As a Christmas treat, we have unlocked our 2019 account of this bizarre holiday movie. This week we review Believe, a film about business owner Matthew Peyton who gets assaulted and left for dead when he can't afford to single-handedly finance the town's annual Christmas Pageant He solves his and the town's economic problems when he realizes he can replace his union workforce with unpaid homeless people in exchange for sheltering them from the winter storm. None of this is hyperbole. Support the show for $5/month and get weekly bonus episodes of Minion Death Cult as well as our brand new weekly live show: DEATH CHAT 500 (also available in podcast form). Also get access to our entire back catalogue including BUTT FEST 2000; live-reads of My Antifa Lover, Rodham, and Ladies First: A MAGA Hat Romance; movie episodes like Believe, To Die For, and Loqueesha; and hundreds more. Sign up at http://patreon.com/miniondeathcult
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Yeah, all right.
I'm Alexander Edward.
I'm Tony Bozzaville.
And we are Minion Death Cult.
The world is ending.
Non-believers are responsible.
We're documenting it.
What's up, everybody?
It's Christmas time!
Christmas time is here!
I hope everybody had a great Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, a quasi-Kwanzaa, and a solemn, dignified Ramadan.
We, today, for Christmas, for the patrons, we watched a Christmas classic.
Yes, absolutely.
we watched a Christmas classic no we didn't watch a Christmas story or It's a Wonderful Life we watched a movie called Believe maybe you haven't heard of it maybe it's not quite a Christmas classic yet but I hope after this episode has concluded it can I don't know work
it's magic on the audience and become a staple of our holiday celebrations.
Because this movie has some of the most insane class politics I've ever seen out of a Christmas movie.
And keep in mind Christmas is a holiday that's, like, stipulated on the unpaid slavery of, like, millions of elves, you know?
True, true.
Making toys for everybody, and this movie is still insane with its class politics.
So, let's get right into it.
Here to help us dissect and go over this movie is Evan MacDonald from Kino Lefter.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Good evening, boys.
Always a pleasure to be chatting with you.
And this is actually, you know, a lot of people are talking about the top 10 films of the decade.
What were the movies that really, you know, made taste, broke new ground?
And I think that Believe, parentheses, 2016 is one of those films that people really need to look back at and say, this is when movies really peaked.
Yeah, this is Believe 2016.
Not to be confused with Believe 2011 or Believe 2009 or Believe 2018.
This is Believe 2016.
You can also identify it by its 33% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Fuck, is that all it has?
Look for that little green spot.
Christians need to step it up, man.
Like this movie sucks but 33% is fucking brutal.
There was like two negative reviews out of like 11 and all the positive reviews were 10 stars and were written by somebody who had created an account specifically to rate this movie.
They said so in their review.
I've never rated a movie on IMDB before, but I had to, to talk about this movie.
Hey, it's not an Oscar movie.
It's not one of those Oscar type movies.
But it's a great movie nonetheless.
Well, people talk about believing, but they don't talk about the work it takes to believe.
You gotta go out in your online community and do good works.
Creating a burner.
Yeah, just logging online, going to IMDB, and creating a burner account to review exactly one movie is praxis.
And I think we can take a lot of lessons from that.
I'm picturing a slow-motion scene of your grandma dropping a jitterbug into a public trash can and walking away.
After she rates and reviews Believe on IMDb.
Remember, with IMDb reviews, it's not... it's not...
Me, it's us.
This movie takes a while to get into what the plot is, so I just want to say kind of up front, just like a brief summary of what this movie is before we go through the plot.
Basically, Matthew Payton is a factory owner in some small town in the Midwest, maybe.
I didn't see where it was, I don't care.
And his factory is responsible for putting on a Christmas pageant for the town every year and everybody's like gaga over this Christmas pageant.
Like people are coming up to him in the middle of summer telling him they can't wait for this Christmas pageant to happen.
And uh-oh, it's financial times because of because of Obama.
We've had eight years of Obama and factories are closing left and right.
Matthew Payton's factory is still open but barely and he's going to be unable to put on the Christmas pageant this year.
And he's also apparently just gonna be unable to pay his workers as well.
That's kind of the conflict of the movie, and we can go through how this develops from here.
If you guys have any opening comments up top before we get into that.
I mean, yeah, this movie is really about, you know, coming together to bring each other up.
It's really about how important festivals are.
Yeah, like, I think we all run into difficult times in our life.
And, uh, you know, you get laid off at, uh, at, uh, you know, the widget factory.
Um, and a lot of people are looking at each other saying, what do we do next?
Because there's literally no state, uh, that can, you know, intervene in this.
Um, do you start living at the factory?
Do you live at the homeless warehouse?
Um, and I think this movie kind of guides us and answers a lot of those questions.
Yeah um I can't it's it's really hard to get into how insane uh this movie gets without like spoiling it so we're just gonna go through it okay we get like I guess it's a flashback you don't know it's a flashback but it's uh we're being visited by the ghost of Christmas past Seeing what a success this Christmas pageant was.
And it's Matthew Payton going through, you know, like looking at his works that he's done as the Christmas pageant opens up, you know, or goes on around him.
And it's basically like a swap meet, but Christmas themed, you know, there's like people selling stuff.
There's a medical tent for some like people.
It's the only time people get health care is during the Christmas pageant.
Well, no, it's because it's because people fucking while out during like Christmas pageants.
Have you ever been to a pie contest like a real one?
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I thought you were saying that people like people like rolling way too hard getting orange slices in the medical tent.
That too.
Also that.
Also yes, every holiday event you can go to, any church carnival you can go to, go to on drugs.
It's guaranteed to be better and that's why they have the medical tent.
I think there was one person who specifically was having a really bad trip at the Flashback Christmas Festival and it's that kid that he runs into.
Yeah, so, listener, you need to watch this movie.
There's just a crying child in the middle of a field, and then this guy, like, I think he gives him a candy cane?
Yeah, that's his solution.
He's like, I have a candy cane, you're gonna be okay.
Stranger danger.
Yeah, enjoy this little snack.
And then they just stare at each other in like a heart-rending way that made me think, like, is that his son?
Like, what's going on?
It definitely looked like he was trying to make a connection with this four-year-old lost boy.
He wasn't like, oh, let's find your parents.
He was like, tell me what the meaning of life is, young child.
Yeah, let's get real.
Make my life worth living.
And then the dad Finds the son, walks up and says, Oh, where were you Bradley?
Come here.
And just like, without even making eye contact with the grown man who has just given his son candy and is like kneeling, uh, talking to him as an equal, uh, scoops up his son and walks away.
And Matthew is, is disappointed because he has failed to make that connection with the young boy.
What's funny about this scene in particular, about the whole movie, is that later on in the movie you'll find out that everybody knows who this man is.
Everybody in the community knows who this man is.
But in this moment, the parent who finds the kid does not give a fuck who the adult on his knees is talking to his kid.
No.
Well, like, if I'm a parent, I'm at least saying, like, oh, well, in this case, I feel like I would be saying, like, oh, thank you for, like, trying to help or something.
Keeping an eye on him.
Something.
Yeah.
Just anything.
But there's zero communication between the parents and him.
Like, it's just like, hey, child, let's go now.
Which almost leads me to believe that, like, that was actually the scene where the kid was kidnapped.
You know?
Because, like, that was clearly not apparent.
It's so, yeah, he's like, why is this motherfucker wasting time with a candy cane?
Yoink.
*sniff* Yeah, the next shot is just like a missing child on a milk carton shot.
This guy really fucked up in the opening of this, but it's a recurring theme.
We'll get into it during the rest of the plot.
This man needs to connect with a young boy.
I feel like that's the driving character motivation throughout the entire thing.
He's got a young boy shaped hole in him that needs to be filled.
Oh god!
Fellas!
Fellas!
Flash forward to quote present day as the title card uh tells us like like we were just in world war ii now we're in present day So we enter In Media Res.
Matthew Payton, our main character, starts up his car, apparently in the middle of the street at night, and the camera pans to show eggs splattered over the hood of his car, over the windshield, and he starts to pull away.
We see a black pickup truck, maybe five car lengths behind him, start to follow him.
He pulls across some train tracks.
I'm not sure which side of the tracks these are.
You'll find out in a minute though.
Then he gets gets out to look at his flat tire.
Also, his phone is dead.
So his car is just fucked.
His phone is dead.
He's like, God, what am I going to do?
And you're like, what is going on here?
What's what the heck is happening?
He starts up the car again.
So we've had a lot of action in this scene of him starting his car and then stopping his car and getting out and starting his car again.
He starts up his car again and he's like, you know, all right, I'll drive another few feet.
Uh, and then he notices a, uh, broken payphone.
So, right, like his cell phone's dead, uh, so he needs a payphone.
Oh, we don't have those anymore.
Um, and then three trucks, uh, box him in, in fast motion, which is very funny.
Um, and then a few working class whites surround his car, uh, break his window with a baseball bat and beat the shit out of him.
They also pour gasoline all over his car and light it on fire, which I believe is a BMW.
It is.
And it's amazing because he's like on the ground and they're kicking him.
And every time he gets kicked, he has visions of the Christmas pageant.
He's getting kicked and he's hallucinating, like, scenes from the Christmas pageant in, like, slow dream sequences.
And I want it to turn into that, like, I want this movie just to turn into that Hulk Hogan Santa movie where he gets bonked on the head with, like, a working class fist and thinks he's Santa from now on.
But unfortunately he's just a crazy person and this whole town is crazy and the whole economy revolves around this man and the Christmas pageant.
Uh, so when he's getting beaten up, of course, that's like what he, that's what his last, that's what his last, uh, images in his head are.
It's, it's of like a, uh, a, a chintzy pop-up like drink stand with Christmas lights on it.
Yeah like if this uh christmas festival doesn't happen uh everyone in town their souls are going to be lost um and they'll just like drift away um because like the stakes are incredibly high for this movie um we don't know in this scene why uh yet he's being so viciously beaten um but you'll find that out soon but you can guarantee it's christmas related it's a it's a christmas related beating
Everything in this movie is Christmas related.
Yeah, that's true.
Go ahead, Tony.
So one of the reasons why they really hate him, and I only know this, a little background, I know this on accident.
So I came, my current car is a BMW.
I bought it for $500 from my old boss because I overheard him talking to his other rich friend.
About buying it for cash for $500.
So I took advantage of his white pride, and I said, I'll take it for that.
And he had to do it.
He had to do it in that moment.
He had to do it.
So I got this vintage BMW for $500, right?
I don't think I bought these cars when I bought it, but now I do because every time I go anywhere, they talk to me about it.
One of the reasons these people hate this guy is because of his car.
His car comes up all the time.
They're like, you got this fancy car.
So they picked like the one BMW that's like really not worth that much.
It's like, it's like, it's like a 1998 like, like E-Class, like whatever, whatever.
It's like not that cool.
It, you can probably buy one for like a grand right now, like easy from anywhere.
Um, literally every- You can buy it for a grand, but it's going to cost you 15 grand to fix it.
But they don't talk about the problems he has with it.
We don't talk about those problems.
Um, but every single truck that pulls up to beat him up is worth, like, five times more.
Yeah.
And they're like... They're like blacked-out, lifted Silverados and, uh, F-150s and shit.
And they're all like, they're like, your car's worth money and we're poor.
And they all have, like, the nicest trucks ever.
Yeah.
They're, like, wearing, like, Filson $300 jackets and shit.
Yeah!
Like, they're flying in, in, like, what can only be described as, like, experimental, uh, like, U.S.
military trucks, um, totally blacked out, like the, like the helicopters they used to get Bin Laden, um, and then they're just like, man, we're, we fucking hate you so much, we're not gonna kill you, but we're gonna make you suffer, uh, outside of, uh, outside of this random, uh, beautiful business.
Well maybe we have the answer.
Maybe they're like ISIS and when the U.S.
finally like stopped occupying Katrina, stopped occupying like New Orleans or whatever, these guys swooped up on the military grade hardware and that's how they got all these blacked out trucks.
Um, so, the final thing, when they're beating him up, one of the guys gets down on his level, while he's like, you know, hallucinating candy canes and peppermints, and says, uh, how does it taste, Big Shot?
Does it taste like poverty?
Poverty?
How my poverty tastes. - - He's coming home and his wife needs to smell his fingers for poverty before she lets him go shower.
Whew.
While he's like half awake, half conscious on the ground, his BMW is burning.
It's like 10pm, 11pm at night.
There's this raging car fire, a man bloodied, beaten.
People are peeling out in this back alley.
A little boy comes literally skipping onto the scene.
Singing to himself and skipping across the road while there's a car fire.
And then he stops once he's in the middle of the street and sees it and he says, Oh no!
Does anybody there need help?
And then he finds Matthew Payton and says, you know, don't go anywhere, I'm going to get help.
And then we cut to 36 hours earlier.
Yeah, like this has this has like the timeline of like an experimental French film.
When I was watching it, I was just like, okay, we start with Christmas, there's a vicious Christmas related beatdown.
And then we're brought to the time before I think there's another jump coming up soon, but they really got, you know, pretty silly with it when it came to all that.
This is like a Tarantino movie with fewer n-words somehow.
Yeah, no, I was gonna say that literally Looper's easier to follow when it comes to the timeline.
The best part about this too is like, so Also, mind you, this is the first black person we see in the entire movie.
At this point we've seen, like, I'll probably say 250 people in the movie.
This is the first person we've seen of color.
This is a little black boy.
And for some reason he's out skipping out.
It's like 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock at night.
And I know that he's broke and everything.
I know he's poor and everything.
But I grew up very poor and I had to be at home before 11 o'clock at night at his age.
But I don't know if they try to wash it over.
No, no, no.
They let them out later.
Like, they get to go out later.
On that side of the railroad tracks, the rules are different.
Exactly.
So 36 hours earlier, we get a scene where Matthew Payton is in his office having union negotiations with the union representative for his workforce, and his accountant is also there for some reason.
Um, his accountant tells him that they don't have the money to make it, uh, the rest of the year.
The union rep says they are not going to take a pay cut.
Uh, and you learned that they've already taken a pay cut that year.
So the option is to start charging for the Christmas pageant because apparently this Christmas pageant is free every year.
And I'm not sure what that means.
It just means that you don't have to like pay to, uh, buy other shit inside of it.
Well, that's really important because like that whole thing is so weird.
Um, I don't know if you, do you not have to pay to like have a booth there?
Um, maybe?
Um, maybe you don't have to pay to like gain entry as a, as a, as like a patron to go in there.
But say I grew up in a church that used to have a carnival every October.
Right?
And, like, all the booths were put on by, like, the church, but, um, you didn't have to pay to go in.
The money was all made through the transactions, which they make- this is very important.
Like, it goes on to say, like, all the companies rely on this fucking festival, right?
Yeah, this is the fest that's gonna get them, like, out of the red.
Every single business in town needs this Christmas pageant in order to, like, make the year a success.
But like throughout the movie they talk about how it's free but they never talk about like you said like what part of it's free because like I feel like if he were to say hey I just need you guys to pay like 50 bucks a booth to cover like the the minimum yeah this whole movie wouldn't have happened but apparently the whole thing it's it's a free-for-all where all the companies besides his company make money
It's somewhere in, so we also find out here that Matthew Payton has inherited his grandfather's business.
The business, the factory is Payton Automotive.
They make vague car parts of some kind.
He has inherited this business from his grandfather and part of like...
The inheritance part of the rules of his ownership of the company as stipulated in his grandfather's will apparently is that he has to put on this Christmas pageant every year for the town and do it quote for free.
So he refuses to start charging for the Christmas pageant because he can't do it because of the contract or the will.
And he also refuses to sell the company.
He won't sell the company either to get out of the black because there is a Japanese company that wants to buy his factory.
Okay, but he's still in negotiations with the labor rep.
He says to the labor rep, if they won't accept another pay cut, then we'll do layoffs.
The union rep says, my guys won't take another pay cut.
They will vote to shut you down.
And this is like an insane proposition to me.
Coming from somebody who is part of a union, who has like not been involved in union negotiations, but like seen how they take place, also followed the news when it comes to unions negotiating with their employers.
Unions take pay cuts all the time, especially when the business is failing.
If the business is failing, the union usually does what it can to keep the business afloat because the business is where they work.
It makes no sense for a union to vote to shut a company down.
That means absolutely nothing.
Yeah and like to not to say like um even like most unions aren't very militant they're mostly in like a symbiotic relationship with management um but yeah it's it's we'll discover later in the film there's a bit more than meets the eye um to what these nefarious union thugs are up to um But union organizing definitely takes a lot of work.
I've been involved in one round of collective agreement negotiations.
That shit is very fun.
But I love how there's just this seamless, like, my guys are going to vote on this.
We're going to get rid of all of our jobs.
Believe you me.
And then he walks right out and then, you know, there's no vote or anything else.
And he's just like, all right, buddies, we're walking out.
And it's like, you know, I would have been interested to see some of the organizing going on there.
And like, you kind of get this sense during that meeting that like, like our main character is something of a villain, like he's pretty bad.
Yeah, but well, you know, it's a good sense to have.
Yeah but then the movie like it's both doing uh like man this guy fucking sucks but then also well you gotta make some tough calls when you uh when you're a business owner and sometimes those uh and sometimes you even work harder than your employees.
Uh, so there's a, uh, the union rep leaves and goes outside and says, like, uh, we're voting to strike.
Uh, if you want to strike, raise your fist in the air and everybody raises their fist in the air.
And then they walk outside, uh, and the union rep goes, see, I told you up to, uh, up to Matthew.
And it's just like insane because this whole argument is about how they're not making enough money and you can't do layoffs before Christmas because we need this money and uh Peyton is just like we literally don't have money my accountant is right here telling us we don't have money uh and Peyton is like or uh the union rep is like all right then fine we're not working for like so we're gonna make zero money that's definitely how a union works.
So, the accountant and Matthew have a conversation.
He says, where am I supposed to find that kind of money right now to, like, pay the wages?
And the accountant says, they'd much rather see you shut down than work for less.
Which, again, is, like, factually untrue and just completely nonsensical.
This is how crazy these union guys are.
They'd rather see themselves and you suffer than make less of a wage.
This scene is actually very important because it shows why you don't ask your accountant what the union rep thinks.
I mean, the union rep is saying the same thing.
We're not working for less, so we're just not going to work at all.
The accountant says it's the way of the American worker.
They see the car you drive, the house you live in, meaning they're just jealous of your success.
Your bootstraps are mocking them with how stiff your upper lip is.
And Matthew is like, I have always been fair.
And then the accountant says, maybe so, but what you've done in the past, don't put food on the table now.
So it's again, like their way of saying, Oh no, this businessman is actually a really good guy, but we don't care.
We don't care how good of a guy he is because things aren't going great for us now.
So we're going to blame him personally.
And then the accountant also says, which is kind of like the, uh, the, I don't know, uh, inciting thesis of this movie.
Uh, the accountant says, uh, when you tell this town that there won't be a Christmas pageant this year, I don't want to see what happens next.
People are going to be rioting when there's no Christmas pageant.
Yeah, I cannot guarantee your safety after you alert the town council that Christmas has been low-key cancelled.
This town is going to go insane.
This is going to turn into Mad Max when you tell them there's no Christmas pageant.
People will be stripping flesh from their neighbors' faces when you tell them that there's no Christmas festival.
Just to get some Christmas joy.
I shot a man just to get some Christmas joy.
So this is just briefly like to comment on what's happening in this movie.
This is one of like the few movies of the modern era with like actual direct worker action as a plot point.
The plot point is a plot point in this movie is the workers go on strike.
They walk out of on the job to get better wages.
This is one of the few movies that I've seen in the modern era with this is a plot point and the business owner is our protagonist.
Yeah, yeah.
Which is wild, because like you said, the business owner is a protagonist, but the whole time, when he gets beat up, because you kind of know what's going on, when he gets beat up in the first scene, you're like, fuck yeah.
That's fucking timed.
We need more of that IRL.
Especially because the guys that beat him up are not wearing masks, they're very open who they are, Yeah.
The guy's like, my name's Jerry and I just kicked your ass.
Yeah.
It's very Roadhouse.
It's very like, no, we're just, these are, we're people in the town here.
Get your ass kicked.
I'm going to throw a piece of rebar through your front window windshield.
Yeah.
Which sounds like a hyperbole, but there are multiple throats turn out through this movie.
It was a really kind of interesting choice that the movie made for me because like in a lot of movies you think like oh union organizing something's going on that could be intriguing.
I don't know if it says anything about just like cultural death Um, that like, you know, the writers, the director was just like, you know what's more interesting?
This man, this oppressed business owner, um, who was told by his accountant, uh, you know, it's all here, uh, you know, in this big stack of paper that I'm gonna hand you.
We just can't pay workers anymore.
And then, you know, he needs to Like, very, like, you know, defensively just say, oh, well, I'm good.
I'm an okay boss, right?
Like, this is actually great.
And we need to side with him, right?
Like, we instantly have an emotional connection.
We say, that's me, you know?
My small business is also in trouble.
It's the individualistic movie it's like these these collective forces the union the city council the town as a collective is uh like besetting him the individual who has worked his way up through his grandfather's company uh to do this thing on his own all by himself and the entire town's future rests on his shoulders and to like
I don't know a large swath of the American public this probably is a very compelling narrative that you as the individual have so much power uh but you have to you're like expected to wield it to benefit others instead of yourself and when you uh choose to only benefit others a little bit well they they completely turn on you and beat the shit out of you in the middle of the street And how could the individual be blamed for shunning them entirely?
Only through God can you come to the selfless act of employing people again.
What's funny about this movie too is like, that's a very recurring theme about this movie is like, the whole time he's like, I work my ass off every day.
I don't have shit because I work.
I work so hard.
I'm always working.
Also, I inherited all of this.
Dude, the conversation, I'm trying to find it here because I have that conversation semi-transcribed.
He says he worked his way through his grandfather's company sweeping floors and working every single job and helped his grandfather build the business or whatever.
You did not sweep floors every single day for eight hours a day.
You did not do, how would you possibly help your grandfather build this business by working the assembly line?
What are you fucking talking about?
Of course that's not what you're talking about.
If you did, you were like probably like 13 and you swept the floors for like, you know, 35 minutes and got paid for a full day.
Cause your fucking grandpa owns the whole company.
I busted my ass at every take your kid to work day every year.
I made this company.
Yeah, it's it's so funny and like, you know, on a filmmaking level, obviously this isn't very good, but it's very funny in the way it's inconsistent.
Um, like, we have this sense that, uh, oh, this is like the real American business owner, not just some fat cat sitting in a skyscraper who owns a company.
He knows exactly how to put these automotive parts together.
Uh, and then, uh, a few minutes later in the film, he doesn't know anything about zoning regulations.
So it's like, wait, like, I thought you were like this, like, know-it-all, like, you know, business expert who's done every job.
But then he's like, wait, what do we even make here?
Are you telling me that I can only do certain things in this building?
OK, so I found that, Pat, it's at the city council meeting when he's like trying to explain to the town why he's not going to be able to give them all their free Christmas pageant this year.
He says, I helped my grandfather rebuild this company.
Which is, what does that mean?
Did the company go out of business and then you rebuilt it?
Or what?
I helped my grandfather rebuild this company.
I pushed a broom across that floor seven days a week, worked every tap and die, and worked my way up.
Nobody fucking believes this.
Nobody believes this whatsoever, that you somehow helped your grandfather rebuild a company by pushing a broom across a floor seven days a week.
That's not a real job.
You're just saying something you heard on Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe.
You're just saying things.
So let's get back into the plot here.
So he goes out to the parking lot after having this confrontation after the workers have decided to walk out.
He goes out to the parking lot to go to his car.
Oh, but there are two burly working class men standing next to his car, right?
The security guard comes over and says, you want me to escort you to your car, Mr. P?
And he's like, uh, no, I think I'll walk instead.
So the implication here is that these two striking workers are going to assault him on company property.
Yes.
And the best part about this is, like, the whole time he's kind of presented as this, like, man of the people, this guy who, like, knows his folks.
Like, if this was really the case, he could walk through his car and be like, hey, yo, like, Rich, Mike, you guys really gonna beat me up or can I leave now?
Yeah.
But instead he's, like, terrified by these people.
Like, he's getting hustled out of there like a democratically elected South American leader.
It is rough, but the security guard might be my pick for the all-star of this movie.
Seriously?
He's like a Smeagol character.
His one driving force in his life is that he loves his boss.
Well, he's the what's-his-face.
He's Dracula's sidekick.
What's that guy's character?
Renfield.
He's the Renfield to Mr. Payton.
What's funny is I was really disappointed by this whole movie.
Not to spoil it, but I was hoping for something kind of whimsical and Santa Claus-y.
Because this character, at this point, is like a chubby dude wearing a red Henley.
And I'm like, oh fuck.
This is going to be Santa Claus in 20 minutes.
Nope.
Nope.
Just a bootlicker.
He's just a red shirt and I'm a fat guy.
I mean, it doesn't mean Santa Claus.
It means nothing.
Yeah, it means nothing.
It's so disappointing because like you, you get the sense, uh, you know, they have a conversation and you think this guy might be a little bit more than just a security guard.
Exactly.
No, he's not.
Nope.
He is only a security guard.
He is like through and through his entire being is a security guard.
Hey, he's a security guard with brothers, though.
We'll find that out later.
Yeah, let's keep going.
We gotta get through this.
So by the time he walks home, by the time he gets home, it's pouring rain.
He comes through the front door of his house, and like, I'm almost positive there's a framed photograph of Mike Rowe in a hard hat hanging on the wall.
No.
What?
I didn't rewind it.
Or, you know, this is a CEO who gets shit done.
This is like a guy who knows how to get down and dirty with the rest of them, just like Mike Rowe, you know?
There are people who saw that photo and had the exact opposite reaction we had.
There are people like, oh yeah, fuck yeah, deep cut.
Deep cut hard workers.
Deep cut blue collar icons.
There is a photo of a guy in a hard hat, and I think it's Mike Rowe.
I'm just gonna say it's Mike Rowe.
There is an interesting Mike Rowe parallel here, because he has this famous expression, safety third.
Because, you know, it doesn't matter if you survive your day on the job, you gotta make me money.
And, you know, you just gotta make those fake textiles for this car company.
That Safety Third thing is insane.
Listen to, I believe it's a Citations Needed episode with Brian Quimby of Street Fight for their episode on Mike Rowe and they go into Safety Third, which is a legit mantra that Mike Rowe is trying to profligate.
about how people people in intrinsically know whether they're being safe or not and you can just focus on efficiency instead and just kind of like have an overall subconsciously safe ethos so he gets home and there's a he checks his voicemail and he's got a voicemail from the mayor And the voicemail says, listen, I just talked to whoever, the accountant maybe.
If this means what I think it means, the whole town is going to go berserk.
And once again, he's talking about Christmas pageants.
He's talking about there being no Christmas pageant this year.
The town is going to lose their collective minds and begin sacrificing children to Moloch if they don't get their Christmas pageant this year.
I think this might be a Canada-US cross-cultural communication whoopsie, but when they kept talking about this pageant, I was like, oh, it's going to be people on stage talking about how they're going to solve world hunger or something like that.
No, I think the Christmas pageant, well, there seems to be an element of theatrics to it, but there's also a Christmas market.
Uh, it seems like just like this open air kind of like, you know, shitty holiday thing you have to go to, um, where you get pretty bad hot chocolate and you're very cold.
Um, so, I don't know.
I was expecting a lot more from the titular pageant.
That's what pageant means down here as well.
Pageant means like a play, a production.
That's what it means.
Maybe it means a parade, but it definitely means a production of some kind.
It doesn't mean like an open air flea market with candy canes.
Also, we might be like cultural elitists here, but I feel like people don't throw a festival around like an hour, 15 minute play.
I also just think it's funny, like, this businessman, he's got a voicemail from the mayor of the town.
How is he in financial trouble?
How are you in financial trouble when the mayor is leaving you voicemails checking up on you?
Well, I mean, we'll find out.
We'll find out how you're in financial trouble.
It just doesn't make sense.
If you're this tight with the mayor, I'm never gonna believe you're in financial trouble whatsoever.
The next day, Matthew goes to the business and there's a picket line and he gets onto the property by going through the back way or whatever.
He talks to the security guard, our Renfield character, and the security guard says, Hey, don't worry about your car, Mr. P. My brother slept in it all night to make sure it was safe.
Which is like, on its own is one thing, but it gets so much sadder, like, in two seconds.
He's like, plus he doesn't got anywhere else to sleep.
So he was happy for anything covered.
He's so sad.
He doesn't have anywhere else to sleep because his factory got shut down.
The factory that he worked at got shut down.
And I guess I'm going to be in the same spot pretty soon, eh Mr. P?
Uh, and Mr. P is like, no, no, we'll be all right.
Um, I'll figure it out.
Here's a little something for you and your brother.
And he hands him money, uh, like instead of a paycheck, I'm guessing?
Yeah, like I, I feel like it gets to, uh, like the deep politics of this movie in that, um, like it's the boss's decision to pay this guy and his brother, um, for like a honest day's work.
Because they care about the boss.
They love the boss.
They must serve the master in his quest to cover Britain with vampires, etc.
But it's just like they have nothing else in their life.
Work is their only occupation.
And they love it.
And that's worthy of praise.
Not some stinking union telling you that you gotta pay your employees.
Right and it's like you know the union when you're when you're doing contracts with the union like there's stipulations about what your job exactly is like what you're expected to do every single day uh whereas with like these guys like yeah maybe one day you're like uh uh you know guarding the the prop the premises maybe another day you're getting your brother to put his body on the line for your boss's car
Like, you can be more fluid and flexible with your services when you're paid randomly and sporadically dependent on the boss's goodwill like this.
Yeah, the other duties as required section on that contract is pretty extensive.
It includes slowly turning on the ignition of the boss's car every morning to make sure that there isn't a car bomb placed underneath it.
Yeah, I just love that.
Putting your body on the line for your brother's boss's car.
Yeah.
There was no guarantee of money for that.
He wasn't getting paid and whatever he handed the guy was not enough for the guy to get money and the brother to get money for that amount of work.
Fuck this dude.
He's like, here's something, here's something.
Oh, it's, it's money that, uh, that the government says I owe you, but I'm, I'm giving it to you because I want to, you know?
And, uh, and, uh, the, the security guard is of course like, Oh my God, thank you so much for paying me.
I, and he says, I believe in you.
I believe in you, Mr. P you're a good man.
Right?
And he's one of the only guys who will tell Peyton that he's a good man for like the first hour and 40 minutes of this movie.
So he meets up with the doctor for lunch.
She knows something is wrong.
She asks, what is it?
And he says, debts, layoff, greed.
I thought we had enough to get through the first quarter, no problem, but I don't know what happened.
Uh, like you said, Tony, very good businessman.
I thought we were gonna get through the quarter.
Sales are up.
He says, like, online sales are up, overseas sales are up, but I don't know what happened.
And then his immediate conclusion is, I guess everyone's got their hand out this time of year.
Yep.
The town can't expect me to solve everyone's problems.
I'm in business to make money.
And this is like, like both of you I think are saying, the movie kind of hinting at him as a Scrooge-like figure.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah, he does literally bring this up.
I think at this sequence he's just like, oh, I'm not, I'm not Scrooge.
I'm actually great.
I'm actually a brilliant business owner.
But yeah, it's, it's it's difficult when you're making a protagonist like this because like I think the movie clearly wants him to be likable but it's like he's a business owner and he's really smart but he's not really a numbers guy um so when his accountant was like the business is gonna run out of money he's like but I thought you said times would be a little bit tight it's like oh well you know this that and the other he's like well Guess I have to stop making automotive parts.
Sorry, Gramps.
Yep.
Yeah, exactly.
He says, you know, I'm in business to make money.
And she replies, and your people are in business to work for you.
Work hard, earn money, pay their mortgages, feed their families.
And then he says, feed the hungry, house the poor.
Isn't that the government's job?
So this is like, uh, I just rewatched, uh, Muppet Christmas Carol.
And this is, I mean, the line is from the original Dickens novel, but I'm, I'm choosing to attribute it to, uh, Michael Caine here.
Uh, where Michael Caine says, you know, um, if they're poor and hungry, are there no, like, prisons or poor houses for them?
Like that's, it's basically this line.
Feed the hungry, house the poor.
Isn't that the government's job?
And she says, that is not the government's job.
That is your job and my job.
The Bible says, quote, help those less fortunate than you, not quote, pay the government to do it.
And this is why it took me so long to watch this movie, because I had to transcribe every insane thing these people said verbatim.
Otherwise, there was no way I was going to be able to remember it and do it justice for how fucking backwards this is.
It's very 19th century like uh there is essentially no state um except for city councilors who are just like come on give us your money you gotta put on the Christmas party or else we're all gonna die uh and and yeah like the onus being on like individuals and families or people with means to just like you know consider the common good and be like you know what "You get some charity this time, whores.
I'll give you some money." Like, it's very interesting. - And it's not even-- They're treating it like charity, and you say charity, which you're not wrong, and that's the way they think about it, but what we're talking about are wages.
What we are talking about is paying your employees.
That's what this conversation is about.
Your people are in business to work for you, work hard, earn money, pay their mortgages, feed their families.
Feed the hungry, house the poor.
Isn't that the government's job?
Like, he's saying it's not his responsibility to pay his employees.
That's the government's job.
She, being the moral center of the movie, who is, like, noticing his foibles or noticing his selfishness and trying to correct it,
is saying that's not the government's job to feed the poor it's your and my job as wealthy people to uh employ people and and and help them by giving them a wage for the work they do the bible says help those less fortunate than you not quote pay the government to do it and this is a very popular right-wing talking point Of why we shouldn't have a welfare state, why we shouldn't have a minimum wage, etc.
Because people will be charitable or just on their own and they don't need the government to do it.
Because we know that the billionaires and millionaires in this country are just champing at the bit to give all of us fair wages.
Which like fucking sucks because if they really did believe anything they're saying, maybe like we wouldn't need like, you know, um, a, a, a totally, uh, a totally different, like, you know, government state.
Uh, cause like the people they champion, the people they talk about from biblical days, like really did give up all of their, all of their wealth to help people around them.
But they're like, nah, we're going to buy some Toms.
Well, I mean also Jesus literally said to pay your taxes, so just like shut the fuck up about all of this.
Yeah, totally, totally.
Yeah, I'm sure you can find a biblical workaround for that.
It's like, Jesus, did he say to pay your taxes and take care of the common good?
Yes.
But did Jesus also say that in case of the demon rats being in charge and they're not abiding by the Constitution, which was co-written by God, then you do have the authority to take your AR-15 with you to Wendy's to ascertain who the welfare cheats are.
So it's all kind of in Scripture.
She calls him a workaholic.
She's like, God, you're so obsessed with your work.
You're such a workaholic.
We haven't seen any evidence of this.
We've seen him have a conversation with his accountant where he didn't know what was going on financially.
And then we saw him drive around a bunch, leave early and drive around a bunch.
And then we saw him walk through his storeroom to go look at Christmas storage stuff.
It's also here that we find out the stipulations of the Christmas pageant, which I already iterated to the audience.
But it's very funny because when he says that the Christmas pageant has to be free because that is part of the will, that's like, that's part of the conditions of his ownership of the company.
I don't know how your grandpa is dictating that from beyond the grave.
If it's your company, it seems like you should be able to just do what you want with it.
And we still have no idea who's paying for anything, hypothetically, and what for, because again, he owns a fucking park.
I mean, I don't know if he owns the park, it's just named after Peyton.
Like, maybe he donated it.
His grandfather probably donated it to the city.
I don't know if you own a park.
Either way, if your name's on a park, the city lets you use it for free.
I feel pretty confident about that.
Okay, that's probably true.
This is why I write my name on everything I can.
Gotta put up a little gate to that park, start charging admission, you make enough money for the Christmas pageant.
This movie sells itself, you know?
It just takes a little bit of entrepreneurialism.
But the point that I'm trying- the very funny thing was, he says, you know, the Christmas pageant has to be free, and then he clarifies gratis, and then in the subtitles it says, speaking Spanish.
Oh man.
Thanks for the clarification.
Gratis.
The Spanish phrase.
I'm pretty sure they just confused it with gracias.
Yep.
That's what happened.
Absolutely.
So he goes to the city council meeting.
The mayor's like, we're holding an emergency Christmas pageant meeting.
And he just gets raked over the coals.
He gets completely roasted by one of the city council members who's played by the dad on Wizards of Waverly Place.
I don't think that's where I know him from.
His face looks familiar.
He's the son of Dom DeLuise, I believe.
But he is like the bad guy.
He's the bad government guy.
The mayor is kind of a more sympathetic character to our main character.
Uh, but this city council member is out for blood, and it's just one of the many inconsistencies of this movie that they are both trying to, uh, this guy, this city council member, the union, uh, they're trying to, like, financially ruin Payton Automotive, uh, because their town is so dependent on this Christmas pageant.
Yeah, it's fucking weird.
It doesn't make sense at all.
They're super pissed at him that he doesn't have the money for the Christmas pageant, so they're punishing him even further, and they accuse him, uh, this, this city council member, in front of the whole town, accuses him of, like, laundering money away from whatever account the grandfather had set up to, uh, pay for the pageant every year.
He just flat out accuses him of misappropriating funds.
Yeah.
It's brilliant.
The guy, you know, in a potentially, you know, ahead of its time moment says that this is a witch hunt.
You know, that's a phrase that you'd get used to in the ensuing years in American politics.
But this scene was really fascinating to me because I was just like, you know cackling because this entire movie takes away any sense of any kind of collective power um like it's only individuals who are capable of doing things could we could could we put on the christmas pageant through tax dollars through public public expenditures no could even like Uh, like a Chamber of Commerce put this on.
Absolutely not.
Because this guy's grandfather signed the contract with the town, um, and you know, if it is broken, the town will split in two and fall into a big sinkhole.
So, like, there's nothing, there's nothing that we can do together as a political project.
No, their solution is literally to sue Matthew Payton for money he doesn't have to put on the Christmas pageant for one more year, I guess, and then figure out how they're gonna do it the rest of the time.
Also, like, in anything that happens in any type of, like, government or city organization, um, if you're not gonna have the Christmas pageant, you knew that in fuckin' July.
In this movie it's like four days or five days before, it's like a week before maybe, being generous.
It's like what Evan is saying, that they're all just supremely dependent on this man's efficacy and this man's proficiency.
He's single-handedly carried the town like Atlas and now he is shrugging.
There is very big Ayn Randian vibes to this movie.
This is a man who has chosen to do good in society until he was just asked too much and this was the final straw.
And the town doesn't realize it yet, but they have finally shot the gift horse in the mouth, or however that phrase goes.
He gets really, you know, he gets really indignant at this meeting.
He storms out.
They're going to sue him, basically.
We'll see you back here.
We'll see you in the court that is the City Council next week.
As he's walking out of the city council, everybody is just fucking livid at Matthew Payton.
The man who has put on a free Christmas pageant every year that we've been led to believe is the town hero.
In the flashback to the previous pageant, they shouted him out by name at the end of the pageant and everybody clapped for him.
But since he doesn't have the money to do it this year, the whole town is just turned on him.
Like the leeches they are.
No pity.
No sympathy at all.
Just straight anger.
Why aren't you giving us free stuff anymore, Matthew?
everybody is like everybody's flexing on the way out he can't walk by any there's like one guy who's vanilla most like beat up guy ever does not move his body for for him to walk no he like yeah he like yeah he doesn't like the look the whole way through it's so amazing He gets mad dogged in slow motion by a monochromatic 50 year old nerd who is just like tan.
He's just like a khaki color from head to toe and he won't move out of the way for Michael.
And he's not like trying to say anything to him.
He's not like how dare you or whatever.
He's just standing in his path and Michael has to go around him.
And then we get a lot of good like ADR in the background.
We have, you should be ashamed of yourself, Peyton.
You ruined Christmas for a lot of people.
And et cetera.
Bad man!
Bad man walking.
And then we see a sign on his car.
We see all the eggs on his car.
This is where they've egged his car.
And there's like a piece of paper under the windshield wiper that says, this is your first warning.
Yeah, for everyone listening, we're about 35 hours into the 36 hour flashback.
Yeah, so this doesn't work as a warning.
So if you're like, hey, this is your first warning, buddy.
We egged your car.
We're going to fucking kill you.
Like a guy who looked like a local columnist and also like a retired avionics engineer looked like he was about to stab you.
Not, this is your final warning.
Like, you better shape up or ship out.
This is your first warning.
We're gonna give you some airspace here.
Please figure this out.
And then we'll come back and see if we need to, like, kill you or something.
You will be visited by three warnings tonight.
Yeah, so we flash forward to the present day.
Michael, Matthew, excuse me, has awoken in a bed.
And he's got that young boy looming over him.
The child tells him his name is Clarence.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
And he says that they are Matthew's guardian angels.
He and his mother.
Probably went with Clarence.
I would have liked if they had gone with like, oh yeah, my name's Mephistopheles, but you can call me MJ.
Like that would have been cool.
And there's a really beautiful conversation between the two of them where CJ, this young beautiful boy, is wearing an aluminum foil halo.
And much like if you've recently watched Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace, the scene where Anakin says, are you an angel?
To Padme, it's the exact same energy as this scene where this grown adult man He inquires as to whether or not this boy's an angel and he's disappointed he learns that you know he's he's flesh but like you and me but you know this is the start of something really beautiful and listeners keep your eye on this relationship between Clarence and this adult man who is not his father
Clarence is, like, thrilled to have passed as an angel, though.
Yep, yeah.
He's like, Ma, he thought I was a real angel!
This is great!
This child is obsessed with the angel Gabriel.
This child is a big Gabriel stan.
He's got all the Gabriel posters on his wall, and he dresses up as Gabriel by, yeah, making this, like, aluminum foil halo.
Uh, he wants to be in the- Which is most, which is most denoted because uh, as he said, oh I knew you were Gabriel because like all the cool guys, your halo is tilted to the side.
He's an urban style angel.
Yeah.
This kid's obsession with Gabriel reminds me a lot of another Christmas movie when in the Santa Claus, Scott Calvin's son is obsessed with Santa Claus.
And like throughout the year, like in the middle of the summer, he's like pretending to be on Santa's sleigh and he's got like chairs lined up like they're Reindeer and the mother is very worried about his sanity, which is of course the correct response if your child is obsessed with Santa Claus throughout the year or the angel Gabriel.
But the mom in this situation is just like, oh yeah, he's a really enthusiastic boy.
Yep, yep.
I want to say, though, the actor who plays the kid is pretty good.
He, like, this role could be extremely annoying because the kid is, like, the character is a very hyper, very enthusiastic, sort of whimsical, you know, magical character.
And it could be easy to just be too much, but the kid actually plays it pretty well and is fairly charismatic.
Um, even, like, the acting is probably the best part of this movie, I would say.
Like, the main character is a decent actor.
Uh, the mother of CJ, Sharon, I think the character's name is.
She's a good actor.
The doctor friend is a good actor.
Almost all of these people are acting pretty well.
It's just the politics and, uh, the random CGI and the writing that is, uh, cancer.
What I really hate about that character though is like so the mom is um I'm not gonna assume what like ethnicity the mom is but it's very clear that CJ is mixed and the mom is I'm gonna say not black and it's really frustrating that like the one like like deadbeat character in this whole movie that's not the protagonist is like this like a strange black dad and
Who like, they make very clear, like, just disappeared one day.
Um, and like, it's a really, it's a really interesting choice.
Uh, but I don't know how accidental it is.
Yeah, it's weird because the mom, she's actually on the Flash, so Flash heads no.
She is black, but I think it's just the lighting in this movie is so bad that you can't really tell.
Just to be that person, she's mixed.
Yeah, yeah.
And he's also mixed.
His dad's probably fully black.
If we're gonna go with this narrative, She's mixed.
Maybe?
I don't know.
But the kid definitely, the kid's dad is definitely at least, I'll say three quarters black.
Is this coming from a half-black person?
Did we get a skull measurement on him?
Yeah, I went ahead and took the calipers and got a good measurement.
I've got the home kit.
I've got the home kit here.
I'm working from that.
But yeah, the kid's really great.
He's been in a lot of stuff.
But yeah, the writing does not save this character at all.
So the mom is like fixing him up because we find out she's like kind of a nurse and they're in this like They're in this large brick studio loft thing And it's it's meant to show that they're like homeless or houseless Dehoused but it's their apartment.
It's like decorated It's but it's decorated in a way to show you that they're homeless if that makes sense.
Yeah, and It's a bizarre thing, because it's a room that they have that's theirs.
There's a bed in it, there's, like, their stuff, but it's just like... It's like you went into that, like, cave in The Lost Boys.
It's decorated like that.
But it's a brick studio loft.
Yeah.
And she's like a nurse, but, you know, when the dad found out she was pregnant, he left.
She had to stop being a nurse or stop going to school.
And question mark?
So she's like kind of fixing up Matthew because he's been just viciously beaten as we saw in, you know, I don't know, an hour ago in this episode.
Um, and, uh, their hands meet over some gauze.
They barely know each other.
He's in her bed.
Uh, she, they took him back to their room instead of calling an ambulance or taking him to the hospital or anything.
They're just like, no, we can do it.
We'll fucking put you in a big shoe box and tie a popsicle stick to your arm.
Um, which I just think is a weird choice to make if you find somebody beaten.
Um, So their hands meet over some gauze and it's like, okay, this is the love interest now, this sexy de-housed woman.
But she's also coughing.
So I'm assuming that means she has cancer.
We cut to Dr. Nancy, who now has a name.
She finally has a name.
It's Dr. Nancy what?
Something or other?
I don't know.
It's funny too.
It's not just Dr. McNancy.
It's Dr. Miss Nancy Wells.
Yeah, Dr. Miss Nancy Wells.
I think maybe they took a note from the first, like, 20 minutes of this movie and were like, oh yeah, she doesn't have a name.
Let's give her four to make up for it.
Yeah.
She is looking for Matthew, because he's been, you know, assaulted, brutally beaten, left for dead and mysteriously disappeared.
She's looking for him at his literal mansion.
It's like a literal mansion with like a roundabout and a fountain in the front yard and everything.
Yeah.
He's not there.
So she goes by the business where the accountant is looking through Matthew's office for something important until he notices that there is a safe in the office.
And he thinks, hey, that's where they keep important stuff.
Let me check there.
Uh, and then he tries one number on the safe, and it doesn't open, and so he gives up.
Which I respect.
I would probably do something similar.
I would say, is this safe already open?
No.
Does one number work?
No.
Alright.
That's it.
She shows up and she's the doctor shows up.
She's looking for Michael and he's like tries to play it off like he's looking for Matthew as well.
Michael's the name of a different angel.
I think that's why I keep confusing them.
And she kind of suspects something, right?
So he gets home, Dr. Miss Nancy Wells is waiting for him, and they get into a fight because she, like the rest of the town, wants him to sell his company and give up his inheritance so that he can put on the pageant.
Which is just insane on multiple levels because he kind of says that if he sells the company, then he doesn't get his quote, inheritance.
So he can't sell the company to this Japanese auto parts manufacturer or dealer or distributor because he won't get his inheritance.
And A, it's like insane that people would ever ask this of like a wealthy person.
Like, I can't believe you're not selling your company and giving up your inheritance just to put on a free pageant for all of us.
I would love it if we had that level of, like, militancy against rich people, but that would just, like, never happen.
It's just bonk bonkers, this universe.
What scenario is it where, like, you can't sell a company for as much as your inheritance is?
Like, it's just an automotive, like, parts, like, uh, production company, you know?
You're gonna be able to sell it for a pretty good amount of money.
Probably more than your, like, inheritance was when, like, his grandpa died, I think, pretty early in his life.
So, probably, like, the early 90s.
It, it, you could probably sell that for a good amount of money.
Probably more than your inheritance is.
Well, we find out later that it's not an inheritance.
It's like a joke.
It's like a turn of phrase that the inheritance is the Christmas pageant.
The inheritance is the work it takes to put on the Christmas pageant because we have like some bullshit parable about a man who wants to give, bequeath his belongings to his sons and he tells them, hey, there's money buried in the vineyard.
And so when he dies, his sons, Go out and dig up the soil in the vineyard and they can't find the treasures in the soil.
But oh, it turns out that just turning the soil made the vineyard successful and that's the true treasure.
Exactly.
And that's what's used to explain the idea of his inheritance being doing the work to own the... And she's like, well, why didn't you just tell the town that it's not a real inheritance?
That it's like the insane ramblings of an old dying man.
And he's like, well, it wouldn't have mattered to them anyway.
So that's what that means.
A lot of this is based off of like some like, you know, hearsay contract by some guy that's been dead for 20 years.
Like that, that moment, uh, I think really probably convinced the main actor to take on this role because he led like, he read, wow, I have a monologue, which leads into a parable about an honest day's work.
And he said, damn, that is acting.
I want to get in on this project.
So he goes into work where he gives an aggrieved speech to the union rep and his financial guy.
This is another one of the monologues that you were referencing, Evan.
He accuses the union guy of orchestrating the assault, which the union guy denies.
Like he says, I didn't have anything to do with that, Matthew.
Then Matthew goes, so I suppose it's my fault.
It's my fault that the economy is terrible and my business is failing.
It's my fault that employee wages keep going up while sales are going down.
It's my fault, Bob, that my workers are guaranteed an eight-hour workday and three 20-minute breaks and a 40-minute lunch.
This was the moment when it was very clear to me that this monologue and movie was not written while Trump was in office.
Totally.
It's like what Evan was alluding to earlier.
You would have to rewrite this movie if it came out one year later.
This is so insane.
So first of all, so I suppose it's my fault.
It's my fault that the economy is terrible and my business is failing.
Yes, motherfucker, you own the business.
You run the business.
You take pride in how you rebuilt the company.
If it's failing, then yes, it is your fault.
So that's some of that personal responsibility we hear so much about.
Second, it's my fault that employee wages keep going up while sales are going down.
You've already talked about how sales are booming on the online market, on the overseas market, and it's already been demonstrated that wages went down just this year.
This speech is, like, just the director, writer's personal grievances about, like, labor relations that don't fit into this movie at all because he's already laid out pretty, like, strictly what the dynamic is between the union and Matthew.
This is just, like, a laundry list of things he hates, the director hates about unions and about, like, working people and labor power in general.
The writing feels like it's coming from a genuine place like I feel like this guy started a small business like you know I want to have a fast casual wing shop where with a disco vibe and then you know the employees unionize and then you know he's you know he's not having a good night and then he just writes like a five-page diatribe about how you know he is a hero he is yeah
He is like the Superman of this story.
Why is it his fault, being the person who makes all of the managerial and business decisions of this business, that it's not doing well?
And as the person who negotiates with labor every single time there's a contract up, you know why the wages are going up, because you agreed to them.
But we've already established that the wages are not going up.
They already took a pay cut.
It's anti-ownership bias.
And then also, it's my fault, Bob, that my workers are guaranteed an eight-hour workday and three 20-minute breaks.
Yeah, if your employees are full-time, that's what the fuck full-time means.
Second of all, three 20-minute breaks is something nobody gets.
I'm in one of the most powerful unions in the country, and I get two 15-minute breaks for an eight-hour period and an unpaid 30-minute lunch.
That's what I get.
That's pretty standard, if not generous, compared to what most working people get.
Absolutely generous.
He's just pulling numbers out of his ass, this director is, because he hates working people.
Yeah.
They're so spoiled.
And then, finally, he says, you see, I don't get to clock out at 3.30 every day.
Which is, again, insane, because you just said your employees were entitled to eight hours of work.
So if they're clocking out at 3.30, are you happy that they're not getting their full eight hours?
And then finally he says, there is a difference between people who sign the check on the front and people who sign the check on the back.
And now I am happy that he was assaulted in the street.
And I wish more than just his car was burned.
Yep.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
This is the point where you're like, fuck man, this guy sucks worse than I thought.
So when you guys reached out to me to do this movie and I watched the trailer, um, when I heard that line, I was like, Oh, this is like the bad guy in the movie.
Right?
Like, you know, he needs to learn an important lesson about, you know, whatever the fuck, but that's like a genuinely vile thing to say.
And it doesn't really fit in with kind of like, this like Trump brain, or any kind of like populist message, where it's just like, you know what, management are heroes and workers are drones.
Who is this message for?
It's for 15 people who own, yeah, the same kind of like, you know, hot tub supply store, wing shop that's going to be out of business in nine months.
I'm sorry.
There's been this business that's like across the street from my place that's like cycling in between failed restaurant ideas.
So it used to be this place called South Street Burger Bar.
Now it's going to be this place called Wing Snob.
It sounds like the most unappetizing play.
I don't want the word snob in my food restaurant.
Bad flavors.
Yeah, so it's that is who this movie is for.
The people who own that.
I kind of disagree.
I think, I mean, I don't disagree that that's who this movie is for.
I disagree with the idea that that doesn't line up with Trump brain.
I think that very much does like Trump brain is thinking you're like the smartest businessman in the room or at least like you respect these good businessmen and you absolutely hate service workers and and just you're probably retired you're either you either own your own small business or you're retired and you can remember when workers actually were good and when they actually worked hard not anymore they're all just looking for an easy paycheck and they're they're all just taking
An hour's worth of breaks and 40 minutes of lunch every single day and they're mandated eight hours.
They're guaranteed eight hours.
And so I believe, yeah, hatred of workers, despite all the like pro-manufacturing rhetoric coming out of the Trump organization.
Yeah, I do think that there is an extreme hatred of workers within Trump brain.
Well, not only that, but they're all convinced that they too will one day run a factory.
They too will one day own a business.
It doesn't matter what your current job is, as long as you're a blue collar worker, you're almost as good as an owner because one day you could be an owner.
Yeah and even if it's like even if you're not going to be an owner you still have this idea that being an owner means you earned it and means you deserve to be that owner and means you're the smartest guy in the room not only are you the smartest guy in the room because you can run a business you're also a hustler because you had to hustle your way to the top so like business owners are de facto the best people uh on this on this on god's green earth you know True.
So it's just like everybody hates this guy.
They're demanding that he put on the Christmas pageant, but they're also refusing to help him in any tangible, meaningful way.
At all.
And so he gets home and as he gets home, the TV is on and you're hearing the weatherman and he's saying, it's cold, cold, cold.
It's going to be a cold one.
Gosh, it's going to be cold.
And then I'm like reminded of a much better movie called Killing Them Softly.
That was also about an economic downturn in the dead of winter.
And it's just the TV, the weatherman keeps going, keeps saying cold, cold.
God, it's going to be so cold.
And this just goes on for like 30 seconds.
And I'm like, yeah, we get it.
I get the metaphor, you know.
And then it turns out that, no, he was hearing the word cold over and over and over again, not as like a metaphor for how he's been treated in the movie, but it helps him realize that homeless people will be cold because the weather will be cold.
So it's a very literal thing.
It's not even like a metaphor.
Uh, he takes the doctor, uh, to the, the, I don't know, homeless building apartment complex.
Yeah.
Um, and, uh, the mom, Sharon, is just in bed coughing while everybody is like just hanging out in her room, which is weird.
They're like having like a little Christmas party.
I don't know.
Um, the doctor is like, she's checking up on Sharon.
She's like, she's sick.
And she says, like, oh, these people shouldn't be here.
They'll get sick.
And she doesn't mean, like, in the room with Sharon.
She means, like, poor.
Like, these people shouldn't be poor.
They'll get sick, you know?
And it's like, thank you for the expert advice, doctor.
And then Matthew offers to take everyone to his factory.
House them in his factory, which has heating and running water, hot water, etc.
And he basically says, I'll take CJ and his hot mom, and then the security guard can come and get the rest.
Because it's 11pm at night, security guard is just sitting like an NPC in his car waiting for the next prompt to tell him what to do.
He gets all the people back to his factory and, like, you know, lets them warm up.
He gets it catered by the local restaurant owner who, like, just brings in a coffee cart, it looks like, and he hands him, like, some cash.
Um, and then, uh, you know, everybody's telling him how great he is and like what a good person he is for doing this and how much, you know, they appreciate him so that they don't freeze, which I guess, you know, this is a good thing that he did.
If, if, if like we do have, uh, private businesses, which we do in this country, then yeah, I guess it's good that, uh, homeless people don't freeze in the, in the cold instead of like occupying this building.
Oh yeah.
Yeah that that's the thing because like it almost makes it seem like oh it's this like obvious easy thing that individuals can take it upon themselves to do like you know what it's cold I'm gonna bring everybody into the factory and then there's like
You know, there's no regard that like obviously like folks who live outside like might need some additional supports other than just a place to sleep Yeah, as if that's the central problem is like, you know Oh, you just need to be warm not to say that's you know, not an incredibly important thing but then like they're also in a factory with like a lot of tools and like sharp shit and you know, like it's just like oh and
Like, throw a cot wherever, you know, safety third, who cares if you like cut yourself or trip or some shit like that, you know, I'm the good person.
It's like so focused on like how good of a person this guy is other than like, you know, the impact of actually doing it.
Yeah, and so Dr. Miss Nancy Wells brings up this important fact.
Like, what are you going to do tomorrow?
What do you hope to accomplish?
These people will still be homeless tomorrow.
And he says, I just wanted to help them tonight.
You know, get them food and shelter.
And then she says, well, you know, what about tomorrow?
They're still going to be hungry.
They're always going to want more.
Yes!
This is a line that is in this movie.
These homeless people, they're just always going to want more.
If you give a mouse a shelter, you know... This person, Dr. Miss Nancy Wells, is supposed to be like the moral center of our movie.
She's supposed to be the one who is like...
Pressing our main character to do better and to be better.
And her line here is, what are you going to do tomorrow?
They're always going to want more.
Yeah.
And so Mike Matthew is thinking about this, you know, and the night passes, the next day arrives, and Matthew still can't figure out a solution to the homelessness crisis.
Uh, CJ is excited.
He's like fucking stoked to be in this factory.
He's like, he calls it heaven at one point or he calls it paradise.
Um, he says, uh, to Matthew, he says, Hey, this place is great.
You work here, right?
And then Matthew replies, I own this place.
Which means, no, I don't work here.
I just, I own things.
I don't work here.
I own it.
And I love that line because it's telling.
He's telling on himself here.
Yeah, it's like, well, CJ, all of history can be understood as class conflict.
And I am part of the ownership class.
The good class.
You'll learn a lot with me.
Um, and he says to CJ, the child, who we haven't said how old he is, but he's probably about 11 or 12.
He says to CJ, I'll tell you, I'll teach you how to run one of the machines later.
Okay.
Which is, you know, obviously pretty questionable.
And so he, he's like, I need CJ's help.
I'm going to take him on an errand.
And this errand is to put up pageant canceled signs at the park.
Which is insane because like you haven't told this kid that his one dream of being Gabriel is not going to happen.
This homeless child not going to get to be Gabriel and you think the best way to do that is by having him nail up a sign where as soon as he his eyes focus on it he realizes that that shit's canceled.
This it's like a it's like a very weird uh prank proposal to your fiancee you know like oh honey why don't you You know, uh, why don't you make the bed and there's a ring inside of it or whatever.
But it's like, why don't you nail up this sign that says, uh, your shit's canceled, bro.
It's pure, like, psychopath behavior.
Like, oh, I found out your one dream is to, like, star as this angel in the upcoming Christmas pageant.
Why don't you ride along with me as the camera lingers on the huge pageant cancelled sign in the trunks, just waiting to take this boy's heart and break it in two.
I respect that.
Yeah, it's a real old yeller moment.
My favorite part about this scene, it's one of those, you know, we talk about class differences here, but there's a real big racial component in this scene where CJ's just kind of like dancing around like any child would, and the main character's like, wow, where'd you learn how to dance like that?
That's incredible.
And he's just like, he's just like skipping around.
He's not doing anything special.
Oh, where do you want to dance that way?
No, he does a little bit of breakdancing.
He does a little bit of breakdancing.
He does a little bit of like, uh, interpretive dancing.
And maybe it's just the way that it's shot because he, they're at the park.
CJ sees the stage where normally the pageant would happen and he runs up on stage and he's like, ah, I'm the best angel ever!
I'm fucking freaking out over here!
And the main character, Matthew, is like looking in the trunk at the young boy's hopes dashed signs and it's showing Matthew, yeah, dancing in slow motion, popping and locking, kind of, doing a little windmill, kind of, But it's still all at the level of like a 10 year old.
Totally.
It's not good.
Unless you're a white man in middle America who's never seen anything like it.
And like it could have been played off as like something wholesome where it's like you know he's trying to encourage him or something it's like oh nice moves kid but no he's like genuinely awestruck that a child can just express joy through dance
uh and uh yeah definitely a lot of interesting racial stuff going on uh with the exactly like two to maybe three black characters in this movie uh it's three yeah it's three i counted yeah it's three there are two kids like later on it's like wow how are you clapping on the twos and fours like that Yeah, exactly.
How are you doing that?
It's insane.
Yeah, and it's funny because it is a pivotal moment.
It does look like the child is dancing out his insecurity or dancing out all the problems in the world because of the way it's shot, but it also kind of looks like maybe a scene from Suspiria.
He's dancing in this slow motion and the city councilman's neck is breaking in coordination with this dance.
Yeah, exactly.
Just like the Wizards of Waverly Place dad body contorting to the beat of this child's dance.
I would love it.
Okay, so the city council member, the mayor, and a police officer meet Matthew and CJ back at the factory.
Matthew still hasn't broken the news to CJ that the pageant is canceled.
And the city council member has gotten word of the fact that Matthew is housing these people at his factory and he's absolutely giddy at the idea of further punishing this small business owner.
Because he's like, you're not zoned for this.
And the mayor says, you can't just go around and gather people when it's cold and put them in a big room.
It's literally the line verbatim.
Yeah, which is a wild statement.
And Matthew says, why not?
And it's very like NPC angry meme.
Like the mayor is like, uh, you just can't take control of your own small business and, and, and use it how you see fit.
And the small business owner says why, and then the NPC gets angry, you know?
Yeah.
And then the city council member's like, we have laws.
Like, uh, you're not allowed to help people.
Uh, this, this far left government decided that you as a small business owner are not allowed to help people.
He says, the only way you can keep these people here around the clock is by putting them back to work.
You have 12 hours to comply or the city will be more than happy to see you in jail.
Yeah.
And you see a little light bulb go over his head in that scene and he's just like, hmm.
Not even yet.
Not even yet.
Sorry to, sorry to know you, but it's, it's like, it takes like another 20 minutes and CJ literally saying, I want to work for you, dumbass.
Exactly.
For him to be like, oh, I guess.
Wow.
I never thought of, but yeah, the, the city council member, like the way he says it does seem to be like he's feeding this hint.
Uh, to Matthew, for sure.
But I just, I love the idea that they're gonna throw this business owner in jail for allowing homeless people to stay in his factory instead of what they definitely would do, which would be to arrest every one of those people for trespassing.
And then when, like, CJ is doing a, uh, slow-motion interpretive dance and happens to brush one of the cops, then he gets tried as an adult for assault on a police officer.
Exactly.
So he gives the speech to the people and how he has to kick them out because the city is too communist and they won't let homeless people stay indoors during winter.
Again, this, sorry, I just want to go back to the fact that it's not zoned for people to live there.
This is an insane plot point.
It's crazy because it's like, small business owners everywhere would be letting homeless people sleep in their businesses if we didn't have all this government regulation.
Yeah, exactly.
We gotta keep a lid on it.
We're stifling the charity of small business owners by putting the onerous regulations on them.
Otherwise, this homelessness crisis would solve itself.
Like the only thing that's stopping just like the continuous accumulation of capital and worker exploitation is red tape.
Not a lot of people know that.
It's just a fever dream of right-wing propaganda that I love.
If only we would unshackle capitalism from big government regulation, then homeless people would be free to sleep inside Walmarts.
Yeah, so CJ says, what if we worked for you, then could we stay?
And then he says, what the heck?
And everyone cheers at the idea of being literal slaves.
Yep.
All these homeless people applaud, give three cheers, hip hip hooray, at the idea of working so they have a place to sleep.
Which like leads to this beautiful like slave scab montage because we forget the reason why there's no workers there is because they're on strike.
So he's gonna like have these like homeless people come in as like slave scabs and it's insane.
Yes.
It's insane.
It's like the seventh seal was just cracked open uh and there's you know a horn from the heavens indicating doom and then everyone just starts cheering.
They're like actually this is an incredible innovation in the marketplace of ideas.
This is what we've been waiting for yeah.
I love this.
Hey, what the heck?
You know, let's try it out.
Let's try the grand experiment of indentured servitude.
Like, I love this.
Like you're saying, oh, I just disrupted the market by reinventing slavery.
Yeah.
Because literally none of these people get paid.
I'm not exaggerating.
It's very funny for the purposes of this show, and if these people did get a wage, it would be less funny.
But I wouldn't lie about this.
They do not get a wage.
There is no discussion of payment at all.
It's literally just so they can occupy the building, they have to work there.
And then we get a montage of him teaching every person how to operate every bit of machinery because he's such a good small business owner that he knows how to do every single job on the floor of this of this factory and I just want to say like imagine
Imagine whoever owns your business listener out there whoever owns your business whether it's shareholders or whatever Imagine them even knowing how to do one job that you Imagine them knowing how to I don't know turn the fryer on Yeah.
Imagine them knowing where the plates go.
Imagine them knowing, like, how to work your dyad if you're scanning packages.
That was the best part.
It's completely laughable.
That was the best part about me getting, like, fired this, like, last little round, is, um, when I was, I told them straight up, like, listen, there's, like, thousands of dollars in the air right now that you're gonna have no idea what to do with when they land.
And like a little update from them that like, yeah, they have no clue what's going on.
It's been a, it's been an even like crazier shit show since they fired me because like they have no fucking clue what they're doing.
And it just tickles me.
I love it.
Okay.
We're running super long.
We need to, we need to get through this.
Very true.
Yeah.
So, uh, it turns out, uh, the union and the accountant were working together to make Matthew sell the company to a foreign investor, which we all know is much better for unions.
It's much better for workers when your company gets sold off to a private foreign investor.
There's another city council meeting where Matthew reveals that, oh, you thought you were going to shut me down, but turns out I reinvented slavery and now you can't.
And anyone who wants to come back and work is welcome to come back and work under conditions, meaning for free.
And if not, then get out of my way or whatever.
There's a huge picket.
Oh, and then as he's leaving the council meeting, like three or four different people come up to him and say, I just want my job back, Mr. Payton.
I don't need wages.
I don't need any fancy treatment.
I just want my job back because I love doing a job so much.
And that's that's the same scene where they say that being called a scab is a slur.
So the the union guy is like, hey, you know, you're bringing these scabs in.
It's like, well, I don't think they'd appreciate being called scabs.
The next morning there's an even bigger picket line.
The union has put out, you know, all its Craigslist flyers.
George Soros has spared no expense getting these picketers over there.
And a brick gets thrown through one of the windows of the factory and then a woman raps on the door to get in and she's one of the people who said, like, I need, you know, I need to get back to work and all of us think, all of us like secretly we're conferring at our hipster coffee shops about how much we actually like you, we're just not allowed to say it out loud, but we support you in secret.
We're all up in the attic creating shrines to Peyton Automotive lest we be hunted down.
And...
She says, I just can't do it.
It's too unsafe.
They own most of our houses, is what she says.
She says, they own most of our houses.
And it's like, who owns most of your houses?
The union?
What the fuck are you talking about?
We don't find out until later that the city councilman has a realty company or a development company that owns like half the houses in the town or whatever.
So that's what she's afraid about.
Um, he is upset because, uh, the, you know, the union is so against him.
So he's talking to Dr. Nancy Wells and he's like, I see the future of all the people who work for me, meaning like they're screwed or something.
Dr. Nancy says, I see all the people you're helping right now.
Which again, you're helping these people by allowing them to work for free.
Just an insane backwards ideology.
Turns out Sharon, the homeless mother, used to work... Sorry I'm saying homeless so much.
I know that people don't like that term.
It's just the one that rolls off my tongue so frequently and plus it's like hard to say what the state of these folks is anyway.
Um, turns out she used to work for the accountant guy that also works for Peyton and she's like, oh, he was a bad man.
I used to work for him and he was bad and he would steal.
And it's like pretty obvious that he's sketchy.
He's like the reason she's homeless.
Yeah.
Right.
Because she threatened to expose him, uh, you know, and he fired her or whatever.
CJ overhears two women gossiping that there won't be a Christmas pageant this year because Peyton is such a creep and he's stealing from his own company or whatever.
It's just idle gossip like women do.
They don't know what they're talking about, but they're talking about it very loudly.
CJ gets into a fight with Matthew.
He confronts him.
Matthew is like at the end of his rope because the business deal has gone through and so he freaks out on CJ.
He tells him it's over, that there's no miracles, that all things are not possible through God.
Santa is not a white man.
Nothing matters anymore.
CJ is upset.
He says, you know, I still love you or whatever and runs away.
The two women, the doctor, Ms.
Nancy Wells and Sharon are like talking about how great Matthew is.
Sharon says, you know, you two are close to Dr. Ms.
Nancy Wells.
And she says, oh, he's he's very special man.
And Sharon is like, oh.
And then Nancy says, we're like brother and sister.
And then Sharon says, oh, OK.
And then there's a weird bit of dialogue that I wouldn't have noticed, but it kind of like alludes to larger themes.
So CJ is asleep on the couch in the same room as them.
Dr. Ms.
Nancy Wells asks Sharon, CJ's mother, she says, do you mind if I take CJ downstairs and put him to bed for you?
His mother.
Sharon says no, go ahead.
And then Dr. Miss Nancy Wells says thank you.
I love this scene because, like, no shots to Dr. Nancy Wells, but she's not carrying that big-ass kid down those stairs.
Like, trust.
Like, as somebody who has, like, a big-ass six-year-old, like, and I'm a pretty large person, Dr. Nancy Wells is gonna have a hard time carrying that huge-ass kid downstairs.
Like, no shots!
But like, this is one of those stupid scenes that you only realize is stupid if you think about it for more than five seconds.
Well listen to the dialogue though, the relationship.
She's asking the child's mother if it's okay if she takes her son downstairs.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then the mother says, oh yeah, go ahead, that's fine.
And then the acquaintance says, thank you for the privilege of taking the son downstairs.
And it boggled my mind for a second.
I was like, this is a really weird interaction.
But then I realized it reflects the ethos of this movie.
Hey, Sharon, do you mind if I work for you for free?
And then Sharon says, no, go right ahead.
And then Dr. Miss Nancy Wells thanks her.
Yep, yep, totally.
Like, we're reconsidering what labor means.
We're also reconsidering a lot of, you know, dynamics of the family.
Maybe we can have, you know, a deeper connection between, you know, man and boy.
You know, while not a fatherly bond can be something greater.
True.
Yeah, that fits with the movie too, I think.
Um, so it's nighttime now.
Sharon is like still awake in the office and the accountant comes up to the office.
He sneaks in there and then just starts doing arson in front of Sharon.
He's like, he comes up into the office, sees Sharon and, you know, she used to work for him and he's like, oh, what are you doing here?
I thought you would have died of exposure by now.
And, uh, she's like, you're a bad man.
And then he's like, no, I'm not.
And then he puts a trash can on the desk and starts burning files in the office.
Uh, and then she whacks him with a golf club and the trash can tips over and burns the whole factory down.
Yep.
And people, like the 130 people haven't noticed this loud argument going on in the office, but they eventually smell smoke.
The accountant throws her down the stairs.
She gets knocked out.
There's a weird, long, dramatic, fast-forward-in-slow-motion, rewind-in-slow-motion scene where CJ runs to get his mom.
CJ gets knocked down by a 2x4, but not before finding his mom's Bible and putting it under his shirt.
Matthew runs in there to get CJ and the mom.
He finds the mom with a firefighter and he tells the firefighter, he's like, stay with her!
Don't leave her!
And the firefighter's like, okay, I guess I will.
Yeah, then the firefighter salutes because, you know, he's got to respect the small business owner who tells him how to do his job.
You really love to see it.
Alex does a lot on these firefighters.
Yeah, and then they find CJ and it takes three men to lift literally a single 2x4 off of CJ.
Yes, and then for some reason the two firefighters don't carry CJ out, he carries the CJ out.
There's two firefighters there ready to do their job with respirators and the whole nine, but for some reason he's the one that carries CJ out of the fire.
But after they find him, it cuts to they find him and then it cuts to Matthew standing outside in the snow and then it goes into reverse and basically shows him putting CJ back into the fire.
Like, what a weird call there.
Like, we're gonna do another weird time leap, but it's only gonna be 10 minutes this time.
We're gonna roll it backwards.
I thought I was watching Funny Not Funny on Wonder Shows and we were all supposed to laugh at him burning the homeless child.
Not funny!
They're in the hospital.
He talks to CJ.
He gives like a confession over CJ's unconscious body about how CJ's his family and it's like you do get this sense that like he cares about CJ and like helping these people has really like shown him what his life is missing.
You do get that sense but he's still very has this like mode of righteous anger where you're never like he turned a corner on how he views The world or how he views workers.
It's more just like the movie validates all of his previous grievances as we will see right now.
Because the Bible that CJ saved contained the one bit of paperwork that proves the accountant has been laundering money and funneling it.
to the company that the city councilman owns and this is all just like dumped in uh one monologue when uh the mayor and this councilman and the police officer come to the hospital to arrest him he's like actually i will not be the one you will be arresting because
I have this paperwork here and it's owned by you, the councilman, you know, and I have a photograph of these men who beat me up entering a bar and they're like, so what does that prove?
Well, it proves that I wasn't home when the, or I wasn't at the factory when the fire took place because they were trying to arrest him for burning the factory.
And then they're like, well, you know, you could, you could have taken that photo at any time.
And then Dr. Ms.
Nancy Wells shows up and she's like, Nope, he texted it to me.
I have the timestamp right here.
And he's like, well, that doesn't prove anything either.
And he's like, Oh yeah.
Well, Sharon said she hit you with a golf club.
And he's like, nah, and he, and he pulls up his sleeve and he's, and he's like, no, I don't have a bruise.
And then Sharon shows up and she's like, ah, Other arm.
And he's like, God, you're not slick, motherfucker.
Yeah, the jig is up.
God damn it.
The police officer is like, oh yeah, that's true.
He does have two arms.
And then the police officer is literally like, let me see that arm.
And he just grabs the dude's sleeve.
Like, I don't think you can do that without like a warrant.
I don't know.
But anyway, he like grabs, grabs a dude's sleeve.
And yeah, he's got a bruise on his arm.
And, uh, I think that's about it for all the, like, the reveals.
Oh, it was literally they were going to force Matthew to sell the company so that they could, with the Japanese auto parts dealer, destroy the factory and turn it into a permanent venue for the Christmas pageant.
Yeah, yeah.
So that they could monetize the Christmas pageant.
The whole scheme was literally just to get a hold of the Christmas pageant.
It's it's really interesting because like I didn't want to say that this movie is like you know weirdly anti-semitic or there's something going on on that level of like a war on Christianity but this movie like in its final moments is like no there is like a deep and insidious conspiracy within the town collaborating with their foreign agents uh to take us away from the true meaning of Christmas So, it's, you know, I think it's in there.
I think there's some whack shit that's going in there.
Not necessarily just, like, you know, the, uh, like, fear of anything foreign, but, you know, there's, they're definitely saying something.
And still, the true meaning of Christmas is, like, your community being able to commoditize off of it.
They're gonna go stay at Matthew's house, CJ and Sharon, but CJ is still convinced that there will be a pageant, even though Matthew keeps telling him that like, sorry bud, miracles aren't real, you know?
You believed for nothing.
They're driving back to Matthew's house and CJ is like, Chanting I believe over and over.
The word believe, I didn't count it.
If I'd known it was going to be said this much in the movie, I would have started counting from the beginning because it's said at least 50 times.
Easy.
CJ's just chanting, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe in the back of this, uh, this Chevy or this, this SUV.
And they drive by the park to placate the fucking chanting child in the backseat.
Oh, there's no, there's no pageant.
Sorry, bud.
You know, it's, it's very like Miracle on 34th Street, you know, and not Santa.
Look, there he is, not being Santa.
And they keep driving around until they wind up back at the factory where, oh, the pageant is being held, but it's just being held in the middle of the street.
Instead of the park, I guess.
Yeah.
And we don't get to see the pageant because I think it was out of the budget at this point.
We see the crowd gathered round looking at something and we see Dr. Miss Nancy Wells like knowingly smile at Matthew and saying, you did it.
You taught them to fish.
You taught the whole town.
Yep.
And teaching someone to fish, I think, in this instance, just means having them work for you for free.
This is what she meant.
You taught them the self-sufficiency skill of, like, letting vendors come in and sell their shit.
Now, when you say the pageant's, like, out of sight, what you mean is, like, the festivities are out of sight.
Like, the actual pageant itself, like, the play is the only thing that's happening here.
And it's happening, like, in this warehouse, Where like, CJ is gonna go ahead and just like...
Deliver the most amazing monologue with no addition, no script.
He had a vague idea of what Gabriel was going to do, but he's going to go in and crush the role of Gabriel in front of everybody.
No, he knew it because it came to him in a dream.
He said, I haven't rehearsed, but I dreamt what I have to do.
Fuck.
That's incredible.
I forgot about that aspect of it.
But yeah, he goes up and crushes it.
So the play still happens and he just owns it.
Yeah.
And it has like a costume and everything's ready to go.
They were like, oh CJ, we knew you were coming.
We have your costume here.
Yeah, you're the most important boy in this movie.
You definitely get to be Gabriel.
And then, you know, Matthew is moved to tears by CJ's performance and then CJ snarkily says, see, I told you you would cry, which I don't remember him telling anybody that they would cry.
Oh, maybe I guess in the very beginning he said his Gabriel was going to be so good, maybe that it would make people cry or whatever.
But that's the end of the movie.
Until what?
We get a mid-credits musical number.
You want to go ahead and describe to the audience, Tony, what this is?
It's like the most amazing, like, it is exactly what you want from a pop, urban, hip-hop, Christmas, Christian, like, believe-in-yourself song video.
DJ delivers an amazing verse in the beginning out of nowhere, which I don't think was part of the play, but they're making it seem like it's part of the play.
And then there's like multiple MCs that come on and like rap with it.
We'll be right back.
Like there's moments where like everyone's like, hey, ho, hey. - Hey!
And it's so fucking cringy.
They have every person of color from this movie grouped together to do the rap, by which I mean three people.
And the rap, it's like a take on Little Drummer Boy.
It's like a take on different Christmas carols kind of mashed together.
It's like, so jingle your bells.
Um, it's the only line I have written down is, remember it's about the song is called Angels and Drums.
And there's a line from CJ that's like, I want to bang on my drum and watch SpongeBob or something.
And, uh, the adult MC says, I'll be dabbing on these haters that be hating on my drums.
I love it.
I love it.
It's so good.
I think it's an honorable successor to Christmas in Hollis.
I think so.
I think you're right.
Finally taking over the mantle of Christmas rap with Angels and Drums.
By the way, all jokes aside, it's not close to that song because Christmas in Hollis is a fucking classic.
But yes, they think it is a successor to Christmas in Hollis.
Yeah, I don't know.
If you can get this movie for free, I would definitely recommend watching it because the politics are so fucked up, but you have to rent it on iTunes as far as I can tell.
So I don't know if I would recommend it, but hey, might be a new Christmas classic we have on our hands.
This was Believe from 2016.
Thanks so much to Evan from Kino Laughter for joining us today.
Thank you for having me on.
So Kino Lefter, if you haven't already heard our smash hit collaborations with you guys, we are a socialist movie podcast broadcasting out of beautiful, frigid Edmonton, Alberta.
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