512: Summertime Christmas

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I think he's about to show him a car with a secret panel where you can hide the Epstein Island children.

Yeah, yeah.

This one's soundproof trunk here.

Yeah.

Oh, so weird.

Is that why he asks if he has any luggage?

Yeah.

When he says that asking about luggage is a standard question you ask when you're renting a car to somebody.

Are you going to bring any cheese pizza with you?

Yeah,

I'm trying to think of the like the what was the furniture one they did?

Yeah, exactly.

We ordered some stuff off Wayfair.

Oh, no, I got you.

I got you.

God awful

movie.

Movie.

Movies.

Welcome back to the Gamcast, where each week we sample another selection from Christian cinema because true crime ain't got nothing on us.

I'm your host, Eli Bosnick.

Heath and Noah had to leave their hometowns to celebrate Heath's wedding this week, so they won't be able to join us.

But sitting 2,897 miles to my immediate left are my good friends, hosts of the Where There's Woke podcast, and the only guest masochist, Noah and Heath, trust me to be alone with.

Thomas and Lydia Smith.

Thomas, Lydia, welcome back to the show.

They are already regretting leaving you.

Is this the reason why we weren't invited to Ann and Heath's wedding?

This is it.

It was just for the gam cover.

Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

It all makes sense now tom actually was at the wedding that's why he missed dear old guest so you can see it's just uh it's just you guys gam cover came before friendship i look i've got a theory eli i think this isn't going up i don't think anyone's ever hearing this i think that your your delightful friends and business partners have pranked you hard and us

yeah no we're just accessories to this crime by what we had to watch unknowing victims i don't think this will ever see the light of day this recording this is the cover they stole the business.

When we go to post this on Patreon, that's when we're going to find out.

Look at your microphone.

The cable is just not going to anything.

This is like the end of the passwords have been changed.

Now, Smiths, we have to cover something very important before we get into our cinematic selection this week, which we have to mention because this happens every time we have you on the show.

Thomas, you are on a little podcast known as Opening Arguments these days, aren't you?

And so if someone wanted to tune in, they could go hear you over at Opening Arguments.

Is that correct?

Yeah, me and and Matt Cameron.

And not a bad person.

A really nice lawyer who is an immigration attorney who helps people who need it and has good insight right now for these particular times.

Why?

What's going on?

Is there anything in this

immigration-related news?

Yeah, I didn't see anything on the TikTok, so I think.

But also, people should check out Gavel Gavel.

We haven't gotten a chance to tell people what.

Well, yeah, you have gotten to talk about Gavel Gavel.

Yeah, get a plug.

Yeah, we are doing, if you are interested.

interested, everyone, in the Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Justin Baldone

legal battle, Please check out Gavel Gavel.

We are covering it extensively.

It is so fascinating to us.

And it bears an uncanny resemblance to things that I've gone through, actually, weirdly enough.

So a lot of relevance there.

It's true.

Those text messages you sent to Blake Lively were really unacceptable.

And that's actually why I brought you on the air today.

To call you out in person, Thomas.

I did leave Eli a 20-minute.

voice memo where I just like tried to ooze sexuality into his ears.

That does happen.

In the the middle of the night.

That's called Thomas Reed's the Bible, everybody.

You got to be old school to film that one.

All right.

So past masochisms aside, tell us, Lydia, what deep web underground film will we be breaking down today?

You know, one of the finest films of 2010, probably.

This is called Summertime Christmas.

And this is from a production company called the Aaron Crook Films.

And you know me.

I had to to do a little deep dive.

So we're going to take

how many donkeys do they have?

Zero donkeys, unfortunately.

However, this is, this is a very interesting.

There's like some heartbreak in this journey.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, us having to watch this fucking piece of shit.

I agree.

But I just, I had to.

I had to do a little deep dive.

You guys know me.

So let me tell you a little bit about who these people are.

They are the Vaughan Aaron Crooks, and it's a husband and wife team.

Maude is the wife, and Andrew is the husband.

And so you'll see them in the credits, written by Maude Vaughan Aaron Crook, directed by Andrew Von Aaron Crook.

He also was like the editor, et cetera, et cetera.

Well, I wanted to know a little bit more about them.

So I just did some Google searching.

The first thing that comes up is a GoFundMe.

And my initial instinct was like, oh, grifters, like, what are they trying to get?

Sure.

It's not grifting.

And I feel really bad.

Oh, no.

Andrew died.

No.

Yeah.

So she did a GoFundMe because they have four kids and he died and it just says from an accident.

So then I'm a very curious person.

So I had to find out what the accident was.

Yeah.

And so I have a news article here.

Name released a Florence man who drowned at Fisher Lake Park.

And yeah, apparently he was 30 feet from a dock and his foot got tangled up in a rope that he was trying to

get disconnected from like a buoy and a cinder cinder block, and the cinder block pulled him underwater.

That doesn't, that sounds made up.

I don't know.

That's a miracle

suicide.

Crazy final destination levels.

I think this is a religious thing.

Oh, this guy could be.

It could be.

It could be.

Yeah.

Ooh.

And they were like, yeah, no, his ankle got caught.

Either way, look.

What's important, podcast listening

that is, is how funny that is.

And also that this movie is about punching your kids in the face.

Yep.

So you have to, you got to be able to stay on.

We're going to bring you.

Okay, so here's the thing.

You know, when you do, you play a game enough, you want to play a harder difficulty?

Lydia was like, you know, we've done game enough.

What if we try to put the difficulty on hard mode?

What if we open up with, yeah, this, the people who made this film, this movie,

all of them have childhood cancer?

Who's ready for a roast of a grieving widow?

Lydia Smith from the top rope.

This poor man who killed himself himself probably because of this movie,

we're going to win you back.

We're going to win you back.

Like, that's how bad this is and how bad the message of this stupid fucking movie is.

By the end of this movie review, you will be reporting that GoFundMe in the hobby.

Yeah, I mean, people donated almost $30,000 to that GoFundMe.

That's like pretty significant.

Yeah, it's good.

You know, she's doing okay.

I do also want to like to give Maude a little bit of color here, too.

So I found this organization that she started called Sacred Inc.

And she started this after her work in the Christian film industry and publishing books, apparently.

I don't know.

I've never seen them.

Okay.

And she created this company that basically helps to fund other Christian writers and filmmakers.

And

as part of her bio on this page, it says, the body of Christ is growing in many areas, but in Europe and America, it has been consistently and negatively marginalized and stigmatized.

Logic and tradition hold little sway against progressive methodologies.

Culture is their tool.

Sacred ink enters their arena and plays by their rules, but for our Lord's glory.

Whoa.

So they like, they make the cover a romance novel, but you get 20 pages in.

And it's like, and that's when she dropped to her knees to pray.

And you know, you guys do have a point of suicide, like honestly, because the other thing I didn't mention about Andrew is that he hosted a YouTube channel about survival skills and disaster preparedness.

and I feel like

someone

who does that isn't gonna get his foot tangled up.

This was a bear grills gone wrong situation, yeah.

No, I think she's gonna have evidence this couldn't have been an accident, and I agree.

Yeah, this was absolutely not an accident, all right.

Well, and we have one big piece of evidence that Andrew took the easy ray out, and that, of course, is this movie.

So, Thomas, tell us how bad was this movie?

Well, I've no good

if you like

the movie Elf,

but

you, okay, let me think, but you,

how does Eli do this?

If you like the movie Elf, but you don't like how raw and human and emotional the Wright family is,

then you will love this movie.

Like, if

you're like, yeah, like if, if, if, if, If your average ventriloquist dummy has too much life for you, has too much raw pathos, then you will love this movie you will love this movie that is true I worried that this was this movie was a breakup letter to me personally from you I like I there's a chance that we were gonna log on here today and you were gonna be like oh shit I didn't even have anything prepared because I didn't get the hint

it is I don't

here's the thing the Wright family which is my new favorite family.

I miss them.

How are they doing, by the way?

Have they said anything

about us?

They're doing great.

I miss them in their donkey farm.

They've blocked several of our listeners on Facebook.

Oh, really?

I hope they blocked me or something.

But that, at least, I can, it's too easy, as I say, every time we do those.

It's too easy to make movies that look like movies.

Like, it should be harder.

There should be an entry test or something.

This one has a bunch of people who worked on it.

It has all the things of a movie.

Like, it has like effects.

It has, you you know, cast, it has key grip.

It's not just the weird Wright family making their home video that somehow makes more money than we ever will in our lives.

Exactly.

This look, it's like there's a huge operation here, but not a single person has a human quality to it.

It's, it's truly haunting.

It's haunting.

Yeah.

There are several moments of the movie.

Again, it's from 2010, so I know it was pre-AI, but there are several moments from the movie where I was like, okay, so like the first first ever version of ChatGBD would have made a pass at that line and done better.

And is there anything you guys want to nominate this one from being the best to being the worst at?

I think I got to say juvenile delinquents.

Like

these are supposed to be bad kids.

And guys, there's just like these moments of what terrors these children are.

It's quite hilarious.

The whole premise of the movie is like the kids gone bad.

Yeah.

They've gone rogue.

And we've gone rogue.

A couple of shots of like two kids.

Two kids fighting over a toy.

Two kids fighting over a teddy bear and they're just or whatever, a doll, and they're just moving it back and forth between each other infinitely like

forever.

And one kid softly banging the head of a teddy bear on a slide.

Tapping.

Tapping is the word.

Yes, yeah, that's true.

It might as well be like, it would be something like in an NES game because like they could only manage like one kind of bit of movement.

They didn't have the pixels yeah

just moving the doll back and forth between them like it's so fucking good man oh i'd have to say i just i'm sorry i'm taking the easy one best worst

cgi credit sequence newspaper whatever what do i call that best worst thing that we all saw that i want people look you can go and you can find this fine film on amazon right now you sure can i want you to watch the first at least three, four, five minutes of, wow, I'm looking, I'm scrolling through it right now.

It's a while.

Yeah.

So long.

And I don't know what to call it.

Like, it's what, what would you call it?

You're an expert, Eli.

What was that?

In my notes, I believe I call it PS1 level introduction graduates.

But the work that was put into it, that's what blows my fucking mind.

Normally, it's like, oh, that's really bad.

I see how they did that in MS Paint and threw it on there.

This was like 2010.

It was not that easy for your average person to make all of these effects, you know, but they're also terrible.

Yeah.

But really hard work was put into it.

So everyone watched that.

It is an intro sequence, I guess, and it's the best worst intro sequence I've ever seen.

Yeah.

The evil within this movie ain't.

And I'm going to go with best, worst

unspoken rant.

So as I teased when you were worried that we were just about to make fun of a grieving widow's last project with her dead husband,

the very central crux of this movie is that if parents are not allowed to hit their children,

society will fall apart.

Literally, society will fall apart.

But for some reason, the movie never explicitly says it goes pretty close.

It gets pretty close.

We'll talk about it.

It's like, have you ever seen a bigot realize there's a person of that race in the room?

That's how this movie behaves towards child abuse.

Well, we've got child abuse and child abuse apologetics, as well as two elves that people really want to fuck on the other side of the break.

So we'll be back in a bit with some summertime Christmas.

So we got the ice cream with cash.

And when we pay cash, it doesn't count.

Doesn't count.

Exactly, Lydia.

You're getting it.

Hey, guys, what you doing?

Oh, hey, Thomas.

I was just teaching Lydia Elinomics.

What's Elynomics?

That sounds really bad.

It's not bad.

It's great.

Like, Lydia, if we don't have money for something, but we do have a 0% APR credit card deal, what do we have?

The money for something.

Exactly, Elinomics.

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Wow, that sounds way better than

what was that, Eli?

Telling people you died.

Telling people you died.

It definitely is.

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Go to rocketmoney.com slash awful movies today.

That's rocketmoney.com slash awful movies.

Rocketmoney.com slash awful movies.

Okay,

last question.

Do sweet treats still count as a tax write-off because they're medical care?

No.

No sweet treat?

Sweet treat.

Yeah, fine, it's medical care.

Nice.

Yeah.

Hey, guys, thanks so much for coming over.

No problem, Nick.

What'd you want to talk about?

Yeah, you said it was urgent.

It is, guys.

I'm writing a movie.

Oh, wow.

About what?

Okay, so in the movie, this bill is passed that takes away parents' rights, right?

Oh, wow.

Rights to what?

And so all the kids in the world, they become like super naughty, and they're going to stay naughty if the parents don't get their rights back.

That's terrible.

Sorry, rights to what, though?

So Santa sends two elves to fix everything, but these kids are just so bad that even the elf magic doesn't work on them.

Sorry, Nick, this sounds like a good movie, but what rights are parents losing?

Yeah, what are the parents not allowed to do?

Oh, um,

hit, hit their kids.

All the kids are bad because the parents can't beat them up.

Is what your movie is about.

Yes.

Hey, this doesn't have anything to do with you losing custody, does it?

It is unrelated.

I feel like it's related.

Yeah.

Hey, podcast listener.

Just jumping in real quick.

I was having so much fun with Thomas and Lydia.

I forgot to tell you about our live show in Cleveland, Ohio on July 19th.

That's right.

We're coming to Cleveland, Rock City.

As I have been told by several people, it is not called Rock City, but I'm calling it Rock City.

And you can get those tickets at GodAwfulMoviesLive.com.

But I have a favor to ask you, podcast listener.

If you live in Ohio or you live near Ohio, I want you to show up to this show.

Why?

It's a personal reason.

I'm going to share it with you right now.

My family lives in Cleveland.

They're all coming to the show.

I have been trying to convince these people that I am a podcaster and not a drug dealer for years.

And if there are 11 people at this live show,

they're going to keep Venmoing me for Christmas because they think I made up a fake podcast by which I make my livings.

I need you to show up, sell out the whole show, whole Cleveland Hotel or Hotel Cleveland.

They're not sure what it's called.

Neither am I, but it's going to be in Cleveland July 19th.

We're going to show my family that you people exist.

All right, let's get back to the show.

GodawfulMoviesLive.com.

And we're back.

And we're going to start with a logo for Bridgestone Multimedia Group and then a logo I've never seen before, which let me tell you, podcast listener, is a damn good sign here on God Awful Movies.

Oh boy.

Yeah.

We get a series of newspapers.

Dated all incorrectly, by the way.

It's like Thursday,

September, 16, 2000.

It was overwhelming.

I thought it was a typo one time, but it was every single newspaper.

No, it's every type that they put up.

Yeah.

And the effort, the effort put into this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is what we were talking about before the break.

These are the establishing credits.

And again, like it's really important to emphasize most of the movie.

I would say there's what, like six minutes of the movie that are about these parental rights laws that are established in the first right movie.

Oh, yeah.

It's just barely any of it.

Yeah.

Two teenagers walking around eating ice cream, right?

There's just fucking nothing to this movie.

So it's really important that these establishing credits, I think, are as long and as convoluted as they are because they shot the movie and realized they had left out what they obviously thought was the plot of the movie.

Yeah, I'll grab one of the little things for you.

Nanny State steps in.

Parents ground Washington teen for drugs/slash sex.

Courts say no way.

Hold on, there's more.

Oh, please.

Today, in a surprising reversal from precedents upheld by previous courts, the Washington State Supreme Court.

And that's all we get.

Okay.

It's cut off.

Oh, okay.

We also get

E-Tech magazine towards the end, which has a piece on homeschool resistance is what they title it.

And it says, enforced Nazi-era law results in fines, prison, psych tests, abductions.

And just side note, Maude, who we're going to be talking about a bit, the writer of this, she homeschooled her four kids, obviously.

Yeah, I had a feeling that's what they were telling us.

But yet, what they are setting up here is that there have been these draconian laws passed, which don't let parents do

something.

This is the closest we get to telling it, but the draconian laws that don't let kids get punished anymore.

And as a result, the country, as we learned from one of these headlines, is in economic meltdown to exclamation points.

Now, here's here's now we get a follow-up newspaper, and it's like, oh, you know, the economy is tanking, I guess, because of Obama or something.

I don't know.

Yeah.

And then, but then I'm just noticing in like in a column here, it says, how they won grassroots support, key to victory for Washington couple.

What?

So that's a follow-up, but they lost.

So they won?

Because it's saying,

it's pretty small to read, but it's like they apparently, I guess, maybe they won an appeal or something.

Because like earlier, the Washington couple from the earlier newspaper that cut it off.

It has to be.

I see.

That's all the weird.

I don't know what else it would be.

Yeah, but it won't be relevant or established stakes of the movie.

So it's very confusing why it's

Thursday, September, 16, 2000.

Yes, we will.

Yes, we will.

All right.

So now we're going to cut to a young teenager eating at a table in a train station.

Yeah.

Okay.

Train's doing a lot of work there.

Yeah.

Young man, young lady are eating in a train station when they both get a special message on their balls.

So let's talk about these balls.

Yeah.

The two, well, God.

Okay.

Let's talk about the elves.

All right.

So these two teenagers will be the main characters of the movie.

And let let me save you the work, podcast listener, of what I had to do for about an hour of this film.

They are Santa's elves

on summer vacation.

And the message they are receiving now is on their special

communication

ball.

Yes.

They have green communicator hologram balls.

And this is where Santa is letting them know that because of the establishing newspapers we just saw in the graphics earlier, all the children in the world are turning naughty.

And so the elves have to report

back to the North Pole.

Is that what he's saying?

Yeah, and like just return back or

just give coordinates.

I, yeah, I'm not sure.

I, yeah, it's it's confusing because it sounds like he's saying you're going to have to come back to the North Pole here, but they never go back to the North Pole and he never follows through with that message.

Yeah, also he threatens that he's going to quit.

And so then why do the elves have to come back if you're going to quit?

Like, then they don't have jobs anymore.

They should just stay wherever they want.

Right.

Yeah.

So, first off,

it wasn't helpful to read the description on the like Wikipedia IMDb for this.

No, it says

while vacationing separately in small town USA, Elwood and Nora, two of Santa's elves, receive an urgent transmission initiating a series of events.

That's all they got.

That's the best.

Somebody was like, I don't, what do you say about this piece of shit?

Yeah.

The time dimension moves forward in this movie.

Pretty much.

And Santa calls, I guess, as you're saying, and he makes the one face that Tucker Carlson makes.

And there's also a full five seconds in between sentences.

Like, you got to just hear what this is.

Let's see if we can get to it here.

I have some terrible news.

Two, three, four.

The naughty and nice lists are showing a significant statistical swing.

Two, three.

I have checked the list many times, and

the naughty children are far outweighing the nice.

Two, three.

In fact, only 32% of the children worldwide are on the nice list, and that number is falling.

One, two,

three.

Everybody.

What is that?

Like, what is that?

Okay, so let me explain what happened because I, because this is every line in the movie.

We should point out, it's not just Santa, it is every line spoken by everybody.

Yeah.

I do not think an actor in this entire film learned their lines.

I think the entire film was done by Andrew, who was tying a cinder brake around his ankle, and he would yell from off screen, the children are all being naughty.

And they'd go, the children are all being naughty.

And then they would cut the camera and then start the camera again.

And they'd go, we have to stop the children.

We have to stop the children.

Everything is done like an Al-Qaeda hostage video with less joy and consent.

There's also so much effort that this, you know, kid elf, this boy is taking to hide this ball in his ridiculous piece of luggage.

It's very ridiculous.

For 2010, like, come on, this is stupid.

It's, I don't even know.

It's, I, I just, I'm so distracted by it.

And every single scene he has it.

But so he's hiding this ball within his luggage, but Santa is so freaking loud from this.

And you can tell because they'll do shots of this whole like train station thing.

And Santa is echoing throughout the station.

Right.

Booming.

And so like, what are you trying to hide here?

Maybe you guys need to have a device that can like use headphones instead.

Yes.

Testing.

Santa should figure out texting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That would be important.

But what's important here is that Elwood notices that Nora gets the message as well.

So he chases her down to her.

trolley car

a trolley that goes between mall shops yes it says railroad crossing at the next stop by the way it's like very clearly a trolley But this is incredibly alarming because that isn't really, I mean, you figured, you puzzled that out, but really we see a girl who I guess is trying to act sad, run away.

And then we see this creepy ass kid.

This kid haunts my dreams.

This fucking, this elf.

None of them have a human expression the entire time other than, I don't know what, like weird, creepy.

as I said, ventroquist dummy energy.

And then he just pops into her like trolley car as like, hi.

Yeah.

And he says, like, like, he says, I saw you crying.

Like smiling.

It's the weird, I've written that down.

The weirdest delivery of the words, I saw you crying ever captured on film.

Fucking smiling.

And her crying, by the way, was puking.

That was how she tried to show sad.

Yeah.

Are you okay about it?

But he is giving away that they both know about Santa.

So they sneak into the staff only section of Bodega

to talk about the fact that they both work at santa's workshop yeah but they've never met before and i wrote in my notes is it racist that i thought all the elves at santa's workshop would know each other do i need to check myself here yeah and i love this is such a tender christian movie moment because what they do is they go sneak off into the walk-in freezer

and I'm like, well, this is kind of funny because that's like they're pretending they're going to go fuck in the walk-in freezer.

But then what they're actually doing is talking to Santa.

But then because a Christian movie.

They're talking about Santa.

They're not even talking to her.

They're talking about Santa, yeah.

And then the lady finds them is like, hey, what are you like?

She, she comes in like expecting to find them like

doing it.

And she's like, oh, I know what it was.

You tried to go to the bathroom and got lost.

You must be cold.

We were shitting in this freezer just I got to tell you, we were giving you a one-star review on Yelp because of how terrible a bathroom this was.

So now, again, I have to explain, this is going to be so much of the movie.

So, get ready to hear the words.

So, now the two elves are walking around town talking a lot.

But that's what's happening.

The elves are walking around talking when they come upon a child, peer-pressuring another child to throw eggs in an old man's house.

And I am pleased to report, podcast listener, that all of us wrote in this economy in our mouths when the children were trying to throw eggs.

Now, I think we have to play this for the listeners.

Oh, yeah, please.

9:53.

We gotta for those following along at home, 9:53.

Oh, and that fucking pseudo-Christmas music goes out in the whole movie.

The entire movie.

They're on hold with this movie.

Like, just that fucking, it might as well be like a key or a mode of music, which is just Christmas, which could go on forever.

Like, it never fucking resolves or ends into anything.

God, I hate it so much.

Just throw it, Jessica.

How will Mr.

Gibson clean this up?

He's old.

Who cares?

This is terrible.

This isn't a joke.

So?

How do you like it if somebody did this to your house?

My parents would clean up the new funny to watch them.

They're so young.

And in broad daylight.

What's happening?

I'm not going to do it.

Don't be such a goody two-shoes.

You're no fun.

At least I'm not mean.

Yeah,

he's an egg on the ground.

He throws the egg on the ground.

Yeah, the eggs are also in a bucket labeled crayons.

Yeah, bucket labeled crayons.

Yeah, I think they're, you know, trying to distract.

Just got him a bucket of crayons here.

Nothing to see.

Yeah.

Also, none of those lines, because I was watching it and as I was listening to it just now, none of those lines are delivered like the words that are being said.

Yeah, right.

Not a single line in this movie is done that way except this little girl is the best actor in the entire film jessica yes this is jessica she's our heroine can i chime in with some a little note about jessica please don't tell me she killed herself no she didn't um as far as i know so no i was looking at the i am died of childhood leukemia right after where she donated a kid i probably want to go on hard mode but this is

no no i think you guys will appreciate this so i was looking at the imdb ratings and they're you know a handful of 10 out of 10s and one of them is savannah howard who is the the actress who who plays Jessica.

And this person wrote, I didn't necessarily have high hopes for this movie, but I thought Savannah Howard was reminiscent of a young Scarlett Johansson.

She appeared to me to be the sun that all the other actors orbited around.

She truly shined.

Rumor has it, she screen tested for the Scarlet Witch role, which, as we know, eventually went to Elizabeth Olson.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Benedict Kumar Batch, Chris Evans, and Gwyneth Paltrow are among her followers.

They lobbied for her to secure a place for her in the MC universe, but so far that effort has yet to bear fruit.

I have a feeling about her, though.

I see big things at her page.

Who is this?

What is this?

Just a random reviewer.

It's from March 2023.

What if it's her and she's lost her mind?

Yeah.

It has to be her.

Maybe.

There's no way that's not her.

This is the only thing she's ever done.

Or her mom.

It's the only thing she's ever done in 2014.

You're going to tell me she's got

a drink.

She's never done anything else.

What is it?

And this is from two years ago.

This review.

She would have been a child as Scarlet Witch because the first time we see Wanda, according to IMDb, is in 2014 for Winter Soldier.

So this would have been four years after the

first time.

That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard of.

Now I'm just picturing this child sitting next to Elizabeth Olson in a waiting room being like,

so

exactly.

Have you heard of Summertime Christmas?

Oh, just a little film I did.

Our director killed himself at the running party.

He was a big Sylvia Plath fan.

Oh, boy.

Oh, boy.

Okay.

So, yeah.

So, we have that moment where they're not going to do the bad thing.

Oh, we have some foreshadowing into this guy's eventual suicide because they do a swimming bit where they're going to.

They do do a swimming bit.

Yeah, we're going to talk about it.

Oh, never mind.

They can skip too much.

Sorry.

We're nowhere close.

We are not anywhere close.

I'm trying to just go to the bottom.

Thomas' brain.

And trying to fast forward us to the next step.

And then the movie's over isn't that the best and the movie's over and i got to stop talking about it and thinking about it i'm hanging up right now yeah hey we could be playing with our kids hon we could be raising our kids and yet we're here we're watching this piece of

indeed you are indeed you are yeah so they head to the airbnb where they're both staying and look i'm not going to dwell on this for super long but it appears that he just tells her he stays in an airbnb and she shows up there and is also staying there like on his recommendation.

I don't know.

I don't know.

She already checked in though.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is amazing.

This whole movie, it has the, here's another thing that we could say about it.

It has the cadence of, remember the whose line is it anyway?

Remember the sketch where they have to ask each other questions?

Oh, yeah, totally.

It has the cadence of that.

I'm not saying every line is a question, but it's as though after each line, someone's like, okay,

did I ask you?

Yeah.

If you could do that.

Is that my real life?

Well, I go.

Like, every case.

So, like, I don't know what the fuck is happening here.

You just have to listen and fucking.

This is Elwood Elvin.

Okay, so she's introducing him in the Airbnb.

I've stayed here a few times before.

It used to be called the Lazy Day Inn.

I just bought it and changed the name.

Who would stay with a name like that?

Oh, but you did, didn't you?

Nora's my first guest.

Are you gonna join her?

I usually don't make a reservation.

The previous owner just expects me.

I hope it doesn't cause you any more worry.

You're already here.

You are lucky.

You can be my little guinea pig, just like Nora.

I hope you don't mind.

Oh, don't worry.

We know how to relax around here.

What?

How many Nora Elvin's husband has joined us?

Husband?

First of all, they're 12.

I'm just going to show him their room.

My husband's not so sure about running a bed and breakfast.

Oh, also, the husband is not in the film.

Not in the movie, yes.

There are multiple lines, and there's a lot of people in this movie.

It's not like they're out of people.

I don't know why they chose to do this.

It's mind-boggling.

Is the husband, are we going to find out the husband's like, what is that?

Is that psycho where like the

yeah, it's her in a week?

Yeah, but she's doing a reverse normal thing.

She's the husband's corpse, but then she pretends to be the husband sometimes, maybe.

That's what it reads like.

She's, oh, they're off in the room and they're gonna, nobody ever responds.

I wrote in my notes.

This happens multiple times.

At this point, the husband isn't sure about running a bed and breakfast.

That's why he didn't agree to be in the movie.

We got to hear this, though, because this blows my mind.

Strangers, especially in his home.

Oh, great.

I'm not her husband.

Why do you have the same last name then?

Where were they?

She's my sister.

Why is there a clock going?

Is that.

Uh-huh.

I understand.

Separate rooms then.

Okay, what does she understand?

So, what I believe based on that scene is that we should kill ourselves on is that the owner of this Airbnb believes them to be a married couple in trouble whose marriage therapist has recommended that they go stay at an Airbnb in separate rooms to fix their marriage.

And do a little role-playing.

Do a little role-do a little, you're a stranger role-playing.

Like, hey, meet, you know, you meet each other at the bar.

Okay, I get into this.

It's way sexier than any Christian movie would be.

It's actually something way dumber than that that we can't even think of, like, we can't even fathom what it would be.

But this scene does establish something important that we should talk about.

That honestly, 2015 Eli the comedian was a lot better prepared to talk about.

These actors are 14 and 15 years old.

It seems like to me.

And everybody in this movie will spend the rest of the movie trying to make them fuck.

I know.

Not set them up.

Yes.

Not get them married.

Not light a romantic spark.

They'll be like, put your penis and her vagina to these children through the rest of the movie.

This movie resolves 15 minutes before it ends so that more adults can tell these children to fuck.

Okay,

so that.

is done.

Humans sure are wacky.

It's not, by the way, I could have played it for for five more minutes.

I wanted you to.

You would have funny.

I tried, but he said no.

So now it's time for some swimming pool shenanigans.

So we cut over to a swimming pool.

She has never swum before, so he is going to show her how to swim.

He stands in the pool and, as was said earlier, this is foreshadowing for Andrea's untimely death.

He begins to drown immediately.

He's in the shallow and up to the water is barely covering his dick.

No, it's actually not.

I'm looking at his dick right now.

It's wide out in the open.

He's in a shirt, a white t-shirt, for some reason.

That's always, I guess, Christian stuff.

Like, do you need to?

Anyway,

okay, I know we've played turns around.

I know we've played plenty, but please, can we put on 1740?

Yeah, so we can leave.

Can we play the less we have to

listen to the reaction to this emergency?

Okay, here we go.

He's just standing there.

All right.

So,

what I want to like just highlight here is there's a lifeguard who jumps in eventually and like not immediately.

Well, probably because she's like, I don't even normally go to the end of the pool that's two feet tall.

Takes her time.

Yes.

Then there's a girl sitting on the edge of the pool next to the lifeguard station who's like laughing and turning her head away because she doesn't want to get splashed, it seems.

The only proper reaction.

Yeah.

And then you have Jessica, who we met earlier, is saving his life.

The one who didn't want to throw the eggs.

Yes.

She's saving his life, is what they're going to say over and over and over again.

But if you look at how she's like reacting to him in the pool, she's just kind of like...

When I let Phoebe save my life, you know,

like when I'm like, oh, and I have to do all everything.

And she's not even touching him for most of it.

Yeah.

He is standing in the pool and she is not.

If anything, he is saving her in this scene.

But he, but, but he has to pretend to be drowning.

So she's standing now and he's flopping around like not standing for no reason.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is the comedy that we get in this movie.

Yes.

One might argue it is the peak comedy of the movie, but now easily.

Now it's time to get serious.

We're going to cut over to who we will learn is Jessica's parents, and they are fighting about bills because this is a Christian movie, and that is one of the two things parents are allowed to do in a Christian movie.

And so, I get to just play the whole movie, right?

No, no, no, no, no, no, we can't.

I'm not allowed.

Okay, fine.

Yeah.

We have to talk about this is at a certain point.

We get a copyright.

This is such a specific moment in time, and probably in like Christian cinema, too, because they, one of the things that they argue about, like, grocery bills, okay, but then there's an argument about her going over their cell phone limits because she talks too much.

yeah so good she uses too many minutes because she talks too much yeah and then her her argument is well it's our cell phone so it could have easily been you yeah it's like what could it just have easily isn't it whoever talked on it like it doesn't also yeah they share a cell phone in 2010 yeah a single cell phone yeah and i so right my note though was like okay so That's her parents.

They're fighting.

They're awful.

It sounds Jessica's parents, by the way.

The key to being the only good kid in town then is having the worst bullshit parents possible that yell at each other, then it sounds like, right?

She's the only good kid in town.

Apparently.

That's what I'm to gather.

Well, okay.

So this movie will occasionally have these parents talk about Jesus, which is what I think we're supposed to think is the reason that Jessica is good.

So right now,

and not for a while, right?

Jessica, it's just being poor might be the reason that Jessica is good as far as this movie is concerned.

So now we're cutting over to the elves again.

they're just

chatting i mean truly it never matters oh okay they do have a funny moment where he can't fly a kite or she can't fly a kite and and they're scoring for the scene that is related to nora trying to fly this kite and can't fly this kite as the little girl is saying we have no money to the elf so can uh sorry 2144.

i have to you guys i have 2144.

let's hear it who will give you some kind of silly notion like that

It's just no adult has ever asked me that before.

It's a Santa question.

Lots of people besides Santa asked that question.

What?

What?

Whoa.

You're weird.

What's your name?

Elwood.

I'm Jessica.

That's it.

He just looks off.

And then.

Hardly anyone's parents are working out since the factory closed.

I'm going from nowhere.

So.

so he didn't ask you do you want to know what the movie's about

because hardly anyone

we're to believe that all of these people worked in a factory a single factory in the factory the factory yeah the mom and dad that were dressed as like just fucking office job workers they both worked in the factory together the factory they don't

have money now because of that and so everyone was laid off and so now all the parents are freaking out about money and stressed and fighting.

And so the elves' response to that is just do Christmas.

Yes.

So again, I have to be clear.

So a couple of things.

One, all the clips you're listening to, it's not like the Smiths sat down and fucking Ableton or Reaper or whatever insane program Thomas used and cut together those lines.

That's the audio of the movie.

Now it sounds like we did some kind of techno remix of the lines of the films, but people are just shouting random words.

No line is ever connected to any other line in the film.

Nope.

Yeah.

So again, as was just said, because I do need to clarify this is the case, she explains that her parents are fighting.

They're having trouble paying their bills.

And Elwood's suggestion is that they celebrate Christmas.

Yep.

That's going to solve it.

Yeah.

And the little girl says, like,

How do we celebrate Christmas?

We're low on money.

Isn't celebrating a holiday too much money?

And he just says, you can make something instead of buying it.

And I wrote in my notes, out of what, Mr.

Elf?

Aquaman.

And this is again where she says, Okay, she's going to try and do it.

We get a quick message from Santa here at the end.

Yeah, Santa Carlson, Tucker Carlson

calls, and he's gotten to the bottom of it.

And we should, yes, yeah, we should.

This is important.

Reveal,

we have pinpointed the cause

The day before the nice numbers began to drop

all of the world leaders signed an agreement that significantly restricted the authority parents have over their own children

Okay,

okay,

yeah, yeah, that's what we're so that that implies by the way and like you said it's the best unsaid rant like Westworld's that that implies that your average kid can't go a single day without a beating without zero days without just instant yada before they just the day before he says.

Yeah, and it was the fact that they knew they wouldn't even take the non-beatings, it was just the knowledge that beatings weren't coming that they're done that did it.

All right, well, the words parental authority are downright foreboding.

So, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back in a minute with even more summertime Christmas.

Oh, man, I hope my wife likes this car.

No, Lydia, like way tougher.

That was tough.

Hey, Smiths, what are you doing?

Oh, hey, Eli.

Me and Lydia are buying a new car soon, and she's practicing intimidating the car salesman.

Knuckle sandwich?

Last time, you can't offer a knuckle sandwich.

Knuckle sandwich.

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What's car gurus?

Really, Lydia, two points in a row?

I bore your children.

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All right, Eli, thanks.

Guess I won't need my licking knife after all.

That is a cake server.

It has a sharp edge.

Got it?

All right.

Breakfast is at seven, and right here is your room.

Oh, sorry, Miss B, but we'll need separate rooms.

Yes, please.

Oh, I see.

Married to other people, are you?

I understand.

Your secret is safe with me.

No, I've never met this man before.

Oh,

a stranger, is he?

But you leave the door unlocked, and in the middle of the night, he's not going to be able to do that.

No, not that.

Just two people who do not know each other.

And we would like separate rooms, please.

Fine.

You want me to take the St.

Andrew's cross out of your rooms?

Yeah, you can leave it.

I mean, yes.

And we're back.

When we left off, not hitting kids turned them instantly evil.

So now it's time for us to check in on the little girl trying to cheer her parents up with some Christmas.

Wait, I also just realized, does that mean this girl's getting the shit beat out of her then?

It must, right?

It implies that she is getting beaten, or at least has the threat of being beaten.

Yeah, that's true.

It could just be the ever omnipresent threat of beatings.

Yeah.

This is such a dark.

This guy should kill himself again.

Again,

I told you we'd win you over, podcast listener.

I told you we'd win you over.

But yeah, she has decorated the living room and oh gosh, isn't that cute?

I mean, to be fair, it is kind of cute.

It is very cute.

It's very cute.

This is very Phoebe.

Like Phoebe would have done this.

It is very Phoebe, yeah.

So now dad gets home and mom and the little girl have set up the Christmas tree and she made her dad some picture frame.

Now that I think about it, the only reason that I behave well is because Phoebe beats me constantly.

So

now that I think that's true.

Yeah.

The only reason you did this podcast, I had to tip Phoebe to beat you into your sound studio and watch this movie.

There's a line.

There's a line somewhere as the dad's coming home about you're looking like really gloomy.

And I was like, well, no one has jobs.

Why wouldn't people be gloomy?

They're poor.

Yeah, I don't know.

It just seemed so divorced from reality.

Yeah, the factory closed.

The factory is no longer in operation.

So folks are, you know, the job factory.

So now folks are downright glum.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, the elves are walking around chatting some more.

And we're getting the elves' like nice to meet you back chat, but it's fictional and boring.

It's like, I have a cousin who lives in Ireland.

Oh, do they?

Yeah, she guards gold.

Oh, like a leprechaun.

Cool.

This also, for whatever reason, this scene is filmed on like a home video camera

instead of like an actual like, you know, film camera.

Yeah.

Well, you see, it's the second unit.

Yeah.

I was like, did they not get permission to actually shoot at this location or something?

And they snuck in?

I don't know, but it's noticeably very different from every other scene.

And it's bad.

The sound sounds bad.

Just, you know, my little critiques there on technique.

We're also going to get the start of a sequence, which is, again, mind you, this little girl, the one good girl in town, because apparently her parents have fascistic, iron-fisted control over her or something.

And she will proceed to just be everywhere these elves are

unsupervised.

They're at a carousel.

She's just like, hey, and hops onto a moving carousel.

Yeah.

And it's like, all right, see you later.

And then you'll see her come up.

They go to like a fucking nuclear power plant.

She's like in there.

She comes wading out of the radioactive pool.

Yeah, exactly.

She's the only good child.

Emerges from the elephant's foot.

No, what Jessica serves, what the good little Jessica serves is she transitions from their small talk.

You, podcast listener, have already heard how awkward and stilted the audio of this movie is.

So usually what happens, and we haven't played it for you, but usually what happens to end a scene is they stop talking.

There is a 11-second pause, and then Jessica fucking rides up on a unicycle and is like, it's time to go to the ice cream factory.

Oh my God.

I don't know if it already happened happened or if I'll, I'll keep an eye out for it, but there was one note I had where I was like, they just bailed out of that scene.

Like literally, the camera just cut out of it because they couldn't, they were like mid-word.

And they're like, we can't do this anymore.

Couldn't figure it out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But Jessica's there to tell them that the cheering her parents up with Christmas worked.

And so now two things are true.

One, she's going to try and convince all the other children to do summertime Christmas.

And two, her parents want them to come to dinner.

And honestly, I would have loved to over, of all the conversations we see in this movie.

The one we did not see is the one she's like, I met two strange adults.

Yeah, don't worry, I encouraged them to fuck.

I saved one of their lives because he wouldn't stand up in a pool.

I told them you were poor.

They told me to do Christmas.

And mom and dad's response to that was, bring them to our house for a meal.

We would also like to encourage them to fuck each other.

Exactly.

Yeah, and she never tells them where she lives.

They just have figured it out by the next scene.

No one tells anyone anything.

I don't even remember that she told the parents about them, really.

Oh, not on camera.

Yeah, no.

They want to meet you.

And I'm like, who wants to meet?

Just fucking.

She assures us that scene happened, but we have no evidence that it did.

So she's going to go check on the bad kids.

And again, the bad kids aren't being hit.

Oh, my God.

So they are sitting around a playground moping.

Yeah.

Yep.

So what you're saying is another unsupervised child visit to a place that we don't even know where she's just wandering.

Yep.

Wandering the town.

Yeah.

Just wandering the plot of the movie.

She found all the delinquents.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But her idea is that all the children should get together and put on a Christmas pageant.

Eli.

Did you feel that one girl, her name is Sarah, that she was like such a theater kid or wanted so badly?

We all know who'd win.

That sounds dumb.

100%.

Like just the entire time, the whole movie, I was just watching Sarah.

I was like, ooh,

what's she going to serve now?

Yeah.

Sarah's mom got down on her knee right before every take Sarah was in.

And she was like, there's no small part, Sarah.

Just small actors.

And now Sarah's a podcaster.

Keep going for it until they tell you to dial it back.

And they never told her to dial it back.

They never told her to dial it back.

And they were so Sarah came with her lines memorized.

They were like, wait, you don't need Andrew to yell your lines at you from the boat with that cinder block before you go.

She's going to make.

make, I know that Jessica's in the running for the Marvel Witch or whatever the fuck it is that that

psychotic person wrote on the IMTB before they took their own lives.

That really is, that really is the best ultimate like community theater thing that they do is like give them too much until they tell you to dial it back.

And as you say, no one ever says dial it back because it's so uncomfortable.

She's like, all right.

You'll get the over actor and they're like, well, I'll just keep going until the director tells me.

But meanwhile, the director either doesn't know what the fuck they're doing or is so uncomfortable in this interaction that you just get a crazy person in the

show.

I like to think because we have established here in our lore, in our canon, that Andrew took his own life.

And I like to think that Andrew just, he was in that part of suicide where you're just like, yeah, no, sure, that was fine.

No, no.

Yeah.

So they decide they're going to do this Christmas pageant, or rather, Jessica decides that they're going to do this Christmas pageant.

The kids are so bored, they're like, fine, whatever.

And they'll do it anyway.

And then someone's like, well, are we going to go perform it now?

And Jessica says, we won't be ready for an audience for quite a while.

And when she said that, I was like, oh, was that a note during the filming of this movie?

This is such a Phoebe, though.

This is so Phoebe.

The only problem with this is it was actually really believable because this is our child.

She would put together the whole thing.

She would have to be in charge.

By the end, she would have hit everyone involved, probably.

It's all coming together.

All right.

So now the elves show up for dinner and the house is decorated for Christmas.

They do this stupid crosshands handshake thing.

Okay, oh, do you want to play it?

Yes, because it starts with just, I wrote everything is cringe in this because it starts with the dad going to try and close the door, but Elwood already closed it.

I don't know.

Yeah, yeah, 36-22.

There's only one

Lydia.

Before I allow you to play this audio for our audience, I have to ask you one question.

Yes.

Is this an awkwardness you can hear, or are we just going to hear boom, boom, boom?

Only one way to find out, baby.

All right, let's do it.

Let's pull.

And the dad is always waiting at the door when they come in every single day.

100% of the time.

Hi, come in.

She walks back and gets into her place, the little girl.

Yeah.

This is my dad, Nick, my mom, Amy, and this is Elwood and Nora.

It's a pleasure to meet you.

This is where they do the cross-hands handshake.

Yeah.

This is for you.

This is what we had to watch.

We had to watch two hours of this, everyone.

I guess I'll open it right now.

Okay, this is never explained, and it's so important to me.

Yes.

Oh,

wow.

Is it a

glass eggplant?

Wow.

Okay.

Okay.

There are so many questions.

One, does this imply that Elwood is is always walking around with a glass eggplant just in case?

Two, did nobody associated with this movie understand the dildo implications?

Yeah.

I'm trying to think.

In 2010, was the eggplant emoji a thing yet?

Yeah.

Was it?

I don't, maybe.

That's a lot of people.

A lot of emojis in 2010.

Yeah.

Someone answered.

Definitely.

It works so well as an image because their direction as elves is to be smiling like idiots the whole time.

Yes.

And also that just might be them as actors.

I don't know.

And so what we have is this dude smiling like an idiot, handing this very MILFy lady a glass eggplant.

And I just, I love the idea that like this guy's actually secretly involved.

Like this actor is like the creepiest fucking creep.

You know, he's like, he's just in on it.

Yeah, he's just like playing jokes on these Christians.

That would be the best.

Honestly, when she opens it up and said a glass eggplant, his next line could have been, well, aren't you going to put it inside you?

Like that's, that's the vibe that this line has.

Now, I know what you're thinking, podcast listener.

You're thinking, wow, I miss Noah and Heath, and me too.

But what you're also thinking is, Eli, this is crazy, but is it a Christian movie?

Well,

it's here at dinner that we're going to get a heaping helping of some Christianity.

Not only that, we're going to get the Lord.

This is an ambitious film.

This is an ambitious project because they're trying to finally reconcile the Santa Ness of it all and the Jesus

of it all.

And the Christ-ness of it all.

And it's so fucking funny to me because the stars of this movie are the elves.

Like they're the ones who are the main characters.

And yet they don't know about Jesus.

They don't know about God.

They know nothing about Jesus.

And this Jesus-y family that we're establishing is the one good family.

Like they have the one good little girl.

They refuse.

They don't allow the daughter to know anything about Santa.

Yeah.

Eagle-eyed viewers, we'll see if anyone listening actually wants to watch this movie.

The dad is wearing a shirt that says Believer on it, by the way, in like dark MAGA font.

So, like, it's very gothic and stuff.

But notably, like, they don't talk about Jesus until this very moment.

Until this scene.

So, they bow their heads to do grace.

The elves are like, what are you doing?

And they're like, we're giving thanks to God.

And the elves say, who?

Yeah.

The stars of your Christian movie.

There are so many questions

implied by this.

Okay.

So that means that there are magical elves working for Santa to deliver presents on Christmas.

This has been their existence.

They are hundreds of years old, and it has never come up that they are doing this to celebrate the birth of Christ.

They never like, what's this holiday that we are is our whole lives?

They think that they are immortal creatures of the North Pole delivering presents around the world for secular reasons.

They just, you know, once a year.

No wonder they suggested doing Christmas twice a year.

They want more work.

Doesn't that make it feel that like okay now god's obviously not real then because yeah they're the that's what i'm trying to say like part of their

main characters of our movie yeah which is a religious movie and they're like who's geez what yeah and they've been around a hell of a lot longer than these freaking humans right they are like 400 years hundreds of years yes and they work for santa yeah work for saint nicholas if anyone knows that christ was king it would be saint nicholas that's so weird the questions that were swirling in my mind yes the the lore of this world is that christ and god do not exist that's just common myth and the elves haven't heard it no no the age-old hundreds of years old elves who work exclusively on this christian holiday do not know about it do not know about christmas yeah also the the boy elf wearing like the most christian high schooler outfit ever board shorts and an american eagle polo like that is such

100 yeah he's got a he's got a fucking promise ring.

Remember that kid that won a billion dollars from CNN because the guy got in his face in the protest?

Yeah.

It's that

Sandaman or something.

It's that kid.

It's basically that kid.

Hey, I bet everything he's said and done since then has been super chill, right?

He's been really cool.

He's really gone on to prove that he was a good kid with a good heart.

Yeah, probably.

All right.

Anyways, they're going to take her out for ice cream tomorrow.

And you know what happens when we say something, we have to talk about it in the next scene.

So the next morning, elwood heads to the car rental place to rent a car i believe this scene is comic in intention but i could not begin to tell you what the joke is so bad i don't know if i can be here for this scene like it is so uncomfortable i'm embarrassed that this scene happened like i'm embarrassed on behalf of these people and that's saying something his role by the way you guys is titled rental expert

rental expert instead of like i don't know he says joe's auto sales is the thing Yeah.

None of it makes any sense.

Also, I would like to take a minute for whoever did the set dressing for this because there are pennant banners like the pennant flags for kids' birthday parties.

That's what is hung up in this car rental place.

And it says NASCAR all over it.

It's like a kid's birthday party.

Yeah.

You know how sometimes you rent a NASCAR when you're going to rent a car?

So again, I think what they're going for here is that this is like a fast-talking rental salesman, but nobody in this movie is fast talking right so it's just sort of like would you like a large car girls like large cars i'm not interested in girls okay my next line is still about girls however now

i would have skipped over the scene i would have cut it you would have never heard about it at all podcasts except we're gonna play the whole thing

except for one moment which i believe is the salesman being 100% okay with sex trafficking of children.

Here's what happens.

He goes, so you're taking your lady somewhere special?

And Elwood's like, we're going for ice cream.

And he's like, oh, if you get her a bigger car, she'll want a bigger diamond.

And he says, we're taking a little girl with us.

The smile disappears from the salesman's face.

He goes, oh, it's like that, is it?

And you're going to want

this car right here.

Yes.

I think he's about to show him a car with a secret panel where you can hide the Epstein Island children.

Yeah, yeah.

This one's a soundproof trunk here.

Yeah.

It's so weird.

Is that why he asks if he has any luggage?

Yeah.

And he says that asking about luggage is a standard question you ask when you're renting a car to somebody.

Are you going to bring any cheese pizza with you?

Yeah.

I was trying to think of the like the what was the furniture one they did?

Oh, Wayfair.

Yeah.

We ordered some stuff off Wayfair.

Oh, no, I got you.

I got you.

So now we cut to Elwood swerving down the road, or as I call it, driving.

Not even you drive like that.

No, he looks so stupid.

Look, they don't know how to drive because, quote, it doesn't have the little thing in the middle of the road, like the fucking monorail or whatever.

I don't know what the hell he's talking about.

Yeah.

And so he just swerves back and forth.

By the way, not him, as Lydia points out, the stunt driver.

Yeah.

It's a 50-year-old adult mall.

Yeah, he's a Russian man.

And they just swerve around like, you know, if I haven't watched any racing forever, but I do remember in NASCAR, I think they try to warm up their tires or something by swerving in the beginning of the race back and forth.

It's like that.

And he's like, oh, it's so hard to drive, but you don't

swerve around back and forth

endlessly when you can't drive.

That's harder than not doing that.

You don't serpentine naturally when driving a car.

It's also very mild because it's fucking dad's Honda Civic, right?

So they were like, okay, how do we show he's a bad driver?

And he was like, well, don't fuck up my goddamn tires.

And they were like, okay, we'll just, we'll swerve mildly back and forth and do a five-point turn instead of a three-point turn.

He's like, damn.

Yeah, I love that because the comedy is he doesn't know how to drive, but then he executes a perfect nine-point turn that's like harder than just not going to.

Yeah.

So then they, they go on an ice cream factory tour.

Now we're watching an episode of Blippy.

We're literally just watching an episode of Blippy.

Two dear old dads.

Yeah.

What happened is that they just got the money.

from this ice cream factory to include their entire ice cream factory tour in the movie, right?

Oh, yeah, definitely.

And I just have to point out that these parents, who are the only good parents, just, they witnessed how insane these fucking children who are posing as adults are.

And then they're like, you want to take our little girl for a spin in your car that you don't know how to drive over to the ice cream factory in the middle of the day forever?

Take our kid for ice cream, strangers we just met.

It's like they don't have jobs and their plan is to get the insurance money when their daughter's murdered.

Totally.

That's like what it reads.

Like, yeah, take, oh, what's that?

The brakes don't work.

That's all right.

The rental expert asks Elwood about any luggage, but he never asks him for his license.

And it's just insane to me.

He sure doesn't ask about his luggage, but not if he can drive.

So they go on their ice cream tour.

I want to talk about this because this scene is really important to me because it's a real psychic fugue state moment.

They're eating ice cream, and then we get a Jessica eye view of the movie.

Yeah, I love it.

And a lens falls over Jessica's eye that reveals Elwood and Nora dressed

as Dutch people.

He's literally in Laterhosen.

I don't know why.

It's like, my note was through the power of ice cream, she can see their true forms, which is them, but wearing slightly different clothes.

Yes, them dressed as ice cream.

That's exactly what I thought is that through the power of ice cream, you are able to see through the illusion magic of elves that they look identical, except they are dressed for Oktoberfest.

Yep, 100%.

And then they drive her home.

And they're holding presents for some reason.

Also, Nora is getting more scarves for some reason.

We didn't mention this at all.

She's wearing a scarf in every single episode.

And then, you know, we'll later complain about how hot it is.

But she's, you know, part of this ice cream tour is that she's going to buy.

several more scarves and just layering them on top of herself.

Well, she's got to find something to do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You Got to buy scarves when you can't fuck.

So now it's time to cut over to the children being naughty.

This was Lydia's best worst, the back and forthing of the toy and the gentle walking of the teddy bear.

Yes, yes.

It's as though they're in the background of a Street Fighter movie.

You know, Street Fighter game where they're in the background, someone's arm would just go up and down forever, like the Street Fighter 2 for SNES, you know?

Yeah.

And so the elves find out, like, well, I guess we find out, I didn't know this at all, that they could do magic with their little ball thingies.

And so the elves shine their magic on the kids to try and make them children to make them be nice.

And it only is temporary.

So then the next thing that the elves do is they just shout, kids, be nice to each other, stop being mean.

And then they sit down and give up.

Like, that's the best they can do.

And then they quit.

Yeah.

And they're literally like, well, what do you want to do?

All right.

I'll see you later.

And she says, she says,

literally, they can't do it.

They're like, let's try overriding their free will.

So So they do that for a minute.

And then they're like, well, and then the line is, quote, you want to do something fun, just the two of us?

And she says, I'd rather just go back to my room.

Yep.

Okay.

Cool.

Now it's time for this movie to get fucking weird.

So weird.

Yeah.

It hasn't been weird yet, everybody.

Okay.

Here's what we cut to.

Really brace your fucking asses, people.

Because I promise whenever, go ahead, pause the podcast and write down the buck wildest shit you think could happen next to this movie.

Yeah, we watch Jessica dressed in a French mime costume, watching the two of them dance in a lit-up gazebo.

Norwood and Elwa are dancing in a lit up gazebo.

Elwood and Nora take it, are dancing in a lit up gazebo.

Then he pulls his magic ball out of his pocket, sucks Nora into it,

and walks off into the night.

Now,

do I know what the fuck just happened?

Absolutely not, but I'm going to guess because it's my job.

Yes.

I think

Elwood created a hologram with his magic ball.

That's my prediction, too.

Danced with it.

The ELF devices also include the capability for incredibly realistic VR porn, and I think that's great.

Touchable, sexual holograms, and Jessica's just watching.

Yeah.

She just happened to be watching.

The little girl is just watching.

But also a hologram that like can't dance either.

Like it was just step, step, step, step.

Oh, yeah.

No, this is step, step, step.

Yeah, he has to manually program it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is a middle school ballroom dancing class, if anything.

Yeah.

So fucking weird out of nowhere.

Yeah.

But also the effort.

I'm sorry, the effort that went into the visual effects of this.

Like, it's so discordant, if that's the word,

what the movie is.

Like, this took, it's not that easy to do this in 2010, as I said.

It's not.

Not only that, you have to do this after you've seen the piece of shit movie you've made.

They can't make these effects ahead of time.

It'd be one thing if they roped in some person who doesn't know what's happening to make a bunch of effects, but this, that person, whoever's working on these effects, has to see the nothing.

Had the competence to make those effects and saw this movie and then put the one on top of the other.

Exactly.

Like if I took that job, if I were that contractor or whatever, that independent contractor, I'd be like, oh, you sent me something, but it's not a movie.

So damn.

If you send me the movie, I'll do it.

I'll do it, but I'm not going to do it on this footage.

I think this is your, like, a vacation footage or something.

Shout out to Shane Williams.

Shout out to Shane Williams, the digital effects credit on this movie.

I hope that he ended up being the Weta Workshop from Lord of the Rings, but now that's a real stuff.

He deserves good things.

Oh, well, I mean, he was an animator on Barney.

He was an animator for Jimmy Neutron Boy Genia.

Yeah, like it's actual work.

And an animator for Sausage Party.

Okay.

That's okay.

So Shane took a dirty turn.

He did.

He did.

I took work where he could get it.

Shane's on board.

All right.

Well, this movie just took a turn that I would be way more comfortable talking about if these elves were played by adults.

So let's give Act 3 the hard sell here.

Will the two elves played by literal children fuck?

Can he fuck that hologram?

If Santa has fuckable hologram technology, why did he never bring me that for Christmas?

Find out the answer to blissfully few of these questions when we return for the Santa Threatens the United Nations conclusions of summertime Christmas.

Because you're Jewish.

Yeah.

We all got it.

We all got the fucking Mahology.

You all got the fucking Mohology.

It's because you're Jewish.

Damn.

Don't be Jewish next time.

Hate being the Jew guy.

This is an ad by BetterHelp.

Okay, and how do we feel about the scene where Dumbo's mom reaches through the cage?

Like the bottom of the world fell out and I will never be happy again.

Nope.

Again, the answer is sad.

Right.

Sad.

Hey guys, what you doing?

You ready to finish the show?

Yeah, one second, Thomas.

Lydia is helping me have a normal amount of sad reaction to the tragic moments in movies.

So far, we are not doing great.

You're giving me really hard ones.

Gosh, Eli, it sounds like you might want to work on that with a therapist.

I'd love to, but who's got time to hunt down someone affordable and sane?

Well, why don't you try BetterHelp?

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Come on, I was going to be three for three.

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All right, guys, thanks.

I'll see you in the studio.

So did you try bing bong?

Oh, we didn't even get close to bing bong.

That's because you're not bing bong.

He's right.

You're not bing bong.

What are you doing, man?

Telling the truth?

Attention, attention.

This is Santa with an urgent communication to all of my elves.

Oh, it's Santa.

Let's hear what he has to say.

It has come to my attention that a full 70% of boys and girls are now on the naughty list.

If this continues, I will cease to distribute toys immediately.

Okay, but wouldn't that punish the good kids?

If these children do not get on track, there will be no Christmas for anybody, ever again.

I just don't see how they're connected.

Maybe he's gonna say...

Also, Santa has some important thoughts on women's swimming he'd like to share.

You know what?

I'm just gonna meet the thread.

Yeah, probably for the best.

Pizza cake.

And we're back.

When we left off,

Elwood had a fuckable hologram with Nora.

So that really happened?

I didn't dream that.

No.

Okay.

No.

And Jessica is affirming that for us because she now runs to her mom and dad to tell them that the movie is now about helping Elwood fuck Nora.

And the plan is to make Christmas cookies for everybody in town.

And that,

how is that going to make Elwood fuck Nora?

Do you guys know how that was supposed to make Elwood fuck Nora?

No, I don't know.

The mom also, they do this thing where the mom is like, I knew all along.

But she starts off with like what you think you heard to Jessica, like gaslighting her.

And then now she wants to set up Nora and Elwood, also, and is like super excited about it.

I, I don't, yeah, I don't understand how that happened.

And yeah, now they're going to make cookies not just for Elwood, but for 91 families is what we learn.

Yeah.

So yeah, they're making Christmas cookies.

And I just have to point out this one line because obviously what I was writing in my notes at this point was, hey, didn't you just have a fight about grocery prices?

Yeah.

How can you afford to make cookies for 91 families?

Well, don't worry.

They let us know that the grocery store donated the supplies.

Again, a scene that I would have loved to have seen because they're in the grocery store and they're, well, if you're making cookies for everybody, just take the flour and eggs and sugar and sprinkles.

It's not like we work at the factory.

Our jobs are great.

So, meanwhile, Elwood and Dad are out doing some fishing.

Yeah, and we see at the very beginning of the scene, there's a random police officer

issuing a ticket to a car.

We don't know why.

This is where we get more of Eli's best worst.

Because

the whole time, first off, they're unloading the truck.

And I wish

I've stared at this because they're like, let's go take the boat out and go fishing.

Oh, yeah.

You know, that's normally like you tow a boat behind your truck, you know.

and it's a little fishing boat.

Instead, they have a trailer that has a kid's paddle boat in it.

Yes.

It's like a kayak.

No, it's not.

It's like a weird flat paddleboat thing.

Yeah, it's a duckboat.

It's a duckboat.

A duckboat?

What's a duckboat?

Like a paddleboat-y thing, yeah.

So we're to understand that the dad and this elf guy are going to get in a little paddleboat and fish.

Yeah.

Yep.

So anyway, in that parking lot thing is a police officer riding a ticket.

I guess it's a weird place for that to happen.

Yeah.

At the place, at the park, at the lake.

I don't know.

And then

the whole point of him being there, as I was wondering, why is this police officer riding a ticket?

Yeah.

Is so that we can have a mom.

I'm going to play the sounds I can hear it, but I'll probably have to describe it.

The mom's walking.

Police officer's there.

Mom's got two kids.

One kid takes a toy from the other kid.

She grabs the kid.

Yep.

What?

So one sibling takes the toy from the other kid.

She grabs the sibling's arm, lifts her hand to hit him.

Yeah.

And then looks up at the police officer.

And then doesn't.

And then doesn't.

And then doesn't.

Yeah.

I did not catch this on my first watch.

I initially was like, why is the police officer, like, what is he going to do if a kid takes a lollipop?

I thought she was like reacting to that.

And then I re-watched it.

I was like, oh, no, she's going to like open hand, like, slap him.

She literally has her hand up to get the shit out of this kid.

To slap.

her child in the face.

Yeah.

To slap her child.

And then we see her.

Thomas doesn't mention this she makes like a

people these days

like oh i can't hit my kid in the face because the government right the government yes

and you're right it's a lollipop sorry importantly then she doesn't take the lollipop so the thinking of this film is that well what are you going to do now that brother just has both lollipops and the mom goes and comforts the other kid like yeah i'm powerless the only way i had previous was to hit the fuck out of him i have no other chance Now I have nothing.

I have no other.

He just owns our house now.

That kid, your brother owns everything.

It's such a beautiful insight into the mind of people who hit their kids that they think the two options are hitting your kids or literally no ability

to interfere with what your children do.

That's funny.

God, it's so funny.

I laughed out loud.

That's funny, hon.

I don't know.

Because I laughed out loud when we were watching this and I didn't realize you didn't notice that.

I couldn't tell.

Yeah.

Yeah.

the way she looks too is so oh man yeah

if it weren't for that fucking police officer kid I would kill you

yeah yeah okay so now that night we're gonna cut to Jessica talking to dad because she has something very serious to talk to him about she says she says that she has a big secret now let me say as a parent that this dad could not give less of a fuck same note and this was the one i said i had to play so we got we got to hear it all right right, let's hear it.

Let's hear it.

Are you busy?

Just trying to get some things done.

What's up?

I need some advice.

I know a secret about someone.

A big secret.

And I'm not for sure what I should do.

As a parent, you stop what you're doing.

Yeah.

You stop everything.

You stop and look at your kids and you stop

everything and you begin to load a gun.

You calmly and quietly.

And you try to be as chill as possible.

You're like, okay, I don't want to spook the kid.

Maybe that's what's going on.

Maybe the dad is just a really great actor and he's just pretending to be chill.

Not it, but yes, it was nice of you to say.

Okay, what does he do?

What kind of a secret?

Good, bad, serious.

There's a certain person,

actually, two people

who are lying about themselves.

Well, that's a serious accusation.

Couldn't be more bored.

Couldn't be more than a bad person.

Have you been following Elwood and Nora?

I can't keep it a secret anymore.

It's too big.

They're elves.

Santa's elves.

What makes you say that?

Sarcastic openness.

Good for him.

I could keep playing it, but basically, he's so chill this entire time.

Does not a care in the world.

I'm glad that we played that there because it's actually like the first opportunity I had to listen to the lines because there is a fly in that scene that I could not stop.

The fly is doing a song and dance fucking Michigan J-Frog number in that scene.

Well, the fly is actually concerned.

Are you worried about your daughter?

What's the secret?

Now, let me hit you with this take, Smiths.

Let me hit you with this.

Yes.

Because we never see a scene where dad is otherwise convinced that they are elves.

So are we supposed to believe that Jessica won him over in this conversation?

And she was like, they're elves.

And he was like, fuck it.

They're elves.

Yeah, yeah.

No, because it comes up later and they do the thing where she's like pointing out all their lies.

And he's like, wow, they did lie.

Cause they, cause there was a scene that was so funny.

We didn't have time to talk about it, but it was a brilliant comedy where the, where the guy was telling the story that was different than the girl was telling about where they're from.

And he said,

Canada, and she said, Alaska or some bullshit.

And so like, they must be elves.

Yeah,

it's the only other possibility.

Yeah.

So, we watch Elwood and Nora do a little paddleboating shenanigans.

They're in the paddle boat that it must have been the dad and him in fishing in.

And I wish I could have seen that.

They are in the other paddle boat.

And also, probably the boat Andrew died next to on, which honestly,

I was going to skip over this.

I've written in my notes to skip over the paddleboating scene, except it is bizarre foreshadowing considering that Andrew died.

That and the drowning in the pool scene.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All of that.

It was a sign, guys.

He was trying to tell us.

So you're probably wondering, how are these L's going to save the jobs?

Don't worry.

It's the stupidest possible thing you could imagine.

So Elwood and Nora show up to the house and Elwood has a bowl of cranberries.

Raspberries.

Yeah.

They look like raspberries to me.

And he's like, here, eat one of these.

And everyone says it tastes like everyone says a different thing more terrifying than the last the first description of this taste is it tastes like peppermint or cinnamon which i don't know if you know this are two different things

but then the mom says it tastes like grandma's house i don't know what the we're talking about But I guess the berries tastes like Christmas.

You want them to be like, I'm having a stroke.

So he gives them this thing.

And dad's first question, which I will think about till the day I die, he eats this berry that tastes like Christmas brought to him by what he now believes to be elves.

And his question is,

where'd you get this bowl from?

Well, the elf tries to say, oh, they were actually, he does a little magic thing.

And he's like, he shoots his magic ball.

And we're to believe that he's like sprouting up the berry plant in dad's flower bed or something outside.

And so he's like, it was actually yours.

And he's like, well, then where'd you get the bowl?

Yeah.

And he says, okay, admit it.

You guys are elves.

And they immediately say yes.

Yeah.

Admit it, you guys.

Yeah.

We get like a Peter and the wolf scoring here, like for that conversation, too, when they're like kind of going after each other and Elwood's trying to play it cool.

And it's very,

everything about the scoring is so disjointed in this movie.

It's insane.

It's very insane.

It's also non-stop.

Like, again, the link.

I actually tried to look up who did the music, but his name was too generic.

I didn't have time to actually track it.

Apple Loops.

Yeah.

Well, but it's like, it's, this wasn't AI.

Like, if it were now, I'd say, wow, they got an AI engine to write every second of the music because it's like the work,

it's thought through it all the whole time.

It's going.

Yeah.

Why would you do this?

These people must have had a shitload of money, right?

Did they just pay a bunch of people to?

Yeah, I mean, well, Bridgestone Multimedia Group, which we saw at the beginning, I think they probably gave some money and they handled all the distribution.

So, all the distribution, yeah, on Amazon.

And Bridgestone does a bunch of our Christian movies.

Yeah, and Bridgetone is always like, if I ever get a recommendation and then I see that Bridgestone made it, I feel more secure that it belongs on our show.

There's some fucking crazy in there.

I'm going to see it.

Right.

So now we cut to dinner.

Mom needs to announce that she also knows they're elves.

She always knew from the beginning.

She always knew.

Always knew they were elves.

And this is why.

How does she know?

Quote, I'm a woman, a wife, and a mother.

So this raises a very important question.

Lydia, can you tell if people are elves?

I think I should go test it out.

Maybe I can like go into the world.

Go find two children and ask them to fuck each other.

I will say, I have always really liked the Santa Claus growing up.

So, you know, elves played a big part in my life.

Maybe they were elves.

I don't know.

But at dinner, this is where the elves announce their plan that he has been.

Elwood has made this Christmas berry so that they can start a Christmas berry factory.

Industry.

An industry.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He says one of the lines I wrote down was, I know the town can use a new industry.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's it.

That is it.

The money problems of the town will be solved for the rest of the movie by this Christmas berry he has introduced.

And then that starts, word starts to spread throughout the town.

Another company is coming into town.

Yeah.

And then they're like, yeah, I saw the paperwork.

It's like the company coming into town paperwork that they file?

This scene, the scene in the grocery store where the owner of the Airbnb is confirming to everybody that the company is coming into town was like we, the audience, were skeptical that they could start the new factory.

And they were like, we should have a scene where they file an LLC so people know.

This, this line from this lady that was maybe the worst actor of the bunch, which is, you know, I know it's a challenge, but she was so bad.

She said, the likelihood of another company coming to our town was negligible.

What?

Insane.

Insane.

So now we cut over to Jessica, little Jessica.

Hey, you remember when this movie was about putting on a a Christmas play?

Well, it's about that again.

Yeah.

Because this scene cannot introduce a conflict that it doesn't immediately resolve.

So she goes to check in on the kids and the kids are just kind of fucking hanging.

Yeah.

Right.

But the problem is, the issue is they want to make their Christmas play about Santa.

Not suck.

Yeah.

They're like, wait, we thought this wasn't going to be bullshit.

And she's like, no, it's fucking religion, baby.

Yeah.

And so they revolt and leave her there.

Which is smart.

Like, I agree with them.

I loved all of the kids revolt and leave, except for Lexi.

Yeah.

Lexi wearing these angel wings.

She's going to stand by Jessica.

And then once all the kids leave, then she's like, we can't do this alone.

And she leaves.

It's the only accidentally funny thing.

Like, it's actually good comedy.

Like, if they, if they had planned it, but I'm sure it was just an accident.

But if they had planned, it's actually really funny because she's like, oh, it's sweet.

This one little girl is going to stand with her and sleep with her.

Yeah, we do.

And then they give not even a full second, not even a full one Mississippi

where she goes, we can't do it ourselves.

I didn't want to be grouped in with the people who are leaving because of the Jesus stuff, but I am leaving.

I am leaving.

I'm just leaving because this is dumb.

It's not, I'm not anti-Jesus.

So church lady, who's church lady?

Who fucking

moved?

She just entered the movie.

But there's a lady who lives in this church.

She's not the deacon or the priest.

Because this is like midnight, too.

We're to believe this is in the middle of the night, right?

Fucking 4 a.m.

This church lady wanders in and and she suggests that Jessica does the Christmas play all by herself.

And for one glorious second, I thought we were going to get to watch Jessica's one woman

Christmas pageant.

A la Sarah Snook, picture of the rain gray.

Exactly.

Yeah, multimedia experience.

Well, I also was once again like, God damn it, this is Phoebe.

She's going to be like, fine, I'll do the whole play myself.

I'm like, oh my God, just learn to play with other kids.

Please learn to let other kids control some aspect of something.

but quitting the christmas play wasn't enough because that night the bad kids are there oh my god to do mischief in the church they're there to play castle yeah yeah they say um they want to play castle at the park is getting old but this looks like a real castle

is legitimately the line

yeah so this is when it's midnight sorry i up this is the this is the midnight scene yeah so now it's time for the kids to be bad in the church and obviously look this is a lovely building right one of the saddest things about religion is that it has a bunch of pretty buildings and it fucking wastes them on playing pretend.

So they let these kids run around, but they very obviously can't be too bad.

Like they don't show the kids knocking over the crucifix.

The crucifix has just been laid down, right?

The crucifix has been laid down.

They're allowed to knock over like one poster and it cuts away immediately afterward.

You can tell the kids got yelled at.

And the rest of the stuff they're allowed to knock down is the cardboard box city that she made for herself.

Yes, exactly.

That's it.

They're not allowed to do anything else.

So they're mischieving, but then one of the kids falls down and breaks his hands.

Breaks his leg on the cross.

On the cross.

Yeah.

On the cross.

Yeah.

And this church lady is so chill about it.

She does not care.

Like she talks to him.

She starts preaching at him.

Yes.

Like while his leg is broken.

But also he's insane, too.

Yeah.

Like he's absolutely insane.

Dude, the I don't want any of your water thing is fucking nuts.

It's like a torture scene.

She tries to give him some water while they're waiting for the ambulance.

And he slaps it out of her hand.

Yeah.

It's like James Bond saying, scratch the other one a little bit to the right.

Yeah, he's like,

he's about to be interrogated.

And he's like,

get this out of my face, lady.

And to be frank, okay, actually, I kind of get it.

You know, if she's about to proselytize.

Yeah.

And she is.

And she is to a kid whose leg is broken.

And, but I love it because the kid actor forgets his leg is broken like immediately and just starts talking.

Like he starts like fold, like tenting his hands and like interesting yeah no they begin to they have an oxford style debate about whether or not you can hit your kids but the thrust of church ladies argument here is that only jesus and god get to make the rules

not spoken out loud re-hitting your kids

so yeah she explains that he asks if he's in trouble and she says yes yeah she says yes you are already in trouble not just for tonight but for every bad thing you've ever done reminder this is a kid with an actively broken leg and this is an adult comforting him comforting him while the ambulance gets there oh yeah you think this pain is bad just wait you little wait till the fire is hell yeah you don't have

more broken legs than you have legs you little shit

but he's convinced he's convinced and and and when he feels better he's gonna come back and clean yeah well yeah because she says the church has to be clean by saturday night and he says what happened saturday night And it was like an hour ago.

No, an hour ago, you were part of the play.

You know what's happening Saturday night.

You had a call time Saturday night.

Your name's still on the call.

Sarah remembered the call time

because she was in it to win it.

Her drama program was actually really professional, guys.

You have no idea.

It's like Broadway.

So the next morning, Jessica sadly walks through the church to see the kids made, but then they show up and they want to be in the play again.

yeah, yeah.

I like the reveal as the kids are coming back in because then we see his name is Ben, by the way, um, with the broken leg, bad kid.

So I called him broken leg Ben.

And we see him standing at the door, and he walks up.

I thought she was gonna like embrace him.

It felt like Jessica was gonna run into his arms and give him a big hug the way that they shot that.

But she just comes up and kind of asks him what happened.

And he says that he fell, but somebody helped him back up.

Yeah, and then it

focuses on

the stained glass window behind them with Jesus.

God is

so fucking funny.

Hands up to Christ.

Yes, it does.

Yeah.

Oh,

yeah.

So good.

So obviously, all these children's hearts have been changed.

And you know, who's heard that news?

Santa Claus.

Yeah.

Tucker Carlson Santa.

So he has a big announcement that all the kids in this one town are being good.

And that has swayed the numbers back?

Or he just he knows the path to making kids good again?

Yeah, that would be negligible, wouldn't it?

I mean, you're talking about the whole world numbers.

Yeah.

He might as well say, well, this town is what the movie's about.

So my money is game.

But he's still making the Tucker Carlson face.

He's like still mad about it.

Like, I'm looking at it right now.

What?

Is it because they all rotted their brains?

All these people, like, is that how they are?

They just make that face all the time?

Must be.

No fucking shot.

Now, I know what you're thinking.

Hey, Eli, we've gotten to see bad acting, but do we get to see bad acting seption in this movie?

Yes.

Yes, we do.

So now we're going to watch a bad Christmas pageant inside a bad movie.

And here's the thing.

In a weird way, it comes out the other end, and these little kids are better than the movie.

Oh, significantly.

I think it's a weird, like, you know, in Mario where you go out one side of the screen, you come back in the other side of the screen kind of thing.

Like, it's some weird bizarro thing where it's like, if you do a play within a play of a really sh in a really shitty movie, then you turn good.

Yes.

It's just math.

It's possible.

I'd like to take, you know, just, I know I've been singing Sarah's praises throughout this entire time.

Who the fuck is Sarah?

Oh, please.

She's the theater kid.

She's the theater kid.

And she get up.

She does a wonderful performance of Mary in this where the angel comes through to tell her that she's pregnant and she says, but I can't have a baby.

I'm a kid.

And then the angel says, with God, all things are possible.

Love that.

Love that message.

Oh, okay.

no that's disgusting and i am not sure if that was just for the movie or if that's the actual story because it is the actual story like it is the actual story

essentially

she's 13 in modern times she was 11 in you know old testament times

yeah okay and then my my other favorite part of them doing this pageant is that they made the inn the bed and breakfast lady's place and

and he's like wait you went to other places before you came to mine?

Yeah.

He was like, you can stay in the barn.

And next time, if you come here first, I'll let you have a bed.

Yep.

Who got, who was in charge of this part of the movie?

Because they should have done the rest of it.

A fictional business within this movie got a plug within the play within the movie.

Yep.

They're swooshing doodly-doos.

We're going deep.

The doodly schloosher.

Okay, so the play is over.

Everybody's eating Christmas berry pie.

And then a random old man is there.

So that's Santa, Thomas.

I know, but okay, we know it's Santa, but imagine what this is to the adults in the church.

Yeah.

No, hey, does anyone know this old man

who is sitting there talking to children?

Asking kids to sit on his lap.

Anyone know who that is?

Did anyone hire this guy?

Wouldn't you immediately want to know that?

Yeah.

Nope.

They're just fine with it.

So, so they wonder what Nora and L would go over and they're like, Santa, is that you?

And he's like, yeah.

This is where we get a close-up of Santa for the first time because he's kind of been in the distance while he was doing his message and this is where we saw Santa's fake tan for the first time which can I say really bummed me out like supremely bummed me out But this is where Santa I think is delivering what is supposed to be the message of this movie Which is that Christmas magic can't change hearts only God can do that.

Yeah, yeah, and he talks like oh, yeah, no, me and God, we go way back and I if I were the elves I'd be like, this is the first time I'm

you've never mentioned it to me.

I'm 400 years old.

I've worked for you for this long.

And there's some being in charge of the universe, and I didn't even know about it.

It's because Santa hates the elves and he wants to damn them to hell for all eternity.

It's possible they don't have souls and he doesn't want to have to

be.

They're soulless, like

you guys are like, like cats and dogs.

The lights just go out.

Sorry, Kyle.

I didn't want to tell you about this.

You keep, whenever I tell them, they keep killing themselves.

Something about infinity in the void.

The sooner it starts, the better.

No, go take that VR point and go.

So, so now, again, this movie just gets weirder and weirder.

Santa's like, Jessica, you were good the whole movie.

Oh, my God.

Do you have a special gift you'd like to ask for?

And she requests that Elwood and Nora be her slaves.

Pretty much.

Cool, cool.

Like, kidnap them every single summer.

Yeah.

Well, no, no, he counteroffers with that.

She's like, I want them to live here and with me.

Oh, yes.

And he's like, no, I need them, but they'll come here for every vacation.

And you watch Dora and Nell will be like, oh, cool.

Ohio for every vacation for what might be an infinite lifespan.

And then

I know we did this before, but this is even more so.

You cannot predict.

Listener, pause.

Oh my God.

Pause the taste.

So crazy.

You cannot predict what is going to happen.

I still can't.

And I saw it.

I don't, I actually don't even know what to say.

Does anyone want to take a crack at describing what we're about to watch?

Here's what I think you can, Eli.

Okay.

Okay.

So Santa's like, I have a meeting to go to.

And they're like, that's weird.

He magic balls a door in the church, opens up, and he's in a boardroom.

We see there's a single man in a suit there.

The doors slam behind Santa.

Jesus?

At that point, I was like, I thought it was God, too.

I also thought it was God.

yeah it's weirder it's weirder than if god and santa are about to have business meeting he takes off his santa robes underneath he's wearing a three-piece suit

and he says they only sent one of you and the guy's like yeah i'm a congressman for alaska and he goes uh

Back when I used to request a meeting, all the world leaders would show up.

He's not even a world leader.

He's a congressman from Alaska.

He's had junior representatives too.

I love how their idea of how government works.

It's so funny to me.

Yeah.

Give your people this message.

This is Santa speaking.

Give your people this message.

Santa doesn't want to hear about children's rights.

Because if this keeps up, again, this keeps up.

He is referring to not hitting children being enforced by law.

The children will be naughty forever.

And then he pauses and gives him a meaningful look and says, Do you understand what I'm saying?

That's Santa threatening to do terrorism.

I think so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think so.

He also does his hologram graph thing to demonstrate the naughty list change over time.

Fucking graphics.

And then he says, and he makes it extend to the end of time.

And it's just flat.

Like, there's only so bad that I guess you can get.

The naughty kids will outnumber the nice kids forever in the same proportion.

In the same proportion.

yeah yeah okay unless we're allowed to start hitting them again yeah so tell your constituents of Alaska

tell your constituents of Alaska that Santa wants you to hit your kids go tell the Congress that Santa told you in a business boardroom to hit your kids And can I say, would that be the weirdest thing a Republican said in 2025?

Not by a long shot.

Not by a long shot.

So the weird speeches will continue.

We now cut over to dad.

He's giving a closing speech that is real close to saying Jews are lizard people, right?

I just want to read a couple of quotes from this speech.

In spite of economic hardship and a global agenda,

the world told you to be bad.

We'll light a Christmas tree on June 25th.

for as long as everyone in this room is alive is his actual words in the movie, and then they all begin singing Silent Night.

Yeah, yep.

Also, why does he get to decide that they're gonna do that every year?

He's not the mayor,

he's not a city council person.

He doesn't have a job, he doesn't even have a job, not even the church lady, yeah, you work at the berry factory.

Hey, isn't that that unemployed fucking ex-factory worker

who wants us to have a tree industry?

Yeah, yeah,

no, he's a berry.

A berry, berry mogul, yeah.

He's a berry mogul.

A berry baron.

And then the final shot of the movie, we watch young Jessica transform into old Jessica.

Yeah.

And Elwood and Nora are there, the same age, looking like tweens.

The church is the exact same building.

Everything is the exact same.

It's an amazing practical effect.

They got an old lady to be the little girl.

Everything else is identical to what it was, but it's 50 years later.

50 years later.

And that's the end of the movie.

Well, we have to leave the church.

And the way that we do that is we zoom out from Google Earth.

Yes.

Is what's happening.

And like, yeah, that was.

We click out from June from Google Earth.

It's ambitious to be like 50 years later and then zoom out.

And they didn't put any flying cars or anything.

You know, they should have done something.

You could have had it be exactly the same.

A nuclear wasteland outside.

Yeah, that would have been great.

It would have been open for it.

Mutants, you know?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

It's a fallout crossover film.

I'm into it.

Mad Max out there, you know, but they're still lighting this one tree.

Exactly.

All right.

Well, Thomas, Lydia, thank you for joining me for this madness.

Otherwise, I truly would have believed I hallucinated this film.

If our listeners want to hear more from you, where can they go?

Well, we talked a bit about it at the top of the show.

We've been doing a lot of stuff over on Gavel Gavel together, covering the lively Belldoni stuff.

People can check us out on Where There's Woke.

We've been doing a lot of fun stuff there.

We're working on a really, really good series, but it's extensive.

And so it's taking us kind of a long time to get it out, but so excited for that.

Hoping in the next few weeks.

And Thomas over on OA.

And if people want to hear me on Dear Old Dad's not be a dad, they can for the last two episodes.

That's right.

The last two episodes, we had a special Lydia Tacular.

Yeah.

So you can check all that out or check the show notes where we'll have links to all those fine radio programs.

Thomas, Lydia, thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you.

And while that does it for our review of Summertime Christmas, that's not going to do it for the episode just yet because we still need to lure you into our blackout van for next week.

So tell us, me?

What's the neck?

I don't know.

I don't fucking know.

I got it.

I got it.

I got it.

I got it.

The politics behind the gay agenda.

This film does not promote slander or hate speech, but brings attention to a controversial topic, regardless of gender, race, age, or sexual preference.

Is it about freedom of choice or political power?

We'll be watching Gay Rights Special Rights.

Oh, man.

Couldn't we do that?

Cancel this.

We didn't undo this one.

We'll do that.

Undo, undo.

So with that to look forward to, we'll bring episode 512 to a merciful close.

Thanks again to Lydia and Thomas for joining us.

Huge thanks to all our Patreon donors who helped make the show go.

If you'd like to count yourself among their ranks, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash godawful and thereby earn early access to an ad-free version of every single episode.

You can also help us a ton by leaving a five-star review and by sharing the show on all your various social media platforms.

And if you enjoyed this show, be sure to check out our sibling shows, The Scathing Atheist Citation Needed, Dnd D Minus, and The Skepticrat, wherever your podcasts live.

If you have questions, comments, or cinematic suggestions, you can email godawfulmovies at gmail.com.

Tim Robertson takes care of our social media.

Our theme song was written and performed by Ryan Slotnick of Evil Giraffes on Mars.

All other music was written and performed by our audio engineer, Morgan Clark, or the person person or AI who made Summertime Christmas and was used with permission.

Thanks again for giving us a chunk of your life this week for Thomas and Lydia Smith.

I'm Eli Bosnik, promising to work hard to earn another truck next week.

Until then, we'll leave you with the breakfast club clothes.

Sarah realizes her dream to make it on Broadway, moves to New York, and beats out Leah Michelle, her funny girl.

Dang, can you imagine?

Oh, that would be amazing.

60-year-old Jessica is still trying to make the two L's fuck.

Elwood and Nora burned in hell forever because Santa didn't tell his slaves about Jesus.

This content is can-credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm at their hotline at 617-249-4255 or on their website at creatoraccountability network.org.

The Proceeding Podcast was a production of Puzzle and the Thunderstorm LLC, Copyright 2025, all rights reserved.

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