Cam Bert

I've almost picked this so many times. Daft Punk is top three if not top one for music for me.

I think the biggest question I have about this movie is why does Jerry Orbach decide to steal money now? His reason is simply "it's a lot of money." He's a captain in the Los Angles police department, I'm sure there are cases he's come across or dealt with that have much more money at stake. Heck, there is probably more money in evidence that he could also easily steal. He says he's only been working 25 years so retiring early and keeping the money sounds smarter than faking his death. After 20 years of service in the Los Angles police department if you contribute to a pension plan your pension equals 50% your average monthly pay. For every year beyond that it goes up 3 percent to a maximum of 90%. So after 25 years of service he could retire and get 65% of his annual pay as pension. He'd still be making about $104,000 annually. Wouldn't it have been better to keep that money, and slowly use it to supplement your rather generous pension? Who's to say he wouldn't run out of the money he stole? He's clearly not going to be working in Mexico.

To me by far the worst part of this movie is that Gnorm was voiced by Rob Paulsen aka Yakko Warner aka Raphael aka Donatello in the newer cartoon aka Pinky aka a million voices of my childhood! I did not need to hear him talking about about nice asses.

UHF is great. Their appearance... is literally doing the exact same thing. It's an example of how weird the show they are watching is within the movie.

I liked the music. I have no problem with it

As I stated in my Letterboxd review I think I get what they wanted to do with this movie. They liked the classic animation style of Max Fleischer aka Betty Boop and that rubber band animation style and they wanted to do a weird live action version of that. However, much like another film that I loathed that HDTGM did, Velicopastor, they want to do a send up of something without understanding what it was they were sending up. Like Fleischer cartoons were not pushing bounties when it came to being offensive, they pushed them a bit it terms of suggestiveness perhaps, so when they had a blackface character it wasn't being edgy it is just what people did at the time. The women were sex bombs and suggestive but they didn't just have their tits out. It just seemed to me that idea was a hook to hang their hat on and what they really wanted to do was just be weird for the sake of being weird and offensive because it's easier to be offensive than come up with actual jokes. Doing things on the cheap and trying to get away with it, crouching offensive humor behind a guise of "Well these people do drag" or "this man is gay" to justify just cheap and shoddy jokes. Fun fact I own two copies of this movie but didn't watch it until the other day. Both were gifted to me by people that know I like weird movies and I like bad movies. To be fair to them on paper it does seem like something I would enjoy. If I was 20 years younger I may think different as I do now. The funny thing is earlier this year I watched a documentary on the band The Residents and they talked about this movie briefly in it. The Elfmans were friends with The Residents and they were filming it in their space. There is a difference in what the difference between what the The Residents were doing and what Forbidden Zone was doing. One is actual art with something to say. The execution comes off as weird but they are trying to say something. Forbidden Zone wants to be that but has nothing to say. Heck, Holy Mountain and El Topo are bizarre surrealist movies but again they are trying to say something.

Does anybody else think it is crazy trusting of MJH to name every cookie in her bakery after members of her family? Like to me this is just asking for somebody to straight up try and steal my identity by figuring out my mother's maiden name and my date of birth and any other information about me I happen to name a cookie.

I'm down for whatever as long as you fine folks are there.

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?

Yea, it's crazy. The first day in the bakery on the board is "6 Days to Christmas" and it ends on Christmas so technically it takes place over 6 days!

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 think I was slightly put off by it in the first number, then I came around on it. I get that being a big hurdle though and I think probably was the thing that hurt the audience reception the most.

Okay. Question time! I imagine one of the thing, glum story aside, that put off a lot of people were the musical numbers. Most probably went in expecting the actors singing and not just lip synching. Ignoring the meaning behind the characters lip synching to already recorded songs, if we wanted to make this movie a marketable success do you think having the actors actually sing the songs would have helped it at the box office?

Yes I feels so right yet he has done nothing (criminally) wrong. I think it's because we've seen him selfishly ruined two people's (three depending on your stance of where life begins) lives that there is a lot of emotional anger towards him that seeing him die is cathartic. The other thing I will say is while he did nothing to the girl I did get creepy vibes from their meeting. When he tells her that she's the most beautiful woman he's ever seen I just thought "how is he going to ruin her?" Wasn't sure if he was being honest of had ulterior motives but it just made me uneasy. I think therefore subconsciously blame him for her death that just meeting him jinxed her.

You know that was one of the thing I wanted to bring up. I thought for the first 15 minutes or so that Steve Martin was miscast. I felt he was a bit muggy at first. In the musical numbers I could get it because being a style thing but maybe I was just thinking of his more toned down later dramatic work. I think it wasn't until he picked up the accordion man that I started to click more with his performance. Then by their next meeting I was sold on him and his performance which I think only gets better the more we see his character unfold. I'm curious if going back to the start now knowing who he is and what he's really like if the performance is better for me. Like you said it's more because Martin is kind of unassuming. He can be funny, he can be charming, be innocent and he can have a bit of an edge to him. I think Hoskins was a great actor but it's hard to shake that feeling that he's two second from a knocking your lights out even when he's being a nice guy. I think Jonathan Pryce would have been good. Nooooooope. One of my unpopular opinions is that The Shining is overrated. In the truest sense of that. Not that it's bad, it's a good and very well made movie but not the untouchable scariest movie of all time it is often sold as. The biggest problem I have with the film is Jack Nicholson. He's not a bad actor but the character is suppose to slowly slip into madness as he struggles with his alcoholism and inner demons. I think you don't get that from him at all. He's almost at the same level through and film and from the start seems already a little off. Considering that the Arthur role requires a bit of the same I just don't see it at all.

I mean I'm no expert in matters of American geography, but I think no. A lot of the themes and issues of the time are universal. America was in in the depression, the midwest being a focus of that in things like Grapes of Wrath and the like. Conversely, if it was set in someplace like New York I think it would feel a little off. The midwest also in my mind has some of that repressed like nature to it that is needed. The main difference I could for see is I think the class system in America is different to that of the British one and you might lose some of that but I think those issues are covered in the movie well.

Now that's the sexy math we're after

I'll kick things off. First, I loved the movie but I get why not everybody did. I mean there is a lot about the movie that is unique and different and I can see how that's off putting. Honestly as much as I liked the movie I still have problems with it or questions about the handling of certain things. It is by no means a perfect movie but what it is something different. Something that tries something and in its own way on its own terms succeeds and I have to give it credit for that. That said the movie is not a feel good romp by any means. I would watch it again for sure but this is not the kind of movie in which one could rewatch endlessly. Nor do I think the technique involved in making it warrants constant rewatching to marvel at. Where the movie succeeds though I think is in its story and what it has to say. Apparently Fred Astaire was very bitter about footage of him being used in the film and not having a say in it. He went on to chide the film talking about how the movie should have been set in the 80s because it was vulgar and crass while the 30s were innocent. Yet that's one of the things I loved about the movie. We want to think of these times as more innocent and pure yet objectively they were not. People are fundamentally the same and we didn't become more debase over time. It's very easy to look at eras like the 30s from its films and music and imagine this innocent time, because we are just listening the the lyrics and the words. Steve Martin's character very much wants this perfect idealized world of the songs and movies but at the same time has very base and selfish thoughts and wants. There are so many interesting cases of Steve Martin's perceived wants and actual truths throughout the film. He sees Bernadette Peters and is mad that these men around him are admitting there base desires towards her. He builds her up as this innocent that he must save and have. But what does he do the moment he's got her? Immediately lies and chases those base desires he lashed out at others over. He's unable to handle the truths of the world and is constantly deluding himself, which I think the music numbers do a good job of showing. He lives in a world where the grass is always greener, and he's constantly chasing it. This all may not be the 30s of our memories and pop culture but more likely an accurate depiction of things were despite us just listening to the words and pretending otherwise.

I am on Reddit but just created a new alternate account just in case...

As someone who has Discord I will say I don't think it's a great idea, but maybe I'm just old. Admittedly there are some things on it that are appealing and make sense. You can create channels in it, so each mini and episode will have it's own dedicated channel for people to go into and comment. That's good. It's very mobile friendly. That's also good. It's easy to join and use for the most part which is good and bad. So I have a discord and use it with my friends for gaming together along with some texting back and forth with them. After getting on it I noticed that there was a YouTuber who's channel I was a fan of that was promoting his discord so I decided to join it. It was a nightmare that put me off joining others. First, anybody could join which meant just lots and lots of spam and just unwanted replies. This made me feel bad for the moderators because this was not their full time job but they had to spend a lot of time on this stuff. As a mobile user I had to turn notifications off because I was just getting lots of notifications that somebody had said "kk cool." It was hard to actually talk to others. With a lot of people on at the same time it encourages short replies and not long thought out ones. This has its benefits and disadvantages I suppose. I know if I wanted to type something that was more than three or four sentences it was better to use the desktop version than mobile. Then I would also look mad as it was a block of text in a sea of short sentences. To me one of the advantages of the forums is a lot of the people do serious thinking and research on things. Those post tend to be long of complicated. Discord doesn't seem like a fit for those kind of posts. If you want to point something small out or ask a general question yes. It might be better for a bit more back and forth but I think we'd lose a lot of the researched posts. The other thing is it is a nightmare to find things and navigate. It's just a wall of text. If you want to find something somebody said earlier and everybody is being active it is just lots of scrolling and skimming. Given how even on the forums people sometimes repeat other people (heck, I've been guilty of this) expect that to happen a lot more. I think though the end of the forums is more of a when than an if at this point. I know we've lost lots of great regular posters for various reasons. As some who has been around for a long time and made good friends here it will sad to see it go. I just hope whatever the future holds there will be place for us to enjoy the show and still share our insane theories, needless research, and hard worked out math.

Deep down, I think I might have known that. That or our Tomax and Xamot powers

All right. I went through my list of picks and because it's the holiday season my mind turns to thoughts of Bing Crosby... but I thought we already are getting enough Christmas joy so way not spice it up with something Bing Crosby adjacent! I give a movie according to letterboxd not many of us have seen but stars two funny people in a supposed serious movie. I wonder how this will pan out... I give to you my pick From what I can tell this is free on some streaming sites with ads. If not I apologize.

AHHH! Well, you guys will have to wait until tomorrow. Trust me it will not be worth the wait.