Stocking Stuffers 9.3 A Merry Scottish Christmas with Kevin Matthews

That's a hard way to slay a Christmas song. This brother sister reunion will unwrap up family secret of royal proportions. Mom, are you a duchess? Well, I suppose it's time you learned the truth. I feel like I am in the middle of some fairy tale.

There's something about this place. This is the best Christmas I've had in a long time. A merry Scottish Christmas on Hallmark. Hello or Mick, Hello, and welcome to another episode of stocking Stuffers. I am here again.

As you heard, we are going north and for me, we are going east, east, west, east east and north up to Scotland. Kind of maybe we'll talk about that for a merry Scottish Christmas. And obviously, as you probably gathered, I am not Scottish in any way, shape or form. So therefore I can't I can't handle this by myself. I don't know what's real and what's not.

I don't know if it is still a thing that you say in twenty twenty three of asking a man wearing a kilt what he's wearing underneath. So therefore I turned to the expert, not just an expert in all things Scotland but also in movies and Christmas movies. It is the one the only Kevin Matthews of Raiders of the podcast Kevin tell Us the Proper way to say Hello in Scotland. I am equally bemused by now, Emily, I think I should just say, I think I should be wearing a kilt right now, right and probably playing bagpipes at some point. Yes, I fully expect at some point in recording that, like I'm just gonna jump because I'm gonna hear you just take out bagpipes to play into the next intro.

It's a thing that like everybody in Scotland does, right, Yeah, with a lunch of whiskey and biscuits every day, and obviously hagis for breakfast every morning, right like the same way I have cereal, you have haggis, Yes, every morning. If you don't have a full cook breakfast, just put the haggis on the cereal. Just enjoy the haggis anyway you can. Oh, I like this, So like the fat of the haggis sort of becomes like the milk and softens like your cereal. Does that work?

It does? And you can have it still hot or you can leave it to cool and do that, or you can have a spare drawer of porridge available porridge. Oh okay, have you tried porridge? I can't say I have no that is, aside from the haggis chat. Porridge oats are a very nice, hearty breakfast.

And and you wash all of this down with a mac mistletoe mocha, right, yeah, yeah, You've always got to have your mac mistletoe moca's. They'll probably be in small tartan cups as well. Yes, I know everybody listening thinks that we're joking, but like, these are all things that happen in this movie essentially. Yeah, so now a merry Scottish chrissh uh My only other like Scott I had a friend growing whose mother was Scottish, so like I knew her accident, but I also couldn't understand most of what she said, so that never really helped me learn anything. So I'm not even gonna try.

But we have a lot to dive into this movie. So just overall, I just need to ask, how, on a scale of like one bagpipe to the traditional number of pipes in a bagpipe, how many bagpipes of authentic Scottishness is in this movie maybe two. Okay, there is actually a thing if you go about the UK for your fry up in the morning, if you have the full cook breakfast genuinely, you can have a full English which has them, and if you are north of the border, they will call a full Scottish and you will have a slice of haggis on the plate. Oh wow, So that that, although we're joking about it, that is like, it is actually a thing that happens all the time. If you go to a lot of hotels and bnbs that are doing the full Scottish, you'll do it.

I have done it. I have a partaken of that. It's quite nice. So that is something that I thought was authentic. Okay, some people do like the whiskey, probably some in a moca, but we definitely don't have bagpipers constantly playing Christmas carols to weak you up in the morning.

So in other words, you don't live in Hell. No, that would definitely be That would be someone getting murdered at seven am in the morning. Okay, that makes perfect sense. So I did pick this movie once I saw that it was there and I knew I could have you as a guest, I said, like, I mean, come on, it is a twenty twenty three Hallmark original. Again, oddly enough, for some reason, I don't get the Hallmark channel on my cable box, but I can DVR the Hallmark channel, so it's a fun hack for anybody out there.

So I recorded it that way and watched it, which meant I got to kind of check check out a couple of commercials, which is always fun. When you're watching these movies, you have, you know, some form of access to the Hallmark Channel and Hamework movies, and this one we had to be careful because now this is the first. I'm sure there have been several other in the past, you know, fifteen years Scottish like Christmas movies made for these networks. This is my first one. You had mentioned you had watched another one a few years ago that was a like Chris Scottish Christmas or Christmas in Scotland Christmas in Scotland.

I mistakenly watched a few weeks ago before we'd settled on this one, okay, And that was directed by a man who'd also previously done a movie called Meet You in Scotland. So I think that says Niche okay, but I will try not to confuse the two. They have certain crossover points. I mean, you're a hero if you can keep that all straight, because I would not be able to. So a merry Scottish Christmas has some interesting category behind it.

So again it's a Hallmark channel and it's the Lacy Shabert who is doing at least two of these this year. Well, Lazy Shabert obviously has been like a Hallmark stalwart for a very long time. Now I think she's kind of probably become the number. See A couple of years ago, I think it was always a question of who is the real star of Hallmark? Who is the face of that network?

Is it Lacy Shabert, is it Candice Cameron? And I think I think for a while it was Candace Cameron, which I didn't understand. But then Candace Cameron, because she's an awful human being, defected from Hallmark to go to the Great American Family Network, which is all like Christian you know, no gaze, no, no, anything that doesn't go against that goes against their quote unquote values. So Lacey Shabert, like I read an interview with her where the interviewer was kind of trying to say, like, so did they did great American family try to get you two, like did they ask? And she was Lady Shabert knows how to give an interview.

She knows what to say, what not to say. She was she seems like somebody who is very happy with Homark, who has said like they've been with me. They you know, they were supportive of me when I was pregnant during filming, like my kids have been to set, like they've been great to me all this time. I have nothing, you know, nothing but good things to say about Hamark, and I have nothing to say about anything else. So I always kind of respect that about her that like, I think she's she knows that this is a good gig for her.

I think she gets kind of her pick of what to do, and for this one, I have to imagine this came about because of the oh hey, we can get Scott Scott Wolf to do one of these movies. So Scott Wolf is Were you familiar with Scott Wolf back in the nineties. You must have been. Yes, he was the one who wasn't Michael J. Fox when he popped up.

That is the best description of Scott Wolfe I've ever heard, Yeah, yeah, and probably most well known for people who've watched go I think I was in white school. Yep. White squall is what I think of him from I know him best from God. Yeah he I mean he had a decent career. He never hit it huge.

I think it seems like he doesn't seem it seems like he kind of is like not soft retirement. But I haven't hadn't seen him in a while. And him and Lacy Shavert were together in Party of Five way back when, so I guess it must have been a oh hey, we can do a Party of Five reunion. Wait a minute, if we put these two actors together, it's a little weird because people know them as playing brother and sister, So we can't have them in a romance because that would be weird I think for people. So I wonder, like kind of chicken and egg, what came first?

Was it we're going to do a movie in Scotland, quote unquote Scotland. We're going to do a movie with Lacy Shaverart's gott Wolf Like how it all came together? However it did. We ended up with a Mary Scottish Christmas directed by Dustin Reikert. Was not familiar with the name, as is usually the case on these movie these Dustin Reikert has directed many of them.

Did you look into somography or did anything kind of jump out to you on him? Nothing jumped out. I browsed through his filmography, but like you, he may have been behind one or two that I've watched and nil blur into one another. Yes, and what's the funny thing about? And this is also how much I hate IMDb right now.

They've changed their format, so you have to really like click a lot of buttons to keep seeing stuff. And it's very hard to realize that because if you were to go to his page and look like you have to unclick buttons to get to what he directed. And yeah, the first like dozen are all Christmas, Christmas, Christmas, and then you can see the turning point of when like where, because he clearly started, as most of these directors did, in low budget horror. So there's things like Haunted Airplane, ghost Rock, Sense of Echoes, these things. But one thing did stand out to me and I needed to learn more he I don't know if you knew this was the thing.

Apparently in twenty twelve right before the World Didn't End, we got a movie called Easy Writer to the Ride Home. Noah, that one that crazy? Right? How did we all miss that? Starring Jeff Fahey.

Yeah. Wow. So from the director of Easy Writer to the Ride Home we have America Scottish Christmas written by lots of writers. There are three people credited for writing this movie. One of them is also Justin Reichert.

And then we also had two theme We have Audrey Shulman and Andrea Canning, both of whom have done some of these. Andrea Canning has a very interesting also filmography because again lots of lots of Christmas movies or movies involving evil cheerleaders, Killer prom The Perfect Cheerleader, and webcam cheerleaders. So know your lanes and go wild in them, right, So a Merry Scottish Christmas, Kevin, will you walk us through the story of this movie and you can give spoilers. We all know how it's gonna end, so it's okay if you tell them. Okay.

So Lacy Chabert is Lindsay Morgan a young doctor? Yes, we see meeting. The first scenes are very confusing. She's this movie moved so quickly. I was stressed out watching this movie, Like I listen to podcasts in double speed because I just have things to do, and every time I do that, my husband here is it, he gets like anxiety.

He can't be in the same room. This movie, Now I understand what it feels like to be that because it moves so quickly. Right, well, it does, but it's also not too clear. She meets up with her brother Brad Morgan at the airport, and that's Scott Wolf. He is with his partner Sarah played by Kelly Blaze.

That's not all entirely clear. When they first meet, you see tension between them. All I thought, yeah, yeah, yeah, so did I and so did my partner. And we're sitting there like are they are they exes? Are they going through a divorce?

What's happening? And then eventually you realize they are siblings. That they're on their way to visit their mother, Joe played by philon A Bell, and she is at a Scottish manor large Estates slash hotel and like that they're they're looking around a hotel and being told that they can't access this area of private rooms, which you soon realized the mother is in so you know there's something up there, and they eventually learned that they could be heirs to this area and the titles that come with that. Okay, is that still a thing in Scotland. Well, I'm not entirely sure because unfortunately I'm not landed gentry.

Despite wearing the top pattern Monaco today, I feel addressed. I mean, there is definitely throughout the UK, as far as I know, there is kind of lands and titles that keep being passed on. I did work in an establishment once where part of the daily routine it was just portering, but you had to try and remember titles. And if people have a title, say on the male side, they're the ones who are addressed. But if it's on the female side, if they've married in to the family, then it's the lady who has a title.

And it was all complicated. It's just a way of showing off. But anyway, there's also a hunky young man who helps to look after the estate. Yes, his name is my played by James Robinson. I mean that's not as bad as the mad tour guide, slash bagpipe player, slash dancer who is called Hamish.

Of course, like everybody is in Scotland, right, Like your real name is Hamish, right, like Hamish Kevin. Right, it's it's sometimes Jimmy at the weekends. Okay, that's fair Hamish or Jimmy and things as you expect. You know, they're wondering whether they want to deal with the estate and have the titles. They are wondering what happened in the past of the family tree.

And Lacey Schabert is also seemingly keen to get back to her practice, but gosh darn it, management seems to take up all our time nowadays rather than helping patients. Yeah, life is really miserable when you're a successful doctor in the United States in California. Yeah, it's terrible. Yeah. Yeah, this movie gave me serious like I was waiting for kind of a midstomar like shoe drop of there is the town needs these people to take on this role, right, Like it's like, oh, what happens to the town if nobody claims title.

I still don't really understand how that works, Like so the businesses close and like Walmart moves in? What exactly goes on if somebody doesn't say I'm the I'm the Duke. I mean, surely you could just make your way in there and claim like squatters' rights and where a hat couldn't you just like elect a mayor and be like, hey, here's our mayor. So this person is gonna keep us doing exactly what we've been doing for the last five hundred years. Yeah.

I think it's all propaganda for trickle down economics. Yeah, yeah, that's it's the monarchy these No matter what you do, it's and I know it's the same with Disney, like it always comes down to like, oh no, but it really is about your birthright, which is just a terrible lesson to ever have in a movie. And it really like the conflict of this movie is essentially we have this magical Scottish wonderland where we are king and queen, and we are like the may queen. We went a dance contest for goodness stake, so we can stay here and just luxuriate in the love and affection of the populace, or we can do that like in California and come back here and everybody loves us. It's it's low stakes.

I'd say it's it's very low stakes. I expected more steaks to come along because you find out the backstory and their mother had sort of run away. She didn't want the restrictions and everything that came with the position, so she'd gone away. And then when she came back, there's one moment I think where they're walking to and where a couple of people kind of whisper Benimse Morgans are back, so just trying to come back and sort of shuffle right into town and get their way. Yeah, and then that's that everyone else pretty much loves them immediately.

Yeah. I'd like this movie done like sort of like a Flags of You, Regima, Flags of Our Father, let Us from the Regina thing, where like we had this movie. Now let's get the same timeline but from the pov of the peasant and see how like it really was like they were finally gonna make it out. But now they're back to sweeping floors because the monarchy has resumed. But of course everything ends happy, so happy in fact, that we actually get a coda, which I like having a coda because so many of these movies just end so abruptly to where like you have to rewind past, like because you feel like you've missed something because it just ended on this one.

We do get a one year later, so everybody's decided to stay later and earlier on. I'm sorry, what is are there the paint things? Oh my god, I thought it was a Scottish thing. I thought maybe like you guys do family portraits differently than we do here in the States, because there Okay, so there's a family portrait that we see early on, and then at the very end of the movie we get like a new one and a family portrait. Now, granted, there's kind of two ways you could do it, at least until now, you could do take today, like we all have a photograph that maybe you went to Sears and like they did a big picture of you your family.

I have actually a very famous one somewhere in here of like when I was five, we did like a full family photo and it is the most eighties awkward looking picture you have ever seen, where there's blue eyeshadow and big hair glore. That's one way to do it. The other way, if you're like Royalty, I assume, is that you sit for a portrait artist who takes out his brush and paints you in oil, and that grand paint saying hangs over your fireplace. What does this movie do kind of does It's like it took both of those things and then like spilled milk on it and then said, okay, that's a picture. Yeah.

It reminded me. I've seen those little videos of I think it's people doing a tech challenge for themselves taking a foot on a game Boy Advance and then processing it later from mister Potato Head. It's it's like Uncanny Valley strange. I don't know what that choice was, right, because like these are usually very cheap things to do, Like, these are cheap movies, and granted this one probably had a bigger budget than a lot of them, just because it did have the big guns. They filmed in Europe.

There, you know, there was a lot more behind this than some of these more quickly made ones. But like, how did that save money? Because somebody had to look at that thing and that person needs therapy now. I'll think someone in the props department was like, remember when you get that extreme close close up of the boy that Cameron stares at and Ferris Bueller's day off, I want a whole painting, Like yeah, it's just it's off and it will unsettle you. It will you can tell it's people, and someone was like, okay, yeah, that's family.

Okay, so yeah, and then within that we find out everybody is happy and uh and we even have a next generation, right because now we have the next Uh. Scott Wolf and his wife have a baby at the end, and I would like to know what human So it was probably me as the peasant was sacrificed for that baby, right because they talk about like they've been having trouble, they've been doing IVF, it's not working, and magically at the end it's like our miracle baby. There was definitely some like Scottish black magic happening, right Yeah. I mean, if we're lucky, they could have just sacrificed Hamish, but I can't remember. A few might be there at the end.

I like that. I'm going with it. That's how I'm gonna take this movie now. So with all of that, let us dive into the tropes, because I will say one thing about this movie right off the top of the bat is that it is structured slightly different from these Hallmark movies because your central relationship there is romance. But the if you had to say, what is the most important relationship within this movie.

What would you say, it's a brother and sister. Yeah right, yeah right, It's really is about Lindsay and not Michael J. Fox re like kind of rebonding and becoming siblings again. And I liked that. To me, that was a twist.

I hadn't quite seen that as the focus of these movies, so I appreciated that was a little different on that front. It was something so we have kind of I guess we kind of split our lead and need of a lesson into in this case, so the first one being the typical female lead and need of a lesson, which is Lindsay or Lacey. We can call her either, because I have a feeling they named the character that because it was this way, they could say both and it would work. What was your thoughts on Lindsay as both a character and Lacy Shabert's performance. I thought she was okay.

I really like Lacy Sabert. I think I'm happy for her to be the queen of homework movies in the Christmas movie. She's a nice presence. She's sometimes a little bit kind of too sweetness and light, I think, but that's such a great sweetness. You get these Christmas TV movies.

As for her character, though, the lesson, it's I mean, all right, it's there, like, you know, get back to being a people person kind of you know, there's a family connection. I'm never a big fan of movies that are kind of family over everything, yeah, because that can be quite okay, it does not pay back your medical buess. Yeah, and for some people like that can be quite a there's quite a lot of toxicity that was certainly try to keep family bonds there that maybe shouldn't have been. So it's it's a typical thing. But I wasn't as big a fan of that side, Nor did I think she needed a major lesson, because her and her brother had both had I'm going to say misunderstandings.

But when he accuses her of missing some party, she says, it was the night before my finals. Like yeah, really, he's a doctor. Those finals were probably very hard. Yeah, I'm with you on Lacy Shiver. I think she I don't think she phones these movies in.

I think she does understand exactly what level of performance she needs to give for them. I think she is capable of giving much more interesting, dynamic performances. And we you know, we like just to call back mean girls, like obviously she is. You know, we've never quite seen her do that again because it doesn't belong in these movies. I would love to see her play the villain in one of these movies and not like a redeemable one, Like have her maybe maybe in like ten years when she's older, have her show up as like the mean corporate boss who's bossing around, like the Lacy Shabeer of ten years ago.

But you know, also like that's for this network. Her brand is very particular, and she understands it and she she gives it exactly what she needs to give for it. Yeah, so I mean, I guess she's supposed to be a workaholic. But again, like she's a doctor and she's running a practice, so yeah, she probably should be. I want my doctor to be a workaholic, right, yeah.

Uh, And she obviously does not have a Christmas theme name. But let's the other side of this, So Scott Wolfe as what was his character's name, Brad God Brad, No offense to all the Brads out there, but it just feels like a movie name that like when you don't know what to do, you know, a character Brad, I'm gonna say something, and well, first of all, one thing I did not like was that when the credits came up in the opening, it was Scott Wolf on top and Lacy Shabert on the bottom. And that felt very very wrong to me because A, this is more herr movie than his anyway, but also like it's a it's a Hallmark movie, like Lacy Shabert is the star of this thing, like why is he suddenly built before? But anyway, I want to say something that I don't want to come out the wrong way.

It was really refreshing to see Scott Wolf looking like a man of his age on this network in this movie. Oh he's aging like fight wing. Yeah, he's aging lovely and there is you know it not that you can always tell when somebody is doing a lot of botox or so on. And it's fine if you do. I get it.

People do it. You have to do it. But there were a lot of shots in the movie where I looked at him, I'm like, he looks like a real person of his age, and that is very refreshing to see. I think in our five years or story he could look a bit more similar to Timothy Olf and that's no bad thing for anyone. No, no, I could see that.

Let's let's get the two of them in a like one of like the gay Lifetime Hallmark movies. I'll take that. Let's see. So he is also a bit of a workaholic. And what is his job?

Did you clock it? It's it's accountancy, I think, Oh, I thought it was. I thought he was like a like a not a patent lawyer, but like I thought it was on the legal side of something compliance. Yeah, I thought he was a lawyer, but like a lawyer that like just does paperwork all day, but clock it correctly something about it. We didn't get enough because he said he could do certain things to help the estate, right not not anything really in terms of knowing how to generally manage and run in the estate.

Okay, yeah, I think you could help with some aspects. So that might have been something to do with compliance. It might have been. I mean, I'm just happy I'm not thinking of the light fighting lady in Christmas in Scotland. So I've not confused.

Everything you're doing great, I just haven't remembered his job. Well, this this movie is there's a lot of things that come up, were like, it's very overwritten in some dialogue. So there's some and this is where I wonder if it was, because I see like the script has like two names and then it's also the director, and I wonder if the director here, and there was like, no, we need to be clearer about our metaphors here. So there's one line that I caught that he says, and this is why I thought he was a lawyer. Was you know, the statute of limitation runs out on everything, including rekindling relationships at Christmas, which feels like the way a Hallmark writer would write, the way a lawyer speaks.

But he, I guess discovers that he'd rather be a duke or something. I sure, right, yeah, and that I mean that gives him more time with his wife. If you are a duke with your entire estate, then you generally have more time. You can just hang about home. Yeah, I mean, isn't it.

It's the dream of everybody to just like not work. Yeah, just just wearpipes around you every day. That is the price you pay. Uh. Now, we do have a love interest, and obviously a love interest is typically either a poor little rich boy or a handsome kind man who works with his hands.

This case, we get the ladder and as we said, the character's name is Mac mac Bell, so we didn't get a Christmas themed lead name, but I think mac Bell feels like it's supposed to maybe called something Christmas each to mind. Uh, tell me about Mac? What do you think of him? I quite liked him. I thought I thought he was a good intel romantic leads.

He looked the part, and I'm happy to uppy they didn't do someone and who would completely mangle the accent. Yeah. Well, I guess he is Scottish, right. So the reason I'm guessing that is because his credits include he was he played the young William Wallace in Braveheart. Yes, I feel like that's cred right there.

He was born in Glasgow, Okay, So so yeah, he's fine. And I think all of the main cast members who weren't obviously in the family that were there were either Scottish or Irish performance. So that's that's better than say, filming in America and try to get people to learn an accent from one or two scenes. You know. I was thinking about that because it's gonna move on to number three, which is the setting of big bad city, charming small town, magical winter wonderland.

Here we get kind of charming small town. Because this was not to my knowledge from what I can and see an IMDb it was filmed in Ireland, not Scotland. Yes, well I went by the same information. It's nowhere I recognized, but I haven't been to too many large not on your your like Thursday and night. Hey, what do you want to do on?

Oh no, it's going to castle, That's what you do there tesco and just go home. I don't stop buying the local lairs, you know, and enter a dance contest on like a Wednesday happy hour. So it is I was thinking if you are Scottish or if you're Irish rather, I guess is doing a Scottish accent easier? Is it more in line with say, me being a New Yorker doing a Tennessee accent versus me doing an Irish accent? Is there a like do you do that growing up?

Like? Do you like what is the your like as your way of thinking as and now you're living in England, but as somebody who grew who grew up in Scotland, Like did you jokingly do Irish accents as a kid, did you do British accents? Like is it something that is something you play with the way. I feel like there's a little bit of that here. Like my husband and I constantly like we'll just say pepperidg FALM cookies or sometimes that is better when we want to just do like you know, New England accents.

We know we're doing them terribly, but it's like something that just you know you do here because you kind of joke about it. Is it similar but just all UK based by you? Well? I think so. But I used to do voices quite a lot when I'm younger, but I was an only child and I would myself.

I had an imaginary friend who was British and another one who is from Wales. I don't know if that's if that's a typical thing, but yeah, I think you know, if you are if you're over here and talking about different people you know or different things you see on TV, you can do. That. Doesn't mean everyone will do them well, sure, but you you get more exposure to them. Like I wouldn't necessarily know if you were doing different regional accents and then you're telling me about that I'd probably just shrug and be like, Okay, yeah, I don't know what that is, and I accept that.

In every American movie I watch, sometimes someone will comment and say, yeah, but the accents were terrible for that area, and it all since Americans, right, right, So we've got obviously Scottish accents, Irish accents, Welsh accents, and a variety of English accents kind of the Liverpool scouse, the Birmingham, the Londoners, the why Boy Cockneys in it. You could just rattle through loads. I'm not going to offend anyone else, but I mean there were five Spice girls, and I believe they were all from different parts of England, So I get that, all right. So the charming small town of this feudal Scottish kingdom that requires royal blood to maintain it, it seems like a cute place to live. Lots of pubs, lots of food, dancing.

I mean, I if I found out that I had inherited a title there, I would like to take that title. Yeah, I definitely would. It seemed like a nice cute little place. Yeah. So moving on to number four is our dead parents or dead wife in this case, Now a little bit of a little bit of twists and such.

What were your clockings of the various dead elders in this movie? I was this is a sentence I don't want taken out of context, but I was disappointed there wasn't an immediate dead relative same. So I've been clocking at this year. This is a new thing. I've added, is I am clocking at what?

Which point in the movie we hear the first reference of a dead parent usually, and in this case, it was seventeen minutes in, which is long? I mean, so far, I've gotten three minutes, two minutes, So seventeen minutes in we get the dead brother uncle, we get dead grandparents. Actually it's like, oh, yeah, my parents died after you were born. Because the kids are really pissed about the fact that their mother didn't tell them about her life before, and they're really mad that they were denied a relationship with their grandparents and dead uncle, which she seemed a little bit petty to me, Like I don't know, like people have different relationships with their grandparents, but like it seems like I don't know, like if my mother didn't want me to meet her mother or I like there's a reason for that I don't know, but yeah, no, I agree, like because we also get something in this movie that's kind of wild.

We get divorced. Yes, well, I meant to ask you because I couldn't remember exactly what the situation had been with the father was he was a musician. Yeah, because she when Joe left Scotland when she was twenty, she didn't want to become duchess. She left with this man who she fell in love with, and they were a folk band for a while in the States, and then I guess at some point they divorced. I don't remember where in the movie they tell us that, or like it's in we learn it very early on because they talk about, like I spent Christmas with dad.

But how old the kids were when they divorced, because I think that's supposed to be like kind of when their relationship fell apart. I don't know, but yeah, Joe and her husband, these kid's father divorced, which is I mean, they could have improved us from fifty if they just said he was a skater boy she said boy, true, true, true. So yeah, there's there's a there is later on the love interest Mac macbell, Let's not forget his name is Macbell. He mentions that he has a dead dad. But that's like a down in the movie, And it feels very like you could have said that earlier, just because it's not enough family.

It's a it is it is. I feel like what this movie did was it It like tried to add up a lot of because we don't have a primary dead wife or dead parent. So instead it's like dead grandparents, dead uncle, plus love interest dead dad together cumulably they can equal one dead wife. But I don't think that's really fair. The matter is the loss and the waves they are other.

No, No, I'm with you on that. It is a problem. So No. Number five is our sassy sidekick? Typically this is a friend, a coworker, sister.

Usually it is female, sometimes gay man. Uh. In this case, I feel like there's a little twist going on here. Who do you think? I think there is a sassy sidekick?

Do you? And who would you identify in that part? Well, the obvious choice might be a bagpipe playing Hamish. That's that's who I thought, Yeah, And I wondered if they were going to do anymore with I think his name was is it Graham? Is that the Butler type.

Yeah, maybe I just wrote down magical Butler. I don't think he is magical. He felt like he was to me. Yeah, I thought he might come into another category. So I think the strongest contender is as Hamish, who has his moments of being lightly amusing, but but he's like he's drowning under a tartan tsunami just for every other minute he's on screen.

Uh yeah. I feel like this is a case of an actor working really hard, h and it's a tough gig. It's one of those things where like you see this in a lot of these kinds of movies where somebody is saying, all right, I'm gonna I feel like I am supposed to be the comic relief. So director Dustin reichert, You're gonna tell me when I'm doing too much, right, You're gonna pull me in, Like that's a director's job. And I think this just the director was like, yeah, sure, just do it.

And then the director like looked over here, and then they filmed the scene and the director was like, ah, yeah, sure, we got it. We gotta keep moving. So sure, I guess that was fine. Like it feels like this guy is just going for it under the assumption that if he gave too much, somebody's gonna tell him, and just nobody told him, so he just goes and bless him for it. I appreciate it, but yeah, times it is just exhausting.

Yeah, when he first appeared, my partner thought he was a leper. I wondered if he was going to prove to be a magical elf. And again, I don't want to spoil number ten when we get to Santa Claus, but like I thought he was going to be magical. Yeah, it fit to me and it made perfect sense, but a little disappointed that spoiler alert, he's not, as far as we know, unless he was sacrificed for the birth of the magic baby number six, evil woman, or a male boss obsessed with the bottom line. These movies don't have villains anymore.

I miss villains in my Christmas movies. Yeah, there was, you know, there was no one to We've already discussed the sort of tension and misunderstandings between the siblings that didn't feel too far out of line for anyone. Even their resentment at the mother didn't feel too of line, because as you say, like wow, you can understand why someone might not mention everything. So even the tension that was there wasn't right up, and there was nobody to cast a shadow and put a spanner in the works, right, And you have like a town that, oh, what does the town do if these people don't take ownership? Well, like, isn't there a greedy land developer standing like right on the other side saying like, well, I'm gonna raise all of the grounds and destroy the pubs and instead I'm going to start building a I don't know, bag by factory something.

But no, we don't even get that. So it's like they just don't have bite anymore. And I missed that someone's son or daughter who may have been end line to be the standing at the field causing havoc on the estate. We had it in the Princess movie Christmas Switch movies? Why don't we have it here?

So seven is the montage, and thankfully we do get at least I only really clocked one, but it was I thought it was one that made it work for me. Do you do you remember the montage? I might have missed. An extra one was whiskey tasting. It was the whiskey tasting tell me about this whiskey tasting montage.

Well, it's there's only so much you can do with whiskey tasting. It's like not even tequila where you can do the lemon and the salt, Like, no, it's just you take a shot. Yeah, So it didn't feel like the most lively montage that I was happy when I saw it, because I didn't think that takes montage. It did ticket I can't recall, and it was the only one and they do it's another strange scene that like is kind of and it feels almost like it was montage after the fact of like they had filmed the scene of everybody doing it and then they're like, no, you know what, we didn't do a montage. Let's do that here.

Uh, we'll talk about the music when we get to music, because the music in this is frantic and terrifying. Uh. And it's this montage to me, like somehow it feels both really fast and really slow motion at the same time, because the music is really quick and like they're doing shots, but then it's like slow motion tasting. It was the pacing kind of unnerved me, sort of felt like that painting. I think there was something uncanny happening and I don't quite know what it was, but it was a little upsetting.

Number eight was slapstick, which I didn't catch much, did you no? Yo? But I'm fine? Was there anything? I know?

I think just Hamish in general was supposed to be kind of like big and gloppy and that, and then to me, like yeah, the only thing that sort of fit was like, oh, we have some dancing, right, we have like dancing, like yeah, my characters that don't have to dance like suddenly being brought on stage to dance. And then we have like a whole dance break right with a special guest star Will Kemp. But yeah, but no Dy went over. And how do I know Will Kimp because he's been in about seventy five of these kinds of movies. See what's funny when he came on.

So there's a scene like he's playing Max brother in law, and everybody's at the bar and he's dancing, having good time, and this guy shows up and he looked. You look at him and you're like, oh, you're wait, you're the romantic lead. Wait who's who? Because to me, all of these men look exactly alike and I face blindness them. But this guy comes in and Lacy Shaber says to him like, do I know you?

And I immediately said, I'm like, oh, I bet they've done these movies together. And sure enough, the two of them have been in a few of Hallmark movies I think, like some of which involved dancing. Like I think there was like a Christmas Waltz and waltzing and Christmas and a Waltz for Christmas and all those kinds of movies. Also, he was in Two Things that Are Near and Dear to my heart spinning out, which was the Netflix figure skating drama from a few years ago. Okay, and Step Up to the Streets.

Oh right, I'll know him from that as well. Yeah, so he is a dancer and a you know, handsome guy who shows up in these movies. Yeah, as soon as he appears. I didn't. I didn't make the connection that you did.

But I did think or he's going to be someone factoring into the plot somehow. Yeah, And I was completely wrong. Yeah, no, not. This movie is not nearly as complex as I think both of us overthought it to be. And on that note, number nine is the sage old person.

So in this case, I feel like there's two candidates, right, because we have two people kind of over the age of sixty in this movie. One is Joe, our our matriarch who who doesn't like she is sage with her daughter in law, right, she has like some moments with Scott Wolf's wife where she kind of gives him her some advice. But the the other one that, again, like I really thought it was going to be magical, was the butler cook groundskeeper. What was his title? Like, what is his job?

I don't know if he was ever given the full title, but I assumed he was kind of a butler type. So yeah, I was got to say handmade, but I mean, yeah, sure, why not, I believe that's what you call it. I would, however, add a third contender for as this movie is blinding so many things to that of Max's mother. Yes, yes, the doctor Amelia, Yeah, yes, yep, but again we're rere lacking the actual magic and the sprinkle effects. Oh god, no sprinkle effects.

No Santa Claus. I thought, either the dead brother or the butler, we're gonna be Santa Claus. Yeah, and the only son clause we get, well, we do get Scott Wolf's I mean, but it doesn't. Yeah, sure, I guess if like you really need something then yeah, so disappointing on that front. But now let's talk about music.

We're in the bonus round, Okay, we're we're talking about free public domain holiday songs, of which there are many and you know which ones they are just based on watching it any of these movies. And when you hear jingle bells and hark to Herald Angels singing and got rest of you married, gentlemen, All of these songs are done in a musical style. What is that musical style? They are presented through the medium of bagpipes? Bagpipes?

Is it a common thing in Scotland the way like we hear Mariah Carrey every day? Like do you just hear bagpipe versions of Christmas songs all the time? Oh? God no, And I couldn't stand it if we did. See now bagpipes.

I have been to the I don't know if you know about the military tattoo in Edinburgh. It's a big deal every summer winter. Once it's in Edinburgh Castle, everyone performs and at one moment in the evening usually get the lone piper stands on the battlements play something amazing, you get goosebumps. Fantastic. There are places in Edinburgh where pipers will stand and play quite often through they tourists love to see them their near wedding venues.

They do that. But there are times when you have pipers out on the streets trying to make extra money, and they'll try and play a medley of pop hits. Bagpipes just don't really work for that. They're not conducive to every pop hit you just want to deliver, including popular Christmas cards. Yeah.

No, it was painful and they're all really fast. I see other thing that was really like weirdly upsetting to me. Silent Night, right, Silent Night is a haunting slow song. They play it at like Quintupple speed and I am trying to catch my breath listen listening to Silent Night on bagpipes? It why what is that choice?

I would have paid a handsome sum of money for Mike Myers to appear just to be shouting piper pip. I don't think this movie could have afforded it. Now, the next thing that also comes up like wildly in this movie. So I had debated like this was one that I added last year because it seemed to keep coming up. But like, this movie has proved to me that no, the ridiculously complicated holiday cocktail and the family recipes are like they're going crazy in these movies.

I blame like cooking shows being more popular, but my gosh, the amount of Like I wrote a bunch down, what are some of the ones that you caught? So we talked about the mac mistletoe mocha that you get at the airport apparently, which like again I had to pause this movie and rewind twice within the first minute to capture what they said. But some of the other things, there's there's a lot of food that sounds terrible. What did you think? Uh yeah, well thanks for reminding me that the macco was like the first thing you see, yeah on screen, because I'm like, really, is this what people think you get when you come It's like you go to Hawaii, you get the la you go to Scotland you get the mac mistletomocha, and one of them I've forgotten the exact name, but I basically thought this was taking a turn into like fifty shades of tinsil.

It was was it just called the dirty reindeer or the muddy reindeer. Oh gosh, so there was okay, so let me see. They had like there was Scottish sparkle. I don't know what that is, but somebody orders it and it looks like kind of like a big like not my tie, but like it looks like cranberry and vodka but with umbrellas. There was that high ball, oh Highland snowball cocktail.

I don't know what was in that, but somebody orders that. Some kind of cocoa reindeer thing. I guess they talk about how like when they were kids they would eat hot cocoa and they would put like cookies inside of it. That was the one when they first mentioned it. I think they call it like the muddy reindeer was the muddy raindeer.

You're right. I couldn't catch where is this film going because that was before he realized they were talking about coco and and that these are brother and sister. Yeah, who wrote this without context for what we then know chocolate. Yeah, they had some drink at the bar that I didn't catch the name of. It actually looked good.

It was like a it looked almost like eggnog with whiskey something like that, and it was I had like a cinnamon rim on it. They didn't drink it, and they like, they're like, wow, this looks great, and then they put it other table. The yellowish drink is I think I think it was Avrica. Do you have avoca? I'm not familiar with it.

It's it seems like a kind of it's more like an old fashioned drink nowadays. It's almost like I would say, it's kind of an egg no liqure. Okay, that's that's what I look like in mind. I'm no longer a drinkers. I'm not these things.

But yeah, it's and a Christmas time drink. People would have sort of Advoca available at parties and things. That makes sense. I'm now one thinking though in my head that like any one of these drink names with the word virgin in front of them, actually it sounds even dirtier. I'll have a muddy virgin reindeer.

Please. There was also a lot of food, so we had let's see, there was a cancane, sugar hookies, mule bread and again, like with the sort of overwrittenness of this movie, when Sage Old Magical Butler is cooking, and he gives Lacey Shavert a speech about making like a Christmas pudding soup flet and how it's like a metaphor for a new start in life and all that. So again, nobody eats a bite in this movie, but there's there's a lot of food out there. Number three is our small business in danger. I mean I thought like the whole town was in danger of something and I didn't understand what.

Right, Yeah, it's meant to feel that way because they rely on the good fortune of the whole estate. Something like that. Now, product placement, did this movie make you want to buy anything? If I had the money, I'd probably buy Scotland. I'm with you back bite definitely, even if though it was not filmed there, there wasn't put me off more innythan I don't want to arrive at Edinburgh Airport and be given a MIC.

I don't want to arrive and be given diabetes. I think that's where I was thinking with this. Uh the other thing. I was meant to look it up and didn't because it felt like the This is something I also haven't figured out. There's a fair amount of alcohol in this movie, and I mean nobody is getting drunk, but there is alcohol constantly, and there's a lot of talk about whiskey.

There was a whiskey tasting, and yet this movie is still TVG, So I guess the rules have completely changed, and now we can drink on camera and a TVG and not if you explain to kids that they shouldn't. But it's just an interesting thing. And I wondered if that whiskey name was real, but I don't think it was. It was. I can't remember the exact name, but it was certainly if it wasn't a real whiskey, which I just can't remember my head.

It was along the lines of, you know how those whiskeys are named, you get you get McCallan's, and your your different whiskeys, you'r Macbell's. Yeah, so I didn't realize, you know, over your way it would be, you know, necessarily viewed as a bad thing for adults to be seen some things drinking. But it felt because it felt all nice and cozy anyway, like the whiskey montage scene is definitely a cozy, warming sequence, yes, and is still in line with the touristy side of the Scottish. Yeah, yeah, it's not used in a way to suggest any like anything nefarious or any impairment, Like it's purely almost part of culture in this movie. Yeah, which is maybe how they viewed Scotland would cast.

So number five is the cloying child, which I we had really no kids in this movie, which again I'm usually thankful for. We did the I mean the closest we came. So my next again question cultural Shetland Ponies tell me everything. I again have very little experience for sheies. Are you really Scottish then, because this movie makes me think that you're not Scottish if you don't like go play with Shetland Ponies in December?

And I wasn't aware that, you know, Shetland Ponies were to be brought out and praided in December. Now maybe they are, maybe that is a tradition and more rural areas, but I've not I've not seen them pray through the streets. All right, Well, Scottish listeners tell us the truth about Shetland Ponies. Number six finding the perfect tree there is I mean, even in a movie where you don't need trees, there's still a tree cut down scene. Do you remember anything about it?

I remember it is that many trees. They kept saying like, oh, you have so many trees gutting him down, but then they could always have room for one more that they were going to pick specifically. Yeah, it was it was again. It was that like really like somebody really thought they were writing out important metaphors. Because when Macbell is cutting down the tree, and Lindsay's kind of like, well, you already have thirty of them, why do you need more, and he starts like describing it as well, you can take it down, but then I know, always we replant one and it's somehow it turns into a metaphor about the relationship with your sibling.

Yeah, I don't know how, but it got there. So number seven my favorite one empty coffee cup. Acting. I am, I'm certainly not as good as you're a spotting this, but I've I gave Vicky your list as well. They we're looking and every so often Vicky is just pointing and saying the co cup, coffee cup, yeah, ring a bell like every time it happens.

And there's a lot in this one. I mean the first scene, the very first scene, they're in an airport, they're shoved Mocha mistletoe Mac drink and like just immediately you're given what looks like a hot drink and you just go just slurp it down. Isn't it hot? Did McDonald's teach us nothing? I think that was the only one I clearly spotted, But there was was it maybe when they were walking through the market or somewhere at the market.

Oh yeah, I think it was. It was something there. But yeah, Like since I've watched this, we've watched on our four or five Christmas TV movies and every time now Vicky's gone nothing going up every time? Every time. Oh man, I wish I could remember there was one movie I think in my nine years of doing this that where I was like that cup is full, and that has been the only time.

And again it's like actors that have done this now all the time, and I don't understand why they don't practice, why they haven't gotten better, but it's just not valued now. Similar Number eight is our actors trying very hard to eat, to pretend to eat on camera without actually taking a bite of anything on camera. A couple of scenes of eating in this movie. There's one where either I could not really clock it where it's where they're having their like big Scottish breakfast, and Scott Wolf has like I don't know if he's just like puffing iron his cheeks or if he actually had like a bit of a scone in his mouth at the time, but he's he's working, so I appreciate that. But he's also like a real actor, so that might be why he didn't get the memo that he isn't supposed to actually eat anything.

I think that's also to help illustrate the culture clash. Oh okay, breakfast, I think you know, wasn't Butler mom explaining some of the ingredients? Yep, yep, And then there were sort of med munch Oh yeah, well we had the wacky this is what aggis is moments yep, yep. There's one thing this movie also did with it had baking without baking. It had a lot of like here, come and mix, and they're sort of start mixing and then they're just standing there holding empty bowls and such, so that I'm just watching it thinking like, you have to keep stirring if you want the right consistency.

You are making it gummy now, And that bothered me. See number nine, we don't have canadianisms in this movie because it wasn't filmed in Canada, though it also wasn't filmed in Scotland. So I would like to ask you then, was anything did anything jump out to you as this isn't Scotland, this is Ireland, not particularly because of you know, they tended to keep it based around the estate you didn't you know, or the grounds of the estate. You only had the one trip really to the market, and even the pub felt like it was the estate somewhere, so it was almost like their own pub. Again.

What I would see it is I was pleasantly surprised that I did feel when I watched Christmas in Scotland. I don't means it's to be a two pronged podcast for you, but I felt that that was more genuinely Scottish. And it turned out that that was filmed in at least partly in Fife in Scotland. Okay, so folks, if you want the realer deal, check out on Christmas in Scotland. Nothing jumped out me here for seeming too of place, but it kind of jumped out at me in Christmas in Scotland as feeling like, oh that might have been filmed somewhere really there and I still had to check it's not as if they're just walking around the side of Arthur Seat or Edimal Castle.

Yeah. It is nice though to see it because I think, like it's funny. My husband joked to me when I said, and watching the Marry Scottish Christmas is like, so, like, is anything in film in Scotland? Because then I said, I'm like, you know what, it's the It's the lace shab Hallmark movie. So probably whereas if this was the is if this was Lifetime, if this was like one of the lesser, the lower profile ones, because we know we've had those.

We've we've had like a Royal Holiday, a New York holiday that were very clearly in Canada. So this one being the higher profile, I'm like, I don't think they're going to fake. They would not have chosen to do a Scottish film if they weren't going to add some kind of genuine, you know, authenticity to it or reason for it to look slightly exotic to you know, US Americans. So I think because this is one you can tell sometimes this is still a low budget movie by most standards, but for Hallmark this is a higher budget. Yeah, and I think they can maybe maximize what they get out of it.

By yeah, I mean no guarantee, but I reckon we've seen a few on this theme recently, and I think they may be. If they can access a location for a decent price, for however many days or weeks, then can maybe go there still film a bunch of different stuff. Yeah, and you'll get them dotted through the year. Yeah. I mean, look, it's what Charles Band did his whole career in the eighties and nineties, right, there was one castle in Romania that like half of his movies were filmed in.

There's got to be at least probably one a very Scottish Valentine coming at some point if it hasn't been already, and just different stuff that they can do there, which is you know, the way we do. It's absolutely fine, and it gets the actors out to have a nice little trip. Yeah, and probably you know, presumably pump some money into this local town. And you know, anytime filming like this happened somewhere, it's there's probably some downsides, but if it's handled well, it can be a good little economic boost. So let's see number ten, and we know that town needed it because you know, they don't have a duke and duchess, so all these things are very important.

Number ten the warm weather watch. No, I don't know. You told me today it is what December or something December third, you were telling me it is snowing now you are in England, not Scotland, but you know, very close there was snow on the ground in this movie. Do you are you able to walk outside and like just a nice long sleeve shirt today, I wouldn't want to know. Unlike the characters in this movie, it felt a little warm, right, Yeah, it's well, and we don't usually have snow at the right time here, that's the thing.

So this is kind of even colder than usual now and we've had a bit of a spell just for a few days. But what we normally get is we normally get the cold and we get the rain in the win and that's it. And particularly in Scotland, you don't necessarily if you get snow, it doesn't settle because it's followed by a lot of rain. Okay, it's just no, you don't often get you know, well, I can't remember the last time we had a full picture perfect white Christmas. But you're going to get out for these movies, so yeah, I mean I'm never counting on them to do a good job with the weather, with its particularly when it's set in Schooland no, uh yeah, the I mean they were wearing coats and what we're gonna talk about coats in a minute.

But the coats were never buttoned, so Lacey Shebert's dress, she would just be an icicle. Not much coverage. Number eleven is old people aggressively matchmaking our leads. There was a little I this wasn't quite as like sometimes it gets pretty bad. Sometimes it's like the mother just like all but locking a door on two young people and like forcing them to become a couple.

And this one, I think everybody kind of Lindsay and mac Bell to get together, even though they lived thousands of miles apart. But there was nothing that seemed egregious about it. I guess no, the pushiness came from Scott Wolf true. See, so there you go, I have to go back inside to do something. And that was it.

So it wasn't Yeah, it didn't lock them together. It just encouraged Lacy Shebout spend time with James Robinson with this handsome, tall man who seemed very good at things that she needed him to be good at. So yeah, right, because even that it was like, who's going to take care of the property, I don't know the guy that's been doing it for thirty years and also happens to be kind of sexy. Like that all worked out well. And then number twelve last one favorite fashion moment.

So there's there's a lot of This movie does a lot with clothing. There are a lot of choices, there are a lot of and generationally so we have so Joe it has a very nice way of dressing. She goes to see her her old childhood friend who has this kind of like bohemian vibe about her, with like kind of long, flowy things like a big chunky necklace. So there were things going on where I'm like, everybody's looking very pleasant in this movie, but for me, the big highlight and this is often a thing you find in these movies, But I was thinking, so when they first go on this trip, how long is this trip supposed to be? Do you remember?

Because they're not supposed to be there through like the holiday, It's like supposed to be like a what three day five days? Yeah, yeah, only only a few days, kind of a weekend trip, right, Right, she has to make the decision to stay. Yeah, because initially she's got a head straight back after whatever business is revealed. Right, How many winter coats do you pack for let's say a five day trip. How many coats, coats, outer wear coats are you packing?

Me? I packed the one. Well that's just me. I'm not on the Wholemark Christmas movie. I mean Lacey packed at least four four that I counted, that I noted, And I didn't start doing this until about three quarters of the way through the movie, at which point there were still three more to come.

So I don't know what I missed. But she has a very She has a very start to the red pea coat. At one point she's wearing a blue pea coat. Her mother has a lovely green pea coat that I kind of wanted. Then she has a black peacoat and then a patterned almost Scottish, and maybe she got that one while she was there.

I'll give it. Giver that, but it just seemed like a lot of peacoats. I would put it to you with respect, Emily, that you must be wrong because she arrived in Scotland with a very small suitcase on wheels. That's that's all we see, So that would never hold all those coats plus the rest of her clothes. I mean, she's a fairly small person, so presumably her pea coats.

It's probably small, but pea coats are thick. They take up room their wool they you try to stack them down a suitcase. You're right, she would have needed like seven suitcases for that, because didn't she also have all the Christmas pgs in there as there was a lot of Christmass right, Yeah, and then assuming a separate van brought the rest of the water, maybe she like commissioned a ship to go there ahead of time because it could have even been more economical at that point. Yeah, So did you have a fashion moment? Was there you know any of the kilts that jumped out to you?

Well? Yeah, actually I don't want to so obvious, but actually I thought Scott wilfluted really like really good and his big final duke and moment. I thought he wore it well and I was kind of impressed that they managed to make it look for the party and nice and dressy and shoy, but also it just it was quite tasteful and quite well done. And that's the kind of thing like you really want in these movies, Like every one of these movies, you want a ball, right, you want some form of Christmas prom to happen where everybody gets to get really dressed up and look pretty. And it's one of those things that like I remember years ago watching I forget the movie, but it was a Laurie Laughlin one, and I was able to clock the fact that her hair never changed the entire movie until the last scene, and I thought, wow, like they actually filmed ninety percent of this movie, probably over the course of a day, because you can't keep hair a certain way.

But then it meant that the finale, when everybody was dressed differently and had their hair done differently, it was like this wow moment of like, wow, look, everybody looks so good. So I agree, I think that ball let everybody look nice. You had other Scottish nobility. They're dressed to the nines. Lacy Shrebert's like green gown kind of the patterned overlay was very pretty.

Again not really winter ready, but yeah, hopefully she had a nice cape or another Peak oat for when she went outside. So many pea coats, so many peak coats, so many peak coats. So with all that being said, do you where did you land on a marry Scottish Christmas? And do you recommend the people seek it out? I ended up liking it.

I was kind of annoyed that I knew it wasn't hitting enough of the points that we cover when going through your tetlist, because I thought we've done a night before Christmas. I couldn't remember. I think one of the Princess Switch movies. I can't remember if we've covered an hour, and they've never seemed to be the fully traditional Christmas. Yeah.

Oh we did the the Denaris one. Uh, why can't I Christmas? Yes? So when this one started, I was like, Lacey Shubert's in it, we're hitting so other Other than that I was I was genuinely pleased to see Lacey Shebern. I think she is a self for these movies.

I think if people are used to watching these, they will see her name in it and be like, oh I like her. I'll put some So that's a plus. I thought Scott Wolfe was was like, really, it was really nice to see him in this and I generally like the leads. It does absolutely lean into the the sort of the the tartan clad biscuit tourist version of Scotland. But that is, you know, that's the thing that Scotland does itself.

It's a lot of money still goes through all these highland areas with that kind of imagery and and all that stuff being sold. So you know, you can't you can't make your money from that for decades and then complain when other people use it. Sure sell your area in movies. I think it was enjoyable, charming. I would I would recommend that the biggest bug bear was the constant bagpipe.

Yeah, if you can mute the bag pipe and then just come back in a few seconds later from the dialogue, Okay. I wonder if they're trying to sell the soundtracks to this movie, because they I kind of appreciate that the music at least has a point of view, because so often in these like it's the same recording used over and over again. You hear like that, Noel, You're like, oh, yeah, that was just in the other I'm watching a Waltz Christmas. This was in a Christmas Waltz. So I I appreciate the fact that there was a little more thought behind some of the decisions on the filmmaking side of Okay, we're gonna you know, what is the score gonna be, Well, it's got to be scotsh gotta be bagpipes.

Okay, it doesn't have to be all back pipes. No, gotta be backpipes. Okay. So you're right, it's not overly pleasant, but it did at least define this movie in a way. For whereas these movies are always so forgettable and so blend into one another, you had things that made it at least kind of gave it a stamp, which I appreciate, and i'd agree.

I think this is not one that if you don't like these movies, this isn't a movie that's going to make you like these movies or that is going to appeal to you. But if you do watch these movies and you look for the ones that are actually made, well, I think this is this is the exact kind of It doesn't transcend the genre of the way every now and then you get like a three Wise Man and a Baby where you're like, wait, this is just good. It's not just good. For being a Hallmark movie, it's just good. This isn't quite that, but for a Hallmark movie, it's it is good.

Yeah, Yeah, like I would, I would happily accidentally watch this again, yep. And I feel like if you did, you would yep. And it wouldn't be a thing that's happened to me before or where it's like accidentally watching it and like it's like I'm a thirty minutes in when I realized, wait, no I've seen this before, like this one. I think you'd remember pretty quickly like oh no, no, I did watch this. This does have its own stamp, so that's all something.

Yeah, and again, if you like Peacoats, hey have I got a movie for you? All right? Well, Kevin, thank you so much for joining us. Tell us more about where else we can find you and hear you and read you. Oh good grief.

I am weekly with Rados of the podcast. We tend to just get together and try and often hurt one another with movie choices off an episode every Saturday. I've had an ongoing discussion with Dave, who's our tech guy. Unfortunately, I think on our sort of feeds at caps at twenty five episodes. I'm sure there's something that could be adjusted, dilema, but so wherever you look for US, it shows the last twenty five episodes been going for about six and a half years, so there are many more episodes than that.

We've been weekly for pretty much ninety nine percent of that time, so you can always dig around and find me there. I try and do a daily movie review on my blog for Isman's number dot blogspot dot com, and that really just helps me justify a lot of my viewing choices, and it's a memory for me. Like you say, you can easily watch films like US and get twenty thirty minutes and think, oh, yeah, I did watch this one three years ago. So I do that. It's all well, generally all Christmas movies at the moment, if I can, if I can find them, and once a week call do a video on YouTube.

There is no editing involved. It's not polished, and it shows that I'll never be a TikTok professional. Nothing wrong with that. We have enough of those in the world. Instead, we need more Macbell's, we need more hamishes, we need more bagpipes, and so all of those things and more, please follow Kevin.

I'll put all of that in the show notes and have yourself a merry Scottish Christmas hit it. We are in a way meet here