A Christmas Carol Twists – The verse

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[00:00:27] Hello and welcome one final time for 2024 to the Woolshiftust Winter Holiday Zone.

[00:01:08] Calling all Christmas Carol fans, bring an open mind to these adaptations because today things get a little bit weird.

[00:01:15] I'm Alicia and I'm here with Luke and Luke we've reached our final episode of Project 2024 Christmas Carol. How do you feel?

[00:01:23] So I joked to you on Blue Sky, Alicia, that this is our Everest and we're about to reach the summit.

[00:01:29] This is the final assault.

[00:01:33] And then I just have to do all the editing, but that's okay.

[00:01:36] Yes, but the key thing is, Alicia, I won't be doing that to you.

[00:01:42] You've reached the summit. I'm right behind you.

[00:01:44] I've reached my summit.

[00:01:47] Like, enjoy the view. I'll be there.

[00:01:50] But you were saying, um, you, you watched all of these, including, we weren't sure if you're going to watch a new diva's Christmas Carol, but you're like, you know, him for penny, him for pounds.

[00:01:59] No, if you're going to, if you're going to, if you're going to do, if you're going to do a marathon, you've got to, you've got to complete it.

[00:02:04] You've got to finish that.

[00:02:06] Um, you were saying right before we started recording that this was a mixed bag, the films of this episode.

[00:02:14] Yes. Like I feel this is, I feel this is a, uh, this is a show where a movie version of the Sims Nard scale.

[00:02:22] Okay.

[00:02:23] The Sims Nard scale would be appropriate because it goes from the very, very good to the very, very bad.

[00:02:29] So we'll get to, I know which one you're going to put on the Sims Nard end, which in case anyone doesn't listen to our silo coverage, that's our portmanteau for the two biggest villains in the series.

[00:02:39] Um, so I know which film you would put there.

[00:02:41] We'll get to that in a minute, but which would you put on the Juliet end of the scale?

[00:02:45] The good end.

[00:02:46] I think spirited.

[00:02:48] I enjoyed the heck out of spirited much more.

[00:02:52] I mean, this is the thing.

[00:02:53] I think it's also an expectations thing because I went into spirited, not really expecting to like it.

[00:03:00] I'm not the world's biggest will.

[00:03:02] I'm not the world's biggest will Ferrell fan.

[00:03:04] Mm-hmm.

[00:03:05] Said.

[00:03:06] Um, I think a little will Ferrell goes a long way.

[00:03:09] Mm-hmm.

[00:03:10] Um, but I actually enjoyed this.

[00:03:12] All right.

[00:03:13] Uh, yeah, I, I also really enjoyed it.

[00:03:16] So just, uh, laying out what exactly we're going to be covering in this episode and you can find, uh, you can find the list of all these in the chat.

[00:03:23] The show notes as well, but we're discussing the last seven films from this year, which is Scrooged from 1988.

[00:03:30] Flintstones Christmas Carol from 1994.

[00:03:34] It's Christmas Carol from 2012.

[00:03:37] A Divas Christmas Carol from 2000.

[00:03:39] A New Divas Christmas Carol from 2022.

[00:03:42] Scrooge, A Christmas Carol from 2022 on Netflix.

[00:03:46] And Spirited, the 2022 musical on Apple TV+.

[00:03:50] So this is seven we're covering today.

[00:03:52] You'll find links in the show notes where you can watch most of them, though you'll have to find a couple on this list yourself if you want to watch along since I can't legally share those links.

[00:04:00] But if we found them, so can you.

[00:04:02] And, um, of course, spoilers for all these films incoming.

[00:04:06] Though in most cases, you know the basic outline of the plot anyway because it's a Christmas Carol.

[00:04:12] Although in some cases you really, really, you really don't know that much of the outline of the plot because they, they're only very loosely based on a Christmas Carol.

[00:04:22] Well, I think, yeah, in some cases there's only the loose outline of a plot to begin with.

[00:04:28] Yeah.

[00:04:31] All right.

[00:04:32] Well, we're going to go through the films in that order and I've grouped them into little categories.

[00:04:37] We've got our meta films.

[00:04:39] We've got our gender swap Scrooge films.

[00:04:42] We've got our, and we've got our musicals here.

[00:04:47] Yeah.

[00:04:48] So we'll, we'll go through these films, give a little background, our hot takes and anything else we feel like shouting out from each.

[00:04:54] And, and we will be calling out some moments from the book and how they were translated to the screen.

[00:04:59] So any Supercaster Patreon subscribers are encouraged to start with the episode where we break down the novella there.

[00:05:06] Let's start with the meta movies.

[00:05:08] So, okay, Luke, here's where we're about to disappoint a bunch of people.

[00:05:13] Yes.

[00:05:14] Um, so the second most asked about movie that we got when we, you know, said we were doing this project.

[00:05:22] The first most asked about movie is Muppet Christmas Carol.

[00:05:24] We covered that.

[00:05:25] You heard that last or two episodes ago.

[00:05:27] Um, second most asked about movie was Scrooged from 1998 starring Bill Murray.

[00:05:33] Uh, let me just do a little background before I get into our feelings about it.

[00:05:37] So the director is Richard Donner and he had a background in TV, which I guess explains premise.

[00:05:42] Um, and he was also, but he's known for some directing some really great movies like the Omen, the 76 version, the Superman from 79, the Goonies lethal weapon.

[00:05:53] Um, so, and the writers on this though, where Mitch Glaser and Michael Donoghue, um, they were especially SNL writers Saturday night live.

[00:06:04] And so that's how they knew Bill Murray.

[00:06:06] So Bill Murray kind of trusted them more than he trusted the director is the vibe that I'm getting.

[00:06:11] Yeah.

[00:06:12] The, the, the internet research I did for this film suggested that Richard Donner and Bill Murray did not, did not get on at all.

[00:06:21] No.

[00:06:22] And it put it this way, they never worked together subsequently.

[00:06:26] So I think that says something.

[00:06:28] Hmm.

[00:06:29] Mitch Glaser, one of the writers, he did write a very Murray Christmas, which is a Christmas, more recent Christmas special.

[00:06:35] I haven't watched it.

[00:06:36] Have you?

[00:06:37] No, no, I'm not sure that I'm especially keen on it.

[00:06:39] But, um, yeah, the reason why Michael Donoghue didn't write it with him is because he passed away in 1994.

[00:06:44] And unfortunately, so Scrooge of course played by Bill Murray, but he's actually a character named Frank Cross.

[00:06:51] He's a TV exec in this version and other noteworthy class cast members include Bobcat Goldthwait.

[00:06:59] He of the distinctive voice who has the strangest role in this.

[00:07:03] We'll get to it.

[00:07:04] Um, Carol Kane, who, uh, when she was Christmas past, right.

[00:07:10] Yeah, I think so.

[00:07:13] Hi, editor Alicia here popping in just to say we do know that she was the ghost of Christmas present and the cab driver was the ghost of Christmas past.

[00:07:22] We're going to say it wrong a couple more times before we correct ourselves.

[00:07:26] So just bear with us.

[00:07:27] You get what we're saying.

[00:07:29] The rest still stands.

[00:07:30] Okay, back to it.

[00:07:34] Alfred Woodward, who was maybe my favorite part.

[00:07:37] She just played a grounded character in the middle of all this.

[00:07:41] She's the crotchet character, basically.

[00:07:44] Um, Karen Allen, who played his love interest.

[00:07:47] Many cameos.

[00:07:49] Many cameos.

[00:07:50] It was nominated for an Oscar for best makeup and lost to Beetlejuice.

[00:07:54] I do think that's where one place where it really excelled.

[00:07:57] Yeah, that's probably the only place it excelled.

[00:08:00] When you said nominated for an Oscar, my eyebrows shot to the top of my head.

[00:08:05] What could this possibly have been nominated for?

[00:08:08] Like makeup.

[00:08:09] Makeup.

[00:08:09] Makeup makes sense.

[00:08:11] Yeah.

[00:08:12] Um, and it was a moderate financial success.

[00:08:14] You know, it earned about a hundred million versus 30 million for the reported budget.

[00:08:20] Six of that was for Murray.

[00:08:21] It got mixed reviews from the critics, um, with many of them calling it mean spirited, which doesn't surprise me.

[00:08:30] Yeah.

[00:08:31] So, yeah, Luke and I, um, we're, we're going to like make this a fun discussion, but, uh, I feel like we're going to shock some people with our opinion.

[00:08:40] Uh, we're actually starting this discussion at a low point for the two of us, but before people get upset with us, let's get into why we feel the way that we do.

[00:08:50] Um, we're acknowledging that I think this is the first time you watched it as well, right?

[00:08:55] It's one of those films that is on TV every year.

[00:09:00] It's like it's on the film channels every year.

[00:09:03] And it's always like one of those, you know, one of those films you ought to watch.

[00:09:07] And I was really excited to watch it because it's kind of one of those things I've never got round to watch it.

[00:09:12] Yeah.

[00:09:13] Um, yeah.

[00:09:14] So yeah.

[00:09:17] Um, but I think, yeah, this me, the fact that we just watch it for the first time in 2024 means we don't have the nostalgia associated with it that a lot of other people probably do.

[00:09:27] So we're coming from a different place.

[00:09:30] Um, I was a little bit kinder about this one.

[00:09:32] So let's start with my review.

[00:09:33] I gave it two stars out of five and I said, honestly, I gave this half a star more than I would have myself because everyone else likes this film so much.

[00:09:41] And it was nice to finally see what all the buzz is about, but I probably would have enjoyed this more watching it as a kid.

[00:09:48] Uh, but as this was the first time I've seen it, I'm afraid it hasn't aged very well.

[00:09:53] It definitely has its moments.

[00:09:54] I barked out a laugh twice, but slapsticks never been my particular brand of humor personally.

[00:09:59] And like, Oh, look, she's hitting him.

[00:10:02] Ha ha.

[00:10:03] That's just, yeah, it's just me.

[00:10:05] That's a me thing.

[00:10:06] Um, and the story, to be honest, the story borders on incoherent at times, but there's reasons for that.

[00:10:11] We'll talk about that.

[00:10:12] Yeah.

[00:10:12] About the, you know, Murray Donner headbutting.

[00:10:16] Um, not to mention, I continued how many, how positively icky many of the lines are featuring light racism, even more homophobia, and especially misogyny.

[00:10:27] Like, this is almost the least of it, but he makes out on TV with someone who, I don't know, was this his girlfriend?

[00:10:34] She was in the background touching him from time to time.

[00:10:36] And then we're supposed to root for him to get the other girl literally less than a minute later.

[00:10:42] I don't know.

[00:10:43] This film wasn't made for me.

[00:10:44] And it makes me understand why a lot of people don't enjoy watching Bill Murray.

[00:10:48] So sorry, sorry to the fans.

[00:10:49] But yeah, gotta be honest with my opinion.

[00:10:51] I've got to say, I feel much better for my reaction to it, knowing that it wasn't just me being, um, sort of bar humbug towards it.

[00:11:01] That actually we are pretty much in agreement on this.

[00:11:05] All right.

[00:11:05] So let's listen to what you said.

[00:11:07] Well, I've just finished watching Scrooged.

[00:11:09] Scrooged.

[00:11:10] Um, this is a film I haven't seen before.

[00:11:13] And it's one of those, in inverted commas, Christmas classics that I've kind of always wanted to watch, but never got round to it.

[00:11:23] I have to say, I wish I'd still not got round to it.

[00:11:27] Damn.

[00:11:27] Um, it's not quite as bad as Clarence was last year, but it's not far off.

[00:11:34] Every single line is delivered at the top of everybody's voices.

[00:11:39] At the entire movie.

[00:11:40] Murray bleeds.

[00:11:41] Shouted at the audience.

[00:11:42] The director for that.

[00:11:43] It's really, really, really annoying.

[00:11:46] Um, obviously the plot is based on A Christmas Carol, but only very loosely.

[00:11:54] Um, the character Bill Murray is playing Francis Cross is just really, really, really annoying.

[00:12:05] There are maybe three good jokes in the entire film.

[00:12:13] I really didn't like this.

[00:12:15] It was so overblown and so overdone.

[00:12:19] And the direction is really choppy and the editing is really choppy.

[00:12:27] It's a real headache of a movie.

[00:12:30] Um, like I say, it's not quite as bad as Clarence, but it's not a film I'm ever going to watch again.

[00:12:37] I don't know why people like this.

[00:12:40] I really did not like it at all.

[00:12:45] So tell us what you really think, Luke.

[00:12:48] Yeah.

[00:12:49] Um, so yeah, I think I was being overly generous with the three good jokes because thinking about it, there's only really one time I really laughed.

[00:12:58] And that was when they were doing the trailers for the upcoming attractions at the beginning of the film.

[00:13:06] Um, because, um, Frank Cross, Murray's character is a TV executive and they were doing a trailer for a film called The Night the Reindeer Died.

[00:13:16] And it's like making a Christmas themed action movie.

[00:13:20] And the only reason I laughed is they've actually gone and made that movie.

[00:13:24] It's called Big Red One with The Rock and Chris Evans.

[00:13:27] They've actually gone and done it.

[00:13:29] It's, that's now a real thing.

[00:13:32] I wonder if they were inspired by that.

[00:13:34] Yeah.

[00:13:35] Yeah.

[00:13:36] But so Murray blames the director, Richard Donner, for the shouting thing that you were complaining about.

[00:13:42] And it is, every line is delivered like this.

[00:13:45] Mm-hmm.

[00:13:46] Yeah.

[00:13:47] Yeah.

[00:13:47] Apparently they really butted heads, the two of them, about the vision.

[00:13:51] And that probably goes a long way to explain the messy result.

[00:13:55] Um, in an interview the next year, Murray said that he shot a big, long, sloppy movie and said a lot of content that Murray had personally worked on with the writers was left on the cutting room floor.

[00:14:11] So he really threw Donner under the bus.

[00:14:13] But Donner's only said nice things about Murray for the most part.

[00:14:15] You know, he's like, oh, you know those creatives, they can be tricky.

[00:14:19] Yeah, they can be tricky to work with.

[00:14:21] But it's like, also, it felt like, it felt like Bill Murray was like vamping a lot.

[00:14:26] There seemed to be a lot of improv.

[00:14:28] Mm-hmm.

[00:14:28] And like, I think particularly Karen Allen, you could tell on screen that she was not comfortable.

[00:14:34] Mm-hmm.

[00:14:35] Like, you could almost pick the moments when Murray was going off script, off piece.

[00:14:41] Um, I was uncomfortable with all the, like, I was uncomfortable for her just because it was such like, it was constantly about groping all the various women who were there randomly for what reason.

[00:14:54] And then, ah.

[00:14:55] Yeah.

[00:14:56] And I mean, in this regard, it's actually worse than Clarence.

[00:14:59] Because Clarence is a bad movie, but it's not a mean-spirited one.

[00:15:02] Right.

[00:15:02] This one is it.

[00:15:03] Clarence is the good kind of bad.

[00:15:04] Yeah, this is positively icky in like, all the wrong sort of ways.

[00:15:11] And I actually, I thought, I'm glad you said it was incoherent.

[00:15:15] Because I was kind of reluctant to say that because I actually think I fell asleep.

[00:15:20] Oh, okay.

[00:15:21] Well, that'll do it too.

[00:15:22] For about 10 minutes in the middle of this.

[00:15:24] And I thought, do I want to rewind and start again?

[00:15:27] And it's like, no.

[00:15:28] No.

[00:15:29] I really don't want to put myself through this.

[00:15:31] Because also, like, I'm sure he's a nice guy.

[00:15:35] I'm sure he's great to work with.

[00:15:36] I have never understood the appeal of Bobcat Goldfights.

[00:15:39] Aw.

[00:15:40] I find him incredibly annoying.

[00:15:44] I like him.

[00:15:45] I like him.

[00:15:46] Okay.

[00:15:47] Um, but yeah.

[00:15:49] So, Donner and Murray, though, they said that Carol Kane, you know, she's the one who did the Ghost of Christmas Pass.

[00:15:55] And actually, that was one of the things that works for me the least.

[00:15:58] I know someone else was saying recently they really like that.

[00:16:00] And sorry, you know, we all like different things.

[00:16:03] But I, just the slapstick thing, it was, the only humor was her just like bonking Bill Murray over and over with her wand in her wings and stuff.

[00:16:13] And I just, I didn't, oh, God.

[00:16:15] I just wanted it to be over.

[00:16:16] I didn't laugh for a second.

[00:16:18] Not my humor at all.

[00:16:19] And apparently, she was crying on set several times because she was frustrated about these scenes and the violence.

[00:16:27] Really?

[00:16:28] Mm-hmm.

[00:16:30] Yeah.

[00:16:30] I mean, this is the thing as well.

[00:16:32] You do a Christmas Carol adaptation and your Scrooge character isn't redeemed at the end of the film.

[00:16:40] Yeah.

[00:16:40] He just transitions from being one kind of asshole to a different kind of asshole.

[00:16:45] Yeah.

[00:16:46] But he did employ his actual real life brothers in this film.

[00:16:51] So we have Joel Murray cameos as a party guest.

[00:16:55] Brian Doyle Murray plays Frank's father.

[00:16:58] So it's funny his brother's playing his father, but anyway.

[00:17:00] And John Murray plays his on-screen brother, James.

[00:17:02] So I was like, I did think that looked a lot like him and that explains it.

[00:17:06] That explains it.

[00:17:07] I did like that it opened with that fake out opening scene with the Santa and the elves and the guns.

[00:17:12] Yeah.

[00:17:13] Leave agent, leave agent.

[00:17:17] The one thing, one thing that I did laugh at was, you know, they showed in this opening montage,

[00:17:23] another thing was they were talking about this adaptation of A Christmas Carol that they're doing.

[00:17:28] And they're like with Mary Lou Retton, who I remember being a popular gymnast when, you know, before my time, but as Tiny Tim.

[00:17:38] He's like, oh my gosh, does that suck?

[00:17:39] But he wasn't even talking about that casting, which you have a gymnast as the sickly crippled character.

[00:17:48] Okay.

[00:17:49] Because they do the bit at the end where she's not, Tiny Tim throws away the cane and she's like doing backflare.

[00:17:55] Exactly.

[00:17:56] That was funny.

[00:17:57] That was actually funny.

[00:18:01] It is also, I don't know, the characterization, like I am the youngest president in the history of television for a reason.

[00:18:07] Like a young Scrooge that hasn't had time to build as many regrets.

[00:18:10] Yeah.

[00:18:12] I don't know.

[00:18:13] I just found him too mean.

[00:18:15] Well, the cast was great.

[00:18:17] It's not that he's too mean.

[00:18:19] It's just how can you do an adaptation of A Christmas Carol where the Scrooge character isn't really redeemed?

[00:18:27] Like what lesson has he learned at the end of this?

[00:18:30] Well, apparently they thought that it was New Yorkers couldn't really be fully redeemed.

[00:18:34] They could only be nice for a night.

[00:18:35] But yeah, we'll get to the end at the end.

[00:18:36] But going back to the beginning.

[00:18:40] So we don't get the door knocker scene like we do in all the other adaptations.

[00:18:43] We do get a knock at the door.

[00:18:44] Fine.

[00:18:45] One thing this movie does really well is it leans into the ghost horror.

[00:18:50] And like that design for Marley, the rotting corpse was really great.

[00:18:54] I understand again why it got a nomination.

[00:18:57] And I like it that he's like instead of the whole, you know, maybe it's indigestion speech from the book.

[00:19:03] He's like, oh, it's a hallucination brought on by booze basically.

[00:19:09] I'm so confused though about his love life.

[00:19:12] So he has his ex Claire and they end up back together.

[00:19:15] But I thought she said at one point she was married or maybe I misunderstood that.

[00:19:20] Yeah.

[00:19:20] And then there's this blonde in the office who was like constantly hanging around.

[00:19:23] Is that his girlfriend?

[00:19:24] Because he just ditched her and ignored her.

[00:19:26] And I don't understand.

[00:19:27] And there's this whole thing, this whole extended bit with the ghost of Christmas past where we see Scrooge and Karen Allen's character.

[00:19:37] There's this whole like really long involved joke about her buying him a copy of the Kama Sutra for Christmas.

[00:19:46] It's like, what?

[00:19:49] I mean, you can buy that, but I don't understand what that's doing in the middle of this movie.

[00:19:53] Yeah, no, that's like that entire scene.

[00:19:56] It was, it was like, it was like a Saturday Night Live sketch.

[00:20:00] Just randomly dropped into the middle of the film.

[00:20:03] Like no sense.

[00:20:05] But it was nice that we had a moment of seeing them as a happy couple and they open one present Christmas Eve.

[00:20:11] Which is that a thing?

[00:20:12] That's something my family does when present Christmas Eve.

[00:20:15] Is that a no?

[00:20:16] No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[00:20:19] Strong no?

[00:20:21] No.

[00:20:22] Strong no.

[00:20:24] Strong no.

[00:20:25] Everything Christmas morning then?

[00:20:28] Well, actually, because my brother now has to drive over to mom and dad's, we've become one of those very restrained families that have dinner first and then open the presents.

[00:20:39] Okay.

[00:20:39] So we're allowed to open one present Christmas morning.

[00:20:42] Okay.

[00:20:43] Oh, okay.

[00:20:44] So it's a version of what we do.

[00:20:45] We do one present Christmas Eve and then Christmas this morning.

[00:20:49] Yeah.

[00:20:51] I just have to call out one stupid grammatical thing, but there's at one point, somebody asks, I think it was a waiter, are you him?

[00:20:59] And he says, are you he?

[00:21:01] And I hate when people make that correction because it's wrong.

[00:21:05] It's an object.

[00:21:06] It should be him.

[00:21:10] Anyway.

[00:21:12] Also, weirdly, Robert Mitchum turns up.

[00:21:15] Robert Mitchum turns up in this film.

[00:21:17] It's like the head of the network.

[00:21:20] Right.

[00:21:22] That's a weird piece of casting.

[00:21:24] Can I ask about the whole ghost thing?

[00:21:28] This seems to happen while he's in public.

[00:21:31] So it almost is like he's having hallucinations in public and then suddenly he comes to and he's somewhere else.

[00:21:36] Like, what are other people seeing him do?

[00:21:39] Well, this is what I mean about it being choppy.

[00:21:41] Like, it feels like it's a film with a load of scenes missing.

[00:21:46] The stuff is just not explained properly.

[00:21:49] Right.

[00:21:51] Because there's a whole bit with a, in the ghost Christmas present, I think.

[00:21:57] I can't even tell which ghost it was.

[00:22:00] But I think it's the ghost of Christmas present with him in a sewer with a homeless person.

[00:22:07] Oh, yeah.

[00:22:07] That was one of the homeless people.

[00:22:09] I had to look that up because I was confused.

[00:22:10] Who's the dead guy in the sewer?

[00:22:12] And that was one of the homeless.

[00:22:14] And so I guess the ghost of Christmas present is Carol Kane because past was the cab driver.

[00:22:19] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:22:20] Yeah.

[00:22:21] But, yeah, I looked it up and that was, remember at one point he goes and visits his ex-girlfriend at work and at the homeless shelter.

[00:22:30] Or someone takes him there because he looks so confused and he's talking to those people.

[00:22:35] And I guess that's supposed to be a call back to, you know, the people who take Scrooge's stuff at the end of the book.

[00:22:41] But that was one of those guys in the sewer.

[00:22:44] Okay, well, thank you for telling me because I would never.

[00:22:47] I looked it up because I was like, what?

[00:22:49] I would never have worked that out in a million years.

[00:22:51] Yeah, I was so confused.

[00:22:52] I actually wrote in that moment in the books, I am so confused.

[00:22:57] But yeah, I did like the ghost of Christmas past as a cab driver.

[00:23:00] I thought that that was a clever way to do it.

[00:23:02] He was like, you know, doing full character acting there with his fake teeth and all.

[00:23:07] Yeah, I actually like the ghost of Christmas yet to come.

[00:23:10] His face is a television.

[00:23:12] I thought that was very well done.

[00:23:17] Yeah, and I liked though that, what's his name in this?

[00:23:23] Bill Murray.

[00:23:24] Frank Cross.

[00:23:24] Yeah, I like that Bill Murray's character, Frank Cross, that he says a thing, you know, where he knows the story of A Christmas Carol so that he knows what's expected of him.

[00:23:35] And then that raises the question, does it make it tougher to redeem him if he knows what's coming?

[00:23:40] Yeah.

[00:23:41] And we see, you know, they do some good updates to his backstory.

[00:23:45] You know, he's got the mean dad indeed.

[00:23:47] No boarding school though, but he got lost in TV rather than books, which makes sense because he became a TV producer later.

[00:23:55] Yeah, I still just wonder though what other people saw when he's going around these hallucinations because he suddenly comes to and they're like, we were talking to you.

[00:24:03] And like, what did you think he was like?

[00:24:05] They think he's losing it.

[00:24:07] But he always pushes people away when they call him out.

[00:24:09] That makes sense.

[00:24:11] We didn't mention this.

[00:24:13] What do you think there's this new producer who's brought in and I guess he's supposed to be the sort of nephew equivalent in a way, although I guess that's also his brother.

[00:24:22] Um, but he just comes in and is like really nice about it, but then also taking over his show.

[00:24:28] Yeah.

[00:24:28] Well, no, I think he's trying to stab.

[00:24:30] I think the whole point is he's trying to stab Frank in the back.

[00:24:33] So I don't think he is.

[00:24:35] I don't think he's a, he's a, I don't think he is a version of any character in a Christmas Carol.

[00:24:41] I think they came up with him.

[00:24:43] Um, whole class.

[00:24:45] I thought he seemed genuinely nice, but maybe it was just, yeah.

[00:24:49] No, I thought he was just like sucking up to Frank.

[00:24:53] Frank.

[00:24:54] Okay.

[00:24:55] All right.

[00:24:55] So, and then we get the ghost of Christmas present, which again, it's Carol Kane.

[00:25:00] It's a fairy, uh, very violent giant fairy.

[00:25:03] And, um, we get some callbacks.

[00:25:05] Like I didn't know her husband had died.

[00:25:07] Don't you remember that period where she wore black for a year?

[00:25:10] And that's actually one of the times I, I laughed out loud.

[00:25:12] That was my biggest laugh.

[00:25:14] It was, yeah, it was also more in line with the idea of Scrooge being callous rather than cruel because a lot of this leaned cruel, but that's just a, you know, someone who's not paying attention.

[00:25:26] Um, it was his brother instead playing the games in the present.

[00:25:29] That made sense.

[00:25:31] I, I, you know, I cringed obviously about the animal cruelty jokes with the mouse, with the antlers, but then I totally forgot that they set up this thing where they wanted TV for cats.

[00:25:43] But then that ended up paying off at the end.

[00:25:45] So that was a good laugh.

[00:25:47] Yeah.

[00:25:48] Yeah.

[00:25:48] The TV for cats was the TV for cats did make me laugh.

[00:25:53] I think that was one of the other, one of the other two bits that made me laugh, but just a hot tip for cat owner superhero movies is TV for cats.

[00:26:03] They like when they fly around the screen.

[00:26:04] Okay.

[00:26:05] Okay.

[00:26:06] But I was most confused about, I like Bobcat Goldthwait, but I was so confused about his character.

[00:26:11] So he's fired in the beginning and then we just see him periodically.

[00:26:14] His life is just falling apart overnight.

[00:26:16] And then he shows up back at work with a gun and is shooting at him while at the same time that Frank is going through the whole ghost future thing.

[00:26:29] Um, yeah, very confusing.

[00:26:33] We do get the, the ghouls under the future robes instead of the children wanton ignorance.

[00:26:38] Yeah.

[00:26:38] Yeah.

[00:26:39] That was, that was, that was very well done, but I really didn't like this movie.

[00:26:45] Oh, okay.

[00:26:47] Um, and Alfie Woodward Woodard, like I've barely spoke about her because she wasn't really given that much to do except that her, her son is the tiny Tim character.

[00:26:56] Obviously she's the Cratchit character.

[00:26:58] Um, his name's Calvin and he doesn't speak.

[00:27:02] The scene where they dress him up as a Christmas tree and he looks so miserable and everyone else is laughing.

[00:27:07] I'm like, this is such a mean movie.

[00:27:09] And then later, instead of him being dead, he gets a vision of him older and institutionalized.

[00:27:15] And I just am not sure that he would care.

[00:27:20] I do buy though.

[00:27:22] We see that Claire, his ex-girlfriend has become a bitch because he ruined her.

[00:27:26] And I can see, I like the idea that that's more horrifying than losing her is to like stop her from being a good person.

[00:27:34] Yeah.

[00:27:35] Yeah.

[00:27:36] And we get the, uh, burning in the coffin.

[00:27:39] I always think of that as a shout out to the Albert Finney movie.

[00:27:42] Oh yeah.

[00:27:43] Particularly in this case.

[00:27:45] Definitely.

[00:27:46] Yeah.

[00:27:46] But I'm so baffled by the ending.

[00:27:49] So he gives his office to the guy with the gun, but he's getting fired anyway.

[00:27:54] And who is he helping at any point in this?

[00:27:58] Not even himself.

[00:28:00] He's not even helping himself.

[00:28:01] This is the thing.

[00:28:03] Like he's not, he, he's not a better person at the end of the film than he was at the beginning.

[00:28:11] He's just an ass in a completely different, in a different way.

[00:28:15] And like you say, the whole bit with the, the, the girlfriend or the, the person we think is the girlfriend.

[00:28:23] That is really icky.

[00:28:26] Really icky.

[00:28:27] And also I really hope Karen Allen fired her agent after this film.

[00:28:31] Mm.

[00:28:31] Because like, this is a, this, she is a better actress.

[00:28:37] A much better actress than what she's been given to do in this, in this film.

[00:28:42] So I hope her agent got fired after this, frankly.

[00:28:46] Yeah.

[00:28:46] Yeah.

[00:28:47] I did wonder if like, it was supposed to be, maybe it was him just imagining things in this version.

[00:28:53] But then he refers to, you know, the games he saw his brother playing on TV and they're like, oh, wow.

[00:28:59] How does he know the answers?

[00:29:00] So it's confirmation.

[00:29:01] It's real.

[00:29:01] So yeah, I'm just, I'm, I'm left confused.

[00:29:04] I'm confused.

[00:29:05] Um, and you know, again, I'm really sorry to anyone listening.

[00:29:10] If this is a particular favorite film of yours, please send us an email.

[00:29:14] We'll shift us podcast at gmail.com.

[00:29:16] Let us know what we've missed or, you know, give it a good defense.

[00:29:20] We, we celebrate what people love.

[00:29:22] And this is a movie that people love.

[00:29:24] Sorry.

[00:29:24] It's not the two of us.

[00:29:25] Yeah.

[00:29:26] Any more thoughts before we move on?

[00:29:28] Um, and we're not, we're not, we're not saying you are bad people for liking the film.

[00:29:33] We're just saying we don't like, we don't like the film very much.

[00:29:37] Yeah.

[00:29:37] Oh, a lot of people love it.

[00:29:39] So it's.

[00:29:39] But yeah, whatever, whatever, whatever floats, whatever floats your boat.

[00:29:43] But, um, yeah, like I said, this is, this is definitely this year's version of Clarence.

[00:29:51] Although they are both bad movies, but they're, they're bad in very different ways.

[00:29:58] I think this made me angrier because it's such a mean spirited, nasty.

[00:30:05] And also, frankly, I expect better from Richard Donner and Bill Murray.

[00:30:11] Hmm.

[00:30:11] You know, I don't know if I expect better from Bill Murray, but yeah.

[00:30:14] Oh, you're not, you're not a Bill Murray fan.

[00:30:17] Eh.

[00:30:18] Okay.

[00:30:18] I think he kind of gives him, I don't know.

[00:30:20] Um, he seems like you tell, you hear these stories about him being cool and showing up places,

[00:30:25] but then I also hear stories about him being like icky around women and stuff.

[00:30:29] And then I see this movie and I'm like, well.

[00:30:31] Yeah.

[00:30:32] Yeah.

[00:30:32] You can kind of believe it.

[00:30:34] Hmm.

[00:30:35] Okay.

[00:30:35] I think we will.

[00:30:37] We wait.

[00:30:37] All right.

[00:30:38] Let's move on to a movie that, uh, you definitely like better.

[00:30:41] And I like a whole lot better.

[00:30:42] And that's a Flintstones Christmas Carol from 1994.

[00:30:45] Um, this is the shortest movie on today's list.

[00:30:49] It's another meta movie because they are putting on a faithful adaptation as a play within the show.

[00:30:56] While Fred, who's playing Scrooge, his life mirrors the story because he's like gone full method to prepare for the role.

[00:31:03] Um, it's directed by Joanna Romerza, who also, by the way, directed a whole bunch of episodes of Captain Planet.

[00:31:10] Planet easy.

[00:31:12] But anyway, um, pollution down to you.

[00:31:15] So you want to hear something disturbing.

[00:31:17] Uh, so I do this, this Christmas Advent calendar thing with the Academy of Death Racers, uh, just a film group I'm part of.

[00:31:26] And, uh, one of the prompts is always watch a film, you know, directed by a woman.

[00:31:33] And, you know, I go through the prompts and we had all these films that we had to watch.

[00:31:37] So I was trying to slot in the films that I had to watch for this and for the Lorehounds Netflix stuff into as many different categories.

[00:31:43] And I was looking for a film directed by a woman.

[00:31:46] And this is the only one out of all of the films we watched and all of the films I watched for the Lorehounds Netflix Christmas.

[00:31:54] Only one directed by a woman.

[00:31:56] Wow.

[00:31:57] Yeah.

[00:31:58] Yeah.

[00:31:59] And that's why that prompt is there.

[00:32:01] That's, that's disturbed.

[00:32:02] That's disturbing.

[00:32:04] Yeah.

[00:32:06] Uh, it was written by Glenn Leopold, who's a Hanna-Barbera regular.

[00:32:10] This is a Hanna-Barbera thing, obviously.

[00:32:11] Flintstones and Scrooge is Fred Flintstone voiced by Henry Corden.

[00:32:17] Um, I definitely love this one.

[00:32:19] This one is a special favorite of mine.

[00:32:22] Uh, Luke, you were more Luke, Luke warm on it.

[00:32:24] Ha ha ha.

[00:32:25] Let's hear what you had to say.

[00:32:27] So I've done it.

[00:32:29] I've watched all the adaptations of the Christmas Carol that we're going to record on.

[00:32:35] Um, so this is me, uh, talking about the Flintstones.

[00:32:40] Bit of an odd adaptation, if I have to say.

[00:32:43] Although, for a children's cartoon, a remarkably faithful one.

[00:32:48] Um, I don't really get why they have the sort of conceit that they're putting on community theater.

[00:32:57] Why not just do a straight adaptation of a Christmas Carol?

[00:33:01] I'm not sure I see what having the, the community theater bit adds to the story.

[00:33:10] Um, I don't really get it.

[00:33:11] But it's always nice to watch the Flintstones.

[00:33:14] I always love the machines and gadgets that are dinosaur powered.

[00:33:20] Um, I particularly like the sewing machine and the, uh, wind machine, the wind machine that is a, uh, um, that is a woolly mammoth.

[00:33:31] Um, so yeah, I enjoyed it well enough.

[00:33:35] It's somewhere towards the middle of the adaptations we've looked at.

[00:33:41] It's okay.

[00:33:42] Not bad.

[00:33:44] I watched it actually two years in a row.

[00:33:47] I watched it last year and then I watched it again this year for, for this.

[00:33:50] So last year when I watched it, I gave it three and a half stars and I said underrated Christmas Carol adaptation and a fun blast from the past past.

[00:33:58] I love the play within a play structure that blurs the lines of reality.

[00:34:02] And I'd forgotten what a philandering nin, nincompoop thread is.

[00:34:07] Hashtag Wilma deserves better.

[00:34:09] I'm adding to this, to my private list of Christmas films to revisit in the coming years.

[00:34:14] And then I revisited it right away this year and I gave it four stars this year.

[00:34:18] And I said, this one really does seem to take some nods from Scrooge as well.

[00:34:22] I watched this one right after Scrooge, by the way, Fred even tries to kiss someone else.

[00:34:26] Ick, but at least this is portrayed as bad behavior here.

[00:34:29] And somehow despite being 40 minutes shorter, it really does manage to pack more into a more coherent story.

[00:34:36] The meta aspect is better blended, both giving us a surprising amount from the original text with Stone Age puns, of course, and showing us how that is mirroring Fred's current reality, blurring the lines with magical realism.

[00:34:49] The additions like the bedrock flu and Wilma carrying the whole show add extra fun.

[00:34:54] In short, I already liked this one, but watching it right after Scrooge makes me like it even more.

[00:34:59] Those poor animals though.

[00:35:03] This is actually the fourth Flintstones Christmas special that was released.

[00:35:07] Were you a Flintstones fan growing up?

[00:35:08] Um, I could take or leave the Flintstones.

[00:35:12] It wasn't like I would watch it if it was on TV, but it wasn't something I would go and like actively find.

[00:35:20] Um, so kind of, um, I do think if I'm honest, I was, I'm probably suffering from a little bit of Christmas Carol fatigue.

[00:35:31] Um, by, by the time I watched this.

[00:35:34] So I may not have given it, I may not have given it a completely fair shot.

[00:35:38] But, like I said in the voicemail, it was the last, it was the last adaptation I watched.

[00:35:43] So I think, I think I might have liked it better had I watched it sort of earlier on in the, in the process.

[00:35:50] Cause yeah, I, I, I think if I'm being completely, uh, honest, I'm suffering from Christmas Carol fatigue a little bit at this point.

[00:35:57] Mm-hmm. That makes sense.

[00:35:59] Yeah. Do you, I mean, uh, you were iffy on the whole meta play within the show aspect, but, um, I, I feel like it did that better than Scrooge because it actually shows us more of the play and how that mirrors Fred's real life.

[00:36:14] I think it did it better than the man who invented Christmas too.

[00:36:16] What do you think about that?

[00:36:19] So the thing is, if it's a play within a play, they then have the best special effects.

[00:36:26] Yeah.

[00:36:26] Of any play that's ever been put on.

[00:36:29] Oh yeah.

[00:36:29] Because, um, like when Fred, when Fred is being taken around, uh, Pilthdown, by the way, that, that is a very funny joke.

[00:36:38] Um, that, that, that they keep referring to Pilthdown cause Pilthdown man, Neanderthals.

[00:36:45] Uh-huh.

[00:36:45] Um, but actually Pilthdown man is a fake.

[00:36:49] Oh.

[00:36:49] It's been proven.

[00:36:51] Mm-hmm.

[00:36:51] It's been proven to be a hoax.

[00:36:52] Anyway, but like when they're taking him around Pilth, Fred and the ghosts are transparent.

[00:36:58] Right.

[00:36:59] Like, so is this a play?

[00:37:02] Is it, is it, maybe I'm being like overly critical here, but.

[00:37:06] Well, that's why I would call it magical realism, but I love that.

[00:37:09] And I think, yeah, I like weird more than you do.

[00:37:12] And we're going to, that's probably going to come up a couple of times today.

[00:37:15] Okay.

[00:37:16] Um, but yeah, the play part though, it's quite accurate.

[00:37:19] It uses a lot of the classic lines, but you know, with the stone age puns and, um.

[00:37:24] Marbly.

[00:37:25] Yeah.

[00:37:26] Marbly.

[00:37:26] Yeah.

[00:37:27] Yeah.

[00:37:28] And, and crag it instead of.

[00:37:29] Yeah.

[00:37:31] And the Scrooge, he really does seem more oblivious than intentionally cruel.

[00:37:36] Yes.

[00:37:36] Other than the trying to kiss another woman thing.

[00:37:38] We'll just.

[00:37:39] And the twist of this one is that he does Fred Flintstone.

[00:37:45] Obviously he has a family and it's his own family who needs his love, not another family

[00:37:50] per se.

[00:37:52] Yes.

[00:37:53] And by the way, how cute are Bam Bam and Pebble?

[00:37:57] Always, always.

[00:37:58] So cute.

[00:37:59] And I liked, you know, there was a little, just the slightest bit of slapstick in this,

[00:38:04] you know, when the spirit bonks Scrooge on the window by quote unquote accident as she's

[00:38:08] taking him out.

[00:38:09] That feels it was Wilma by the way.

[00:38:11] So it feels earned, not stupid.

[00:38:12] I really laughed at that.

[00:38:14] Not just like, Oh, make it stop.

[00:38:16] Um, I do think Fred is the least likable character, but of course that's the point.

[00:38:21] Uh, Mr. Slate, Fred's boss says he should have played Scrooge and Betty's like, that'd be

[00:38:26] typecasting.

[00:38:27] So he plays Marbly, which makes sense also because he's his boss and also a jackass.

[00:38:33] Yeah.

[00:38:34] And, and like one of the act, one of the actresses that gets the bedrock bug is like clearly trying

[00:38:41] to seduce Fred.

[00:38:42] Yeah.

[00:38:43] Which is a bit weird.

[00:38:44] Yeah.

[00:38:45] Well, that's what I was saying.

[00:38:46] And he almost kisses her like, no, not cool.

[00:38:49] Um, I always love Barney.

[00:38:52] Uh, he plays both Craggett and Fezziwig.

[00:38:56] And of course he's Fred's conscience always.

[00:38:59] And yeah.

[00:38:59] And Bam Bam obviously made to play Tiny Tim.

[00:39:02] Yeah.

[00:39:03] But it's super cute at the end.

[00:39:05] Bam Bam chokes on, he's got the one line he's been practicing the whole, the whole movie.

[00:39:10] And then at the end he chokes and Pebble steps in and says it for him.

[00:39:13] Yeah.

[00:39:14] But, but speaking of magical realism at one point.

[00:39:17] So of course, you know, Filling Stones was on for so long that, um, there are older versions

[00:39:23] of, uh, Pebbles and Bam Bam that exist out there too.

[00:39:26] And so the older version of Pebbles shows up at one point, like as, as, you know, a teenager,

[00:39:32] adult, young adult Pebbles.

[00:39:33] And Fred's like, Pebbles?

[00:39:36] As Fanny?

[00:39:37] And, and that's just, you know, they, they were just winking at us with all this, just,

[00:39:43] you know, it wasn't meant to be super realistic because it's about dinosaurs who make special

[00:39:48] effects.

[00:39:49] So.

[00:39:50] Yeah.

[00:39:51] I like the bedrock flu twist, bedrock bug.

[00:39:54] Yeah.

[00:39:54] The bedrock bug.

[00:39:55] Yeah.

[00:39:56] Hmm.

[00:39:57] Yeah.

[00:39:57] By the way, I didn't like 1994.

[00:40:00] It looks much, because it's, it's still done in that kind of sixties animation style that

[00:40:06] the original Flintstones cartoons.

[00:40:09] So it looks much older than 1994.

[00:40:12] There was also, I'm not sure which version you watched.

[00:40:16] There is a, there's a version that you can find online.

[00:40:21] That's considerably worse quality than if you find another version you can watch locally

[00:40:26] on your computer.

[00:40:27] Okay.

[00:40:29] Just in terms of preservation of the video.

[00:40:33] I love that.

[00:40:34] Of course I love Wilma in general, and I love that she was the MVP of this and got acknowledged

[00:40:38] for it.

[00:40:39] Like she was the costume doing the costumes and then she had to step in to play several

[00:40:43] of the parts.

[00:40:43] And then at the end, the, she is given the flowers instead of Fred, which as it should

[00:40:51] be.

[00:40:51] And he's like, Oh, Oh yeah.

[00:40:52] I guess no, that's fair.

[00:40:53] Yeah.

[00:40:54] And also John Rhys Davis, uh, voice Gimli himself as the voice of the director.

[00:41:00] It's like, Oh, that's cool.

[00:41:03] I love.

[00:41:04] Yeah.

[00:41:05] Um, when, when they're talking in the final scene in within the play, Wilma, who at this

[00:41:09] point is playing bells, like, of course you're a changed man.

[00:41:12] It's in the script, Scrooge.

[00:41:15] And the director is off screen looking at a script.

[00:41:17] He's like, none of this is in my script.

[00:41:19] Yeah.

[00:41:22] Hmm.

[00:41:23] Uh, and, and of course, you know, there's always the bit in the book where Scrooge wants

[00:41:28] to buy a turkey bigger than tiny Tim or whatever.

[00:41:32] And then, yeah, of course a turkey source that's the biggest Turkey in any adaptation.

[00:41:39] And I like, he gets the kid to bring the presents to his own family instead of the Cratchit.

[00:41:43] So it's just, yeah.

[00:41:44] I hope that kid got a really generous tip.

[00:41:47] Yeah.

[00:41:47] Yeah.

[00:41:48] He was put through it.

[00:41:50] He was really, yeah, really, uh, good to Fred.

[00:41:53] You can tell this is, you can tell this was done in an age before online shopping as well.

[00:41:58] Cause like the last minute rush to the department store for Christmas shopping is definitely

[00:42:04] a thing.

[00:42:04] Yeah.

[00:42:05] Right.

[00:42:05] Well, I guess people still do that because, you know, especially in recent years, it

[00:42:10] takes so long to ship things.

[00:42:11] If you haven't bought Christmas presents by now, as we're recording even, um, yeah, you're

[00:42:17] going to be in trouble.

[00:42:19] Um, any final thoughts on Flintstones?

[00:42:22] Um, like I say, I would like to go back and watch it when I haven't just watched a load

[00:42:28] of other adaptations.

[00:42:29] That's fair.

[00:42:30] Of A Christmas Carol.

[00:42:31] Cause I, I do think I was, I may not be, I may not have been entirely fair to it.

[00:42:36] Okay.

[00:42:37] Um, at that point.

[00:42:38] No, it's fair.

[00:42:39] It's not perfect.

[00:42:40] I just, I don't know.

[00:42:41] I really enjoy that one.

[00:42:42] And I like the weird thing.

[00:42:44] Like I'm not, I'm not a huge fan of magical realism.

[00:42:47] Mm.

[00:42:48] Like, are they doing a play or are they not?

[00:42:50] Are they doing a play or are they not doing a play?

[00:42:53] I mean, but it's, it's, you know, where they use dinosaurs as.

[00:42:58] I know.

[00:42:59] I know.

[00:42:59] But like.

[00:43:01] Okay.

[00:43:02] I don't know where my brain, how and where my brain draws these lines.

[00:43:06] But somehow it draw a line there.

[00:43:09] All right.

[00:43:09] That's fair.

[00:43:10] That's fair.

[00:43:11] Well, I recommend to anyone who hasn't seen it to give it a watch yourself.

[00:43:14] You can find it online and, uh, yeah, let us know what you think.

[00:43:18] Like, this is a good spot to take a break.

[00:43:22] And when we get back, we're going to dive into the gender swapped Christmas carols, which

[00:43:26] are some of the most cheesily, cringely fun.

[00:43:31] See you in a sec.

[00:44:06] Okay.

[00:44:07] Luke, we've got, uh, three gender swapped Christmas carols on the menu.

[00:44:12] The first one was proposed by you.

[00:44:15] It is, uh, it's Christmas Carol, which I know you especially wanted to watch because of the,

[00:44:22] because of the title.

[00:44:23] Yeah.

[00:44:23] Just because of the title.

[00:44:24] No other reason.

[00:44:25] What about Carrie Fisher?

[00:44:26] I didn't even know when I saw the title that Carrie Fisher was in it.

[00:44:29] Although when we, you listen to my voice note, that is a massive boner.

[00:44:34] Um, yeah.

[00:44:35] Um, so yeah, I, I, I, I really like this.

[00:44:40] It's not a perfect adaptation.

[00:44:42] It's very hallmark, but it's a lot of fun.

[00:44:47] Um, okay.

[00:44:49] Let's, yeah, let's, let's start with, uh, your thoughts on it.

[00:44:53] So I just finished watching It's Christmas Carol starring the late, great Carrie Fisher.

[00:44:59] Uh, this is definitely a twist on a Christmas Carol.

[00:45:04] Um, it is Eve played by Carrie Fisher, who is acting as the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future because of budget cuts in the afterlife.

[00:45:22] But it's a beautiful, uh, her, her, her, her favorite.

[00:45:25] Carol, who is, uh, the owner of a publishing company.

[00:45:31] It is your typical Hallmark movie in that everything looks amazing.

[00:45:38] All the houses look amazing.

[00:45:41] Everything is amazing.

[00:45:45] I'm not quite sure it really gets the moral of A Christmas Carol

[00:45:49] because the moral of this story seems to be

[00:45:54] that Carol Scrooge can't be a better, different person

[00:46:00] unless she ends up with an ex-boyfriend she dumped a decade ago.

[00:46:06] And with it being a Hallmark movie,

[00:46:10] guess what the outcome of that is?

[00:46:13] Anyway, I quite enjoyed it.

[00:46:16] Carrie Fisher is clearly so much better than the material

[00:46:20] she's been given to work with.

[00:46:22] It's untrue.

[00:46:24] And she does steal every scene she's in completely.

[00:46:30] But yeah, it's a Hallmark movie.

[00:46:32] It is what it is.

[00:46:33] It does what it says on the tin.

[00:46:35] It was enjoyable for an hour and a half.

[00:46:39] Okay.

[00:46:40] So yeah, as you said, it is a Hallmark movie.

[00:46:43] Yeah, I need to correct that from the intro episode.

[00:46:46] I was wrong.

[00:46:47] It was a movie made by Hallmark.

[00:46:50] I'm sorry.

[00:46:51] I got that wrong.

[00:46:52] And aired on Hallmark in 2012, by the way,

[00:46:55] in case we didn't say it.

[00:46:56] It was directed by Michael M. Scott and written by William Pennick

[00:46:59] and Christopher Say.

[00:47:01] And I looked through their portfolios and they seem to do

[00:47:04] especially a lot of Christmas movies.

[00:47:06] And one of them does some horror.

[00:47:08] Scrooge was played by Emmanuel Valier.

[00:47:11] Valier, I guess is how you say her last name.

[00:47:13] I know her face, but I've seen her in things.

[00:47:17] And she's Carol.

[00:47:19] Yeah, so Scrooge is Carol because it's Christmas Carol.

[00:47:24] There's only one spirit, as you said, because of the budget cuts.

[00:47:27] And so that's Carrie Fisher, who's playing Eve Mailer instead of Marley.

[00:47:33] And how did you hear about this movie, Luke?

[00:47:36] No, I just literally like Googled Hallmark adaptations of A Christmas Carol.

[00:47:43] And the first one that came up with us, it's Christmas Carol.

[00:47:45] And it's like, yes, yes, that's going on the list.

[00:47:49] Just the title alone, it's going on the list.

[00:47:52] Yeah.

[00:47:54] So my Letterboxd review, I gave it 2.5 out of 5 stars.

[00:47:58] I said pure, but a heart, you know.

[00:48:00] It's a pure Hallmark cheese with a side of Carrie Fisher.

[00:48:02] Maybe the most cringe and least faithful adaptation of A Christmas Carol I've watched during this project.

[00:48:08] Side note, this is before I watched A New Diva's Christmas Carol.

[00:48:11] But I enjoyed it well enough anyway.

[00:48:15] So in this iteration, they are editors, as in book editors, instead of money counters.

[00:48:21] They have a company called Springwood Publishing.

[00:48:25] I love the fashion, by the way.

[00:48:27] Very 2012 fashion.

[00:48:28] They have all these belts.

[00:48:29] Like, I have so many belts upstairs that I hardly wear anymore, but I was really into belts for a while.

[00:48:37] Yeah, all the awkward cheese.

[00:48:39] There's built-in commercial breaks.

[00:48:41] Oh, Carson Kressley shows up too.

[00:48:44] Oh, is that the guy from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?

[00:48:47] Yeah, yeah.

[00:48:48] And he's Fred.

[00:48:49] And so Fred is the name that's normally given to the nephew.

[00:48:53] And the nephew is usually the one who's like, oh, my uncle's not such a bad guy.

[00:48:58] He only hurts himself.

[00:48:59] Let's support him.

[00:49:00] In this case, he's like, let's rebel.

[00:49:02] I hate her.

[00:49:04] Let's start a new company.

[00:49:06] And he's anti-Fred, but he's the one called Fred.

[00:49:09] Also, there's this whole running thing throughout the film that Carol is obsessed with only publishing books that sell well.

[00:49:19] Uh-huh.

[00:49:20] And all the other employees want to publish literature.

[00:49:23] And it's like, I need to introduce you people to the concept of the idea that a book can sell well, be commercially successful, and be good.

[00:49:33] Right.

[00:49:33] This is not a binary choice.

[00:49:37] Well, I can tell you that this was not written by people in the literary world because Carol was really, well, first of all, it's like when she meets him, and we'll talk about, you know, the guy.

[00:49:48] But when we see in the past her meeting him and falling in love, they bond over only reading cliche classics.

[00:49:54] And then he's like, let me blow your mind with this book, A Hundred Years of Solitude.

[00:49:59] She's like, never heard of it.

[00:50:00] Like, you are a publisher who's never heard of A Hundred Years of Solitude?

[00:50:04] No, no, but there's an even better bit that demonstrates this.

[00:50:07] She's supposed to be into Dickens and Dostoevsky.

[00:50:09] Right.

[00:50:10] She has to look up the plots.

[00:50:12] Right.

[00:50:14] Exactly.

[00:50:15] Because Hallmark viewers, we have to assume, have consumed no other culture outside of the Hallmark universe.

[00:50:22] It's their only movie subscription channel.

[00:50:24] So we need to make sure that everybody's on the same page.

[00:50:27] Yeah.

[00:50:28] Yeah.

[00:50:30] But I do think I liked the whole bit with her.

[00:50:33] Her assistant is this woman named Kendra, and she's basically blocking her from moving to London.

[00:50:38] She wants to move to London to be with her boyfriend, Zach.

[00:50:41] And she thinks she's helping her by blocking her from following a guy or whatever.

[00:50:45] But she's also just being selfish.

[00:50:46] And that seemed like a proper Scrooge characterization.

[00:50:51] She's also her mom is still alive.

[00:50:54] And she is being taken care of by a woman named Gloria.

[00:50:59] So this is this whole new factor in there.

[00:51:02] But I did notice when Gloria and her mother were together, her mom says she watches the 1951 Scrooge movie every year.

[00:51:10] The one that's my new baby.

[00:51:12] Yes.

[00:51:14] And then, of course, the other main character in this is Ben Woodley, who is an author.

[00:51:20] And at one point, she said she's the only person she ever loved.

[00:51:24] And it's like, OK, well, what about mom?

[00:51:25] But fine.

[00:51:26] They did break up because she wanted to pursue money.

[00:51:29] So that's faithful.

[00:51:31] Eve Mailer as a ghost just looks normal.

[00:51:33] She just puts on a cloak for the futures.

[00:51:36] So I'm glad that they call out the budget in the beginning.

[00:51:39] Yeah.

[00:51:40] Yeah.

[00:51:44] Yeah.

[00:51:44] So what's her face?

[00:51:47] Carol is convinced this is all a dream and which makes sense.

[00:51:52] But Eve's telling her, yeah, they are the board of correctors, the spiritual entities who oversee the balance of things.

[00:51:58] People like me have been coming down here to help people like you for generations.

[00:52:03] And then she says about Charles Dickens, Chuck was an incredibly sweet guy, but he had a tendency to embellish.

[00:52:09] Three ghosts instead of one.

[00:52:11] Turkey instead of a slab of mutton.

[00:52:15] Yeah.

[00:52:16] I do like it.

[00:52:18] We'll come back to this in Spirited.

[00:52:20] But I do like, and I like this with It's a Wonderful Life last year.

[00:52:24] The whole idea of the afterlife having bureaucratic structures.

[00:52:28] Yeah.

[00:52:29] Yeah, exactly.

[00:52:30] It's very funny to me.

[00:52:31] Yeah.

[00:52:32] Yeah.

[00:52:32] And Beetlejuice is like that too.

[00:52:34] Yeah.

[00:52:35] Carol says she always thought Scrooge was the victim, which is like, okay, sure.

[00:52:39] But she still had to look up the plot.

[00:52:42] Yeah.

[00:52:43] We do get a Star Wars reference.

[00:52:45] When Carol can't remember Christmas girl, she makes, Carrie Fisher makes a Star Wars reference.

[00:52:49] So wink, wink.

[00:52:51] Yeah.

[00:52:51] Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

[00:52:53] I noticed that it's also like Scrooge in the sense that like her hallucinations or whatever started a party.

[00:53:00] So people just think she's losing it.

[00:53:03] Yeah.

[00:53:04] Yeah.

[00:53:04] I do like the, it's very well done when she goes back into the past.

[00:53:10] Mm-hmm.

[00:53:10] They've got like the movie theater with Back to the Future.

[00:53:13] Right.

[00:53:13] Two.

[00:53:14] And the newspaper with, you know, Reagan names first female Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

[00:53:20] For me, it was the break dancers.

[00:53:22] Like, how do you know it's 80s?

[00:53:23] Like, look, there's break dancers.

[00:53:25] There's break dancers.

[00:53:25] And they're dressed like MC Hammer.

[00:53:28] There's leg warmers.

[00:53:30] Look.

[00:53:30] That's how you know it's 1985.

[00:53:34] But okay, one weird thing is, so if Eve, Eve was her old boss and she's supposed to be playing the Marley role, it seems like Eve was a good person while she was alive.

[00:53:43] And this movie defines good person by saying you should read more good novels instead of just caring about making money.

[00:53:52] And also-

[00:53:52] And Carol grew the business after her death.

[00:53:54] So why is Eve coming, you know, why is she, this story is that Marley says, don't let happen to you what happened to me.

[00:54:02] And here she's like, I was good, but I just want to help you.

[00:54:05] Yeah, but you've gone off the road.

[00:54:06] Also, it seems to define good person as must be romantically involved with bracket, ideal partner as well.

[00:54:13] Well, that's hallmark.

[00:54:15] Like I said, in the voice footage, I'm not sure they quite understand the moral of A Christmas Carol because it is like, it would be like Scrooge in a straight adaptation, you know, going to Belle's house at the end of the book rather than Cratchit.

[00:54:31] It's also like, he's a, the boyfriend character is a struggling novelist.

[00:54:38] And they're both, you know, in the past, they're both short of money, but they, so they move into this supposedly rundown apartment, which looks amazing.

[00:54:48] And the way that all Walmart combs do, but she buys in this really expensive antique typewriter as well.

[00:54:58] Yeah.

[00:54:59] Um, I have to say at the end, I paused and read the first page of Ben's book that was supposed to be so brilliant.

[00:55:06] It was going to change everybody's life.

[00:55:07] And I'm sorry, that's not going to be a bestseller.

[00:55:11] I know I wasn't supposed to, uh, pull it.

[00:55:14] Like I paused and I read things in silo and they actually deepen my appreciation.

[00:55:18] In this case, I'm like, Oh, Hallmark.

[00:55:21] Uh, but, Oh, we didn't mention also that she had, uh, Tanya was one of her assistants.

[00:55:26] She fired and she had kids and, uh, oh, and about her.

[00:55:32] I, I, one thing I did like, okay.

[00:55:34] A positive thing is that, um, she says about, I don't like that.

[00:55:38] She says this obviously, but I think it's very characteristic of Scrooge.

[00:55:41] She says, I love my mom.

[00:55:42] I pay for everything.

[00:55:43] Time is expensive.

[00:55:44] And I can see her really believing that like, that's how, that's her love language is paying.

[00:55:50] Yeah.

[00:55:51] But she must really have been a crappy ex if she didn't know who her ex's sister was.

[00:55:59] I found the grave at the end anticlimactic too.

[00:56:02] Yeah.

[00:56:02] I've got to say the grave at the end, it's a bit anticlimactic, but I thought that the assistant,

[00:56:08] you know, she did because actually the thing is, the thing is actually Carol is

[00:56:14] Carol kind of doubles as both Scrooge and Marley in this, in this sort of telling.

[00:56:20] Cause it's the assistant that she, no, she succeeds in making the assistant into this hard,

[00:56:28] self-contained, uber successful publishing, um, person.

[00:56:33] So it's this weird, Carol is this weird combination of both Scrooge and Marley.

[00:56:38] Um, and I thought the, the, the actor playing the assistant actually really nailed that.

[00:56:46] Cause there's this whole thing of, I didn't bring flowers.

[00:56:49] I know you would have thought that you would have thought it was wasteful or something like that.

[00:56:53] Yeah.

[00:56:53] I don't know.

[00:56:54] I thought that, I thought that was actually quite effective.

[00:56:56] No, I, I quite like Kendra and I'm glad that she got, she eventually at the end, actually,

[00:57:01] she doesn't get transferred to London.

[00:57:03] Like she asked instead, she gets a one year sabbatical to do writing, which I'm like,

[00:57:07] she can give her the job and then she can also do writing.

[00:57:12] I don't know what you, this is this magical hallmark reality where if you just write a book,

[00:57:17] you'll immediately earn a bunch of money with it.

[00:57:20] Can I just say, as somebody who has written,

[00:57:22] you have two books, this is not true.

[00:57:26] I have books out there that you can't even buy anymore.

[00:57:30] Yeah.

[00:57:31] So actually we're both just bitter authors.

[00:57:35] I'm just jealous that it's, this is the thing.

[00:57:38] If I could write that book that I, yeah, Hallmark call me, I'll make you good movies.

[00:57:45] Um, but yeah, so she brings, so that the Tanya who she fired,

[00:57:50] she brings her presence, you know, that's the sort of bringing things at the end to Cratchit's,

[00:57:56] which is not in the, um, in the book, but it's often in the adaptations.

[00:58:00] Um, I like the Tanya and her daughter, though, keep shutting the door in her face.

[00:58:04] I'm like, that's fair.

[00:58:04] This is fair.

[00:58:05] Yeah.

[00:58:06] Even the child is like, no, um, she's still reluctant to give the whole office benefits

[00:58:13] at the end, but eventually relents.

[00:58:15] Um, but I have questions about, they actually really planned the revolt, like Carson Kressler

[00:58:22] and, you know, the other assistants or whatever, the other staff, um, they'd already called all

[00:58:28] their clients and said, do you want to leave with me?

[00:58:30] So now they have to call them all back.

[00:58:32] They have to call them all back.

[00:58:33] Yeah.

[00:58:34] Emily, the coup is off.

[00:58:35] We got benefits.

[00:58:36] And also like, also like Carol makes the entire staff of the publishing company come in on

[00:58:45] Christmas day.

[00:58:46] Yeah.

[00:58:47] Why?

[00:58:48] Like there's nothing for, there'll be nothing for them to do.

[00:58:51] And also at the end, it's not go home and everybody spend time with your families.

[00:58:55] No, it's come into the office and we'll have a massive Christmas dinner together.

[00:58:58] It's like, if I'm an employee of that company, screw that.

[00:59:02] I'm going home and having a Christmas dinner with my family.

[00:59:04] Thank you very much.

[00:59:06] To be honest, there's a few, um, there's a few where this, that this comes up, uh, even

[00:59:12] also the next one.

[00:59:13] Yeah.

[00:59:14] Before, do you have any final thoughts about it's Christmas Carol before we get into the

[00:59:17] next one?

[00:59:17] No, except it's, it's always really nice to see Carrie Fisher in stuff that isn't

[00:59:22] Star Trek.

[00:59:23] Star Wars.

[00:59:25] Isn't Star Wars.

[00:59:26] Leave that in.

[00:59:28] Yeah.

[00:59:29] It's stuff that isn't Star Wars.

[00:59:30] Um, and like, she just brings an element of class gravitas.

[00:59:40] I don't know what you want to call it, but she just raises the level of the whole film.

[00:59:46] She's just like, she just has it, whatever it is.

[00:59:52] Carrie Fisher has got it in spades and it's such a shame we won't see her in more stuff.

[00:59:58] Yeah.

[00:59:59] Yeah.

[01:00:00] I really like her daughter too, Billy Lord.

[01:00:03] I'd like to see her in more stuff too.

[01:00:05] She's been especially good in, uh, like American horror story and stuff.

[01:00:09] Okay.

[01:00:11] All right.

[01:00:12] Moving on to a diva's Christmas Carol from 2000.

[01:00:16] Uh, this was a VH1 production and it was directed and written by Richard Shankman, who

[01:00:24] Richard Shankman, he's probably best known for the man from earth.

[01:00:27] My personal favorite of his is Abraham Lincoln versus zombies.

[01:00:31] And the Scrooge in this one was Vanessa Williams, who's Ebony Scrooge, which is very smart.

[01:00:37] I get it.

[01:00:38] I see what you did there.

[01:00:40] Other notable casts includes Chili from, you know, TLC, um, Brian McNamara as Bob Cratchit

[01:00:48] and Kathy Griffin as the ghost of Christmas past.

[01:00:51] So, all right, let's check in first with what Luke thought about it after he watched.

[01:00:57] Okay.

[01:00:58] So I just finished watching the 2000s version of a Christmas diva's Christmas Carol.

[01:01:07] Um, I haven't laughed at any of the adaptations as much as I laughed at that.

[01:01:14] The truly inspired choice to make the whole of a Christmas yet to come, uh, a Christmas

[01:01:24] yet to come bits.

[01:01:25] A behind the music special.

[01:01:27] Speaking of somebody who used to watch behind the music a lot, I laughed so hard at that.

[01:01:33] I had to pause the movie.

[01:01:35] Um, it's just, it's really funny.

[01:01:40] It definitely falls into the so bad it's good category.

[01:01:44] Also, Cratchit and Scrooge are sleeping together or did sleep together.

[01:01:48] That's a weird, uh, bit of adaptation.

[01:01:52] Didn't see that twist coming.

[01:01:53] Um, Vanessa Williams is great as Ebony Scrooge.

[01:01:58] Although I have to say she is better as the nasty, twisted, bitter, um, Scrooge than she

[01:02:06] is as the redeemed version of Scrooge.

[01:02:08] I just, I just laughed so hard at this.

[01:02:11] There are so many good jokes.

[01:02:14] There's a particularly good joke at the beginning where they are clearly taking the mick and they

[01:02:19] are clearly, um, pastiching, um, Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas.

[01:02:24] And it's really, really, really well done.

[01:02:28] I enjoyed the heck out of this.

[01:02:30] I'm not saying it's a good movie, but it's certainly an entertaining movie.

[01:02:35] So yeah, my review echoed yours.

[01:02:37] I gave it three stars in Letterboxd.

[01:02:39] I said 24 years later, of course it feels dated, but that's part of the charm.

[01:02:44] Even the VFX have aged better than expected, given this is a VH1 film.

[01:02:48] They were used judiciously.

[01:02:51] Yes, it's hammy with wooden acting from many of the non-Vanessa Williams actors, but it shows

[01:02:57] surprising respect for the source material, which the writers have clearly actually read.

[01:03:02] All in all, a likable take I can see myself revisiting again.

[01:03:05] I just don't get why it's so hard to find.

[01:03:08] And why don't we get to enjoy Vanessa Williams and more films in general?

[01:03:13] So yes, I came out of this with a renewed love of Vanessa Williams, especially.

[01:03:19] Yeah, like I said, I think, I mean, I'm not saying this has any relation to what Vanessa

[01:03:25] Williams is like as a person.

[01:03:27] I've never met Vanessa Williams.

[01:03:28] I don't know what she's like, but she's very good at playing these kind of bitchy, mean

[01:03:34] characters.

[01:03:34] She's kind of played the same character in Ugly Betty.

[01:03:40] It's because she's so pretty, you know?

[01:03:42] Yeah, she has a sort of range as an actor.

[01:03:46] And if you get her inside that range, she can be very, very good.

[01:03:50] But it's quite narrow.

[01:03:54] And like I said, she's better as the bitchy, divary Scrooge than the redeemed Scrooge at

[01:04:01] the end.

[01:04:01] Like I said in the voicemail, I was like, I used to love behind the music.

[01:04:08] I watched a lot of behind the music.

[01:04:10] And that whole section of Christmas Yet to Come as a behind the music episode, just, I

[01:04:18] laughed so hard at that.

[01:04:20] I was in stitches at that.

[01:04:23] It's so over.

[01:04:25] I would say I expected this to be more of a musical going in.

[01:04:29] Just, I thought, yeah, that it's going to be like a straight up musical, but it wasn't

[01:04:32] really.

[01:04:33] It was just, it's about a singer.

[01:04:35] I love how basically all these we're talking about today have them doing something in the

[01:04:39] arts instead of counting money because these films are all made by artists.

[01:04:45] But yeah, she's a singer.

[01:04:47] And then, you know, incidentally, sometimes she sings like on stage as part of, it's just

[01:04:52] really, it's not a musical, it's a musical moment, but it's not like people stop and dance or

[01:04:56] something.

[01:04:57] Just sometimes she sings on stage.

[01:05:00] But yeah, she's Ebony.

[01:05:01] She's a diva, bitchy singer.

[01:05:03] And I love, they open filming a music video in France, which we never see outside.

[01:05:08] So they seem like they imported some real French people to be there in the cast.

[01:05:14] But I do not believe for a second that was filmed in France.

[01:05:16] But then they have to make the joke.

[01:05:20] She asked for it.

[01:05:21] She demands French toast.

[01:05:22] And they're like, qu'est-ce que c'est, French toast?

[01:05:25] Yeah.

[01:05:25] Of course.

[01:05:27] That's obviously not what they call it.

[01:05:30] It's called pain perdu in French.

[01:05:33] Lost, lost bread.

[01:05:34] Yeah.

[01:05:35] Basically.

[01:05:35] But no, I just like that.

[01:05:37] If you, if you ever watch the video for All I Want for Christmas, they are clearly taking

[01:05:42] the mick out of that in a huge way with a coughing on the, with a coughing in the fake snow.

[01:05:48] And yeah, that, that, that made, that made me, that made me laugh.

[01:05:51] Yeah.

[01:05:52] Yeah.

[01:05:52] Because yeah.

[01:05:53] And also they come back to Mariah Carey later on in the, the VH1 special.

[01:05:59] She stole Mariah Carey's dress.

[01:06:01] She had to go on stage in her underwear.

[01:06:04] Not, not that you could, not that you could tell the difference.

[01:06:06] Not that you could tell the difference.

[01:06:10] Yeah.

[01:06:11] I, one thing I like about this twist too, is that they, um, they talk about how Christmas

[01:06:16] is actually a really commercial holiday.

[01:06:18] So, you know, it's not Scrooge.

[01:06:21] I'm going to ignore Christmas.

[01:06:22] It's Scrooge.

[01:06:23] I'm going to use Christmas to milk some money because it's a really lucrative time of year.

[01:06:28] So that's why she forces people to work on Christmas.

[01:06:32] Um, but is she the first Scrooge we've seen?

[01:06:35] Who's actually being embezzled from?

[01:06:37] Yes.

[01:06:38] I mean, this is the thing.

[01:06:40] Like, um, obviously it's mean to make people work Christmas and you shouldn't do it.

[01:06:45] But in some ways, this version of Scrooge is sympathetic because this version of Scrooge

[01:06:49] is having financial problems.

[01:06:51] Right.

[01:06:52] Um, like, yeah.

[01:06:54] And she apparently doesn't look twice at her own accounting because she's like, the accountant

[01:06:58] says that all this money we make disappears.

[01:07:01] Yeah.

[01:07:01] And it turns out her accountant is stealing from her.

[01:07:04] Yeah.

[01:07:05] It's disappearing into his pocket.

[01:07:07] Um, but I do like the fact that, that like she stays in all the luxury hotels.

[01:07:13] And by the way, I would not want to stay in that hotel.

[01:07:16] I'd be, I'd be terrified of breaking something.

[01:07:19] Like the room is filled with antiques and stuff.

[01:07:24] And it's like, or antiques in inverted commas.

[01:07:27] It's like, I'd be afraid of breaking something.

[01:07:30] Um, yeah.

[01:07:31] I mean, the, the big changes that Scrooge and, uh, Cratchit have a romantic history, which.

[01:07:36] Right.

[01:07:36] Yeah.

[01:07:38] Yeah.

[01:07:38] No, I don't.

[01:07:38] Right.

[01:07:39] So Bob is also Belle, but, and he's also married, but then I'm also, there's some point where

[01:07:45] he's like rubbing her shoulders.

[01:07:47] I'm like, wait a minute, is he still trying to get with her?

[01:07:49] Because he is like, he's also calling on the phone with his wife, Kelly.

[01:07:52] And I feel like Kelly doesn't deserve this.

[01:07:55] And they do have a sick son named Tim.

[01:07:57] And yeah.

[01:07:58] And like marital problem.

[01:08:00] And this is the thing that this film has a real, um, like tonal problem because it shifts

[01:08:08] really drastically at points from being this quite lighthearted knockabout, um, VH1 film

[01:08:17] to all of a sudden going really dark.

[01:08:20] So, um, Cratchit and his wife are having marital problems.

[01:08:24] Uh, the goat in the ghost of Christmas past.

[01:08:27] Ebony and her sister are, um, placed in foster care because their dad is an alcoholic.

[01:08:35] Right.

[01:08:35] And like, I get that that's an updating of the, the, the ghost of Christmas past, but

[01:08:42] it is way, way darker in tone than the rest of the film.

[01:08:47] It's like, that came out of left field.

[01:08:50] That's, that, that feels like he should be in a different, that feels like he should be

[01:08:54] in a different movie.

[01:08:55] I like that about it, that it feels more grounded.

[01:08:58] Like you can be silly and also serious at the same time.

[01:09:00] And those are my favorite types of films.

[01:09:02] Yeah.

[01:09:03] Yeah.

[01:09:03] But also, um, there is a scene obviously, um, when she's in the hotel where, um, she's

[01:09:10] mixing, I think, sleeping pills and alcohol, um, which is not a good, which is not a good

[01:09:16] idea by the way.

[01:09:17] Um, and yeah, so there's a whole riff throughout the film that she's hallucinating and she may

[01:09:23] well, she may actually well be hallucinating.

[01:09:26] Yeah.

[01:09:27] Yeah.

[01:09:28] Yeah.

[01:09:28] Well, so one twist we have to talk about is that she had two best friends growing up.

[01:09:33] Um, she had, she had Marley M A R L I.

[01:09:39] And this ends up being the one who plays the Marley ghost role later on when she died in

[01:09:44] a car accident 10 years ago, not seven.

[01:09:45] Um, and then the other friend was Terry who Terry's kind of like, we have a Tim who's sick,

[01:09:53] but also Terry is sick.

[01:09:55] So Terry's also tiny Tim, but she was crushed by Ebony's lawyers when she tried to do a solo

[01:10:01] career apparently.

[01:10:02] And yeah.

[01:10:03] And she has a niece, Olivia, that makes sense.

[01:10:07] And her, her brother, her big brother, Tony died.

[01:10:10] So, okay.

[01:10:11] It is actually, it's, it's quite faithful, but also like doing some twists that we don't

[01:10:16] see in any other adaptations.

[01:10:18] Yeah.

[01:10:19] And by the way, Chili from TLC is playing Marley.

[01:10:22] Right.

[01:10:23] It's the one.

[01:10:23] That's who.

[01:10:24] Mm-hmm.

[01:10:25] And so she walks in and this kind of sort of slightly faux bondage outfit and there's

[01:10:31] this great line.

[01:10:32] I thought the chains went when you broke up with that guy from Paramus.

[01:10:36] I liked it.

[01:10:37] Then she has, she has the chains, but it's a nod.

[01:10:39] It's a fashion accessory.

[01:10:41] It is.

[01:10:41] Yeah.

[01:10:42] And she, she pops off her head instead of her jaw and she pops off her face at one point.

[01:10:47] She's like, this is what I really look like.

[01:10:49] Yeah.

[01:10:50] Yeah.

[01:10:51] But we do get, you know, so we, we have Ebony celebrating Christmas in New York in her fancy

[01:10:57] hotel room while the rest of, of her crew is staying in some crap hotel.

[01:11:02] And she says, yeah, she does say the thing like homeless, the homeless might be better

[01:11:07] off if they died versus living in the rat hole shelters.

[01:11:09] If the shelters are so awful, like, damn, that's very Scrooge.

[01:11:14] We see the face in the hotel historical portrait instead of the door knocker.

[01:11:19] And we see, she does have a lonely dinner, but it's a lonely and very picky room service

[01:11:24] dinner.

[01:11:24] Like if she's treating people like that, how much spit do you think she consumes on a monthly

[01:11:30] basis?

[01:11:30] Lots and lots of spit.

[01:11:32] She was so obnoxious.

[01:11:36] Oh, what did you think of Kathy Griffin as the ghost of Christmas past?

[01:11:41] I didn't like, it wasn't like Kathy Griffin isn't really a, not somebody I'm familiar with.

[01:11:47] Oh no.

[01:11:48] To be honest.

[01:11:49] So yeah, I thought, I thought that bit was fine.

[01:11:53] I enjoyed, I enjoyed the whole movie.

[01:11:56] And like I say, it was, it was the ghost of Christmas yet to come.

[01:12:00] Yeah.

[01:12:01] Okay, we'll get there.

[01:12:02] Absolutely cracked me up.

[01:12:05] So Kathy Griffin is someone who I grew up watching and I always quite liked her, but in this,

[01:12:09] I don't know, I just, it didn't really work for me so much.

[01:12:12] I didn't, there was one line that really made me laugh was, which was when she was like,

[01:12:17] Ebony says, stop haunting me.

[01:12:19] And the ghost says, stop being so hauntable.

[01:12:24] Yeah.

[01:12:25] But yeah, it is noticeable.

[01:12:26] Ebony had a good childhood with two best friends, although she stayed behind at school

[01:12:30] to practice singing.

[01:12:31] It was her choice to stay behind.

[01:12:32] It wasn't really that she was left behind, but she did have that especially mean dad.

[01:12:38] What did you think of the, the ghost of Christmas present was a British rock star complete with

[01:12:42] groupies?

[01:12:43] Yeah.

[01:12:44] I could do without the ghost of Christmas present, to be honest.

[01:12:47] Yeah.

[01:12:48] I mean, I like the idea more than I liked the execution of it, but it made sense.

[01:12:53] You know, it's a different sort of indulgence, decadence, you know.

[01:12:56] I think that's right.

[01:12:58] Yeah.

[01:12:58] Yeah.

[01:13:00] It's just not very Christmassy, is it?

[01:13:02] Yeah.

[01:13:03] Yeah.

[01:13:04] Well, it's not, that's not the problem.

[01:13:06] It's just the, I think the, it felt a little icky to me.

[01:13:09] Yeah.

[01:13:09] And also like, you know, uh, I think you said in your review, but wooden acting and I think

[01:13:16] the ghost of Christmas present definitely falls into that category.

[01:13:19] For sure.

[01:13:20] For sure.

[01:13:21] Yeah.

[01:13:21] But yeah, but this is where she sees like the, the hotel with the crew staying.

[01:13:26] She didn't realize it was a dump.

[01:13:27] She didn't care of course.

[01:13:29] Um, and we got, there's a new girl also who's joined the crew who's, she gives the tiny Tim

[01:13:35] line about God bless us everyone.

[01:13:37] And, uh, she's, she's really positive, but it's because she's fresh and she hasn't had

[01:13:43] to endure anything yet.

[01:13:44] We see her in the VH1 thing though, where she gets kind of more cynical and jaded.

[01:13:49] But when they, when they go in the really nasty hotels, like they've got a fridge and then

[01:13:53] she opens the fridge and it's the nastiest, awful, like inside of a fridge.

[01:13:58] Oh, it's just like frozen solid ice.

[01:14:00] So you can't fit anything in there.

[01:14:02] Yeah.

[01:14:04] And you know, there's the bit in the books where the people are stealing Scrooge's stuff

[01:14:08] at the end.

[01:14:08] Well, now we have her accountant is still stealing her stuff while she's still alive.

[01:14:13] Yes.

[01:14:14] They do go to a soup kitchen, which is, uh, the it's rare that the Christmas present part

[01:14:20] of these adaptations visits the poor, which is like, that's one of the parts of the book

[01:14:24] is they go around to a lot of the random poor people for, as you pointed out, what, like

[01:14:28] a fortnight or no, like 12 days.

[01:14:31] Um, and then yeah, her niece's party at the charades, very classic stuff.

[01:14:36] Um, and the presence parting words is two killers, ignorance and greed, keep your eye

[01:14:41] out for them and runs away.

[01:14:42] So that's awesome.

[01:14:44] Not right from the book, but like an update of the book.

[01:14:47] Yeah.

[01:14:47] Yeah.

[01:14:48] Yeah.

[01:14:49] I love the behind the music that they interviewed her, but they wouldn't air the footage until

[01:14:54] she died.

[01:14:56] Ouch.

[01:14:57] Um, it, this, it is different in the sense she knows it's her own death right away.

[01:15:02] Usually Scrooge doesn't is like in denial.

[01:15:04] It's about his death.

[01:15:05] Yeah.

[01:15:05] She's trapped in her room.

[01:15:07] There was no visible ghost.

[01:15:08] It's just the TV, as you say.

[01:15:09] And her diary was sold.

[01:15:11] That is the worst.

[01:15:13] That is way worse than having your bed curtain stolen.

[01:15:16] But then, yeah, there's a light from the bed that you see that decaying body.

[01:15:20] Like, whoa, I didn't expect them to go full body horror there.

[01:15:23] And then she's sucked into the TV.

[01:15:25] Yeah.

[01:15:25] Like, this is the thing.

[01:15:26] It, like I said before, it's this really light, fluffy, um, movie with a lot of, with

[01:15:33] a lot of sort of, you know, a lot of sort of good sort of knockabout, um, sort of verbal

[01:15:40] jokes.

[01:15:40] And it all feels quite sort of light and insignificant.

[01:15:43] And then all of a sudden, every so often it will take these really violent swerves into, wow,

[01:15:49] that's much darker than I was, that's much darker than I was expecting.

[01:15:52] I think that's why I liked it.

[01:15:53] It does keep you on your toes.

[01:15:55] Yeah.

[01:15:57] Yeah.

[01:15:57] So, okay.

[01:15:58] So the happy ending that we get is, well, she calls out to boy and it's a carriage driver

[01:16:03] and he's like, who are you calling boy?

[01:16:05] Sorry, I haven't got my glasses.

[01:16:07] Um, but she calls Kelly, Bob's wife to do some things for her and asks Bob not to get

[01:16:13] on the plane, which why would he not says, Mary, uh, says, Mary Christmas.

[01:16:18] And he's like, thanks.

[01:16:18] It's sarcastic.

[01:16:19] And Bob's plane is luckily delayed because he was not going to listen to her.

[01:16:23] And meanwhile, while she's like, it's, oh, we have to make sure he doesn't go on the plane,

[01:16:28] but I'll just tell him not to.

[01:16:30] And then I'm going to go to my AM America appearance.

[01:16:34] And she's sending CDs to children's hospitals, wants to do more desperately seeking ideas.

[01:16:40] That was nice.

[01:16:41] She's like, no, really?

[01:16:42] No, genuinely.

[01:16:43] I want ideas.

[01:16:44] And they're like, okay.

[01:16:46] Also love AM America because we can't do good.

[01:16:49] We can't do good morning.

[01:16:51] Right.

[01:16:52] Close enough.

[01:16:54] She ends up buying scalped tickets to her own concert so that, uh, her crew can have

[01:16:59] their family come.

[01:17:00] And she calls in a fired chef.

[01:17:03] So she had fired this chef and she calls him and she's like, I want to rehire you tonight

[01:17:07] and make a turkey dinner for a hundred.

[01:17:09] Like way to ruin this guy's Christmas.

[01:17:13] He's probably had a nice Christmas.

[01:17:15] Like if you want to be nice, say, come back next week.

[01:17:19] Yeah, exactly.

[01:17:20] Hmm.

[01:17:21] And she does.

[01:17:22] She goes to see her niece.

[01:17:23] Can't stay, but maybe for one game of charades.

[01:17:26] But then yeah, Christmas dinner while the concert is beginning and the backup singers are eating.

[01:17:33] Yeah.

[01:17:34] Like they're going to go on stage and puke.

[01:17:36] Yeah.

[01:17:36] Can this not wait until after the show?

[01:17:38] Well, it's really bad for the vocal cords.

[01:17:39] Yeah.

[01:17:41] Yeah.

[01:17:41] But that stage was just going to be a slicker vomit.

[01:17:45] At least Ernie's arrested.

[01:17:47] Ernie being the accountant.

[01:17:50] Yeah.

[01:17:50] Yeah.

[01:17:52] And she says at the end, sometimes all it takes is a night of no sleep.

[01:17:59] Yeah.

[01:18:00] I think it's a night of like poor sleep, bad sleep, something like that.

[01:18:05] No, yeah.

[01:18:07] She says something like, sometimes all it takes is a night of no sleep to make your head straight.

[01:18:11] Everything seems clearer in the morning.

[01:18:13] And I say, kids, do not follow this advice.

[01:18:15] This is so untrue.

[01:18:18] Sleep will always make it seem better in the morning.

[01:18:21] But we get Marley, the ghost of the concert, and she invites the live Terry who looks like

[01:18:27] she's doing a little better to sing with her.

[01:18:29] Tim's already better a year later and everyone's together, but no new love for Ebony?

[01:18:36] Clearly not.

[01:18:37] I kind of admire that about it, but I'm also like, oh, Vanessa Williams deserves love.

[01:18:43] I'm sure she's fine in real life.

[01:18:44] Yeah, I'm sure Vanessa Williams is doing fine.

[01:18:50] Any other thoughts on this one?

[01:18:52] Just, I enjoyed the heck.

[01:18:55] It's not the best movie we looked at by any manner of means, but I enjoyed the heck out of it.

[01:19:01] Yeah, I recommend seeking it out.

[01:19:03] There's basically like one place you can find it online.

[01:19:06] I'll link that in the notes.

[01:19:07] I don't know why it's so difficult to find, because if you look up a Christmas, sorry, a

[01:19:12] Diva's Christmas Carol, more often you're going to find the new one, a new Diva's Christmas

[01:19:18] Carol from 2022.

[01:19:19] So 22 years later.

[01:19:22] And yes, we watched this so that you don't have to unless you did.

[01:19:26] In which case, I'm sorry slash you're welcome.

[01:19:29] This one's also a VH1 production.

[01:19:31] This one, by the way, doesn't even have a Wikipedia page.

[01:19:34] Out of all of the films that we've covered, this is the only one that doesn't have a Wikipedia

[01:19:38] page of its own.

[01:19:38] Somehow that feels right.

[01:19:42] So the director is Rusty Kudnyev, who he also directed this year's Meet Me Next Christmas,

[01:19:48] which is one of the new Netflix ones this year.

[01:19:50] The writer was Idrea Walden, and it looks like she's otherwise done kid stuff I'm not

[01:19:56] familiar with.

[01:19:57] And Scrooge is Ashanti, who's called Aphrodite because this film missed the point about doing

[01:20:06] about doing puns on the original names.

[01:20:08] I think this film missed the point.

[01:20:11] Yeah.

[01:20:12] Punt.

[01:20:13] Yeah.

[01:20:15] And the movie also features we get a cameo from Mel B.

[01:20:18] We get Vivica A. Fox and Robin Givens playing prominent roles as two of the spirits who will

[01:20:25] get into that whole thing.

[01:20:26] But first, let's check in on what you said after watching this for the first time.

[01:20:31] So I've just finished watching the 2024 version of Idrea's Christmas Carol.

[01:20:37] This is the least faithful adaptation of all the ones I've watched.

[01:20:43] It's as if the writers have never read A Christmas Carol.

[01:20:47] But they might just have glanced at a Wikipedia entry for it.

[01:20:53] Not even.

[01:20:54] It's kind of a bit of a mere film.

[01:20:57] It's got nowhere near the wit of the Vanessa Williams version.

[01:21:03] Ashanti is, I hate to say this, but she's not a very good actor.

[01:21:07] She doesn't have great screen presence.

[01:21:09] It's a pretty incoherent movie.

[01:21:13] It's probably my second least favorite after Scrooge that we've watched.

[01:21:22] It doesn't have the mean spiritedness of Scrooge, but it certainly has the incoherence.

[01:21:28] The plot is quite difficult to follow.

[01:21:32] It has very little to do with Christmas.

[01:21:35] It is the least Christmassy Christmas movie I think I've ever seen.

[01:21:40] Like, it could take place at any time of year.

[01:21:44] Christmas is entirely incidental to the plots.

[01:21:50] It's...

[01:21:52] Yeah, I mean, this is being produced by Idris Elba.

[01:21:55] And like...

[01:21:57] I just hope Idris produces better material in future.

[01:22:01] Because this is rubbish.

[01:22:03] It does have a nice cameo from Mel B.

[01:22:05] It's always nice to see a Spice Girl doing well.

[01:22:08] But yeah, other than that, I didn't enjoy this at all.

[01:22:11] Hmm.

[01:22:13] So, in Idris Elba's defense, he was an exec producer.

[01:22:16] But the exec producer in charge of production was Megan Fillmore.

[01:22:19] I looked that up.

[01:22:20] But I can see why they use Idris Elba's name.

[01:22:24] Yeah.

[01:22:25] But...

[01:22:26] Yeah.

[01:22:27] So, here's a question.

[01:22:29] It's like...

[01:22:29] So, even leaving aside a Christmas Carol, the novella and that story itself,

[01:22:33] how much of a remake is this even of Diva's Christmas Carol that we were just talking about?

[01:22:38] Yeah.

[01:22:38] Not very.

[01:22:40] Not much.

[01:22:41] And I mean...

[01:22:42] I think I was being a little bit harsh in that voice message.

[01:22:48] Because it's certainly...

[01:22:50] Like I said, it's not got the meanness of Scrooged.

[01:22:58] It just felt kind of pointless.

[01:23:00] I don't know...

[01:23:02] I don't know why this film exists.

[01:23:05] I don't know, like, who is this film for?

[01:23:08] What's its audience?

[01:23:10] Who is this...

[01:23:11] Who is this meant to appeal to?

[01:23:14] Because it's...

[01:23:15] It's sort of too...

[01:23:17] A shorty fan, I guess.

[01:23:18] Yeah.

[01:23:18] It's too adult-themed to be a kid's movie.

[01:23:22] It's too...

[01:23:24] It's too...

[01:23:25] Sort of juvenile to be a movie for adults, I think.

[01:23:30] It's...

[01:23:30] Yeah.

[01:23:31] I don't know what its audience is supposed to be.

[01:23:34] Hmm.

[01:23:35] Yeah.

[01:23:36] So I also wasn't terribly kind to it.

[01:23:39] I gave it a 1.5 stars on Letterboxd out of five.

[01:23:43] I said, I didn't hate this, however bad the writing and acting was.

[01:23:46] But it in no way lives up to the 2000 film after which it's named.

[01:23:50] There are nods to that film and even bearer ones to A Christmas Carol.

[01:23:54] But the writers of this movie have clearly never had an interest in reading Dickens' novella.

[01:23:59] So, yeah.

[01:24:00] It's really silly and made me smile every now and then.

[01:24:03] But I almost feel like I need to re-watch the Vanessa Williams movie again to scrub this one out of my head.

[01:24:08] But I won't because I'm free.

[01:24:10] That's the end of my Christmas Carol Watch project.

[01:24:12] Now to finish watching...

[01:24:14] Now to finish producing the podcast episode.

[01:24:16] So this was my final film that I watched.

[01:24:18] I went out on a low.

[01:24:19] Yeah.

[01:24:21] But, yeah.

[01:24:22] It's a very MTV VH1 production.

[01:24:26] Vashanti is Aphrodite.

[01:24:28] She's a total bitch.

[01:24:29] She hates her...

[01:24:31] She has this song called Shine or whatever and she hates it.

[01:24:35] And she's now become this Simon Cowell-like judge on a reality competition show called Pop the Question.

[01:24:44] Yeah.

[01:24:45] And they're putting on a Christmas show.

[01:24:47] And her poor assistant...

[01:24:49] I felt bad for her assistant who it turns out is like her best friend from growing up, Femi.

[01:24:54] And she's like following Aphrodite around trying to make nice with the people that Aphrodite's mean to.

[01:25:01] She's really mean.

[01:25:01] See, I had no idea that they were best friends from childhood.

[01:25:04] And like...

[01:25:05] Oh, yeah.

[01:25:05] They say that later.

[01:25:06] That completely passed me by.

[01:25:08] For a minute, I thought they were like sisters because they showed them together as children.

[01:25:11] But then, no.

[01:25:12] Okay.

[01:25:12] It's her best friend.

[01:25:13] Yeah.

[01:25:14] And then...

[01:25:15] So there's this contestant on the show named Brianna McAllister who also has a girlfriend named Kira.

[01:25:21] And Kira is definitely the tiny Tim of this film.

[01:25:24] And then we also find out Aphrodite is waiting for a message from a guy.

[01:25:28] So this is another one you need to be...

[01:25:30] So this is the Vanessa Williams one is in contrast to this where she ended up...

[01:25:34] Her happy ending was just her making other people happy, which is more Scrooge.

[01:25:39] And this one, you know, she's got to be with the guy or...

[01:25:43] Yeah.

[01:25:43] It's not a happy ending.

[01:25:45] Yeah.

[01:25:46] Nice Mel B cameo.

[01:25:47] She was a TV host.

[01:25:48] Which makes sense.

[01:25:51] And, yeah, Ashanti's very bitchy.

[01:25:54] No hugs.

[01:25:54] Got to fix this set.

[01:25:56] We see three balls of...

[01:25:57] There's some just wild set pieces in here.

[01:26:00] Like there's three balls of light scouting her for the haunt.

[01:26:02] And then she gets caught in a giant snow globe.

[01:26:05] Like it's so random.

[01:26:09] And then the three diva spirits, they are...

[01:26:12] They travel together.

[01:26:13] And they are not at all the three spirits we're used to.

[01:26:17] They're accessorized to the max, by the way.

[01:26:19] I used to be addicted to this fashion game called Covet.

[01:26:23] And it looks...

[01:26:24] I recognize a lot of what they're wearing from Covet, by the way.

[01:26:26] But they haunt together.

[01:26:30] They're very nice.

[01:26:31] And they have cheesy banter.

[01:26:33] And their names are Bastia, the Celestial Spirit of Truth.

[01:26:37] Sara, the Celestial Guide to Compassion.

[01:26:40] And Zero, Celestial Guide to Service.

[01:26:44] And together they make love.

[01:26:46] What did you think of the three spirits?

[01:26:48] Even putting Dickens...

[01:26:49] We have to put Dickens aside.

[01:26:50] Yeah, putting Dickens aside.

[01:26:53] Yeah, I mean, it was...

[01:26:55] It was...

[01:26:56] It was fine.

[01:26:58] It was fine.

[01:26:59] It was...

[01:27:00] It was...

[01:27:00] They were nice.

[01:27:02] Yeah, it was perfectly...

[01:27:04] Meh.

[01:27:05] Yeah.

[01:27:06] Yeah, I mean, I really don't know what to say about this movie.

[01:27:10] Either in, like, its individual parts or as a whole.

[01:27:13] Because it just sort of...

[01:27:14] It just sort of washed over me.

[01:27:16] Uh-huh.

[01:27:17] I wasn't...

[01:27:18] I wasn't offended by it.

[01:27:19] I wasn't, like, angry with it.

[01:27:22] I wasn't...

[01:27:23] I wasn't anything with this film.

[01:27:26] It just...

[01:27:26] Right.

[01:27:26] It just sort of was.

[01:27:29] Well, I think the...

[01:27:31] One of the most interesting relationships in this film was with her mean mommy.

[01:27:36] Yeah.

[01:27:36] Who comes back in the end.

[01:27:37] And her mom still, like, doesn't get the redemption in the end.

[01:27:41] But she realizes that she doesn't need her mom to be nice to her.

[01:27:45] And that's a nice moment.

[01:27:47] I love the wild, weird moments.

[01:27:50] Like, their first stop in the past is pink fog.

[01:27:52] Like, I don't know what we're doing.

[01:27:53] Okay.

[01:27:54] And they also...

[01:27:56] They're wearing...

[01:27:56] The spirits are wearing all these bangle bracelets.

[01:27:59] And they can pick one up and turn it into a viewing portal.

[01:28:02] Like, that's cute.

[01:28:04] Yeah.

[01:28:05] Yeah.

[01:28:05] And then the bracelets, they fall off and disappear because the three spirits are trying to get back to the Pantheon.

[01:28:11] But they have to redeem her in order to earn their ticket back.

[01:28:14] Like...

[01:28:15] Where on earth did that come from?

[01:28:18] Yeah.

[01:28:18] Yeah.

[01:28:21] One thing I really object to, though, is that she's got this cliche.

[01:28:27] It's not that she lost someone because of her drive for money.

[01:28:32] Or at least it's not just that.

[01:28:33] She's got this cliche story of, like, being used and ditched by every guy.

[01:28:38] So there's no real bell in her past.

[01:28:39] And I don't think that bartender boyfriend is a bell either.

[01:28:42] No.

[01:28:44] So she hates that song, Shine.

[01:28:46] So her new song is Never Shine Again.

[01:28:48] Yeah.

[01:28:49] Okay.

[01:28:50] Get on the nose there, Aphrodite.

[01:28:53] And apparently the whole...

[01:28:55] The evil thing she's doing is she's making this contestant, her protege, she's making her sing Never Shine Again instead of singing Shine, the happy song.

[01:29:05] And this is not doing the right thing because people will be hate-watching.

[01:29:12] Yeah.

[01:29:12] But, I mean, I'm not alone in this.

[01:29:15] Like, this is not a Christmas movie.

[01:29:16] There is nothing...

[01:29:18] Like, it could happen...

[01:29:19] There's Christmas trappings.

[01:29:20] We get a talking tree.

[01:29:22] Yeah.

[01:29:24] Yeah, we do.

[01:29:25] But, like, it just felt like this...

[01:29:28] If you put...

[01:29:29] Aside from the fact they're doing a Christmas special, like, you could set this movie in July and it would make no difference.

[01:29:39] Mm-hmm.

[01:29:41] The way the movie plays out.

[01:29:43] Yeah.

[01:29:44] Yeah.

[01:29:45] Yeah.

[01:29:46] Um, what did you think of the relationship with the bartender?

[01:29:53] I'm sorry, but I don't know who the guy playing the bartender is.

[01:29:57] Mm-hmm.

[01:29:58] But Ashanti, great singer.

[01:30:00] Mm-hmm.

[01:30:01] Actor?

[01:30:02] Actor?

[01:30:05] We're gonna give it to her.

[01:30:06] But, I mean, this is the thing.

[01:30:08] I think she's...

[01:30:10] Because I watched...

[01:30:11] I watched the two versions of A Christmas Diva back-to-back.

[01:30:15] Mm-hmm.

[01:30:16] And, like...

[01:30:17] Me too, by the way.

[01:30:18] Yeah.

[01:30:18] Vanessa...

[01:30:19] Like, Vanessa Williams may not have great range as an actor, but she is an actor.

[01:30:26] I think she's good.

[01:30:27] Yeah, she can act.

[01:30:29] Whereas Ashanti, like I said, great singer.

[01:30:32] I'm sure she's a lovely person.

[01:30:34] But, like, by heck, that was a wooden performance.

[01:30:38] Mm-hmm.

[01:30:39] Like, yeah.

[01:30:42] But the bartender?

[01:30:43] Yeah.

[01:30:44] The bartender's worse, you're saying?

[01:30:45] Yeah, the bar...

[01:30:47] It's like, why are those nesting tables having a scene together?

[01:30:51] It's like, oh, no, it's the bartender and Ashanti's like, good grief!

[01:30:55] You could make furniture out of that performance.

[01:30:58] For me, it was more the writing that I had some issues with.

[01:31:02] Like, I didn't understand how we were supposed to root for their relationship.

[01:31:06] Like, she didn't even write that Shine song for him.

[01:31:08] No.

[01:31:09] It brought them together.

[01:31:10] Because he saw her sing it, and he's like, ooh, I want to ride these coattails up to the top.

[01:31:14] And he does become a restaurateur out of it.

[01:31:17] But, yeah, I didn't root for them at all.

[01:31:21] No.

[01:31:22] Hmm.

[01:31:22] And her mom's bitchy, but she calls out that she gave her a stable, steady upbringing.

[01:31:28] So that's very unscouraged, but that's fine.

[01:31:29] We're going to stop comparing to Dickens anyway.

[01:31:31] I already said that.

[01:31:31] I do have to say, in her mom's defense, why is she wearing a couture mini dress to dinner with her mom?

[01:31:39] Like, you can wear that dress.

[01:31:40] Sure, absolutely.

[01:31:41] You look great in it.

[01:31:43] But there is a time and a place.

[01:31:45] Maybe not for dinner with your mom when you're introducing your boyfriend.

[01:31:48] Yeah.

[01:31:49] Hmm.

[01:31:50] Yeah, we got that.

[01:31:53] Rathar.

[01:31:53] We should have gotten more.

[01:31:54] Rathar is the spirit who's suddenly speaking through a burning tree at one point.

[01:32:00] Okay.

[01:32:00] We should have gotten more of that.

[01:32:01] And Rathar comes back at the end to be like, oh, you ladies got back into the pantheon after all.

[01:32:07] The end.

[01:32:08] I do not know where on earth that, Kate.

[01:32:12] That's so random.

[01:32:14] It's so random.

[01:32:15] So random.

[01:32:16] This entire movie is so random.

[01:32:18] There was a reference, by the way, they have a bubble of silence, which anyone who's watching Dune will know why a bubble of silence made me laugh.

[01:32:26] Lots of cones of silence in Dune.

[01:32:29] Yeah.

[01:32:30] I did like when they go to the future, they say they all hate going to the future as it's a last resort thing because it causes them actual physical pain.

[01:32:40] Yeah, that was an interesting wrinkle.

[01:32:45] And it was bleak in the future.

[01:32:47] We see Aphrodite's pawning her own awards.

[01:32:49] So no one has to steal from her to do that.

[01:32:52] She's doing it herself.

[01:32:53] And then she's singing sadly in an empty bar.

[01:32:56] And she can't sing.

[01:32:58] Like, her voice is gone.

[01:32:59] Yeah, her voice is gone.

[01:33:01] But also, I object to the fact that she's moved by her own future failure, not love for others.

[01:33:06] Like, I feel like they missed the whole point.

[01:33:08] Yeah, again, like...

[01:33:11] Even the spirits have selfish motives.

[01:33:14] Yeah, again, like, somebody may have given them the summary of the Wikipedia page of a Christmas calendar.

[01:33:22] Like, there's the faint whiff of it somewhere in the background.

[01:33:27] Right.

[01:33:27] But this...

[01:33:28] There's like three spirits.

[01:33:29] We got that.

[01:33:30] Yeah, this is barely an adaptation at all.

[01:33:33] Yeah.

[01:33:35] Although, yeah, we get a redemption for the spirits then as well.

[01:33:39] I think we actually get more of a redemption for the spirits than we do for Aphrodite.

[01:33:44] Bastia gives up her last bangle almost.

[01:33:48] Bastia calls out Aphrodite for only wanting to reform for selfish reasons.

[01:33:54] But they only gave her selfish...

[01:33:56] Showed her selfish things, you know?

[01:33:58] They didn't show her things at this point.

[01:34:00] They finally go and see her protege who's dumping sick Kira.

[01:34:04] So this is kind of like It's Christmas Carol where she's corrupting her protege.

[01:34:10] Yeah.

[01:34:12] But Bastia, yeah, she's going to give up her last bangle.

[01:34:14] I don't understand that.

[01:34:15] And then Aphrodite ends up catching the bangle.

[01:34:19] So Bastia is not locked out of Pantheon and they get all their bangles back.

[01:34:22] And she tries to give the bangle back.

[01:34:23] And Bastia is like, oh no, you can keep it.

[01:34:26] So I'm like, can she now look through the picture with the bangle?

[01:34:28] What can she do with the bangle?

[01:34:29] It's just a memory.

[01:34:31] Yeah.

[01:34:33] But yeah, I appreciate...

[01:34:35] Sorry, back to the protege.

[01:34:36] I appreciate Aphrodite says she's trying to harden her up to keep her from getting hurt.

[01:34:40] But it's another one where she...

[01:34:42] Like It's Christmas Carol where she wakes up and things are still bad.

[01:34:46] Like she's already been fired when she wakes up.

[01:34:48] Her best friend Femi slash assistant turned on her and also left the show and cut ties.

[01:34:55] But then, never fear, her protege fixes everything by singing the right song.

[01:35:02] Like if they fired Aphrodite, why didn't they just change the song back anyway?

[01:35:08] And we never hear this song.

[01:35:10] We only ever hear like snatches...

[01:35:11] Yeah, we saw a little bit of it.

[01:35:12] It was fine.

[01:35:13] It was just very generic pop.

[01:35:15] Yeah.

[01:35:17] And then she writes a script for her protege to say to her girlfriend Kira, which is also like, what?

[01:35:23] Ugh.

[01:35:24] Like letter.

[01:35:25] That's not...

[01:35:26] And then she's like, oh, that's so sweet.

[01:35:27] Like she didn't say that.

[01:35:30] Yeah.

[01:35:30] That wasn't from your girlfriend.

[01:35:32] No, it's...

[01:35:33] It's a very weird film.

[01:35:36] But I do have to say that handing your hit song to the next generation, to someone who's being called the next you, is actually really generous.

[01:35:44] And then they do a duet together.

[01:35:46] Yes.

[01:35:46] But then she broadcasts...

[01:35:48] Then she's like, oh, and by the way, I'm giving your girlfriend healthcare.

[01:35:51] And she broadcasts that live.

[01:35:52] And I would be like, that's private information.

[01:35:57] Too much sharing.

[01:35:58] Right.

[01:35:59] And then just to make things a little weirder, it starts snowing inside the bar because of Christmas magic.

[01:36:07] And then again, like back to this theme of having kind of selfish redemption endings.

[01:36:14] She takes over her ex's bar and demands dinner.

[01:36:18] She just shows up.

[01:36:19] She's like, I'll be taking it for Christmas.

[01:36:20] It's going to be a show and you're going to feed all of us.

[01:36:25] But like I said, I appreciate the confrontation with the mom that she just walks away because sometimes you just have to walk away.

[01:36:31] Yeah.

[01:36:32] Yeah.

[01:36:34] One spirit wants to lick her face.

[01:36:35] Last random thing.

[01:36:37] And we get ghost mistletoe.

[01:36:39] Okay, that's the last, last random thing.

[01:36:41] It's movie so weird.

[01:36:43] So weird.

[01:36:43] And I don't hate it.

[01:36:44] I don't hate it.

[01:36:45] Well, this is the thing.

[01:36:46] I just kind of, meh.

[01:36:49] Hmm.

[01:36:50] What?

[01:36:54] It just is.

[01:36:56] Uh-huh.

[01:36:56] It is neither, it is neither good nor is it so bad that I have any kind of reaction to it.

[01:37:05] It just washed open.

[01:37:07] Hmm.

[01:37:08] I'm glad that I watched it in the same way that I'm glad that I watched Clarence because, um, now I have all these weird moments stuck in my head and that makes my brain a richer place.

[01:37:19] Just knowing that this exists.

[01:37:21] Yeah, this is the thing.

[01:37:22] In order to appreciate good media, you sometimes need to watch a little bit of bad media just so you can level set where things are.

[01:37:31] Yeah, but it's also sometimes, you know, like it's there, it had moments that I enjoyed and, you know, those stick in my head too.

[01:37:38] Where you just think, what went wrong here?

[01:37:41] Yeah, I'm not sure that you enjoyed them in the way you were meant to enjoy them first.

[01:37:45] No.

[01:37:47] Well, I'm not sure what way they were meant to be.

[01:37:49] Yeah.

[01:37:49] It was very true.

[01:37:52] That's true.

[01:37:53] All right.

[01:37:55] Any final thoughts on this one?

[01:37:57] No, I've already said way more about this movie than I thought I was going to be able to.

[01:38:03] I mean, I'm not going to tell people not to watch it, but you know, you decide for yourselves if this is up your alley or not.

[01:38:11] We're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to discuss our last two films, which I promise we like much better.

[01:38:18] Yeah.

[01:38:18] All right.

[01:38:19] See you on the other side.

[01:38:22] Okay.

[01:38:23] And we're back with the last two films, the musical twists.

[01:38:28] So first we're going to talk about Scrooge, A Christmas Carol, which is a 2022 animated film.

[01:38:34] It's a loose emphasis on loose remake.

[01:38:38] Actually, not compared to what we just talked about with the diva stuff.

[01:38:41] But yeah, it's somewhat faithful remake of 1970s Scrooge, the musical that we talked about in the classics episode with Albert Finney.

[01:38:52] But this one has swapped out most of the songs and added some trippy sci-fi and fantasy elements.

[01:38:59] And also Scrooge has a dog.

[01:39:01] Were you surprised by that?

[01:39:02] I was.

[01:39:03] But you know what?

[01:39:03] You know what song we didn't swap out, Alicia?

[01:39:06] No.

[01:39:06] Thank you very much.

[01:39:07] Thank you very much.

[01:39:08] Of course.

[01:39:10] Just when I get out, they drag me back in.

[01:39:15] Were you surprised about the dog though?

[01:39:17] I like the dog.

[01:39:19] I think of all the adaptations I've watched, if I were to show one to my five-year-old nephew, this would be it.

[01:39:29] Because obviously we've seen cartoons and other adaptations aimed at children, but I think this one would be the one that would sustain its interest.

[01:39:38] It's very colorful.

[01:39:40] It's very lively.

[01:39:41] It's got the big slobbery dog.

[01:39:45] It really cracks along at a pace.

[01:39:47] So yeah, I think if you've got small children in your life and you want to show them A Christmas Carol, I think this might be the way to go.

[01:39:57] Yeah.

[01:39:58] Yep.

[01:39:59] All right.

[01:39:59] Well, let's check in on what you said right after you watched it.

[01:40:02] So I've just finished watching Scrooge A Christmas Carol.

[01:40:06] Certainly the most psychedelic of the films we've looked at this year.

[01:40:14] I enjoyed it.

[01:40:17] It's very high energy.

[01:40:20] It has an interesting take on Scrooge.

[01:40:25] I particularly like Scrooge the Doggone.

[01:40:28] That was an interesting little wrinkle.

[01:40:33] It just says it's inspired by the Giles Dickens novella, but it clearly has a relationship to the Albert Finney film.

[01:40:43] It uses a couple of the songs, namely I Like Life and of course, Thank You Very Much.

[01:40:51] Thank you very much.

[01:40:53] So it doesn't say it's based on that, but it clearly kind of is.

[01:41:01] Of all the films we've watched, even including The Muppets and even including Mickey's Christmas Carol, I would say this one is most obviously an adaptation for children.

[01:41:13] Just in the way it's shot, the way it's like the humor of it.

[01:41:20] This is most clearly a kid's film to me.

[01:41:23] But that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it.

[01:41:26] I particularly liked Olivia Colman as The Ghost of Christmas Past.

[01:41:31] That was very good.

[01:41:32] And I did laugh a lot more than I probably should have to Mr. Wizzy Fegg.

[01:41:38] Mr. Wizzy Fegg, as she called him.

[01:41:41] That made me laugh a lot.

[01:41:43] But anyway, yeah, I enjoyed it.

[01:41:46] It was certainly psychedelic.

[01:41:54] Yeah.

[01:41:57] So yeah, definitely.

[01:41:59] It is a remake of the first one.

[01:42:00] And actually, the screenwriter slash songwriter of the first one, Leslie Brickus, he came back and wrote the new songs in this one.

[01:42:08] But he passed away before the film was released.

[01:42:11] So the film is dedicated to him.

[01:42:13] Oh, that's a shame.

[01:42:14] Yeah.

[01:42:16] So the director of this one is Stephen Donnelly.

[01:42:19] He's done like Monster High and other kids stuff.

[01:42:22] So yeah, he's a kid specialist.

[01:42:23] And it was written by him and Leslie Brickus, who, you know, was the writer of the original.

[01:42:29] So he gets a screen credit.

[01:42:30] And Scrooge in this one was played by Luke Evans.

[01:42:33] And other noteworthy cast members, you already shouted out Olivia Colman, Jesse Buckley's in here, Jonathan Price, Johnny Flynn, James Cosmo.

[01:42:41] It's a surprisingly stacked cast for a kid's cartoon.

[01:42:46] Second entry for Jonathan Price, who's in The Man Who Invented Christmas as well.

[01:42:54] Yeah.

[01:42:55] Yeah.

[01:42:56] That's a crossover.

[01:42:57] Yeah.

[01:42:58] I gave this one a 3.5 stars on Letterboxd.

[01:43:01] I said, this take on A Christmas Carol, ostensibly a remake of the 1970 Albert Finney musical Scrooge.

[01:43:07] It includes, thank you very much, and a bunch of new improved songs.

[01:43:10] It's so bonkers.

[01:43:11] And that's what I love about it.

[01:43:13] Scrooge has a dog.

[01:43:14] Time travel.

[01:43:15] Looks like time travel.

[01:43:16] The ghosts are wild.

[01:43:17] You can definitely feel that this was tweaked for kids, smoothing down the scariest scenes and making plot points and dialogue clearer.

[01:43:25] But I can wholeheartedly recommend it to adults who like this tale as well.

[01:43:29] Just be prepared for something different.

[01:43:31] I only wish they had given the arts and animation team more time and money to finish this in more detail.

[01:43:38] And yeah, trippiest Christmas Carols, you said.

[01:43:41] But I think the animation budget was really where they were the most limited.

[01:43:46] I just noticed it wasn't as finished as it could be.

[01:43:49] But my eyes quickly adjusted because I was quite into the story.

[01:43:53] Yeah.

[01:43:53] And the character design was good and stuff.

[01:43:55] Although everyone was hot.

[01:43:56] And you see they kind of smoothed down the scary bit.

[01:43:58] The scariness of it.

[01:43:59] There is actually a bit where like Christmas present transitions into Christmas yet to come.

[01:44:05] Yeah, that's true.

[01:44:06] Which is actually really gnarly.

[01:44:08] Which is actually really gnarly.

[01:44:10] Because it's like a little bit of, it's like a little bit of poltergeisty body horror going on.

[01:44:16] And also like Christmas present has like three little...

[01:44:20] Sprites.

[01:44:21] Sprites that become like three little devils.

[01:44:24] Yeah.

[01:44:24] They're like transitioned into three little devils.

[01:44:26] But they don't do the whole hell sequence from the original movie.

[01:44:29] No, they don't.

[01:44:31] Yeah.

[01:44:33] One big difference that they made versus the 1971 is all the people in this one can sing.

[01:44:38] Yes, this is true.

[01:44:39] This is true.

[01:44:41] Of course, you know, they update the language.

[01:44:43] So they do indirectly quote the book a lot.

[01:44:46] But they update it to modern parlance, which makes sense.

[01:44:50] I like their nephew, the nephew Harry.

[01:44:52] I always said that it was Fred and other adaptations.

[01:44:55] But, or in the book, you know.

[01:44:57] But I always said he's kind of low-key my favorite character.

[01:45:00] And he hangs around more in this one, which is nice.

[01:45:04] Yeah.

[01:45:04] And then, yeah, Scrooge has a dog named Prudence.

[01:45:07] So is this...

[01:45:08] We find out later that he's left by Marley.

[01:45:11] But is this like proof that one or both have a soft spot?

[01:45:16] Because, you know...

[01:45:17] Yeah, I think it is.

[01:45:19] But also a great name for Scrooge's dog.

[01:45:22] Prudence, yeah.

[01:45:23] Prudence, yeah.

[01:45:24] Yeah.

[01:45:25] So one complaint I saw online that I had to laugh about.

[01:45:29] Do you think Scrooge is too handsome in this version?

[01:45:33] I mean, it's just the art style.

[01:45:35] Everyone's...

[01:45:35] Yeah, no, no, no, I don't think he's too handsome.

[01:45:39] Hmm.

[01:45:40] Okay, so I talked in the Classics episode about how I was tracking the opening songs.

[01:45:44] I noticed this one opens with Deck the Halls, but then switches to Good King Wenceslas when

[01:45:49] the women are coming along for charity.

[01:45:51] So they're combining the carolers and the charity.

[01:45:54] I don't know why I always find that interesting.

[01:45:56] Good King Wenceslas is one of the songs they use the most.

[01:45:58] I don't know why they don't just use the one for the books, but anyway.

[01:46:02] Yeah.

[01:46:03] And there's also...

[01:46:04] We see the Ghost of Christmas Past is modeled off of a poster he sees for a Christmas extravaganza

[01:46:10] starring Lottie Milligan and becomes the Ghost of Christmas Past, played by Olivia Colman.

[01:46:16] So I automatically love it.

[01:46:18] But I love...

[01:46:18] You know, I talked a lot about how...

[01:46:21] Yeah, Dickens in...

[01:46:23] About...

[01:46:23] Dickens writing about this, like, shifting character.

[01:46:26] This is one of the best representations.

[01:46:28] Because she's a candle, she really is kind of shifting and shapeshifting as it goes on.

[01:46:34] I like that there's a bit where she shapeshifts into Scrooge and it's Scrooge talking to himself.

[01:46:40] Right.

[01:46:40] Which is quite cool.

[01:46:42] Yeah.

[01:46:42] And yeah, I like...

[01:46:44] I get, like I said in the voice note.

[01:46:46] I laughed more than I ought to at Mr. Whizzyfig.

[01:46:50] I don't know why that tickled me.

[01:46:52] I laughed at that too.

[01:46:54] That was funny.

[01:46:54] I thought that was her best line.

[01:46:56] Yeah.

[01:46:56] Yeah.

[01:46:58] I like the characterization of Scrooge in this one because, for example, he has from his

[01:47:05] lost love, Belle, he has still a watch that says, to our happiness.

[01:47:09] And he keeps it.

[01:47:11] And you see him...

[01:47:12] At one point, you know, you see him looking at it.

[01:47:15] He obviously wants to remember her, but it's a painful memory.

[01:47:17] So when he looks at it, he sees another couple being happy on the street and he's...

[01:47:21] It triggers him to be mean to them because he's jealous, you know?

[01:47:25] Yeah.

[01:47:25] I've just...

[01:47:25] I think because it's done for kids, they really took care to make sure that these things were

[01:47:31] clear.

[01:47:32] And he sings about wanting to...

[01:47:34] Just wanting to be alone.

[01:47:35] It's not like, I want to be an evil person.

[01:47:36] It's like, I just want to be alone and just forget about my hardships.

[01:47:40] Yeah.

[01:47:41] Like I said, I've got a five-year-old nephew and I think of all the adaptations we've looked

[01:47:46] at, this is the one that might hold his interest.

[01:47:49] Yeah.

[01:47:50] So like, beginning to end.

[01:47:51] You talked about the ghost of Christmas future at that transition, but also this, the Marley

[01:47:56] was pretty scarily scary.

[01:47:58] Yeah, it was.

[01:47:58] It was like...

[01:48:00] Yeah.

[01:48:00] It's sort of like an ice ghost freezing the room.

[01:48:03] Right.

[01:48:03] I like, um, I love the way Marley goes, look, I'm sure we can talk about this like gentleman.

[01:48:09] Yeah.

[01:48:10] And then Scrooge does the whole, there's more gravy of grave, more gravy than grave thing

[01:48:15] about you.

[01:48:17] I don't think he did.

[01:48:18] And then Marley just goes, oh.

[01:48:19] About the indigestion, you mean?

[01:48:20] Yeah.

[01:48:20] Yeah.

[01:48:22] And then Marley just goes, oh, fight, and starts the whole wailing of chains.

[01:48:26] Right.

[01:48:27] And he's like, Marley just wants to have a civilized conversation.

[01:48:31] Conversation.

[01:48:31] Yeah, because he comes in and he seats himself, and he has no cloth around his head, but his

[01:48:37] jaw does fall, like in the book.

[01:48:40] But then he says, those in charge insist on a touch of pageantry.

[01:48:44] And yeah, but Scrooge is like still not buying into it.

[01:48:47] He's like, okay, fine.

[01:48:48] This is why we have to do the pageantry.

[01:48:50] Put on a show, make them believe you.

[01:48:53] It is interesting.

[01:48:54] So I said we didn't get that hell scene at the end where in the Scrooge 1970 musical,

[01:49:00] he's wrapped with chains.

[01:49:02] So here he's wrapped with chains during the Marley scene.

[01:49:05] Yeah.

[01:49:06] I love the way that he falls through dimensions, and it's wild that the dog comes with him.

[01:49:12] Yeah.

[01:49:12] Like, what is the dog learning?

[01:49:14] Yeah.

[01:49:17] We do get to see, like, the...

[01:49:20] Well, yeah, they chose him in a workhouse while his father's in a debtor's prison.

[01:49:26] So they're really taking that not from the novel, but from Dickens' own life.

[01:49:29] Yeah.

[01:49:29] And he's making, like, little Christmas trinkets as well.

[01:49:33] Mm-hmm.

[01:49:34] Which actually, I think this...

[01:49:37] Like you were saying, I think because it's aimed at kids, it makes it much clearer why Scrooge hates Christmas.

[01:49:46] Right.

[01:49:46] As opposed to, you know, him just being mean.

[01:49:51] Right.

[01:49:51] Like, he actually has more reason to specifically hate Christmas in this adaptation.

[01:49:59] Like his sister, who is sick, died on Christmas Day.

[01:50:03] Yeah.

[01:50:03] That's one.

[01:50:05] Yeah, and we also have in this one, Isabelle's Fezziwig's daughter.

[01:50:09] Yes.

[01:50:11] And Scrooge, we see, like, Scrooge being quite nice while working for Fezziwig,

[01:50:15] and that he's trying to extend people these loans, that we see him later being a real dick about collecting the loans in, you know, the present.

[01:50:25] And that's a main thing from the Scrooge musical.

[01:50:28] But here we actually see him in the past where he's extending money, but it's getting him in trouble too.

[01:50:34] So he tells someone, you have a week and no more, or we shall both have to look for new employment.

[01:50:39] Yeah.

[01:50:41] There's a lot of new scenes, but I think they pool the rest together.

[01:50:45] And it's really well paced.

[01:50:46] I think it's better paced than the musical from the 70s.

[01:50:49] It is.

[01:50:49] Yeah, it is.

[01:50:50] Yeah.

[01:50:50] It is.

[01:50:51] And they add an extra twist where Scrooge is responsible for Cratchit's parents losing his house.

[01:50:57] Yeah.

[01:50:59] Okay.

[01:51:00] But Cratchit is apparently unaware of this.

[01:51:03] Right.

[01:51:04] And we know it's Cratchit because he has heterochromia.

[01:51:06] Yeah.

[01:51:07] And the scenes of the Cratchit family Christmas are actually quite close to the Finney version as well.

[01:51:18] Like, they're not shot for shot, but you can certainly see that the director and the animators have looked at those scenes and there's kind of the same general sort of feel about them.

[01:51:30] Yeah.

[01:51:33] Yeah.

[01:51:33] Yeah, and we find out that in the past, Marley had another dog before Prudence.

[01:51:36] So apparently Marley was just a dog person.

[01:51:39] Apparently, yeah.

[01:51:40] And instead of Scrooge snuffing the ghost of Christmas past out himself, the ghost candle just disintegrates.

[01:51:47] And the next one, Ghost of Christmas Present.

[01:51:50] Is this the most giant throne of food we've seen in any of the adaptations?

[01:51:54] And I love that the ghost of Christmas present tries to be intimidating and just can't keep it up.

[01:52:01] Just like, yeah.

[01:52:04] Yeah, he's too jolly.

[01:52:05] They launch into the most massive song and dance number as well.

[01:52:09] Yeah.

[01:52:10] I love that he randomly has three sprites.

[01:52:13] Like, what's that about?

[01:52:14] Where did they come from?

[01:52:16] Yeah.

[01:52:17] And he changes size.

[01:52:19] That's cool.

[01:52:20] Yes, he does.

[01:52:23] That's cool.

[01:52:24] I also like in this version, so when they're visiting the present, his nephew, Harry, explains more about why he sticks up for his uncle.

[01:52:32] And it's basically because of his mom.

[01:52:34] You know, my mom loved him.

[01:52:35] I know there's something to love in there.

[01:52:38] And I actually teared up when he toasted to his mom to the portrait of her on the wall.

[01:52:42] Oh, bless him.

[01:52:45] I like also that they, you know, these adaptations ignore the fact that there's been a large Indian-British contingency of the population for a long time.

[01:52:56] So this, they incorporate that into the nephew's family.

[01:52:59] Yes.

[01:53:01] Mrs. Cratchit, though, she goes way hard on Scrooge, though.

[01:53:05] I was like, damn, bitch.

[01:53:08] Even worse than Miss Piggy.

[01:53:10] Again, I think this is the, it's a kid's movie, so we're gonna make it, we're gonna make everything just a little bit more obvious.

[01:53:19] Yeah.

[01:53:19] I love, they actually have Timmy sing a song like in the book, but it's not a song about a lost child in the snow.

[01:53:25] Yeah.

[01:53:26] And then, yeah, that, you already talked about that transition to Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come and the evil sprites.

[01:53:33] The evil, I love the evil sprites.

[01:53:35] I want, like, a little evil sprite figure.

[01:53:39] We go, thank you very much.

[01:53:41] Thank you very much.

[01:53:42] Seriously?

[01:53:43] I just got that out of my head?

[01:53:48] But he's, he's in, Scrooge is in deep denial.

[01:53:51] And this is another one where they did it well to make sure it was clear to kids.

[01:53:55] So, like, they show the dog going over and looking at the coffin so the dog knows.

[01:53:58] But Scrooge is, like, completely oblivious, you know.

[01:54:01] Yeah.

[01:54:03] Yeah.

[01:54:03] And, yeah, again, they do, they combine the scenes in the cemetery at the end and, but, question.

[01:54:09] So they didn't do, they do him following through the grave and goes back to his bed instead of the whole hell sequence.

[01:54:14] I get it.

[01:54:14] It's for kids.

[01:54:15] But those people who are singing, were they just going to leave Prudence the dog there alone?

[01:54:21] I was so mad at them.

[01:54:23] I said, yeah, I hadn't thought about that, but it's a good question.

[01:54:27] Hmm.

[01:54:27] Hmm.

[01:54:29] This is another one where he, when he wakes up all reforms, he calls down to a man instead of a kid.

[01:54:35] And he gives the kid turkey money up front.

[01:54:39] Same with the kid.

[01:54:40] And it's the same kids from the start of the film.

[01:54:42] But that's always been a question for me.

[01:54:44] Like, he just tells, oh, random urchin kid, go tell the poultry that I want to buy their biggest bird and just trust you.

[01:54:55] But, again, he decorates and throws his own party, which is kind of selfish to ask everyone to drop their own plans last minute.

[01:55:03] Yeah.

[01:55:03] Yeah.

[01:55:04] He still seems like he's about to bankrupt himself, like the 1970 music, maybe a little bit less.

[01:55:10] But I really like that we get around the dinner scene, we get glimpses of future scenes.

[01:55:14] So replacing, like, we see the doom scenes from the ghost of Christmas yet to come.

[01:55:20] And then that scene fades away and is replaced by a happier version of that.

[01:55:24] Yeah.

[01:55:25] Like Tiny Tim doing well and that sort of thing.

[01:55:27] Yeah.

[01:55:28] Yeah.

[01:55:29] Overall, I really actually quite like this.

[01:55:32] Yeah, I did.

[01:55:34] I thought, I mean, of all the adaptations we've looked at, and it sounds strange with the Muppets and the Flintstones, but it is the most, I think, you could say, it's not a family film.

[01:55:46] It's a kids film.

[01:55:47] It's not to say adults won't enjoy it.

[01:55:49] Well, I think it's great for adults too.

[01:55:51] But it is a film targeted at children and that's fine.

[01:55:56] What's in Mickey 2?

[01:55:58] Pardon?

[01:55:59] Mickey 2.

[01:56:00] Mickey as well.

[01:56:01] Yeah.

[01:56:01] Um, yeah, I really enjoyed this.

[01:56:03] I thought it went, I, I, very bright, very colorful, very sort of high energy.

[01:56:10] Yeah.

[01:56:10] I enjoyed it.

[01:56:11] Yeah.

[01:56:12] Okay.

[01:56:13] Well, that brings us to our last film for this year.

[01:56:18] Are you sad?

[01:56:18] Are you excited?

[01:56:20] Good afternoon.

[01:56:21] Good afternoon.

[01:56:22] Yeah.

[01:56:22] That's the version of thank you very much.

[01:56:24] Yeah.

[01:56:25] So of course we're talking about spirited from 2022.

[01:56:28] Um, this one's more of a sequel than a retelling, but you only find that out halfway through.

[01:56:33] Uh, so that's one reason it's going last.

[01:56:35] And the other one is that we both found it delightful.

[01:56:38] So it's a good note to end on.

[01:56:40] Uh, this one was directed by Sean Anders, who's known for more like screwball movies, like

[01:56:45] sex drive, hot tub, time machine.

[01:56:47] She's out of my league.

[01:56:48] Where are the Millers?

[01:56:49] Et cetera.

[01:56:50] Um, and he wrote it with John Morris, who's a frequent collaborator with him and all of

[01:56:54] the above.

[01:56:55] Scrooge in this one.

[01:56:57] Well, we have Clint Briggs played by Ryan Reynolds, and he's the one who's being reformed.

[01:57:01] But then we also have Will Ferrell, which is a twist that we find out he's Scrooge halfway

[01:57:06] through.

[01:57:07] Apparently they earn 20 million each for this.

[01:57:11] Nice work.

[01:57:11] If you get it.

[01:57:12] Mm-hmm.

[01:57:13] And the cast is great.

[01:57:15] Otherwise we have Octavia Spencer.

[01:57:17] We have Sunita Mani.

[01:57:18] She is so good.

[01:57:19] Sorry.

[01:57:19] Octavia Spencer.

[01:57:20] Octavia Spencer is so good.

[01:57:21] So good in this.

[01:57:22] Mm-hmm.

[01:57:23] I really like, uh, Sunita Mani.

[01:57:25] I know her from a whole bunch of things, but I always think most of that, um, that music

[01:57:31] video from the Daniels, like, turn it out for what?

[01:57:35] Anyway.

[01:57:35] Oh, is that her?

[01:57:36] Okay.

[01:57:36] Mm-hmm.

[01:57:37] Mm-hmm.

[01:57:38] Yeah, the Daniels, for anyone who doesn't know, they're the directors of Everything Everywhere

[01:57:41] All at Once.

[01:57:43] Um, yeah, we have Patrick Page as Marley.

[01:57:46] We have Tracy Morgan as the ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

[01:57:50] Rose Byrne has a cameo at the beginning.

[01:57:52] Judi Dench makes the best cameo.

[01:57:55] Best cameo, yeah.

[01:57:56] Such a good cameo.

[01:57:58] Uh, Jimmy Fallon shows up at one point as a cameo, too.

[01:58:01] All right, let's check in on what you said right after watching.

[01:58:04] So I just finished watching Spirited on Apple TV+.

[01:58:09] Um, the start out is a really weird film.

[01:58:14] I'm not a huge fan of Will Ferrell as a comedian.

[01:58:19] Um, and I think that Ryan Reynolds' sort of very knowing fourth-wall-breaky shtick is something I can only take in relatively small doses.

[01:58:34] Um, so I wasn't expecting to enjoy this anywhere near as much as I did.

[01:58:40] It's really funny in places.

[01:58:44] Um, Octavia Spencer is fantastic.

[01:58:47] And actually, I think Ferrell and Reynolds work incredibly well as a comedic pairing.

[01:58:55] I do like the bit where they're in Victorian London and they're singing and, um, Ferrell goes,

[01:59:03] Do you know what the leading cause of death was in my time?

[01:59:06] No?

[01:59:07] January.

[01:59:08] January.

[01:59:09] That really made me laugh.

[01:59:11] Um, yeah, I enjoyed this far more than I thought I was going to.

[01:59:17] Yeah, I also really liked it.

[01:59:19] I gave it four stars in Letterboxd.

[01:59:21] I said,

[01:59:22] A smart, silly twist on the usual Christmas carol fare.

[01:59:25] The smartest part of the twist becomes clear an hour in, but it makes me laugh.

[01:59:30] It's full of heart and the music is good, too.

[01:59:32] A fun classic I'd recommend to anyone.

[01:59:35] It's the longest of the bunch.

[01:59:36] As we said, more of a sequel and from the perspective of the ghosts.

[01:59:39] So I was surprised the Rotten Tomatoes summary, uh, says something like,

[01:59:45] Oh, that doesn't bring anything new to the table.

[01:59:47] I'm like, did we watch the same film?

[01:59:48] It brings loads of new stuff to the table.

[01:59:51] Yeah, do we watch this as like, apparently several, uh, critics said this.

[01:59:55] I'm like, that's not the movie I watch.

[01:59:57] You must be talking about something else.

[01:59:58] What are you talking about?

[01:59:59] Yeah.

[02:00:00] Um, I love like, you know, I think one thing Ryan Reynolds especially does really well is

[02:00:06] the meta self commentary and the jokes.

[02:00:10] Yeah.

[02:00:11] Like, that's what I meant by the sort of fourth wall breaking thing.

[02:00:15] It's, it's okay.

[02:00:17] I just like, I enjoyed the first Deadpool.

[02:00:22] I enjoyed the first Deadpool movie, but like, he really needs to do stuff that isn't that

[02:00:27] kind of knowing, winking at the, like, cause I remember like Ryan Reynolds needs to do

[02:00:35] more drama.

[02:00:36] He needs to do more like weighty roles.

[02:00:39] Cause he's good.

[02:00:40] Yeah.

[02:00:42] Yeah.

[02:00:42] He's, he's, he's good at that kind of thing.

[02:00:45] Um, I just wish he'd, I just wish he'd, I just wish he'd stretch himself a bit.

[02:00:50] I don't know.

[02:00:51] Disagree.

[02:00:52] I think that this was, uh, him and his element and that worked perfectly.

[02:00:57] Like I loved how the musical moments, they do the full musical thing, but it's always acknowledged

[02:01:02] as intentional.

[02:01:03] They're like, Oh, okay, here we go.

[02:01:04] We're doing this again.

[02:01:05] All right.

[02:01:06] Right.

[02:01:06] Are we really taking the time right now to sing a song?

[02:01:08] I would really like to know how much of the dancing, um, Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell

[02:01:14] actually do.

[02:01:15] Cause it's very high end.

[02:01:17] It looks very complicated.

[02:01:19] Well, no, you can actually watch videos of them, of rehearsing and they struggled.

[02:01:24] Um, but they, they struggled, but they learned it.

[02:01:27] Uh, there's behind the scenes videos on Apple.

[02:01:29] Okay.

[02:01:30] So in like under the extras tab, there's like three or four videos.

[02:01:34] They actually did do that themselves.

[02:01:36] Okay.

[02:01:36] Yeah.

[02:01:37] They painstakingly learned it, but they show them, they have a video where, uh, Will Ferrell

[02:01:41] was like, you should take a video of us now.

[02:01:43] So people see how bad we were when we started.

[02:01:47] Um, the songs, I, I think that the songs are really quite good.

[02:01:51] Like it's not, it does, it has good afternoon.

[02:01:55] I don't think that's quite up there with thank you very much.

[02:01:58] Not quite close, but overall, I think this has the best overall soundtrack for a musical

[02:02:04] that we've seen.

[02:02:06] Yeah.

[02:02:06] The one, it's not a criticism.

[02:02:09] I'd just be interested.

[02:02:10] Like if I came back to this in 10 years, how well would it date?

[02:02:16] Cause there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff about social media in there.

[02:02:21] There's a lot of stuff about like, I think like contemporary politics in there.

[02:02:26] So I wonder how, I wonder how well, I wonder how well it will sort of survive as a, you

[02:02:34] know, whether it's too sort of tied to the particular moment we're in.

[02:02:38] Mm-hmm.

[02:02:39] Um, so I've talked previously about, you know, how these adaptations are also adaptations of

[02:02:45] each other as much as the original work and often cases.

[02:02:48] And this one, they do specifically bring up Scrooged, the movie that you and I didn't like

[02:02:54] out of all the adaptations.

[02:02:56] Um, and I do see some of that imprint in here, but done more tastefully in my opinion.

[02:03:02] Done more coherently as well.

[02:03:04] Well, sure.

[02:03:05] Yeah.

[02:03:06] Yeah.

[02:03:06] What did you think about, uh, Scrooge got a romance with Octavia Butler's character?

[02:03:11] Yeah.

[02:03:12] No, Octavia Spencer.

[02:03:13] Yeah.

[02:03:13] Octavia Spencer.

[02:03:14] Sorry.

[02:03:15] Butler is the writer and I always do that.

[02:03:17] Yeah.

[02:03:18] And I also like the, um, the fact that, um, Ryan Reynolds character managed to seduce the

[02:03:24] ghost, managed to seduce the ghost of Christmas past.

[02:03:27] Right.

[02:03:28] He's just a bad influence on the ghost.

[02:03:30] That whole plot was funny.

[02:03:32] I think she's hilarious.

[02:03:33] I love her.

[02:03:34] Yeah, she is.

[02:03:35] Yeah.

[02:03:36] I think, yeah, it feels like a truly fresh take to me because we've got, it's like the

[02:03:40] sequel situation.

[02:03:41] We've got this whole unredeemable concept.

[02:03:46] Unredeemable.

[02:03:47] Actually.

[02:03:47] Yeah.

[02:03:48] There's so good songs in there.

[02:03:49] I like, this is the thing because Ryan Reynolds character is familiar with the source material.

[02:03:55] It's like, oh, come on.

[02:03:57] Oh, so now you're going to do this.

[02:03:58] We've done this.

[02:04:01] Yeah.

[02:04:01] It's again, that question I brought up before of, you know, if you know,

[02:04:04] how the haunts and that's a Scrooge thing, which they do reference directly.

[02:04:08] If you know how it's supposed to go, does that make it more difficult?

[02:04:12] Yeah.

[02:04:12] And I also like the fact that like the horn things have like a production staff.

[02:04:17] Mm-hmm.

[02:04:18] So they research, they research the people they're going to haunt.

[02:04:22] Yeah.

[02:04:23] And there's like people moving scenery and stuff.

[02:04:27] Right.

[02:04:27] Yeah.

[02:04:27] They spend like a full year researching their next haunt and they have this whole staff to

[02:04:32] convert one person.

[02:04:33] Yes.

[02:04:34] But apparently they've converted people like Colonel Sanders, Dolly Parton, which is blasphemy.

[02:04:39] She's always been perfect.

[02:04:43] Yeah.

[02:04:44] And the original, the book, it hints at this ghost redemption business, but this really explores

[02:04:50] it.

[02:04:50] So they'd say it's a supernatural simulation and it's like an international ghost enterprise.

[02:04:55] I love, there's just people walking around speaking various languages and everyone just

[02:04:59] understands them.

[02:05:01] Yeah.

[02:05:02] Marley though, it seems he's no longer condemned to wander.

[02:05:06] He got a promotion.

[02:05:07] So good for him.

[02:05:09] He's now running the show.

[02:05:11] Uh, and Scrooge has a new crisis.

[02:05:13] He won't give up doing the redemptions.

[02:05:15] He's been doing, I'm confused about, he says he's been doing this for 46 seasons, but he's

[02:05:22] been dead for nearly two centuries.

[02:05:25] And he said he spent 10 seasons in research and then was bumped up.

[02:05:29] So how long are seasons in this whole, this is my one little niggle.

[02:05:34] Yeah.

[02:05:34] It's a good question.

[02:05:36] It's a good question.

[02:05:37] And of course he's, he's lost his accent, but that's fine.

[02:05:40] I'm just, I'm like, yeah, I'm all, I'm just going along with that.

[02:05:43] Fair enough.

[02:05:43] Yeah.

[02:05:45] He talks about this newfangled mouth, modern mouth kisses.

[02:05:48] He wants to try it because he, he, if he retires, that means being reborn.

[02:05:54] Only he doesn't get reborn.

[02:05:55] He gets put into a man body so that he can be with Octavia.

[02:05:59] Yeah.

[02:05:59] So he doesn't get like reincarnated as a baby.

[02:06:03] He just gets dropped to finish his life.

[02:06:05] Middle-aged man.

[02:06:06] Yeah.

[02:06:06] Yeah.

[02:06:07] Yeah.

[02:06:07] Yeah.

[02:06:09] Um, you said before also, or who was it?

[02:06:12] No, someone else was saying that particularly like the ghost of, uh, Christmas yet to come.

[02:06:17] You know, it was me because the ghost of Christmas yet to come.

[02:06:19] He just wants some lines.

[02:06:21] Yeah.

[02:06:22] But he chokes.

[02:06:23] Yeah.

[02:06:26] So Ryan Reynolds, his character, uh, Clint did know the story, but, um, Rose Byrne's character,

[02:06:33] Mrs. Karen, of course you had to be Karen, Blonsky.

[02:06:36] She didn't know the story.

[02:06:39] Yeah.

[02:06:40] Yes.

[02:06:41] Yeah.

[02:06:41] Or maybe she didn't.

[02:06:43] Yeah.

[02:06:44] Maybe.

[02:06:45] Is that possible?

[02:06:47] Um, according to the people at Hallmark, clearly, cause you need to look up the internet.

[02:06:53] Hallmark doesn't.

[02:06:54] Yeah.

[02:06:55] This is more realistic than Hallmark.

[02:06:56] Hallmark.

[02:07:00] I like the graduation from a simulation moment.

[02:07:02] I like how they'd set that up at the beginning.

[02:07:04] You know, she finishes her thing and gets a whole party in the street that nobody else

[02:07:08] sees.

[02:07:09] And I don't like the, the sort of moment where she gets hit in the, cause like one of her,

[02:07:14] one of the things she was doing is stopping the kids playing in the street in her like cul-de-sac

[02:07:21] and she gets hit on the back of the ball, back of the head.

[02:07:25] She gets hit on the back of the head with a ball and all the ghosts like hold their breath.

[02:07:32] She's like, it's okay.

[02:07:33] It's like, hey.

[02:07:36] Um, there's actually, so the people who wrote this actually understand marketing.

[02:07:41] There's some good, but cynical lessons in marketing, but that fits for the character

[02:07:46] of Clint's where he's like, you know, people used to insist on authenticity and now there's

[02:07:50] plastic trees and people never change.

[02:07:52] And he's just manipulating people to sell more trees basically.

[02:07:57] Yeah.

[02:07:58] Yeah.

[02:07:59] There's a really, there's a really, um, awful bit with the ghost of, it was supposed to

[02:08:05] be the ghost of Christmas past, but it's actually, um, Will Ferrell where that Clint's

[02:08:09] parents buy him a dog bowl to convince him that they're going to buy him a dog.

[02:08:15] Yeah.

[02:08:17] Yeah.

[02:08:17] So the Marley situation.

[02:08:20] Um, so first of all, I love that the, the musical number here reminds me of the music

[02:08:25] man song, the trouble in Riverside city.

[02:08:26] But, um, I love that whole, the, the comedy of like, he's just trying to, it's like we

[02:08:32] talked about in the last movie, this Scrooge animated one, uh, where Marley's like, I just,

[02:08:38] just let me do my thing.

[02:08:40] Just let me do my job here.

[02:08:41] And he's just interrupting.

[02:08:43] Interesting.

[02:08:43] But I guess the perp doesn't need to know their Marley.

[02:08:47] Like they show his older sister passed away five years ago.

[02:08:50] And so the niece is orphaned and living with his brother.

[02:08:53] And that also the brother thing is another Scrooge reference.

[02:08:57] Um, but.

[02:09:00] His sister, like her portrait picks up.

[02:09:02] And I thought for a moment, it might be the first time I watched it.

[02:09:06] I thought it, cause this is the second time I watched it for the first time I watched

[02:09:08] it.

[02:09:08] I thought it might be like her ghost showing up, but it is just a generic Marley ghost who

[02:09:14] looks the makeup wise, just like the Scrooge ghost.

[02:09:17] Yeah.

[02:09:18] More or less.

[02:09:19] Yeah.

[02:09:19] More or less.

[02:09:20] Yeah.

[02:09:21] Uh, and then, yeah, his, the whole thing with his, his niece is orphaned living with his

[02:09:27] brother.

[02:09:27] And again, it's like about him corrupting a protege where she wants to run for student

[02:09:32] council president and he's trying to, uh, convince her to do the dirty route to take out her

[02:09:39] opponent.

[02:09:40] Yeah.

[02:09:40] They're, they're doing oppo research.

[02:09:42] Like Octavia is supposed to go.

[02:09:44] Yeah.

[02:09:44] I'm doing oppo research on an 11 year old.

[02:09:47] I'm doing oppo research on an 11 year old.

[02:09:49] You feel for her.

[02:09:50] Cause she's like, I don't want to lose my job, but this is shitty.

[02:09:54] Yeah.

[02:09:54] Hmm.

[02:09:56] Yeah.

[02:09:57] And.

[02:09:57] Uh, yeah, though I talked about the unredeemable classification, the only unredeemable before

[02:10:02] we find out eventually with Scrooge.

[02:10:05] But I also like where they talk about this sort of, they don't use the term butterfly

[02:10:10] effects, but they say they want, they call the perp, the person they haunt the perp.

[02:10:14] And they said they want a perp with global reach whose ripples will affect the entire

[02:10:20] world.

[02:10:20] And I like that concept.

[02:10:22] Yeah.

[02:10:23] I was thinking we were talking about Dickens spending so much money in the last episode,

[02:10:27] we were talking about Dickens spending so much money in his book.

[02:10:29] And one thing he was criticized for was, um, that he said he wanted poor people to be able

[02:10:36] to read it.

[02:10:36] But then his like, there's really expensive edition.

[02:10:40] Um, eventually he did, he put out a much cheaper published edition, of course, uh, for

[02:10:45] poor people to afford it.

[02:10:47] But I think in a way he, it should be the wealthy that he's appealing to because they're the

[02:10:53] ones who he's trying to say, spread the wealth.

[02:10:55] Like the poor know they want better circumstances, kinder people.

[02:11:01] Yeah.

[02:11:03] Um, so Octavia Spencer upset about the doing, what did you say?

[02:11:08] Oppo research on 11 year old?

[02:11:10] 11 year olds.

[02:11:11] Yeah.

[02:11:12] That song, the view from here is legit a good song.

[02:11:15] It is.

[02:11:15] And like, I didn't know Octavia Spencer could sing like that.

[02:11:19] Yeah.

[02:11:20] Yeah, exactly.

[02:11:21] Very impressive.

[02:11:23] This is, this is maybe my favorite role I've seen her in.

[02:11:26] And even just above, uh, what's it called?

[02:11:29] The one where she plays a NASA, uh, mathematician, um, hidden figures.

[02:11:36] Yeah.

[02:11:36] That was a good movie too.

[02:11:37] Um, okay.

[02:11:39] So we talked about him when Christmas past came, we talked about her humor and the flirting

[02:11:44] and, and waylaying her.

[02:11:46] Uh, and then, you know, Will Ferrell has to step in and do the job because he slept with

[02:11:51] her.

[02:11:53] But you were saying, uh, something that I cut out earlier about the dog bowl.

[02:11:58] Yeah.

[02:11:59] So Clint's mom, I think buys him a dog bowl to convince him that she's bought him a dog.

[02:12:07] Mm-hmm.

[02:12:08] And I'm thinking, yeah, it's not quite up there with, you know, we've had alcoholic fathers,

[02:12:13] we've had abuse mothers.

[02:12:15] It's not quite up there with any of that, but it's still a really shitty thing to do.

[02:12:20] Yeah.

[02:12:20] It was really cold.

[02:12:23] Yeah.

[02:12:23] And it's like Clint's going about, this is the best lesson they ever taught me because

[02:12:27] people believe what they want to believe.

[02:12:32] Yeah.

[02:12:33] Oh yeah.

[02:12:33] No, it's true.

[02:12:34] It's true.

[02:12:35] This is how he became who he is.

[02:12:38] I liked it by the way, with the ghost, with Will Ferrell stepping in, that reminded me

[02:12:41] of Wilma from Flintstones.

[02:12:43] Yes.

[02:12:43] The trope of having someone else step in.

[02:12:45] Yeah.

[02:12:45] And they also had the one present opening on Christmas Eve, like Scrooged.

[02:12:50] Yeah.

[02:12:51] You know, what's funny is, so I have some notes in here about, he had a girlfriend named

[02:12:57] Nora, but I don't really remember her.

[02:13:00] And I just watched the movie like a few days ago or whatever.

[02:13:05] But that was a part of the plot.

[02:13:06] At the end, when he's dead, does he see her again?

[02:13:10] I think, no, he sees his sister.

[02:13:13] Right.

[02:13:13] No, she's just, it's just an ex, I guess.

[02:13:16] Okay.

[02:13:16] That's fine.

[02:13:18] Um, I love when they go to the past and they go to the mall and he's like, there wasn't

[02:13:22] a Sephora there.

[02:13:23] They're like, oh yeah, no, we have a, we have a placement.

[02:13:25] Yeah.

[02:13:29] Hmm.

[02:13:32] Another interesting touch is that he is able to jump over to the other side a couple of

[02:13:37] times.

[02:13:37] One time he, he follows Will Ferrell there and another time he's pulled there.

[02:13:42] Yeah.

[02:13:42] So there's sort of a, an open door between the two sides and the ghosts can decide who

[02:13:48] in can and cannot see them.

[02:13:49] Yes.

[02:13:51] But yeah, the most inspired thing was finding a way to shoehorn the Victoria era in there

[02:13:56] by Victorian era in there by having them travel back to Scrooge's own past.

[02:14:02] Yeah.

[02:14:02] So how long were you reformed for then?

[02:14:05] About three weeks, about three weeks.

[02:14:07] About three years, months, weeks.

[02:14:10] Yeah.

[02:14:11] Leading cause of death is January.

[02:14:15] Um, I have to call out that the Scrooge reveal happens at one hour in David on the Lore

[02:14:20] Hounds often says, you know, watch at the one hour mark is when they make the big change

[02:14:25] that subverts the movie.

[02:14:26] Yeah.

[02:14:27] And so that falls in the line there.

[02:14:29] Um, and that's when we get the good afternoon song, which is like, this is the, probably

[02:14:34] the thing people remember most about this film.

[02:14:36] The good afternoon is treated as a filthy curse word.

[02:14:40] But actually it is kind of, I mean, it's, it's, it's not faithful to the book, but it

[02:14:47] is taken from the book.

[02:14:49] Cause he says, cause he, his nephew's saying Merry Christmas and he's like, good afternoon.

[02:14:54] Like I said, Merry Christmas.

[02:14:55] I said, good afternoon.

[02:14:59] But do you think the song itself was inspired by Thank You Very Much?

[02:15:02] Like the sort of cadence of it?

[02:15:04] It was, yeah.

[02:15:04] The cadence of it is very, the cadence of it is very similar.

[02:15:08] Yeah.

[02:15:09] Mm-hmm.

[02:15:10] Yeah.

[02:15:11] And also like the Clint's line, I've never done tap before.

[02:15:15] It's a very expressive, it's a very expressive medium.

[02:15:17] Expressive medium.

[02:15:19] Yeah.

[02:15:20] Yeah.

[02:15:20] And at this point, the film like becomes kind of a buddy comedy, which is just, yeah.

[02:15:25] Yeah.

[02:15:27] And you know, you see Clint, he's been the bad influence on the ghost, but then this is

[02:15:33] the thing is like, he is just a bad influence and he stops himself when he notices what a bad

[02:15:39] influence he's being on his niece.

[02:15:42] Like when he sees that his niece destroyed this poor kid who posted something snarky about

[02:15:48] having to volunteer at a homeless shelter.

[02:15:52] He destroys him and the kid ends up taking his own life.

[02:15:55] Like, see, there's another, it takes, it has some dark, serious death moments in there.

[02:16:00] And then he's like, oh no, I've gone too far.

[02:16:03] I've gone too far.

[02:16:05] Yeah.

[02:16:06] And then he's confronted with his sister's death scene where he's actually, he's actually

[02:16:11] asked to, you know, directly to his face to take care of his niece.

[02:16:15] And he just doesn't, he's like, no, he says no to his sister.

[02:16:18] His sister dies knowing that she, that her brother is, you know, not going to help her niece.

[02:16:25] Yeah.

[02:16:26] Hmm.

[02:16:27] Really sad.

[02:16:28] Yeah.

[02:16:29] Yeah.

[02:16:29] And like I said, it, like you said, it does have, I think that, I think that is what kind

[02:16:36] of balances the film out is that it does have, it does have some emotional depth to it and

[02:16:43] it doesn't come up on a, like, it's better handled than a diva's, diva's Christmas.

[02:16:48] Cause a diva's Christmas, like the darkness just comes up and sort of smacks you in the head.

[02:16:53] It's like, it feels really abrupt.

[02:16:56] It feels much more like an organic part of the story.

[02:17:00] Right.

[02:17:01] Right.

[02:17:01] It's layered with more nuance here.

[02:17:04] Yeah.

[02:17:04] For sure.

[02:17:05] Yeah.

[02:17:06] Yeah.

[02:17:07] And then we have Will Ferrell wakes up in bed with Clint as an adult.

[02:17:10] And then the ghost of Christmas yet to come comes after Clint helps Scrooge and the redemption arc is like, yeah, we get the full arc.

[02:17:19] Um, we get a, I like the futuristic graveyard.

[02:17:23] They're updating it.

[02:17:25] Yeah.

[02:17:25] And then we get an ass kicking.

[02:17:27] Yeah.

[02:17:28] It's like a digital graveyard.

[02:17:31] Yeah.

[02:17:31] Yeah.

[02:17:32] There's a taxi driver in there.

[02:17:34] I have to guess that's another Scrooge reference, but yeah, the, the major thing and you know,

[02:17:39] the moment at the end is Ryan Reynolds characters.

[02:17:43] Clint is basically saying like, I'm, you know, I felt bad for these specific people that I care about,

[02:17:50] but like, don't expect this reform to last forever.

[02:17:53] And then he dies.

[02:17:55] He dies saving his friends.

[02:17:57] So he's proven that he was wrong about not being changed, but also that's the end.

[02:18:03] Yeah.

[02:18:03] And he takes on Scrooge's role running the, uh.

[02:18:07] Right.

[02:18:08] Running.

[02:18:09] He negotiates that.

[02:18:09] He's like, I don't want to go to the other side.

[02:18:11] He's, his sister shows up to accept him to the other side.

[02:18:14] He's like, how about she and I stay here and do this job that I know means I can actually talk to people.

[02:18:20] Yeah.

[02:18:21] Yeah.

[02:18:23] So they both have access to life again.

[02:18:27] Yeah.

[02:18:27] Yeah.

[02:18:28] And, uh, and Scrooge's plop back into the real world and sets up house with Octavia Spencer's character and they have children.

[02:18:38] Yeah.

[02:18:38] And sometimes he gets annoyed with them like real people do.

[02:18:41] Yeah.

[02:18:43] Yeah.

[02:18:43] I mean, I, you know, I would actually even be open to a sequel to this.

[02:18:47] Where would you think?

[02:18:48] Like, yeah, I could see a sequel working.

[02:18:52] Which is there any other film that we've talked about that you could see a sequel for?

[02:18:57] No, not really.

[02:18:59] No.

[02:18:59] Yeah.

[02:19:00] I think it's the originals.

[02:19:02] So.

[02:19:03] Yeah.

[02:19:03] Yeah.

[02:19:03] This one is the only one I could really imagine a sequel for.

[02:19:06] And I, I, yeah, I would definitely watch it.

[02:19:08] Watch the hell of it.

[02:19:09] This is the thing.

[02:19:11] It's, it's, you could say it's, it's like just as in terms of the amount of stuff it takes from the book, but also the amount of stuff it leaves.

[02:19:21] It's, you know, it's probably just behind a diva, the 2022 version of a diva's Christmas Carol.

[02:19:28] Yeah.

[02:19:29] In terms of how different it is.

[02:19:30] Yeah.

[02:19:31] But I think the difference is this takes the spirit of the book.

[02:19:34] Mm-hmm.

[02:19:35] This takes the, the, the ideas in the book, whereas a diva's Christmas Carol, the 2022 version, just doesn't, it just has nothing to do with the novella.

[02:19:48] This has like the spirit of the novella in it.

[02:19:52] Mm-hmm.

[02:19:53] Even though it is, is in a lot of ways, a very different story.

[02:19:57] Yeah.

[02:19:57] No, they've clearly, they've clearly read the book and watched a bunch of the adaptations.

[02:20:02] Yeah.

[02:20:02] They, they know the story.

[02:20:04] Yeah.

[02:20:04] They know what they're doing.

[02:20:06] Yeah.

[02:20:06] Yeah.

[02:20:07] Yeah.

[02:20:08] Well, any final thoughts on this year's batch of films overall?

[02:20:15] No, just that I've, I've really enjoyed this project.

[02:20:19] Um, thanks for, um, thanks for all the work you've put into it, Alicia, selecting most of the films and doing all the notes for it.

[02:20:28] So thank you very much.

[02:20:31] Um, and the editing's the worst.

[02:20:33] And the editing, yeah.

[02:20:34] Um, but yeah, I've really enjoyed that.

[02:20:37] I've really enjoyed, um, watching all the films and recording this with you.

[02:20:41] Um, like I said in the last episode, I think we, we've bitten off more than we can chew.

[02:20:48] So if your particular favorite adaptation wasn't in there, sorry, I'm sure we'll get to it in due course.

[02:20:56] Tell us what it is and we'll make sure we do.

[02:20:58] Um, for 2025.

[02:21:00] But yeah, I've really enjoyed doing this.

[02:21:02] Yeah.

[02:21:03] Any, okay.

[02:21:04] So if you had to recommend out of all the films we watched this year, you have to pick two to recommend to someone to, what would you recommend?

[02:21:13] I'm going to be really boring.

[02:21:15] Okay.

[02:21:15] And really predictable.

[02:21:17] Uh huh.

[02:21:17] I'm going to go with the Muppets.

[02:21:19] Okay.

[02:21:20] And I'm going to go with Spirited.

[02:21:21] Okay.

[02:21:22] Um, I am going to go with, um, oh, it's tough.

[02:21:31] I'm okay.

[02:21:31] I'm thinking of a classic, but then I'm like torn between on the one hand, I want to say 1951.

[02:21:36] On the other hand, like the 1971 short is so faithful and short.

[02:21:44] Um, I do think you need a classic in order to approve, to appreciate Spirited and Spirited is the one I would choose from this week.

[02:21:52] Okay.

[02:21:53] Yeah.

[02:21:55] Well, listeners, uh, as we said, we want to hear your favorites, Christmas carols.

[02:22:00] Uh, let us know what we miss.

[02:22:02] We'll do a special feedback section in our next silo mailbag for Christmas carol coverage.

[02:22:09] Um, if you care to send any feedback in, uh, we've got our email in the show notes and do also join the discord and come chat with us on blue sky.

[02:22:22] Um, I know we've already got two requests for next year.

[02:22:25] So we've got the 2009 animated Jim Carrey, which was going to be on my list anyway.

[02:22:30] Uh, and we got a request for black adder.

[02:22:32] So added that to the list as well.

[02:22:35] Looking forward to that next year.

[02:22:36] Yeah.

[02:22:38] And if you want more Christmas this year, do check out our, it's a wonderful life special from last year, which you'll find in the same feed.

[02:22:47] Plus, uh, you'll find links to super cast in Patreon book club in the show notes.

[02:22:51] If you're interested in novella deep dive and extra short story, not to mention last year's coverage of the greatest gift.

[02:22:57] The story are, uh, it's a wonderful life was based on, um, plus similar spooktober specials, breakdowns of silo and other Q Howie and doom books in the weekly silo spoiler casts that are going on right now.

[02:23:10] If none of that's for you, that's great.

[02:23:11] We're just glad you're here listening.

[02:23:13] Um, if you enjoyed this, please do pass it on.

[02:23:16] And we also, as we said, we w we want to hear what you think.

[02:23:20] And also we raised the question in the opening episode.

[02:23:23] What was the favorite gift you ever gave in the favorite gift you ever got?

[02:23:28] So definitely going to still be talking about this in January.

[02:23:32] Do also check out the cheesy Netflix Christmas coverage on the Laura hounds feed.

[02:23:38] Plus of course the weekly doom prophecy breakdowns, a one shot for wicked and also a, uh, an episode that's about Joker folia do, but also even more so about making the Joker from the comics fight madcap from the Marvel comics.

[02:23:54] Um, also the other affiliates, of course, the star Wars Canon timeline podcast, my own nevermind the music, uh, psychology and music, radioactive ramblings.

[02:24:07] And properly Howard's and Luke, you've got your, it could be said end of year coming up.

[02:24:13] Yeah, we, so, um, since we recorded the last episode of this, I've been talking to my co-hosts, Will Cooling and Simon Alvey, and we've decided to split our year end roundup in two parts.

[02:24:26] Okay.

[02:24:26] So we're doing the first part will be, um, looking back at the year in, uh, domestic British politics.

[02:24:34] And the second part that will be out early in the new year, we'll be looking at world politics in 2024.

[02:24:42] Okay.

[02:24:42] We had too much stuff to cover in a single podcast, so we split it in two.

[02:24:47] I know how that goes.

[02:24:48] Yeah, we know how that goes.

[02:24:50] All right.

[02:24:51] Well, we will see you all back here soon for more silo until then.

[02:24:56] God bless us everyone.

[02:24:57] But especially Vanessa Williams.

[02:25:02] Just let one fly and you'll be smiling pretty soon.

[02:25:31] Like this, good afternoon.

[02:25:42] Thank you very much.

[02:25:44] That's the nicest thing that anyone's ever done for me.

[02:25:48] It isn't every day.

[02:25:50] Good fortune comes my way.

[02:25:52] I never thought the future would be fun for me.

[02:26:04] We're Teresa and Nemo.

[02:26:06] And so we're going to Shopify.

[02:26:07] The platform, the we before Shopify used, has used to have regularly updated updates,

[02:26:12] which have sometimes been brought to the shop, that the shop didn't work.

[02:26:15] Endlich makes our Nemo Boards Shop also on the mobile device a good figure.

[02:26:19] And the illustrations on the boards come now very, very clear,

[02:26:22] what is important to us and what our brand also makes us out.

[02:26:26] Start your test today for 1€ per month on shopify.de.

[02:26:31] Radio.