Before we dive in, here's another show you can enjoy in the True Story FM Family of Entertainment podcast, Hey there are True Believers. Andy Nelson here from the Marvel Movie Minute Podcast with the rest of the team, mate Wright, Kyle Wilson.
Rob Cabosco, and Matthew Fox.
This is the podcast where we dissect the Marvel Cinematic Universe one minute at a time, exploring every detail of this epic superhero franchise.
From the nods to the comics to the electrifying performances. We've had a blast diving into every aspect of the MCU. Right from the start, we're talking about them having to earn their wizards, and I think we've made a good argument that they do. We have our favorite recurring bits like five stars or spar because every character deserves their moments in the spotlight.
Oh, Kyle, you know, speaking of spotlights, did you know that the term advertisement actually comes from the Latin advertire, meaning to turn toward. That's exactly the kind of fascinating detail we love to uncover on the show.
But it's not all trivia and recurring bits. We also dive deep into the ethico dilemmas our hero's face. Lowki alone provides enough material for a whole season on Superhero Morality, not to mention that I can't wait till we get to Civil War.
In our season.
Looking at Ironman three, we're.
Gonna mix things up a bit.
That's right, Rob and I are your guide, but instead of our usual minute by minute format, we dive into five minutes of the film in each weekly episode.
It's a totally new approach, but one that still allows us to explore all the depth and detail that makes these movies so special, even if Ironman three isn't all that's special.
Hold on, that's where you're wrong, extremists, Shane.
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Enough said, I hope you like Mustard Bye.
Ever, wonder where the devil got his horns?
How about those clove and hoovers for that pitch for it? An angel?
No, he was a snake.
No, he's the great red drag. No, he's the beast.
He's the Prince of this world, Prince of Darkness, believes the Prince of dark Good morning, Star lovelyi'es One of my names is Lester Ryan.
Clark, and I sometimes go by Keenan Dias and.
We're the hosts of the brand new podcast The Devil's Details. What comes to mind when I say Lucifer?
How about Satan? What about just the Devil?
How did the big bad of the Western world end up with so many faces? Join us as we dig up, decipher, and deconstruct the Devil's many forms throughout history.
Take a guided tour with Dante through the Nine Circles of Hell.
Or revisit Satan's angsty bad boy years in Paradise Loss.
Learn the ins and outs of a Faustian contract.
Easier than a ten ninety nine, but with a hell of a lot more fine Prince.
Slither on over to The Devil's Details on True Story FM and join us in the Die of and.
His What didn't Alphaco play him in a movie.
Sure, there wasn't. Robert didn't the rest one that Elizabeth go down to Georgia and some.
You better watch out, you better better watch out. You better not cry.
Thank you, you better.
Watch out, You better not cry. I'm telling you why, because the Rock is coming to get you.
Friends.
We're talking about Santa Claus and the Rock and JK. Simmons and working out a lot because random fat phobia. We are talking about the movie Red One. It's going to be myself, Matthew here, your host of the Superherothics podcast, along with Pete Wright, host of the film Board podcast.
We're kind of doing a joint presentation.
In other words, I said, hey, can anybody talk to me about Red One?
Pete went Red One? Is that really worth watching? Okay? Sure?
And I draggooned him into being on this podcast with me. So Pete, uh has the dragooned party?
How do you feel?
Let's just say your invitation was essentially, Hey, this movie's terrible, come talk about it with me on a podcast. I don't know why I said yes, but I did, and I am here, and I am thrilled to be here.
You know.
I described my feeling about this movie as the cinematic equivalent of oh my god, this smells so bad.
Here smell this.
And I think you're on because over the many generations, many millions of people have said, Okay, I will smell this, I will have this highly unpleasant experience, except you decided, except for two seconds of olfactory torture, you would engage in ninety five minutes of cinematic torture.
Yes, and here's the thing, this is what may come as a surprise. I watched this with my wife and daughter and they both were all smiles throughout this movie. And I have to say, like the surprise was when they would look over at me, say why am I having fun at this movie? This movie has no right to make me smile like this? Why am I smiling like this? And that I think is the is the the the illusion of red one that actually makes it play.
And so I know we have several different sort of angles we want to approach this movie, and so I'll I'll see my points until later, but I'm.
Will get interesting, like do you want to say you've presented a very intry experience where you the great cinophile have said that they.
Were all smiles.
How you caught that right?
How do you, mister Pete Wright, are you going to admit on national podcast, international podcast heard all around the world by at least five hundred people.
What did you think of the movie?
I liked it more than you did. How about that? If you are the bar, I crested it a bit.
That's fair. That's fair.
So for those who've been living under a rock, this is the movie that stars the Rock, and Chris Evans didn't even mean to do that.
The Rock is just ubiquitous, like rock.
This is fascinatingly that they make Chris Evans look small.
Yes, So the premise of the movie is that in what I think is actually a really interesting bit of folklore and world building that I would be behind if it got its own show without the Rock in it.
That there's kind of a torch Wood like organization, a secret organization that is tasked with the protection of mythological beings, and that one of those mythological beings that's tasked with protecting is Saint Nicholas Santa Claus as he is known to the rest of us, or just read one as this is code name, and the Rock is an entity.
His name is cam I think Cameron Canyon something like that. Oh, he's call cal Callum Rift Drift, which sounds like a name that would only be found in a nineteen ninety video game or being played by the rock YEP.
And he is preternaturally old.
We're never actually told why, whether that's because he lives at the North Pole where people age differently.
Or what they to imply he's not human.
They imply he's not human.
He's clearly not the size of an elf, and we do see elves the size of Christmas elves that they're off portrayed. So who knows what he is? But he wants to retire. He wants to return to a normal life. And why is that? Because there's just too many people on the naughty List these days and he just he's not seeing things in humanity that make him want to
do his job right. And Santa Claus, in a horrifically anti labor message, spends most of the movie trying to convince him that he doesn't get to go have his own life, but that he should spend his life working for the capital establishment. That is Santa so first problem there, but he also reminds him that of course it is their job to visit every boy and girl on Christmas
Eve around the world. Problem which we'll discuss in a moment, because use flash, there are non Christian boys and girls somewhere in the world.
Nobody told the movie.
Mates who don't celebrate Christmas. Atheist whatever it is anyway, plot unbiased plot summary that someone else would give but I wouldn't give. So we then find out that Chris Evans, who is both the very best at his job but also a down on his luck ne'er do well have fun squaring that circle, is very very good at finding people, and he's able to pierce the protections of the dome of secrecy that they have around Red One in the North Pole. But of course he doesn't know what's going on.
He doesn't believe in the North Pole or anything like that. He only just knows that he's had a kid for a number of years, which I'm not even gonna get into my problems with that. I'll get to that later. Okay, So the point of all this being that he has he's not really a good guy.
He's he's a Level four naughty Lister.
But when Santa Claus is kidnapped, he's the only one they can bring in, and so him and the Rock go on adventures where they fight lots of CGI nonsense and they encounter Crampis, and actually Crampus is portrayed kind of awesomely in a way that I really like. And it turns out the villain behind this is someone you
wouldn't have thought was the villain. And it's all about a plot to stop having Santa, because Santa is too nice and rewards too many people for being nice and that's not okay, and the bad people should be punished.
So this is sort of like if Batman took over Santa Claus, except you know, a very bad version of.
It, right, And I don't even think the movie's ideology is that the Santa shouldn't exist. It's just that Santa doesn't punish the naughty listers. We need to have balance between it. We're gonna punish the bad people forever at the hands of the Christmas Witch, and you know, we need Santa's juju to do it now.
Of course, part of the whole point of this is that Santa is a mythological being, and thus most people don't believe in Santa. Pete, you have children, I believe you also don't seem like a grinch. So I have to imagine that your children, I think you've said you're at least Christian in some form or another, that your your children got gifts under a Christmas tree at some
point in time. Oh yeah, yeah, And I'm guessing that you and your spouse or whoever it was, provided that you put those gifts under the tree, and then other people helped put them there under.
Yes. Yes, So all of that is this is a grueling line of interrogation.
Okay, okay, well we're get I'm sorry it's personal, but I had to make sure establish it to make you the every man on.
The street question. I am that if.
Presents had magically appeared after you had gone to sleep while visions of sugar.
Plums danced in your heads, and you'd.
Woken up and there were more presents out there, would you believe in Santa Claus?
I would check the locks on my doors.
But if everyone at the PTA said, oh, yeah, we had the same thing.
Did you get your delivery? Yeah, you know, there's a certain uh, there's a certain degree of uh of just sort of separating my personal experience from the microculture that we've created in our home and with our family around how we handle, you know, the spirit of generosity at Christmas time that I have to separate because this movie
would be an antagonist to that microculture. And uh and so you know, I try to look at these Chris, all of the Christmas movies really that have this sort of vibe where a red suited man breaks into your home and leaves stuff. It's just part of the you know, I say, heavy air quotes ancient tradition and mysticism that is the commercial Christmas industry. And as many problems as I have with that, how well do the movie execute on that mysticism in like playing the hits in kind
of a new way? Is this is the question for this movie.
I guess that's part of why I asked it, because I thought it I thought it did that spectacularly badly. That's honestly one of my biggest problems in the movie, in part because excuse mean. The circle of people who don't live at the North Pole but who are aware of the existence of Santa Claus is expanded dramatically in this movie. Among other things, one of the first things we see is that it's the real Santa Claus at a mall, and yeah, sure, he's pretending to be the fake Santa.
Who's the real Santa. It's very miracle on thirty fourth Street. I'm fine with that.
I actually thought that was clever. I thought that was fun.
It was a nice way of tying it into a long tradition of Christmas movies. But then as he's leaving this entity that I think we didn't agree that there's now a secular American holiday called Christmas.
And yes, for sure, it is for the most.
Part divorced from the religious holiday that made Christians such as myself celebrate. And there's a lot of people who are non Christian, I think, who don't like the fact that there's a secular American holiday that is directly derived and uses the iconography of a Christian holiday. And that's
part it will discuss in a moment. But even as fairly secularized, the fact that it is still the origin of it is the birth of a Prince of peace, I feel like should in some way be a little bit of discussion.
When Santa Claus is escorted by two fighter jets armed with missiles of the United States Air Force.
Yes, because Allelujah. Amen.
The pilots know that Santa exists. Yeah, the flight controllers know that Santa exists.
Oh, the circle of awareness is broad with this movie. Many at the international leader, world leaders know that Santa exists. There is no question that Santa exists. That's the sort of table stakes of the film.
I guess that's on of my point, because I think you're right, most Santa films have that agreed degree of disbelief, of suspension of belief that you're willing to say, Actually, if Santa was real, that would mean every parent of a child who celebrates Christmas in the world would know that Santa was real, and the world would be a very different place because of it, and probably would not be a mythological being.
It would be like, you know, the Super post Office once.
A year, the Super post Office.
Yes, and most movies are allowed me to suspend that disbelief. But I feel like this movie, by by trying to make it more realistic, by trying to say like, here's the mythologic here's the group of humans that work for this, here's the politics around it, just shattered the disbelief for me.
I think that I get where you're going and I think the thing that I struggle with is that in order to make it more realistic, they have to introduce bureaucracy to the Christmas industrial complex. Yes, right, yes, And that becomes a challenge because that runs headlong into personal and cultural belief systems around as you say, the Birth
of the Prince of Peace. So this movie presumes that the only people who don't understand Santa are the people who once believed and then lost that belief somehow, and Jack in Chris Evans is the character that is sort of our avatar for that that the in between, like the people who ideologically don't even have a Santa in their belief system, are completely ignored. That's a thing that the movie decided we're not even going to pay any
attention to that. This movie is for the believers and the people who don't believe anymore that we're trying to bring back, and they talk about our numbers are down year over year. Like that level of bureaucracy I think just runs headlong into the piece and generosity thing.
And I would say that leads to perhaps my second biggest problem with this movie, which is how aggressively it universalizes the idea of Santa, and because I would say it actually what you said of it to ignore, I don't think it ignores. There are a couple of times where like one direct statement is that Santa is able to visit every child on Earth, which I think is probably a great surprise to a lot of Hindu children and Buddhist children, and his children celebrate Christmas.
Well, I will say, I'll correct that statement. It presumes all children of all nationalities are of the same ideology, right right, Yeah, Wait, that's the false presumption.
And even when it gets to like all these world leaders who are like, oh my gosh, what's going to happen? Yeah, I'm going to guess that the president of India and the president of China and other places where Christianity is a small minority are not terribly troubled by the idea of that Santa Claus is not going to exist.
Right, right, And so to have this secret sort of underground teleportation system that brings you from from a toy store in New York to a toy store in Bangalore is maybe not a thing that would be welcome by the industrial state.
I wild also say that, as someone who has been a part of you know, working in game stores for a while and been in there for an email contact with a lot of very remote game store owners who have great problems getting packed, getting product to their store. Yes, store in New York could simply shove a box through the closet, you know, and let it up here in Mangalore.
I think that would save a lot of problems.
That would save a lot of problems. So, you know, all of those things are are a bit troublesome when you stop and like really interrogate the movie and the movies, you know, report a belief system, and then we get to the the sort of retribution for past sins. Yeah, I imagined as I was watching it that that's a part you would have a significant challenge with.
Honestly, I'm still on the universalizing of Christmas, one or two other things on that, and then we will get to that a promise, Yeah, I think for me. The other reason why I find it so problematic is if this was about a Chinese holiday, a Chinese New Year or something like that, I would feel very simp because the thing is, this movie doesn't exist in a cultural context where the idea of pushing Christmas onto people who don't want to celebrate Christmas is just fine and dandy.
We live in a world in which people on social media believe there is quite literally a war on Christmas and are therefore fighting a war against non Christmas, and so all of that, I think just added to why I was like, this is just not a fun movie or a good movie, as well as all of it's breaking the suspended to disbelief, and I just wanted to add one more thing, and I promised to get off the soapbox and go another Did you see the movie Noel Spelled n Oe.
L e Yes with Bill Hayter and Anna Kendrick.
Yes, it's one of many many Santa movies that you've made that you've seen.
I don't.
I don't know how many you've made, but you reference the fact. There's many many, and it's not the best by any means, but it's cute and has some nice points, sure, but it deals with this issue so much better in a three second scene that just I want to remember because it shows why it can be so different. Because in the movie, the idea is that there's sort of a new Stanta of every generation, and this time, why
can't it be a girl? I think I think it's somewhat heredity or heredity hereditary and like the Daughter of Santa or something like that.
I don't remember.
But this woman Noel becomes Santa Claus Anna Kendrick, and it's great, and she has some problems and foibles, like your classic first day on the job, no one believes in me kind of stuff, fun movie. And there's one scene where she's still figuring out exactly what homes to go to.
She goes down a.
Chimney and finds a family that is playing dradl and is very clearly very Jewish, right, and she just says to them, oh, sorry, wrong house, and they all kind of smile and nod and maybe offer her some socks
or something, and then she goes about a way. Yes to me, that is now kind of to me the bar of just what I want a Santa Claus movie to meet is just like, because I guess that showed that you can have a very fun Santa Claus movie without having to say that every single child in the world celebrates Christmas.
Yes, right, And I think I think this movie, any of that nuanced sort of even three second sequences would have gotten so in the way of the marvelization of Christmas. That is this movie that I don't think they could have made time for it. I just don't even think it crossed the minds of the filmmakers to approach with that sensibility. I mean, at no point did I feel like there was any generosity of spirit to these other you know, holiday world views.
H I think it's where ill. I'm just gonna say, for all.
Those who are conspiracy nuts who say Jews control Hollywood, watch this movie because the real they don't, right.
So tell me what.
I love that phrase, though, What do you mean by the marvelization? Because I know you don't mean making marvelous, you mean making like Marvel.
The MC oh yeah, marvel is as well. I mean, look at who you have. You have Captain America, you have shez or what's his name, Black Adam, She's Zam Black Adam.
Uh.
You have these these heroes of of like hero screen and what else are you going to do with them in this kind of movie? This is I think the the we have these characters and we have a holiday, what can we do with them? What if Captain America and Black Adam were in a movie together and we were and we just wanted to throw a parade of pixels at the audience. This is what you would get, and it is it is. It is a two hundred
and fifty million dollar Christmas movie. That is the most absurd statement we can make about this movie.
It's absurd born in a manger because they were so poor.
You goes onto right right, Like, this is not a story that needed to be told. If I never see Massive Alpha Snowmen on a beach again, I'll be okay.
Because it was Also it was a movie that was very much about saving Christmas, to save the kids, and that kids have the innocence that they're still on the nice list, and that that's why Callum should continue to be a wage slave in the industrial capitalism that is known as the North Pole.
But it's also that aggressively not a kid's movie.
Yes, like there's cursing, which is fine, but like there's a moment where they're on the beach in Antigua, as you said, because that's where they go to fight the snowmen, And we get a couple scenes of women walking by in the kind of bikinis that people often wear in which a lot of butt cheek is exposed. Sure, and I just felt like, yeah, it's a marvelization because it's a way of being like, no, we don't want parents to bring their eight year olds.
We want fourteen year olds to come to this movie on their own.
Yeah, and tell mom, oh, mom, I'm going to a Santa Claus movie.
It's fine. Oh look at the butt cheeks on that woman.
Well, and the fact that this movie, I mean it even in theatrically, I think it's just about you know, one hundred and seventy five million dollar box office on a two hundred and fifty million dollar budget. But now it's on Amazon right now, it's it's it's a draw for subscriptions and it's a parade of shopping and products and so we'll never know how it truly fares. But now it's available for everyone. Now it's available for other kids who just want to see the rock and you
know in the movie. So, you know, is that a is that a neutral good in the world. I don't, I don't know.
I don't know. You know, it's hard to say. It's hard.
I'm the only one who's like, you know, back off with the sexist ideas of what kind of bikinies people should wear and stuff like that. I'm just saying it just seems so it's not even that, as you said, this movie lacks of generosity of spirit is it just feels like such a cynical cash grab, you know, the inclusion of stuff like that, or like having curse words very specifically and like, look, we're an adult movie, we can have curse words.
It just felt like, I don't know, it's just it was all the reasons.
I was like, there's nothing about the spirit of anything in this movie except capitalism and commercialism, which I guess is what Christmas is today.
So that's probably.
That's your secular holiday, right, that's the secular holiday of Christmas.
Right, yeah, right, which is not quite the holiday of the generosity that you were talking about. Yeah, so let's yeah, let's get into the retribution and punishment of it all. First of all, ask have you seen the movie Crampus or have you seen other things about the story of Crampus.
Yes, oh, yes, say a little bit.
More about that, because this was the first time I was seeing a Crampus on screen.
The Crampis movie is, So you haven't seen the movie cramps I have not Okay, the Crampis movie. It was fascinating because it portrays the relationship with Crampis as a generational horror, as a thing that haunts families for their past ills, and it is a it's a horrifying creature. It was a horror movie and it comes with minions in the forest, and it is it was a deeply scary,
uh generational trauma processing experience. And so I don't have a like, I haven't done any sort of scholarship on Crampis as a as a historical, you know, creature, but I do I do have a sense of what they were trying to go for here, and the fact that it ends up being a parade of essentially like Clyde Barker's Night Breed characters, I thought was low key fantastic. Like that part of the movie I thought was was pretty fun.
Yeah.
So in the movie, we learned that Crampis is Santa's brother. They were adopted, but they're no longer speaking with each other, and it used to be that the two of them were partners on Christmas and that Crampis was the one who came up with the whole idea of the Naughty List case Santa just wanted to bring gifts and presents
to everybody. There's a whole Christian debate over universalism in two different schools of that, which I won't even get into, but that like you can kind of do an interesting thing on the theology of those two. Yes, but that somewhere along the line they had a falling out, and that Santa still keeps the naughty list to some extent, but that for the most part, Crampis now has his own area that is just him and him alone and hits his people, and honestly, it looks kind of fun,
like they just party all the time. They're basically like scary looking vikings, Like they party and they drink and they play games where people get hurt and maybe occasionally die, but everyone's kind of in on the joke and enjoying it.
And the fear is that when Santa is kidnapped, that it must be them, and so our heroes go and invade this world in breaking the treaty that was made between Crampus and Santa that neither one would ever enter the land of the other again, making me like, give me a Torchwood style show about this mythological organization I'm here for it, especially if you don't just do Western mythology.
I'm so all over it. Give me an Easter buddy who's not Hugh Jackman, please.
Yeah, And they even tease it with the headless horseman, like I thought that was a really nice little nod.
Yeah, yeah, and that scene felt straight out an episode of Torchwood, you know, for any of.
The other Minutehouse thirteen.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and with me now as as the person who's ahead of it, you know.
Of course she's natural.
You know, sure, But but it winds up that like, yes, they seem to believe in more retribution, and I have definitely some thoughts of that, but I appreciate that he's not presented as evil and that forgives spoilers. We eventually learned that he is not the reason why this all happened, and that he helps Santa fight the actual villain, who does seem to have much more of a.
Like everyone is naughty.
We're just going to assume that, and we're gonna like, it's not that naughty means you're not gonna get gifts, which I think is all Crampus ever wanted, but that naughty means you're actually going you're going to get full on retribution and punishment, and we're going to punish everyone with the same hammer.
So a form of isolation for the rest of eternity.
Right, it's a slob.
You know, if you told a little fib about your sister, or if you murder ten people, same thing, you're isolated for all of eternity.
Well, and what they're robbing there is not just like, it's not just individual punishment, and it's the theft of community, which is the soul of this sort of holiday experience, right that we come together, and this presumes to take away togetherness from so many, so it becomes a punishment not just for the people who are put into snow globes,
but a punishment for the world. She goes around saying we're going to make the world a nicer place, but everybody's being taken from someone, and that is a setup for massive, unsettling grief.
And I think that was part of why, Like I think it was hard for me to get that because I was so angry about all the other stuff from early, right, But as you talk about it, you remind me, Yeah, that makes sense, because that actually is you know, I think I once heard someone say, like, everything about Christmas comes down to do you see it as a holiday of giving or a holiday of getting?
Yeah?
And I really love that idea, because you know, yeah, it's about like is the joy in finding gifts and giving gifts to others or is it joy and the kind of like I want to get all the gifts.
And I'm not going to blame an eight year old for being materialistic, but I think that, like, whether secular or not, gift giving holidays of all sorts can be a way of helping kids through that, you know, And like my mom would always tell me before my birthday, she'd be like, yes, you're gonna get a lot of gifts today, but remember today, you know the happiness that you feel from.
The gifts you're giving.
Keep that mind every time we're going to go shopping because you're going to Little Johnny's birthday party, because that's that's the joy.
You're giving them.
And Christmas is my mother's favorite holiday, and I cannot help but associate with her, And I think that that's it's so funny that so much of the other parts of the movie don't get this, because I do think you're right. The meaning of that, the theology of it, the philosophy of it is very much what Christmas should be about. It's the coming together of people.
Yeah, right, right. And I think the movie it spends so much time on the pixel parade that it is easy, to your point to get lost in the multiple messages that feel like are sort of shoehorned in when you're standing in a forest of ideological sort of fortitude, So.
Where where what do you think of cramp As as sort of the one kind of standing in the middle of these two.
Well, as always with these characters, I like the I like the presentation of him that he's he's less of a of a a horrific monster in present he is a monster in presentation, right, the many horned Crampus, he's giant. He is presented as he's almost a low key character, right, He's he's playful. They're playing a game called Crampis Slap, which I found low key delightful. Like that just seems
like a thing that would be fun. And you know, I'm one of the people that absolutely loved like Mary Slapsmiths on How I Met your Mother that was like, I don't know why I have such an affinity for slapping games. But I saw this and I thought, this is really fun. And then he is presented as the Savior at the end, but also the ex of the Christmas witch right that they had a deeper relationship, and I thought, okay, now this is Santa Barbara. Now this has gone upbridge too far.
Right, Like this is CW doing this ant mythology world.
What are we doing here? This was an example of people writing themselves into a corner as a game to see if they could write their way out, and not really being able to do it. And so we have to do a lot of hand waving to get to the end, which.
I will say is one of my other like a small little issue, but actually I think is a much bigger thing. Fat phobia is a part of our world and certainly is a big, big issue in cinema, and like you know, it's so brave of an actor or actress to gain weight in order to play a part.
And JK.
Simmons is an interesting choice for Santa and it is generally not seen as a you know, fat, jolly old man, and they make a point of this, like he doesn't even wear a fat suit when he is the Santa in the mall, and then they make a point later to show him working out and to show how important it like it's not just that he's buff, it's that they like they have kind of like that training scene where him and the rock or like lifting weights together.
What was your take on that, Like, why was that in there? And what did it mean to be in there?
Okay, my first thought was this is uh And I should say I'm a huge fan of JK. Simmons. He is principal in my top favorite movie, in my top four on letterbox Whiplash. I adore JK. Simmons.
He's the best ja Jon and Jamison. I think whatever, guess.
Oh for sure, for sure. I My first thought was, this is an interesting exercise in ego that we're gonna take a guy. And those pictures of him training for this movie leaked a long time ago, right, he has been working to get cut for a long time, and I wonder how much of this was I Can I do it right? Can I be a different kind of Santa in a way that tests my own personal ability to shred? And that was my first thought, that this
was an exercise in ego. I did not consider this as a hyper reactionary approach to fat phobia until you look at the rest of the movie and realize this movie is this is the again, I have to fall back to marvelization, right there are the marvel is the same aesthetic, right, we don't get any of the characters that are alternate bodied are not heroes, right, and that's this movie. Look, the alternate bodied characters who are not heroes are elves that are the more of the sort
of fairy tale elves. They are in their own way compared to Santa and family. They are grotesqueries in this film.
And I think that's a really good way to put it. And everything would say is I don't think this is intentional in the slightest, but I think it's one more way that they were sort of like, let's pick up any parts of the Santa mythos that we want without any consideration for what the choices we're making means.
Yeah, because there.
Is a reason why Santa is portrayed as fat and jolly, And you can get very deep in like human sociology and psychology that like, you know, originally like you wanted to be fat in the winter because there was less food and unless you consume the fact you had, you would die.
Yeah. And if you were thin on November first, you were not living to March first.
Right, And that's one thing we can guarantee. This Santa was colled af a lot.
Yeah, and that's not an issue. But also I think there is something about and here again I am going to draw on the Christian themes of it, but I think it applies even as it becoming secular. One of the basises of Christmas, which is also the basis of the winter solstice that a lot of it is drawn from. It's also the basis of Hanuka, It's the basis of
a lot of different cultures. Middle of the winter holiday is that in the middle of the winter, when resources are at their scarcest, we think we should all we have to hoard our resources, that they're not given.
Enough for us.
And so the idea of celebrating generosity and of giving to others is very intentional at a time when you should be keeping it all for yourself. And from my mother, that was one of the most essential things, you know. And like, yes, diet culture is not healthy and the slightest but also like OBEs can be a real thing, Like I'm not even to touch all that. But I know there's a lot of different sides. But like you know, my mother's biggest atagee was there's no there's no diets
on Christmas. Like Christmas is abundance. Christmas is eat what you want, enjoy what you want. All the little things that say, oh, I'm gonna feel guilty for eating that, I'm gonna feel guilty for playing this game instead of working, Like none of that exists on Christmas. And to me, the fat, jolly Santa Claus is the is the living representation of so much of that.
Yeah, I think there's a so I agree with with all of that, and I think in my core that's that's that aligns with my belief system. If I take a step back and just look at the movie and JK. Simmons portrayal in the film, I enjoy the swing that they take with the character, right, I enjoy the presentation of him. There are certain shots that I think are illuminating to the character of Santa and the joy that
this Santa gets in doing the job. In this film, the close up with the super wide like a twelve twelve millionaire lens where he's in you just get his face with the goggles and he's in like slave warp is delightful, Like there is just no doubt it is a delightful and exuberant expression of the role that he plays in this universe. So there are these moments in this film that I think actually sell the message of that we're talking about with this portrayal of Santa.
But it's hard.
I think the challenge is wrecked is reconciling that with you know what it's what it's saying to you know, the marvelization of our holiday.
Yeah, I think I think that's fair and I'm not against that. Like I'm not saying they needed to put JK. Simmons in a fat suit or hire a larger actor, the whole other ethical questions about fat suits.
You're not even to get into that.
I think you could have had him and even have him looking very buff and just not on it. It was the fact that they made a big deal of it and showed him working out and all that, where I was like, are you gonna leave us anything about Santa?
Like what are you okay? But Devil's Advocate, he's with the rock right, Like there is some comedy, I think, some intended comedy of having him say, okay, let's go heavy, like he is the star of the gym while standing next to the Rock, who is objectively a fortress of a human being.
You know, who are some of the biggest weightlifters in the world. People with beer guts. Oh yeah, Like you can be incredibly strong and incredibly good at those things.
Yeah, without having flat you know, washboard apps or whatever.
It is absolutely but that's what I mean, Like the joke has to exist with the performers that we have. And Hollywood has said the Rock is an example of a fortress, right right, and JK. Simmons next to this you would never expect you would just never expect him to do that. So I you know, I sort of feel like, you know, we're separating the art from the artists. I kind of applaud JK. Simmons for taking on the role for as little as he's in it. He's not actually in the movie all that much.
No, he's the mcguffin much more than he's a protagonist, for sure.
And there's a lot about Okay, let's talk just briefly about Chris Evans and the setup that they give us for this role that Chris Evans is. Says you said in the in your opening, he's the guy you can find anyone. He is useless in this movie, right, we don't. He is under skilled. He's constantly talking about how he's never done this before. Why is why did we need him in this movie? Were it not for the spectacle of putting Chris Evans next to the Rock like it was?
His part was weirdly underwritten for this film.
Oh see. I think part of this may be I just don't like the Rock. I don't find the Rock entertaining.
I am always like for me, Vin Diesel and The Rock have kind of had similar career paths, except that Vin Diesel has always been in the shadow of the Rock, and I forever think that's the fault. That's that's the best sign of the failure of big Hollywood, because I think Vin Diesel is just an amazingly better actor, much better looking, and frankly doesn't have all the nonsense in
the contract that The Rock does. He always has to be the hero and well and look ruined Black Adam, And we have a whole podcast about that you can go check out.
Of course, and look at the the legacy of this movie will forever be that The Rock costs this movie an extra fifty million dollars for his craziness, his tardiness, his his shenanigans.
And so so there's a part of me that's like, if Hollywood had a naughty List and wasn't just putting everyone on the Night List, at some point, wouldn't say that someone say The Rock, You're not worth the money. But even so, take it back to what you were saying. I think this goes to a larger question in filmmaking, which is what is your responsibility in telling an original story versus picking up pieces that have a lot of meaning to other people and telling your version of a
story with them. Because if you gave me a story about JK. Simmons as a completely fictionalized not Santa being that still was a better weightlifter than The Rock and Chris Evans in The Rock and told us all of that outside of the realm of a Santa story, I'm totally fine with it. I'm not gonna watch it because I'm not gonna enjoy it. But if it makes two
hundred million dollars or five hundred million dollars, sure. I'm glad people had fun with that, and I might actually see because I love Chris even so much though his acting talent, as you said.
Was horribly underused in this.
But when you pick up the mantle of Santa, which does have a lot of meaning for people and probably should be parodied more, and like if this was actually just full on skewing Santa and it was about like a labor rights fight at the North Pole, and it was that he worked out all the time, but he wears a fat suit when he goes out, Like, I would love that, give me that any day.
Well, for instance, what's your perspective on Arthur Christmas? Right, Arthur Christmas does a change of hands in an animated format, but it changes it. It does approach some big swings about the nature of Christmas and what the symbols mean. I think it's fascinating.
Yeah, I haven't seen that, but I'm sure it is.
I just mean, like, it's fine to take a symbol and take it in a new way, but have some respect for what the symbol originally means, even if you're disagreeing with that.
Right, And it just felt like the whole body shape body thing, you.
Know, in a world where people are just told again and again, don't you shouldn't eat so much of Christmas because look at your weight or this kind of stuff. So, yeah, it's a small thing, but I think it's just why. It's why it kind of oversized feeling for me. Yeah,
no unfortunate way to phrase that. But last thing I'll say is, I do think there is one important aspect to Chris Evans's character, even if I think the whole thing with him and his son was ridiculously schlocky and over the top, but I think it's supposed that.
To me, the failure of the.
Christmas Witch ideology is once you do a naughty thing, you are forever on the naughty list.
Yes, and it's.
The most trop troped story in all of Hollywood. But the idea that a person who is bad can become good, I think that's the role Chris Evans's character plays more than anything. It's the movie and he does a fine job of that.
Yeah, And you know, the ultimately the message of the movie is that every moment is is a moment of to choose to do good right right, And and I like that message, Like in everything that we're talking about that's sort of a seed that is good for humanity's let's do more of that.
Yeh.
So there are pieces in here that I think are good. I have to ask you, like, with all that is frustrating about this movie, can you give me something you legitimately.
Liked about it? Yeah? Crampas awesome? Yeah, okay, good.
So we're we're de only in the bag on campus.
Yeah, I mean I think it is pretty well. This is not the worst movie I've ever seen. It is probably the worst Christmas movie I've ever seen and the one that made me angriest.
But you know, it's it's it's got something redeeming.
Okay, we have a Bonnie Hunt was one of those. It was a felt stunt castie to me. For some reason. She's a face that a lot of people know, especially coming from Sabrina and or not Sabrina. Anyway, She's just a comic face that I think a lot of people know. She was great, Lucy.
The best comment I saw is that she was doing her best January Jones impression, which January Jones is the character from The X Men who and that this actress played Sally Draper. January Jones was played by Sally Draper's mother, so that's kind of fitting that she is like doing that.
But yes, sure, Lucy Lou was interesting to see her again, an interesting casting choice and I think she plays the ming Now.
When I said win and I met Lucy Lou, I'm sorry.
Well, that's why I brought it up because I think I think she and ming now Wen have a corner on authoritative Asian women in film and TV. And so she did great. Nick Kroll, we're just stand on Nick Kroll.
Who's that?
Nick Kroll is?
Uh?
He was the protected by the Carmenians on the beach. He was.
Oh, yes, he is the guy who's often banned. He comes from the League. He comes from the League of a web show about.
Stand up and it's It Is The League is And I have to admit I am a huge fan of the League. I watched every episode. It's a very very funny show. It is completely foul mouthed and and you know, I loved it. He is a stand up He is a consummate creator and I think a genuinely funny guy. I always have an interesting kind of relationship when I see him in films that aren't that Yeah, right, he's a bit of a sore thumb.
Yeah, And I think the thing is he's playing himself. He's playing the same no, he always plays, and I've seen that a million times. What I haven't seen is a grown up Sally Draper.
Yeah. And we we learned very quickly that it is Sally drape.
Tell me the actress's name again, Bonnie Hunt, Bonnie Hunt, thank you, that it is Bonnie Hunt speaking through him, and we get every now and then we get Bonnie Hunt speaking through him.
No, that was the I'm sorry, we're crossing names. Bonnie Hunt was missus Claws. Okay, it was Kiernan shipkaa okay, thank you.
So I may have confused things before earlier when I was talking about that, but like, yeah, to me, knowing that it could be her saying all these lines and instead it's coming through his mouth, I was just annoyed. I was just like, you've got a much better choice there. Why not just it could be his face and he makes very humorous faces, but why not make it her voice?
Yeah. I thought it was interesting because he's such I think your point is well taken that this was a Nick Kroll performance and it was very much about like, hey, you know, we know Nick Roll, he's a friend of ours. Let's we're shooting for a day, come on in right right there?
Well, And I think that it very much fits the the the audience are going because if we're going for as teenage boys, yeah, which it seems a lot of the way they are, that's that's who he very much is an audience for.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think as again, if you if I separate myself from the from the undercurrent of ideological consternation that I bring to it. I was smiling during more of this movie than I was not, mostly because, as I call it, the pixel parade, I thought was fun. I enjoyed the the uh just the visual depiction of the North Pole. I enjoy the slides. I enjoy the in particular, I always enjoy I think this is a the the depiction of Santa delivering presence is a fascinating thing in
film and television. And I liked the choices they made in that montage. In the end, it just was fun. It was fun going through the cooking events and like answering questions that everybody says, how does Santa do all this? And they tried to include some new swings. Here's how Santa does these things in you know, condos and buildings and things that don't have chimneys. And so there were things in this movie that they tried that I do think works. So it's like you said, it's not the
worst movie I've ever seen, It's absolutely not. It is a middling to fair popcorn movie that requires, I think, especially for younger people, a little bit of discussion.
Yeah, And I would say for me, I think it's probably in my worst five movies of all time, like I did think time. And part of that's because I think I just didn't find joy in the those things that you didn't. And it may be because I do have very strong feelings about Christmas, and I think part of that religious import that it has nothing to do with religion. It's just about the like my mother loving it so much, my loving the family aspect and all that.
But also I just I don't find the rock enjoyable. I don't find that I've seen the CGI Snowman stuff, not actual Snowman, but i've seen CGI monsters so much like I don't really like Marvel stuff anymore.
I started a podcast called.
Superherotics because I loved the MCU and I've not liken it beating, so CGI's so, yeah, I think it's great. Like I wanted to know more about why someone would enjoy this movie, and so that's awesome. And I don't think it's good or bad, it's just you know, different tastes.
Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. And you know, here's the biggest question of these movies that get released at this time of year is does it become an annual staple? And I can say with out qualification, this is not an annual staple at all. It's one done and it's fine because I gotta go watch Spirited.
Yeah.
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Tape, Pete, Yes, exhaustively.
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