Stocking Stuffers 11.8 A Christmas In Vermont with Mike White

You wanted to see me, sir? What do you know about one of our smaller holes? A company called Outwear? Sounds quaint? Of course?

Paint it's Vermont. I want you to shut the company down. You came to the right girl, Sir. I'm Riley Thomas. I'm just in from New York.

You'll be wanting to talk to Wyatt. I've built with you corporate types before, and you people tend to look at places like bugs under a microscope. You are really pushing my buttons? Now, why would I do something like that? Stop it?

That's in order. You promised me that you will also take care of you. Did you say this place employs the entire town. It is a small down the people who work here. What happens to them when we close Outwear down?

It's not our problem? Truth? Truth, what's old is new again? You export Vermont. That is what Outwear is, the very sweater that launched the outwear empire.

We're not just going to save this company, We're going to make it a success. Well, the world is going on there? Have you lost your mind? I saw an opportunity to do something good and I took it. Bring me another straw?

What exactly are we planning a Christmas miracle? Let's go the cheats to hang up I mean what I'm supposed to hang up on her? Welcome to another stocking stuffer. I'm Emily, and you know I don't like to travel alone. It can be nice sometimes when you're going all the way to the cold, wintry, you know, wintery scenic design of Upstate New York a Vermont.

I like to take a friend with me, and I wouldn't bring anybody on a journey that's going to involve such celebrities as Chevy Chase. No, I needed the expert I brought with me to a Ristmas and Vermont, the one and only Mike White of the Projection Booth. Mike, Welcome to the Feminine Critique. How are you and how are you after watching this movie? Well?

Yeah, I wish you hadn't asked that question. I'm doing okay. Thank you for having me along. I'm glad that I have my proper outdoor apparel so that. Brand, of course.

Yes, no, and yeah, I'm I'm very happy to be on this journey and happy to be back on the Feminine Critique. So, Mike, this is your third Christmas episode with us. I don't know if you remember the other movies we covered. One had Dolly Parton. I'm pretty sure about that.

I don't remember the other one. You know what, I don't remember the title of the other one because it probably sounded like the title of seven other ones that I've covered this year alone. But there was a connective thread, not intentional, but did you catch the connective thread between the last movie we watched together in this one? No, no, not at all. That goes to show just what an impression leading man David O'Donnell, the same leading man who was in whatever that other Christmas movie we watched with Nicolette Sheridan.

I think, okay, he looked familiar, but I thought he was another five leading man he's I. Can't tell if he's very short or if the leading actress is very tall. He was a short guy. I don't know. Well, I mean, he's in a lot of these.

I always think he's in more of these because every year he shows up here. He's already showed up once this year he was in a Cozy Christmas and for those at home watching, uh, and it turns out it's not. But he actually hasn't done that many of these. It's just that every one of these that he's done, I end up watching somehow. I don't know why.

I don't make the rules. The rules make me. So let's start. What is your relationship to the uh, you know, cozy Cardigan Christmas genre. I have watched a handful, but usually there for your show, so that something that I end up going out and watching on my own.

I'm always just amazed when there's a bootleg site that I go to pretty much every day just to see what new titles are out there. And this time of the year, it's fantastic because you just start seeing cre Oh my god, yeah, man woman man, woman man. Yeah, and yeah. This one was white people. This one was right there, I mean to the point where they actually have them have an old ad with the people in red and green, and then you've got her with her green sweat.

Yeah. It's just I was like, wow, all right, and then you know you've got your infamous list of all the things that happened in these movies. I'm just like, yep, yep, not too much variation. You really have Bastard the formula. Yeah, and this is from twenty sixteen, so it's you know, by these standards, it's you know, it could be a silent film like that.

That's how fast things move, and yet everything is there, and yet it's dated and weird ways that we're going to get to in like kind of sad ways. I picked this one. I assigned this one to you specifically because I won't say stars. I'm sure he filmed all of his scenes in half a day, but it does feature one Chevy Chase, who you have been doing quite some work with, Is that right? Yes?

Yes, my friends Mark Begley and Christashian we have been doing the show called Chasing Chevy Chase, and that we have been looking at pretty much. I can't say is golden period, but everything from foul Play all the way up to Vegas Vacation, with occasional diversions into more recent fair but they usually backfire on us, things like, oh, we're going to watch what was the Norm MacDonald film Dirty Work. He's in there for like two scenes maybe, or the one that Mike White did with Jack Black. Oh, I can't remember the name of it, and he's in there for one scene. I'm like, Okay, what are we doing here?

But then you get other things like there's one called Funny Money with oh gosh, it can early nineties. You're thinking of Funny Farm. Yeah, Funny Money was based on a British play and it was probably one of the worst things I've ever seen in my life. And that's saying something what I've seen as many movies as I have, and that's definitely the low point of Chevy Chase on that show, even it's it makes nothing but trouble look like Citizen. Kate out well.

I mean that was a you know, au tour film, so some way that makes sense now, I you know, I don't want to jump ahead to your thoughts on this movie, but I am just curious, roughly, in the you know pyramid of Chevy Chase films, where is this one on your feet pyramid, where's it ranking? Well, a lot better than Funny Money, that's better than the last laugh. But he yeah, like you said, he's not in here very much. This is one of those more extended cameo kind of things, which, if memory serves that seemed like the last one that we watched where you send the person, the main character off to someplace else and so most of the acting in the movie is done via the phone. Lots of phone acting, and this is pretty phone acting.

Yeah, during code. You have a lot of movies now that you can immediately identify as COVID produced because of how much FaceTime there is. But this was like ahead of its time in some ways for you know, finding you know, you know, those ways to sort of make on the budget, but still have characters quote unquote in scenes together. Hello Morgan Fairchild, who doesn't speak to anybody else on screen. The it fits a lot of those things.

And now something else that we have to really mention because I am sure you were familiar with this director and you mentioned, you know this is this is an oh, you know, considering everything, this is like an okay film for where it lands. For director fred Olin Ray, do you think this is the best film you ever made? He's made a lot of them, Do any of them have over a five and IMDb? From all of the films I've seen by Fred Olin Ray, this might be one of the better ones. Guess yeah, much less bikinis than most of his output.

I'd say, yeah, it's funny because I mix him and Jim way Norsky up a lot, and I think the only time I've seen either one of those gentlemen was in the presence of the other one. I'm just like, wow, this is cool. At least we know they are two different people. Yes, they definitely are they. I mean one could have been a pseudonym of the other one and both of.

Them now their careers are essentially Boob or Christmas Like that's every other one of their titles is one of the two. So it's why why doing on Christmas movies? Oh yeah? Wow? Some of his involved dogs, just like fred Olin raised some of his dogs.

Yea mm hmm. Somebody needs to do like a waiting for good dough. But it's the two of them. Yeah, some kind of like I don't know where you where you have like director on director like round tables the two of them, Like I would I would pay money for that. What about uh, David Takoto?

Has he done any of those or does he just do the talking animal ones? Now he's done some of these, Oh wow, Okay, not as many. And they don't seem to find networks, but I know he's got like one or two in his filmography. Wow. Yeah, there's a whole specific breed of filmmakers out there that have found very good work.

Now, this one is interesting because it took three people to write this movie. Yeah, and I noticed that, and I went and I was looking up his co writer markle is a Verretti, Michael. Varatti, who I listened. He actually has a podcast. He is on Midnight Madness with Peaches Christ.

So he does a lot of drag stuff. He does a lot of really cool queer stuff and especially like in the horror community, and he's funny, and I my theory is that all of the office stuff might have been him, because there's some things there that are like actually like clever, and I feel like listening to that, I'm like he might have written some of that. And then Peter Sullivan is also like kind of royalty in Hallmark because he directed Christmas under Wraps, which was Hallmark's like first giant hit. He also did the sequel to it, which was the first movie we covered this year, Cozy Christmas in So there's like Hallmark pedigree. This is not a Hallmark movie, but there's Hallmark pedigree.

There's some like kind of interesting other voices in here, and this is the movie we get from it. Yeah, well, what is the pedigree of this movie because I the version that I up tracking down is directly taped off of Ion Television. Yeah, so I would guess I forget the production company at the beginning, But it's not Hallmark. It's not what happens with some of these movies, like Hallmark will make a bunch, Lifetime makes a bunch, Great American Family makes a bunch. Netflix obviously now makes them.

But you have a couple of studios. Mar Vista is the most famous one of these sort of very low budget studios that will make movies like this that usually end up getting sold to fill out the roster, sometimes on Hallmark, though not really anymore now Hallmark kind of does its own thing. But in the early days you might see like this on Hallmark. Now you might see it on Lifetime. Ion is another network, so a lot of these cheaper like non pedigreed ones will show up there.

And this for everybody playing at home, it's on Amazon Prime, so you can also watch it that way. All I think it was hybrid was the Yes, Yeah. Which I have not seen before. But again, Fred olinray a lot of these, so it's probably And not only does he make a lot of these, you can tell like he also films a bunch of them in the same place. He's using the same streets, he's using the same extras, the same bakery employees to come out for a cameo, and so on.

So there's a whole, like, you know, like probably Marvel universe to be built based on all of these movies, which gets confusing when you have the same actor falling in love with different women like three times a season, right. Right, So you're saying this is the multiverse, but. Definitely okay, oh yeah, oh yeah. So at some point they're going to bring all of the sassy white women together in one movie and it's just going to be amazing. Oh I can't wait for it.

Yeah yeah, oh one day, and probably this one I think is headed by our tallest one because this lead has a certain presence. So why don't We're going to walk through the plot of the movie and then we'll dive into our list. So Mike, could you kind of give us a synopsis? Feel free to spoil, because I think everybody knows how the movie's gonna end. Oh yeah, yeah, Well, we've got a lady who is very cutthroat, Riley Thomas, played by Abigail Hawk and she is making a name for herself at this company.

What is it? Bullock and Bullock are just Bullock, Bullick. And Bullock because it's very annoying because the logo is b Amber San B and then underneath it it's written as Bullock lowercase A and D Bullock and it just looks very sloppy to me. Yeah, yeah, where's the production design? Well for a movie about you know, graphic design being important and.

So yeah, yeah, yeah, so she is. She's basically kind of a what would you call it, not a headhunter, but basically she liquidates different companies. She makes a name for herself by liquidating one company, and she ends up giving them their Christmas bonuses, which I thought that Clark Griswold would be very appreciative of. But he's appreciative, as is what is the Meredith Thomas says, Dana McCormick, who is barely in this movie, but she's kind of a a dios. X mccormy, kind of a Christmas angel of sorts.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, she shows up and so they send off Abigail or Riley, I should say, to a small town as we knew what happened, and she is there to basically find out how much value is in this company called outerwear No no. No outwear No yeah, sorry, where just outwhere? And it is a company that is run by well, it's basically the Sun. White Davis played by the aforementioned David O'Donnell. He is basically he's not really running the business.

Grounds very confusing. You would think he's no, he's not. He's just like he was, I guess the VP and Howard Hessman is Nick is the founder of of Outwear. And the way I kind of shook it kind of like private equity type thing of the company right is owned in part by Bullock and Bullock right, and it sounded like they or Chevy Chase pushed Howard Hesseman out and so then it was like, okay, so have somebody else run it for you, is kind of how I took it. But it's not the Sun, even though it should be, because otherwise, why is this guy still working there when he's doing such a bad job.

Well, that makes sense, I guess. Because Morgan Faire the child, like you said, she shows up just via phone I think ninety nine of the time. Oh yeah, does she interact with anybody? She might write. I thought there's one scene when they introduced her.

Do you think there's a scene where she's in the same room as Wyatt? But I don't know if she actually was in the same room. I meant to go back and watch that scene to see if it's just like her in an office and him, if they're ever in the same frame, because I did watch that carefully. Later, when chevy Chase shows up in Vermont, I'm like, is that But then I was like, oh, no, he's in the scene with the other guy, So. Actually is there?

Yeah? Yeah, So Morgan Fairchild is the mother of Why Why, and that makes no difference whatsoever. She really doesn't even need to be in this film, and if anything, it would have made more sense for him to be the son of Howard Hessman, who is the founder of the of the Shop. And meanwhile, or Zach Ward as David Briggs, is stuck back in New York and having a lot of phone conversations with Riley and like he doesn't care about Christmas. She doesn't seem to care about Christmas.

It's just like, oh, you're working, Oh that's fine, Like there's no like, are you going to be home in time? For Christmas, which I was a little amazed by. That was these are business people. They don't care, they don't care about Christmas. Yeah, they are New Yorkers, right.

Oh god, yeah that's how we all are. We hate christ I. Mean, oh yeah, god. I mean and I moved to the suburbs recently, so I have softened a bit. Like now there's a little tree in my kitchen, so like that's what happens, and suddenly there's a deer outside and therefore I love Christmas.

Okay. Yeah, And ironic with Zach Ward just being the you know, the evil person from a Christmas story. Man, he grew up handsome, he looks really good. Nice to see him. Yeah, and he seems like a pretty nice guy.

Yeah, very wasted and he never gets any sort of do at the end because yeah, he he really shouldn't even be in this movie because basically she's cheating on him. Yeah yeah, yeah, she's basically having an affair. Yeah yeah. So yeah, and so she eventually starts to fall in love with this company and all the people there, and then eventually Wyatt Davis and she comes up with this brilliant idea. I love her.

Idea, Yes, yes, how do you see a company a week before Christmas? Oh god, this is amazing. A week before Christmas and she rolls out this new product of the old sweaters that they used to sell when they first opened, red and green, just ribbed. With tree icon. Yeah.

I think I have something like it from Burlington from a couple of years ago. It can't be nearly as nice as these, because these are selling like hotcakes. One point five million, yeah, million dollars. Well, they were trending within half a day on social media. Yes, oh yeah, she knows all about the socials.

Yeah, and this is twenty sixteen, so. Right, so things going viral really meant something back then. Oh yeah, this is when it's still Twitter. It's not even true, that's true. Yep.

Yeah. So she tries to save Christmas for them, and of course, at some point why Davis finds out that she is trying to sell them out or was at some point he forgives her very quickly, thanks to how did he. Not know that when she showed up in town and said, oh, I want to your books. I want to see her books. How much is that machine worth?

Oh? Good? Is in good condition? Keep it in good condition? Like was it a pretty obvious that she was there to do all that.

These people are very dumb, Like Wyatt is one of the dumbest men I have ever seen in a Hallmark movie. He is very very dumb. I mean, I'm not Hallmark Hallmark movie. Right right, the off brand, yes, the outre version, Yeah yeah. Yeah.

Meanwhile, Chevy Chase is on the phone as well as well as his assistant, his subsequious assistant who I really could have done without as well. Yeah. So yeah, there's a lot of phone conversations and then eventually everything works out for the best at the end. Yeah, it definitely feels like this was a movie that they were struggling to fill that it's usually what like eighty I think it was eighty four minutes in total. Like that's where I think a lot of those assistant scenes came in where they said, like, yeah, crap, we're really short on time.

What can we do another montage? No, we've all the footage, we have no footage left for montages. Okay, let's film. Let's let's use that office set again and see what we can do. But they make it somehow.

Yeah, and thanks to the Angel investor kind of coming back that's right. Yeah, because it's not like they actually make their sales. It's just that they get somebody else to essentially buy B and B's steak in the company out from under them. I think, yeah, which is weird. So are they buying Bullock and Bullocks shares?

Then maybe I couldn't really figure out the business logic at the You. See, there's your first mistake because you assume there is business logic in this. There is not, I can assure you of that. But yeah, that is the story. So why don't we dive into our list and see how it how it rates there?

So the first thing being our lead in need of a lesson, so you mentioned, yeah I did. Now I have not seen her in any other of these kinds of movies. She's again like it's interesting sometimes because she's got to be like five eleven, she's very tall. Yeah, and you know. She has a deep voice.

Well also, you could tell which scenes were filmed when because she definitely had a sore throat for about a third of this movie. So all of the scenes that are in like with Zach Ward or in the city are all like she sounds like this, and it's very like kind of upsetting to listen to. But you know, hey, you got time is money and you can't wait a day for her to have some tea. The show must go on exactly. But what did you think of her as far as a lad, Like, did you did you grow with her?

Did you were you sympathetic to her? No? Not really? I mean it helps. I think she's very attractive, yeah, attracting one yeah, yeah, very pretty, but yeah, just does that she's cheating in her boyfriend really kind of gets to me that she's dancing with the white Davidson about to kiss him.

She does avoid kissing him, but I was just like, wow, okay, you just have thrown over your quick Yeah. And she's there for like a week and a half. I mean I was thinking there was some sort of like a ground FOG's Day thing going on here, so that maybe she was in the town for longer than a week, right. She's not. I think towards the end of it, like after she decides I'm staying to get the you know, the sweaters out in market, I think by then it might be over a week.

But in the beginning, like yeah, it's like two days and suddenly she's decided I've fallen in love with these people in the town and I need to save them. And did you like recognize where it was that she made the switch. Well, it wasn't after that delicious cupcake. I know for sure. The cupcake did nothing.

Yeah, I don't know exactly where it was where her heart melted. Yeah, because it seemed very It was like after one of the days they're all together and then fairly abrupt of her to suddenly decide, oh my god, there are humans here. Meanwhile, like she has just shut down a company, and you get the feeling that this is what she does there. So I didn't know what about this town really did it for her, other than you know, tiny terrible manager Wyatt Birth. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm over here like trying to look up his height because I'm just like, he just looks so tiny. Did you find it because I've seen him in other movies and it hasn't been as distracting. But also, I mean, most of the leading women are not like five to eleven, right, Okay. It's funny because you start googling it and the first thing that comes up is like, there are several notable people named David O'Donnell and the first one I see is five to ten. I'm like, well, that's not him, No, that is a Colby football player.

Supposedly he's five to nine. This is I think what I'm finding on IMDBA. If this is the right one, they're saying five to nine, she's showering over him. Yeah yeah, I mean he's still a little taller than Tom Cruise. I think, oh you tell CRS.

Thing is what five seven in in lifts? Yeah, still the and like at times she's wearing heels, but in this kind of scenario, like you take her out of heels when you gap her next to somebody's that much shorter than her. So let's let's talk about Wyatt played by David O'Donnell, feminine critique, stocking stuff a regular here were you? Were you charmed by him? Did you?

Did you? Do you think they're the couple that's gonna make it? No, and no point does he hit me as charming whatsoever. They give him a dog as if to give him like a softness, but he just keeps giving the dog to somebody else. Yeah.

Yeah, he always seems very uptight. And that's the thing, you know, of course, like she is from New York. So she's super uptight. How dare these kids attack her on the street and you know, steal her purse and all this, and it's like, no, your purse is right here. Lady, right, but in big bad city, we would have obviously a street urchins would have knocked her down and stolen her person run away.

Oh yeah, yeah, it seems joker, I know how it goes? Yeah, pretty much? Yeah, right, yeah, yeah, And like he's not. It's it's such an odd choice because he's not even good at running a business and he doesn't have vision. He doesn't.

It's her idea, right, it's her and Howard Hessman's idea to bring back the sweater he's doing at this company. He should not be in charge, okay. No. And he's not that great with the employees. It's like when they're having their Christmas party, he's upstairs.

Yeah, I'm like, what the hell is enjoy this and enjoy these people? Man? Yeah right, yeah, very very baffling. Well, he does give a compliment to that very attractive man who designed his own jacket, and he's like, oh yeah, very good. Okay, Yeah, the guy can't design anything else apparently, But yeah, apparently they need to raid Howard Hessman's fifty year old design to find anything.

All right, well, next is our setting, so let's let's talk about it because we have really we have two, right, because we have big, bad city and we have charming small town. So did I counted four? I might there could have been more. How many establishing shots of that skyscraper we get to establish New York City? We keep going back to the same shop.

Yeah, I've been a lot of nice shots around Central Park. It looks like, yeah into footage. Yeah, I like when she's I can't remember IF's she's describing it or if her boyfriend's describing New York as. We have everything. We have skyscrapers, we have rats, we have the ball drop at New Year's Eve, which is definitely what New Yorkers also treasure about our city.

Oh I'm sure, yeah, that's yeah. We never talked about the restaurants or you know, the museums, arts, scenes know, like how quick it is to get from one place to another, Like, no, no, it's all about the ball drop on New Year's Eve, because that's a real New Yorkers go see that ball. Drop on your see not the bridging Tunnel crowd at all. Oh god, no, no, no, no, no, no, all right. And I did never call the name of the town, did you.

I mean, I know where it was filmed based on a lot of context blues. It was filmed in East Aurora, New York. But did they ever like say the town name. I don't think that they do. No, yeah, did.

There was like a repeat a joke that was repeating that at first I thought was funny, and then I realized, oh no, there is something of it where they're like, whenever they talk about Vermont, they're associating it with cheese ome on, that's where the cheese is from. And I thought it was like a funny like thing to do. And then at a certain point I'm like, oh, no, there is a Vermont cheddar. So maybe they are actually talking about cheese. Yeah, I think they were, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, because they're debating and they're like, no, no, that's Minnesota or something.

It's like yeah, or Wisconsin, Wisconsin. But I mean there is Vermont cheddar. So right, yeah, all right? So number four is our dead parents or dead wife? Well I thought that uh Howard has been his wife being dead would have been the dead parent.

So I think that you're watching this movie the entire time thinking he is a dead mom, and then who's been Morgan Fairchild? I know, maybe she was like this older spider lady who was trying to seduce him or something. I don't know. Would have made it more interesting. They would have.

Yeah. No, So Howard haspons, we only get one dead elder and this and it's his wife. We know nothing about Riley's family. I mean, she's not spending Christmas with them. But again, you get the feeling that she might have killed them for all you know.

Yeah, I think she killed them and ate them. Yeah yeah. Are they eaten by rats? Yeah? Well the famous New York rats, you know, very proud of them.

Yes, it's true. It's actually our like if you look closely at the New York flag, which has a lot going on. If you ever looked at the New York state flag, there's like a thousand different little meisan sends. One of them is a rat eating a parent of parents. Yeah, okay, but the parents are eating a pizza and the rat is eating them.

That's how it all came together, all right, So our sassy sidekick. I didn't really see a sasy sidekick, unless you count that guy at the office. Yeah, Cyril, because he also has a christmasy name because at one point nobody can remember how to say his name, and he the way he tells people to remember it is Well, if I was a girl, it was going to be Carol. And I don't think Cyril is the closest alternative to Carol, because Carol can be a boy's name anyway, So I wouldn't have his name him Carol. Right, yeah, Carol O'Connor, y have words with him exactly.

Yeah, and Michael Learned would be mad as well. Yeah, so that's as close to a sassy sidekick as we get. Yes, you know, is he coated as k I? I mean I was about to like, uh, you know, emphatically say obviously, but also like you know what, I've known men men like that and then been very surprised to find out they were straight. So right, yeah, okay, you're right.

There's nothing actually like specific to the text that he is. I just the actor was making a choice. Okay, Yeah, all right, So now let's talk about our villain or villains perhaps. Yeah, yeah, because she's the main villain or. It starts off as one yeah.

Yeah, and but throughout the entire thing it's chevy Chase. It's chevy Chase. Yeah. And yet he's such a villain that he on Christmas Eve drives six hours to Vermont to be there for a Christmas party. Yeah.

I was a little surprised by that. Yeah, but that's a that's a choice. Yeah yeah. And he's mean he's an income poop. There's that whole thing of like him not being able to drink out of a straw.

I mean that's a classic chevy Chase physical comedy gag. And then the whole thing of I want a milkshake and I want it to be tan. Yeah, and that it gets Cyril a book on how to make milkshakes and a little milkshake maker. I'm like, Okay, this is a weird thing fetish that you have here. I have to imagine.

And this is just kind of based on like what I think of when I think of chevy Chase is Hey, chevy Chase, we're gonna fill you know, you want to do a Christmas movie. You just need to be on set for like four hours. We'll get everything done. We're not gonna do a lot with you. We just want, you know, just we want to make you comfortable.

So you know, tell us what you need in your trailer, We'll get it for you. You want your daughter in the movie, We'll put your daughter in the movie. Whatever you need. And also if like, hey, you're Chevy Chase, if you have ideas about the script, then you know, please by all means do it. And I'm guessing you showed up.

He was like, I kind of feel like having a milkshake today. Why isn't my character just like only drink milkshakes? And I mean your friederale, Right, what are you gonna say no to? Chevy Chase? Like, you can't afford to do that, so you're just like, oh right, sure, we're gonna rewrite the script to make it about milkshakes.

Yeah, as you do, exactly. I was wondry so real quick. Did you happen to notice the name of the bed and Breakfast that she stayed out? Oh? I should have, because they showed that the same name of it about seven times in the movie, But I don't remember it.

Well, you probably don't remember it because when they cut to the outside establishing shot of the bed and Breakfast, it clearly says Bed and Breakfast underneath a sign that is either blurred or painted out, So there is no name to the Bed and Breakfast. It's just Bed and Breakfast. When you go to Easter or in New York, you look up Ben and Breakfast, there's only one. Yeah, and there's this huge sign above it where obviously the name of it is supposed to be, but that is blanked out. Oh.

I just kept looking at it, going is that blurred or is it painted. That it was cheaper to do. That's that's the real question, right right. And it's funny because I have so many moments later in the list of like me being super micro pausing it and looking it up and figuring it out. But somehow that shot which they show like seven times in the movie, didn't even know I was that limited.

Well, yeah, when when a story has you that invested, Yeah, you can't look away with it. No, no, no, of course, And you know how you really get somebody invested? Montage? Oh good lord, yes, oh the montage. What were some of your favorite montages in this movie, of which they were multiple, Well.

I'm trying to remember all of them. I'm pretty sure there's we are now in business type of moage. Yeah. Yeah, there's a crunching number. So you see why at typing what it might be a calculator or what might just be his desk of calendar moving, you know, good, a good way to establish time.

Oh yeah, time is passing for sure. And high fives. That one has a lot of high fives, which is the best thing you can ever put in a montage other than trying on clothes. Oh yeah, yeah uh. And then there there's another one towards the end right which is like the we are working very hard type of thing, or is it the I am sad without her type the montage?

So there's so by my full count the ones I had. There's a travel by stock footage montage which is early on the movie. Then there is the I would call it the the heroine's slow transformation idea montage right where she's at the ice rink and then she's like watching people and then you see her brain like thinking and this is when it ends in her with her in the greenhouse having the new idea about how a white rose is going to save outwhere the white row the white rose, don't forget the white rose. Then there's the advertising we're working hard montage, and then the other best kind of montage, which is a we're short on time, let's recap the movie montage. Yeah, that was great.

I did notice that one where it's like, oh, remember this part, in this part, in this part that. Happened six minutes ago, We're gonna shot you again. Yes, like okay, John will settle down. All right. So now the next thing on the list is slapstick.

I well, other than chevy chase, which she does, yeah, which she does, the oh I'm losing the Christmas ornament and it drops out of my hand, and then the thing with the straw and this tongue and everything. I didn't really catch a whole lot of slapstick other than our main character trying to eat a cupcake as if she's never ate in a cup chake Nope, and then the whole can you put this somewhere? Like leaving this nearly perfect cupcake there, it's like, and luckily the guy who she leaves it with does the right thing and just having a bite. Yeah, yeah, it's a shame to throw away a perfectly good cupcake, although I don't like told it. So that's what I look like.

Yeah, no, they don't say what it is. Yeah. I think most of the slapstick was the Chevy chase and assistant stuff, which again felt very likey, we need to put some more stuff in the movie. What do we do. Let's have him get a axtricuted Okay.

Oh yeah, that'll be good. Yeah. Yeah. Cirril really does a lot of having lifting that, especially at the beginning when it's mister Bullock's coming, mister Bullock's coming and then like crashes himself around the office. Yep, that's another one of those like kind of tag along to the villain.

Now, often you get is the introducing the villain by way of devil rous Prada office entrance, right when when the boss is coming in the way, everybody else has to react and change their behavior for them. Yeah, so number nine is our sage old person. Now you have more child on the phone. But yes, it's towards by far right. It doesn't really look a lot like Howard Hesseman to me.

Throughout so much of it, I was like, wow, he's maybe it's just that these age. Yeah. Did you ever see a classic of holiday cinema The Christmas that almost wasn't that's Italian movie from nineteen sixty eight or so mst. Thor K did it about I think the second season. What is remarkable at this movie it is it is a masterpiece on many, many levels.

One of my favorite things about it is how like Miserable Santa Claus is in the movie. He just comes across as the most dour, sad man. And that's kind of how I feel about Howard Hastmen in this movie. Why is he just so like? Yeah, I mean, look, it's probably not that much fun to film a cheap Christmas movie with Frederwill and Ray in upstate New York.

But I don't know, you gotta be so sad on camera? Yeah? Yeah. It kind of makes me wonder when he ended up passing, because he's no longer. With us as I don't think so.

I think he and I remember when he passed, but I don't know how close it was to this movie, and if like the cupcakes had anything to do with it. Twenty two Okay, Okay, so he had another four years and after this, Yeah, I mean, and he doesn't even have to share the screen with Chevy Chase at all. No, Well, is he there at the end? He is, but are they in the same Are they actually there together in the end of That's good. Question, Yeah, because those guys have been I mean, I know they started off in different circles and everything, but they must.

They must, yeah, I think yeah. I mean I just was looking up Howard has been in the first picture that came up was him and Harry Sheer on SNL, so I'm like, okay, yeah, he was definitely on a yeah a few times. Yeah. I mean my touchstone for him was head of the class. That's how I'm a little bit older, so I was more of a w k RP.

And Cincinnati good stuff. Oh yeah, all right, Now number ten is Santa Claus. I really was hoping when Nick showed up early on. I was like, well, obviously it's going to be Santa Claus, right, and he's not. He's not.

No, no, although again, like Dana the other Investors sort of serves like a magical Santa role in a way. So yeah, all right, it's not out of ten. Onto the bonus round, right. All these other little extras that that show up in these movies. First one being about the music, which is generally both public domain Christmas songs and word salad, pop songs about Christmas that you've never heard before.

We get both, and we get a music bed going through this that just would not stop. I was I kept thinking, like, is there going to be a break in the music at all during this whole thing? No, because they probably when they were recording, like the actual movie, weren't able to like filter out some of the other sounds. So it's like, I don't know, just play jingle bells louder, Yeah, nobody will notice. Yep, yeah, lots of that, like bink, like very happy, go lucky.

You know, Oh, here's some here's a few pitzicado strings going on there, like wow, okay, to the point where I was like, can we give it a break? I would really like just a silent scene at. Some point, especially the office stuff. I feel like that always in particular has like boo yeah mm hmm, and a lot of pop songs towards the This is I like when I can watch the movies, not like on TV, because then you can actually see the end credits, and this one, I could look at the music and it was like the same composers, a lot of these songs that you've never heard of before, because again, it's like some band in upstate New York put out of Christmas CD. Let's buy it and put all the songs in the movie.

Right, the poor friends of Fred Olin Ray I guess, well, maybe a mix of both. Yeah, possibly, Yeah, I get the feeling. He probably ropes a like if you have a talent and you know him, you have somehow used it for one of his movies. Oh, you know, like he's found a way. Yeah.

Oh I know a guy who holds a hearse. Great, okay, perfect, let's make the zombie movie after all? Right, all right, so number two is food related, secret family recipe, needlessly complicated holiday cock hells or using hot chocolate to represent something sexual. Don't so much get hot chocolate, but we do get a very important scene where a girl eats ice cream and a boy eats drinks hot chocolate. Oh it's very inspirational.

Yeah, because everybody's different. Yeah, everybody have different and a white rose can bloom and there. Yes, if we resurrect the first design this company made, we can save the town. Oh really, because this whole town works for this one. Company, except for the bakery, right that's.

Separate, and the post office guy. And yeah, the people on the Ski Hill and everything that's true they do. Yeah, well, they're in a movie theater that's playing another Federal and Ray movie. Yeah, like because those a US theatrical releases. Which definitely yeah, especially up in that town.

Oh yeah, yeah, you. Just have one theater that just exclusively plays fred Olin Ray Films. Will me your vision of hell? What's next on the proh Hollywood Changsaw Hookers? Okay, excellent.

Yeah, we're going to follow that up with a dog on Christmas? All right. Yeah, there's only about what six people that we see in that office. In that office, like they're headquarters, which she's amazed that this is their headquarters. Have been to small towns and people.

Basically it's like a nice house that their headquarters are in. And yeah, look pretty cozy to me. And they're producing outwear, outter wear by Outwear for the entire you know, North American country continent. I got from that. Wait till we get to Japan.

Yeah, oh yeah, their sweaters over there. Yes, they've never seen anything like it by far So on the No. Number three is our small business in danger and obviously Outwear, which I guess is supposed to be like an ll bean maybe yeah, yeah, only they haven't had a good idea in like thirty seven years. Seems to also be part of that. I mean their sign looks very ello bean as well to me.

Yes, yeah, I don't think that's what they're going for. I do want to give a sad shout out because I'm sure you felt the same way. Because we're gonna we'll get more to the cupcakes soon, because the cupcakes are a central part of this movie. But when this woman comes out and offers cupcakes to these two people, I was so riveted by the awkwardness of that scene. And I noticed something that the woman was where it had a name tag on and her name was Wendy, and it had something underneath it.

So I just posited to look a little closer, and sure enough it said Wendy Firefly Cupcakes. And I thought to myself, there is no way fred Olin Ray paid to give this woman a name tag in this movie, And there's also no way this one and as an actor, because this does not quite feel up to par of you know, Chevy Chase's performance here. And sure enough, it was very easy to quickly look up Firefly Cupcakes in New York and it came up and that's where I figured out filmed at East Aura. A fireflya Cupcakes sadly closed a year after this movie, but they did serve the East Aura area for two years. Wendy, owner of Firefly Cupcakes, also appeared in another fred Olinray movie as Wendy, and she was on I think a Food Network baking show at some point in her career.

So if nothing else, this gets to be like on her reel. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty remarkable. Good detective work. My brain sometimes I think what else could I do with it? And I think, nothing else.

This is what it was meant to do. I was kind of hoping you would say that they're still around and you have ordered a box of cupcakes and. Ding Dong, ding Dong I had been delivered to your home. Like right now as we're recording, I need them to show up on Monday to something. There's Wendy and she's wearing the outward sweater.

No, we don't know what became of Wendy, but but good luck to you out there, lady. So product placement, I mean we had a fire Fling cupcase that work out for them. So it was really very well placed. No, no, but you do get a lot of them walking in town. So you do see a lot of storefronts that are all or we're all real, real, real love stores.

And the movie theater that is showing a Prince for Christmas, not to be confused with a Christmas Prince by Netflix, because those are two totally different movies, although I'm sure Fredil and Ray would have no problem with you confusing one for the other. But there is a giant poster for it, and it's kind of a thing of beauty. Yeah, no, that was nice. I was glad that you pointed that out because I didn't notice it. And then after you pointed it out, I did a rewatch and I was like, yep, there it is very proud.

It's huge. Yes, Number five is our cloying child, and I think this is another one of those towns that has no children. Well other than those little chuds that come and knock her down. We don't see kids about that again. No, never again.

Yeah, it's it's sad. A lot of these small towns in these movies just seem to have like a you know, infant death problem because you never see children, which is kind of weird. They probably returned to the sewers afterwards. That that makes sense with all of their stolen bags from New York women, it'd be fine. Ah, Red Spray, So six is finding the perfect tree.

But I don't think we get any any of that. There's no talk to Christmas trees. We have to design sweaters for God's sake. Number seven everybody's favorite empty coffee cup acting. I think I might have seen some of that here.

Well, bit there's a moment and I don't know who says it because I wrote it down, but I didn't. I didn't describe the scene at all, just where somebody says, what are you doing? And they answer, I'm drinking coffee? And I wrote in my notes in caps, no you are not. Yea who actually the boy who's drinking his hot chocolate.

I was like, is there? I don't know how talkim there now the very opening scene when that's because the assistant yells at the guy drinking coffee and then he slams into a guy and spills his water all over him. Yeah, And I thought to myself, I feel like that was a cinema trick because that was real water, right, They weren't faking the water, which makes you think maybe that was real coffee. Right, I'm with you, yeaheah. It's a good way to kind of say, like, no, no, see, we put liquid in things.

We put liquid that's easy to dry out and won't stay. But you know, let's see. Who's drinking the hot chocolate. You never see him actually take a drink, you just. He just moves it to his mouth.

Yeah, he blows on it like it's hot. So that's some really good acting that he's doing there. Now, speaking of good acting, I need to ask you if you thought anything odd about the scene where Riley and Dana go to a diner and sit down to talk about things and they have coffee. Did anything stand out too about that scene? Not that I were all, okay, I'm gonna tell you two things that that did to me.

They sit down and a waitress comes over, and the camera makes a point of like blonde shot of this waitress at least twice. Yeah. I think that's an odd choice because this woman is not going to matter in the movie at all. Right, So I recognized her because, as I told you earlier, I've just seen the Chevy Chase documentary and that is chevy Chase's daughter. That is his youngest daughter who was an actor.

So immediately I'm like, oh, okay, that's another reason he did the movie. Was like, okay, you know, my kid can be in the movie all the great. The next thing was there is a close up to her with an urn pouring the coffee. Mm hmm. I think I need to go back to it and rewind it and play like play it on loop because it's watching that scene and it was very like, has anybody in this in this family ever seen a chicken?

I wondered in that moment, has anybody in the chevy Chase family ever actually poured coffee? Because she basically like takes the urn and there's a cup and she sort of like swivels her arm around as if she's doing whip cream, and you just see liquid like going side by side, filling up about a quarter of the cup of coffee, and the women are like thank you, and that she exits the scene. The strangest thing that's the one with yeah the angel investor lady. Yeah, I do remember that because I remember that when chevy Chase's daughter pours the coffee that the investor lady says thank you, but our main character doesn't. And I was like, well, that's that's rude.

But then you know what, Then you're like, well, I mean, did you see how she poured her coffee like she'd be thankful for that. It's a wonder she didn't get it all over the woman's shirt. Yeah, go back and watch that one scene. It is. It is, yes, one of those moments of like, you don't know how people move, do you?

Maybe she was she was working. It out, I guess. And again there's no time for a second take, so you get what you get. No, all right, So number eight is the actress trying not to actually eat on camera, because usually you don't want to do that, although sometimes in these movies movies actors actually absolutely do because you can tell that's the only food they're getting on set. Mm hm oh yeah yeah.

Like I said, there was that awkward cupcake bite. Yes, yeah, for like, is this foreign to you? It's it's a cupcake, it's not a Yeah. The tiniest like puts it in front of her face and then takes it away from her face and says, yes, that's good. Yeah.

Just a fun game would be to spend a day eating and drinking the way characters in Hallmark and Hallwork related movies do. And just see what it feels like to live that way. Yeah, does any food actually enter your mouth? No? Never, never, but it's always gonna come close to your mouth.

It's like the Hallmark diet. Yeah, there is. I will always again if you need like a great example of this, It is Best Christmas Party Ever. That is the movie. And they're set in New York, of course.

And you know what else New York has. I don't know if you know this, I mean every New Yorker does, because this is what we eat for lunch every day. We all eat hot dogs from a hot dogs tand absolutely yeah yeh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And it's got to be like big and like covered and things. But when I say we eat hot dogs from hot dog arts, what we actually do is stand there and hold the hot dog, and we keep talking to someone, and we keep almost taking a bite out of it, but then moving it away from our mouth, fish our thought.

And this can go on for five minutes and you'll realize we've never actually taken a bite of that hot dog. That's how we all stay so skinny too. Oh, that's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right. So number nine is our canadianisms, which we don't really have because it was definitely filmed upstate New York.

Yeah. No, I didn't even hear anybody lay in a boot. Out the boots Nope, nope, not this one. We've had them this year, but not here now. Number ten is the warm weather Watch.

So when you can spot that this probably was not actually filmed in Vermont in December, anything up stand out? Did you think to yourself, like, yeah, that's what you'd wear in December in Vermont as you walk in town because apparently nobody drives in Vermont in winter. Well, yeah, yeah, they definitely do a lot of walking. We get some establishing shots where there's some snow falling down and everything, but for the most part, the sidewalks are really clear. Yeah.

Yeah. They just seem to be wearing I don't know, like more of like a mid fall thing. They don't seem to be very cold at all. And she's when she shows up in town, I don't I was trying so hard to figure out if she was wearing stockings or not. I don't think she was, And that would be very chili even if she was just wearing stockings.

It would have been chili in Vermont in December. Well, that would have been a thing though. That would have been something that they would have had to have acted out as far as like, oh my god, it is so cold out there. How do you people even stand this? And they could say, I'm wearing my outwear.

Yes, there you go. Yeah, and there is a mower too. They do try to say it like, oh are you cold? Like do you are you ready for this? Like they saved to her a few times, but it's never like pays off in any way, And it would have made so much sense for her to van be like I came to Vermont thinking I'd be fine, and I realized what I needed was, you know, a coat made by the company that only makes sweaters.

Apparently, right, Yeah, well, Howard has been had a coat that had the Outwear logo on it. Right, right, Well, because he was the only one that worked at that company. So yeah, that's true. He's the only one that swept up around there too. Yeah, all right.

Number eleven old people aggressively matchmaking the leads. It does seem like every character over fifty really wants these two to get together, right, like Nick is all about it or if their child's all about it. Not Chevy Chase. He doesn't care except for the ending, the ending of this movie, which the two of them have not actually like connected romantically that we have seen, right, Like, Okay, yes they have feelings for each other, it seems, but they haven't had a talk, they haven't kissed. And Jimmy Chase knows nothing about this.

He just knows that she kind of said like, oh hey, I think we can actually save this company. I think they have potential profit as an operating company, not just selling off their assets. And at the end of the movie he's there, He's like, and by the way, Wyatt, you got a great girl there. You two should go do something. Right what?

Yeah, that was very strange. It's like, are you just assuming what's. Going down here? Yes? And it's it's odd again I expected in the movies, but it still can be.

I just imagine Chevy Chase being your boss and like trying to set you up with somebody. It would not go well, no, nohing. No, all right. And last, we like to talk about the fashion and if we had a favorite fashion moment. Now there's so much Peacoat action in this genre that I usually separated by Peacoat based and non Peacoat based.

She did. I liked her coat. I don't think it was an outwear coat, but she had like a you know, kind of heavy coat with like a nice I like the buttons they had, like those kind of I don't know what you call it, when it's like a thick, long button that you not traditional, but it ends up looking like rugged, but it's actually kind of stylish. No. Uh, did you catch anything fashion forward here?

Oh? God? Well, the I think there's two African American gentlemen that work at Outwear. Yeah, one of them is at the Christmas party with the bright red suit and then he even opens it up and shows you the green and white stripes that are inside. That is probably the most killer fashion in this whole movie for me.

And I mean again, why isn't outwear selling that? Yes? Exactly, because that would have been the point five million that they needed to meet their quota. Yeah, and they've got a model right there that that's pretty handsome. He was he wore that.

Well. Wow. So all that being said, in the end, how did you feel about spending a Christmas in Raman to Mike White. It wasn't as dreadful as I thought it might be. I actually had a pretty good time watching this, just because it does hit some many of these things, and it was nice and Howard Hessen again, which was really kind of nice.

So and yeah, Morgan Fairchild, who is it botox or facelift or a combination of both. I don't know for sure, it is definitely one of the I think it's botox. I think it felt very like the morning of Yeah, because it's just again and again, look, every woman makes their own choice and not judging anything. But it's also like that's a lot of face. That is a lot of shine, and it can it's catching light in a lot of ways.

And then, yeah, not a dreadful performance by Chevy Chase, though so obnoxious, which is usual for him. Yeah, I was expecting him to be more phoned in in this, Yeah, just because I've seen him do that in a lot of the kind of lesser projects. And again, I can't imagine he was excited to do this. There's nothing really here for him. But I thought like, oh, he he knew what he was doing and he did it.

He did what the material asked for, and I thought just the idea of having him in this made it amusing. So like, weirdly that worked for me. Yeah, I mean he was phoning in some of his better known performance and says when he came back in kedyshek too that performance. He has completely checked out for that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so somehow more invested in this.

So yeah, oddly, maybe they paid him in cupcakes. I don't know, cupcakes, milkshakes, golf balls. Yeah, one could do worse. Right, you work your whole life. This isn't a bad way to spend you know, your retirement years, I guess.

And I went back and I watched that scene and yeah, I didn't realize just how many shots they gave his daughter in that diner. So wow, she gets more close ups, I think than Morgan fairchild Less. I think he might be right. There's at least four shots of her in just like a two minute sequence. Yeah, a little unnecessary, but again, if that's what it took to get Chivvy Chase to do this movie, hey, I guess it worked out for the family.

Yeah. All right, well, thank you so much for your time here in Vermont. I'm sure that people know, but where else can they find you when you were not eating red velvet cupcakes in and designing outerwear in Vermont? Well, everything I do is available over at weirdingwaymedia dot com and you can find the Chivvy Chasing Chevvy Chase podcast over there, as well as the Projection Booth, which I've been doing for a couple of years where I talked about movies. And stuff a few years.

Right, yeah, yeah, now like whatever, yeah, coming up on fifteen, So yeah, right, congratulations, you're busy. Keeps me out of the bars, so when you can. Out of the bars, yes, keeps many many listeners happy and educated. And you know, speaking as a fan, I appreciate admire your work. So thank you so much for stopping by to you know, do something a little different.

Well, I appreciate the invite as always. Well, have yourself a merried little Christmas and happy Holidays. Same to you Christmas. Isn't it nice to know you can always count on the LLL Bean Catalog to have the perfect Christmas gift for everyone in. Your lists of sugar plug is de.

Best of all, it's probably in your house right now. The ll Bean Christmas Catalog there wasn't that easy Weird way behin