An Aspen Christmas Conspiracy (2025)

[00:00:03] This is a Bramble Jam Podcast Hi, I'm Bran. I love Christmas conspiracy movies I'm Dan and I despise Christmas conspiracy movies I'm Alonzo and Hallmark, I take it all back And this is the Deck The Hallmark Podcast Deck The Hallmark, it's his podcast

[00:00:43] Well, hello everybody Boy, it's great to be here today Yes, sir Just talking conspiracies Just a little festive Friday in August As we turn the corner to what Alonzo will remind us is the Burr Month That's right, our final Friday in August How about that? We're almost there, Alonzo Yeah, but they're making us work for it They are Bran's making us work for it Yeah I don't know, guys

[00:01:12] At some point I'm going to break and start doing the schedule I'm not there yet, but I will at some point break and be like, I'm picking the movies You think that you'd be better? Gotta be You think that I'm purposely picking stinkers? I think you're picking some bad ones on purpose, yes That's what I think you're doing I think you see heist or conspiracy and you're like, yeah No, I do, I do, I look at a title that I find intriguing I look it up, I see if it's streaming places Go from there Yeah

[00:01:40] To Brand's credit, I think the pool is kind of diminishing at this point We've been doing this all year We've gone through the highs and lows of 2025 And now we're definitely in the lows We're in the lows and we can't see the mediums from where we are We're so far in the lows That's true It's crazy But I do, you know, I do believe We're doing it, right? Next year, we're just going to do the The Hallmark Christmas movies we've missed along the way We're doing Hallmark movies that we missed And I, and I'll

[00:02:09] It's weirdly enough, it is looking like there's a lot of stuff In the pipeline for the next few months So, you know, we can always sprinkle in some 2026 Well, we gotta do the new, the JPR movie We gotta get that I think we're required at this point We have to do the JPR movie And we're doing the Almodovar I don't insist on much around here, but we're doing it No, I'm with Alonzo on this Pedro Almodovar is making a Christmas movie I can't not review that here with Alonzo Exactly

[00:02:39] Yeah But yeah, I think catching up on Hallmark of Yore Will be a fascinating experiment with this And in the meantime, you know We're about to click into Deck the Netflix season That's right That's right That's right, I don't know The night's always darkest before the dawn You know what I mean? There you go Like, the night's always the most conspiratorial before the dawn That's exactly right For those wondering We are talking about a movie called Aspen Christmas Conspiracy That's why we're talking about conspiracies

[00:03:09] Made by JPR's progressive brother That is possible I believe Now let me ask you this I do believe that JPR's 2026 movie is already out Should we go ahead and knock that out? I don't know, man I don't know Whatever I mean, you know Maybe we rip that band-aid, I guess I don't know Whatever Whatever you decide I'm just here for the ride You're driving this bus Into the abyss Yeah You guys keep getting on like a bunch of morons I don't know what to tell you

[00:03:39] There's gotta be other buses You guys keep taking my ride I've been saying that for eight years now There's gotta be other buses Gotta be other buses Gotta be other buses Gotta be other buses Yeah All right Let's talk an Aspen Christmas Conspiracy When did this sucker come out? Aspen Christmas Conspiracy Originally released On Orleans

[00:04:09] What? November 25th No one wants to claim it November 25th Thanksgiving release Yeah That's right Thanksgiving week They got the big one Everyone loves something like this Mercedes is a social worker Who is helping out one of her clients An elderly woman named Darla Darla Is dealing with growing uncertainty About the future of her trailer park Shady Vista

[00:04:38] Which she owns We then meet Justin Who is a lawyer Who is leaving his current firm In Texas And moving to Aspen, Colorado Where the snow is snowy And the montages Are montage-y Air smells like warm root beer That's exactly right He's moving in with His roommate It's Mercedes Oh my gosh Oh my goodness They see each other For the first time And the sparks Start to Spark

[00:05:09] They both try to impress The other person But it ends up With spicy food And a trip To get ice cream That night Somebody with a wrench Shows up At the shady vista Ready to Hit someone over the head With it Crack some skulls No, in fact They're just gonna mess With the water Yeah It's just They're just messing With the water They're here for plumbing Darla shows up To figure out What the heck is up And she ends up Putting padlocks On the meter

[00:05:40] Apparently Can't do that And she ends up Getting arrested When she refuses To take the locks off Heck no We won't go The next day In court Guess who The state attorney Is You guessed it Folks It's Justin And as he's giving His opening statement Where he makes it clear That he wants them To throw the book At her Mercedes Mercedes Mercedes Hey, anybody Seen Mercedes Mercedes Mercedes comes in

[00:06:09] And she's shocked To hear him Talk this way Darla believes That there's A conspiracy Afoot The city Must be trying To force her To sell Justin thinks That's laughable Afterwards Mercedes Gives Justin A piece of her Mind And then tries To kill him On the ski slopes So Darla Is definitely Correct about The conspiracy Theory Especially after Someone shows up And tries to

[00:06:38] Basically blow up Shady Vista's Pipes He ends up Looking Justin ends up Looking into This situation And realizes There actually Is a company That has been Wanting to Buy Shady Vista For quite some Time Perhaps There's something Shady going on At the Shady Vistas In fact There is Shady Vistas Apparently has Been paying This guy Named Bruce To do All of this Stuff They know About Mercedes And Justin Know about

[00:07:08] Bruce But they Argue about How to actually Handle the Situation Mercedes Wants to Work with Bruce To take The bad Guys Down Head of The snake Right But Justin Says Bruce Is the Bad guy Here Let's Take Him Down Ultimately They make Up and Make out They do Some digging And they Figure out That the Company Didn't Actually hire Bruce Themselves Rather A lawyer That they Hired To make The deal Happen By quote Any means

[00:07:37] Necessary Who is That lawyer Justin's Old boss What In Texas The company Is like We didn't Actually Mean Like Any means Necessary In the Criminal sense We meant Like Make her An offer She can't Refuse We didn't Mean anything By this So they Arrest Justin's Old boss And Then they Make an Offer To Darla And they're Like hey We'll still Buy this But you Get to Run it We want To invest

[00:08:07] In What you're Doing there At the Shady Vistas Because it's Clear that You care About Those People And then Justin and Mercedes Go to A wedding And he Ends up Proposing At that Wedding As one Does And that My friends Was An Aspen Christmas Conspiracy We Did it We did Do it Let's take A break We'll come Back We'll break This movie Down with Four segments Here on Deck the Hallmark

[00:08:40] We're Back We're We're Talking Aspen Christmas Conspiracy Today Let's Get to Our Hot Takes Where I Share Exactly How We Felt About This Movie Do you Don't Hold Back And I'll Start With You Alonzo Alonzo Is this Movie Just one Big Conspiracy It Wishes We Have Clearly Entered The Era Of Oh Anyone Can Make One Of These That's Right Like You know I think It used To be If you Were An Up And Coming Filmmaker You know You would

[00:09:10] Crank Out Some Like Zipper Back Monster Movie Or Maybe For a While There You Would Do Like Two People In A Room Arguing Indie Or Something And Now It's Like Oh Well You know What I'll Just Do One Of These Christmas Things I'll Stick It On Tubi People Out There Will Watch Anything That Has Christmas In The Title And You know We'll Just Go From There So Yeah This Movie Kind of Answers The Question What If

[00:09:50] Whip So Yeah They're Not Interesting The Conspiracy Is Not Very Interesting And You know There's Actual Snow There Better Be If You're Making A Movie In Aspen That's Right Beyond That Not A Whole Lot To Recommend Here What Yeah I This Is Something I Don't Know What It Is Though Entirely The Conspiracy Isn't Intriguing Enough

[00:10:20] To You know Keep You Fully Engaged Nor Are The Two Leads Particularly Engaging Either And So And Then Not To Mention The Twist Of Who Is Behind The Conspiracy At The End Is Like There Was Nothing That Would Make You Ever Come To That Conclusion That That That's What's Happening And So You're Left Just Scratching Your Head At And You Feel Like Maybe I Was Tricked A Little Bit But I Mean I Appreciate Some Of The Messaging Of This Movie But

[00:10:50] I Don't I Don't Know Who This This Movie Is Really For So It's Not Even For Me So That's That Pool Gets Even Tighter If There's Not Enough Christmas To Really Blow Me Away And A Thumbs Down I Think For Bran Dan Yeah A Movie On Paper That Features You Know

[00:11:20] A Social Worker Sticking Up For The Less Fortunate And Showing You What's Really Sad Is We Have Become Professionals At At Least

[00:11:50] To Our Best Judgment Determining How Into A Kiss Two People Are Because Of Our Jobs And The Guy At The End Of This Movie Has A Kiss That Is Happening To Him Like I Don't Know How To Describe That It's Not A Wait What Cause That's How He Chose That He Literally Doesn't Move His Mouth Muscles On Like He Just It Happens An Immutable

[00:12:20] Force And An Immovable Object Right And She's No You Know She's Not Exactly Winning Any Awards Herself The Decky Can Stay In The Pocket For This One It's Brutal It Just Goes To Show You That Your Message Can Be Great Or Terrible And The Movie Can Also Still Be Terrible Boy Is This A Bad Movie I Have So Many Questions As To The Motivations Of Characters I Have So Many Questions As To Where The Conspiracy Is For The Majority Of This Movie's

[00:12:49] Runtime And Yeah I Don't Know Why Or How This Was Made And I Not Here For It And I Would Like To Use My Skip In The Future Oh Yeah Wow Okay Yeah You Want To Use Your Skip On This One I Would Want This Was If If We're Going Back Well I Mean The Other Thing Is This Is A Full Hour And A Half So You Know Like There's Some Movies And I Don't To Foreshadow That May Be 71 Minutes And Have Seven Minutes Of Credits Ten Minutes Of Credits If You Count The Opening Credits That Are Worse

[00:13:19] Movies But Take A Lot Less Of My Time So For Me If All Else Is Equal Once You Get Over An Hour And A Half With This Drek I It Starts To Get Exponentially Worse For Me All right Let's Get To All The Feels Where We Talk About What In This Movie Gave This Conspiracy Feels Or Feels Of Any Sort

[00:13:50] Alonzo I Laughed The First Time That They Mentioned That The Person Presiding In The Court Was Judge Reinhold That's Mine But Then They Judge Is Judge Reinhold Like That's Like The Joke Was He Gave Up Acting And Went Into The Law Yeah That Was Also Not To Bring

[00:14:19] Heaven Forbid I Better Than They Do It Here But Yeah The First Time I

[00:14:54] Heard Judge Reinhold's Squeakiest Clean Movie Where You Get More Sweaters When The Circus Pulls That's Exactly Right So I'll Just Go Watch Santa Claus I'll

[00:15:32] Somehow We Missed And Right Under The Radar It's Time For Us To Get To The Wait What To Fix That Flew Whatever Was Under The Radar Too It Took Us Until August Late August Let's Get To The Wait What I'll Start With You Alonzo Okay Alright So Let's See First Of All He Arrives At The Apartment That He's Going To Be Sharing With Mercedes And You Know They Have In

[00:16:09] 2025 These Two Didn't Like Just Scope Each Other Out On Social Media And Figure What Was Going On They Just Like Oh A Voice On The Phone Is Renting My Spare Room No Problem Early On We Just Is Yeah I Just I Didn't Couldn't Buy That For A Second All Right So The Montage At The Beginning Where He's Making Her Dinner And He's All He's Got Is Like Paper Plates And

[00:16:39] He Decides He's Going To Pull Out The Good Stuff Dude I Can't This Is So Great He Has A box Called Called Called Grandma's China That He keeps Under His Bed That's Right Yeah Now You know Anything That Is Fragile That You Wouldn't Want To Have Broken You Definitely Want To Have Under The Mattress Where Your Full Weight Is Going Every Night And With Any Luck Maybe The Full Weight Of Two People Yeah Yeah Fingers crossed But Your Cards Right That's Right And That's Where You Want To Keep The Fragile Stuff For Sure The Best Part About That

[00:17:20] I Only Brought The Bare Essentials Which Does Include Grandma's China Yes A Single Man From Texas If He's Bringing Stuff For His One Room My Heirloom Soup Tareen And The Gravy Boats Dude Hilarious This Guy's Bringing Enough For One Room He's Got Dishes He's Got Dishes And They're Under The Bed And

[00:17:50] All Right So They Have Their Falling Out Because She Sees Him Be Lawyery And He Decides He's Going To Go To The Ski Lessons That She Conducts As Her Side Gig At The Local Slope And He Gets There And Womp Womp Discovers That He's The Only Adult And It's Like Dude Who Did You Think Was Going To Be

[00:18:20] The Adult Male Ski People That Didn't Know How To Ski Were All Coming Together In Aspen Colorado In Aspen That's Right Yeah You're Trying to Embarrass me Stupid Yeah They I mean Like And Again The Thing Wrong With That Scene But They Just Make A Big To Do About His Chagrin Over And It's Like Think Think For Two Seconds How How This Was Going To Play Out Dude I Was A Little I Get A Little Wobbly In The Conspiracy About Okay She

[00:18:50] Owns The Land But There's A Board Of Directors That Can Make Her Sell It If Sir You Are A Lawyer You Do Not Find Perps As This Movie Would Have That Would Be I Don't Know The Police Maybe

[00:19:19] Like I Just The Idea That You're Suddenly Out There Investigating And Sleuthing I Don't I Don't Know That That's In The Job Description Sir Ultimately This Is A Wildly Random Coincidence That You Know He Knows That The Guy Thousand Dollar Bills The Guy He Works

[00:19:49] For In Texas Yeah How Is Directly Involved Why What's Going On At His New Job And The Thing He's Investigating In Colorado Yes And Even The Bad Guy Even Knows That This Guy Is Going To Colorado So You Think He Do Something To But We Wind Up With This Thing Where It's Like Okay So If You Didn't Have If You Yourself Weren't Privy To This One Minor Random Bit Of Information

[00:20:19] You Never Would Have Solved This Yeah It Happening Happening In Colorado Or If He Solves It In A Way That Would Have Involved Like Actual Sort Of Research And You You You

[00:20:58] Yeah That Was A T-ball That's Great And Then Ultimately We're We're Meant To Believe That The Evil Developers Who Want To Build A Resort Would Instead Rather Pump Their Money Into A Trailer Park Yeah Yeah Yeah That's Right Yeah Yeah I Don't Know What Your ROI Is There But It Just Seems To Me Like If You Want To Build A Resort You Want I

[00:22:08] What's going on in his financial life to where all that he can afford is one bathroom? Took a bath on crypto. Aspen ain't cheap. I know Aspen's not cheap, but if anybody can afford it, it's the lawyer, not the whatever the heck she is. Social worker. Because it's not like he's a public defender. He's a state prosecutor. True. I know a public defender. They're not incredibly well paid. A state prosecutor.

[00:22:38] A state prosecutor. Come on. He moved there. He moved to Aspen for this job, and he said, I mean, honestly, it's a big step down. I'm going to have to do the one better. They cut the scene where he took a vow of poverty because the movie was running too long. That's the only thing that would make sense. Bruce, at one point, she's talking to Bruce, and he wants sugar in his coffee, and he dumps it in there and then just takes a sweat. Doesn't stir it. Doesn't do anything.

[00:23:07] Just crazy behavior by that guy. I also got a kick out of when the bride and groom, they say I do, and then now pronounce, they walk down the aisle, and Justin turns to Mercedes and says, they look really happy. I mean, I hope so. I hope so. I hope so. On this, the happiest day of their lives. Just made a pretty big commitment. Things that hopefully you don't have to say at a wedding. Oh, wow. You know what? Actually, they look happy.

[00:23:37] Despite everything. Yeah. Most weddings I go to, they walk down the aisle, and they are miserable. Yeah, that's exactly right. Dana? With that described to you, the best case scenario is he's using the pipe wrench for actual plumbing for actual pipes. I know he's doing a bad thing, but I was like, oh, man, he's about to murder somebody.

[00:24:06] He's about to full clue, like with the wrench. Like he's about to fully do it, and he's just, and then the thing is, is they show him the pipe, where he undoes a seal on the pipe is like directly like facing the ground. So all the water would drain out, and at night would assumably freeze. The pipes would freeze. And then the next day, this woman's like, my water bill's through the roof.

[00:24:32] Well, first of all, you got your water bill the next day after all that happened? The water ran for eight hours, and somebody came over in a bicycle and was like, you got to take this right now. And then second of all, that would not be the problem, ma'am. You wouldn't have any water. It wouldn't be that the water bill. God almighty. Hey, can somebody get Timu Colin Hanks a shirt that fits, please?

[00:24:59] Why is all movie our lead in a Henley eight sizes too big for him? I don't understand. I understand. I don't like, I understand you're making a Christmas movie, and you don't have that big a budget. But how did we get here where this normal-sized individual is wearing a, like a bed sheet Henley? Why is he doing that? The David Byrne version. Yeah, I just like, dude, I just don't know what's going on.

[00:25:26] And maybe I'm just, my brain is fried from the number of Hallmark movies I've seen, where at least the Henley fits. But this guy's wearing like his like giant twin brother's wardrobe. Like I just, it's- Small budget? Big shirt. Crazy. Um, an actual judge in this movie says conspiracy is notoriously difficult to prove. The problem with a judge saying that is that she's not talking about conspiracy to commit murder.

[00:25:52] She's talking about an actual conspiracy of an individual that thinks someone is out to get them. If they prove it, it wouldn't be conspiracy anymore. This is not like there's like her combining these two things are not like, I just, no, no, no, no, that's a, that's Judge Reinhold for you. You know what I mean? That's Judge Reinhold for you. Is it a conflict of interest for a state appointed attorney to be a bartender? I don't know the answer to this question and it might not be a wait, what?

[00:26:22] But someone that is a prosecutor for the state of Colorado being the one serving the alcohol certainly seemed to me to be a conflict of interest. And maybe- Well, doesn't the bartender even ask that question? Like- Oh, really? Maybe I missed that. He says like, what are you going to like get him drunk and then like, you know, prosecute him? Well, I may have missed that, but what I will say is that it might not be illegal, but later

[00:26:49] he does bully a woman into drinking alcohol, which is just one of the weirdest, like she, he's like, oh, you're just drinking soda water, huh? You're just, then he starts to call her names. Yeah. And then he keeps pushing until she orders an alcoholic drink. Wow, buddy. Buddy. I don't know if that was cool in the 1990s. Like that was like, that's brutal, man.

[00:27:16] And then lastly, I know that this is not a baseball podcast. Um, no. Rockies tickets are notoriously cheap. Like, like rock, like if you know baseball, Rockets, Rockies, the Colorado Rockies, this big grand gesture at the end of this movie is, is they get Bruce poured down on his luck, Bruce, Red Sox fan, Bruce two seats to the Rockies game. That is like making the yellow pages. You, you, like you just, I looked it up.

[00:27:44] The next series they have against a team with a winning record. You could buy seats against the Padres for $12, $12. Like it is not. But they're also covering beer and hot dogs. It's not a gift. It's a gift. And he can put them away. That's true. But it's not that, it's not. Throw in the beer and hot dogs. We got ourselves a pretty nice gift. This is barely a gesture. Uh, they could have, they could have gotten him Rocky season tickets. They could have at least gotten him tickets to all the Red Sox games.

[00:28:10] Um, it just, I just, when she was like, the music changes when she was like, if you do this, the person that turns them in gets free Rockies, Red Sox tickets. And it's like, boom, boom. And he's like, what? I'm like, dude, you could probably collect change off the street for a few days and go to the Rockies Red Sox game. Like, you know, I, I, I just, it just isn't like, I hate that you made this. This in a time of the Rockies are the literal worst team in baseball, but you did.

[00:28:41] So there's nothing I can do about that. That's all I got. Uh, it's time for what the hallmark is where we wonder what could have been. Maybe have given some clarity of the questions that we still have. What are we still wondering about? Uh, Alonzo. Uh, I'm going to kind of piggyback on something Daniel said early on, which is, you know, this movie on paper is dealing with a lot of issues that do matter. Like the fact that I love that at one point, the, the trailer park lady talks about how

[00:29:06] the people who do the actual work in Aspen, the people who cook the meals and change the beds and scrub the toilets and all this stuff for all of the vacationers and rich people deserve to live near where they work. And that's an, that's an ongoing issue we see in a lot of cities now where people who work in hotels have to like commute an hour each way because they can't afford to live near the place where they work. So kudos on this movie for delivering that message. I wish it were contained in a better way.

[00:29:35] Well, and I, to your point, there's a scene where the, the lawyer realizes that mercy should inform the law. And I love, like, I love the dialogue. It's literally said by anyone else in any other circumstance, but it's said to like a giant stuffed raccoon in a bedroom with, and it's played for laughs, but like right, right before he goes, you can't handle the truth. The conclusion that he should have drawn when he studied law for the first time, but finally

[00:30:02] does that maybe leaning on a down of it, down on his luck, functioning alcoholic to pressure him for information with the threat of jail isn't how the law should work. Exactly. Pretty great lesson. Instead we should give him more beer. And a little more Red Sox ticket. That's a free Rockies game. Um, yeah, I, I, I do want to know the, they really just took the rich people's word for

[00:30:29] it that when they said by any means necessary, they didn't mean it like that. I don't know. They meant that in a Malcolm X kind of way. I just, I don't know, man. I, I, I think when you are very rich and you say to somebody, we want this property by any means necessary. It's not that big of a leap for that person to hear that and go, all right, let's take,

[00:30:58] let's go at them with a wrench. The pipes, the pipes. And you said earlier, I meant make them an offer they can't refuse. That's also a crime, by the way. Yeah, I know. They can't. Sure is. They can't. They, but they said it. We didn't mean that. And they go, all right, just arrest him then. Again, though, I think it totally, it totally makes sense that they, now they have a fall guy. They're like, oh, what? No. Right. No, 100%. I just think maybe a little more investigating here. Let's just, let's read those. A hair.

[00:31:28] Read those text messages. Let's see the communication. Let's see how it was communicated to each other. And I think that would go a long way. All right. We did it, everybody. Congratulations to us. Next week, it's a holiday heist. Not a holiday heist that we've already covered. Different holiday heist. Different one. Holiday heist with, from what year was that? We did a, it was the BET one. Several others, yes. There are three on Tuggy right now. Yeah, Kaylee Rose. Yes. Kaylee Rose. We covered that.

[00:31:58] Tobias Truvillian and Kaylee Rose in the lead. 2019. Yeah. This movie, the holiday heist is surprisingly hard to find because it wants you to watch that one. But don't want, make sure you watch 2025. 2025. Or, skip it all together. Or not. That's up to you. But we'll be back next week to cover it, so come on back for that. Until then, maybe the first to wish you a Merry Christmas. It's Deck the Hallmark. It's a Bramble Jam podcast produced by Brandon Gray, and you have that Greenville, South Carolina. For more information on the show, go to deckthehallmark.com, follow us on the socials, at Deck the Hallmark,

[00:32:27] and leave us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, if you please. And head on over to Bramble Jam Plus to find the best corner of the internet with ad-free podcasting, live video watch-ups, movie chats, and so much more. That's bramblejamplus.com. You're about to hear some ads that help keep the lights on here in the old studio. Thanks for listening, or don't listen.

[00:32:55] It's really up to you at this point. It's at the end of the show. I mean, you're listening to me. Hi. But here they come. I promise they're coming. Yep, here they are. Happy day.