#333. The Definitive Ten Best Christmas Movies
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Skipping the usual dudes-chatting banter, the trio dedicates this special episode to building a collaborative "definitive" ten-best Christmas movies list rather than a competitive draft. Sonny goes first with an eclectic slate anchored by Metropolitan (which he insists he rewatches every December) and Fat Man, plus Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Gremlins, Brazil, Eyes Wide Shut (disqualified on a technicality so he can keep bragging about his prop-replica crew jacket, which triggers a long digression about laminating the gift tag), The Ice Harvest, Batman Returns, and Elf. Mike counters with crowd-pleasers — The Muppet Christmas Carol, both Home Alone movies, A Christmas Story, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, White Christmas, The Holdovers, Four Christmases, Scrooged, Bad Santa, and Ernest Saves Christmas — while JVL, working from "revealed preferences," admits he really only rewatches four movies every year: It's a Wonderful Life, Noelle, A Christmas Prince, and The Princess Switch, sparking a long tangent on Jimmy Stewart's real-life war record and Donna Reed's career. The hosts then draft from each other's lists to assemble a final ten — Ernest Saves Christmas, Scrooged, The Muppet Christmas Carol, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Elf, Metropolitan, It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Prince, Noelle, and (added unilaterally at the end) Die Hard — with plenty of ribbing about Letterboxd habits, streaming-era commercial breaks, and the bloat of Christmas Vacation along the way. Sonny closes out immediately regretting the format he proposed and threatens a Festivus grievance episode next week.
From the show notes
That's not a still from Bad Santa , it's a live shot of Sonny looking at what he hath wrought.
Full transcript
Mike00:00:00Welcome to the Sub-Beacon podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me as always are my two co-hosts who say Die Hard is not a Christmas movie, but Eyes WideShut is curious. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com. Tell all your friends and family if they want to listen to the show, they've got to do it at some point. Sub-Beacon.com. New episodes every Friday. Join the conversation in the comments. Also, say hello to us on Instagram. Sub-Beacon.com. You know, we're going to dispense with all of the dudes chatting, sorry dudes chatting lovers, and all the other regular features of this fine program because we have a special Christmas episode of the Sub-Beacon to share with all of you out there. So we're going to be doing, it's not a draft, it's not a strict ranking, but we're going to give you the people a list of our 10 best or favorite or something like that Christmas movies.
Sonny00:01:13Definitive. The definitive 10 best list of all time of the Christmas movies.
Mike00:01:18Well, it's the Sub-Beacons list, right? I mean, because like, I should explain how we're going to do it. This is, I don't know if Sonny, you came up with this idea, but it's kind of brilliant. This is how it's going to work. We're going to give everybody our, each of our 10, our list of 10.
Sonny00:01:36We'll make 10 nominations.
Mike00:01:37Correct. A list of 10 nominations from each of us. And then we are each individually going to pick three movies, one from our own list and one from each of our two co-hosts list. That will go on the master list. And then we will choose a final 10th movie. Again, no order here. There's no, we're not, we're not. We're not ranking them, but a final 10th movie that we all agree on to be on this definitive list. Does that sound right, Sonny? Is that true to your vision for this?
Sonny00:02:09That is, yeah. I, uh, I decided in a fit of magnanimity, magnanimity, magnanimousness.
Mike00:02:17Easy for you to say.
Sonny00:02:20Uh, that I, we should, instead of, we, a lot of the times we have these competitive drafts. We do it, we were, you know, oh, who has the best, but that's not the reason for the season. It's not the spirit of the holiday. This is a collaborative effort. We are collaborating on the definitive list that is better than every other piece of shit list out there in the rest of the world. Fuck all the rest of those lists. All the rest of those lists are garbage put together by morons. This is the number one list. It's the only good list. That's right. That's right. And it's collaborative and it's nice. It's, it's just a nice thing that we're doing here.
Mike00:02:57Ho, ho, ho. We're giving back. Really? You know, and, and, and so many ways to you, the people. All right. Uh, so I thought we would start, uh, Sonny, do you want to kick us off here with, with your list of nominations? And I'm going to, I'm going to write these down. So I'm, I'm aware.
Sonny00:03:16Yeah, you should write, we should all write these. We should all keep a list.
JVL00:03:19Oh, I have pen and paper ready.
Sonny00:03:21I got, I got a list here. I got a list and you people are all going on it. Uh, all right. Uh, my, for my. My number one pick. Oh, wait, but. My number one nomination.
Mike00:03:33Okay. But we're not ranking these. We're not saying this is your number one movie or.
Sonny00:03:36No, no, no. I'm just saying my first, my first nomination, not my number one movie. This is not necessarily my number one Christmas movie, though. I have watched it each of the last five Christmases. I realized looking back at my letterbox.
JVL00:03:48Sonny, what are you wearing?
Sonny00:03:50We'll get to that. We'll get to that. We'll get to what I'm wearing. It's not, it's, it comes up, it comes up on the list.
Mike00:03:56Okay. All right.
Sonny00:03:56Um, my number one choice is. Metropolitan by, uh, by Whit Stillman, Whit Stillman's Metropolitan, which is a movie. It's a movie about a bunch of rich white people, middle-class, one middle-class white person, and then several other rich white people who just get together and talk during the Christmas season, the break in between the end of the, the, the winter or the end of the, you know, one semester in the beginning of the next, it's just a, it's just a bunch of, a bunch of preppies sitting around talking about preppy things like for your ISM and, and, uh, other such things. I got to say one of my favorite movies, uh, of all time. And also one of my favorite Christmas movies. Again, I watched all time. One of my favorite movies of all time. If I was taking a
JVL00:04:48list, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We gotta, we gotta stop this thing right here. If I was making a list of a hundred movies that I love, make a list of how many of a thousand movies this would be the top thousand top top 50. This would make your top 50. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's just, that's just false. JVL JVL. That is false. I've known you now for 20 years. This is not the reason. This is a movie you talk about once every four or five years.
Sonny00:05:23Incorrect. Go and look at my letterbox page and filter for this movie. I watch it every year. I didn't say that. I said between December 13th and 30th. All right. All right. Everybody,
Mike00:05:34everybody, everybody relax. Okay. JV, uh, Sonny continue. Metropolitan is number one. So that was,
Sonny00:05:39that was, that was, do we want to like rotate through or are we, no, no, no. Let's hear all
JVL00:05:44of your nominations. This is why there's no dudes chatting or box office. We're just straight
Sonny00:05:47through. We're just, we're just going straight through. Oh geez. Uh, okay. Let's give me a lot of, well, all right, fine. Um, all right. My number, my second choice, my second nomination is fat man, fat man. We, we discussed a fat man on this show, uh, when it was out, when it was first out. Uh, and it is, this is of course the movie in which Mel Gibson plays basically Santa Claus by way of Wolverine. Uh, and he is, he is hunted by Walton Goggins, who is a, a killer for hire who has come to take revenge on Santa at the behest of a rich boy who did not get the gift. He just got no, just got nothing. Didn't get it. Okay. Um, uh, I, I love this movie because it gets at a very, it gets at a key idea. And this, this is an idea that also weirdly shows up in red one, which is not a movie that made my list. And frankly, it's not a very good movie in general, but it's, it's this idea of Santa Claus as a man who was trapped and unable to actually improve the world. He is, he, he cannot, his, his gift, give his gift bribes are not enough to turn the world around and make the world a better place. The naughty list gets longer every year because people just don't care anymore. And there's something very poignant about watching Santa as a figure grapple with that grapple with his inability to really improve the state of humanity. Um, so yeah. All right. So
Mike00:07:22that's, uh, my second one. Real, real joyful, uh, by the way, to sit at, uh,
Sonny00:07:27his house and watch Christmas movies. You know, I made my, my wife watched this with me one year. She did not enjoy it. She was, she was like, this is too sad. This is not a good Christmas movie. And I was like, well, we have very different tastes. Number three, kiss, kiss, bang, bang, which, uh, I had to pick one Shane black movie. I wasn't sure which one to go with. Could have been iron man three could have been lethal weapon, the long kiss. Good night. Could have been the nice guys, but I went with kiss, kiss, bang, bang. Cause it's just got a great performance by Michelle Monahan. If you know what I'm saying? Um, all right. Number, uh, four on my list nightmare before Christmas. Now there's some debate, some debate is nightmare before Christmas, a Halloween movie, or is it a Christmas movie? And I want to be clear for the purposes of this here collaborative draft. I have dispensed with any such persnickety in this. I'm not going to argue about whether or not diehard is a Christmas movie or whatever. If it is broadly set in the Christmas season or if Santa plays a key role, it doesn't matter what time of year it came out. Whatever the, whatever you decide is a Christmas movie is a Christmas movie. You want to say, you want to tell me that star Trek, the undiscovered country is a Christmas movie because they spend one sequence of the film on that ice planet. And that's kind of like being in the North pole. Sure. I'll give it to you. Star Trek six Christmas movie for the purposes of this list. Uh, so I go with the nightmare before Christmas nightmare before Christmas is I love, I like, I just love this movie on a craft level. The, the stop motion animation. I can't get enough of it. I, it looks, it looks, uh, amazing on a good high def TV. It looks, the, the 4k stream that Disney has is really good. Uh, sometimes 4k streams, not that good. Disney's 4k stream of this movie is very good. Um, I don't know, man, I like this movie
Mike00:09:22a lot. It's one of the few musicals I really like, uh, quick point of order. I should say, uh, maybe we should have discussed this before we started. Um, in your, in what we accept as a Christmas movie, are we accepting any 30 minute TV specials? I'll, uh, Rudolph, the red nose reindeer, or, uh, it Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown, those types of things.
Sonny00:09:48Just asking for a spirit in, in my magnanimous. Absolutely not. In my mag, I've decided that yes, I will allow it. This is not Christmas content.
Mike00:10:01It's not Christmas. It's not, I, I didn't say, my favorite TikTok about Christmas is.
Sonny00:10:07I didn't say Christmas. I didn't say Christmas short form video content, Mike, but I'll allow it. I'll allow it because we are, we live in degenerate fallen times and you're, you're just, you're only as good as the system that raises you. And our system is very broken right now as Santa in fat man knows. Um, okay. So, uh, number, uh, my six, my sixth nomination, my sixth nomination.
JVL00:10:34Uh, hold on, hold on, hold on. I only count. I only kept four. So this would be number five for
Sonny00:10:39you. Uh, one, two, three. Oh yeah. My, my fifth nomination. I'm sorry. My fifth number. And I want to be clear. I, I had, I had another list and I crossed, uh, several of the titles out because they overlapped with Mike's list. I did. Mike sent his list to the group. JBL was like, screw you guys. You're going to get surprised by my list. And so I just went with, I, I just, I just crossed off what Mike had sent, uh, on my, so there, there were, uh, there were several movies on Mike's list that I would have picked here. Um, not necessarily, not strictly speaking in the fifth spot, but just, I would have picked on my list. Uh, number, number five, Gremlins, Gremlins. Now I have a Gremlins as a marginal Christmas movie. It is set during Christmas, but it doesn't, you don't, it doesn't have to be strictly speaking about Christmas, except except for one great sequence, which is where the, the teenage girl talks about how her dad died on Christmas, coming down the chimney, like Santa dad died, broke his neck, broke his neck in the chimney. Mom thought he'd run away. It turns out a week later, the smell started and that's how they found them. It's the, it's the most fantastic monologue I've ever heard in a This is, that's a nightmares, nightmare images from that. Could you imagine? I couldn't, we, we talk sometimes on this show about how kids in the eighties were tougher in the sense of like, they just saw things in movies that we would never, we would never, could you imagine the six day media storm that would happen if Disney put out a live action movie in which a girl talked about her dad dying, coming down the chimney to give them presents, on Christmas, it would be, it'd be weeks, weeks of takes. It would actually never get to that
Mike00:12:30point. It would never get to that point. Like it would be such a, like a PR sort of Disney would never allow that sort of thing to happen. So yeah, no, you're it. You're right. I don't know. You never know what Disney was there a lot of cocaine in the eighties and movie in the movie business.
Sonny00:12:44Does that explain some of the decisions? Sorry. Was there a lot of cocaine in the movie business in the 1980s? I don't know. That's a good question. I'm going to, I'm going to research that. No, number six, Brazil, Brazil, Brazil is, uh, Brazil is a totalitarian dystopian masterpiece about, uh, a, a, uh, society that has given itself over to, uh, to a bureaucratic overstate that destroys all of their wills to live and a media industrial complex that spends all of the terrorism. And it's set during Christmas. So it's a Christmas movie. Great sequence in this movie where, uh, the, the, uh, a man in a wheelchair dressed as Santa explains how to get to a secret room. Uh, so it's definitely a Christmas movie. Gifts are a key part of this. There's a very funny sequence actually in this movie where they're trying to figure out the correct, uh, the correct like desk toy to give an underling and a boss. And they like just give the same. It's very funny. Anyway, uh, Terry Gilliam's masterpiece Brazil, which brings me to number seven. And now I can explain why I'm wearing this jacket, why I'm wearing this jacket. You long time listeners of this show as far back as three or four weeks ago, we'll remember that I, in my, in my infinite deal making capability as a, as a master negotiator was able to procure an eyes wide shut crew jacket with a little, little card here from, from Tom and Nicole says, Hey, we wish you a merry Christmas with thanks Nicole and Tom. That's of course, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, my good friends from the movie eyes wide shut at the time they were married. They're not married anymore. You know, they, they had an unfortunate breakup. Um, but eyes wide shut is of course, Stanley Kubrick's master masterful Christmas movie. I'm not including this on the list just so I can do this bit and write this jacket off on my taxes. I'm just, I'm doing it. I'm doing it because I love eyes wide shut, which recently got the 4k treatment from criterion. I haven't, I haven't gotten that yet. I haven't picked that up. I'm going to at the next, uh, the next 50% off sale at criteria.com. So question,
JVL00:15:22yes. What is your plan? For the preservation of the tag is that is the most important part of this jacket. It's
Sonny00:15:33the most important part of the jacket and it's made of paper and it's just hanging out there right now. Like you could spray, you can laminate it. I think, I think what I'm going to, I, I'm trying to figure out the proper way to do this, but I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to, I'm going to get, I'm going to get like a little, I'm going to get like a little plastic card holding sleeve on the inside. It's not like it's laminated. It's not like it's laminated in. It's like you just like slide it in. Yeah. Like a, like a bag and board for a comic book. Exactly. Exactly. Like a bag and board for a comic book. And I feel like that's the proper way. Cause I could, cause then I can wear this ridiculously oversized, by the way, I got to stand up. Can you turn around? I'd like
JVL00:16:15to see the back of it. It's like, it doesn't say eyes wide shut anywhere. It says it right here. Oh, it's all black, black on black. Oh, it's red on black. It's red on black.
Sonny00:16:26What size is that? Is that an XXL? So, so when I, when I purchased it, it said no, no size tag on the jacket, which is true. There's no size tag on this, but it seems to be a large. Is that real leather? It's a fucking teamster. Large is what it is. It's a, it's a, you know, this is a, this is, this is what, this is what, uh, Mike Union, Mike D'Amico, you know, from, from the Bronx wears when he's got to do the lighting work on the Stanley
JVL00:16:56Brick. He's holding the boom mic. All right. Does the jacket itself have a tag in it giving
Sonny00:17:04us the brand of origin? Uh, it might. I, I'll, I'll effort that after. I don't want to, I
JVL00:17:09don't want to interrupt and, and how, what is the build quality on this jacket? What I'm trying to get at is did Tom and Nicole spend a couple hundred dollars each on these jackets or are these like $40 jackets? Um, closer to 40 than a hundred, I would say closer
Sonny00:17:25to 40 than a hundred. But you got it. You gotta remember, they probably bought like 500 of these things. There was like, you know, there you, you, you buy one for every member of the crew. I don't know. It's, I will say, I'll say the one thing about it is that it's, it's a very warm jacket. It's, it's got a
JVL00:17:40lot of, it's got a lot of plastic. That's why. Well, it's not, it's not, it's like wearing it. It's like wearing a hefty bag. Hefty bags are warm, you know, it's, it is, it does have
Sonny00:17:49this very, it's got this great inside pocket right here. Ooh, I like that. That's very nice. See, you got that. It's got like an inside pocket. I think that's where I can keep my gun. I guess. I don't
Mike00:18:02know. I don't know what else I would mask for the party. I was just saying, did it come with a mask? That's the real question. Uh, all right. All right. Eyes wide shut. So what's
Sonny00:18:11next? Number eight. I'm on number eight. Number eight, the ice harvest, the, uh, the Harold Ramis, the Harold Ramis, uh, directed ice harvest starring, uh, starring John Cusack and Randy Quaid and Billy Bob. It's like a noir. It's like a noir set on Christmas Eve. It's very dark. It's very dark. Lots of murders and, uh, cheating spouses and, and heartbreak in this movie. It's real. It's this, this is the one I'm going to show my wife this year since she didn't like fat man last year. All right. Number nine, number nine, Batman returns, Batman returns the, the best Batman movie ever set on Christmas. I don't know if there are any, I guess like is almost a Christmas movie. It takes place during winter. There's snow. Yeah. Hey, there's
Mike00:19:03snow. Batman and Robin has professor freeze. So by your logic, Mr. Freeze, Mr. Freeze,
Sonny00:19:09Mr. Dr. Freeze, whatever. He didn't, he didn't go to a fucking medical school. He doesn't have a PhD. Mike, it's not professor freeze. He doesn't run a department at freeze university.
Mike00:19:22Let's kick some ice. All right. Uh, that's not even a pun.
Sonny00:19:26It's not a pun is the thing. That's the worst. That's the worst line in that movie. He's got a lot of good ice puns in that movie, but that is not one of them because it's not really a, all right. And last but not least, of course, is JBL's favorite from the season elf elf elf, the Will Ferrell, Will Ferrell's elf JBL loves that one. Uh, that's it. That's
Mike00:19:51my list. That's all 10. You know, we really, we really led with the most, uh, the most popular
Sonny00:19:56list of the three of ours. This is why I was, this is why I was kind of, I was kind of worried about going just with me because I thought I would like, I would have a ridiculous answer every, every like third one. And you guys would have like white Christmas. This is, this is good. Miracle on 34th street or some shit. Sonny, this is good podcasting. Don't don't just, you know, I'm not, I'm not 100% sure. I've done a lot of podcasts. I've done a lot of podcasts today and this is like the third best podcast I've done. Maybe the fourth best podcast I've done today. Frankly, we're not even halfway through. Uh, one third of the one third down. All right. Is JBL going to go next or is Mike going to go next? I
JVL00:20:41think JBL should go next. I go last. Oh, JBL goes last. Okay. So I have preserved my, my
Mike00:20:48right to go last. All right. Okay. Uh, so, so JBL defers. It falls to me. It falls to
Sonny00:20:56me. Uh, of the show is, uh, take this jacket off. Hold on. Yeah, please. Yeah. It's you're
Mike00:21:01making me hot. Just looking at you in that. It's so big. It's let's see what, what's the brand on this? Uh, there's no tag. There's no size tag. I mean, it was probably, it was probably made by the, uh, by the Scientologist, uh, you know, slaves or something. What's
Sonny00:21:26that? inspected by C org member number 3,422. I don't know what that means.
JVL00:21:32There's a little note on the back of it. Scroll. This has helped me if this gets out. Um, all
Mike00:21:40right. Uh, so, okay. So, so I am starting my list with what I believe is, uh, it is the movie, the Christmas movie I look forward to watching to the most every year, uh, uh, to watching the most, uh, it is the most faithful adaptation of a plethora of adaptations of this original, uh, story. It is a Muppet Christmas Carol. It is a classic. I, I love the songs. I love, uh, the Muppets obviously are terrific. I love Gonzo and Rizzo as Charles Dickens and Rizzo, I guess, uh, telling the story, lifting lines directly from Dickens. Uh, and Michael Caine is, uh, he's a great fantastic in this movie playing it like serious as a heart attack against the Muppets, uh, Muppet Christmas Carol. You can't go wrong. This was on my list. I had to strike it. Sorry. Sorry. Garbage movie. Keep your, keep your comments to yourself. JVL. If you're going
JVL00:22:46to, I'll put my comments where I so choose Michael. Okay. All right. Uh, my second. Okay.
Mike00:22:56Cheating a little bit perhaps, but I, I, including for my second nomination, uh, both home alone and home alone too. And maybe I put it on the list this way because, uh, me and my kids did a back to back marathon home alone marathon, uh, last weekend. Um, we were watching both of them just one after the other. And, uh, my, my, my big comment is one is the first one is superior to it's superior is that it is like 20, 20 to 25 minutes shorter. Uh, and, uh, you can really, when you watch them back to back, you can really feel the padding in home alone too. There's just a lot of extra stuff that you don't really need. I want to, I want to interject here
Sonny00:23:45and just say, so Mike, you, you have, you've now chosen three movies with your two nominated nominative spots. And I want to say that this is, this is what I get. This is what I get. I get for being a lenient autocrat. This is what I get for being a Monarch who gives the people things. I say it doesn't, I will give a grand expansive definition of the Christmas movie. I'll let you pick your Rankin bass TV shows. I'll let you have your, your YouTubes and your Tik TOKs. And how does Mike repay me? He repays me by picking two movies in one spot. He just take, you give a man an end.
Mike00:24:26And he takes a mile there. Is there no other season, better season than Christmas for a top 10 list to have 11 movies? I, I put that to you. Good sir. All right. This one goes to 11. Exactly. Uh, all right. My, my third nomination, uh, here is a Christmas story. I, I, now this is really hitting all of JVL's favorites. I know this, this list right here. Um, this is mostly nostalgia. It is so overplayed at yes, that like TNT, right. Used to do the, like 24 hours of a Christmas story, but, um, still, they still do it. Okay. Not that anybody has TNT anymore. Um, and, but I have fond memories of watching this movie with my dad. Um, he loved this movie and we really, you know, bonded over watching it together, uh, when I was a kid. So I love a Christmas story and it's like, yes, it's overdone, but it's got some great, it's, it's got great. I mean, if you're repeating these lines, like throughout the year, that's a sign of a good Christmas movie, which brings me to my fourth nomination, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Again, I'm just hitting, hitting them all. All of JBL's favorites. Um, this is my favorite of the vacation movies. I know that that's like sacrilegious because the original is, yes, the original is better, but Christmas Vacation is again, it's a nostalgia thing. We would watch it as a family every, every Christmas. It was like, it was like the movie that like when the cousins were over, we'd put in, you know, in the VCR and watch it. And like the parents would like come in to the living room and like catch a scene and laugh and all that. So, uh, love it. And Julia Louis-Dreyfus is like, she, she does so much with such a little part.
Sonny00:26:13Sonny. I want to say, uh, those are two interesting movies to pick back to back because a Christmas story is episodic in a good way. Like it's the sort of movie you turn it on and no matter where you turn it on, you can watch the rest of it. As long as you're not JBL national lampoons, Christmas vacation is episodic in a bad way because I, I, I rewatched this a year or two ago and I was like, Oh God, this is, this is impossible to sit through. And I realized it's because I don't think I'd ever actually sat down and watched the whole thing before it. That's, that's a movie that's episodic in the way that like you turn it on, you watch until one commercial break and then you, you, you start scrolling again and you go to something else. You don't just, you don't wait for the movie to keep playing because it's, it's boy, I didn't, I was, I, what, sorry, I rewatched it. What don't you like? Is there anybody left in America who
JVL00:27:07turned something on and then has a commercial break? I thought we were past again. Yeah.
Mike00:27:12Sonny, what do you, commercials are back. Yeah. Commercials are back. Definitely on my TV. Um, I feel like they're like all of our streaming services are, we've, we've gone, you know, we've been cheap and so now we have commercials and all of them. So, um, well, speaking of Christmas vacation, one of my favorite scenes is the end where he, where Clark has to freak out. Uh, and, uh, he refers to it being the, they're going to have the best Christmas since Bing Crosby, uh, tap dance with Danny fucking K, which leads me to number five on my list, white Christmas starring Bing Crosby and Danny fucking K. Um, this is of all like the old Hollywood Christmas movies. Um, this is really the only one that I enjoy and it the things that I, you know, I'm not into the, like the song and dance and the, all the, unless it's Muppets, basically, I'm not really into those kinds of movies, but this has done really well. Bing Crosby and Danny K are great. Uh, Rosemary Clooney. And I can't remember who else who's the other, the other girl sisters and all that stuff. Um, it's, it's delightful. And I love the setting of this is like, it takes place at this, uh, at this, uh, one of these like lodges, like resorts to go to, you know, and they would like spend a week of like around Christmas time at like these, they were like the overlook, you know, kind of like the overall, but it was like, if they had like entertainment and dinner and all this, just, it's a, it's a, just like the overlook. All right. Okay. Anyway, uh, that's white Christmas. Uh, all right. Number six,
Sonny00:28:44is the shiny at Christmas movie? Um, that's a good question. No, I don't think it quite gets to Christmas. I think things go downhill before then. Yeah. Because it's, it's, you know, it's
Mike00:28:56it's, uh, the winter sets in early. So, um, all right. It's too bad. That could have been, that would have been on, that should have gone on your list instead of, uh, uh, what elf? Um, all right. Uh, next on my list, uh, number six, the holdovers, uh, the, maybe I think the newest movie on my list. Um, I just really enjoyed this movie when it came out a couple of years ago. I thought, uh, uh, I thought it was, and it's Christmassy too, right? Like it's about family finding, finding all that. So it's, it's, it's, it's thematic as well as taking place around Christmas. So the holdovers, uh, Oscar winning movie on this list. Next, speaking of episodic for Christmases, this is a, this is like a new family favorite in my family. Um, this is, I think my mom's favorite Christmas movie, uh, right now. Um, but it's, it's terrific. Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. They're terrible people who never spend Christmas with their dysfunctional they are caught, uh, on at the very beginning on TV when there was a bunch of flights canceled. Uh, they, they said that they were going to like help like poor people in Africa, but they were really going off to Tahiti or something. And so they have to go spend four Christmases with their, uh, each of their divorced parents. And, uh, it's just very funny. It's great.
Sonny00:30:17You like that movie, Sonny? I think I re I may have reviewed that movie. I don't have any recollection of it. I think you did. I could not, I could not tell you a single thing that happened in that movie.
Mike00:30:29Great cast. I'm Robert Duvall. I think I saw it. Yeah. Robert Duvall. Um, Sissy Spacek, uh, who else? Uh, John Voight and Mary Steenburgen are all the parents. And anyway, it's great.
Sonny00:30:41I don't know. I don't think I saw, no, I'm thinking of, uh, I'm thinking of one of the Vince Vaughn ones where he goes on vacation, but it's like a family or it's like a couple's
Mike00:30:50retreat. I think that's the movie. No, this is a totally different movie for Christmases. All eight on my list. Scrooged, uh, a pretty dark Christmas movie actually. Um, and, uh, another adaptation of a Christmas Carol. Um, and it's Bill Murray. Who doesn't love Bill Murray?
Sonny00:31:11Scrooged is great. I love, I love, I'm surprised you have two Christmas Carol adaptations.
Mike00:31:15Look, a Christmas Carol is a fantastic story and it's, it's, it's just, it's a great, it's a great story. And it's amazing that like they keep making, actually good, uh, adaptations of it. All right. Number nine to do the Robert Zemeckis one next
Sonny00:31:31with, uh, Jim Carrey playing all the roles. No, I never saw that. Right. He's got like the, yeah, it's terrible. Is it bad? It's fucking, it's awful. It's, it's, it's when, it's when Robert Zemeckis was deep into his, uh, his mocap hole. I hate it. I hate all that. That's garbage. I like that is such, all of that is such uncanny Valley nonsense to me. I cannot watch it. It's, it's a nightmare.
Mike00:31:56It feels like we need like a, we need a long discussion, maybe not on this show of like, what was Robert Zemeckis thinking? Cause he, he's just, he's like a gearhead for special effects. Is that why he, he went down that interminable rabbit hole? I guess. I don't know. I guess. All right. Uh, number nine on my list, bad Santa. I mean, this is just a guilty pleasure. It's, it's, it's hilarious. It makes me laugh, uh, all the time. Thurman Merman, uh, uh, lots of great quotes from this one too, that we used to say, uh, uh, in college. Uh, and Billy Bob Thornton is just so disgusting and he's great. Uh, love bad Santa. And then finally, number 10 on my list, a personal favorite of mine. You guys, I guarantee have never seen it. Ernest saves Christmas is, I mean, it's, we, we watched it, I think last year with the kids and cheesy. It's so low budget. Um, but I mean, how do you not like Ernest? Know what I mean?
Sonny00:33:02So there's my list. JBL. How do you not like Ernest? I mean, that's like the Medea
JVL00:33:13saves Christmas for white people. It's like, well, he's the white, well, he's the white person. He's
Sonny00:33:19the white people. Medea. That's actually a good way to think of Ernest. That's that's right. By
Mike00:33:26do you know where Ernest came from? Jim, Jim Varney debuted that character in local TV commercials. That's like the whole thing is comes from commercials and they just,
Sonny00:33:35Oh, it was a standup guy. No, no, no. It wasn't a midsummer's night dream.
Mike00:33:40Shut the fuck up. Uh, no, Ernest is great. All right. Okay. There's my list. Uh, it's done.
JVL00:33:48JBL. You got to hit us with, with, uh, with yours here. So I sat down to make a list of my favorite Christmas movies. And I realized as I went through it that a lot of the movies that we think we like for Christmas, we actually don't like false consciousness. We have like associations of it. It is false conscious. We have an association with it or we think, Oh yeah, Scrooge. Like it's got Bill Murray. It was kind of funny. I guess that's, that's a good one. Uh, the story's great. It's not insipid at all. Fat man. I saw fat man once. I guess it was different. I don't know. And what I, what I came to conclude here is that we should be paying attention to our revealed preferences. Okay. And by that, I mean, what are the movies that I actually watch every year at Christmas time? Here we go. And there's only four of them. Wait a second. There's only four of them. And these are the four movies that we repeat every year. The first is it's a wonderful life, which is a perfect movie. I don't know when the last time you guys saw this is we just watched it last weekend. And then we went and saw a stage version of it. That was amazing because the stage version was, it's like a 1940s radio play. And so it was like you're watching a 1940s radio station doing.
Mike00:35:34And this is good. This is supposed to be good.
JVL00:35:36It was fantastic. It was so good. You know, I'll say for the city, I really enjoyed the theater.
Sonny00:35:43The theater. The theater. Legitimate theater. So it's like the end of it's like the end of Killers of the Flower Moon. It's a Wonderful Life is a great movie. I watch it every year. It's it's it is it like it is it is treacly pap, but it is very entertaining.
JVL00:36:07And it's also very funny.
Sonny00:36:09It's very funny.
JVL00:36:10There's a lot of funny stuff. And also it is sophisticated, funny in a way, which I think if again, if you haven't gone back and watched it in a number of years, you probably have forgotten. In the beginning, we see the three stars talking to one another. The angels and Clarence Oddbody. The is like a real idiot and is funny because he's a he's a very dim bulb. Yes. And it's, you know, him and St. Joseph's like, oh, come on, stay with us. Keep it. There's a funny bit where she she he they are coming back from the dance and he accidentally steps on the belt of her robe and she winds up naked. Hiding in a bush. And there's a really funny bit where she's like, give me back my robe. And he's like, I don't know, maybe I ought to go sell tickets. Maybe I ought to go, you know, bring the fellows or just very funny stuff.
Sonny00:37:08You can't get away with that today. It's I'll tell you what, that that's a that's a sequence you would not be allowed to do. It's the baby.
Mike00:37:14It's cold outside of movie sequences.
JVL00:37:16No, I don't think that's true at all. You could totally do that.
Sonny00:37:19No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Before before we move on. I just want one thing about Clarence that you're right. It is very funny. The introduction of Clarence, where he's like, oh, we've got this fuck up angel who we need to. Yeah, but like but like there's a line in there about how he has failed a number of times to get his wings, which if you like, if you start thinking about what that means is that there's a trail of dead bodies behind him.
JVL00:37:43A lot of bodies.
Sonny00:37:44Clarence has killed many people before he gets before he gets to our hero in this film.
Mike00:37:50Well, they just killed themselves.
Sonny00:37:52There's a trail of corpses and broken homes. And shattered dreams.
JVL00:37:58It's number two. No, well, no, well, the Anna Kendrick movie, a recent classic, and it's great. Everything about it is great. Number three, A Christmas Prince, a Netflix Christmas classic, which is a terrible, terrible, horrible movie. And yet is amazing. It is the ugly Christmas sweater. Version. Of a Christmas movie. And it's it's doppelganger is a princess switch yet another Netflix, which which is part of we now know an extended cinematic universe, the Christmas Prince expanded universe and starring Vanessa Hudgens. And these are the four movies that I watch and enjoy, really enjoy in a deep level. I'm not shitting you when I tell. You that I actually cry. At some point, I cry during all four of those movies, no matter no matter how many times I'm sorry, it was was the fourth one.
Sonny00:39:08What was the fourth one?
JVL00:39:09Princess Switch. And that's Christmas Princess Switch.
Mike00:39:14It is a Christmas movie.
Sonny00:39:16Sucker Punch's own Vanessa Hudgens.
JVL00:39:18Sucker Punch. And those and I got to be honest, like I those are the only Christmas movies I like because those are the ones I like. Those are the ones I watch every year and I love them and they bring joy and the rest of it is I truly believe people just reaching to try to convince themselves that they'd like these movies and not all of them. It's like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a great movie, but it isn't actually a Christmas movie. Nobody sits in like is like, hey, it's December 15th. We should put on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. That's not a thing that happens. People do do that with Die Hard. And so I could I could put Die Hard in. My list Die Hard is not on the list.
Sonny00:39:58There's nobody. Why don't you put it on your list?
JVL00:40:00If I felt like I needed to have a fifth, I could force myself, but you don't want to watch Die Hard every year.
Sonny00:40:07I don't just want to be difficult.
JVL00:40:08No, no, I'm just going to have again revealed preferences. Do I watch Die Hard every single year? Do I carve time out to sit and do Die Hard with my family in front of the fireplace? No, I don't. And so I am making it very hard for us to choose. In reality.
Sonny00:40:27Right.
JVL00:40:28And the revealed preference of what I truly love are these four movies. That's it.
Sonny00:40:34The problem with this list is that the simple math of it means that there's going to be at least one garbage Netflix movie on this 10 best list of all time.
Mike00:40:43Yeah.
Sonny00:40:44So it's a real problem for the list makers.
Mike00:40:47Also, no Die Hard and no Hot Frosty. What the hell's up with that?
Sonny00:40:51You know?
Mike00:40:53All right. Okay.
JVL00:40:56That was such a horrible, horrible movie. Oh, yeah. But A Christmas Prince is great. Now, this is the difference between somebody who has a kitschy, ugly Christmas sweater and then somebody who goes to make their own ugly Christmas sweater and winds up with obscenities. And it shows up and everyone else is like, oh, no, that's not. No, no. You didn't understand the assignment. That's not cute. That's not fun. That's just wrong. You're going to jail.
?00:41:31Yeah.
Mike00:41:33All right. Okay. So, all right. So, now we're in the position of building our ultimate list from all of these. Okay. So, okay. Let's look at this list here. Sonny.
JVL00:41:49I mean, I think we start with Mike because Mike has the populist list.
Mike00:41:52I do. I do. So, we all each pick one from my list. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. All right. You guys go ahead. Pick one from my list of great ones. JVL.
JVL00:42:06I mean, Bad Santa and Holdovers are good movies, but not movies that anybody ever needs to see twice. Okay. Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation and Muppet Christmas Carol are all horrible. How do you?
Mike00:42:27Horrible movies. How dare you, sir?
JVL00:42:31I mean, you know what? I'm just going to say Ernest Saves Christmas. Yes. I've never seen it. I have no idea what it's about, but I feel like that is emblematic of the kind of movie that really the people have tricked themselves into thinking they love. Nobody.
Mike00:42:49It belongs here.
JVL00:42:50It belongs on this garbage list. All right. We really got. This list is a. Lie. And I'm here to sabotage it from the inside.
Mike00:42:58We got JVL in a rare form tonight. Ernest Saves Christmas. Now, you know, that's the that's the JMU selection, you know, for for for this. Nobody can believe that it made this far. All right, Sonny, pick one from my list.
Sonny00:43:13I'll go with Scrooged. Oh, look at you. Scrooge.
JVL00:43:17When's the last time you watched that movie, Sonny? You fire that up every December.
Sonny00:43:21I can tell you precisely when the last time I watched Scrooge was. Hold on. Let's see. OK, well, her box dot com.
Mike00:43:29Well, he's everything.
JVL00:43:30Do you write a letterbox review every time you see a movie?
Sonny00:43:34Yes. Twenty twenty one. So it's like a signing yourself.
JVL00:43:41Yeah. So it's such a great movie that you love so much. I don't watch it once every five years.
Sonny00:43:46The only the only movie on any of these lists that I watch literally every day. Actually, there's two. There's two movies on this on the all of this list that I watch literally. Every year, one is Metropolitan and the other is It's a Wonderful Life. So I, you know, I don't know what to tell you.
JVL00:44:02I don't want I don't actually I don't actually like rewatch.
Sonny00:44:09Things over and over again like that, I watch things like once every two or three years.
JVL00:44:13Christmas movie is it is like a warm blanket that you wrap around yourself with your family. Yeah. During the Christmas.
Mike00:44:23Yeah. And by the way, JVL, everyone on my list. Except for maybe Bad Santa and Scrooged. Several of them on my list. I do that with my family and everybody's warm and fuzzy. I am selecting. Of course, it was you had to know it was going to be there. I'm up at Christmas Carol. It's it's it's such a great Christmas movie. How dare you, JVL? How dare you? Don't rob us of our joy. OK, well, there we go.
Sonny00:44:48Wait, wait. I'm sorry. You picked Muppet Christmas. Yes.
Mike00:44:50So so so far, the three from my list are Ernest Saves Christmas, Scrooged and Muppet Christmas. Carol, this is shaping up to be a great list. OK, Sonny's list. Let's choose. Let's choose from that one. I guess. You know what? Should I should I choose first here?
JVL00:45:10You go. OK, I think the person who owns the list goes last. I think that's right. And I went first last. I think that's right.
Mike00:45:15OK, this is a really tough one because there are actually a couple of movies on this list that I really love. Don't necessarily have to do with Christmas, like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang or Batman Returns, meaning I like them not because they have anything to do with Christmas. I'm going to have to go with. Oh, I think Nightmare Before Christmas. There we go.
JVL00:45:45Nightmare Before Christmas.
Mike00:45:46Tim Burton's A Nightmare Before Christmas, but he did not direct it.
Sonny00:45:50No, poor Henry Selick.
Mike00:45:53All right, JVL.
JVL00:45:54I'll go Elf. Uh, it because Elf is a movie that many people do legitimately return to. Because they love it. Uh, I mean, my favorite movie on this list is Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, but I just don't think of it as a Christmas.
Mike00:46:10You're, you're, you're standing on principle.
JVL00:46:11Michelle Monaghan is.
Mike00:46:15And, and it was the beginning of the, uh, Robert Downey Jr. Renaissance. Um, yeah. Uh, Elf, by the way. Don't care for it. It insists upon itself.
JVL00:46:28It's a, it does. But yeah, I'm not saying that I love it. I know. I'm just saying. JVL, you don't love any of those except the ones on your list.
Sonny00:46:36All right. Elf. Elf, by the way, I have watched the last four years in a row in December. So this is a.
JVL00:46:42Do you write a different review of it every time you watch it? Is that how Letterboxd works?
Sonny00:46:46Yeah.
JVL00:46:47How does, do people read Letterboxd reviews or is it just for the reviewers to like jerk off? It's a masturbatory.
Sonny00:46:53Some people, some people, some people. I use it as a way to track everything I watch. So at the end of the year, when I'm doing my reads for, yeah, it's very much like Goodreads. It's like Goodreads. No, but the reason, the reason I have Letterboxd is so at the end of the year, I can like go back and look at what I have watched in the year to be able to like put together a best of list. Otherwise I would not be able to do it. It just got you. It would not, it would not work.
Mike00:47:19Uh, okay. So I've, I've already written down Sonny, which, which your pick is going to be, but go ahead. Metropolitan. Okay. All right. Here we go. This is a very screwy list. Okay. Uh, so we've got the three from Sonny's list.
Sonny00:47:34Oh, I'm sorry. You think it would be better if I had Brazil here? If I had chosen Brazil on the, I could, I could change my mind. No, let's move on. Let's move on. Let's move on.
Mike00:47:44Uh, all right. Uh, I'm just, I'm just looking at it in totality. All right. So now we come, now we come to JVL's list, uh, the list of four, uh, Sonny, you, uh, you get, you get the first pick here.
Sonny00:48:00I guess I pick it's a wonderful life. It's the, it's the, it's the only good movie on this list.
JVL00:48:08And it's also, that's right. That's correct. It is the only good movie on the list. It's also the only movie on this list about quality. Well, no, no, it's not.
Sonny00:48:17It's, it's not.
Mike00:48:18It's also the only movie on this list that I've seen. So, uh, I'm really stretching here. It's a real problem. No, what is that? I don't know what it's, you said it's. Anna Kendrick? Anna Kendrick.
Sonny00:48:27Is that like a, is that like an Apple TV original?
JVL00:48:30No, it's Disney plus original.
Sonny00:48:32Oh.
JVL00:48:32Yeah. Okay.
Sonny00:48:34Oh yeah. Was this one of the, this is one of the things that like, uh, they debuted the service with or, or didn't they? Wasn't it like.
JVL00:48:41I don't think so. I don't know. It's got, uh, it's got to, who's, who's the funny guy does impressions for Saturday Live. Chris.
Sonny00:48:49Who's the funny guy? I have no, wait, no, wait. This is a 2000 bill hater bill hater.
JVL00:48:55And, uh, are you sure you have the right, the right name for this movie?
Sonny00:49:01Noel.
Mike00:49:02You've talked about this before.
Sonny00:49:04Like N O N O E L.
Mike00:49:05No, it's N O E L L E.
Sonny00:49:09Oh, Noel. Like the name. Yes. Noel. Yeah. Noel 2019. This was like a very early Disney, very beginning of Disney plus. Yeah.
Mike00:49:19Um, yeah. Including Shirley MacLaine. Interesting. Uh, okay. So, um, I, and guess I. I'm going to pick in honor of my wife who the other night was, uh, I was not going to be watching whatever she was going to be doing down in the TV room. I was not going to be watching it with her. So she was going to pick from among all of the cheesy Hallmark movies. And we just scrolled through and read all of the titles and there was no joke. We just, uh, we were in tears laughing so hard at, at just like, you know, there's. You know, Christmas in the, you know, Christmas at the, you know, uh, with the lumberjacks or whatever it is, it's like they have something for everybody. So, uh, I guess I'll go with a Christmas Prince. Cause that's like, uh, that's in that, in that vein. Right. So I think I remember seeing it on the list. So JVL from your list, what's left.
JVL00:50:17I want to say princess switch, but I'm going to say Noel because I think that Noel is legitimately a modern classic.
Mike00:50:25Okay. All right. So instinct classic, instinct class.
JVL00:50:29It's the type of movie that if it hadn't been on Disney plus, if we were, if we were 15 years ago and there wasn't a streaming, Noel would be playing constantly on TNT during this time of year.
Mike00:50:42I may, I may have to check it out. Uh, all right. So let me go through the list, uh, before we add our 10th. So Sonny, should we, how are we going to do this? We just pick one.
Sonny00:50:51Does it really feel like this is a. Is there really any point in this?
Mike00:50:57Your rules, your rules, Sonny. Uh, well, we said we would do it.
Sonny00:51:03Why don't we just pick, uh, I don't bad Santa.
Mike00:51:06How about, how about we take what, how about we take one that's, uh, that, that nobody nominated and, uh, and, and let's all agree on diehard for, uh, for the number. I could do that. Sure. Fine.
JVL00:51:17I could live with that. Diehard. Yeah.
Mike00:51:20I think sneaking in there at the end here. So let me go through the list one more time, uh, for everyone. Uh, and we want to hear your comments in the comments. What did you think of our best list of Christmas movies ever? Uh, Ernest saves Christmas, Scrooged, a Muppet Christmas Carol. Wow. This list is starting off pretty good so far. Uh, a nightmare before Christmas elf Metropolitan. Okay. Uh, it's a wonderful life. A Christmas Prince.
Sonny00:51:46You've never even seen Metropolitan. You have no idea. Don't you?
Mike00:51:51Don't you? Eh. All right. Let me get to the list, Sonny. It's a wonderful. Life. A Christmas Prince, Noel, uh, and Die Hard. There you have it. The Sub-Beacon ultimate Christmas movie list of 2025. Uh, you know what? I, I might actually try to watch all of these movies, uh, before, uh, before the season's over.
Sonny00:52:14I regret suggesting this. I regret suggesting this format. I got a lot of regrets. I got a, I got a Metropolitan next.
JVL00:52:25We're doing written and directed by weekly standard writer with Stillman with Stillman.
Sonny00:52:30That's right. Get all with, uh, we are going to next, next week, we're going to do a Festivus episode. We're just going to air some grievances about this list. I got, I got a lot of problems with you people. You're going to hear about them.
JVL00:52:43Well, there'll be something to actually see next week. Won't there? Finally. No, it's brutal out there. Just no more move. No more movies coming out ever.
Sonny00:52:53No more, no more movies.
JVL00:52:54Oh, wonderful.
Sonny00:52:54The new. There's a new Knives Out movie. We could, maybe we could watch the original Knives Out. Remember, remember Knives Out? Remember Knives Out?
Mike00:53:02I remember. It's back. I remember. Uh, okay. Any other final thoughts on Christmas movies before we, uh, say ta-ta? No.
JVL00:53:12All right.
Mike00:53:13Well, uh, uh, tell us what you think should have been on our lists and, uh, we will talk to you next time.
Sonny00:53:25So one of my, one of my fraternity brothers, uh, looks, looked at the time, just like Thurman
Mike00:53:36Merman from bad Santa. And so that's what, that's what he was called for like four years of Thurman Merman. He didn't have the blonde hair, uh, but it was one of those things where somebody was like, Hey, it's Thurman Merman. And like, nobody ever saw him as anything other than that.
Sonny00:53:55You might, you might as well leave school.
Mike00:53:57No, he's a great guy. He's one of, one of my good friends, but it was, do you want guys want some sandwiches? You know? Um, so great movie. Um, all right. Any other, any other thoughts? No, nothing.
JVL00:54:10Donna Reed.
Sonny00:54:12Ah, what about Donna Reed?
JVL00:54:16But just, uh, well, yeah, in her prime, Donna Reed, pretty okay.
Mike00:54:25Yeah. No, no, no. I totally, 100%. Yeah. It's like, it's, it's very sad, but, um, no, she was, uh, she died very, very, she just
JVL00:54:35died by like 65 pancreatic cancer.
Mike00:54:37She had like, she had like three husbands and yeah, no, it was like, um, did she die while she was on, uh, while she was on Dallas? Cause wasn't she on Dallas?
JVL00:54:52I think she got a recurring role in Dallas. Yeah.
Mike00:54:54One, just again. Yeah. Oof. She, no, she's.
JVL00:54:58Mary Hatch Bailey. Mary. Oh. Not, it was act, that's why they call it acting, Michael.
Sonny00:55:06There's a, it's funny, there, there are two movies, there's, uh, there's, there's this and then there's Rear Window where like Jimmy Stewart is being hit on aggressively by the most beautiful woman in the world. And he's just like, oh, I got no time for that. I got no time for this.
JVL00:55:26I got, I got, I got to travel the world.
Sonny00:55:28I got to go travel the world. Oh, there's murders across the building. There's murders over there. We got to follow, solve the murders.
Mike00:55:34What, what, what, what, what, what, what, why would you, why would you think I'd be sweet on you?
Sonny00:55:38Huh? Stop trying to distract me with your, your floozy ways. I got things to do. By the way. It's, it's very, it's a very weird subgenre. I can't believe it happened twice. Once I could believe, but twice.
Mike00:55:51Can I say something about, the other thing about It's a Wonderful Life is like, it is also one of those movies that like, I, I would like turn it on and it would be, turn the TV on, it would be on. And the first time that I watched it all the way through, I was like in high school or older. And I was like, gosh, this movie is so freaking long. And you forget all the things that have, like, I had completely forgotten about the, cause I maybe only saw that scene once, the, the floor opening up and at the dance with the pool. It was like, oh wait, this is in this movie. It's, it's like crazy.
Sonny00:56:23It's definitely. It's definitely the sort of movie that if somebody wrote the screenplay today, somebody at the studio would be like, all right, so it takes us a hundred pages to get to the story. It takes us, it takes us 100. We're, we're, we're, we're not, we're don't actually get to like the actual, the modern day story of what's happening with this George Bailey fellow until, until a hundred minutes into the movie. It's a, you know, they, they wouldn't stand for it.
JVL00:56:50You guys know he was a brigadier general when he retired. Who, James Seward? Oh yeah. Yeah.
Sonny00:56:57Do you, do you remember that Jimmy Stewart was like, I want to go fly in Vietnam? Jimmy Stewart was like, I want to go fly.
JVL00:57:04Super nice guy who just liked dropping bombs and killing people.
Sonny00:57:08Jimmy Stewart was like, I survived 10,000 flights over the, over Europe.
JVL00:57:13In a fucking Liberator, which was a horrible plane.
Sonny00:57:16And I want to do it again. What's one more? I want to do it again.
JVL00:57:19What's one more for old glory? Oh, shucks guys. I got a body count.
Sonny00:57:25I saw there was, there was a, every once in a while, uh, someone in, in the world of film Twitter, you know, the collective of like 23 year olds who, who have 27 followers each will, will, will learn that Jimmy Stewart not only flew airplanes in world war II, but wanted to fly more airplanes during Vietnam and be like, can you believe this guy? And I'm just like, that's why he's a fucking great American. That's right. American number one right here. Jim Stewart.
JVL00:57:50Does film Twitter still have anybody under the age of 40 in it?
Sonny00:57:54Yeah. Well, no. So it's.
JVL00:57:55All those people just do Tik TOK now.
Sonny00:57:57Well, so this is a, this is a weird, there's, there's a whole, I, I could do 10 minutes on this, but like, there's a weird, interesting split in the world of social media film people where like a lot of the older, the Gen X types, they all went to blue sky. They were like, we're not being on Elon's Hitler app. So they all, they went to, they went to blue sky, but the, but the youngs just were like, well, whatever. One's just as bad as the other. We're staying here.
JVL00:58:23So they watch movies. There are youngs who watch movies still. That's what I'm trying to get at. That sort of surprises me.
Sonny00:58:29A lot of this stuff has moved to letterboxd. A lot of this is like, there's, you know, there's, you know, a lot of, a lot of letterboxd action. That's why I'm on letterboxd to stay young with my people. The 23 year olds of film Twitter.
Mike00:58:44I love that for you. I'm sure it's fine.
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