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Keywords
Happy Holidays, Hallmark movies, character analysis, dog rescue, healthcare themes, romantic comedy, movie critique, LGBTQ representation, holiday films, film reviews
Summary
In this conversation, the hosts review the Hallmark movie 'Happy Holidays' and discuss its plot, character development, and execution. They delve into themes of healthcare, personal struggles, and the romantic dynamics between characters, while also critiquing the acting and directing. The discussion transitions to a comparative review of another holiday film, 'A Holiday I Do,' highlighting its LGBTQ representation and comedic elements. The hosts conclude with their final thoughts and recommendations for viewers looking for holiday films.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (00:00.426)
It's recording. I can edit this out until you're ready. I think you'll want to scooch. Okay.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (00:13.356)
Which one are we doing? Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Let's play that festive trailer.
So what do you think of Happy Holidays? I want to really like it, but I can't.
What do you mean? The general premise of like these two dogs are in love and they have to go to a bunch of dog Christmas events, cute as hell. Cute as hell. But there's just so many questions. So many questions. great drone shots of Seattle. yeah, someone got a drone in Hallmark. Yeah.
A of good hiking scenes. Probably didn't have to only had to get what a photography permit. So and congrats to I think his name was Ezra for winning Finding Mr. Christmas on your. Please take that out. Sorry. Congratulations, Ezra. I don't know what you said. but let's just say this movie is not going to win any awards for acting. No, no. Let's see. So.
Our main character, Mia, she is works for Seattle tourism. And when her parents show up to visit her, they like, she's really a mess. And I'm like, looks like she's got her shit together. We were she referred to her house as an apartment, but it is a houseboat and it's gorgeous. It has to be two stories, two stories, three stories, most beautiful wallpaper I've ever seen. Yes. The decor.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (01:53.614)
I mean, Leslie is the expert on the Seattle real estate market, but I feel like it must have been at least $3,000 a month to rent this place. At least. And so it's like, why are her parents saying, I don't think she has her shit together? I mean, then we find out later because she was a surgeon who gave it up, which was also a really weird story. Well, no, I mean, yeah, it was a weird story. So I thought the the writing was good.
It just unfortunately wasn't executed well. I have like hair that needs to be cut anyway. I just didn't think actorial wise it was executed as well as other ones probably would have done it. But the writing was good. So the idea of it, how she was basically a former doctor surgeon in the emergency room, bad situation happened that you're like.
Wow, the healthcare system is really fucked up here in America. Yes, it is. But the situation that occurred on the story, I don't know what actually happened necessarily in an emergency room. So according to how Mia tells it, there was someone who came into the hospital who was looking very sick and jaundiced. They didn't have insurance and she decided to operate on them anyways because they were internally bleeding. Well, but...
And then she got reprimanded for No, no, no, no, you missed it. You missed part of it. Because she didn't have the insurance, she just they had her sit there in the waiting room for hours. I don't that's a thing. Right. Hospitals really don't care if you have insurance. They're going to do if you say do this on department cares. Let me finish. so if you're in emergency room and you need said emergency procedure done.
they're going to do it if you consent to it, even if you're authorization not, if you've already consented to it and say, yes, I want it done for life saving amounts. Yes, please do it. They'll deal with the billing later of your insurance rejecting and then you're handling it. But also you can be a charity case at a hospital. That's why a lot of them that are religiously based, that religion can pay for your insurance as well. Like, so you, I'm sorry, not your insurance, your procedures as well, because you can be considered a charity case. Either way, there are so many ways
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (04:13.066)
around it but like they're still going to give the surgery if it's life you know meaning of life or not so yeah I I don't I mean well now that there's certain laws for things that can or can't be done which is very stupid in our opinion that but that's not insurance based I also feel like as a surgeon you want to be insulated
from the existence or non-existence of insurance on a particular patient. You wanna just focus on doing your job on that particular case as great as possible. So it also seems like, so she got reprimanded for doing surgery on someone who didn't have insurance. And that is what made her wanna give up being a And she said that she didn't have the authorization, which I'm like, well, are you saying the didn't have the authorization through insurance or the authorization to...
you know, do surgery on someone. Again, like a hospital, there's always a, they have backup things that they do. Now if the patient didn't give her authorization to operate. That's completely different. That's that patient's choice to not be, which then they should, they're trespassing on hospital grounds and they should be told to leave. I feel like whoever wrote the screenplay was hoping we wouldn't spend this much time dissecting. Probably also they're Canadian. It's a Canadian writer. I'm just kidding. don't know. Maybe universal healthcare we're jealous about.
Alright, so we got to talk about how our main character Mia kidnapped a dog Kidnapped a dog. So she's walking home from work walking home from work and it was somewhat raining It was raining and she sees a dog with his head I guess partially stuck out of a broken fence in someone's Presumably someone's yard to us it appeared to look like someone's yard So this is why you feel like she completes breaking the fence takes the dog out
And then it's not like this was her fence and it was her property. She then walks home with the dog for like another few blocks and then goes home, cleans the dog. I also think the dog was following her too. Oh, sorry. The dog was following her. But I really thought it was going to be like this. drop, dramatic turn in this movie, I thought it was going to be when the original owner shows up. It was like, need my dog back. Exactly. Like, oh, that was, that was not part of the plot. That was not a part of the plot at all. And which all they did was scan for
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (06:33.678)
So she brings the dog to a rescue town. The beautiful rescue. Beautiful rescue. It is like a whole cabin with like state of the art facilities. is a concrete building that is beautifully decorated like a cabin with those accents architecturally like a cabin. But it is a sturdy friggin building for a rescue. so she brings their... Rescuers usually look kind of cobbled together. Well anyway yeah. But so she brings in there and then all they do is scan for a chip.
in which no chip he says like, okay, get it, it good. But you're saying don't put any posters around. Don't use social media to help look for the owner. I just like no one did their due diligence here. No one. no nextdoor.com. There's no ring network. No. Yeah. And so of course the... Missing dog question mark.
And so of course the owners of this rescue are running out of money, counting on a donation, like they're about to be foreclosed on. you spent all the money on a really nice new build of a building. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe financially that wasn't quite a good decision. Yeah. So Max is the owner. He's our actor from Finding Mr. Christmas. He has more chemistry with the actors playing his sister than he does with the actors playing Mia. I just believe Mia was great. Little sister was great. Yes. Little sister was charming.
Mia's dad, this is the third movie we've seen him in. is getting Hallmark's getting his money, their money worth of him. He's doing a good job. Yeah. He's trying to fill out his quota for the season. He is. He was good. We like him. And so, of course, Max's ex shows back up in the picture for some much needed drama from California. Well, the whole issue is that like starts it is that his dog, Max's dog, Jules.
is sad and going through a depression state until she meets Russell, the other dog, Mia, who she ends up fostering until an owner ends up being her comes along. So Jules and Russell are just adorable together. Obviously they're trained dogs, like we get it. And so Mia has to post all of these like little dates that the dogs are going on online.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (08:50.318)
And they get super popular, getting a lot of traffic on the website. Yeah, I'm so sorry. Jules is missing the dog Biscuit of the ex-girlfriend. And so Russell is Mia's dog, the one she found. You see all these empty photos in his apartment, in Max's apartment. And you were like, what are these? Why does he just have empty picture frames? Oh, I didn't even put that together. Yeah, I was like, it's clearly he's missed. He had a breakup. I thought it was a design choice having just empty frames on the wall to fill space.
Why would you That's really silly that you would take a photo out of a frame, but then put the frame back up on the wall I am like I wish I looked to see what were the other pictures of were they of him the dog were they just of him were they scenes I guess didn't develop a family for him other than the sister. Oh, no, but what I'm saying is so some of them were like it was One frame but had four photos in it and like only one photo was taken out of it
Well, what were the other three photos or other two photos of two were taken out? Were they of him and the dog of just him of a general scene? Like because she he took out the ones of them. I really like that the the blog where they were posting about the dates was called Pup Dates. That's cute. That's a good one. Good one. One of the dates they go on is to visit this guy who like carved stuff out of wood and he gives them the most beautiful Christmas ornament. Yes. I want one.
Yes, the magnet of the dogs kissing. So it looks like it's laser cut. I cried. The two dogs just cut out of wood and they're magnetically snapped together and their heads form the shape of a heart. It was real cute. It was very cute. I'm having a moment with my hair. I'm also trying to find like...
So Seattle's weather during that time. I'm like, why are you looking at the weather on your phone right now? So, you know, it's currently Christmas Eve over here in Florida. There were comments about how it never snows in Seattle. And so they go hiking in the woods, the mountains. Like, I know it rains a lot there. Maybe it doesn't snow much. find that hard to believe. But everyone was sweating in a lot of these scenes. Right. So, I mean, and yeah, there was there's a lot of rain in Seattle, especially it's showing at least on my little.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (11:04.778)
weather app. It was just beautiful, gorgeous weather there the entire time. They always had the moment to...
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (11:17.23)
So one thing I thought was funny that is kind of something that happened in this movie and it's a trope that kind of annoys me about a lot of movies is so Mia has been calling Max multiple times or no Max was calling Mia Someone was late to one of the dates and they were calling the other person a lot and it wasn't until like the fifth call that he looks at his phone
And sees like, my God, she's been calling a whole bunch. because he was with his ex. Well, what annoys me about that is most of the time in the real world, people will just pull out their phone just to see if there's any notifications. But you can't necessarily do that in a movie because it feels kind of contrived. So there has to be an audio cue for the audience that got that character's attention to then look at the phone. And I just find it weird that they didn't hear the last eight.
But they heard number nine. I was like, wait, it wouldn't be more realistic if you just pulled out his phone to see if there's any notifications because she left the table or something. Yeah, that would have made a lot more sense. And that's just a very nitpicky thing for me. And he also was like not wanting to be with her either. So it's like you could have clearly just showed the annoyance. Well, the thing is, it looked like he didn't want to be anywhere. He looked like he was half asleep throughout the whole movie. Half asleep throughout the entire
But shout out to the host of Finding Mr. Christmas who had a little cameo at the end. Who he shows up, calls him Mr. Christmas. Right. Calls him Mr. Christmas. Yeah. And I screamed. It was cute. It was cute. It did catch me off guard. It's not going to make any sense next year if somebody watches this movie. Right. Who's that guy? Who's that guy? But the the Mr. Christmas host, Judge Mann, definitely.
He's a little good actor, but overdid it and over acted Mr. Christmas. Yeah. Like, no, you're overdoing him. You got to come down to his level. That's like how I felt. So for Happy Holidays, I give writing a four, acting a two, directing a five. Chemistry on meters, probably a one for the two of these. But for the dogs. Seven. They're so cuddly and cozy and they sniff at each other. Yes, they were cute. Real cute.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (13:41.538)
They were shout out to Russell and Jules are two pups. Yes. We don't know who your pup actors were, but we'd love to follow you on Instagram. Yay. So what'd you think of happy holidays? I still think you should see it, but I do hope you go in knowing maybe not should see it. I mean, if you got a few days, you're cuddled. You're doing nothing except, you know, watching Hallmark movies.
give it a watch, but know that this is who won the Finding Mr. Christmas, so you can think of that. I think- Keep it in mind. So he was like a Navy diver who became a model and this is his first movie. Yes. He can model, for sure. he's gorgeous. He takes his shirt off in one scene and you're like, this is rated G? Right, it's rated G and then like there's some shots he's like, like model face.
Like he was on the phone, like it was maybe the second scene where he's on the phone at his desk and he's just like, yeah, you can't, you really can't get that, you can't get that, I like, and I was like, all right, you're posing, okay, there's something, he did act for 10 seconds that I thought was good on their first hike and I'm like, my gosh, he did it. He's like, really? He wasn't reading a cue card. No.
Well, that's how I feel about Bumblebee. Yeah, like he had a good reaction timing to it. Like, my God. And then I think it was good editing. Yeah, was good editing. So everyone else I thought was was a delightful actor and it was a beautiful area to see. We could have used more Christmas decor. Balsam Hill. Yeah. What happened? Yeah. What happened?
There's large parts of the movie where I'm thinking this is a Christmas movie. is a that as well. Yeah, everyone was little sweaty. It was it was just like Christmas themed dates for the dogs. I still was confused about when they held the it was adorable. Their you know, their fundraising event to give money to the shelter, which was held somewhere. We had been a couple of times and we're like, where are we? What is this event hall?
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (16:05.966)
at the dog rescue. No one can leave a projector running overnight. Let's just think of that. Fire hazard there. Yes. So you'll burn out a $400 bulb. $400 bulb, right? Anyway, the little kiss a pup booth and make a collar, those were little cute events that they were having there. I did like that. But we also like we had a
Point setias everywhere and they are poisonous to animals, to dogs. Like, think that through prop people. So that, mean, that was told out in the movie too. that was, but still they were everywhere. So that was Happy Holidays. We also watched the Sabrina Carpenter Christmas special. Which I thought was very funny, very well written. The music I didn't much care for.
But yeah, was no, we, so, you know, shout out to Kacey Musgraves. We do love the Kacey Musgraves Christmas. We listen to it all year long. All year long and we'll just, you when we're depressed, we'll put it on. The comedy is bad, but in a good way. But in a good way. Like purposefully cheesy. And so, and there's originals like from Leon Bridges that we have as well as who did Glittery with her? Troye Sivan. Troye Sivan. And then her, you know, Christmas Makes Me Cry.
Adorable, fantastic. even, you know, we love... you can catch on Prime. The Casey Musgraves Christmas show. And we do enjoy the song Mellakalake Maka and you know, shout to Zoe Deschanel. came out. But the originals that were on there were cute. And yes, the set decor is fantastic. So like top notch, Casey. Top notch. Yeah. So then we have the Sabrina Carpenter Christmas special, which I think was on Netflix. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
And the interstitials, the writing was really good. Acting was great. Yeah. Yeah. There was a couple of hiccups that because it was in front of like a live audience, but I don't know if they redid anything, but I'm glad it is very adult oriented. Very adult. Yeah. Which is nice. is what I want to PG 14 where they say TV 14. Yeah. So there's three fucks in there that you'll get. But I do like the quirkiness of it all.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (18:24.526)
Set decoration was fantastic too. Costumes were top tier. Wonderful. Musical audience like... The only song you should stick around for. mean, watch the whole thing, it's short. Yes. But she does a beautiful duet with Chapel Road. It was... I What was the song again? Last Christmas. Oh, okay. Which I do not like. I am not a fan of that song. But they did such a good job on like...
They're great singers. I'm sorry I'm not a Sabrina Carpenter fan. Not that I don't like her. We need to tune in to her. We haven't really. But she is a great singer. there were other ones too. But either way, Last Christmas was such a beautiful duet that they did together. I find her face a little upsetting. But that's just personal taste. Okay. Alright.
Okay. So yeah, you should watch it. Give it a look. It's only like 45 minutes, I thought. So another movie we watched last night was, so, okay, full disclosure. One of my dreams in life is to review movies in general so that I get free screeners from production companies to let me, a screen is just like, we need to, it's a version of a movie that they send out to reviewers so that they can help get the word out of a movie. Like a week ago, I got contacted by producers.
of a film called A Holiday I Do and director, producer, director and writer, and sent me a screener to watch. So I was like, my God, it's happening, it's happening. We watched it last night. A Holiday I Do is available on Amazon Prime. We didn't have to pay for it because they gave us a screener. It was a lot of fun. What do you think about A Holiday I Do?
It was fun, the writing, the storyline, I was most definitely here for it. A great change up. Shout to, not shout out, they called out Hallmark in it. Yeah, so I like that, so Hallmark was lacking in the LGBTQ category this year. Truly. Severely. had a couple of background characters, a couple of brothers, whatever, but like,
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (20:40.43)
not real stories. Yeah, it was a white Christmas kind of this year, know, LGBTQI all needed to be represented. a holiday I do follows a woman. I don't recall her name. didn't take notes during it. Follows a woman who is best friends with her ex-husband. They split up when she realized she was gay. They have a child together and he's coming back to their hometown to do to have a wedding with his new fiance.
And throughout all of this, woman who runs a horse farm is trying to figure out how she can date, how she can find love, what is her role. She's currently the best woman at the wedding, but she's definitely getting senses from the fiance that she's not happy with their relationship. And there's a daughter in all of this. Yes. She lives with her mother. Her mother is played by the same actress who starred in The Taking of Debra Logan, which, by the way, so.
So I'll always see her in a horror movie context. it was such a... We are not making fun of those that are living with dementia by any means. But the moment that I saw the start of this movie, I was like, oh, why do I feel like dementia will be involved in this? And then wasn't till like that's when it clicked, like she's really part of this. So like, we're like, But so like...
It's weird because it almost feels like the mom is the owner, the owner of the horse farm. Yes. Yes. And it feels like there's kind of different movies going on at this point. The mom, there's a lot of scenes of her alone at home baking and then where she's having a great time. And then a lot of scenes of her at home stressing over eviction notices, final notices from the bank bills. And so it's almost like despite the Christmas music in the background, she's in a horror film.
where she is spiraling out of control and the only way she can deal with the stress is to obsessively bake dozens and dozens of cookies. We got a dancing montage of her baking. So we kept thinking that there's going to be a quick turn in the emotion of this movie that it is going to like it's setting up these expectations just to divert them. But no, that was just weird. It didn't turn into that. No, and I it was too, you know,
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (22:59.406)
actually kind of like three Jixpost stories that were kind of going on together with everyone's storylines that were merging well, was also like, oh, we're back to this side. It was not like it, which was nice. It lined up and flowed very well. The movie was very funny. Some great comedy. It was this fantastic moment where as the best woman, she's organizing the bachelor party.
and she gets these cupcakes shaped like boobs. So funny. I don't want to ruin the joke, but. No, but it was funny to, you ruin it, why not? So the review full of scope. what was cute is you kept it hidden. You didn't quite know. Yes, you knew there were raunchy cupcakes, but how raunchy were they? Would we be able to see them? And then what happens is you are able to see them because now you go.
Okay, so they're on, they're in the limousine. She goes to open it and they look like, not party whatsoever. She opens up the box and they all look like Santa. And she's like, wait, what? With big noses. She's like, wait, what? And then it says, what was it? Like six hours earlier. And it cuts to the grandmother who's obsessively baking. She opens it up, sees that there are boobs and she's like, they didn't even have time to finish decorating They didn't even have time to finish decorating. And she converts them all into Santas with a big nose. was hilarious. Good joke. Yes.
Good job. But there's a lot of great comedy. And then also the the chemistry between our main character and the wedding planner, who she ends up falling for, is really sweet. They are wonderful. just like, you know, two women know what they got to do and they get it done. I don't know. They both did a great job at. The movie was convoluted in a good way. Yes. In the way that they're forced to have these dates. Yes. Because the couple is stuck in a snowstorm.
So she's like, well, guess you're gonna have to taste- couple getting married. The couple getting married, yeah. The hetero couple. So our main character and the wedding planner, like, well, guess you're gonna have to me on tasting cakes. I guess you're gonna have to join me in finding a beautiful venue. Join me on a sleigh ride. You're gonna have to join me on the tasting venue They already had a beautiful venue, but yeah. Yeah. And so she's like, well, guess she's got nothing else to do this time of year at a horse farm. But it was really sweet.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (25:24.974)
They were really developing nice banter, nice chemistry. When they almost kiss and get interrupted, it hurt in my balls. was, it was beautiful. you make it sound like you and your lesbian period pieces and that's what you get off to. It hurt in your balls. I meant like emotionally. I was like, oh, like I wanted it and it didn't happen. For them. My goodness, that was an interesting comment. Okay. Flick that ear.
So, it was really cool that it definitely doesn't have a Hallmark budget. There's a lot of green screen. There's only like five actors. But you know what you did? Who are populating the whole town. That was right. That was better than Hallmark. Hallmark was the real snow. People were cold. Yeah, they all looked like they were freezing. all looked like they were freezing. Potentially needed their hair washed.
We noticed that there's no hair and makeup credits, which we get again if budget was happening. Maybe just have everyone wash their hair a day before. It was interesting. I think if you like a sweet Christmas movie with some good comedy, then this is definitely a good one. Holiday I Do. Holiday I Do. I do want to say I didn't like the title either because The Couple Getting Married is not our main
Yeah, so that part what yeah, so that was kind of weird. Yeah. No, maybe I Mean it's a holiday romance taking over or
Holiday planned? It's a wedding planner. Holiday wedding. I'm not gonna try and with a better title. I'm sure they spent plenty of time and then they have their reasons that they picked that one. Yes, we're so sorry. Alright, so that is the last couple movies. Give it a watch. Join... I didn't cut out to the trailer. I'll sure I'll edit it somewhere in there. anyways, we're gonna be recording next.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (27:33.61)
our top five Hallmark movies of the season and our bottom three. Bottom three. All right, thank you.
