Tinseltown - The Holiday Movie Podcast

Welcome to "A Surprise for Brian and Emily", the nation's number one podcast where two people discuss American Girl books in order to avoid talking about ANOTHER damn Kevin Spacey movie because I GUESS WE'RE HAVING A KEVIN SPACEY MARATHON. Anyway, this one is The Ref, a "comedy" with the joke quality of "Letters to Santa" and the humanity of "Dutch". Costarring Penis Leary and a bunch of character...

Bird's the word this week, for some reason, as the Mayor and his brother review a movie about Santa and his brother, Fred Claus! Join us as we lament the numerous plot elements that lay abandoned on the floor, and the wasted cast, including Rachel Weisz, Miranda Richardson, Elizabeth Banks, and OH GODDAMMIT, WHO INVITED THAT GUY.

The Mayor and Anton return to the world of Muppets for the bizarre and lazy Post Office propaganda film "A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa", featuring perfunctory cameos, two good jokes, and sleepwalking puppeteers. Also, we keep getting distracted by our off-mic plans to become indie comics darlings with a book about a polyamorous robot thruple.

The Mayor and Justin discuss "Dutch", a road comedy where John Hughes tries to retread some of his old hits, and somehow winds up with a slobs vs snobs comedy where the snob keeps coming off better because at least he's a CHILD and shouldn't KNOW BETTER. We also throw the word "monster" around a lot, but if you know a better description for these two, I'd like to hear it. One of them eats a BUTTER...

We're not locked in here with Babes in Toyland, Babes in Toyland is locked in here with us! The Mayor and Courtney earn their happy ending with the shortest, but most punishingly terrible version of this story yet, this time a 1997 direct to video animated joint with a surprisingly good cast. The rest... was less surprising.

Colleen returns to Connecticut to join the mayor in looking into the depths of madness that is the Schwarzenegger-DIRECTED remake of "Christmas in Connecticut". For some godforsaken reason.

The Mayor is joined by AAlgar and Amanda from The Death of Podcasts, because what better way to discuss two married, witty detectives than with two married, witty podcasters who may or may not be detectives? I mean, they easily could be, I don't know. I've never seen how they react when someone gets murdered around them. Anyway, here's "The Thin Man".

Guest month continues as The Mayor is joined by his friend Sarah to discuss Arnold Schwarzenegger's overreaching Willienium New Year's action-horror film End of Days, which features characters honestly named Jericho Cain, Bobby Chicago, and Father Thomas Aquinas.

The Mayor and special guest, professional pirate Lara Ianni, get WILDLY frustrated with Disney's holiday assault on their own IP, "Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas". Please enjoy our bewilderment as the already paper-thin suspension of disbelief from the first one gets shredded to tiny pieces. And BURNED. AND THEN EATEN. Stay Tuned for the Mayor's upcoming show, "New and a Bit Alarmin...

Maggie and AAlgar of the Post Atomic Horror make a return trip to mayor's office in the company of our own Flonk, hoping for safety in numbers as we attempt to make some sense of the Canadian freeform jazz horror anthology "A Christmas Horror Story". We look at the four intersecting storylines to work out which of them are good (none of them), and which are, while perhaps promising conceptually, r...

Home Alone the franchise may be over, but Home Alone the month is not! Because at last, it's time to check out 3615 Code Père Noël! That's right, the French magical realist psychological horror film which is alleged to be the inspiration for the Hollywoo classic! Is Thomas more of a sociopath than Kevin? Is the Père Noël a better villain than the Wet Bandits? What's the final death toll going to b...

Merry Boxing Day! I thought I'd do a slightly more detailed look at the 15 movies currently sitting on the New Holiday Canon and speculate a bit on which ones will still be around this time next year, as well as some reasons others might be removed. Here's the rundown... GUARANTEED SAFE * Arthur Christmas ALMOST DEFINITELY SAFE *Gremlins *Die Hard *A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas *Joyeaux Noe...

Merry Christmas Eve! Figured I'd throw this one up a day early. In this stunning conclusion to the canonical portion of Home Alone Month, The Mayor and Justin take a look at Home Alone: The Holiday Heist, also known as Home Alone 5, also known as "Home Alone... FIVE ?" Join us as we look at a movie that was apparently created by a team who listened to our previous four episodes and planned accordi...

NOTE: An early upload of this was allllll messed up. This fixed it.  The Mayor and Robbie take a look at Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House, a movie that dares to ask "Hey, anyone want to watch Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House?" The answer should always be no. Join us for this examination of good character actors, bad plotting, and a fruitless quest to do South African accents.

Hello, all! Due to a late record, the Home Alone 4 episode will probably not post until Wednesday, rather than our usual Tuesday. So to make sure that y'all at least got a little something, here's two good selections of goofs from this month's premium content. Enjoy!

Home Alone Month blunders on with Roger Ebert's favorite of the theatrical THRILLogy, Home Alone 3. Our boy Raja steps up to the plate for the first time ever, and danged if he doesn't bring his all. From the first baffling five minutes to the final literal giant explosion, this movie takes the Home Alone formula and says "I can fix this." Traps are laid, villains are thwarted, and the New Holiday...

Home Alone month continues! The Mayor and Colleen take a look at Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which attempts to repeat the formula of the first AND wildly increase the stakes, which... well, they take some swings. Highlights include a five star hotel staffed entirely by reliable character actors, an examination of the worst lyrics ever, and Taxi Frankenstein, the season's hottest new character.

Audio note: The heat in Emily's apartment hisses a bit. I did what I could to tone it down. Apologies. The Mayor and Emily kick off Home Alone Month with what else but "Home Alone", a touching tale of child abandonment and grievous bodily harm! Join us as we calculate the life threatening injuries of the villains and play another game of our old favorite, "Who's the Worst Character"?

The Mayor and Flonk review "Ocean's 11", the classic example of a remake being WAY better than its source material. Unfortunately, the remake doesn't take place on New Year's Eve, so we're stuck doing this one. I hope you like Dean Martin and casual racism. WE DON'T. Programming note: Ocean's Eight came out WAY sooner than I thought it was going to when we recorded this. For some reason, I thought...

The Mayor and Anton look at "We're No Angels", which is one of those 50s movies you get where it was obviously and rather poorly adapted from a play. Notable features of this technique include awkward expansion of a single set to multiple locations, characters that were clearly hastily rewritten for famous movie stars, and super awkward endings.

The Mayor and David look askance at the 1994 film version of Ballanchine's legendary "Nutcracker", starring Macaulay Culkin. You know. The famous ballet dancer.

The Mayor and Robbie put away their trademark FLAWLESS impressions and break out their finest Vaudeville-quality Wacky Ethnic Accents to examine "Mrs. Santa Claus", a made for TV movie where Angela Lansbury singlehandedly fixes every problem faced by New York immigrant communities in 1910.

Fresh off recording "Love Actually", the Mayor and Emily take a look at another rom-com, only this time, one with NO likable characters in it! It's "Serendipity", a movie about how fate will save true love  – wait, no, I mean how terrible people will neglect their years-long relationships in an attempt to distract themselves from their own uselessness.

The Mayor and Justin take a look at "Pottersville", the movie that can't decide the following things: What sort of tone it wants to strike, who exactly the good guys are, and what its opinion of furries is. But honestly, when your starting point is "Michael Shannon is a lovable small-town everyman," your movie has nowhere to go but weird.

The Mayor and Flonk watch the one and only Black Friday movie on the list, "Paul Blart: Mall Cop". It's a movie with a few actors that are way too good for it, several that are just right, and remarkably, one who isn't good enough. Come for the goofy riffs on the name "Veck Simms", stay for the shocking and truly ridiculous tactic one of these actors used to get famous. (It's the one who isn't goo...