0:10

Hello you and welcome to You Are

0:12

Good, a feelings podcast about movies. Today we

0:14

are talking about Elf and we're talking about

0:16

it with the great Sarah Archer. I'm

0:19

one of your hosts, Alex Steed,

0:21

and I will soon be joined

0:23

by my marvelous co-host, Sarah Marshall.

0:26

This episode comes out a couple days

0:28

before Hanukkah. And if you celebrate, happy

0:30

Hanukkah from us to you. Thank you

0:32

so much for being here. Elf

0:35

is a 2003 American Christmas

0:37

comedy film directed by Jon Favreau

0:39

and written by David Barenbaum. It

0:42

stars Will Ferrell as Buddy, a human

0:44

raised by Santa's elves, James

0:47

Cans in this, Zooey Deschanel, Mary

0:49

Steenburgen, Edward Asner, and

0:52

Bob Newhart. We talk about all these

0:54

fine folks and more in this very

0:56

episode. And we talk about these fine

0:58

folks and more with the delightful Sarah

1:00

Archer, repeat guest. Last time she

1:02

was on, we talked about Rosemary's Baby and we had

1:05

a blast doing it. Sarah

1:07

Archer is a design and culture

1:09

writer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her

1:11

articles and reviews have appeared in

1:13

the New York Times, the Atlantic,

1:15

Vox, the Cut, Architectural Digest, newyorker.com,

1:18

American Craft Magazine, Curbed, Dwell, Metropolis,

1:20

Bloomberg City Lab, Slate,

1:23

The Washington Post, and

1:25

many more fine and prestigious publications. We love

1:27

Sarah. Every time Sarah is here, we talk

1:29

about the text of the movie itself. And

1:32

then we talk about so much more because

1:34

Sarah Archer is a font of information and

1:37

we have so much fun with her.

1:39

How are you doing? What's going on in your

1:41

world? Let us know what you're

1:43

watching, what you're reading, what you're eating. We're

1:46

on social media. We're

1:48

on Twitter.

1:51

We're on Blue Sky. We're on threads.

1:54

We are on Instagram. That's a big one for us.

1:56

I make reels occasionally. And just let

1:58

us know how doing let us know

2:01

how you're feeling let us know how your

2:03

head and your heart are holding up and

2:06

don't forget that you my friend you the

2:09

one who's listening to my voice

2:11

in your ears right now you my

2:13

friend are good thank you for being

2:16

here we appreciate you you

2:18

are good at feelings podcast about movies is

2:20

made possible with and by your support thanks

2:23

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much exchange you got those bonus episodes we

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have one coming out about the second half the

2:43

second season of in just like that to close

2:45

out this year so you have that to look

2:47

forward to we did Deb's last

2:49

month we'll probably pick up on our

2:52

Hannibal run early next year we're having

2:54

a good time over there and we

2:57

were glad that we could have those bonus

2:59

conversations with everyone who supports us over there

3:01

in that way thank you so much for

3:03

doing that if you're

3:05

looking to get involved in some way for

3:07

calling for a ceasefire you can get in

3:09

touch with the fine folks at Jewish voice

3:11

for peace just google it

3:14

you'll find them they probably have some actions in

3:16

your area that you'd be interested to know about

3:19

I just got back from a wedding had a

3:22

wonderful time Carolyn Kendrick

3:24

and I went to this fine wedding

3:27

of friends of ours who are sort of

3:29

local arts folks and community organizers and as

3:32

a result just everyone

3:34

was involved in a really nice way

3:36

like everyone cleaned up after a while

3:38

other folks were dead it was just

3:40

it was a lovely time it was

3:42

you know the energy of a

3:45

room full of love is a delightful

3:47

thing I gifted my time I

3:50

guess as a photographer and was able to

3:53

shoot the wedding start to finish from everyone

3:55

getting ready right up through the end and

3:58

that was a delightful light

4:00

and I this is the very

4:02

last thing I'm doing before I

4:04

slip into oblivion under

4:06

the covers because I am

4:08

toast I always ask you what

4:11

you're watching and reading and doing all that and I

4:13

would love to let you know that I just watched May

4:15

December yesterday or the day

4:18

before and I loved it it's a Todd Haynes

4:20

movie so that's great news and I loved it

4:22

it's a Todd Haynes movie that just like aired

4:25

on Netflix and so there's a bunch of

4:27

people just fresh to

4:29

a Todd Haynes movie who you know some

4:31

people get it for sure and then some

4:33

people were like what did I just watch

4:37

and I like that I think that that's a

4:39

beautiful thing but I I loved this movie I

4:42

encourage you to check it out you

4:45

know there are some trigger warnings involved maybe

4:47

just know about what you're going into but

4:49

I had a great time with it I

4:51

enjoyed it a whole bunch and I hope

4:53

we get to talk about it in a

4:55

more formal capacity at some point soon all

4:57

right I think that's it for

5:01

this week's intro to you are

5:03

good at filming spy cast of movies this

5:05

being a conversation about else a conversation about

5:07

else with Sarah Archer so let's get

5:09

into it shall we hello

5:20

Sarah Marshall oh ho

5:22

ho Alex feed oh it's

5:25

beautiful it's a great Ed

5:27

Asner of you thanks listen

5:31

Alex Alex yeah have you seen

5:33

any modern Christmas

5:36

classics that feature both

5:39

at Asner and Bob Newhart I

5:41

said so this is the first

5:43

time I've watched this movie and

5:45

appreciated that that I was like

5:47

this is two legends that we

5:49

get glorious cameos from I'm now

5:51

of the age where I can appreciate

5:54

that the first men of 1970s sitcoms

5:56

for people who don't know for people

5:59

who weren't Sarah, I think,

6:02

are you a Gen X-er? Is that fair to say?

6:04

I am. I'm a late 70s baby,

6:07

so I am very much team Bob

6:09

Newhart big time. Exactly. And for people who

6:11

do not have the privilege and the joy

6:13

to have been born at the same moment

6:15

that baby Cynthia Nixon was appearing on the

6:18

panel game show her mom worked for, because

6:20

this is what TV was then, Ed Asner

6:24

played Lou Grant on

6:26

the Mary Tyler Moore show. He was Mary

6:28

Tyler Moore's irascible boss, and then that

6:31

was spun off into Lou Grant, which

6:33

was a very long-running sitcom. And

6:36

Bob Newhart was a comedian who was a

6:38

star of both the Bob Newhart show and

6:40

then later on Newhart. I was

6:42

talking to a friend the other night about, like,

6:46

my fondness, and I think I've said this on

6:48

the show before, both of those shows, all three

6:50

of the, all of the shows I guess mentioned,

6:52

were very long-running and very beloved. There's a statue

6:55

of Mary Tyler Moore in

6:57

the Twin Cities. I forget which one.

6:59

Probably Minneapolis. Sorry, St.

7:01

Paul. I think it's

7:03

whichever one we stayed in when we, did we

7:05

stay there? We were in Minneapolis, yeah. Yeah, so

7:08

it's there because I saw it while doing a

7:10

morning walk one day. Nice. So, yes, so

7:12

Minneapolis has Mary Tyler Moore, but St. Paul

7:14

has not Garrison Keeler,

7:16

somebody else who I can't think

7:18

of. Please write in. I self-addressed

7:20

fan postcards to say

7:23

what St. Paul has going for it. But I was talking

7:25

to a friend the other night about, like, my

7:28

love for sitcoms that were on for two seasons,

7:30

which I think I've talked about here before, because

7:33

that's the length of time where, like, you had

7:35

time to demonstrate your potential and

7:37

you just didn't have very much. And

7:39

one of their shows is The Single Guy

7:41

starring Jonathan Silverman, which was a great example

7:43

of how easy it was to get a

7:45

sitcom on. They were like, what's

7:48

the concept? And you were like, he's a

7:50

single guy. That's really, this is

7:52

blowing my mind a little bit. You're totally right.

7:54

Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Do you remember that no

7:56

one else has ever remembered Jonathan Silverman's

7:58

The Single Guy? Very faintly. Very

8:01

faintly. But it was that's, I mean, try

8:03

to explain to the youth of today, like

8:05

that was TV. And you're like, it was

8:07

like Caroline in the city for men. And

8:09

they're like, what's Caroline in the city? And

8:13

you're like, it was about a single

8:15

girl. But

8:17

I guess the point is that like, this is a movie that

8:20

I also Alex, this is the first time I've watched

8:22

it and fully appreciated it. And it feels like so

8:25

much of what's anchoring it is like acknowledging

8:28

its 1970s sitcom and

8:31

1960s claymation elders in such a

8:33

loving way. Totally. Yeah,

8:36

absolutely. Yeah, this is the first I mean, I feel

8:38

like there are two sets of

8:40

kinds of appreciation. And one is just

8:42

like, you know, being a

8:44

child or a child at heart and appreciating

8:47

the Christmas enthusiasm and the other is just

8:49

being like, Oh, like this is an homage

8:51

to everything that John

8:53

Favreau grew up with. Exactly.

8:56

Oh my gosh. So who who are we spending

8:59

spending Christmas with Sarah

9:01

Marshall? Oh my God,

9:04

we're spending time with the only

9:06

Sarah who I will allow to

9:08

be in my orbit without eating

9:10

her to therefore eliminate the competition.

9:13

It's Ms. Christmas herself, author of

9:15

A Mid-Sanctuary Kitchen, Sarah

9:17

Archer. Hello, Sarah Marshall

9:19

and Alex Steve. It is

9:22

so lovely to see you and also so lovely

9:24

to see a very well behaved orange cat.

9:26

Oh, that's Tony Hawk back there.

9:28

He's good. Ironically sitting still. Well

9:31

Sarah Archer, why this was a

9:34

selection that you brought to us

9:36

and I'm curious about what motivated

9:38

that. I will say upfront, I've

9:41

watched a lot of Christmas movies, some of it growing

9:43

up, some of it for research. And

9:45

I will say with love, I don't

9:47

think that Elf is

9:50

a masterpiece, but

9:52

the parts of it that are good are so good

9:55

that it's like, it's unmissable. Like it's

9:57

the parts of it that work are

9:59

brilliant. So it's sort of, you

10:01

know, they're parts of the ending I don't love.

10:03

I really stopped paying attention in the past

10:06

half hour. I mean, I paid attention as

10:08

much as was professional, but you know. Yeah,

10:10

that was pretty much my feeling too. I'm

10:13

excited to talk about it. I fell

10:15

asleep and felt fine. I'm

10:19

gonna tell you that basically the parts of it

10:21

that are incredible. People are gonna be so mad.

10:23

People are so mad at us. I

10:25

mean, I see. I know what I've seen it. I know

10:27

it, but I fell asleep like 25 minutes

10:30

out and then woke up and turned like the

10:32

last two minutes. I was like, it's

10:34

fine. It's like newsies. We're not here

10:36

for plot, you know? Right. The

10:38

plot could you could you, we have notes, but

10:41

the experience of the North Pole,

10:43

the workshop, the department store, all

10:45

the essential ingredients of

10:48

Christmas magic are at play. And

10:50

you've got Ed Asner, you have Bob

10:52

Newhart, you have Leon Redbone. Are you

10:54

kidding me? Who's Leon

10:57

Redbone in this movie? He's

10:59

the snowman. Do you remember there's like a breeze?

11:01

Yes, I do. And

11:04

there's the narwhal. One of the

11:06

only like four musical artists

11:08

I ever heard my dad

11:10

listen to on purpose was

11:12

Leon Redbone. No kidding. Yeah.

11:16

That's amazing. Wow. That's

11:18

a deep cut. He never comes up. People

11:20

are not talking about Leon Redbone. Wow.

11:22

He really doesn't, but he should. Incredible.

11:26

A blessing. And I really, you

11:28

know, like watching that opening sequence or

11:30

not the opening sequence, but the sort of I've

11:33

arrived in New York, a young ingenue

11:35

going to see dad at the publish. It's like

11:37

he's going on a date with Big. It's like

11:39

there's like Louis Prima is playing his Empire State

11:41

Building. There's Art Deco. Carrie

11:44

would have Louis Prima playing in her

11:46

own personal big date. You're right. My

11:49

God. Exactly. It's the you know, it's

11:51

old New York. And then I was like, this movie

11:53

must be why this song ended up being so

11:55

big on TikTok because that is like, right.

11:58

Gotta be. And this is another thing I love. about

12:00

this insane media dystopia we're living in

12:02

that like Louis Prima

12:05

is incredibly relevant. Like

12:08

how would you explain that to him? It's

12:10

like everybody has a little rectangle, it's the

12:12

future. He's like I'm already lost, I don't

12:14

care. Like am I gonna check? And

12:18

you're like no. Exactly.

12:20

Well and actually to that

12:22

point the other thing that I love about

12:24

Elf is that the

12:26

way that Will Ferrell plays this character and

12:28

I guess the way it's written, he never

12:31

breaks. Like he's stuff happens to him,

12:33

he gets attacked by a raccoon, he's

12:35

you know people are telling him to

12:37

make work his new favorite. He's experiencing

12:39

everything terrible which was not as

12:41

terrible in 2003 but it's more terrible now. And

12:44

he's always full

12:47

of enthusiasm and joy and

12:49

wants to make people happy and it's

12:51

just the most lovely thing. I think

12:53

it's I just unironically love that. Somebody

12:57

please if you're just like bored and

12:59

high and want to calligraphy something like

13:01

do a tree of like

13:04

these wonderful fish out of water

13:06

movies and media generally right because

13:08

this movie is like Crocodile

13:11

Dundee to the power

13:13

of Third Rock from the Sun and there's

13:16

also like there's splash in there. There's

13:19

also Tom Hanks big. Yes.

13:22

Right because he's literally big. Yep.

13:24

Enchanted. This is like mostly

13:26

big in a lot of ways I guess

13:29

like as fish out of water goes because

13:31

like he's like an eight-year-old boy. Like Elf

13:33

is an eight-year-old boy. Yes and

13:36

he's kind of communicating with these

13:38

like business people about business. And

13:40

apparently John Favreau modeled him to

13:42

some extent on his baby. Yes.

13:45

It was interesting too watching this because we

13:47

were getting towards you know we

13:49

plan to do this movie and I was like thank

13:52

God we're doing this movie because I think people

13:54

have been asking for it for years. Yeah

13:56

it comes up a lot. If you do Christmas content

13:58

people are asking for it. Yeah, everybody

14:01

wants Elphin with a good reason and

14:03

I was always but I have like I generally

14:05

here's the thing you guys I Don't

14:08

like Will Ferrell very much Yeah,

14:12

okay in most things I find

14:14

him exhausting Well, I think what

14:16

he was packaged in a lot

14:18

movie wise at the same time

14:21

was tedious Yes And

14:23

there was a lot of it and how

14:25

was teenage Sarah who did not bother to

14:27

watch this movie to imagine that The

14:30

Will Ferrell of old school which

14:32

she had ended up watching in a co-ed situation with

14:34

a bunch of 15 year olds Which

14:36

was awful. It was oh

14:38

Bobby. It was awful It

14:42

was the worst day of my life Like how was

14:44

I to know that like the Will

14:46

Ferrell of this movie to me feels

14:48

so different from Most

14:50

other Will Ferrell stuff not that I'm a

14:52

connoisseur of the Will Ferrell erves So

14:55

I but there's like other stuff where he's you

14:57

know closer to the buddy Side

14:59

of the spectrum and I did really love night at the

15:01

Roxbury when it came out when I was like 11 I

15:05

love that that's your Will Ferrell exception the

15:08

one The

15:10

an acknowledged classic Look,

15:13

there's like a group of like some

15:15

kind of demographic of millennial women who

15:17

fucking love night at the Roxbury Of

15:19

course, but anyway, like the

15:21

the sort of what we were calling it

15:23

the time frat pack movies Right where it's

15:25

him and Vince Vaughn and their wives are

15:27

bitches you know and they're

15:30

married to like Leah Rameini and they're like

15:32

pissed that she doesn't want them to Commit

15:35

statutory rape or whatever like

15:37

those movies felt so awful to watch Especially as

15:40

a young teenage girl where you're like, this is

15:42

what my life is gonna be That's

15:44

cool And that this movie feels like

15:46

out of time with all of that because he's playing

15:49

an absolute Pure innocent character

15:51

and as you said, he doesn't break

15:53

and it's kind of they have there's this sort of very

15:56

sweet Love story right and they end up

15:58

like having a giant baby and it's

16:01

our guest giant in elf world. He's

16:04

the manic pixie dream boy. He's

16:06

an elf. Yes, it's so sweet.

16:08

That's the boys of pixies or

16:11

whatever. So before we go

16:13

further, Sarah Marshall, can you tell us what

16:16

elf is about? I would love to.

16:18

Yeah, so elf is about an elf,

16:20

buddy the elf. He crawls into Santa's

16:22

bag when Santa played by

16:24

Ed Asner is making the rounds and he is

16:26

adopted by an older elf

16:28

who had been so focused on toy making

16:31

he forgot to start a family played by

16:33

Bob Newhart and we all get this in

16:35

a very tone setting monologue by Bob Newhart.

16:39

And Sarah, like who is Bob Newhart?

16:41

Oh man. Like

16:43

what's his deal? How does he make you feel?

16:46

So he is the reason

16:48

casting him is so brilliant is that he's

16:50

literally he's the king of deadpan. He

16:53

was a stand up guy in

16:55

like the late fifties. Is that

16:57

right? Yeah. He had

16:59

TV various TV shows, the Bob Newhart show

17:02

and then there was this new heart, which

17:04

is the one I grew up on. He's

17:06

the comedian who Mr. Maisel is plagiarizing and

17:08

I think the first episode of the marvelous

17:10

Mrs. Maisel because he would always do these

17:13

routines where he would have a phone on stage

17:15

with him and he would like play the other

17:18

side of an increasingly insane phone call. Yes.

17:21

He has what I would consider to be

17:23

a little bit of like a Tig Notaro, like very

17:27

just deadpan kind of like sort of

17:30

slightly stunned. He was kind of

17:32

the river butcher of his era,

17:34

we could say. Yeah, totally. Exactly.

17:36

Of his time. That's true.

17:38

Yeah, that's great. A master of the very slow

17:40

set up. Exactly. And he has

17:42

this incredible ability to just

17:45

stick with that when people around him are

17:47

just dying. Like it's just incredible to watch.

17:49

So the idea of seeing him

17:51

play an elf who

17:53

as a persona is going to be

17:55

high pitched, frenetic, basically is going to be

17:57

Will Ferrell, right? And have that

18:00

person be like the

18:02

most understated human imaginable and that he's just

18:04

such a I mean I think he's still

18:06

alive right? I think you're right yes. He's 94.

18:09

Aww. And Alex you know that I have I own

18:13

one of your favorite books I think the

18:15

Celebrity Cookbook. Yeah. Published

18:17

in 1978. Tremendous. Amazing.

18:20

And the Bob and Jenny Newhart recipe

18:22

is a carrot ring where you make sort

18:24

of a loaf with a lot of carrot I

18:26

think grated carrot in it in like a bun

18:28

shape or a ring loaf shape

18:30

ring pan and then

18:32

you you know you put it on the plate and

18:35

then you put a big pile of peas in

18:37

the middle. Because like why wouldn't you? And

18:39

I realize that's very campy but it's

18:42

really attractive you have this bright orange carrot

18:44

thing and you have your peas in the

18:46

middle and you're like wow this is what

18:48

it feels like to be Bob Newhart. Even

18:53

like Newhart what everyone's trying to do. Yeah.

18:57

And so yeah I think he

19:00

is also kind of there's a sense in which

19:02

for all his sort of superficial chilliness

19:04

there's a little bit of a fois

19:06

deux if you will. He's also

19:08

kind of warm and fuzzy right? Like he's sort

19:10

of you know there's this very kind of like

19:12

a funcular kind of sweet quality to him. Well

19:15

we have these wonderful like using the

19:17

same technology used very and by that

19:20

I mean non-technology used very recently to

19:22

make Gandalf look so much bigger than

19:25

Bilbo in The Lord of the

19:27

Rings. Like we have Bob Newhart taking

19:29

care of his giant child which reminds

19:31

me of a you know a story

19:33

that my mom would

19:35

always tell about like having a bantam

19:37

hand that accidentally hatched a

19:40

collection of duckling eggs. And so having

19:42

this hand that was walking around with

19:44

like her adolescent baby ducklings like already

19:46

bigger than her walking around behind her.

19:48

Oh my god that's so cute.

19:51

This movie feels a lot more spiritually connected to

19:53

Barbie than I would have guessed. Yeah.

19:56

Right? Interesting. Yeah.

19:59

Cause the first kind of what. 10, 15 minutes

20:01

basically is Buddy like getting his quest. He

20:03

is bad at being an elf. He can

20:06

only make 85 extra sketches in the time

20:08

it takes everyone else to make a thousand

20:10

extra sketches. Poor Buddy. Still a

20:12

very extra sketch heavy world in 2003 I guess.

20:15

Fair, extremely. I was

20:17

looking at children's letters to Santa on

20:19

the post office website this morning when I

20:22

couldn't sleep, you know? And all these

20:24

kids are asking for PS5s. So

20:27

can we talk about technology in the

20:30

elf workshop? Yes. Oh my God, please.

20:32

I know this is part of your

20:34

area. I basically just think about it

20:36

constantly. So something that occurred to me

20:38

when I was researching Mid-Century Christmas, which

20:41

has a huge preamble that's not about

20:43

the Mid-Century because you can't really understand

20:45

why Space Age Christmas is

20:47

meaningful and strange without looking at what

20:50

it was before, which was a very

20:52

backward looking, folksy, kind of

20:54

nostalgic, deliberately nostalgic. Giving children

20:56

orangues. Yes. So you

20:58

have the essential conflict of

21:02

industry and commercialism versus family and

21:04

that we're all led to believe

21:06

this idea that Santa Claus

21:08

is old fashioned. And then

21:10

increasingly as technology advances, we're

21:12

wishing for etch-a-sketches and iPhones and

21:15

PS5s and this, that, and the other. And that there's this

21:17

trope of, you know, it's so

21:19

funny and kind of sweet that Santa Claus in

21:21

his workshop is somehow crafting all of these

21:23

high tech things by hand. And

21:26

what's interesting about that is that that

21:29

image of Santa Claus as

21:31

a kind of medieval craftsman emerges at the

21:34

height of the industrial revolution in the middle

21:36

of the 19th century. There's a famous drawing

21:38

of him, an illustration called Santa Claus and

21:40

his works that was published, designed, drawn

21:42

by Thomas Nast and published in Harper's magazine

21:44

in 1866. And

21:47

one of the illustrations, interestingly, it has

21:49

Santa Claus with a kind of accountant's

21:51

ledger keeping track of like who's good and

21:53

who's bad in a very like capitalist way. And

21:55

also this sort

21:57

of pre-industrial carpentry workshop. And

22:00

I think when I was a little kid,

22:02

I didn't understand the difference

22:04

between like medieval and 19th

22:06

century cosplaying medieval. Like it's, you know what

22:08

I mean? It's all the same. And

22:12

so it's easy to assume that things like the

22:14

custom of a Christmas tree was passed

22:16

down an unbroken chain from the Middle Ages when

22:18

in fact it was a kind of German folk

22:21

revival that happened in the 19th

22:23

century as part of this broad

22:26

response to all the changes of

22:28

industrialization, both like the physical world,

22:30

the landscape, shopping, the kind

22:32

of people who can make lots of money, you know,

22:35

where people live, how they live, all of

22:37

those changes, which are huge and

22:39

complicate the nativity story, right? Where

22:41

you sort of have a

22:44

baby who's born in the wrong place at the

22:46

wrong time and there are like farm animals and

22:48

randos and it's the message is like, this

22:50

is your king, right? Throughout

22:53

Christianity, there have been Christian history, lots

22:55

of debate about should

22:57

we be sumptuous and luxurious and

23:00

glorifying God or should we be very austere

23:02

because that's the message, you know, that we,

23:04

you know, we should be. And

23:06

there's many different responses to that,

23:08

right? There's the very luxurious, sumptuous,

23:11

flamboyant response and the very austere

23:13

Puritan response and the kind

23:16

of 19th century rise of

23:18

capitalism and consumerism and public

23:20

morality complicates that. Are

23:23

you familiar with the Christmas political

23:25

axis? No. So

23:27

it's got an XY

23:29

axis at the top

23:31

and this is credited to a Tumblr

23:33

user called Ace of Squiddles. I don't know who

23:35

Ace of Squiddles is, but whoever Ace of Squiddles

23:38

is, is a fucking genius. It's

23:40

got pro-Christmas at the

23:42

top, anti-Christmas at the bottom,

23:45

anti-capitalism on the left and pro-capitalism

23:47

on the right. So you've got on

23:49

the pro-Christmas side, Jesus and Santa on

23:51

the anti-Christmas side, the Grinch and Scrooge

23:54

on the pro-capitalism side, Santa

23:56

and Scrooge and anti-capitalism, Jesus

23:58

and the Grinch. And like, that's kind of. not

26:00

that long ago they found a snack bar

26:02

in Pompeii. Oh, I don't think I knew that. That's

26:04

incredible. Wow. It's beautiful. Yeah,

26:06

because you know what? People have always liked

26:08

snacks. That is extremely true. So

26:10

that's, I mean, basically, to the point of

26:13

things that like this idea that Christmas, quote

26:15

unquote, used to be a certain

26:17

way. And now it's bad. Now it's commercial, but

26:19

it used to be. But in fact,

26:21

Christmas, as we know it, in the

26:23

sense that it's a child-focused holiday, where

26:25

there's a lot of shopping and decorating, this

26:28

real focus on being cozy and things

26:30

being sparkly, the focus

26:33

on kids and toys and buying stuff

26:36

and Christmas being a big deal as

26:38

a municipal holiday have

26:40

never been separate. They were always

26:42

part of the same overall gambit.

26:44

So before Christmas was a major

26:46

civic holiday, it was a feast

26:48

on the calendar like a lot of other ones. It

26:50

was a big one, but it wasn't like the entire

26:53

world shuts down and we all go to Macy's. It

26:55

was sort of that focus on

26:57

childhood was always

26:59

baked into the commercialization. So

27:01

that was a war, the sort of quote

27:03

unquote, war on Christmas narrative is like crazy

27:06

making for a lot of reasons. But one

27:08

of the big ones is that it's just

27:10

historically, it's ahistorical, which I feel like it's

27:12

just rude. Like it's just. I know. I

27:17

have been lately watching a

27:19

lot of like YouTube commentary

27:21

videos about Harry Potter, which

27:24

I guess I didn't even read all the

27:26

Harry Potter books. I read the

27:28

first four and then when the fifth one came

27:30

out, I was incredibly horny and there was nothing

27:32

overtly about sex in it. As far as I

27:34

could tell, I deemed it not worthy of my

27:36

time. Because I had sex to

27:38

read about. That's a great reason. It

27:41

worked out fine. And like, and

27:43

I was very into the first four when they came out, I

27:45

was exactly the right age for them. But like one of the

27:47

things that I've been, that I find

27:49

interesting and has come up in some of what I've

27:51

watched recently is how like, Harry

27:54

Potter like was from the beginning a world without

27:56

any kind of a coherent system of ethics. And

28:00

you know, everything we've experienced from J.K.

28:02

Rowling, like, it's

28:05

not like anyone could have

28:07

particularly seen it coming, I don't think,

28:09

or should have anyway, but that like, her

28:12

behavior is coherent with somebody who wrote

28:15

a story where

28:17

the reason people do good

28:19

things and bad things is because some people

28:21

are good and some people are bad and

28:23

the bad people have names like Malfoy that

28:25

mean they're bad in Latin, you know,

28:28

and that there's a sort of, I don't know,

28:30

that being a

28:32

turf and being sort of deterministic

28:35

about morality feel hand in hand

28:38

or at least they don't feel like they contradict each

28:40

other and then how what you have in Harry Potter,

28:43

if you don't have sort of, you know, a coherent

28:46

worldview that really makes you

28:48

think like you get in Earthly

28:51

Ligwin's Earthsea books, which I realize is a

28:53

hard act to follow, but that,

28:55

you know, that that actually presents fantasy

28:58

as a way of thinking about human morality and

29:00

behavior in a way that sort of carries over

29:02

to the way you

29:04

live your own life. Like I

29:06

know a lot of people have taken inspiration from Harry

29:09

Potter at different times, but like so much of it,

29:12

as you know, I've seen people pointing

29:14

out, is really about shopping, you know,

29:16

and I forget the name of the

29:18

person who observed this, but I'll

29:20

try and, you know, get a link to it, but

29:22

basically that like, it's really weird when you

29:24

think about it that wizards have to

29:27

buy their own wands and I

29:29

think the Chamber of Secrets, Ron

29:31

breaks his wand or Gilderoy Lockhart

29:33

breaks his wand or something and

29:35

he doesn't have a functioning wand for

29:37

the entire fucking book. And you can't

29:39

just like make one or conjure

29:41

like that. Isn't that the whole thing? Conjuring

29:44

things? No, you have to buy it in a

29:46

store. Well, in that anxiety

29:48

about shopping and stuff and the naughty list

29:50

and the good list and it's, you know,

29:52

the parallels, there's something very, I mean, one of the

29:55

things that I think is super interesting about 19th century

29:57

and later Christmas in America is that

29:59

it's is that it kind

30:01

of glosses over sectarian differences so that

30:04

everybody's church is the department store essentially

30:06

and like you go and you visit

30:09

a magic man who's wearing red robes and

30:11

bishop's robes because Santa Claus in when he

30:13

was a real person was a bishop named

30:15

Saint Nicholas who lived in the fourth century

30:18

and is famous because he gave

30:21

anonymous gifts including very famously to

30:23

a poor father who had three

30:25

daughters and couldn't afford dowries and

30:27

he gave them sacks of coins so that the

30:29

daughters wouldn't have to become sex workers. So

30:32

that's Santa Claus. Wow, wow, wow,

30:34

wow. It's very Sound of Freedom. That

30:36

was Santa Claus. You know, just

30:38

trying to like keep you on the straight

30:40

and narrow. But Santa today, he knows that

30:43

sex work is real work and maybe you

30:45

want some new shoes. Yeah, absolutely. Exactly.

30:47

Absolutely, Santa's on the side of the

30:49

worker. You know, and so what's so

30:51

interesting is like it unites

30:53

everybody, you know, you go there according

30:56

to the song, he knows your status before

30:59

you go. So if you're bad and you

31:01

tell him you're good you're essentially lying almost

31:03

to God, essentially. Yeah, it'd be good

31:05

for goodness sake. Exactly, and you tell him

31:07

your heart's desire, you might get it and then you

31:10

walk away with a little keepsake. And it's like, that

31:12

is not the most Catholic sounding thing. You

31:15

know what I mean? Like it kind of,

31:17

it made civic and sort of consumerist

31:19

or municipal this ritual

31:22

that looks like Christianity a little

31:24

bit but isn't exactly. And

31:27

if you were like me and grew up kind of Christianity adjacent, like

31:29

a generation removed from people who were

31:31

actually observant, you may have had the

31:33

conscious thought at one point, okay,

31:35

the Santa Claus cosmology is not actually

31:38

in the Bible, right? Like you

31:40

learn about them at the same time. Like

31:42

you learn- Spoiler alert. Exactly, and then it's

31:44

like, this is people who actually do get

31:46

a Sunday school know this, but it's like

31:48

this is a separate but adjacent thing

31:51

that is, that mirrors, you know, there's

31:53

a lot of parallels between the two stories,

31:55

but they're not identical. I think we also

31:57

need to correct a lot of misunderstanding around

31:59

angels. because I think we've come

32:02

to have this sort of at least hallmark and

32:04

Christmas shoes based belief

32:07

system that like when you die you become an angel.

32:10

And what I like about angels is that

32:12

according to the Bible, they're continually on fire

32:16

and fucking terrifying to look at and none

32:19

of them are dead people. And have like

32:21

lots of eyes? Yeah, covered in eyes. This

32:24

just it's important to note that this is

32:26

all a tangent on Santa's workshop in Els.

32:28

Yeah. I was going to say

32:30

that and I'm Sarah

32:33

Archer is here. We know that

32:35

Sarah is here because we're getting some fucking history. The

32:38

thing that I like the most that is

32:40

not has nothing to do

32:42

with a very interesting and important historical tangents

32:44

that you that not tangents but exploration you

32:46

went into with regard to like why the

32:49

workshop is significant in this case making etch a

32:51

sketches as opposed to how it was sort of

32:54

imagined originally in Santa Lore is

32:57

if I had this movie when I was a kid

32:59

I maybe would have gotten at least one extra year

33:01

out of believing in Santa. Oh, no. Because

33:03

my whole thing was just as

33:06

I understand Santa they're making Lincoln logs

33:09

like that's all I know that Santa

33:11

is making from all the imagery. Right.

33:14

It's a workshop where they make wood and

33:16

children's. Yeah, exactly. How is he

33:18

prefabbing plastic? Exactly. Yeah, Santa's I

33:20

never saw a picture of Santa making

33:22

a Nintendo and if I had it

33:24

it would have been

33:26

helpful I think in my naturally

33:29

skeptical brain. That's so

33:31

interesting because it would have been sort of like

33:33

realism. Right. It would have been like this

33:35

is yeah so he can make Nintendo. Who are you

33:37

talking to? This is the first time

33:39

I ever saw Santa concerned with electronics

33:42

and teaching class. Yeah. And

33:44

the fun joke is like when we see the

33:46

class that Will Ferrell is in with all

33:48

the other elves you see there and I

33:50

forget exactly what it is but you see

33:52

some of the signs indicating what the curricula

33:54

are and it's about like electrical engineering and

33:56

stuff and I love that. And

33:58

Christmas spirit is like a question of physics,

34:00

right? Like it can kind of bring you it's

34:02

like jet propulsion for

34:05

the sleigh. So they do a really nice job in

34:07

the movie of kind of like weaving that together that

34:09

if you're a kid you're I think you're

34:11

right you can almost think like okay all

34:14

right yeah the sleigh. Yeah it gives

34:16

it least I think it gives enough ammunition

34:18

for like if you didn't grow up with

34:20

this movie which I did not but if

34:22

you didn't grow up with this movie I

34:24

feel like there's a likelihood that you lose

34:26

one year of believing in Santa because this

34:28

gives you enough plausible deniability but you know

34:30

to your point about the about the Christmas

34:32

cheer you know essentially

34:34

Bob Newhart has developed this really

34:37

60s looking console which is really

34:39

beautiful it's like it

34:41

reminds of like a synthesizer from the

34:43

time that is there for backup just

34:45

in case there isn't enough Christmas cheer

34:47

out there and it's I really like

34:50

it I like it a lot yeah

34:52

I also I mean this is a problem that I had and I love that

34:54

we can see that they're making monopoly boards

34:56

and that it is like yeah modern

34:58

stuff but also that they're not you

35:00

know cuz I those questions have to

35:03

be even bigger now because kids it

35:06

used to be that only some kids

35:08

would want electronics and now kids all

35:10

basically want and need electronics mm-hmm and

35:13

that yeah I mean that definitely was like I

35:16

feel like for my generation space-age

35:18

Christmas was sort of over by then and so

35:20

this is part of the reason why I became

35:22

fascinated by it because it was this brief period

35:25

where there was like a real

35:27

focus on the future or an idea

35:29

of the future when Christmas generally is

35:31

really about kind of like an imagined

35:34

past so it's kind of like a

35:36

science fiction twist on

35:38

the Santa cosmology and

35:40

I definitely like you know the old-school stuff

35:43

the Barbies Dreamhouse all that stuff like I'd

35:45

love like I didn't really need gadgets I

35:47

mean the Garfield telephone is in a class by

35:49

itself obviously but yeah in general it was I

35:51

was sort of like of an era when high

35:54

technology like an old-school Game Boy

35:56

was like whoa like that was

35:58

the frontier I was Just say

36:00

I always like to bring this up. I know

36:02

everybody knows but it's like Do

36:04

you ever look at humans the way? Whichever

36:08

Attenborough does planet Earth looks

36:10

at you know, whatever creature he's talking

36:12

about You know, it's like looking at

36:15

humans and Christmas and being like these

36:18

Charming creatures despite so

36:20

many of them lacking upper body strength Let

36:23

home trees calm down in a forest

36:26

to turn them into fire hazards to keep in

36:28

the living room and cover in

36:30

the most expensive things they own a Mystery

36:34

and yet beautiful to observe. It's

36:36

pretty incredible. It's yeah like throughout

36:39

history This really hasn't actually changed all

36:41

that much that we love being cozy

36:43

and having cozy times. We love baked goods We

36:46

love things that are sparkly and shiny and we

36:48

love prezzies and like that's pretty

36:50

consistent We just want a shiny thing

36:52

in a prezzy like visit any art

36:54

museum like that's that's what's around I was

36:56

at a dinner the other night and I

36:58

brought up the fact that I had only

37:00

recently learned about like one year Killer

37:03

Whales or orca starting to wear

37:05

salmon on their head as like

37:07

a hat. Wait, what? How do they keep

37:09

them on? I don't know. They were like

37:11

look I got a salmon on my head. They would

37:13

show each other I think it was like when

37:15

they were out of the water dating and I don't

37:18

know what that I that's as far as I

37:20

know Wow, I would do that on a date but

37:22

the people who were there were like, oh, that's

37:24

so funny And I was like look at everything we

37:26

do. Yeah Oh, I remember where I learned this from

37:28

is Natalia Regan who is a really great entertainment

37:30

science reporter Oh, and she's fantastic and she told me

37:33

this a couple days ago, but this this evidently

37:35

happened Only like within a

37:37

particular pod it for one year in

37:39

1987 Huh

37:41

particular orcas in a tribe or

37:43

wearing hats and they were

37:45

salmon And it came

37:47

in way so maybe it was like paper dresses or

37:49

something and like it was just like a thing that

37:51

came in Wet and it was like a like blueberry

37:53

milk nails Like

37:58

club eggs Over

38:00

quickly. But I like it

38:02

and I think about that any time I think

38:04

about literally anything a human does that's not eating

38:07

or having sex. Like it's all so silly. We

38:09

do so many silly things. Anyway,

38:13

Elf is a movie and they

38:16

make toys. What else happens, sir? They make

38:18

toys but he's not so good at it. He

38:21

looks like he's about 35 which I ascribe to

38:23

the fact that the elves are on

38:25

a much longer timeline. Yeah. And he's

38:27

like what elves see as like a

38:29

very young man I think probably. Yeah,

38:31

his dad made his first like work

38:34

achievement at like 450 years old or

38:36

something. Well, there you

38:38

go. He brings that up later, yeah. So he's a

38:40

little baby by comparison, yeah. Yeah. And

38:42

he overhears one day some his

38:45

fellow worker elves and this is like

38:47

yeah, watching it this time the scene completely

38:49

won me over because he's so

38:52

bad at making toys that they put him

38:54

in product testing. And so he has to

38:56

like turn the cranks on all these jack

38:58

in the boxes. So he makes

39:00

sure they pop up and he's like

39:03

so genuinely scared each time it happens.

39:05

I love it so much. It's

39:09

like a Buster Keaton movie or something. It

39:12

really is and it's worth noting that

39:14

who he overhears this information from is

39:16

played by Peter Billingsley from A Christmas

39:19

Story. Perfect. I

39:21

didn't catch, I totally didn't like that. That's

39:23

incredible. It is like imagine his eyes and you

39:25

can see him for sure but like yeah, that's

39:28

Ralphie. Wow. Good

39:30

catch. That's amazing. I

39:33

saw those piercing blue eyes and I was like I

39:35

know those eyes. And

39:38

so he overhears that he's human. It's

39:41

also like the jerk. He

39:44

realizes there's a reason he feels so different

39:46

from his adoptive family because the line in

39:48

the jerk when Steve Martin realizes that his

39:50

black family adopted him is you mean I'll

39:53

stay like this forever? And

39:56

so Buddy realizes that he's

39:59

a human. And he must go down and find

40:01

his people and so he walks through Some

40:04

beautiful theatrical stage sets that take him

40:06

out of the North Pole He meets

40:08

a snowman voiced by Leon Redbone and

40:11

he has learned from a photograph that

40:13

feels very free-willing Bob Dylan coded That

40:17

his real daddy is James fucking Khan

40:19

and let me tell you like all

40:23

At least somewhat self-destructive people who were

40:25

attracted to men at all. I fucking

40:27

love James Khan I think

40:29

that's a fair assessment. I mean he

40:31

works in the cutthroat ball-busting industry

40:33

of children's publishing I mean, how rugged

40:36

is that right? It's yeah, it's hot. It's

40:38

so good So Sarah one question that I

40:40

wrote down as questions I wanted to pose

40:42

when we're having this conversation is how would

40:44

you characterize? James Khan's performance

40:46

in this movie. Like what is he going

40:49

for? He's giving it 50% There's

40:52

an old Pat Noswalt joke that was on

40:55

dr. Katz about how When

40:57

Nick Nolte is the star of a movie

40:59

his character being kind of grizzled and reluctant

41:01

to do his job can sometimes feel like

41:04

Nick Nolte not wanting to be in

41:06

the movie he's in fair enough and how

41:09

Therefore it would have been great to

41:11

as they apparently talked about briefly Cast

41:14

Nick Nolte as Han Solo God

41:21

damn hyperdrive Oh

41:23

my god. God damn Chewbacca. Yes,

41:25

please Well, it's sort of like

41:27

Will Ferrell is giving it a hundred and fifty

41:29

percent on like the Christmas spirit and meter You

41:31

know what I mean? He's using

41:33

James Khan's percentage points that James Khan

41:36

is giving to him Yeah, it's like

41:38

so it's cumulatively where it needs to

41:40

be. Yeah, right because you can't have

41:42

a hundred percent Khan There

41:44

are long parts where like James

41:47

Khan's in the scene And he's

41:49

just looking like he's like he

41:51

kind of can't believe the scene that he's

41:53

in sometimes And he's just like looking at

41:55

Will Ferrell be Will Ferrell and he looks

41:58

like genuinely And

42:00

I love that. Which in a way works. Yes,

42:02

it does. Right? Because then like

42:04

Will Ferrell gets to know his half brother who's

42:06

like, yeah, my dad doesn't work all the time.

42:09

He sucks. And it's like, you know, that's kind

42:11

of whether it's intentional or

42:13

not, I'm guessing maybe it wasn't. It

42:15

actually does work. Yeah. And

42:17

Alex, it is a film about that rarest

42:19

of things. Franchise dads

42:22

and their different gens of children. Yes, it

42:24

is. Yes, it is. It's about the iPhone

42:26

and the iPhone S. I love

42:28

it. So resident. I

42:31

understand it. And literally for me, meaning

42:33

your older sibling who's like, I wish I could

42:35

have grown up with our dad and you're like, why?

42:39

And Mary, yeah, Mary Steenbergian in this

42:41

case, who plays his wife now, mother

42:44

of the boy whose name I don't

42:46

know. Boy two. She needs

42:48

to get out. She needs to

42:50

get out. I know. She's too good. Mary

42:53

Steenbergian is an angel sent

42:55

from heaven in this movie. And in

42:57

every other movie she's in, in this

42:59

movie and Back to the

43:01

Future 3 in the press group,

43:05

she's always a shining light. The important thing to

43:07

know about Mary Steenbergian is that you can give

43:09

her a role where she's

43:12

surrounded by maniacs and she makes

43:14

you feel like a sane human

43:16

woman would choose to be around

43:18

these men. Yeah, totally. Yes. That

43:20

is the role she plays in Elf,

43:22

where basically she's like the older man

43:24

and young boy she lives with, her

43:26

family, are weird generally

43:28

and weird about one another.

43:31

Right. And then Buddy comes

43:33

along and is sort of like, okay, you're going

43:35

to put maple syrup on

43:37

spaghetti? Is that so? I guess.

43:40

Okay. That's, you know, and she's sort of helping

43:42

him get adjusted to the household. I love it when

43:44

he makes her that horrible maple syrup spaghetti for breakfast.

43:46

I know. She's so sweet. This

43:49

is delicious. Yeah. She's being

43:51

like a lovely mom and like just like

43:53

welcoming him and he really needs that because

43:55

James Khan is phoning it in and hostile.

43:57

Yeah. Because James Khan is playing his character

43:59

in. Steve. He's

44:03

basically a murderer. I

44:06

think that this character has killed people

44:08

like not recently, but in the eighties.

44:10

Yeah. Some rival children's

44:12

book publisher. Yeah. So she's Mary

44:15

scene version is clearly holding the

44:17

family together. Buddy like tracks down

44:19

his dad and after initially being

44:21

repelled, he's there like the

44:23

security guards at the empire state building

44:25

where the children's publishing offices are naturally

44:28

are like, go back to gimbals. And

44:31

so he does. He goes to gimbals, which is

44:33

a, which is Sarah, was that a

44:35

real department store at one time? It sure was.

44:37

It no longer exists. Macy's

44:40

still exists. And in its time,

44:42

Macy's was considered a little bit

44:45

upmarket from gimbals, which is fascinating.

44:47

So gimbals is sort of there.

44:49

There's the whole sort of gimbals has it like

44:51

in miracle on 34th street Macy's versus the

44:54

other store. And gimbals no

44:56

longer exists, but Macy's has, I

44:59

think it's fair to say is not perceived as

45:01

sort of a, an elite retailer

45:03

nowadays. Yeah. And so he goes

45:05

to gimbals. He like accidentally

45:07

gets a job as an apartment store

45:09

elf because they just think that he's

45:12

one of the department store elves and

45:14

has like a much better uniform than

45:16

everybody else. And a great attitude. And

45:18

he meets cute with a Jovi played

45:20

by Zoe Deschanel and her

45:23

post-almas famous pre new girl phase. And

45:25

she's lovely in it. There's

45:27

such a kind of vintage style

45:30

to the way that she sings. It

45:32

conjures up this kind of like the

45:35

American songbook, you know, these carols and

45:37

it's just, it's so great. Yeah. Her

45:39

whole thing is like twee out of

45:41

time. Like that for, for years and

45:43

years. And that manifested in music. I

45:45

could, I'm sort of from the thirties.

45:47

Totally. Yeah. And I think that that's

45:50

like, that's, you know, especially sometimes

45:52

what we're looking for when everything

45:54

feels so modern all the time,

45:56

too modern, terrifyingly modern. That's

48:00

pretty good. Yeah. And then they have

48:02

to sing. It's boy,

48:04

oh no, not an emergency that we

48:06

have to solve by singing. Oh no.

48:08

Got to sing. And they do. And

48:13

they save Christmas, the end. Yeah,

48:16

a movie by theater kids for theater kids.

48:19

Yes. And that's, you know,

48:21

and it's just Eddie. You mean we have to

48:23

perform. But

48:25

we're not rehearsed. Me, me, me, me,

48:27

me, me, me, me, me, me. Perfect. And

48:30

then James Cahn, I guess, is

48:32

there like a moment where he, does he

48:34

do like the Jerry Urbach thing where he's

48:36

like, when I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong.

48:38

I can't remember. My

48:41

recollection is that like they hug or they kind

48:43

of, there's a sort of warm

48:45

detente, but it's not like, come

48:48

here, you crazy kid. It's not like snuggles.

48:50

It's more like, is that right? Am

48:53

I right about that? I think you're, no, I think you're

48:55

right. I don't think that there's a like, wait, none of

48:57

us remember. We don't know. Cause I

48:59

was asleep. I wouldn't buy it if

49:02

he was like, give me a hug, old boy.

49:06

Yeah. Cause it's really,

49:08

it's kind of like you look at

49:10

the, like the, the Scrooge, the

49:12

new mall that it's sort of,

49:15

you know, that like suddenly this like cranky

49:17

guy is really warm and fuzzy and that

49:19

always feels a little bit, not quite right.

49:21

Whereas I feel like the Grinch I'm, I'm

49:23

convinced. Yeah. Yeah. It takes years

49:25

because he got to soften by degree. Right. But

49:28

James Khan, you know, he's working in

49:30

publishing at the end of the nineties.

49:32

Like publishing is really about to be

49:34

no more. I know it's

49:36

still exists, but it's, it's a very different industry. Publishing,

49:39

you know, there's all these fabulous, like mid

49:42

to late 20th century cliches about like

49:44

the dangerous lives of publishers. And you

49:46

would have these like three martini lunches

49:48

and then stagger back to the office

49:50

and you know, see who Norman

49:53

Mailer had stabbed recently. And

49:55

now just every large imprint is five interns

49:57

named Caitlin trying to answer all the phones.

50:00

like literally. Yeah, that's all it is. Everybody

50:05

knows, everybody in publishing knows that

50:07

it's just Popsicle, Strix and Caitlin

50:09

holding the whole thing together and

50:11

it's very nerve-wracking. Absolutely. Yeah. I

50:14

have to say as somebody who's written and published books

50:16

in the last six or

50:18

seven years or so, my god, those young

50:20

women work hard. Like they're, I mean, it

50:23

is unreal. There's no one

50:25

else. They're holding it all up. I

50:27

think that in the big corner office,

50:29

there's just a raincoat with balls of

50:32

newspaper in it and sunglasses on top.

50:34

Literally. And some like Pulitzer's, you

50:36

know, just hanging out and like an old

50:38

Mr. Kathy machine. Yeah.

50:42

Oh, here's one thing I want to cover. I wonder

50:46

how Jon Favreau feels about everything. And

50:48

I think I project more sympathetic feelings

50:50

onto people like Jon Favreau than I

50:52

probably should. But I have to wonder

50:55

about what it's like to both save

50:57

and destroy cinema, you

50:59

know, in one short life. In a like

51:01

six years span. It's a lot of pressure.

51:03

And also be Monica's

51:06

best boyfriend. Right?

51:09

Because my read of it is that, and again,

51:11

this is like a very complicated thing.

51:13

I'm kind of joking here

51:15

because like there are so many industry forces

51:17

behind this. But basically, you know, Jon Favreau

51:20

made Iron Man and made the Iron Man's

51:22

and kind of got the MCU started. Nobody

51:24

saw any of that coming. And

51:27

now we have these mega

51:29

movies. And we've talked about this on the

51:31

show before where it's hard, you know, we've

51:33

created a landscape where it's harder

51:35

to make something on the scale of Elf or

51:37

where, you know, I think as

51:39

Dana Schwartz pointed out at some point that like in

51:42

the same way that only Nixon could

51:44

go to China, only Jon Favreau could make

51:46

Chef. Right. Well, it's sort

51:48

of like movies like that have become

51:50

the province of TV. Yeah.

51:53

Right. Like that content, like just making

51:55

a movie about yeah, like Mrs. Maisel

51:57

could have been a movie in another era.

52:00

Yeah, I think what is fascinating to someone who like grew

52:02

up on quote 90s indie

52:04

cinema Is it's so funny

52:06

that that was the case with john fabric because

52:08

like this is because elf is the midpoint Yeah,

52:11

it's mid-fabro between knowing john fabro

52:13

as like an extra in the

52:15

movie pcu Seeing him

52:18

on friends in him writing swingers

52:20

Swingers. Oh, right. It's in the thick

52:23

of it and swingers was like a

52:25

monument of

52:27

the winestinian World of

52:29

quote uh 90s independent cinema flipping independent

52:32

movies, basically Flipping yeah, exactly Right and

52:34

like that was that to me was

52:36

the thing that was impressive before I

52:38

knew what was coming with the whole

52:40

marvel franchise I'm seeing ironman as I was like,

52:42

oh, it's really cool This is a

52:45

like indie guy's take on this thing, which

52:47

makes it kind of interesting Yeah,

52:49

and then they were just like

52:51

keep cranking the machine It's

52:55

endless. Yeah, I Uh

52:58

learned from imdb that will ferrell turned

53:00

down 29 million dollars to make a

53:02

sequel to this movie in 2014 Wow,

53:05

which you know, let's not have will

53:07

ferrell too hard on the back because

53:09

I he's had plenty of opportunities to make

53:12

All the money in the world But like

53:15

I always like it when people do that like

53:17

it seems very hard

53:19

these days to stick

53:21

to the belief that what you have made

53:23

is enough and that you're not going to

53:25

dive in to You

53:28

know make it into a franchise and print

53:30

more money part six. Yeah, totally That's a

53:32

rare position like and you know, I know

53:34

that like net worth sites aren't worth shit

53:36

But like if you google is net worth

53:38

it comes up with like 150 million dollars

53:42

So I understand that he had the reserves to

53:44

be able to turn that down But I but

53:46

still like that doesn't stop many people like a

53:48

lot of people end up just taking the additional

53:52

You could always use another I

53:54

don't know Learjet or something

53:57

that's yeah. I I I agree with that

53:59

decision because I I think it's such a period piece.

54:02

It's just the cast, you know, you can't

54:04

recreate, you're not getting that asner. Only

54:06

take it vibe wise, it is like, and

54:08

just like that is to Sex and the

54:10

City. It feels like

54:12

somebody sustained an injury along the

54:15

way. And we're seeing it

54:17

from their, maybe their coma

54:19

perspective or everything. Just like that.

54:22

Isn't it you who famously Alex had never seen

54:24

Sex and the City before and just like

54:26

that kind of entered the- Famous, as everyone

54:28

knows. Famously, yeah. Well,

54:30

the fortunate thing that I think that

54:32

the thing that made it not like

54:35

a radical experience is like Sex and

54:37

the City so permeated.

54:39

Like even for like a teenage boy

54:41

in the 90s. Right. I

54:44

knew what it was and like who

54:46

the people were and what their personalities were

54:48

or whatever. Which doesn't help you with things

54:50

just like that where they're acting completely different.

54:52

I feel like they're extremely different. The

54:54

amount of people that I've met though, particularly

54:57

in LA that are giant fans

54:59

of that show is really kind

55:01

of surprising and heartening. Really?

55:05

Well, trainwreck wise, Sarah, I think.

55:07

Oh, well that's, see when you said

55:09

fan, I got concerned. But yeah, I mean,

55:11

I'm obsessed with it, but I wouldn't say

55:13

I'm a fan. Right. I

55:15

think, you know, that is the distinction. I think

55:18

like a lot of people who are obsessed with and

55:20

spend a lot of time with it, but are not

55:22

necessarily fans. Yes, it's all I can think about. If

55:24

I'm at a loss for small talk and someone can

55:26

talk about it and just like that with me, like

55:28

we're in the clear for the next hour. Thank

55:31

God. Yeah, you got it good. There's this

55:33

shoe closet. There's a lot there. Yeah. Well,

55:36

we know that James Khan. Dated

55:39

Miranda. Dated Miranda. And

55:41

somewhere before that was

55:44

a Soho Troubadour

55:47

and he is responsible for Will

55:49

Ferrell coming into the world as

55:51

elf. Who in your view, Sarah

55:53

Archer is the daddy of elf. Gotta

55:58

be Bob Newhart. Great. I

56:00

mean, it's either Bob Newhart or

56:02

Ed Asner, but I think

56:05

Bob Newhart is your narrator, is

56:07

your host. You know what I mean?

56:12

He gets to be a grandpa. He's our

56:14

Alastair cookie. Exactly. With the

56:16

elf and bride and the gigantic baby

56:18

who I guess is just human-sized but

56:20

seems gigantic. And

56:23

he's your ultimate... I'm a firm believer

56:25

in the idea that Santa Claus's or

56:27

Santa's Claus should reflect the communities

56:32

they serve and it should

56:34

be whatever quote-unquote old guy,

56:36

Miranda Hobbs, whoever it is, whoever

56:39

looks like your community, that should

56:41

be. And I think that

56:43

Bob Newhart has this kind of... He's

56:46

sort of an ideal grandpa in a way. And

56:49

I love how sardonic he is and

56:52

how deadpan he is and how you can

56:54

kind of make him laugh a little bit

56:56

and how sweet and how encouraging. And

56:59

he's just lovely. And I think in the

57:01

spirit of elf being a kind of

57:03

unironically sentimental sort of love letter to

57:06

that window of time when you're old enough to

57:09

kind of know what Christmas is but not so

57:11

old that you know really what Christmas

57:13

is, like you sort of have the... It's

57:15

a really short window and I

57:17

think that is a lovely thing. Yeah,

57:20

that's... I love that. I'm

57:22

tempted... And by the way,

57:24

conservative talk show hosts everywhere are very upset

57:26

about your assessment of what Santa should be

57:29

and I'm glad for it. Fuck them. I

57:31

know. I think Santa should be Fran

57:33

Leibowitz. Oh my God, I would love that.

57:35

There's a whole group of people who make money

57:37

on every year coming up and being upset that sometimes

57:40

Santa doesn't look like an old white guy. But

57:43

this is not my... I just want to

57:45

make sure we mentioned the Norwall, which is

57:47

like my favorite appearance. I love the Norwall.

57:49

I love him. That kind of reminds me

57:51

of... There is this moment

57:53

with Bob Newhart. It happens right before the

57:55

Norwall appearance Where Bob Newhart is

57:57

sending him out and he just says like, go. And

58:00

he he's sending sending buddy. Oh and she

58:02

like. Their. Performances so subtle

58:04

that it's a very emotional and it's like

58:06

are really truly love we've seen from Bob

58:09

Newhart you know I was I was saying

58:11

recently that late eat. This is one of

58:13

the things that we talk so regularly about

58:15

the show with regard to like seeing movies

58:17

on Tbs for the first time as like

58:20

another phenomenon that I think I can young

58:22

people will never know is watching a modern

58:24

thing and tandem with watching something from the

58:26

seventies and tandem with watching something from the

58:28

media just because of how Tv with Battle

58:31

Ice and being a kid that grew up

58:33

watching. Both new hearts alongside Save by

58:35

the Bell was a pretty unique experience. Ah

58:37

anyway I love your and Earth and Above

58:39

New are is great I'm gonna say buddy

58:42

in this case because of just of the

58:44

all the ways that he shows up for

58:46

his new brother and the ways that his

58:48

dad does of because he is enthusiastic and

58:50

hasn't had his soul sucked out of him

58:53

yet by by a children's book publishing and

58:55

I love so much the seem like I

58:57

was distracted a little bit yesterday was watching

58:59

the movie and I but I made sure

59:02

that I was present for. The

59:04

scene when there's the snowball fight in it's

59:06

kind of funny cause a wicked like his

59:08

last these kids are bad news. we get

59:10

to get outta here in their whole thing

59:12

is that they're throwing snowballs and I love

59:14

the scene where we see wills they're all

59:17

taking out. All of these kids is no

59:19

of there's something better way to in study

59:21

about the way that he's during it's spaces

59:23

it's that's really nice fantasy I'm sure for

59:25

many who. You. Know their dad

59:27

isn't able to show up on the

59:30

level that they want them to show

59:32

up and in some whimsical creature comes

59:34

into their life and is able to,

59:36

you know, enthusiastically, be in their corner

59:38

scenario buddy in a lot of ways

59:41

as like Boo hoo Spoonful of Sugar

59:43

Banana, Mary Poppins, Fran Drescher France I.

59:47

Often have an say last

59:49

Julie Andrews l forgot her

59:51

and same thing, the flashy

59:53

girl from slicing a. Basically.

59:56

the person who pursued san and

59:58

and like helps you have,

1:00:01

you know, heart to heart talks with your dad

1:00:03

and all that stuff. Yeah, it's beautiful. I

1:00:05

love it. Yeah. I, I, it's a lovely fantasy

1:00:07

and I like that. I like that. That kid

1:00:09

got it for a minute. Sarah, who's your daddy?

1:00:13

Well, I would, okay. So I would like to say

1:00:15

that I just think the theme

1:00:18

for the nanny is brilliant and doesn't get enough

1:00:20

credit for being a great piece of music. Um,

1:00:22

but my daddy is,

1:00:24

I don't know.

1:00:27

I feel like this whole movie is

1:00:29

like feels very lovable and huggable. And

1:00:31

I guess my daddy is John Favreau

1:00:33

because I like that he made,

1:00:35

I mean like it seems

1:00:38

like it would be easy to make

1:00:40

a Christmas movie, right? Everybody has done it.

1:00:42

And yet you look at the Christmas movies

1:00:44

that have come out really in the past

1:00:47

25 years and how many of them

1:00:49

are keepers. And I think

1:00:51

that like what makes this movie work

1:00:54

is that ironically, it's

1:00:56

not too sweet. Yeah. That

1:00:58

makes a lot of sense. Yeah. You get it.

1:01:00

There's a lot of bitterness. Yeah. There's his

1:01:03

experience of being told to make work his

1:01:05

favorite. I mean, it's a very American experience

1:01:07

and like the adult world feels accurately

1:01:09

rendered. It's just not what we're focusing

1:01:11

on. Everyone's kind of mean and yeah,

1:01:13

exactly. Well, and like, and,

1:01:15

and we even, we didn't go too

1:01:17

deep into Zooey Deschanel's character, but I love

1:01:20

the development of her character who is

1:01:22

like a person who feels about Christmas

1:01:24

the way one, I worked

1:01:26

at the mall during Christmas for years, the

1:01:28

way that one would feel if they

1:01:30

had to work in the Christmas season.

1:01:32

Like that's how she feels. There's a

1:01:34

lot of like santaland diaries in that.

1:01:36

Yes. Yeah. Just kind of

1:01:38

put on the elf hat. Here we go.

1:01:41

For sure. Yeah. And the

1:01:43

thing that I always forget about this movie is

1:01:45

that there's romance. Like fuck you.

1:01:47

I don't care. But, um, you

1:01:49

know, kind of, yeah, absolutely. You

1:01:51

have to see Will Ferrell kiss

1:01:53

Zooey Deschanel. But

1:01:56

the, um, I do, I do like

1:01:58

that. You know, when we're, introduced to

1:02:00

her, she's like, she feels the way like Christmas

1:02:02

any retail worker who works there in Christmas does.

1:02:05

And it's not, there's not like a, she has

1:02:07

the song at the end, but she's not just

1:02:10

like, I love Christmas.

1:02:12

Although ironically, she becomes part

1:02:14

of the elf. She

1:02:17

marries in and now she's better. And

1:02:20

now who's she gonna socialize with? This is

1:02:22

a great question. Maybe there's some other bitter, I

1:02:24

hope that there are bitter elves that we don't

1:02:26

know about. Yes. Are there other wives?

1:02:28

Yes. There are other like human wives. She

1:02:31

can start a little indie band with some of

1:02:33

the elves and they're all on tiny instruments. The

1:02:35

Tall Wives Club. I was friends with someone who

1:02:37

was like a wife of a professional hockey player.

1:02:40

And it's like a whole community. It's like

1:02:42

a whole community of people because they're all

1:02:45

traveling, going different, whatever. And maybe being an

1:02:47

elf wife is like being a hockey wife.

1:02:50

Maybe that's a sequel in the making. Maybe that

1:02:52

in that there is the seed of a potential

1:02:56

Zooey Deschanel vehicle. Yeah.

1:02:59

The real elf wives of the North Pole.

1:03:01

Call me Johnny. Yeah.

1:03:04

And then we kill off Buddy in the opening.

1:03:06

So we don't have to worry about Will Ferrell

1:03:08

showing up. And then we get, you know, Zooey

1:03:10

Deschanel has to carry the day. Yeah.

1:03:13

I like that idea. Buddy dies on

1:03:15

a peloton. Oh. Anyway,

1:03:21

Sarah Archer, another

1:03:23

great textured dense episode.

1:03:26

I'm so excited to share it with

1:03:28

the world. How can people fight? Well,

1:03:31

I guess we're not doing the site

1:03:33

formerly known as Twitter anymore, right? That

1:03:35

seems to be gone. Well, I mean, I'm there,

1:03:37

but it sucks. By the time this airs, it'll

1:03:39

probably, it will have gone

1:03:41

up in a puff of smoke.

1:03:43

So you can find me on

1:03:46

Instagram at Sarturize. Also threads. I

1:03:48

think I'm on blue sky, but honestly, I'm sort of,

1:03:51

I think I'm, I think I'm going in all in

1:03:53

on threats. I think that's going to be my thing.

1:03:55

This is such a weird time for self promo. Everyone's

1:03:57

like, where am I? What am I? What? It's a

1:03:59

weird time. Yeah, I

1:04:01

have a website, sarah-archer.com. If

1:04:04

you feel moved to send

1:04:07

fan mail about Christmas-related topics,

1:04:09

I'm all yours. And

1:04:12

I love to hear from Christmas peeps, all my Christmas

1:04:14

freaks. They'll be in touch. I

1:04:16

hope so. I certainly hope so. And if you

1:04:18

see a peep show, don't go

1:04:20

in there. They don't want to, what was

1:04:22

it? They're not going to show you a chick? Exactly.

1:04:26

Right. Thank

1:04:28

you so much for having me and Merry Merry,

1:04:30

you guys. Merry everything. Merry all of it. All

1:04:41

right, everybody, that is it for this week's episode

1:04:43

of You Are Good at Feelings podcast about movies.

1:04:45

Thank you to Sarah Archer for

1:04:47

being our guest this week. We love you, Sarah. So

1:04:50

glad to have you here. Thanks

1:04:52

to Miranda Zickler for producing and editing

1:04:54

this episode. Miranda, you're the fucking best.

1:04:57

We love you. We love you. You're

1:04:59

wonderful. And we are delighted to have

1:05:02

you. Part of the whole

1:05:04

thing that we do here. Thanks

1:05:06

to Fresh Lesh for providing the beats that

1:05:08

made this episode sound so sweet. Thanks to

1:05:10

everyone who supports us on Patreon and Apple

1:05:12

podcast subscriptions. We appreciate you. You

1:05:14

get those bonus episodes. That's cool. Thanks

1:05:17

for reaching out to us on social media and all

1:05:19

the places where we are on social media. Oh,

1:05:25

I don't know what else to say. I'm just glad

1:05:28

that we're doing this and I'm glad that you're here

1:05:30

and I'm glad that we have the opportunity to do

1:05:32

this together. If you are celebrating Hanukkah

1:05:34

this week, happy Hanukkah. And

1:05:37

that's it. That's all from me. We'll

1:05:39

talk with you all next week when we,

1:05:41

I think we're covering diner. All

1:05:44

right, y'all take care of yourselves.

1:05:46

Take care of each other and

1:05:49

don't forget that you, my friend,

1:05:51

are good. Thank

1:06:00

you.