Hallmark Christmas 2026 Preview Show #1

[00:00:03] This is a Bramble Jam Podcast Hi, I'm Brian, I love Hallmark Christmas Preview Shows I'm Brian, I like Hallmark Christmas Preview Shows I'm Dan, and I specifically despise the first preview show after the look ahead, but before the kickoff I'm Patrick Serrano, I'm here for the preview show I'm Jax, I got all my snacks ready for the preview show

[00:00:29] I'm Alonzo, let's get into it, and this is the Deck The Hallmark Podcast Deck The Hallmark, it's this podcast Friends host this podcast We hope you like this jolly podcast Guys, come on I don't know how to tell you Why did you do this? Why do I even do this? What are you doing?

[00:01:00] Oh my gosh Time to be alive That was the unveiling of our new graphics for our theme song for season 9 And to see Brian's reaction in real time Fantastic It was great, and it looks like we lost Jax So we're off to a wonder of my start Oh my god I'm here But your camera's black now Your camera's gone, Jax I thought you were in solidarity with me I can see myself Oh my goodness You're in witness protection Oh my goodness

[00:01:28] This is what happens when Jax does a preview show with us Yeah Oh no How many bedroom and mochas, Jax? It says you're in the show Everyone can see and hear you I don't know what to do I'll come back in We can hear you We can hear you It's just good to be back Sure Sure Ryan is not going to be with us He is getting married today Today

[00:01:56] And we all did this before we fly to the wedding, obviously Right We're doing this here And then we're all flying over Yeah, we're going to button our shirts for it Don't worry Don't worry Yeah, we're going to class it up This is what we're wearing I will say that Yeah, for sure That's fine Ryan, this is the kickoff to Season 9 That's right Can you believe it? Season 9 is here And what better way to celebrate the launch of Season 9 Than with some Kringles, Dano Ryan, we have a new sponsor And it is the title sponsor of Deck the Hallmark For the entirety of Season 9

[00:02:24] And it's our favorite partner we've ever worked with It's Racine Danish Kringles Kringle.com Guys, I know I know You should get excited Blam, blam, blam These are handmade Kringles from Racine, Wisconsin Hand iced You can get a variety of flavors Right Shipped directly to your door You can get a little Kringle stick If you don't want a full boy Hold up that Kringle over there Yeah, okay And right now I know we're talking Christmas Right now They got all their fall flavors

[00:02:54] That's right They got apple cinnamon They got pear almond They got bourbon pecan They got What is this one? Maple walnut They got Did you say the pumpkin spice? Pumpkin spice They've got the pumpkin spice They've got pumpkin caramel as well You got to go over to Kringle.com And get you some Kringles Also, all season long We're going to be doing different promo codes For different things on the menu But right now For all of October Not including some other things We're going to get to later During the marathon week And others

[00:03:22] You can use DTHOCT26 DTHOCT26 For 10% off their entire website Wow Kringle.com Order a bunch of Kringles, guys You will not regret it Fantastic Absolutely Very excited We're talking about Kringle All season long As if we wouldn't have Early But this year it's official Don't tell them that It's official I know you're right Yeah That's right I love the Kringle Let's see Jax is back Let's see if I add her Is she there? Jax is back

[00:03:51] Hello, Jax Hey, there she is Just had to switch computers I don't know I finally upgraded to a MacBook And it doesn't work Well, you're doing Shut up, MacBooks You're doing great They were going to sponsor This season Maybe next year Then I heard Jax Was going to talk bad about them That's right Kringle's better We have a lot of movies To get to We have 34 movies We're not going to do them all today We're going to do about 12 of them today But very excited To dive into this Before we dive into The Hallmark Christmas review I do got to kick it To our Lifetime correspondent

[00:04:21] Patrick Patrick Any word on the streets As to what we can expect From Lifetime This holiday season Because We're going to be You're going to be joining us We're going to be joining you For all of the Lifetime Christmas movies This season Which is very exciting But any word Any buzz Are the streets Saying anything The word in the streets Is that You know They're going to do A documentary About Christmas Probably Nice Good Okay great So we'll be with you

[00:04:51] For the documentary What just happened Word in He said Word in the street Is they're going to do A documentary About Christmas Probably That's it What Yeah You picked the wrong Santa Lifetime Exactly Lifetime's releasing A documentary About the holiday Christmas Yes You know Lifetime's just really Give it up This year Okay We'll be lucky To get You know I can't even think Of somebody Who they would Try to get Oh my gosh In a movie

[00:05:20] I love that We're finally doing it And they'll probably Just be like Eh We're done We're not doing Christmas this year We're not doing it You know We'll see They'll let us know In like November November Got it I'm looking forward To that You know You can join Bramblejamplus.com At any point Now's the time To do it though You're going to get All the goodies Right now But folks in the chat Are commenting on how much They love the intro video Great I love that As much as Brian For sure And also Several Jax you're looking gorgeous That's what we got In the chat

[00:05:50] That's not from me That's from the chat They're really trying To support me Because it's hard It was hard for me To be seen So thank you all We have 34 movies She persisted We have 34 movies Over the course Of three separate Preview shows Which comes out to How many total creams If we're doing So the time Cumulative So it's going to be One episode with 12 And then two episodes With 11 The question is For 11 Are we doing Three creams Or just two creams We're doing creams For the entire season Okay

[00:06:20] For all 34 Remember It still comes out The same way My question is Should we get So really it should be Eight Eight creams Eight total creams So you get to use them Whenever you want Eight total creams Okay Everybody gets eight creams That's a lot of power Eight creams Wow Someone keep tally Of the creams I can do that Great Alright let's dive in Here's a quick snapshot Shot of what we have Coming up here The rest of October That is where we are Going to start And we're going to

[00:06:49] Kick things off With our first movie Which is Tis the season For set ups This is going to be Our first movie How we're kicking off The marathon We're going to be Watching it all together On Friday October 16th It is starring Amanda Scholl Vic Webster Barbara Niven's in there That guy who looks like Santa Everybody's in there Hyper organized Single mom And party planner Lexi

[00:07:19] Her free Sorry Her free spirited mother June Oh my god And teen daughter Piper Are set to spend Christmas At a local ski resort After Lexi is hired To organize their Annual holiday party Upon arrival She immediately Butts head with Ridge Ridge is named Butts head singular Butts heads Word on the street With rich The ski instructor

[00:07:49] And son of the lodge's Owner Dan Despite not getting along From the get go Lexi and Ridge Notice a spark Between June and Dan And decide to set them up Lexi and Ridge Create a multitude Of festival excursions Festive excursions And excuses To bring them together But thanks to Creative Machinations Machinations Sorry I should have had it Up in front of me It's hard for me To see this far away Hold on

[00:08:18] Let me go full screen here Wow Okay Machinations by June And Dan These outings Keep turning into Four-sumps Take that lifetime Feeds are not a bug Am I right In the days leading up To the Christmas party Lexi and Ridge's Attempt to pair up Their parents Bring them closer together And their merry match Making ends In surprising results What the heck Is going on In this movie Doubt it I doubt it's surprising In the slightest

[00:08:48] Okay Brian Yeah What you got What are we doing Oh my gosh Snowflakes Hot cocoa Marshmallows Peppermint Peppermint bark Nogs Nogs Freedom fries Let's go Nogs Let's go Let's go Egg Nogs Egg Nogs Egg Nog One out of five Egg Nogs One out of five Egg Nogs A lot going on here Yeah Lots going on We're kicking off This is Friday night Fight night With Vic Webster

[00:09:17] As far as I'm concerned And his name is Ridge Three and a half Noggins A little more than Right down the middle Noggins Three You said three and a half Three and a half Noggins Three and a half I'm trying to play cautiously I don't want to go too crazy Actually you never go below three Three's your zero You live between three and five I will say Three and my ex-wife This movie is wild I don't even really know What's going on in this It's a party planning Ski lodge movie We've seen it a thousand times And matchmaking It doesn't sound like

[00:09:47] Party planning to me It sounds like matchmaking But like Are the father and mother Trying to matchmake their kids But then the kids are trying To matchmake the parents I mean when homework said They were doing a foursome movie I was shocked Am I understanding that correctly? I think the kids are trying The parents are trying To set up the kids And it all works out And whoever gets their first wins Yeah sure Oh sorry No surprising results I forgot Yeah the results Are going to be surprising My understanding is Winner takes all

[00:10:16] In this scenario Because it's like If the parents get married You're in a weird spot Exactly You can't marry them You're in a weird spot It's tough Double wedding That would be surprising results This might be the lifetime movie That we were promised The documentary Yeah It's a documentary I'm going four I'm going four Out of the game I don't know what this is about I'm going four Patrick Well Barbara Nevin Is in this

[00:10:45] So that's a great start To the holiday season You know Our little Our little snowflake Been floating around For the whole All of Hallmark's Like history Right She's been there Since the beginning I'm pretty sure She's been there Since the beginning She made the first card She made the first card She looks exactly the same So that makes me excited For this movie But you know Going on dates with your parents Sounds a little weird I don't know if I would Want to do that You know

[00:11:14] So I think I'll go three Three Whatever we said Three Three eggnogs This is what we're looking at Eggnogs Eggnogs Jax I'm going to be joining Brian with my Three and a half Eggnogs And that is because Each one of those Eggnogs Is one for Amanda One for Victor One for Barbara Nevin These are three Incredible actors Throw in the half Because it's like The chemistry Of all them together I could not be Less interested

[00:11:44] In this plot Thank you And in this story Yeah It just matters though Because I'll enjoy Because these actors Are good And that's kind of What I'm about But honestly No Not in Okay Dan Yeah I just thought You were going to Alonzo for sure I thought you Might think that It's a one It's a one For me dog Oh a one Is not bad I'm already Looking forward To 16 days From now Where Brian Will rave About this movie Uncontrollably Even though It's probably Going to be Barely passable

[00:12:13] Because the Leads alone Gang They buried The party Planning at the Beginning And you all Forgot about it This is a ski lodge Party planning movie Is what this is Don't let surprising Results And old people Getting together And all this other Stuff Get in the way Of the fact That we hate These movies They're never good The party planning Movies are not Going to have Been good in years His name's Ridge His name is Ridge The reason it's getting One is And he's a ski instructor Yeah You know Vic

[00:12:43] Big ski boy Vic Vic And Barbara Niven And Amanda Scholl Are all wonderful And more than capable So for that alone And for it kicking Off the season I will grace it With one eggnog Wow What a guy Thanks for doing that Alonso Yeah I think I'm kind of Between Dan And the rest of y'all Yeah I'm here For the cast mainly John B. Lowe Is the name Of the Santa looking guy Put some respect On his name Thank you Absolutely

[00:13:13] But yeah You know Always here for Barbara Niven Always here for Vic Webster But you're right It is a ski lodge Party planning Matchmaking movie But it is the first Of the season And while I don't Go as hardcore As Bran does There is a certain You know like Oh we're doing it now That lifts all boats So I'll say Two nogs And we're also Early in the marathon Where we're just Bright eyed and bushy tailed And we feel like That's right On the world I think that's also A big part of it We haven't done

[00:13:43] The all nighter yet That's right We have not done The all nighter yet Alright next up We're still at the marathon This is the opposite though This is the end Of the marathon But big title Big names Holiday touchdown A Bears love story Our third Third Marathon movie Chiefs Bears This is starring Lindsay Fonseca And Robert Buckley Maybe Bob Buck will call in Maybe Lindsay will call in During the marathon I don't want to make Any promises But who knows

[00:14:12] And this is Saturday Of course Saturday October 17th When ambitious Freelance reporter Avery Clark Returns to Chicago To spend Christmas With her mom And new stepdad She's hoping For a little Holiday downtime Between her next assignment

[00:14:55] Instead Who with a little Gentle nudging From Darlene Agrees to show Avery What being a part Of Bears Nation Is all about Bear down Bear down As Avery follows Darlene's remarkable story Through cherished Game day traditions Festive Chicago Adventures And memories Of a love story That began At the stadium She starts to understand That football Is about much more Than what happens On the fields In a sparks fly Between Avery and Matt

[00:15:24] This Christmas May just convince A woman Who's always On the move That sometimes The greatest adventure Is finding a place And a person That feels Like home A bit of a mouthful I hate everything About that last paragraph That last paragraph Is one of my least favorite Things I've ever read Well there you go Brian What are you thinking here I'm thinking there's A floor For these now They've established They've done two Yeah the bills Wasn't as fine The chief's one

[00:15:54] Was really good They do a good job They incorporate A lot of local stuff Local folks The story's usually Pretty good The actors Phenomenal Obviously Bob Buck We're psyched Out of our minds To have Bob Buck Doing this Psyched out of our minds Yeah He's gonna If he doesn't I haven't seen many pictures Of him with a big bushy mustache But as a firefighter In Chicago I feel like He's gonna have to At some point He needs a big mustache He's gotta He's gotta Holy sausage Yeah I'm at four Nogs for this one Four Nogs

[00:16:24] Yeah man I'm real excited About this one I would honestly Be more excited About this If it wasn't Connected to this Franchise Because I'm a little Burnt out by it Not that I haven't Enjoyed them But it's just like Another one Another one Where we gotta We kinda shoehorn Football culture Into I like football I love Hallmark Christmas movies I don't really need These two things To come together You don't like The things on your Plate touching We know That's exactly right That's exactly right

[00:16:53] And so But I love These two leads I think they're Gonna be Dynamite together So I'm very high On this one Since I went Four on the last one It doesn't feel Right to go the same Because I am more Excited about this one So I kinda did Put baby in a quarter There I'm going four and a half You kinda did put Baby in a quarter There Four and a half On this one Patrick So you know I lived in Chicago For 20 years And I definitely Never went to a Bears game Ever in my life

[00:17:23] Wow But I did have it Around me Like people liked The Bears And you know It was there I've been in a room Where people were Watching football And you know If this super fan Of whatever She's been to 500 games If she's like The south side Chicago Like Catholic You know She's got like The Chicago accent That I can't do But you know Try it though She's like

[00:17:54] Hey Chicago The Bears I'm here And I've I've seen 500 games Thanks for transporting us That was like a weird Like I think all the Italians Are mad I don't know I mean like I don't know Exactly why But Catholics But Let's get a character actor In there And let them shine In a Chicago accent If you can believe it She's doing Yeah I'm just kidding So You know

[00:18:23] I'm excited to see it I I really could not care About football Any less Than I already do So I'm gonna say Three and a half For this one Okay Three and a half Whatever Eggnogs There you go Thank you I forgot I forgot Jax Although I don't really care About sports I grew up In a sports family So in order To fit in Which I desperately Want to I have become A bit of a sports fan And I like

[00:18:53] Sports movies I'm not just trying To copy Brian But I'm gonna give you One of four also How about you two Lockstaff Yeah We're connected I just feel as though Yeah Lindsay Fonseca Bob Buck It's gonna be great Clearly Hallmark Has thrown some Money at this Which helps And I'm hoping This one is going To be really Funny And I think With these two leads That is a hope That may very well Come true Okay

[00:19:22] I'm going Alonzo This time What did she You said What did you say Four Four Gotcha Okay cool Alonzo Yeah You know I'm feeling good About this one I have zero stake In sports So maybe that's Why I kind of Enjoy the NFL Just sort of An exotic background For these movies But like you know Bob Buck is Obviously the king Of these Although this is The third October In a row He's gotten From Hallmark Christmas Put some respect On his name Yeah I don't know If that's a diss Or if he's now Their good luck charm For the early part Of the season But here we are

[00:19:52] Again with this Lindsay Fonseca I tend to like her Even if I don't Care for the movies We always As you say On these NFL movies They get a little More money And some bigger names Two time Oscar Nominee Marsha Mason Okay Very excited To see her In this thing So yeah You know It's from the director Of The Finish Line Which was my favorite Movie of that year I'm gonna say four And I'm unloading The inaugural cream First cream Of the previous season How about that Excellent Wow

[00:20:22] Alonzo It's exciting Dan are you gonna Follow suit No I'm mixed on this And I tell you Why I'm mixed Is I disagree Wholeheartedly With what Brian Said which is I think we found The floor I don't agree With that statement I think The first one Of these movies I really loved Ed Begley Hunter King Tyler Hines The whole supporting cast Great Christine Ebersole Yeah The next one With Joe Pantoliano I thought Was okay It was It was not

[00:20:52] Nearly as good As the first one And so my worry Is that We've signed A long term deal And when all of us Are you know 60 years old Obviously we're all Gonna be 60 At the same time And we're doing Holiday touchdown A Buccaneers Love story Or whatever Like I feel like Pirate themed I All right I'm interested All right Are you kidding me Stop selling I will say this It feels like We're catching The Bob Buck Lindsay Fonseca

[00:21:21] Stardom train On the way up As we're catching The Holiday Touchdown series On it's way down Interesting Which makes For an interesting Pairing because These two in a movie Together I don't really care What the movie's about Having them both On our show Two of the funniest Guests we've ever Had I think that They're going to Elevate the material But I'm Kind of reticent Of our third Holiday touchdown Movie Sure Give me two Eggnogs One for each Of the leads Very good All right That gets us

[00:21:50] To our third Movie Sunday It's a Sunday Movie folks This is Mr. And Mrs. Christmas Starring Brendan Penny And Pascal Hutton An interesting Taylor Lewis Is a single Dad And a holiday Display expert Who relocates To the charming Town of Pineway With his two Children just weeks Before Christmas That's a tough Time to move If you're a Big time Holiday display Expert Despite the Challenges of a

[00:22:20] New home New school And a daughter Who seems to be Outgrowing their Cherished holiday Traditions He's determined To make the Season magical As Taylor Takes charge Of the town's Beloved Christmas Market revival Already Wow that's fast He finds himself Unexpectedly Partnered with Sophie Shaw A practical Uh oh Practical Accountant Hoping to prove She's ready She's practical Not one of those Devil May Care ones That's right

[00:22:49] Yeah the fly by night Just risk it all Put it all on black Spin the roulette wheel Accountant That's right A practical accountant Hoping to prove You found a practical One Good we need to Find one of those Crazy yeah Uh to prove She's ready for A new leadership Role Together the Unlikely duo Brings fresh ideas Festive spirit And plenty of Christmas cheer To the community But when Taylor's Well intentioned Efforts to help His teenage Daughter backfire He begins to

[00:23:18] Realize that Yuletide Can't be forced Great line Uh it has to be Discovered As Taylor and Sophie grow closer They learn that Embracing change May be the key To creating new Traditions And new memories Okay Okay Bride Guy Uh a big Penhead here Yeah huge Penpal You are For sure Penpal is even Better than Penhead Yeah I should change The book That this Unfortunately

[00:23:48] This seems like A little slower Oh no Oh no If Brian's Saying this Look out for Everybody else I'm trying to Hedge a little If you remember Last year He was in a Little bit of A slower movie That's true With the hospital The hospital And all the Babies being born I kind of liked Him in that role He was a good doc Uh This is really tough Because I want to Go to And I just feel Like that's just An insult I'm going to go Two and a half Eggnogs there And just hope For it to just Far exceed

[00:24:18] Hope for a Far exceed Yeah You know this is Interesting It is We We're starting Off with two In my opinion What could be Bangers Right And then you get To Sunday night First Sunday night Of the holiday season I love how you're Like the Opening movie About a party Planning At a ski lodge It's a foursome Brother It's a foursome With rich It's a foursome With rich Dan 12 year old Dan would be Losing his mind

[00:24:48] Right now No This one Does sound like A little bit Like a snoozer I saw foursome With rich Live though They were Pretty fantastic I'm also Like I am I love I love Brennan Penny And I love Pascal Hutton I don't know If I love Them together I'm willing Obviously I'm willing To watch it And give it A shot Obviously That's so kind Of you But We'll see What happens It's going To be A Hesitance Three right Down the middle Three right Down the middle

[00:25:18] Patrick So you guys Have to understand The Sunday night Movie is supposed To be very Relaxing It's supposed To get you Ready for the Week ahead You don't want To have the Sunday scary Are the Friday and Saturday Supposed to be Like cocaine Like they're All in the Same boat Sunday night Snoozer You guys watch These movies I don't know The Sunday night Snoozer makes A lot of sense Because you want To have a good Night's sleep As you head Into another

[00:25:48] Work show It's the AMSR Of Christmas Movies And the Sunday ones Are the ones I would actually Probably watch Like live I would actually Probably watch That live Because it's Sunday night I'm unwinding And this Pascal person You know I believe This is their First lead Is this true That's not true At all They've been In so many Movies But that's Interesting First lead

[00:26:18] Of a Hallmark Christmas movie Possibly Maybe That actually Might be true To me They don't Look familiar I see they've Done a lot Of Hallmark Stuff like Forever and Ever But I don't Remember them Being a lead In the movie Calls the Hearts And she's Had a little Mystery wheel Lee Lee I don't Think she's Been the lead She's in a lot Of these Movies But she's Not the lead In any of Them For the Christmas Movies So this is

[00:26:48] A big Deal for her Big deal For her She's getting That step Up to the Next level So for That alone And on a Sunday not Scary I'm gonna Give it A four Are you Willing to Put your Cream where Your mouth Is No I Want to Save that For something Else Because I Don't know Pascal Like that I mean Maybe we'll Become friends After Now that They're Leaving We're On the same Plane Now

[00:27:20] Jax I Adore Pascal Hutton I think She is Funny And charming And just A really Fantastic Actor And for That reason I'm giving 1.5 And they're All for her Baby girl And I wish Her well Jax is still Undefeated At being Honest With sounding Like she's Not Alonzo

[00:27:49] Yeah I mean Well okay For starters This is I'm seeing A picture of Brendan Penny Without glasses On and That is That is my Second favorite Brendan Penny Behind Brendan Penny with Glasses on And then I Was like okay So this is Directed by Peter Benson And I'm trying To get a feel For like Does that What is that Auger for This And I Can't I don't know How to read The tea leaves Here because On the one Hand in the Last couple Years he made The five year Christmas party Which I Liked Leah's perfect Gift which I Liked a lot More than Everybody in The chat Probably Christmas above

[00:28:19] The clouds Okay However He also Made a Royal Montana Christmas And one of The Danube Movies and Several of The recent Hannah Swenson Movies so Who knows So I'm a One on this I think Wow He's a great Actor too Like I enjoy When he's Part of the Mix Yeah He seems Like a Really nice Guy He's not

[00:28:49] Been on Our show Peter Listen Brennan Penny Pascal Hutton They've both Been on our Program And they're Wonderful Individuals This Sounds Really bad I'm not Even sure I like The pairing I like Both of Those people Are you Willing to Give it a Shot like I am I'm gonna Give it a Shot Because it's My job This movie From the Plot All the way Through the Leads Just feels Like it Doesn't Work At all

[00:29:19] Complaining Teen girl Drama This is Zero For me And it's A zero I gotta Stand on Business And the Business Is this Movie's Probably Gonna suck And if I'm wrong Look Even the People We don't Know who The teenage Girl is Yet What if It is Alex Messanek From When Calls The Heart I mean That would Help Eric Is There's A way That this Could Work That we Don't Know

[00:29:49] On the Page But Looking At it Even Patrick's Four Eggnog Preview The Defense Of It Was I like Movies That make Me Fall Asleep That was His Actual Patrick's Actual Reason For Giving This Four Five Is This Gonna Make Me Sleepy Okay So Like It's Not Out of Bounds For Me To Go Hey Maybe This Doesn't Really Line Up And You Know What Maybe It's A big Hit And I'm Wrong But This This Has Zero Written All Over Third Of The Weekend Too I'm Going to Already Be Mad So Third Of The Weekend Doesn't

[00:30:19] Happen All Right Let's Head Into Next Weekend For Our Friday Night movie Which Is Friday October 23rd That's Right Audrey Bell Is A Globe Trotting Pop Up Restaurant Tour Yes She Is

[00:30:50] Who Returns Home For Thanksgiving And That's Why We Put The Movie A Month Before To The News That Her Late Grandfather's Beloved Bowling Alley Wonder Lanes Will Be Sold Audrey Agrees To Stay For One Last Festive Season At Wonder Lanes And She Is Going To Give Up A Whole Holiday Season Of Restaurant Touring Glow Trotting Pop Up Restaurant Tour Anyways And Decides To Revive It's

[00:31:20] Iconic Winter Wunder Lanes Youth Bowling Tournaments To To To

[00:31:51] Drum and places that she loves, ellipses, and decides if she's ready to walk away from Wonder Lanes or finally put down roots where her heart truly belongs, which is tough to do when you're a traveling pop-up restaurateur. That's right. All righty. Let's share our thoughts, our predictions, our previews of this one. Braga! Yeah. Really intrigued by this one. We have not had a bowling movie to date,

[00:32:21] which this is history in the making, basically. Yeah. The one thing that kind of threw me is it's a youth bowling league, and I don't – why specify that? And it kind of made me wonder, is that going to bring it down a little bit versus like a full-on open-to-everybody bowling tournament? But I'm not going to let that hold me back from unleashing my first cream of the season on this movie. Oh! You're using a cream on the bowling movie? Guys, we've never had a bowling movie. We got sent bowling shirts.

[00:32:50] There's a bowling movie. It just is all lining up. It's all lining up. So I'm going four eggnogs and my cream. Can't wait for you to draft this at the marathon. So I've got to be honest, Braga. What did you do? What did you do? Four? Four and a cream. So I've got to be honest. I thought I was going to be alone in creaming this movie. But I am creaming this movie. Are you serious? I am creaming this movie. You only get eight of them, guys. I love this title. Yes. You're going to get out of here creaming like you're going to die tomorrow. This is crazy. We don't know, Dan. We don't know. We don't know. We don't know.

[00:33:19] We don't know. Man. Dude, you're going to die from holding your creams too long. What I'm going to do is. You don't use them, you lose them. I am going to go. Here's how I'll do it. I'll go three right down. Plus two. That makes it five. Thank you. I'll go three eggnogs right down the middle. Add the cream for me, which everyone knows for me means plus two. How everyone does it is different, but that's how I do it. So that's where I'm at.

[00:33:48] Patrick, can we make it a third cream? Cream bros. So you guys, this is what Hallmark should have been doing the whole time. You know, having the grandparent die instead of leaving you a cottage, leaving you another something. The possibilities are endless. Endless. And a bowling alley is just so ridiculous. I like literally laughed out loud. I love the trope of the high school boyfriend.

[00:34:18] Will they, won't they get back together? Not that I have dreams of my high school boyfriend showing up on my doorstep with roses and saying it was always you. It was always you. Name him, claim him, Patrick. Name him, claim him. No, no, no. No? Okay. No, no, no. He knows. He knows. Whose wife would be obsessed? Yeah. Exactly. Alonzo gets it.

[00:34:46] So, and Ashley Newburgh, Newburgh, Borough. Land the plane. Here we go. One more for the record. I hope she wears bows in her hair the whole movie like she always does. So I'm doing three and a half and a cream. What in the world is happening? Can we make it four, Jackie? Come on in. The water's fine and creamy. Come on. Ew. Sorry. Don't listen to that last part. Jax, don't debase yourself here with a cream.

[00:35:17] Oh, I'm afraid. I'm sorry that I will not be joining the cream team. No. Here's the thing. So I studied classical acting for my MFA. Okay. Let me tell you why I'm bringing this up. Let me tell you why I'm bringing this up. Anybody know anybody that studied classical acting for their MFA? Oh, we got one on the line. Oh my God. No, this is not meant to be a brag at all. Look, I'm on a podcast.

[00:35:47] Like I'm not, I'm not at the Royal Shakespeare Company. This is not meant to be a brag at all, but this is, this is why I'm thinking this. So for years, um, my grad school roommate and I would be like, yeah, we love Shakespeare. We love performing and we love watching it. And then like about a year ago, he looked at me and he was like, I think I just like doing it. I don't like watching it. And I am really realizing as we're looking at the slate for this season that I think it's fun. I want to be in Hallmark movies. I want to do them.

[00:36:15] I'm like not excited about a lot of these at all. And for me, this one is, I love Ashley Newborough. I feel a kinship to her because I love that. Like she will do any movie. And if I was offered any movie, I would also do any movie. Like I'm saying like game sees game. I would be working as much as her if they offered it to me. Like girl, you are going, I love you because you'll be in anything. I mean that with like, I mean that like I am a try hard. I would say yes as well.

[00:36:45] Like, I think she is in like, I think she's awesome. You respect the grind. I respect the grind. If I would do it, if they were offering it to me, but it's going to be a 1.5. I'm not at all excited about watching this even a little bit. Right. Dan. Okay. So here's the thing is we saw a Frank Lepresti movie with Alonzo about a time capsule that features Frank Lepresti playing a, of, of, of soldier who's come home. A troop. And he's wearing this jacket.

[00:37:12] Like he got it from the army Navy store, just like unbuttoned, like the whole movie to remind you he's a troop. But it features still to this day, the wildest kiss to end. Like it's probably the best TV movie Christmas kiss of all time. It's insane what's going on. And I think it's his real life wife or girlfriend. Like, I don't know how they made it to air. It's an insane kiss. Fascinating to see what kind of energy Mr. Lepresti brings to this project opposite Ashley

[00:37:39] Newbro, not opposite his current wife and his first time in the big show. I believe this is his first lead in a Hallmark Christmas movie. We've seen him a bunch on up and some other networks. Um, I don't know if this is the intimacy coordinator had their work cut out from that day. Dude, it's a crazy kiss. It's an insane kiss. They threw their clipboard in the air. And I swear to God, somebody said cut and neither of them heard him. They just kept, it was, it is something.

[00:38:08] Um, I, I don't know if this is the right vehicle, uh, for Franco Lepresti's entry into a Hallmark Christmas movies, Ashley Newbro, a veteran of the genre. This is a bowling alley movie. I don't know. I just, I don't, I can't, I can't imagine the excitement. I can't even, I'm trying to imagine putting myself in your shoes. I can't do it. I can't imagine being in your rented shoes. Ah, I can't imagine being excited about this movie. I just can't. Um, have you ever been bowling?

[00:38:37] I'm going to go a half a nog just because our boy Franco made, made the big show. Half a nog. Alonzo? Alonzo? Yeah, this is a tricky one. I, you know, I like Ashley Newbro a lot, but she has led me astray many times because as Jax points out, she'll be in anything. That's right. She'll be in Dickens of a Christmas, you know? So, uh, that plus the sound of pins falling over and over again, plus the fact that this

[00:39:04] is from the director of the Colorblind movie. Oh no! Yeah! Oh no! Can I take my half nog away? You guys feel good about all your scones? Did I double cream it? Cream out there everywhere, just strode about. He also did the, uh, Rosner, uh, weather snowflakes movie. Oh. Snowplow? Two of the unwrapping Christmases. This is zero. I'm changing mine to zero. It's a zero for me. Yeah, it's a zero. It's a zero for me too. I've just changed it to zero. This movie's clearly acquired, Brian.

[00:39:34] It's so evidently acquired, it's crazy. Good. This is an acquired Christmas movie by Hallmark. Good. Three of you creamed it. I say good. All right. Forgotten Holiday. This is starring Janelle Parrish and Daniel Lissing, and they're sleeping together in this picture. Oh my God. That picture is scandalous. Oh my goodness. What are we doing?

[00:39:59] Catherine Lou is an antiques buyer for her father's store and has been happily dating Rob Ashford for nearly a year. Wow. When he surprises her with a pre-Christmas proposal, uh, PCP. Mm-hmm. Yep. He surprised her with PCP? That's right. Doesn't she already have a primary care physician? That's crazy. It's a drug.

[00:40:22] Her fear of a failed relationship sends her dashing away without giving him an answer. Heartbroken, Rob drives to his sister's house and has a car accident. Oh my gosh. Because of the PCP. Because of the PCP, of course. That leaves him without memories of the past year, including his relationship with Catherine and his once infectious love of Christmas. My God. Dang it.

[00:40:52] Following the- Calm down over there, Brian. Following the unconventional orders from his doctor. What could that mean? It's just PCP. Yeah. Catherine agrees to help trigger Rob's memory by retracing their romance and reintroducing him to the holiday. She's going to 51st dates. 100%. Yeah. But as his memories inch closer to returning, Catherine must face the painful truth. That bringing Rob back to himself may mean losing him forever. So she kills him.

[00:41:21] I'm kidding about that last part. Unless she can finally find the courage to fight for the love she was too afraid to claim. All righty, folks. Boy, howdy. Bri guy! For me, I think I just realized during this synopsis, Brandon. For you, creams are plus two. For me, creams are fun. Fun time. Like zany. Creams are fun. For this one- It's a good way to treat it, bro. This is not- I'm not going to play around. This is five eggnogs. No cream.

[00:41:49] This is going to be the stars. The stars. The 51st. Dates of it all. 51st dates. Do we have any info on who directed or wrote this? I'd love to know. No. I can't find it. What a cool idea. What a casting. Very excited. Five eggnogs for me. Holding my cream, though, because that's for zaniness. Okay. Very good. You're just using creams for zany. Yeah. This is serious. That's fair. This is five gnolls. This is a weird thing. I've never heard you do literally in all the years you've been hosting. I just figured it out. I told you. Four years in, I just figured it out.

[00:42:18] We just figured it out what the cream's for. That's crazy. We all figure out our creams in different ways. In different ways, yeah. I am going- This is an easy five. This is an easy five. This is going to be the first instant classic of the season. I'm calling it right now. Write that down, somebody. This has instant classic written all over us. People, write that down. People. No pressure. I can't wait for this movie. Very excited about it. Patrick? So, correct me if I'm wrong.

[00:42:48] So, Janelle Parrish gets proposed to. She's like, I need to think about it. Or like, no. Yes. At the top. Is that what happens? That's correct. And then he gets in an accident, loses his memory, and she has to make him fall in love with her again so she can say no again? Maybe. Maybe. Well, it's not about getting him to fall. It's maybe if you hang out with someone you love- She's going to 50 first dates him. The memories will come back. Yeah. And make him- And he'll become his love of Christmas. Okay. Yes. But he'll still love her. It's a potential-

[00:43:18] I love that the bowling alley movie happened, and Patrick was like an easy cream. And then this movie happens, and he wants to poke holes in the plot. All right, professor. Professor, all of a sudden, memory loss is a problem for the bowling alley guy. Like, Sandra Bullock losing the memory with the guy, you know- No, no. While you were sleeping. That's problematic, but it's Sandra Bullock. This sounds problematic, and it's Janelle Parrish. Is Janelle Parrish Sandra Bullock? I don't know.

[00:43:48] She's the Sandra Bullock of Hallmark. Sure. All right. All right, fine. Great. Five. Five. Five. Five. He's convinced. Five. We did the work. We got there. Jack's yet to be impressed by a movie. Have we impressed her? Yeah, I'm excited about this. Here's the thing, you guys. I really don't like when they already know each other. I'm addicted to new relationship energy. It's a wonder I've been able to make my relationship with Alex laugh this long. All right. But- Going strong.

[00:44:18] But this is great because you get the benefits of like a mature love story in the sense that they have known each other for a year, which seems like a crazy amount of time to get engaged, but I digress. You get to fall in love all over again. I'm excited about this. These are two leads that are incredibly talented. I think it is going to be kind of zany and wacky, and because of that, I'm going to take on Brian's system for creaming, and I'm going to cream this one. All right. All right. Very good.

[00:44:47] How many nogs? Four. Four nogs. Four and a cream. That's a good rating. Fair enough. Fair enough. Alonzo? What's the one where the lady slips on the ice and loses her memory and goes back to the small town and doesn't realize that she dumped Andrew Walker? Oh, that movie we watched on a screener in the office. And Jack K is a brain surgeon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what happened. Yeah. Yeah. Christmas on my mind? Is that what it is?

[00:45:17] Yes, I believe you're correct. Christmas on my mind. Yeah, this is giving me vibes of that, and it's going to be Daniel listening wide-eyed going, but what is Christmas? Christmas. And I'm not here for any of this, so one knock. One. Yeah, I'm really excited about this movie, and I'm excited because Christmas on my mind is an absolutely terrible movie where she doesn't try to make him fall in love with her again. She's trying to get him to get his memory back. And that movie also- He's trying to get her to get him to get her back. Yeah, my bad. Yeah, switch it.

[00:45:47] Also, I believe that movie was a quite- It's a bad movie. I just remember it being a really bad movie. The 50 First Dates or The Notebook, like these movies that do this thing where they spend, you know, the majority of the movie trying to make someone remember, even if they're going to forget again the next day, is such a, like, undefeated trope, right?

[00:46:10] Like, these movies have lasted so long because it's impossible not to feel what these leads are doing. And these two leads are great. I'm really optimistic about this movie. I think Listing's great. I think Parrish is great. And I love this idea so much. I'm with Jax here. Four and a cream. Four and a cream. Four and a cream for me. There we go. I should point out 50 First Dates is one of the very few movies that I walked out of. Wow.

[00:46:40] You just said I can't even get to the end of this movie. I'm out of here. Yeah. Man, I'm not- Listen, 50 First Dates has its issues. I'm not saying it's an amazing movie. I know a lot of people love it. But walked out of Alonso. Sheesh. On about date six, I was like, oh, this is not getting any better. Wow. Wow. And Sandman hasn't recovered since. Oh, yeah. Sandman heard about it. We haven't spoken since. Or before. Or before.

[00:47:10] Let's take a break. We'll come back. We'll get to some more movies here on Deck the Hallmark. Whenever you're ready. You see me. You just push that button. You see me. I'm doing it. You see me. And then you push it. And we come back. There we go. I mean, you see me doing it. You see it. Racine Danish Kringle presents Deck the Hallmark. Produced by Brandon Gray. That's exactly right. It's great to be here today. We got more movies. Let's not delay. Let's get to it.

[00:47:38] Up next, we have What If Christmas? Starring Lori Loughlin and Tom Cavanaugh. Sounds like something you just say to me. A couple of siders deep. What if? In April. What if? Christmas. That's right. Yeah. Boy, what a pairing. Here we go. Erin has always supported. Erin. Erin. Erin. Has always supported her husband, Adam, a heart surgeon,

[00:48:07] by organizing the hospital's Christmas charity gala. She's always done this. Okay? She's known for it. She's always done this. She's always supported him. However, when he moves to a new hospital, her help is no longer needed. They don't do galas. Feeling lost and without a purpose back in New York City, her long suppressed regrets over giving up her dream of pursuing fashion design start bubbling up.

[00:48:32] When Erin is given a peculiar heart-shaped Christmas ornament, she wakes up in an alternate reality where she's a world-famous fashion designer. As she, quote-unquote, meets and attends Christmas events with alternate universes, Adam, she realizes that while her fashion dreams came true, it's lonely at the top. While working on a way to bring more charity and heart to her fashion empire,

[00:49:00] she learns that her dream life and love were always right in front of her. If only she finds the heart and courage to ask. It sounds like she should have just stayed supporting her husband and never tried to branch out and make a career for herself. That's exactly right, Dan. Thank you for saying that. Oh, is that out loud? She's going to learn the hard way here. Sheesh. Thank you, Dan, for putting Lori Loughlin in her place. All right. I mean, I would pay $300,000 minimum, I think, to see this movie.

[00:49:31] Brian? Yeah. This is worlds outside of Hallmark coming together for me in a way that I'm so excited about. Tom Cavanaugh, I've been a big fan for a long time. From what? First time, a long time. Love Monkey is one of my favorite shows where he played like a record A&R guy. One season only. Okay. One of those shows. Lori Loughlin, obviously, Full House, grew up on that. Obviously. So this is just phenomenal. So this is, for me, like, what more do I want, really, is what I'm asking myself. And why would I, I think I would regret, or even gret,

[00:50:00] not giving this five and a cream. You've lost your mind. Who are you? Yeah. What's zany about this? You said your creams are zany. Asterisk. This is just, how can I not? You just said your creams are zany. There's nothing less zany than this movie. We don't know that. It's zany. This is alternate universe. She could be having a fun time. We've seen this a thousand times. There are things about this that just, they go beyond zane. They go beyond zane. Yeah. This is beyond the zane. It's out of my hands. It's out of your hands. Five and a cream. Cream's out of his hands, guys.

[00:50:28] Very excited about this pairing. Intrigued enough by the setup here. I would, I think I, why not just try? Why not just try to be fashion designer now? Why go to alternate universe? I don't know. But why not try? So I am going to go three and a half. Three and a half. With this one.

[00:50:58] Based almost entirely off of this pairing. This pairing is dynamite. Patrick? So, you know, the Lori of it all. We're excited she's back, I guess. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. We're excited. These movies and fashion are always precarious. So we're going to get like a really like, like long, like chiffon, like flowy dress or something.

[00:51:28] And like a photo shoot. And they'll be in New York. So I don't, I can't do that. I can't do that. Like, no, I don't like that. I don't like it when it happens. There'll be a gay assistant and it won't be me. And I'll be very offended. So we're going to go to pepper and mocha. Patrick, you know, you do this thing on Instagram and it's a great follow. You should follow Patrick on Instagram where, where there's, when there's an award ceremony, you post pictures of all of the red carpet fits.

[00:51:58] And then you give people two options to vote. And one is kind of like, you know, sassy, sassy making fun of them. The other one's like, this is a really great outfit. But would you do that for the, any runway that we have in this movie? Could you do that for us? Maybe. Yeah. I mean, for sure. If they do a red carpet, like, yeah. If they do a red carpet, I'm down. Yeah. Heck yeah. What I love about those polls is how often I am on the wrong side of the vote. You voted. I've never voted.

[00:52:27] I vote every time. I know. You gotta vote. I gotta vote now. You gotta vote. Be the change you want to see. That's right. Rock the votes. Rock the votes. How quickly do you come up with those? Because they're all great. Oh, that's just what I'm doing. Like before the award show, I'm just watching E! They're very clever. You're a clever boy. Making little comments. And yeah, you know, my dream job would have been Us Weekly, those little like pop-ups. Like remember where they were? Like who wore it best? That should have been me.

[00:52:56] If they kept print media going, that would have been my job. If it was your alternate timeline movie, that would be your job. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Yes. Come back around. Aim high. It's lonely at the top making the captions in Us Weekly. That's right, buddy. Jax! So Dan said that we've seen this kind of thing like a thousand times. And he's right because this is just a reverse Christmas carol. That's all it is. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:53:23] And the thing is, Lori Loughlin and Tom Cavanaugh, this is going to be great. I'm excited to see her do this. I do find it, if we're really analyzing it through a feminist lens, that, you know, women are such caretakers and they put so much of their lives into other people, that it is interesting now that when she's going back and doing something for herself, we're going to see that like maybe it's not as fulfilling, which I'm all about human connection. So I get it. Love is the most important thing in the world. Yada, yada, yada.

[00:53:51] With all that being said, I'm going to give this a three and a half. Not because I'm so stoked about the premise and what it all says, but because I think Lori's going to be so great in this. And I think it's going to be very, very entertaining. All right. Very good. Three and a half for Jax. Alonzo? Yeah. I mean, really, it's a reverse The Family Man. That's right. You know, that's the thing we keep doing. And it works in The Family Man because Nicolas Cage is a dude.

[00:54:17] And, you know, Hallmark has a history of punishing women for their career aspirations. And so when they do it to Lacey, when they do it to Nikki DeLoach, and now they're doing it to Lori Loughlin, I'm not as into it. Like A Kiss Before Christmas, at least, it was James Denton. Denton, thank you, who had to make the tough choice there. So, yeah, that's, you know, and also why isn't she just doing the gala at the old hospital, even if he doesn't work there anymore? I know. Right?

[00:54:48] So, nonetheless, I will say, as much as I'm annoyed by much of the premise here, if anyone's going to make it work, it will be Back to the Beaches, Lori Loughlin, and Breakfast with Scott's Tom Cavanaugh. So, I'll say two nogs. There you go. Good calls there, Alonzo. Dan? Yeah, I can only hope against hope that this is not what it sounds like on paper. Like, we've seen, I believe, Dream of Christmas with Nikki DeLoach. And Andrew Walker.

[00:55:17] And we've seen The Family Man rip off with Lacey Chabert. And in these movies, when the women go into an alternate universe and they find themselves super successful at the cost of their love life, it's so incredibly infuriating for a number of reasons. And I'm hoping that what they're doing this year is they're showing you this on paper and they're going to twist it for us. But I don't have a lot of hope that that's the case. Here's what I will tell you.

[00:55:45] Lori Loughlin was in the Garage Sale Mystery, the new one we watched. She still got it. She's great. Super charming. Looks amazing. Acting through the roof. She still knows how to do this thing. And Tom Cavanaugh 100% still knows how to do this thing. So those two on screen together versus my least favorite plot, Woman Dreams of Sliding Door Universe, where she can be successful but lose the love of her life, has got to be the worst plot. So that's where I am.

[00:56:14] But these two leads are great. One and a half knocks. Fair enough, I guess. Okay, that gets us to our next movie, our next weekend, which is Halloween weekend. This is Friday, October 30th. Who's coming for Christmas? Okay, okay. I'm asking. I'm asking. I'll tell you who's coming. It's Rhiannon Fish, Jake Foy, and Mila Morgan. Mila Morgan, yes.

[00:56:43] Easy for you to say, yeah. Having recently relocated, Julie is setting up her new home using pieces she inherited from her late grandmother, including a beautiful dining room table she plans to use on Christmas Eve when she hosts dinner for the first time. Though she doesn't have her guest list set just yet, Julie takes inspiration from her grandmother and has faith that her holiday table for eight will be filled.

[00:57:12] This is so long just to say such a simple thing. Okay, Julie's warm, friendly nature leads her to quickly become part of the community and make friends, including her neighbor, Mark, and his young daughter, Vanessa. Mark suggests that he and his family could join her, making Julie's dream of a dinner for eight come true. What a great dream. But when bad weather keeps them from making the trip, how far away are they? Next door.

[00:57:42] It looks like it will be silent. What do we like? It looks like it will be silent. Is this the whole movie? I think the other five people are having a hard time with the weather. Oh, okay. It looks like a silent night for just the three of them unless a small Christmas miracle. Or, can I get too much to ask for a series of miracles here, okay? We'll take one small miracle, we'll take a series of them. Doesn't matter to me either way. Either one will fill her holiday table. This is one of the worst written synopsis.

[00:58:12] That's the whole movie. This is possibly the worst synopsis I've ever seen. It's real bad. Brian. Yeah. Oh, man. Weather looks fine in that picture. It looks good. Weather does look good there. Doesn't even look cold. Is that post-storm, you think? Could be. I go and pray. Hey. Man, it is a lot of words for saying she's going to have a Christmas dinner. Yeah. And people might not get there because of the weather. Man, I don't know.

[00:58:38] The only thing for this that could save it for me is if we got like a nice, fun, zany weatherman or weather gal who is like threatening the storm coming. Ted Cooper? Yeah. I can imagine that. But I don't know. This doesn't seem like much. So two eggnogs for the fish. Wow. A devastating rating from Brian. Wow. So we love the fish. We love the fish. Fish was in the worst Hallmark Christmas movie of the season last year. So you're thinking, Brian.

[00:59:05] I'm worried we're going to get back-to-back Christmas duds from the fish. But this synopsis is awful. This table better be freaking amazing. So cool. Can you imagine if it just is a standard IKEA table? And we're like, all these words for an IKEA? Should be a Chippendale walnut veneer. This table better be phenomenal. But I don't have a picture of the table.

[00:59:33] I'm going two. Oh, my God. Brian and Brian with twos? Going two. Your movie is going to suck. Oh, my goodness. Patrick, are you coming to the table? I'll be at the table. I always leave a room for me at the table. Absolutely. I love to eat. Okay. So this movie is going to have a lot of montages. Cooking montage. Setting table montage. Vacuuming montage. Vacuuming montage. There's going to be a lot of montages.

[01:00:02] And I like those when I'm writing my synopses because it helps me catch up because, you know, I'm writing them while I'm watching. So for that, I'll give it a one and a half. Wow. Very good. I'll take that. Jax? Um. Yes. This sounds frightfully boring. But what I do want to say. It's not even a Sunday movie. It's a Friday night. It's a Friday night right before Halloween, which means I'm definitely not watching this. Sure.

[01:00:32] Come on. I love Halloween. So Jake Foy is great. We know we love the fish. And Mila Morgan plays Bethany Joy Lentz's daughter in Hope Valley. Mm-hmm. Yeah. He's a really great actor. Okay. So I'm going to give this a two because I'm almost hoping in a weird way for this to be like one of those like kitchen sink dramas where it's mainly just like the three of them in this like closed room thing. And they're just good actors. Like maybe that's just what's going to happen.

[01:01:02] And but woof, woof, woof. It sounds so boring. I can't get over. This is devastating. I hope no one that's made this movie is listening. It is. I mean, and all you have left is Alonzo and me. I can't get over the Christmas miracle or a series of miracles. Or a series of miracles. Or a series. We're not going to tell you. As they do. Yeah. Alonzo. I'm a little optimistic here actually.

[01:01:31] Because here's the thing. I've never put on a Christmas carnival. I've never organized a big holiday party, but I've had my share of Christmas dinners. You have a great table too. A great table. It is from Ikea, but you know, it does what it needs to do. It keeps people's food off the floor. Yes. No. I find the stakes here a little more relatable than the usual thing. And I do like the two leads quite a bit.

[01:01:58] So I'm going to hope that what we're mad at is the copywriter at Hallmark who gave us some really tortured syntax here and not pin that on the movie. So I'm going to somewhat optimistically say Three Nogs. Wow. Optimistic Three Nogger. Wow. That's so cool. I like that. Dano? This is zero for me. I don't know. Guys, I love Rhiannon Fish. She's a delight. She's wonderful.

[01:02:27] The Christmas Cup last year was soul crushing. It was soul crushing. Between the Christmas Cup last year and this synopsis, I fear the absolute worst. And I want to be wrong. And I feel like if I put a zero out there, I'd rather be wrong than get any hopes up about this movie whatsoever because it sounds on paper like the worst of the season. So I'm going to go with that and we're going to go zero.

[01:02:56] And that's going to be easily our lowest rated movie so far. That gets us to Halloween. What spooky surprise does Hallmark have for us? This is Adopting Saint Nick, October 31st, 8 p.m. You know, go trick or treating. Come back. Steal your kid's candy. Put on Adopting Saint Nick. Starring Amy Groening and Michael Rady. The return of the Rady. Return of the Mike.

[01:03:27] Maren is a busy single mother to her adopted daughter, Leia. Princess Leia. Yeah, Princess Leia, actually. As the owner of her late father's beloved hardware store, Maren is often found helping repair just about anything for her fellow locals. For her fellow locals. Man, that's tough for me back to back. It is.

[01:03:54] Leaving very little time for herself when the opportunity to participate in the Christmas Companions program. Jolly Acres. You know the one. Jolly Acres. Thanks, Dad. A new yet thriving retirement community in town. Yet thriving? Are most new retirement homes? Well, it's new. A new yet thriving. Don't let the newness. I think I may have written some of these guys. I got to be honest. Leia excitedly jumps at the chance as she misses having a grandfather in her life.

[01:04:24] That's sad. Much to Leia's delight, she is paired with Chris. Oh, you mean Randy Apostle? I do mean Randy. The Apostle? Amen. A jolly resident who bears an uncanny resemblance to Santa Claus. Oh, my God. Okay? While there, Merit crosses path with the nomadic reet. Boo. The center's director of community launch and operations.

[01:04:54] We got his whole title? That's nuts, dude. Whose job has him traveling from facility to facility to launch new branches. What if he's the director of community launch? That doesn't make any sense. What about director of community operations? That's too little. What if he's community launch and operations? Now we got some. Now you're talking. Yeah. That's right. Here we go. The Christmas companions program is soon jeopardized when the contractor for the center's community

[01:05:23] room suddenly pulls out. Seeing how much joy the program brings Leia and Chris, the always helpful Maren offers to help finish the project. As she spends more time at the center with Reed, Maren slowly realizes it's okay to let others in, accept help, and stop shouldering the entire load. Reed starts questioning whether to accept the next assignment, which will take him far away from the people and the center that have begun to feel like home.

[01:05:50] With the help of some Christmas magic and a little assist from Chris. Randy Apostle, shout out. Everyone finds where they belong. What a mess. Happy Halloween, Brian. Man. So is this an addition on the brand new retirement community? It is a new branch. It's a new yet already thriving. Right. But they're already having to work on it? Are they doing improvement? I'm kind of hung up on why they need a contractor. I think it's still new. But it's already thriving.

[01:06:20] But it's already thriving. So it should be brand new. It's new, but some of the rooms aren't. They let everybody open it early. They opened it early. Before they finished it? Because the rooms are available. Well, it's just the fun room that's not done yet. That seems like the most important part. I don't know. All right, Brian. The leads get one eggnog each. And I'm just really hung up on why this brand new place needs construction. No, I think we all are.

[01:06:46] So I'm going to go two and a half eggnogs and just really hope they finish. Pass for the apostle. Pass for the apostle and construction job. I love Michael Rady so much. I am so happy to see him in another Christmas movie. And so Rady pulls five eggnogs on his own. Are you joking just because he's in the movie? That's exactly right. Yeah, that makes sense. Crazy. What a crazy take. Patrick? I think this synopsis melts in my brain.

[01:07:17] Yep. And we knew there wasn't much there to begin with. So that's bad. This is bad. I thought this was going to be about adoption. Right? Didn't we? What's the title? Like adopt? Adopting Nick and then her daughter is adopted. And I think what happens here is. It's like an adopt a grandpa kind of thing. Yeah, they adopt a grandpa whose name is Chris Randy Apostle who might be the real Saint Nick. Got it. I hate that.

[01:07:46] Zero. Zero. Same. Yeah. Yep. Hate it zero. Jax? Okay, you guys. This is probably the movie with the absolute cutest cast. Okay, we have Amy. We have Michael. I'm sorry. Take a look at this little angel, Taylor Blake. I don't know if you can see her. But she is darling. And she was in Making a List and she was so good in that. Her with things with Randy Apostle? The Randy Apostle?

[01:08:15] Who apparently, his credits are interesting. There was, yeah. There was something called like, he's known for Heaven is for Real and an awkward sexual adventure. Starring Randy Apostle. What a range. Yeah. What a range. What a range. Sometimes you get Apostle, sometimes you get Randy. I wonder what picture this movie is for. Whoa, is he playing Mitch McConnell there? Yeah.

[01:08:46] That's more work than Mitch McConnell's done in years. Yeah, that's true. RIP, obviously. Obviously. He's calling it. Yeah. I will say that because of that and also because of, I want to be working well into my elderly years as an actor. And I'm glad that this is like an old folks home. Let's give people some jobs. So, this is actually going to get a four for me. Wow. All right.

[01:09:16] Very good. Let's do Alonzo. Well, I love the fact that the IMDb page has two pictures of Nikki DeLoach and some guy. I assume at some point that will get corrected along the way. You know, look. Sure. Are there some issues with the premise? Maybe. But it's Michael Rady. It's Amy Groening. Amy Groening reuniting with her Santa Summit director, by the way. Okay. So, four and a half and a cream. Sorry. Who is that, Alonzo?

[01:09:43] It is Jeff Beasley. Oh! Did you say four and a half and a cream? I said four and a half and a cream. Wow. Wowzers. Yeah. So, I love Amy Groening. And I love Michael Rady. And I love a magical Santa Claus usually. I think those three things really work. Everything else that was written on that page, I hate so much. So, so very much. Including describing this woman's daughter as her adopted daughter.

[01:10:13] I know adopting is in the title. Stop it. Write better. Do one pass. The thing is new. But they need a contractor. I don't understand it. I hate everything about what I read on the page. I love everything about the people that are in this movie. Aside from Randy Apostle, the jury's still out on him. I can't say that. Strong name, though. Strong name. Thrilled Rady's back. Give me two. Okay. All right. Shall we do one more and then take a break? You want to do that? Let's do it.

[01:10:41] So, let's do that Sunday night movie. Sunday snoozer. Sunday snoozer. The old classic Sunday snoozer. Patrick's favorites. Yeah. Let's see what we got here. My favorite. We have no. Oh, we're going into November next. You know what? Let's take a break. Let's take a break. Let's take a break. We'll come back. We'll do four movies in November and then call it a day. I love it. All right. We'll be right back here on Deck the Hallmark. We saw you pressing. Yeah. Oh, my God.

[01:11:13] Welcome back, everybody. It's great to be here today. We're talking about some Hallmark Christmas movies. We are heading into November. Let's see that Sunday night movie. It's going to be a Danish Christmas. Oh, boy. Wow. They are killing you with the synopses this year, Brian. Yeah, I know. Starring one Amelia Ullara. She's back. And Corey Sevier. We just saw him. Yeah, we did.

[01:11:42] Marie is a hotel tech executive. What does that mean? Well, I'm sorry. You threw tech in there and it kind of got me. A hotel tech executive. A reservation system. Okay. Thank you, Alonso. So you always help me understand. Living in Chicago. Chicago getting a lot of play this year. Who returns home to Copenhagen to spend the holidays with her family and put herself to work at their end.

[01:12:06] When Ryan Miller checks in, a case of mistaken identity leads Marie to believe he's a travel writer. Classic. She sets out to make sure that his stay is perfect, which includes the Christmas tour Ryan's expecting. But the Adderson Inn. Anderson. Anderson. Yeah, what did I say? Adderson. I'm going to go with that. Hasn't offered it since her father passed. So she scrambles to cobble together an itinerary meant to impress. Yes.

[01:12:36] When Marie's mom tells her she plans to sell the inn after the new year, Marie becomes doubly determined to make Ryan's visit a success. A positive story could boost business and convince her mom to keep the inn. Has nothing to do with wanting to get more money for the inn. No. She wasn't trying to keep the inn. No, no, of course not. Marie escorts Ryan on a carefully curated tour of Copenhagen and pulls out all the stops to create... Hike? I stopped.

[01:13:07] Hike. Hike. Hike. Hike. Hike. Hike. Hike. Hike. Hike. It's like a relaxing scene. Hike. It's the opposite of Hike. Some Coast Guard folks make it up for you. Scandinavian coziness. Hike. Thank you. Though both efforts end in the same festive fiascos, who wrote that despite the mishaps, the two forge a connection that may be more than just innkeepers and tourists.

[01:13:37] When Ryan Miller, the journalist, arrives, they realize their mistakes. Why are you telling me all of this? Stop talking. Sending Marie into overdrive to ensure he experiences the perfect Danish Christmas. In the process, Marie learns that warmth, connection, and possibly romance happen naturally and can't be created. I swear that they're having AI write these. This is too much information.

[01:14:02] And every single one of them in the last two sentences does a pause and goes, and maybe, or and a series of miracles. Could be. Guys, we don't need it. It's a five-star Christmas, but in Copenhagen. That's what we're doing. Like, no more. Stop it. I like it. Brageye? I'm just looking at pictures of Copenhagen during Christmas time, and I couldn't be more excited about this.

[01:14:29] If all they do is drone shots of the city at Christmas and the markets and the snow, it's going to be phenomenal. The stars are a bonus. So this is four eggnogs for me. Four eggnogs. I love that Amelia Ullerup is back. I am excited to see Copenhagen for Christmas. I'm looking at the same pictures that Brian is because I'm sneaking on his phone right now, taking a quick peek. I'm excited about this. I'm going to go four and a cream for this one.

[01:14:59] All right. Cream in Copenhagen. There you are. Not the first, not the last. Brian had a nickel. Patrick, what do you think? So I like the mistaken guest idea. Like, we're thinking he's a writer. So I hope that – I don't know how to say this guy's last name. The Corey guy. However you say his last name. Thank you. I hope he has, like, a notebook and, like, a pad, and he's, like, writing all the time.

[01:15:28] And, you know, he's typing on his laptop. And he's like, but I'm not a writer. I'm not a writer, though. Why did you think that the whole time? So that would be funny. I don't know, though. I don't know, guys. I think I'm going to go three. I'm mid on this one. He's mid on it. Jax. I love to be cozy. Hygge. Hygge. Hygge. Hygge. Hygge. I love to be cozy. And because of that, I'm giving this two and a half.

[01:15:58] Yeah, I think hot chocolate under a blanket. Not particularly excited about the story, but that's okay. Right. Copenhagen, though. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's why it gets two and a half. It's like, I'm not really intrigued by this premise at all. But Copenhagen and coziness gets a two and a half, which I think is pretty good. They don't call it the cozy Copenhagen for nothing. You know what I mean? That's right. But Alonzo.

[01:16:27] Yeah. I love Hygge. I loved the Norwegian holiday movie a couple years ago that The Fish did. I love these two leads. It's from the director of Christmas in Pemberley Manor and Christmas at Reindeer Lodge. Woo! What a double fitch! It is also from the writer of The Ranch movie with, you know, Hannah Swenson, lady. Oh, yeah. You creamed it, Brian.

[01:16:56] So there's a lot happening here. Quit it with your data. I don't need it. In the sense of an office is the same dumbass. The facts don't care about your feelings, Brian. So I'm a two and a half right down the middle. Fair enough. Not quite down the middle. It is right down the middle. Thank you, Alonzo, for providing some sort of integrity to the proceedings. I will say this. Before I heard the writing thing, like that writing thing hurt. It hurt deep in your heart. And you know it. I know it. We both know it.

[01:17:25] That Ranch movie is like one of the worst we've ever seen. I love Amelia Ullerup, and she is Danish, and she gets to play Danish. I'm sure that is going to be a blast for her. She's a great Danish. She's a great Danish. A great Danish. But also, the first time we interviewed her, she was so good playing an American, we didn't know she was Danish. That's how good of an actor she is. So for her to get the opportunity to go back to her home country, I think, means something.

[01:17:52] I think these two could be a great pairing. I think Copenhagen could look beautiful. But I just heard that the Romance Ranch movie writer is the writer of this movie, and I can't. It's a hurdle that I... It's the Giddy Up Gala. I cannot clear that. It is just in defense of writers. Thank you. You don't know what the Hallmark execs do to the movie. This is true. It's possible the execs came up with the Giddy Up Gala. That could not have been... I am going to go one and a half. Okay. Wow.

[01:18:22] Because that's what I'm going to do. One and a half. Okay. Yeah. That was a lot to take in there for that movie. It was a wild journey. Okay. Let's get to... Let's do one more weekend here. Let's head to November 6th. November 6th. This is Merry Memories. It's starring Linda and Brendan Morgan. Again, Michaela is a rigid accountant. Finally.

[01:18:51] Who steps in to help her brother... As opposed to a practical one. You know what I mean? Right. It's practical. There's rigid. Never the... You get it. Who steps in to help her brother care for his young son, Danny. Oh. He's adopted, by the way. Adopted. While Danny's military mom is deployed over... True movie! We have troops. When Danny is assigned to create a holiday scrapbook for his mom, Michaela reluctantly accepts

[01:19:21] help from his free-spirited substitute teacher, Brian. With a Y. It's a different Brian, yeah. Whose creativity clashes with her need for preciseness and control. She is a rigid accountant. What? After all. As they set out to capture festive moments for the scrapbook, unexpected mishaps turn into meaningful traditions. As they often do. And sparks begin to fly.

[01:19:52] Through Danny's project, Michaela learns to embrace imperfection and open her heart. While Brian rethinks his future as a traveling substitute teacher. I know we all know that these movies all end the same way, but it's crazy to me how much they're giving us in these synopses. And then the traveling substitute teacher, also insanity. Traveling substitute teacher. Wow. And you know the mom's going to come home. You just know. Yeah, I hope so. I go town to town and I do substitute teaching gigs.

[01:20:22] But I'm like... It's like traveling down to town to open up old folks' homes or traveling town to town to do pop-ups. Pop-up restaurant tours. The thing about him is he's free-spirited. Right. He's a free-spirited substitute. So he has to travel or else he'd be, you know... Suitcases are the new careers for Hallmark movies. They're telling you that you don't want them. That's right. All right, Brian, you're in this movie. Well, your name is... My name's Jake.

[01:20:50] Yeah, I've been known to be a bit of a free spirit myself. Oh, for sure. Yeah. You're not rigid. I don't... Yeah. Real Zorb of the Greek there. I don't think a substitute can travel that far as a teacher. No, it's substitute teaching is not even... You couldn't even make ends meet. Yeah, and I don't think we're going to be traveling far there. Yeah, I don't know. Not a lot. I mean, Lindora is exciting. Good for Lindora getting this role. That's exciting. We're psyched about that.

[01:21:18] So I'm going to go two and a half nogs on this one and hopefully... Right down the middle. All right. Well, close. Not quite. Yeah, I wrestle with this because I'm really excited about that. I'm really excited about Lindora and this lead. Less excited about the movie. I'm going to go three right down the middle. Patrick? I'm predicting this is going to be the most iconic substitute teacher since Dorothy Spornak.

[01:21:42] So we're very excited for a substitute teacher representation, especially a male substitute teacher. Way to subvert expectations. Teachers are not always women. But we are not living in the... We were sick of women getting all the jobs. That's right. Yeah, it's about time. We're watching a movie today. Right, right. So I think for me, I'm going to go three and a half.

[01:22:10] I think this is going to be surprising everybody and be good. Okay. Okay. Very good. Jax? As you were reading the synopsis, I was just staring at the photo and I was like, don't listen to the synopsis. And I was picturing what a trailer would look like in my head. And I'm still looking at Lindora's smile. I'm looking at these two cutie pies. Look at that cute kid. Yeah. They're smiling. I'm talking about holy cuteness, just like Amy and Michael Brady and Taylor Blake. Like, look at them. They are so cute.

[01:22:39] I'm actually going to give this a three and a half because I actually think these synopsis, these synopsis, are starting to really mess with my brain and not be excited. And I'm super excited for Lindora, but honestly, like, I think it's really messing me up. So I'm going to go with three and a half because I'm optimistic and I'm not going to, from here on out, I'm not going to let these AIs affect me. Wait, you know what?

[01:23:08] Good for you, Jax. Good for you. Thank you. Alonzo? Resist the hype machine. Sorry, what? Alonzo? Well, I'm going to say two, one for Lindora as a rigid accountant and one for that adorable sweater that the kid is wearing. I mean, little teddy bear sweater. Come on. You kidding me right now? I want that sweater. I want that sweater so bad. Yeah. Dan? Yeah.

[01:23:32] So I can't believe that the Up TV film Christmas time capsule is getting as much play as it's getting this week on the preview episode for Hallmark. Franco Lopresti and that kiss is in that movie. Also, the third, like three on the call sheet in that movie is Lindora. And when we saw Lindora in that performance, I was like, when does Lindora get a lead in a Hallmark movie? And now, Lindora is a lead in a Hallmark Christmas movie and that's wonderful. The rest of this sounds like trash. One for Lindora. Fair enough. All right.

[01:24:02] That gets us to our final synopsis for... No, we have two more. Two more. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Up next, we have the Saturday, November 7th movie Holiday Unplugged starring Nikki DeLoch and Juan Pablo DePace. DePace. DePace. Yes. Sally. An art teacher. Oh, a teacher again, huh? It's teacher weekend.

[01:24:31] God, this barely fits on the screen. Yeah, this is humongous. Here we go. I'm going to speedrun it. Has spent the last 10 years honoring the memory of her late husband, Jake. It's a long time. While raising their children, Keegan and Boo. Should have been a Halloween movie. Feeling like she's finally ready to love. For love, even. She joins a dating app and is matched with Damon, her former colleague who taught her kids kindergarten class. More male teachers.

[01:24:57] Jake has co-founded a web platform that preserved family home videos. It did one time, but it doesn't anymore. When a server migration wipes out Sally's treasured videos of him and her phone containing backup copies accidentally shattered. That is a tough back-to-back. The only hope is finding the original tapes. She doesn't want Keegan and Boo to know about the missing videos, so to buy time until

[01:25:27] they are recovered, Sally institutes a screen-free Christmas for her family while secretly searching for the tapes. After she connects with Damon at his uncle's antique store, duh, he joins the hunt and the two grow closer. Keegan and Boo soon discover the joys of unplugging and spending quality time with their grandparents who also come around and embrace the experiment after begrudgingly agreeing. The grandparents are all into the screens.

[01:25:56] They're like, we don't want to give more screens. I can't believe we've got to do this nonsense. I love a screen. With every lead exhausted, Sally is forced to admit the videos may be gone forever. As the fate of the tapes is in flux, the family learns the importance of cherishing old memories and creating new ones. Why? It's just too much. It's too much info. Brian? Mom's come up with the best ideas. Like, the best solutions. So, she's got a vamp because they lost the footage. I get it, yeah. So, she's like, no screens, kids.

[01:26:26] Isn't this going to be fun? Like, if this happened to me, I'd be like, kids, we lost everything. Yeah. Oh, you just be honest with your kids? It's ruined. Everything's gone. We'll never see them again. And she's like, guys, what if? It's like, well, my wife does this. We don't have chicken nuggets. What if we... And I'm like, why don't we just tell them we don't have chicken nuggets? And like, I can't... I don't operate like this, so I'm good for her. I don't... What you've said in the last 30 seconds or so. I'm saying, give it up for the moms is what I'm saying. Great, great job.

[01:26:55] This is a great distraction job. Three eggnogs from me. Great distraction job. I am... We're out of chicken nuggets. I'm into this pairing. I'm into this idea in a general sense. There's too many details in here. In a general sense, I am going... How many creams have I used? Two. You've already used two of your creams. I'll go four in a cream.

[01:27:24] I'll go four in a cream. Yeah, you will. Yeah. I feel really good about this. Rady shows up in a movie, gets five automatically. Nikki Deloach is in a movie. No. But four in a cream. Gets it to six, which is more than a five. That's true. But thank you for calling that out. Stupid. So that I can explain how I got there. Patrick? I think this is tapping into a lot of fears that a lot of the watchers have of the Hallmark movies.

[01:27:50] You know, losing the cloud is like the worst thing that could happen to a millennial mom or a boomer grandparent. That would be the worst thing ever. So this could easily be a horror movie. It could easily be terrifying, terrible. But how you spin it. It's all about how you spin it. Right? So that's a good life lesson. So I think this is going to be a four for positive thinking.

[01:28:20] Four for positive thinking. There we go. Nice. Jax? Positive thinking about this one? That's what I was trying to say. A little bit. Yeah, I am. I am. Because look, don't hold it against her. But this cutie, Remy, was in A Royal Montana Christmas. How cute is she? Yeah. She wore a little cowboy hat. Looks like it. Yeah. And she's holding a little T.Y. Meany baby. No, but maybe in her next one. You got to start him young. Tobacco?

[01:28:49] You got to start him young in this business, God. That's exactly right. I'm going to give it a three and a half. I do, when I watch these movies, I love to cry. I probably cry every day over something that has moved me or saddened me or just made me feel deeply. But I don't actually really want to watch the Hallmark movies to cry. And I have a feeling this one will be a tearjerker. So for me, it's maybe not the feeling that I want to get when I'm watching a Hallmark movie.

[01:29:19] But I know that it will nonetheless be an excellent movie. So I'm giving it a three and a half. You and Bill Abbott agree on that. A lot so. Yeah, I love a tearjerker with Nicky DeLoach if it's done right. Okay, this movie for me has a lot going for it. First of all, Nicky DeLoach, of course, our queen. Juan Pablo de Pache, very talented.

[01:29:42] I did a really terrific, I think, Paramount movie with Peter Porte and Andy McDowell called Dashing in December. That I wish we could have done on Festive Fridays. But it's probably past its shelf life at this point. Right. This is a movie that is all about physical media that you cannot trust. That's true. The digital universe. You need to have those tapes or those discs or whatever.

[01:30:07] You know, I think for a long time, these movies, the vicarious thing that older people watching Hallmark movies was, oh, yes, my kid is going to move home. You know, my daughter, my son is going to move back from the big city to the town. They're going to marry their high school sweetheart. And my grandkids are going to be around. And the fantasy this movie is selling is they're going to put down their GD screens and we're going to do something together as a family and make eye contact. And so this is the first time that particular old person fantasy is being sold to us.

[01:30:36] And so I think it's a cool idea. And finally, this is written by Zach Hug. Oh. It changes everything. Oh, love. Oh, my goodness. You could be with that, Hallmark. Not to bury the lead. So I am saying four and a half and a cream. Alonzo out here just creaming away. I mean, that's three creams already used. Man, Alonzo, we're excited. We're simple boys, Alonzo and I. We see Christmas and we start creaming. Dana? All right, clip it.

[01:31:07] So written by Zach Hug is a big deal for sure. Definitely. That's our boy from Ghost of Christmas Always. Of course. I mean, maybe the best Hallmark Christmas movie ever. So that matters. The other thing that matters is while I don't think this has a lot going for it, I do think it has Nikki Deloach going for it. And we have a lot of friends that act on Hallmark. And some of them know when they're in a bad Hallmark movie and they just do that until they're in a better one.

[01:31:31] And others tend to find a way, especially emotionally, to elevate material that really shouldn't work. And that is our dear friend Nikki Deloach, who when she's in a great movie, she makes it even better. And when she's in a bad one, she makes it passable. That dumb home turf movie. You guys were fooled into liking that movie on her performance alone because that movie sucks. But she is great in it. This movie, written by Zach Hug, helps a ton. So I know that the material is competent.

[01:32:01] And then you have Nikki Deloach. I think those two things matter a great deal. Two and a half, two and a half nogs down the middle. Creamy? No. No. No. All right. Let's do one more and then call it a day here. This is our Sunday, November 8th movie. A season for of promises. A season of promises. This is starring Brooke Dorsey, Ali Lieber. James Ditton is going to pop up in this one as well.

[01:32:30] Heidi and Sophie are sisters who couldn't be more different. Heidi is buttoned up and laser focused on landing the play-by-play job for the local pro hockey team. Different than an accountant altogether. While Sophie is following her dream of making it in stand-up comedy while waitressing. Through a years ago rift following their mother's passing has... Though. Though. Thank you.

[01:33:00] Thank you, Alonzo. Though a years ago rift following their mother's passing has pulled the sisters apart, what they do share is a deep love for their father, Ed. When a fainting episode... We'll just wait until the next episode. ...lands Ed in the hospital, Heidi and Sophie rush to his side. Hating seeing their father in that state and still alone four years after losing their mother,

[01:33:29] the sisters... God, is he a pariah? They're making him sound like the worst. It's just four years. The sisters decide to set aside their differences and team up to play Cupid at Christmas. Should have been the title of the movie. Yeah. As Heidi and Sophie work together to prepare Ed for the dating world in hope that he'll find someone special in time for the holiday, they each go on their own journey that brings them unexpected joy, love, and peace for Christmas.

[01:34:00] Brian! Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Really psyched about these jobs, these careers that they're pursuing. I hope we get a lot of them at work because hockey and... I think we'll get one scene each, brother. Yeah, one scene each, Max. Stand-up comedy. This would be a lot of fun. Yeah, I'm afraid of that, that we won't get a lot of that, and that would take it down a peg for me, but I'm going to go three right down the middle on this one. Seems like a fun cast and a fun idea for the most part. A great cast. I love these two as sisters.

[01:34:30] I think it's going to be a ton of fun. I hope that a majority of this movie is these two sisters together, and it does talk about branching out into their own little things. I hope that doesn't become the majority of this movie because I think these two together, it's going to be dynamite, so we'll see what happens. No, you said it. That sound, you know what that means. You know what that means. Everybody knows. Everybody knows. It's time for the lightning round. Sorry, so I'm going to go three right down the middle. Patrick. Patrick.

[01:34:59] If you know me, you know I love safety and fainting. Fainting. If you faint, you are supposed to go to the ER. Even if you wake up and you feel better, even if your bodice is too tight and you can't breathe and you faint on the fainting chair or whatever it is, lounge, thank you, go to the ER, please. Isn't that what happened to Richard Simmons? He fainted. On the fainting lounge?

[01:35:29] He fainted and then a couple days later, he died because he didn't go to the hospital. Why am I making that up? He didn't go to the hospital. Yeah. That's right. I mean, I believe you. So if this movie is not what people say for. He's like, yep, that's what happened. He did. He hit his head in his bedroom, I think, or bathroom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yes, for safety's sake, this gets a five. For safety's sake. We do call you safety Pat. Call him safety Pat around here. The rest of us don't care about safety, but Patrick loves to be safe.

[01:35:58] Jax, you notoriously hate safety. That's right. What do you think about this movie? Sisters, Allie Liebert as a stand-up comedian, women being one and two on the call sheet. That's right. This would be a five and a cream from me. Boom! First cream of the season, Jax. No, it isn't. No, it's not? No, she had worn a forgotten holiday. I just screamed something else. Forgotten holiday. Second cream of the season, Jax. That's right. Second cream of the season. Second cream for these two ladies, especially Allie Liebert. Absolutely.

[01:36:28] Alonzo? I do like Allie Liebert a lot, but with the exception, I think, of Obvious Child with... Jenny Slate? Jenny Slate. Stand-up comedy in movies is never fun. Very tough. Ever. Like, I have seen so many movies about stand-up comics, even starring stand-up comics, and their actual comedy in the movie is never funny. What about Maisel? Well, Mrs. Maisel. That's TV. Okay.

[01:36:57] In movies. Okay. You know, and maybe Is This Thing On had some that were good, but for the most part, this is a really tough road to hoe. Someone is scripting stand-up bits, and they just come out awkwardly, and this is going to be scripted Hallmark-approved comedy bits. So I just... I'm already dreading that. I'm dreading the fact that this should be a movie about a sister relationship and about them setting the dad up, but then it's also going to be a movie about both of the sisters

[01:37:25] finding a man, because that's what these movies have to be about. You think it's definitely both going to be a man? We don't know. It just sounds jerks. Yeah, I mean, I'm guessing maybe Allie Liebert gets to find a woman. They're being cagey about it, if that's the case. Come on, Alonzo. It's the three wise men thing, where it's like, you know, you have a cool story here, and it's a family thing. Oh, but you all each have to fall in love also? Yeah. Okay, I guess we're doing that. So there's a lot of warning bells going off for me, as much as I do like Allie Liebert a lot.

[01:37:55] I like Brooke Dorsey. I like James Denton. So two. Two now. Don't worry. Alonzo's being a Grinch. I'm here to help you out. And be a little bit more optimistic. Are you creaming it? I am creaming this movie. Wow. I do. First cream of the season. Nope. I do think. Oh, Jax and I both creamed the same two movies. Uh-oh. Wow. You're locked down. I do think. How does that make you feel, Jax? Yeah. Yeah. You got to start thinking about it.

[01:38:32] I do think when I heard stand-up comedy. I'm like, oh, dear God, for every reason that Alonzo said. You just. It usually just dies a slow death when you have anyone that tries to be a stand-up comedy, a comedian in any circumstance that's played for the screen. Um, but I like the risk of this. I am choosing to believe that the two leads are not both going on romantic journeys because they don't say it. I'm choosing to believe that maybe there is something like that, but it's like tertiary.

[01:39:02] It's way down the list. I'm choosing to believe that these are actual journeys of personhood and character and not romantic. And if that's the case, these two leads couldn't be more oil and water. And I think they make great sisters. And I think there's a lot of promise of having a movie that at least on the surface isn't first and foremost a love story. Now, if I'm wrong and Alonzo's right, which very much could be the case. This will be a disappointment.

[01:39:29] But as it stands, this is one of the few movies that seems distinct in this crop of Hallmark movies. Three and a half nogs and a cream. I'm excited about this. Five and a half. Very good. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. We did it. Our first 12 movies. Check them off the list. They've been previewed really quick. Give us a cream update as we have another 20 movies. 20-ish. Yeah, 22. 22 left. You have used three creams. I feel good about that. You got five left. Five left.

[01:39:58] I feel great about that. Two creams, right? That's right. Two. Two left. So you have six left. I've used two. I have six left. Jax has also used two. Six left. Alonzo, has he used three? Three. So you got five left. And Patrick has used one cream. One. You have seven. One. One. Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. He is safe. He's safety packed. Marked himself safe. We're going to go on a creams spree later. That's right. Right. He's being safe. Cream spree. Another great shirt. Machine gun Kelly. Golly jeepers.

[01:40:27] We will be back next week to preview some more movies. So come on back for that. Until then, maybe the first to wish you a Merry Christmas. Deck the Hallmark is a Bramble Jam podcast produced by Brandon Gray. And you have that Greenville, South Carolina. For more information on the show, go to deckthalmark.com. Follow us on the socials at deckthalmark. Leave us a five-star rating review if you please. Then head on over to Bramble Jam Plus. You don't want to miss this holiday season. Find the best corner of the internet. Become a double-decker. Add free podcasting. Live video watch along with movie chat. So much more than BrambleJamPlus.com.

[01:41:05] 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. 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.