Blank Check with Griffin & David - A Christmas Carol with Emily VanDerWerff

Episode Date: December 13, 2020

What's today? Why its Christmas Carol day! Film critic Emily VanDerWerff (Vox) returns to discuss Disney's 2009 take on the classic holiday tale. The gang talks Jim Carrey's career, the best and worst Christmas movies, and Keeping up with the Clauses. Check out untitled slow christmas compilation volume 1! Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch @ shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

Right Jack with Griffin and David Right Jack with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is right Jack On the first day of Christmas My true love sent to me a podcast in a pod tree. On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me. Two podcast dogs and a podcast in a pod tree.

I did this to myself. On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to myself. On the third day of Christmas, I choose to be a true love cent. 3 podcast, 2 podcast doves, and a podcast in a pod tree. I-I-this song doesn't have anything to do with a Christmas Carol, right? Just checking. I don't actually- On the third day of Christmas. It's a carol.

It's a carer like these. You love Christmas cars. You're a carer, Christmas carer. For the carer. For the carer. For the carer. For the carer. For the carer. For the carer. For the carer.

For the carer. For the carer. For the carer. For the carer. For the carer. For the carer. For the carer. For the carer.

For the carer. For the carer. For the carer. For the carer. For the carer. For the carer. For the carer. For the carer. For the carer. Before you could do a chorus, Miss my true love sent to me. Five podcasts. That's the podcast. Four podcasts, three podcasts, two podcasts, and a podcast in a pod tree.

This is why you guys are in the lead for the Pee Body this year, right? Like this is the reason? Yeah, this is our mission. There will be a mission longer in our sites. We want the Pee Body this year, right? Like this is this is the reason. Yeah, this is our mission longer in our sites. We want the Pee Body on the six days. Miss my true love sent to me six pods of casting five podcasts. Oh boy. Four podcasts. This is making me like the movie podcast of the end of podcast in a pod tree. Podcast do win people your words. I have a whole category for it. You should submit to the P bodies in a submission episode. Yeah. On the seven day of Christmas. I have Christmas, my funeral right now. Sent to me.

Submit to Peabody. Seven pods of casting, six pods of casting, five pod casts, four pod casts, three pod casts, three pod casts, two pod casts, two pod casts, two pod casts, two pod casts, and a pod cast, three pod casts, three pod casts, three pod casts, three pod casts, three pod casts, And the hot pot in the hot pot tree. Well, the harmony is there. So we got to seven. We got to swans of swimming, which I believe you put as pods of casting. Is that right?

Correct. And no, we got to eight. Excuse me. We got to eight. So, me and Milken, which you put as a pods of casting, am I right? No, actually, David, I'm sorry. That was a visit from the ghost of bits future. I hadn't gone to any of you.

Yeah, it is on the day of Christmas. My true love sent to me eight pods of casting seven pods of casting six pods of casting five podcasts. Four podcasts. Four podcasts. Three podcasts. Two podcasts casting five podcasts. Four podcasts three podcasts to podcast. And Hello everybody and welcome to God tree. Hello everybody, and welcome to Ho ho ho, Mary Blanktrek.

Good, good. This is our, you know, the appropriate. I was gonna say this is our last episode before Christmas, but it is and it's two weeks before Christmas, right? It's December 13th, so, but you know, it's the season, as they say. Tis the season to be casting. I mean, you got to get flight in before Christmas.

Like that's it. Right, flight will be our actual Christmas episode. We're landing the fly right before Christmas. Our plan for the time being tentatively is to roll it. I should mention that. We're going to roll it. It's not a reference to flight. Yeah, I feel like we're going to roll it for a brief period of time,

was up there with the duly appointed federal marshals, and we're going to get over on all these guys. It's got to be the best we ever did. Am I rolling out my way? We're going to roll it. We're going to roll it. It was a pretty major trailer line for a little bit. Oh, yeah. If you saw any movie in like 2012, you heard you're going to we're going to roll it.

Yeah. But the answer is David is mortified of planes and he probably covered his eyes every time the trailer came up. Yeah. I mean, I know that the plane is upside down or something. We're going to roll it. We're going to roll it. Right.

Right. Right. And I know Goodman is involved. And then they're in maybe in Congress or something. There's some sort of hearing at some point. That's all I really know. Look, you're going to see the movie very soon. It's the next episode we're recording, obviously. And I don't want to spoil anything for you.

But I just want to say, the movie might finally answer whether or not John Goodman's character has sympathy for the devil. I'm trying to be as oblique here as possible, but the movie might provide an answer as to what and it might be pretty clear. Yes, I'll go in with that now. I have no idea where to put the film. When I was here to talk about Alice in Wonderland, we talked about planes a lot. And flight is part of the plane's expanded universe.

So we talked about the Pixar, well not Pixar, but the Disney tunes. Right. Disney's the planes. Yes. Yes. It's planes, then planes, fire and rescue, and then planes were going to roll at a K.A. flight. It was retitled flight in America. In Europe, it was released as planes, Colin, were going

to roll it. They should bring back planes and put Sony in it. Look, we can't talk about planes again in a way that's like, if we already did a plane spit, we got to, we got to flex our muscles. We got to do something new here. If, if they told me that Sully played a plane in planes three, I, I would, I would see it. You, you know it. I would, not only that, I'd, I'd see it in theaters during COVID. I would go to a public screening during COVID. If they were like surprise, third plane movie and Sully has one scene. I just taught, I just brought up airplanes so I could open the door just to crack and dangle a little sign that sets Sully through the door and see if you took the bait and you

performed marvelously. Thank you, Blitz. Yeah, we're pretty easy marks, I would say. Yeah. By this point, people will have heard our castaway episode, where Nia De Costa in real time, it tries to interrogate us on whether or not the Sully thing is a bit the way our Reddit has been trying to do for the last five years. That movie is very good. It is not a bit. It's not a bit. I swear to God, it's a great movie she did she also goes in on you know Clint Eastwood's whole you know concrete and fluorescent lighting you know 2010's uvra but whatever

yeah absolutely not wrong solely rules but this is a holiday episode of Blank Check a podcast about homographies directors who have massive success early on in their career and are given a series of Blank Check's, make whatever crazy passionate projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes, ho ho ho, they bounce baby. This is a mini series on the films of Robert Zimakis,

the notorious Bobby Z, and today we're talking about a Christmas movie, a Christmas Carol, the movie that forced him into early retirement as a mocap filmmaker. Did he admit that? Did he say like, okay, I took it as far as it could go? Or what did he say? Like they just cost you much money and they stopped doing it. David, we're going to get into it because I think there's an element here that you're or what did he say, like, they just cost you much money and they stopped doing it. David? David, we're gonna get into it because I think there's an element here

that you're forgetting, but we will unpack it. Our guest today. Sure, yes, I'm curious to say it. By popular demand, and I should make it clear, she is always a much demanded guest for turn appearances by our listeners. But in this case, as demanded by herself to come on to think about this movie,

we in an early episode of this main series said, what the fuck are we gonna do for that episode we're gonna be so burnt out on these mocap things by that point who wants to talk about that and right in the inbox an email that took many months for me to actually respond to yes I thought I had offended someone I was like oh well that it won't happen but you know no here's what's happened I've gotten to a point where I can no longer distinguish between things I've done and things I've thought about doing Yes

Fair true for all of us I lie in bed every night and I go have I not brush my teeth or have I done it three times in the last 10 minutes And I don't know and sometimes I get up and do it a fourth time. And sometimes I don't do it at all. Emily Vanderwerf, the great from Vox, from the National Flutterwacken Championships of 2018. I think that's when you won. Yeah, I think that was your year though, right? Yeah, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much. It's so good to be here. I go ahead. And self-proclaimed Christmas fanatic. That's the key detail. We want to throw out here as I open up a can of Christmas Bud Wizer.

It's a late night record. It's a boring movie. I felt like it was time to drink some Christmas Bud on Mike. I got a Christmas green tea right here, my friend. Okay. Okay. I got a Christmas Bud. But Emily, you're a big Christmas fan and you're a big Christmas Carol fan, correct?

Yes. Yes. I feel as though me appearing on a Christmas edition of Blankcheck is like a prophecy somewhere, like somewhere in like a temple somewhere, there's like a man who's like saying, oh, he saw this drop into his Spotify feed And he says, oh prepare the hair olds because like he's just fucking ready for it. But yeah, I love this I love this story. I love Christmas as David can attest going back many years So yeah, I'm so happy to be here and so happy to be talking about one of the ugliest movies ever made

This is the headline for me because, because we've watched two of these uglys, three of these uglys in a row. I'm gonna agree with what you're about to say, I think. I think I think I know what you're gonna say, and I agree. I don't know if I'm gonna say what you think I'm about to say. My point is, we've been bumping uglys three weeks in a row, right? We have.

Straight uglys in this run. You thought I was about to say this is the best looking of the three? No. Okay, because Bay Wolf's the best looking of the three, right? I thought you were about to say this is the worst looking of the three and I agree to my astonishment. I think polar express is the worst looking of the three, but it is astonishing that this movie is so boring that that quality over rules how ugly looking it is.

We kind of like Bay of Wolf, but of course you have to admit this thing looks like garbage. We hate polar expester more, and of course it has to be admitted. A huge part of that is that it looks like garbage. And this, I could talk for two hours about how boring it is before I really started packing how ugly it looks. Um, yeah, I, I think that at least polar expresses a train. I think a train looks better in this because it's metal. I think I think this is a world geared towards metal. You know, I think all of Zemeckis's MoCat movie should have been about metal people and things. And it's just when you bring skin into the game, you're in trouble.

And that's why I will pick Polar Express over Christmas Carol, both as a movie and as a thing to look at anyway. I'll say this too. I mean, obviously Polar Express is, you know, working with earlier stages of technology. It's at a disadvantage in that way. But from a design standpoint, Polar Express is a thousand percent more aesthetically pleasing than this movie.

And Polar Express is not aesthetically pleasing movie. This is true. Emily, I've known you for 20 years. I don't know if you've done the math in your head, but I've basically known you for 20 years. This don't know if you've done the math in your head, but I basically know you for 20 years. This is true. Yes. Do you remember what the Oscar season was when the two of you I would say that's on the message boards?

You know, probably the return of the king season. Yeah, it was return of the king. It was return of the king. Okay. Yeah. I came in and made a big splash with my Turn to the king. It was Return to the King. I came in and made a big splash with my winged migration, a signature and my message. Yes, we're all in on winged migration. That's right.

I said, F, I see the goose best supporting actor. I was trying to make an impression. And yeah, and I was like, David, you're so cool. And you're like, I'm just some, and I was like, oh, he's just some 15 year old kid Cool 15 year old on an Oscar message board, but but Emily This is also bore out that you have discovered a lot of Our friends, but people who have become incredible writers at different outlets across the land

You you had a real eye for talent. You know, recognizing young people on message boards who had the passion and the skill set and like giving in their first jobs. You know, Frank, he falls in that category as well. Yeah. Yeah. Pylites, right? Yeah. So you Soraya. So you know, Emily O'Sheeda, you know, these are people who I live like tumblers and I just was like, this is a good tumbler and at the time, nobody was hiring women for these jobs and I, so the AV club just had a whole bunch of women and it turned out I was a woman and then we had David. So that was great.

And I now work at the Atlanta Culture section, which is eight women and me and Spencer. But also, I mean, if you, if you hadn't extended opportunities to so many people, this podcast would not exist. Sure. That's what David. No, we wouldn't have had any guests. Well, who are what are guests pool have been? This is true. Have you been on Oscar Watch lately?

I know it has a new name now. It's had like many names. I haven't, I haven't in a long time. I haven't, yeah. Until just, I'm sorry to start on this really arcane ship or whatever, because we have to handle it. We have to. I watched the film Hillbbilly, Elegy.

I was provided. Oh, God. I've seen it too. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Which is not a good movie. And by this point, it's come out. And I imagine it's been mostly savaged by critics

and whatever. It's out there. And I didn't review it. But I did foolishly, I will say, just sort of out of boredom, put it at the bottom of my 2020 list on letterbox, just as a joke. Or maybe not bottom, bottom, bottom, but right at the bottom, right? Is that what you guys know I'm talking about? Yeah.

And Andy Scott, shout out to Andy Scott, who Emily knows, mild roommate, and another Oscar watcher emailed me and was like, you have like lit a torch on the message, on Oscar watch, whatever it's a wards daily, whatever it's called now. And it has exploded. Like people are like, David Simpson's pointed out the, this thing's gonna be a catastrophe.

And apparently there's Amy Adams stands and they're all freaking out. So that's the update I got from the message boards. But how long ago was that? I feel like the word has been out with this thing toxic for a little while now. I mean, whenever I saw it, when would that have been?

Let's see now, I can look at my diary. You know, some mid-November, right? It wasn't like four years ago. It's a bad movie. Yeah. It's a bad movie. You know what, you know what? It was all the way back in October.

Okay. They gave it to me really early. It's worse than a Christmas Carol. Hobility. It is. It's worse than a Christmas Carol. There's no question. It's working off way worse material to be finished.

I mean, a Christmas Carol, you're working off Dickens. Well, that's an interesting question. Let's dig into this. Which do we think is a better original tax? Charles Dickens, classic Christmas tale. A story that has endured for centuries as lost as a serial potency. There's a reason we keep on returning to it.

But basically helped invent the ghost story. Or at JD Vance's cheap hackery, the Hillbilly Elegy. It's tight, it's tight. I don't wanna put my foot down for either and then you know, have this age poorly. When do you think Simecus is gonna do the mocap, Hillbilly Elegy? Cause this story is going to be told over and over and over again, I think.

Yes. He needs to make it metal, and he needs to make every character a terminator, and then it'll work. There's a terminator monologue. Sounds good. In which gun clothes refers to good, bad, and neutral terminators. And there's no such thing as neutral terminators. I don't know what she's talking about.

They're very good, bad. They really are kind of an on-off switch kind of. Excuse me. There's good bad and there's Terminator 3 rise the machines where Arnold's Terminator character has a slight malfunction and sometimes he turns bad briefly. Well, right, but he's not really neutral. It's not like he's like, I am a centrist. No, neutral. Neutral fundamentally doesn't exist. I guess like the real Arnold Schwarzenegger is something of a neutral at this point, but

let's not let's not get into. Yeah. The point I wanted to make is, please. Emily, I have known you, I've joined it 20 odd years, and I've always known you as someone who loves Christmas. That's like, you know, I like from the beginning. It's been big part of your brand. A love of Christmas.

Yeah. We once cooked up a Santa Claus show together. Mm-hmm. Um, which is like a Santa Claus TV show. Yeah. Yep. Mm-hmm. Emily asked me to pitch like, was it a sitcom or is it you know it like it was a

Yeah, yeah weekly sitcom about Santa I can I can I can I can I can Remember the exact premise that you came up with because it was very good Tell me you'll probably do it better than I did this was at the height of my name is Earl So David like pointed to my name is Earl and, when you show like that where there's a concrete goal, so it was about Santa on the other 364 days of the year. It was 364 episodes. Each one was a new day, a year of Santa between Christmas Eve. And the show was called.

This is long before keeping up with the Kardashians. It was called Keeping Up with the C keeping up with the Kardashians, it was called Keeping Up with the Clause. Wow, so remember that. So David invented Keeping Up with the Kardashians. The only other thing I remember is that Santa has a new wife because Santa is immortal, but I decided that his wives are not, that he's like, Javier Bardem and mother, like they die and then he just gets a new one, right? Yeah, that's true. And so I was, because I thought it'd be funny, like a sitcom, it's like

Santa would be like a fat guy with a beard and he would have this like improbably attractive, you know, 28 year old wife played by like a young Anjaneu who's now stuck on this sitcom. But like, he'd still love her. You know, it would be, it would be tender. It's just that you would have the, anyway, that I thought that was funny. It's funny that that was a trend for a little bit. The like, here's the premise of our show.

It's fine. It's a hard, no, not that big. Of course, that's that. You're talking about my name is Earl, right? David, that premise is evergreen. We'll never get tired of that premise. But the like, my name is Earl thing right? David, that premise is evergreen. We'll never get tired of that premise. But the like, my name is Earl, according to Jay. Right.

The show is literally like crossing items off a list. There's a built-in ending for it. And the ending is only a scant 180 episodes away. Like those premises where it was like, here's it. We have to end at this point. And that point is nine seasons. I figured I'm actually going to figure it out again. How long keeping up with the clauses would run, and it's 16 and a half seasons.

So that's like how long you need to keep up with the clauses. That thing will sell. That thing will be in syndication forever. You'll make millions. That's me talking to ABC or 2005 or whatever. Is there a talking reindeer? Oh, yeah. That's a great idea.

Yes, there has to be a talking reindeer. Bunk heck old, wait. Yeah, that's rude all over. I almost made David do a spit-tick. I was so close. He caught it. He swallowed really fast. Remember how my name is Earl was a huge hit?

Like, and like the office was, it was like eating the office for breakfast on that like Thursday block, and then a kind of, I guess people just kind of got sick of it. I don't know what happened to my ex. There's a super weird phenomenon of single camera sitcoms from the late 2000s, early 2010s, where they debut huge, they're big for 13 episodes,

and then people just inexplicably stop watching them. New girl was another example. I was gonna say, New girl's like the last one of those, where when it started, I was like, oh, this is like the biggest comedy on television, this is the new friends, and by the end of season one, I was like, I guess it's now just a common niche thing. But tell me how many seasons New Girl ran for?

New Girl ran for seven. Seven! My name is Earl, only got four, it's now just become a niche thing. But tell me how many seasons new go, Randford. New go Randford stuff. Yeah. Seven. My name is Earl only got four and apparently ended on a cliffhanger that was never resolved. Yeah, because they promised Greg Garcia that he was going to be able to finish the story, the way he wanted, and then he was not allowed to finish the story, the way he wanted. What is Greg Garcia doing now? Because then he did he did raising hope which I love that was a good shot

He did he did the guest book on TBS right very weird show Yeah, I do not know what that is, but that's cool It's it's a comedy anthology series about the people who sign a guest book and a vacation property and each season is a new vacation property Here I am sitting on a fucking mountain of gold. It was my Santa Claus sitcom and people are like, I don't know. Let's do a show about guest books. Like they're just like looking around the room at the like, you know, ski lodge or they're like, ah, could we do like a table sitcom?

No, that's ridiculous. Uh, guest books, guest books. We'll do guest books. I forgot. Greg Garcia also did the millers, the CBS sitcom that ran for 34 episodes. We'll our net, Margot Martindale, Bow Bridges, JB Smooth, Gemma Mays, Nelson Franklin, Sean Hayes. Yep.

Yep. It was a big cast. Yeah. It was supposed to be the next big thing and it just didn't happen. Greg Garcia. Greg Garcia is like somebody who always has a show that seems like it's gonna be huge for a little bit.

And then it just, yeah, completely, yeah. He did, I'll say. Yes, dear, I think. Yes, he did. That was his thing. And then, like, that was his home. He came from yes, dear.

Yes. But, like, my name is Earl was like, look, I know I created yes, dear, but this is my actual sensibility. I remember there was such a press tour of him being like, but that's not the kind of show I grew up watching. This is my actual interest.

That. And then made himself sort of like the, the more quirky guy. I also feel like in my, my 10 years of doing pilot season or whatever, almost every season there's a big Greg Garcia pilot at CBS. That's like the cool one that then doesn't get picked up. And several times he has the show that's really hyped up everyone's fighting to get cast in. It doesn't go.

And then they bring it back the next season and try it again. And then it still doesn't go. Yeah. And the premise is always like what if a middle schooler was a superhero, but also a nurse and you're just like, Oh, and I wanted to be in that one so badly, unsurprisingly, superclined.

Oh, I wanted to be in that one. I have two more things to say about Greg Garcia and then we can talk about a Christmas Carol. One, or we can, apparently, or whatever, or whatever you guys want to talk about. Apparently, Greg Garcia in 2008, or we can apparently or we are whatever or whatever you guys talk about. Apparently Greg Garcia in 2008, Alex Baldwin accused him of being a Scientologist. I guess because Jason Lee is one, I don't think he had anything more.

And Greg Garcia was like, I'm not a Scientologist. Like he had to get you a statement. He was like, I'm like a Catholic. Two, he did the book to the emusical escape to Margaritaville, which was the Jimmy Buffett, Duke Box musical that I don't think ever made it. No, I guess it did. No, it did make a brand up.

It ran a brand up. Yeah. Yeah. I believe they extended the run of escape to Margaritaville in Los Angeles, which rarely happens here, because I'm not a huge theater town, but a big escape to Margaritaville in Los Angeles, which rarely happens here, because, you know, I'm not a huge theater town, but a big Escape to Margaritaville town. Big, so.

Big parrot head town. Yeah. I almost wonder if it was like built into the budget of Escape from Margaritaville that opening on Broadway was a loss leader just to get the prestige of it played on Broadway. Because it's like you have to imagine the ultimate life of that show is on cruise ships

You know right right right Here here's a line of questioning. I want to get into Emily Because we start digging into this a little bit on our Polar Express episode Where the Sims grew up, it's sans Christmas, largely. And in our contact episode, we talked about like our relationships to faith

and religion a lot. And most of us grew up pretty a religious. I grew up with a sort of very perfunctory Judaism. My parents being like, I guess we should teach our children this stuff, but they had completely abandoned that pretty much by the time my sister was around. But you had a very religious upbringing, and you've written a lot about your relationship to that as time has gone on and how it's changed and morphed and all of that.

And so I want to know sort of where Christmas fits into all of that, how much value Christmas has for you is entied to the religions of it, and how much of it is tied to what I still find very effective about Christmas, which is essentially just like movie Christmas. Like I fucking love movie Christmas and lights in New York and fluid with weird wrappings and things like that. Yeah. and lights in New York and food with weird wrappings and things like that. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's interesting because I grew up doing kind of the secular Christmas, but mostly very religious Christmas.

When I was three, my mom took me aside and said, there is no Santa Claus, but also your dad is Santa Claus, and I was like, oh, cool. That's awesome. Good for him. For married Santa Claus and I was like, oh cool, that's awesome. Good for him. For married Santa Claus? On a roll. Which she was saying, you know, because like, when you get a gift from Santa, that's actually from your dad. But I was three, so I didn't entirely understand that.

But yeah, I grew up with super religious. I remember very specifically, there was a Christmas service at my church that ended with the pastor being like, and we have this recording of hell that I'm going to play for you now and Yeah Because yeah, it was saying like we got a microphone in and this is this is this is a

famed story even evangelical Christian circles that a bunch of a Soviet scientist Doug a hole to the center of the story Evangelically embraced as well. It's sort of like a weird urban legend. It's like, oh, this is hardcore. So they genuinely presented it as like a scientific breakthrough. We finally have captured audio of hell. We've audio of hell.

And it's on the internet if you wanna go look for it. It sounds like a mall food court slowed way down. Like it's, yeah. Emily, I just going to stop you for a second. If Ben's looking particularly despondent, it's because he had been working on trying to create the first ditch podcast. He thought he was going to be the first person to stick a microphone in a dirt hole and just record it for two hours. And so this is a big, this major hit for him. I will, I will say that the, the whole that they actually dug, that which was a 40,000

foot hole, was called the, the cola super deep bore hole, which is a pretty good name. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and it really, it was like an experiment of like like what happens if we just dig really far You give you give people fodder for stories about having recordings of health So yeah, we would we would go to church and it would be like and they're teaching children about Santa Claus And like that would be presented as like we were losing Jesus from the center of the season or whatever

Yeah, and then you know, I went off to college and I eventually moved to California and I really started to miss winter. Like I missed snow, I missed, I missed really what I missed was New York Christmas which I had not experienced to that point, but like now I have been- I can be in language, Emily.

Yeah, now I've been several times. And I'm like, oh, this is like the ideal city for Christmas. Los Angeles is kind of depressing because they do this thing at the Grove, which is our big shopping mall. That's like, they just send foam into the air, and it's supposed to be snow. And I took my wife to that, and she was just despondent the whole way back because it's so disturbing and gross. But then the first year we were in California, somebody on Christmas Eve had gone up to the mountains and gotten a giant pile of snow and just put it in the parking lot of our apartment complex.

And that felt like Christmas to me. So I started to get more into secular, you know, Christmas music, Christmas bullshit basically. And watching every Christmas movie, every Christmas special I could find. And that sort of became a weird obsession So that's why I'm here But I like I'm very much all in on all of that stuff and I grew up with Christmas being devoid of any

Religious meaning but I also grew up in New York where Christmas feels very romantic so just like Christmas flavored things and Christmas albums, Christmas movies and specials, I get very caught up in it. I will feel very depressed going through this Christmas without there being like the Christmas Eve vibe in the same sort of way. Aside from that, I can probably not gonna celebrate anything with my family. It's also just like things like the same sort of way. Aside from that fact, I'm probably not gonna celebrate anything with my family.

It's also just like things like the outdoor sort of like market at Union Square and the park. Rockefeller Center. The Rockefeller Center. Sticky bandits, wet bandits. Stuff like this. Have you seen this Rockefeller Center tree? It's bad.

I mean, the little sample. If this isn't a metaphor for 2020, I mean if 2020 was a tree. It's not allowed at all, but have a place to have it. Wait, is the tree wearing a face mask? Is that what they did? No, it just looks really shitty.

It's kind of a weird shitty tree. I don't really get it, because I think there's like a whole process where they like, you know, there's people grow big trees. We saw, they showed the picture of it when they cut it down, and it's literally the how it started, how it's going meme applied to 2020. Like because it was beautiful when they cut it down,

and now it's just like all crap, so. I mean, I just looked at the photo, and my immediate thought was, oh, the tree guy couldn't get out of bed either. Huh? I do, I get it. Major feeling. Yeah.

I know. The first time I was ever on this show was because it was Christmas 2016 and I went to New York specifically because I was like, well, they may never be another Christmas. So I'd better come to into York and have one more Christmas there. And we made it sort of. We made it. We made it.

Wow. We'll talk about full circle. So, you love Christmas media. I do as well. I feel like I'm such a sap for Christmas that even stuff I'm cynical about usually activates me in some way. And I honestly feel like polar express and a Christmas carol Disney's a Christmas Carol might be two of the only Christmas movies I've ever seen that's there no feelings of Christmas cheer in me.

I will I'll even say this I agree with that. I ended up hearing, I made this gigantic Christmas playlist on Spotify that I made this gigantic Christmas playlist on Spotify that anyone could contribute to. And somebody put Sylvesteries Christmas Carol score on there. And I just heard it sans the movie and was like, this is great. This is great Christmas music. And in the movie, it just gets buried by whatever the hell is going on. All you roll in for. I know it's a good score. It's a totally, as you say, the fine work on its own.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. This is, yeah. This is just, I watched a few years ago, like every version of Christmas Carol I could get my hands on. And this is by far one of the worst, which is, this story is really hard to screw up.

Like, the reason that it's boring is because the underlying story is always pretty good. But yeah. Do you have a go-to pick for what you think the best adaptation is or the couple at the top? Oh, Griffin, do I? I'm fishing for an answer here here and I'm hoping I learn. My favorite is the this actually has a mechus connection. It's the 1971 animated version by Richard Williams

who did the animation for Who Frame Roger Rabbit. It is done in the style of the woodcut engravings from Dickens original book. It's gorgeous. It's on YouTube, even in like 360p or whatever it is, it's just gorgeous to look at and beautiful. He won an Oscar for it. I love the Alistair Sim version. I like Muppet Christmas Carol a lot. There's some really good ones, but my favorite by far the one I watch every year

is that 1971 version. That one is really good. Alistair Sim also plays Scrooge in it. Yes, he does. He's doing your classic Scrooge in it. Like he's doing, right? He's doing your classic Scrooge. He is, right, he's sort of the, he's, he is Scrooge, right? Like, that's the, you know, that he played Scrooge a bunch and, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Muppet Christmas Carol definitely my first experience of Christmas Carol. I would imagine. My first was, my first was Mickey's. And I think Mickey's is going to hold that. You know what? I saw Mickey, yes. Mine was also Mickey's. I definitely saw that when I was, yes, that's right.

That's right. That's right. That Mickey one was big. And my mistaken in thinking that it was released in theaters alongside one of the re-releases of a Disney classic. And then it became just like a blockbuster VHS. Well, TV. Oh, it's fine now a blockbuster VHS. Well, TV, I don't know. I was kind of, let's find out.

I saw it, I did my very first time going to the movies. I saw Mickey's Christmas Carol with the rescuers. There we go. In theaters. Yes, it was put, it was put with the rescuers and then just became a TV. Right, yeah, that one's really good too. I mean, yeah, it speaks to just the potency of this story that like not only are most

adaptations of it at least enjoyable, but also the inevitable like TV episode parodies of it are usually pretty good. It is pretty hard to fuck up this format. We never get tired of it. I don't know. I feel like there was something slightly exciting about the announcement of this movie just because it felt like, hmm, that might be in Zamekis' wheelhouse. And aside from the mocap, he doesn't have any big story hook.

He's not trying to put it in a contemporary setting. He's not trying to radicalize it anyway. His argument is using this technology to try to make the most faithful adaptation of the book in a way the technology could not allow up until this point. Which in a way he succeeded at because the book does have that sequence rarely committed to film or scrooge is chased by a hearse being driven by the ghost of Christmas future and then like has to you know escape it and turns into a tiny man and goes into a tube and a whole bunch of stuff happens.

It's in the book. Nobody's ever put it on film. There's a shit joke in there. It talks about Christmas pudding, which is cool. The book has, people don't realize this. The book has 45 pages of tiny scrooge hanging onto an empty bottle, skitting down the streets and rooftops. It does bring in things that are from the book that I guess know.

Like the thing where he puts out the Christmas past guy as a candle, that is in the book. Yeah, I don't know that you're like, you're reading the book and you're like, God, that's so great. We gotta include, you know what I mean? Like, that's just a weird image. And Zamekis is like, yeah, that'll be a set piece.

That's gonna be a whole set piece. We're gonna blow that out. There's stuff, there's stuff that's in the book that he could have done, put in the movie that would have padded things out in an interesting way. Like the Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas present go on like a journey where they visit minors and sailors and like people who are celebrating Christmas out

in the wilds of Britain and like that is a nice little sequence in the Richard Williams one and it's just, you know, it could have been good here too. So. nice little sequence in the Richard Williams one and it's just you know it could have been good here too so it's very odd that this film is a completely lacking in humor it is like perhaps the single most humorless adaptation I have ever seen of this story and B excuse me is also weirdly lacking in feeling. Yeah. Yeah. It has not a lot of emotion.

And like, it's just about a person's emotional transformation. Like, that's what a Christmas Carol is about. So that's a problem. And the past. Well, he's a bastard. I mean, that reads. Yeah. You get that he's not very nice at the beginning where he says children should

go to jail. But I also for the crime of poverty. I feel like you got some fundamental issues. If I'm watching a Christmas Carol and went tiny Tim shows up for the fourth time I go, oh, right, tiny Tim. Right, right, tiny Tim's in the movie. movie okay the other i would say the yeah the issue griffin is referring to is that uh this film starts jim carry uh famously funny man and uh is light on jokes light on humor but also like light on character comedy like it feels like he is pointedly trying to avoid finding any comedic angle to the four characters he plays.

Which is remarkable because Scrooge is already a comedic character of a rich man, and then the ghosts are, you can go any direction with them. And like the idea of having him play these ghosts is actually pretty smart, and like the kind of thing Mocap was made to do, but they don't do anything with it. It's one of the strongest arguments for MoCAP is that kind of like, oh, it's like a digital kind of man of a thousand faces thing. You can have one guy play a whole cast of characters

being scenes with himself. Have that be a more natural sort of acting pipeline. And yeah, it's like, it's not like that's like part of the text in the way that like, you know, the dad and hook are usually double cast and Peter Pan, but it feels kind of natural in that same sort of way. Yeah, the reflections of Scrooge, it makes sense. Yeah. Like, it's thematically appropriate.

I mean, the, the, the ghost of Marley is his guilt. The ghost of Christmas past is his regret. The ghost of Christmas past is his regret. The ghost of Christmas present is his loneliness and the ghost of Christmas future is his fear. Like, it works. It's just, you know, they don't bother like explaining why they're doing it or at least just having like Jim Carrey make fart noises when he's a giant man. Like, that would be cool. It is odd to watch a modern adaptation of a classical work and be like, man, I wish he was like Breaking seeing to teach someone how to ducky. I wish there was more like Right, I wish he was like do not go in there

Do something motherfucker Yeah, he does a little at the end as we will. I'm sure talk about right like when he's happy Scrooge He's finally it feels like riffing a little bit like doing some carry stuff Yeah, it's a it's a thin gruel. It's a I will say this. I will say this. I think Christmas Carol is I can't think of another Thing that is so frequently adapted where where we talk about how it's adapted in terms of who plays Scrooge, instead of who directed it. It's the Alistair Sim, Christmas Carol. It's the Patrick Stewart Christmas Carol, the George C. Scott Christmas Carol, whatever.

And you know, like this is the only one where it's like, yeah, that's the mechus as Christmas Carol. That's partially because Zamekis is such a big deal. And especially because Jim Kerry leaves absolutely no impression. Because this absolutely should be the Jim Carrey Christmas Carol. You have to imagine that's why Disney pulled the trigger so hard on this thing. Like, back up a little bit to just do a little bit of table setting because this is like a byproduct of, I think, a really interesting kind of five year period of Walt Disney Studios, where they're in this transition zone.

It's sort of the jump between Eisner being outsted and Iger fully dominating the motion picture landscape before they start acquiring everything and just become the owners of all IP. But I know, like, you know, their animation studio was still on the rocks. They're in the process of rebuilding it. Pixar had just been acquired by them.

So 2009, the last three Pixar movies had been up, Wally, and Ratatouille, the three movies that Pixar produced independently. So like Disney's influence on Pixar won't come into effect until next year with Toy Story 3. Bolt is, I think, the year before this, Tangled is the year after this. That's really when Disney Animation is kind of up on its feet.

The Pirates the Caribbean series, perhaps tapped out at this point. They revive it again, but at this point, it was like, maybe that's three and done. I think there was a major awareness on their part that they did not have boys' brands. That was always sort of talked about. They were trying to retool the Disney Princess strength in a modern way aside from just the legacy characters on sleeping bags, but they were like, we need boys things. So, Tron Legacy happens and Prince of Persia happens. Long Ranger happens and outrageous budget.

But they're just like taking big bets on trusted names for things where it's like, is that old franchise that maybe has enough cult appeal? Are these people who have been good with us in the past? Are they gonna be able to make something new? Allison Wonderland comes out five months after this and is like a humongous hit that I feel like really starts to mark the transitional point.

That movie very much feels like it came out of, we wanna be in business with big talent, we wanna get Burton back in the fold, we wanna come up with a new take on Allison Wonderland, but what stems out of that obviously is just just let's remake all of our legacy titles Let's just get more literal about putting these things into live action But but this is like the end of dick cooks run and it felt like he was really starting to experiment and

There was a story I remember Reading on like Aina Cooler whatever in 07 or 08 about like the big up front meeting they had for their shareholders, where they were announcing and showing off concept art for the next three years of their big movies. And it was the kind of thing that gets live stream now and people lose their minds over

because we now all like watching shareholders presentations as content. But back then it was like, I think that didn't leak out and there were just weird written reports of it and these guys coming out and like selling their pitch and Zamekis came out and like pitched the Christmas Carol thing and showed off the artwork, the concept artwork and was just like, look, first of all,

Jim Carey is the ultimate mocap actor. Think about what we're starting to work on here. From our face. Yeah. Right, I tell you, Jim Carrey and Mocap playing multiple characters already dollar signs in the eyes, right? Then I go, Jim Carrey is scrooge. You should get ant.

That feels like a great part for him. And the other characters he's playing are the ghosts and people are losing their minds. And he's like, and by the way, I have a pretty good track record when it comes to time travel movies. And I just very briefly, like it brought the fucking house down. And people were salivating and they were like,

yes, yes, and he was like, polar express. Remember that shit? They still release it in IMAX every year, makes another $10 million. And people are like fucking like Arsigno Wolf hollering. You can see how on paper, even though now it feels like a kind of risky bet because everything has been so algorithmed, and you so rarely get a movie that isn't from a very specific, well-established pipeline coming out of Disney. This does kind of check off all the boxes where you have to imagine Disney maybe regrets that they didn't do polar express.

That this technology seems like it's not going anywhere, although it ends up mutating after this into a pretty different form. The straight mocap movie pretty much ends after this save for Tintin. And also like Jim Carrey, that's a big star we want to be in business with. Much like they had done bedtime stories that they were like, we want to make an out of sailor movie. We want to make these big movie star movies. We want to be in these brand silos.

When Aiger comes on and it just becomes like, we have our four pipelines, that's it. All that experimentation goes away. Another weird thing that came out of that pitch presentation, do either of you remember this, that they announced that Gilmarle Guill, Guillermo Dottoro was gonna be given his own imprint at Disney called Disney Double Dare You where he was gonna get to make live action and animated films at a mid-sized budget that were particularly designed to scare children.

I do remember that. I remember that and literally, like six months later he gave some interview. He was like, yeah, that never happened. Like that's not gonna happen. Dick Cook got fired and everything went out the window and then you have these vestiges

the leftover movies like Christmas Carol. But there was also so much post hellboy two, Guillermo's stuff that never came together. Like he was the king of announcing shit that sounded cool and would fall apart. And then of course, HODB being the ultimate, you know, version of that. The first year I went to Comic Con was 2009

and that was Chris was Carly Lear and Disney was like the first presentation in the Big Ass Hall H, which is where they have all the movie stuff. And Christmas Girl had a lot of buzz coming out of that. People were like, this looks really cool. The ghosts look great, blah, blah, blah. And like, I don't know what they showed

because I assume they showed footage from this film, but people were like buzzing about it. So I was kinda hyped for this movie. There's another factor of play, which is just that 3D was still pretty fresh. There weren't a lot of fully 3D movies, and especially movies like designed with someone who understands the technology as well as Zemeckis does. So I just feel like when people would see a five-minute sizzle reel or a trailer of this,

you were just kind of so dazzled by like, oh my God, there's so much like kinetic energy and movement and everything's popping into my face that people would be like, I guess it looks great. No, no, I thought this movie looked like shit. I thought it was a bad idea at the time. I want that on the record. I heard the idea and I was like, I got some stupid.

That was also the first year they did 3D presentations in Hall H and that was the year they presented Avatar and everyone was like I said stupid. That was also the first year they did 3D presentations in Hall H and that was the year they presented Avatar and everyone was like this looks terrible. This is what Griff and I were talking about. This movie is what is it Griff six weeks before Avatar? Avatar comes out in November. Six weeks after this movie, they look like they're in different decades.

There are aspects of Avatar that already are looking creaky, but jeez Louise, these films do not feel like they are of the same generation, let alone within a two-month span of each other. It's really like Cameron is really spanking Zemeckas in terms of like, okay, you're you think you're like this sort of pioneering VFX director, but like you truly do not know what you're doing with this stuff. Like I mean, I know he's not doing this aggressively, but that's just how it feels.

And do you feel like after this, Zamekah slinks off and cuts it out. Like he gets tempted back later as we will see, but he's like, I'm going to go make flight. This is the other part of it I want to frame is that image movers his company Which it sort of become image movers digital and was starting to rebrand itself as like an animation company Did Polar expressive Warner Brothers monster house at Sony Bay Wolf had paramount most of those films were independently financed sold-off to distributors Disney was like we want you finance sold off to distributors. Disney was like, we want you. These were the types of acquisitions they were making rather than buying Marvel for billions of dollars. They were like, can we get a

first look, three picture deal with image movers? Maybe this is the future. So it was this film, and then two months after this movie, three months after this movie, Mars needs moms comes out. two months after this movie, three months after this movie, Mars needs moms comes out. And he was getting ready to film Yellow Submarine. The weekend Mars needs moms came out and they literally like pulled the plug, turned the lights off, shut everything down. He was like ready to go. And there's a lot of artwork you can see for that. That looks incredibly strange.

If you was going to do what was described as a more narrative-based yellow submarine. Such so much. It was gonna be the worst. It looked so weird. Have you seen the pictures? I've seen the picture of the purple meanie. And it looks to me like some awesome wonderland crap and i hate it

it also looks like really july on the but there's a picture of the book like there is one that really looks like ready to be there's a picture of the beetles and they have like bananas yellow submarine proportions where their arms and legs are like twelve feet long and like you know, the width of spaghetti. Um, he's going for less photorealistic with it, which at least feels like, well, that's where you should have been going earlier on, but Disney just bails entirely on the notion

of like this being a form of entertainment, this being the guy to be in business with, and that's when he totally slinks off, and apparently retreats to a house and reassess his life. And then it's like, send me good spec scripts. Let me just read good live action movies that won't cost much to make. Wasn't, I mean, you know this, like Peter Sarifano, which was gonna play Paul, right? Yes. He was gonna play Paul. Yeah. Crazy.

I've talked to him about a lot. I mean, they were like really ready to go. And he was very excited about it. I mean, he's a really big Beatles fan. I think he was just very excited to be playing that part. Yes, I think it's also worth noting that it wasn't just the Marsney Bombs bombed. Well, of course, that thing bombed., but a Christmas Carol did not make money.

Like, even though it was pretty successful, you know, it caused money gross. So fucking much. Right. So it was like, I hit, but I hit at the box office that ended up being a money loser for them. And then Mar need moms was radio active. Yeah, I'm Mars didn't need moms. It didn't him. And like Christmas Carol, Christmas girls should generate money, but this was so expensive. And like, you could see Disney being like, well, we can bring it back every year. Like, they do it, but it just never happened. It never became that kind of movie. So that's the

other interesting kind of rabbit hole I went down here, trying to figure out like why Disney was so confident about this. The other aspect is in terms of Disney trying to like check off boxes at this point in time, trying to rebuild their world domination and being like, we need an action to franchise, we need to this, we need to that, we need this going.

Disney surprisingly doesn't really have a definitive Christmas movie. And for an entertainment company as vertically integrated as Disney, the value of having a Christmas movie that's going to pop up again in revenue every year that will always be replayed on TV, go up in rentals, if you can re-release, you can do all the merchandise. And I feel like they've now kind of squared the circle by being like, name before Christmas is both. That's their one, right? I mean, you're forgetting another film

that I directed three-fourths of. You directed three-fourths of it? It was the Nocracker in the Four Realms. Right,'s not cracker in the four realms. Right, exactly. I did see those realms. But David, to this point, not cracker in the four realms is like the one inexplicable Disney movie of the last five years.

Right, and it's probably, it's them being like, yeah, can we get a Christmas movie? Right, it has to be. It has to be. And even like the Santa Claus trilogy, which is successful for them, has not lingered in that same kind of way. You have to imagine Disney is like, I wish we had an elf, I wish we had a Christmas story, I wish we had a wonderful life. Okay, now that this begs the question, what are the best, what's your, like,

come on, Emily Griffin, Ben, Christmas movie, like, come on, what's your Christmas movie? Always, it's a wonderful life. Like I just, I, you know, I'm a great, yeah, like I, I just can't tap top that one. I think it is interesting that Disney purchased 20th Century Fox and like if you go on Disney Plus, there are Christmas sections, it's mostly 20th Century Fox movies. It's home alone.

Home alone, that's the thing. Okay, so that's what we're gonna say. They're but it's home alone. Home alone. Home alone, I think. Okay. Miracle 30 for say. They're really weaponizing home alone now. They're like pushing home alone nostalgia hard because I think they're like finally we have one that like people are in the feels about. And I'm a for Christmas, it gets murky between two holidays. I mean, it's same obvious lazy answers for me.

I also is my favorite modern one. My Christmas carols, probably my emotional favorite, wonderful life, I think is the best. My secret stealth answer, even though it doesn't totally fit, but it is a movie set around Christmas and New Year's is Hutsucker Proxy. Like Hutsucker Proxy is the movie that feels most like the holidays for me. The movie that I love, even though I know it's total shit, but I watch it every year. Like a lot of people have that relationship with love, actually, I have that relationship with the family stone, which is a day that was a poor.

Don't you fucking say the fucking family fucking stone. Yes. Fucking piece of shit. Yes. Emily. Yes. Why do people like this movie? Okay. okay, it works. It's just fucking work. It works. It's not the only one. It's not the only person. Lots of lots of people like that movie.

Okay, if you know I'm apparently yeah, it's that movie. You just can't go wrong. It's just a great cast. They're having it. I love the giant family assembles at Christmas movie. It could be a lot worse than family's tone, and I would still love it. Yeah. Family's tone is so bad. It's a film I saw with my grandma at Christmas, and I loved, and I had the,

my Rachel McAdams crush was at its peak. Yeah. And she's wearing like a dinosaur junior shirt in that movie and she's got glasses. I want to note that at this time, on the message board, you had a Rachel Macatams and wedding crashers signature in your picture because you just. So call me out. I'll fucking admit it. Absolutely.

I don't remember that, but I believe it. I loved Rachel Macatams. I still love Rachel Macatams the best. Um, and, and me and my fucking grandma walked out of that movie being like, that was kind of disappointing. Like, it didn't get me, and I've never seen it since. And I keep being like, should I give it one more shot? Like, people love the family, don't.

Like, even though the director, I feel like, never really had another hit, right? That Diane Lane Kevin Costner movie that just came out, that's like the highest person movie in America by default. And then he did it. And he did the one with the Smauntik Karlo. Yeah, right, right.

Okay, someone was tweeting the other day, some critic who I apologize for not giving credit to. But someone was tweeting like, he's this incredibly weird figure because he goes like 10 years in between movies and he makes like a low scale exercise and a kind of forgotten genre that's slightly better than it needs to be and then just kind of disappears again. I remember when family stone came out or when it was screening there was a movie every year that

is deemed internet commentator, David Poland. Every year would be like, this is going to be an Oscar player. This is going to win a bunch of awards, Family Stone was his movie in 2005, and then it did nothing at the Oscars. You speak of course. A polling curse, the polling curse. The polling curse. Yeah. Right, the polling curse. I mean, I was all in on those boards at the time, or certainly at least the comment sections on the hot blog, or as Lex G would call it, the cold blog. It's savage, a brutal takedown from Lex G. But, yes, I mean, the most infamous one was

when he said that Fanon of the Opera was gonna win best pictures. That it was like, we have our friend runner. Yeah. We have many drivers snobbed. When are you doing Schumacher? When are you doing Schumacher? When are you doing Schumacher? Get out of here, it's too fucking long.

It's half a year, Joel Schumacher. That's the problem. I would love to cherry pick. Yeah. I mean, oh boy, it's long. We've talked, we've sort of joked about it or whatever. It's also a weird sad ending. The last five just think.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Family stone for, okay. So yeah, what, maybe you know what, I'm gonna watch the family stone. The everyone's favorite wife swap movie about dead, you know, white guilt, right? Like there's, there's that whole scene

where there's just a parker points it herself to reference race or whatever. Anyway, Christmas movies. People like that new one, the happiest season. I haven't seen it yet. It's a watch. It's a good, cute,

pretty good. Stone Fibes, right? Like that. I mean, right. It is a, it is a mediocre family gets together at Christmas movie because it doesn't give anybody, but Christian Stewart and Mackenzie Davis anything to do. But it's a very sweet Christmas romcom about two ladies, which is right up my alley.

I look, I love home for the holidays, personally, the dude costs the movie. That's a fantastic movie, yeah. Which is another, I mean, I believe, I can't even remember if it's Thanksgiving or Christmas, it's Christmas, right? I think it's Thanksgiving. I think it's Thanksgiving. It's Thanksgiving. That's the only problem with it. But it's the same obvious, you know, it's the same thematic thing.

I love, yeah, you know what I love Robert Downey Jr. I love Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. That's a great Christmas movie. Obviously Iron Man 3, the iconic Christmas movie that we love. Okay. I mean, can we go on a little side tangent here? This shit that gets litigated every year of like, what is that a Christmas movie?

As if there is some governing board, as if it's like champagne. And unless that film is produced, I am the governing board. So let's just, let me just determine right now, names and movies I'll tell you if they're Christmas movies movies But like all Shane black movies are Chris's movies right? Of course he looks like there shouldn't be any litigation there to the degree that I always think die hard as a Shane black movie because it features Christmas So prominent. Thank you. Same here. I always file it in the Shane black cabinet

Right and Shane black wrote many of Bruce Willis movie, but no A little princess. that's another one. That's a Christmas movie, right? I don't really remember, but Christmas was happened in that movie. Yeah, I like, like, Fanny and Alexander is like a Christmas movie because it has a gorgeous Christmas sequence, yeah.

The thing is, and I don't think I'm, you know, telling tales out of school here, is like the Christmas movie for me is fellowship of the ring. Like not even all the more the ring. I agree. The more the ring's for me is is fellowship of the ring. Like not even all the ring. I agree. The rings movies. I watch all of them around Christmas. They're classic, they're classic Christmas rewatch. I basically do it every year. I don't always make it to return to the king like because just because they're long. But fellowship with the ring, I think, has to be in the canon, Emily.

David, and they're like on cable TV. Yeah, right. I feel like I'm at my parent's house and I'll watch them with commercials. Like, they just feel like they're running. Look, we're gonna let Emily do the final ruling here, but for me, that's where it starts to become questionable. Like, when people go like, no,

that hurts an action movie, it's not a Christmas movie. It's like, one doesn't negate the other. It's set around Christmas. Christmas is interwoven throughout the entire film. Felship of the ring, your argument is, I watch it a Christmas time. It feels Christmas. They've got elves griffin. Come on.

They've got elves. Is it Christmas movie? It's a textual Christmas? Yes. All Christmas movies are about needing people in your life at the hard times. That's what Christmas movies are about like needing people in your life at the hard times, right? Like that's what Christmas movies are about, right? I let me submit that a movie that becomes a legitimate gigantic phenomenon that changes the film industry that comes out at Christmas, which happens very rarely.

Yes. Can be sort of a Christmas movie by proxy. Like it has to to be it has to be brought to the party by a different Christmas movie Okay, but I would say the three Lord of the Rings and Titanic both fit Wow that criteria So I'm putting a man putting a man I'd like to throw out two obvious grift picks as well Gremlins great Christmas movie. Yeah, the Phoebe Kid Santa, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, a great, I think the even more interesting sort of question is these movies that have a Christmasy vibe But aren't actually by Chris like the one I was point to is of the Royal Tenant bombs Which sure doesn't actually have anything to do with Christmas, but feels like it takes place at Christmas

Well, say Anderson definitely a lot of his movies. I feel like have that sort because they have a snow globe feel to them You know, but yes Royal Tenant was especially because it's about family and all that that also brings it in. You know, family, movies about family often sort of end up getting sifted into this box. Well, I just I read some one of the national treasure producers was doing press for some other movie produced or something and they asked about why national treasure three never happened and he offered one of the 15 excuses that come up from time to time. But the one he produced or something. And they asked about why national treasure three never happened. And he offered one of the 15 excuses that come up from time to time.

But the one he said that was different was, Disney is so vertically integrated. They never figured out how to make national treasure valuable for them in any other sector of their business. They never figured out how to put it in the theme parks. It never became merchandise. Sure. You couldn't do, like the video games didn't work. Like there was no other area of the company that could benefit from national treasure. And as time went on, Disney became

all about like a movie needs to function every facet of our company. And something like Santa Claus, the Santa Claus trilogy, the Tim Allen movies, their hits, all three of them do well. Well enough, there'd be three of them. But A, even though I think there is some nostalgia for them from our generation, it doesn't feel like they're the same kind of like perennial, regular TV appointment viewing movies. It doesn't feel like they've ever gained any value at Disney and other areas of the company. And you just have to imagine in 2009, Disney's looking around, and they're like, we don't have a Grinch,

we don't have a Charlie Brown, we don't have a Buddy the Elf, like aside from not having like a classical Christmas movie, we also don't have like a mascot of Christmas. We can put Mickey and a Santa hat, you know? Even to some degree, I wondered if that's a reason why they never have weaponized Muppet Christmas Carol as much as I thought they would after they bought it,

that they want something that is proprietary to Christmas. So the appeal for them of like, let's get a massive movie star and a massive filmmaker doing like, what could be the definitive scrooge? And he can can be like all designed to look perfect like scrooge and the ghost will look awesome. It tracks on paper but I agree with you David that when I saw it I thought it looked like to quote. David films film critic at the Atlantic. Like a bowl of hearts I thought it, like a Bola Farts. I thought it looked like a Bola Farts.

And I remember just feeling like this, really, this is still as far as the technology has come. This is still the sensibility that Zamekis is hitching is wagon too. That I've been said. Remember going to see movies with my friends in theaters, that trailer came up. I, one friend in particular, I remember turning me and going, that looks amazing. I remember the trailer being very extra. It was really trying to sell that his face,

you know, and how intense it looked, all that. There's a money shot at the end of the trailer that isn't in the movie where he like turns to camera. Where he's like slamming the door. Or something, right, yeah. It turns the camera and his face is like coming into the theater and like a snowflake lands on his nose. Yes, yes.

He blows it off. He looks straight down the barrel of the lens and he says, bah humbug. And I swear, it must have been like a test. It must have been the demo reel to get them to green light the movie because it also looks so much better than he looks at any point in the film proper. But I remember that shot

and my friend Dixie turning to me and saying, oh, that looks amazing. And I was like, really you think that looks amazing? And she went, well, I guess I've never seen a 3D movie before. Like, we were going to see some other 3D movie. That was the first trailer in 3D. And that being her first impression was like, oh shit, this trailer's doing all sorts of crazy shit.

It looks amazing. It did like, it didn't open well, but it did. People went to see this. People went to see it, it opened poorly and then had okay holds. But they did well overseas. Yeah, but they wanted they wanted. It did well overseas. Yeah, but they wanted it okay.

It did about the same overseas. They wanted the polar expressed thing. I think we're really overperformed, you know, come Christmas time and it did not. If you open a Christmas movie the first weekend of November and you can keep it in theaters, it will have a pretty. But yeah, I think it's,

I remember I went to see this movie on Christmas Eve Because I was like I'm gonna go see a movie and the theater was packed like people were coming out for it, so But yeah, I I I agree with sort of your theory of where Disney was I think Santa Claus would be a bigger thing for them if not for Tim Allen. I think that Tim Allen Kind of killed that movie by being Tim Allen in a weird way. It is also interesting that the first movie is so much like fish out of water. He's at odds. You wouldn't believe this guy is Santa Claus. And the sequels lean so much into Tim Allen in so much makeup looking like Coca-Cola Santa Claus. Yeah, like the poster for the second Santa Claus movie was just Tim Allen looking at you

looking like Santa Claus. Right, right. At this point, he doesn't look like Tim Allen anymore, he doesn't sound like Tim Allen, there are no rules to be found. I'm going to save it, in fact, and I'm going to make it my background. Here we go. Anyway, this movie. So you saw it in theaters, Emily.

I saw it in theaters. I did. I waited until Christmas Eve. I was going to see it opening weekend, but the reviews were so bad. And then I was just like, I mean, it's wild. It's wild. This picture we're looking at. No let's let's just be straight forward. His face is red. It's the color red It's a white looks like ham from like a shot in the 50s. You're saying Yes, I do back when they were like It's how it looks is what matters. Let's put as many chemicals as you want into it It should look like fucking should look like a red sausage. Yeah.

This is another interesting point though, is like, you look at this poster and you go, why pay for Tim Allen? Like, what are you doing here? Just go from Nasees. Like, my hair. Right, versus, versus another thing you have to calculate into this very movie is the Grinch was so fucking successful.

Despite being a piece of shit, it was so huge. And the fact that Jim Carrey was unrecognizable in it did not hurt business at all. People were like into the transformation of, oh my God, it doesn't look like him, it doesn't sound like him, he's transformed into this classic character. Yeah, it's a, it's this thing that that really becomes like the, the impetus to do a lot

of these films is how can we make this person look exactly like the Grinch? Look exactly like Santa Claus. Look exactly like JD Vance, the writer of Hilboleology. Oh, I was trying to get Santa Claus three going, but it doesn't really work with them. I'm sick of it too. Santa Claus two is kind of my aspirational fantasy, which is that I will meet a middlingly attractive middle-aged man

who's like, listen, I'm in love with you, and I'm gonna make you miss his claws, and you just have to move with me to the North Pole. That's the premise of my show. I'm gonna think about it. I'm gonna think about it. I'm gonna think about Pole. That's the premise of my show. I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it.

I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it. I did not see this film, Griffith.

I decided to not see it. That was my choice. Same here. And I'm glad that you respect it. Instead, I probably saw Avatar again, or I saw Sherlock Holmes, or trying to think of sort of big Christmas movies that year. I absolutely saw Avatar for the third time on Christmas day,

with my family. And some of the other big movies at Christmas, I'm not spoiling the box office game, because of course this film came out in early November. Avatar and the chipmunks, the squeak wall. Alvin and the chipmunks, thevin the chipmunks. Alvin the chipmunks. The sequel. It was that bananas weekend.

It was like, it still is, I think the single biggest day and movie going history because of Avatar, Squeak-Wall and Sherlock Holmes all opening to over 70. Yes, and I think also Christmas was a Friday. So it all, it was all perfectly blind up. It's complicated, came out on Christmas day. Right. You have up in the air.

You know, these are Christmas movies that I was seeing. I did not see a Christmas Carol. I saw it yesterday on my couch, and I thought it was bad three out of 10. I watched it tonight, right before recording, on a 3D Blu-ray. I could not believe how boring it was. I texted David.

I believe let me get my exact wording here. Please. I said, how is Kerry so dry in this movie? He is weirdly underplaying every role. He's funnier in the majestic. Yes, and I believe I said, like, I mean, my thing is like, and you'll agree with me, I'll be like, Scrooge is like Mr. Birds.

He is the most ridiculous exaggerated character. He is the meanest person alive. He's the most miserly person. What his personality traits are the most. Like, that's what Scrooge is. Signing onto play Scrooge is like stepping into a gondola on the river of ham. Right.

And Carrie, and Carrie on top of this is a cartoon in the movie. So it's not just that he's playing Scrooge, it's that he's playing him as a cartoon. And yeah, his take is like, yeah, a play of his like kind of grumpy. And yeah, I think that's what I'm going to go for. He's going to be like a little grumpy. He should have gone full rid laugh. He should have just gone fucking gone for it. But like, but he's like, what's your McCollock? Sir is unfortunate events is five years before this and his arguably a better Scrooge performance than this is. Like that's the kind of energy he should be bringing to this.

And Dr. Robotnik is 11 years later and is a better scrooge. He's given us many a scrooge like, you know, he's giving, he has, you know, who else is a better scrooge? The Grinch, the Grinch, another classic scrooge. That's another reason you shouldn't be scrooge. You really played the fucking Grinch. Like how many? The Grinch. Christmas gr other classic scrooge. That's another reason. You're the one who played the fucking Grinch. Like how many Christmas grumps do you need Jim Carrey to bring you? So I found a quote that Carrey said in an interview while promoting the movie. He said, it's a very classical version of a Christmas carol.

There are a lot of vocal things, a lot of physical things I have to do, not to mention doing the accents properly. The English, Irish accents, I want it to fly in the UK, I want it to be good and I want them to go, yeah, that's for real. It feels like that was his biggest take on each of the characters, was like, goes to Christmas past, aloo, lulting, Irish accent, check, work done. Ghost of Christmas past, Lulting Irish accent, check, work done. Ghost of Christmas present, kind of a Rolly Pulley Yorkshire guy,

check, job done. Ghost of Christmas to be, just point a lot, check, job done. And the ghost of Christmas past is so disturbing looking. I actually liked Yelps when it came up yesterday, when I was watching this movie, I was like, oh my God, what's that?

It just, it, his head's a candle, which is, you know, from the book. But, his body's a candle, his head's a flame, Emily. He said the flame, yeah, oh, it's right, I'm sorry. His head is fire. His head was fire. He's a candle. But like he moves around, he moves around the fire moves with him and like his face looks like a little like squat

like jack-a-lantern. It's so disturbing. But weirdly not the ugliest character in this film because the ugliest character is obviously Bob Cratchett. He looks like a potato that has the face of Jesus in it. Like, that's what it looks like. Emily, Emily, the term I was about to say was pupe potato. I also went to potato, but I couldn't get over the hair pattern on that potato. I want to look at it again now.

It's so weird because we literally had, when is Gary Oldman playing fucking serious black as a fire in Goblin of Fire? Remember, there's just, his face is just made of coal. He looks better. Like two years earlier. Right, he looks better in that, he doesn't this. It's the weird cheeks that's all messed up about. It's something about the way his cheeks look.

He looks like a rodent. If you saw him in your house, you would leave out poison. But you also think about like, what is running the table on MoCamp at this point in time, right? And pointedly, what had never tried to make their characters look too much like the actors, right? Maybe they put a little hint of it in there, but they were always sort of extrapolating

as much onto a different model, which also necessitated some massaging and keyframe animation that probably made the performance as better, whereas Zemeckis was so into like, it's one to one, we're not fudzing with it at all. It's straight there, unvarnished. It is bizarre that Zamekis is so committed to like all the characters need to look like the actors.

But in this one, in particular, he hires people who are so physically different than the characters they're playing. So you get these odd like, it looks like that fucking face replacement app that everyone does now where they put their own face in different videos. Where are you smiling, Ray, all of a sudden, yes of a sudden yes right you're just like that is not the body that gary oldman's face belongs on he is also not tiny tim why make a little

boy tiny tim that moves like gary oldman and looks kind of like a young gary oldman and then is just voiced by some other child have you I since you've done the poll since you've done your polar express episode, there was a quote Zamekis gave around the time that movie came out. So tell me if you've talked about this, that is just horrifying now when we think about who we cast in certain roles, where he was talking about, okay, imagine being able to do a story about, you know, the Brown vs. Board of Education, but Meryl Streep can play one of the little girls who like has to go to the school and like, oh my God.

But he got his dream. Gary Olman's playing Tiny Tim. He can play this. Right. He's the little boy and Mariel needs mom's Seth Green plays the boy. Like he was like really into like having adults play kids and in each of those cases, the plan was to have the adult actor also voice the kid. And at the last second, it was too creepy and they hired a kid to read up it.

We could also mention, so that's Gary Oldman. Colin Firth is in this movie, third build, Fred Screw, or whatever. Freddy Screw. Also looking kind of like Colin Firth in a weird creepy waxy way. You've got Haaskins coming in a weird BB Waxie way. You've got Hoskins coming in as Mr. Fezawig for one big sort of musical sequence essentially, right? The hot chocolate of this movie. You got Robin Wright Penn playing once again a stone face nobody woman character like every time you

say Robin let's get you in. I must correct you. She plays two different characters. Nothing female characters. She plays his sister and fiancee. I believe. Correct. Correct. Exactly. Yeah. And then Carrie L was his new job was to be the actor that Jim Carey acted against in every scene for any of the scenes where he is playing against himself in the final cut. So most of Carey L was his work was not used and then they gave him like five nothing

roles. Yeah, he plays like Portley Gentleman you know, mad fiddler and guest too. He plays the guy who asks Scrooge for money, which is, you know, that's his biggest part. That's his biggest part. Right. And then Scrooge is like, poor children should go to jail and he's like, well, they might die and Scrooge is like, good, that's great. I love that.

Then out the herd. I always was also in polite. That's great. I love that. Been out the herd. Elvis was also in polite. Elvis was also supposed to be in yellow submarine and to some degree, I think Elvis was making a play to be like Zamekis's circus. Like I think he might have been like can I be one of these guys who figures out this medium and Becomes like a go-to mocap stock company actor. Sure. Yeah, fair enough. And it worked.

Yeah, oh, sorry. It worked. It worked perfectly. Instead, he produced Elvis and Nixon and co-wrote it. Did he, he did, he co-wrote it well. Kerry always co-wrote. Did he, he did, he co-wrote it well. Kerry always co-wrote. Oh, yes. Jim Kerry plays, Ebeneer Scrooge at all ages.

Each age is credited as a separate character that he played at the end credits. I don't know if you noticed that, but it's like adult Scrooge, young man Scrooge, little boy Scrooge, Scrooge as teenager, and all of them are credited to Jim Kerry as separate. Scrooge. Like when he's kind of waking up and he feels a little tired, like Scrooge as teenager and all of them are credited to Jim Carrey as separate. Scrooge's like when he's kind of waking up and he feels a little tired. Like Scrooge during the day.

Scrooge at work. Let's just keep going. Scrooge and I. They should have really credited both like mean Scrooge and like nice Scrooge as different characters. Just different men. Yeah. Oh, also Gary Oldman is Marley.

Yeah. Uh, yes, he plays Marley. I would say, and maybe this is a hot take, the worst looking creation in the entire movie. Which defies logic. Spooky sees you guy ghost. That should be his, like him, dunk. He looks just like a person that is blue.

Like rather than being like transparent and ghostly and I remember he's in the trailer and that was why when I saw the trailer I was like they clearly they're just have not figured this out like you know there's three of these now and they just don't know what they're doing because he looks like shit and the the best Jacob Marley, of course, is the Marley brothers from Muffet Christmas Carol. Whoa! Yeah, the whole thing about the bit where he undoes his cloth and then he has to flap his mouth up and down,

like he's a puppet. It's just like, yeah, it's supposed to be a bit, I think, but not funny or disturbing really This is an era that's really earmarked by Zamekis Having poor impulse control of just needing to follow through everything he possibly could do it any given moment of a movie What were you gonna say David? So terrible looking. Yeah, it's so bad So terrible looking. Yeah, it's so bad.

The thing that Emily is referencing where there's the weird kind of body horror and there's a couple other moments like that, like the skeleton, where it's like, oh, he's kind of doing like more tales of the crypti intense visual horror. I like that. I like that movie. Right. I thought that was good. We're like, yeah, we're on like a bad bones.

It's God does. And he's laughing on the ground. Those are cool. Those are cool things. Yeah, of course. It's an idea. Like that's what I'll give you know what I mean? Like at least it's something.

But like when the little kids want an ignorance turn into like a criminal and like a sex worker, it's just like what a weird choice. That is incredibly bizarre. I did have to double check that it wasn't Leslie Zamekis playing the adult sex worker because we've noticed a pattern Emily and all of these movies Zamekis cast his wife

as the weirdly the most sexualized character in the MoCAP universe. His wife is welcome to Marwen. I've seen it. I've seen it. But also do you know his wife is the burlesque puppet in polar express? I did not know that. Yes, and is the busty beer wench in Beowulf

where there's three minutes of her pendulous breast swinging. But in this, she is, she's just calling for its wife. I don't think she has much to do. She is in it. Leslie Manville. she has much to do. She isn't it Leslie Manville Cratch it real life ex-wife of Gary oldman It's true Mary Terry odd I mean look it's a skilled cast and and when we were texting about this David you were saying like

He's treating this as if he's playing King Lear like there's weirdly too much reverence for the idea of what Scrooge is rather than viewing it as like a vehicle to have a lot of fun as an actor, let alone as a comedic actor. And if it's like, if your goal is to do like, we're doing a very faithful adaptation, we're gonna play it straight, we're gonna lean more into the spookiness of Dickens or whatever. Then it's like, have fucking Gary Oldman or Colin Firth or Bob Hoskins just named three people who are in this movie, let alone any of the other people

from like the Zamekis Rogues Gallery. Have fucking, you know, like even, you just think about how much more exciting this movie would be, less commercial, but more exciting would be if it was Christopher Lloyd is Scrooge in Zemeckis a Christmas Carol and you had that kind of manic energy. But it's so bizarre that he is playing it so deadly straight. And I realized watching it like, talking about Scrooge is kind of this a comedic archetype, right? Christmas Carol is like the prototype

for that sort of story we love, the royal we. But like something like as good as it gets where it's like watch a very charismatic movie star play an unrepentant asshole. The first hour of the movie, the fun is, oh my god, they're saying the stuff I would never have the courage to say. They don't get a f**k. They're Larry David, yes. Right. And then the last hour of the movie they learn had to be a good person. Nicholson. Nicholson would have been a good scrooge. Yeah. It's speed of people, Zamekis has worked with. I think Harrison Ford now has a great scrooge in him.

I think he'd be great. He would be so good, but it should be about a California stoner who's rich. You know what I mean? Like they don't bring him to London. This is the mistake. Stop trying to put these guys in Victorian England. Bring scrooge to an, you know, obviously,

did it with Bill Murray, right? Like, you can transpose this story to anywhere. Make it be about it guys like, oh, I want to do his yellow, David Blaine and make my wood would work, right? You know, like that's what you need. I just think the key detail is the actor needs to have fun being this much of an asshole.

The only way a Chris' Carol works is if the audience is getting some perverse pleasure out of how evil scrooge is, as you said, David, on a Mr. Burns level. So that we're invested enough to be touched when the transformation happens. Kerry's just playing an asshole. Like, he's just playing a guy who sucks. And you're just looking at your watch being like, okay, when's he gonna realize the error of his ways? Like, Michael Cain is fucking dialed in in...

So Christmas Carol. You know what I mean? Like, so good. One of the other Christmas Carol, I like the Murray. I like Scrooge, it's okay. I've always thought it's a little overrated, but it maybe it's something. I feel like it's a little overrated. It's overrated.

It wasn't even a huge hit at the time, so maybe it's not overrated, but people maybe put too much on it because it has Bill Murray in it. I like the classics that we talked about. Have you ever seen the rich little Christmas Carol? It is. I've read about it. A glorious thing to behold. It is rich little playing every part in a Christmas Carol.

Many of them is like celebrity impressions. I don't, I'm told this is true. They're all celebrities. I'm not really aware of. I'm going to tell you some of his impersonations. Okay. I'm using fields as epineasers. Scrooge.

And looking at this list. So first, first, first, first, hammer, but, you know, the audience is just like he went there. He's doing, he's, he's satirizing WC field who died 30 plus years ago. He's daring to do it. You got Paul Lind is pop Bob Cratchett. Johnny Carson is Fred. Laurel and Hardy is the solicitors.

Richard Nixon is Jacob Marley. That's actually a little spicy for 1978. That's somewhat related to the news of the decade. Grapchow Marx is Fessie Wig. Peter Falk is the ghost of Christmas present. That sounds good. That actually sounds good. I mean to that.

There's no... But you're missing two key details here. Please, please. It's built as Peter Falk as Colombo slash the ghost of Christmas treasure. To make it clearer. Which character he's riffing on. Jean Stapleton as Edith Bunker slash Mrs. Cratchit.

But then a couple just to end off strong. Truman Capote is tiny, tiny Tim. That's just, that's just homophobia. I don't know how. Absolutely. Peter Sellers as Inspector Clousseau as the ghost of Christmas yet to come. I forgot to mention Bo Gard is the ghost of Christmas yet to come. I forgot to mention Bo-Guard is the ghost of Christmas past, yes.

You murder her, you almost forgot that. James Mason, George Burns, and John Wayne as the three businessmen, and Jack Benny as a boy. Oh boy, wow. I presume the, what day is it, boy? Oh boy. Yeah. Uh, this, this has a helpful tool. There are five of these people were dead at

time of reduction. Is that not a last track? Just want to say, it's reading that list. What we imagine it to be, that's the same kind of thing you imagine hearing Jim Kerry is going gonna play four characters in a Christmas Carol. Like he's just gonna fucking go off and Carey despite not being like a grump as his comedic persona did a lot of movies where it's like, oh, he's upsetting polite society.

He's doing whatever the fuck he wants. Like there is a devil-may-care streak to him that in theory should fit well. Guys, guys, when Richard Nixon comes in as Jacob Marley, instead of chains, he has water gate tapes. He has like real, real tapes draved on him. This is a bastard. Oh, boy. This is so good. Oh, boy. Yeah Oh my god, yeah, we gotta do it. I think you gotta watch it. You gotta watch it.

Yeah. We gotta watch it. I mean, let's do a little little carry context. We're not digging into the movie as much because everyone knows what this fucking story is. Yeah, it's Christmas Carol. There's fucking three ghosts. Look it up. Right.

And it's, it is such a faithful adaptation. Although if there's anything particular you want to say about it, Emily, adaptation wise would very much like to hear it. I'll, I'll, we'll get to that, but let's talk to Carrie. Because I think this movie is a Rosetta Stone to understand Robert Zimakis. I will. And I'll tell you why. Like Carrie, we realized we've never really done a Kerry movie before.

And he's obviously one of the most dominant movie stars in the 90s. And we brought it up recently in a box office game, his bananas year where he has $300 million movies in one year. He goes from being a guy who gets paid like $150,000 a movie to a guy who gets paid $7 million movie, the following year gets $15 million for the Ace Ventura sequel, and the year after that becomes the first actor ever to make $20 million. For what ends up being his first major flop? And then, kind of just continues to run the table on the 90s.

Well, he made a movie after the cable guy called Liar Liar in which he couldn't lie. And obviously that was a huge hit. He couldn't lie. He hung us. And then he does the Truman show, one of the masterpieces of movie making. But there was the cynicism of like,

oh, Carrie wants to be serious now, and then people love that movie, and it was a big hit. He didn't get an Oscar nomination, but it was like a major fucking hit. We left up that in forever, which happens in the movie. That's 95. That's 95. That's post his first wave.

But only built. Yeah. Only built. You got a man on the moon, which I think he's great in. Very good. I did too, but then that's a box office disappointment i guess so i mean it's a box office disappointment by the standards of a jim carry movie i

guess in terms of an anti-coffman biopic huge it must be the highest cursing anti-coffman biopic it definitely wasn't worth him being that big of a dickhead to make that movie well like ruin tim right like i mean isn't that i haven't ever watched that wasn't worth him being that big of a dickhead to make that movie. Well, it would like ruined him, right? Like, I mean, isn't that? I haven't ever watched that documentary, but isn't that what that documentary is kind

of about? It's the worst. Yeah, I mean, I guess, but it just portrays him in the worst light possible. He's so... I mean, yes. They could retitle that paranormal activity six outtakes of Jim Carey on the set of Man on the Moon. It is that upsetting. He seems like an incredibly difficult person in all ways. And like, you know, Peter, we're on the Truman Show like talks about like how you had to like

tire him out to get a real performance at it. You know, you had to let him do all his shit. And then like, then you'll start getting stuff out of him. That was sort of how he approached it. He definitely feels like an actor you have to wrangle if you're not trying to just make a Jim Carey vehicle. Like something like Liar Liar, you're hiring him to just do everything. Right, but 2000 I feel like that's when he's starting to just be like, okay, I'm going

to do cartoon stuff, right? Me, myself and Irene, that's like a cartoon rubber face movie. Grinch, obviously. Human, yes. Highest crossing film of that year. Then then the majestic, it's weird. It's like, I love Jim Carrey. Ace Ventura Pet Detective is literally the first VHS I ever bought with my own allowance. I mean, I was the perfect age for him, much like I imagine you guys kind of were maybe not. No.

There was something about Ace Ventura that I always found very disturbing that I didn't understand. I'm sure he is very disturbing in all ways. No, I was not allowed to watch Jim Carrey movies, but I did sneak Dumber Dumber on a clastrip and it's a classic. It is. Okay, same thing for me, Emily, and it was because my parents hate him. He's annoying and like, and he was suddenly everywhere. Ben, where are you uncaring? I mean, I love the mask.

Like, the mask is good. Big, big movie for me. I mean, I still say like tag lines from that movie to this very day. Somebody stop me. I said, I'm a little bit impolite. That's to stop you, right? You often yell that at the police.

I feel like Truman Show was the first carry movie I saw and I didn't see the carry comedies until after that. Like my parents were just like, we're not taking you that shit. We find him so annoying. That card game, Cinefile, I was playing that over Zoom with my family and my dad got, or my sister rather picked up Jim Carey. We were playing it like what? Card on head guess the name of the person kind of thing clue style and

So Romney had Jim Carey on her head and my dad was trying to give her clues and his clue was bad actor on her head and my dad was trying to give her clues and his clue was bad actor And I was like you can't give that as a clue as if that's a universal I had died hate it's just he's so annoying Like he couldn't give any clue that wasn't clouded by his opinion of him So I your dad okay,, I was just gonna say, I got into him like late-ish, I mean like 99, I was watching the carry comedies on VHS, which is as you kind of pointed out, like when the golden period is over.

So the carry movies I were seeing in theaters were when the bloom was off the rose. You're me, myself Irene and Bruce Almighty's and what happened. I mean, Bruce Almighty was a huge hit. He was a huge hit. He was not a good movie. It's not even an okay movie. It's really bad. It's actively bad.

Actively bad. Right. But it opened to $70 million. It was the biggest opening we can for an original film ever. In Bruce We Trust, that was the tagline. He did the majestic which had bombed. So he was kind of like, head bombed with everybody to be, you know, the mesgesic is just one of those,

just total bombs, right? Like it's a Christmas movie, awards potential, the director of the Shawshank Redemption critics are like, no, audiences are like, no. Like it was just the complete, complete rejection. He slinks off, he comes back with Bruce Almighty. It's the same move as Liar Liar. He's like, I'm gonna come back high concept comedy,

you're gonna love it, right? Like we're just gonna be with Tom Shadiac. I'm gonna just do another Tom Shadiac movie. But then he does have eternal sunshine the year after. Which is his song. That's pretty good. He's so nice to see you. So nice to see you.

Yeah. But I feel yeah but i feel like uh i feel like gondry is talked about that he like went to peter weir and he went to darebond he went to all the directors who worked with him and are like tell me all the tricks i mean his whole thing was he said the reason he cast Jim carry was based on how lonely and uncomfortable he looked at the end of every episode of in living color. When they would all come on stage for the good nights. And he was like that's the performance I wanted him to give and you gotta give carry full credit he's brilliant in that movie but it also feels like the fact that he's never been able to give a performance like that again speaks to.

never been able to give a performance like that again, speaks to God for somehow teasing it out of him. That's the thing. It's what I'm trying to say here, I guess, is like it's 10 years from Ace Ventura to Eternal Sunshine. And yes, you have a couple of bombs in there, but that is a pretty solid block of work, dramatically and comedically.

And then yes, he still like squeaks out hits with like fun and with Dick and Jane and Yes Man and a Christmas Carol, right? Like, you know, there's, there's a lot of these are doing with penguins. Yeah. Like, you know, he pops up with the penguins. But like the life is out of his eyes. Yes, yes, it's just like, he's just not very fun anymore.

Like I remember Yes Man being, that's probably the most watchable of them because like, I don't know, it's a Peyton Reed movie like Zoe Nationals. I was like, you know, people are kind of like working in the margins on that one, but I couldn't tell you a thing that happens in it. No, that's also one of those wild movies where they were like trying to develop a new model to keep budgets of comedies down. So rather than getting 20 or $25 million up front, he took zero up front salary for 30% of the first dollar gross.

36%. He got a lot of the gross. He made a lot of fucking money on that movie. But yes, it's never quite the same. And I feel like the last decade, he's done a lot of weird, more like supporting parts. I mean, things like kick ass too and Bert Wunderstone, when he's in a comedy, he's sort of like playing like the color character. Right. And then when he does something like Mr.

Popper's Penguins, it feels like there's a gun to his head. I also just like, you know, I always do his head. There are many penguins to his head. You know, I hold a gun. I'll say this. I've never seen dumb in number two. I have no idea if he's locked in in that one at all. I tapped out after 15 minutes on HBO go. I was not able to stick with it. I feel like there was excitement around that, both like the Fairleys and him returning to form, and then it did well, and just no one ever talked about it

ever again. But what I was going to say is I always try to collect stories when I work as an actor from other actors and especially from film and TV crews because you can get really good gossip other actors there. I'm less looking for a savory personal life stuff and more just like I'm curious about what people are like workwise. And Kerry is one of those people where you just hear the most disastrous, demented stories where he is just absolutely like a guy who's been so famous for so long and got famous for being unrainable, you know, that he just does whatever the fuck he feels like doing it any given moment

and i'm not talking around like dark fucked up shit it's just like the stories are so bizarre where they're like like talking to like a grip who's like yeah i worked on mr poppers penguins he uh... we were shooting in this guy's like fifteen million dollar central park west department the last day of filming he asked me for a sharpie pen And then he drew a giant self portrait of himself on their living room wall and signed it and said man They owe me 20 million for that one

Well He's just in another reality He's in another reality by all accounts He's in another reality and functions in that way where he is like, I'm doing a mitzvah to these people by defacing the wall of their living room with a drawing up myself. I want to say I, because of his background in sketch comedy and TV comedy, his big breakthrough role was this sitcom called The Duck Factory that got canceled after 13 episodes, but it

was like supposed to make him a star. So he has a lot of experience with TV comedy. I was actually looking forward to him as Joe Biden on Saturday Night Live, and that was a disaster. It was a disaster. The worst thing that has ever happened. And like I too was like, because like, remember the buzz on that was like, well, Kerry really wants to do it. And he asked Lauren and he has a take. And I'm like, okay, like sure. If he did, Kerry thinks he want, you know, and he just comes in and he's ready take and I'm like, okay, like sure. If he did carry things he want, you know, and then he just caught him and he's ready to move to New York. He just did Fire Marshall Bill,

like there was just nothing going on. Like it was so weird after all that hype. The thing that was so insanely damning about it was that Alec Baldwin looked like fucking the groucho marks up there next to him. Alec Baldwin's suddenly, I was like, well, Alec Baldwin's actually locked in Groucho Marx up there next to him. Alba was suddenly, I was like, well, Alba was actually locked in his truck. This is good stuff. Like, yes, it was insane.

Like Alba was hitting his lines. I was kind of amused. Like, the switchback to Biden, and he's like, eh, what are we gonna do? Suckers, and he's like, you know, shooting a finger gun. Like, I didn't, like, Joe Biden is, you could satirize the man.

There are takes on him. Yeah, there's stuff. There's stuff there. Fucking he was the audience best comedic character for eight years. That was a thing. Three other guys have played him well on SNL. I would he I was just a big fan of the Woody Harrel.

So what big fan is strong because anything political on SNL these days is pretty weak sauce. But like, Woody Harrelson had a take, he had a look, it was kind of funny. Like, you know, that was working for me. I know he's like busy or whatever. Speaking of, okay, where does the number 23 fall in? Because that's a fucked up movie. That's a couple of years before this, right? Right. I think so.

Number 23 is 2007. Like after Eternal Sunshine, he also has a series of unfortunate events the same year. And then he has Phonetic and Jane, which is one of those movies I think that had been shot a while ago, you know, like that one sat on the shelf for a year.

I think it was more that they kept shooting it for over a year. That was a movie that never was finished and they kept going back for more and more reshoots. Yeah. But like, so if you basically sort of think of it as like, he kind of takes a three year break almost. And then the number 23 comes out.

And it's like, what? You know, like, wait, is he into this? Like, that was the thing, it's a horrible movie. Yeah. Anyway, like, it's a stupid, bad movie. But there was also that kind of vibe of like, this feels like something Jim Carrey maybe believes. Like, that there's some magic to the number 23.

Tom, am I even misremembering is that another shoe marker? Yes. Yes, that's a shoe marker. You gotta do it. You gotta do shoe marker. Do we gotta do shoe marker? Yes. Yes, that's a shoe marker. You gotta do it. You gotta do shoe marker. Do we gotta do shoe marker? I mean, the number 23 though,

this was, I just remembered the other thing I wanted to bring up, because I was looking up photos from the press tour for this movie. One of the photos I had is my background, my virtual background before I shifted it to adult, Gary Oldman sitting on adult, Jim Carrey's shoulder to do the mocap. But I found this photo of him and Zemeckis,

they did some weird Amtrak cross promotion train tour for this movie, because I think they were trying to post off. Right, big Amtrak tie-in, I don't know why. Because of polar express. But there's this picture for the press conference where he's vomiting up tinsel or whatever. But Kerry had this look through the entire press tour

where his hair was fairly long. He has a really big beard. And then he would wear a lot of loose layers. He would wear a button-down shirt, and then another jacket, and then a blazer, and then an overcoat. It was a very consistent look, and it was kind of dressed down for how many promotional appearances he had to make for this movie.

Then it became clear, oh, he signed on to do the three stuages, a thing that I think people forget. He was supposed to be in the Fairly Brothers Three stuages, where He was supposed to be in the fairly brothers three stuages where it was supposed to be Sean Penn, Benicio D'Altoro. Benicio D'Altoro is Mo. Sean Penn is Larry and Jim Carey as Curly

and it was a big announcement like he's re-timming with the fairly brothers. Jim Carey is going to gain a hundred pounds to play Curly and this was the period where he was trying to bulk up. So he started dressing in this way where you couldn't see his body and grew out the beard so you couldn't see his face. And then like a month after this,

he goes to the fairly brothers and he's like, I can't do it, I can't gain the weight, I don't look right. And then just loses it all and like shapes. Right. And look at his... He says he gained 40 pounds and wanted to gain another 40 and realized like it he couldn't hack it like you know, he whatever. He must have been in his late 40s early. You know, like it was rough on him.

I wouldn't. He's recommend gaining 80 pounds to play curly in a three-stooge movie. You know, he was pretty good on the showtime show, Kidding, which is not a great show, but like he was solid in it. Like he's got, he's got, he's still got it. I kind of hated that show. Yeah.

I think he was a lost hit. I think he was good. I, I, I, he was good. He was interesting. The weird, that show bothered me because he was supposed to be playing a Mr. Rogers type figure, like a beloved. And Jim Carrey just doesn't have that energy. And especially not in this show that's kind of weird and a little show timey, right?

And so I, but yes, he was compelling. And he is compelling as Dr. Evo Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog. It's not like he doesn't have magic to him, but although I will say in a Christmas peril, he does not because. No, I'm looking at the last decade in particular, right? And I would wager that his best performance of the 2010s was as leap Dave Williams in 30.

He's fantastic. I have forgotten about that. I have like immense nostalgia for the high concept Jim Carrey comedy, even though I haven't seen all of them. I just like, if he came out and he was like, I play him doing a movie where I have a guy who has a direct syndrome But for compliments like I'd be like yes, I'm there I'm a guy fucked a dog and I became a cat like I would see that four times You know they would do that though with like is that kind of what mr. Poppers penguins is and you're like yeah shit this sucks now But like I look I threw on liar liar recently, you know, or whatever. I stumbled on it. And when Jim Carrey is being, when he can't lie, it's great.

Liar Liar rules. There is a solid hour of like marriage dramedy stuff in it that you're just kind of like, okay, Jesus, let's keep it moving. You know, he is a kid, he has more attorney, like there's all kinds of... But when he can't lie, that's great. And maybe he should do Liar-Liar too. I don't know. He can't lie. That Liar-Liar is like his big.

It's his crossover from the comedy audience to the broader audience where you could imagine him have gotten an Oscar nomination for that somehow. It wouldn't have happened, but you, you know, you could see it. And then like he's supposed to become Hanks in other ways. And there's just something about his personality that won't fill that space. He's something off putting about it. He's pretty bright. Right.

I think it is whatever that man at chaotic strain he has is that makes him engaging as a comedic performer. It doesn't, it makes it hard to accept him as an every man. And Truman show is such a weird take on the idea of him being an every man figure because he's like a bottled sort of like a bespoke every man created in a social experiment. And then Eternal Sunshine is a guy who's like sap of personality. Like he's like pointedly playing an incredibly boring, emotionally inexpressive man in that movie.

Can I point out, I like him a lot and I love he filled Morris. I know people like that movie, right. I like that movie. I think he's very good in it. That felt like that was maybe, you know, a glimpse into where he could go for the next decade and then he didn't really tap into that potential at all.

In terms of stray comedy, I think the best one is Bert Wunderstone, not as a movie, but he's good in that. I also have not seen that movie because it is against the law to see that movie. It is. I served my time. I served my time. I served my time. That movie had it is illegal to see this movie buzz and box office. That's the only way to explain. There are federal laws and plays. One of my one of my dream. Well, one of my things like David will understand

this. I spent a lot of time thinking about movies that people could make because we used to take part in like a weird online game where that would be like a thing. Oh, absolutely. And one of my dreams is Paul Thomas Anderson making a movie about a week in the life of the Lawrence Welk show because that show was so fucked up behind the scenes. And I was like, but who do you have to play Welk? Jim Carrey would make a good Lawrence Welk. Anyway, that's a very strange reference that people will be excited to hear.

Well, but Emily. Cherries lords well. Great, great pitch. I put it on the blank check picture slate of long-wind. Of course. I keep it up with the clauses, which is now the first project under a blank check television. But that reminds me, the other thing we're not talking about

was that for so long there was the looming specter of the Christopher Nolan Jim Carrey Howard Hughes movie. Yeah, I wonder what that is. I wonder what that looks like. I'm kind of glad that never happened. I'm kind of glad it never happened, but in a certain way Howard Hughes is a good fit for Carrey. 100%.

Yes, creepy, reclusive, strange, intense. Right. It's just that we've done a lot of howard here's at this point. But yes, no, in theory, that's an interesting project. When was that supposed to, I guess it was like, at several points in time. Right. But late 2000s, especially the right that's sort of coming together. Yeah. Well, almost happened early 2000s. Aviator got to the runway first. Then he almost revived it. And then people's thought is that like he kind of just put a lot of that stuff into Dark Knight prizes. Weirdly. He like cannibalized his Howard Hughes script into the third Batman movie.

I would think he'll have a hope Will Ferrell's's kind of, Will Ferrell's kind of at this point where he is sort of where Bill Murray was, pre-Rushmore. And like he needs to like an indie filmmaker like, I saw somebody suggest on Twitter that Aureauster would have a great time working with Will Ferrell. And like I would love to see that. Like I think like people kept thinking that was gonna happen with Jim Carey.

He was gonna hook up with an exciting young Indy Phil Manker, revitalize his career, go to supporting, and he just never did. Like, eternal sunshine's the closest he got. Yeah, I mean, there's things like him being in like the bad batch. You know, he's kind of fun in the bad batch. That movie stinks.

Right, and then he did that weird fucking movie dark crimes i have not seen dark right it takes a dark mind to solve a twisted crime is the decline what if there were dark crimes i mean they're not asking but i i think i think it is harder to crystallize what his persona is that you can subvert into a more serious-minded movie, Emily, in the way that it was so clear what, like, if you take the Bill Murray thing and you put him in a more serious context, the overwhelming loneliness of this guy becomes very poignant, you know?

And I think Farrell has those reserves in him that no one's really figured out how to properly use yet. Kerry is like best when he's doing sort of just maximalism when like what you're watching him for is just doing everything. It's one of the reasons why this movie is so upsetting because it's the one time that he's seemingly holding back when there should be nothing keeping him in place. I want to hear your sort of big zamacus take. Yeah, before I was playing the box office game, right?

I feel like we just need to hear this and then flush. Do you know, talk it out? I, yeah, I was, I was thinking about this because when we were talking about the rich little Christmas Carol, I was like, well, why didn't, you know, at this point in time, why don't just get Robin Williams, have him play every part, have him do like a celebrity impression for every part, and would just be like a disaster, but, you know, it would be more fun than this movie.

Maybe like a busy field to screw, so just throw it, and go into the room. Watching this movie, I was struck by Zamekis's adaptation choices to play up at every turn the anti-capitalism message of a Christmas Carol in a way that usually does not get pulled into American adaptations of the story. It's usually like Scrooge just needs to be nicer and give more to charity. Right, he's too mean. Yeah, Zamekis is, I think watching it at this moment in history, I was like, oh my god, this is like playing up the aspects of chicken story that are like, you know what, we are only as good as the weakest people in society and we should work together to build something

that doesn't give too many people too much money and doesn't give too many people too little money. And the stuff that Zemeckis keeps from the book is he cuts quite a few things for all the hype that this got about, you know, this is a faithful adaptation. The stuff he keeps is all stuff like wanton ignorance. It's all stuff like, you know, really playing up a house grudge has lots of money and other people have no money and the, you know, the orphans and the collecting for the poor and all of this stuff. And that made me think of one of the things that has followed Robert Smaikas around his entire career is, is he fundamentally a conservative filmmaker in political sense, or is he someone who's

kind of satirizing that viewpoint, taking the piss out of that? The gumped question. I think that Christmas Carol proves that he is indeed fairly, I don't think he's like as far left as like George Lucas, but I think he's a fairly left-leaning filmmaker who really does kind of hate the capitalist system that has made him rich. It is a thing I have been wrestling with these many months, and the months ahead of us, where like, you know, it's not months ahead, it's months. It's just months ahead of us. I was watching his early short films are on like the Criteria and Disc

for I want to hold your hand. And they're the films that he showed to Spielberg that got Spielberg on board being his mentor, setting him up with films. And the whole thing he liked about him was he was like, this guy is an arctic. Like he makes these really radical, angry, political comedies. He just likes chaos. And it does feel like there's a much clearer satirical edge to his movies early on that starts to fade away. And I think he starts to get pegged as being this very kind of like sappy populist sort of like sentimental mainstream guy. But he is clearly a very angry filmmaker. Like most of his movies seem driven by contempt of something and then perhaps regrets about where that anger led, you know?

But they all have that sort of thing to it and we talk a lot about him being like kind of the ultimate boomer filmmaker. But he also seems to be a guy who has a lot of hatred for everything the boomers wrought in society. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, not to relitigate for a scump, but I, that's that movie.

That movie is about, I am a boomer. I love boomers. I fucking hate myself. I hate everything that I've done, you know. That's the conflict that makes that movie kind of difficult to untangle. Right. And like, I found this quote that I read in the contact episode about how he was raised super Catholic

and then became super atheistic and then has spent like the later years trying to sort of untangle his earlier rebellion and find some sort of middle ground between the two. And he also falls in this category and it's like two narratives that come up a lot on this podcast because of the kind of careers that we cover. One is, filmmaker discovers some kind of technological breakthrough and becomes obsessed with pushing this boulder up a hill,

quote-unquote, for the next generation of filmmakers, right? This weird sort of like, in the same way that Englee has done with the high-frame rate stuff. So Mechis at this time was always framing it as like, I don't care if people don't like these movies. I'm doing this for the next generation of filmmakers. I'm doing all the R&D for the next generation to have these tools to play with.

There's that thing, and then there's also the thing of, I hate what all the film trends I started have wrought in Coltrice. Yes, very much so. Like, he seems to have, yeah, that grump is. Yes, right. And you know, Spielberg and Lucas, you know, all these guys were there just like,

ugh, look at all these movies now, there's all bullshit. Right. It's an odd choice in that way to make a Christmas carol that is at this point in time in his career, to make a Christmas carol that is so devoid of a joy of humor and is trying its hardest, if unsuccessfully, to forefront the sort of regret and the literal horror of the story. Right, but if you view this as Robert Zemeckas being like,

I am Scrooge and I ruin the world. Like I think that that is, I think that that's a take. I think that he is really tapped into this idea of like we need to like build something better. And like this movie becomes like kind of his waterloo in that regard. And then he goes off and starts making like weird little kind of personal kind of not movies.

And you know, and welcome to Marwin ends with Steve Grelter and into Cameron saying, eat the rich. Like, you know, it's, it's the. Mm-hmm. Marwin's crazy. This movie is just so fucking boring. My final thought, I'll say, is like,

Tintin comes two years after this, is the final gas. I've said this before, but I think so much of the success of Tintin is they find the exact right distance to push it into abstraction. So they overcome the uncanny value of it being like, these are proportions

that no human being has. This is not what the architecture of a face looks like. We're still going for a tactile quality in the animation and to realism in the performances, but we're not trying to replicate the way these actors face is looking that kind of way. And they go a little bit into that with like, I mean, obviously the stretching out of Kerry's limbs in this and his nose and his chin. But even like you look at the ghosts of Christmas past and it's just straight up Jim Kerry's face in a flame, right?

You look at the ghost of Christmas present and it's straight up just like it looks like Jim Kerry doing the promotional rounds for this movie trying to bulk up to play curly. And then the ghost of Christmas to come is just apparently him most capture performances and the silhouette of a row pointing at shit um but there's that he be going he playing he playing there's the opening transition of the movie i guess after the opening credits the mechus flying over the city scape shit where it goes from the book or does that come first where it goes from the book you look at the book and then it goes from the book or does that come first where it goes from the book.

You look at the book and then it goes into the city and then it says Jim Carrey over a footage of him wandering around. But there's that transition where it goes from the illustration in the page of the book. Yes, I like to. Right. And then the illustration becomes 3D and then slowly the illustration transitions into this totally horrifying looking Bob Marley corpse. Jacob Marley, what am I saying? Bob Marley. I wish Bob Marley was in this mode. I wish that had been his choice. I'm doing Christmas Carol but the ghost of Bob Marley is playing every character.

I bought the rights on the Marley estate. But I had this immediate thought of just like, oh, that was immediately more visually appealing than anything I've seen in any of these mocap movies. He was so weirdly committed to trying to bridge this gap between like, it's not animation, it's not live action, it has the qualities of both. That I just thought like, look, it's not going to fix the energy problems this movie has. But if this movie were done with like three-dimensional illustrations in that way, yes. Yes, I agree with this completely. It would have some fucking feeling to it. You're like what you were saying about the Richard

Williams version being the best one. It's like make it look like the fucking woodcuts from the book or something. Yeah, and that apparently was like their goal, which this looks nothing like, but yeah, it's, I have seen so many Christmas Carol adaptations. I've seen so many that are worse than this one by several degrees. This is the one I least want to watch again. So also when Bob Cratchett turns toward camera and then starts talking to it and reciting the famous end of the book, it's terrifying. It's terrifying.

The whole thing sucks. Speed round some other things that suck. The entire Ghost Acrystus present sequence happens from one room. He just turns the floor into like a viewfinder so that they can look at other things happening, like it's some weird theme park ride. The Feszywigs sequence, which he turns into hot chocolate and the main money shot of it is a woman twirling too hard and briefly becoming a helicopter through her skirt.

Yeah. The one thing that I think really does succeed in capturing the book again is Tiny Scrooge. I'm glad it's in there and I'm glad that Dickens' vision was realized. Finally, just tiny scrooge, I'm glad it's in there and I'm glad that Dickens' vision was realized. Finally, just dancing on top of that bottle. Low-screwed. It's always funny when the high pitch, the pitch up,

it's always good. I David pointed out that this is one of his only soul screenwriting credits. I was like, yeah, but it's like, he's pretty much just copy-pasted the book and then added in long screen descriptions of what when he's shorned in chase sequences that must have ended with,

I promise you this is gonna look really cool. Yes, exactly. Well, then also, I guess, I mean, Marley chain legend, I guess we should just shout that out. Oh yeah, I mean, the chain work is pretty good, they're green, that's cool, they're translucent, you know, Dickens really invented something pretty magical, which is that ghosts carry around chains and, you know, I've taken that and incorporated it into my fashion.

So, you know, I'll have wearable chains with my line that's coming out next year. So look forward to that. Do you look forward to being a ghost because they'll just like give you some chains? Absolutely. Yeah. I assume that they, you go and you get their chains and then they assign you a place to hunt. Yeah, St. Peter's like how many chains, Mr. Hossley, and you're like all of them. It's like checking in on election day. You go to the little desk and they're like, Hossley, Hossley, with an assuracy,

you go, ask them to go, great, here are your chains. We have to play the box office game. This is one of the crazier box office games that I can remember. It's three, it's three movies where you're just like, holy shit. Number one though is this is November 6, 2009. Number one is a Christmas Carol opening to $30 million. Not great.

Okay. You know, what are you going to do? It ends up at 130. It ends up making 137 domestic 177 international 315 worldwide. Okay. But you know, maybe not like 200 million. Yeah. And it costs a ton to market and polar Express made more than that. You know, five years earlier. So like, that's just not what you want to see.

And this thing has certainly had zero shelf life. Zero that's the other thing that is not linger does not become a classic. All right number two though okay. Okay concert movie. Has made fifty seven million dollars Michael Jackson's this is it Michael Jackson's this is it who could forget that michael jackson had recently died yeah and this movie came out and so they rushed to this is it the

it's not even a concert movie right it's it's like a preparing for a concert movie it is it's it's not even a documentary it's like it's got the shape of a concert film, but it's put together from footage of him rehearsing a concert. He never got to do because he died. So weird, I've never seen a huge hit. So much. $160 million worldwide.

Is it the whole Michael Jackson movie of all time? It might be. Probably. Like, what would it's competition? I just remember there being like Sony bought it for so much money and deadline was doing these breathless pieces where they were like, no one knows how much this is gonna make.

It's gonna make $500 million. Or like there was just this feeling of like and then people saw it and they were like, oh, it's really just watching rehearsal footage. Like it's very unexciting. There's a part where, because I'm such a big Jackson V fan, and there's a part where he goes into doing a medley

of all the Jackson V songs. I start getting so amped, and like 30 seconds into it, he goes, hey, can we stop? I'm just like out of breath. And you're like, oh, well, this sucks, because I didn't see the thing I wanted to see and also this is more depressing now. My, yes, go ahead. I was just saying my my primary memory of Michael Jackson's death is that he died while I was visiting my old German grandmother

and we went out to watch fireworks on the 4th of July and people were playing Michael Jackson songs and I was not aware that my German grandmother knew about Michael Jackson's death but she turned to me and said he's dead now very sad and then she went back and got in the car because she didn't care about watching fireworks. I mean no lies detected. I was in Paris when Michael Jackson died and there were literally just people running down the streets holding bottles of wine and beer screaming Michael Jackson Ilai Ma Ilai Ma

I was really like all night as I went to different neighborhoods. It was a constant throughout the city Number three at the box office. It's new this week. It's opening to $12 million. How good, Jackson. Too bad don't do it. And it's sure, yes. How to describe, I guess like a dark comedy. One of those movies that is 12 now.

I feel like just saying the title is just a great movie that does not exist. Like, you know, it's a great like filler title for any movie that does not exist. Big cast. Big cast. It's not holiday themed at all, is it? No, it's not holiday themed. It has a funny billing, funny billing where there's someone's, someone's getting the AND credit, but it's not an actor. Someone is getting the AND credit, but it's not an actor.

Oh, no, an actor. Not an actor. Not an actor. It's like actor, actor, actor, actor, actor, actor, and a duck. You're close. You're close. actor, actor, actor, and a dog. You're close. You're close. Okay, so is it, is the and the name of a proper character

or is it like a thing? It's an animal, it's an animal. It's an animal and is the movie kind of like centered around the animal? Well, no, but like it's in the title. This animal is in the title. it's in the title. This animal is in the title. The title. I've never seen this movie.

I've never seen this movie. And I love the star of it. I love most of it. I love, yeah, a lot of the actors in this movie. One canceled actor in this movie, but a lot of good actors. I almost find it unlikely that I haven't seen this movie. So is this like a, is this the, I don that I haven't seen this movie. So is this

like a, is this the, is the canceled actor Kevin Spacey? The canceled actor is Kevin Spacey. Hmm. Huh. It's a Kevin Spacey dark. He's fourth, he's got the animal. It's not nine lives. He's built one person ahead of an animal. Was he in an airbud? Yeah, it's an airbud. No, come on, come on. It's a serious movie. It debuted at the Venice Film Festival.

It's got huge stars in it. It does not exist. It cannot exist. It saw this camera 50 times. No, it's like a comedy, but it's like, it's like a dark satirical comedy for grownups. Wow. Spacey and animal. Can you give me the animal kingdom?

It's part of it. It's a hoofd animal, I don't know. It's a horse movie? No, no, it's not a horse. Is it? Is it a cow movie? Not a cow, not a horse, but you know, another farm animal. She now this is getting fun. Now this is just an animal guessing. No, it's not a sheep. Is that a sheep?

It's a pig. Wait, wait, I don't know. It's a pig. Did I hear goat? Goat? Oh. Is this the man who stare at goats? The men who stare at goats. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Bridges. Who's the one person I'm forgetting? Spacey Hanger?

You're a McGregor. Kevin Spacey and Goat and the men who stare at goats. A Grant Heslov film. You're right. That movie cannot exist. I met Grant Heslov once. It seemed like a really nice guy. Yeah. I was going to be his writing partner. When that movie was out, I doubt it had existed. Yes, right. It's a, I guess, an anti-war comedy about CIA or like US Army, like psychological experiments, right? Where they're like trying to make psychic spies. I've never seen it. I only remember the trailer and it's like a guy running into a wall or whatever. You know, like it's like shit like that.

I have no idea what it's about. I mean, people, you know, like, Truman Show Syndrome is a serious thing. I feel like there have been psychological studies of generations of people. Post-Trumin Show grow up with the fear that their life is actually just some fictional reality for someone else to watch.

And I felt that way anytime I walked by a man who stared goats posted on the street. Because it was like this is lazy said dressing for a movie that cannot come up with a fake movie to exist in its universe. The men who stared goats, they stare. All right. Good.

Good talk. There come. The fourth movie is a sci-fi horror film. They stare. All right. Like, it's a tough talk. It's a tough talk. Okay. The fourth movie is a sci-fi horror film. Sci-fi horror film 2009. Yes. Would you say more sci-fi, more horror? More sci-fi.

Just one of those cheap ass sci-fi horror movies that probably made a profit, no one ever remembers. It's not the, the Dennis Quaid Ben Foster one, is it? No, I believe what's that called? Elysium? No, wait. No, but it's something like Elysium. It's not Elysium, that's the mad Damon thing. What the fuck is, it doesn't matter.

Anyway, no, it's not that. It's just a cheap ass horror movie, it stars Milla Jovevich. Oh, um, fuck, fuck. It's got a cutesy sci-fi name. Yeah. You know, it's like a play on us on a concept we would, we would be dimly aware of. It's a sci-fi concept. It's not ultraviolet.

No, no. This is going to be tough. You guys are not going to get this. No, I think I got a I feel like I'm usually good at my meal Us. You got it. You're going to tap out. Do you have a guess Emily? You look like you almost had a thought. I remember the poster for this movie But I do not remember the title. Describe the poster to me. Emily. Give me the poster. Oh my god. It's a fuck. It's Maybe I don't remember the poster. I think god. Um, it's a fuck it's a maybe I don't remember the poster I think I'm remembering a resident evil poster shit On the poster to be clear. Oh, she's not okay. Well there we go Then I'm a poster is someone being lifted out of their bed as if by an alien force. Oh, oh, oh, it's it's not

It's a called the fourth kind the fourth kind The fourth kind right is a fourth kind. It's an alien ab kind. The fourth kind. The fourth kind. What if you're a fourth kind? It's an alien abduction movie, right? I believe so. Yeah, the second you said being left out, I was like, okay, yeah, that's the, I, that's either the fourth kind or that one

from like a few years later with Carrie Russell. But I don't remember the name of anymore. Dark skies. Dark skies. Dark skies. I think as a close encounter of the third kind is where Dark skies, I think is a close encounter of the third kind is where you meet an alien, but a close encounter of the fourth time is where an alien abducts you

from your bed, from your bed, when you're sleeping. You remember that found footage movie set on the moon? What the fuck was that? What, Emily, what's that movie called Apollo? What's the found footage? Apollo 18, I believe. It's a later. Yes, right. Yes, Apollo 18 Yeah, what if what if we went to the moon and there was a camera? Okay, speaking of found footage movies. What is number five at the box office? It's been

$7 million in seven weeks. Paranormal activity? A little film called Paranormal activity that rules. Love Paranormal activity. Yeah. One is so good. Two is okay. Three is the best. Never saw the other ones. I've only seen one in three, but I agree that three rules. Three is so good. Three is amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Three rules. I should watch the other ones, why not? That is the box office for this time. We've also got opening at number six, one of my favorite movies of 2009, Richard Kelly's The Box, which we will one day do on this podcast,

which I love so much. You got couples retreat. What if there was a couples retreat? You got law abiding citizen? I if there was a couples retreat? Got law abiding citizen? What if there was a law abiding citizen? I don't know what it was. Well, to those big hits, like couples are hit.

Vince Vaughn just snoozing his weight with 100 mil domestic. God, it's true. Vince Vaughn is like, he's like resentful that he's in that movie. It's so weird. Yeah. He literally just messes with what he is.

Is this what you want? Yeah. Right. It feels like a parody of an Adam Sandler premise. Right. Right. We got to go to Hawaii. Why?

For some kind of like couples or treat. Yeah. I don't know. My how my how wife hates me or something. I like that. I like Vince Vaughn has found his Wes Anderson and it's S Craig Zoller. Like that's that's I got a sick Vaughn pretty good in freaky. I gave him a good review for freaky gave him good notices

He's been doing good work. He's good in hacksaw Ridge. He's good in fighting with my family He's leaning into the right things right now. Oh, the thing about freaky is he's funny in it Obviously because he's playing a teenage girl from most of the movie, right? Like it's a body swap movie. But he plays a serial killer and you're like, yeah, it's fun. Of course, that's good casting. He's creepy and scary.

And then when he's being funny, you're like, oh, right, I forgot that he was like a comedy star for 15 years. Right? If it's something he has that muscle. Right? A list comedy star. Yeah.

What a weird career. But you want to talk about a great career and we'll leave Andrew worth one of the best writers out there. One of our guests, one of our favorite people. I want to ask you because you're never going to do a Christmas Carol again because no other great directors have done a Christmas Carol. Who's your director?

You'd like to see do Christmas Carol just lightning round? Because I have an answer. I have just to make Griffin happy. Oh, God, I got to hear the answer to make Griffin happy. Yeah. Do a Christmas Carol. That's a good question. I mean, I didn't watch the FX,

the dark, square, two fox, right. But I am into the idea of someone doing a harder, edged Christmas Carol like that, not an edged, large Christmas Carol, but like the thing this movie occasionally toys with of just like, what if you made it really fucking dark? You know, I don't want anyone to do it, but yeah, it could be fun if Mike Flannic

and did a ghost story movie. You know what I mean? Like someone leaned more into the horror. Like a- If you did like a nasty like $1 million haunted house Scrooge movie. Yeah. I don't know.

What's your answer, Emily? Gendy Tartikovsky. Oh, well, well, that'd be fun. OK, so that's a great pick. My pick was going to be like the first thing that came to mind for me was like, Paul King does a big family scrooge musical. Right, like Joe Kornish, like, you know,

British guys with a good sense of comedy and visuals and, you know, yeah, yeah. But I'm also like, I feel like, I'm up at Christmas Carol scratches that itch for me. It's a great Christmas Carol musical with a great performance at the center. A lot of good comedy. I now I like the idea of candy just going fucking full tune on this thing. Yeah.

And he's a guy. Lobby. Yeah. Bring it. They could be the ghost of Christmas. You know what the thing about the thing about this is there's all these franchises that are like, we're going to do Christmas Carol because we got these recognizable characters. Hotel Transylvania Christmas Carol would work.

Emily, that's such a good idea. That's such a good idea. I mean, track is kind of a script sometimes. Yeah, you know, an HT4. I mean, if you're gonna keep it going, you might as well just start being like, yeah, I don't know, we'll do a Christmas Carol. Yeah, I don't know. We'll do a, what's another like template you could shove it into?

Yeah, the whole Transylvania treasure island. Yeah. Just do them all. Right. Yeah, just make them the new muppets. Um, Emily, is there anything specific you want to plug aside from the fact that people should be following all of your work in general? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can find me on Twitter at twitter.com slash MLEVDW. I am on Vox all the time. My newsletter is called Episodes. And as you listen to this, the ultimate episode of the second season

of my scripted fiction podcast, Arden is dropping tomorrow. So check that out. We have gotten awards nominations. That means we're good. Highly recommended. And not so bad. That's not a word. I want you to remember how this episode started and recognize that we might be nipping at your heels and the awards categories next year.

Peabody's coming. I remember. I've got my comedy points going. I'm going to have a Peabody medal. Wow. Can you imagine? Oh, I've noted it. I've wrote down apply for Peabody. But, And oh, I've noted it. I've wrote down apply for P body, but You know guys I've I chewed this up in the polar express episode. I got a promo No Christmas album that I've put together

It's a slow Christmas album and things that Christmas music't slow enough. So he's releasing an album. This is for real. That's gonna drop this win as you listen to this. The link would be in the show notes. Please, you know, it's free for everyone to listen and enjoy. I just can't believe that's real. That was the best Christmas music I've ever heard, Ben. You've created a holiday classic.

Thank you, Emily. That's, I really appreciate it as someone who's loves Christmas. That I take that in a holiday classic. Thank you Emily. That's, I really appreciate someone who's loves Christmas. I take that in high regard. This thing is going to be huge. I'm just saying. It's going to, yeah. It's, it's going to get much bigger than a podcast. Right.

It's going to be like, it's going to be like the Buster Point Dexter to our New York stalls. All right. Great reference. Take a breath. I love it. Yeah. going to be like the buster point next start to our New York stalls. All right. Great reference. I love it. Yeah. Let's end it. Thank you all for listening. Please don't forget to subscribe. Joe Bonpair rounds for our reclame at Garfunny theme song. Go to blackstepred.com for some real nerdy shit. Go to patreon.com slash the blank check where we're finishing off the alien franchise blank check special features uh... tune in at next week

for a flight we're gonna roll it as always on the twelve day of christmas my true love sent to me twelve podcast potting eleven potters pipe potting ten more potting, 10 more pots of potting. Five potting. Potting, spotting. Eight pots of potting.

Seven pots of potting. Six pots of potting. Come on, see you with me now. Five potting. Five potting. Four potting. Oh, cast! Four, five, A cast! Three, two, five,

A cast! Two, five, A cast! Doves! And a cast! A cast! In a heart! That's a Peabody winner.