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It's that time of year again, holiday movie season. And as ever, there are so many new movies to choose from. And of course, some are more memorable than others. So where do you start? We've got you covered. This year, we've got the return of Lindsay Lohan.
A shirtless Chad Michael Murray and a cameo from Travis Kelsey's mom. And those are, by the way, in three different movies. I'm Linda Holmes. And I'm Aisha Harris. And today we're offering up a guide to some of this year's holiday... movies on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.
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Well, it's just the two of us today talking about a subject that I think is very near and dear to both of our hearts, the holiday movie magic of it all. Absolutely. There are a huge... number of these every year. I wrote a guide to them that you can find over at NPR.org. Did not write up all of them, but wrote up more of them than we will have time to talk about today.
You can obviously find the full list at Hallmark and Lifetime and BET and Up TV and obviously Netflix. And it's difficult to get everything. But we're going to try to give you some of the bigger ones. Yeah. And look, we do have to acknowledge the hot, frosty.
in the room because this was probably the buzziest of all the holiday movies of this year we're not going to be talking too much about it but you know I think you and I Linda both enjoyed it we've talked about it on social media you wrote about it oh it's very cute it's very cute and that's the a Netflix movie starring Lacey Chabert as a woman who suddenly falls in love with the Frosty the Snowman who turns into a real man. A hot...
Frosty, as they would say. It's absolutely true. And I think the fact that they brought in Craig Robinson and Joe LaTrulio to play the law enforcement added a necessary sense of kind of more conventionally. comedic comedy yes so that movie helped a great deal I liked that one I liked that one I thought it was fun agreed
Well, let's actually dig into the movies we're going to talk a little bit more about. And let's start with the first one. Linda, this is called Our Little Secret. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about that one? Yeah. You know, a couple of years ago, Lindsay Lohan had this movie called Falling for Christmas. which was very cute also. I think...
From that, people kind of started to think, yeah, you know, this is maybe a reasonable avenue for her to pursue. I was not surprised to see her back this year in Our Little Secret. Here she plays a woman named Avery who's engaged to this very nice guy named Cam. Cameron, she goes home for Christmas with him and she runs into both his terrifying mother, played by Kristen Chenoweth, who is having the time of her life, and her ex, Logan, who is played by Ian Harding. So Logan is there because...
He's dating. Cameron's sister. So now everybody is crammed into the same house. She and her boyfriend, ex and his girlfriend, mother, family. There are all kinds of family secrets that eventually emerge, including some that involve They're neighbors and family friends who are played by Tim Meadows and Judy Reyes. And there's a sequence about being accidentally high in church, which is the kind of thing that...
I think like broad movies like this so often have a somebody accidentally gets high thing. And I usually don't think they're funny. I thought they got away with it here. I thought it was pretty cute. But yeah, there's a lot going on in this one. This one is streaming on Netflix. What did you think of it?
Oh, I really enjoyed this. I mean, one of the things, and I think this will be a common theme amongst a lot of the movies that we're talking about today, is that I feel as though the rom-com genre, and specifically the holiday rom-com genre,
genre, it's had to expand its purview and not just do the simple like girl goes back home to her small town after like making it big in the city and then falling in love with like the hot farmer. I mean, that still exists, but now we have to add an extra layer. of complications and make it even more convoluted. And this whole thing is very convoluted and kind of screwball-y even in many ways. It does. It has an almost like screwball-y, farsi kind of, you know, people.
coming in and out of rooms and oh my god what did you just say and just like That kind of thing that kind of snowballs. And yeah, it's very charming. And Lindsay Lohan, you know, I think she is such a particular kind of actress where like she has found her lane now. And I think she fits in it perfectly. She has a very, you know, that very.
very distinct husky kind of voice, her dry delivery. She's not one of those actors who's like, of course, going to like disappear into a role, but she is someone you just enjoy spending time with. And this is the type of movie that I could see going back and rewatching. watching perhaps even more than the Falling for Christmas one, which I also enjoyed. But this one just has that like extra oomph of, again, Kristen Chenoweth.
Love her. Tim Meadows. The plot machinations around why the Lindsay Lohan character and her boyfriend initially break up at the beginning, he was kind of a jerk. Like, actually, like, really very much a jerk about, you know... her family and her background. And the reason they broke up was very kind of like, by the end of it, I...
I was a little quiet. Why are they getting back together? But he has to definitely like work his way back into her good graces and maybe yours as well. Exactly. Exactly. But still very fun.
Yeah, I liked it. And I appreciated the fact that this one, you know, in Falling for Christmas, she plays kind of a spoiled, rich... girl who it's one of those like and then I got hit on the head and I was nice and it's kind of like overboard with Goldie Hawn in that way yeah and I think in that one she kind of played into the fact that she has this reputation as kind of like a
mess of a person. And I think in this one, she's gone a little bit back to like, okay, I don't have to do that all the time. I can play a regular person. And I liked seeing her do that. And I thought this was cute. Yes, yes. So our next movie is Meet Me Next Christmas. I've seen it, Linda.
I feel like I might be able to convince you to watch it. I thought it was really cute. Yeah, absolutely. When you talk a little bit more about it, maybe I'll be able to explain why I did not leap upon it. But go ahead. Go ahead. So Meet Me Next Christmas stars Christina Melian as Layla, basically a character I'm not really sure exists in real life, a Pentatonix superfan. I think they do exist. I think they do exist. Well, okay. So for a refresher for those...
who are not familiar with Pentatonix or just have like somehow completely blanked it out of their mind. Pentatonix is the very popular acapella group who suddenly become ubiquitous for a few weeks every holiday season. before melting away from collective memory like Frosty the Snowman for the rest of the year. The first thing I should say is I encountered Pentatonix. So they won the third season of the reality show, The Sing-Off. Yes. Which...
was actually, which was for like acapella groups. And it was one that I actually really liked that show. But the way that acapella, which is a genre close to my heart, is presented does not always thrill me the way that it is marketed. presented. So I probably had a little bit of like a reaction, but tell me about, tell me about the rest of it.
Yeah, yeah. So look, Layla's determined to get her hands on these last minute tickets to their sold out Christmas Eve concert because who wouldn't be? She hopes to reconnect there with a guy she had to meet cute with a year earlier. So as one does, she hires a personal concierge, Teddy, to help her secure the tickets. He's played by Deval Ellis. And they traverse New York City, face numerous challenges, including a weird mime at one point, sparks between.
Layla and Teddy, of course, begin to fly. I mean, to your point, Linda, I think how much... You, like this movie, will depend on how much you can withstand or take or enjoy Pentatonix. They do play a relatively big part in this movie. Like they're not in every scene, but they're kind of like the Greek chorus who are following. as these things happen and they chime in and of course there's a performance at the end but they don't overtake the story so I think if you can just kind of like you know
There is a whole subplot, actually, that involves Layla and Teddy. One of the challenges that they try to get a ticket with is to do a performance where the... prize the first prize is our tickets to the show and so it involves drag queens like I think it's Teddy's one of his either relatives or friends or whatever who's played by Caitlin Allen you might recognize him as like an influencer who was often on the Ellen show okay
So, yeah, he like there's a whole scene where he's like teaching them how to do choreography and dance. And there's drag queens. It's fun. It's very fun. It's light. And Christina Milian is just she's she's charming. Her and the guy who plays Teddy.
are very charming. So I think you'd enjoy it. Yeah, I mean, I think I probably wouldn't. As I said, it's not a thing against... acapella which I love yes it is more the the treatment and marketing of it in as you sort of mentioned in the holiday season specifically there are these like Christmas
musicians that I know are active year-round, and yet all of a sudden you really hear a lot more of them around Christmastime. Trans-Siberian Orchestra is another one, which they have this kind of bombastic, and I say that affectionately, bombastic Christmas music, which has one.
of my friends once said kind of sounds like you're in a besieged city being shelled with snowballs so there are these like Christmas bands but I like her I like Christina Milian and she's done obviously a lot of these kinds of movies and...
You know, I tend to like her. So I definitely am. I think I'm going to add this to my list. I just have not gotten to it yet. But this one is streaming on Netflix also. And we should say these lean toward Netflix partly because Hallmark is still the one that I would say makes them in the most vibe. with the most success. But Netflix puts a little more muscle behind each individual one in most cases, right? Like Netflix has... Probably put a little more oomph behind Hot Frosty than...
you know, than Hallmark puts behind any individual movie, you know? Yes, yes. Well, speaking of Hallmark, we do have one Hallmark movie we're going to be talking about. This one I have not seen. And I have reservations similar to you. when it comes to pentatonix where I'm like, football. Tell us about it. This one is called Holiday Touchdown, A Chief's Love Story. And over the summer, the news broke that Hallmark was going to make a Christmas movie in partnership with the Kansas City Chiefs.
And this was at sort of the height of the discovery and tracking of the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey romance. And so I think when the news broke of this, people assumed this was going to be like a take on that story. But it isn't really. It's about a woman named Alana, who's played by Hunter King.
whose whole family is Chiefs fanatics, including her grandfather played by Ed Begley Jr., which is awesome. Oh, nice. They end up as finalists in the team's Fan of the Year contest, and their handler is this... like cute guy played by Tyler Hines, who is kind of one of the Hallmark mainstays as a guy. First of all, I just want to say.
Totally unethical for him to start like fooling around with her when she's up for fan of the year, you know, with the team. Yes. Yes. But nevertheless, we're not supposed to worry about integrity. There's a whole thing. About a family superstition involving a knit hat that somebody in the family has to be wearing for the team to win on Christmas. So there's stuff about like superstitions and magical thinking about sports. It is a romance. It is a family story. But it is also a...
Huge branding opportunity for the Kansas City Chiefs. You will see a lot of Chiefs signage and merch and the stadium and even the city. I mean, I would say even Kansas City in general. or has a cameo. This has already premiered on Hallmark. You can find it airing from time to time for the rest of the season if you look for it. I did... Live text my reactions to this to our producer, Mike Katzoff, who is both a Kansas City guy and a Chiefs fan.
So that he could clarify things like, is that a real chief's mascot? And I would send him like a little picture of the chief's mascot. And he would say, yes, that's a real chief mascot. So, you know, I think if you enjoy this with. a Kansas City native or an NFL fan or even like someone whose family is obsessed with sports, they might get out of it more than.
you know, somebody else. Yeah. I mean, look, I've encountered more of those than I have Pentatonix fans in the wild. So like this already seems a little bit more realistic to me. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. It sounds kind of like that movie 80 for Brady, where it's just like, oh, yes, we're going to incorporate as much of this home team's paraphernalia and whatever in there. So that sounds charming. I'm still not sure if I...
I have the stomach for a football movie. But I think that the I think that for people whose families. really have powerful sports team traditions. I think there may be some stuff in here that is really, that is appealing and that they do understand. There are families where they're very obsessed with getting together and watching the sports team, especially over the holidays. I try to cut them a lot of slack for this one, although I will say...
As with Pentatonix, the kind of brand partnership is a little overwhelming. You get the sense that the NFL in general and the Kansas City Chiefs in particular are being... you know, you're being given the hard sell on both. But I do think the leads are charming. And there are a ton, by the way, of cameos from Chiefs.
And Chiefs adjacent people. There are some players who have cameos. Also Travis Kelsey's mom. But no Taylor, is there? No, no, no, no. There's no Taylor and there's no Travis either. But there's his mom is seen. working behind the counter at a barbecue place, at a Kansas City barbecue place. And she's got Kelsey on the back of her football jersey, and they address her as Donna. And so, you know...
She also has a cameo in one that takes place in Philadelphia where her other son plays. There's one called Christmas on Call that's actually really cute. It's about EMTs. That sounds cute. It's really sweet. And she shows up in that one. working behind the counter at a cheesesteak place, obviously. Same thing, Eagles jersey. That is a cute nod to the fact that she has two sons and not just one who have been in the NFL.
No favoritism for Mama Kelsey. So that is Holiday Touchdown, a Chiefs love story that's airing on Hallmark intermittently. And also I'm sure you can find it if you DVR it or able to stream it. The last one we're going to talk about is The Mary Jensen. Gentlemen, Linda and I have both seen it. And this is, you know, I think that whoever pitched it was probably like Magic Mike, but with the holidays in the background. Or the full Monty. Yes, or full Monty. That's it. That's an even better.
comparison. Britt Robertson plays Ashley. She's a professional dancer in a Rockette-style troupe who's fired for being too old. She's fired and then she returns to her small hometown for Christmas and learns that her parents' bar is on the verge of... closing.
This might be the most generic, like, this is what we think of when we think of holiday rom-com movies of this bunch that we're talking about. Save the family small business. Save the family small business. And to try and save this small family business, Ashley comes up with the bride. idea to stage a sexy all-male review featuring the local talent who all appear
Apparently are very good looking or at least conventionally good looking. Yes. And she just knows them all, which is very lucky. Yes. One of those men is Luke, played by Chad Michael Murray. Of course, you know, One Tree Hill fame, amongst other things. He just so happens to be single and healing from a broken heart. Poor Chad Michael Murray. Poor, poor, poor Chad. So, Linda, how did you feel about this one?
I thought it was okay. Like that was sort of my, this felt to me like a very okay movie. I will say. This is not the most important thing about it, but Netflix did something strange with men's hair this season. There's something very kind of aggressively fluffy about Chad Michael Murray's hair in this movie that I don't care for.
There's also something kind of limp about the snowman's hair in Hot Frosty that I don't care for. You know, that's Dustin Milligan. That's a good looking man. That's Ted from Schitt's Creek. That's a good looking man in Hot Frosty. And he looks kind of...
I don't know. His hair's kind of hanging down. I don't know. And you can tell that I didn't get super into this movie because I spent a lot of time thinking about hair during this movie. I did find the dance sequences a little bit cringy and ended up fast forwarding through them. a little bit. I just find the PG-13 kind of sexy dance to be a little questionable in terms of how much I was going to enjoy it.
I did appreciate it when there was one guy at one point, one of the kind of other locals sort of decides that he needs to get involved. And I was looking at him going, who is that? Who is that? I know who that is. Who is that? And it's Maxwell Caulfield, who. I knew from his youth when he was in Grease 2 and very early episode of Beverly Hills 90210 and stuff like that when he was a young man. Still looks good. Happy for him.
in his suspenders with his full chest hair out. Appreciate that for, you know, love that for him. But yeah, this one, I think the love story fell a little flat for me in this one. Yeah, I would agree. Calling the dancing PG-13 is even generous. It feels like this is not Magic Mike. But I think the thing about it that felt at least somewhat believable to me was that these guys didn't look like professional dancers. No.
Some of them were hitting their marks. Some of them weren't. They looked slightly uncomfortable. It's not like they were told, like, oh, you're going to start dancing at this thing. And all of a sudden, their inner, you know, magic mic came out. It felt convincing for a small town. It also felt convincing. that the women in that small town would be going crazy for it.
Didn't seem like much else was happening in that. Yes. And I did appreciate the fact that it wasn't like, you know, they started performing, they were discovered and they ended up like going to Broadway or something like that. You know, I appreciated the fact that it kind of.
stayed like, you know, I think it was maybe even a little hopeful to have them like written up in the local paper, but that's a sort of as far as it went, like it really kind of stayed as a thing that was just enough to sort of, she's just trying to save them.
music venue, which in fairness, you know, small music venues, are they suffering? They are. That is a true fact. Yeah. I did enjoy the fact that her parents' bar slash music venue is called the Rhythm Room. And I was like, that sounds risque even before. you started the all-male review I thought this one was fine I think the chemistry of the love story just didn't quite ignite for me which is which is always what I'm ultimately looking for
Yeah. So that is The Merry Gentleman, which is streaming on Netflix. Of course, as we've already mentioned, there are so many more movies we couldn't get into airing on other networks. You know, Lifetime, Paramount, BET, Hallmark, Hallmark. As we mentioned, Linda has a holiday movie card over at NPR.org. So definitely check that out. And we will have a link to that in our show notes.
You should definitely let us know what you think about this year's holiday movies and what you're watching this holiday season. Find us at facebook.com slash pchh. That brings us to the end of our show. Linda Holmes, there's no one I would rather talk about this with more than you. Thank you. Absolutely, absolutely same, my friend. This episode was produced by Hafsa Fatima and Lennon Sherburn and edited by Jessica Reedy and Mike Katzen. Hello, Come In provides our theme music.
Thanks so much for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris, and we'll see you all tomorrow. This message comes from Lady Mafia. This is the story of the glorified loan shark swimming in the murky waters of fast money and shady deals. Did she blow 10 million dollars of other people's money? Lady Mafia is available for listening now on the binge wherever you get your podcasts.
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Especially if you're dealing with family baggage on top of your actual baggage. I'm going home. I'm going to revert back to old family roles that are stressful. And so this traffic jam is the straw that's breaking the camel's back. But don't worry, we're here to bring you some relief. Listen to the Life Kit podcast. We'll help you out this holiday season.