TRASHFUTURE - In Search of Door-Kicker Santa: TF Watches RED ONE

Episode Date: December 24, 2024

Our last free episode of 2024 involves Riley, Milo, and November watching the Rock in a terrible Christmas film entitled RED ONE. It’s a film in which Christmas is saved by the surveillance state, jacked Santa trains in the gym to do room-clearing and be an operator, and so much more. This is our present to you: we have suffered. Get access to more Trashfuture episodes each week on our Patreon!   *POPES/LAGOON SHIRTS STILL AVAILABLE!* We've got some extras of our recent shirts that can be purchased online and will ship immediately! Get them here: https://trashfuture.co.uk/collections/all *MILO ALERT* Check out Milo’s UK Tour here: https://miloedwards.co.uk/live-shows Trashfuture are: Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), Hussein (@HKesvani), Nate (@inthesedeserts), and November (@postoctobrist)

Hello everybody. It is the final recorded episode of TF of 2024 and we are reviewing November's shirt. Hello. Hi. how's it going? Yeah, the thing is, I just logged onto the call wearing a totally normal shirt that I got from my wardrobe where I keep my shirts, and then Riley decided to make this a whole thing. Uh huh. I just think it's cool.

I think it's cool that they give those out at Shen Yun. Yeah, so do you want to read off my shirt, Riley? Well yeah, of course. I lost my virginity at the China Before Communism Shen Yun 2022 performing arts show, and I think it's cool, number one, that they provide an area for it. Or is it part of the show? Did they get you on a trapeze? Well, it's like, can we get a volunteer from the audience up here type thing? And then you lose your virginity on a trapeze. Yeah, of course.

To a guy who is affiliated with the Falun Gong. Yeah, of course. It's, what they do is they don't actually show it because it's not an adult show. A bunch of copies of the epoch times just like open and then cover you. Yeah, it's what a ticker tape parade is, but like, you know, Shen Yun style. Yeah. Losing his virginity at Shen Yun. No, no, it's a fine way to lose your virginity. I just, I just didn't think it would be Chinese. That's all. That's right. Well, hello everybody. You might be wondering, Hey,

why are they talking about November's shirt? I'll tell you, because I decided like, like many podcasts do around Christmas, we don't want to take away your weekly free episode. You were like, let's take a day off, right? Let's do something that has a lower workload. And the lower workload in this case was making all of us watch a two hour film instead of doing like a 20 minute phone call. Yeah.

So thank you for that. 250 million. It's two hours, four minutes. And believe me, I counted all of them. I watched it while I was making sausage rolls while I was saving Christmas. Or Annabelle's mom who can't cook. You know how much it costs per minute of red wine?

Oh, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Oh, hundreds of thousands. Okay, let me try this. One and a half million per minute. Oh, that's actually more than Megalopolis, which came in at about a million dollars a minute. You could have given me the budget of this movie and I would have engaged in debauchery unseen

since like some of the worst Roman emperors. Yeah, you would have, look, Nero could fiddle while Rome burned. You're gonna play a theremin while London is like dissolved in acid. I'm demolishing large parts of Zone 1 to build a new golden palace for myself if you give me the amount of money it took to make Red One. Yeah, that's right.

Red, I mean, I've seen this movie advertised, buses on like pre-roll for other films. It is ubiquitous and inescapable. Yeah, you were effectively marketed to. Yeah, well, unless this specifically was being marketed to people who sometimes watch bad movies for content, then I guess their campaign worked. I don't know if it's gonna make them back their one and a half million bucks a minute. It's sort of the Kamala thing, right, Of being like, we're gonna do very efficient use of resources in that we're gonna chase a very narrow margin

that we think is gonna be decisive. But where for Kamala it was like, you know, racist suburbanites. For Red One, it was people with podcasts. Yeah, we're gonna get... By making the movie really bad, really expensive, and then advertising it everywhere, we will get dozens of extra streams that we would not have otherwise have had. I would say this is going to be a movie with a high podcast to watch ratio.

The number of podcasts made about the experience of watching this film is gonna be remarkably close to the number of viewers. I sometimes wonder about what my media diet is doing to my perception of the world. I actually resent you for putting this in my algorithm, is the thing. Because now, every Christmas for the rest of my life, as long as we have electricity, whatever algorithm is running on that electricity is gonna be like, it seems like you like a dogshit Christmas movie.

Would you like to watch the one we made this year? Would you like to watch Red 2? Yeah, that'll always be a new one. Mmm. Red 2 about Santa's vice president. Oh yeah, there you go. Yeah. I mean, so, we watched Red 1, the quarter of a billion dollar, like they tried to feed

a Marvel movie through a Hallmark card. Yes. The other thing is, when you say we watched Red One, I watched Red One. I did a close reading of the text, because this podcast makes enough money that I feel, perhaps wrongly, that I owe the hogs a juicy of professionalism, even in the jerk off holiday episodes. How much does this podcast cost to make per minute? Oh god, but if you give us a red one budget, you see what we do with it, it's the same thing but we're all wearing mink coats.

It's otherwise identical. It's like, how did you get I Lost My Virginity at Shen Yin Performing Arts show embroidered into a mink coat? It's really bad for the mink. Yeah. Like, it's being made into a coat is really bad for the mink. It's the same podcast, but we're doing it in space or like from like a base under the sea. Like, I feel the mink coats is not that's a...

We could make some cutbacks and get mink coats. Well, the thing is, right, it would be completely the same for a while, except all of our backgrounds on the Zencastar call, instead of being like, our rooms would be Tahiti or Aruba or wherever, or Astad. And then we would engage in like a process that's very, very familiar to people who like British comedy of, my favorite comedian has become too successful and is now grotesquely out of touch and tries to do like a relatable bit about the cost of living crisis and doesn't know how much

a pint of milk costs. The price of quails eggs in Aruba has gone through the roof. Of course, bird flu is a real concern in the Aruba quail population. Dozens of them have been killed. Some of my mates have gotten bird flu from the quail's eggs in Aruba, it's no joke. The podcast kind of flips and instead of making fun of Lex Greensill for hunting the most dangerous game, we're trying to do funny and relatable bits about hunting the most dangerous game with Lex Greensill.

Look, I'm in touch, I don't just stay in Aruba, I go to Curaçao. We start being like, look, we were really unfair about Lex Greensill. His business was dumb, but he's a cool guy to hang out with, and he always lets you use his gun. Yeah, and those guys are really hard to catch. It's super hard to hunt the most dangerous. You're getting really whiny about hunting the most dangerous game. That's why they call it the most dangerous game.

I hate it when they choose Spear. This is so hard. I'm tired. I just want to go back to the big house and drink the nice wine. Why are we hunting the most dangerous game? It's stupid. Why can't they always get the battle royale joke weapons instead of the actual ones and the battle royale joke ones only some of the time?

It's the worst thing when you're hunting the most dangerous game on boxing day and then of the actual ones and the battle rail joke ones only some of the time. Yeah. It's the worst thing when you're hunting the most dangerous game on Boxing Day and then the anti-most dangerous game protesters are there, and you're having to get off your horse and talk to them. A most dangerous game hunt sab? Yeah. Yeah, but they're all foxes. They're like, look, this is solidarity. They did it for us.

This is like the end of pride. Only one union voted against the most dangerous game, the national union of foxes. Look, so last idea, last idea, give us a quarter million dollars. We're going to make November shirt real. We're going to make it real. Hold on, hold on a second. You can lose your Virginia's name Shen Yun. That's what we're going to make it real. Hold on. Hold on a second. You can lose your virginity Shen Yun. That's what we're going to do. Well, yeah, a few things here. Aside from Shen Yun having a vote in this, I imagine how I've already lost my virginity. It says on the shirt, are you going to put it back in and then get me to lose it again? Okay. All right. Just like funding my GRS and being like, by the way, we do need a hymen in there.

To be absolutely clear, this is for a comedy show. We need a hymen in there for a bit. Come on. It's to do with it's to do with Shen Yun. Making GRS tax deductible because it's for a bit. Yeah. Running that through the accountants. Explaining to her just like a weary surge in the concept of the like comedy bit we're trying to do here. No, no, you don't understand Shen Yun.

It's like put on by the, okay. Do you know about the epoch times? Going back and back. Okay. It's kind of like Cirque du Soleil except if it was all Chinese expats. Yeah. It's basically, yeah. It's like, it's like, what if the CIA started Cirque du Soleil, basically?

Again. Yeah. Wait, yeah, they started Cirque du Soleil to get all of the most nimble FLQ guys unfit for fighting. They were just like- Arming, funding, and training moderate gymnasts in Cirque du Soleil. We got the most 1970s Quebecois liberation extremists and we like gave them a trapeze. All they needed was a gentle nudge.

It was like one of the most efficient. This is an infinite Jess, to be honest. Anyway, we're going to talk about red one. Do we have to? I really don't want to. I didn't like it. Well, you did make your close reading notes of it and I also made notes of it and I wanted to know what yours are.

What I found is, there are, the Act One, or sorry, the Act One ends with the line, which I can't- Don't dignify this with an Act structure. It's a series of scenes. Yeah, there was no perceptible structure. I describe it as a cut, it's, well, it's, you know what it is, it makes sense that the writer of this movie was also the writer of Jumanji, which is basically when you watch it,

just to see a series of things happening until they stop. I mean, we've had a lot of movies like adapted from theme park rides, but not all of them feel like them. This one does. What I predicted, I predicted two lines from this movie. They're at the beginning of my notes. One of them is, so are you telling me Santa Claus has been kidnapped? That's the first one.

And the second one is, did we just save Christmas? Yeah, I think we saved Christmas. And they both happened. They both are in the movie. The real exoswedian shit in here, it has to be said. It's very like, so that just happened. Well, that's the Marvel thing, really,

what we're talking about is it is someone put the Avengers movie through a hallmark card and then created Red One. Yeah, it's, it's real bad. It would have been better to cross over the rock with a like, with a hallmark movie in the sense of like, you know, the rock has to go back to his hometown and he's, you know, he's, he's gone away from his big, his big movie job in LA and he's just like, you know, he's depressed and he needs to find the real meaning of Christmas. And then he meets a big strapping fireman and they have loads of gay sex and they organize a bake

sale in the town that, you know, saves the church or something. I'd watch that. I'd watch that. That'd be a better movie than this. Yeah. What you've just pitched me, Milo again, is a version of the Nicolas Cage movie where he plays himself that came out two years ago, but with The Rock and Christmas. Kind of, yeah. Basically. Just, wait, dude, just give this amount of money.

Like, you know how Obama does the playlist of movies he thinks, he wants you to think were cool this year? We just give The Rock this amount of money to do The Rock presents each of those movies every year. This is a kind of anthology, you know? Oh yeah, that would be good. Are you saying like we want to have The Rock, like, remake? It's pastiche, yeah. I want to see- I want to not just see the movie, but then I want to see the like, Mary Rockmas from The Rock version of that movie.

The Rock does Conclave clumps style. Yeah, he's getting every single one of the Cardinals. I want to see The Rock's conclave more than I want to see, like, Hilarovski's dune. I want to see The Rock's conclave. Yeah, that one's one of the most disgusting. Me banging on the gates of the Vatican. Yeah, give me the yoked pope. I refuse.

The young pope, the new Give me the yoked Pope. The young Pope, the new Pope, the yoked Pope. A single eyebrow raises out of the chimney on the Vatican. They're like, Oh God, they've elected a new rock. I wonder who the most recently jacked Pope was. Cause there's got to be an answer, right? And there must've been at least one. There's been like 500 popes. The most recently jacked Pope is the pope who starts at the gym today.

The motivational poster. The Vatican gym. We basically do have that's more or less Santa Claus in this movie is the yoked pope. Yeah, that is true. No, Santa Claus isn't the pope. Santa Claus is the president of Christmas. Yeah, yeah, that's right, he has a motorcade. Yes, well I mean, this is the thing, the thing about the first act of this movie, act, is that I was expecting it to be bad, like a bad movie, I wasn't expecting it to be like,

evil. And it kind of is, because it very strongly makes the proposition, well, it does two things, first of all. It does a mall scene, which could have been written by Said Kutub. And then, then it yokes Santa Anna's sled firmly to the US Air Force? Yeah. US Navy fuming. The reindeer themselves, to me, seem like they play the role of like, F-35s. In this

film, the way that they basically come in and more or less save Christmas by doing a sort of festive bombing run. Yeah, the joint strike reindeer. I mean, fucking, the North Pole's economy has been ruined the amount that they've, they've thrown at those reindeer. Yeah.

I mean, I want to talk about this more- If they don't take off in the rain. I want to talk about this mall scene as well, because like, there's a prologue scene with young protagonists is not important, right? He doesn't believe in Santa. Who cares? But we go to modern day Santa who is at this mall, and everyone here apart from a handful

of kids is a different kind of cunt, and none of them understands the true meaning of Christmas. Yeah. This, again, this is a problem that is solved, essentially, with what I can only describe as operators. Yeah, well, so the thing is, right, there's various kinds of irritants from women who complains that they're sold out of essential oils, to... Well you need those, that's why they're essential. Well, exactly. Uh, to Twitch streamer. I am kind of glad that Twitch streamer has made it into the canon

of just like guys who are annoying. I really think this is the Rock's card counter if we're just like aping movies. But yeah, so Santa is like doing more Santa shit. And The Rock is his bodyguard. And this is, I guess, conceptually funny to be like, the Secret Service guy for Santa. They should fuck. It should be like the bodyguard. That's true. Just like Princess carrying Santa. Yeah. He has to, like, intimidate. I'm not even sure what specific... This isn't like a specific Twitch streamer, just like annoying Twitch streamer, like combination MrBeast, Logan Paul. And basically the idea is, yeah, Santa is, as you say, the president of Christmas and needs president style security from Seal Team, Seal Team Christmas.

Yeah, elf team sex. Yeah, well they are called elf, that's the other thing, by the way, with all that, like the fact that, you know, the security squad is called elf. That's the other thing, by the way, with all that, like the fact that, you know, the security squad is called elf and it's an acronym obviously. And with the way that they're, with the way that they talk and the fact that half the time they will cut off swearing,

like with like a TV turning off or whatever, and half the time they won't, that sometimes the guns are like, oh, this is just a gun that makes you kind of fall sort of asleep. And other times it's like, oh yeah we regularly dismember people. Who is this movie for? Uh, the whole family to enjoy. I'm reliably informed.

It feels like it's for adults but who've had a brain injury. Like, for the reasons you've outlined, it can't be for children, there's too much in it that children wouldn't understand. It's a far as it could be understood. Rehabilitate me from a brain injury by showing me this. I would give myself another one. Send the pencil back up my nose. I don't care. Yeah. I'm doing Dhab to myself at that point.

Like I'm actively trying to make myself worse. Yeah. Like, so this, uh, the broad story of the, it's basically like, yeah, the standard, like Santa is missing and then sort of turns into, uh, Olympus has fallen towards the end. But the basic plot is there is Chris Evans, by the way, because I guess any movie Chris Evans is in will have CGI generated sort of leather effect looking costumes and like people firing laser balls at each other in otherwise pitch black surroundings. And no British listeners, not that Chris Evans, that would have made this a much more fascinating

movie. No, I mean, this is the thing, it's got a weirdly like star studded ensemble cast, every single one of whom is phoning it in, like, long distance. Lucy Liu is in this. Like, may as well be calling in from Skype the amount she gives a shit about this movie. Like, this is functionally, I think we can interpret this as a financial instrument that serves as a Christmas bonus for actors. Luke, to be fair to Lucy Liu, I think some of that might be Botox. I mean, that too.

So the, I mean, it's not worth it sort of following the plot closely, but I picked this up the most at the end of the movie, obviously, when they save Santa Claus and The Rock then says to Nick, the following exchange, Nick, are you okay? Before JK Simmons utters the unforgettable line, yeah. Before then saying, what took you so long? And then the rock saying, we got held up and then look what the cat dragged in to his brother Krampus who like, you know, came,

comes in and saves him. Who then says, Merry Christmas. It's like a big demon. Who then says, Merry Christmas, brother. This exchange could have been written by not even Chad GPT, but like GPT-2, the one from 2018. It is just a list of cliches. I mean, I will say, you mentioned further to my thing about the cast, JK Simmons, Santa,

also for some reason they almost never call him Santa, they like keep calling him Red, which I guess is meant to be his his secret service code name, but it really feels to the bulk of the movie like they didn't have the rights to Santa Claus. Which is conceptually a really funny thing to be like, yeah no, no permission from the Santa estate to do this, you know, they're very litigious. The Turkish government wouldn't give it to them. Eric Adams was involved. They explicitly identify him with Saint Nicholas of Myra, which means JK Simmons is playing a Turkish dude here.

Yeah. Well, that's why he keeps dangling Christmas in front of you and then snatches it away. I need to dangle it again. You know who also is in this movie? Nick Kroll. Yeah. The son of the guy who owns the global private security agency Kroll. Cool. Kiernan Shipka, who is the daughter in Mad Men, is in this.

Yep. And of course, the son of the sort of human protagonist working with the semi-supernatural rock is played by none other than Wesley Kimmel, the son of Jimmy Kimmel. That's cool. So it's a kind of like Nepho baby employment program. If you're Jimmy Kimmel, you can't be calling your kid Wesley. Wesley Kimmel. It works for like a type of guy, but not for the son of Jimmy Kimmel. Son of Jimmy Kimmel is like a sort of like real deep bargain basement horror movie. Yeah. Son of Kimmel, bride of Kimmel of like real deep bargain basement horror movie.

Yeah. Son of Kimmel, bride of Kimmel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you tell that we're struggling here because this movie fucking sucks. No, we're doing work to rule. Like we have to work today, but we don't want to. So we, we're phoning it in the same way Lucy Lu and The Rock and so on are in this movie. We are simulating for you the experience of watching Red One.

Yeah. I mean, I, I feel genuine spite for having seen this. I'm so sorry. Look, so the basic outline of the story is that it revolves around Chris Evans as the adult version of the cynical kid who doesn't like Christmas, who's there's the kind of foil for the moralizing point that JK Simmons as bored but yoked Santa makes, which is of course the naughty list is getting very big to his friend the Rock who's having a crisis of faith in Christmas because too many people are naughty every year. Yeah, the Rock wants to retire from being Secret Service because the naughty list is now longer than the nice list and adults all care about things like

essential oils, or streaming, and not about the true meaning of Christmas, which is shopping. But not for essential oils. Because essential oils are, like, girl-coded. Do you think that maybe Chris Morgan, the writer of this movie, hired, like, Bill Hicks to sort of consult on all of the stuff that he hates? Mm. You know what I mean? on all of the stuff that he hates. You know, it's... ALICE It does have something of that about it. Like, the Saeed Khutub joke, obviously, you know, Saeed Khutub, a very, very strong believer

in the true meaning of Christmas. But like, every single time, this movie's like, our people are so, like, unkind to each other, and like, so rude and mean, and then it doesn't really develop that other than to go, but you know what the real shit is, is like, toys, and buying toys. Here's a really long shot of a PS5. NARES Yeah, and adults don't buy toys anymore, that's the problem. ALICE The autistic community, single-handedly, well, single-handedly with the Lego group dragging that average up Yeah, the Rock is like this universe is equivalent of a climate scientist in this he's like look guy

We've only we've only got ten years of nice lists left. Look at it at this rate. I can't stand by anymore. I Mean in fairness like climate the climate justice heavily correlated with niceness So maybe he's onto something. Plus, he works at the North Pole. Like, strong incentive to decarbonize. Yeah, exactly. And Santa is a freak for real for wanting to know where all the naughty girls at. So, the Rock wants to quit because he's having a crisis of faith, not in Christmas, but in the institution. Making him essentially, he's essentially Cardinal

Lawrence, but in- Well yeah, this is the other thing about this being The Rock's Conclave, is that Santa is simultaneously the President of Christmas and Jesus, right? And I have nothing against a secularized Christmas movie. Jesus is the President of Christmas. Literally, right? But like, it's written and filmed exactly like a crisis of faith, but the faith is in non-denominational toy purchases. And while I know that's nothing new, it's kind of really

funny to be like, you know, the job's fucked, it's not what it used to be. And what the job is, is like, buying Hot Wheels cars from stores? Well, the job, I guess his job that he's not able to do anymore, and I think one of the reasons why this movie is so strange is that something like, oh, people aren't nice anymore, they've forgotten the reason for the season. That kind of, that stakes make sense if you're having a whimsical film about, you know, magic and so on, but if it's like, oh, people aren't nice anymore, they've forgotten the reason for the season, that's why I'm no longer able to do my job pulling people's heads off

for Santa. It seems a little bit odd. ALICE Why does Santa have door kickers? I mean, we find out why, it's because Santa is constantly under threat from the enemies of Christmas, but like... GARETH Santa's like the Kurds, like no one wants him to have his homeland, you know? He's bestowed on all sides by enemies. Yeah. But he receives insufficient help and assistance from various

allied powers. A couple of podcasters going over to fight for Santa. Yeah. So Brace Belt, armed with a fucking candy cane in the trenches of Lapland. Santa says, if nothing matters to the grownups, then it seems to me they need us more than ever. We know inside every lost grownup is the kid they once were. This is a movie that has a Rock'em Sock'em Robots tie in, by the way, with CGI Rock'em Sock'em Robots. So that's the reason for the season.

The reason for the season is Hot Wheels, Chrysler automobiles, the entire Chrysler group, so Mustang is also included. The game Monopoly, even though it's not used, yeah, because Monopoly and Rock of Stock and Robust are both Hasbro. Any case, so this is, yes I say, this is the Rock having crisis of faith conclave, and the city itself, the city of the North Pole, as Santa is kidnapped and the team of dark operators takes him out. You have anti-Christmas black ops unit, which is a tissee of bullshit over tactical stuff

unseen since the last Call of Duty. I would love to be in the tier one vaguely evil unit, right? The guys who like, you know, we have all of this shit and we use it mostly to just like fuck around in a sort of vaguely antagonistic way. Our values? Interference, mainly. You know what I have written down in my notes here is this kind of like, evil only makes sense in the Venture Brothers, which contains the Guild of Calamitous Intent. Oh my god, you're so right. They're like, they're doing Nemesis shit. Yeah, they're just, it's just the only, they accidentally created an amazing Venture Brothers.

They're arching Santa. Yeah. Losing a helicopter during a top secret incursion into Finnish airspace. They have, what I realized as I was watching this, is I kept not understanding who it was for, because I realized what they accidentally did was make a pretty good Venture Brothers episode instead of a Christmas movie. Yeah, needs a bunch of weird references to David Bowie sprinkled over it, but otherwise pretty solid.

The other thing about this, right, is that as you say, the North Pole is a concealed city with Santa's workshop and shit, and one of the things that I note here is, so, the team of door-kickers are called Elf. Like ELF. That's the joke there. That's the three-letter acronym name, yeah. Yeah, they're ostensibly elves. Except there are also elves.

Like there's actual elves, there's just sort of like an elf species who are like non-verbal and possibly Santa's slaves. That would be like a group of elite killer seals with the name acronym HUMAN, essentially. Yeah, more or less. Or not even human, because it's like strictly like WORKER. So it's like, it's like SealAL Team Six being named Amazon delivery driver. Yeah. But also the other thing I think is, I noticed about the Santas, the whole Santas Workshop thing, like, to make a Christmas movie about operators, that is essentially

like, just as the Marvel movies were a gloss on, you know, like the American Empire, and different eras of American Empire. And the superhero is basically standing in for above the law teams of, you know, various sorts of operators connected with like three letter agencies. Right. To then put a Christmas gloss on that is so uncanny. But the even more uncanny element was that the Santa's workshop bit is very clearly modeled on Neom. Like, very obviously it's modeled on Neom. ALICE I mean, I kind of like, failed to process

any information about it in that, like, the North Pole city was so visually uninspired that there was like, no semantic content to it. It's literally like, there's very very little there. One thing that there is there though is there's a CGI polar bear guy, he's like a polar bear door kicker, which is something that, I hate to say it, but like, the Philip Pullman adaptations did better? And if you're getting mogged by like, two thousand and something's polar bear CGI, that's not a great sign. No.

Because this was, they started principle photography or quote unquote photography in this film in 2022, right? They opened like an Adobe session in 2022. Principle CGI was commenced. Yeah. Well, I think that this is one of the first big budget movies, and my God, the budget was big. To use...

You can see quite a bit of evidence of AI being used in a lot of the effects. Just like nothing has very clean lines. Everything's very dark. If you watch closely, you'll see bits of the Christmas city blurring into one another. This is not a very well... The Marvel movies are often terribly made because they have underpaid graphics designers working horrible hours and they just don't do much quality control. That means it never mattered. This is a step beyond in terms of wretched CGI. It looks

worse than Polar Express and can only be described as every scene that isn't just like walking across a street, being shot in the dead or being set at the dead of night. So that you can't see anything. It's so fucking dark. You have to be so close to the screen to discern what's going on. Like I was making sausage rolls.

So I'm like four feet away from my laptop and I keep looking around and going like, what the fuck is going on right now? I'm having to determine it. It's a great movie for the blind. I'll say that because you're getting so close to the sighted people's experience of watching the movie. Red one that they could have called it dark smudge one people.

Do you want to do some, some John Wesley bits? No, no, no. So this is, this is the basics. The basic sort of setup, right? Is that after giving his, there's a little bit of good in everybody's speech that was written from Chad GPT, JK Simmons finished his like, you know, half day of acting. I think based on how he delivered the lines, and I like JK Simmons as an actor, don't fault him for any of this. You have a tax bill, I don't know, collect your money, do your thing. JK Simmons, good luck with your divorce.

Yeah. You can see a lot of people get paid by watching this movie, and that's, you know, that is the spirit of Christmas in some ways. Yeah, they're gonna be able to non-denominationally purchase toys. That's true. That is true. They should just have like picture in picture footage of like J.K. Simmons driving a Lamborghini, like you know, the rock in the mall. This is where all the money really went. Yeah, the line that sticks with me, so I started like, this is where all the money really went. Yeah, the line that sticks with me, I don't remember where I heard this, but it changed

completely my way of thinking and being, was some actor or other saying, they don't have a film critic at the Lamborghini dealership, right? And this is a movie made in deep accordance with that principle. The other thing that I wanted to say is, it is crazy how much this movie presents Santa's whole deal as being facilitated by the US military. Okay, go into it. Speak on it. Cause he gets out of this maul where everybody's talking about essential oils, and gets a military

escort in a mosa and gets like a military escort in a mosaicate, like a presidential mosaicate, except- Like the US government only considers one oil to be essential, Santa. And it actually turns them into Levant. It's like a presidential mosaicate, except all the cars are white, which, uh, a white limo, one of my Liberace's fucking boyfriend. Um, but so they drive onto an air force base and Santa gets like a salute from an air force general, there's a bunch of Humvees lined up and he gets the sled

gets cleared for takeoff by the air force and is escorted out of US airspace by a couple of fighter jets. Amazing. And I'm like, this is, this is like when you see the flyover at football games or whatever and you're like, what? Why? What? Sorry?

Like aren't these currently being used to commit war crimes? It's like tinsel washing or something. Snow washing. They should have had a show of him being shot down by the IDF. That would have been good. Santa gets folded into the, what, like Air Force command structure? Like, is he one of the Joint Chiefs? That's why Norad has him on the radar every year. I mean, IDF pilot painting a little Santa sled and eight little reindeer silhouettes

on the side of the plane. And to the canopy. I don't even think it should be the Turkish air force escorting him anyway. You know Istanbul's always the first stop, baby. Eric Adams should have had a big cameo in this movie. But so Santa gets fucking kidnapped, right? Like Olympus has fallen. Santa is the mayor of Christmas.

Yeah, he is. It's kind of true, yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, of him doing the world's easiest and dumbest heist and literally taking candy from a baby because he's a bad dude. He's got a fucking terrible Boston accent the whole time. Well, I wouldn't say the whole time because he does forget to do it like 30% of the time. Well, you would, wouldn't you? It's not like performance scaled pay for this. I think he's like, yeah, sure.

You know, fucking wicked, the departed. If they tried to kidnap Santa and I was there, I would have gone down a little differently. Oh, my God. Santa's been wicked kidnapped. Santa Claus. OK, I don't know if ever you sound like you sound like a like an older Jewish woman from Long Island. Yeah, yeah, sorry.

That wasn't that one of it like New York instead of Minnesota, Massachusetts. Just you try and cancel Christmas in Southie. Christmas is canceled everywhere. But here we have Boston Irish Santa. Just Matt Damon and Ben Affleck spending a beautiful Christmas together. I know it is the spirit of Boston Christmas. I think. Yeah.

So I think again, like in terms of films made as financial instruments like this could have been a producers and we have so many films of the producers now is what I feel like there are so I see so many movies get made that it's like oh yeah no you're you're doing other producers here right now. So so so Chris Evans gets blackbagged by Lucy Liu who who is in charge of the, like, wizard CIA. Artemis Thal did it better, right? As a testament to how bored I am at this point, you get a quite, like, kind of, uh, like, Domi Lucy Liu doing CIA extraordinary rendition shit, and I'm still bored. Should not be possible. But so, they do like, her deal is that, this is all so fascinating, like, politically,

right? She's the director of Moira, the mythological oversight and restoration authority. Which is like a- Restoration? Yeah, I dunno. You're gonna be shagged then. She describes it as a multilateral, like, agency that protects the mythological. And I'm just thinking about the kind of international relations implications of considering how fucked

the non-secret multilateral organizations are, how absolutely, exponentially more fucked a secret one would be. Russia invades Ukraine, all of a sudden Baba Yaga's hut is like kicking around Alaska for some reason. We're primarily responsible for two things, making sure that young children believe in Sander and making sure that older children believe that Marilyn Manson had a rib removed so he could suck his own dick. That's what we do here. Equal myths.

Yeah. You smoothly transition from one to the other. Getting their parents to believe in the Richard Gere gerbil story. It's very important for the balance of world power that the majority of people across three different age bands believe one of these three age band targeted stories. It's look, an AI told us to do it. What kind of overarching ideology should that be? Also I think a lot of agents of international multilateral institutions, they're like, oh yeah, everyone gets equal partners, World Bank, IMF, but everyone knows it's really

just American. It's not like the Danes have a huge amount of weight in the multilateral fucking mythological organization. We actually have a strong claim on Santa, due to the territory of Greenland, in that we are always consulted on any matters concerning Santa Claus and his workshop. Doing a parallel bricks mythology like agency, dealing with Brazilian folklore. Caked up Santa. Santa in his huge ass.

There is, wait, there actually is a shout out to Brazil in this movie. Like, there's a montage of Santa delivering gifts and he kicks a little Brazilian football under a Brazilian kid's Brazilian Christmas tree. Yeah, because if you're not in America, then you like to have country specific stuff. Like, America gets the general stuff and then everyone else gets like, you know, country labeled stuff. I'm so often thinking about my national characteristics that I have. So he gets, as you say, black bagged by the Christmas CIA.

Uh huh. I would hate for this to happen to me. They were just trying to deliver a bunch of presents to Patrice Lamumba, things got badly out of hand. But you always loved bombs. to Patrice Lamumba, things got badly out of hand. But you always loved bombs. I got them all these bullets. Um, no. What are I'm asking you a question here, child soldiers or Elv?

Maybe we were the prejudiced ones. Well, the church committee's findings after the Bay of Pigs ended up curtailing quite a few of the Christmas CIA's activities, and they the Christmas CIA's activities and they had to disband the Christmas CIA after that and mostly just do regular spying. Yeah, so few people go to church committee on Christmas anymore, it's like really like secularized. The man on grassy knoll covered in tinsel to disguise himself. The thing that we've got to get out of this scene is the Rock and Chris Evans have to

end up working together even though they don't like each other. The way they get there is that they have him tortured by the sentient bear. They basically like waterboard him with eggnog, which is a lot of what watching this movie is like. Imagine, there's a scene with a man being tortured by a bear and November is bored. It's true. Crazy. Yeah. Lucy Lou is there. I'm just like...

Lucy Lou is there. She's wearing a sort of sharp jacket and being very severe. And because of the... I'm bored! What the fuck is wrong with me? So they essentially, again, they essentially have to then do a bunch of video game levels in order to find the antagonist. Yeah, it's next location.

Yeah. Next location is Aruba. So why Aruba? Because the cast wanted to go to Aruba. The natural enemy of Christmas, the Dutch. The hot Dutch. Like the Dutch, but everything is hot. They don't acknowledge Santa Claus in the Netherlands.

They have their own mascot. Illegally, this is not a claim that I'm making about Rowan Atkinson's tax affairs, right? But the same reason every Johnny English movie is filmed or has like a bunch of scenes in one specific hotel in the south of France is I would suggest to subsidize a Rowan Atkinson holiday to that hotel every few years, right? So on the same basis, why is this Christmas movie that's so perfunctory and so CGI actually physically filmed in Aruba?

I suspect the answer is because The Rock and Chris Evans wanted to go to Aruba. Where they then hang out with Nick Kroll, who says upwards of nine lines. It's true. After the visit to Aruba and when they're going, Santa Claus is brother, they used to work together, but they fell out. I'm like, fingers crossed as far as to Pete, come on, let's bring it in. Let's tie it all together. The sole Dutch contribution to the multilateral mythological organization.

It's like, Jake Kasdan, are you a coward or are you a real writer? sole Dutch contribution to the multilateral mythological organization. It's like Jake Kasdan, are you a coward or are you a real writer? Just a bunch of tins of shoe polish locked in a vault like control. At the end of the movie, the post credit scene- Some object of white power. At the end of the movie, the post credit scene, they look, they open it up and they're like, maybe next time. It's true.

I genuinely expected a mid and post credit scene from this movie and it actually didn't give me either it's the sole kind of mercy you know for the season that it gives me is that it doesn't have Santa getting recruited into the Avengers. Yeah like with what the fucking wolf man? The end of the movie is it's just completely black and you can hear the sound of clogs on the floor and you're confused and then just suddenly a pair of eyes blink open and then it's like credits. So the other thing is the fight to get to Nick Kroll, the guy who was the middle man

who bought the date, the data from again is like, again, I asked who this movie is for because it's like, you know, gigantic boobed models standing around Nick Kroll, like, you know, basically like the basically with the camera sticking on them for a while, and a bunch of people getting kicked in the dick. It forgets to be a kid's Christmas movie for like two minutes. I think it's genuinely trying to beat all things to all men, and on that basis we now have a fight scene ripped from Ant-Man, because the Rock's deal is that he can like shrink really small and then get big again by, you know, with his Christmas magic. I guess this is also an

elf joke and it fucking sucks. If you've seen Ant-Man you've seen everything that happens in this. I'll tell you the other scene that they have taken that reminded me of watching a better movie is when Chris Evans, again, who's a computer hacker but who starts being able to fight like some roided up snowman. As if someone from Boston would know how to use a computer. Yeah, so, roided up snowman. Chris Evans kills him, or tries to kill one by shoving his face into a hot grill, and I was like, oh yeah, I remember that scene from The Raid 2.

What a better movie. That was such a better movie than this. You're doing the shark-salute combo to the roided up stuff. The phrase roided up snowman is in itself quite funny because it implies there's a kind of purity of snowman-ness. Like the traditional three balls type body figure of a snowman. That's like natural snowman. Whereas if you're like cut, if you're like ripped, you're on the roids. Well, they've got huge snowballs on their biceps. But then if you look down, there's only the tiniest little lumps of coal in their groin. That's how you know they're on steroids.

It's really emotionally labor as well. Yeah. More more dick kicking occurs with the snowmen. But then the big joke is that it doesn't have any effect. Frosty the dickless snowman. I was, you know, quite surprised. So then again, because now this movie, until it gets to the climax, is going to be going to a series of green screens.

Next location. Next location. The logic here then is presumably that the snowmen are scheming you Nooks. Yeah, of course. By the way, by the way, the reason why the snowmen are here is because we introduce our villain who is the kid from Mad Men, who is this Icelandic Christmas witch? I know Iceland, listen, Iceland has been dropping the ball in the mythological fucking Interpol, you know? Because this was their one thing.

Was it that and the elves, you know, the Icelandic elves, not the rock elves. And they have fucked this one because she is like going to try and ruin Christmas. At Christmas time, we're mostly focused on providing frozen food for everyone via the Kare Katona range. But you're right, this is the same accent as before. We've not changed the accent from Denmark. before? We've not changed the accent from Ben Mark? Just the Icelandic mythological guy getting hyper fixated on Eurovision and completely dropping the ball.

Yeah, our villain, if our motivation for our heroes could have been written by ChatGPT, which is I've lost faith in the institution of Christmas, the villain's motivation of I'm actually trying to make the world much better. The villains motivation of I'm actually trying to make the world much better with harsh methods. And I'm going to like, you know, basically fuck with everybody who's ever been double parked. Christmas has gone low. Santa used to be able to kill you. And now... She represents the Daily Telegraph reader constituency. So they, they then go to Krampus's house, which again felt equally jarring. Like Krampus lives in like a version of the North pole in Germany.

He doesn't go out and do anything. He mostly does slap fighting in a castle. But like Krampus is played by the big guy from game of thrones, not that big guy, the other big guy, the big Norwegian guy from Game of Thrones. And he's like fucking whatever. Yeah. But Krampus is also Eastern European, which is why he's into slap fighting. That much does make sense. That does very much does hail from Russia. So Krampus being Russian sort of makes sense. Yeah. So, um, place to place to place to place. Uh, these Krampus is doing Krampus stuff in

his Krampus house, which is kind of like a, like. Krampus is doing Krampus stuff in his Krampus house. Yeah. Uh, which is kind of like a, like a Krampus hype house situation. Yeah. Sort of like a bunch of like orbises. Krampus has a bunch of, yeah, Krampus has like fake friends who just like hang out in his house. And you know, I don't know what it is that they need from him, although apparently the jurisdiction of the multilateral organization does not extend to the domain of Krampus. Yeah, because of a treaty, because of treaty obligations, the international relations in

this universe, just like, yeah, I got my PhD paper on some of the implications of that treaty, you know? Yeah, they're just like, well, you know what? Sometimes you got to break international law to save Christmas. Let's go operators. Issuing an international arrest warrant for the Krampus. Deniable Christmas operator. If you can drag him over the border into Luxembourg, we can arrest him.

So what happened is, Grila the Christmas Witch is a kind of Christmas salafist. And if we're going to stop, if we're, if we're going to, and if the U S is going to be able to stop Christmas Salafism from spreading, we admit that we had a role in kicking it off, but if we're, if Santa's going to stop Christmas Salafism from spreading, then it needs to be able to pick and choose which international laws it follows. That's all I'm saying. Operation Snow Globe. She's trying to start Christmas ISIS.

I'm just picturing this like big climactic bit of the Good Shepherd as Matt Damon is a 50s CIA guy pushing a woman off Santa's sled to her death. So anyway, this is Chris Evans, of course, at this point, he's grown fond of The Rock and he's like, The Rock looks like he's in trouble, but he's like, no, I mean, it's Callum Drift. We've not said his whole name this entire movie. Yeah, his name is Callum Drift. Oh, by the way, Chris Evans is also a shit dad to Jimmy Kimmel II.

He's bad dad to Jimmy Kimmel II. And the other hilarious thing, right, is Chris Evans has never been a dad to Jimmy Kimmel II. And the other hilarious thing, right, is Chris Evans has never been a dad to Jimmy Kimmel II. Jimmy Kimmel II has a guy who has raised him with the waitress from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, who's a doctor. Yeah, he's got the dad who stepped up. Yeah. So essentially, the other thing that I noted at this point, right, is when Chris Evans realizes that he needs to be a better biological father to his kid, who was raised by the waitress from It's Always Sunny and another unnamed guy who acts as his actual father. And then the whole conceit

though is that this kid does not care about his adoptive father at all. He doesn't care if the adoptive father is at his jazz recital. He only cares if the deadbeat dad who sees him once every month tries to pay attention to him. This kid is like Don Jr. It's incredible. He's desperate to be loved by this father, but he just won't give it to him. So anyway, the North Pole gets taken. Chris Evans and Wesley Kimmel get imprisoned in snow globes by Grilla, which he wants to do to everybody in the world. The snow globe is called the glass cage, except nobody fucking pronounces

it even close to right. It's like really, it's like, it's a different wrong thing every time. And it's like, and they mutter the word each time as well. So it's hard to hear. That's it's German. It's German for like a glass cage, and the German is sinister. But like, Krampus used to date the Christmas witch, which um... Again, who's this for?

It's complicated. It's really heavily implied that she was the top in that relationship as well. Yeah. And they realize, oh my god, Santa never got extracted from the North Pole. He's been hidden in his old house that's now a museum exhibition around what apparently has been some kind of AI driven industrial revolution at the North Pole. And her plan is to do the Christmas run to deliver all of the bad kids, all of all the bad people, the things that will trap them forever. Christmas

salafism. And, uh, was, was that the plan of non-Christmas Sylafism? I don't remember that one. Even at his most depraved, I don't remember a son of a nun trying to trap every non-Sylafist on earth in a fucking snow globe. Imagine if Al Qaeda had done that. It's like, yeah.

I mean, hard to argue with, you know? Just on a physical level, you'd be in a snow globe. Everyone in the World Trade Center just received a snow globe, and I opened it and was like, what is this? I guess, I mean, like, sort of a return, an atavistic return to first principles at any cost. A second sleigh has struck the North Star. Now that is a merch idea.

Trash future snow globes of the twin towers with a reindeer sled crashing into them. Like snow and tinsel billowing out of them. That would cost so much money. That's what we would do with the budget of this film is we would put it all into snow globes. We would call monster press and be like, guys, can you do snow globes? And they'll be like, no. And we would go, do you have a lead on a snow globe guy? What if we bought your company and retooled it as a snow globe manufacturer? Yeah. The budget that not only destroys our small business, but also their small business.

Yeah. So any case, they realize, right, that the North, that the, they've been chasing fucking Grilla and Santa all over the world and they're like, oh God, all of those holiday destinations and then CGI generated places that we wanted to go. She was never in any of them. Fucking, Chris Evans is missing his son's jazz recital, which I guess, does this mean that the, does this mean that JK Simmons' character in Whiplash also exists in this movie? I really hope so. But I mean, fuck, JK Simmons' character in Burn After Reading arguably exists in this

movie. It probably has a relationship with Christmas stuff. Yeah, he works in the Christmas CIA and he's like, at the end of this, what have we learned? I'm fucked if I know what we did. Yeah. I find out, Oh God, Christmas, Christmas. St. Nick, Nick is being held in the old workshop. They figure that out because they're like, Oh, they do Terminator two, which is they, they ask a shape-shifter a question. It would get wrong, which is what kind of cookies are you making for Santa? And then they're like, yeah, the North Pole has been taken, which is, I was, I didn't predict that one, but I feel like I should've.

Yeah. This would've been better with Arnold Schwarzenegger in it, that's what you're making me think now. That's kind of true, because the reason why the Arnold Schwarzenegger stuff, like Kindergarten Cop, is enjoyable is because he did a lot of really straight-laced action movies with precious little irony in them. Whereas The Rock kind of mostly does irony now? It's kind of like, you need the mixes off there, you know?

Yeah, well it's that the reason that The Naked Gun is a funny action movie is that Leslie Nielsen never cracks a smile or makes a joke. He is completely straight the whole time, right? It's the exact same thing. It's why like, none of the rock action comedies ever work, is that he's not willing to commit to, if this is going to be silly, I have to look like I believe it, not like I look like, yeah, I know this is dumb too. Which is weird, because it's something he used to be really good at. Anyway, Chris Evans and Jimmy Kimmel the second get imprisoned in the fucking quantum dimension. Um,

M- They're with Lex Luthor. L- Yeah, I, I, I just like, I badly don't care at this point, but they escape through the power of Christmas because, uh, Chris Evans is like, actually maybe I do care about being a biological father and that like, the power of love breaks him out of the thing. M- Why does it break out the kid? Why does it break out the son? What does the son do, other than just... How does he become naughty? It liberates him from the like, kind of spiritual oppression of being descended from Jimmy Kimmel. Yeah. He accepts the boundless light of Christmas.

That's right. The rock frees the various elf dipshits, including the polar bear, there's a fight scene. It plays out like every Marvel movie, complete with the like, uh, climactic fight, but not so fast, cause actually she's got a second form that's bigger and scarier and kinda monstrous. And then someone you thought was an enemy earlier comes along as a friend. It is a fucking Thor love and thunder, like with worse music. It is a reskin of a Marvel movie with... it's even to the extent that... They got installed this film off the Steam Workshop is how much this is a reskin. I should have had Captain Price and fucking Soap McTavish come in at the end and be like, we've been

sent in to save Christmas. We've had a sweep around TK Maxx and we've picked up a scented candle for every aunt in Great Britain. And then they have to have the little fun scene at the end where Chris Evans and Jimmy Kimmel Jr. get to go on the Christmas run, which again shows Santa's sleigh as just benefiting from many of the, from like unmanned drone technology, from being able to wirelessly surveil. It weirdly has like an AC-130 level in there. It's, uh, yeah.

The point where it gets refueled and reloaded in the air like an AC-130. The thing is, right, this pays off. A long, baffling scene at the beginning where, so the scene is, uh, fucking, the Rock's character is resigning from Christmas, right, and Santa doesn't want him to go, but he respects his decision. Except, this is happening entirely in Santa's bespoke massive gym, where Santa is lifting and The Rock is spotting him. And it really makes a lot of hay out of ripped Santa, and this is why, I guess.

It's genuinely uncomfortable, like, to see JK Simmons in the Santa suit, just, like, lifting. Yeah, it's uncomfortable also to see him, I would say, like, infil- like, door kick- he's door kicker Santa. He's actually kicking the door. He is breaching, clearing, and infiltrating houses at great speed. Rolls down my chimney and eats one of my Tannerite cookies. Anything from in-air reloads, unmanned aerial vehicles, quite extreme surveillance. Full spectrum Santa. Yeah.

Yeah. And then the rock then believes in Christmas again because he doesn't see the naughty grown up but the nice child. And then Chris Evans goes back to how he was as a kid and is hanging out with his kid about how cool Christmas is again. And then I guess Christmas is saved by the power of the surveillance state. Yeah, the CIA saves Christmas kind of. Yeah, well, hey, how are we left as viewers at the end of the film, other than confused

and annoyed that the price of this is bundled with an Amazon Prime subscription? ALICE Yeah, bad, I would say. I feel bad. I didn't enjoy watching this. You know that Celine Shama thing that's like, with me, you feel the time pass, I just took two hours of somebody's life. I wasn't expecting that from The Rock, but yeah. The Rock has taken two hours of my life. Yeah. I mean, I feel as though if they want to redeem themselves for this movie, if the thesis of this movie is that the CIA is helping Santa, then there should be a follow-up JFK style

movie where Jim Garrison is investigating the truth behind the Santa allegations. Now, if the US government would have you believe that Santa is brought about entirely as a coincidence between a number of hardworking Americans and their completely unthinking socioeconomic interactions. But I have evidence here in this here movie picture that in fact, Santa Claus is real. And he's gay. And he's gay in the Netherlands. And he's gay. All the L in a new one and he's gay

Why is the product placement for monopoly? Why is their product placement for bullets bourbon? Why is that product placement for the replace station 5? Why is their product placement for hot wheels? Why is their product placement for rock and sock and robots? I I wish that more things were foyer a bowl because I want to see the chain of emails that led to Bullet Bourbon deciding to product place themselves in Red One. I mean it's really funny because that is the actual social niche of Bourbon in general is the PG version of someone who thinks they're edgy and dangerous, which is what Chris Evans is playing in this movie, so it's perfect. Yeah, yeah, again, if they wanted to make a real picture, they

would have had him doing meth. He would have been, he would have been meth. He would have been the fucking tweaker Bostonite who's been like hired, who's been paid in Bitcoin for Santa's location and they have to save team up with Zwarte Piet to save him. Oh, if you're going to drop some Christmas presents down the chimneys of Coventry, all right. It's going to be a big job, but we're going to get it all done in one night. Yeah.

How do you think I'd be, I visit six billion houses a year? Beth, wait, wait, wait. Santa was an operation paperclip hire. But they had to be, the Nazis had advanced Santa technology. Yeah, he was, he was one of like the industrialists who was like rehabilitated. Like you shouldn't buy like a Braun toothbrush for that reason. Yeah.

Weineachtwann Braun. If you go on Santa's website, there's a little history section and for some reason it cuts out during the thirties and comes back in the fifties. It just says that all it says is that they regret what happened in the thirties and then they mostly talk about their fight against communism. It's really weird. Why is there a photo of him wearing a black Santa suit? And what is that emblem on the hat?

Anyway. SS stood for Santa Santa. So no one wants you to know. I think we have talked about Red One for far too long. We've thought I've thought about this movie far longer than I've ever needed to. Yeah. Did we have any? Do we miss anything from your close reading?

Yeah, there's one thing that I wanted to talk about, which is in Santa's big motivational speech about the spirit of Christmas to the Rock, he says, you see who they really are down deep instead of deep down, which is so clearly like a thing that has been mistyped, and J. and JK Simmons sells it and they did not do another take. And that's my, that's my like point for the whole movie is, uh, so someone, you know, who they are down deep. He's like a, he's like fucking Ron Burgundy. Like he reads whatever's on the Jail of Parliament. The movie version of that is he's Seagal. He doesn't, he doesn't run the lines. He doesn't

block the scene. Why, why is Santa in a chair for most of this movie? He doesn't run the lines, he doesn't block the scenes, he does one take only. Why is Santa speaking in a kind of fucked up cage and axe? I'm gonna invite every other boy and girl in the world to a party with my geese. If there are competing power blocks in the mythological end to pole, right, we need the Saga Christmas movie. I badly need to see a very Saga Christmas. Yeah, where Santa gets kidnapped by North Korea.

Yeah, starring all of the like, guys who went to Russia, it's got Gerard Depardieu in the Rock's role. Yeah. So wait, hang on. The Jiu-Jitsu regime, they don't believe in Christmas. Wait, no, Sigour is The Rock, Depardieu is Santa. Uh, who are we filling Chris Evans with? So the, I mean Snowden.

Fucking Snowden, yeah. Yeah. More convincing hacker. Yeah. It looks like someone doesn't know much about the three of me. They kept quiting. Yeah. And then, hang on, because also, the other thing, they'll usually get someone like Anthony Mackey to lend it like a lit, like someone who's barely a C-list actor to lend it like

something. So Anthony Mackey would be the head of the CIA in it or the Christmas GRU. Yeah. Lukashenko is compass. Yeah. And then, hello! You have forgotten the magical Christmas power of potato! Day 1000 of the one day special presents operation. And you know what? It would cost a hundred thousand dollars to make. Oh, so cheap. It would look the same. It would be much better.

We pitch stuff to what remains of the Russian cultural establishment. But guys, please, we're begging you. You've got Segal. Use him. Segal will not accept that he's in a comic movie and that his role is played for laughs because he can't figure that out. He will, his brain is impervious to understanding that he is a silly, ridiculous person. He will play The Rock's role 100% Leslie Nielsen straight. Swear to God.

You have secret weapon, powerful American actor, codename Chayka. He does everything from chair. He is able to accomplish every feat of combat from sitting down. Imagine how bad if he stood up. He is like Professor X. He does not need to stand up from chair. I really love the idea that the Russians are all in on Sigal out of a sunk-cast fallacy. They're gonna deploy him to Ukraine.

Everyone agrees we should have got Van Damme. We have to admit we backed wrong horse. Van Damme is more mobile. We have seen him do splits in Coors Light commercial. Seagull could not do this. But also Seagull very good at squinting and saying barely intelligible words. No, it's not all bad. Seagull incredible at find Richie.

Is possible we could get Christophe Lambert, but no one can understand what he says. Alright, alright, alright. Well, we just pitched a better movie than Red One to a competing cultural block. Give us the budget and we'll go to Russia and make it. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, there we go. Run, do not walk to go see Red Two, made made by us starring that group of people. Santa's workshop in Surgut.

Santa's workshop was actually a closed city. You know, it's got like a name and number. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like an oil field next to it. Yeah. It's in Magnitogorsk. Uh, Santa's workshop was sold off as part of a voucher privatization. Yeah. The guy that, the guy that actually bought Santa's workshop, mostly traded jeans for it. And now he owns Chelsea Football Club. It's crazy. He got sanctioned to kill the crossbow. Yeah.

Come on. This is such a better movie. This is such a better movie. He's wearing red trousers, but like no jacket. Just like Harry gets a big, big orthodox cross. He's like wearing sunglasses and driving a Mercedes and he gets like blown up on his way to see his mistress. All right. Son of Santa.

Yeah. Ivan Santovich, your father has been killed. You must take over family business. Everyone knows the best time to sell a Christmas themed Your father has been killed. You must take over family business. Everyone knows the best time to sell a Christmas themed t-shirt is in January or February, depending on when we get around to it. So on that basis, I'm really feeling Russian Santa. What if we do like, what if we just do a really long pre-order, like a year pre-order.

Yeah. Like lock, lock your money. Like a fucking crypto coin. Lock your money up in the TFS. It's a stable store of value. It's more stable than fucking like Dogecoin. Yeah, that's right. Steven Zegal, Gerard Depardieu, Edvard Snowden, Trashfuture, the company that represents Jed Moroz. That's right. Okay. We've got it. We've nailed it. The company Trashfuture presents......Yed Moroz. Yeah, unless they make red to in which case in which case see it. Yeah I love that. Please don't please please don't threaten me with a bad time I'm very little bad time a thing. I'm just straightforwardly saying because if I had a bad time, I wouldn't enjoy it

See you in 2025. Okay. Bye everybody nailed me. I don't want to have a bad time Um a little bit of end of year housekeeping a little bit of end of year housekeeping Don't want to have a bad time. Um, a little bit of end of year housekeeping, a little bit of end of year housekeeping. Uh, this is the last free episode we'll be recording this year. At the second half of this week, there will be the first half of a two hour Q and A session that we did, which was just a kind of pleasant chill vibe. We ate a lot of queues. We ate a lot of queues.

We ate a decent number of queues. So if you queued, decent chance we ate you. Yeah, like 300 queues were submitted. So there's a maybe... We did not aid that many queues. We aid maybe 5% of the queues at the great length. So, there's that. We aid the ones that compelled us.

Yes. Yeah. We could have written a better queue. Yeah. Secondly, the second half of that episode is going to be released on the premium feed the following Tuesday, because we're going to take that day off and unlock a bonus episode to the free feed. So yes, you will be getting the same number of hours of content, whether you're a premium or free subscriber. It's just that's what it's going to look like. And then we're going

to be returning to our regularly scheduled programming after that. So I think all that remains to be said is thank you for another year, another year of doing this, another year of doing this with my, with my good friends. Uh, it is a job I never thought I would have in one that I really, really enjoy. So I want to thank all of you for making it all possible. We're excited to do it all with you again, uh, in 2020. Yeah, from Aruba.

Yeah, yeah. We're, we're, we're doing a tax break, a tax paid holiday, uh, episode to Aruba. We're going to be doing a tax break, a tax paid holiday episode to Aruba. We're going to be recording from there. It won't change much. It won't make it onto the show. We will barely reference that we're there, but we will be there anyway. Happy holidays. Have a wonderful new year and we will see you on the other side. Bye everyone.

Bye. you on the other side. Bye everyone.