Stocking Stuffers 9.5 Borrowed Hearts with Elwood Jones

All Sam Field wants for Christmas is to make the business deal of his life. There's just one catch. All we have to do is pretend to be your family. But it may be more than he bargained for. Touched by an Angel's Romadowney and Will and Graces Eric McCormick Borrowed Hearts tomorrow at eighteen seven Central.

Welcome to another stocking stuffer, and this might be the oldest movie we have done for this series we've done, I've done some from the nineties, but this one is special, folks. As you heard from the trailer, we are covering nineteen ninety seven's Borrowed Hearts for CBS. This is there's so much going on in this movie. It I can't handle it. I need support.

I need a partner, and my partner today you know him, you love him. It is Elwood Jones, the one and only of from the Depths of DVD. Hell. If you're a reader or if you're a listener from the Asian Cinema Film Club and Movies and Tea, Hello Elwood Hellbly, it feels like it's been far too long. It has been, and now we're finally back together, reunited again.

Reunited over a couple of angels. Wouldn't you say angels to some demons to other? So we could say about this movie, there's so much, so much. Now I did pick this movie, well, I gave you a choice. I threw out a couple of different titles.

I've decided something I did this last year and now I can't remember. Oh it was with good friend Keith. I can't remember the name of the movie, but it was this wild nineties movie with Kathy Ireland. And I think I will absolutely make it a tradition now of every year I will have to cover something from this era because part of what is very interesting about this movie to me in context of what we do here, is that it is not obviously it's not a you know, cozy Cardigan Christmas movie the way we know him today. But I feel like this is one of without these kinds of movies in the nineties and early two thousands, we don't get to Hallmark.

This, I think is very much the framework of these movies is all here. It hits a lot of the tropes that it does, some things that you don't see done today in these movies. But for the most part, if you you could edit this very easily into a Hallmark movie today, definitely. So it's when I think of like the to those so homewarp movies, I think this one very much falls into that sort of category. It's got to very so similar setup.

It's also got a worryingly similar setup to the Leslie Nielsen movie Rent a Kid, which I also remember what she won Christmas nice. I don't know that one. It's it's if my crush Leslie Nielsen is in it that I would have to check it out. But yeah, the whole like fake a family to impress another corporate person. It's something we've seen also in more recent Hallmark movies.

He's always shook come up. It's the you know, in the list of like six plots that these movies do, one of them that you'll get like seven movies of every year between Hallmark and Lifetime is the whole we have to pretend to be a couple in order to whatever it is, save the town or you know, buy the town, whatever it might be. But this one, before we get into the plot of which that is a big part of it, let's talk a little bit about who's behind this movie. Now. We'll start with the writers, because I think they they make a little more sense.

This might be the first cozy cardigan Christmas movie I've covered for Stocking Stuffers that actually has an Oscar winning screenwriter attached to it, or a pair of them. So were you familiar with Pamela Wallace and Earl Wallace. I wasn't familiar with them when I hadn't auchy for it to look them up now too mentioned to the albums that was so blown away by who directed this? Oh yeah, building up to that one exactly. But yeah, I can see that she was witness YEP, which I've never seen, but obviously I need to go and check it out after this film.

Certainly it is very good. And also we probably wouldn't have had Amish Paradise without Witness so for a lot of reasons, it's an important movie in the canon. So, uh, Pamela and Earl Wallace, they you know, they worked quite a bit. They also Witnessed was probably what they were best known for. They also wrote some segments for both of the If these were if these Walls could talk movies which were about abortion, and then I think about I think the second one was about the second one was abortion.

I think SECONDE was just about lgbt Q, but I don't quite remember. But interesting careers. Pamela Wallace, I think I think her husband died earlier. She did a lot of TV work as well, so she has a lot lot of different like Hallmark movie like early Hallmark movie credits, a lot of different successful TV movies, and something called single Santa Seeks missus claws. I don't know anything about it except for the title that it was written by her, so therefore I have to find it and probably watch it next year.

But that's that's the screenplay. Now let's talk about the director of Borrowed Hearts. Director is Ted Kotchoff. Kot Chaff CoA cheff yepo chef, coo chef. What are some other titles that he directed?

I can't even say righting myself now, Ted Kotcheff the director of Rambo, First Blood and really excitingly for myself, He also directed the Australian new wave movie Wake in Fright. Wait did he he did? I didn't even realize that. I was just so so stuck on the fact that he also did Weekend at Bernie's. Oh yeah, and he also did Fun with Dick and Jane the original version from some to seven.

Wow, I didn't even realize he did Wake and Fright somehow, that totally I glossed over that because I was so stuck on what it known for. Weakened at Bertie's first Blood, Wake and Fright the apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, and though it is not listed at first on his IMDb credits, borrowed Hearts. Yeah, if you've never seen Wake in Fright, you are doing yourself a serious disservice, because it is an amazing film which plays against every idea you have about the setup, where you have this this teacher who's got to stop off in this mining town, and you assume that he's gonna be like the Wickerman the locals played against him. But the locals aren't. They're just a bunch of hard working folkn like to gamble and drink, and he like looks down them, and everything that happens to him is as a result of himself and the choices he makes.

Like you think, oh, you keep waiting for the foot drop of these locals are going to turn on him or rip him off, or or they're gonna have some plot. And it never happens, and it's just a truly phenomenal movie. It's got Donald Pleasance and Gary Bond and yeah, it's there's so many films in like the osplitation genre I love yeah, and Waking Friday is just sort of like, there's such a standout in that little genre. It hits so many notes. It's so dasty and dirty, and Donald Pleasance is on phenomenal form.

And it would make such a great double feature with Borrowed Hearts, would it not? Oh yeah, totally in the same audience, it's one hundred percent. I sit down for my CBS Movie of the Week and I enjoy I love Touched by an Angel. I'm going to get some roma downey. Oh and what should I follow it with?

Oh? I see the director is also made this other movie that looks lovely. Why don't I give it a try? I do like the idea of there being crossover somehow, So let's let's set this movie up and we're gonna Although this movie does go in some directions that I found surprise, it also goes exactly where you expect it to in the end. So can you Ellwood give us a synopsis?

A summary, walk us through the plot of nineteen ninety seven's Borrowed Hearts. Okay, so we've got Eric McCormick here playing a rare straight role and also a rest straight roll where he's not a villainless like brute because every time that he plays a straight row he's always sert like a worst person. Possibly is like a horrible villain. So, yeah, he's been a rapist. I'm lone utters for you like more than once.

Yeah, he was on Dead Like Me with the abusy boyfriend who becomes a graveling. He's just lovely and will and grace horrible everywhere else, but yeah, here he plays Sam Fields, who's like a high powered businessman who owns a sort of warehouse Walmart's costco style store. Okay, good, So you don't know what that place actually does either. It seems like it seems from the way it looks, it looks like a like a Costco or Target, but at the same time it's apparently also just a warehouse. I just thought it was a factory.

I thought they were making stuff, So I don't know what they were making. But apparently he's a businessman and an industrialist. Normally one of the other, but apparently he's both, and he owns this factory and he's also got a whole bunch of daddy issues been determined he's going to like be a self made man because his father always had all these doubts in him. And he's working on this merger. So he's got this client coming in called Javier del Campo, who's played by Hector Elisamondo.

He's got a wonderful accent and as charming as sin, which is fiting really, and he's basically been silled himself as he's like a family man and his partners like set up this horrible actor family who are just like not working out at all. And at the same time, you've got the single mother and her daughter as Zoe, who for one reason another she charges into his life and we can just say it so he is a little chip. She's a precocious child who will go, that's like my dollhouse, and that gives me apparently free range toes dash into a stranger's health. But luckily they like fall into his lap, and he's sort of like the remarker by his best friend and business partner, Dave, who's like that is a wife and so he makes a deal where he's going to pay a bunch of money and they're going to pretend to be his fake wife and child and impress his clients.

And of course, the over the course of the number of incidences, the contract gets extended from being a weekend to basically hold of the christ season, and we're basically we actually can see from the first five minutes of this film that they're all going to find how they connect on some wonderful, deep level bond and have a wonderful festive time. Yeah. The uh so, you have a lot of the usual setup here as far as you have a like, you know, a guy who's got got to have like his heart melted, you know, by the the kindness of the Christmas spirit. Uh So, there's Romadown. What is her character's name, I just kept saying, Touched by an angel lady, Kathleen, Kathleen of course, yes, Kapoleene touched by an angelady.

So yes, Who's introduced with the best hair, and then when she gets the makeover, she gets the worst hair. She does it. It's that weird like breakfast at Tiffany's up to you. It's this movie is fun for the nineties and noss of it. I mean, it's about like adults, so the fashion isn't quite as nineties as it, you know, might have been if it was younger character.

But I mean Eric McCormick's hair in this movie is he something I actually love that he does. He is acting that hair is giving a far better performance than the kid, I'll tell you that much, but a better performance than most of people in this movie. I think. Yeah. There's also the question of whether or not Hector Alezondo is an angel.

Oh yeah, yeah, which it plays him well because he's an investor. So he's an angel investor. I don't need to pick up on that. That's good. That's very good.

So we have that. But at the same time, his character arc with in Kate that he's more of a devil. He carries a cane, he's got a bit of a beard going on. Yeah, and he's making the sort of deals that you would expect from like, you know, needful things. It's sort of like a he's testing the morality of sam really good.

Yes, you're right, it is definitely the entire time. It seems like he knows right from the beginning that this ROMADOWNI is not actually married to Eric mcormick. Like you just see the way he looks at it and the questions he asked. It's like, oh no, he knows this is all a sham, but you're right. He never he always makes sure that it is Eric McCormick's decision on whether to lie, on whether to sell his because that's why I think it was a factory.

I think it was a production company of some kind. And this is another weird way this movie is so dated is that in the nineties the Fear was moving jobs to Mexico and it's obviously very different today, where at least in the US all of the production woes are moved to China, but in this case it's you know, oh yeah, the whole factory. Essentially, he's selling the business and it's gonna move. Production will move to again. We don't know what they're producing.

It's very mysterious and now I'm thinking it had to be like weapons of mass destruction or something more ominous. But it is that question if he's going to lay off his entire workforce, and Hetro Alizondo is like, I'm ready to sign, are you? It's kind of ominous. You're right, didn't pick up on the devil aspect, but it's definitely there. Yes, And also when we look at like the character tropes of people who play the embodiment of devils, it's always can's facial hair, like long coats.

These are like the traits of devil characters. If you're an angel character, you're not going to be like very working class, would be like a cleaner or a janitor. You have been rased like working class. You would be very like laid back and friendly and encourage people to see the good people. Yeah, you also don't make deals with people who were true because so like, if he takes a deal, then what we got, We've got an angel with a company, I mean producing weapons of mass destruction.

It makes no sense. We're obviously you know, if it's a devil or a demon, it's like then they they lean towards industry and wealth and gaining those things. So it would make sense for them to want to obtain these things, and to obviously for Sam in particular, to have to do something horrendous in order to get his sort of personal gain. It's sort of like that morality play, isn't It's like, yes, you can have all this millions of dollars we're going to pay you for your company, but at the same time, you've got to lay up your workforce. Yeah, and I mean they try to make some seem lesser an ogre with this, and he's sort of like, well, I was going to go and find them all job right, I was going to give him a lot of recommendation.

Yeah. I mean, this is the depth you get when you bring on Oscar winning screenwriters to write your Hallmark but not Hallmark Christmas movie. So why don't we dive into the tropes of this because it again, this is kind of before they're established, but most of them are kind of here in one way or another. So the first being our lead in need of a lesson now, and this sometimes that shifts. Sometimes it is the man or the love interest who needs the lesson.

But let's talk about our lead. So it's Roma Downey playing Kathleen Russell. What is your experience with Romadowney where you were touched by the angel wings fan whatever they called those angel heads. Now, the only one we got over here was Highway to Heaven, which appeared like normally on Sunday afternoon in some like random block and because like growing up we had four channels, so you would tend to just watch a lot of stuff just because it was on. So I've not I kind of like placed her the same way that can pay place Eric, because I got the big Will and Grace fan and still have.

I think it's a show that well of those shows that came back and was still just as good as when it went away. But no, I haven't really any sort of like any sort of like ideas of who she was. Love. I did think she was actually a good actress, even the same as Eric McCormick. The both very good leads, especially for this sort of like standard of film.

Yeah, I expect them to be this level of acting. You expect them to be if looking for way back into doing better movies or just as we'll be funny in a neve room. Seemed to really be doing you for that, so right, Yeah, No, they're they're giving real performances for this romadowne. I don't know that I've ever actually seen her act she I never watched Touch By by an Angel, but it was on for a really long time, and she's one of those one of those celebrities who like she's. I mean, she's obviously very good looking, very beautiful.

She was when I was a kid, I was big into like the National Inquirer. She would always be in the like fashion section when they were doing like red carpet stuff, like she was like best dressed woman of the year. Like. I think it was also just that the National Inquirer really liked her, and she's She's actually had a really interesting career in a lot of different ways. So Touch by an Angel ran for I guess about almost ten years and it was I'm saying, it's a huge hit.

I didn't know a single person that actually watched it, but like a lot of those CBS shows here, lots of people did. She got very rich off of it. She did. I think she was a producer on it as well. She has had she does a lot of work, I'll say it that way.

She I think it was two thousand and seven, married Mark Burnett, who is like a mega producer on CBS. He is the creator of Survivor and The Apprentice Okay r so and apparently there's a lot written about that, just because there's a lot of politics that goes into all of this. She's very very Christian and always has been in very public about it. She also seems to not be a terrible Christian in a lot of ways, which is good. Like it seems like she is, you know, one of those religious people who probably has a lot of beliefs I don't agree with, but she has not been not been as terrible about that as a lot of people.

For ilk Coveban. She did produce the ben Her movie from a couple of years. I don't know if you remember that big, like giant, two hundred million dollar ben Her movie with all white people playing all of the parts, and it bombed terribly. Yeah, I remember it coming out, but I don't know anyone who actually saw it. Same same, Yes, So you know, interesting career, interesting life.

Definitely like has this is the right kind of thing for her, just because it is very much probably her audience. And this this was made for CBS, which I'm pretty sure is where it touched by an Angel aired, So it seems like it was very on brand, I guess. And she's I mean, she's good in that, she looks great, She she has like a warmth about her. She's very elegant. What did you think of her actual character and kind of what were there lessons her character needed to learn.

I'm just I don't think there's lessons really. I mean of and to be stop being so judgy of people. But again, I suppose Sam is also judgy, but it's kind of expected of his character because he's sort of like the rich business type, So you get impression that he's going through very much how he likes. He has a very sort of sterile Christmas, as it's pointed out, he likesing to his own sort of way. And with her, she's kind of like the feisty counter because she's there, she's going to stand up and question why he does the things that she wants.

And at the same time, her daughter, who's so sating I can tell me it's part of the genre of this film is but no, she's uh, she's there just to be there with the overwhelming goodness that her daughter really doubles down on. But she has I think she has such good back and forth with Sam's character. They have this sort of like very combative, almost flairty sort of relationship right from the start. The fact that because Jeffy has this habit of constantly reading books when they go to bed, so she finds self constantly stuck in Sam's room, and you have this like this wonderful banter between them where it's st of like, well, well am I going to sleep? And it's st like, well, I guess I'd have to go and sleep in my closets.

And he makes this whole deal about that he wants his pillar. But it's not that, Pilar, it's the other pillar we've seen for like you a high power businessman and you have a pillow. It's that. Yeah, it's that very like you know, flirty banter that uh. These actors, I think pull it feels like a little awkwardly done.

I guess like they look great together, they play off each other well, but I also never understood them as a couple in some ways, just because like we don't really I don't know the way the movie is structured. It feels so much of convenience that I don't fully buy that. You know, they have fully fallen in love in these this week and a half of being together, but they make a lot of it work. And I think she, you know, she is equal in part to that, uh, and she like she's I guess like they're at some point like a character or two calls her out on not trusting people, and like, the truth is, she shouldn't trust people like her husband is a con artist or her ex husband is an actual con artist, and so she's like, yeah, I have hard time trusting men.

Yeah you should. You have a kid, You got to take care of that kid. Don't just throw that kid into crazy situations now. So you know, I think it all works out for her in the end, and she ends up marrying somebody who is very rich. But still, so, let's move on to our bland love interest who credit is not as bland as we are used to Eric McCormick is Sam.

These are usually divided into either a poor little rich boy or a widow dad and in this case, obviously obviously poor little rich boy. So tell me a little bit about Sam and what what your take on him is. Sam is very much the screw Jess character of this tell he loves his money and as he said, he sort of lives this child free existence where money buys him all the things that he wants and he gets to live in this big dollhouse of a mansion, which is where he has like cooks and has people to do everything for him. Even the houses he has a designer come in and decorate it for him. So he has this sort of very style, sterile environment that he sort of lived.

And at the same time he feels that because he spends all this money on him that you know, he's happy that his money has truly bought him happy. At the same time, he has kind of like the wacky best friend Dave, who sort of helps him. There's a lot of problems with Dave to him, yes, we will get him. Yes, do you like ninety stereotized kids? Do you miss eighties Wall Street Rose?

So he is essentially that's that sort of Wall Street sort of bro. He's got the hair going on. He's very much like a Bretty Snell. It's yuppy, but he just happens to on a factory rather than working on Wall Street. And yeah, I mean, I'm no one's supposed to like not like his character.

And I don't know if I said because it's played by McCormick, who I obviously like as an actor, that I sort of like gave him the sort of benefit of the doubt, But yeah, I thought that, Yeah, he's very sort of stand offish because he doesn't he's not used to really having people in his life. We see him introduced with this sort of model type of Thanksgiving dinner, but she sort of disappears somewhere. I don't know they do they clarify that in the very beginning, because this movie opens with this very clear, like kind of I guess this is actually a montage and can think about it. But it's sort of contrasting Kathleen's Thanksgiving, which is like messy but it's all family and everybody's laughing to Sam's, where it's very sterile and he's got, you know, his butler is serving the food, and he with this model.

And then that scene or that kind of sequence ends with her storming out and him saying I told you or I think then actually he doesn't. We don't know what happened. But then when the next scene he's playing racquetball with Dave and he said, I told her I don't date chicks with kids, right, okay. And it's really funny as well, the fact that you pointed out the fact that drum Danny has got told these connections to Bible projects, because when we see the opening with the given thanks it's to the creator. We're not attaching it to any particular religion.

Yeah, that's a really good points. And I think it's even like mentioned as creative being a she as well, which is doubly the controversial that is fascinating. Yeah, I was like, I was like, oh, well they're being like really inclusive just incasional people with different faces. One to watch Chris movies and they can started to have it. But uh, there's especially for her knowing her background, there's no sort of like big religious underpinnings unless well, well, yeah to talk about ja Beer and him being like the moral quandary here, which is obviously play into that as well.

But yeah, there's a real focus on angels rather than anything else in this one. And while she's obviously the single mother, she's got like the older friend or neighbor who sort of spends who spends all the time looking after a daughter while she has to be at work to pay the bills and whatnot. But I think she's as a sort of she's very interesting and I think it's sort of place up Sam sort of Foibles more the fact, as I said, because of its life, his life is very much laid out like a lot of the plot points in this to lay that in that opening, Sam has a place to go in the movie, I think with Kathleen, there isn't much of an arc where Sam actually does have a have an arc. He has a change. Yeah, he's got emotions to feel.

Oh yeah, where did the emotions come from? We'll remember. The whole point is that when little Zoe says, did your dad love you? Because ultimately no, his dad didn't love him, and that's why we are where we are today with this situation. But Eric McCormick's really good in this.

Uh this came out, I guess I it looks like it came out the year before Will and Grace. But then on the trailer they say like starring Will and Grace as Eric mcormack, So it must have been like made probably as that was debuting. I don't know if he came out or if the show, if Will and Grace debuted like after this had been actually filmed, because it isn't a different network. It's CBS, not NBC, which is where Will and Grace was. But like watching it's one of these things when you watch these movies sometimes you're like, oh, yeah, that's a really good actor in that part like he's really good, because well, yeah, because Will and Grace was ninety eight, that's what IMDb said.

It says that, but the trailer says starring Eric McCormick from Willing Grace, So I don't know did they still add that post? Maybe it's just like because so when I don't know when the DVD came out or when this was like shown or that's true, yeah that you know what, you might be right? It could be this could have been released on probably VHS actually at that point, So I guess, and it makes sense that this wouldn't have been this like if you know, you get cast in a sitcom, you're you might be doing a network movie, but it's your own network, not a different one. So it must have been a they got him just before he got famous. So now let's move on, or did you have any more to say about Sam?

Some of it's gonna come up and we talk about Zoe, but did you have any more? I'm sure we're going to fill in the blanks with as Sam as we go on, because as you said, already, he goes he has the biggest darc of this this film, and I think this is where you were really so benefit of having an act of like Aaron McCoy's credibility, because there's so many scenes that would have been like really stupid or overplayed, and he keeps having him very much and they now you wouldn't think that he's like in a made for TV movie. He's very natural and you're right because he has to do some pretty like you know, kind of dumb like comedy and some really like I'm not gonna say, really heavy, but he has some dramatic scenes and he has them with a child actor where he's doing kind of probably a lot of the work, and he's just really good.

Like I think this was probably like eye opening for me to see that. You know, I've always known he can, you know, he can do sitcom comedy. I've never seen something and been like bowled over by him, But with this, it's one of those like, oh, I get why you became a star because you have the talent and you have the charisma for it. Definitely, And he's always been very good at playing straight man, Like when we look at William Grace, he's playing the straight guy against Jack's 's zany energy. He sort of grounds something and then hair it's very much the same.

It's all like everyone else is called like these zany characters, and he's sort of like the straight man who just he's got that same time that Ron Atkinson has where he can say things and they be funny. All love performance lies in his dialogue and how he enunciates things rather than how he's like carrying himself. Although he does a pretty decent flirty game of twister, so I'll go him that I forgot about the Twister. Let's see. So number three is our setting, which is typically either a big, bad city, a charming small town, or a magical winter wonderland.

I do we have any idea where they are? They don't ever say it, do they? Or did I miss it? It's it's weird, like the placements, like where she lives seems to be in a city. Yeah, it felt like I've got a real sort of New York.

He sort of vibe from it. But then again, everywhere tos Britz looks like New York. If it's more open, evan, then it's Chicago. If it's like palm trees and sunshine, it's la But if it's in the city and we see snow, it's like that must be New York, never mind the many other cities that like New York, like Philadelphia and that. But we also have like where he lives, which seems to be somewhere completely different, but again it could also be New York because when you look at New York, say, you go like two hours outs of New York City in Swan Lake, which is like full on like green trees and rednecks and full on Jewish people, as I recall from working there.

So but and yet the like trying to remember when they passed by his house, it's like she has picked the kid up from school, which she kind of alludes to is a bad neighborhood because she wants to move. She's trying to buy a house somewhere else, and that's when they pass by like this, you know, gigantic mansion. So it's it's never really established, you know. I think the factory itself is kind of more more the setting in some ways, so we don't get that same like cute small town feel that we do in a lot of these movies, but they would learn over time. Now number four is interesting because it is our dead parents or a dead wife.

Now we have a twist on that because we we don't necessarily have dead parents at the first level, but we do have a dead beat dad. That's right. See what I did there? Uh? And and importantly we have Sam's dead dad.

He's dead right, yes, Okay, because it also yeah, he's gone somehows no pies is There's so many ways you can say sounds. Catch is like poor a little rich boy, poor little orphan, rich little adult orphan. He's kind of like Bruce Rayne without the playsuit. Okay, He's he's not going out finding crime. He's just enjoying his money in his big mansion yep, with his butler uh and his and his other staff, which we'll get to because I need to talk about his maid.

Uh. The It's one of these things that we that would change a lot, and it doesn't come up often. But you do have divorce in this movie, which I mean it's the nineties, Like divorce wasn't taboo by then, but it is not something that later movies would want to include as much because it's just it comes out so negative. It's number five, our sassy sidekick. A lot of different ways we can go with this, So tell me some did you pick up on any were there any that that you thought that that person serves this part.

Um, let me say, well, we got Kathleen's sort of like mother figure, who I guess is kind of like a SaaS sidekick. I believe as a woman that she works with, res also really sassy. The script seems to want to make her sassy, and it feels my my husband like overheard that part, like when he walked in and watched it, and he's like, what did they not tell this actress like the job she's supposed to do in this movie, because it feels like she is supposed to be like the Oh the boss is so cute. Oh girl, you go get that, But like this actress is just kind of playing it straight and it just ends up being kind of odd. It's like you never said these words in your life exactly exactly.

It's yeah, it's very so stereotypical, sort of like nineties black best friend style acting that we're seeing here, and it's yeah, it it's not so jarring that it makes you think, oh, well that that seems very so stereotypical, But at the same time you can tell this is not how this actress would normally can Yeah, it feels like it that like, it feels like this script was written for a black actress to read those words. And there's nothing wrong with writing something for a person of color, but when it feels like it is written just in order to have the person of color in that particular part as the you go girl type role, it ages strangely. Yeah, this is a very sort of like nineties start writing them.

We're seeing here, And I think obviously like the nineties being my decade. I was born eighty, so a lot of when it comes like nineties cinema, I'm very kind of forgiving, like a lot of people are with like eighty cinema. When you grew up in a decade, there's a lot of trumps on top of you, just like it takes you back rather than you're going, oh, well that's really sort of jarring and offensive. You just it's of its time. And I think this is something we're sort of missing now with the kind generations where they don't view things of its time.

It's just now either offensive or not offensive. It's alwa it's like everything, it's all extremes. And I said, while her character just felt it felt more garingly written than offensive. As a character, So did you have any more in the sassy sidekick part? The only one I could think of would be sort of Dave, who's obviously Sam's sidekick, but I wouldn't call him sassy.

He's just more comunic belief. Yeah, but then again yourself, you didn't really find it that funny. Well, I mean Dave, I debated on like his Dave sassy sidekick or is he a villain like, and it's like, no, he doesn't do any thing overly. He can't. He's not effective as a villain because he doesn't have the power.

But he's just kind of just such an asshole. Like and again, this is where some of those things that just age badly is the you know, they're talking about moving the factory to Mexico, and obviously Javier is Mexican. So like Dave says a lot of things like wake up and smell the Cafe cone Leche, which like you're like, okay, well you know what I mean. Okay, but like it just is one more thing that just makes him such an asshole. He plays racquetball.

Uh yeah, He's whole role in this movie is that every time he's on the screen, it's to maschine gone off, how many stereotypes about the Mexican people we can Yeah, so, yep, it's so like he uses like his broken Spanish and yeah, you make like suggestions to like Mexican stereotypes. And it's Javere as a sort of character though he while he's supposed to be like this this clime is supposed to be impressed, he's so much of like a down toward family man, and the fact that he wants to be like do all these sort of like family things when he's hanging around the family home. He's not the sort of standard fish ogre that you would expect from his character. Oh no, and I wouldn't put him in sassy sidekick.

I'm going to move him later down the list. No, And the fact that he seems almost amused by half the things that Dave comes out with. True. So David's that weird character because he's not as I said, he's not a villain. He's the one who's trying to keep Sam on goal because in the god that they've decided where to sell the company.

But as said, he doesn't fall into a villas. Well, there isn't really even a villainous character. In this which is what so surprised. We have people who sort of like hang around the fringes of villainess. No one really commits to it.

I would say there is one more candidate for sassy sidekick, and it's really just because of the amount of face acting this woman does. The maid. I think her name is Annie, Oh, yes, and Annie like I feel like when she got this part and she said, Okay, I need to research housekeeper American housekeeper because this is very clearly filmed in Canada. Where do I go? Where can I find a character like that?

Oh? Who is the most famous television housekeeper in American television history? Alice from The Brady Bunch. And she's just doing Alice Like every all she is doing or just what her face does is just constantly like just twisting itself into weird little beats for every scene. And it's a little bit Annie Davis.

So I have no problem with that, because I enjoy a good Annie Davis impression. I just did not expect to find one here. Now. Number six is the villain, so sometimes an evil woman, sometimes a evil boss. So yeah, I mean there are more characters, I guess of bad nature than you normally get these movies because we do have the ex husband who also makes a lot of like kind of weird comments that today feel very racist.

And there is the let me see is manager business manager? I guess, Yeah, I don't know what Dave's job actually was, but the there's I was disappointed because I love a villainous woman in these movies, and I thought there was going to be the opportunity to have one who is okay in the the first month the kind of makeover montage. Uh, there is a woman there dressed in a very like bright green yellow suit, and she seems very strict and stiff. What is her role in this household? Who is She seems to be like a like a publicist.

The sandwich will be weird because he's not like a celebrity, but she seems to be all about his his image image. Yeah, but she disappears. Yeah, I thought she was gonna be there. I was. I was into it.

I like the fact that she was wearing heels on carpet and I wanted to see how to do that because Zoe says to her, like, does your face hurt? Like, because I guess she's pinching her face again. Zoe's a little ship. But we'll get to that. But yeah, it's disappointed because I thought we were going to have a kind of you know, wild corporate woman, but she doesn't last.

No, And I think the only read decision she's included in that start is just purely because would you trust Dave to come up with the styling of anything. Yeah, that's fair, that's a very good point. But her sort of role is really taken over by Kathleen because Kevin, she looks at the house, it's like, well, this was her family home. You would have board games, roaring fire because nothing like a big open fire when you've got small children around. And she's still like constantly styling.

And we have the making over the house montage where she's there like guiding things and they're just weird. Where do they get these things from? It's they're like a big warehouse that you can wheel in props for like maybe that's what this factory makes. This factory just made props for fake families. That's that's the and it's a big business in Mexico and that's why he's gonna move it there.

That does lead us right into the montage because there's kind of two that I clocked. Do you want to talk about the first one, which is the kind of we're moving in montage? Yeah, it's it's very much. It's everything of like the eighties or early nineties sort of montage. Is the only thing that they don't really do is sort of like has like some funky sort of like electro pop sort of tune playing in the background.

Is it's just like instrumental and it goes on. They didn't know back then that montages are supposed to be set to Christmas carols that are public domain, but they'd learn yes, And basically it just involves a lot of furniture being brought in them changing basically everything, a lot of cushions, a lot of cushions. Cushions are always important when you're changing over things. And also in the scream, right, one of one's cushions imply a feminine touch speaking the same thing. Women love cushions.

Itches love cushions. It's what we do. Yeah, every I you know, I wrote down cushions, but I didn't make the connection. But as soon as you started saying it, I'm like, you're right. That's the way movies think you establish a woman lives here.

Women love pillows, No, we don't. I don't like pillows. I sleep with one pillow and half the time I like want to throw it away. But this this idea that like women just we love pillows. We see a room has one pillow.

Uh, that's not a room for me. We need seven pillows on that room. And uh yeah, So I I appreciate kind of how on the nose that was, and how perhaps ahead of its time it wasn't that way as well. Then we there's another montage very shortly after that, after like the first day has gone. Well, so it's what I called the day to montage.

Did you clock that one? I don't remember what, because the whole montage it felt like everyone was sort of like being sort of done open. They were sort of like wheeled out ready. Yeah, it was all like in one go because they, as I said, they change her hair because she has the sort of Andy McDowell frizzy look of the working mom, which I always was like, no, that's the look you go with, and staid, they straighten her hair out and they give her the updue and Zoe has given the sort of like posh dress and she we get more sass of hair because that's apparently her character archemist. And the fact that they will in like all these toys and stuff, everything so brand new, and were led to believe that like he's going to come in and just like not questioned.

Why the fact that everything is so new and clean and nothing's like coming in a million stains. It sounds just a weird thing to do, Like, Hello, I am making a business deal with you. Yes, I will spend the entire week of Christmas in your house. Why does he have his own family then? Why is he just kind of choosing another family to be a family men too.

I don't think it works that way, but again, rich people can do whatever they want, so it is different. Uh number eight is slapstick? I don't know. Do you think this movie had any slapstick? Uh bebbel slapstick?

I guess. I mean we get to we get to see some skating antics. There is a lot of what I call the whoa whoa whoa on ice where somebody is skating and they go whoaa, whoa whoa and then they fall yep. And that also we get to to see Javier get to show his angel powers. Because Kathleen still like, I never fall over, and he's like, oh you sure, sprinkles dound effect.

It's a it's a weird I don't understand if he's an angel or not. So there is there's there's definitely antics on ice. One of the first thing that happens this is early on in the film, Dave. I think it's when Javier like first comes to the house and Dave like walks down the stairs and just falls down the stairs, like it's just there. There's no reason for it.

There's a game of twister, as you mentioned earlier, so obviously Twister is gonna involve falling. And then there's like, so this kid's seven, and you know, like seven year olds can obviously very wildly in terms of like how much they understand things and don't. But I don't know if this is so much slapstick as it goes into the when we talk about the kid, but her like the scene where she just decides to like destroy his study where she has taken out his cigars and clipped all of them, and then he's like, dude, that costs a lot of money. She picks up like a water gun and squirts it at him or not a water gun, but it's like got Seltzer kind of I guess, like what soda stream was for rich people in the nineties.

Uh, and like squirts it out water everywhere. He's got documents there, Like that's a shitty thing for a kid to do. Yeah, I mean she sort of takes over his office and starts messing with all his and of course it's sort of like it destroys the cigars because smoking is bad for you, and he's like those are Cuban cigars because you know, he's a rich man, so we've got he's going to have like the fine cigars, but he just keeps him in a box. Now he mid of a door like uh and this is like proper set up for his cigars. But it's yeah, I guess it's a little bit start.

I didn't really. It didn't sort of stand on me because normally we have like that sort of like dumb then character who can be like punched in the nuts or full over like a clutch of a character. But there never seems to be that at all. We just like so like these wholesome moments of people falling over or falling into each other, because that's uh, that's what creates chemistry. We also have that scene where he like looks out over his balcony and we get to see the family momentum foling and she's making pocon on the fire, yes, which I think again is a very American thinks.

We don't do that over here. I feel like it was a big thing that was like the in the nineties, that was a way you made popcorn, like if you were cool, kind of like the hipster way of doing popcorn was to get like the Jiffy pop is one of the things like that. If you've seen you've seen Scream the opening of Stream when she's making on the stove, like we never did that. We had a microwave. That was That was the way most people Americans do things.

No. Number nine is our sage old person, And I think there's kind of two two that fit this. You mentioned the neighbor who is important for establishing what angels are, right because she explains to Zoe, when you hear music and no one's there, that's an angel. Oh feathers and yes, angel were the wings on the inside. And it's so they really sort of lean into this whole age.

She had feathers in his room and it's like that's from his okay, and it's like, okay, well, and that moves into Javier, who again like seems to have no family even though he's a family man. Uh, you know, we've we've talked a lot about how he is this strange mythical creature. It it's such a weird decision to just not make them like an angel, but make them an angel. Because the end of the movie, so the movie ends, or it almost it ends like, Okay, everybody's happy, clearly these you're in love, Zoe's cool with it great, and then you get kind of like the camera pans over and it doesn't it to me it was like supposed to be one year later, but it doesn't say one year later. And it's like Zoe's it like now clearly living in the big house, and like she hears a jingle or hears music and like runs to the window to see Howvier's limo drive by stops.

Hobby Er gets out of the car, he like tips his hat to Zoey and then he gets back in the car and drives away and then the movie ends. What the fuck was that? Yeah? Also, it's a town car, which is we've all seen needful things. The devil rolls in yep, yep, yeah here is he's an angel in the same way that center bites are an angel.

It's like angel to some demons because he plays the same sort of like bargainist sort of deals as we mentioned already, like everything hintes on the choices that Sam is going to make, and he is going to present these choices to him, like which path you're going to choose. You're going to choose like the noble, honest choice where you won't sell your company and you won't put everyone out in the street, or you're going to take the bad choice, bad choices money and you're going to sell your industry. And it just doesn't fit into the sort of trope. I mean, the only sort of angelic things that he could be seen as doing is the fact that he's like creating family wholeness by having them like be forced together, and this creates this sort of big brother romance between Sam and Kathleen big Brough, obviously being in the TV show, not the nineteen eighty four version, so that's has this sort of intense things.

He creates these sort of situations sort of like ah, I see you're under missiletoe, so you must have this. Really he didn't makeup scene, which makes me think that Eric and Roma were actually kind of into each other because they seem to have a lot of pent up you know, you're you're around my kid all day. You need to get it out somehow. And we have that scene where they go ice skating and we have the potential love interest for him and he's sort of like he's again, it's enough Focian vode, so like, do you choose the hoblonde or the single mother? Which one you want to choose?

Is these choices are constantly being presented to Sam and she comes over and it's sort of like, oh, you didn't want to go and check that out, and it's like, no, it's not my thing, yeah, my thing. And it's like and she's like, oh, what is your thing now? And he's he really going to say, is like, oh, hot single moms is my Yeah, It's it's an interesting choice. I will say that number ten is Santa Claus. And again we don't get Santa Claus, but maybe we do get Santa Claus because I also thought I guess he's also gotten Santa Claus because he does again, this magical angel that gets Zoe what she wants right her dad, Like she has closure with her dad and now she lives in this giant doll house, so life turned out well for her.

There is actually no father Christmas characters and of course character in this, because normally you have like a mole Santa No, you're right, and the film like actively avoids having anything like that at all. There's not even like in the background doing film, we have like sort of very non generics of decorations, but there's no sort of like Santa Claus character in this. It's very much like the focus on angels here, which makes it's weird because we're not mentioning God's here, we're mentioning Creator. We're and I will to jump ahead in the bonus round number fourst product placement, and I'm gonna say I think this movie was in part just a giant commercial for Touch by an Angel. Again, I've never watched Touch by an Angel.

I don't know what it's actually about. I know it's about angels. I know it's her as Roe Madone. And I think this movie because I don't know if you remember this or if this was the same in England. Angels were really big in the nineties in the US there were the this like series of jewelry.

I'm trying to think what the equivalent today would be. Like it was sort of like the way like maybe you get your mother every year, like a birthstone necklace or something like that. Like there were like these angel pins that people would get and you would get like somebody's burststone for it, or if somebody was a ballerina, you'd get them the Angel Ballerina series of pins. Like it was a big thing, and a part of it was probably the show, and the show was successful. But I think, I really do think that this movie starring CBS's Roma Downey have Touched by an Angel that's all about angels and not Santa Claus.

Like Santa Claus would sort of like confuse the messaging I think if you had him here as well. So I do think in terms of product placement, like this movie very much is just selling like you like angels? Do you like angels? Because every Sunday night at eight o'clock you can get more angels. You can even get touched by an angel.

That's my theory. Yeah, the tribe is when touched by an angel has been forever ruined by family guy where they did the joke where the angels in the stand and is sort of like and now we're sent to touch by an angel and it's like, okay, look, Jimmy, where do you touch you? And he's like, I'm a freaking angel. Yep, that batt'll do it. That is forever touch right, But yeah, I get don't see what you say.

For my I mean, I remember angels being more things like the early two thousand, we had things like angel cards, and it was all in the spirituality section if bored as I was working, so I remember them more then I remember like birth stones and crystal healing. That was more of a thing over here in like the nineties, So I don't think angels had such a a foothold here. So yeah, and I wonder out there if like other people remember this or if it's specifically I think it was very you know, marketed very heavily to women and even younger, like both younger women and probably like older women that were the targets for these kinds of things. But we'll circle back now, so we're in the bonus round. The first part is the music, which is very often public domain songs, very typically the same public domain holiday songs that are in the public domain, like Hark the Herald Angel, sing, Deck the Halls, jingle bells.

Did these songs show up in this movie? Yes they did, I'm gonna tell you. But the subject just felt like so it didn't really eveniate. It felt like very so like generic made for TV music, So I didn't even register like there was Christmas secus. Yeah, there wasn't as much as I could have been.

Yeah. And then a lot of the instrumental score in the last act when it was all the dramatic scenes, My god, that score was working hard. It was very like this. You know, this is the era of the TV movie and when people think of like a sappy TV movie, this is the score you think of. Completely.

But let's see. Number two is our secret family recipe or needlessly complicated holiday cocktails. There's I don't understand who's doing the like, does anybody cook in this or it's always the cooks that are cooking. There's I believe there's some there's some Mexican biscuits that she makes. Okay, yes, you're right.

There was the Mexican wedding cookies that's right, that that she makes, and Javier also doesn't cooking because he makes a Mexican dish, which of course we have to have be too spicy for sam white people. I also love the fact that when they have these scenes, they're eating in like the actual kitchen. They've got this big sort of dining room setup that they eat. But when they're having like the wholesome family moment that in the back in the kitchen, in the kitchen's changed. The kitchen as well, seems to be a completely different set to the rest of the house.

Yes, you are right, So it doesn't seem like it feels like it doesn't fit in with his house at all. It feels like like the from the opening where we've got the crazy Thanksgivincy, it seems like that's where they are rather than in the big mansion. Yep, good point, But that's as far as we're words. The only sort of cooking we have here. Everything else is done by the chef, really, isn't it.

Yeah? Now number three is the small business in Danger now a little bit of a twist, right, it's a business that's getting bigger but is going to be selling out, and we don't know what they do or what they make. But your theories to everybody are all welcome. I want to know what we're missing there. No, they're like, I think that was just the packaging, right, because there's like the different obviously, like a factory is doing different parts of the process of manufacturing.

And it looked like she was over in the packaging part of it, not the manufacturing part of it. But we don't know what's in the box man. Number four, we already said product placement. It's this whole movie is a secret advertisement for Touch by an Angel. Number five, we have come to the Cloying Child.

So yeah, now this actress, she looks so familiar to me, and I know who she I realized exactly what I knew her from is she's in The Sweet Her After, which is also a Canadian movie, which is a fantastic movie, and she is not It doesn't have to have a big part in it, but her face and her hairs is very recognizable because she's like the girl in the back of the school bus who presses her face against school bus and waves and then dies a horrible death. And immediately I made that connection and look Sarah Rosen Frutman. She you know, she had a career in Canada for a while. I think she stopped acting in ninety You no, in two thousand and one was her last credit. I don't know, you know, I hope she's doing well.

I don't want to. I'm not gonna say put any of this on her as an actor. Like she was probably like nine when she did this movie. You can only be directed so much when you're nine. It's more the everything about Zoe, Zoe, Zoe, Zoe.

And I'll keep saying Zoe because the movie says her name about seven hundred and fifty times over the course of ninety minutes. Tell me what you thought about Zoe. She's a precocious little solid. Her whole thing is that when she gets in her own way, well so when she doesn't get her own way, she gets her own way all the time. Herd go to thing is to climb a tree, leaving have mother to go, Zoe, don't climb that tree, zoey, Zoe, Zoe zoey.

Yeah, it's so yeah. Like the second scene of the movie, we see her like it's like her way of throwing a tantrum is to like scale like a thirty foot tree and then wouldn't you know, eighty five minutes into the movie, this weird habit of hers comes back, and I'm like, is that a thing the kids do to kids? Like stress climb like, because like she's presented as like, I don't know, like just a seven year old kid who's a little clumsy, a little like a little emotional because she does have a deadbeat dad, like life hasn't been easy for her, but like it's this thing that she does, like, oh no, sometimes she runs out and climbs gigantic trees. I do this scene, I will. I tried to like record a little bit of it.

I'll see if I can put it on Instagram. Because the scene where she scales this tree, where her stunt double then scales the tree, is then stuck up this tree, is dangling from the tree had me laughing so hard and I had to rewind it about four times because I just it to me was the greatest thing I have seen in a very long time. Yeah, you messaged me so before we come on today, you messed me with the like ol captas like this finale, and it really built to mind. I said this whole as I was saying to you before we go on. Then, like it brings to mind this whole fairy had while I was watching this, because this isn't as comedic as The Good The good Son, which we also watched together.

Oh my god, got such good sub vibes from this. Yeah, yep, where the end, the big finale is that you have these two children fighting on the edge of a cliff, but because the children is unintentionally hysterical yep. And that's even before we get to like the two children hanging off the edge of a cliff, Sophie's choice moment at it's a number of those movies that you introduced me to him. It's the one time we had talked about that it is such a wrong movie. The Good Son is like on every level, it is an inappropriate movie, and yet it's it's wonderful for all the wrong reasons.

Oh my good there's somebody like snot casters out there who bash mccona mcauson's performance, like that whole movie. But it's such a good bad seed movie, it is, and he is good in it and all the stuff behind it of how like he wanted to do it as an actor. But then also like he starts filming it, he's like, this is kind of Dan, Like, my favorite thing is the dangling off the cliff scene was a stunt, but it like involved some stuff that he was like kind of freaked out doing and he's like, I don't think I don't think I can do it. I don't think I can do it. And the director was like, I need this kid to do this, and so mcaulay Culkin's dad was like McAuley, if you do this scene, I will buy you a bb gun.

And that was the thing that gotten a college Culkin to do that scene, which is so even better in the context of the Good Son, where like the sociopathic kid has a bad gun and does terrible things with it. So yes, now I wish Zoe had am a colleague Culkin in this movie. I wish Zoe was like the Elijah Wood who then met up with an evil child that could make her life hell. Because this little spoiled again, Like I know that she's not spoiled, Like the family is kind of presented as not having a lot of money, but like this kid is a fucking spoiled brat. She is.

She doesn't seem like she's lacking for anything. I mean, she obviously has this this the single mo her home life, but at the same time, she's not exactly lacking the family doesn't seem like the lacking in funds because her mother's obviously working hard at the factory produce in the WMDs, yes, exactly as well. Surprisingly, so she's at the same time, you also get the thing that she's never really been toad no, because anything that she's done is seen as being so charming by the people in her life, and so you get it. I mean, I understand, Yeah, if you've obviously just been raised around adults, you're an only child, then you would be have this sort of confidence speaking to adults. Yes, But at the same time she has no filter.

Yeah, so she's and this obviously been ninety seven sobviously mechanical, and some loans come out, and since then the old chasing to try and find who's going to be that to like get that sort of same child star performance like for a bed she mentioned already Elijah would and she is nowhere near the stands of those actors. Uh. The she she has like emotional scenes later in the movie where you know she's talking about like you know, that her dad has left and not coming back, and she asked such questions as, do you think if I wasn't so clumsy, daddy wouldn't have left? And my favorite, maybe I'm just not lovable. And of course I'm pausing it and I'm like, no, exactly, you're not.

You're off. But she does, of course of Aaron McCormack, because you have flyings like this, so you think of a class and he's giving like this Oscar performance, No love you, It's okay, people fall, people drop things. Uh. That's also the big scene that does play out later because the whole Eric McCormick opens up and says like, well, my dad didn't love me because I wasn't good at baseball, all right. My dad was a sports guy, and I couldn't catch a fly ball.

And one day he took me out and he hit fly balls all day long, and I just wanted to catch one and I just couldn't and I couldn't and I hit my glove, but I still didn't catch it. That comes back at the end of the movie because remember she has scaled a thirty foot tree. She is dangling from a branch and for whatever reason, yeah, you did. I don't think you called that, but that it was a it wasn't call back because then we're so caught up in the finale because we need that life bond moment. Yes, And normally in these situations, as I said before, like the kid would be hanging off a damn or all into a river, or me to rayben bear, or there'd be some danger that she's rescued from by Sam and that creates a life on But at this point they either run out of money, the budget's not there, resource isn't there, whatever reason.

But obviously Ted Chef is like a studio guy. He know you are you do you give him a script? He go out and get the job done. And what if I got got a tree, all right, go climb up the tree. But I didn't like think like, oh, him catching her, because he has that wonderful monologue about how he wasn't able to catch it because the glove was too big, and it's sort of like and when he gets to the baseball glove at the end, and it's like and this is again just rowing by the Simpsons, because I remember that when Hammer goes to the batch of boys like little give me his baseball glove.

It's like it's so cliche in my mind, he's getting a baseball, Like I don't know, I think it would be really hard to catch a kid from thirty feet in the air, Like yeah, because we see the point of view of where she is and she's looking down and there's like it's not just like empty field, like there's all this other tree brand We're like, no, she's gonna let go and she's gonna bounce off seven different parts of that tree. Like but no, like she falls like right into his arms, of course because of the nature of this movie, but like physics should not let her trust him. And also if I'm Zoe, I'm like, no, I know you can't catch Your dad doesn't love you because you're really bad at this, So why should I trust you now?

But she falls and he catches her, and it's fine because it's the assuming tone of don't worry, Zoe, I'll catch you at it. I totally trust your mccomack. So I have one more question on Zoe, because I I watched this with subtitles on just because it's easier, and then I catch things and I was very confused by the what is Santa's Reindeer's second rage dear's name. Do you remember this bit when they're doing the ice skating and she's like, that's Donner and or no, she's like that's Donder and the other characters like, no, it's Donner. She's like, no, the Donner party ate each other, which I guess they thought was a cute line to give to a kid.

But isn't it Donner. It's not Doner. There's no reindeer with It's yeah, don Donner, like the Donner Party, not Donder like rhyming with Ponder, right, non don It's definitely Donna. Then I've seen some close movie and I've seen them do the names and stuff. Okay, you reindeer, So like, no, I think there's a second d in this word.

So I just googled it. As I started googling it, it like auto googled up and said, reindeer names Donder or Donner And it seems like it's a silent day. Though I don't know the original poem, they write it differ. They write it as d under. This is this is like the new Berenstein Bears.

Apparently, oh wow, the Internet doesn't agree, so this needs more research. I will I will take this to I have a friend who's librarian. I'm gonna make her do this for me and figure it out because I'm wildly confused now, but it bugged me and I knew I needed to double check that. So so that's Zoe. We hate her, right, Oh yeah, just about it.

She is awful, but she's awful in the way you kind of expect old children to be in these movies. So I think you're refreshing because I didn't really get many kids yet this year, so I kind of like when I get like the full in one. Oh yeah, she makes up for it very much. Number six Finding the Perfect Tree. We don't have the scene of them going and getting a tree, but we do have Roma Downey giving us the important lessons on how a tree should be decorated if it's a family tree.

Uh now do you agree with that? Do you put balls on your tree? I don't put apples on my tree, but looking at at my tree here, I wish I won't show you because my Floune is a mess. It's basically like five hundred decorations because the kids have to put every single decoration on every single brand. So there's a lot going on.

And we're also the family where we have decorations for certain years. So we have got like the comely coronavirus on there, We've got Kevin the carrots on there. We've got all these things that we've collects of the years that mark out particular years that those are the family. So yeah, we we can't have a tree for a while until our cats grow out of the phase of seeing something that is big and clearly dangerous and deciding to climb into it knock it down. So maybe maybe one enjoyed the chronicle of the magically shrinking tree.

Yeah, yes, it's so far stood now now it's been you know, only got knocked down twice as far as we know, so not bad for for three days so far. Let's see seven empty coffee cup acting, did you clock any I actually don't know that I did. But this is also the nineties. We didn't have Starbucks cups in the nineties. We weren't walking around with our with our cardboard so much.

I think there is one scene whether drinking coffee and it's very clearly there's nothing in those pass okay better, but no, there's no like takeout coffee or anything like that, not as agree just says some other movies would do. We're not in the franchise coffee area yet, so yes, no, no, no, we need time on that. You're right, eight actors trying hard not to actually eat on camera. Again, like we don't really see meals like we see like the beginnings of meals, but less so the actual dining and like trying to talk around putting the fork in your mouth. But number nine is a big one.

Our canadianisms or signs that the movie was not filmed wherever it was supposed to be filmed and set. So again, for all we know, this movie is set in Canada, right, they never actually say it's not. But did you clock any canadianisms in here? Nothing really sort of stood out. But again, it's not a small town vibe that we're going for in this one, so it doesn't really give a chance to see.

I mean, certainly the tree and the area surrounding the mansion seems more Canadian than anything that we see on the inner city. And I think this is where the film sort of like gets to scared around it because a lot of the shots are either inside the factory or we're outside the mansion. We get very few shots outside. The only sort of shots we get outside it's like the finale, the ice skating sequence, and the introduction sort of the shots. Everything else is sort of like it could be anywhere really, but it doesn't feel lovely Canadian.

There are two things that struck out to me. One is the there's actually a very funny scene, maybe about what fifteen minutes into the movie, when daver Dan, the business friend Dave has like arranged foreign an actress and a child actor to play play his family, and it's kind again, it's kind of funny just because the kid's kind of a shit, and that's enjoyable to me. But the woman playing his mother or his wife, they're talking about, like, hey, what's for dinner, and she just looked like looks right at Eric McCormick and says, hey, my agent didn't say anything a boot making dinner. And it's just like the the as Canadian a line reading as you can like jokingly summon. So that made me happy.

And the other thing was just one of those. So the actress who plays the neighbor who tells us about Angel's bridget, Barbara Gordon is her name, not Barbara Gordon of you know Gotham, but we're not that we know as looked at him like, she looks really familiar. I'm sure I've seen her in a million things. What has she been him? And the first thing that she's known for is Cube two.

And I feel like if you are if you have an actor that was in a Cube movie, that is also of those immediate signs that you were a Canadian production. Very true. Number ten warm weather watch. So we're not outside often, but when we are, I don't see many gloves. Uh.

I wonder fake looking snow, very fake looking, yes, especially outside the mansion. That's with the snows and snowswake. They cover it very well in the ice skating and sub sequence because apparently everything has been built on the ice. The coffee stands, yep, there's all that. It's not that they have really is like a fence that's randomly also on the ice, Like is that an like what outdoor ice rinks are like?

Like it's just a little space in the middle of everything that you crowdedly skate next to people on. I just know the big rinks because we don't really have like skating and lakes and because you don't get ko. So we have like you've seen the good sun, that's why you know what can happen. So we just have like these top at rinks and it's normally you have like the rink which is basically say as like a roller rink, but it's ice right then, everthin's at the site, so no, meally we don't build like the coffee shop in the middle of the rank. Yeah, I was afraid that ice was gonna melt because everybody looked like nobody was wearing gloves or they were they kept taking them off.

They weren't wearing like heavy coats. I'm like that, it's gotta be pretty warm for the way they're dressed. Let's see now number eleven old people aggressively matchmaking. We I mean we kind of have again, like Javier is clearly sprinkling some Christmas magic to manipulate some things. But yeah, that's probably about the extent of it.

I guess does the just have mother type figure, does she say something about her being picky about men or about the DeBie x? Yeah, well she in the beginning, she's kind of like because Zoe's is very much saying how much you know I wish my dad was here, And because that's why at one point I didn't think they were divorced. I thought he was abusive because I think I think I can't remember if it's Kathleen or the neighbor who says it, who says like, sometimes when people go away, it's a good thing. Sometimes you don't want them back, And I'm thinking, like, yeah, I'm like that's pretty fucking dark, Like is he gonna show up and he's like what did he do to this family? But no, he's just a like con artist.

Basically, he's a weird certain character as well to provide the threat for the film, because he's like the one who could like basically yeah, yeah, And he's introduces this comedic sort of Klotz because he's a former gold pro golfer who's trying to get back on the tour and now has the sideline where he's hustling. And I was so confused by that scene because I think that was right around the point where I had like stopped it and then came back to it like the next day, and so I turned this movie on and it's like, why am I on a golf course? Wait? Is that Eric McCormick. Is he playing like business golf?

What is going on here? I got so confused? So and he's sort of like turns up and the most evil thing that he does is basically trying to blackmail money out of Sam. And he's then just become such an after for because I'm sort of like, fine, I will pay you money to go away, and then he might even like because Zoe gets really upset because she thinks that, you know, she's done all these good things. So her father's going to turn up and he like apparently knows where this deadbeat dad's gonna be, so he well, he gets the address from the bridget He does get the address, and the dads will like introduced himself as a playing closed police officer to the staff of the Face acting made Yeah to Andy Davis, what's he investigated?

Nobody knows, Nobody asks, but he's, as I said, he's played so for like laughs. He's not like a fret at all. He just basically turns up to be sort of like friend to deveil over him. But he's such an afterthought in this this film and the fact that Zoe is sort of like, oh my dad is an astronaut. He's she's got this hole to spill where he is, and there was surprised that Sam sees through this, so he doesn't go like to Kathleen is at like, I heard your husband's an astronaut.

That's why he went away, and she too reveals the truth is like he knows already that it's yeah, well it seems very obvious. I think he also probably is looking at this kid like, you're you're not smart enough of your dad to be an astronaut. But between if you're like if you're the product of Kathleen, who seems very intelligent, Like, no, you're you got you got a lot of this from your dad. I think that's where his head is. Let's see the last one, our favorite fashion moment of the movie.

There is some style going on again, it's very nineties. Uh, there's a few I thought things that Kathleen wears that stood out to me. I love her her outfit and like the last scene is this kind of white pants suit with a like the dazzled blazer. I'm like, you know, not many people could pull that off. Roma down he can pull off a lot.

I think she's very cheek. I think she I think she was a model too. She's not overly tall, but I believe she modeled in her past. And I thought that outfit was very like, oh that's a that's a good Christmas outfit for a movie. Anything stand out to you fashion wise?

The in the fashion wise, I think Jerryer has got all the best outfits. Yeah, he's a very sort of like fashionable, well dressed man Sam for the period. Isn't overly so hipster. If anything, he's got sort of like the Michael Douglas hair of that era where he was so like the devilish rogue. Michael, Yeah, I mean it's basic instinct Michael Douglas Harry right, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is like my like you said, basic instinct black gray back when he was as they was, devilish rogue before he transitioned into his like men of power sort of status that he sort of went into.

And I was, as I said, there's nothing so like sounds, especially for like the nineties. There's no sort of like really sort of like bold nineties fashions at all. We don't even have like the red and green for the cover. Oh, you're right, the titles are in red and green, but no one on the cover has thrown together as this cover is. Oh, this this cover is such a piece of art with the angel couple.

Yeah, you have people. Please go and look at the poster art for this movie because it is You're right, it is the font. Wow, I'm just looking like realizing it so much now the font. So you have three names built above the credits. Obviously, Rome Doowny, Er McCormack, and Hector Alizondo.

And their first names are in green, their last names are in red. Borrowed is in green, hearts in red two different fonts, two different fonts within borrowed and hearts. Uh. Then you have these this big angelic overglow over Romadowne and Eric McCormack, and they're like cheek to cheek but staring at the camera. You have little Ice skater Zoe uh.

And then at Christmas tree and photoshopped in the front corner is like does does hegra alsand to wear that outfit in the movie he's wearing kind of a is that a beret? And like casual like to be the they seem to have like took it out. That actually seems to be the shot from when they got Ice skating where he's watching them, maybe because Zoe is in the ice skating outfit. Yep, yep. And then we got the house which looks like the Amityville House.

It does, it totally does. And that opening when she's playing with that dollhouse, you you your mind went the same place, right, Amityville Dollhouse, which is one of the best Amityville movies. What is very Land of the Giants, isn't it where we've got to have big head looking for as sin as I saw the doorhouses anything like dolls, dollhouses, it makes me think yourself because you know, yeah, and these doll houses are almost yeah, and I mean that's oh yeah. One thing on this movie that is, I think again a sign of a little more filmmaking prowess than you see in movies today of this ILK is that you do have some like pool shots with the dollhouse, like the final scene where like the house itself transitions to a dollhouse and then then pulls out to her playing with the dollhouse.

Like there's filmmaking going on here. It's kind of strange to see it's dollhouse is always raised sort of weird when they're in these sort of like comedic sort of dramas and the fact that they obviously pull out to her playing with the doorhouse is this open in her head? But yeah, I wonder that. I was like, yeah, yeah, it's like that Jennifer Ganne movie was it Fixed Being Going on thirty or something edding going on Ferdy where she ultimately ends up living in her doll house at the end she look at the air. Yeah, she lives ends up in like the Barbie dream house at the end of the film, and it's like she why she's supposed to like age ahead, she never leaves the white childhood notions behind, so she lives in like the Barbie dream house of that world.

It's really dark interesting if you never seen it, you it certainly didn't end the way of what it was, especially from all those sort of movies where you have a when you like go back to being like a child or from a child, right, Usually they always end with the resolution of like, oh, we're back to normal, but it's a little better. Yeah, yeah, they normally like that back, and that one it doesn't. She remains in like in this jumped head adult state. And again I think there is an argument to be made that borrowed hearts that you can be read in that same same way, because at the end of the last shot, like it's just from Zelway's point of view, and she is playing with a dollhouse and there's like a mama, a daddy baby, and like she looks out the window and there is the devil driving away in his town car and that was apparently her needful thing and perhaps that's where it ends, and it maybe her mother died in that tree as well.

We don't know, We don't know. There's a lot you can read in there. So tell me, do you recommend this movie? And who would you recommend it to? This movie?

I mean I had this almen. I was sourcing stuff out in the lounge, so it was good sort of background. I think if I sat down and just like focused on this then it would have driven me nuts. But it's sort of like very sort of festive viewing. It's very sort of easy to get into and within five minutes she will have worked out exactly all the moves.

This film is going to make you know that how things are going to resolve themselves when you know pretty much how it's going to get to that point. The only things that it's sort of like Frozen and sort like twists obviously with the character of Javir, who's sort of like Frozen the thing. But I mean, it's a Christmas movie. And I think we said I've said to you before is that you're very like forgiving when it comes to Christal movies. The things you accept with the Christmas movie that you won't accept with other films of this sort of like standards, you're more forgiving.

And it's sort of like the wholesomeness like make Sure how Grow five times and you are pres you don't want a movie about Dave and about Dave saying Dave by the end of this film like you wanted about Sam evolving. I you are right about the sitting down to watch this because I did that because I have to. I have to sit there with my notes and particulously rewind. And I did find this was one of those movies where I, you know, stopped it at a certain points. I had to get up and get some water.

And when I did, I I said to myself, oh shit, I still an hour left. And then I kept watching and then decided, Okay, I'm done. I'm gonna finish it tomorrow. I'm gonna go to bed thinking. I was at like, you know, I only had like twenty minutes left, and I pause it and it was, oh, no, you have forty five minutes left.

You've only watched this movie for forty five minutes. So it is like there's something about the pacing of it that feels very gummy and very slow. It wasn't like sometimes these kind of fly by. This one does not, even though it's the same length as every other one of these movies. But that being said, the Eric McCormick's great Roe Madowney is doing exactly what she should be doing in this movie.

It for people that I think are curious about. In terms of putting this in context with these movies today, it's really interesting to see how they evolved and how this was kind of an early example of Okay, we're gonna make a you know, we have certain talent attached to a movie. We can do something. We know the demographic, we know we're going for women, we know we're going for families of a certain age, we know that people over fifty are gonna love this, And you can kind of see the different things working here and what falls off, and how you make the same movie five years later and you don't have the Dave character, and you don't have some of the kind of more risque jokes that you have in here.

And it's just this interesting point in history as being something of value if you are like really looking at the history of this genre. So even though it's not directly tied to it, it is part of the journey to get to the you know, fifty thousand Hallmark movies we have every year now, and it's interesting in that way. Yeah, it's I mean, unlike some of like Christmas Chronicles, which I could see what's easy, it's soon too. I didn't really notice the one time of this one, and I think I have to say it's because I wasn't like this sort of light. Yeah, really shut down to sort of watch this.

But at the same time, the plugging is so light and you can just have it in the background and not really miss anything at all, and it draws your attention to the things you need to have your attention drawn to. And the filla isn't sort of like overully obvious in this one. Yeah, so long as you sit down and keep your entire body on the screen during the tree scene, because that is important and that is fantastic, and it will I think six years from now when I am feeling feeling down, when like I have a bad day, I Am going to like pull this up on Amazon and just get to that scene and watch it again because it made me really happy. It's so stupid, but that is borrowed hearts. It is available.

It's streaming on at least in the States, it's streaming on free v which is a wing of Amazon that has commercials, although it has very few commercials. I think I only had two. I think I only had Onemercial Break actually, So it's kind of a nice thing about freeby is it's not It is less commercials than to Be or the Roku channel or some of the other sites. So it is out there if you are curious. And again I think if you have a passing curiosity about about this, just give it a go, because there's a lot there that I think is enjoyable in a weird way.

But that is borrowed hearts. Now, Ellwood, tell everybody what you're up to and where else they can find you. You can obviously find me on my blog, which is from the Deptic City Hell, which is from the depty City held at webpress dot Com. You can find me on Letterbox, which is I would underscore Jones and which is really the only social media I do. Podcast Wise, we've got the Ancient Sema Film Club, which at the moment we're in the midst of celebrating Kaiju Christmas.

This year we're going to be looking at Godzilla versus Kingadora, so we're into like the nineties Godzilla, which is be really interesting to look at. And my other show being Movies and Tea, where we each season we pick a different director to re evaluate the filmography and work through. At the moment in the midst of recording, now, Where's Andson season which when we originally start the show was going to be season one, but then we really wanted to watch Vent to Rise and so Poldavi Sanson became our season one way more in my opinion, where since now our season ten. So but yeah, it's he's making the same exact movies he made ten years ago, so it's really that didn't make a difference. Probably, Oh you like Fantastic Mister Fox.

Though there's certain films then were Sunsen's philmography. I really do enjoy when I like roll tene bands, I like rush More. Yeah, those those agreed. Actually those are my two. I don't like Grand Boot Pass, which everybody else seems to really love.

And then there's movies like Life Aquatic, which I have a connection to because my father, because my father was a marine biologist and we watched that together, so I have that connection to it because him. But like it's when you do look at it starting a direct filmography and work way through and you identify the themes such as like Paul Wa Samson, who everyone dismisses because he did a bunch of us and teeble movies, but his films visually are so interesting, and especially when you move away from the resident egle movies and you look at things like Sojia, Event Horizon, even like Shopping. There's some really interesting ideas and themes within his work. And he also gave us More Combat, which is the greatest movie of all time.

I'm still a Street Fighter fan. That's that's U. I pick that battle every time. But you do you? I respect it, I know.

But more Kamba has that one called Pavlovian response of if you ill Mortal Kombat. People will either might do techno music at you or give you like that knowing like thumbs up, you're not wrong. But if I say, for me, it was Tuesday, then you also get the same reaction to people that are like, my god, ll, Julia's so good in that movie. So it's you know, it's cool, we can still be friends. It's all good.

With that being said, I think it is time for us both to scream and then scurry up trees and get saved by little boys whose dads didn't love them. Christmas time at last, I'm gonna have a blast. I'll help with setting up. Although I'm never asked to help with the decor. I knock it to the floor because when it comes to decorating left the floor, I'm not always understood.

Sometimes I think that I'm abreast, But fancy if I'm bad or good. He also knows that I'm a kn't. So I'm climbing up the Christmas tree to help with the mistifs are gloaning up the Christmas tree now,