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It’s the last GLoP of the year, so climb aboard! We do a little more chatter on Moore, but the bulk of this show is about Christmas movies: It’s A Wonderful Life, various obscure TV movies that John Podhoretz is obsessed with, Jonah’s list of top Christmas movies, and Rob’s impression of the worst Christmas movies. Enjoy!
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Dear Rob, please re-listen to all the podcasts last year AND particularly your “This American Life” appearance in which you made your point about how elections are won. #credibilitylost
Jonah’s definitely right about McConnell – Gorsuch, thank you! Probably about Rand. Not really about Ben Sasse – continually saying the President isn’t fit to serve is more than a little. [I do like Ben “personally” because of Midwestern cultural affinity…not quite as much as my neighbor Jim who is no Trumpkin (how angry was Trump of Freedom Caucus intractability on healthcare?) but he is fighting the corrupt DoJ/FBI as much as possible in defense of the Trump presidency from what seems to be an abuse of power at least an order of magnitude greater than Watergate….maybe on par with killing JFK…if they’d actually done that] Corker & Flake hounded themselves out. [Bidnessmen Tennessee Republicans continually screw over the Republican base in this state]
Joe Rogan had the right idea for you all recently…time to spend some time on shrooms to get a new perspective on life because you have soooo much time and energy wrapped into what you believed last year that you cannot let go and just analyze what’s in front of you based on its own merits. You are so wedded to Trump is an idiot, creep, jerk – which he IS (aren’t ALL NewYorkers??) – that it infects all your analyses.
The best metaphor for Trump is Sampson – re-read those short chapters 13-16 of Judges – he’s an idiot, creep, jerk who kills Philistines. While that’s not enough for the brand of Christianity that I was raised in – and the leftist-atheists who have stolen the puritanism with which to judge normals – it was good enough for most Jews & Christians for a couple thousand years.
I detested what DJT stood for in American business culture for as long as he was a public figure and the case I made to every fellow Republican about why to not vote for him in the primaries always included “…and he attacked Jonah Goldberg on Twitter for no good reason and even tried to get Jonah fired because he made a joke back at Trump that he ‘tweeted like a 14 year-old girl.'” And every Republican in my office voted for Cruz in the TN primary. But, you know what? Trump ended up winning the nomination, and in a first-past-the-post system with a single executive, you always vote for the lesser of two evils. And, that has worked out really rather well so far.
Constructive criticism is constructive. You all are stuck on snark……still.
The no longer available first TV version of Amahl and the Night Visitors. I miss it so. Oops, it appears that YouTube has it. Cool.
The buzzing throughout the podcast is not a ringing endorsement of the microphone Rob bought at B&H Photo.
James Stewart’s only Oscar sat for 25 years in his father’s hardware store in Indiana, Pennsylvania. “This is where I sort of made up my mind about certain things,” Stewart said of his hometown,”about hard work being worth it, about community spirit, about the importance of a family, about the importance of God and the church.”
He was a national treasure.
Conspicuous absence of “A Christmas Story.” But maybe it got droned out by the buzz.
Sorry about the buzz. It was interference from his phone (we think). We were on a tight schedule and couldn’t stop to fix it during this show, but we promise it won’t happen again.
Blasphemy by omission. “A Christmas Story” includes so many elements that fit in so many families. Ours was an oil-burning furnace, but Dad regularly took it on mano-a-mano.
I’d like to add something a little bit unusual in the way of Christmas movies: Remember the Night (1940), with screenplay by the immortal Preston Sturges.
Recognizing that courts tend to be forgiving just before Christmas, a tough prosecutor (Fred MacMurray) postpones the case of a high-end shoplifter (a luminous young Barbara Stanwyck) until after the holidays. But then he feels guilty that she will spend Christmas in jail, so he bails her out and takes her home to her mom, who rejects her, and then to his mom (the great Beulah Bondi), to celebrate the holiday.
The film currently has a rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
@blueyeti Who did that rendition of “Christmas for the Jews”?
Rob……Rob…….It’s Lew.
Regards,
Jim
B&H did sell me some nice photographic lights that I’ve been very happy with.
Amusingly I was watching Lost in Space on Hulu while listening to this, pure happenstance.
Oof! This episode should be titled, “A Podhoretz Soporofic” due to the looooooong Pod-only banal readings and maunderings. And I love this Podcast, even so much to attend one of their live sessions. Sure, they can’t all be Corn Hole gold, and I accept that. But this particular episode is so far below the median that it pulls the entire curve way down, like the waterline when Michael Moore settles into a water bed. The worst snorefest Podcast I’ve ever heard.
Nevertheless, I’ll remain a listener. And still love these guys (I know it sounds like it:0) But it really can’t get any worse.
Merry Christmas,
Scott
The fact that these guys almost immediately turned a discussion of Christmas movies to their favorite coded pedophile characters in TV and movies just shows their range and creativity. Or something.
I listened to the podcast on my cell phone, and heard the same flutter from all three podcasters. I am not sure that it is a microphone problem, but there is some kind of technical problem
Thanks John Podhoretz for reading Jimmy Stewart’s comments about his step son. I’ve never cried while walking my dog before.
We know what it was. Heads have rolled and it won’t happen again.
It was a miller moth, its little moth legs glued to a microphone. Every few minutes it would try, try, try, to get away to no avail.
@blueyeti yes, give us some info on “Christmas for the Jews” please!
Loved the “writers room christmas movie” discussion. I always suspected those movies were written by cynical old men nursing hangovers and sweating nicotine as they one up each other for the dumbest idea they can sell to the canadian studio.
Except for the “good witch” series of course. Those are pure class.
Hawkins was not the last time Stewart appeared on the screen. The miniseries North and South Book II was his last appearance and he did other junk in his last few years, such as The Magic of Lassie and Airport ’77. And he had an important role in Robert Mitchum’s remake of The Big Sleep. But his best role after Hawkins was the doctor in The Shootist which was really, truly John Wayne’s clearcut last film.
And Goldberg’s take on It’s a Wonderful Life not being a Christmas film is silly.
I do think there should be a post on the best version of A Christmas Carol.
My favorite Christmas movies are The Bishop’s Wife (the original with Cary Grant and Loretta Young), Christmas in Connecticut (the original with Barbara Stanwyck), and Millions.
Sorry for the delayed reply.
I’ve used this before — it’s an SNL sketch from 2005 by the great Bob Smigel. And yes, that’s really Darlene Love doing the vocal. One of my favorites:
Please, nobody interrupt Rob Long when he gets going. He is one of the funniest men alive.
The first couple times I heard it, I thought someone was shuffling a deck of cards.
Absolutely agree.
Interrupting Rob Long when he’s exploding Hollywood tropes is awful!
It’s awful!
AWFUL!