Video Gamers Podcast - Gaming Quick Takes - Christmas Movies

Episode Date: April 8, 2023

From gaming hosts Paul, Michael and Josh, we're bringing you even more gaming content each week.  Gaming Quick Takes are a short series of game recommendations, funny moments, off-topic chat and more. A small dose of gaming to brighten your Saturdays! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. Hey guys, welcome to this Quick Take episode. We're so excited to have you here with us. In the past, these Quick Take episodes actually were only available to those who financially supported the show through Apple subscriptions and Patreon.

But due to popular demand, we have decided to shake up the perks for our supporters and we'll be releasing these Quick takes on Saturdays to everyone, giving you all some extra free content that was previously unavailable to the public. And these quick takes are a little more laid back and they're hosted by just one of us. So sit back, relax and enjoy this quick take episode. Shazam! Boom! Hey, squad mates. This is Paul here with another Quick Take episode.

So excited to spend these next few minutes with you all. And thank you so much for supporting the show. It's my favorite time of supporting the show. It's my favorite time of year, guys. It's finally getting cool here in Phoenix. We are in the holiday season. We just put up all of our Christmas lights about two days ago, so our house is now decorated for Christmas. Absolutely love getting into the holiday spirit. And so what better thing to do than to talk about Christmas movies? Now, I have talked before on the show about how growing up we did not celebrate Christmas. So I did not grow up

watching Christmas movies like most people do. I had to get caught up on these when I was an older teen and then going into adulthood. And so I kind of had to play catch up with a lot of these things. I did not grow up watching things like the Muppet Christmas Carol movie, or It's a Wonderful Life, or Miracle on 34th Street, which I think is the name. I'm not even 100% sure. But anyway, I just wanted to talk about what my top five favorite Christmas movies are. And maybe I'll mention a couple honorable mentions that didn't quite make the cut. Or maybe they're movies that may or may not qualify as a Christmas movie. All right, so I don't have these in any particular order, but I'm just going to give you

my top five here. And we're going to start off with Home Alone. All right, now for some reason, even though I was not allowed to sing Christmas songs at school, I used to have to ask to go to the office because the church that I was raised in did not celebrate Christmas. And we were not allowed to sing Christmas carols or make any kind of Christmas gifts or anything at all related to Christmas. But for some reason, me and my sisters were allowed to watch Home Alone, and we even owned it. And I'm not entirely sure why, but I have heard some people say Home Alone's not really a Christmas movie.

I completely disagree. This is 100% a Christmas movie. It takes place during Christmas break. I love the comedy. I think it has the all time greatest scream ever recorded in a movie when Kevin McAllister puts the tarantula on

Daniel Stern on his character the scream that he gives I always have to rewind it at least three or four times when we watch it because it's just so good and of course you know the movie ends with you know it being Christmas and the family coming home and them spending the holidays together. I also remember being very disappointed to find out that Angels with Filthy Souls, which was the fake mob movie that they have inside Home Alone, that that was not a real movie.

I remember even as a kid thinking, oh, when I'm older, I can't wait to watch that movie. And I was so sad to find out that they only filmed, you know, the 45 seconds or whatever for the movie, and it's actually not a full-length feature. All right, so Home Alone definitely makes the list. I'm also going to say Christmas Vacation. So clearly you can tell when it comes to Christmas movies, I tend to gravitate toward the comedy side of things. Christmas Vacation is great. I'm actually not a very big Chevy Chase fan. I know I'm kind of in the minority.

I was never a fan of Three Amigos, Fletch. I don't know if I'm maybe just a little bit too young. The comedy never really worked for me. But I do love Christmas Vacation. It is just filled with so many great one-liners. I quote it all the time. Even when we were shopping for some new Christmas decorations, I found an this giant Clark Griswold in our front yard. But I ended up deciding not to buy it. But that is probably those are the two Christmas movies I have to watch every year. It's going to be Home Alone and Christmas Vacation. The next one I'm going to include on the list is Die Hard. All right. Again, I know some people debate whether or not it's a Christmas movie.

I'm going to say yes. I think it's close enough that it's going to qualify. Great action movie. I mean, what is there left to say? It's, you know, probably the most influential action movie ever made. You always hear about future movies being like Die Hard on a boat or, you know, Die Hard on a train. You know, it kind of became, you know, like synonymous with that whole action style movie. So Die Hard's fantastic. My wife and I have a tradition that every Christmas Eve, my wife will be wrapping gifts watching Die Hard while I am organizing and putting together a scavenger hunt for our kids. So when they wake up on Christmas morning, we hand them hint number one. And I usually have about 20 to 25 clues around the house. And the last one leads to where the

Christmas presents are hidden. So that's our tradition there with Die Hard. Also on my list, The Night Before. Now this is a movie that I just saw for the first time about a year ago. And I remember that one kind of being like at the tail end of the whole run of like the Seth Rogen and the Judd Apatow movies. And I really loved Knocked Up and Superbad. And then I just kind of felt like we kept getting the same movie over and over. And by the time like This Is 40 came out, like, I didn't even really like

it at all. Funny People starts off good, but it's so long, and the last half is kind of a mess. And I remember just being fully out when The Night Before released. And I remember hearing on another podcast, I think it was on the Rewatchables podcast, they had mentioned that The Night Before kind of failed at the time and people didn't really love it. But since there's so few actual comedies that come out these days, because everything's like a superhero movie. And so even Thor Ragnarok might be the funniest movie of the last few years. But they were saying if The Night Before came out now, you'd probably say it was the funniest movie in the last five years but they were saying if the night before came out now you'd probably say it was the funniest movie in the last five years and so i decided to give it another try and it's really funny i mean it is chock full of stars and comedians there are awesome cameos in there like even like miley cyrus plays like a major role at the end. So The Night Before is a very funny movie. My favorite scene in it by far

is where they are doing a parody of the piano that's on the floor. And so you have in the movie Big where Tom Hanks and the other actor, they're playing Heart and Soul. And so they play it together on the ground piano. And in The Night Before, they start playing the piano key, but it's actually Runaway by Kanye West. And so the bass kicks in and Anthony Mackie starts yelling, look at you, look at you. And it's just the beat from Runaway, which is one of my favorite all-time comedy moments. So Night Before is definitely worth checking out. And then for the last one, I kind of struggled at that point. I was like, you know what, there's like four Christmas movies that I really love. And then I feel like there's a whole bunch of B plus movies that I

don't really love. So I kind of had to figure out what to do for the fifth spot. And what I ended up landing on is Scrooged. And this is definitely the most traditional Christmas movie on my watched. My wife was always a huge fan. And so I remember when I started dating my eventual wife, when we were still in high school, I would go over to their house and I remember around the holidays, they would always watch Scrooged at least once or twice. And so I remember watching it with them and really liking that movie. Of course, it's just a modern retelling of It's a Wonderful Life,

but Scrooged is a lot of fun. A couple others that I considered, Elf. I think Elf is really good. I think for my kids, it's probably their favorite Christmas movie. And then I had a couple that I just weren't sure if they qualified or not. If Edward Scissorhands can be considered a Christmas movie, then I would have that in there instead of Scrooged. You know, Edward Scissorhands opens and closes where it's at Christmas. It has maybe my all-time favorite movie score. The music's fantastic. Winona Ryder. I talked about being one of my hall passes. I always had a huge crush on her growing up. uh this is when johnny depp you know was in his best element you know later on i i didn't care for his acting quite as much but looking at edward scissorhands i'm not sure johnny depp's ever been better winona rider's fantastic great movie and uh that one i

would have in there if it counts also hook hook has a lot of scenes revolving around christmas that's kind of like the setting so kind of like edward scissorhands hook also takes place at christmas but they don't really address christmas it's more in the backdrop but hook definitely just came out for me being born in 1984 i was like the perfect age when hook came out. I thought it was the greatest movie of all time. And also the last one that I'll mention is Batman Returns. So I actually have like a second Tim Burton movie here as an honorable mention. But Batman Returns, you know, again, takes place at Christmas. I don't think it has enough Christmas to actually count, whereas I think Die Hard does.

Maybe I just haven't seen Batman Returns in a long time. Maybe it would qualify. Maybe I'll have to give that a shot here this holiday season. So just to recap here. Top five. Home Alone. Die Hard. The Night Before.

Christmas Vacation. And Scrooged. Honorable mentions. Elf. Edward Scissorhands. Hook. And Batman Returns. All right.

Well, I hope you guys are having a great holiday season. Hope you all have an awesome Christmas and enjoy a nice break from work or school or whatever you might be doing. Hope you're having a great time with your friends and or your family. And we'll see you guys next time. Happy gaming, all.