Tinseltown - The Holiday Movie Podcast

The Mayor and Flonk stave off the fearful specter of Mr. Poppy by virtue of the Mayor losing his external hard drive, so instead it's time to check out our dear Shane Black's first big hit, Lethal Weapon, starring Danny Glover, who is not that old, and Mel Gibson, whose hilariously terrible accent helps distract us from the fact that he's an un-hilariously terrible person.

The Mayor and Courtney review the made-for-TV Nativity opera "Amahl and the Night Visitors". Along the way, we discuss the comparative simplicity of opera lyrics, invent a fairy tale origin story for the show, and get unnecessarily horny for a biblical episode.

"Eight years isn't too long to wait for a sequel, right? Nah. Let's throw four scripts into a blender and make The Santa Clause 2!"

The Mayor and Anton look at the absurd mid-90s family flick "Jingle All The Way", a movie that looks in a lot of different directions, and goes in ALL of them.

Emily comes back to review yet another romcom, this time the charming "While You Were Sleeping", which the Mayor had never seen and did NOT know what to expect from. 

The Mayor and Tim Montoya look at the Salkinds' fantasy epic "Santa Claus: The Movie", a loose remake of Superman starring Dudley Moore, The Big Lebowski, and John Lithgow. And Puffy. SCREW OFF, PUFFY.   Due to the late edit, I didn't jingle the cuss words. Sorry about that.

The Mayor of Christmas is joined once again by El Mero Mero de Navidad, Alonso Duralde, to discuss "Who Slew Auntie Roo", an EXCEEEEEDINGLY British horror film, which throws "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane", "Oliver!", "Tales from the Crypt", and "Blithe Spirit" into a blender and just sees what comes out the other side.

The Mayor and Lara take a look at The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, a movie which kind of has a nutcracker in it sometimes. Did you know Keira Knightley could ham it up? SHE CAN! Did you know Richard E. Grant could play people in genre movies that aren't evil? HE CAN! Did you know Matthew McFayden could look handsomely sad? YOU DID IF YOU KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT HIM!

Good news, now no matter what you do in your life, you'll be able to say "Well, at least I'm not squandering my potential as much as the cast of Mixed Nuts was." The Mayor and AAlgar are here to warn you about it.

Fixed audio! In a castle of pain, on a throne of blood, the mayor and Maggie, whose name is once again mistakenly said with two bad consanants and a missing syllable, discuss Ghostbusters 2, the third-best Ghostbusters movie. Yes, you're right, that DOES sound like a polite way of saying the worst Ghostbusters movie!

Tinseltown Guest Month returns, this time not even pretending that it isn't going to be longer than a month! Our first guest is Mark "Bob" Boszko, and he's here to talk about Shane Black's debut directorial offer, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", a neo-noir modern masterpiece. 

It's our first redo of one of the old solo episodes here, as the Mayor and Courtney take a second look at the extraordinarily boring biopic "Squanto: A Warrior's Tale".

The Mayor learns a harsh lesson about choosing movies to review based on how funny the titles of their sequels are as he and his brother look at the British franchise starter "Nativity!"

The Mayor and Colleen take a look at the Christmas-displaced 1960s beach movie/band infomercial "Get Yourself a College Girl", which contains a whole bunch of musical acts and a light sprinkling of racism so blatant and baffling that we didn't even realize it at first. 

Just a heads up, there's some audio errors in this episode. There's also some discussion of how sexual assault is poorly used in horror movies, so be forewarned. The Mayor and Emily review the incompetent paint-by-numbers slasher flick "Silent Night, Deadly Night", a movie which, paradoxically, seems more aware than most of the misogyny that motivates real life serial killers, and yet is itself ma...

The Mayor and Robbie watch another Rankin-Bass joint. This time it's The Year Without a Santa Claus, which is cheap, repetitive, and fun as hell. We get really mad at Becky, Chip, Skip, and Kipper, and also at Bill Cosby, because we're still thinking about Ghost Dad.

The Mayor and Justin discuss Jack Frost, a 1979 Rankin-Bass joint that combines the lazy surrealism of a by the numbers TV Christmas special with the sloppy worldbuilding of a Xanth novel.

The Mayor and Anton go international once again, this time stopping off in Hungary for the obnoxiously adorable romcom "The Shop Around the Corner", discussing such topics as which character may or may not be a gigolo, why romance movies from 1940 make us nervous, and how much we love Peppy. Ah, Peppy.  See Tinseltown's own Colleen Lis in the musical adaptation of this movie, She Loves Me! colleen...

The Mayor and Courtney examine "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe", a movie which only vaguely counts as Christmas, but it's based on a childhood favorite book of ours, and frankly, after four Babes in Toylands, we deserve a treat.

Late episode this week, but we are VERY pleased to announce the oft-discussed and long awaited New and a Bit Alarming, coming soon to your pod-listener! Please enjoy this special season preview.

The Mayor and Colleen take a look at "Susan Slept Here", a cavalcade of high-waisted pants, men watching each other shower, ugly lighting, and a heapin' helpin' of good old-fashioned misogyny.

Brian and Robbie return to childhood while watching the Dreamworks joint "Rise of the Guardians", which is a bit of collection of half baked ideas, but mostly the kind of half baked where it's still gooey and yummy. I've achieved a metaphor! More than this movie keeps doing. Also, Robbie does a commercial for box wine and talks a bit about Ghost Dad.

Hey, why is this posting on Monday instead of Tuesday? Well, I'm sure that's the only unusual thing going on here, today, on April 1.

David and the Mayor get bummed out watching "Merry Friggin' Christmas", a movie with an overqualified cast and an underdeveloped script. Join us as the plot wanders, the actors falter, and Clark Duke valiantly tries to save the day by just pretending he's in a better movie.

Hello, all! Due to me directing a play and being just bonkers busy, I don't have an episode edited for this week, so instead, here's the first full length episode we did on our Patreon bonus feed, wherein Flonk and I watch an extremely British horror film with an extremely tenuous Christmas connection. Regular episodes should resume next week.