Excuse the Intermission
Alex, and Max take you on a journey through film with this discussion podcast about movies.
Excuse the Intermission
Unwrapping Christmas Cringe: A Hilarious Dive into Festive Rom-Coms
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Ever paired Nosferatu with Mufasa for Christmas movie day? We're shaking up holiday traditions in our latest episode, where we chat about our festive plans and explore the wacky world of Christmas cringe movies. As we gear up for 2024, we share our excitement over the Criterion Channel's Nicole Kidman collection, and the intriguing seasonal trends we've spotted on platforms like Letterboxd and Reddit. Get cozy as we unwrap the unique charm of these films, from their low-budget quirks to the predictably sweet romantic plots that keep us coming back for more.
Are you ready to discover what makes a movie deliciously cringe-worthy? We break down the elements that define these festive gems, contrasting them with more cinematic Christmas tales like "Four Christmases" and "The Family Stone." It's a journey through the evolution of holiday rom-coms, where traditional values meet modern twists, and stars like Vanessa Hudgens shine bright. From the catfishing escapades in a Nina Dobrev film to the medieval-meets-modern antics of "The Knight Before Christmas," we embrace the hilarity of it all.
Join us for a wild ride through our top recommendations, where unexpected castings and quirky storylines rule the roost. Whether it's the holiday chaos in "Something from Tiffany's" or the uproarious mix-up in "Xmas," these films promise laughter and joy despite their budget constraints. We also touch on how these movies, with their charming absurdities, manage to balance nostalgia with the cliché. So tune in and let us guide you through the festive fun and occasional head-scratching moments of the Christmas cringe genre.
How's it? I'm Alex McCauley. I'm Max Fosberg.
Speaker 2And I'm Erica Krause.
Speaker 1And this is Excuse the Intermission a discussion show surrounding Christmas cringe. It's our holiday episode for 2024. We're back in the lab recognizing another bizarrely important subgenre of movies. Much like garbage, crime, space garbage and disaster trash, christmas cringe represents an oddly popular corner of the movie landscape that has grown too large to ignore. So ahead, on today's episode, we will tell you all you need to know about this epidemic and what entries might actually be worth your time this holiday season. That conversation up next after this short break break. All right, y'all, how are we doing today, less than 10 days before Christmas, or until Christmas, I should say, at the time of this recording. We will be taking next Monday off, but jumping right back in studio after St Nick's big day so that we can get our thoughts out on the major December 25th releases, but before that we have our Christmas cringe show. It is the week of Christmas. So what are you guys both up to? Any fun plans over the next seven days or so?
Speaker 3Just some family time. Yeah, looking forward to that. Nephew's going to be in town, so can't wait to see him. Hopefully we'll watch.
Speaker 1I was going to say what's the uh watch list for old lucas?
Speaker 3uh, you know, last time I was with him we, at thanksgiving, we watched moana, um, so I don't know, maybe I'll try and show him that christmas you were talking highly of of that film a couple days ago. Yeah, it's a fun one, yeah, so I might, might try and sit him down for that was he into?
Speaker 1were you guys watching moana because he was excited for moana 2, or is that like pushed on him?
Speaker 3uh no, he was very excited for moana okay and he wanted to watch moana 2. Unfortunately, you know that was only in theaters and he didn't understand that concept um.
Speaker 1But then we you know, disney marketing working though, with don milana, and he was fun I wish my nephew was into movies.
Speaker 2He's he. He really loves polar express, but that's like a year-round that is so scary it really is.
Speaker 2But you know what that's like for the longest time that's been like our family christmas movie for a really long time. But then I I feel like I've been, like I've woken up to it, because in the last year or two, every time I watch it I'm like this is fucking weird, like this scares me kind of, and I hate even thinking that, because this has been a movie we've gone to see in theaters so many times as a family and now my nephew just lives and breathes Polar Express. But yeah, it is a little concerning. I guess we can't really get him to watch movies otherwise. Well, maybe, maybe, maybe he's just as a Mecca's head.
Speaker 3You need to show him here and force gun cast away.
Speaker 1That's pretty funny. Yeah, I mean it's. It's going to be, I feel, like holiday this year, just because I won't be celebrating Christmas until the 27th. That just happens to be the time in which my sister gets into town, so the family's not going to come together for a few days, or not come together until a few days after Christmas, so I'll just be hanging out with you know, tomlin and russ and the boys on christmas against, against the chiefs, and then probably go out and see nosferatu like a weirdo by myself.
Speaker 1I, I am my mom, mom. This is my official invitation to you to join me on christmas, for you know, nosferatu, if you want to see mufasa also, we can do that double feature. I've been teasing that for a couple of months the Mufasferatu Christmas day double feature.
Speaker 3So I am taking my mom to Nosferatu on Christmas day at 10, 10 in the morning.
Speaker 2I've already told my family that I will be ditching them for Nosferatu on Christmas day at some point, so and I'm thinking'm thinking of maybe the Baby Girl double feature.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Baby Girl double feature.
Speaker 3Or you know a little Bob Dylan, a little Complete, unknown. There's going to be so many movies. Did you see that?
Speaker 1Nicole Kidman is getting her own subgenre from the Criterion channel in.
Speaker 3January.
Speaker 1It's just like the Nicole Kidman block. I love that.
Speaker 2Do I need to be on the Criterion? I don't know about it.
Speaker 1The Criterion channel as far as streaming services go, is really solid.
Speaker 3It's the best movie library yeah.
Speaker 1For cinema you know, without trying to sound too highbrow, but they curate different packages every month, and so it's not just like an endless. They do have films that obviously stay in the collection, john is films, um, more specifically, ones that they've already licensed for physical release. But it's really fun because they will all of a sudden put together these packages of movies that you would never maybe think have the esteem of being like a Criterion release. And then all of a sudden it's going to be like a 80s giallo run during October, and so you get a bunch of Dario Argento movies. You get like Tenebrae and Deep Red and Suspiria, all these movies that you can watch on the Criterion channel that can sometimes be hard to find on other streaming services. So it's, I'd say it's, worth it, it's pretty good, all right.
Genre Analysis
Speaker 1So I I've recently started to notice some things happening on Letterboxd and on movie and on like movie Reddit and on film Twitter that seem to repeat themselves around this time of year. So these, these observations got to the point where they puzzled me, so much so, and I would say that this really started like dating back during the pandemic. But finally this year I couldn't take it anymore and I texted the two of you and said it's time to talk about Christmas cringe. Now, in most cases, when assigning a label to a product, it's maybe most important to kind of define what something isn't, as opposed to jumping straight into what it actually is. When I approached the two of you with this idea, did you know the type of movie that I was hoping to discuss without me having to explain it further?
Speaker 2immediately.
Speaker 3Yeah, I immediately knew yeah, I mean, I think I think its origins go back to, you know, the hallmark channel, right, uh, the the. You know, the one of the first titles that came to my mind that I remember seeing on the hallmark channel was something like santa paws, uh, which is, which is more animal related, which probably is a whole another genre on on its own, um, but yeah, these uh very like cheesy romantic centered around christmas um like romantic comedies. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1Now, erica, you said something interesting at the end of last episode. You said the term Christmas cringe. You might take a little offense to it. Was that because you think you can find love in 90 minutes on the Hallmark channel, or what? What did you mean? What did you? I was so confused by that.
Speaker 2You can definitely find love in 90 minutes if you really look for it. But no, I well, I think that I wanted to make sure that we're clear because I think that you know, some of my near and dear Christmas movies could be considered cringy, but this okay, so this is great because like.
Speaker 1I saw you log something on letterboxd, for instance, this week that 100 does not qualify as christmas cringe. But I think what you, you know what I'm talking about, but I think what, what we need to do right now is is definitely clarify clarify what christmas cringe isn't yeah and so I.
Speaker 1So the few things that I put down here is number one theatrically released. If your film is theatrically released, it's something other than christmas cringe. Now, it can be cringy, and so I have a few of those examples down here. Like for christmases, I think, checks all the the boxes for a christmas cringe film. However, whether it's the presence of reese witherspoon or vince vaughn or the supporting cast in that movie, but mostly just the fact that that was released in theaters and picked up by a major studio to be distributed, that takes it out of this christmas cringe, this coaching tree from the hallmark movies of, like, the 2000s that we're talking about. I also don't think that these movies if you're going to be christmas cringe, you can't be over 100 minutes in a film like the family stone, which you logged and that I know you love and have a super soft spot for, like those movies actually take time to flesh out their characters, give some character development to them. So is that the one that you were? I mean I?
Speaker 2I definitely didn't want to throw your, your beloved under the bus not cringy, everybody it's not cringy. I mean maybe to some people it is. But yeah, I can a holiday could be like really christmas cringe, but it's not though it's not we love the holidays, not Christmas.
Speaker 3Love actually is not Christmas cringe. There is a difference and you know it when you're watching these movies like and this is going to sound just so pretentious but and like high flute in film school, but like Christmas cringe movies are not speaking the same language, the same film language as something like the Family Stone or For Christmas or the. Holiday, like there is something more cinematic about those films that Christmas cringe. Hallmark, netflix originals, the movies that we are going to examine today they don't speak that language.
Speaker 1So why do you think stops it from speaking that language? Is it money at the end of the day?
Speaker 2It's so much like quality in my opinion that like I mean coming from someone who knows very little about actual filmmaking and like the technical side of things about actual filmmaking and like the technical side of things but you know, you can look at it visually and just know that this was.
Speaker 1there was not a budget, like not money, was not really like allocated to things like production design exactly, and I think the camera's being used exactly and you can tell like it's just really the like, just visually.
Speaker 2It looks cheap, you know, it looks like tv.
Speaker 3It looks like tv, yeah it's, it's a lot of hard light, it's a lot of um. I mean, a movie script, you know should, should always be rewritten at least five or six times. These movies are rewritten maybe twice. The cringy ones, the cringy, the cringy ones, yeah, they, they are. And when it feels I mean you can tell it feels like it comes off an assembly line, if it feels like that, it smells like that, it sounds like that it came off an assembly line. So yeah, there there is. There is a difference. It is hard to kind of put into words without like, actually, you know, watching Love Actually and then Hot Frosty, right, like there is something there so I think there's some other films that we have to talk about, because they fit a lot of what we just described.
Speaker 1However, they're missing one key component, and I think that that's like the romantic nature of the christmas cringe classic that we're trying to identify here via this episode, so something like candy cane lane, which came out a few years ago with eddie murphy in it a straight to streamer. That looks bad, looks like like it was made for TV. But I think something that these movies cannot be can they can't be centered around kids in a family unit.
Speaker 3Yeah, they're not. They're not. It can't really be an adventure film, right? I would think candy cane lane, which is a movie I watched, uh, last was that last year, I think. So, yes, yeah, um is, is more of an advanced adventure holiday movie, right, like that is. And you're right, it's centered around a family, um, you know, coming together. There is, there is some sort of action going on, there is some sort of like real antagonists, uh, throughout the film, um, whereas christmas cringe what I found in my findings, it's a lot of fish out of water. It's about two people who fall in love, even if it's only like two days they've spent together, um, and, and there's some sort of like Christmas magic that has to happen for, you know, someone to either stay in this realm or or for the circumstances to make any kind of sense.
Speaker 3Yeah, um.
Speaker 1Another one that I think does not count for christmas cringe however, I have seen a lot of people talk about it this year is the I believe it's a paramount plus original. Actually, I know it's a Paramount Plus original. Actually, I know it's a Paramount Plus original, let's be honest here and it's called Dear Santa. It's a Jack Black movie that a lot of people are watching and talking about right now. Jack Black actually plays Satan and is dealing with a dyslexic child who, instead of writing a letter to Santa, has written a letter to Satan. Now, just a hell of a logline right there, and I need to watch this movie. However, I was not going to commit time to that when I could be watching a Christmas cringe movie or catching up on some end of the year 2024 releases here or just spending my time otherwise. However, those movies are cringy in their own right, much like candy cane lane, but they're not what we're looking for well, I I think something that is is obvious there is that you need c-grade movie stars in these christmas cringe.
Speaker 2That's what I was gonna say I feel like the actors too are a huge part, like part in what makes them apart from movies like love, actually, the holiday, all that kind of stuff. Is sure we might recognize them, but this is, I mean, they're really like no offense. Lindsey lohan, but you know, your, your track record these last few years is this is this is pretty on par for you.
Speaker 1You know, like, like stuff like that, you know I think there's two, there's a, there's a godfather and a godmother of of what we're talking about here with the performances. And so looking back at kind of the evolution of the Hallmark original and like how did we get to where we are now? There's two names that I saw come up over and over and over again in these early 2000s to mid 2010s films, before we really started to see these show up over and over again on the streaming services. So these were your hallmark originals, and it's melissa, joan hart and mario lopez yeah these are the two.
Speaker 3Oh, and I think really made it popular to start doing this those are the archetype of of kind of celebrity or movie star or actor that is in these films. Yes, that is actually perfect.
Speaker 1You take someone who has clout from either leading a TV show about a decade earlier, or someone, like in Mario Lopez's case, or someone, like in Mario Lopez's case, an actor who you never really knew as an actor, maybe more as just a celebrity, or a daytime TV show host, or someone that would pop up on Extra, or, you know, all Access Hollywood, whatever it may be, and you're like, how do you make money? Oh, this is how you do it, you. I mean there is a list I am DB'd Hallmark Christmas movies and it really starts around the two thousands, like right at the turn of the century. There's a list of 478 Hallmark original Christmas movies and wild, and I'm I'm looking through the names and I'm like, do I, can I remember watching any of these growing up? And I actually found a title that that I can remember watching with my sister growing up and it's called A Town Without Christmas and it took place in Washington here, and it's about a little boy who writes to Santa saying basically that he doesn't believe in the holiday spirit because his parents are getting divorced and he wants to leave this world behind, and so the whole community, in the spirit of Christmas half, has to rally around this kid so that basically he doesn't self-harm himself.
Speaker 1Wild premise for a Hallmark, but like that's what, that's what we were getting and that's what was really happening here. Also, a lot of those movies and I, I, we, you don't see this anymore in the christmas cringe that we have now in 2024, but the early christmas cringe movies that lived on the hallmark channel are very conservative, very republican. You get a lot of like military veterans trying to find love around the holidays. You get a lot of love on a farm. You get.
Speaker 1You get a lot of nuclear, white nuclear families, totally in middle america, and so it's nice, it's great to see that we've come out of that snow.
Speaker 3Wherever these movies take place, it's the most snow you've ever seen, do you?
Speaker 1feel like so. So my question before we really get to what christmas cringe is in 2024 anything that we've left behind that like do you think that there are people who love this shit back in 2006 that feel like we we've jumped the shark as a christmas cringe society and we don't make them like we used jumped the shark as a Christmas cringe society and we don't make them like we used to anymore? Do you think it's a good thing that it's come this far? Or did these need to stay on the Hallmark Channel and maybe be a little closed-minded? But is it good that a movie like Hot Frosty can be the number one film on Netflix?
The Evolution of Christmas Rom-Coms
Speaker 2I mean I don't know because. So what I was thinking about earlier today is like just just kind of the way that we are evolving in media and our streaming services and all that. And you know, I don't know how accessible the Hallmark channel is, you know, because I don't have cable, but you know Netflix is the new Hallmark for for so many because I don't have cable, but you know Netflix is the new Hallmark for so many. I'm looking right here, just like all of these Netflix originals and I mean it's really catering to like a new generation of the Hallmark mom.
Speaker 2You know that was, you know, at home watching these around Christmas time and like loved the cheesy, the, the cornballness of it all, I guess. And so I just I think that do we need it? I mean, I don't think so, but that's just my personal opinion, but I think, you know, there's always going to be a market for this type of movie, you know, because there's people out there who will eat the shit up I would love, I would love to meet the person who is standing on their hill going.
Speaker 3You know, this ain't, this ain't like the town without christmas you can come over to my grandma's house anytime and meet her yeah, you know, I it would be. It'd be pretty amazing Like, oh man, the princess switch is so it's just so liberal, it's so liberal, it's so racy, like you know, it's too sexy.
Speaker 1She's having sex with the snowman in Hot Frosty.
Speaker 2I wish they did that.
Speaker 3They didn't even give us that they didn't even give us that.
Speaker 1That's the other thing, you know, know, even though like it's super romantic, like there is not a lot of physical, yeah that's my touch, or uh, you know I do think in in a weird way, these movies have stayed very conservative, yeah, and very sterile and very sterile, while it's great to see some diversification in the cast and the stories and the filmmakers and the types of the types of stories that are still very cringy and playing to all the tropes and, for no pun intended, hitting all the hallmarks of this genre, but while showing the progressive nature of just like making art as cinema in 2024. So that part is good. However, when you just go through these lists, there are still a whole lot of I think what Eric is talking about here like horny old white women looking to live vicariously through these, these old actresses who are finding love with some grizzled, handsome deckhand or ranch hand or whoever around.
Speaker 2Christmas time. It really ties into, like the book girlies out there, and this is something that I like. I am not like. I am definitely a book talk girly, if you want to call me that. I am definitely a book talk girly, if you want to call me that, but, like I, there's a whole, you know, crowd of women out there who are loving these contemporary romances that you can find in the romance section at Barnes and Noble, I mean, and they are so similar to these kind of movies, and so I noticed a lot of like these reviews of people who are, you know, watching these Netflix Christmas movies. They're they're really like that's kind of they're satisfying, that like corny, like that soap opera.
Speaker 2Yeah, that soap opera, yeah, exactly. But the biggest, the biggest complaint that myself included have is where's the sex Like? Where's like? Let's like, let's make it a little R rated here. You know, going with that is, like you know, the women who are reading all of these like romance novels are getting the spice and that's like you know, the spicy books. That's a huge thing right now.
Speaker 1My new go to for White Elephant is I go to the bottom shelf at the grocery store and there's always some smut waiting there. It's the perfect White Elephant gift waiting there and it's the perfect white elephant gift I. This year I gave a cowboy for christmas as my white elephant gift at work and it went over with a huge roar because everyone after a couple of drinks at the christmas party can't believe that they just pulled out this like soft core. You know erotic piece of fiction that's got some hunk on it with a santa hat and he's up against a tractor. They flip open in page 200 and just start reading and it's so out of pocket it is outrageous and I'm thinking this isn't in my movies that I've been watching.
Speaker 2No, no, no, yeah. So I think that, um, these movies definitely cater to there's a there's a market for them. But you know, if you want to get more people on board, just add a little bit more spice and you got it.
Speaker 1Also, you want to have an awkward interaction with your teller at the grocery store.
Speaker 1Walk up with a cowboy for Christmas and a mini bottle of Prosecco and some chocolates and just don't say anything. It's been a tough week. It's been a tough week. I just I had to live that. The other day I was hoping that you know my person would be someone that I could joke around with and be like this is the white elephant right here and have them understand it. That wasn't the case. I just, I just knew not to do that with my checker.
Speaker 1So I just had to live a really weird like two minutes, put the book cover down as it went across the belt. Whatever, I digress, okay. So who who's cooking right now? Like who, who has taken this? Who has taken what the studios do in a bigger, more successful way with maybe films like for christmases or love actually, and then evolved the hallmark brand and turned this into something that can still give them significant relevancy? Like who do you guys see over and over?
Speaker 3uh, vanessa hutchins, okay, is uh kind of a uh patron saint right now, at least in the netflix space. Um, she pops up a lot, uh when you're going through these, these tiles on the service seem like she's having fun.
Speaker 1Do any of these actors seem like what they're doing is is? Do you think they feel good about it?
Speaker 3she's gotta have some sort of, some sort of I don't know if it's the the amount on the check that she's getting, but she's gotta have some sort of feeling about it, because not only does she have like her own franchise within the space, but then she's also doing these like one-offs.
Analyzing Christmas Rom-Com Trends
Speaker 3You know that are just completely different universes. So, um, you know, I the princess switch is is one that I watched where she it's like a apparent trap esque story where Vanessa Hudgens meets Vanessa Hudgens, uh, and one's like a princess of Monaco or something, and one's a Baker from Chicago and they happen to look identical wolves and, uh, they're not like. The Baker has, uh, like her. Her best friend works for her as a baker, uh, and he's in love with her but she's not digging to him. And then the princess is supposed to be married off to some prince in some other other european country, but she's not really feeling him either. So they want to switch for a couple days and just kind of see what. You know how it feels to be a normal girl or a princess, and then they end up falling for each other's guys in two days and I mean to be honest, it is extremely fun to be a part of as an actor.
Speaker 3I'm sure, well, yeah, I mean she's acting against herself. Yeah, there's there's some cool camera tricks that they do, but like, yeah, there's gotta be something there. So then she's, she's got that and and that literally has, I think, like three or four movies.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3It's like the princess switch the princess switch again the princess, the princesses switch again, yeah, and then one, one last switch. A princess story, colon a princess story. But then she's got this other one that I watched called the Night Before Christmas.
Speaker 1There's always a pun in these titles. That's another thing.
Speaker 3Oh, absolutely, and night is spelled like a. You know it's a K. Yeah, a swordsman night when, like this very much close to the uh structure of hot frosty, we start off in like the 1800s or 1300s or something. We got knights riding around on fucking horses in front of a castle and then, like he meets like some witch or warlock in the woods and she tells him he has to figure out a secret before christmas night and sends him into the future.
Speaker 3and then she like so it's like a fish out of water and she meets vanessa hodgins who, of course, is like a single woman just waiting for who's been heartbroken all her life and uh is a teacher or some someone upstanding in the community, and uh, yeah, and then she takes in this fucking guy in chain mail because because, why wouldn't you? Because he looks lost, and like brings her to his house, to her house, and like then teaches him the ways of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of it's. It's insane. And then, yeah, so Vanessa Hutchins is just really doing a lot of work, uh, in this space.
Speaker 1It's. It's funny that you should mention that some of those movies resemble the Parent Trap, because, of course, the Parent Trap remake that we got when we were all coming of age stars Lindsay Lohan. And guess who's here. A lot in this space, oh yeah, she is, definitely she's cooking.
Speaker 2And yeah, she came out last year with Falling for Christmas and then this year was.
Speaker 3Our Little Secret.
Speaker 2Our Little Secret and you know I'm look, I love Lindsay Lohan, I really do. I can't really say a whole lot of bad things about her. So this is definitely her little comeback story and I don't know if she's having fun doing it, but I think that this is kind of like what she can get right now, and maybe that's that could be very presumptuous, though, but and then you know I think we mentioned this last week like the Mean Girls to Christmas story plot, like the pipeline. Lacey Chabert is kind of killing it on the Christmas front too, which she is the star of Hot Frosty, amongst many other Christmas movies.
Speaker 1She's the one that I think really catapulted I wouldn't say actors of similar ilk to her, because Lohan's accomplished in her own right, yeah, and in her own right, and Vanessa Hudgens just as a celebrity maybe bigger than the two of them combined, just with everything like from high school musical films and everything else and so. But I think Lacey Chabert was maybe the first one that, at least in the last seven years, was like no guys, there's a market here.
Speaker 2Yeah, she's like guys. Like guys learn from the best here, kind of.
Speaker 1And I think Hot Frosty is almost like the apex for her. This is her crescendo Now. Whether or not she returns over the next handful of years to the genre we'll see, but Hot Frosty is really the one that made this feel like a moment this year and got not only us but other people. I mean it's stayed in like the top 10 most popular films on letterboxd. You see a lot of discourse on reddit and on twitter surrounding this movie. More people that I've talked to over the last two weeks in preparation for this episode. They get exactly what we're going for because they've seen hot frosty. Like I told my mom we were doing this, she goes. I've already watched it, talked to a couple people at school about it. These, these, you know, women in their 40s and 50s and they're like, oh yeah, I've watched. Yeah, we watched hot frosty. Like they're just about it. And so kudos to lacey chabert and then lindsey lohan and I don't know if they're normalizing it and in five years, scarlett Johansson's gonna have a movie like this.
Speaker 2But hold on.
Speaker 1I'm just saying I don't think momentum is slowing down at this point not with this genre, absolutely not did you both get to watch Hot Frosty?
Speaker 2I watched half of it and I would. I do intend on finishing it. I just and I, but in the moment I was like I've seen what I need to see. I know how this is going to play out. So I'm curious to see.
Speaker 3So again another, like fish out of water, you know, a sculpture of a muscle ridden snowman.
Speaker 2He is so ripped in this movie it's almost kind of like it's weird. It's weird the veins are in your movie.
Speaker 3It's almost kind of like it's weird. It's weird the veins are in your face. It was really aggressive.
Speaker 1This is. Another odd thing about these films is that you can have these actresses of significant stature like household names, borderline, like, at one point maybe A-list celebrities, and now they're five years, ten years removed from their their peak, yet we still know who they are and they are cast up against some australian or some european guy or some grizzled southern. You know texan and we have.
Speaker 2I have no relationship with any of the men in these movies ever I have no idea who they are well, dustin mulligan, let's put you on to dustin mulligan for a second because if you're a fan of schitt's creek, we all know him um from schitt's creek. He's a main character on that show and he's honestly so funny. Um, why am I like already um gosh he plays? I'm totally spacing on his character's name, so my schitt's creek fans don't hate me for that but, anyway.
Speaker 2Um, yeah, he's a very prominent character in the entire series of schitt's creek, which is very popular. Um, and he's, he's funny, he, he kind of I was excited to see him in this, but he does not look the way he does in hot frosty that he does in in schitt's creek yeah, he's got, he's got a really big mouth, uh and but it's so interesting and hot frosty it there's.
Speaker 3There's moments in there where it feels like they are actually spoofing on the genre, right, because people like craig robinson and joe low uh truligo oh, yeah, yeah, our guy. Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, from the Aptow universe.
Speaker 3Yeah, show up. I mean they are in the movie and they are walking around breaking the fourth wall and like making fun of this genre. Sure, and there's also she's from Eastbound and Down Katie.
Speaker 2Mixon. She was in Four Christmas, katie mixon green yeah, who is also?
Speaker 1just like kind of like she eats, and with these movies, yeah, she's just funny wild um, but there is a.
Speaker 3There is a crazy moment in hot frosty where uh lacy takes home, our snowman turns on the tv I've read about this moment and it is a scene from falling for christmas of lindsey lohan on the tv from the netflix movie falling for christmas and lacy goes huh, she looks just like a girl I went to high school with and it changes the channel loved that moment, that's another level of self-awareness right and so like hot frosty is almost, I think, at again, at times mean girls universe.
Speaker 3That's crazy at times is is operating on a little bit of a different level than something, like, you know, the night before before Christmas, or princess switch, or Christmas, and a cast in a cat or a castle for Christmas. Um, which, a castle for Christmas? That's another, uh, you know, different from, like the Vanessa Hudgens, lindsay Lohan Lacey, she, she, she, she bear she bear.
Speaker 3You know genre Lacey Sheber Sheber. You know genre? A castle for Christmas is Brooke Shields and Carrie Eels. You know people who have been in the sun and now maybe that sun is setting and so they're just like. You know it's a paycheck.
Speaker 1We gotta do this and Netflix is gonna fly me to Scotland or wherever we're gonna film this and Netflix is going to fly me to Scotland or wherever we're going to film this.
Speaker 2Yeah, great, yeah, movies like Hot Frosty feel like I mean there's definitely comedy happening, because I watched a couple and I feel like all my movies had a very strong comedic element to them and I can tell that Netflix is kind of going in that route that like triggered, like real rom-com, heavy um. But does it work?
Speaker 1I don't know are there any that you guys found that you think do work really well? Because I do think it would be fun to sort of give a few recommendations before we leave here for people if they do want to. I mean I think that to to get a good snapshot of the moment, probably watch hot frosty hot frosty out of the the handful that I watch.
Speaker 3Yeah, hot frosty again. Because of these weird like moments where it's it's making fun of itself and the genre has a bit of enjoyment to it while you're watching. There's also like, but there's also, like, really cringy moments when, like you know, fucking frosty jack in his, of course, he picks a shirt with the name jack on it, jack frost, uh, jack ripped, and he's also ripped. Yeah, he's jacked, he's hot jacked frosty.
Speaker 3And yeah, I mean there's cringy moments where turning this off there's cringy moments, like where he's like cause he's so he has no idea about anything in the world, where he's just like what's cancer?
Speaker 2and like.
Speaker 3Then there's this whole like back story that Lacey had a husband, a really great husband, and they were pillars in the community and then, like you know, he got cancer and died and like so that is like and perpetually single, just right, and her roof is leaking and there's holes in the fucking stairs and, like you know, there's Chinese food boxes everywhere, cause she doesn't cook for herself.
Speaker 3And thank God, this snowman showed up to show her how to cook pizza. But he doesn't eat the pizza because it's too hot and he's going to melt. So he made a practice pizza that he put in the freezer so that they can eat pizza together and then both their hands touch the pizza cutter for a second, like oh, wow, it's really awkward. And he tries to give her a hug And's like I'm not the hugging type. And then, like you know, oh, let's watch nature documentaries for the rest of the night. It is. There is a lot of insane throughout these movies, uh and um, yeah, it's. It can be a little exhausting, but I would say Hot Frosty, probably the one you want to go check out.
Christmas Cringe Movie Analysis
Speaker 2I think if you're going to turn on any of these movies, you really have to to like, put your like film nerd aside and just know what you're like, obviously, just understand what you're about to watch. Just understand what you're about to watch. You know this isn't some. You know it's not going to be this like hidden gem where you're like oh my gosh, this is actually really good quality Like I didn't expect that. Like more enjoyable, where you can kind of look past some of the cringiness because they have elements of like okay, that was actually kind of cute, or like this was pretty funny and you just have to like don't like go into it with like. You know, if you are somebody who does really appreciate film and um are used to watching like quality cinema, obviously, like like all of us are here, we're like. You know you have to just like knowing, like go into it with an open heart did you find, did either of you find, that oddly refreshing this past week?
Speaker 1yeah, I did as well. Yeah, and you know.
Speaker 2Thank you, alex, for empty calories thanks for opening, making us open up our hearts a little bit this Christmas season. But no, you know that's like not to get all like sappy about it, but that was a huge thing I was taking away from. This whole exercise was just like it kind of and I even saw some people talking about this in the reviews I was reading and it's nice to kind of just look at it for what it is and just like just let yourself enjoy the cheese, like the cheesiness of it a little bit. You know, I've literally watched a couple that I was like getting teary eyed with. I'm almost like you know, erica cry, god damn it. Ok, you can cry.
Speaker 1I'm right there with you. The past two weeks. This has made christmas and the the spirit of christmas, wherever you want to call it, the season of giving. It's made it more palatable in film to me than the last. Like three years we've done a holiday episode and now we've been grasping at straws a little bit.
Speaker 1last year we did christmas crime, so of course we were talking about a different genre of movies altogether, but even, like you know, watching something like home alone again, or it's a wonderful life, or some of these other classics that people return to, I was like this is such a breath of fresh air. What a nice little change up.
Speaker 3I will say that they are. You know, they are kind of brain rot, so it is easy to just turn on and like just sit and you're out and watch, right, yeah, like they are elongated, bloated, yet empty tv shows, right, like that, that is, and like the tv shows that are, like you know, cw shows it's.
Speaker 1MOW. It's a movie of the week.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1Um, I had a couple that I feel like almost ascended to something greater than what they were, and yet there were still moments that clearly held the held them back. I think the most quality film that I watched is called happiest season and it's from 2020. Is directed by Cleo Cleo Duvall.
Speaker 3Now don't you think, though, that that would have came out in theaters?
Speaker 1100% would have if not for the pandemic and that's why I almost hesitate to bring it up. However, when you watch it, it is still extremely cringy at moments where it is like two people who have a forbidden love and they can't. You know the one girl played by Mackenzie Davis. She can't tell her family that she is out as a lesbian. She's in a relationship with Kristen Stewart. It's a great, heartwarming film and yet when you just go down the list of, like you were saying earlier, max walks like a duck, quacks like a duck must be a duck Like.
Speaker 1This movie has all those moments in it as well. And so just because this movie did end up going straight to a streamer, like everything did in 2020 during COVID, it went straight to Hulu, still had a lot of publicity around it when it came out and people did really like it. There's a great, great like supporting performance by Aubrey Plaza. In this movie, there's good stuff happening and not even like on the margins, like at the center of this film, but it's those margins that contain all the elements of Christmas cringe, and so maybe, if you want to like, just kind of dip your toe in and like, hang out in the shallow end for a little while instead of just diving right in to like a hot frosty, I would say it's a happiest season is a really good gateway.
Speaker 2I can attest to that. I do. I did enjoy that I. I mean I didn't watch it this go around, but I have. I saw it when it was released and, yeah, I agree it was. It was quality, it was a good one.
Speaker 1And then I think a step down from that for me was one called Holiday, and this comes out in 2020 as well. It has my beloved Emma Roberts in it, and I will watch anything with Emma Roberts, including like season eight of American Horror Story or whatever it is. I just stand by her and every decision, every decision she makes with her career.
Speaker 1This movie, I thought, was a huge breath of fresh air and a little bit different from your typical christmas cringe as well, because, unlike what we were talking about with some of the other movies, this is not afraid to confront sex at all. In fact, most of this movie is predicated around these two getting closer and closer to each other, emotionally and physically, and then finally, they do end end up having sex and it turns out great for him, as, of course, it's going to still very low stakes.
Speaker 1It's what makes these movies so easy to consume. But I just got a real kick out of this movie, not even only as a Christmas cringe movie, but it's just a great like holiday movie that you can watch maybe any time of the year, because the basic premise is that these two get together because Emma Roberts is tired of being the perpetually single person at her family's get together and our Australian hunk, some actor I've never heard of. He is always just on the apps during the holidays looking for somebody just to have like a hookup with or to date, or to go out or be be kind of their companion when they go to a party for the night, whether it's new year's or Valentine's day or St Patrick's day. And so this is a. This is a fun movie that starts with Christmas and ends with Christmas, but has that edge to it and what I've been telling people.
Speaker 1I've already recommended it to quite a few friends where I'm like I'm not here to tell you that it's in the vein of like an apto film or whatever, but it is like a sex positive. It's on netflix so it's not rated, but like it would be rated r. There's a lot of cursing in this film, um and so holiday is another one where you're. This is gonna feel more like something that you would see in theaters as opposed to on cable.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1So those were two that I really liked.
Speaker 2I think that that movie also kind of caters to like, like a different type of single person, to like, or maybe just like the person who's been single for a long time and it's like cause that's her whole thing is she's been like.
Speaker 2she's just so like, like she's a Christmas curmudgeon at this point you know, and then the guy is just he's, you know, typical, like playboy, kind of like serial dater. She's just like fuck know so open to it, and these two are not, you know, and they come together like almost like begrudgingly at the end. But it works and it actually is like really endearing to watch the whole thing and this is one where at the end I was like, yeah, good movie, yeah and movie um, and then and then I found a few that I think definitely stepped down in quality a little bit, but still have something to offer.
Speaker 1Um, another actress who I just enjoy spending time with I've never seen her in anything that I don't like is Zoe Deutsch.
Speaker 2Oh yeah.
Christmas Rom-Com Film Recommendations
Speaker 1And she has one that was straight to Amazon Prime, actually a few years ago 2022, called Something from Tiffany's of like screwball rom-com elements to it, where there's a mix-up at tiffany's the jewelry store and her boyfriend gets an engagement ring that was meant for someone else and this other this other guy he loses the engagement ring and ends up with just like a set of earrings, I think it is and so what you then have is these two people who have their own relationships become compromised because a lie was told to to kind of protect what happens on Christmas morning when, when the wrong packages get open and I was actually kind of curious by the end of this film, like, are these two going to get together?
Speaker 1Is this sort of just like a movie that's not going to have any sort of like emotional payoff and turns out it really does, and so, again, one that I don't like. This definitely works as a streamer and it's very, very cringy at times, but Zoe Deutsch, someone who I'm like you're kind of perfect for this. She's been really good in other films and theatrical releases. I've really enjoyed her, but like I had such a good time once again spending 90 minutes with something from tiffany's- we also get jack nicholson's son, like that's crazy he is good.
Speaker 3He is good in this and I also really like his name no, and, and I'm the guy from smile too yeah, the guy or the poster of smile too yeah, I don't even know if he's actually in it, but he I'm sure he is.
Speaker 2I literally saw a smile, is he?
Speaker 3He is in it. Yeah, he's got to be. Yeah, he's briefly in it. He was all over the marketing, yeah.
Speaker 1Kendrick Sampson is the lead actor who plays opposite Zoe Deutch, and I was almost like this would have been a really good. Like Aaron Pierre is probably too jacked to play this role, but this actor is giving me very similar Aaron Pierre vibes, and so I enjoyed that about it as well. Ray Nicholson is. Jackson. He's really good in that and Shay Mitchell's also in this movie. I'm like sorry, but I'm a I'm a PLL closet Stan, and so to see, to see Shay show up in this.
Speaker 2I do like Shay Mitchell yeah.
Speaker 1She was pretty solid in that one as well. Um, it was another fun thing too. As I'm logging these moves, I'm seeing a few other friends who I follow on Letterboxd or who follow me. They'll add it to their watch list. I'm like we're doing the Lord's work right now.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1For Christmas cringe. I have some real crappy ones now after this, but any others that you want to shout out as like ones that you can kind of recommend.
Speaker 2Okay, well, I watched Xmas and this is a freebie original, oh.
Speaker 2See, this is another interesting thing, though, too, because other streamers have obviously caught on to what netflix has been doing and it is definitely like okay, let's, we're gonna take all of the technical elements of this movie out of it, because there is some really awful like it's very cheap, like they're like the lighting decisions and a lot of like.
Speaker 2I just was watching some behind the scenes of like how they can make um, like on a set, like if it's dark outside, but then it looks. You know the way that they angle the lights on the outside of a built, like a diner for instance, and how it looks like it's morning, the sun is rising or something. Well, they clearly do that at one point when they get home from a bar at night and they're all like there's this like hard light, like streaming in, like assuming that it's the moon, and I'm like I have never seen a moon shine so hard and so like little things like that in this movie are pretty bad, but I gotta say the comedy was pretty funny and um so this stars leighton meester and then let's see, the guy is robbie ml um.
Speaker 2He was in another netflix movie that I've seen that I actually really liked um, and that was called um when we first met. That's another cute little rom-com. But anyway, these two are ex-fiances. They both are.
Speaker 1So again you have the pun with ex-miss, Ex-miss. That's what we're going for.
Speaker 2Exactly, and so these two were recently engaged. Six months prior they broke up, had a pretty nasty breakup. Well, she stayed in contact with his family because they're all they're just like a really great, lovable, funny family. So, assuming that their son wasn't coming to their christmas that year which he did say that he wasn't they invited um the ex leighton meester and so he he ends up um deciding to go to christmas. He shows up and she's there and they're both like what the hell and it's kind of like people in the reviews were like if my family did that like I would kill them.
Speaker 2But um, yeah, so anyway. It's really just about them like spending the holidays together, um, as they once did, but the two of them are kind of going at it the whole time like just bickering. They obviously don't like really care for each other anymore. It was the fight before christmas is the tagline for the film it is so funny I've added this to my watch list but I just I gotta say like, um, michael hitchcock is the dad and um, you know he was, he was hilarious.
Speaker 2But honestly, like the standout performance was this girl, veronica slowakowski solakowska, which I see her on tiktok all the time. Had no idea that she, like actually was, has been in some movies, like I guess I put it together, she was like getting into acting but she plays the lesbian sister of the main guy and she is just hysterical and their whole family dynamic. It's very corny, but like I thought the comedy was some of the best I've seen out of all of these movies. So I mean I enjoyed it again. Like going into this movie without like, with recognizing like this is a, like this is freebie, this isn't even Netflix.
Speaker 3Like this is freebie, but sounds better than any of the Netflix stuff I watch.
Speaker 2I mean it was fun and I really there was a couple times where I like actually laughed out loud, like pretty hard, um.
Speaker 1so that's my recommendation, um for this here's an incredible moment in christmas cringe history and in letterboxd history. I'm looking up the reviews of xmas and the second highest review is a five star review from director.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, I've seen a few of these directors commenting on their own videos. Yeah.
Speaker 1Jonah Feingold yeah, and he's just like defending the genre.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, this is amazing. I did read that, yeah.
Speaker 1This is great. Here's the thing when these movies have like a 2.5 on letterbox, you might as well count it as like it's a four out of five, like that's.
Speaker 2that translates to a b because a bad one will have like one, one out of five. Yeah, I, I really did. I thought this movie was was pretty funny. I mean, there just was it's corny and robbie um is not a really he's not a strong actor but you know what?
Speaker 1you've seen him in the babysitter on on netflix. That's his other movie that's a wild.
Speaker 2I've never seen that, oh really, but I but I have seen when we first met and I actually really liked that okay, yeah, okay, yep yeah, um, but yeah, he's not a, he's not very, he's not a strong lead.
Speaker 2But Leighton Meester, like I, really like her. I mean hello, gossip Girl, blair Waldorf, come on, but it was. I just think it was like the some of the lines in it. I thought the writing was good, and my other one that I actually did enjoy was the new Lindsay Lohan, our Little Secret Also. Another ex meets up at Christmas trope. That was kind of weird, but Our Little Secret is about two exes that were childhood lovers. They were together for forever. They broke up. They're now dating new people each um and their significant others are siblings and so they did not realize that. So they all meet up at family christmas, um, and they're both just absolutely astonished to see each other there, you know, and they keep it a secret the whole time from the family. There's kind of an interesting family dynamic happening the mom, kristen Chenoweth.
Speaker 3So they are related.
Speaker 1No no no, their siblings are dating. Have they get married Then? All of a sudden, they would be. Yes, and you know it takes place in the Game of Thrones universe.
Speaker 2That is a little confusing. But you know, alex, you as a pretty little liarar stan, will appreciate Ian Harding.
Speaker 1Oh sure.
Analyzing Christmas Rom-Com Tropes
Speaker 2Who is? What does he play? He plays the teacher in Pretty Little Liars, and so Lindsay Lohan and Ian Harding are yes, they're the exes and they're significant others. So a boy and a girl are siblings, so they're brother and sister. And because they don't, I think that it's kind of implied that their relationships aren't like super long term, yet A little fresh, that they don't know the others, like this is the first time I'm meeting, and so Lindsay is just meeting, I think, the mom for the first time too, which, like I said, kristen Chenoweth is the mom and she's crazy and just very like obsessed with her boy and wants nothing to do with Lindsay Lohan. So Lindsay's trying to get in good with the family, and that's why they decide to keep this all a secret, because they just know that this is like drama. Well, shocker, uh, they end up realizing they loved each other all along, guys it's kind of got like any anybody but you, uh, the glenn powell it's got a little bit of that.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, framework going chris and chenoweth is another one, like katie dixon, who has and it's funny because they were both in for christmas's together- yes but she has come to this streaming platform and she's in the holiday as like the kooky aunt.
Speaker 1There's usually always like a family member in these movies also. That just is like pro liberation, who's just like just do it be with whoever you want, date whoever you want, or is like the drunk uncle you have that. You always have that archetype in these movies as well and she plays the kooky mom, the wild aunt, um really really well.
Speaker 2She was funny to seeing a lot of these yeah.
Speaker 2So I, I mean and not to sound like a like, even like a scrooge myself, because I'm definitely not feeling that energy this year but, um, I, I think I appreciated these genre, like these kind of movies that do kind of take the little. Like you know, christmas is kind of a stressful time of year and it can be like kind of a shitty time for a lot of people and, um, and people end up getting like, just you know, bah, humbug about it obviously, and so this whole the movies that I watched had definitely had, like this, a little bit more like, but like a mean kind of feel to it, but it was still fun like I don't know, like I don't know, shut up max.
Speaker 3Well, I can't recommend really anything I watched well, I hope you're taking notes. We got some yeah, I mean, I, I again, I I kind of stayed in the netflix realm, uh, as far as these movies go and um, they all were uh pretty, pretty, pretty put together, which is crazy because, like a castle for christmas, the brook shields vehicle, uh, who, like drew barrymore, shows up in that movie? Um, as drew barrymore, uh, it's directed by, uh, the director, mary lambert. Right, the director of pet cemetery.
Speaker 3I mean these, these, you know these people carrie eels who, like you know, at some point in the 90s was mr it, you know, as as the princess bride and robin hood and tights um, he's still doing work in the mission impossible franchise still, yeah, showing up, yeah, it's fun when he when he shows up there.
Speaker 3But then when you have to listen to him, do a scottish accent for 90 minutes, uh, and be like you know, and he's the curmudgeon who won't give up the family. You know castle to brooke, shields, who's a very successful author, but you know her lineage, her family lineage. They used to be the groundskeepers for ewell's family on this castle and weird dynamics and um, yeah, there's just, and she like makes friends with these townspeople and they start a knitting club and you're either in the pub in the castle or on Drew Barrymore's show's set.
Speaker 2You look and sound defeated. It is.
Speaker 3Yeah, it's a tough genre.
Speaker 1I think film school has ruined you, because two years ago you would have had so much fun.
Speaker 3I think so. Yeah, I think I just have a little bit of a blacker heart this Christmas.
Speaker 2No, I mean, I really just think that, like this is a really hard genre.
Speaker 3But this is why we did this is because there are some like I think I would really have enjoyed something like Holiday, which is like more of a rated R kind of sex comedy.
Speaker 2I think you'd like Xmas too.
Speaker 3Or Xmas, or Happiest Season.
Speaker 1Happiest Season. You'll watch that and say this feels like a real movie. Yeah 100%, but I do understand what you're saying, because a little bit of this is like acknowledging, you know, like the, the proficiency or the success of, just like vertical filmmaking on social media yeah, you're kind of like oh my god, phones. Okay, these people are what this is. How many people have watched this?
Speaker 3every movie that I watch has some sort of graphic with an iphone, whether it's a facetime thing or texting text on it huge trope oh my god post 2018, probably every single one of these is that when, like they put the text up on the screen yes
Speaker 3well, yeah, it's, either. It's either like the, the outline of the phone with like text, with the text message bubbles, or in castle for a christmas, or christmas for a castle or whatever the christmas castle one I mean. It literally is like a, a vertical, it's just a vertical box with like this face that pops up and it's supposed to be this like phone conversation. That's happening and it's just. It's just. It's so amateurly done, like it's just it's, it's.
Speaker 3It was rough. I remember screaming at the tv like what are you doing? Why is this? Have more views than mank, you know? And? Or roma, or fucking the killer, it is um. Or even power the nap. Like I would watch power the nap 10 times over before I would go back into the princess switch universe I had.
Speaker 1I had two. There were a bit of a struggle to get to one. I still enjoyed my time with it. However, I felt like we were teetering on that. I was almost asking myself did Chad GPT write this script? And that's 2019's Let it Snow, which is a Netflix original.
Analyzing Christmas Rom-Com Tropes
Speaker 1Now, this has some redeeming characteristics because you get a little vignette that includes kieran shipka and it also in similar light to my beloved emma roberts, I'll watch anything with kieran shipka in it, and so that is really fun. This movie had like some snow day energy to it, where it's a small town and you have this expanded group of friends who are all seniors or either like post grads right out of high school, so they're kind of trying to figure out their life in this big snow storm hits this small town and everybody basically ends up snowed in at this diner. So it's a fun movie, but that just has every single trope and archetype in it, to the point where you just feel a little exploited as an audience member, because, whether or not you're attached by the end of it or not, you're kind of just like I.
Speaker 1I could have written, I could have made this with my friends you know, given the budget and the time to actually just like pump out a quick script. So that's a soft recommendation it's. I didn't love it compared to some of these others that I actually had a good time with, but that that starts to get cringy. And then the cringiest one I saw was from 2021, called love hard, and this stars Nina Dobrev who, like I understand, there's a group of people out there the vampire diaries fans of the world, and she's been involved with other television shows and so she has a following this studio. You know, netflix obviously felt like she could lead this project, um, and carry it, and when you look at the bottom of like similar films of a lot of the ones that we've talked to, you're gonna see love hard first off, just a really weird title for a movie. Um, it kind of sounds like something kevin hart would make. Kind of sounds like something you would find on porn hub, like it's just love hard I.
Speaker 1I get it because they're trying to say like love is hard, but it just say love is hard, really strange, um, and it's all about getting catfished and so it just feels so on the nose. Um, and just such a ripoff of your basic romantic comedies, like something that kate hudson would have been in in, like 2003, where Nina Dobrev is like a journalist for a newspaper, basically like she has an online blog and it's just all her dating escapades and all her failed dates and she writes about them and so she finally finds this person who she thinks is her match made in heaven, flies across the country, she's in Los Angeles, goes to Lake Placid, new York, to surprise this guy for Christmas. Turns out she's been catfished. It's another guy who lives in Lake Placid and is using like the high school like the guy.
Speaker 3It's an alligator who's a lot bigger than a regular alligator.
Speaker 1Betty White's there feeding it, exactly Um. And so you know, it's just like all things that can go wrong go wrong. Hijinks ensue. They have to keep up this charade of like oh, she actually did fly there to be with this, this dorky guy, but of course he has a heart of gold and he wants to make candles and like. It's just, it's so cringe. And once this, the charade finally gets outed, um, I had to.
Speaker 1Physically, I wasn't gonna pause the movie and like get my time to give myself time to reset. I was watching it at night and I just let this scene play out as I physically got up, went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth because I it was so cringy, like I had secondhand embarrassment to the point where I didn't, I could not watch what was happening on screen, which, for the purpose of this conversation, like wow, it was effective, like this is the most cringy. I could imagine one of these movies being Um. But by the end of it I was happy that it was over, um, and kind of thought okay, this is about as bottom of the barrel as I want to get with this, because you're kind of hurting, you're hurting my heart a little bit, because I thought I found something special with like something from Tiffany's or the holiday or happiest season. So if you're, if you're deep down the rabbit hole, love hard. I given it a quick shout out just so that you can kind of see like what's the opposite of some of these.
Speaker 2but those, those were all the ones that I got to and and had varying degrees of fun with I did start a movie, um, this morning, actually that I have been hearing a lot of hype over and I just could not wrap my brain around like the concept, mostly just because it centers around the group pentatonix, um, which they are a very like, you know, a an acapella group, if you know who they are.
Speaker 2But, um, it's called meet me next christmas and this just came out this year and it has christina milian, um, as our main girl and um, you know, I've seen this talked about on TikTok quite a bit and people are like, oh, this is so good, it's so good and I just could not watch it.
Speaker 2It's basically like Christina Milian, like one year prior, she's at an airport, she meets this guy, they have this little connection, but she's dating somebody and he's like, so creepily, is like, well, just just in case you guys break up, let's meet next year, because she, I guess every year she goes to see pentatonix in new york, um, and that's her thing, and then so she puts him on to pentatonix and so, um, he's like, okay, well, you know, before we go next year, if you're, if you happen to be single and something happens like putting this ill will onto her, onto her relationship and then we'll meet at the Pentatonix concert and let fate decide if we're meant to be I mean they. They had a 10 minute conversation in a lounge at the airport and decided that he decided that they are soulmates.
Speaker 2And he's like, well, I'm going to just put money on this and I'm just like you're creepy as hell, dude. Well, sure enough, shocker. One year later, her boyfriend cheats on her and so she remembers, and so she has to get tickets. Well, oh no, this the concert sold out. So she hires this guy who works almost like as a like it, will he? It's a company call, will he? And sorry, I need to back up a little bit. She met this guy. You watched a lot of this. I did because everyone recommended it to me and I feel finally turned it off.
Speaker 1Once you know the those credit, the font came up. At the end I decided it was enough.
Speaker 2Forty five minutes in and then it was like you still have an hour and ten minutes left and I was like, absolutely not, I have things to do. But yeah, she meets another guy at the same time in this lounge, very briefly, and so she has the you know, fast forward a year. She has to, you know, fast forward a year. She has to hire this company to try to look who can like, do they do favors for you? Pretty much, they just kind of like make anything happen. That's called impromptu, and so she hires this guy who, spoiler alert, is the guy from the lounge. But they don't, they don't really remember each other and so they spend all this time trying to get tickets.
Speaker 2And if you've ever seen the movie, someone, it's like it's a rom-com on Netflix. It's actually really good, oh God, I can't remember. Anyway, but it's very similar like Promise, where the whole movie is based off of like to get this exclusive ticket that's sold out and just kind of alluding to the fact that Pentatonix is this extremely popular band and they keep having these little clips showing Pentatonix and they're being just weird and quirky and it was just I couldn't handle it. So maybe skip Meet Me Next Christmas, but I can almost guess how that movie ended is that the guy that she meets probably isn't the guy she ends up with, and the guy that she's been, you know, tramping around New York with is probably the guy that she's going to date.
Speaker 1So anyway, I'm glad you brought it up, though, because I think you you touched on two other really important tropes that these movies have. Travel is always a huge part of them. So much of them revolve around travel, or the, the, I would almost say like the stubbornness not to travel, not to go out, not to participate in the christmas holiday, maybe even use travel to, like, get away from your family or the christmas spirit, and then love finds you anyways.
Speaker 2And then also, too, you mentioned the guys, small business yeah small businesses in christmas cringe thriving, just doing incredible numbers hell of an economy yeah, something, something from tiffany's zoe deutsch is running like a bread, a bread store, a bread store in new york city in new york city that is able to have two locations wildly popular, wildly popular.
Speaker 1She has a staff of what I can gather is like three people uh, it's her, it's her best friend, and then one guy in the background who's just like bing his ass off because zoe deutsch is never at the store. Um, just so I I gotta say like, if, if these movies ever need like a small business consultant to come on and help out, we have to, we have to give a little bit more realism to to these movies. Maybe someone's business can actually like be struggling for once and and maybe that's how love is is found and and forged, because that's maybe a little bit more realistic than time travel or some of these other things that we've mentioned in these. Uh, with these films that we've discussed, but, uh, you know, just kind of incredible stuff across the board, and it's really renewed my sense of like.
Speaker 2There's a little something for everybody.
Speaker 1They've just really gave me a good appreciation for like love in the holidays.
Speaker 2I love that for you.
Speaker 1I really do I can't watch Eyes Wide Shut every single year and be like Tom Cruise. You see me like it sucks. It's all terrible. Can't trust anyone.
Speaker 2This is what getting older does to you, yeah. You know what, maybe you can trust people, maybe you can find love around the holidays, maybe we can love again.
Speaker 1That's the big takeaway from this episode, max. Maybe you'll love movies again one day, one day.
Speaker 2One day we did have another really good movie that came out. That does not fit this genre, but I feel like we do need to mention it. And that is Carry On.
Speaker 3It's an alternative Christmas movie. Yes, it is. It takes place during Christmas time, but more of a cat and mouse action thriller. Would you call it garbage?
Speaker 1crime, Because Jean-Michel Cretzera, I mean a godfather.
Speaker 3Yeah, probably in garbage crime.
Speaker 1Yes, yes for all the great work that he's done with liam neeson for his incredible work on run all night the shallows like house of wax yes, our beloved house of wax. Yes, like jean-mae clet, I'm rad with this guy, yeah yeah, it's, it's, yeah, yeah, it's a fun ride.
Speaker 3It's a little bit of like TSA propaganda, like the TSA is really important and they're all really good people.
Speaker 3Call her Boy Salad yeah right, love my job, but, yeah, I thought it was good. Taryn edgerton makes a lot of weird faces throughout because there's a lot of like he's got an earpiece in and he can't let anyone else know that someone is talking to him as he's checking bags, um. And then jason bateman is like evil Jason Bateman, uh, which is kind of fun, um, but yeah, I, I I enjoyed carry on. It was a great palate cleanser, uh, from what was watched during the weekend.
Speaker 2Yeah, I agree, I did have a. I had a good time with it. I'm anything like, I'm all for Jason Bateman and anything.
Speaker 3Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1It was fun. I'll have to fire that up as soon as I get done watching Xmas tonight. I might also watch Red Rooms for a third time in 48 hours until my Apple rental expires, but that might be a conversation for a few episodes down the road here. Okay, so any last words on Christmas cringe. I'm proud of us, yeah you too, Max Merry Cringe-mas.
Speaker 3You too, max, merry Christmas, you did the work.
Speaker 2I'm most proud of Max because he kind of went through it with this, you know nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Speaker 3You know, hopefully we don't have to venture there again, but maybe one day.
Speaker 1I'm telling you, five years from now, watch out, this genre is going to be bigger and stronger, and I'm not saying better, but bigger and stronger, which could be scary for all of us. Okay, so that's going to do it for the Christmas cringe episode. As mentioned at the top, our regular recording day of Monday will be used to observe the Christmas holiday next week, but we will be back shortly after the weekend to discuss, among other notable titles, nosferatu, I think we're just a little bit excited about that.
Speaker 1So until next time, follow Excuse the Intermission on Instagram and the three of us on Letterboxd to track what we are watching between shows, and we will talk to you next time on ETI, where movies still matter.
