Merry Christmas Part 4!!

 As we prepare to ring in a new year, we have one final Christmas movie.  In Christmas Evil, Harry Stadling is obsessed with Christmas and Santa.  So obsessed that Harry keeps his own naughty and nice lists of the neighborhood kids, works in a toy factory and is making his own Santa suit.  Things spiral out of control on Christmas Eve when Harry sets out to be Santa and delivers toys that he steals.  His initially altruistic night devolves into chaos as he is rejected and sets out to settle scores.  Is there any stopping Harry?  Read the blog and then watch Christmas Evil and hold onto the holiday season a little longer.

Jon: Why did they leave bread and butter out for Santa?  Is that like a prison Santa tradition? 

Sandy:  Is that what that was? I thought it was whole sandwich fixins. Also a strange snack for Santa.

Alison: Mmmmm carbs. 

Jon: If you caught your mom with Santa’s face in her crotch, would it cause you to grow up to be a murderous Santa?  Even if you knew it was actually your dad? 

Sandy:  Yes.

Alison: I would definitely grow up altered in some way. 

Jon: Brandon Maggart is Fiona Apple’s father.  What other musician’s father would you like to see cast as a murderous Santa? 

Sandy:  Mozart. Wait… do they have to be alive? 

Alison: Taylor Swift.

Jon: Did you ever realize how easily you can change the words to Walking in a Winter Wonderland to Walking in Our Mother’s Underwear? 

Sandy:  No, but I am singing it in my head now. 

Alison: Yes, because you sing it to me every Christmas haha. 

Jon: Should “negative body hygiene” get you on the naughty list or is Harry just a creepy, peeping Tom obsessing over every little flaw Moss Garcia has? 

Sandy:  Yoooooo… seriously… that whole spying on kids and running back to his big ass books to write about their behaviors thing made me super uncomfortable. 

Alison: I remember there was a hygiene section on my uncle’s report card.  So I think it's part of an old-timey ranking system for worthiness. 

Jon: Is this toy company the least joyful work environment ever? Sandy:  I feel like divorce mediator would be worse.

Alison: It's such a sad work environment.  Want that weird carousel alarm clock for Christmas Jon? 

Sandy:  I speak on behalf of all Jons when I say yes.

Jon: Nope that’s a hard pass for this Jon and all Jons.  As a Jon, I have the authority to speak on our behalf.

Alison: Does his apartment look like this year round? 

Sandy:  Right?! And yes, presumably.

Jon: Absolutely just like ours looks like Halloween year round.

Alison: How freaking creepy is it to keep a log of all the kids in the neighborhood? 

Sandy:  E X A C T L Y.

Jon: I don’t see anyone else in that neighborhood attempting to hold that little shit Moss Garcia accountable for his hygiene and illicit magazine collection. 

Alison: How shitty and unfun do those toys on the assembly line look? 

Sandy:  I mean… when was this movie made? It doesn’t matter, they looked pretty assy.

Jon: Those are the kind of toys that your distant relative who only comes to Christmas once a decade gets for you when you’re 14.

Alison: How freaking creepy is it to spy on your little brother and his family? 

Sandy:  It’s somehow marginally less creepy than spying on the neighborhood kids.

Jon: Someone has to keep an eye on the kids while the parents are banging on the couch.

Alison: Is Moss Garcia's mom the lady from Home Improvement? 

Sandy:  I don’t even remember what she looked like, but maybe?

Jon: For as much as we saw her she might as well have been Wilson.

Alison: Wait a second… .this motherfucker is SMELTING? 

Sandy:  Haha, a man of many talents.

Jon: If you’re going to be Santa you have to learn some things.  Smelting is probably one.

Sandy: Anyone else barf in their mouth a little bit when they saw how much food was getting caught in that fucking gross dangly mustache? Alison: Ugh yes. 

Jon: He’s saving it for later.  That’s why you have that mustache.

Sandy: Can we go caroling and just growl-hum the songs at people?

Alison: I think Fiona learned how to sing from her dad. And yes, yes we can. 

Jon: Sure but not at Christmas time.  I want to do it in the middle of April.

Sandy: What’s with the mud face/handprints on the side of the house???

Alison: Wondering the same! Not sure what that was about but it was definitely on brand for creepiness. 

Jon: He’s marking the houses of the naughty and that Moss Garcia is the naughtiest and his hygiene sucks.

Sandy: I was getting some serious Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker vibes from this movie. I’d be curious to see if it was an inspiration to him at all while he was working on that movie. Anyone else catch that feeling?

Alison: Fiona's dad was super great at being a super creep, just like Joaquin . Or Joaquin is like Bart, rather. 

Jon: I did not pick up on that but Joaquin would have been wise to study this role.

Sandy: What’s with all of these people not making sure the kids are in bed before fucking around?!

Alison: It was the 70s. It was weird. 80s? Whatever, it was weird. 

Jon: Not having kids, I don’t know the difficulties of trying to fool around with kids in the house.  Melatonin maybe?

Sandy: Where is Harry’s sister?? Wasn’t there a sister?

Alison: Was there? In the beginning? I don't remember. Maybe she decided she'd had enough creepy brother time at some point and just left. 

Jon: There was not.  Just the 2 boys.

Lessons

Leave being Santa to the real Santa.  It’s too much for a regular guy to handle.

Don’t trick co-workers into covering shifts for you so you can go drinking.

Merry Christmas Part 3!

 Christmas is lurking just around the corner now.  Hopefully, your shopping is done but I know many of you haven’t even started yet.  Well maybe you should put it off a little longer and join us in watching a new holiday classic Christmas Bloody Christmas.  What happens when you cross The Terminator with Santa?  You get RoboSanta+, a robotic Santa built with military technology.  Nothing could possibly go wrong with that right?  Wrong, otherwise there wouldn’t be a movie.  RoboSanta+’s programming malfunctions and Santa goes on a nearly unstoppable killing spree.  Can Santa be stopped?  Should we even develop RoboSantas?  Read on and then watch Christmas Bloody Christmas.  

Questions

Jon: Would you buy a RoboSanta+ to replace the degenerate mall Santas? 

SANDY:  Fuck no! Degenerate mall Santas are a very important part of the experience of Christmas.

Alison: I'd hang on to the degenerate mall Santas. Apparently they're safer. 

Jon: Drink with Robbie or out with the Tinder tool Emmit Eyeliner? SANDY:  Robbie! Robbie!

Alison: Neither! Go home and take a bubble bath. 

Jon: Do all bands make shitty records immediately after they cut their hair? 

SANDY:  I have done zero research on this. 

Alison: That's a fascinating theory I'd like to examine more closely. 

Jon: I think it’s largely true.  I’ll launch an official investigation.  How intimidating is an evil robotic Santa? 

SANDY: Evil? More like programmed to kill. But murderous yes. And terrifying.

Alison: Very. He/it seems incredibly tall. 

Jon: Is Pet Sematary 2 better than the first one because Traci Lords has 3 songs on the soundtrack?  Do you know who Traci Lords is? SANDY:  Did you know that Traci Lords has been involved in lots of other movies that weren’t porn also? 

Alison: I have no opinion on this. 

Jon: Sure.  She was in Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre for one.  Could you kiss someone who thinks Book of Shadows is good? SANDY:  I am unfamiliar with Book of Shadows, but I’m sure I have kissed multiple people with terrible taste. That’s not a self deprecating thing, I mean like in music and movies and books and whatnot.

Alison: What the fuck is Book of Shadows? 

Jon: Book of Shadows is Blair Witch 2.

Alison: How gross is the guy she's thinking of banging? 

SANDY:  Again, I’ve definitely banged dudes who were way more gross than that. Fuck, I’ve lived with a couple of them.

Jon: It’s not so much that he’s gross.  He’s just a gigantic tool.

Alison: If you were a murderous robo santa wouldn't you also like to murder these people? 

SANDY:  Awww, they were just trying to get their holiday fuck on.

Jon: No, I actually really like Tori and Robbie.

Alison: Is it just me or do you kinda want to kill these people? SANDY:  I feel a little bit like this is very much the same question as the previous one and I’m just going to guess you didn’t like them?

Jon: It’s just you.

Alison: Seriously want them dead. 

SANDY: Hahaha

Jon: That’s absolute madness.

Alison: Would you want to spend your Xmas Eve like this? I mean, pre-murder Santa? 

SANDY:  Eh. I could imagine something like that in my holidays of the future.

Jon: Hmmm… drinking, smoking, cool music, nachos and fucking?  Sign me up.

Alison: Do you like these people better less when they're talking and more when they're being chased by a murderous robo santa? SANDY: I know you like them more when they’re dead. I wasn’t bothered by them at all for some reason. I kind of liked Robbie especially, but Tori too. Lots of alliteration in their names… Tori Tooms and Robbie Reynolds… very satisfying to my nerdy brain.

Jon: Rooted for them the whole movie.  They kind of had the ideal 20 something lifestyle.

Alison: Lemmy is God. 

SANDY:  I will not argue.

Jon: Long live Lemmy.

Sandy: With a vocabulary of over 90,000 words, shouldn’t that muthafukka know what “no” and screams usually mean? 

Alison: hahahha excellent point. 

Jon: They used military technology so in that language no and screaming are merely incitements to cause further harm.

Sandy:  Some of my favorite quotes from the movie were “I just want his little Christmas Eve shlong” and “I got a stinky dick”. Were there any other lines that stuck in your minds? 

Alison: The dialogue was so natural I just zoned out and hated how chatty they were until they started dying. 

Jon: The dialogue was great even without a wise-cracking villain.

Sandy: Soooo… the Santas were just military weapons that they “reprogrammed”, slapped a red suit on and sent out to toy stores across the world? 

Alison: Apparently! What a neat idea. 

Jon: It’s probably no worse than child-abducting elves.

Sandy: How did he chop that dude’s whole body in half with just a regular axe? I’m calling bullshit on that. As if everything else were believable… 

Alison: Admit it, you've never tried so you don't REALLY know if it works that way or not. 

Jon: He’s got military tech so he’s super strong too.  If I got a good swing, I could do that.

Sandy: Okay, so… these cops are exceptionally terrible at their jobs and WHERE THE FUCK ARE ALL OF THE OTHER PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN THIS TOWN? 

Alison: In bed, sleeping, like normal people. 

Jon: It’s late at night.  The kids are dreaming of sugar plums or some shit and the adults are all fucking.

***************SPOILERS***************************** 

Sandy: Oh no! Not Robbie! He was so good at oral! Also, how hard is it going to be for her to flick her bean without the main bean flicking fingers? 

Alison: I was so upset for her that she didn't escape unharmed. Although before I wanted her dead. 

Jon: She’ll just have to improvise.  She has another hand.  Losing Robbie will be much harder to overcome.

Sandy: Terminator meets The Santa Clause? (I don’t remember what happens in The Santa Clause.) 

Alison: Definitely Terminator Santa. 

Jon: I’d be down for a Terminator meets A Christmas Story movie.  Or RoboSanta+ and It’s a Wonderful LIfe.

Lessons

We do not need robotic Santas.

Skip the Tinder guy in the goofy hat who sings goofy songs that everyone calls Emmit Eyeliner.  Find a Robbie instead.

Merry Christmas Part 2!!!

 It’s still December so we’re still watching Christmas movies.  This time, we continued with Rare Exports. A group of foreign drillers has come to northern Finland near the Russian border to excavate a mountain.  There they hope to find not gold or silver but something far more sinister.  Meanwhile, Pietari, his father Rauno and the other locals are faced with multiple crises.  The reindeer are all dead, the children of the town are vanishing and they’ve impaled a strange man in their wolf pit.  Are these disasters related to the mountain excavation?  Can Pietari rally the town and save it from bankruptcy and death?  Is that too many old man weiners?  Watch Rare Exports and read on to find out.

Questions

Jon: How much does the head of the drillers remind you of Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark?  Do you expect his head to melt? SANDY:  Yes!! I couldn’t place who he seemed to remind me of, but I have a lot of notes specifically talking about his wildly creepy face. 

Alison: I was wondering who he reminded me of! Thank you! 

Jon: How awesome are Santa Claus mythologies that have him as more of a malevolent being?  Could you imagine American kids processing a Santa that would boil them for being naughty? SANDY:  Most of the older fairy tales and whatnot have some pretty dark origins. We’re always fucking with that to make the stories more palatable for the masses. In the original version of Cinderella, when one of her sisters tries to force the glass slipper to fit her, it fills with blood from her foot. 

Alison: Yes, I love the darker mythology. Love the Christmas cat, Krampus, all of that. 

Jon: Is “I’m too busy to answer stupid questions” your new go to line? 

SANDY:  I’d say there are no stupid questions, but I worked retail for years, so… 

Alison: seems a bit rude. I don't know that I'd use it. 

Jon: Does a bear trap in the chimney warrant grounding on Christmas? 

SANDY:  I’d say so, at the very least. 

Alison: It's pretty genius actually. Harsh but genius. 

Jon: How bad is it to catch a man in your wolf pit? 

SANDY:  I mean… the wolf pit WAS on their property. 

Alison: Mortally wounded vagabond in your wolf pit? Pretty bad. 

Jon: Is gingerbread the only way to celebrate tying up an old naked guy? 

SANDY:  I think gingerbread was just literally all they had. I’d much rather celebrate with weed though personally. 

Alison: It looked super tasty.  How awesome is core sampling of the earth? 

SANDY:  It’s fascinating but also feels like something we shouldn’t be fucking around with. It’s down there doing “down there stuff” for a reason.

Jon: I’m too busy to answer stupid questions but if I weren’t I would say this is the rare case where I’d find it interesting.

Alison: What's with European kids and mullets? 

SANDY:  This movie is from 13 years ago, but mullets have also made a comeback in the USA more recently, much to my chagrin at first. I’ve seen some I can get down with though, moreso when they’re worn kind of ironically.

Jon: What’s with Americans and their disdain for the ape drape?  There are a few contests that pay decent money to the winners and the contestants have named their mullets too. 

Alison: Why is Pietari in his underwear outside in the snow? SANDY:  Because there’s no mom around?

Jon: Because he’s a little badass from northern Finland who doesn’t feel the cold.

Alison: Isn't it cool to see how different people's lives are in Lapland? 

SANDY:  Interesting, yes. Cool? Only if you’re talking about the temperature… OHHHHH!!! Seriously though, that life seems like a fucking horror show to me. No offense to the people actually living lives like that, it’s just too harsh for my spoiled ass.

Jon: I am not a little badass like Pietari and the cold really bothers me so that life does not look even remotely cool to me.

Alison: How bad do you feel for poor dad? Dude is holding so much tension. 

SANDY:  He probably hasn’t fucked a lady since 9 months before that kid was born.

Jon: I mean his kid is putting bear traps in the chimney, running around in his underwear, is scared of the family business and just lost the source of his income.  I think sex is the least of his worries.

Alison: They thought the best plan was to butcher the dude who fell in their wolf pit? 

SANDY:  In all fairness, they THOUGHT he was dead. Seems like it would have been easier to drag him up the mountain and drop him back into that much bigger pit though…

Jon: They have to eat.  Also chopping up the body makes it much easier to get it up that mountain.

Alison: Is it festive to enjoy homemade gingerbread during a hostage situation? 

SANDY:  I think so. It’s also probably smart to not be hungry while handling a hostage situation.

Jon: That’s the best time to enjoy homemade gingerbread.

SANDY: Hey, hi, hello… where the fuck are all of the women in this movie? It’s a total sausage fest. 

Alison: I didn't even notice! 

Jon: They’re all dead.

SANDY: Is anybody nice to this fucking kid? 

Alison: The people are about as harsh as the environment it seems. 

Jon: I think the dad is nice to him but there’s probably a high level of firmness that goes into child rearing in that climate.  

SANDY: Whoa, skinny old white Mike Tyson, get ahold of yourself! What would it take for you to bite or try to bite someone’s ear off? 

Alison: If someone hurt someone I love I'd bite their entire face off. 

Jon: If someone gets close enough, I’m biting them anywhere I can.

SANDY: Just to double check… they WERE going to cut him up BEFORE making sure he was actually dead, right? 

Alison: I think that was a lucky twitch. That dude was about to be cut up alive. 

Jon: They almost had to.  They had already committed multiple crimes so butchering a living person was only a small step.

SANDY: Would you actively on purpose bring your child closer to that fucking lunatic who had just bitten your buddy’s ear off and seemed awfully excited to see said child? 

Alison: No, but these Laplanders are tough motherfuckers and seem to not worry much about stuff like that. 

Jon: Gotta toughen that boy up somehow.

SANDY: This question is more specifically for Jon… Dear Jon, HOW COME YOU ALWAYS GET TO SEE YOUNG VOLUPTUOUS TITS AND ASS IN THESE MOVIES AND ALL I EVER GET ARE WEIRD OLD FLOPPY SHLONGS?! 

Alison: You don't appreciate the old floppy dongs?! Even by the hundreds?? 

Jon: I give you hundreds and hundreds of hairy canaries and you complain?  I could not find more flopping weiners in a movie.

Lessons

If someone takes the time to bury something that deep inside a mountain, don’t dig it up.

Be flexible.  If the reindeer you hunt and sell are killed off, adapt and find a new source of income.