After Lunch

Yesterday we shared an episode where Chad Young and I talked about the Christmas slasher film Silent Night, Deadly Night in which a young man has a twisted image of Santa as a being who ruthlessly punishes the naughty. Because of that, I mentioned in the episode that it would make a good double-feature with the 2015 movie Krampus, which is also about a vengeful holiday spirit who punishes the naughty. So that's the movie that Evan Hanson and I talk about in this episode.

Yesterday we got a little dark with Bad Santa, but today we're getting really dark with our favorite Christmas slasher movie, Silent Night, Deadly Night. Talking with Michael about it is Chad Young (aka HorrorMovieBBQ), who knew a lot more about it and its sequels than Michael did. They had a really fun conversation, so don't be naughty. Give it a listen.

We're moving out of silly comedy territory with this episode, but till in the comedy genre for now. This one's a little bit darker though. From 2003, it's Bad Santa, starring Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, Lauren Graham, Bernie Mac, and John Ritter. Talking with Michael about it is his pal and occasional podcasting partner, Dan Taylor. This one might get a little naughty.

Yesterday, Michael DiGiovanni and Michael May talked about Christmas Vacation and how - during their prep for that conversation - they discovered the existence of a weird sequel called Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure. Of course they had to come back and talk about it. And they invited Paxton Holley to do that with them.

We're re-running a stretch of silly comedies from the Sleigh Bell Cinema podcast, so of course we can't get too far into that without talking about National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. That's exactly what Michael May and Michael DiGiovanni did and Michael May's opinion of the movie changed as a result.

Yesterday we shared a discussion of the 1994 movie Mixed Nuts, so we'll stick with the silly comedies for a bit. In this episode, Michael and his son David talk about Seth Gordon's Four Christmases starring Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn and an awesome cast of co-stars like Mary Steenburgen, Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight, Jon Favreau, and Kristin Chenoweth.

The last couple of days, we reshared discussions that Noel Thingvall and Michael had about the classic Christmas in Connecticut and its remake. Today we're making a trilogy of it and sharing Noel's other appearance on the show where he introduced Michael to a Christmas comedy he'd never even heard of before. It's Mixed Nuts starring a huge cast that includes Steve Martin, Madeline Kahn, Liev Schreiber, Rob Reiner, Parker Posey, Robert Klein, Juliette Lewis, Adam Sandler, Rita Wilson, Jon Stewart, and Garry Shandling.

Yesterday we re-ran a conversation between Noel Thingvall and Michael about the 1945 classic, Christmas in Connecticut. We mentioned a couple of times in that conversation that there's a remake of that movie, so of course Michael and Noel also had to talk about that one. The remake was a TV movie from 1992 starring Dyan Cannon, Kris Kristofferson, and Tony Curtis. And most remarkably, directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Yesterday we re-ran a conversation that Rob and Michael had about the 1949 movie Holiday Affair on Michael's old Sleigh Bell Cinema podcast. Today, it's another movie from the '40s and even more of a classic. From 1945, it's Christmas in Connecticut starring Barbara Stanwyck. Our guest for the episode was Noel Thingvall, who's also been on After Lunch a few times in the last couple of years.

This Christmas season on After Lunch - like with the last couple of years - we're going to be re-running a bunch of episodes from Michael's old Sleigh Bell Cinema podcast. This is going to be an especially busy year though, because we're running discussions of what we call Holiday Spirit movies.