Stocking Stuffer 10.6 A '90s Christmas with Elizabeth Katheryn Gray

So I do know nine. Now what why don't you just enjoy your time here Christmas party like it's nineteen ninety nine. You were sent back to redo that kiss and have. A second chance. Yes, a nineties Christmas only on Hallmark Channel?

Was up? What? That's right? What's up? You know it's the nineties because we just said was up.

I'm Emily, and I cannot do I mean, the nineties was a long decade. It was ten years. In fact, a lot happened, some of which I remember, some of which this movie kind of remember, some of which maybe it misinterprets, but that's okay. The point is I can't do such a thing alone. So with me today.

You know her, you love her. You have heard her join me almost once a year for the last few years. She has brought us such great movies before, in such great conversation. It is the one, the only Elizabeth Catherine Gray, the head Hauntress herself. Hello, Hyes, Emily, I love it.

We talk at least once a year during Christmas time. This always makes my season. And I know I'm in the middle of Christmas when I'm doing this recording, so that's true. Yes, and it's very kind of you to, you know, go take the phone off the wall and hold it to your ear the whole time, like we had to do in the nineties. Well, you know, yeah, I also had to do dial up too.

I actually had a computer. Oh yeah, did you have a colorful iMac like our characters have in this movie. No, no, I had a makeshift custom I believe it was still a Commodore sixty four. Oh wow, I was. In a Commodore self in ninety nine.

Very nice. I was living in Richmond at the time, and I was making my own shit, yeah, or or getting it from the thrift store. Nice. So you were already like an older decade above because you. Were Yeah, I'm a little bit older.

I'm in college in the nineties. I came of age. Ninety two was the best year ever for me. That was when I really realized I was an adult. And of course Tarantino started doing movies, and the rest is history is you know, okay, So you know, it was a good year year for music too, which wasn't really prevalent in the late nineties right before.

Well, The Late isn't really a nineties movie. It's a nineteen ninety nine movie. I think that is the smartest thing this movie did. So we're obviously talking about a nineties Christmas and they punctuated it correctly. Thank you.

As soon as it started, I was like on, you know, high alert, because I'm thinking, I am the daughter of Jim and Travia and I was raised if you remember it, so you probably were also were you watching The Wonder years back in the late eighties early nineties for you? Were you watching? Yeah? What not? It was a big like family show in my house and we'd all sit down and watch it.

And my dad loved watching it that he could constantly look at us and say that car isn't from that year. That's a mistake, that's a mistake, that's too early. And I grew up with that in my head and I can't not do it the same way. So I was ready. I'm like, oh, a nineties movie probably starring most actors who were not born in the nineties.

I am thinking, I'm like, oh, this is going to be obnoxious. But the first thing they do, I'm like, damn it out. They they smarted themselves through this. They set it in nineteen ninety nine, and not just ninety nine, right, they said it in December of nineteen ninety nine, so it's like, yeah, well that's the nineties. If it happened in the nineties, it's fair game for this movie because they're they're starting it at the very end of the year of the decade.

Where were you in ninety nine? So I was in Long Island. I can remember exactly where I was on Y two K, which this movie is, you know, almost set during. So I was seventeen in nineteen ninety nine. I was it was my last year.

I was going into my last year of high school on the class of two thousand and nineties. So I was hanging out with friends for New Year's Eve. We went to Greenport, which is like this beach town where you can walk around, and we drank on the boardwalk and we were like not near a TV. So we're like, ooh, if the world ends, we're not going to know. And the world didn't end, and that was that was my experience.

Was your wife K experience? My Way two K experience. I was living in Northern Virginia and working in Washington, d C. For the National Park Service at the time. We went to the big Millennial show where they were you know, Muhammad Ali was there.

Everyone was broadcast big thing. We actually made it in enough to see everything. The end of it, though, right before I alterned to make this quick, but it's awesome story. Right at the end of it, they suddenly stopped the whole thing and just cleared everybody out. Turned out the President decided to go home early.

Ah, So because he decided to go home early, this secret server shut everything down. That said, at home, no fireworks, nothing. Midnight came and went. So so we're walking back to our car, which is in Georgetown, which is quite a long walk from the mall, and I had to go to the bathroom. So I jumped into one of the fancy hotels and go to the bathroom.

I'd go and wash my head. Comes out, turned around, standing in the lobby Elizabeth Taylor. Officers dressed to the fusing officer's nine, and she was wearing this red ax sequence gown. Could you smell Was she wearing white diamonds? And could you smell it?

Could you smell her perfume? Oh? She glistened like she was the shiniest person I had ever seen. She went upstairs. These guys were escorting her tour room and I it was just a kiss.

If I just hadn't have jumped into that, I would have never had that. And I saw friggin Elizabeth Taylor. My with my own eyes. Your Y two K was Elizabeth Taylor. You ended a millennium, a century, a decade, but a millennium with Elizabeth hit with the Star of the Millennium.

And then a little lenniapp right after that, right she went up the elevator and I was like, oh my god, what did ice to see that? I turned around, There's like this beautiful you know, window river. They did the fireworks. Ah, they did them be an hour later. Everybody wins.

Everybody wins. What a nice I got the fireworks too, There was like awesome. So that was what I was doing in Y two K. Now, two thousand and itself was kind of a problem. I was unemployed.

There were family health issues. We won't go into those, but well, you know, and then I got the job with the park Service and everything was good. So so did along the way did a waitress and then a ride share driver start playing Twelve Days of Christmas, And then that brought you back to the day that you met Elizabeth Taylor. And then you changed things and changed your future. Did that happen?

I wish I could have done that. I would definitely I would have definitely done Thanks. Maybe maybe maybe I missed my moment. Maybe it could be. I mean, it's all because you resisted the call of the Twelve Days of Christmas, which is a very annoying Christmas song.

In my opinion, it was very good. I was about to like have an absolute heart attack looking at Lizabeth Taylor, and I catched it. It attacker because I'm sure those soldiers would have punched me. Yeah, that's what they're to do. Yeah, there's a job costs.

It was amazing. It was like, but there were huge soldiers when they had metal, they had bald all they were just dead. Nice. Nice, she had bookends. Let's just quit that way.

Oh god, I mean I wouldn't expect nothing less of her. So yeah, so no, now, this this chick is living. Okay, So we'll have to go into the plot. That's a lot about There's. A lot, there's a lot to go through.

So this is yes, a nineties Christmas twenty twenty four movie Hallmark Channel. I don't this is not their first time travel movie by any means this is not even their first time travel movie where Chandler Matthew plays the love interest. He was in Next Stop Christmas a few years ago, where it's a very similar thing, where it's a character who like goes back in time and has to make different decisions and there he is. So apparently this is like his Lane is doing the time travel movie. This is directed by Marnie Banneck, who has made a few of these, but none that I recognized, and written by Ryan Peck and Paw.

I don't think he is in a relation to Sam Peck and Pall, but boy would be funny if he was. And let's talk about the plot of this movie. Please Elizabeth tell us what happens in a nineties Christmas. Also, Ryan Peck and Paul worked on a movie called Cheryl, this independent film that I reviewed this year Buried Alive. Very nice.

I actually was really surprised to see that crossovers in my research. Okay, interesting, was that movie any good? Well? This actually was the best feature we yes, yes it was. Didn't make it the festival unfortunately, but it was very good.

So mister pack and Pop, thumbs up you and your crew. He's another one of His credits is Script and Continuity Department for Dogs exclamation Point the musical. I don't know what that is, but I am looking forward to it in twenty twenty five. So and h. And the director does something about puppies.

Yeah that often, you know, typically any of these directors. Their resumes include other movies with Christmas in the title, with puppies in the in the title, with Nanny often in the title, because it's either usually lifetime thrillers or. A lot of scene television. Yeah, I think television. He can write for it, apparently.

Yeah, and there's some degrassi on the director's resume because this is definitely Canadian. So oh yeah, all makes sense, all right, So let's get into. It, all right. So there's a stick. Her name is Lucy Clark, all right.

She is our our hard business woman, the typical one you get in these movies. She doesn't have time for no time from Dr Jones, and no time for Christmas. They got stuff to do, you know, things to people to see. But she's not doesn't hate Christmas like a lot of these women are. Just like, I hate Christmas.

This doesn't celebrate Christmas. It brings up bad memories. You know, and and she's very focused in her career. So her sassy sidekicks. I guess he assistant right Spencer, Spencer.

Spencer comes in and they talk and and then her other sassy side sick. So she's not really that saxy saxy sassy saxy, I don't know what saxy is. Her sister Alexa follows her and said, did you get the box? But right before she got the box, Spencer tells her she got the promotion. She's gonna be partnered in her law firm.

But she's a divorce lawyer and a very good one and a very epathetic one. She was very good with the prison. Yeah, they didn't make her. It would have been easy to make her into like the hard nos divorce attorney. But like the first clas she has is very like, she's very sympathetic to her, trying to cheer her up and say like, yeah, you know, this will be good for you in the in the long run, it's not just about the bottom line.

So it's you know, yeah, she's not irredeemable from the start. She just clearly, like many a lead in these movies, wants to make partner and and she does so cool. You know. So she goes to her Christmas party for about five minutes, meets people at pool. Wrong career choice.

She should have been at pool shark or something because she just cleans everyone's sassy side kids. But Alexa gave her a box and then nutbox, and there's a picture of her family and a bunch of other things, and she's trying to get her to come home for Christmas in Milwaukee. She's in Chicago. Very important. We got to talk about this.

Milwaukee is only two hours from Chicago. Yeah, it's not far. Yeah, it's not far at all. I've done that drive. I know that drive.

It's not that far. So, you know, I don't know why she's not going home for Christmas, but she doesn't go home. It's more an emotional decision, right, Yeah, she does not like to go home and celebrate because it reminds her of when her dad died. Yeah, dead parents all over this right, Okay, So, and she also has in a strange friend named Nadine who needs help monetarily, like she's broke and having a bad patch. So you know, all this stuff is happening.

But she decides to go celebrate her partnership by herself and have some pancakes, and then she meets her ex next door neighbor. Act Matt is the Blandland interest. Matt is the same age as her. Matt was an actor in New York and failed miserably and now he's an insurance salesman. And they have a conversation and he like judges her from her job even obviously, yeah, you know, he hates his So why are you judging her for making partner?

Oh you're a divorce lawyer? Who else you're evil because people shouldn't get divorced anyway. Yeah, no, he got he got kind of judge agree, you know. And then so she like tells him to go away. He goes away, He does some coffee cup acting, which was pretty good, and then he goes out.

She goes outside. Well, first there's a waitress just down and starts like grilling her over the stuff. Right, So, who's this girl? I mean this a lot of coffle in it. Man, we're in the first five minutes.

Yeah, this is all the first five minutes. So she like talks to this chick and the chick's like saying things about her, like blah blah blah blah, blah blah, and then she sees her again outside driving an uber what they called what would they call it? It was not ride chair, right, they just don't just say ride share the entire movie. Yeah, So she does the ride share thing, and then the ride share takes her two hours to Milwaukee, moves her back in time to nineteen ninety nine. So she she falls asleep and misses all of this, leaves her laptop, her glasses, and her smartphone in the chat in the uber.

Uh, so that goes away, and then because the lady deliber drove off with it and left her at her mom's And then now she's at her mom's and oh god, there's mom. Every mom is grieving his dad had only died a year before. She would been nineteen at the time. They see her as nineteen. We see her as the adult kind I guess.

I mean, because by all, this actress should be forty three forty four in this movie, and this actress is not forty four. No, No, she's a thirty year old playing a forty year old and. A nineteen year olds. Yes, yeah, that kind of makes sense in its own way. Well, and someone did say in the review, Well, in the nineties, that would have been a thing.

So and they're not. That is true. I mean, look a look at Saved by the Bells nineties, right, sure, yeah, to look at them, they were all like fifty Elizabond Berkeley was at least twenty five twenty six, did I mean anyway? I digress? So yeah, all right, so we got the whole uh, you know, re reconnecting with the fam.

And her sister, who's by the way, is gay also, like both her Sasey side takes are gay, but she's still in the closet. She hasn't out, and Mom is still grieving, but she's she's using baking therapy to keep herself going, cleaning the house and baking, and she's trying to make a perfect Christmas, of course, because you know, mom's over compensated and trying to make it better for everybody else, even though she's the one that really needs to help because she lost her husband. And it doesn't even sound like it was a full year like they hint at it was like relatively real. Well, it seems like it's the first Christmas without him. It's unclear when, if it was January or if it was November, but it is definitely the first Christmas without him.

They kind of insinuated though it was actually it was sudden and not too too long ago. You know, it could have been January, but I bet you. It was like the spring time or something. You know, it's like something. It just it just that's how it felt to me.

And and and grandparents are coming over, you know, they're coming over. So she has to go and solve the mystery. Why is she there? She reached next with Nadine. A dean says, well, you're gonna fall in love with Matt because you and Matt, who lives next door to her by the way.

You know you're supposed to because they were supposed to get together and they never did, and she ran away. And when they play some hockey, mm naturally yeah, as ey one does, as one does in Canada. Yes, yeah, in reindeer games. They call it the Reindeer Games and it includes hockey and three legged races and lots of baking. I'm now kind of losing the plummet.

She every time she makes a change, her acceptance letter starts disappearing right, and then she realizes that if she makes these new choices, she's gonna lose her partnership and everything she worked for. So she's changing the future by trying to not even correct, Like it's just she's been brought back to this very emotional December, and what she should do, I guess, by the rules of time travel in these movies, is like, do exactly what you did twenty five years ago and just follow every beat and don't change a thing, which of course is possible. And also like, now, she's a forty four year old woman who knows, oh, I know my sister is gay, and it would be probably be nice if she heard me tell her it's it's okay and it's gonna be fine.

But technically I didn't tell her that. Then I told her that probably ten years later or so. Here's the thing. She's like a forty year old woman in nineteen year old body, with the experiences that she's had since she's moved on to Chicago. Sure it'd be a completely different person.

And then that was nineteen who had just lost her father, was just out of high school and took a year off from a college that she was supposed to get to. You know, this uber driver, I'm sorry, this ride, this ride chair driver that's not uber has put her in a very rude position. And do we ever find out exactly why did I miss that? Like they never explain where this Christmas magic. They say it's a gift.

She says this, it's a gift. Okay, who's giving this gift? Right? Because it's like it's you know, she opens the box from her sister. But it's not like that was sprinkled with anything magical.

Like it's just one of those I don't know. This waitress likes to fuck with people every year, I guess, and this is the one that you pay. It's yeah, so you know things. So I did like the trope of the Twelve Days of Christmas would start playing in different spots right in the song when she made a change, and. That's what would tell her that, you know, she's changing the future.

Yeah yeah, and actually that kind of worked. I liked how it built up to the you know, the final twelve Days of Christmas, and I actually like I like the song, but that's just me. I'm weird. It's just so repetitive. It goes on it's the same thing, and then they do another verse and then you have to go back to the first Verson's it just seems like a lot well, you know.

It's a my mother made me learn it. My mother made me learn a lot of I have like a whole library of Christmas carols in my head that they're just hard wired, even though I don't sing them very often. You know, it's like they're there, like I including It'll come all you Faithful and Latin isn't there? Well you WA's definitely. Yeah, my mother was hardcore Christmas.

But yeah, she would have loved movies like this. She never got to really see movies like this, so, but she would have liked these movies. She likes the fantasy. Time travel was her. So and this is a nice in that it has obviously a very strong fantasy element, but it also, you know, it's it's done quickly and cheaply, so there's no real effects, there's no I am actually gonna say I was impressed with how and I was looking up the costume designer because I was curious.

I'm like, clearly they were alive in the nineties, because it could have been very easy to make very obvious choices or and make the wrong choices. But like there were little things the characters were wearing and small props that were like oh, yeah, no, that that's nineties, like so you know, there's this wasn't as quick as this was probably made. There's a little bit of care in the production of like, oh no, we're gonna be kind of period appropriate where we. Can when it keeps to their dress, they were keeping it kind of neutral. I'm justice, definitely I noticed.

But there were the splashes of color that you would see, like that purple that would pop up occasionally. Yeah, so they would give you hints of some nineties flair. Yeah, you had cargo pants. You had chokers, which. These are these are white people's suburb which is which was me in the nineties.

I was a white person in the suburbs. So I wore a choker because I thought I was convinced chokers maybe look skinnier, that like, oh this thing like choking my neck will will make it look like I have a neck. There was a lip gloss, there was oh hemp like Hemp jewelry, have bracelets, and the hair never quite got to nineties, but I but they clearly tried to give the love interest, like the the mushroom fluf a little bit. Yeah. Well, I'm not gonna give away the ending, but you know, these are these Christmas movies.

To guess they've probably is a happy anymore likely everyone gets what they want. But I you know, I'm not sure what this story was about, to be honest with you. Ultimately, like she didn't really need to learn a lesson. Well, let's get to the tropes. We should talk about that, because I don't actually think she needed a lord a lesson.

I this is good, this is weird. Okay, God, I've been doing this too long, because like, I think I might have liked this moran you shd and I actually found some of the emotional beats. I can't believe I'm saying this out loud. Some of the emotional beats really worked for me. I think you've been watching too many of these.

I think I have. Then, I think this is like I always happens. I know, I hit that point in the cycle where suddenly I'm like, you know, it was really nice when she opened up box and her Twelve Days of Christmas again and decided it was okay. Yeah, it happens every now and then, but I think there's okay, a clear reason on this one. One of them is this movie.

Whoever, whether it was the writer or directors, clearly also loves Peggy Sue Got Married, which is one of my favorite time travel movies. It is wonderful. It's Francis Corcopola, it's Kathleen Turner, and they're One of like the nicest moments of that movie is when Peggy Sue, who also gets transported back to her high school years, only in this case it's made in the eighties and it's the fifties, and she's kind of like trying to navigate. She's like, this is crazy. I don't know what's going on.

But then she sees her grandparents and it's like, oh, the emotional like because immediately it's like you're dead, You're like and I see you again and I get to tell you how much I love you. Like that beat really works in Peggy su and I thought that was played well in this When she first sees her grandparents, you could see that everything come up in her of like, oh my god, I get to see I forgot that, I get to see you now. And I thought that was. Then and. Leida needed a lesson, you know.

Lucy is a very likable character. It's like she's pleasant on the eyes, like the beautiful hair, well dress as well. She plays she knows how to ice skate, she plays hockey. You know, she's she's kind of cool. You know, she's also a lawyer and she's good at her job and you know, so she's a very likable character.

I didn't have any issues with her as I don't think she necessarily leaves a lesson because. She no, she's not a bad person. I think the lesson the movie is bringing up that she needed to learn or not needed to learn. In the beginning, it is very clear she does not go home anymore, and that seems to be a very I mean again, it's it's her choice to do that, it's her right to do that, but it seems like it is very much because she does not want to go and be reminded of her father, be reminded of like, oh, I go home and I'm unhappy because my mom is sad and I'm not that close with my sister anymore. And then there's my best friend who lives across the street, who I stopped talking to, Like it's a lot of I've moved on with my life and I don't like to go back to them.

And now again, you're right having said that out loud, I hear it, and it's like, well, then fine, move on with your life. You don't owe anything to these people. But I think the movie, what the movie is trying to say is that, like, but she does love her mother, she does love her sister, she wishes she was still friends with Nadine. I guess that's where it is. But also like, I think part of it is because I don't like the romance in this at all.

I can be swung back to your side. Oh guy, no, no, but we we got to talk about let's go there. Yeah number two our bland love interest. Yeah, okay. In next Door, first of all, he's not a rich boy, right, and he's not and he's not rugged, you know, or or single father.

Oh, he's this like third type movies do where it's kind of like he's like it. I think in theory, it's supposed to be like, oh, he's the nice guy, best friend who was there the whole time, and usually there's something very kind of like toxic about that, and it's kind of how I feel here. I don't I've liked this. This actor was in he's been in a few things I've seen. Last year, he was in Mystic Christmas and he was fine in that.

I thought he was very likable in that, and he played off the lead very well. In this one, it's not so much the actor. I don't. I think this guy is terrible, and he's absolutely terrible. Let's just go ahead and spoil it.

He goes and goes. You have he got a he's an actor the way, Yeah, sure, okay, yeah, we get to see so exacting in the movie. He does a worst British accent than I do. I was, oh my god, that that was That was Oh my god. Okay, and he got it.

He's got a gig, I guess, some kind of like you know, like inside Actress Studio or something like that in New York, a position that he's going. To go do. And that's cool, right, And then she got she has a choice between a full ride to Northwestern and the best law school in the Midwest and one of the best in the country, or Columbia, which is a good, solid school. She also got into that, but she has to pay for it, and so he's like pressuring her to not take the Northwestern and you know, honestly, the two that's the better, Like take the Northwestern and keep her in Chicago. Here, just why I don't understand keep her nearby so she can go visit her family, Like I don't understand why she wasn't going.

I mean, clearly she was talking to her her sister on the phone, so she didn't completely put them But like why would he even Like first of all, why is he pressuring. Her when they're not a couple, Like they are a. Couple, and it's not like he couldn't go to Chicago and get the same experiences. There is plenty of theater and acting troops. So I might have missed that television.

For you know, in the or not grownlings with second City, Second City, Second City, and second in the alternate future a spoiler alert, of course, I get together and they have an alternate future in that did she go to New York or did she go to Chicago? She went to New York. So now this bitch is in debt and she ended up being like a good lawyer and not a divorce attorney. So she and the like it takes are longer to pay it. Off, like that higher which she could put like down, like like that could have been their.

Next It is expensive New York. And worst of all, this means that they're that couple that go to New York and she's at Columbia and and she's that girl in your dorm. You know, you've had this roommate where it's like, oh, hey, you want to go out tonight. I can't. My boyfriend's coming over.

By the way, I'm going to have to put the the the you know, the sock on the door, and can you sleep somewhere else tonight? You know, they're that couple. They're that obnoxious couple that stays together in college. Okay, here's my question, and there's nothing wrong with this, but I think Matt is gay. I didn't.

It's funny. This came up on I think two episodes ago when we did the Santa stake out of this constant Like, these movies have fucked with my gaitar completely. I can never tell anything. Uh in this one, I did not get I didn't get gave ups again. I've seen this actor do a lot of these movies.

He has always I mean again, he is not like your big He will never play like the lumberjack. He is much you know, more kind of metrosexual or whatever the term we say now is. But I didn't. I didn't get gay. I just got kind of jerk.

Here's there's gay coding. This is I'm not saying, it's actually the actor that's getting projecting that he's gay or straight. He's just playing himself. Basically, Matt is mad as Matt. But the the clues in like his his bedroom and there, you know, there was things that there were like like he was wearing, there was like lines he was given to say.

And I was like, you know, I remember the nineties and a lot of my friends were still closeted. And he reminded me one of my friends from the nineties closeted gay because the other we had the two openly gay characters, one that's coming out, one that's out right. But you were like, I grew up in San Francisco and I lived outside. New York, so you know, I took it more as theater boy. He is definitely a theater you know, he's he was very theater kid and often, and again I mean I was around a lot of theater people.

Basically, when it came to men, it was a very simple split of like, yeah, seventy five percent of men in theater that I knew through college were gay. The other twenty five percent were like the guys that could have sex with every woman because their pool was so small. So I took him more of that side. But the like he was like the bottom of the barrel of like the last one you'd want to have sex with. But like sometimes he's the only.

One left even if he's not, why why not being with this girl ruined his life? Like like he still had the job. Or the gig in New York without her. I don't know, Yeah, I know I wasn't him. And it's New York in the nineties was very was a rough, but it was very loving to comedians and actors at that time period.

Uh you know we had Carolina's, you know with Rest in Peace, miss that club, Uh you know Carolyn's on Times Square for comedy. He had all these like troops and off Broadway, and he had a job. But he wouldn't have made it anywhere. Can you imagine this guy is showing up to audition for your improv group. They're not taking him in.

No, they're not much. He had one line that I appreciated, which was when like she comes back to do the like I got to tell everybody everything, you know, and she she knocks in his door. She's like please, like I have to talk to you, and he says stories like, hey, it's Christmas Eve. Can we do this tomorrow? I appreciate that because you know what, like, yeah, if somebody knocked out my door maniacally on Christmas Eve and I was like making chest outs with my family, I'd probably be like, hey, you want to come back like after So that's not something you see off.

Yeah, all right, so we beat on Matt. We don't like him. Yes, we both on that. Now let's talk about Milwaukee. Oh Milwaukee.

It really can't tell it's Milwaukee or Toronto. Yeah, it's definitely Canada. I don't know which Canada, but one of the Canada's. And Canada is right next door to each other. Is there a close I think so, I don't.

I mean, I've been to Milwaukee's definitely been. I'm not gone down Milwaukee. Yeah, it's it's another case where they did the thing of like we're gonna make it really clear that we're in this city and we're gonna say it a few times. But there is no reason for it to be Milwaukee, right, There is no like there. Clearly didn't film there.

There is no like oh, and then we're gonna go have a brew or do anything that's like Milwaukee in right. So it's very funny of like, why why did we choose this city? Oh? I guess so they could do the establishing shots in Chicago and have it in a town that's close to Chicago. We're not that close.

That's the only thing I can think about Milwaukee because yeah, but I do think it kind of counts as a small town. It'd yeah, yeah, like you talk about that trophe, you know, that's what you know. It really is the small town in this case, because Chicago is a big, beautiful city. And I lived in Chicago for a while, so I can say it's a beautiful city. Well, this is more like the suburb of Milwaukee probably, Yeah, So, which is weird because Chicago has miles and miles of suburbs and you know, anyway, I so, but you know, in milwaukee's.

Walking too much, but it's being treated like the small town here. It's quaint it's treated very quaintly. Yes, let's talk about number four our dead parents. Oh, yeah, oh my god. So let me ask you a question.

At what point in the movie were did you know for sure that it was a dead dad? Because they say, really are early on it's our first Chrystmas without Dad, and then for like another hour twenty minutes, they just keep saying, well, Dad's gone, Dad's not here anymore, and I'm like, and maybe it's because it's like I just watched like two movies in a row that I had like a deadbeat dad that I was still waiting for them to, like, can they confirm he's dead or did he just leave them? I did not know for sure, And then they finally kind of say, yeah, he's dead. I think about the time that mom was fixing the ribbon outside. Maybe is when I got that's probably about where I figured, Okay, I think that's it.

I would I honestly didn't make the mark where you figured it out it was dead. I disassumed Dad was dead. It seemed like it, but they were being really coy about it, where it was like two scenes in a row where a character blatantly said, well, Dad's not here anymore, And then I actually did clock it was an hour and five minutes in when one of the characters said he passed away, and I was like, okay, thank you, Like I just wasn't sure. And it was really bugging me because it's a very different nature of a film if Dad walked out on them versus, you know, Dad got hit by a truck. I disassumed Dad was it was a dead Dad.

And and also we have a de facto not dead yet. Grunted yet Grandpa. You're right very much yea, because they mentioned his time. Is coming, Angel of death Lucy. Yep, she knows he's coming.

I know that too, you know. And yeah, and I do honestly like that moment where he's a grand Yeah, that was a generally like affection of yeah, and you could tell I had a suspicion. And then they confirmed it later that one of gonna we're gonna pass it or grandparents. I don't know how much longer Grandma was gonna hold on. She seem pretty old.

Yeah, there's a dog. Yeah. Oh, that's the thing that always gets me because like for me, dog yeah, that would be the reason to go back in time. It's like, what do you want to do? Do you want to go see?

Like I just want to go like pet my dog again. I just want to go like hold my cat like and that my entire life. Those have been like the hardest dreams I've ever had, where like I'll have a dream that, oh, there's my cat who died five years ago, and like it's just an in the dream. I always know they're gonna die. It's oh, it's never like oh I'm just back in a scenario with my dog.

It's always like me in the dream? Is me now? It's Lucy two point zero where you know like, oh, I know I don't belong here. I know that you're no longer alive because it's been twenty years in year and your lifespan can only be so long. But like, oh, I'm gonna cherish this so that that definitely got me too.

Yes, and not enough dog? Well obviously, yeah, well, I mean they can't. They have to fill these things very quickly. Oh he did, I know, I know he did? Was crazy dog.

That makes me sad though, I was like, oh, no, dead dog, So that's almost as bad as good parents. Right, well true, but let's I mean, yeah, yes, yes, it most definitely is. Let us cheer ourselves up with I counted three sassy sidekicks three. Okay, I have Spencer and Alexa and. Right, so, okay, so we have Spencer, who is the gay assistant and who is just like the perfect gay assistant that these movies every movie should have, where he's just there.

Wants that gay assistants and. He's so well too. Yeah, there's there is the sister and Nadine, yeah. Exactly is more still seen than Alexa. So you know, Alexa's kind of reserved folky girl playing her guitar, listening it go girls.

You know, and Nadine is the sci fi nerd who helps fill in some of the gaps. Basically again, I know you had mentioned how like, oh a lot of like horror movies have done this lately. This is very totally killer in terms of the relationships. Right. There's also a Christmas horror movie called It's a Wonderful Knife, Yes, and it's exactly like this very much.

Yeah. And then there was a film that came out this year, a horror film, straight up horror film called Time Cut, which goes back to I think twenty two thousand and three. Okay, and it's getting mixed reviews, but I'm gonna watch it because it's getting enough buzz both ways that it's parked my interest. Yeah, so, but so yeah, I know this has been a very busy trope lately, like that's going back in time and fixing things. Yes, And it's always helpful to have that one character that can have some kind of knowledge of like oh, yeah, I'm a sci fi nerd, or I'm a science nerd, or I'm a time machine developer who can fill in the gaps and help that along.

An action film should be the tech geek girl exactly sexy with the glasses. In this case, it's a cute neighbor. The Princess Leabn's and you know, chist I will say something about the sister because very early on in the movie again we get gay characters like thrown at us left and right, which is great and awesome. I think this might be I know, for me, this is the first time I have seen a character actually come out in a in a Hallmark movie. Although I'm saying that, I guess maybe she doesn't come out because she starts like, we don't see the scene where she comes out.

We see the scene before they cut away go to commercial, right, and they come back right. I guess we see the scene. I'm thinking of the scene where Lucy says to the sister like, oh, hey, I know, and it's gonna be okay when you when you decide to tell everybody, you know that it's gonna be okay. They they implied that she came out to her mom after that, yes, you know, and came out early because she already had a girlfriend, right, you know, so she clearly knew who she was and she looks to be pretty young, and mom does Mom actually does lay some like like Advicely, it's gonna be tough for her because she already knows who she is. I actually liked that line a lot, you know, but you can get through it, you know.

Yeah, nice, it was. It was nice. Let's talk about our villain. We don't really have one. There's one character kind of thrown in to sort of add a little tension, but it is Yeah, Matt's co star in the Christmas Carol.

Okay, we ask you about these ginger cookies, do you did? I keep getting the suspicion I watched it twice now that mom was just being polite about the ginger cookies and she really doesn't like me. Hmm, Well, you know her mom because if you watch the two scenes they mentioned, she's like, oh, great, like ginger cookies. Well, and you know it too, because the mom is clearly like a really good baker because in the again in the New Future, the mom even opens up her own bake catering company. So I would guess that's definitely one of those things where it's like like I know for me, like I'm at the point where I cook so much that I eat anybody else's cooking.

I'm like, that's cute, and I bet that's the mom. Yeah. I just thought that was funny. Yeah, yeah, just but the scene really doesn't do much and just we get to meet Matt's parents and Matt's parents are having a border disputed on Christmas Eve? Why would he yet having branches and Christmas Eve?

That's not what you do. And this is now she's married into this family, Like that's just. Very yeah, Like seriously, there's berries. Were those trees that had any berries or leaves of any kind? I don't think they did, but I don't know.

It did not seem again and like now like they have to spend holidays together. The mom, this poor mother widowed mom had a hard Christmas. Now has to deal every Chris, you know, because they live right next to each other. So it's never gonna be like, let's just have an old fashioned Christmas just with us. She can't do that, no matter what.

It's like, I guess we have to tell the the scourges to come on over for Christmas because they know we're home because our lights are on and the cars are in the parking lot, and they know because they live next door and they're also married to my daughter. Like that sucks, man, man, Yeah, let's talk about the montages. Maybe that's the real villain at all is a suburb? Yeah, I suppose I counted two montages. How about you hike, there's at least two.

There's the Reindeer Games one and then the big montage at the end where the future is changed. Yes, the very like is it? It's not Zales? What's the other? Uh uh?

Like I'm in engagement ring commercials that you used to always play that would do that thing where it's like quick montage of your entire life starts with engagement ring. That's kind of what it felt like. Yeah, no, I know it was a gift. What I can hear the song in my head. I can't remember the name right right, but everyone can.

But yeah, no, but I thought that was one like around them eating or something. But maybe everyone about that. Yeah, I could have missed one, but thore the ones I caught. Yeah, and they're both needed, so, you know, except for I'm not really sure what the reindeer years like. Why is hockey part.

Of again Canada? It's because Canada, that's your answer. Yeah, it would be that a pro wrestling well too, right, sore, that'd be more fun. Oh my gosh, now give me that. Movie Number eight is Slapstick.

There's really little things. I mean a little thing during the reindeer game, definitely, yeah, three legged race. She doesn't fall her ass or anything. You know, there's skating and there's nobody falling, and that feels like a missed opportunity. And there's a lot of ice skating, and I know you love ice skating in the movie look good dose of ice skating my fire kind of ice skating hockey and they had that, so I was happy with that.

But I would have preferred some axles and some space. But it's okay. That locks himself out of the house at one point. Yeah, I have there's a moment. I don't think he was telling the truth when he said that.

Well, I think he was. Waiting for probably desperate weirdo. There's a moment where like somehow he gets like snow where she like gets snow all over his face or something. But yeah, the more I think about it, the more like I'm like, oh, he plotted all of this to get her to him. That's right.

He was snow and space. Oh my god. Ye yeah, but that's really no, there's flapstick, not much. Maybe it would have improved maybe with some slapstick. Let's talk about our sage old people.

We got a lot of them. We got that mom, we got parents, and we got the even I'll even give a pass to the family next door because they're going through a lot too. And he had to come out of the closet about his acting because he's been keeping it. That's true. He was doing secret.

Community theater like he does. That a pamphlet, like he's sight in the show It's mine without the marquet? How did they not know? Do they not know? Yeah?

But I am picturing like his parents being like somebody slipping it underneath their door. And they come and they pick up the pamphlet and it's like, so your son is secretly doing community theater. And then they open there's a picture of him like a Scrooge, and they realize they have to confront the truth. Just weird, Okay, Like I said, I think like his whole storyline was a metaphor. I mean, out of the closet apparently do sure as an actor.

I'm again I like the grandparents. I like she has a cute conversation with Grandpa about like, do you regret anything in life and all that, And. And her mom is very very smart one, Yes, Claire that she's a very good person, very smart one, and she's been even though she's been going through lot, she's handling it actually pretty well. Yeah. I actually I like this actress.

I thought she also managed to make a very like real person out of what was again obviously a very quick, cheap shoot. I thought she came off well. So, yeah, now we don't get a Santa Claus, but we do get a perky ride share driver Angel of Chaos. There is one person in a Santa Claus suit in the corporate party at the very beginning. Well, I made a note of that Santa only one we have, but we have a.

Weird magical Christmas angel rideeshair driver. Yes, yeah, in a British car. Remember the car. Yeah, yeah, she's parked on the other she's driving on the other. Side, and yeah, it's some kind of little European car.

And I tried to reckon the kind of car it was, and I didn't recognize it. Needa did my boyfriend. So I don't know what it is, but I didn't even think to clock it. It's also very like, oh it's a little bit scrooged, right because they time graveled back in the cab. That's kind of what I took it out is.

Yeah, me too, all right, so ready for the bonus round? Oh boy, all right? Our public domain holiday songs very little, No, but well you know why because they just could keep using twelve days of Christmas over and over. Yeah, I mean you had that. I mean there wasn't The score didn't use a lot of like fake Christmas, you know, Chris, Yeah, various jingle bells or deck dolls what you hear during the month time.

You didn't get any of that. In the very beginning, it opens with deck the halls in the diner. There's up on the house stop is playing. But like, you're right, that's just about it. It's all like frontloaded at the top.

But instead they did something wild and they paid for music because kiss me that's not public domain. Yeah no, that's what I was gonna say. But they did hey for one ninety song. Yeah, I did pause her the missed playlist, and it's the only real song on that list. There's a fake Backstreet Boys song on there.

There's a fake song on there, which I thought was funny because obviously the person who wrote it was referring to actual nineties. Man. Yeah, but they couldn't. They didn't have the right stand any of them. Only kiss Me.

I thought that was pretty funny. So, oh, guys, we do give them a little bit of bonus for also incorporating a Christmas carol, which is also public domain, even although then I feel like we should take that away because of the terrible accent. Uh. And I love that the audience gives them a standing ovation. It's like two scenes from the end.

It's something even the end of the movie that the play it's oh yes, yes again. They filmed it quickly. I have to I always there's always makes me think of watching the commentary track to Saw, the First Saw, and I'll never forget when it's you know, Leewell and James wand talking like through the movie and they're talking, they keep talking. You can make a drinking game out of how many times they mention that they filmed it in like twenty one days. And they get to a scene.

It's the scene where Carrie Elwis is like has a mistress where it's like him and his like nurse are in a hotel together and like they sit down on the bed and she just starts like unbuttoning her shirt and he's like no, no, no, stop. And that's when I when one of the director writers says like they're like, look, it's not the actress's fault. We had to we only had one shot at this, one take. And that's when I think of a lot when I when I watch something like this. So we'll give them a little bit of leeway.

They film very quickly. And also yeah, and you know, and a part was my fault too for not knowing some of the earlier like there was a lot of references in ninety stuff that was for teenagers, and I wasn't like, what was that the guy from Josne. Oh, yeah, Joshua who you did not know was I did not know that I had up. I did not have a rush on him. He wasn't my type.

But every girl I knew did. Yeah. But but I will say for music wise, it was actually okay. I actually enjoyed this overall. So good.

Let's talk about our secret family recipes. Oh god, there's like at least two we got. The neighbors have their ginger cookies that she had. She had a secret recipe for the ham which was actually your husband, Rick. Yeah, I wrote dead Dad's ham Blaze, which is the name of my hand Dad's ham Blaze coming at you with their ladies.

Yea, So we had secret recipes quite a bit. Yep. Let's see small business in danger. No, we just have like acting dreams and danger, I guess, yeah, just dis aspiration, yeah, product placement. They were doing really hard not to show anything.

They weren't really braths, I mean yeah, without probably getting paid in any way they did do they they really worked in their love the writer's love of friends. Right, they met and they dont they mentioned things mentioned Pinterest? True? True? Yeah, yep, but you know, but there wasn't actually placement where no, no, you.

Know, yeah, nobody was getting paid for what they did. They kind of dropped the ball with I mean some cool pitch ads, you know, like when they're at their reindeer games. That would have been cool, you know, at the bar, so the diner. But you know, it's all right, we'll forget. They've been wearing like umbro and trying to they were like sporty brads.

Her room looked good, it looked like so, you know, we'll give them a path. Whereas I really want to know more about the production design in Matt's room, because Matt's room is just a bunch of posters of of like high school theater he's presumably in. But it's like those who don't find like somebody made those posters. They made a poster for There was a Christmas Carol, there was oh man, no, I can't remember. I didn't write any of them down, but it's like real plays and the somebody like did a very quick Okay, if I have to make a poster for gentlemen to gentlemen of Rona, what can I do?

Yeah? No, I noticed that too. I was like that's why I kept going. You know, his bedroom looks like you know, it looks like a yes, yeah, like I'm serious, and I don't mean that in a bad way. Means you know, it was just like knave it, Matt.

I'm not abandon So number five would be our clothing child, which we don't have, but we do have an adorable dog. We have an adorable dog, and we have a really cool teenage girl in the movie. So yeah, good point. Yeah, so let's see, uh finding the perfect tree. I don't think there's anything.

It's all decorated before she gets there. Yeah, I mean there is some like we need to make this perfect kind of right answer, but nothing like No, we didn't get a decorating one time. No, we did not know. We didn't get the sad moment where they pull out dads. Or lost opportunity, miss missed up.

You know that trope comes up Dad always put the star on the tree. Yeah, we didn't get any of that, doesn't miss. All right. Number seven is our empty coffee cup acting. Okay, I will give Matt one point.

He actually handled his coffee cups correctly. Well, they're okay, it wasn't I'm not saying it was perfect, but I've seen. Okay, now I'm bigging this through and now I'm kind of mad about it because they are in a diner, right, They are inside a diner. She's sitting down with a pile of pancakes. He walks by with like a handful of fries and a tray, like a cup holder tray with three paper cups.

Okay, why does he have paper cups in the diner when he's got like he's gone, want to sit down and eat? Why does the paper cups? What kind of dinners so that they don't give you mugs in the diner? And I don't know who these coffees are for three of them particularly are going somewhere. But yeah, no, the fries are on a real plate.

Yeah, so like you don't bring in coffee from an outside vendor into a diner. That's very rude. And you said he handled it. Okay, Now I'm just mad. I feel like they they worked in they they deliberately challenged me by presenting coffee cups in paper cups when they did not, when that doesn't even make sense.

No, and now you think about it, I was like, you're right, he sat down ate his. And he walked out like it's fun to be like, oh, take the coffees to go, but like, wait, you're taking fries to sit down and eat, and then you're carrying your coffee out. Why would you get the coffee? Now wait until the end when it's still gonna be hot. You're sitting there, you're gonna eat fries.

Takes five minutes to eat fries. Your coffee is now gotten cold, and now you're bringing it to two friends that you probably don't have because you're a jerk. Why aren't if you have to get back with the coffees quickly, what you take in your fries to go? Exactly exactly. It doesn't add up everything kind I said about this movie back it's over.

No, it's not, because now we've got number nine Canadians. Yeah, oh yeah, look I'm sorry, but this movie was definitely filmed in Canada. Oh my god, so is okay? Yeah, we got a lot of stories the the both leads, the actress and the actor are definitely Canadian. And again we get ice hockey as like a plot point in this movie.

So yes, it is definitely like okay, yeah, uh now our warm weather watch, what do you think were they in Milwaukee in December? Is that what the temperatures like there? Hey? There actually did an okay job kind of masking it, like it did look warm, but it looked like kept the artificial snow going for they spent. Some time on that.

I've seen worse, like a lot worse. I don't know how you feel about it. I mean they didn't look comfortable. Yeah, And I mean whenever they would walk outside without coats on, they'd be like, oh, it's cold. So I give them credit for that.

I'm not gonna but well, we'll let them go on that. Coffee cups with fries on a plate. Number eleven are old people aggressively matchmaking. I don't know that anybody wants these two characters together, right, I mean I guess our little Angela. Yeah, Alexa is like, go and get together, and Nadine thinks that they need to be together to break the snake cnycle.

But yeah, they're both wrong. Yeah, no, they're so wrong. We were wrong, very very wrong, just like Lucy deserves so much better, right, I actually agree. I mean, like I said, I was like, why are you pressuring to pay for Columbia when she had a free ride to Northwest. If you really loved her that much, you'd follow her and get a job in frigin Chicago.

It's completely possible for you both to have a career there, you know. And but anyway, I'm all right, Well, now we close on the favorite question, which is your favorite fashion moment? Lot of a lot of things going on here. What were some of the outfits and choices in the costume department that made you happy? I really liked Alexis Christmas Eve outfit.

I thought that was very elegant with the sheer No, that was the sheer number. She had the matching slipe in her hair. Oh yes, yes, okay, I really like that. And of course Lucy rock the green full length pea coat like that was. Wait was it?

Okay? So I have a like kind of baby blue pea coat? Did she wear multiple pea coats? I know she also had a red one? Was there a third one?

Or are you seeing blue? And I'm seeing green when she first walked in and on the on the poster as well, it's green, very very dark. I learned very recently that I I'm not gonna say I'm colorblind, but I had a moment recently at work where we were all supposed to wear pink, and I was so excited because I came to work wearing the only pink thing I owned, which was what I thought was a pink shirt. And the first thing somebody said to me when I walked in was, oh, you forgot to wear a pink No, this is this is pink. And then everybody, without like me prompting anyone, I would go up to everybody in every side of the office and said, Hey, what color d is my shirt?

And every one of them said purple. So I cannot be trusted, is what I have learned that I if I say no it was a blue coat, Okay, no, in this case, we're good. I'm talking about a different coat. This green coat is gorgeous. I do want this coat?

What like that? She rocks it. Yeah, that's a great coat. It's the best pink in the in the movie. She does at some point in the movie she has like also a baby also full full length or like down past the knees, and it's like a baby blue pea coat and it's also very pretty.

Yeah. And she also had that cute miniskirt like teenage outfit Kinny and only in her twenties, she still looked amazing in it. Yeah, so you know, I couldn't get necessarily, but she could. So that also means we have to point out that she wore at least because I am constantly now waiting to see if anybody can beat Lacey Scheber's record in Very Scottish Christmas, where she wore nine pea coats. So she's got three, which is pretty impressive for one movie.

Yeah, And like I like the Green One, so and everyone was and there was a lot of red green in this movie. Almost everyone was. Wearing red green. And you had splashes of the of the electric purple you'd see in the nineties here and there, which I thought was kind of nice to see, you know, So you had that going on, not enough horror references and there, Like I said, it was kind of eight nineties, and it would have been a lot more like like like I guess there was no Britney Spears posters to be seen. And you know, no, I don't think she would have I do not know.

I don't Alex wouldn't have. But oh no, Alexa would have had an Avril Levine poster. She would have had like the edgy Britney spears. In the Girls, and she would probably end up going to Little as Fairy. Yeah, I was trying to identify the posters in Alexa's room, but I don't.

I don't know bands well enough to know who all those pictures were. And if any of them were Intogo Girls, it would have been very funny if they were, but. They might also they were kind of folky female. They were, but it was like that was kind of code in the night, and like not to say, oh, everybody that loved Indigo Girls was a lesbian, like not true, but Indigo Girls liking in Togo Girl Girls was a clear code of like if you said it really proudly and publicly and meant like, oh oh really, what else? Who else do you like?

It was you know, a signifi. But also you know there were great bands, so it also didn't necessarily determined that. And we know that Lucy had a thing for boy bands because all of her posters, Yeah. Lucy probably had. I mean I think Lucy would have been an in sync fan.

I fake. One of the fake songs on the list was a Backstreet Boys reference. Well, and they make a Backstreet Boys reference at one point they talk about go seeing Backstreet Boys. But I feel like. Lucy, I don't know, she was a little older, like in Sync.

Even I liked in Sync because they were they had catchy songs. Uh, but I don't I know Lucy. Lucy would not have been a Britney Spears fan, maybe like she would have danced to Britney Spears if they went to a dance and that was playing. I don't know who her, Maybe like a Lisa lobe More. I don't know.

I think Lucy had was a little bit less poppy than More. Maybe like Alanis. You know, she might have been an Alanis fan. Yeah, I can see, I can hor that. Yeah.

Well, we'll never know for sure until we get next year's a very hy two k ri semester or whatever it might be. So overall, let's let's conclude with your your overall thoughts. Do you recommend it? Were you happy to watch it? How did this satisfy you?

I often watch things multiple times for you, as you know, so I could I watch it once all the way through and don't take notes because I just want to watch the movie, and then I go through and I go through and take your. Notes I should try doing that. There was only one film I couldn't do that with, and that was the film two years ago, which was the one. With Mary Lopez one. Yeah, the Holiday Through one I I did not deserve a second watch.

Yeah, still had the record for the most cloying child of all time in these movies. Yeah, I go, no, that one. But the Bruce Campbell went I watched three times because Bruce Campbell, you know, both Bruce Campbell's I watched multiple times. But so I watched this one twice all the way through and had no issues watching it, So I didn't hate it. I think it ends kind of abruptly.

I wish it had a better meat see. And you know, it's funny you say that because I'm so used to these movies having such a quick ending that the fact that this had like a forty five second montage felt like substantial really. Because it felt like it just like, you know, like I'm back and then that's it, it was over. You know, you know, I actually think it would have been cooler if she went back to the point and tied it the diner and had to fix everything in the present, her present. I think that would have been kind of a neat way to end it, like, well, now I know all this stuff, I'm gonna go back and make amends, like she actually mentions at one point doing that, I think I would have been an interesting different twist on it.

So in other words, to have have like had like for the time travel to have not been real, like where there were no consequences and instead it's like you you lived your life the way we already know you lived your life, and now you have this added knowledge of what it could have been like. So now you're still a divorce attorney, but now you want to go and like address the things that you might have done differently back then. That's to mean in Chicago. She's working in Chicago, their family is only two hours away. It could have been there was no but but we got angels and time travel.

Yeah yeah, it kind of Christmas magic and all that. But you know what, if you like these movies, you're gonna like this one. Absolutely, you're gonna like this one. I would say, it's probably I'm probably not gonna watch it again anytime soon. Something really to it.

It is good junk food. And if you like these movies, if if I was watching sometimes I put these movies on. They have the marathon, and I'll leave the marathon going while I'm doing stuff in the house and everything, and if it came on, I wouldn't turn it off. Yeah, I found this one. I think I went into it like as soon as I saw the title, because I was what I would do, is I pulled up like the Hallmark website.

I'm just going through each one to see like if anything jumped out at me. And as soon as I saw the title and saw like the still they had on the website was the guy with the flufy hair, and I was like, Okay, I have to watch this because I know it's going to be obnoxiously like remember the night, Remember how big our cell phones were in the nineties. And I was really surprised because I think it could have been that, and it could have been a very easy like wedding singer esque, let's just throw in like jokes about how silly it was twenty five years ago, and I thought, A I thought they restrained themselves with that and really didn't go for too many easy jokes. And then I think they actually took the time to tell like a time travel story that had stakes.

I liked the lead actress. I liked a lot of supporting characters, last sporting performances. I think they came at it with somehow in that again that two week film time, they were able to add a little bit more depth by having the grandparents, there by having the mom be cast by like with this good actress who could sell grief very well in her two scenes. And I found myself like, yeah, this one actually like And again this one did not break the tear barrier the way they have in the past this year and none have, h but this one did not. But I found it more emotionally satisfying than I was expecting.

Yeah, I mean, like I said, I didn't hate it. And you know, I'm very very judgmental on these movies, you know, and not Terrifier three. Well you know, you know, but you know, for me sometimes it's more painful watching these movies, you know. But you know, I would say it was perfectly good. And there was there was one very similar to it a few years ago where they were doing it was the time travel was actually letters like one time period and they were another and letters kind of like like like House movie that Sounder Bulich did, And so I've seen a lot of these time travel movies, and this one actually handled it relatively well, and so, you know, I still have questions about how like her leaving ruined everybody's lives, but you know, you know, it doesn't seem like it would have.

But it didn't break the mold, and it wasn't I think the most well thought out, and the romance at the center of it really like I think, does hurt a lot of the rest of the movie, but I think there were other parts of it that added up to be, you know, satisfying at least for me. This movie does the number one thing to make it a success. It knows its audience. Yeah, it does, and I think and the script was even half bad. No, no, no, there was some inside jokes like the one when Mambo number five, which is a really cute joke when he goes one.

No know what you were seeing with their Milks album she goes next album. I think this actually respected its audience more than I would have audit did. Yeah, that it knows its audience. And I didn't feel insulted watching it. Which is good and I really thought I would.

Yeah, I'm like, what are you doing? You know? I could even see her ending up with Matt even though that's. Yeah, I mean, you know what, she It's not like she's forgotten all of her skills from being a divorce attorney. So if and when, and I do say and when this marriage hits the skids, I feel like she's going to emerge from it pretty pretty well.

Oh yeah, well, you know the fact that she has all the money, he's a lawyer, She's gonna just take herself definitely. All right, Well that was a nineties Christmas h Now before we leave, Elizabeth, please tell everybody where they can find you. Well, I'm about to retire. I'm in my final season of my podcast. Yeah, we're down to our last couple of episodes, right, And I'm not saying I'm leaving the podcasting scene, of course, you're not restructuring and decided.

I've been doing this pop culture podcast for ten years. Are convis Bets on Sexy Witches, you know, geek Girls perspective. We talk about everything from horror, science fiction, pro wrestling, any any pop culture media conventions we cover those. We always call San Diego con Con every year. But I've been doing it for ten years and I kind of want to do something else.

I have decided yet, but I do think it's going to be a YouTube channel, kind of like a a more more traditional review kind of thing. Oh fantastic, you know. So I'll be that's trading morning on individual movies. You know. So I'll let you know more when we develop it, because I'm developing right now, but we haven't figured it out.

But we have one more show, I think it's next Wednesday, and then we have one final show, which is well, usually that would be our season premiere, but instead this is going to be our final episode and it's gonna be our final countdown of our favorite films of twenty twenty four, So our very last top ten countdown. I'm getting for clemped on that one. Yeah, you know. So. So you can find me on on Facebook Elizabeth Catherine Gray is my personal profile is always the best way to find me.

Or you can find me at a blog talk. On Arc dis Bets on sixty Witches, which is. Live, and there's a lot of great reviews and stuff, and I'm gonna pull those out and make them into their own thing after I'm known with my podcast, so I can my guest reviews are all including Emily. Yeah, we'll have we'll have their own half hour segments that you can go and find. And there's a lot of great stuff with Sosca's sisters and there Emily's in there, a lot of indie film directors, you know.

So I want to make sure that none of that gets lost. So I gonna make sure. Yeah, so I'm gonna miss you, Emily. We will miss you, but we will not miss you because you will be back. I will be back.

You will be And if nothing else, we will find a magic box maybe, or hop in a magical ride shair if that's what happens, or eat mat French fries that could also have been a thing. Uh. And with all of that, we will go back to you a time when we can make different decisions and you know, change the world however we want well better. Love it christ better changes. Well.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. Listen, hello your banes, say count your best suit. We got a body like it's hunting now let's hit the pavement. We're feeling brand new and make it working like it's nights of far. The stars are out in Nice.

Let's make good jost to you and Nice. Oh happy days Are you ready for the best styles in a way count Bade Gay in the race and believe in Kelly Guy coming. You know the feelings, you see the signs and don't deny you. Then it's ride it Fried, break through the Seala se f from. The skies and no deny him.

Minutes you and the stars are rocks and n. It's make good sos to and not oh baby. The style of God is honestly game.