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This Christmas with Miles Gray · The Bechdel Cast

0:00
Speaker 1: On the bel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
0:03
Speaker 1: women in them? Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
0:07
Speaker 1: Do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best start
0:13
Speaker 1: changing it with the Bedel Cast. Hello, and welcome to
0:17
Speaker 1: the Bechtel Cast. My name is Caitlin Torante, my name
0:20
Speaker 1: is Jamie Loftus, and this is a this is our
0:24
Speaker 1: episode about um, well, it's about a lot of things.
0:28
Speaker 1: What is it about? I don't know how many years
0:30
Speaker 1: have we been doing this? Five years? What is it about? Really?
0:33
Speaker 1: Who are we really? Jamie? Do you ever? Who am
0:35
Speaker 1: I who? This is the thing that my my boyfriend
0:39
Speaker 1: will say a lot. This is not passing the Bectel tests,
0:41
Speaker 1: by the way, but something something my boyfriend will say
0:44
Speaker 1: a lot about the podcast he likes. I'm like, well
0:46
Speaker 1: what is that podcast? Like, what is the podcast about?
0:49
Speaker 1: And he'll say something akin to like, well, it's about this,
0:53
Speaker 1: but it's really about friendship. And I was like, Okay,
0:57
Speaker 1: first of all, that's annoying. Second of all, maybe that's
1:00
Speaker 1: what we'll say from now on. We're like, well, it's
1:02
Speaker 1: technically about movies, but it's really more about our fringe.
1:05
Speaker 1: That's so nice speaking, which I, uh, well, wait, we
1:09
Speaker 1: should say what the podcast is. I was it's going
1:12
Speaker 1: to be a countdown for me until we can start
1:14
Speaker 1: talking about the parallels between Idris Elba's character in this
1:18
Speaker 1: movie and Macavity. Oh my gosh, I had a lot
1:21
Speaker 1: of a whole analog to how this movie is basically
1:27
Speaker 1: the movie cats. He's basically well, I I didn't pick
1:31
Speaker 1: that up, but I was like the Cavity energy. Anyways,
1:34
Speaker 1: we should say what the podcast is. Okay, this is
1:38
Speaker 1: our podcast about movies. We examine movies through an intersectional
1:42
Speaker 1: feminist lens, using the Bechtel test simply as a way
1:46
Speaker 1: to just inspire the concept of talking about film through
1:51
Speaker 1: this lens. And Jamie, what on earth is the Bechtel test?
1:54
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, in this movie, it's when your
1:57
Speaker 1: mom comes in your room when you're using a vibrator
1:59
Speaker 1: and tells you that your career can't keep you warm
2:01
Speaker 1: at night. But what it technically is, but it technically
2:06
Speaker 1: is is it's a media metric invented by a queer cartoonist,
2:09
Speaker 1: Allison Becktel, sometimes called back the Wallace test, that requires,
2:13
Speaker 1: for our purposes that two people of a marginalized gender
2:18
Speaker 1: with names speak to each other about something other than
2:21
Speaker 1: a man. Uh and and most movies don't pass it.
2:25
Speaker 1: And I would say holiday movies it gets even harder
2:28
Speaker 1: to pass yeah, because everyone's like, why don't you have
2:31
Speaker 1: a husband yet, daughter of mine? This a movie does?
2:35
Speaker 1: I mean, this movie does. Like spoiler, this movie does
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Speaker 1: pass the backtel test. But there are some really funny ones,
2:40
Speaker 1: um like when mcdeer comes in and says, your vibrator
2:44
Speaker 1: isn't going to keep you warm at night, you know,
2:46
Speaker 1: and she goes mom, and then you're like, well, I
2:49
Speaker 1: guess maybe, but they talk about batteries, batteries, genderless icon batteries. True,
2:57
Speaker 1: let's pay our guests in. Yes, we've returning guests. We've
3:01
Speaker 1: we've rolled down the one am I saying, when the
3:05
Speaker 1: what is the wording we use? We we've taken down
3:07
Speaker 1: the embargo. Yes, we've we've unlocked the cage that we
3:12
Speaker 1: keep all men on. Jesus, So I guess today returning
3:20
Speaker 1: from you remember him from the Rock episode, which is
3:23
Speaker 1: where a lot of running gags in our show were
3:26
Speaker 1: born between Gregnant between his wife, lots of lots of gems.
3:36
Speaker 1: You could say that the Rock episode was gregnant with
3:40
Speaker 1: and gave birth to several running gags of the Bad
3:44
Speaker 1: Book Cast. Anyway, The Ark was a very gregnant episode
3:49
Speaker 1: ext eight months gregnant, that whole episode, much like this one.
3:54
Speaker 1: There's a Gregnancy in this one. I was. I was like,
3:57
Speaker 1: there's better be a Gregnancy in this movie. And you know,
4:00
Speaker 1: thank god, it's a little late in the game, but
4:01
Speaker 1: the Greatnescy comes through its present. Um and you know
4:05
Speaker 1: him as one of the hosts of the Daily Zeitgeist.
4:08
Speaker 1: It's Miles Gray. Oh, thank you so much for having me.
4:11
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm truly honored to that you allowed me back.
4:15
Speaker 1: When you even asked you like, hey, do you want
4:17
Speaker 1: to talk about a movie on I was like, on
4:19
Speaker 1: your podcast Bechdel Cast, where my sort is not allowed
4:24
Speaker 1: At the moment, I was very confused, But you know what,
4:27
Speaker 1: I'm honored that you have welcomed me back into the
4:30
Speaker 1: kingdom and offered me safe passage through the cinematic universe. Um.
4:34
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's always a pleasure. And I happen to
4:36
Speaker 1: happen to people who I could talk to endlessly about
4:38
Speaker 1: anything anyway, so it's hardly any kind of a task
4:42
Speaker 1: for me. So when we decide, I mean, this is
4:44
Speaker 1: the same. This is happening the same month that Alfred
4:46
Speaker 1: Molina has been welcomed into the m c U. So,
4:49
Speaker 1: you know, Miles Gray's no cannon in the bc U.
4:52
Speaker 1: It takes two appearances to become canonically bc U. Thank
4:56
Speaker 1: you so much. That's I feel honored. You know, Molina
5:00
Speaker 1: it has re entered the m c U. Uh now
5:03
Speaker 1: Miles Gray is entering the b c U. So it
5:05
Speaker 1: feels like a new day from me, Miles, great Leon
5:07
Speaker 1: has aunt is here. Also shout out to my sponsors
5:13
Speaker 1: right theon that gave me, gave me twenty dollars to
5:17
Speaker 1: change my last name. But it's worth it. That's incredible.
5:19
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, I think you could have gotten more.
5:22
Speaker 1: I don't know. I didn't want to be greedy, you know,
5:26
Speaker 1: I think, you know, little Company, a little mom and
5:27
Speaker 1: pop organization, just destabilizing the whole sections of the earth. Um, Miles,
5:33
Speaker 1: what is your relationship with this Christmas? Well, oddly enough,
5:38
Speaker 1: which is the movie by the way, this one very
5:41
Speaker 1: tortured relationship with this current Christmas, with this particular Christmas. Um,
5:48
Speaker 1: I you know, oddly enough, it's a movie I've watched.
5:52
Speaker 1: When it came out in two thousand seven, I was
5:54
Speaker 1: in a really weird place at the time, getting off
5:57
Speaker 1: of getting out of college to an economy that was
6:00
Speaker 1: like vaporized, and then also like awful break up where
6:05
Speaker 1: like I didn't know who the funk I was anymore.
6:07
Speaker 1: So I was I was. I was watching a lot
6:09
Speaker 1: of corn unplugged in the dark on my bean bag chair,
6:13
Speaker 1: especially with with Amy from Evanescence comes out to do
6:16
Speaker 1: freak on a leash um, So that was sort of like,
6:20
Speaker 1: that's like the vibe I was operating in, so I
6:22
Speaker 1: I So I watched it then, and oddly enough, when
6:25
Speaker 1: you asked me about this Christmas, I was like, I
6:27
Speaker 1: just watched it last night, like the night before you
6:30
Speaker 1: had asked me about doing it, So it's I don't know,
6:33
Speaker 1: it was just it's it's there. But I hadn't seen
6:36
Speaker 1: it in years, so it was like going into it new, Sure, sure, Jamie,
6:41
Speaker 1: what about you? Uh. Like many movies, I've seen like
6:45
Speaker 1: chunks of this movie over the years on like T
6:49
Speaker 1: n T and like when friends were watching it or
6:52
Speaker 1: roommates were watching it, but I never like sat down
6:54
Speaker 1: and watched the the entire thing, which, honestly, I mean
6:59
Speaker 1: this movie really does like demand a hundred percent of
7:02
Speaker 1: your attention if you're trying to follow. There's so many storylines.
7:05
Speaker 1: It's like love that it's love actually level number of storylines,
7:10
Speaker 1: but worse because they're all in the same house, and
7:13
Speaker 1: you feel more like, well, I should know everyone because
7:15
Speaker 1: we're not just like going across the country to these other,
7:17
Speaker 1: like desperate story lines. I'm like, wait, is that a
7:20
Speaker 1: kid or a boyfriend or a spouse of the There
7:24
Speaker 1: are so many times where I'm like, did I miss something?
7:27
Speaker 1: Do we not know who's who's? Like? What job does
7:31
Speaker 1: this person have? Whose? Whose child is this? It took
7:35
Speaker 1: me a second to figure out who. I thought that
7:38
Speaker 1: it was Kelly's children for a second, but it turns
7:39
Speaker 1: out it was Regina King's children, and then I was
7:41
Speaker 1: like did I And then I went back. I'm like, no,
7:43
Speaker 1: I was just supposed to know that. I was supposed
7:45
Speaker 1: to know that, right right right. There's also like a
7:47
Speaker 1: cousin Fred or something that shows up now and then,
7:51
Speaker 1: but he's like not important at all, but important enough
7:53
Speaker 1: to take shot at how many kids he has? Like
7:57
Speaker 1: how many kids? For you? Guys six seven. Also Madere
8:01
Speaker 1: has six children, Like, what is she passing judgment? At
8:04
Speaker 1: least she had it with Senior. You know, I guess,
8:06
Speaker 1: like I think they're trying to make it look like
8:08
Speaker 1: Fred has a bunch of baby mommy. There's a lot
8:10
Speaker 1: of weird, shitty tropes in here, but you know, it's
8:13
Speaker 1: but that's what Christmas movies are about. It's usually not
8:15
Speaker 1: a nuanced discussion of fucking anything. So and Chris Brown
8:20
Speaker 1: is there. I really hate to see Chris Brown and there.
8:24
Speaker 1: It was my pleasure to fast forward through all sixty
8:29
Speaker 1: thousand Chris Brown musical Monton. Yes, credit to his manager
8:34
Speaker 1: or agent who basically when they negotiated that was like
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Speaker 1: he will sing entire songs in this movie and you
8:40
Speaker 1: will not edit them down one fucking bar. Because yeah,
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Speaker 1: Chris Brown, this is like I mean, and this is
8:49
Speaker 1: sort of like shortly before his career and his like
8:54
Speaker 1: he starts to really be called into question, right, because
8:56
Speaker 1: that happened in the late two thousand's, But like, yeah,
8:58
Speaker 1: that was like she's that was a nine. Nay, it
9:04
Speaker 1: was after this movie, but I don't know exactly when, right, Yeah,
9:07
Speaker 1: I don't. I mean, he was still you know there
9:09
Speaker 1: he was still just had minimal tattoos. His neck wasn't
9:12
Speaker 1: tatted yet. You can always tell like where you're at
9:15
Speaker 1: because like as the tattoos fielding, and you're like, okay,
9:17
Speaker 1: now we're getting into like scum Chris Brown phase. Um
9:21
Speaker 1: so yeah, I don't know, it's he's he definitely brought
9:26
Speaker 1: people into the theaters that Like when you look at
9:28
Speaker 1: that line, if you're like, we're letting an algorithm tell
9:31
Speaker 1: us how we're going to get as many asses into
9:33
Speaker 1: the seats. Yeah, and he's so prominent on that. I
9:35
Speaker 1: was looking at the posters where he's like takes up
9:38
Speaker 1: a third of the poster even though there's twelve people
9:40
Speaker 1: on the poster. Right right, it's like Chris Brown's this Christmas. Thankfully,
9:49
Speaker 1: he's actually not in that much of it, like it's
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Speaker 1: mostly other people. But but almost every second he's on screen,
9:56
Speaker 1: he's just singing, singing, singing. That said, I enjoyed this movie, Caitlin,
10:01
Speaker 1: what's your history with this movie? I hadn't seen it before. Um,
10:05
Speaker 1: I liked it, okay. But generally movies that are like
10:09
Speaker 1: character driven, family narratives that don't really have a distinct
10:13
Speaker 1: plot aren't really my type of movie, so it's not
10:18
Speaker 1: a rump that's kind of rumpy. I would say that
10:21
Speaker 1: Adris Elba's uh storyline is very rompy. It's like in
10:25
Speaker 1: Ocean's eleven in the middle of a family movie. They
10:28
Speaker 1: give you all kinds of you. They give you even
10:30
Speaker 1: like Star Wars Daddy Issues reconciliation vibe. But there's also
10:36
Speaker 1: there's like more melo drama than I enjoy in a movie.
10:39
Speaker 1: So I'm just like I was here for it. I
10:43
Speaker 1: love I love the melo drama. I'm it's a it's
10:47
Speaker 1: generally a pass for me. But also and I don't
10:50
Speaker 1: generally the only Christmas movie I like is Muppet Christmas Carol.
10:55
Speaker 1: Every other one you liked print too, sort of did
11:00
Speaker 1: you like? Have you seen New York Christmas Wedding? I
11:03
Speaker 1: have not seen New York Christmas. The lgbt Q one
11:05
Speaker 1: that like Netflix put out where it's basically this like
11:08
Speaker 1: woman who's like about to get married to a man
11:11
Speaker 1: is visited by an angel who sends her to a
11:14
Speaker 1: parallel reality where she could have come out to her
11:16
Speaker 1: best girlfriend that she was in love with and play
11:19
Speaker 1: out a life where she would have just honored her
11:21
Speaker 1: like feelings about her friend and had like this beautiful
11:25
Speaker 1: love affair with this other woman. But then like the
11:27
Speaker 1: thing ends and it's like all right, now choose. Oh
11:29
Speaker 1: my god. It's like a very very weird way to
11:32
Speaker 1: present that sort of quandary for a person of like
11:34
Speaker 1: this angel being like, Okay, you want to test drive
11:37
Speaker 1: this other version where you embrace this relationship. Maybe not,
11:41
Speaker 1: but anyway, those are some steaks I didn't know that existed. Yeah,
11:45
Speaker 1: check it out. I mean, because this is the thing
11:47
Speaker 1: I love about Christmas movies is that they're so just.
11:50
Speaker 1: They can be anything. They can be like sincere and
11:53
Speaker 1: earnest and you're like, oh, this just happens to be
11:55
Speaker 1: happening during Christmas. But for me, the best ones are
11:58
Speaker 1: like absolute trash where there's so many plot holes and
12:02
Speaker 1: you're being like, they didn't even think when they were
12:04
Speaker 1: writing this. I for whatever reason, that's like a salve
12:07
Speaker 1: on my like like tortured creator wounds and don't like
12:10
Speaker 1: see people can get absolute shit made. It is like
12:15
Speaker 1: if a Christmas movie took more than forty minutes to write,
12:19
Speaker 1: it took too long period done. Michael Keaton's Jack Frost
12:24
Speaker 1: took eleven minutes to write the entire screen. Yeah, that
12:27
Speaker 1: movie was fully improvised. So I went to high school
12:30
Speaker 1: with one of the snowboard bullies from that movie. Wait,
12:33
Speaker 1: I think you've told us this before. That's iconic, that's incredible.
12:37
Speaker 1: He was Unfortunately, that kid was living in his sister's shadow,
12:40
Speaker 1: who played the daughter in Jack Frost, And he only
12:43
Speaker 1: got the part because his sister was one of the leads,
12:46
Speaker 1: and we made fun of like that's how toxic l
12:48
Speaker 1: A School was, Like, dude, you only got it because
12:50
Speaker 1: your sister was a lead fool and you barely You
12:52
Speaker 1: don't even have like a U five part under five lines, um,
12:57
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, wow, growing up in l A sense,
13:02
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, I think it's also jealousy because he
13:04
Speaker 1: also had like he like brought us snow. I feel
13:07
Speaker 1: like he bought brought like a snowboard jacket from the
13:10
Speaker 1: set to school in like the l A heat and
13:12
Speaker 1: we're like, dude, we get it. So then we just
13:15
Speaker 1: turned on him or like whatever, bro, your sister got
13:17
Speaker 1: you the gig roll like a twelve and ship. Well.
13:21
Speaker 1: One of the things I appreciate about this movie is
13:24
Speaker 1: that there's l a Christmas representation because so many Christmas
13:28
Speaker 1: movies take place in like New York or Chicago or
13:31
Speaker 1: any other place where it's like cold and snow eat
13:33
Speaker 1: during Christmas time. So I appreciated that you have just like,
13:37
Speaker 1: you know, mild weather Christmas, like you know, yeah, like
13:41
Speaker 1: Jacket's it, and you know, some people can overdo it.
13:44
Speaker 1: I think it's like if it was truly Angelina, though,
13:46
Speaker 1: we would be dressing like it was negative forty below
13:51
Speaker 1: just fully costplay. Yeah, because like our Overton window in
13:54
Speaker 1: terms of what's hot or cold is completely screwed up.
13:57
Speaker 1: So we're like, yeah, what is it? It's below Vandy
14:00
Speaker 1: where mittens right now? Oh? Good grief? Um, should I
14:08
Speaker 1: do the recap story to the best of my ability? Yeah,
14:13
Speaker 1: it's kind of a lot. There's a lot going on.
14:15
Speaker 1: It's a lot curious how you're going to do it
14:17
Speaker 1: with it and have it be very cogent and succinct. Yeah,
14:21
Speaker 1: everything's happening, and yet nothing at all is happening. The
14:24
Speaker 1: stakes from character to character are so wildly different that
14:28
Speaker 1: like they're just like wait a second. There's like in
14:31
Speaker 1: a wall pregnancy scandal, and then there's someone who's like
14:34
Speaker 1: should I get back into the dating world, Like everyone
14:39
Speaker 1: stas I got a camera, but mom doesn't like that
14:41
Speaker 1: I sing? Are these steaks? And then like Rosalba is
14:46
Speaker 1: like being beaten up in every same season. But Buddies
14:49
Speaker 1: with his like transgressors. He's got to like they act
14:54
Speaker 1: like middle school bullies, but they are like thirty eight
14:57
Speaker 1: years old. They're like, yeah, moan, dude, They're gonna get me.
15:01
Speaker 1: Like this sounds like a seventh grade problem that he's having.
15:04
Speaker 1: I think Joe Biden wrote these characters. You know. It
15:08
Speaker 1: was Mo and Dude, you know bad dudes, you know,
15:11
Speaker 1: associates of corn Pop. Yeah, messing with my boy Quentin Jr.
15:16
Speaker 1: Who was a jazz pianist. Like all right, Joe, this
15:19
Speaker 1: sounds very contrived, Like all right, Grandpa, let's go to bed, right,
15:25
Speaker 1: Um okay. So this Christmas the film is about the
15:31
Speaker 1: wet Field family. Madear is the matriarch. She has six
15:35
Speaker 1: sons and daughters who are all grown up and who
15:39
Speaker 1: are all getting together for Christmas for the first time
15:41
Speaker 1: in four years. And because this is a more kind
15:43
Speaker 1: of character driven story than a plot driven story, my
15:48
Speaker 1: recap might be kind of all over the place. So
15:52
Speaker 1: just bear with me here. But um so, it's a
15:54
Speaker 1: it's a few days before Christmas. Madear that's Loretta Divines
15:58
Speaker 1: character lives in l A. She owns a dry cleaners,
16:03
Speaker 1: and her romantic partner, Joe played by Delroy Lindo, is
16:07
Speaker 1: the kind of step father figure to her kids, although
16:11
Speaker 1: they are not married and a lot of them don't
16:13
Speaker 1: know that Joe lives in the house with Madear, and
16:16
Speaker 1: everyone's being very like two thousand and seven about it
16:19
Speaker 1: in a way that is very weird to me. I
16:22
Speaker 1: was just like, why can't just be happy for Medear?
16:25
Speaker 1: Like why are we whatever? The main thing is like, well,
16:29
Speaker 1: we'll get to this, but Quentin, you just Elba's character
16:32
Speaker 1: hates Joe and like that's why she's like keeping into
16:35
Speaker 1: secret anyway. It just Elba's character is secretly twelve years old.
16:39
Speaker 1: That's like, my that's the only way I can rationalize
16:41
Speaker 1: some of his some of his choices where he's like
16:43
Speaker 1: I don't get it. Why aren't you married to my
16:45
Speaker 1: dad anymore? And it's like, this is twelve year old culture.
16:49
Speaker 1: This is not like oh and literally telling Joe you're
16:52
Speaker 1: not my daddy. Oh okay, sir, we got that part
16:58
Speaker 1: when we knew that. I think you're also in adult
17:00
Speaker 1: and we don't need to talk like that right now,
17:02
Speaker 1: right Like, I feel like people should come down. The
17:05
Speaker 1: things that people come down Quentin hard for, like being
17:09
Speaker 1: a musician, don't make sense. And the things that they
17:12
Speaker 1: take really easy on him, like being aggressive towards Joe,
17:16
Speaker 1: who has never done a thing. People are just like, well,
17:19
Speaker 1: you know, he's sad about the divorce. You're like, he
17:22
Speaker 1: needs to he needs to, you know, grow up, figure
17:24
Speaker 1: out by by all measures. Quentin Senior sounds like a
17:27
Speaker 1: piece of ship. If I was on the family to
17:30
Speaker 1: be a fucking musician. Uh, that's not an honorable person.
17:35
Speaker 1: Sorry so, but but again that's but that's the thing,
17:39
Speaker 1: like we don't have these fucked up relationships with our parents,
17:41
Speaker 1: and even though on paper it's bad, we still idolize
17:44
Speaker 1: them and wrong. There's so much depth to that. It's true.
17:48
Speaker 1: It's true. I like Joe. I like Joe too. I
17:51
Speaker 1: love Delroy Lindo, you know, and whenever when he puts
17:54
Speaker 1: a good performance, like it felt weird. He felt like
17:56
Speaker 1: he was classing up the joint acting like I was like, oh,
18:00
Speaker 1: you're too good right now, this is a little this
18:02
Speaker 1: is a little bit of holiday trash, and you're like
18:05
Speaker 1: earnest performances like Shakespearean wait to the whole thing, even
18:10
Speaker 1: like when he would have it out with interest elbow,
18:12
Speaker 1: these tense moments were like he's like, you probably should
18:15
Speaker 1: stay away while I'm around, because you know, I don't
18:16
Speaker 1: want you to hear what my mom is, Like why
18:18
Speaker 1: don't you take that up with your mother? And he's like,
18:19
Speaker 1: I will. And then del Roy Leno just does like
18:21
Speaker 1: great like reaction acting when he's like yeah, like about
18:25
Speaker 1: to say something, measures dials back and then goes on.
18:28
Speaker 1: You're like, wow, okay, del Roy, he really that whole scene,
18:31
Speaker 1: there's like just a scene where he's just hanging up
18:33
Speaker 1: lights and getting a little frustrated, and I was captivated
18:39
Speaker 1: because we're supposed to focus on what's happening in the background,
18:41
Speaker 1: which is Kelly coming home from a one night stand
18:44
Speaker 1: with McKay peiffer, who proceeds to stop her for the
18:48
Speaker 1: rest of the movie, but in a cute way, but
18:51
Speaker 1: in acute way when he's very suddenly like dressed up
18:55
Speaker 1: as Santa with her niece and nephew, I'm like, this
18:58
Speaker 1: is like this is the end of that story line.
19:00
Speaker 1: And if we can't depin you, but we did in
19:03
Speaker 1: the normal world. There's a text that's a girl. You're
19:06
Speaker 1: not gonna believe this motherfucker showed up in Santa outfit.
19:10
Speaker 1: I didn't even call him. I'm trying to get him
19:13
Speaker 1: to leave right now. No, just the one time, not
19:16
Speaker 1: since then. No, he brought gifts and ship too like
19:19
Speaker 1: once they like as if he knew what they wanted.
19:22
Speaker 1: This is you run even a cursory bushemy test on
19:25
Speaker 1: that it all falls apart. Stu Bushemy comes the next
19:30
Speaker 1: morning into Santa Suit. You're like, it's not going to
19:34
Speaker 1: end well, You're like, get out of my house. Um, okay.
19:38
Speaker 1: So we meet Madeer and Joe, we meet Baby. That's
19:41
Speaker 1: Chris Brown's character. He is the youngest member of the family.
19:45
Speaker 1: I think he's a senior in high school about to
19:47
Speaker 1: graduate because he still lives it. They like make it
19:50
Speaker 1: seem like he's still in high school right even though
19:52
Speaker 1: he's yes, but he's acting like again, he's acting like
19:56
Speaker 1: he's tent like he's always like hunched over like he
20:00
Speaker 1: and also twenty five because like I'm singing at a
20:02
Speaker 1: nightclub snuck out the age right. They never like, they
20:10
Speaker 1: never specify really how old anyone is supposed to be,
20:13
Speaker 1: which works to the movie's advantage because I'm like, I
20:15
Speaker 1: don't know what I would believe. And then the rest
20:19
Speaker 1: of the family starts to arrive at Madeir's house. Lisa
20:23
Speaker 1: that's Regina King. She arrives with her husband, Malcolm that's
20:28
Speaker 1: laz Alonso. They have two kids together, who could not
20:32
Speaker 1: be in the movie less if they tried. That's fucked up.
20:36
Speaker 1: It was weird. And another like moment when I was like,
20:40
Speaker 1: I'm so fucking confused, like when I was watching it
20:42
Speaker 1: last week and I'm like, wait, who, who the who's
20:45
Speaker 1: fucking kids are these? And why are they being neglected
20:48
Speaker 1: the whole film? Like they don't exist in the reality
20:51
Speaker 1: of the film. The fact that they're even there is
20:55
Speaker 1: introduced so late in the movie, and then I was
20:58
Speaker 1: still like, wait, who whose kids are these? And then
21:02
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, like, oh, okay, that makes sense that
21:05
Speaker 1: I don't know. The way that they're introduced was very confusing,
21:08
Speaker 1: and then they're like in the background of two scenes,
21:10
Speaker 1: they don't even sit at the table, Like the table
21:15
Speaker 1: I honestly thought in the first like soul Train dance
21:17
Speaker 1: line that they did as a family, Like when Quinn
21:19
Speaker 1: comes home and one of the kids was there, I
21:21
Speaker 1: honestly thought it was an intruder. I was like, who
21:25
Speaker 1: the funk is? And like, y'all aren't really you're just
21:27
Speaker 1: gonna act like okay whatever. I'm like, this family is
21:30
Speaker 1: on some other ship. You know, those infamous child intruders. Yeah,
21:34
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly. I'm like, Yo, one of these
21:37
Speaker 1: little cutesy thieves is in your house on Christmas. You've
21:40
Speaker 1: seen this a hundred times. You know the script already,
21:43
Speaker 1: that classic Christmas troupe. Hey, it's me, your other little grandchild.
21:47
Speaker 1: You're gonna take the presents, you ink. I don't know
21:51
Speaker 1: why they talked again New York Burglar from the twenties,
21:53
Speaker 1: but given Adris Elba's character, you know, I believe almost anything, right, Okay.
22:01
Speaker 1: So then we also meet Kelly. That's Sharon Leal. She
22:05
Speaker 1: works in New York. I think in advertising. She went
22:09
Speaker 1: to Harvard. Her main thing is that she's a terrible cook.
22:12
Speaker 1: A lot of jokes are made at her expense about
22:15
Speaker 1: her being really bad at cooking. Don't forget she also
22:17
Speaker 1: has a vibrator, and she has a vibrator. Yes, she's
22:20
Speaker 1: one of those Harvard non cooking knows how to pleasure
22:23
Speaker 1: herself types. Huh, a modern feminist think. But we're told
22:28
Speaker 1: we don't like that. She's gotta she's gotta marry the
22:31
Speaker 1: first Santa she has sex with. Right, Look, you beggars
22:35
Speaker 1: can't be choosers, especially when you suck up making cool aid.
22:38
Speaker 1: The fact the fact that she's literally like a Harvard
22:42
Speaker 1: grad who happens to be single and doesn't seem to
22:45
Speaker 1: be bothered by it, And the movie is like, m
22:47
Speaker 1: she's gonna start dating Santa. You're just like, what, yeah,
22:55
Speaker 1: for this character, what you're laying out for me? I
22:58
Speaker 1: do like that they did honor the trope of talking
23:00
Speaker 1: about Harvard all the time, because like it's one thing
23:04
Speaker 1: like when a black person goes to Harvard, it's always talked.
23:07
Speaker 1: It will never not be spoken about. So I really
23:10
Speaker 1: appreciated how like Harvard was constantly getting beat over the
23:13
Speaker 1: head once in the same way. Like, and I think
23:15
Speaker 1: in like more like white culture that it's the trope
23:18
Speaker 1: of I went to school in Cambridge or what is it, Boston,
23:21
Speaker 1: went to school in Boston what's the vague thing that
23:24
Speaker 1: people say, did not say they went to Harvard to
23:26
Speaker 1: small college in Boston. Okay, well, this feels like a
23:31
Speaker 1: great time to bring up that I went to a
23:33
Speaker 1: school in Boston. It's called Boston University, and I did
23:36
Speaker 1: get a master's degree in screenwriting from that institution. But
23:40
Speaker 1: I would never bring that up never. What did you
23:44
Speaker 1: think of some of the writing? Sorry to derail you.
23:47
Speaker 1: I know we're still doing this synopsis, but there are
23:49
Speaker 1: some lines of dialogue that I was like, there were
23:51
Speaker 1: some head scratchers there. I had some fun ones that
23:55
Speaker 1: The writing to me was pretty decent. I think I
23:59
Speaker 1: would say some of the soundtrack choices were what we're
24:02
Speaker 1: really puzzling to me? Yeah, Well, the interesting thing is
24:06
Speaker 1: that Marcus Miller was the was the person in charge
24:10
Speaker 1: of music. And Marcus Miller is like, oh fucking well,
24:14
Speaker 1: well respected jazz musician um and like played with like
24:18
Speaker 1: Miles Davis and Ship. So when I saw that pop up,
24:21
Speaker 1: I was like, Ship, Marcus Miller is like the fucking
24:24
Speaker 1: musical director. Like he's a talented bassist. But it had
24:27
Speaker 1: that like stale jazz brunchie vibe to the soundtrack. It
24:32
Speaker 1: was very Yeah. I was kind of I was like,
24:34
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of this is like two
24:36
Speaker 1: thousand and seven talking, but it just it did sound
24:40
Speaker 1: very like generic. I had my favorite line um was
24:45
Speaker 1: there because I generally like I thought, I mean, it's
24:48
Speaker 1: super tropy, but whatever, it's a Christmas movie. But my
24:51
Speaker 1: favorite line that was bad was anytime Malcolm, the like
24:56
Speaker 1: cheating husband is talking. The way he talks is so
25:00
Speaker 1: business vague in a way that I thought was really funny,
25:03
Speaker 1: where he's like, at some point, like Kelly realizes that
25:07
Speaker 1: he's cheating on her sister, and he's like, you know,
25:10
Speaker 1: I gotta fly back to San Francisco signed some papers.
25:14
Speaker 1: It's business. There's a sentence and then he says on
25:18
Speaker 1: the phone, I'm in escrow. Let him know he's doing deals. Man,
25:24
Speaker 1: he's in escrow himself right now. Sorry, I'm in escrow
25:28
Speaker 1: right now. Probably when I get out, Like it sounds
25:31
Speaker 1: like business to me. I don't know the other thing
25:33
Speaker 1: he said I was. I think when we were talking
25:36
Speaker 1: off Mike the other day, j B. I was like,
25:37
Speaker 1: there's some business investment tropes or just takes that are
25:41
Speaker 1: just really weird where Malcolm says that buying a Cadillac
25:46
Speaker 1: Escalade is a good investment. And that was like the
25:49
Speaker 1: most two thousand seven shift I've ever heard, was like
25:52
Speaker 1: a good investment. I'm like, that is not appreciating in value.
25:56
Speaker 1: How is that a good investment in any way? It's
25:59
Speaker 1: also like one the most famous like gas guzzlers. Yeah. Well,
26:03
Speaker 1: I think also for me to at that time pulling
26:07
Speaker 1: up an escalade, there there was no higher vehicle in
26:10
Speaker 1: black culture, you know, like a Cadillac and then big
26:13
Speaker 1: body SUV Cadillac. But I just love that he was
26:17
Speaker 1: so like insistent in that seems like damn, I've got
26:19
Speaker 1: the good investment. I'm just like, that's don't even have
26:23
Speaker 1: a character say that out loud. The car is not
26:26
Speaker 1: an investment unless it's like to get you to and
26:28
Speaker 1: from work or some kind of classic car. Right. Yeah.
26:31
Speaker 1: I suppose there's some questionable writing choices. I think, like store,
26:35
Speaker 1: like the emotional arc of different characters. Yeah, but that
26:39
Speaker 1: is fun the Yeah, there there were a few things
26:42
Speaker 1: here that were kind of like, oh, this happens right
26:44
Speaker 1: before a big recession, and you can kind of see
26:49
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, I don't know how this ends, and
26:51
Speaker 1: how does this where you know, where are the wit
26:54
Speaker 1: Fields in two thousand nine? We never we don't know.
26:56
Speaker 1: He didn't get a sequel. Yeah yet, I mean maybe
27:00
Speaker 1: they had they sold their business just to get liquid.
27:03
Speaker 1: That's true. That's true, right, and let's see that's a
27:06
Speaker 1: follow up. We don't want we don't need that. Yeah,
27:08
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't want to know they live in
27:10
Speaker 1: two thousand seven forever for me, Like what if they're
27:14
Speaker 1: like yeah? And then baby became Chris Brown. Also at
27:19
Speaker 1: the end of the movie where there's a really long
27:21
Speaker 1: dance sequence and then you're like, oh, it's not even
27:23
Speaker 1: the characters anymore. It's just it's just the actors. It
27:26
Speaker 1: took me a second because I was like, they just
27:28
Speaker 1: did someone just accidentally call him Chris? I was like, oh, no,
27:30
Speaker 1: I guess we're just actors now. Yeah. It's just like
27:32
Speaker 1: it's like like the end of a play where the
27:35
Speaker 1: cast comes out and gives like a like a fun bow.
27:37
Speaker 1: Was like the movie equivalent, like let's do all do
27:39
Speaker 1: some dancing. And then I feel like I was kind
27:41
Speaker 1: of turning up the volume because I feel like there
27:43
Speaker 1: was some like ship talking going on. I'm gonna have
27:46
Speaker 1: to watch that again. But there was a moment where
27:48
Speaker 1: I feel like someone made fun of someone else is
27:50
Speaker 1: dancing and they're like, I don't give a fuck like
27:52
Speaker 1: someone I felt like there was an exchange like that,
27:54
Speaker 1: whereas I was like, oh, wow, you're really doing It's like,
27:56
Speaker 1: come on, I'm sucking trying. Like there was like a
27:58
Speaker 1: dismissive grunt that I think is audible. A cast at
28:01
Speaker 1: that large you have to think that like there has
28:04
Speaker 1: to be like some pairing that doesn't work well when
28:07
Speaker 1: there's a cast of over ten people, You're like, okay,
28:09
Speaker 1: two of these people don't like each other, right, but
28:12
Speaker 1: you just never know who like Lauren London and Delroy
28:16
Speaker 1: Lindo hate each other there. Well, I feel like Delroy
28:21
Speaker 1: Lindo still sends everyone Christmas cards. He just seems like
28:24
Speaker 1: he would. Oh he seems like a you know, as
28:28
Speaker 1: you're like, they come visit me, man, Please visit me anytime,
28:32
Speaker 1: Please come visit me. Remember that movie from thirteen years ago? Yeah,
28:40
Speaker 1: I was just I was just telling you. I was
28:42
Speaker 1: just calling you have to tell you how much I
28:43
Speaker 1: like the Five Bloods. Yeah. Remember this Christmas Man? You
28:47
Speaker 1: said we were going to hang out after that. I
28:49
Speaker 1: know you're busy. No, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine,
28:53
Speaker 1: it's fine, And you don't want to hang out with
28:54
Speaker 1: an old guy like me. You know, I was in Congo.
28:59
Speaker 1: He played a very weird like everything, like like central
29:02
Speaker 1: African general in it. Anyway, I digress. Yeah, let's return
29:07
Speaker 1: to the Actually, let's take a quick break first and
29:13
Speaker 1: then we will come right back. Um. So next to
29:22
Speaker 1: come home as Claude. That's Columbus Short. He's in the military.
29:27
Speaker 1: I think that's really all we learned about him for
29:30
Speaker 1: a while. Then Mel that's Lauren London, comes home. She's
29:34
Speaker 1: in college studying pre law. She brings home her boyfriend Devon.
29:38
Speaker 1: And then last to arrive is Quentin Idris Elba's character.
29:42
Speaker 1: He's a jazz musician who we've seen get into like
29:47
Speaker 1: a brawl prior to this birth breakaway glass in the
29:52
Speaker 1: first scene, like he smashes a bottle over someone's face
29:56
Speaker 1: and then jumps up window. You're like, oh, this mcavity.
30:02
Speaker 1: I remember I was watching with her Majesty, and we
30:05
Speaker 1: paused it after that because we're like, is this a
30:07
Speaker 1: Christmas movie? He just glassed the guy in a club
30:11
Speaker 1: and ran for his life, like it had the didn't
30:14
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess the jazzy Christmas piano would give
30:17
Speaker 1: you a hint, but like it had the oddest energy
30:20
Speaker 1: for the opening for Christmas pilem. It was such a
30:23
Speaker 1: weird that being the first scene really does not set
30:27
Speaker 1: you up for it establishes the tone that does not
30:31
Speaker 1: maintain itself throughout the kind of you don't know, what
30:35
Speaker 1: would you say, doctor Durante about the writing there, or
30:38
Speaker 1: what would Robert McKee say as such heavy handed ex
30:42
Speaker 1: please call me Master Durante, And I would say that
30:49
Speaker 1: the point of attack of a film, which is like
30:52
Speaker 1: basically the opening, what how we opened the story? How
30:55
Speaker 1: the world and the characters are first introduced to the
30:58
Speaker 1: audience generally does a few important things, and one of
31:01
Speaker 1: those things is to establish tone. And would you establish
31:05
Speaker 1: a tone that then is deviated from for the rest
31:09
Speaker 1: of the story. It's a bit jarring. But what if
31:12
Speaker 1: Mo and Dude come back every once in a while
31:15
Speaker 1: and say, hey, remember us punch? Punch? Is that nice?
31:19
Speaker 1: Is that word that provides a little bit more fluidity
31:22
Speaker 1: and consistency? However, it is I will say, a strange
31:26
Speaker 1: choice as a way to open the film I'm glad
31:29
Speaker 1: to know that was verified by someone with a master's degree.
31:32
Speaker 1: You're welcome. Um okay. So now the whole family is there.
31:37
Speaker 1: So this is like the first evening they're all there together,
31:39
Speaker 1: and this is where the drama really starts to ramp up. Um.
31:44
Speaker 1: Part of it is that Kelly has a strained relationship
31:47
Speaker 1: with Lisa. She thinks that Lisa is weak willed and
31:51
Speaker 1: easily influenced and is too accommodating to her shitty husband, Malcolm,
31:57
Speaker 1: who Kelly openly hates. And that's one of my favorite
32:00
Speaker 1: aspects of this movie is how open, openly hateful she
32:03
Speaker 1: is to Malcolm, right to his face. So meanwhile, Lisa
32:08
Speaker 1: wants to sell Madear's dry cleaning business, and this is
32:12
Speaker 1: an idea that we realized that Malcolm put her up to.
32:16
Speaker 1: No one else is really on board for this idea,
32:19
Speaker 1: but this is kind of like a running thing throughout
32:21
Speaker 1: the movie. Um Quentin hasn't seen his family in four years,
32:25
Speaker 1: and probably the main reason that he came home this
32:29
Speaker 1: time was that he is on the run from these
32:32
Speaker 1: bookies who he owes twenty five dollars too, and so
32:35
Speaker 1: he's like in hiding at his mom's house and the
32:38
Speaker 1: reason he's estranged from his family is one of my
32:42
Speaker 1: favorite bizarre specifics about this movie, which is that because
32:47
Speaker 1: Quentin Senr ditched the family to go be a musician,
32:51
Speaker 1: Madear feels that there is a bit of of a
32:54
Speaker 1: music musician related curse on her life that if any
32:58
Speaker 1: of the men in her life even go go with him,
33:02
Speaker 1: I think canonically, within like six ft of a piano,
33:06
Speaker 1: um that they will abandon her. And um. So she's
33:10
Speaker 1: so it's it's almost she's like a little bit of
33:13
Speaker 1: like foot loose when it comes to women playing music.
33:16
Speaker 1: It's like, this is the movie Coco. I was like,
33:20
Speaker 1: did Cocoa see this Christmas and lift that very Cocoa
33:26
Speaker 1: famously wrote the movie Cocos. But I was watching this,
33:31
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, Miguel from Coco, this
33:34
Speaker 1: is like his whole problem. His his like a matriarch
33:38
Speaker 1: and his family was abandoned by a musician. And she
33:41
Speaker 1: thinks that there's like this now, this music curse on
33:44
Speaker 1: the family. So she forbids anyone in the family from
33:47
Speaker 1: like playing music or singing or doing anything. And I
33:50
Speaker 1: was like, wait a minute, there's there's a parallel here anyway,
33:56
Speaker 1: it truly is. And then so Quentin has a strained
34:01
Speaker 1: relationship and part of it is is what we just described,
34:04
Speaker 1: this um kind of music related curse that Madear perceives
34:08
Speaker 1: to be on the family because like Quentin has kind
34:11
Speaker 1: of followed in his father's footsteps as a musician. Um. Okay,
34:16
Speaker 1: So then everyone goes to a club that night. I
34:19
Speaker 1: think we're two nights before Christmas at this point. Um,
34:22
Speaker 1: and a lot of stuff goes down at this club. Um,
34:26
Speaker 1: it starts, all goes down. It starts with Claude wanting
34:30
Speaker 1: to go there to meet someone in secret, and we
34:34
Speaker 1: realize that this person is a girlfriend or it turns
34:38
Speaker 1: out that she's his wife and he's kind of keeping
34:42
Speaker 1: her a secret with an eye and the implication is
34:47
Speaker 1: that he's keeping her a secret from his family because
34:49
Speaker 1: she is white. But all his siblings tag along to
34:55
Speaker 1: this club outing, so he still has to like hush,
34:59
Speaker 1: like he's like, oh home, Sandy, go back to the
35:02
Speaker 1: hotel and by home. Yeah, it takes a I feel
35:05
Speaker 1: like was I not watching carefully enough or does it
35:08
Speaker 1: take a really long time to figure out what their
35:10
Speaker 1: relationship actually is, because at first it's like it took
35:14
Speaker 1: me a while to figure out that she was his wife,
35:18
Speaker 1: and then and then also he's like making her live
35:21
Speaker 1: in a hotel. Like it just took me a long
35:24
Speaker 1: time to figure out what exactly the situation was there,
35:28
Speaker 1: and that whole storyline is so fucking bizarre. I wasn't
35:31
Speaker 1: sure what I was like. At first, I was like, oh,
35:34
Speaker 1: is he like, is he has like a lover? That
35:37
Speaker 1: clearly I was like, there's a lover. And then I
35:39
Speaker 1: forgot that it was a white woman, and I was like, oh, ship, okay,
35:42
Speaker 1: does this have some like LGBTQ flavor? And then I
35:45
Speaker 1: was like, all right, this is a black Christmas film,
35:47
Speaker 1: so we're gonna go into she is white, a white woman.
35:52
Speaker 1: He's meeting up at the club, and I honestly thought
35:55
Speaker 1: it was it felt like groupie ish or something like
35:57
Speaker 1: not a relationship because it's like, go to the hotel,
36:00
Speaker 1: I will meet you. Yeah, it seems like a casual.
36:03
Speaker 1: I was not getting white. I was like, oh, oh,
36:06
Speaker 1: he's dating a white girl. But then it was like, no,
36:09
Speaker 1: she's his wife and she's pregnant and she lives in
36:11
Speaker 1: a hotel. You're like why here? What? Yeah, that whole
36:17
Speaker 1: storyline was baffling to me. Also, shout out to the
36:20
Speaker 1: l Ray Theater where that club is, because it's like
36:23
Speaker 1: every fucking movie, like like in l a like, it's
36:26
Speaker 1: always like it fucked up people's idea of what a
36:29
Speaker 1: nightclub was, which is basically just being like we can
36:31
Speaker 1: basically only shoot at the l Ray Theater. Like in
36:33
Speaker 1: the Mask where he does like his like cocoa bongo thing.
36:37
Speaker 1: I think it's the l Ray too. It's just a
36:39
Speaker 1: iconic theater, which I in my mind was weird. That's
36:43
Speaker 1: set up with like stages, like a stage and tables
36:46
Speaker 1: is what I thought a nightclub was from like movies
36:49
Speaker 1: in the nineties that were shooting at the l Ray
36:51
Speaker 1: and then you went to one, You're like, oh no,
36:53
Speaker 1: it's a it's a really just shitty big room with
36:55
Speaker 1: couches in the corner. It stinks. Yeah, you can't you
36:59
Speaker 1: can't smell a building on in a movie. Unfortunately, No,
37:04
Speaker 1: that could change. But when I'm done in this industry,
37:08
Speaker 1: that's all going to be a little different. There was
37:10
Speaker 1: like a smell a vision thing in in theaters for
37:13
Speaker 1: a while. It was wildly unsuccessful, but I learned about
37:15
Speaker 1: it in film history class. Really. I remember in the
37:19
Speaker 1: nineties Fox TV on Sundays they would have like these
37:22
Speaker 1: events where you'd go to a seven eleven to pick
37:25
Speaker 1: up like whatever thing you needed to enjoy it. Like
37:27
Speaker 1: they would do like three like in Living Color in
37:29
Speaker 1: three D and you would get like those blue and
37:32
Speaker 1: red three D glasses and you would like they would
37:35
Speaker 1: broadcast like the three D version on the TV. If
37:38
Speaker 1: you didn't have them, you were shipped out. But then
37:40
Speaker 1: they also did a Smell a Vision one where like
37:43
Speaker 1: you bought a there's a scratch and sniff card and
37:46
Speaker 1: like in an episode and be like, all right, now
37:48
Speaker 1: smell that because Al Bundy did sort of like one
37:50
Speaker 1: character on TV and it was Jankie Analog Smell a Vision,
37:54
Speaker 1: Thank you seven eleven, and do that for Nickelodeon cartoons
37:57
Speaker 1: at one point to like you had to like buy
37:59
Speaker 1: an issue in nick Glodian magazine and then you could
38:01
Speaker 1: like smell a SpongeBob episode and be like, wow, Patrick,
38:05
Speaker 1: time to time to smell it and exciting damn it,
38:10
Speaker 1: I already sniffed up all the smell off of this car.
38:13
Speaker 1: Doesn't sound like anything anymore. Okay, so we're at the
38:18
Speaker 1: club the siblings have tagged along. There's also an open
38:21
Speaker 1: mic night that was I was like, oh my god,
38:25
Speaker 1: just the idea of like an open mic being like
38:27
Speaker 1: sprawled like some kind of show of with like full
38:30
Speaker 1: of amateurs a Christmas imagine doing a Christmas Eve open mic.
38:34
Speaker 1: I just I mean I could because I longed to
38:38
Speaker 1: be in a room full of like other people, like
38:40
Speaker 1: in strangers again. But yeah, that I think people have
38:44
Speaker 1: experienced this, like going out where it's a surprise open
38:48
Speaker 1: mic and you didn't know you were at a thing
38:50
Speaker 1: that was about to turn into an open mic, and
38:51
Speaker 1: you're like, fuck no, I seriously don't want to be
38:55
Speaker 1: here for this. Well, we've been on the other side
38:58
Speaker 1: of that hundreds of times as comics who will be
39:02
Speaker 1: on a bar show that no one else at the
39:04
Speaker 1: bar knows a comedy show is about to happen, and
39:07
Speaker 1: then suddenly someone walks up to a microphone. They're like
39:10
Speaker 1: com when he starts in five minutes, and then everyone
39:12
Speaker 1: at the bar is like, I don't care. I'm going
39:15
Speaker 1: to keep talking at regular volume and I right with
39:21
Speaker 1: the TVs are still on. It's a mess. Um. Yeah. Anyway,
39:25
Speaker 1: So there's this open mic night and like the first
39:27
Speaker 1: to perform is their brother baby, who sings a full song. Uh,
39:33
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh my god, we didn't know he
39:34
Speaker 1: was a singer and wow, he's so good, but he's
39:38
Speaker 1: been keeping it a secret because of this music family
39:41
Speaker 1: curse thing. Also at the club, this is when gerald
39:46
Speaker 1: A K. McKay peiffer is making Google eyes at Kelly
39:50
Speaker 1: and then she goes home with him. She doesn't he said.
39:59
Speaker 1: He's saying to who can have fun? Could fuck? Oh Santa?
40:05
Speaker 1: Fucks honey, blew my mind. And then there's like that
40:08
Speaker 1: scene where Lauren London is like, did you fox Santa?
40:11
Speaker 1: And then Kelly's like, yes, sure. And then also at
40:17
Speaker 1: this club, a few guys were seen hitting on Clode's
40:22
Speaker 1: lady friend. Again, we don't really know their relationship at
40:25
Speaker 1: this point. Um, so he pulls a gun on them,
40:28
Speaker 1: He pulls his surface pistol on them, and then later
40:31
Speaker 1: on he gets arrested, and that's when everyone finds out
40:35
Speaker 1: that he's a wall right, And that's also when they
40:38
Speaker 1: find out that Sandy is his wife. For someone who
40:41
Speaker 1: has no plot for the first hour, the stakes for
40:44
Speaker 1: Claude go through the roof like really quickly, you shouldn't
40:48
Speaker 1: have gone to that club, you know, he shouldn't have.
40:51
Speaker 1: If he hadn't, we would know nothing about his character.
40:55
Speaker 1: But also I think it's a lesson, right, you know,
40:57
Speaker 1: if had he just alleviated the stress of deceiving his
41:01
Speaker 1: family and keeping his relationship hidden, he may not have
41:04
Speaker 1: pulled it the strap out at the club on the guy,
41:06
Speaker 1: you know, because his family wouldn't know, like, oh, here
41:08
Speaker 1: was s meet up saying, oh what's up saying, but
41:10
Speaker 1: instead he's like, you get the fuk away from me.
41:12
Speaker 1: We tried, and he's already just like talking to and
41:16
Speaker 1: now my brothers is doing this thing. He's singing. My
41:18
Speaker 1: mom thinks it's a curse. I think he had a
41:19
Speaker 1: lot going on. And then when those two dudes are like,
41:22
Speaker 1: hey man, no hard fearing bro, you know because the
41:24
Speaker 1: white girls they got booty, but they got the strong
41:26
Speaker 1: knees or whatever the funk that line was that set
41:28
Speaker 1: him off, Like okay, oh toxicity all around that. Like
41:34
Speaker 1: then it was just like now, fucking dick, this gun
41:37
Speaker 1: motherfucker's like, whoa this has big dude? Who is keeping
41:40
Speaker 1: secrets energy? Who should have just just been communicative and
41:44
Speaker 1: forth threat I feel like a lot of stress would
41:45
Speaker 1: have been tamped down. And then Eatsala was like, you've
41:49
Speaker 1: always had this temper and it's like, what has he
41:52
Speaker 1: We haven't seen that, Like that should have been set up.
41:55
Speaker 1: He was so nice for the like he did not
41:58
Speaker 1: drink real pleasant and then said he's like pulling a
42:01
Speaker 1: gun on people, and we're like, where is this coming from? Well,
42:03
Speaker 1: that's what it shows you. That's what happens when you're
42:05
Speaker 1: with a white woman. I think that's what that was
42:07
Speaker 1: being told to everybody else. And see they'll be like, see,
42:09
Speaker 1: see that's like that's like our cousin Randy. He's like
42:13
Speaker 1: that it's nothing, but it's Sandy and Sandy. It's so
42:16
Speaker 1: weird because he because later when Sandy shows up at
42:19
Speaker 1: the house, like there's a moment of discomfort, but then
42:23
Speaker 1: she's pretty much immediately accepted for the rest of the
42:26
Speaker 1: movie and worried about basically nothing. Yeah, it was a
42:30
Speaker 1: weird thing where it's like my family could be, you know,
42:33
Speaker 1: really closed off to this ship and like those were
42:36
Speaker 1: the steaks and like you kind of but it was
42:38
Speaker 1: in that time, like in the two thousand seven mindset,
42:42
Speaker 1: especially for me, is like a you know, a personal
42:44
Speaker 1: color who dates like white women and all kinds just
42:47
Speaker 1: anybody really don't discriminate romantically. But like that idea was like,
42:52
Speaker 1: oh ship, she's white, Like you're like back then, you're like,
42:55
Speaker 1: oh oh, you know, like it felt their worst because
43:00
Speaker 1: I think now we're in a bit of a we're
43:02
Speaker 1: more openly talking about things like that, where this was
43:04
Speaker 1: very much being like it's taboo and like that was
43:08
Speaker 1: really like the thing driving it, whereas now we're like,
43:11
Speaker 1: I mean, biracial relationships have been going on since well
43:14
Speaker 1: before this film, but it was still kind of like
43:16
Speaker 1: one of these things. I felt a little like old
43:18
Speaker 1: school cultural trope that doesn't it's not work in the
43:22
Speaker 1: same way. But even then in the end, the family
43:24
Speaker 1: was doing the thing that was pretty much what most
43:26
Speaker 1: people are. I'm like, oh cool, Okay, you're in our
43:28
Speaker 1: family and you're gonna you're also the mother of one
43:31
Speaker 1: of my descendants. Now great. But then there's a weird
43:35
Speaker 1: component where you part of it where you learn that
43:38
Speaker 1: her family doesn't know about her Gregnancy because she's like,
43:43
Speaker 1: oh yeah, they're not fans of Claude because he's black.
43:47
Speaker 1: So she comes from this like wildly racist family. So
43:50
Speaker 1: it's like again, so they attached these like really significant
43:57
Speaker 1: steaks that it's like you can't just say that and
43:59
Speaker 1: then not explore it at all, Like, oh you can't
44:02
Speaker 1: because you can't. I'll tell you why because it's the
44:04
Speaker 1: black holiday film and all you needed is that moment
44:06
Speaker 1: where you go, yeah, I told you white people ain't ship.
44:09
Speaker 1: That's really what it did. And she's like, you see
44:11
Speaker 1: because they embraced her me while her ain't ship family
44:14
Speaker 1: was like we're racist as funk. You know. I think
44:17
Speaker 1: that was like that gives because every holiday film, no
44:19
Speaker 1: matter what, like whether it's the length, like the lens
44:21
Speaker 1: of like an orphan or someone like, you need that
44:24
Speaker 1: moment of like yeah, we're a good guy, like you
44:26
Speaker 1: see that felt good right there. So I felt that
44:28
Speaker 1: was that moment. And also for me, I remember I
44:31
Speaker 1: just when it happened, I sort of reverted to this
44:33
Speaker 1: like thing of like, yeah, see exactly, that's how just
44:36
Speaker 1: how should be sometimes I think for me too, because
44:38
Speaker 1: I've dated white women where like when I was younger,
44:41
Speaker 1: it was like, oh, like you know, I don't really
44:45
Speaker 1: want to like post anything on like foot Facebook or
44:48
Speaker 1: some ship like that and I was like well, and
44:50
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, yeah, I just I get it.
44:53
Speaker 1: I'm you're just getting off to me. You're just getting
44:55
Speaker 1: off to my physical presence. M yeah fuck I anyway,
45:00
Speaker 1: but let's not digress because they embraced Sandy and that's
45:03
Speaker 1: what this is all about. They do. Christmas is all
45:06
Speaker 1: about opening your arms and your hearts and your homes
45:10
Speaker 1: to everyone. Mo and Dude, Oh, I'm sorry, let me
45:13
Speaker 1: I'll let you keep well. Speaking of them, this is
45:17
Speaker 1: also around the time that those two bookies Mo and
45:20
Speaker 1: Dude show up. Yeah, beat the ship out of Quinton
45:23
Speaker 1: for a while, and then they stick around and even
45:27
Speaker 1: almost stay the night. There's a very weird dynamic there.
45:31
Speaker 1: But basically they will punch Quentin when no one's looking,
45:35
Speaker 1: but the rest of the time their masquerading is Quentin's
45:37
Speaker 1: friends and everyone buys it. It always feels like a
45:40
Speaker 1: home Aloney, Like it's like the tone is like they're
45:44
Speaker 1: just kind of the Robbers, where they're like, yeah, we're friendly,
45:47
Speaker 1: but we're gonna keeck yes. If you don't get the
45:51
Speaker 1: good pal here right, Quinn gut punches. There's just such
45:57
Speaker 1: a weird they weren't even flying like the tropes of goons,
46:01
Speaker 1: like who are just like stupid guys who were just
46:03
Speaker 1: going to be like the threat of violence that exists
46:06
Speaker 1: in the background, Like they suddenly became like these goofball
46:10
Speaker 1: dudes who are also being like, let's also funk with
46:13
Speaker 1: him by like pretending we're friends and also like offer
46:17
Speaker 1: them a ride to the police station to get their
46:20
Speaker 1: brother out of jail. Like I was like, wait, are
46:23
Speaker 1: you in now? It was really confusing what they're like.
46:28
Speaker 1: We know what their endgame is, but the way they
46:31
Speaker 1: were trying to get there really made no sense. I
46:34
Speaker 1: was like, are they just lonely? Do they just want
46:36
Speaker 1: to like spend time with somebody? Can we just sort
46:39
Speaker 1: of break out the financial aspects of them seeking restitution?
46:43
Speaker 1: Because where where was Quentin coming from? New York? San Francisco, Chicago?
46:48
Speaker 1: And they showed the Golden Gate Bridge that's to show
46:51
Speaker 1: where Lisa's from. Lisa and her husband and her family
46:54
Speaker 1: live in San Francisco. I think I think maybe Chicago
46:57
Speaker 1: is where, So it was definitely clear him not it wasn't.
47:01
Speaker 1: It wasn't a quick jaunt away, so I'm thinking, Okay,
47:04
Speaker 1: so what are their travel expenses? Okay, well, how are
47:06
Speaker 1: we eating into this twenty dollars or trying to get
47:09
Speaker 1: back you know, gas lodging food. I'm thinking you're there's
47:13
Speaker 1: like there's probably what i'll call it three grand. Now
47:16
Speaker 1: you're looking at twenty two? Um, and who's that? Ohd too?
47:19
Speaker 1: Is that specifically you guys? Are you splitting that twenty two?
47:22
Speaker 1: I started getting into goon math when I was watching it.
47:25
Speaker 1: They got to keep those south clean, yeah, exactly, And like,
47:28
Speaker 1: are you keeping receipts or expenses for your goon boss?
47:31
Speaker 1: I don't know, Yeah, yeah, because they do have a
47:33
Speaker 1: goon boss. I forget that his name, but they mentioned
47:35
Speaker 1: the goon boss that they're like collecting the money on
47:38
Speaker 1: behalf of Big Goon in the Sky. Oh gosh, okay Um.
47:46
Speaker 1: Then I am a little lost on the timeline here.
47:49
Speaker 1: I think it's maybe later that night or maybe the
47:51
Speaker 1: next day, not sure, but basically there's now a big
47:54
Speaker 1: there's a big fight in the rain between Kelly and Lisa.
47:57
Speaker 1: They're pushing each other. Kelly's like, you're her husband's a
48:00
Speaker 1: piece of ship and you're you're a pushover and he's
48:03
Speaker 1: cheating on you. And at Lesa's like, wait a minute,
48:07
Speaker 1: maybe she's right, and then she goes and destroys his
48:10
Speaker 1: aforementioned Cadillac escalade drives it into the l A River. Yes,
48:16
Speaker 1: big moment for the l A River right, which is
48:19
Speaker 1: for anyone who is not familiar with the l A
48:21
Speaker 1: River is mostly concrete with a tiny little stream of water,
48:25
Speaker 1: which is even weirder because it's a concrete stream and
48:28
Speaker 1: then a cutout concrete stream inside of it. Like when
48:32
Speaker 1: you look at it's like, this looks like a sidewalking
48:34
Speaker 1: Like where is the stream? It's like, Oh, it's that
48:36
Speaker 1: other weird thing. That's the depression in this concrete block
48:39
Speaker 1: we're standing on. That's the river, that little Pepe stream,
48:42
Speaker 1: that river, that's our river. Um. So, then Baby finally
48:52
Speaker 1: tells Madeir about wanting to be a singer. She does
48:55
Speaker 1: not take it well. Meanwhile, Quentin leaves on Chris us
49:00
Speaker 1: even night. The Bookies catch up with him at the
49:02
Speaker 1: train station and beat the crap out of him, but
49:05
Speaker 1: Joe swoops in to save the day. Then we cut
49:09
Speaker 1: to Christmas morning. Lisa confronts Malcolm about being a piece
49:14
Speaker 1: of shit and beats him with a belt like pours
49:18
Speaker 1: baby oil over the floor to like humiliate him all
49:20
Speaker 1: this stuff. That scene really like kept going on. Dude,
49:26
Speaker 1: that s he was. I was like, this scene, but
49:29
Speaker 1: you know you need that. That's the that's the like, yeah,
49:32
Speaker 1: that's like the thing that see that hap people cheering
49:34
Speaker 1: into thousands. I had a note of that too. I'm like,
49:40
Speaker 1: I think that this scene is kind of longer for
49:42
Speaker 1: for like the theatrical experience and like watching it in
49:45
Speaker 1: a group, I think I'm guessing based on how we're
49:48
Speaker 1: all talking about this, we all must have if we
49:50
Speaker 1: were watching with someone I know. I turned to her managiny, like,
49:53
Speaker 1: this is getting a little bit a lot now. This
49:56
Speaker 1: is with the whipping of the black man in the bathroom, Okay, yeah,
50:01
Speaker 1: but get yours though. I get it though, is you know,
50:03
Speaker 1: in the logic of these films, cheater equals bad, So yeah,
50:06
Speaker 1: I get your ass beat this is I mean, this
50:08
Speaker 1: is I guess. Yeah. Like Regina King, she's so amazing
50:12
Speaker 1: and she's so talented, and I feel like she's asked
50:14
Speaker 1: to play a spurned wife too frequently. It's but she
50:20
Speaker 1: does it well, right yeah. Um. And then immediately after
50:25
Speaker 1: that is a scene of the whole family in church
50:28
Speaker 1: where baby sings and then Madear is like, oh, wow,
50:32
Speaker 1: he's really good. Maybe I should be okay with him
50:35
Speaker 1: pursuing music, which she says all of this with her
50:38
Speaker 1: facial expression, um like it truly is like, like you said,
50:45
Speaker 1: it was so capulus, Like I get it because it
50:47
Speaker 1: was so clear when you went and she's crying. She's like, Oh,
50:52
Speaker 1: everything's gonna be okay. And then the family sits down
50:56
Speaker 1: for Christmas dinner together. They have a nice toast about
50:59
Speaker 1: no matter what, we are family. And that is the
51:03
Speaker 1: end of the film. Let's take a quick break and
51:05
Speaker 1: then we will come right back. Where do where does
51:14
Speaker 1: whose storyline should? I mean, we've covered we've sort of
51:17
Speaker 1: covered in some of it throughout the recay, But where
51:21
Speaker 1: should we start maybe just kind of starting in a
51:24
Speaker 1: in a sort of the general scope of things worth
51:28
Speaker 1: discussing a little bit. And we've talked about this on
51:31
Speaker 1: the many many Christmas episodes we have covered on the
51:34
Speaker 1: show in the past, that this is a particularly white genre.
51:38
Speaker 1: Usually the cast will be entirely white, or that any
51:43
Speaker 1: characters of color will have only very tertiary role kind
51:48
Speaker 1: of things. So for this to be one of the
51:50
Speaker 1: few mainstream films that features a black family worth noting,
51:56
Speaker 1: doesn't happen much, doesn't happen often, but it's still puffing
52:00
Speaker 1: that same old tropium of these Christmas films of like
52:04
Speaker 1: gender normative bullshit and like all this like Judeo Christian
52:09
Speaker 1: whatever the funk it is stuff, which is funny because
52:12
Speaker 1: it's always like to say, it's like it's still the
52:14
Speaker 1: same kind of flavor, you know what I mean, But yeah,
52:17
Speaker 1: it's But it's funny because there are moments where, like
52:20
Speaker 1: I've definitely looked at it differently as a black person
52:22
Speaker 1: that other people just see like certain moments differently. But
52:26
Speaker 1: I think those are the moments that you're like, oh,
52:28
Speaker 1: thank you a movie that was kind of made for
52:30
Speaker 1: me as an audience member, pointing to things that I
52:33
Speaker 1: are significant to me or maybe seem insignificant to other people.
52:37
Speaker 1: But yeah, right, but like you said, they're like, well,
52:39
Speaker 1: it's a Christmas movie, so we still have to make
52:41
Speaker 1: it palatable to audiences and really maintain a lot of
52:47
Speaker 1: tropes and holiday movie troops specifically, and like, yeah, so
52:52
Speaker 1: it's kind of it's in this strange place that also
52:56
Speaker 1: feels very two thousand seven. Yeah, yeah, extremely it's and
53:01
Speaker 1: then then as as far as that, I mean, there's
53:03
Speaker 1: so many characters too to talk about, but I think, Myles,
53:07
Speaker 1: you're totally right where it's like, it's amazing that there's
53:10
Speaker 1: like a widely released black Christmas movie, but then within it,
53:15
Speaker 1: it's all those Christmas tropes that are in. Like it's
53:19
Speaker 1: everyone is the most hetero person who has ever lived,
53:22
Speaker 1: and they need to be married yesterday, like that Christmas like,
53:29
Speaker 1: which I feel like is such a common like I
53:32
Speaker 1: mean that's every Christmas movie. It's like, why aren't you married?
53:35
Speaker 1: Why don't you marry? Hey? Look at that guy? Why
53:37
Speaker 1: don't you marry him? And then she goes okay, and
53:40
Speaker 1: that's where's the Christmas movie where like everyone just gets
53:44
Speaker 1: fucked up drunk? Because that's more real to me than
53:47
Speaker 1: anything that's my Christmas. Yeah, Like I just remember going
53:51
Speaker 1: to other people's Christmas and I'm like, Yo, this is
53:53
Speaker 1: fucking dope. You guys just get fucking turned up and
53:56
Speaker 1: like that's what you do for Christmas? And he's like yeah,
53:58
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like we don't really go to church
54:00
Speaker 1: or anything. We get together, it's cold and drink. I'm like,
54:03
Speaker 1: where is that movie? Like that even feels more real
54:05
Speaker 1: than sort of like it's it's like almost portraying the
54:08
Speaker 1: Christmas people want to avoid, which is like I don't
54:10
Speaker 1: want to go to my fucking house because of my
54:12
Speaker 1: aunt is gonna be like what are you gonna get married?
54:14
Speaker 1: Or like what are you doing for work? And that that,
54:16
Speaker 1: And I guess that's real to a certain extent, but
54:18
Speaker 1: it's weird. I was saying this in another show, like
54:21
Speaker 1: it's it's like these Christmas movies like their lack of flavor,
54:24
Speaker 1: Like is the flavor? You know that it's not. It's
54:27
Speaker 1: not going to be too confrontational or subversive or make
54:31
Speaker 1: you question anything at all, aside from whether or not
54:34
Speaker 1: an escalated is a good investment. But like that's what it's.
54:38
Speaker 1: I think that's the draw is like it's a Manila
54:40
Speaker 1: envelope that won't offend you but also has a bow
54:44
Speaker 1: on it so it feels festive, but it still a
54:47
Speaker 1: Manila envelope. And it's a it's an autour film. It's
54:51
Speaker 1: Preston a Whitmore, Whitmore's Whitfield. It makes you think President
54:57
Speaker 1: a Whitmore the second directed, produce and wrote this movie.
55:04
Speaker 1: Um so it's safe to say and like the research
55:06
Speaker 1: I did of like the interviews done at the time,
55:08
Speaker 1: it seems like this is like based on his family
55:11
Speaker 1: at least to some extent um, probably not all the
55:14
Speaker 1: same Christmas, but who knows. The thing that mainly, the
55:17
Speaker 1: thing that mainly stood out to me in terms of
55:19
Speaker 1: like the many threads that we have going on here,
55:21
Speaker 1: is that I just wish that, like it's for for
55:25
Speaker 1: the women in this movie, most of their steaks are
55:30
Speaker 1: attached to a like romantic relationship with a guy, and
55:34
Speaker 1: then with with the with the men that the stakes
55:36
Speaker 1: are like very varied. There's like music curs guy, there's
55:41
Speaker 1: a wall guy. There's like there's a wall Nation guy.
55:47
Speaker 1: There's like jazz on the run guy, like there's there's
55:52
Speaker 1: The stakes are so all over the like in a
55:55
Speaker 1: way that's really fun and engaging. But when it comes
55:58
Speaker 1: to Lisa and Lillie and Mel and even to an
56:02
Speaker 1: extent Madei, it's like they're all of their steaks are
56:05
Speaker 1: like something about my marriage or like I need a
56:09
Speaker 1: marriage or Mel I mean weird. I feel like Mel
56:13
Speaker 1: had kind of an interesting threat introduced at the beginning
56:16
Speaker 1: of the movie that kind of goes nowhere. She kind
56:18
Speaker 1: of gets lost in the shuffle, and so I want
56:20
Speaker 1: to I wish that they were like the same kind
56:22
Speaker 1: of like silly Christmas movie steaks for for the women
56:26
Speaker 1: in the movie that that the suns have right, but
56:30
Speaker 1: even those stakes too and like the traditional Christmas think
56:32
Speaker 1: it's tied to like their role as homemaker or something.
56:36
Speaker 1: It's like I have to get the gift for the kid,
56:38
Speaker 1: or like this Christmas dinner has to be good, which
56:42
Speaker 1: is like what I feel like the steaks are in
56:44
Speaker 1: like our traditional just vapid ship Christmas films, but yeah,
56:48
Speaker 1: it is all the steaks are like he's cheating on me,
56:51
Speaker 1: or like Santa fuck I hope Santa will fuck me,
56:56
Speaker 1: or it's just like a very odd thing. Oh one
56:58
Speaker 1: weird one weird moment that really stuck out to me.
57:01
Speaker 1: It was this moment between Joe and Baby when the
57:04
Speaker 1: first day, Like I think it's one of the first
57:05
Speaker 1: scenes where Chris Brown gets a camera, so I got
57:08
Speaker 1: a night it's like the Rose Roy Sick cameras. I'm like, well,
57:13
Speaker 1: are we talking full format? I mean, is it a
57:15
Speaker 1: hustle blot or a momma? I mean photographers might actually anyway,
57:19
Speaker 1: that's a whole other Archtuk discussion. Um, but with him
57:22
Speaker 1: when like Joe Delroy Lindo comes out goes you got
57:25
Speaker 1: a camera? Huh Yeah. I remember when I was your age,
57:29
Speaker 1: I wanted to watch but we couldn't afford it. And
57:32
Speaker 1: I was just like, what, at least the camera offers
57:36
Speaker 1: babies some kind of mobility like that, it can create work,
57:40
Speaker 1: but you just wanted some superficial like class signifier of
57:44
Speaker 1: a watch, like it just seemed like a It was
57:46
Speaker 1: like it just they just said it and went forward,
57:50
Speaker 1: and I was like, that didn't I actually positive, like
57:52
Speaker 1: that didn't make sense as finding common ground, like I
57:56
Speaker 1: don't understand aside from just being like I desired things
57:59
Speaker 1: and I got it. I had that kind of stuff
58:02
Speaker 1: happened a lot where it's like to like, You're like
58:05
Speaker 1: I think, I think, I like, I might understand what
58:08
Speaker 1: that conversation was supposed to be, but it's just like
58:11
Speaker 1: sometimes characters just kind of miss each other in this
58:14
Speaker 1: very bizarre way where I'm like, I guess we're still
58:16
Speaker 1: having the same conversation. There. Another thread that I thought
58:20
Speaker 1: was interesting in terms of mel and then it that
58:23
Speaker 1: kind of flames out right away is the relationship with
58:26
Speaker 1: Mel and Devon and how there's that conversation at the
58:30
Speaker 1: dinner table towards the beginning of the movie where Devon
58:34
Speaker 1: goes to Moore House and Malcolm kind of comes at
58:37
Speaker 1: him and like interrogates him for going to a historically
58:41
Speaker 1: black college and like he went to Yale and Kelly
58:44
Speaker 1: went to Harvard, and I was like, oh, this is
58:46
Speaker 1: like an interesting conversation. But then it never that just
58:50
Speaker 1: goes away, like that whole that kind of disappearing. And
58:54
Speaker 1: then part of the conversation is people being like, oh, yeah,
58:58
Speaker 1: Mel has been in school for oh along, because she
59:01
Speaker 1: just keeps switching her major based on whatever guy. And
59:05
Speaker 1: it's just like, well, Kelly, Kelly has this huge problem
59:08
Speaker 1: with Lisa because she thinks she's like weak willed and
59:10
Speaker 1: easily influenced. But what like, look at what Mel is doing.
59:15
Speaker 1: Why weren't you taking take to like miles of comments
59:19
Speaker 1: on the financials You're like, okay, they're they're like like
59:23
Speaker 1: when Lisa's like, we need to sell off our like
59:25
Speaker 1: we have to liquidate our part of the business because
59:29
Speaker 1: she's concerned that madear like that she's not gonna have
59:33
Speaker 1: enough money. But it's like, well, then a great way
59:36
Speaker 1: it would be for mel to stop going to an
59:39
Speaker 1: expensive college for seven years in a row. That's a
59:42
Speaker 1: great way to cut back on expenses for the family.
59:45
Speaker 1: Is not seven years of a private college, Like it's
59:48
Speaker 1: just the money stuff is very confusing, right, yeah, it's
59:52
Speaker 1: all I think even with um the Harvard Yale versus
59:56
Speaker 1: HBCU thing is like they were that was a quick
59:58
Speaker 1: way to be like, those are the the black people
1:00:00
Speaker 1: in your family, like the ones who got went to
1:00:03
Speaker 1: Ivy League schools and forgot who they were or like
1:00:06
Speaker 1: you know, that was a very quick brushstroke culturally to
1:00:10
Speaker 1: be like that's who they are, and they came for
1:00:12
Speaker 1: the person who went to more House, who then has
1:00:14
Speaker 1: like the much more articulated response as to why they
1:00:17
Speaker 1: go to more House, meaning you know, you sure you
1:00:20
Speaker 1: went to the place that people know about, but for
1:00:23
Speaker 1: my values as a black man and like I want
1:00:25
Speaker 1: to go to this school, but like it very much
1:00:28
Speaker 1: set the table like Okay, he's here and your Ivy
1:00:31
Speaker 1: lead people are down here because he just put the
1:00:32
Speaker 1: smack on you by explaining why he preferred that over
1:00:35
Speaker 1: your school, and it makes us like Malcolm, like it
1:00:39
Speaker 1: makes it makes Malcolm's character clearer of like, oh, he's
1:00:42
Speaker 1: like an elitist asshole. But and but it made like
1:00:47
Speaker 1: that scene really I was like, Oh, Devin's cool. I'm
1:00:50
Speaker 1: excited to see where his story goes. But then you're
1:00:52
Speaker 1: just like, where does it go anywhere? It was funny though, too,
1:00:56
Speaker 1: for him to basically like recite the schools like Mission
1:00:59
Speaker 1: Stayment and like really explain his beliefs in this way
1:01:04
Speaker 1: that everyone's like, wow, he's got a great head on
1:01:06
Speaker 1: his shoulders, because the scene right before that is him
1:01:09
Speaker 1: barely able to say his own name. Yeah, right there
1:01:13
Speaker 1: with him would say I feel like we're just with you,
1:01:18
Speaker 1: come on, man, and then he's ready for like this
1:01:21
Speaker 1: intellectual battle at the dinner table scene, like and then
1:01:24
Speaker 1: the way that scene resolves is like, well, one thing's
1:01:27
Speaker 1: for sure, mel sucks and that's like the end of
1:01:32
Speaker 1: the scene. Here. It's like all right, just so many
1:01:37
Speaker 1: so many threads that you're like, oh, I guess that
1:01:39
Speaker 1: didn't come back, didn't Well? Yeah, Really, despite all of
1:01:44
Speaker 1: like the women's steaks and storylines largely being attached to
1:01:48
Speaker 1: romantic interests as trophy and heteronormative as it is, I
1:01:52
Speaker 1: will say that I liked the women in the movie
1:01:56
Speaker 1: way more than I liked really any of the men,
1:01:58
Speaker 1: and I do appreciate it, at least with there being
1:02:02
Speaker 1: a focus on these these relationships they have with the
1:02:06
Speaker 1: men in their lives that we there's like a sex
1:02:10
Speaker 1: positivity component to this family that I appreciated that Uh,
1:02:14
Speaker 1: Lisa doesn't have as much because she does call her
1:02:17
Speaker 1: sister a hoe, but they're like openly talking about sex
1:02:21
Speaker 1: and batteries to a vibrator. She's like, you really should
1:02:27
Speaker 1: switch to the woman either, honey. I like how my
1:02:30
Speaker 1: dear is like I want my kids to come, but
1:02:32
Speaker 1: I don't want them to sing. Like all right, I
1:02:36
Speaker 1: guess because I appreciate that, especially because a lot of
1:02:41
Speaker 1: like Christmas movies are so like and it makes sense
1:02:44
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of them are like family, children,
1:02:46
Speaker 1: family move like appropriate for the whole family. So they're like,
1:02:49
Speaker 1: this is just so sex doesn't exist in these worlds,
1:02:53
Speaker 1: so that they that they talk about sex and like
1:02:55
Speaker 1: talk openly about it and generally have a sex positive
1:02:59
Speaker 1: attitude among the family. I was like, Okay, I like this, yeah,
1:03:03
Speaker 1: and it's like that not as I mean, even like
1:03:06
Speaker 1: in that opening montage where like my dear and Joe
1:03:09
Speaker 1: or I mean, it's not like they're not fucking, but
1:03:13
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, this this movie is like more open
1:03:16
Speaker 1: and like less I don't know, yeah exactly, Like you're
1:03:20
Speaker 1: saying just less holier than now about everything, and it's like, yeah, families,
1:03:26
Speaker 1: do you have sex? Not with each other? I don't know.
1:03:31
Speaker 1: If Fred has that wild ass line in the beginning
1:03:34
Speaker 1: was a girl. If he wasn't my cousin, I was like, Fred,
1:03:39
Speaker 1: why and then I was then in the middle of
1:03:43
Speaker 1: the movie, I'm like, where did that guy go? Because
1:03:46
Speaker 1: he was like he came in so hot at the
1:03:48
Speaker 1: top of the movie and it disappeared. Yeah, if you
1:03:51
Speaker 1: you can't start any sentences if you weren't my cousin,
1:03:54
Speaker 1: unless it's like if you weren't my cousin, you would
1:03:56
Speaker 1: be someone not related to me. That's like the only
1:03:59
Speaker 1: way that send like you started anything off like what okay? Good?
1:04:02
Speaker 1: You ended it with a very literal description rather than
1:04:04
Speaker 1: like checking her ass out and being like so weird cousin.
1:04:10
Speaker 1: I'm like, y'o, don't do all that ship. But again,
1:04:12
Speaker 1: that's uh. Those are like those moments where the script
1:04:15
Speaker 1: writer is not really checking about like what that means
1:04:18
Speaker 1: to be like, and this character is like openly just
1:04:20
Speaker 1: making his cousin uncomfortable because he's objectifying her at the
1:04:23
Speaker 1: Christmas thing right well speaking, so we touched on this
1:04:26
Speaker 1: a little bit too, but like the way that McKay
1:04:29
Speaker 1: peiffer his role in the story, where like he's like
1:04:34
Speaker 1: aggressively staring at Kelly at the club and then they
1:04:38
Speaker 1: go home together. But then the next morning he calls her,
1:04:41
Speaker 1: then she ignores his call, and then he shows up
1:04:44
Speaker 1: as Santa Claus uh, and she's like, what are you
1:04:48
Speaker 1: doing here? This is weird? And then I guess they
1:04:50
Speaker 1: make plans later that night that she has to bail on.
1:04:54
Speaker 1: I don't but I don't remember that even being discussed.
1:04:56
Speaker 1: She she ends up, it's because all the clod stuff happens.
1:05:00
Speaker 1: It's like the stuff happens, and then she and Lesa
1:05:03
Speaker 1: get into a fight, and I think she just ends
1:05:05
Speaker 1: up kind of like understandably dropping the ball, right. But
1:05:09
Speaker 1: then he shows up again after she doesn't show up
1:05:14
Speaker 1: to whatever plans they had, and then he's just like hey,
1:05:18
Speaker 1: and then he spends the night because he's like I
1:05:20
Speaker 1: saw you when you were in ninth grade and I
1:05:23
Speaker 1: liked it. Oh yeah, that was so you're like, oh,
1:05:26
Speaker 1: ship full from Oh he was also in high school,
1:05:30
Speaker 1: but I think he was like a bit older, right,
1:05:32
Speaker 1: But it was like, I've never forgotten this thing since
1:05:35
Speaker 1: I was fifteen, and you're like, oh, damn full for
1:05:40
Speaker 1: real and you came up to my house just as
1:05:41
Speaker 1: Santa Ship. Okay, that was so so Tropes on Tropes.
1:05:46
Speaker 1: On Tropes, I'm like the guy from your past who
1:05:49
Speaker 1: won't stop showing up. That's actually a good thing and
1:05:52
Speaker 1: that means love and nothing's scary about that. But Kelly
1:05:56
Speaker 1: in general, like the way her characters. I guess, of
1:05:59
Speaker 1: all the ways the characters are written, I found Kelly
1:06:02
Speaker 1: to be the most confusing and just kind of like
1:06:06
Speaker 1: the way that story treats her is strange because I'm
1:06:09
Speaker 1: not even totally sure what she does. She mentions that
1:06:13
Speaker 1: she went to Harvard and something something perfume, but then
1:06:16
Speaker 1: I'm not even totally sure what she does. More of it,
1:06:19
Speaker 1: there's more time dedicated to the fact that she's a
1:06:21
Speaker 1: bad cook than informing us what she does for a living. Well,
1:06:26
Speaker 1: that's what she does. I think that's what they're s
1:06:28
Speaker 1: is the occupation is irrelevant. What you need to know
1:06:31
Speaker 1: is she's the one that can't cook, like very like
1:06:34
Speaker 1: that's the framing of it for us, and then the
1:06:37
Speaker 1: relationship between her. I I it was a kind of
1:06:40
Speaker 1: like a something I can see a number of ways.
1:06:43
Speaker 1: But I liked that Kelly and Lisa, you see, they
1:06:46
Speaker 1: have like an arc. Like it's you know, it's not
1:06:49
Speaker 1: even a guarantee that two women or two sisters will
1:06:52
Speaker 1: ever even get an arc in an ensemble movie like this,
1:06:55
Speaker 1: So I like that there was time that was like
1:06:58
Speaker 1: allotted for that. But then the conversations are so kind
1:07:02
Speaker 1: of like basic where it's like you went to school
1:07:04
Speaker 1: and so you're a careerist and you stayed at home,
1:07:08
Speaker 1: so you're not as good as me, and yeah, yeah,
1:07:13
Speaker 1: when it's like what Lisa is saying to an extent
1:07:16
Speaker 1: like made sense, where she's like I had to help
1:07:18
Speaker 1: with the family business because everyone else kind of went
1:07:20
Speaker 1: their own ways. But like, why is she only mad
1:07:22
Speaker 1: at Kelly about this when like Quentin went off his
1:07:25
Speaker 1: own way, like everyone left. Why why is like Kelly
1:07:30
Speaker 1: bearing the brunt of this grudge? I don't know, I
1:07:34
Speaker 1: just their whole their whole arc was kind of so
1:07:36
Speaker 1: touch and go for me where I'm glad it was there,
1:07:39
Speaker 1: but I just thought it was weird, right, because like
1:07:41
Speaker 1: Kelly is kind of presented as like the feminist of
1:07:44
Speaker 1: the family. She's the one she's focused on her career,
1:07:47
Speaker 1: she has a vibrator. She's calling out. She's calling out
1:07:51
Speaker 1: Lisa first like being us believable, but then she's also
1:07:59
Speaker 1: like the so you you are to accommodate your Also,
1:08:05
Speaker 1: it feels like she's there's almost like a I don't
1:08:07
Speaker 1: know if it's like victim blaming exactly, but like Lisa
1:08:10
Speaker 1: is in a bad relationship, like her husband is awful,
1:08:14
Speaker 1: she's cheating on her, she knows about it. What's that
1:08:16
Speaker 1: doesn't she say a line that kind of sums up
1:08:18
Speaker 1: her entire view on why she's okay with like they're
1:08:21
Speaker 1: being a mistress, because like there's a moment she's confronted
1:08:24
Speaker 1: and there's something to the effective like well, you know,
1:08:26
Speaker 1: like she's like, I don't want to start over. I
1:08:30
Speaker 1: won't be appealing in the dating pools and I'm not
1:08:33
Speaker 1: trying to start over, so I'm just gonna stay in
1:08:35
Speaker 1: this like miserable life. And then and then Kelly's like,
1:08:39
Speaker 1: that's a horrible excuse, like stand up for yourself that
1:08:45
Speaker 1: I mean, that does happen though, I was like, well, yeah,
1:08:49
Speaker 1: well that's the thing, Like that's what's interesting about the
1:08:50
Speaker 1: movie because it does touch on things that you're You're
1:08:53
Speaker 1: angry sometimes with the characters and you're like, but that's
1:08:55
Speaker 1: kind of that's real ship though, like keeping secrets, being
1:08:58
Speaker 1: ashamed of a relationship, being in a shitty relationship because
1:09:02
Speaker 1: you don't have the self confidence to like break out
1:09:04
Speaker 1: and do you know, advocate for yourself. There's real ship,
1:09:07
Speaker 1: although it's done poorly sometimes and like my oh what
1:09:10
Speaker 1: about my kids? What about my Like I'm going to
1:09:12
Speaker 1: look the other way because I want my kids to
1:09:14
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, Like it does happen. But because Kelly's
1:09:20
Speaker 1: constantly calling Lisa out and like being hostile to her
1:09:26
Speaker 1: for like, again, Lisa is in this bad relationship and
1:09:29
Speaker 1: it feels like Kelly hates her because Malcolm sucks. And
1:09:32
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't know that, I don't maybe I'm
1:09:35
Speaker 1: misinterpreting that, but well, I think in a way, like
1:09:37
Speaker 1: what you're describing sounds like when you're mad at your
1:09:40
Speaker 1: friend because you know they can do better and you've
1:09:42
Speaker 1: seen them do better, yet they're not. And like that's
1:09:45
Speaker 1: sort of where it's at, where it's like, yeah, I
1:09:46
Speaker 1: mean obviously fuck Malcolm, but also like girl, like you
1:09:50
Speaker 1: can do way better than this. But but it comes
1:09:53
Speaker 1: off in a weird way. I don't know if there's
1:09:55
Speaker 1: a way to elegantly like the whole movie would have
1:09:57
Speaker 1: to be about that kind of relationship to pull the
1:10:00
Speaker 1: nuances out of like being upset with your friend for
1:10:02
Speaker 1: not like being in a bad relationship or your family
1:10:05
Speaker 1: right and because there's eighteen other storylines happening, like not
1:10:08
Speaker 1: enough time as dedicated. They even use the wonderful tropium
1:10:12
Speaker 1: of the day sex black enough uh in the Mo
1:10:14
Speaker 1: and Dude bathroom scene, we're sucking dough or lintles, like
1:10:17
Speaker 1: was it twenty five grand I got it right here
1:10:19
Speaker 1: and I leave him alone? We got Christmas dinner. I
1:10:21
Speaker 1: was like, damn, that was solved very quickly. A pastor,
1:10:26
Speaker 1: like the pastors the deacons have twenty five thousand dollars
1:10:32
Speaker 1: at all, absolutely, even to a black church. The collection
1:10:35
Speaker 1: plate comes around, I was like, where did that money
1:10:37
Speaker 1: come from? Me? You got he has twenty five thousand.
1:10:40
Speaker 1: The pastor always has twenty five thousands. That's a whole
1:10:43
Speaker 1: other movie. Yeah, that's and that's a whole other movie.
1:10:46
Speaker 1: That's why I'm like, oh, like it's funny, like because
1:10:48
Speaker 1: I think of those tropes, even going to black church,
1:10:51
Speaker 1: like when my grandparents were dragged me and I was like,
1:10:52
Speaker 1: why do you give him all the money? I remember
1:10:54
Speaker 1: as a kid, I'm like, how come the pastor has
1:10:56
Speaker 1: the nicest car? And they're like, well, that's because know
1:11:00
Speaker 1: they lead the congregation or whatever. I'm like, this sounds like,
1:11:02
Speaker 1: oh sick ass job. Just scream for a couple of
1:11:05
Speaker 1: minutes on Sundays and you get a Mercedes. This movie
1:11:08
Speaker 1: should have been a like TV series and not a
1:11:10
Speaker 1: movie based on like everything that gets set up about
1:11:13
Speaker 1: all these family members. So we want to go into
1:11:15
Speaker 1: the Whitfield universe, Yeah, if where is it? Um? But
1:11:19
Speaker 1: to go back to the Kelly at least a relationship
1:11:21
Speaker 1: I do appreciate, and this, you know, again, the nuances
1:11:25
Speaker 1: aren't explored as much as they should be. This feels
1:11:28
Speaker 1: kind of surface level, but I do appreciate at least
1:11:30
Speaker 1: that Lisa comes around and realizes like, oh shoot, I
1:11:34
Speaker 1: should see my worth. I should see my value, I
1:11:36
Speaker 1: should leave my cheating husband, whatever that means for for
1:11:40
Speaker 1: me in my in my life. And they end on
1:11:44
Speaker 1: like a beat of kind of reconciliation and appreciation for
1:11:49
Speaker 1: each other because at least the lesson is like, I
1:11:52
Speaker 1: don't know, girl, like men are going to cheat. The
1:11:55
Speaker 1: lesson is like, yo, if they're doing something, you can
1:11:57
Speaker 1: you can fucking pull up for yourself and do like
1:12:00
Speaker 1: actually take action for yourself. Right. I like where it
1:12:04
Speaker 1: lands and then it's like it does. Yeah, it just
1:12:06
Speaker 1: seemed like there was just like a lot of interesting
1:12:09
Speaker 1: threads in this movie that they just didn't have the time.
1:12:11
Speaker 1: I would imagine that like a lot of stuff because
1:12:14
Speaker 1: it's two hours long and there's still so much more
1:12:17
Speaker 1: that you could explore just based on like what is
1:12:20
Speaker 1: kind of foreshadowed at the beginning, where Yeah, it just
1:12:23
Speaker 1: seemed like the movie maybe didn't have enough time to
1:12:26
Speaker 1: get to every like every interesting thing that was presented.
1:12:31
Speaker 1: But I did like where their relationship landed. Um and
1:12:34
Speaker 1: sisters can like I don't know, I'm glad, I'm glad
1:12:37
Speaker 1: that Lisa got out of there, and you know, is
1:12:40
Speaker 1: it really going to affect her children? Where are her children?
1:12:43
Speaker 1: The movie does not give a ship. There mostly mirages.
1:12:48
Speaker 1: Yeah the figments. Um, we're running out of time? Is
1:12:56
Speaker 1: there any is there any other like kind of big
1:12:58
Speaker 1: things we want to touch on. Uh the I guess
1:13:02
Speaker 1: to like put a little bow on on the Quentin stuff.
1:13:06
Speaker 1: He is acting like Macavity. Um he is that's cats. Yeah,
1:13:12
Speaker 1: it's just elba is the villain and cats. He's Macavity.
1:13:16
Speaker 1: The is it like the mystery cat? I forget what
1:13:19
Speaker 1: it is, but he's he plays a cat in a fedora?
1:13:22
Speaker 1: Um who does? And so when he jumped through breakaway glass,
1:13:30
Speaker 1: I was like this is Macavity energy. But but speaking
1:13:34
Speaker 1: to how him and madear where they land where Quentin
1:13:39
Speaker 1: like he and his mom having a strange relationship because
1:13:43
Speaker 1: music bad. But then he like comes at her in
1:13:46
Speaker 1: a way that it's very clear, like Madeira is in
1:13:49
Speaker 1: no uncertain terms being like he was a bad father,
1:13:52
Speaker 1: he's a bad husband, Like I've been with Joe for
1:13:56
Speaker 1: seven years? Like what if if? Because they say that
1:14:00
Speaker 1: they started dating when mel went to college, which was
1:14:02
Speaker 1: seven years ago? Like can you just accept this? And
1:14:06
Speaker 1: he's like no, Dad might come back, which seems like
1:14:11
Speaker 1: a thing he's holding out for is like the potential
1:14:14
Speaker 1: return of senior. But I don't know. I mean, I guess,
1:14:17
Speaker 1: But that's another thing you know that's real though too,
1:14:19
Speaker 1: like of your like son father son, you know, relationship
1:14:24
Speaker 1: like this of just idealizing your parents and then not
1:14:28
Speaker 1: being able to see like like looked at them objectively
1:14:31
Speaker 1: as a human being, where they're like, that's not how
1:14:33
Speaker 1: a person should behave if they're a father. That actually
1:14:36
Speaker 1: fucked me up, and I'm I'm traumatized by it, but
1:14:39
Speaker 1: you're still so caught up in it that your trauma
1:14:41
Speaker 1: is only telling you like, he'll come back, He'll come back,
1:14:43
Speaker 1: and then everything will be okay because then if he
1:14:45
Speaker 1: comes back, I don't have to process any of this
1:14:47
Speaker 1: ship that I've been going through the last twenty odd
1:14:49
Speaker 1: years because he will come back. But again, that's another
1:14:52
Speaker 1: thing that's very nuanced and like I'm looking at him like, well,
1:14:55
Speaker 1: there's a way to look at that being deep at fuck.
1:14:57
Speaker 1: And there's another version where it just sounds like I
1:14:59
Speaker 1: dress elbow being like you're not my dad, and then
1:15:02
Speaker 1: it just ends there. They just don't have the time
1:15:04
Speaker 1: to like tackle that story, like it just sounds weird
1:15:08
Speaker 1: to Caitlin's point, like, yeah, if it were like an anthology,
1:15:11
Speaker 1: like you could tackle like each of these almost could
1:15:14
Speaker 1: be like a very poignant film around Christmas that you're
1:15:18
Speaker 1: really like, you know, working around from most of the storylines.
1:15:22
Speaker 1: But yeah, it ends up kind of getting a little vogue.
1:15:25
Speaker 1: Well then also with Idri Salma's character and arguably all
1:15:31
Speaker 1: the men in the movie. And we've talked about this
1:15:33
Speaker 1: too on Christmas episodes we've done of um, a lot
1:15:38
Speaker 1: of stories revolved like a Christmas movie with a male protagonist.
1:15:42
Speaker 1: Often redemption is a huge theme there. There's often these
1:15:47
Speaker 1: like huge redemption arcs, which I generally find to be
1:15:51
Speaker 1: pretty tired and annoying. And it's also like, well, men,
1:15:55
Speaker 1: if you tried harder the first time, maybe you wouldn't
1:15:58
Speaker 1: have to be constantly redeeming yourself all the time. Um,
1:16:01
Speaker 1: but you know, men will always be given second chances anyway.
1:16:06
Speaker 1: Male redemption stories are a very popular Christmas narrative between
1:16:11
Speaker 1: Scrooge and the Grinch and Tim Allen in the Santa
1:16:15
Speaker 1: Claus and Michael Keaton and Jack Frost and so on,
1:16:19
Speaker 1: And it feels like that applies to this movie as well,
1:16:22
Speaker 1: where like Joe and Quentin sort of redeem each other
1:16:26
Speaker 1: in each other's eyes. There's like this redemption sort of
1:16:30
Speaker 1: with Claude being like, oops, I got arrested and oh
1:16:34
Speaker 1: I have a secret wife. But now everything's fine. They
1:16:38
Speaker 1: also don't have time to resolve this plod stuff. But right,
1:16:45
Speaker 1: but like Joe calls in a favor with some military
1:16:48
Speaker 1: guy he knows, so like that just gets like steamlessly resolved.
1:16:51
Speaker 1: Joe did that again? Yeah, Joe says like, oh I
1:16:54
Speaker 1: know some dude, Yo, he really is des x Blackina
1:16:58
Speaker 1: and this whole film. Yeah everything. You let me call
1:17:03
Speaker 1: Colin Powell real quick, already have it an envelope in
1:17:07
Speaker 1: this way home my left pocket. That's thirty granted the
1:17:09
Speaker 1: other one here right, because he's also the one who
1:17:11
Speaker 1: arranges for Baby to sing at church so that Baby
1:17:14
Speaker 1: can kind of redeem himself in Madear's eyes. So all
1:17:18
Speaker 1: these sixes everything for every son right, and all of
1:17:21
Speaker 1: the men have these have these redemption narratives, whereas all
1:17:24
Speaker 1: the women are just like man or no man? Which
1:17:28
Speaker 1: man who boy like sex kissing? Yeah that was my
1:17:33
Speaker 1: last thing? Is I wish that because most of Madear's
1:17:37
Speaker 1: most of Madear's stories as well, are dedicated to her
1:17:41
Speaker 1: relationship with Joe, her relationship with Baby, her relationship with Clenton,
1:17:45
Speaker 1: and really the only times you see her interact with
1:17:47
Speaker 1: her daughter is her or any of her daughters. She's like,
1:17:51
Speaker 1: how is your marriage or where is your marriage? And
1:17:53
Speaker 1: those are really the only things that we So I
1:17:56
Speaker 1: wish that you had there was a little more time
1:17:58
Speaker 1: with Madear and and her dollars too, but you know,
1:18:02
Speaker 1: we just needed an anthology. We needed more time. You
1:18:05
Speaker 1: think he went a well because he was like a
1:18:07
Speaker 1: conscientious objector to the Iraq war, Like, Yo, that would
1:18:12
Speaker 1: have been lit. I'm like, yo, hold on, let this
1:18:14
Speaker 1: man speak real quick. He's not wrong though, but like
1:18:18
Speaker 1: but but he never Yeah, I don't know, Like I
1:18:20
Speaker 1: don't know if we could what's the what's the reason behind? Yeah,
1:18:24
Speaker 1: that would be amazing. If this was like late Bush administration,
1:18:28
Speaker 1: like political. He's like, why am I going to go
1:18:30
Speaker 1: to another part of the world just to fight on
1:18:32
Speaker 1: behalf of corporations that are invested in my downfall in
1:18:35
Speaker 1: this country and collectively our entire family and our people.
1:18:39
Speaker 1: No funk that I'm not spilling my blood for petrol
1:18:42
Speaker 1: dollars anymore. I'm taking a stand. God damn it, Like
1:18:45
Speaker 1: it would have been like, yeah, well that's not that's
1:18:49
Speaker 1: a redemption. No, I take too hot for a two
1:18:52
Speaker 1: thousand seven though, that two seven that would have been
1:18:54
Speaker 1: Dixie Chicks times five million. What the fund did this?
1:18:58
Speaker 1: What did this? This person saying the Christmas movie instead
1:19:04
Speaker 1: Petro war the truly the monologue we needed and we
1:19:10
Speaker 1: didn't get. The reason we get instead is that he
1:19:14
Speaker 1: went a wall because he requested a leave, which was
1:19:16
Speaker 1: denied because he didn't tell his like military people that
1:19:21
Speaker 1: he got married. And he went in a wall because
1:19:24
Speaker 1: Sandy would have been disappointed if they So he's like
1:19:27
Speaker 1: kind of blame. It's almost like the blame is being
1:19:30
Speaker 1: put on her for the reason he went a wall,
1:19:32
Speaker 1: because he said, well, I like my secret wife that
1:19:34
Speaker 1: I haven't told anyone about would have been disappointed. Hell yeah, clod,
1:19:46
Speaker 1: you know, we just needed the Claude the Clode thing.
1:19:50
Speaker 1: That's a whole series all its own, Like there's just
1:19:53
Speaker 1: so much going on. I'm like now officially fully opened
1:20:00
Speaker 1: to a mini series that writes out baby yes, eliminates
1:20:06
Speaker 1: where he goes to that camera he becomes Terry Richardson,
1:20:10
Speaker 1: you don't want to see it. Actually it's pretty it's
1:20:12
Speaker 1: prettyasy grim like we just don't talk about anymore. Yeah,
1:20:17
Speaker 1: does this movie pass the Bechdel test? Yeah, but you
1:20:21
Speaker 1: think it would pass more. You think it would. There
1:20:24
Speaker 1: are quite a few women in the movie, and they
1:20:27
Speaker 1: do interact, but often the conversations revolve around husbands and
1:20:31
Speaker 1: boyfriends and stepdad figures, etcetera. Um, but there are things
1:20:36
Speaker 1: to talk about, like sisterhood and being bad at cooking,
1:20:40
Speaker 1: which technically counts batteries vibrator batteries. Yes, um, as far
1:20:49
Speaker 1: as our nipple scale zero to five nipples based on
1:20:53
Speaker 1: an examination of intersectional feminism. So for me, I don't know.
1:20:58
Speaker 1: I'm kind of torn on this one because on one hand,
1:21:03
Speaker 1: it really adheres to some just you know, holiday movie tropes,
1:21:09
Speaker 1: some two thousand seven tropes two thousand seven tropes, the
1:21:14
Speaker 1: way women are presented in media tropes in terms of
1:21:18
Speaker 1: like the women all have like stakes and narratives surrounding
1:21:23
Speaker 1: like romantic relationships with men, So coming at it from
1:21:28
Speaker 1: that perspective, it's like. But on the other hand, because
1:21:33
Speaker 1: this is typically such a white genre and Christmas movies
1:21:38
Speaker 1: so aggressively, like like I don't know, like Hollywood is
1:21:42
Speaker 1: just like only white Christians celebrate wintertime holidays, right, So
1:21:49
Speaker 1: it's just it's nice and refreshing to see a Christmas
1:21:54
Speaker 1: oriented movie that features a black family. The fact that
1:21:58
Speaker 1: it's written and directed by a black filmmaker who based
1:22:02
Speaker 1: a lot of these characters on either members of his
1:22:05
Speaker 1: family or himself, so it's a black creator telling his
1:22:09
Speaker 1: own story. I really like the women in the story.
1:22:14
Speaker 1: I wish we had gotten to know them better. I
1:22:16
Speaker 1: wish we had they had narratives outside of romantic pursuits.
1:22:21
Speaker 1: We do learn a little tiny bit about each one
1:22:24
Speaker 1: as far as like interior exterior lives, but it's always
1:22:28
Speaker 1: pretty vague. So it's like, I don't know, do we
1:22:31
Speaker 1: know that much about them? So I don't know. There's
1:22:34
Speaker 1: just it's kind of a mixed bag for me. Uh,
1:22:36
Speaker 1: Like I said, I think this would have served better
1:22:39
Speaker 1: as like a series. I would have I would love
1:22:42
Speaker 1: a show about this family. We had like ten bottle
1:22:45
Speaker 1: episodes about each character. That would be like all the stories,
1:22:48
Speaker 1: all these stories or most of them like that Chris
1:22:51
Speaker 1: Brown one probably scraped that, but like all of them
1:22:53
Speaker 1: wore like you're like, oh, this is really something, but
1:22:57
Speaker 1: then where it is it go? So with that in mind,
1:23:03
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe like a two and a half
1:23:06
Speaker 1: or three. I'm leaning I just like I said, I
1:23:11
Speaker 1: really like the characters. The performances are amazing, especially Loretta
1:23:17
Speaker 1: Divine is incredible, Regina King amazing. Each of those characters
1:23:24
Speaker 1: deserve better. So I'm gonna land on a three, I think,
1:23:28
Speaker 1: And um, I'll give them all to Idrisalba's Ma Cavity
1:23:34
Speaker 1: just kidding, yeah, I think. Also just split them among
1:23:38
Speaker 1: the four main women in in the story. Whatever that
1:23:42
Speaker 1: fraction works out too. I'm leaning around the same at
1:23:44
Speaker 1: a two point five three, uh, for much the same reason.
1:23:47
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it really is like it is.
1:23:52
Speaker 1: It's amazing to see. Like I think We've been having
1:23:55
Speaker 1: this conversation um over the past several months more and
1:23:59
Speaker 1: more like movie is about black joy and movies about families,
1:24:04
Speaker 1: and movies about the American black experience that is not
1:24:07
Speaker 1: really deeply shaped by trauma. And this is the perfect
1:24:12
Speaker 1: genre to explore that, and but it's so rarely done.
1:24:16
Speaker 1: This movie's um existence and success is like incredible, especially
1:24:20
Speaker 1: like this fucking cast is unreal, Like it's just just
1:24:26
Speaker 1: the careers that the vast majority of this cast has
1:24:29
Speaker 1: gone on to have. It's just like minus Chris Brown,
1:24:32
Speaker 1: you know a lot of upward trajectories and a notable
1:24:35
Speaker 1: downward one. Um. But all I said, like, the cast
1:24:39
Speaker 1: is so incredible, the chemistry between everyone is so good.
1:24:42
Speaker 1: And then yeah, my my note is kind of the
1:24:44
Speaker 1: same thing of like, if you're going to bring in
1:24:47
Speaker 1: such an amazing group of female actors, don't just give
1:24:53
Speaker 1: them stories about husbands and boyfriends and like it's a
1:24:56
Speaker 1: waste of the talent. And I really, I mean, I
1:24:59
Speaker 1: don't think that we really know anything about these women
1:25:02
Speaker 1: outside of their relationship to men and sons outside of
1:25:06
Speaker 1: the Lisa Kelly Um sisterhood, but all of their conflicts
1:25:10
Speaker 1: revolve around their relationships towards men. So I just I A,
1:25:15
Speaker 1: I was frustrated by that because it's like, you have
1:25:18
Speaker 1: fucking Regina King, she can do anything, like let's see more,
1:25:23
Speaker 1: let's see like questions I had as I was watching.
1:25:27
Speaker 1: I was like, well, what what would Lisa have done
1:25:30
Speaker 1: if she didn't feel like she had to stay back
1:25:32
Speaker 1: with the family, Like did she have an aspiration that
1:25:36
Speaker 1: was kind of ruined in her view by the fact
1:25:39
Speaker 1: that Kelly went on to have her career follow up question,
1:25:43
Speaker 1: what is Kelly's career? What does she do? Why do
1:25:46
Speaker 1: we talk more about whether she's fucking Santa or not
1:25:51
Speaker 1: then what her job is like? There were just so
1:25:53
Speaker 1: many especially given the variety of the mail plot and
1:25:58
Speaker 1: how I think pretty much, without exception, all the male
1:26:02
Speaker 1: plots were at least tethered in some way to their career,
1:26:07
Speaker 1: where like Claude is a Wall, Macavity is Macavity, ng uh,
1:26:13
Speaker 1: all of their stories are related to their careers. And
1:26:16
Speaker 1: we don't even really know what the female characters do
1:26:20
Speaker 1: or wanted to do outside of Madear owns a cleaners,
1:26:25
Speaker 1: but we don't know anything about that really either, Like so,
1:26:29
Speaker 1: and then on top of I mean, and I wish
1:26:31
Speaker 1: that we saw more of Madear and her daughters selfishly
1:26:34
Speaker 1: because I want more scenes with Loretta Divine and Regina King,
1:26:37
Speaker 1: but like that's a meeting. So I think that this
1:26:41
Speaker 1: movie is really good, and it's it's especially for its time.
1:26:45
Speaker 1: It's like it's very of its time in a lot
1:26:47
Speaker 1: of ways, and we can tear that apart all day,
1:26:49
Speaker 1: but it's a movie it's a joyful movie about black
1:26:53
Speaker 1: American family. We don't get that a lot, and um,
1:26:56
Speaker 1: I hope that we continue to get more in this genre.
1:27:00
Speaker 1: It care about what women are doing that aren't with men.
1:27:04
Speaker 1: So I'll go I guess I'll go a three as well,
1:27:07
Speaker 1: and I will give my nipples to give two of
1:27:11
Speaker 1: them to mel because I want. I also, I really
1:27:14
Speaker 1: liked her, and she disappeared about halfway through the movie,
1:27:19
Speaker 1: And I will give my other nipple to my dear
1:27:23
Speaker 1: because Loretta Divine rocks truly. What about you, Miles, Uh,
1:27:31
Speaker 1: maybe two and a half three? Maybe I'll go three
1:27:34
Speaker 1: rather than just to give a slight advantage because it's weird,
1:27:38
Speaker 1: like half of the film negates the other half, so
1:27:41
Speaker 1: you're like, but also like, I'm also looking at this
1:27:44
Speaker 1: through the lens of it being a Christmas film, so
1:27:47
Speaker 1: I'm already like, this is not like a movie. Really.
1:27:50
Speaker 1: I I really consider these kinds of films like absolute
1:27:53
Speaker 1: background noise during the holidays, because none of them know
1:27:57
Speaker 1: there's it's really hard to find any film that's offering
1:28:00
Speaker 1: anything of substance. And just like the way the genre
1:28:02
Speaker 1: has like morphed over the years, as it is like
1:28:05
Speaker 1: flavorless is the flavor. Uh, so I'll give it. I'll
1:28:09
Speaker 1: give them three and just you know, maybe I would
1:28:13
Speaker 1: knock them down because for that escalade line about being
1:28:15
Speaker 1: a good investment really fucking kissed me off. No, fuck
1:28:18
Speaker 1: it too to wow. I don't know why. No, no,
1:28:21
Speaker 1: no no, I'm sorry, but that has nothing to do
1:28:23
Speaker 1: with the representation of women. So I will still keep
1:28:26
Speaker 1: it through. I'm sorry, I have to keep I have
1:28:27
Speaker 1: to sort of compartmentalize one must Hell yeah, well, myles,
1:28:31
Speaker 1: thank you so much for for being here, for talking
1:28:34
Speaker 1: this Christmas with us. Where can people follow you? Check
1:28:38
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1:28:41
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1:28:45
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1:28:49
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1:28:52
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1:28:55
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1:29:01
Speaker 1: media on Twitter, on Instagram, on our patreon a k
1:29:07
Speaker 1: A Matreon, which is at patreon dot com, slash Bechtel Cast.
1:29:11
Speaker 1: It's a fun place this month because we're doing the
1:29:14
Speaker 1: terrible Netflix ones. We're talking Princess switched to and Christmas
1:29:19
Speaker 1: Prince to Princess switch. I say, Christmas Princess. There it's
1:29:28
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1:29:34
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1:29:42
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1:29:47
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1:30:00
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1:30:04
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1:30:10
Speaker 1: two miles again, and we'll be back with another holiday
1:30:13
Speaker 1: disaster next week. Indeed, bye bye bye