Twelve Days Of Schlock-Mas: Day Twelve

LOVE AT THE CHRISTMAS TABLE

 

A man realizes that his best friend since childhood is the woman he loves. 

 

Some guy named Billy has spent every Christmas with Winnie Cooper since he was four years old, when their daddies (who act like a gay couple but apparently aren't a gay couple) start a construction business together. 

Or maybe they joined forces to build furniture, because they built a small table for their precocious children to use for every Christmas dinner. And the kids love it so much that essentially every good memory these two characters have ever made together involves this fucking table. Even long after the pair are old enough to sit at the adult table, they chose to hang out with the children and goof around every Christmas, and it's just wacky. 

But I'm confused, because the house they spend so much time in every year is owned not by either of their families, but rather by Marty McFly's egg nog swilling mother, who apparently loves Christmas so much that she allows all of these people to celebrate in her home every year, because she's a lonely old maid and every single member of her own family winked out of existence after her idiot son Marty fucked everything up by traveling back in time and crashing a flying Delorean into his peeping Tom father before he could ask his future bride to accompany him to the Enchantment Under The Sea dance.
 

So now she leaves Christmas decorations up all year round and drinks peppermint schnapps all day every day, because a series of temporal distortions have driven her quite insane. All the families in the neighborhood congregate at her house every Christmas because they pity her, and they're afraid of what terrible things she may do to them if they ignore her invitations. 

Winnie Cooper loves Billy, and Billy loves Winnie Cooper, but they're both pussies who can't admit their feelings, and eventually life gets in the way, driving them further apart every year, so they both love lives of quiet desperation for many years, and it's all very sad. Winnie becomes the biggest furniture builder in the upper Midwest, and Billy becomes a journalist because he wants to be just like Kirk Douglas in Ace In The Hole. They both pretend they're happy when they're around other people, but in their private moments their hearts scream for each other and their lives are hollow and meaningless without their... 

Whatever. 

Who really gives a shit? It's just ninety minutes of light and sound. Billy and Winnie Cooper are a pair of losers who are destined to be losers together, because their totally not gay dads built a magic table for them one delightful Christmas Eve, and it's all just a big steaming punch bowl filled with horse piss.
 

Are they gonna end up together? Fuck you. Fuck you so much. That little table was forged by goblins in a furnace fueled by the tears of dying unicorns! The malignant energy is radiating from the blackened wood, corrupting everything it touches. Woe upon any and all who cross paths with this cursed table.

It is the source of all cruelty and malice in this world, and it swallows up a little joy and decency from those who gather around it every year, gobbling it up like a greedy, fat little boy who can't get enough of his mother's delicious mincemeat pies. The table gluts itself on our good feelings, transforming them into misery and pain, destroying everything that is good and pure, bit by bit, until the inevitable dark day when the sun never rises and all the races of men are consumed by the endless night. 

It's an Asylum production. Another Asylum production. You know, at least this wretched little movie is based on an original story. At least I think it's an original story. I don't recall seeing another awful movie about two kids who grow up and fall in love underneath a small table. It's just not a good story. It sucks. It sucks and I don't like it.
 

Am I just burned out on Christmas movies? Has this experience destroyed my ability to enjoy made-for-television family-oriented holiday movies? No. No, that can't be it. This movie is just terrible. There are plenty of good holiday-themed telefilms out there, right? Actually, that's probably not true. 

Most of them are outright garbage, because they all tend to follow the exact same formula, they're made quick and cheap with whatever caliber of actors they can afford, usually by writers, producers and directors who are just trying to produce a product to plug a two-hour hole in their network's schedule. There's very little room for art in there. 

The only real concern these "filmmakers" have is to produce bland entertainment, like animated wallpaper. Something inoffensive. If the movie manages to actually manipulate your emotions in some meager way with its ham-fisted storytelling, then that's just a bonus.
 

These movies are nothing more than a product designed to distract you with their simple stories of love conquering benign adversity in a fantasy world where the good guys always win. They're toothless fairy tales that never impart any worthwhile life lessons, choosing instead to pat you on the back and tell you everything's going to be just fine in the end, because we're all entitled to a happy ending, and if we just believe it enough, that happy ending will come as sure as the sun will rise in the morning. 

But it's bullshit. All of it. These movies are nothing but a pack of lies. They don't have the guts to show the viewer any reality, because that might challenge somebody and drive them to change the channel. It's unhealthy. 

I'm a huge nerd. I love fantasy. But it has to mean something. It has to lead somewhere. And maybe a dragon wouldn't hurt. But this holiday dreck is the worst kind of fantasy because it lacks heart and imagination. It's less than nothing, so ephemeral it doesn't even really exist except as a line in some executive's yearly account ledger. 

There's nothing of Christmas in these movies. Nothing real. There is no Love At The Christmas Table, just empty calories. And I think I'm ready to start that diet I've been putting off for so long. 

VERDICT: NO THANKS, I'M FULL

Now that's out of the way, let's talk about why we're all really here: podcasts. 

That's right, ladies and jellyspoons, it's Christmas Day, the most wonderful day of the entire year, when we can all bask in the warmth of family and friends, seeing the best versions of ourselves reflected in each other's eyes, and what better way to spend a part of this glorious day than listening to a pair of drunk assholes yell over each other for forty minutes?

In this two-part holiday-infused episode of Baby Jesus Is An Asshole, I am joined by my oldest and dearest friend Titus as we drink an entire bottle of 103 proof bourbon and proceed to talk about all things Christmas. Topics include: burlesque museums, baldness, Godzilla action figures, the undisputed best Christmas movie ever made, why Gollum is just the worst, objectification of women, what we really want for Christmas, the maturity that comes with age, and the secret to our unbreakable bond of brotherhood. 

Then at the end everything sort of degenerates into a series of drunken misunderstandings and semi-coherent shouting, much like any worthwhile holiday family gathering. It's our little gift to you, Dear Imaginary Listener. So give it a listen, won't you?

Chapter 78: The Christmas Conundrum, Part One

Chapter 79: The Christmas Conundrum, Part Two

 

With that, I leave you all to enjoy the remainder of your Christmas Day. I have a busy day of cooking an extravagant meal for my ungrateful family ahead of me, followed by a night of heavy drinking and a marathon of old episodes of Dark Shadows. Because after all, getting blackout drunk all by yourself and watching fifty year old soap operas with supernatural themes is the true meaning of Christmas. 

CHRISTMAS TIME IS MARCHING ON!!!