035 - We'll Do It Rimes!

Explicit content warning

11/15/18 • 71 min

Sweeten that studio magic, it's 2018's IT'S CHRISTMAS, EVE, featuring LeAnn Rimes and: One-year-anniversary gift of the magi ... Malaise forever! ... Scouting Report: Young Werther ... Casey Kasem ... Premature rating ... THEME ... Always Christmas/always New Year's Eve ... Pastiche of pastiches ... LeAnn Rimes: Dead-weight energy and stone face ... Junket/glad-handing impatient demeanor ... Thoroughly even keeled ... LeAnn doing original songs is originality enough ... BREAK ... The Expositional Challenge ... Proactive dad with a website ... Original music ... Belted-out studio vocal track ... 100 percent *valid* Christmas tree lot ... Bantering dialogue like a table read ... Uneven emotional engagement ... Undermining degrees of Chandler-from-Friends spin ... BREAK ... Spot the Angel: Abby or, everyone but Eve ... Checking in with Hallmark sponsor Country Living Magazine: Maple Ridge or Chilliwack? ... Roving superintendent of schools ... Just try raising taxes, buttheads ... Just ADMIT that life has value outside of cash and quantification ... Jeremy Bentham and Karl Marx ... Eat Your Heart Out: Popcorn vat at A Christmas Carol vs. overdoing the hot chocolate ... Foreign currency jokes ... BREAK ... Hallmark Expanded Universe: Every town vs. Larry Walker's hometown ... Overdetermined: Abandoning music since dad died vs. "small towns come together" ... An "Up in the Air" agent of austerity and unintentional villainy ... Crossover: Dangerous Minds vs. Up in the Air ... Hallmark Bechdel Test: Ughhhhhhh, screw it, you tell us ... Partner Chat: "If you watch that, you'll get sick" vs. Matthew Perry vibe and Celebs With No Eyebrows dot Com ... LeAnn Rimes eyebrow chat ... Don't pee ... BREAK ... The Leftovers: Letterman chat ... Love Actually, again ... "Idiot Control Now" ... "We're a Panabaker household" ... Bingo Jones ... Latin Anniversary ... Wyatt and Tate ... Jeb worked at a Hallmark store ... And Duck Head ... Homes SMOTHERED in merchandising ... Hitting the Snodgrass ... Laremy Tunsil shout-out ... Emoting your way to guitar godhood ... That ain't how pageloads work ... Spot the Charlie's Angel hairstyle ... RATING: 2.5 ... Dusty Baker, Panabaker ... Merry Christmas! ... • MUSIC: "Fuck You If You Don't Like Christmas," from Crudbump, by Drew Fairweather • "If U Want It," from Cyber-Vision, by Drew Fairweather • "The Stars and Stripes Forever," by John Philip Sousa • "You and Me and Christmas" by LeAnn Rimes • All other music by Chris Collingwood of Look Park and Fountains of Wayne, except: "Orchestral Sports Theme" by Chris Collingwood and Rick Murnane

Previous Episode

034 - Judge Panabaker in Cookie v. Gingerbread

KAREN GEIER is cookin' in our dang kitchen for 2018's CHRISTMAS JOY and: Rap game gingerbread ... Affected by Christmas on a German level ... Caganer: The Catalan pooping figurine ... I got a capon guy ... "Do y'all eat loons?" ... BREAK ... The Expositional Challenge ... Plot cleanup ... What's sexier than a widower? ... Ersatz America without flavor ... A sorority recruitment video, but for marriage ... Department store in a train station ... An absence of egregious lines ... Spot the Angel: The Primum Mobile Aunt; rainmaking department store owner; Ben, a welter of self-abnegation ... Omnipresent stalker material ... Eat Your Heart Out: Insane ingredient list, barrels of milk, La Mansione, non-functional log kitchen, "Dirty Cookies," unclear about the terms of the cookie crawl, thawing cookies in a snow-covered barn, amazing Kitchen Aid mixer guy, communal labor ... BREAK ... Hallmark Expanded Universe: The Rocky Mountains of Georgia, Cartwright's vs. Weatherton's, a Lacey Chabert joint ... Overdetermined: Insane quit at the embarrassing gala showdown; 99 percent of city life is insanely boring; we here in small towns live in small towns; still "hitched" to being in Crystal Falls ... Crossover: Joy as a Scandinavian homicide cop vs. an Unseen Anne Hathaway movie vs. the gritty reboot of CITY WIFE ... Christmas in hospitals is terrible ... Doing Christmas drugs ... Wife absorbed alive by house ... BREAK ... The Swagony of Defeat: The "Wonderfold" Christmas diorama; conspicuous iPhone/MacBook placements; Southern Living cover shot; Balsam Hill Christmas ornaments; crappy-ass mosaic ornament ... German motivational abuse ... BREAK ... The Leftovers: Insanely restrictive gingerbread competition ... Gettin' that d-ring binder ... Love letter to retail ... Prop master's mom photo ... WEAR A HAIRNET ... Mrs. Weatherton's paying for lies ... I love Gabrielle Rose, and one day we'll be together ... Cyber is the future ... "Love Actually" as the ultimate Hallmark movie ... Carolina Panthers Stadium in gingerbread ... RATING: 3, leaning higher ... MyDang.Kitchen ... Fight against recipes prefaced with personal stories ... Merry Christmas! ... • MUSIC: "Fuck You If You Don't Like Christmas," from Crudbump, by Drew Fairweather • "If U Want It," from Cyber-Vision, by Drew Fairweather • "Tit for Tat "Ain't No Taking Back" by James Brown • "Tears" by Giorgio Moroder • All other music by Chris Collingwood of Look Park and Fountains of Wayne, except: "Orchestral Sports Theme" by Chris Collingwood and Rick Murnane • CLICK HERE FOR STILLS WE DISCUSSED FROM THE MOVIE.

Next Episode

036 - Smash the Machines, Seize the Kringles

SARA KATE WILKINSON returns a third time for Countdown to Christmas Four in CHRISTMAS IN LOVE, with: I'll make the Wiki ... THEME ... Hallmark Graceland and Elvis sandwiches ... Christmas decorations: before Pearl Harbor Day? ... Balsam Hill: the ornaments your decorator buys ... Appropriate decoration density ... Hot Take: Cute, and it's good ... Adults with real motivation ... Brooke D'Orsay Appreciation Station ... Seamless ... At Christmastime, but not really about Christmas ... "Quality Time" vs. quality time ... BREAK ... The Expositional Challenge ... Again: a good movie ... A sane and adult quit ... A proudly pro-labor movie ... Roasting "learn to code" ... Fixing a dopey heir ... Technology as not-magic ... Basically real people ... BREAK ... Spot the Angel: [No Actual Angel] ... Eat Your Heart Out: Kringle familiarity; what else do you make?; BobbyBigWheel shout-out; iced-out cookies; diner culture; booze bag ... Hallmark Expanded Universe: Brendan Routh crossover vs. Brooke D'Orsay doppelgängers ... Marc Blucas ... Overdetermined: There really isn't anything vs. the skeleton of another Hallmark movie beneath this flesh ... Hallmark Bechdel Test: Christmas crafts vs. year-round product diversity ... BREAK ... The Leftovers: Hideous wreaths ... Open ex-boyfriend ... Borderline kiss on the cheek ... A woman-initiated kiss! ... It stayed on the right side ... No hairnet, great hair ... Elf outfit ... Good male costuming ... I thought you'd never ask me to help you write a business plan ... Drunk honor student ... Human in crisis ... One error: selective disbelief ... They don't lay off HR ... "It's his job to protect the town" ... Rating: 4.5 ... LinkedIn Sara Kate ... Merry Christmas ... • MUSIC: "Fuck You If You Don't Like Christmas," from Crudbump, by Drew Fairweather • "If U Want It," from Cyber-Vision, by Drew Fairweather • "A Real Hero" by College & Electric Youth • All other music by Chris Collingwood of Look Park and Fountains of Wayne, except: "Orchestral Sports Theme" by Chris Collingwood and Rick Marianne