334 | Christmas Songs Sweet 16

Merry Christmas! As our very special gift to you, Michael, Rob, Michael DiGiovanni, and Jody Collins don't just talk about our favorite Christmas songs. We put them into brackets and vote on them until we determine the Greatest Christmas Song of All Time!

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333 | Miracle on 34th Street (1994)

Michael and Rob welcome Jeff Somogyi to talk about Les Mayfield's remake of Miracle on 24th Street, starring Mara Wilson, Richard Attenborough, Elizabeth Perkins, and Dylan McDermott. We have differing opinions about its quality. How much does it makes sense? How does it compare to the original? And how well does it communicate its ideas about faith, truth, and capitalism? We get into all of it in this funny, thought-provoking conversation.

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332 | Elf (2003)

With this episode, all of the Sleigh Bell Cinema archives are now included in the After Lunch feed. Michael and his wife Diane talk about Jon Favreau's hilarious and heart-warming modern classic, Elf starring Will Ferrell, James Caan, and Zooey Deschanel.

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331 | Ernest Saves Christmas (1988)

In this penultimate rerun of old Sleigh Bell Cinema episodes, Michael talks with Jeff Somogyi about the hilarious and underrated Ernest Saves Christmas.

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330 | Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

In the second of this week's Sleigh Bell Cinema reruns, Michael and Dan Taylor talk about killer robots, polar bears, and Martian uprisings in Nicholas Webster's notorious Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

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329 | Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

In this rerun from Michael's old Sleigh Bell Cinema podcast, he talks with Mike Westfall about the 1947 classic Miracle on 34th Street starring Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O'Hara, and Natalie Wood.

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328 | The Curse of the Cat People (1944)

Michael and Rob welcome back Jacob Bean-Watson to discuss what's either a tangential Christmas movie or a Christmas ghost story, depending on your point of view. It's The Curse of the Cat People, Val Lewton's controversial follow-up to his noir horror film Cat People from a couple of years earlier. Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, and Elizabeth Russell return from the earlier movie, joined this time by child actor Ann Carter, Lewton-favorite Sir Lancelot, and Julia Dean.

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327 | Office Christmas Party (2016)

Michael and Rob welcome David May back to the show to discuss this year's Holiday Spirit movie. For us, Holiday Spirit films are undeniably about Christmas, but without any fantastical or magical elements. And this one is Office Christmas Party starring Jason Bateman, Olivia Munn, TJ Miller, Jennifer Aniston, and Kate McKinnon, while also featuring Courtney B Vance, Rob Corddry, Randall Park, Sam Richardson, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Jillian Bell, Vanessa Bayer, Karan Soni, and Jamie Chung.

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326 | A Christmas Carol (1951)

In accordance with tradition, Mike Westfall from the Advent Calendar House podcast returns to help Michael and Rob kick off the Christmas season right with another Christmas Carol adaptation. This year, we're watching the classic 1951 version (titled Scrooge in the original British) starring Alastair Sim.

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250 | Movie & TV Santas Sweet 16

Merry Christmas! On this 25th day of December, we're sharing our 250th episode of After Lunch and it's a jolly one. Michael and Rob are joined by Pop Culture Retrofitters Michael DiGiovanni and Christian Nielsen to nominate and vote on their favorite movie and TV Santas. We've made our lists and checked them twice; it's time to decide who is the best representation of Santa Claus. 

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249 | Love Actually (2003)

Wrapping up this season's series of Sleigh Bell Cinema reruns, Michael and Rob talk about one of their favorite Christmas movies, Love Actually. The movie's celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, so we're ending these reruns by showing it some love (while also talking about its faults).

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248 | White Christmas (1954)

We’re down to our last two Sleigh Bell Cinema re-runs for this season and these are biggies. Today it’s one of Michael's family’s absolute favorites: a movie that they cannot safely get through the holiday season without watching. We’re talking about Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen in White Christmas. And since it’s such a tradition with Michael's family, it’s appropriate that he talked about it with his wife Diane.

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247 | A Christmas Story (1983)

It's a clinker! This last week before Christmas we have three final Christmas Spirit movies to discuss and they’re all biggies. This first one is the cable classic A Christmas Story from 1983 and talking with Michael about it is the one and only Paxton Holley.

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246 | While You Were Sleeping (1995)

This episode will be the last of our daily releases for the month. From here to Christmas we’ll be going every other day. But we think we’ve saved the best for last. Not the best conversations necessarily. Those have all been great and so will these. But like Home Alone yesterday, these next few movies are some of Michael's favorite holiday films. True classics like While You Were Sleeping, which Michael talked about with his friend Erik Johnson.

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245 | Home Alone (1990)

Yesterday we shared an episode where Evan Hanson and Michael talked about the movie Krampus, where a kid gets irritated with his family and then has to defend his home from malignant forces. That’s also what happens in today’s movie as Michael and his son David discuss the classic, Home Alone.

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244 | Krampus (2015)

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. 

It stars Adam Scott and Toni Collette, is occasionally funny, occasionally scary, and as Evan points out, actually pretty important.

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243 | Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

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.

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242 | Bad Santa (2003)

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.

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241 | Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure (2003)

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.

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240 | National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)

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.

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