How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) – In A Nutshell

Paul’s Pick

Movies In A Nutshell

Don’t just watch movies — understand them!

PART 1 – The Nutshell – If you haven’t seen it (SPOILER-FREE!)

A completely spoiler-free breakdown of Ron Howard’s live-action adaptation of the Dr. Seuss classic, expanding a familiar festive story into a full cinematic origin tale.

We explore the film’s tone, heightened visual style and world-building, along with its central themes of belonging, rejection, bullying, identity and what Christmas really means beneath the excess.

We also look at how this version compares to other Christmas movies and live-action “cartoon” adaptations, and where it sits within Jim Carrey’s run of high-energy, physical performances.

By the end of Part 1, you’ll know whether this bold, chaotic and unmistakably festive take on a Christmas classic belongs on your watchlist.

PART 2 – The Unboxing – If you’ve seen it

What Did You Miss?

A closer look at how the film reframes an iconic character, builds sympathy through backstory, and layers in themes around conformity, commercialism and childhood experiences.

We also unpack visual details, character dynamics, and surprising comparisons that give this version a very different feel from the original animated adaptation.

Paul’s Facts of the Day

Behind-the-scenes surprises, production scale, and eye-opening trivia — including:

The extreme prosthetics and makeup process

The physical and psychological toll of the Grinch suit

Casting alternatives considered for the role

Ron Howard’s hands-on involvement during production

Set size, props, and production statistics

Why this became one of the biggest Christmas releases of its era

Hate It or Rate It?

Marc, Darren & Paul give their brief opinions and scores, then see where How the Grinch Stole Christmas lands in the Legend League.

PART 3 – Listener Lounge

The Lobby

Your questions, your comments and your shout-outs.

Question of the Week

We read out the best of last week’s answers and ask this week’s burning question!

Next Week’s Movie

And of course… the reveal of next week’s movie.

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Hello and welcome to Movies in a Nutshell. With me, Marc Farquhar, myself, Darren Horn.

And I, Paul Day.

We help you spend less time browsing and more time watching.

If you've seen the movie, we'll reveal what you might have missed.

If you haven't, we'll give you a quick spoiler free breakdown.

We've got behind the scenes trivia, including Paul's facts of the day, host ratings.

And a legend league table, plus your.

Chance to choose a movie.

So grab some popcorn and let's jump into this week's movie. Here we are. The Grinch Stole Christmas, which was Mr. Paul Dare's choice.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Yes. Sorry, what did I say?

The Grinch stole Christmas.

How?

The Grinch Christmas.

Gave it to him. Gave it away.

Yeah, that's it. Just take it.

It's the how.

Okay, so we're in part one, which we call the nutshell, where we break the movie down, spoiler free, to help you decide as quick as possible if how the Grinch Doll Christmas is your kind of movie. For the nutshell, how do you break this down? I'm gonna go to you first, Paul, because this is. This was your choice.

I mean, the background of it is. It's from the Dr. Seuss book, which was then made into a cartoon in the 60s, I think that's right, isn't it?

No idea.

This is the story of how the Grinch became the Grinch.

And yeah, so normally it's just you.

See the Grinch being the Grinch in most of the Grinch movies, but this actually got a bit of backstory.

So the title is a spoiler in itself because it's about how the Grinch Stole Christmas. And in the original book and the original cart, literally just focusing on that.

Whereas this one, as they often do in these Hollywood movies, suddenly created the big backstory. So in this movie, it's a long way around the nutshell. But in this movie you'll get the backstory of the Grinch. Who's the Grinch?

Basically, there's a magical land on a snowflake. That's where we're going, kids. Magical land on a snowflake.

With all the villagers who live in a town called Whoville on the outskirts of town, there's kind of the town bogeyman, or boogeyman, however you want to pronounce that, known as the Grinch, and he hates Christmas. And it's about how the Grinch stole.

Christmas and how he became the Grinch.

And how he became the Grinch. Because obviously in this particular adaptation, it's all about his backstory and why maybe became the Grinch. The origin story.

That's the word I'm looking for.

It's like a sped up version of Wicked.

I guess.

So, yeah, I get that about bullying for sure. And there's also a love triangle, which.

Is fun because obviously in Wicked, they're drawing it out over a couple of films actually get there, which I. That's a very modern day thing to do.

It is.

This is just the full story in.

One minute and it's very much a live action cartoon going into more, you know, Jim Carrey.

It's pretty easy to do that, isn't it?

Jim Carrey's in. In the hot seat of this. So I've got one of those. It's this meets this. I know you're good at this. Have you got going?

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay. See if mine matches yours. It's A Christmas Carol meets the Mask.

Oh, close.

Okay, what have you got?

I don't mean close as in your right. I'm right. You're right. I mean yours is close to mine is what I mean.

I've never heard him make that noise before.

Which noise?

Ooh.

Oh, no, it isn't.

I didn't want you to think close as in I'm right, but you were not quite right.

Okay, what was your line?

It was actually close to mine. Mine is Beetlejuice Meets A Christmas Carol.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I can see that too. That's a good call. So that's. I think that's a nutshell.

Without giving too much away, the title is again, a spoiler in itself. It's about how the Grinch stole Christmas on this particular occasion. But the movie gives a bit of the backstory of why did he become the Grinch?

It's almost.

How did he end up like that?

It's like your superhero movies where it's like.

It's always been like that.

How did they become Iron man, become Spider Man? This is your origin story.

You got anything to add down?

No, not really.

Just the you, John, you know, you generally have like. It's about this or anything.

All the themes. You were saying about bullying.

Yeah, it's just about bullying. And it's a love triangle as well, which is kind of surprised me.

It's a bit about. It's about belonging, rejection, a little bit.

Of also just looking different to everyone else. It's very similar to Elf in terms of. Elf was inspired by. What company was it? I can't remember.

Oh, the animation.

Yeah, yeah, you told us about it. I can't remember.

Yeah, I can't either. And yeah, so I kind of get that.

And it's this world and, you know, somebody who doesn't quite fit in with the town and then, you know, learns through Christmas cheer that maybe you can.

So, like every Christmas movie? Pretty much, yeah.

And what movies can this be compared.

To, Paul Elf's a good example. Very much. I'm struggling with this because it is kind of Zane. Anything that's like a live action cartoon I was thinking of.

So maybe even who Framed Roger Rabbit?

I mean, it's different kind of movie to that, but that's kind of a live action cartoon because you've got the mix of live action and cartoon, I suppose, in that.

I got a weird feeling that Ron Howard, who directed this, directed who framed Roger Rabbit. But that feels.

Zemeckis.

Was it Zemeckis?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure Ron Howard has done something similar to this.

That was Zemeckis.

It was, yeah. Anything live action, cartoony. I couldn't think of any more. Maybe even Scooby Doo, like the cartoon things.

Anything that's quite zany and colorful and over the top is very much in the vein of this. I mean, there's the other, obviously, Dr. Seuss, which I haven't seen. Is there a Cat in the Hat with Mike Myers that's meant to be terrible?

Oh, yeah, I've not seen that.

So I haven't seen that. But I imagine that's a similar sort of thing where it's very much the crazy cartoons come alive.

It's anything with Christma kind of vomits on you really like. And I mean in a good way.

Like, there's subtle Christmas movies and then there's one which, like, vomit on you and it's one of those like, even like Polar Express.

Yeah, that's very in your face Christmas, especially when it gets to the North Pole and everything.

Thanks for that, guys. So let's move on to part two, which is the unboxing.

So in the unboxing spoiler territory ahead, if we've helped you decide that you want to watch this movie, we'd recommend that you go and do so now because from this point forward, there will be plenty of spoilers. So in part two, we have what did you miss? Where we will highlight things you may have missed even if you've seen the movie many, many times.

Paul's Formidable facts of the day. And then we round off with Hate it or Rate it where we each give Our brief opinion, followed by a score out of 10.

And then we throw it into the Legend League and see where it lands. So what did you miss? Anything? Anyone want to go first?

I think my memory of it. I certainly don't remember how justified the villain arc was on this. Like, I'm kind of watching it and being like.

And I'm very much on the Grinch's side because he's like this.

I felt that this kid who doesn't.

Fit in and he's furry and he doesn't look like anyone else and everyone else is a freaking bastard to him, and he's, like, bullied. And then there's this love triangle going on. And, like, should I. And the work girl's like, should I shouldn't. But he's been shunned.

But I kind of like him, and I'm doing doughy eyes at him and stuff, and it's just mean. And then it gets kind of driven away. I'm like, yeah, I wonder.

He's mean.

Yeah. I would absolutely flip the table, storm off and live on my own.

He is misunderstood.

A little bit annoying, because when he does it, it looks like he's 8 years old and no one seems to care.

That's true.

And they never saw him.

I just went up to the mountain to live on his own. All right, that's good. Let's carry on celebrating our life. Is it Christmas again? So, yeah, I was, like, kind of fully on his side.

I watch this every year, and every year it's like, I agree with him.

More and more, and I'd love to see a crossover. I wish there was, like. It was like Alien versus Predator, but we had the Grinch with Nightmare Before Christmas and Beetlejuice.

Yes. Oh, come on, Hollywood. That Darren's just giving you gold there.

Jack Skellington and the Grinch. This is Beetlejuice.

That's box office gold.

Love it.

Why are they not on this?

A grumpier, more eccentric Batman.

Yeah.

He lives in a cave. His childhood has affected how. His experience of his child have affected how he is as an adult. He watches in the shadow.

He watches life in the shadows.

Yeah. He just hasn't got the millions of pounds. If he had the money. If I had to bankroll a Batman this week. Cool. Yeah.

And he's taken out the crime. You know, someone has vandalized that vehicle.

Yeah.

T. Max. The city is a dangerous place.

He's also really concerned about environmental pollution. He's just like, what the fuck is this capitalist nonsense? You are shitting everywhere.

But he's also hyper prepared with gadgets like the sleigh, the jury rigged contraptions and the schedule. Christmas Batman, he lives a dual identity. There's the monster that he's portrayed as and there's who he really is.

Oh, that's good.

There's even a moment in the film where he comes. He descends into the frame like Batman dropping out the rafters.

Yeah. Isn't it Bonfire?

So something like that. Yeah.

Batman doesn't quite.

I mean, it's well known comedy Batman is well known that Ron Howard loves a montage. He does a homage.

He loves a homage just on Ron Howard. This is weird as Ron Howard is a name that we know, and we know him because he was Happy Days from Happy Days. Right.

If you're a certain age.

Yeah. It really annoys me that the Fonz didn't play the Grinch, by the way. That would have been. He should have been the mayor.

Yeah, yeah, he should have been there.

That would have been.

Not too old to be the gridiron like that.

But the mayor's kind of the baddie. And Henry Winkler's just too lovable, isn't he? I think we'd have loved him if he was the mayor.

Yeah, maybe, but. Yeah. So Ron Howard's a director who we know the name of.

And usually that would mean they're an alter, which means they've got a distinct star that we like, like Tarantino and Tim Burton and stuff. But Ron Howard, I can't get a handle on him because he did this and Willow and backdraft and Apollo 13.

Yeah.

I'm like, dude, what, what? Where's the style? I don't get it. So it's really, really talented.

The Da Vinci Code one.

Yeah. So. So there's no quality barometer.

Is that not a good thing that he can't be pigeonholed?

I think, I think it's interesting because he. You can market a one Howard film, you can be like a film by Ron Howard.

But it's interesting to me that he doesn't really have a distinct style, which I would usually think that they had. And this did feel a little bit Tim Burton. So apparently Tim Burton was considered, I think was involved for a little while.

But when it started scheduling, I think I do it.

Oh, this music. Stanley Elfman. And then it came up with James Horner. And I thought, that's interesting.

That was one of the comparisons I meant to make, actually, which I made on the Elf as well, which is. It's kind of that Roald Dahl storybook feeling, which is obviously, Tim Burton did Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. So it's definitely.

You could see Tim Burton eating this up and doing a similar sort of thing. Like you could. He probably cast Johnny Depp as the Grinch, wouldn't he? Because he cast him in everything.

Yes, he would. And then what is his wife called?

Helena Bon.

She'd be the female lead.

Yeah.

Danny Elfman does the music.

It's like, come on, Tim.

Yeah, exactly. Like, at least Spielberg evolved and Edgar Wright evolved. Even Scorsese did Age of Innocence.

But Tim, he's stick. He's sticking with. He's sticking with Deb.

What else, what else have we missed?

The movie, people.

I mean, back to the movie capitalism. I put that down.

Yes.

Especially at the very start of the movie capitalism. It's very much about kaching. Kaching ka ching, let's make all the money.

And actually, that bit, that's one of them bits where when I used to watch, I didn't really take in that bit. And now I'm like, ooh, it's. It's very much like that now. I can't open my emails without having at least 10 a day at the moment of 50% off, 20% off.

Buy a lot of stuff. And it's like, I get it. Black Friday, Green Monday, Christmas is coming up.

I saw a great video of a guy being interviewed. I think he was Nigerian. He had like very thick accent. And this one was, are you excited about this? He's like, no, I don't need another 70 inch TV.

I've got a 70 inch TV. I want 50 off strawberries, tomatoes. Put the discount on food. That would be a Christmas treat.

Yeah.

Yes, that's true.

Give me 50 off my council tax.

Yeah, I'm in.

That'd be a Christmas miracle.

If you're listening council and you want us to sponsor 50% of council, you.

Don'T want to be seen as the Grinch. Yeah, Scrooge, Right.

But that's the thing that annoys me at the moment is not only have you got all these adverts, you've got things like podcasts like this, whether we talking about the Grinch and then all of a sudden go, do you know what makes me feel Christmassy, Mark? I've just bought this new skin care product and it's only 50 off with a new. I'm not doing this for real, folks.

But, well, like the true mature.

Yeah, we can't wait till that sellout arrives, can we?

Oh, we're ready to sell out.

When we get to the lobby, I've got a story about Reddit.

Oh, okay. Have we got finally a chance to sell out? No, but, yeah, capitalism. And then obviously at the end. Because we're in spoiler territory, aren't we?

At the end, it's more about. Oh, yeah. So Christmas wasn't about all these gifts.

It was actually about the singing and the people and the families and the gifts are kind of taken out the.

Equation as it always is. Commercialism, capitalism always gets in the way.

Yeah.

Always sort of distracts you.

And I think there is that sort of underlying theme in that.

Obviously it's done in a lot of more materialistic. Yeah.

Somebody says, you can't hurt Christmas. It's not about presents and trees and fancy likes.

I remember that line. I was like, that's good, that's good, that's true.

But then it was also, I think this is okay to say. My, My kid sometimes is in a class higher than the one she should be in. So she's with older kids and they were playing like two or fours.

One of the kids was like, Santa Claus is real. And my daughter put her hand up and nobody else did, which is very sad. And then.

How was your daughter? Nine.

Yeah.

And how old are. They?

Have been like, like, yeah, like maybe 10 or 11 or something. I don't know.

So they've just gone past that threshold of believing.

Yeah. You haven't got long left.

Yeah, I know.

But then, and then, but what was nice is none of the other kids disagreed with her, and she came home, she was like, well, he must be real because there was one vote for true, and nobody said four, so he must be true. And when she, if she ever says, you know, it's Santa real, I'm like, he's as real as any other other spirit.

Like, you know, it's like you can't, like this is saying you can't have the Christmas spirit without Father Christmas.

People believe in God.

They do. That's why I was, I was going to. She goes to one of the schools, so I was going to be like, well, they all believe in that guy. That's.

You can believe in Father Christmas. And how.

Who are we to say that he doesn't? All right, maybe he doesn't bring the presents, maybe he doesn't bring the presents, but maybe there's something out there at Christmas.

Oh, for sure. I believe in everything. As you know, I'm about as woo woo as you can get.

The God of Christmas spirit, anything you can imagine, I believe is or Even if it's just psychological, it's like placebo. If you believe in something that. If you believe in Father Christmas and the Christmas spirit, you're gonna have a great Christmas.

But if you don't, you're gonna be the Grinch.

Anything else we missed?

Anything on the triangle, maybe? The triangle, the fact that she likes him, but then he disappears, but then she still likes him. And Christine Baranski still flirting and things.

When he comes back into town, it's.

A bit icky because there's a little bit of, oh, what am I looking for? The kind of patriarchal control there. Because he feels like he's got power and influence.

I kind of feel like she was never interested, but just said that she couldn't say no. Almost semi bordering on like an arranged kind of marriage. Because he's like, I've bought you this car. Sleep with me and get this part in this movie.

Look what you've won.

Yes.

I thought the little girl was adorable, though. Taylor Momson kind of reminded me. Is that Taylor Momson?

Yeah. So I was gonna say this year from the.

Pretty reckless.

There you go. So, wow. This year I put it on my Instagram story and I'm like. I should have put.

Pointed out it was Cindy Lou, because most people are just gonna be like, Paul just posting. Yeah. Cindy Lou has brought out a rock version. Taylor Momsen of Where Are youe Christmas? But it's proper rock. I love it. Available now.

I know that band. I'm a musician, so you know all bands.

I know, I know, I know.

So that's her.

Wow.

That's Taylor Momson.

I meant to look up, like, if she grown up and done any other films that we would know.

Well, now, you know, just.

Also, just like the Elf. Didn't Jim Carrey come from snl?

Yes, I think he did.

I don't think he was a regular cast member. Didn't he do In Living Color or something? He did a similar show.

Okay.

I don't think it was Saturday Night Live.

Okay.

I might be wrong, listeners, let me know if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty.

Sure he definitely came from a sketch.

He was on a sketch show. Yeah. And then he went into Ace Ventura and got bigger. But I don't think he ever did Saturday Night Live. Other than, like, a guest.

Yes.

Oh, yeah, he's been on it, but not as, like, a cast member like Eddie Murphy and some of the others.

Oh, okay.

Thank you, gentlemen. Let's move on to Paul's fantastic facts of the day.

Okay. Did you know Taylor Momsen. No, I've already done that one, but it's pretty cool. Where Are You Christmas? But like a proper rock version of it.

I'm going to download that one Old school on my ipod. Obviously, a lot of it was improvised by Jim Carrey. So there's. Some of the facts of the day were like, this line was improvised and that line was.

So I'm not going to do them once because just out of curiosity, do.

We care if a line is improvised or not?

You see, I don't care if it's part of the process and they've come up with it.

Yeah. I find it interesting that someone. Something's good just on spurring what someone's mind rather than someone else's.

Written Judd Apatow ones. That was so. They were all very certain people.

You can just put in a situation like that and you have the lines, but you'll know they're just gonna come up with stuff. And if it's. If it helps, then just let them do it. Some people just known for that.

And maybe some films don't work because they rely too much on that.

Some people need the lines, but they can deliver them, like, amazingly.

But here we go. So according to Rick Baker, who's a very famous person. Darren, makeup artist did.

God. What? Empire Strikes Back.

Oh, all kinds of. Yeah, all kinds of stuff. If there's like real prosthetics, he tends to be the top guy, I think. Did he die? Am I thinking of Stan Winston?

Stan Winston died. He did the creature stuff. I think Rick Baker's still alive, but he does all the prosthetics. So he did them on Jim Carrey.

It took about two hours to apply.

No. Sorry to. Sorry to interrupt you, Paul.

I. I hope one of the other facts says that Jim Carrey said it took about seven hours to apply. But he's saying it only took two hours to apply.

I heard it took like eight and a half hours. They had to bring in a CIA specialist.

This is my next fact. But.

But then eventually they streamlined it to two and a half.

They figured out a way to do it faster.

Yeah. Yeah. But they think they would do. Before they started to know.

Yeah.

They sought counseling from a CIA agent who taught him how.

Do you think that's true? That feels like so.

No, it sounds. That's one fact that comes up again and again. And I'm sure he said it on chat shows.

Nothing better.

You got a CIA agent and come and do what?

Well, taught him torture resistance techniques. Because he said it Was like being buried alive. And he refused to do the film. And then he was kind of talked around and yeah, he ended up doing it.

But from some of the other facts, which I might not even get to because there's so many, apparently he was not in a good place filming this thing because it was just torture. So him and the makeup artists were pretty at loggerheads. And I think the makeup artist ended up resigning. I think was one of the.

Oh, not resigning, but they got through the film. But then I think he left the film business because it was that frustrating.

But then other facts say that Jim Carrey got really good at it and got into a Zen mode, so.

Well, he must have.

It depends who you're reading. Sounds like there was a bit of. I mean, it can't be fun.

Scenes with him in it are quite long.

Yeah, yeah. It can't have been fun being in that sort of stuff. But hey, but speaking of the suit, I'll stick with makeup for a minute.

Producer and director Ron Howard. I think this is in the behind the scenes.

I didn't watch it in time for this one, but I have watched it before, like behind the scenes documentary on the DVD somewhere.

And Ron Howard was so thankful Jim put up with the uncomfortable hours in the suit and everything that one of the days he put on the full Grinch suit and makeup as well, and directed all day as the Grinch as well. But I didn't know this bit. He intended it to be like a show of appreciation, which I suppose it was.

But the first time he saw him, Jim Carrey was a bit pissed off thinking like it was a stunt double who looked nothing like him until it was revealed. No, it's me, it's Ron.

Well, that he'd been fired and they were like, we don't need Jim and Carry. We can put anyone in this suit.

We've got Ron Howard now.

Yeah.

Himself was covered in yak hair which was dyed green and sewn into a spandex suit. And he spent 92 days in the makeup spending, it says, two hours in the morning getting in and one hour in the evening to get out, like you say.

I think originally that'll have been more. So Jim was suggested for the role by Audrey Giesel.

I think I'm saying that right, who's the widow of Dr. Seuss who controlled the rights to the books. So she suggested him. But she also suggested. Here's some interesting ones. Jack Nicholson.

No.

Dustin Hoffman.

No.

Robin Williams. But when he does that smile, you know, the big grid that isn't prosthetics. That's him doing it.

And I think I've seen it in an interview where he actually does it. Anthony Hopkins, of course, does the narration of the film which brings you in.

It was all in Whoville.

I can't do the voice recognizes. That was pretty good. Nobody could do the thing. And how long do you think it took him to do that beautiful voiceover?

One day.

One day, yeah.

Which also confuses me because he must only talk about 20 minutes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they always make people do like.

Lines take up to 10 times.

In case you don't make him do multiple lines. He's like, here's the line, here's my Oscars. I think we're done here.

I'm sorry, say what? I think you. I think you'll find we're done. Maybe spend most of time eating, catering or something and just did 20 minutes, but yeah.

So that's pretty good day's work, isn't it?

Considering Anthony just got.

What?

Oh, he's gone.

No, he's done.

That's it.

End of film. His yellow contact lenses for Jim's outfit was so uncomfortable that he wasn't able to wear them at times during filming.

And some shots of his eyes were colored in post production.

They should have just done that anyway.

Maybe, but.

Didn't you say in the last end of the last episode you saw it quite a lot, Darren?

Yeah, I saw it like three times when I was in.

What year did it come out?

2,000.

2,000.

I think it was in Malaysia when I was watching it.

Yeah, because it's same year as the beach.

Yeah. I was in Malaysia because Malaysia's got some amazing beaches and. And I was just like. But I agree, I'm going to go to the cinema.

They do always seem to be. Everywhere you go, they show movies.

Yeah.

Because it's just like a thing that like backpackers and just sit and watch a movie.

Yeah.

Brings people together as well, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

Movies bringing people together like this very podcast, potentially, hopefully as a filming the. The movie had the largest set in Universal at the time.

And as we sort of said at the start, the original adaptation of the Grinch, his main dislike was because of the loud noise and extreme gluttony. But then the movie put in the backstory and we decided that we all side with the Grinch actually, after all, you like statistics, don't you?

I do.

Okay, I'm going to finish with this. It's just like, list of statistics that I put together. Makeup appliances used during production.

How Many thousand?

Approximately 8,000.

Wow.

Outfits created by wardrobe, 443. Number of soundstages used 11.

So this was a very big production and must have cost quite a bit, but sounds like it did pretty well at the box office, so maybe they got all that back. And that's probably some of the best facts.

Hoorah.

Thank you very much, Paul, as always. Amazing.

Oh, no, I've got one more.

Here's Columbo.

A lot of makeup going on.

Thank you. Thank you both, because you both chipped in quite a lot there.

He has the facts in his head. I have to look them up. Yeah.

Okay, so let's move on to hate it or rate it. I'm gonna go to you, Paul, first, because it was your choice.

Yes.

Paul, what do you think?

Why does he always do that? So I will confess. The first time I saw the Grinch, I don't think it was at the cinema. I think it was at home.

I somehow missed it on its cinema release, and I wasn't that big of a fan of it. Didn't really, like. It wasn't really my cup of tea, but maybe I just didn't appreciate what they were going for.

Do you think Jim Carrey's over the top?

It was just a bit overload. I was like, I don't know. So the first time I saw it wasn't the most positive experience. Over time, I've actually learned to really like this film.

And now it is one of those I go to at Christmas. I can see Darren already being like, what the hell? I'm gonna say. Yeah, I enjoy it now.

And I think what he did and his comic timing and everything, like, there's lines now that I laugh out louder that maybe the first time I saw it, I didn't, because I was just like, oh, it's too crazy. There's so much going on. But now I couldn't cancel me again. I just love all that now. Maybe it's. Maybe it's because I'm older.

Maybe.

Maybe the humor's kind of grown with me. But I do really like it. I don't know where to rate it though, because it's not like.

It's not like one of my top ever Christmas films, but doesn't make you top 10. It's no maybe, maybe. Just not sure. I'd have to work that out. So I'm going to give it 7.7.

Okay. I'm going to go to you, Don.

It's a Ron Howard movie and this guy is like hit and miss. He bounces all over the place. He got an Oscar for Beautiful Mind. He was nominated for Frost and Nixon. But he's also done Ed tv.

Yeah.

Did you remember that? I like Ted TV Solo, the Star wars movie.

I kind of like that too.

Yeah. So it's a bit. So it could go either way with Ron Howard. And I think this is probably a Christmas masterpiece.

I think it, it sets out to do a Grinch movie as good as you could possibly do a Grinch movie.

In live action.

Yeah, in live action. I think the casting is perfect. The effects are absolutely amazing, especially for the time.

This is the thing I was thinking. Yeah. And I think that's why I've appreciated more over the years. You look at the sets and everything, you're like, yeah, like my ex wife.

Meets with their mom every year and they watch this and they drink pretty mold wine and get giddy and very, very high on sugar. And it's like a really good setting to do that for me though. I hated it. Of course you did buy this movie.

Did you not relate to the Grinch enough to like it though? This was my only hope. Thinking like, Darren might be like, oh, I despise this.

I did like the whole, you know, can't cancel myself again self loathing. I liked all that. It was funny lines like, solve world hunger. Tell no no one. What if they've got a cash bar? How dare they.

What is Christmas really about? Veggies.

Come on, this is all gold.

Yeah, but I was just sitting there being like, this is lame. And then this kid started to sing and I was, oh, you're kidding me.

Then I was looking at like the running time and I was like, well, maybe there's 20 minutes of credits. Maybe. Maybe it ends before I have to get to the end.

Now that's wishful Thinker.

I know. I was like, oh. But I just. It was just lots of like boring music montages and I just didn't. I mean, I like the idea.

I like it's a good Christmas movie. And his heart starts beating again and grows in size.

The message size is too big.

Yeah. And, like, if my daughter ever gets into watching movies, this would be great. And she'd love the maggots on the teeth close up. And they kind of. It's.

It's. You can definitely on, like, Christmas Day, you can put your kids in front of this and they're safe. They're gonna have a ball.

And the message is really fun. And it's also that whole thing, like, with the. The girl in it.

A lot of times, kids see straight through the mean exterior that adults have, and they can just walk up to you and like, hey, what's going on with you? And they're just not phased by kind of grumpiness, whatever, and they can kind of see through it, which is really sweet.

But, yeah, I actually depressed me, and I was. I was on a really, like, low.

Really not meant to do that.

I was in a low mood for, like, at least the day.

I think I was just like, what would you go? Oh, my God, I am the Grinch.

Yeah.

I knew when we were picking it that you weren't gonna like it, but I didn't want to depress you for a day. This is like.

And, like, I definitely appreciate the filmmaking. I think it is a good film, but.

But you should get it some points.

Yeah, it does give it some points.

They're relentless. What do you think of Jim Carrey?

So seminal with Mask and this. And we hadn't really seen anything like that before. Even, like, Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. It was really cool.

Yeah, it's great. I'm really pleased he did it. He's. He's immortalized it. Like, 25 years later, people are watching it. Like, he did a really good. It's a.

It's a good influence to have out in the world, so that's got to be applauded. It's a good kind of spell to cast, but I hated it. But because it's such a good film, I'll give it 3.5.

Okay, what did you give it?

7.7.

Mark.

It's up to you as to where this ends up in the leaderboard. The audacity.

I got bored. Oh, I enjoyed it to a point. Like, I liked it when she went and found him and was getting through to him. But then after that, it's just.

There was too many caveats and things where it's Just like it could have got to the resolution of the whole story a lot quicker. I was looking at the time. Was it 2 hours 10?

1 hour 40?

It felt like 2 hours 10. So that's. That, that's. To me that's not good. No, it just seemed to drag and it.

There's so many times when I was like, we should be past this point now. They were dwelling on points and going around and you just wanted him to.

Steal Christmas and get it over with.

Yeah. Get to the goods. But it just seemed to dance around it a lot. Yeah, it is, it is a good film.

Did you laugh any of Jim's bits?

Some of the lines were good. I like Jim Carrey. Like I said, I thought. I didn't know she was her. But Taylor Momson, I thought she was really good.

Actually reminded me like my, my daughter. So some of the things she says and the way she just cuts through whatever's going on just gets to the, the meat of the situation. Yeah.

Like we talking about the sets. Like I thought the sets were really good and yeah, the singing, I was nice. I thought it was going to be a full on musical at one point, like.

But that, that amount of singing I can handle.

Yeah, it was. I was going to say it was minimal.

It was okay. It was fine.

It was minimal. You need Taylor's new. Taylor Momson's new version where she rocks it out. I think you'll enjoy that.

Yeah.

Thought you're going to say Taylor Swift. Then I was like, can he get through an ep?

Well, she does have a holiday out. Okay.

So for me, smack down the middle five. It was, it was good.

I think the first time I saw it that's where I would have rated it. Yeah, it's definitely grown on me over the years and now it is one.

And I speak to people when I was asking the other week, all the people I knew like, well, what Christmas films do you like, try and get ideas. This did. What one did come up quite a lot. And some of the people like, oh yeah, it's one of my favorites.

This is getting so cool. We're basically becoming like an old video store where you'd have like, like pool recommends section. Like people can just be like.

Because our grading is so varied.

It really is.

Yeah, it's good. I'm just adding the scores up.

Every year I feel I'm getting closer to the Grinch, which might be depressing in itself.

Yes.

We're single, we live alone. Do we really want to watch a Christmas movie that isn't Die Hard.

Ah, Die Hard. Now there's a Christmas movie.

Yeah, right. 16.2. That gives it. Which puts it in 39th out of 49.

I can cover that.

Yeah, but it's in the bottom.

It was. It was up to you to. To save that one.

It is what it is. That's what makes this unique. We're almost at 50. Wow. 50 movies as we get to the.

End of the year, does it feel like 50? They feel like we've been doing this forever.

Feels like I've edited 50.

Yeah, I bet. Shout out to Mark for editing all of our waffle out of these things. And shout out for the bonus episode coming soon.

Yeah, all the outtakes and the extra content. So what? 16.5. So I think that's not too bad. It is what it is.

So if you want to go and look at the Legend League, you can go to Movies in a Nutshell dot com. You can have a look there. You can also leave comments on there question then.

You've seen both Grinches now, do you prefer the animated version than the live action?

Okay. I found that more entertaining and it didn't drag.

Interesting.

Okay, weird because my daughter loves that one. She'll watch that one. She watched. That was her movie of last year. Always wanted to watch the Grinch even we're going to January. February.

Like no watching it.

I was like, no, you do not watch Christmas films. And it's not Christmas. Just.

Just for the listeners if they were looking at both like which one do I watch? You would recommend the other one.

Yeah, I laughed a lot more in the other one. Okay. But again if I say this more I get to know it more because there's a lot to. There is a lot to the this one. The quite.

There's a lot in it to have just gone through it once. I've probably missed bits and bobs. So that's our opinion. But we'd like to know what you thought so you can join the conversation.

You can send us a voice message. If you go to movies in a shell.com There's a hit. There's a button there says voice message take you directly to your voice recorder on your phone.

Or if you've got a mic on your laptop, you can email us hello Movies in a Nutshell dot com. Or you can send us a message via our socials in the show notes. Okay, let's move on to Part three, which is the listener lounge.

So in part three, the listener lounge, we have the lobby where we share your comments, answer your questions, and read out some of your messages. Then we ask our question of the week and we finish off by revealing next week's movie.

So last week's question of the week was which movie has the best soundtrack? We did get a lot of. A lot of responses to that.

Oh, excellent.

Well, they said so MDB podcast, which I never actually looked into what that is, but they've put this movie deserves better than Got Dash, Nightmare on Elm Street 4.

Wait, so a podcast has commented on our podcast?

Yeah.

Oh, cool. That's so kind of cool.

Which movie deserved more?

Well, it says this movie deserves better. Then after that, says Dash on the next line. Nightmare on Elm Street 4.

I don't know if I've seen it. Unless there's a crossover one.

I don't know why four would have a particularly better soundtrack than any other.

Yeah, interesting.

That's interesting. But we should. We'll look up who they are and we'll. We'll give them a shout out next time.

Yeah.

Rob Walker says Superman. Man of Steel.

Hand Zimmer.

Right Hand Zimmer.

Yeah, it's Hans Zimmer. I can see. I can see where you're saying that. At first I wasn't sure because John Williams scores so iconic, but the Hans Zimmer one really has.

Some people just can't choose one. So they give us like, 8. Scott Wigglesworth, Blade Runner, Alien, Star Wars. Under the Skin. I don't know what under the Skin is.

Oh, my God. That's a movie. That's a phenomenal movie.

Get on your list. Get it on your list.

That's a really weird, trippy soundtrack as well.

Who's in that?

It's Chocolate Hansen and it's probably the best film of this century.

Wow.

It's in the top 10.

You need to.

Only the best British. Well, yeah. I'll tell you this.

British Glasgow, if I ever select that film, you better. Like you heard it here first. You said it's that good.

Well, it also really upsets me because. Yeah. As a father.

So they might make him feel bad. They'll score it. We can never win.

No. It's a phenomenal art house indie movie.

I've heard of it. I've just never seen it.

Testament to Scarlett Johansson that she's involved in that movie. Cool.

The Cumbrian skate rat. Dazed and Confused. The musical score. I'm going with Blade Runner. Vangelis.

Yeah. It's Iconic. Yeah, it's cool.

Nice. Martin Hayworth. Highlander.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. Got some queen in there.

Yeah. Genesee D. Footloose.

Yeah, she loves Footloose.

Some people are going once with scores, aren't it? Like I said, some people go with, like, actual songs. Yeah, because the songs that made the movie or the movie that made the songs.

Yeah, that's true.

You get a bit of both, don't you? Rein Hogarth, he's put Top Gun, also my favorite movie. He's put A Knight's Tale. Great songs throughout.

That's interesting because. Yeah, that's okay. Cool.

And Moana. Watched it a hundred times with the kids. Can't even do the. I can even do the rocks rap if you know, you know.

Oh, hang on. I used to be able to do it when my daughter was younger.

I know the rhythm of it, but I don't know what the word is.

I don't know. I'm trying to get the rhythm of it, but I keep coming up with Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

If anyone wants to do that rap in the style of Fred's Prince Bel Air, send it in. And then we go to Reddit. So WikiPede80 says, I love movie soundtracks, so probably too many to mention, but here's a few.

Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.

Yes. Cayman.

Backdraft.

Oh, one Howard movie. I love Backdraft.

I've seen that many years ago, like, once.

Yeah. Avoid Backdraft 2 at all costs.

A long time.

What?

They made a sequel?

Wow. Avoid another mention of another mention. Top Gun.

Top Guns up there.

Harry Potter.

John Williams did the original two, and then various people did the other ones, but used his themes.

Point Break. Where's Rocky?

Wait a minute.

Rocky.

Star wars, obviously.

That's a given. Yeah.

Avengers. Endgame.

That's your mate, Alan Sylvester.

And then Back to the Future, obviously.

Yeah.

Independence Day soundtrack. That doesn't really. Yes, I think I've seen that movie enough times.

Good morning. In less than an hour, some classics.

Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park.

Yep.

Good morning. Vietnam would be absolutely badass.

I've not seen that film. I just know. Good morning.

Just think, all Vietnam like music.

Yeah.

It's just the iconic ones.

Oh. So just to counter all of that, the Predator soundtrack is out of this world and you could never get it on. It's like CD for ages.

I always wanted it, but it was so hard to find. And if you could, it was really expensive.

I think I remember you saying that on the episode. Did you get it in the end?

No.

Be on Spotify.

Yeah, it would be.

They're all on Spotify.

Yours should also be on there. Not just for the Dun Dun. But there's some other.

There is some good stuff on there. Yeah.

Highlander, of course, is music by Queen, but a score by Michael Kamen.

Yes.

So that's a great combination.

That's a movie I'd like to watch again sometime. So there we go.

Nice.

Thank you all for your input there. That really. Yeah.

I think they were just missing Rocky.

Yeah. Not just for Eye of the Tiger.

No, no. Get the anthology cd.

Have you seen the video of the people with the trumpets going around public when someone's running past or when there's people on bikes. They got.

But there's a really nice, like, piano score when it's just. Because rock is. Is a romance, it's. But when it's him and Adrian, it's a really quiet, like, soft, melancholy kind of vibe to it. It's beautiful.

And Adrian's sort of really shy, isn't she?

Yeah, she gets adorably more confident as the film goes on.

So when I mentioned Reddit before, so I. This is completely unrelated. I did a post, I put a comment about. Because I'm starting.

I listen to a lot of podcasts, but some of the commercial ones are just to get stuffed with ads.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I use chat GBT to. Because there's someone they could download. I put it in. I put the transcript in and said, what percentage of this is ads versus content?

And they were usually around about 20 to 25, which is one advert. And some of them were like. One of them was 25 minutes. That's one advert every five minutes.

Is that American, though?

No, this is a British one.

That's really. Because from what I know, American TV shows have like an advert every five minutes or so.

But my. My headline in my. I kind of wrote like an article is like, podcast is trying. They're making it like radio.

Like, when all the mainstream people are coming in, they're making it like radio by stuffing adverts and selling things.

And it feels like that YouTube used.

To be like that. It used to be a place where it was like unfiltered people's free voices could be heard without any noise.

It definitely feels like creeping in now. Yeah. Because you've just. People on YouTube speaking. They'll be. All of a sudden, they'll be like.

And speaking of crypto, I've got this wallet that protects.

Even worse. It'll just jump in the middle of a sentence. They won't even edit it in properly. It'll just, an advert will just start playing.

It'll be way louder than what you were, what you were listening to. It's like, it just annoys me.

So if a celebrity comes out or a new cool podcast, I'm going to, oh, I'm going to listen three and a half minutes of adverts before it gets to the content.

Oh my God, will we ever do that if we sell out?

This is, this is part of my, I didn't say this in the article but we'd have to approach this con this with our listeners at some point.

But if we want to like take this to the next level we, I'd rather have them subscribe like a small fee, like £2amonth which would allow us cover our costs and maybe do more. And then if it went well, we could do a five pound tier where we get, we could then easily do.

Barely a cup of coffee these days.

But then, but then there's no middleman.

We're not paying people for, for the sake of it and we all keep it in house and then we'd be able to give the listeners more and they're supporting us in the same time. So that's something for next year. But yeah, definitely something to think about.

I think we get away with one advert just before the hate it or rate it.

So it's like, listen to this, like listen to this advert, go get yourself a cup of coffee and then prepare for the guys to let you know what they thought.

But I'd rather not do that. I'd rather not have, I'd rather speak completely commercial free. The listeners support us. We all, we're all one community.

There's no one, there's no outside.

I don't know, I feel it'd be fun Darren having to do a, what they call them, an ad read of something he hates, like I really like and just hear the frustration in his.

Hotshot is my favorite movie.

Yes. I'll just take it really personally if it's like somebody unsubscribes. What did we do wrong? Like did you not like that episode?

So thank you for your put there guys. Right, let's move on to this week's question of the week.

What's a Christmas tradition you absolutely refuse to give up no matter how weird, old fashioned or nutritionally questionable. It is tradition. Yeah. Some people do things, go places, eat things Drink things that they would never do any other point of the year.

I don't have any.

I mean, like drinking in the a.m. so that's fine. At Christmas. Fine.

Don't just wait for Christmas.

Yeah, but I'll say a lot of people do, though.

Yeah, they do.

You've got a week to think about it. Okay.

Yeah, it's always weird when people do that because, I mean, you know, you can do that anytime.

I know, but it's weird. People have these weird traditions and I wonder what they are.

Day drinking is great.

So give us your weird Christmas traditions, things like that.

It'll shock you that it's more just around movies. For me, it's just.

There's more movies than usual.

Yeah, it's true. I have to cram in the Christmas ones with the regular ones. It's a lot of movie watch.

It's a busy schedule. Yeah, you can't cancel on yourself again.

I'm booked.

There we go. So what are your weird Christmas traditions that you refuse to give up? Okay, that takes us on to next week's movie where we must spin the wheel.

It's all Christmas movies.

Nice.

We got a lot for the benefit of the listener. We've been told to wear Christmas jumpers on this very recording.

We'll take some photos. We'll take some. We'll take some photos. We'll put them on the socials again, there's far too many to read out. I'm not reading them out.

Like five minutes.

How many we get?

33.

Okay. Wow.

Okay, you ready?

Do it. Spin that wheel and make it good or Darren will hunt you down.

There's some classics in here. It's a Wonderful Life.

Oh, okay.

Now that is a bona fide classic. Is that 19? What year is it? Surely 47 or something. 46. 47. That is, to me, a definitive Christmas film, which I've never seen.

Yeah. It's just post war, isn't it? Because Jamie Stewart just came back from the war.

I think that's right.

Have you both seen it?

Oh, yes, Long time ago.

I.

Are you familiar with it?

It's not one I grew up, like, traditionally with, but I started watching it maybe say 10 years ago or so when everyone kept going on about it. And I'm like, I need to watch this.

Certain scenes I know I've seen, like, they get referenced a lot.

But you might not have seen the.

Whole thing about this film.

Oh, wow.

I've never seen it. I've done anything about it.

This will Be you going completely new into this.

I'm wondering if the title is ironic or. Well, you'll find out to the point. I don't know.

You'll find out.

I'm looking. It's one of those films on my list of things. I know I should have seen this film and I want to see it, but I just haven't.

It is often rated one of the number one. It's always Christmas films.

Yeah. It's always up there. So they go. Next week's movie is. Is It's a Wonderful Life. Thanks for listening, guys. So that was.

2025. What a year, eh?

That was our last. That'll be our last proper episode when we do that. And then we've got the bonus episode. The last.

Year two. What's. What's it bringing to us?

14Th of January will be our first birthday.

Oh, nice.

Shout out to all our listeners who have joined us on this epic journey.

Yeah, I mean, send us an email message in. How long have you been listening? Where are you listening from? Say hi. We'll read them out next week or in the new year when we do the bonus.

The recap episode.

And if it was the end of the world and it was just us left, which one of the three of us would you want to hang out with?

That's a year two. Split us up.

That's the way a lady of a certain age. Which one of us would you want to repopulate the planet with?

That's it.

Just oppressors going into year two. That's great. Yeah.

Division starts.

Yeah.

Thanks for listening, guys. We really, we do appreciate you spending time with us every week. It does mean a lot to us.

And if you want more content, you can head on over to our subreddit. Just look for Movies in a nutshell and you'll find us there.

We'll put extra bits and bobs on there, some of the questions and you get a heads up on what's coming up in advance so you can get more over there. Okay, this episode is officially over. This is Mark saying goodbye.

That is saying goodbye for now.

Cut, print, check the gate.

Move it on.

Yeah, I'll allow it.

He let that one slide.

Yeah, that's right.

I thought he'd let that one.