people because it's one of the new films and that I mirrored at 30.
Discussion on 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire'
00:07:06
Speaker
But I've seen her entire back catalog and she is consistently good and great and always surprising. I mean, I think I mentioned her during the stop motion episode because she's got a stop motion movie in there.
00:07:19
Speaker
You know, every time she invents herself, but she's just consistently really, really good. If anything, I think Portrait of Lady on Fire is probably her most accessible movie for sure. Sure. But that's what I've heard anyway. I have not seen it myself. So it's it's it flies by. It's it's it doesn't it's it's not one of those meditative movies at all. It goes at a pretty decent clip. But nice.
00:07:46
Speaker
And we only get one of these lists every 10 years. How many more do we have, Nolan? True. That was a good way to think about it. Come down.
00:08:02
Speaker
How many more times do I get to argue about this?
Tribute to Clarence Gilyard
00:08:05
Speaker
Oh, and I got a bit of sad Christmas news. Well, it depends on the way you look at it. Clarence Gileard has passed away and he will be known pretty much as Theo, the safe cracker from Die Hard. Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. He's passed away this weekend. He was in Top Gun as well. And Walker, Texas Ranger.
00:08:28
Speaker
I did see that by looking in the Wikipedia. He was like the other Ming. I mean, you know, such a diverse cast, you know, but you know, they had a black guy. So that was him. But wasn't, I mean, he was really good in Die Hard. Like he's one of the characters that you remember. He didn't, he didn't, if anything, um, the Scandinavians are the ones that used to have Germans you forgot about, you know? Well, except for their horrible German. Yeah.
00:08:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But, you know, there's, you know, I could do a whole thing just on Die Hard and the game changer it was and everything.
'Die Hard' and Its Genre Blending
00:09:03
Speaker
But, you know, in addition to Rickman's brilliant take on the bad guy, right, you have this guy, you know, Theo showing up and the one that just having a sense of humor, kind of like mocking the
00:09:20
Speaker
Efforts of the you know, there's this whole other dimension that we've never seen before and he really leaned into that nicely without being annoying or you know Anything like that. So I mean what what I realized with die hard as well is it has that nice balance of because I rewatched that clip where they open the safe and
00:09:40
Speaker
he was there and he says, Merry Christmas as soon as it's open. But the way that movie makes you root for both sides, that's a punch in the air moment where you're like, they did it. They did the heist. Hang on a second. No, these are not the people that we're rooting for. Well, they tweaked, they pulled, they smashed those two together, an action movie and a heist movie.
00:10:03
Speaker
And they embedded a heist movie, which I love heist movies, and they embedded it inside this actioner where you're, yeah.
00:10:10
Speaker
and you're rooting for the cops, for the cop, but against the police as well, right? Anyway, I could go on. That balancing act between A&E, actually having three sides or four sides, depending on how you look at it, you know. Johnson and Johnson. Johnson and Johnson, FBI. No relation. But is it? That's another theme of some of these Christmas movies on this side of
Dark Christmas Movies
00:10:38
Speaker
the list. Let's see, is it a Christmas movie?
00:10:39
Speaker
Well, okay, so this just to let the audience know that we are doing the yin yang of Christmas movies. And this week we're focusing on the dark side, essentially movies that are set during Christmas.
00:10:56
Speaker
But the Christmas spirit is definitely not there. So your things like Batman Returns, Brazil, Carol, Die Hard, I'd include in there. The thing, the Green Knight to me is another one. The apartment, Krampus, Black Christmas, anything with those evil monstrous Santas. And next week we'll be doing those ones that
00:11:22
Speaker
go all in for the Christmas spirit, but aren't necessarily, you know, tinsel and Santa Claus and all that. So yes. But talking about Die Hard, there's an interesting thing with some of these movies in the list for Christmas. And I suppose it's that whole thing of giving and turning it on its head is that there are a lot of heist.
00:11:43
Speaker
movies in this genre. Yeah. Yes, it's always using the holidays when people are distracted, things are closed, empty, people are not out, so it's a good... It's like that or the
00:11:59
Speaker
Again, the whole sub-genre of storm-related heist movies where there's a massive flood or tornado coming or something like that, and they can use that to take advantage of to try to pull off their heist. Yeah, yeah, totally. And yeah, you got the snow and the sort of seasonal thing kind of going on.
00:12:20
Speaker
So like I was saying, I watched a little special that Mark Kimmerer did on Christmas movies and what I always love about him is he always brings up things that surprise me. So he's brought up a few movies and talking about heist movies, there is one which Bad Santa apparently was inspired by
Heist Films and Seasonal Exploits
00:12:43
Speaker
called The Silent Partner in 1978. Yes, Silent Partner is.
00:12:48
Speaker
Fantastic. I was going to say, if you haven't seen it, you need to see it, but you've seen it. Evil Christopher Plummer. Evil Christopher Plummer. Is there another version? Well, we love him best when he's the captain. Oh, the captain. Yeah. You know, tearing down the Nazi flag.
00:13:05
Speaker
Oh, of course. But but but the whole concept of the silent partner is so good. Yeah, I think a teaser for anyone who hasn't seen it. And I think this this is the kind of synopsis that that will get people hooked is just the idea that Elliott Gould is a bank teller. And he sort of figures out because he finds a discarded, it's a discarded note, right? Sort of
00:13:30
Speaker
a robbery demand note. A failed attempt. Right. And he recognizes the writing of the Santa Claus outside on the sign to the note. And he figures that there's going to be another robbery coming up. So he starts stashing away money instead of putting it in the drawer. He's putting it in his lunchbox or something.
00:13:55
Speaker
And when Christopher Plummer does turn up to rob it, he only gives part of that money, but then tells the bank that he's lost his entire day's earnings, and then it just kicks off from there. So a couple of kind of weird ones. So these are definitely adjacent Christmas movies. There's a movie called Hector with Peter Mullen.
00:14:18
Speaker
And it looks really, really good. It's about a warm hearted kind of homeless man traveling across the country, trying to get to Glasgow. He's got the surgery and all this. And he comes across people that are very giving and people who are not very giving. And it's set during Christmas. But yeah, here are good things about
Highlight on 'Tangerine'
00:14:38
Speaker
that. And I've never even heard of it until Mark Commode had mentioned it.
00:14:43
Speaker
And the other one that Merkhamun mentioned was a movie called Tangerine by a director called Sean Baker, and it's about transgender sex workers in LA, and it kicks off
00:14:58
Speaker
on Christmas Eve and sort of follows over the following days. So it's set during the holiday period. But again, that's meant to be really good. I've seen some clips from it. Absolutely gorgeous. Tropical, sunny, doesn't feel very Christmasy, but the way that Los Angeles is being filmed is glorious. It looks really, really good. Interesting.
00:15:24
Speaker
And were there any specific ones you wanted to highlight on the dark side here from our list?
Is 'Die Hard' a Christmas Movie?
00:15:32
Speaker
Well, it's just more the, and talking about the, you know, the adjacentness of it too, and, you know, fleshing out out a little bit because some of the things, you know, like the case gets made for Die Hard because he is trying to get back with his family and the holiday is supposed to be about, you know, what the holiday is about. It's about family, getting together, giving, being a better person, this sort of thing, right?
00:15:52
Speaker
And so technically he is trying to get back with his family from beginning to end, right? The family's broken. By the end, of course, they're fixed. All you have to do is murder a bunch of people.
00:16:02
Speaker
But it was the path. I think that was important. He didn't need to be. Yeah, it wasn't a Christmasy way of getting to it. Like you said, he had to murder a bunch of people. And he kind of changes, but it's more seeing what he can do under duress and saving her, which saves the wife, which changes her mind and she changes her name back.
00:16:25
Speaker
at the end of the thing. So it's like, oh, good. Woman learned her lesson. You know, it's very, very eighties. Kind of like, oh, that's not the point, guys. So, you know, there's that idea. A strong, independent woman as well, you know. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Holding her own.
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, no, and no gun in her hand. You know, but, you know, some of the some of them don't, you know, do that like I was just watching when I watch first Adams family movie because the wife hadn't seen it and I forgot the open.
00:16:55
Speaker
uh is with Christmas carolers and then it pans up the house to them turning the boiling vat all standing on top and turning the boiling vat down on the carolers you don't see the result but it's like oh that starts it's like you know some people say oh then that you know qualifies that you can watch it at Christmas
00:17:12
Speaker
It's like, well, it's, but nothing else takes place at Christmas and nothing, it hasn't, it doesn't have anything to do with Christmas, you know? So, and some kind of bring up like, maybe seek to define a new definition of what Christmas might be or what it means, you know?
00:17:32
Speaker
or embrace the fantastical.
'Edward Scissorhands' and Christmas Imagery
00:17:36
Speaker
And I'm using that word, the ridiculous version of that word on purpose, because that'd be like Edward Scissorhands, right? It is adjacent, but it's adjacent in using the imagery on purpose. It's very intentional, but it's very intentionally not a Christmas movie either.
00:17:54
Speaker
I completely agree with that one. Because it was a fairy tale, it feels like it should be in the next episode, but it's not really. Right. Same with City of Lost Children. Right. And the guys trying to mine the kids' dreams by pretending to be Santa.
00:18:14
Speaker
lots of Santas. And then, well, then, yeah, that he can't control it. It just gets out of control and showing, you know, it's a nice touch on commercialization, right? You know, it's like, but it's the idea is like, no, here's what Christmas represents. You know, again, it's not a Christmas movie, even though it is about building a family and that sort of thing, you know, out of trial or such to, to an extent, you know, that's part of it.
00:18:37
Speaker
I cannot think of Christmas movies without thinking of that scene. Right. Right. Yeah. That opening scene. Right. Right. If you haven't seen it, go check it out. It's it's a fantastic movie anyway. There's a reindeer as well. Oh, yes. Yeah. That shits on the floor. Yes. So French. So, yeah, but there's some, you know, like the
00:19:02
Speaker
intentionally toy with the imagery rather than saying, you know, this isn't about Christmas, but here's, you know, we can use Christmas as a short, you know, shortcut. Yeah, shortcut to, yeah, to, to fill in for all this other stuff. And so you have so many movies that do that, right? That do fill in that stuff. That's like, okay, we've seen it a hundred times. Once, you know, it's well established there. That's why you can use it this way.
00:19:28
Speaker
Well, John Waters movie, female trouble. And I can't believe I didn't remember this. It kicks off with Christmas because, you know, divine, she's the daughter in the family who wants cha-cha heels for Christmas forever.
00:19:47
Speaker
Yeah, this is the thing. I'd forgotten about it as well. And it kicks off during Christmas morning where she doesn't get cha-cha heels. And, you know, it's one of my favorite lines in a movie ever, is the dad saying, nice girls don't wear cha-cha heels. Cha-heels. And that just kicks her off. You know, she completely goes ape shit after that. Yeah, that's the motivation, right? Yeah. But yeah, others,
00:20:17
Speaker
you know, that are just happened to be set for it for whatever reason. Like, uh, uh, did you get a chance to watch Wolf of Snow Hollow? I did. I did watch Wolf of Snow Hollow. Yeah, that, that's definitely an adjacent one. Yeah, totally. And, and again, it's just using the, uh, kind of the same way the heist movie does, right? It's kind of using it to be like, Oh, here's this thing of comfort and here's what we're, but we're totally, you know, thrown it out of whack. Uh, you shouldn't be comfortable. You know, it's more of a, that's a good,
00:20:46
Speaker
I would say a good horror movie, Tenet, and a lot of the ones that are the dark ones, you know, are intentionally playing with that. You know, Christmas is supposed to be time of, you don't think about the bad things. It's supposed to be, has a certain invulnerability or, you know, because it's so precious and special. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But that scene in City of Lost Children as well,
Pagan Themes in 'Hold the Dark'
00:21:12
Speaker
is a real horror scene. It doesn't hold back and it's, you know, if you're looking at it and it's like everything screams Christmas, but also at the same time, it is terrifying, you know. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. A couple like that. Same with Hold the Dark.
00:21:36
Speaker
occurs during Christmas, but it's that same sort of, again, it's using that backdrop of safety or, you know, what we presume is a safety or something or something being set one way when it's actually not, you know, the nice thing I like about Hold the Dark is it leans more into the idea of, you know, the
00:21:53
Speaker
not explicitly, but you could make the argument that it's leaning more into the more pagan, earthy... Pre-Christmas. ...nature, pre-Christmas, pre-Christian, Christmas takeover. Right. And not in a festival or kind of way, but more in a embracing of that humanity and that thing that the pagan rituals represented much more in connection.
00:22:21
Speaker
with the earth rather than the trappings we've put on top of it. Yeah, no, that's a good point. That's a really good point. Actually, there's one note I've got down here.
Bob Clark's Christmas Duality
00:22:30
Speaker
I've realized that there is one particular director who has a couple of classics that sit on both sides of the yin-yang, and that's Bob Clark with Black Christmas and A Christmas Story. True. Yeah, that's true. I forgot about that, that he did both.
00:22:45
Speaker
Yeah, so you got Black Christmas, which has that, you know, slasher Santa and then you got a Christmas story. And when I tell people, you know, you know, he directed both of these. It's one of those things where they go, yeah, OK. And then they go away and they go on their phone and they go check it. Because it's it's it's so so can't be real. Yeah. Yeah, that's so unbelievable. Right.
00:23:13
Speaker
Did you see, oh, there's a, um, uh, Mark Commode also mentioned, uh, tales from the crypt episode with a maniac Santa in there. No, not details from the crypt episode, but from the movie tales of the, from the crypt. Um, where there's a maniac Santa terrorizing Joan Collins in one of the segments. Yeah, that was it. That was in the movie. And then they redid it for the show that, um,
00:23:38
Speaker
Was it Symechis that did that episode? It was somebody big that did that episode of and it's excellent. Yeah. And it also reminded me, I don't know. Did you see the Love, Death and Robots Christmas episode as well? Did I? I don't remember now. OK, I'll remind me. I'll give you a bit of a reminder. So so so it's it's it's done in CG, just beautiful, kind of very cute characters, two kids, sister and brother.
'Love, Death & Robots' Christmas Episode
00:24:06
Speaker
are in bed and it's Christmas Eve, it's dark, but there are Christmas lights everywhere. It's colorful, it's snowing outside. Everything screams Christmas and they kind of hear this noise and it's not a nice noise. It's like scratching like a
00:24:23
Speaker
It's something going across the floor and they're like, oh, Santa's here. And so they go out and they go to the living room and yeah, don't want to spoil it, but it's good. And it doesn't hold back because it is love, death and robots.
00:24:45
Speaker
And it's so good. It's so good. That one, despite what happens next, might sort of fit into the latter episode because it is kind of Christmasy, while also being a bit Lovecraftian as well.
00:25:03
Speaker
Yeah, because it is low death and robots. Yeah, it's right. Anyway, well, that's the other thing, too, with we mentioned, I mentioned Edward Scissorhands, I think, and, you know, you mentioned Batman Returns as well, both Burton using Christmas, right, as a what's also such a
00:25:24
Speaker
and waters, I guess, would be in the same way. The kitschiness that's inherent, at least in American. Yeah. It feels kind of gothic though, in a way, when you think of the old Christmas, like the traditional Christmas, because you're thinking of Victorian London, right? Let's say you're looking at Europe versus the US. Right. Still Western, but
Cultural Depictions of Christmas
00:25:48
Speaker
very distinct. And what we, you know, ours is Norman Walkwell, yours is, you know, Dickens. Oh, and we also have the Evil Santa thing going on over here as well. And Evil Santa, the ghost stories.
00:26:04
Speaker
Yeah, because when I was living in Prague, one of the traditions that they have in Christmas is, this was a surprise to me, as people go around, there's one person dressed as Jesus, you know that really woke guy?
00:26:19
Speaker
And one is the devil with the red horns and tail and pitchfork and all of it. And basically, they go around to people's houses, and you bring the kids out, and there you have someone dressed as Jesus or an angel and the devil. And some of their costumes are really, really terrifying.
00:26:45
Speaker
But definitely not things that you would have in the States or nothing like I'd ever seen before. Yeah, wouldn't fly. Yeah, wouldn't fly. They'd be shot. Yeah, of course they would. So we take care of things here. You wouldn't even need to do that much to get shot though. No, exactly true. Yeah. Merry Christmas, bang. Well, you said Merry Christmas. I'm sorry.
00:27:12
Speaker
Oh, uh, Mark did mention one that I think we, we probably would have seen because as, as, as during that sort of period in the nineties, when we're both, you know, really into watching sort of videos and, and some of the B movies and stuff is transfers.
00:27:30
Speaker
I don't know if you remember that. Um, Helen Hunt's actually in it. Uh, it's got that nineties action staple, Tim Thomerson, you know, and he's a time traveling police detective from the 23rd century. And it's got that really interesting idea around time travel where they kind of take a drug, they inject themselves and it allows them to go back into the body of one of their ancestors.
00:27:56
Speaker
and that's a trancer, right? But it's weirdly enough, and I'd seen the movie way back when, kind of forgot about it, but it turns out it's set during Christmas, and there's actually a scene at the beginning when the guy he's hunting down
00:28:15
Speaker
is pretending to be a Santa Claus in a mall. So yeah, as you do. Interesting. And I'll have to, I haven't seen that in forever. I remember it being that great, but it's Tim Jones. I think it's Charles Band did that too. I think that's one of those, has that kind of feel to it as well, you know, the full moon.
00:28:36
Speaker
features. There's quite a feel to it. But one, and we peek behind the curtain for you listeners at home, we share notes and information on this sort of thing as we're planning this. And so we list the movies and then we're calling out, just kind of marking the ones we're terming as adjacent or not. But you put adjacent for rare exports. Yes. Defend yourself.
00:28:58
Speaker
Well, okay, so the reason I put it as adjacent, and I didn't like that term adjacent anyhow, because that could practically include anything. Anything, right, yeah. It happens on Earth, that's adjacent. Right, right. In my mind, anything with that sort of evil, nasty Santa that might just be some other weird entity or some god from pre-Christian era like you were mentioning before,
00:29:26
Speaker
I kind of think is outside the holy, the holy W-H-O-L-L-Y Christmas idea. And again, sort of similar to Die Hard, the way that they need to overcome it is through, at least in part, violence. And it just turns everything up over in its head, even though,
00:29:51
Speaker
all the component parts are Christmasy. Like you can have Santa, you can have a sleigh, you can have Christmas tree, you can have all these elements in there. But if the spirit of giving and getting close to the family and all of this isn't integral to it, I consider that adjacent.
00:30:17
Speaker
Gotcha. Okay. I guess that makes sense. Because I think of it more because of the kids' obsession with Santa Claus. Sure, sure. And then discovering the true identity or nature of Santa Claus, which never manifests.
'Rare Exports' and Violent Themes
00:30:38
Speaker
It almost does. Right.
00:30:39
Speaker
It's a spoiler but they come close to it but then it doesn't and they're saved and they can commercialize it at that point, which is just a nice little.
00:30:52
Speaker
touch, I thought, on it there, so. I mean, just love movies like that, that just go for it, right? Don't hold back. Just completely go for it, because there's no point in trying to keep one foot into the, you know, the traditional. Well, that and, we'll go back to my thing, you know, again, European films, I think, are better about this than
00:31:15
Speaker
American ones that the children are indeed in danger. They're not just threatened, but never in peril, but never threatened. No, they're definitely in danger and the kids are ready to die at the end of it. They're totally ready to die. The kids are all getting taken the whole Krampus thing and there's a definite menace that's much more real to it that way.
00:31:42
Speaker
Well, this time of year, there are a lot of movies that get released where they think, okay, we'll just take out all the darkness, just make it happy. And, and, and, and I think, I think just it, you know, it's just like trying to make something and you just put sugar in, right? It's like, it's not going to work. It's not going to stay together. It's.
00:32:00
Speaker
Um, and, and, you know, you get those nauseating kind of Hallmark type movies that, that are just turned out like machinery year on year on year. Um, you know, it's a romance during Christmas. Okay. You know, um, but Mark Kermode made, it made a good point about some of the movies. Like if you think about a movie like Gremlins, right? Which was,
00:32:22
Speaker
kind of silly set during Christmas, kind of campy villains and you know the whole thing. But then you had that weird bit with Phoebe Cates where she stops and says, you know, she found out that Santa Claus didn't exist because
00:32:39
Speaker
they found her father dead in a chimney, right? And it's a really solemn scene and it's sitting there, but it takes away some of that sweetness, you know, that would have made it go over the top. But I thought that was an interesting point because as I always remember that scene kind of sticking out a little bit and yeah, yeah. And then it made me think about all these ads I'm seeing at the moment for, you know,
00:33:06
Speaker
Christmas with a family and castle for Christmas. Yeah. Well, my, you know, I always remember that bit just because they, uh, in this gremlins sequel, they make fun of it. Cause you know, she's all bummed out at Christmas, can't handle it. And then what is the next one? Like Lincoln's birthday. And so she's got, Oh, this traumatic event just happens to be on Lincoln's birthday. It's a joke.
00:33:31
Speaker
Which yeah, Gremlins 2, if you haven't seen it, is very much worth seeing. For folks out there in the listening land, because it's a sequel that shouldn't have been made. Clearly a cash-in, but my favorite thing was the key and peel skit they did about pitching.
00:33:53
Speaker
the supposed pitch meeting. Oh, I haven't seen that. Oh my God. Go watch it after we're done here. Because the best thing about it, you know, it's like Jordan Peele comes in as like the, you know, the Svengali, you know, extra, you know, spiritual advisor and people are just like,
00:34:13
Speaker
They're going pretty straightforward with it until he comes into the meeting around a table and he's like, everybody gets to design and pick their own gremlin. And they're like, what about a gremlin that is electric? And he describes the one from it that becomes a cartoon. And they're like, it's in the movie, next. And the best thing about it was it picked up popularity after it came out and Joe Dante retweeted. He's like, yeah, that's actually pretty close to how that pitch meeting went.
00:34:40
Speaker
Right. It was like, that's actually pretty cool. You guys did a pretty good job of actually. Oh, Key and Peele are so good. But anyway, it's still related because it's about Gremlins and Gremlins. It's great. Other adjacent movies. I think there's a whole raft of these and those are the war movies that are set during Christmas.
00:35:04
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Or the war movies that like invoke Christmas by bringing in like a song. And there was one that Mark Kermode had mentioned, which was The Victors, which I've not seen. But there he played a clip and it basically features Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas during an execution.
00:35:30
Speaker
in the snow in this field. So I'm going to try to look that one up. That looks really good. And this was an interesting one because I'd missed this movie because it wasn't getting great word of mouth. But the Monuments Men, you know, George Clooney's World War II movie about, you know, the team that has to go out and try to save these works of art. But he's classified that as a Christmas movie. And he
00:35:59
Speaker
He played a clip where Bill Murray is kind of hearing the Christmas tunes and you can see he's not, he's choking up and yeah, I might give that one a shot. Have you seen it?
00:36:11
Speaker
No, no, I know. You know, I gave it a miss. And I usually I think George Clooney is actually a pretty talented director. I, you know, good night and good luck. I I really enjoyed. But I heard kind of mixed things about the same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you brought up on the list as a Jason that I totally again, obviously like you forget about the ones when they're Jason, which is kind of the point or yeah. The proof in the pudding.
00:36:41
Speaker
for calling them Christmas edition. And that's the value for us reminding our listeners. That's right. We do the hard work so you don't have to. But The Apartment, which is if you want an anti-Christmas sentiment movie that does not seem like it, but really is, I mean The Apartment is just such a fantastic story. I mean the script is so good.
00:37:05
Speaker
Well, Billy Wilder, Lemon McLean, this nail. I mean, just crush it. I mean, it is so good, but it's tough. It's a tough watch.
00:37:12
Speaker
because they are so alone and it's just that, you know, that when Wilder usually plays with that, how oppressive or indifferent the world can be and in the apartment and setting it at the Christmas time, you know, it's just holding that up as like, look, it's not a time of togetherness for everyone. There's a brokenness that really shines through or, you know, a lot of people that get, you know, season-effective disorder or something like that. Christmas is not a happy time for everyone.
00:37:40
Speaker
you know, regardless of religion or anything else, you know, this is the time that, you know, the overwhelming Christian, Western Christian settlement, sentiment of it, you know, of like, Oh, it's supposed to be like this. It's like, okay, it's not that way for all of you, much less, you know, so we just dig in.
00:37:57
Speaker
harder? You know, do we do the Michael Caine, Christmas Carol, Muppets thing? You know, we're going to play this serious while everything else is happy and crazy. And that's one of the best. Oh, absolutely fantastic. The way we will get to that in the next episode. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But that idea, right, of just like you reinforce, you know, you just double down on it. It's like, no, it's got to be happy and hopeful. And we're going to make it so saccharine. You're going to have visual diabetes by the end of the
00:38:26
Speaker
by the end of watching this, you know, Hallmark, Lifetime, looking at you guys. Right, no, totally. I mean, that's another sort of type of movie. So you talk about sort of the loneliness there with sort of individuals, but there's also a huge raft of Christmas set movies that are about families coming together.
00:38:48
Speaker
and not the Hallmark kind of way. Because again, that could be stressful for people and also not all families get along or having some kind of reunion with people that they haven't seen in a long time. Well, let's say that pinged Kids in the Hole movie, Brain Candy.
00:39:07
Speaker
Because there's one of the scenes in there is the the mother the old mother who just her happiest moment is this Christmas morning Where it's the kids coming, you know her son comes in with his wife and his terrible children They all just yell at each other. They're smoking drinking. It lasts for about like two minutes And it's absolutely terrible. They're like, okay, we made our Christmas appearance mile. We got to go. Thanks. Bye and that to her is her happiest memory, you know, it's again and
00:39:33
Speaker
so brutally sad that that's our happiest. And it's funny, you know, they're making fun of it right at the same time.
00:39:40
Speaker
But it's just, it's so brutal, but then it's like, Oh yeah, no, that's, that all takes place at Christmas. Right. And that's, and that's again, it's that imagery versus reality. And then the point they're making with the, with the, in the movie, you know, the, with the drug, the happiness drug that allows you to capture and hang on to a single memory, uh, like the idealized versus the real. Oh, I remember it now. It's been a while. I watched that when it came out. Good to see that the kids in the hall are back, by the way. Oh yes.
00:40:10
Speaker
Yeah, so I put down the Green Knight as Jason as well. And I think that's a good example of it doesn't take very much to sort of indicate that it's a Christmas movie because as in that movie, everything is kind of medieval and dark, you know, it's set during King Arthur's reign and all this. And it's done in a really, really gritty, convincing way. And in fact, the Green Knight
00:40:36
Speaker
that look and feel so won me over that when, um, the Northman came out, I felt the Northman felt very fake. You know, you know what I mean? I kept comparing it to the green night and it always, it lost. Um, but the green night, uh, have you, have you seen it by the way? And that opening scene when the giant comes in and the horse and he's, he's only got a bunch of Holly, you know, in his hand and
00:41:06
Speaker
you're told it's Christmas, but that's the only indication aside from there being lots of candles and people are having a meal, um, that it is Christmas day, but, uh, and, and actually the whole movie is set during Christmas time because we don't see the year that advances the following to the following year. Um, but it, yeah, uh, again,
00:41:31
Speaker
it's a lot more sort of philosophical and not sort of Christmas specific around what we usually sort of think around and Christmas spirit. Well, and again, I think it gets to that same, you know, Arthur representing the Western Christian idea a bit, and then the Green Knight and the himself, you know, being almost, you know, literally almost of the earth.
00:41:57
Speaker
And being this like, there's a natural balance that needs to be struck that's out of whack. And the thing about Christmas being the time to do that, kind of the airing of the grievances of Festivus sort of thing, the idea that, yes, it's an anniversary, but it also, why the pagan holiday fell at this time of year,
00:42:22
Speaker
was for renewal and return and rebalance and this sort of idea that that's what he represents and that's what the main character kind of has to reconcile within himself, his hopes and his dreams and his wants.
00:42:40
Speaker
what humanity hopes for best and what they realize they need, what they want to do versus what they need to do, right? And so that's very a Christmas, but pagan Christmas idea. Maybe that's another sub genre, something pagan Christmas movies.
00:42:56
Speaker
or even having pagan Christmas movies or even in that whole sort of Fisher King idea of, you know, you've got this idea in your head of what you most want, but what you really need is right there. You know, you just need to reach out and grab it and talk about sort of the family reunion movies as well. I suppose Fanny and Alexander sort of fits into that as well. I mean, that that's like a huge epic. It's kind of hard to sort of slot that in as something. But, you know, it is sort of set during the holiday. It is. That's right.
00:43:26
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of just a lot of emotional shortcuts that you can use Christmas, setting something at Christmas for, you know, that puts you in a, as a viewer, puts you in a different frame of mind. Oh, it totally does. I think so. And that's just whether you, you know, bump up against them and try to redefine them.
00:43:47
Speaker
Or, you know, just utilize them for, you know, standing in for something else. And I think that's what the, I think that's really what the adjacent movies accomplish or managed to use Christmas as a
00:44:01
Speaker
almost ironically, you know, like Brazil, you know, people are, you know, he goes to his dentist, uh, played by Michael Palin and Michael Palin's got like a box full of wrapped presents for the same case, you know, yeah, take one, you know, and then that, yeah, that whole movie was kind of, um,
00:44:20
Speaker
Yeah, anti-capitalist, which actually, and we'll get into this in more detail in terms of Christmas movies, they are very socialist, strictly speaking. And I kind of alluded earlier that, you know, Jesus, what a woke guy that was. It totally is, by definition.
00:44:39
Speaker
And, um, you know, you look, yeah, I don't want to get too much into it, but it's a wonderful life is extremely socialist movie in today's standards. Yeah. Yeah. We'll talk about, but yeah, it got camera in a lot of trouble. I was just saying there's one more on the list that, again, it's another one you brought up a bunch here that I'm like, God, it's been too long since I've seen that. I'm just going to have to, I'm going to trust you. Uh, you list, uh,
00:45:01
Speaker
Yeah, he listed Go. Go. So that is set during Christmas. And this is the same. We're talking about the whatever it was, early mid-90s, multi-story. Okay. Yeah. I think he got some accusations of, oh, you know, you're just trying to be kind of Tarantino. Tarantino rip off. Yeah. But it's not. But it's not. It's got a different texture than Tarantino's movies. It actually has some insights rather than
00:45:30
Speaker
Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Yeah, the characters were, you know, we actually kept the characters on screen long enough to actually feel like you got to know them, you know. Yeah, it's like it doesn't all work, but that's the point of a anthology, right? Right. They can't all be, you know, one of my favorite lines for pretty much anything now comes from Bad Sand. I was like, they can't all be winners.
00:45:54
Speaker
That's for the next episode, but that just, you know, but it's very true, right? It's like, you know, an anthology and something like that. But yeah, and yeah, using Christmas is that again, shortcut, right? Right. We have we have setting established. We don't have to, especially when you're doing multiple stories taking place over the same period of time, just with different perspectives or whatnot. You don't need to, you know, you want to have that shortcut. You need.
00:46:16
Speaker
That shorthand to be like, okay, we don't have to reestablish. Oh, now it's summer for this person or now this person's on the moon or whatever. That's like, no, it's Christmas. Done. Move. Go. You already know what's happening. So that's kind of a, it's kind of a nice way to do that. You know, I'm surprised there aren't more stories like that, like the go utilized in that fashion that are set at Christmas because of that same thing, right?
00:46:41
Speaker
It's like you don't have to reinvent the wheel. I think, again, to bleed a little into the next one, like Harold and Kumar gets a little close, their Christmas movie gets a little close to that, because they can just do the wacky situations, but it's still Christmas, so they can use that line, right? And they're like, dude, it's Christmas. Don't kill us, it's Christmas, or whatever it might be.
00:47:08
Speaker
You know, the other adjacent to Home Alone, you know, a lot of people are like, Oh, it's such a good holiday movie. I'm like, it's not a holiday movie. I mean, it's about the importance of family in that sense, but it's also your kids. Yeah. Well, be rich enough.
00:47:25
Speaker
Oh, geez. Be rich enough to fly, you know, 15 people to Paris for Christmas, and then you forget one kid because there's just so much going on. You know, it's just like... We've got so many rooms in our house. We can't keep track of everything. Possibly, yeah. Oh, there was a kid that got away. And then I didn't see the... They did a recent reboot, a remake of that.
00:47:50
Speaker
where the criminals are much more sympathetic. The kid gets- Oh, right. Oh, I've heard about that. Yeah. He gets something that they had to sell all their stuff because they lost their jobs, and he gets something at their garage sale that didn't mean to sell. It was of real value, and they're trying to get back in and get it back.
00:48:08
Speaker
Oh, interesting. That's interesting. But they still do the same thing of with the with the original of like, but you're still going to root for the kid to keep the house. Like, OK, the kid, you know, they travel to the rich part of town where the kid lives, where the kid's stuck. And, you know, he's living, he's just living this indulgent, you know, privileged thing. And then like, so he's the good guy. Wait a minute. Yeah, it's not right. Not very good things about it. It had it.
00:48:37
Speaker
It was a shame because it's got the kid from Jojo Rabbit in it. They had a Jojo Rabbit's best friend. And it's a pity because, yeah, I really liked him, Jojo Rabbit. Really liked him, but nah. And then Home Alone, and I think you mentioned this before, is based on the French movies at Deadly Games.
00:48:58
Speaker
which I'll code Santa or. Yeah. Code. Peri-Noel. Heidenfreak. It's got so many names. I've never seen so many names in so many different ways. But apparently, yeah, I've got to check that one out. I haven't had too much time this week just because of.
00:49:18
Speaker
All the promo stuff this week, but yeah, I will try to catch up with that. Yeah. What else do we have here? Remember the night is one that Mark Cremon mentioned. It's 1940. It's got Barbara Stanwyck. She's a shopkeeper, and she has to go back to her family. She gets a lift with Fred McMurray, who's the district attorney.
00:49:42
Speaker
And that setup right there just sounds like fun, you know, right there. That sounds good. And Fred McMurray's in the apartment as well.
00:49:52
Speaker
Oh, is he? I don't remember. Yes, he is. He's he's he's like the like the boss in the company that goes to Jack Laman and says, Hey, you got a room? Yeah, that'd be really good. You know, yeah. And another new one that got added to our list, at least new for like for us, as well as the Kurosawa film scandal, I was going to have not seen it's on the Criterion channel. So I've got it in the queue. Haven't watched it yet, but
00:50:22
Speaker
And yeah, more Christmas adjacent. Yeah. Just due to the fact that, you know, it's how the Japanese treat Christmas as a whole other kettle of fish. Pucky fried chicken. Yes. KFC. Yeah. Yep. Thanks to the, yeah, that was the end. That was like starting in the seventies or something, right? Well, we've got Santa because of Coca-Cola, don't we? So basically, yeah. So.
00:50:44
Speaker
Uh, but, uh, yeah, the same year you made Russia money made this other, like one that's supposed to be about, you know, reconciliation and family and, uh, missed opportunity and that sort of thing. And just in the brief summary I read for about it. And it is, uh, the scandal at the core is what a tabloid trying to try and make up a story around, uh, uh, the guy or his daughter or something like that is some relation.
00:51:11
Speaker
to it. And so, you know, was he a failed parent or not versus the guy that's helping him out being a better person, you know, the sort of contrast and, um, okay. Well, yeah, that's the whole spirit thing. Like I said, you don't need the Christmas trappings if you've got all that, you know, um, Oh, interesting. Yeah. That surprises me. And Russia man's awesome. That's a, that's a great movie. Um,
00:51:35
Speaker
So I think we pretty much hit everything on our list. Um, I think I didn't finish sort of marking everything as adjacent on here, but I think, I think we hit aside from Anna and apocalypse, which I've not seen yet. Um, is that again, it is just because it uses the thing, the, the, the, the reason they're able to survive or something is, you know, it's the, they're having the Christmas pageant and then, you know, things are,
00:51:59
Speaker
They're thinking about a lot of things and they're trying to tap the kids, the teenagers are trying to kind of tap into the Christmas sentiments, the popular Christmas sentiments of Christmas romance and time for positivity and optimism and sort of, and everything's falling apart around them. So it becomes a musical as well as zombie movie, as well as teen.
00:52:25
Speaker
Uh, movie. So it kind of works, but yeah, it's, but it's set during Christmas because then there's a lot of people gone or a lot of services are unavailable. You know, people have to rely more. Again, it's that whole setup, right? Uh, where they have to, uh, there's a lot of things that all of a sudden.
00:52:42
Speaker
that are normally available or people are around to do X, Y, or Z that are not. And so that's more the tying into the zombie apocalypse thing of like, okay, you're already, how to make the situation a little, or turn it on its head to make it a little worse.
00:53:02
Speaker
That just reminded me the movie Carol as well set during Christmas is the sort of 1950s lesbian love story. It's interesting because I'm not 100% I mean, and I can see why they've they've said it during Christmas because it is quite interesting because everybody seems to be everybody's rushing around trying to get a gift. They're happy.
00:53:22
Speaker
And who would have thought there had been gay people at that time, you know, hovering around the fringes. But again, it gives that kind of contrast to everyone else and how everybody else can kind of go on with their lives without an issue. And then you have got your sort of main two protagonists who are kind of living in the midst of this, who are trying to enjoy it, you know, but there are all kinds of barriers to them doing that.
00:53:51
Speaker
I guess that's another thing to put on there, another qualifier for the ideal, the Christmas ideal that's put out there is the family, the safety, the whiteness of it, but also the straightness of it as well. And there's a couple movies that people, the sons coming home to be with the family doesn't want.
00:54:15
Speaker
because he's not out to his parents. And so he has to bring the friend along to, or she, you know, there's one, there was one with Kristen Stewart where she did that too, that actually worked.
00:54:26
Speaker
kind of well. Well, that fits into the tradition because as we already talked about, you know, the whole family get together, a reunion kind
Family Reunions in Christmas Films
00:54:34
Speaker
of thing. And that's just a, that's, that's, I'm not saying it's redundant. I've been saying it's another sort of spin on that kind of type of Christmas movie, a sub genre Christmas movie, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's more of the idea. Yeah.
00:54:49
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we've got a few few movies that I think we've probably going to get people interested in and we've got a few that we need to watch. Right. And the idea being that just because it's, you know, just because it's set at Christmas doesn't mean it's a Christmas movie, you know, just because Christmas happens to be there, you know, don't be fooled. Doesn't necessarily mean it's a Christmas movie.
00:55:16
Speaker
That's what to think about. A non-Christmas movie set during the holidays. Actually, talking about at sort of foreign countries and the different ways that they view these movies. Anywhere else in the world, planes, trains, and automobiles gets included as a Christmas movie.
00:55:32
Speaker
But it's Thanksgiving, right? Yeah, but we don't have Thanksgiving anywhere else. That's right. OK. And the meal, the traditional meal is, yeah. Yeah. But if you think about it as well, that sort of Christmas spirit element of it is there. Oh, definitely. So does it need to be set during that time? Have you got that particular spirit kind of thing? I don't know. I think you excuse some of the schmaltz when you're talking about it being a Christmas movie, that if you'd set it in July,
00:56:00
Speaker
it might not work. No, I would say it definitely wouldn't work. You need the that pull of the this is a time for family. Yeah. You know, not a time to be in, you know, there's so inconvenience of travel, but, you know, it's all worth it for family and what and what what the characters learn, what they learn about themselves and how to be better humans. You know, that's kind of the whole thing at the end, right?
00:56:28
Speaker
Yeah, I would say it's definitely. I mean, even though it takes place at Thanksgiving, it's much more a Christmas movie idea or. I mean, in the States, I consider the holiday season from like the end of November through to Christmas anyhow. It's just like all part of one big thing. The goalposts being Thanksgiving and New Year's, you know.
00:56:50
Speaker
Totally. I think we've come up to the end of this episode and so we'll be doing the bright side next. We'll be so happy you're gonna get sick. Yeah, the happiness diabetes is on the right and I can't do this.
00:57:40
Speaker
Two oceans.