Stocking Stuffers 11.9 Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever with Emily Menez

My Christmas wish. I wish, I wish I meet a friend on whom I can dependent to me. You really screwed up your big wish. Okay for anyone that loves Christmas stories about here we go goodwill. I don't care, Joy, no and peace to all fail, then you are a loser.

Are you serious? Of course I'm serious. Look at my face this Christmas you were talking to me. What are you some kind of blonde witch? I heard all of that.

Stop it, you stop it, you stop it witch. When it comes to the holiday spirit, don't get sappy on me. It I forgot. It's a Lifetime movie. All pets are off.

Grab that cat. We know that cat. They don't even make paintball about the cats. A cat Poudrey Plaza brings the Internet sensation to life. This is the best Christmas ever.

Go ahead ignore the title of my movie. Rumby Cat's Worst Christmas Ever. Dangle Bells Christmas Smells, Saturday, November twenty nine, at eight. It's on Lifetime. Welcome to a very special stocking stuffer here, one that is, you know, expanding outside of just the human realm and really encompassing the animal kingdom and the Ohio Mall Kingdom to very exciting places that we don't always get to visit around the Christmas Time with Me is a fellow cat lover and very funny writer who has the best name that there can be because she is also a fellow Emily.

Welcome Emily Manez to a feminine critique. Hello, fellow Emily, it's good to be back. Indeed, well is it? I mean it's good to be well, yes. It's going to be back, not for this movie, but it's good to see you.

Yes, yes, So let's talk about the movie we're going to be you know, go diving into Grumpy Cats Worst Christmas Ever from the year twenty fourteen, which was not that long ago and yet so long ago. Right when you really think back to the world at that point, you had not seen it, nor had I when it came out. Did you feel like you should see it? Like, because I mean it was so grump Cat was born in twenty twelve. When did grumpy Cat become big?

Because this is only two years after Grumpy Cats alive? Like, what was the how quickly did this all happen? I think this was at the height of grumpy Cat fever. Okay, because I remember reading the IMDb description of the movie, and half of the description was just the qualifiers of Grumpy Cat. It was like voted BuzzFeed's number one cat of the year, maximum sexiest woman exactly.

It was just accolades for grumpy Cat, which is really an accurate description of why this movie was made. It was just a vehicle for a cute meme. Yes, And on one hand, like these are time capsules that are very fascinating in there, you know, because this is now twelve or eleven years after this movie. Imagine let's say I don't know, forty seven years from now into the future, and the way today we might discover, like I don't know, the sequel to the Pasiety in Adventure and say, wow, Sally Field was in that. What imagine generations from now, like our great nieces nephews discovering Grumpy Cat's worst Christmas kind of the way.

I guess like The Christmas It Almost Wasn't for Me, right, which is a movie from sixty eight or so that my friend grew up with and I discovered it what twenty years ago, and like it was that kind of thing of like this is bizarre, Wow, what were people smoking back in the sixties. Eh, just think of Grumpy Cat's future footprint. What does it say about that time in history? It tells us we were letting the Internet control what kind of movies we make. And there was this sort of promise in the air that our memes the future is this how we decide how movies are made.

And the answer was a resounding oh this is this is not going to catch on? Or was it ahead of its time? Mmmmm? I like that all r because like, this doesn't work for a lot of reasons. And I think and again, like, honestly, I'm just gonna say it too, this could have been a lot worse.

I didn't know where my expectations were because I had heard some people like kind of vouch for it or defend it, but I knew it was kind of universally not considered good. But I have seen also, I've seen a lot of talking animal movies and they could be very bad. Yes, this is bad, but it could have been worse. Again, I love the optimism here, Emily. I feel like, I.

Guess you've seen a lot of them. To me this, I also didn't know what this would be, but I do think the title did try to warn us that it would be the worst Christmas ever, and it's It was an interesting thing to get into how meta they got about it being bad, because usually when it gets meta like that, it's actually very funny and good. But there wasn't enough funny and good to justify it. And there's a number of times in the movie the grumpy Cat makes fun of the viewer for continuing to watch. Yeah, and I actually felt like I took it personally because I felt like I had the gun to my head.

I had to finish it for this assignment, and I was like, I get it. It is bad, grumpy Cat, Like I wish. I'm stupid for watching this movie, grumpy Cat. Yes, all of these things you're saying are true, Like I should turn away. It should end here.

But you mentioned talking animal movies, Emily, and I had done a little bit of homework because this movie gets into a very interesting style of talking animal movie where it's pre that flapping. Cepy digital flapping lips, which I do hate, which is all of. Them now, But I wanted to take you back in time and see simple yes or no? Do the animal's lips move? In the following movies.

Okay, okay, see how well you know this? Okay? Ready, okay from nineteen ninety three Homeward Bound. No, that's correct. They do not move.

It's all voiceover Michael J. Fox Sally Field again. There she is? Maybe yeah's the third one? Yeah, okay, babe, nineteen ninety five.

Yes, that's why it was nominated for an OSCAR for Best Special Effects. But I've impressed you're very confident about you know you're okay, Final nineteen ninety nine, Stuart Little do the cats mouths move? Shit? Okay? Yep, I feel like I watched that babysitting once.

Stuart's mouth moves and definitely little animatronic? Correct. I think I feel like the cats are not or he's like animated, and I feel like the cats might be real cats that do not I'm gonna say they don't move, but that Stuart does. You are fifty percent correct. There are real cats.

Their mouths do move. I didn't remember them moving, but they do the little bit at the c yeah yeah, yeah. But I'm gonna say your your confidence in this animal quiz was impressive. You know your stuff well, and you're also going with like top of the line talking animal movies. These are the good ones.

Here're the ones where no animals were actually killed while making it right. These are not like, oh god, what is There's a whole Christmas series of like it's not the Dog who Saved the Holidays. That's a whole separate Dean Came world that we'll get into another time. But there's another series of like snow Puppies Christmas, and there's like one of those sequels where apparently it was like a massacre of puppies, So you get into scary territory. I I mean, Grumpy Hat did die young, which is a sad fact of her life.

Although it sounds like, well she clearly had a genetic thing that probably fed into that. It doesn't sound like it was mistreating them. But it's also one of those things like I don't know, no cat wants to be in a movie. No, and they really, I mean, we're both cat lovers, so we know how it is. But they milked the shot of like clearly the cat owners underneath Grumpy Cat, and they've trimmed out the hands and there do they put like a hat on the cat.

They're shaking the cat as much as they can. But that's all you can really get out of a cat. Yeah, they're not. I mean even like I'm showing you right now. Kid is on screen and I can animate her pretty well, Like ye, now what, I feel like we might have a career ahead of us.

She's really good. She's got like the piano cat thing going on. People do the piano cat. My old hat. I was able to do the YMCA with.

I used to be able to make her like dance Kit's a little friskier, but I'm starting to think, like stage mom, I have a future here. She's pretty good. She's letting you like move her arms around. Oh yeah. But now the thing is, if we were going to make a cat movie, we would I'm not saying we're making Citizen Kane, but we're definitely not making a movie that can't decide if what it wants to be.

That's the problem. Yeah, And actively, like, I get the idea that you are being cynical in this movie of saying, like, we know this is stupid, but then why make it an earnest story about a little girl who has no friends. Either make the whole thing with that kind of snarky attitude, or make it a lego movie. And be earnest and just find little moments to do a job. It really does feel like this movie hates anybody watching it.

I think that's fair. I think the inconsistencies is what makes it fall apart ultimately, because there are moments it wants to be a snarky comedy. I think it's like I would say it's forty percent snarky comedy, and then it goes for like a thirty percent earnest young girl looking to discover friends, and you want they want us to feel sorry for her, But because they've been making fun of it so much, it's hard to invest in the rest of the movie because it's like, well, you've already winked at us enough that this is not good. Then all those that. Your movie isn't worth us caring about, So why are you trying to make us care about this little girl?

Except and it doesn't help that the main character, Grumby Cat, is the whole time telling you how bad the movie is, so if you even get into it for one second, then you're like, wait, this is bad again. So it to me felt like when you see an improv scene and one of the performers is like trying to be like I'm too cool to really act. Yeah, I'm gonna be winking at the audience the whole time. Oh, it is the. Worst thing in the world.

And it's it's like, if you're gonna do this, you need to commit to it, because otherwise, what are we watching right now? Yeah? Exactly now. So this is directed by Tim Hill, who has an interesting busy career, including making unfortunately the worst theatrical Muppet movie. Ooh, okay, you know to me, no tell me, I'm okay.

Yeah it's again. And that's a movie. Actually I've only seen it once. It's been probably twenty years since I watched it, but I remember feeling very much like this is another movie that doesn't know how earnest it wants to be about the Muppets, because it does have that sort of mid nineties like we know that these are a little old, so we're gonna be snarky about it, but like, it's the Muppets, you can you have. If you're gonna do that, you have to know the characters and how to do it.

So very bad treatment and misticky in that movie. That's maybe part of why it bothered me so much. But he's worked on SpongeBob quite a bit. Okay, so like his zone is more like children stuff. Did he did album the Chipmunks squeakil right?

Uh? He did? He did the first No, just the first one. Okay. I just love saying the squeak Will, I mean why not?

Yeah? And I feel like people vouch for the squeak Will more than they do the first one. But he's primarily directed kids stuff. Nothing No other like Lifetime, at least that I can tell from his IMDb. No other Lifetime movies, no other Christmas movies.

And like that's okay, you don't have to come from the Christmas world to make Rumby Cats Christmas. But again, like just know who you're making it for, because Lifetime doesn't have a child audience like Lifetime is used at this time, especially in twenty fourteen. I think it's subtitle was like Network for Women, like it was particularly aimed at the female demographic, and aside and the fact that like Grumpy Cat's female, this movie doesn't really feel like it's targeting anybody specific, that's a fair critique. I also think Lifetime had to be at least the ninth one on the list, or maybe the eighteenth one on the list, because I don't see when they pitched this movie, and I'm assuming it came from Grumpy Cats.

Owners, right right, probably, yeah, probably they're people. So it's like, let's find a movie, let's find a company, a production company, let's find somewhere this can live. And there's no way Lifetime was at the top of anyone's list because it doesn't really make sense as a partnership. No, that makes you know now thinking it back, like imagining an alternate universe where Hallmark said yes, or where HBO said yes, or where Nickelodeon said yes, Like you could have a Grumpy Cat movie be a totally different movie in the hands of another network. And yet still it feels so weird that this is the Lifetime version because it doesn't feel like a Lifetime movie in any way.

It succeeds in nothing. It's like, what is this exactly? It's not a comedy, it's not really for kids, but kids could watch it. I mean, it may be ting to be a comedy. It's there are moments where it's comedic, and like there's definitely a couple of jokes that like, okay, that was a punch of joke, and that worked, but generally it's like, well the end.

Then that underplays the drama part of it too, because if there's like a chase scene with criminals, you don't believe they're actually good at being criminals. Why do we care? Yeah, this is there's a you know we we could do a good rewrite of this movie, yes, and also just give it a better story. So why don't we do that? Let's okay, everybody at home, we're gonna spoil Grumpy Cat's Christmas.

Don't worry. Aubrey Plazas spoils it in the very beginning by telling you, oh, this movie kind of sucks, but here you go. So we're not doing this movie any harm worse than it to itself. Can you give us kind of a synopsis, like, let's just let's walk through the plot, which is also kind of again. Once you start going through it, I think you'll see there's so much more do it than there needs to be.

So we have the familiar setup of a pet store that's going to lose its funding. There's always something in these Christmas movies that's going to lose its funding. So there's the trope that fills the most familiar. A grumpy cat resides there, and it's a pet store in the mall, and it's a weird assortment of pets because there's one cat, one dog, one snake. It's a Noah's Ark.

Situation, but with one animal, one frog, one parrot. Yes, it's weird, but Okay, they don't have any specialty in this pet store. Maybe it's a metaphor for the movie itself. It's like we got one of every genre piece, so in the store is losing its funding. Meanwhile, there's a little girl whose mom works at the mall.

Single mom situation, and the little girl, they're definitely like styling her like Taylor Swift of the decade, Okay, and she's like a twelve year old girl who's good hearted. We're told that multiple times she's good hearted, and she is having trouble making friends, and she makes a wish on a magical penny. With a magical mall Santa. Yeah, magical. He's like kind of doing a comedic thing, but like half the.

Movie isn't supporting him with what he's doing. He's doing some funny choices and then yeah, they're like go for wacky and it doesn't work. All the way magical Penny. She wishes to be able to connect with somebody. It ends up being I think she wishes to make like one good friend, and then it's a grumpy cat, so she connects with grumpy cat.

And then it's becomes kind of a heist movie where some two idiot rock star want to be robbers are breaking into the pet store to steal this million dollar dog, which we can get into that later. That didn't really make sense, but the pet store owner is going to sell him to save the store, but then he just left him overnight in the store. I think you'd be a little more careful if your only asset is a million dollar liand Burger and you're just gonna leave it in a mall overnight. That map its y, yes. Very Paul Blart.

Yeah. And then there's a net mall cop who you know, spoiler we find out is actually the villain. He's hired these two goons to steal the dog. But is he also either hired by or in support of the mall management who also wants the pet store out for real? It seems like a personal vendetta, like, yeah, the landlord just doesn't like the pet store because he's petty.

But it doesn't seem like there's a reason behind it. Right, like, oh, if we put a build a bear there, we'll make more money. Like it's it's unclear because it's a mall in twenty fourteen. There's definitely empty stores in there. Yeah, it's gonna be Cole's and Macy's at one side or the other, and then there's a bunch of dead space.

Yeah. So then it becomes about this little girl saving grumpy Cat. Oh so now that she has made this magical wish, she can hear grumpy cats thoughts essentially because no mouthflap. No mouth mouth floppy. Yeah, they can communicate with each other.

So grumpy Cat and her team up together. But it's essentially it's her running around holding grumpy Cat because appet. Times or or very I wish they made more use of that puppet. The puppet was fun. I like it.

So every time the puppet shows up, I chuckled. And but that's like three times. It wasn't enough. The movie ends with the little girl, of course, saving the day and the pet store is saved and Grumpy Cat is adopted by her, and that's the just the overall there's so much more to get into. Well because they had, they worked hard to get to these eighty four minutes.

So you also have a I guess subplot if you even want to call it that, where the little girl's mother is like resisting dating another mall employee. I forget what store he works in. He's an elf. He's an elf. A mom's a waitress.

I think in one of the yes, one of the stories. It's like an Applebee's somewhere like that. Yeah, something, and like so we occasionally cut back to a little Christmas party where they're flirting, and again like this like this is the movie. This is what you put together. Sometimes you get it like, oh, they have to do this really quickly, right, see, Like in Asylum movie, okay, we saw, we see there's specific rim.

Quick we have two weeks to film Atlantic Rim, get on it. But you still could have the thing is there are people trying in this movie, yes, right, like some of the actors, like I think that the two the thugs, right, the Rockstar thugs, like they decided, Okay, no, we're not getting any direction here, let's just do what I've got an idea. Let's go with it, like there's little touches here of like this could have been something, ye, but it's just so the movie doesn't care and it's about being anything, and that makes it. They're very like upsetting watch. It's hard to watch something with so much apathy because yeah, you can't really make fun of it or enjoy it unless people are trying one hundred percent and you feel that.

I agree with you. The actors I think are doing their best with unclear material. The direction is all over the place. It's it's just and it doesn't make sense on lifetime, so it's falling apart. So you can't even really mock it as it's going.

On, no, because if you mocked it, then anybody involved would say like, oh, we knew it was bad, and you're like, yes, okay then, but it's still made a movie and I don't know like it. It's I'm sure you were probably a similar person where you work hard at your art. You probably can grew up that way and probably despise group projects because you knew there was the one kid that didn't care, and this movie is made of all the kids that didn't care. I think the actors are trying. I think that they were given the short end of the stick on everything, and I can see that they're making an effort.

And I actually think Aubrey Plaza, you know, her whole thing is like she's apathetic about everything, but she's trying to make it funny, Like you can see her. She's done the mystery science thing of like trying to punch it up with jokes and the Eve scene, but there's just it's not enough to save the movie because it's also the movie isn't good enough to make fun of? Really, Yeah, yeah, you need to start with something, and there's just nothing here, So you're right. So let's get into the list then, because the first thing is the lead need a lesson, and I guess in this case it's grumpy Cat, right, She's the one that needs to grow. That's well, and the little girl needs to have more faith in herself, but we don't really By the end, she's connected with a cat, but that doesn't it was sort of magical, So I'm with you.

I think it's grumpy Cat. Yeah, and so grumpy Cat, I guess does kind of you know, learn along the way, all right. She by the end, grumpy Cat says she's going the one line I thought was kind of funny on is when she's like, I'm going to adopt you and then she decides to adopt the little girl and like every pet in the pet store. Yeah, so that's kind of cute. There's something sweet about that.

Yeah. And when it started, my notes were, oh, no, Aubrey Plaza is doing Eric Roberts and a chalking dog. Like it felt like, oh, she's in a closet somewhere and she filmed all of this in like half an hour. But I think it is more nuanced than that. I think as you go, like you realize like, no, she's she's doing things with her voice.

She is, she is trying, and I think like Aubrey Plaza, I think isn't a performer who has gone through a sort of like odd kind of cultural like analysis in some ways where it felt very much like she was just phoning things in and was the cool girl who didn't care. And I feel like now as she's older and like you've like actually you're like red interviews or listened to her, You're like, oh no, like this is not easy to do, and like occasionally like she there are levels to what she's doing. And I think she's trying in this, but it's easy to not think she is if you're because the movie doesn't support her anyway. I think that's fair. I looked at where this movie landed in her Parks and rec career, Parks and Recman from two thousand and nine to twenty fifteen, so this.

Is a bigtail end. Yeah. So she's had kind of a good rum as April Bloodgate, so I think her acting has gotten better. Know, she's a little bit older, and I think, yeah, the movie didn't give her much runway to do anything, but she would end up doing She can do drama, and she can do different kinds of comedy like we've seen with the White Lotus and everything, but this was not a good vehicle for her. Yeah.

Oh wow, So the Bland love interest in some ways, like is Crystal the Bland love interest? Is this cat? I like that because the other the other two, the male characters, are really secondary to this. So but yeah, I agree Crystal. There's not much to say about her.

They don't really give her much to do either. She's good hearted, we know this. She kind of like lights up every room she's in, and she has an unclear position where she's kind of a volunteer, but she also is an employee, and it's. Don't clear because she's also twelve. So yeah, right, can children volunteer in a business like I would think of a shelter?

Maybe, but not an excellent Well, the way this pet chop is run, it kind of feels like a shelter. Yeah, it gets an odd and again like it also, I don't know, it wasn't. Didn't we know by twenty fourteen that pet chops aren't good like mall pet shops. Aren't those the worst in the world. I don't.

I just know that when I had friends come in town and buy snails from the mall, they died pretty quickly after because they always they dye their shells like all these fun colors, and then the snail isn't in good place. It was not meant to be hot pink. Yeah, no, it wasn't. There's no hot pink snails in the wild, so they die immediately. Yeah boy, But I mean the act playing Crystal was fine.

I thought, Yeah, you know, she was in Mama. She was one of the I can't remember if she was the like the girl who loved Mama or the girl who loved Jessica Chastain, but you know, good young actor who's just not annoying, which is sometimes the most you can ask for. We're gonna roll like this because again she's not given much. She's had a lot of credits and she played Amanda Seyfried a lot like in Jennifer's Body. Yeah, and in Red Riding Hood, Yes, which is the first movie my husband and I saw together.

That was your date, that was It was never for it was like our third date, but it was the first movie we saw together. What did you think of it? I knew I that my husband was a catch because we laughed in all the same parts, which was most of the movie. Yeah, it wasn't very I saw it in theaters and I remember thinking like, even though I was the right age for the movie, I was like, this is bad. And it has my favorite moment of wait is this cannibalism of unacknowledged cannibalism was the end of the movie.

I can't remember what character it is, but like the character revealed to be bad is like stirring a pot and I think it's a man of savred has like eaten the soup and you find out the soup is somebody in the movie and you're like, oh, so she's are we not acknowledging that? Okay, but that was cannibalism there. We don't know how I forgot that. That's a really great thing. Is just they don't want you to see it, but it's there.

No. Yeah, I remember it was jumping on the Twilight Train too, because it was like she's got two male love interests who want to pick and it was like they're both bland, and you're like, I don't care, just pick one. It'll be more Gary oldman with a with the big burning ox thing. Yep, yep, yes, this is yeah. I was gonna say, this little girl has put her time in.

So good for her. It's not her. Yeah, eventually she'll be able to not be known as the girl from the Grumpy Cat Movie. She'll get there. Yeah, definitely.

Let's talk about her setting, which, you know, if I have to pick, like, was there anything good about Grumpy Cat Movie, I'd be like, I don't know. The whole movie was set in them. All. Mall movies are fun. I love mall movies.

I love mall It's contained. Also, it's a one night movie, which is also a funsult malls are really fun, and there's something that feels like weirdly safe about them because it's nostalgic. It has this childhood thing, and I mean they acknowledge the similarities to Paul Blart with the mall. Coop character didn't remind you of any mall movies you love? You know, I feel like there was definitely some.

And this could just be because this is a movie I grew up watching like weekly. But there's a certainly a Dawn of the Dead element to this movie. Oh that's a lot of running, a lot of running. They get in the car, they're driving the car through the mall. There's a well, which in the remake played a big part.

So it felt a little bit like, oh no, like, you know, if nothing else, the director did his homework on land, Like what can I use a mall for? What can I get out of this? I have an escalator, I have a well. I have cars in the mall like I have a you know, every mall in movies will have the like not hardware, but like the sporting goods store, which always is good for okay good. We can have guns in a movie.

In this case, we can have paint guns in a movie. So I appreciated the use of the mall, and I think you're right. They use every big set piece, especially because it's a Christmas movie. We got all of like the love interest being an elf. We had not one but two malls.

So yeah, we worked it all the way around. Yeah, yeah, all right. So number four is dead parents or a dead wife. There's it's not a big part of it, but there are a few references to dead family members in this movie. Did you catch anny?

No, I cat, I caught dead marriage because there was a divorce that was hanging over the family. What were the dead relatives? Okay, so Marcus who is the shop owner, I wrote his name down then because I thought he was gonna play a bigger part. But the pet shop owner, I believe mentions he has a dead wife. Yes he does, Yes, he does.

And then grumpy Cat like is making fun of it, and the little girl who just learns she can hear grumpy Cat is like, you're such a sad sack, like just quoting what grumpy Cat said. You're right, right, right, So yeah, Crystal's parents are divorced, not dead. But this is the this is the one where I was like, who is this movie for? Rumpy Cat makes a reference at one point. I forget exactly the line, but it's something of like going to heaven or like Grumby Cat thinks she's dead and she said, I saw I think I saw my brother Arturo.

Yeah, so grumpy Cat has a dead water, which. Is not unusual for a cat, but for a kid's movie like an animal dye. Also, there's multiple jokes about grumpy Cat dying and there's even a scene where she imagines a event giving her a shot. So like that was pretty dark. Yeah, I almost wanted to.

It's like, if you're gonna go dark, Grumpy Cat movie. Dark, go dark, give us the HP and Marl Coop if you want to do it that way. But you can't have it all though. You can't be everything. Pick where you want your paw to go.

Pick one. Yeah you're still tv GG. I guess exactly Number five is the sassy sidekick, which I feel like, you know, I don't know if there's an exact sidekick going, well, you have I guess animals, right, The animals all kind of get to do a sassy little something, and. Every animal has its own like accent and personality, and the snake is really sassy, and we get a great scene where the snake is thrown and it's clearly plastic. So yeah, I think you're right every animal and the dog is really stupid.

He's kind of like. Which I actually did appreciate because I believe leon Bergers are generally very dumb. And I liked the way I don't know who was voicing him, but like he kind of played it like like a like a like a himbo, and that worked for me. He was a male model. He knew he was good looking, and that was the end.

Of it, you know. Yep, yes, I'll take that. Uh. Now our villain, of which we have multiple, we do. Now I meet my personal villain.

I did love George flipping on us from being like kind of a duf is Paul Blart type? But then it's like is he brilliant? And he even says this himself. He's like, was I aware that I was putting out this image of being, you know, perceived as a fool or am I actually a fool? Like it was unclear?

Yes, the movie, I'd like to think, And the actor was it Daniel. Robucht, Yeah, oh yeah, he's got a long history. I met a had a convention once and he was a very pleasant man. What was the convention was a comic it. Was no, it was a horror movie convention, but he does it was Horror Hound in the Midwest, and they actually do it in Ohio.

I think he made Ohio based, now that I'm saying that. And he does a lot of stuff with like monster mask makers and things, so I think that's what his main thing there was. It wasn't just like get your picture with Daniel Roebuck. It was like, come see Daniel Roebucks monster masks and stuff. So okay, he's one of those guys.

He shows up and you're like, he's good. Okay, it's a movie. Yeah, So I was glad they had, like that was probably the biggest budget of an Aubrey Plaza because yeah, he brought something to it. The other actors, to me, felt like they were probably in a lot of Canadian commercials. There's a lot of canadianisms going on here certainly, but you know, again, they're doing their best, and I think it was a big like I'm sure it was a big thing for them and everything, but it just they we needed one Daniel Roebuck at least.

Right right, Yeah, we got yeah, so then he's got his sidekicks. The two band guys who I found amusing enough, and we. Do have them. Yeah, but they were fine. I mean, they they were trying.

They were clearly to me, doing a lot of work together and figure and like, who knows, maybe I don't want to take all the credit away from director. Maybe he was like, hey, hit that high note. But it felt a lot like these guys had figured out their rapport and how to play off each other. They were going for a home alone vibe of like I mean, and this is maybe where it fell apart from you with them is they couldn't decide who was gonna be dumb and which was dumber because they were both kind of dumb. But there was one guy who was slightly smarter.

And you do need if you're gonna do peas in a pod, somebody has to call the other one out a little bit. Yep, yeah you need uh, I guess what Beavis vers but like butt Head being a little smarter than Beavis, just a little smarter little bit. Yeah, we also have mean girls, right, we have like a trio of just like bratty twelve year olds. For no reason, like unmotivated mean girls like they're going for like truly the Heathers or the mean girls think that there's three of them. They appear out of nowhere, they hate her for no reason existing, and then at the end they all get a lump of colon.

I had forgotten about them at that point. Yes, and that was good again, like, okay, good, somebody had a good idea in this movie, because I thought that was amusing enough. Maybe they should have brought them back in the middle, though, because I genuinely forgot these characters existed. And I watched You watched it on a plane. You watched it all in one sitting, right.

I watched it on a plane on my phone, which was the correct way to watch it. I was like, oh, that was screen. So the person next to you didn't know what you were watching. I'm afraid he didn't know. And I Will said, I'm sorry, I'm not like this normally.

I was forced to do this. You don't know. This wasn't my choice. It's ironic. I didn't pick this, They picked me.

I did, yes, And I also did kind of throw this one at you of like you know because of Christmas. I've never seen it, so. I thought, being like a cat movie, it has to be fun, which they really Yeah, they wrapped the turn and foil here, Yes. They did, and I can say my cats also did not enjoy it. I don't know, well your cat didn't get to watch it because you're wearing on a plane, but.

Uh, yeah they missed nothing though, Yes. Yes, so they did miss montages, of which we had a few. Wrote I wrote down running through mall. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if you'd call this fight in the paintball scene.

It was kind of a moment montage. It went on for Well what. Montages were you talking about? Though? So the ones I thought were early on.

There's sort of like a fantasy of like, oh, here's what happens in this movie where he still saves the day and whenever there's a spinning newspaper, I feel like it's a montage. Yeah, we get a spinning newspaper and mugshots, which again was like okay, here and there this movie had like some cute things going on. Then there's also like a black and white silent movie fantasy of it going the other way and being sad. Yes, which again stylistically had something some fun and post and it also leaned into the fact that cat comes from a meme and there was a couple of framings where they used like the meme block letters and I thought that's fun, like, yeah, there's where it came from. Yeah, and then you know, it went away and that was it.

It was fun quickly, yeah, and then last was it. I wrote down the everyone Loves You montage of mal friends at the end, which I guess was like when everybody's like, Crystal, you're great that there's a little bit of like a we all love you, but. It's a wonderful life moment, you think. So yeah. Yeah.

I think that was where I was starting to be like, oh god. It was a little bit like are we gonna crash? Can we crash? I kept checking. I was like is it yeah?

Do we crash yet? I was like how much is left? And I was like, oh, it's only been seven minutes since the movie started? Can I get interrupted for a delta training video? Please?

Please? Anything else? Can the captain make an announcement? Please? I'm begging you make an announcement?

The flight is overbooked? Kick me off? Yeah? Oh god, Well, next is slapstick. And I don't know about you, but I just didn't see any of that in this movie.

The slapstick really like it was the Robbers. Those robbers went oh yeah, hard for what they did. And I again, I appreciate that they were trying. Less their Canadian souls. Yea, bless their Canadian souls.

We had the second Malsanta, the one who gives her the magical mission. When he disappears, he like fell on the floor essentially, So there was some slapstick in that moment. Yep. Any other moments you're thinking of. I guess the last one was the when animals attack, ending of when they all kind of came up and I need to ask.

I meant to rewind it a little bit, but then I thought that's gonna be weird. Did the dog just have an active tail? Or were there a lot of shots that you said to yourself, this dog has a big peniss Oh wow. There's a couple of shots of the jacker. It's like, this is the not the Leonberger, this is the little Jack Russell Nick who just is like is like sitting on his like you know where, like a dog sitting right.

So back lights down on the ground, front feet pointing forward, and the dog's like a little bit up moving and you just see something right in the middle, and maybe it was the tail, but it also looked like it might have been the penis. And it was just very like the day before. My husband had been talking to me. I forget how we started talking about this, and we were watching a movie that had horses, and he was telling me about years ago when he did like this community theater outdoor thing in Kentucky, and somebody's job on the on this production was to be the literal cock blocker because they had horses and occasionally, when a horse gets an erection, it's really hard to look at anything else, of course, so there was always somebody in the cast, like in the ex in the you know, in the chorus, who had to just keep his eye on the horse's cock and make sure that if it was getting bigger, he would then move in front of it in such a way that was not distracting to anyone.

And I so, I guess it was just on my brain to when I'm looking at a dog, to think like, is a dog's penis prominent? And it felt very prominent to me. I bet it was I because I was watching it on a cell phone. Yeah, hard to see. I wouldn't have would miss me that big?

Yeah, No, I you had like. The IMAX compared to what I was like. Yeah yeah yeah. So people, if you wanna please everyone who does decide to watch grump, yeah, please weigh in on the comments and tell us if it's a penis or tail. That's a good, good question.

All right, So let's talk about our sage old person, which I don't know that we have. It kind of was like nine to ten, kind of merged, and sometimes that's the way it should be, right, your sage old person in the best case scenario is actually Santa Claus. It was Santa. Yeah, and it's this year. Like I've had the last couple of years, Santa has been like a smaller and smaller part of the movies.

You just it's more about like relationships. So usually there's no real Santa. So if nothing else, again, this movie did give us a real Santa, because this is the real Santa, right even though we Santa, Yeah. He's young, he doesn't look like the typical Santa that we've all expected. He's played by stand up Russell Peters because I was like, who is that guy?

I've seen him before, so he's giving some funny improv, but this almost feels like too much funny improv. And then it's like, okay, but you need to still play Santa Russell. Right, and I'm not buying you a Santa. I'm not buying any If they pushed that, yeah, it's like but they didn't acknowledge that. Okay, you don't look like our typical Santa, because there is a typical Santa, right.

Like, here's your very fake beard right like, and you were clearly not in past the age of forty. I think it also didn't help that before I watched this movie, I went through the Kansas City Airport and I saw a very convincing man who looked like Santa. I will text you the picture. He went through security in front of me, and even TSA was like, how was it going, Saint Nick? Like everybody was thinking.

He was wearing a red and white sweater too, like he was laeard the right age, like he was leaning into it. So I was like, I had Santa. On the right when you see and I like the idea of like, oh, that ain't Santa but like at that point, maybe cast a woman or cast like, you know, something bigger. If you're gonna say, oh, it's not really Santa, but it is Santa, then again, like make a bolder choice at that point. It's like, uh, what is the Elizabeth Hurley devil movie but dazzled?

Yeah, but dazzled? Yeah, yeah, go for like uh not, like, okay, the Devil's a woman and it's a beautiful woman versus like a guy with red horns, Like let's go in the opposite direction here. Yeah, just a lot of it's like there were a couple of I want to say a lot of there were a couple of ideas that somebody had of like, oh, this is gonna be clever if we had a Santa. That's like, so not Santa, but it's Sannah. Okay, that's great.

What are you gonna do with it? Oh no, that was it. We just did it, Like did you washush harder? You lack commitment. You gotta commit guys, all right.

So now the book So yeah, I mean again, even though this isn't necessarily the traditional Hollywood or Hallmark type romance, like still it's a couple of the beats, but let's look at the other parts of a Christmas movie in the bonus round, see what we get. And the first thing is the is the music, which normally is just peppered with public domain carols because you can do them cheaply and cover them however you want to. Is it weird for me to say there wasn't enough Christmas movie music in this Christmas movie? There was the very bare minimum. We got deck the halls.

Of course, there was some jingle bells. Yes, meowing jingle bells as well. There were yes up on the housetop, which is okay. But then we also had my favorite, which was The Good, The Bad, the Ugly soundtrack? Yes, but did we also have the A Team was A team also?

It was probably may think we might if all the budget. Went though for those a lot of it must have. Yeah, that's interesting to me they made that choice, like we're going in on music for those two songs. Because lifetime programming for women who love the A Team and the Good, The Bad the Ugly? Right?

Yeah, again, who is this movie for? Because it's child safe, but it's I don't know that children would like. It, Yes, children and who are carrying around their Clint Eastwood lunchboxes all the time? Who is it for? Yes?

That kid? That one kid? Yeah? All right, so again food, I don't think really get any food, right we have. There's a discussion at the holiday party when the guy from I Think the Mexican restaurant wins and he talks about like he does some sort of metaphor about making a perfect talk like a soft taco.

I believe in the line, which is. Kind of fun, except we only had seen that guy once before at the beginning, and never again, so it was basically like buying time. And I couldn't decide if it was racist or not. I couldn't either, and I decided we'll go with no. But it felt still kind of racist.

A little bit. Yeah. The movie there was also like a I took a screenshot of any lines that didn't age well. That one didn't do well? Did you catch the one?

There was a bit of a fat shaming joke at the beginning with Anta. Oh I did not, but not surprising. It was uh, let me see if I have it. I mean, christ is the season for fat shaming, as love actually taught us. I forgot about that part of love actually, Okay, oh, I screenshotted it.

Oh okay, this is what Santa. Santa is the fat chamer here, so he's fat shaming back. He's pushing back to a larger child who's on his lap, and he says, oh my god, yes you remember this, Yes I do. You're not exactly anarexic, which is like two levels of okay that to a child. Yeah, I don't say that at all, but also like I don't know, maybe don't give a child an eating disordera like.

You're not exactly righty klom okay, that's that's better. But you're not exactly a model. Fine, don't say you're not exactly like I just think being that it is kind of a HIDS movie that really wasn't a great joke again, like. If you were going for black comedy, it would have been fine and could have been funny, but you can't do that. In the same movie where it's like Crystal found love with grumpy Cat and isn't that great?

She believes in herself now like you can'tnot you can't mix those two. No, you can't have both. You gotta go one direction. That one that one didn't age so. Well, No, no it did not all right, our small business in danger obviously the pet shop.

Yes, uh. There is also a lot of product placement which I think was real. I took a screenshot of it as well. There was a line I buy them from and I don't know if this was a joke. Magical Christmas Coins dot co dot UK slash cans dot com did not look up the url I should have.

That was a lot of play so hard to just I don't know if that was real. But there's a lot of Grumpy Cat swag which definitely was real. Yeah, I mean the entire movie is essentially a commercial for grumpy Cat, so there is even though they're not like giving you a QR code. Well twenty fourteen, we weren't doing this so much, but they're not telling you like live shame dot com girl slash grumpy Cat, but like, yes, you can buy that sweater, you can buy that mug, you can buy that like Cards Against Humanity game with Grumpy Cat's face on it. Like it's all there for you.

I went to the Grumpy Cat Swag store today because it's been a number of years this grumpy Cat died. Yeah, and almost every item is seventy five dollars, so they've I don't know if they're like posts post Grumpy Cat's death or like it's worth more and they're just trying to clear it out and like we have one right or. Is it like tariff faced, like it gets. My choice seventy five dollars. If you want a T shirt it was.

Weird yeow wow wow. At that point, just go to your local like mall shop where you can give them a picture and they can print it on a T shirt, right, yeah for ten dollars. Yeah. Yeah. There's also because it's in a mall.

You have a lot of stores in the mall that we occasionally walk by an okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, but they didn't industry Yeah, oh. I like I need it to be real, right, because I've always said I don't understand why more dentist office don't just offer you like walk in, sit down. They give you a shot and knock you out for an hour and do whatever they have to do to your mouth. That's the only fun part is if they knock you out and you get a little bit high.

I don't think i've ever The only time I was ever knocked out was when I got my wisdom teeth removed. I've had root canals and I've sat there saying like this is gonna be paint. Like I have an overactive tongue and you always yell at me, just like punch me in the face and knock me out. You don't even have to give me the gas, just make me unconscious while you do these awful things in my mouth. But instead, I guess I just need to see if sedation dentistry is a chain.

I feel like. Every dentist makes each client feel bad about whatever they have, Like overactive tongue is very funny. I haven't heard that. My last dentisappointment of the dental hygienist told me she's like, you've probably heard this before, but you have an overby like Kelly Clarkson. That's like, no, I haven't, And what specific insult that was.

She's like, Yay, your job's gonna lie, but don't worry. Kelly Clarkson has the same thing. And I was like, and she's doing just fine. Don't lay what you've probably have been before. It's like, right, I get this all the time.

You're right. People say that to me. Yeah. Wow. I was at the dentist about two weeks ago, and I had like the worst dental hygenists I have ever had in my life.

Yeah. I walk into the room and I'm hold, it's it's freezing outside. So I have my winter coat in my pocket book because I'm a woman, and I carry these things with me. And she's like, all right, sit down. I'm like, where do I put this?

There's no table, there's no hangers, like, I don't know, Like, well, I okay, I guess I will just put it in the corner. Is that going to be in your way? I do? It's fine, all right, that's a choice. And then she's trying to do X rays on the one side of my mouth and she's not getting it and she's just so huffy about it, and I look at her.

I'm like, I'm forty three years old. I have had X rays on my mouth for forty years and they've been able to Because she was like, I just can't do it. I'm like, no, you can trust me. Every other dental hygenist has been able to do this. And then when she's doing the actual like cleaning, sheeps yelling at me for my tongue, like and she's like relaxed your tone.

And I'm like okay, and she's like, no, you're not relaxing. And I'm like, all right, can you give me a mirror and tell me what tell me what I'm doing, because I clearly my definition of relaxing my tongue is different from yours. I don't know what my tongue is doing. I need to see what I'm supposed to do versus what I'm not supposed to do. And she was like, no, that won't help.

Well, well right, right, somehow. She didn't like end up stabbing me or you know, drilling my lip, which did happen to me years ago. Oh, but people be careful when you go to your dentist. Choose them. Well, I know, I know.

My dentist is really into amateur photography, but he every room in. His lifetime movie. I know, I know, but it's all from his vacation. So it's like every time I go there, I'm like, oh, it's so nice. He went to Greece, and my husband and I have talked about it.

There's one picture that's really good and the rest are very average, but he's really proud of it, like and it's like maybe it's mean to me, but I'm like that one's good, but the rest of them are. See. Plus, I like the idea that he could do like a slide show that plays like above you when you're sitting down, so you're forced to look at it. I also really think about the meaning behind each picture as he like stabs your mouth. It's like, Wow, he has such perspective.

And I'm glad he's making good money off my team exactly. I'm glad that my cavity is funding his trip to Egypt. Good for him indeed. All right, so we mentioned the child because number five is a flowing child, and you know at the lead actress is fine, but we do Okay, am I crazy? The kid who was not anorexic if we'll call him that.

Yeah. Were there twins? That was a different moment. There was two, okay, a pair of Asian twins later in the movie, and they got some funny lines. They were like kind of like they were grilling.

I'm like, who are these kids? Bring them there in the movie. Make them the stars of this movie and you would have had a totally different attitude. They're like grilling Santa. And then Crystal, the little girl comes by and then they start reeling crystal and it's like, wait, are these kids improvising?

They're pretty good. Like that, And I don't see them credited because I was looking for, like, okay, there should be two boys with the same last name, because clearly they are twins, and I don't think they're actually on IMDb here, and that's very disappointing because they're funny or it's. A baller move and they don't need that. And oh they're like uncredited. We don't want this on a resumes.

We don't really want that. We're fine. We just think that as a favorite of the director. Dad owed us. You know, we figured we'd do something.

So number six, perfect tree, we don't we don't get a tree, don't need it. Yeah, but empty coffee cup acting, Oh that was at. The very end. Did you catch it? It did?

It took a long time. It was like eighty three minutes in and we finally get empty coffee cups. I was happy for you, because I know that's a big thing you look for. I didn't think we get it, and then we did. Yeah, And especially when you're in the mall, like you've got cinnamons everywhere, come on, give it to me.

But they made us wait and again certain things I'll give the movie credit for. Yeah, it was worth it. All right. So actors trying hard not to actually eat on camera. Again, there wasn't really much for a mall movie.

There wasn't enough food in my opinion. No, there was very little eating in that movie. Yeah, yeah, just a shame. Canadianisms so many, I mean all of the actors were I think Canadian, so it was it was I can't think of a specific example, but it was everybody. So it kind of canceled it out for me.

Yeah. Just you started to listen and you're like this, this is not there's some of these vowels are doing weird things, and yes, they were all all Canadian. The Warm Weather Watch, now most of this is taking place inside, but we do we do go outside a little bit, and we do see outerwear presumable its December and Ohio based on the license plates in the movie. And again like nobody's got a winter coat. No, it doesn't look that cold outside to me, Like it looks like it's maybe fifty degrees or something like that.

With global warming, I guess that's probably could be Ohio. In December, but you know. It could be. Yeah, it's so not a huge offendor here, right right. We don't have any matchmaking via old people because we well, although Santa kind of does match make Crystal and Grumpy Cat in a.

Way, and we have Crystal's mom being yes, I mean it's not it's less of match making. But like Die at the Wall, the mall asked forround, she finally goes for it at the end. Yes, yes uh. And then last is our fashion, which normally we look out for pea coats and other related fashion. I don't think we have any pea coats in this movie, which is disappointing.

Are disappointing, but the. Fashion in general, I mean, we have an ugly christmaswater contest. Very run of the mill. I didn't see anything in there that stood up. What was impressive though, was Grumpy Cat's fashion, which true for having a cat in a movie.

I was impressed. They did a lot of hats. They did a lot of like costumes, like very like classic cat costumes. Yes, yes, it's some very like seasonal, some very like a little Charles Dickens bowler at one point. Yes, definitely a dickenzie in theme with the cat costumes.

Yep, that's the best we can do, I think. So overall, how has your life changed after watching Grumpycat's Worst Christmas Ever? Well, I thought I would answer that question with a quote from the AV Club about this movie. The AV Club called it the largest turn in Lifetime's crab crown of original programming, so unforgiving, so psychologically trying, that the process alone leaves the viewers straining to hear the dialogue over the sound of the soul being crushed wholesale bone and sit wrenched apart at the joint. That's a great quote.

So that great quote, I feel like it's. Yeah, it's a little dramatic for fun, but that's accurate. I wanted the ninety minutes back that I watched the movie, and then I of course had to take time to analyze it so I could have informed discussion. And I really there was not much from this movie that was worth salvaging. Maybe what salvaging is is that it's good to we have a record of Grumpy Cat on film because she's no longer with us.

Rip Tartar Sauce gone too soon. And we really what a cute cat. At the end of the day, that cat. What a face? You know, what a face and you know it.

I think the the grumpy cat face to me is something that now, like in life, I do often look at and reference like one of our old cats kind of had a resting grumpy cat face. I think Melissa Joan Hart has a resting grumpy cat face where she is not reacting to anything when she's not speaking. And I think it's true of a lot of people out there, like some people like naturally, their mouth kind of goes down and now you look there like, oh my god, grumpy cat. So there is something to you know, the legacy. I think the meme legacy is it's something like I I guess the internet has gotten bigger or has gotten more what's the word like, uh more siloed?

Yeah, yeah, that's it. You still have things that break out though, right like the Yeah I guess it was a Housewives meme where it was like the women yelling at each other and pointing and then there's a cat. But then Housewives I. Don't want to know. Yeah, yeah, you still.

Have some things that sort of break through. But grumpy Cat really was this Like I think when in twenty years, when we go back and do a like I love the oughts, I love the teens, like those kinds of look backs, like you can't ignore grumpy Cat. That's true. Was that your biggest takeaway from the movie, that you you got to see Grumpy Cat again? I'd say it it was that.

And I think just being in a way so disappointed because there's no such thing as like an unmakeable movie or a concept that isn't meant to be a movie right when I guess was it the Lego movie in Barbie right where things that people are like, oh, that's gonna be Oh, come on, how you do that? I don't know. Why don't you ask the people who made Clue? Because when they made Clue, everybody thought that was a terrible idea, And you know what movie is one of the best movies of all time, Clue. So the idea of anything being like, oh, you, this is guaranteed to be a bad movie, or there's no reason even trying it, Like, I think that's what guts me about this movie, because there was a way to make this and it never would have been the Lego movie.

It never would have transcended that. But you could have made something really unique and special here, yes, And instead it felt like whoever the powers that be were, whether it was a director, whether it was Lifetime, whether it was the producers, somebody like kept stepping in saying, just make the movie, just just do it. And so you have people trying in the movie, but they're left out to dry and there's nowhere for them to go. And it didn't have to be so bad. It could have been interesting, It could have been clever.

It could have winked in a way that didn't feel like it was making fun of you for even like winking back. And that yes, yeah, disappoints me. I know. And I wonder, I mean, knowing that Audrey Plaza had so much more gas in her in her career that was to come, I wonder like, could they have used her as on camera talent? Was that ever an option?

Could she have ever been in the movie, actually been in physically, Like, yeah, I don't know what the parameters were on it. Maybe the budget was just so low that it was like, just do it so quickly, yeah, yeah, and throw her in the voiceover part of it. I don't know, but I'm with you. I do wish they had done something else with it. Or it just picked at least one direction, like make it just a cheesy kids movie, or make it like kind of a dark comedy, like give us something.

But it was a good lesson to me that if you're gonna write in one direction, really commit one hundred because that's if anything, that's our takeaway. If you don't commit, no one respects you. Yeah, and never walk into something deciding that you're smarter than your audience. I think this movie feels like, oh, we know this is so stupid, we can't believe you're even watching it. Yeah, yeah, you feel that.

Yeah, you're like I would have turned it off if I if. I all of it. But do you are you going to take anything to your relationship with your cats from this movie? What a question? As my one cat now decided she doesn't want to be in this room anymore.

She broke into this room, closed the door behind her, and now she's mapped to and I guarantee if I get up and open that door, you know it's gonna do. She's going to stand right at that door meaving back at me to come back in. A self imposed escape rooms so much so much. I mean I already talked to my cats and they talk back to me like you too, you know your cat's accents and voices. Yes, yeah, we have a whole I mean, I don't know how deep you go into your backstories with your husband.

Deep okay, pretty deep okay, like bred sticks. We have a whole storyline about her being a DJ and she works at Fordham on Sundays, she works on. The Irish radio Okay, nice, nice. It makes sense. Yeah, and she's dating one of the DJs.

He doesn't know it, but like there's like a human cat relationship happening. And she's also a business owner, like we have all the issues and newspaper entrepreneurial. Yeah, she's got she's a mogul. And Dorian he's kind of like a little boy and he's best friends with a frog down the hallway. Like there's a.

Whole like and in my mind it's real because we talk about it, probably more than we talk about anything else. Oh yeah, no, there there are times where like we realize at a certain point the way we're talking about her cats, like oh no, but the end of the day, like they they are cats, Like we're saying, well, you know, Kit would never want to do this, Like no, that's the Kit we've created. Like Kit's a cat. If she wants to eat a mouse, She's gonna eat a mouse. Yeah.

Our their story is they are Dotty and Kit from leaving their own. Kit is a little lori pettykis a scratchy voice. Uh. She's very intense and very athletic. She's a lesbian, Okay, she but she's like not really like in like she's like she has like no interest in dating, but she definitely swear that way.

She is very feels very inferior to Dottie. Dottie is just very like chill and elegant and yeah, like tries really hard not to like get Kit to be jealous of her, but it's just like her existence that does that. Yeah. Yeah. And and Dottie can get really intense when it comes to like the laser pointer or or a bug.

So there is that sense of you know, like like uh hints, and she has that intensity in her she's just trying to guard it, whereas Kid is just all out. We have issues with her working out too hard. Whenever I go to the grocery store or she asked for me to get her protein powder and we're like, oh, that's not good for you. It's a constant, you know. I even know what kind of figure skaters they'd be.

Like Kit would be a pairs girl. She would never find a partner that was good enough for her, but she'd be really good at pairs, Like you could throw her, you could do all that. Yeah, and Dottie would do solo LifeStance. So yeah, we figured it all out. I love the specific lore of everyone's cat, Like it's the amount of time we spend.

Like I think most of marriage is just talking about and imagine backstories of cats like that's and most of the texts I said my husband are like Dorian said this, and it's like all. So in a way, this movie does resonate with me because I. Like how we know they talk too. Yeah, they definitely communicate, and like I know they have personalities and like Dorian likes to dance with me and like certain things, like I know, it's like they've told me. So I understand this movie that way.

Yeah, and I wish it just trusted itself to go that route a little deeper, but just lean into it, lean accept it. Except you're making a movie about Grumby cat and make the best damn grumpy Cat movie you can make in. The remake, Well, it's not possible because Grumpycat is no longer with us in the remake. What do we do differently if we can change one thing, only one thing. Oh God, only one thing.

Oh okay, I am not having the I think the first thing I would do is scratch out the entire Crystal storyline. I don't want this movie to be about a little girl. I want this movie to be about the hijackers who who realize the error of their ways when they fall in love with Grumby Cat and decide instead they're going to make a band and Grumpy Cat's gonna play the drums, Like yes, that's I think. The first mistake of this movie was trying to be about and for a kid when it didn't actually have that sensitivity to it. We're going to jump off yours like, okay, I'm imagining that was your wish, and then I can piggy back off of.

Your So gave you the next coin, Yeah, so. I take it. Yeah, exactly, So I throw it in the fountain, and my wish off of that wish, because I agree with it, is this is not a lifetime. This is on HBO because that would make a world that would affect every decision making process. Bigger budget can go darker with the comedy, and it's just not going to mess around about certain things that Lifetime didn't know how to do this with.

It was the wrong audience altogether, So that was a good way to we kind of like West of the magied It. Yeah, we kind of. Yeah, I think you can revisit this material with puppet grumpy Cat, right, yeah, use you know what I'm normally not for. I'm actually very incredibly against using like old video footage of an actor for a movie they didn't consent to. But but I mean, like grumpy Cat didn't necessarily consent to be in the grump Cat Christmas Movie, So I feel like you could take video footage of grumpy Cat and insert her into a new story and would be okay with that.

I think animals might be the one exception, because I go with one. They never really get to consent to be in anything, it's. Right, So if they're going to be an animal actor, well then you've you've already broken the rule. So why not just also resurrects Buds Mackenzie and put him in I don't know, pride and prejudice. It's fine.

I'm putting mister Ed in all of my videos. Now, yeah, MEANU butter track it works, it works all right? Well where can the people find you? And you do many very cool and wonderful things, so tell them where to go. Thank you.

I'm on Instagram at the Emily Minez. That's very impressive because the other Emily Menez is an architect and I want to meet her one day, but I have not got the courage to email her yet. I want that to be a movie in itself. I know. I want to, like, I want to pitch a piece to The New Yorker about meeting myself for dinner because I'm nervous.

Oh, it's such a I have said this before. I do occasionally google my name not to see like, oh, who's no, I need to make sure there's no other Emily in Trevia out there. There was a moment where there was an Emily who married somebody with the last name in Travia and I she did not take it. And yes, I do occasionally still check that and make sure that she has continued to make that correct life decision. For many reasons, one of them being to not have my name.

How old is she? I think a little younger than me. Okay, so she may outlive you if things go the natural route. Yes, yes, but hopefully she'll still be not in Travia. She might be waiting until the day you die to take the last name.

It's true. Or if she has like a grandchild, the grandchild they might Oh, I need I need to plan ahead for that. Okay, yeah, you need to think this through. Are you working on anything interesting right now? Oh?

Just getting these done. I got a few more of these to go, and then back to the usual podcasting and blogging and trying to keep my cat from stepping on things she should Yeah. Your camera zoomed in the second, perfect comedic timing. All right, So the Emily Menez on Instagram and Blue. Sky, I'm on there, but I never check it.

Does anyone check it? It didn't quite catch. No. It's so disappointing because I really want that to be a thing, but nobody talks to anyone there, so it feels like I. Know I'm on it, but no one's checking it.

So yeah, and I still say my co host Christine always says like, no, come do stuff there. Well, then like invite me to where people are talking because I'm not finding it. So no, it's true, it's true, all right. But follow you on Instagram and that is where we will see many of your writings, many of your performings, and so on and so on. I've got some live shows coming up next year for slack Jaw.

It should be fun, lots of lots of interesting things ahead. Very exciting. Well, thank you, and have yourself a merry little Christmas you as. Well, and have yourself a meaw. I forgot.

That's another thing Aubrey Plast does. Occasionally you could tell like she's in the booth like I don't know, Okay, I'll sure Crystal, that sounds good. Meow Yeah, she ends a lot of vines with meo. So should we end this with the meow? Yes?

All right, Merry Christmas meow, Merry Christmas meow? So pleasefall. We hear the south, tiny paws are dancing round, burring whispers, belly cassin has. They just don't care. Yllie Christmas, trees y, Hallie Christmas.

We just want the box, not the sweet jingle passes, scratchings, chasing light we love the most stockings filled with this. She dreams ribbon tangles racing a belle Christmas. Give a sex straa trees there Belli Christmas. We just want the box, not the. Sweets and soult twinkles.

They attack ornaments, take quite the smack tree. Is wabbling down. NCOs mischief and their fluffitos. They are regali Christmas. Give them a sex.

Straw trees they are begulle Christmas. We just want the box, not the sweet