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At the end of the movie after Chip reverts back to doll form he's wearing a sash and a scarf. This brings up two questions. First, he can turn things into miniature doll form? Like the scarf she bought him was not magical yet he puts it on and because he's wearing the scarf it too shrinks down with him? Why did he even put the scarf on? So she knew it was him? She'd already put it together so now he just ruined a perfectly usable scarf. Second question, what's up with the sash? He never once in the movie wore a sash. He didn't have one in the box he came in either. Where did this sash come from and why put it on when turning back into a doll?

I have a lot to say about this one. As I said in the mini thread, I did not enjoy it. Though obviously glad to have Jessica back. I will have to try to organize my thoughts into numbers. But I am bad. 1. It was shot in Mystic, Connecticut. According to the articles I found, it was shot in May. May by the ocean is VERY different than Christmas. It was also shot in, and yes I am spelling this correctly, Olde Mystick Village. Now I grew up in CT and I haven’t been to this place since my sister’s bachelorette when we went there to buy fancy cheese. But it is a shopping center. It is supposed to mimic a village. But people don’t live there. And I thought, even though I didn’t recognize it until mentioned on the podcast, that it was palpable that no one lived there. There was such a sense of emptiness. 1a. There is a Navy submarine base in Groton, CT and also the Coast Guard Academy is near there in New London, CT. I think that Army order was a prank though. Seaports aren’t known for their standing armies. 2. It is Dec 11 as I write this. Going to save it to drafts for when the episode thread is up. But I am angry. I purchased this film for $.84 on Vudu and I kind of want my money back. When you have a Christmas movie and have two leads, aren’t they supposed to get together at the end? Is that not the tacit agreement we have in Lifetime Christmas movies? I walked away to make some tea (yes, tea, June) and when I came back the Nutcracker was gone and some other guy with weird swoopy hair was there. I did not care for it. 3. I thought this had a chance to be our “MAN-nequin.” They sort of gave Chip a backstory and he could’ve been cursed. Except then Melissa Joan Hart would have to have done something for him, to help him. He kept saying they needed each other. But they didn’t. She needed him. She brought nothing to the table. He just fought the Mouse King for her. Also, the Mouse King was a let down. The Mouse King always scared me in the ballet as a kid and this was just two guys in fake mustaches. They were basically Mario and Luigi. I could take them. 4. Like the hosts, I was confused as to why he was German. I went down a rabbit hole on this. I thought he should be Russian because the ballet is Russian. Now it turns out the ballet is based on a story written in 1816 by a Prussian author. So I thought, “ah! He should’ve been Prussian!” But, Chip is said to be the real Nutcracker who inspired the tale because he has “Made in Germany” tattooed on his neck. This contradicts the earlier statement that he’s the real Nutcracker from the story since it implies that he was manufactured and isn’t a real man at all. Now, things get trickier, the German Republic didn’t exist until 1815. That’s just a year before the story was published and one would think—if he is the “real” Nutcracker—his real life would have had to have happened BEFORE the story based on it was published. It’s just a really tight timeframe for publishing something even today, and I don’t think things were faster in 1815. I also don’t think they had MADE IN GERMANY stamped on things in 1816, even if we allow for him to somehow have been “made” technically in Germany at that time, wouldn’t he have to be hand-carved? I think I could go buy that Nutcracker in any Target today. And I don’t think it’s one that actually cracks nuts either. It looks like the decorative kind. BUT the original story has a character named Drosselmeyer, who is a wood carver and it is his nephew who is turned into THE nutcracker. By naming the old man Drosselmeyer it seems the scriptwriters want to say he is actually from the story. In which case, the way to turn him back human is to promise to love him in spite of his looks (a bushy bearded nutcracker who only turns into a man sometimes). Because the main character swears this and he takes her off to live in his enchanted toy kingdom. Does that mean Melissa Joan Hart couldn’t even manage that? And by moving on to the next hot guy in the uniform she has doomed Barry Watson to more years as a fucking nutcracker, sitting on the shelf and waiting for someone to love him? 5. I can’t figure out the motivations of Drosselmeyer in the movie. Does he just go around giving enchanted nutcrackers to random women? Because if it is supposed to be his nephew, he up and leaves town before the conclusion which makes me think he’s more of a trickster figure. Maybe HE is the Mouse King whose ancestor turned the boy into the nutcracker to begin with, and he’s just keeping him trapped. 6. I found some old German-style nutcrackers on wikipedia, apparently they are supposed to keep bad spirits away—who knew—and they look a lot cooler than this one. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nussknackermuseum_002.jpg 7. That was definitely a small kitchen. The “big moment” where Chip cracks the nuts was underwhelming for me. I was like, “well that’s not enough for a thousand cookies.” He had ONE bowl.

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All right everyone... this is gonna be predictable as all get out. It's four days until Christmas and my holiday-themed Twitter name is literally "Gonzo is the best Charles Dickens" (hell, my Twitter bio contains the phrase "Listens to Black Metal, tweets about Muppets",) so this week's holiday pick is...

To me, more unbelievable than a nutcracker doll coming to life was Kate's impromptu Christmas dinner. She invites all of her friends over on Christmas morning for a 1pm dinner and somehow they are all free and able to make it. Did none of them already have their own dinner plans for Christmas? Kate also mentions that she still needs to go and buy a turkey for the dinner. I am not sure where she is going to find a supermarket open on Christmas day that has a fresh turkey available to buy. Then she somehow manages to buy and get that turkey cooked in time for the 1pm dinner. There were at least 10 people there, so you figure a 15 to 20 pound turkey which would take 3.5 - 4.5 hours to cook. I have a feeling most of the people at that party ended up with Jessica St. Clair-level digestive issues from undercooked food.

HouseShare is a shitty app or company. First of all the actual HouseShare person was suppose to come five days before Christmas. They don't show up but MJH thinks Chip is that person so doesn't say anything about them being missing to the company. Then two days before Christmas the company texts her to say the client cancelled due to illness. This is a full three days after the original HouseShare guest was suppose to be staying with her. Shouldn't that message been sent on the day of their scheduled arrival? Also why specify illness, that doesn't affect anything unless illness is a cause to not have to pay. If that is the case HouseShare is terrible. If I booked an AirBNB and got sick and phoned them three full days after my original booking the owner isn't just going to eat the cost of those days. Also showing up a day early does not get you a free night's stay either.

To me that was one of the weirder things. They keep talking about how hot Chip was and all I thought is "He looks good for a man of his age." To me it seems like all the parts were written for characters about 10 or 15 years younger and they didn't bother changing it once MJH got involved.

I was really annoyed that so many people in the movie kept saying Chip was dressed like a nutcracker. Of course we as an audience recognize that he's a nutcracker come to life, but why would anyone in this town think he was dressed like anything other than a soldier of some sort? The style of nutcracker they keep referencing is wearing a soldier's uniform- the only thing that makes it obviously a nutcracker is the weird mouth. If Chip had some ridiculous Jaws-from-Moonraker type thing going on, I could see it, but as-is he's just a dude dressed up like a Coldstream Guard.

I remember reading a paper once about how we should be more aware of the fact that it's so acceptable to perpetuate "cat-hating" tropes and jokes when cats are, at the same time, often associated with women/feminitiy. Then I thought there might be a similar pattern with coffee versus tea jokes. Then I thought about the association of tea with Asian cultures and wondered if there's a correlation with the unfortunate stereoptypes regarding the emasculation of the Asian male. Then I remembered the time I sprialed into several minutes of private thoughts about grammatical punctuation when I read on a T-shirt: "Does anal retentive have a hyphen?" and had to remind myself that I do overthink a lot of things. I will say that Americans are very much obsessed with refrigeration. After moving from California to live overseas for over a decade, it's weird if I **don't** purchase milk purchased in a box from the shelf, and I've never had to worry about keeping eggs in the fridge. The answer to it is the American food industrial complex, of course For more rabbit-hole falling, coffee doesn't actually dehydrate you since that's not technically what a "diareutic" means. I wish they would have talked about the ice skating scene more. Yes, it's obviously plastic, but it's equally obvious that the actors were not wearing skates at all, right? Was this because the actors can't skate? Because there's some union rules about stunt people? Were the Lifetime producers following some kind of checklist? I mean, maybe it's not a "Bad Scene" at all, becuase it's actually pretty impressive that the cinematographer framed everything just right, that the editors chose just the right cuts, and the actors, well, they did their best.

I was definitely hoping for more from the Mouse King. It seems strange to me to introduce magic into your story, but only take the fantastical elements so far. I wanted a human sized rat damn it! However, I think my biggest issue with the Mouse King was trying to suss out his business model. I mean, forget about cookies, this guy is apparently running a freight company that immediately puts the squeeze on its clients for extra cash, and then what? What exactly was his endgame? She clearly didn't have the 5k he was demanding. Had Chip not intervened, what would have happened? He was hired to make a delivery and now he's just not going to do that? How is his company making *any* money, let alone any additional money earned through extortion? Also, seeing how they only agreed to take the cookies to the base after being threatened by Chip, there is absolutely no way I would trust them to haul my freight. These guys are clearly criminals! What's to stop them from dumping your wares a couple miles down the road or trying to fence that shit and pocketing the money for themselves?

Chip was not hot (sorry) so it was baffling to me that everyone who saw him was all "AWOOOOGA HOTTIE ALERT." The fact that he acts like a not-very-bright child who had too much sugar doesn't help, either. I wanted them to mention the dancing scene at the ball! Almost every other couple dancing was two women. At first I was like, is this queer representation??? But then I realized that that scene had exactly the same energy as when you go to a ballroom dancing class and there are 20 women to 5 men so a bunch of the women learn to lead, just so they can dance at all. Are Santa Ex, Justin, and a couple dudes at the bar the only men in this town? No wonder MJH is so ready to jump Chip and army-guy-nephew. There are NOT a lot of fish in this sea.

Quick poll - does anyone else keep a photo of themselves as a child next to their bed? No one? Nope? K thanks.

No one seemed to be bothered by the magic/his nutcracker-ness in this movie. When MJH tells someone about the nutcracker coming to life, they basically shrug and say ‘who cares, he’s hot’. If my best friend and/or boss said something like that, I’d take them to a doctor.

Yes! I thought there was going to be a cut to her waiting for him next year. So when the other military guy showed up I was like, “wait this is still the same year, right?” And if she does start fucking that guy, will Chip still come back next year? Is it some kind of threesome that the woodcarver was setting up?? Is that why the Nutcracker winked at us creepily?? Because once he hooks MJH up with Chip, he immediately leaves to go find a soldier in Germany (also, yes the US had soldiers stationed in Germany stemming from US monitoring after WW2 and then the Cold War era. I knew someone whose husband was stationed there, it was often a midway point to going to Afghanistan or Iraq. Though I remember reading this year that Trump thought they were a waste or something.) And then he sends that soldier to MJH. What is his deal???

I think we have all been looking at this movie backwards. It’s not about a magical sole materializing as a nutcracker in a normal little town. It’s about a normal person whose spirit enters the afterlife and is being pulled between life and death. It is evident that this a not an actual town because: - There is no currency/commerce - The cookies are free, the nutcracker is free, Kate gets a free scarf from the clothing store, Chip wins the silent auction. Money never changes hands. It’s like in Westworld when the robots see something that does not fit in their world, the just say, “That don’t look like nothing to me.” Here Kate just says to the Christmas merchant, “I don’t think giving away merchandise is a very sound business practice”, yet every merchant in town does it, most evidently, Kate. - It seems to exist in isolation. Although other places are mentioned, we never actually see anything other than this town. I think all the residents are happily “trapped” here in immortality. This is evidenced when Kate takes a stack of packages to the post office with each having only a single name written on a tag. No addresses are given, but I’m sure these packages will be magically delivered the same way goods are magically “purchased”. - The afterlife scenario also explains why Kate is so non-plussed about a man appearing on her floor. I suppose the residents have all magically materialized in similar ways and just become part of the fabric of the hereafter. So the movie is about Chip, a man experiencing a near death experience as his soul enters the afterlife. Apparently Chip is not ready for death and wants to come back to his corporeal state. This is why he keeps saying, “I can’t stay here, I need to leave before Christmas”, etc. In the end I suppose he is resuscitated. We don’t see any of that since the story is told from the perspective of the afterlife. Because of this and because the protagonist survives and goes back to real life, this is a Reverse-Jacob’s-Ladder-Scenario! As for the soldier/nephew who comes to town at the end…Well, sadly, it seems he is there to stay, so I am sorry to say, he does not survive. This also opens all sorts of questions like, what happened to that single mom and her children in real life? Tragic accident or foul play. The panel wanted to see a movie about that character, let’s see that prequel.

When the nutcracker left on Christmas Eve, didn't the card say "See you next year"? I swear it did, and at the end of the movie all I kept thinking was how awkward things were going to be....or how amazing for MJH. I need that sequel where he comes back to life and soldier boy is there frosting her cookies and suddenly Barry Watson pulls out his sword. That's an instant holiday classic.

Hi! Its been a while! But I can't resist a bad Christmas movie

i cannot believe the gang didnt comment on the "movers with a union moving van", remember they are wearing fake handlebar mustaches and one guy is eating string cheese non stop..

In the beginning of the movie did MJH's boyfriend just straight up admit to cheating on her and blaming it on her being a busy, successful baker? And no one seemed really upset about that? It bothered me through out the whole movie that she was more upset about being single for the ball instead of just pissed he was apparently cheating on her the whole time. My main take away from this movie are these two images I immediately sent to my friends while I was watching this movie. Barry Watson is great at being a terrible actor. He has another made-for-tv movie where he's a robot and its god awful and --- he's the best part of it.

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Can Real Men™ drink tea? Press Haha for Yes, Sad for No, Huh? for Huh?, and Hedgehog for Juuuuuune.

This movie's biggest problem is that it doesn't lean into what it is. It has magical realism, but doesn't seem to care once it's introduced. The should have leaned into Melissa Joan Hart's being alone or a Christmas hater. She didn't hate Christmas; she was busy at work making stuff for Christmas parties. She wasn't some lonely spinster; she was just in a relationship days earlier. The entire movie is maybe two weeks. So, she's dumped, falls in love with Chip, then meets the new guy on Christmas. If anything, she falls in love too quickly. Melissa Joan Hart should have either disliked Christmas or been unable to get over a relationship from years ago. Maybe her last boyfriend dumped her on Christmas Eve or something. That's the entire reason why she dislikes Christmas and is so focused on work. She should actually say, over the nutcracker, "I wish I could find someone to love" as a tear falls onto the doll which is what makes her wish come alive. Chip should also come to life looking more like a nutcracker doll. Big bushy moustache and beard. They should clean him up and reveal he's attractive under all facial hair and uniform. Chip should also be way more intense about his mythical quest (ie - The Fisher King). His zest for life is what sparks Melissa Joan Hart to fall in love. He teaches her to embrace Christmas and ready to love again. I'd argue it's more enjoyable for the audience to see Melissa Joan Hart and Chip get together at the end as well. It's not wildly different from what we have but it acknowledges what this movie actually is instead of downplaying it.