In every episode, we quickly help you decide whether to press play or skip on a movie you haven’t seen — with no spoilers at all.

If you have seen it, we reveal what you've missed… even if you've watched it a hundred times.

Don't just watch movies, understand them.

🎄 Elf (2003) – In A Nutshell

Marc’s Pick

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

A totally spoiler-free breakdown of the modern Christmas classic that mixes innocence, big-hearted humour, New York chaos and an unexpectedly emotional core.

We explore the film’s tone, comedy, pacing, world-building and why Elf continues to stand out in a crowded festive movie landscape.

By the end of Part 1, you’ll know whether this blend of Christmas magic, child-like optimism and fish-out-of-water charm deserves a spot on your festive watchlist today.

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

What Did You Miss? →

A warm and insightful look beneath the surface — from Buddy’s innocence exposing adult cynicism, to how the film quietly critiques modern busyness, and the subtle emotional shifts that track each character’s growth throughout the story.

Paul’s Facts of the Day →

A curated mix of behind-the-scenes insights and lesser-known facts from Paul that add an extra layer of interest to the film.

Hate It or Rate It? →

Where does Elf land on the Legend League?

Marc, Darren & Paul drop their scores and find out.

PART 3 – Listener Lounge

Your questions, your comments and your shout-outs — plus our Question of the Week and the reveal of next week’s movie.

Movies In A Nutshell

Listen Now: https://2ly.link/24tPI

Join our SubReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MoviesInANutshell

Join the conversation

🎙️ Voice message – https://linkly.link/2FuSQ

📬 Email – hello@moviesinanutshell.com

View the Legend League

Every movie we've featured and rated on the podcast…

https://linkly.link/2Bfcv

View the Listener League

See how we rated the movies you have chosen!

https://linkly.link/2Bi9l

Socials

Movies In A Nutshell

Website: https://www.moviesinanutshell.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moviesinanut

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/moviesinanut

Hosts

Marc Farquhar

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marcfarquhar

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/themarcfarquhar

Darren Horne

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thedarrenhorne

Paul Day

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pauldaylive23

Recorded at

Sunbeams Studios – https://www.thestudioatsunbeams.co.uk

Part of Annie Mawson's Sunbeams Music Trust – https://sunbeamsmusic.org

Music

Main Theme: BreakzStudios – https://pixabay.com/users/breakzstudios-38548419

Music Bed: ProtoFunk – Kevin MacLeod – https://incompetech.com

(All music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License)

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. Okay, here we are. It's December. This is episode number one. We're doing elf. Merry Christmas, everyone.

Merry Christmas. I'm Buddy the elf. What's your favorite color?

We are in part one, which is the nutshell where we will break the movie down spoiler free to help you decide if it's your kind of movie. So how do we break this down? I'm going to go to you first, Paul.

Yeah.

Okay. An orphaned human sneaks into Santa's sack when he's delivering his presents.

Or he's raised as an elf and then later on finds out that he has a real dad, obviously and a real mum. And he goes on his magical trip to New York City to rediscover his roots. It's like a Christmasy Tarzan that he was raised by elves instead of.

I've lost it. Darren's looking at me.

No, that's it. It's about an orphan who goes in search for his dad.

Yeah, that's a. That was like typing that into. AI.

AI. Can you.

Can you make that short for me? Thanks, Darren. Thanks.

I've got.

It's about an elf who discovers he isn't who he thought he was and his journey to New York City to find his true identity and his place in the world, spreading Christmas cheer for all to hear along the way.

He said. He said a quote from the film that Spoilers.

I know. I was thinking this is also. Is this the shortest film title we've done?

Three letters? Yeah. Like slightly behind Jaws.

Oh, yeah.

Oh.

Breaking new ground.

Not quite the nutshell of this. What's this about?

Yeah, that's it. It's. The emotional heart of this movie is searching for a father figure or father. That's kind of what it's about.

And I guess having faith or belief in the magic of Christmas spirits.

This is just like a Christmas version of the borne identity. Really.

Is it? If only it was. But we've also got some, like, younger people listening. And the biggest advice I can give to young people is you.

You've barely started playing the game and the people around you will probably put around you like they've got so much time to find your tribe and when you do, it's like. It's like going home. I know. Mark, you're the same, aren't you? Because you at school you were kind of a rebelly long haired metal.

There was only a small club of us who liked heavy metal and had long hair.

This is pre Internet where you couldn't just say, find friends online.

Well, there's others of us who just.

Used to get ridiculed just for things like. And like everyone, everyone else was into mainstream music with the owners who weren't. But eventually, years later, that was the cool thing.

Yeah, it's always a way.

Well, I, I was a nerd and like nerd things. And there was only a few of us. Right, the cavalier. Thank you, Henry.

Exactly.

So it's another MOV identity.

Yeah, the Christmas identity about belonging.

Childhood optimism meets real world cynicism.

Yeah, that's kind of a nice way of putting it. And how particularly New York is a symbol of oppressive capitalism gone crazy.

It's easy to be cynical, I would imagine, but based on all I know about New York, which is from watching movies.

Also it's a daft comedy with Will Ferrell dressed as an elf doing elfie.

2003, yeah.

Long time ago. But it feels for me it's. It's kind of tender movie that's kind of sweet in an old fashioned kind of way.

Yeah, it is sweet.

It's got an old school feel to it.

I brought down sort of Roald Dahl. It's got.

What movies could it be compared to?

Yeah, yeah, I've wrote down. It's like a Roald Dahl sort of thing. It's like a Willy Wonka. It's got that magical.

It's like a kids film but it's got the themes for adults in it as well.

If say inspired by animation. It was called Rankin Bass Animations, which I never really paid attention to, but they're production design is almost identical.

So they've been a big influence on.

Yeah, it almost looks like a play is a good way of looking at it. I imagine it would be really good actually. Why is this not a play?

Well, it became a musical.

Did it? Okay.

Yeah. It run for. They made a cartoon like an animation of the musical as well. And it had Jim Parsons, he did the voice of Buddy the elf.

And Mark Hamill did the voice of Walter Hobbs and it was a musical cartoon thing. But I think that then went on to become this actual musical on stage. So, like you say, is built for that.

Yeah, totally.

Any other movies?

Well, I've put down the Santa Claus films, like the Tim Allen ones. Bit of that where it's kind of modern versus classic films. I put down the Grinch as well, because if you like that sort of madcap humor, I suppose.

Well, my meats is the Grinch meets Big with a sprinkle of Home Alone.

Oh, that's good. He's getting good at these.

Santa Claus. A movie as well where Dudley Moore's playing the elf.

I've not seen that. I want to see that.

Oh, it's phenomenal. Who is the dad in that? He's the guy from Third Rock in the.

John Lithgow.

Oh, yeah.

Who's gonna be Dumbledore?

He's not the dad, actually. He's the older guy who's like. Again, like a father figure.

Yeah.

Anything else?

That was good. Big meets the Grinch, meets.

Let's Pretty good. Home Alone.

Yeah.

Home alone 2 with the city. Yeah.

I can't think. And just. If you like Christmasy films or Will Ferrell. Oh, Will Ferrell. You're gonna be.

This is right up there, isn't it?

Yeah.

Cool. Thanks, gentlemen. Okay, let's move on to part two, which is the unboxing. So in part two, what did you miss?

Where we will highlight things you may have missed even if you've seen the movie many times. Paul will give his fantastic facts of the day.

And then we round off with Hate It, Orator, where we each give it the movie rating at 10 and then combined score will enter our legend league. So I'm gonna go to you, Darren, first for what did you miss in Elf?

Don't know if you missed it at the time. Will Ferrell. This is. This might be more of a kind of a fact, but it's very Saturday Night Live E. And it's kind of.

Which is a Ghostbusters thing as well.

Improv kind of. Yeah.

Will Fell was known as Saturday Night Live guy and wasn't a leading man at all. And they kind of. They weren't going to fund it, basically. Then they did. There's not really much going on behind the scenes.

I think it's really kind of surface level in many ways, partly because it's made by quite a lot of fairly amateur filmmakers at the time.

Favreau is. At the time. Yeah.

What had he done they made.

I thought this was like his biggest break into mainstreamy stuff.

He was.

Yeah, yeah.

And then he went on to do, you know, obviously Iron man, but Lion King as well. Yeah. I mean, John Chef, I really like.

Oh, that's a good film.

Yeah. John Favreau. But he was a young director and I think only got it because. Did Will Fell need, like, Vince Vaughn in something?

Didn't he been in, like old school or something with him?

Yes, that's right.

Yeah.

So they don't really know what they're doing. A lot of the producers weren't like full on producers.

It was people like one level down who liked the script and were like, well, I think this is kind of cool. But, you know, watching an interview when they were like, we didn't know what we were.

Maybe that adds to the charm. Maybe.

Well, yeah, like, the writer was actually a Jew who loved Christmas and hadn't really written scripts before. This is like one of the ones he did. And he's like, I don't really know what I was doing. It's like there was a lot of people who really.

It was a new first for them. Zoe Deschanel wasn't Zoe Deschanel back then. Like, she didn't know what she was doing. Like, yeah, there's a lot of noobs.

But the stuff I like reading into is other weird stuff.

So hit us with Darren.

Well, firstly, James Khan's in it. So lush. James Caan did know what he was doing. I can see that he's pain in every scene that he's in because it's so different to.

He just plays it straight, though. He's just.

He's like, I was in the Godfather and now Will Ferrell was trying to tickle me.

Wants me to tuck him in.

Yeah, exactly.

He is the Scrooge character of the piece, but plays it so well.

I'm gonna kill my agent is what he's saying with every. Apparently on set, he got up and said, I want everyone to have a really good time. I want. You can't remember what he said.

He created a rhyme around his name. He wanted everyone to really, like, get on with him. Wanted to change his Persona and be like, good to work on, but you'll work with.

And the irony is there's going to be kids who've grown up who might not see the Godfather, but they're going to see him in this.

Can you imagine if someone had the ghoul to be like, oh, James Kahn, Is that the guy from El?

That's what I was thinking if someone says that to you, you're going to.

Be like, but also this. This didn't do very well at the time.

No, I didn't.

This is. This has taken a cult status years after.

It's because you need to be drinking.

Not anymore. This is adored by people of all ages now.

But if you look at it, it's got all the ingredients to be a festive cult classic. And Bob knew Bob Newhart. Am I saying that right?

Yeah, I think so.

Bob Newhart, who plays the paparazzi. I think I read this in my Facts when I was looking before. He loved the script and said, yeah, it's gonna be a Christmas classic.

So it's funny how some people looked at it and gone, yeah, this is gonna be a classic. Even not if straight out. And I suppose Will Ferrell wasn't a big name at this point, so it wasn't like, oh, it's the new Will Ferrell film.

Because. And now with all the stats of streaming, it's always in the top 10 streaming movies of Christmas every year.

And when I've been asking people over the, you know, this last couple of weeks, I've been asking, you know, go on, what your favorite Christmas films, and this one tends to be in the mix with most people and different ages as well.

This was just a retelling of Rudolph. Apparently. That's what the writer did. He, like, saw.

I think he saw the Baskin Bass, Rankin Bass animation on Rudolph or whatever because Rudolph's just a reindeer that doesn't fit in. And he goes, I'm just going to switch up with an elf, have an elf that doesn't fit in, and then we'll take it from there. And it writes itself.

But, yeah, I find it fun at the beginning. James can is taking back some books from a nun because the nun can't afford to pay. And I'm like, typical church. You're not paying their way. Just.

Just want handouts. Yeah, you still gotta pay, pay taxes, church.

But then later on, he cuts out two pages of another book anyway.

Yes, he does.

Yeah, the kids ain't gonna notice that.

Just look at pictures.

Gonna notice.

What I do like about this film is it kind of flips the usual Christmas cynic becomes a believer formula. Instead you've got the, like, you know, the arm of the cranky lead learning to believe.

Now they've got the film follows a believer dropped into a cynical world that. Making everyone else have the arc.

Yeah.

Going from cynic to sort of believer. Different to what they normally do it is.

It's also weird that it starts off with the elf in a nunnery. Santa Claus.

How are you doing this to these films? This is never what I expected it's gonna be. But the baby.

The baby crawled in there own Jesus.

Home, kidnaps his child. Well, okay. The kid climbs into his sack. Sounds weird. Anyway.

Tell us your favorite Christmas films, kids, and we'll spoil them.

But how does Santa not know? Like he knows every kid that's good or bad. How about this kid sneaking into your bag. You don't spot that he's very busy on Christmas Eve.

He might be distracted by.

Kidnaps the kid because the kid then comes out of the sack at the North Pole.

Not intentionally.

And then what, 30 years later they're like, oh, not only did we kidnap you, but we also know where your dad is because he's still alive. Your mum died, but your dad was alive the whole time.

You could have had a relationship with him for 30 years, but we kept you to do elf slave labor, which you were shit at because you're an elf and you go too slow.

Stop deconstructing one of my favorite movies. Stop it.

This is why you got to be careful when you pick me up.

I was fully aware what was going to.

Basically what he's saying is that he sits on a throne of lies.

That's a very tenuous. I'm not sure I agree with that.

It's a Christmas film about an elf. Come on.

That's what, intentional?

I'm describing the story.

It's a bit of a gray area there. The baby. He didn't kidnap a baby. Not intentionally anyway.

The kid climbs into the sack, which he didn't realize. He gets home, he's like, oh, the kid is in my sack. He doesn't return in Mark because he's from an orphanage.

Anyway, they could bring him up better.

But he knew where the dad was.

But let's look at the heart of it, which is some people, you know, lose the sight of what's important in life. Like Walter has kind of let his family drift away because he's parental rights focused on his books.

This. This movie also does something which ever since the world was it leave the world behind. I never knew. I never noticed that was a thing in movies.

I know.

It's always the color thing.

Yes. So it's always. The city was always intentionally cold.

Yeah.

And always almost seem as like a transactional place until Buddy comes along and the scenes have a color and a warmth every time he's in it.

Yeah.

He literally warms the film.

And you got Zoe's beautiful singing voice.

Zoe is.

Yeah.

That's phenomenal in this.

And she's not. I was thinking about it at the end. She's not in it that much. So her impact when she's in it.

Doesn'T turn up till later. She was 23 at the time.

She's just very lovely.

And Will Ferrell was 36.

I did wonder about the age gap.

It's not a major age difference. No.

Both consulting adults, put that way.

Yeah.

Maybe you think Will's older because he is such a tall kind of.

It was just he's kind of creepy. Like watching her in the shower and stuff. Not watching her. But, you know.

But he's doing it in innocence. He's like, I was listening to you in the shower.

Yeah. I do it in innocence as well. Still get restraining order.

I wrote that in my notes. I'm like, yeah, if this happened in real life and not movie life, he's. He's gone. Yeah.

And she's at work. HR Immediately.

Right. It's a very different movie if it was in real life and not a Christmas film. So I kept writing that, like, yeah, it's Christmas film rules.

You'll let it off.

Exactly. Because the Central park rangers are not a weird horse bound. I spin off.

But hey, made it exciting, though, right?

It did, yeah. Oh, no, it's a Central park rangers.

Which I feel like they played up. There's four of them, straight on purpose.

And they wear black.

Yes, exactly.

Like the night.

Yeah.

That's kind of a Lord of the Rings, I think, maybe, isn't it?

Oh, it could be.

Maybe it was around that time and they were sort of spoofing the Ringwraiths. Ringwraiths, Maybe park ranger. Don't go to Central park, kids. Not at night.

I picked up on Buddy's literal interpretations. Like, they aren't jokes. They're more like they reveal truth. How absurd adult behavior is.

Like rudeness or disconnection, consumerism or always being in a rush. Like not taking time. Things. Like things to a child, which you should be doing because he's the only one taking things at face value. Everyone's just.

Yeah.

And he. And he plays it straight from his character's point of view. He's not trying to be funny.

He's playing everything straight as to how his character would react, which is probably very much like a child would, which you two will probably know better than me. With kids. Is that like I love you. I love you. I'll bring you back in a minute. It's like, no, no, don't, don't.

Yeah, you do end up having those kind of conversations. But the central question for me that comes from this movie is it's not can Buddy fit in?

It's can everyone else around him rise up to his level of kindness and adapt? Which they are being in their normal. In their normal rat race lifestyle, they just, they've lost all that. Like he's dad.

But if you think about the media bit at the end, that kind of exemplifies all of that as well, doesn't it? Where the media are all very cynical, like, oh, yeah, there's been a sight of Santa Claus. And how do you know that it's this film, surely.

Yeah, it did well up.

You did?

Which bit at the end bit where. Well, partly because that journalist was so hot. Well, what was going on with that journalist and the guy she was interviewing?

Your eyes really light up the room. Yeah, so I saw that.

I was like, are you ad libbing? Are you an extra who's like taking his shot or are you a husband? And it's like an in joke. What's going on with that?

I don't know. It's funny that people don't do that on news interviews in real life.

I would.

Elf is on so many Christmas cards and memes and everything now I send.

At least 100 elf memes every Christmas. Probably. I send a lot of gifts anyway.

Okay, thank you, gentlemen. We get to hear Paul's amazing facts of the day.

Oh, oh, oh. Festive facts of the day.

Yes. That's what I should have gone for. Festive fact of the day.

So before I get into the facts of the day, I will say I've got this done dvd.

So have I. Because you bought it for. Well, you gave it to me last year. I did. And I actually watched the director's commentary and all the extras.

Oh, no, more than this.

Did you? Yeah. But I still left this to you.

Okay, okay. So that was what I was going to say. How much effort used to be put into DVD menus and things like that? So everyone's like, oh, just stream it.

It's like. But on the DVD menu it's got like Christmas.

The main thing, I don't know if you've got one of these is the force perspective. Thing is that where they. So the back half people are quite close up and the front people are quite far away. That's how they create the.

Without CGI back in the day.

Yeah. There's a cool museum in Keswick where they can do that. That's right puzzling place.

But yes, I've been there.

It's cool old school cinema.

It is, yeah.

But I enjoyed the menus. But also there's this documentary on the. On the bonus disc that's about an hour and it talks about the behind the scenes of the making the film.

And it's called quite in detail. It goes through all the different roles. It's going through the gaffers and the camera and the photography. Where'd you see that? It's on the DVD.

Oh, sweet.

Which means it might be on YouTube.

It might be on YouTube. Yeah. But it's about an hour and it's just behind the scenes.

And you realize even for a film like this where you just think, oh, it's not to it fairly easy to make. There's so many things going on.

Well, because it's before cgi.

Yeah.

There's a lot of work going into make simple.

Well, there is cgi, but it's a lot simpler kind of pull back.

That's interesting that they did that because it's kind of low budget. Yeah. And so there must be almost like a thank you to everyone for working so hard. We're going to feature you a bit, give you a shout out.

There's lots of Jon Favreau obviously talking about it. So maybe it was him documenting his first sort of big feature. But then they talked to the producers and the. The script supervisor.

What does the script supervisor do? And it was very quite detailed of all the different roles. And I was.

DVD or Blu Ray?

Just dvd.

I need to find out. I need to teach with it.

Yeah, that's happening. I think you find it was interesting. I'll find the title of it and I'll let.

You should be on YouTube. Yeah.

Anyway, trivia time.

The scene where Buddy eats the different candies and pastries with the spaghetti noodles had to be shot twice because Will Ferrell vomited the first time.

I'm glad to hear that.

So he actually was eating this stuff. Yeah.

Part of me worried that that's just what Americans do.

It's like, is this spaghetti and like sweets and makeup syrup. Yeah. Your body's not designed to take in that much sugar. No.

Not even to look at that much sugar.

Yeah.

How is it the British have the reputation of having bad teeth. And the Americans eat like that.

And there's sugar in everything over there.

Americans who listen to this, let us know.

And James Kahn revealed that the reason was that Ferrell and Jon Favreau didn't get along. But I heard it was more that he didn't want to spoil the original. The original. And didn't want to be wandering around in his tights.

29 million.

Yeah.

How much money do you have who you can turn down? 29 million.

He's worth a fair bit, I guess.

I mean, when you. When you get paid millions per movie anyway, you do what you want.

Is it real money? Like it's Monopoly money at that point, isn't it?

Well, if you're listening, let us know. I'm sure you will, in a fun way.

But, yeah, millionaires listening. What do you do with your money?

Yeah, I felt like watching all the documentary stuff and then reading that, though, was a bit of a hit to the face because obviously on the documentary, everyone's getting along and Will's a professional and always the nicest guy. He's always on time. And now it's like, oh, he didn't get on with John.

If there are any genuine millionaires listening. Do you ever go to the cash appointment? You have 45 million in the bank. You can withdraw £300.

Yeah, exactly.

Amazing. Anyway, anyway, onwards. The Jack in the Box scene, one.

Of my daughter's favorite scenes.

There you go. I wrote it down. It was quite funny as well.

Jon Favreau actually used a remote control to trigger the Jack in the Box to get the style of reactions from Will Ferrell.

The movie homage thing, I don't need to talk about that because you mentioned that before, but, yeah, it's adamant to make the movie a homage to the Rankin and base Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

I don't know what that is.

I've started to include references to that film in the confidence that all copyright issues have been taken care of.

This turned out to be an oversight when the studio's legal department informed them that no permission had been obtained from Rudolph's copyright holders.

So soon the lawyers from New Line Cinema popped up in all facets of production and suggesting that Will Ferrell should start wearing a blue costume instead of a green one, which would mean they had to either reshoot all of his scenes or digitally color correct his.

Yeah, and all of his suits, however, all legal issues were later cleared when they found out that Rudolph was never properly copyrighted, containing an error in the Roman numerals of its copyright notice, so the movie could freely include elements from it.

Jesus.

Which all sounds so technical when you think, well, it's a fun Christmas film. It's like the lawyers are on the thing.

And how to complicate a simple issue. Right.

Director Jon Favreau drew Buddy's crayon drawing of himself in the card he made for his dad. Oh, the facts. I'm pulling out some of the best ones because that's. That's what you do tell me to do.

One of them, which I meant to say before, was Will Ferrell actually had headaches throughout filming because he was eating all the sugary food. So again, American audiences, do you get headaches if you're eating all this sugary stuff?

According to Will Ferrell, at the movie premiere, co star James Khan approached him and said he felt Pharaoh's performance in the film was too over the top while they were shooting the movie. However, when James Khan saw the finished film, he later said he understood the energy that Will needed to put into his performance.

And later, that was the contrast between the two because he was completely deadpan and he was polar opposite.

But at least he came back and. Yeah, and said, why you did it now? So that's good, because he is a serious actor, isn't he?

And like you say, James Caan's probably going like, what am I doing in this film? I watched him in Las Vegas, the TV show. Did you ever see that? Yeah, he plays the boss and he's really good in it.

But there's times where you just like. It's quite a cheesy show, to be honest. But there's times where you're watching him going, like, is he going, what am I doing in this?

Like, he plays like the head of security. Moving on, moving on. Couple more, couple more. The elves have pictures of syrup in the break room instead of coffee.

And as we touched upon before, many of the sets were built twice. Once much larger for the actors playing elves and once slightly smaller for the normal sized actors. Okay, final one.

Contrary to popular belief, Zooey Deschanel's hair is not naturally blonde as seen in Elf.

She dyed it for a project that was never released and did her audition and screen test for Elf during that time frame, and the studio didn't want her to change it back because they hired her based on the footage of her as a blonde.

I heard Katie Holmes was up for it as well.

Quite would have liked that too, you know. Oh, and Jon Favreau wrote Will Ferrell's line about the department store Santa sitting on the throne alive as a reference to Lord of the Rings.

Oh, nice.

Let's bring it full circle.

Also on John Favreau. I heard it was important to him because his mum died when he was really young.

So this idea of having an absent father, absent parent, rather sort of hit. Yeah. I think it allows you to give movies a little bit more emotional depth when you understand that.

And I've just come across the one like you say. And Katie Holmes declined.

Oh wow.

To be Jovi.

Maybe the end of Dawson's Creek.

She was dating Tom.

She's not really a film actress, she's more tv.

You'll like this one. This is my final one. I'll leave it on this mic drop. This links it into a Ghostbusters episode.

The apartment in which Buddy's dad lives is the same apartment building exterior shot in which Dana Barrett lived in. Ghostbusters.

Nice.

Linking it in.

It's also similar to the Ghostbusters in term. What is about New York and wanting to get crowds involved.

Right.

Every time with Ghostbusters is a Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters 2. It's a new year and this is just like, what are they singing?

So it's coming to town.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was cool.

Okay, well, somebody has sent us in another fact about from Ghostbusters, but I'll read that when we get to the lobby.

Excellent.

In a bit. Is that you done, Paul?

There's lots of lots of little facts about health, but that's me done.

And like I say, I would recommend the documentary that's an hour if you're into filmmaking because it shows how even sort of a light hearted comedy film has so many departments and costumes, design, makeup, all that stuff.

Well, it just happens. We haven't mentioned it yet, but we will mention it. We have our own subreddit. Yes, movies in a nutshell.

And we've had some more facts on the subreddit. Oh, so apparently Jim Carrey was originally meant to play Buddy.

Yeah, I can see that.

I can see that.

The script was written in the 90s with Kerry in mind. The project stalled and by the time it moved forward, Carrie had moved on. Opening the door For Winfrey.

Jon Favreau plays several roles in this movie, not just the Doctor.

Really?

Yeah. He's the voice of Bye, buddy. Hope you find your dad. Which is one of my favorite lines.

That was gonna be my end line.

You can still do it.

Can I?

I could cut that bit out.

Okay.

As you've covered, Will Ferrell refused to do a sequel despite being offered 29 million.

29 million.

They quoted that he said, ruining something that people really like.

I would ruin so many things that people really liked for 29 million.

There we go. Yes. But we have a subreddit, so if you're on Reddit, we'll put a link in the show notes. But yeah, search for movies in a nutshell and you can join.

We put things up there in advance of we're recording so we can have answers. We have an option now sometimes, you know, we record two. Two in one night. So when we record an episode, never.

Don't destroy the illusion.

I can put things in a day and we have answers straight away. So it's really good. So thank you.

But it uses.

Yeah.

Fans.

Thank you, Paul. Amazing facts as always. So that takes us on to hate it or rate it. I'm gonna go to Paul first. In fact, no, it's me because it's my choice.

Okay.

It is.

Yeah. I still realize.

So cuteness.

It's. I watch it every year. I only watch it at Christmas. Obviously it's Christmas movie still holds a special place in my heart. Yes. I know.

It's not the perfect movie. It's full of holes.

What I didn't realize until Darren started saying them.

But it's just. It's just a feel good movie.

It's a fun film.

I'm just gonna give it a solid 8 out of 10 because. Just. Because the way it makes me feel every time I watch it, I don't have a lot to say on it. So yeah, solid eight for me. Right over to you, Paul.

Okay. I obviously loved it. It's whimsical, it's fun. It mixes kind of kid humor with adult themes. And I think the tone of it is very well done.

I can imagine kids watching it and laughing their heads off at the daft slapstick stuff where he's jumping into trees or eating all the spaghetti and all that kind of thing. But then as an adult, you can still watch it and get the heart of it and be like, oh, yeah, he doesn't fit in in the North Pole.

Now he feels like he doesn't fit in in New York City. With his other family. And you feel that isolation. But then it all comes together in the end. It's just magical. It's lovely.

I can see why it's got a cult status. I can see why it becomes people's favorites. There'll also be people who hate it because I don't like Will Ferrell. I don't like the humor.

This might be where Taryn's gonna kick in in a minute and take all of this Christmas joy away.

That's why I put him last.

Right? But yeah.

Know what I'm gonna say.

But for me, I love the kind of films like big. I love 13 going on 30 odd genre of film would say, oh, it's carny, it's whatever. But there's a lot of this where it's a Christmas film.

You let it off. Ooh, it's creepy. Singing along with her in the shower kind of. But it's a Christmas film. He doesn't realize it's bad. It's fine. She's magical in it.

He's funny. I love the store owner guy as well. He's so good.

Work is in your favor.

Focus on work.

Apparently that was meant to be Wanda Sykes, the comedian.

I can see that.

But she couldn't do it. I can't remember what the reason was now, but he was perfect.

He was great contrast for him who's doing this and he gets all paranoid that someone's trying to take Santa's got a brand new bag. And then the final thing I'll say before I score it because I know I waffle on with these things. That scene.

And maybe it's me in New York and crowd scenes. I said this about Ghostbusters with the saving the day going down.

The thing, that scene where they're all singing and the reporters there and she's all cynical. And then there's a shot where James Kahn's there and the sleigh goes over his head and it all kind of crescendo's and the score kicks in.

I'm like, yeah, that was tears.

Claws on. It goes, love it.

That's what you want in a Christmas film. And I feel like they delivered it. That scene alone always raises the score. I'm like, I'm really enjoying this.

And then I hit that point and I'm like Christmas emotional high on the film, you know, happy tears. So I'm gonna give it same as you, Mark. I'm gonna give it an 8 because I want to balance out where for Taron's twitching. I. I love It.

I'm giving it a high score because I love it. But I think the appeal of different ages is quite magical when that happens. And Pixar are good at that and Disney were good at that in the past.

So it's nice when it comes together. Darren, we're bracing ourselves.

Over to you, Darren.

I've got this note of I hate everyone.

What do you think about the film when asked about everyone else?

I can't believe I didn't read that note. It's in such big writing.

I know. What can I say? Okay, so film is like medicine, or it's like an outfit. And you put it on to suit your mood. Right.

You think, oh, what am I in the mood for? I'm gonna watch this.

I get that.

I'm, you know, nearly 50 years old. I'm single, you know, divorced. I. I live alone, and then it's Christmas and I'm watching a Christmas movie on my own.

Like, you get used to it.

Yeah, it's okay.

Yeah. You just embrace it in the end. So they're crying in the corner. It's fine.

But, you know, I tried, you know, I actually, you know, the setting, I. I watched it, and you could argue it's quite Christmassy, but it starts, and this Bob Newhart guy rocks up and he's just awful. It's like he's an elderly person who's lost his way out of the old people's home. And someone's given him scripts.

Now, the Americans must like him for some reason. So what's he from? Because I've seen him pop up in, like, other shows.

He was in all kinds of sitcoms and stuff. Back in the day, he was in the Big Bang Theory, was it. He used to come back as Professor.

Proto, but again, just like the same guy. Just like, what am I doing? Same on. Oh, oh. So he's got no gravitas to tell a story. So he's not.

He's meant to be, like, world weary. I think that was kind of a world trademark.

Okay, so I'm world. We watching it?

Hey, everybody.

Yeah, exactly. Hey. So I'm gonna maybe tell you this story. And it's about, like, an elf. And I think.

I think that's his style.

Is it like Andy Murray telling the story?

It takes ages to get going. And I was. I don't know what's going on with this. I'm not enjoying it.

I thought got on it quite fast.

And then there's nothing. There's no filmmaking. Interesting thing going on. Like nothing ever happened. So I thought, oh, that was kind of cool.

Oh, there's some hidden mean in there. Oh, there's some. There's a puzzle I need to work out or motivation I have to work out. I was just like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Then it was kind of fun when I started thinking about pagans and nuns kidnapping babies and Santa.

Hence the spin earlier.

I feel we've watched this through a different viewfinder.

Yeah.

But, yeah, I couldn't. I couldn't get it. I saw that I didn't like it. I couldn't bring myself to like it. But I did well up at the end because I'm a sucker.

I'm a sucker for people kind of singing and trying to win. And also at that point, it got so ludicrous with the Central Park.

I love the drama. Yeah, they did hype that up on purpose for comedy value, surely.

But I think that one of my favorite Christmas movies is Santa Claus, a movie with Dudley Moore. And there's so many similarities. And I just think I preferred Dudley Moore's elf character and I prefer Patch. John. Yeah, And John Lithgow.

And they've also got the sleigh that they're trying to power and it's kind of similarities. So, yeah, I didn't like it at all. I can't find anything redeeming about it.

Kind of filmmaker wise to be like, oh, there's some talent behind this, because I think the script is clunky. And, you know, Jon Favreau still finding his feet as a director at this point. I'll go 3.5. Just because I did have an emotional response near the end.

Yeah, you did.

I love the fact you guys are laughing and I feel bad. I was talking to the cinema people the other day. I was like, I feel really bad when we disagree so extremely. And they were like, yeah.

I could tell Paul wasn't happy. I was like, what one?

That's every week, surely.

And they're like, oh, you didn't like Ghostbusters, did you? I was like, no, it didn't hold up.

Yeah, I wasn't happy on that one.

Yeah, they.

They felt that through the audio.

Yeah, they did.

Because they listened, don't they?

Yeah. So I feel bad and I, I actually. I do feel hurt when you guys don't like. Like, it bothered me when Mark didn't like Empire Records.

And it doesn't bother me when you guys don't like something I've. I especially for. I've picked. It doesn't. It's just the world's way. The world Goes, I'm kind of getting.

Used to how long we've been doing this. How many episodes?

Almost a year. Almost.

Kind of getting used to now. Whatever I throw at Darren, he's going to be like, nah. Even ones where he said, I love that film, so I throw it in on purpose.

And he's like, I don't like it anymore.

Yeah, I know.

Oh, that's disappointing.

But, you know, I could maybe fall in love next week. And then what? And she. Maybe she loves Elf and makes me watch it on Christmas Day, and maybe I love it and that's it.

If there's any listeners out there who wants to fall in love with Darren so he can rewatch Elf and give it a better score, there's a thing on our website apparently, where you can leave a message. So, yeah, we'll take our own kind.

Of package into a screening, don't we?

It's true. It does depend what mood you're in, because I always say this about the serious film.

Like any film like this I take on any given day because I love that saccharine kind of stuff thing. But when it's a serious film, I sometimes have to be in the right mood when I'm doing it.

For this, I have to really switch into, okay, it's serious film day.

I once recommended to a girl who just gone through a breakup to watch Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind, because it just come out and it was amazing. Don't watch that if you went through a breakup. Apparently she yelled at me.

I can imagine that actually thinking about it.

She said, you thought that was an appropriate film to recommend to me. I say, it's a great movie. She's. I'm going through a breakup.

Read the room, Darren. Read the room.

Yeah, that's why I hate recommending movies, which is why it's quite funny. I'm not on this podcast because people say don't. They are like, oh, what? What's good to watch? And I. I'm always very.

I'm not going to tell you what I want to watch because you might hate it. But that was fair. That. That was a fair critique, even though you broke our little buddy, the heart.

Elves over here love my students don't like Jaws. I say, okay, you can not like it, but it's a masterpiece. No, no, no, it's rubbish. No, you don't. You're not qualified to say failed that.

You failed the course.

Yeah.

So that gave. It gives a score of 19.5. And that puts it between. It's slightly below When Harry Met Sally and Palm Springs.

And it's just above falling down in a man for all seasons.

Interesting. That's not. I mean, manful seasons. Didn't we all like that?

That's good company.

That was pretty good.

It's not too bad a score on average off Scott.

That's pretty good because the balance.

I love that we'd looked at man, four seasons.

You say that every time because it's.

Such a rogue kind of choice. And it's also, I think, one of the only times I've picked a film myself that I haven't seen in advance, so it's really scary.

I forgot that. Yeah. Cool. Okay. So that's what we thought of Elf. We want to know what you guys think. So you can hit us up, contact us, you can email us.

Hello, Movies in nutshell dot com. You can go to the website, leave a voicemail. You can go to the. Our subreddit links are in the show notes. Tell us what you thought of the movie.

What do you think of what we thought? Was it. Was it we. Spot on. Were we wrong?

Some people probably really hate it.

But also, I think if you like this movie, you're probably a really nice, happy person. I think it's a good. I wish I liked this movie.

I've watched too many of these movies. No, it'll come back.

He watches these all the time.

I just need to watch more.

Yeah, like I say, you get used to being alone and sad. You just watch more movies.

Okay, let's move on to part three, which is the listener lounge. So in part three, we have the lobby, where we share your comments, your questions, any messages. And then we ask our question of the week.

And we finish by revealing next week's movie. So in the lobby, Martin Hayworth, who is a photographer, he follows on Instagram. Cool. He's really good. Go and check him out.

He's got a Ghostbusters fact.

Hit us up. What is it?

The Ghostbusters house interior was also the set for Eggshen's home in Big Trouble. Oh, China. In fact, the Ghostbusters lockers where they store their overalls are still visible. In Big Trouble. Little China.

Nice.

When they come to the mate on the side. Yeah, that was in our subreddit. Someone put a screenshot, and they've circled. You can see it right there. And they've put us two next to each other.

I'm giving an extra mark to Big Trouble just for that fan.

And then all of a sudden, everyone's coming in with the ghost stories from.

Ghostbusters the ghost stories, didn't you? Yeah, yeah.

Even though we've had. The crow has come out. This is from Scott Wigglesworth. This is intense. This is a good one.

We're prepared.

Okay. So I come from a weird family, he admits.

Oh, wow.

2002. And it happened in my family home in broad daylight on a weekend when both of my parents were home. So normally they're at night when shadows.

And I was reading in my room when I needed something from the spare room, which was opposite my room at the end of the landing. The landing was small but bright, just wide enough for two people to pass each other on the way. However, I'll be in family three.

That rarely happened until this day.

As I crossed the threshold of my room and walked out onto the landing, I was still holding my book, looking down, when a man younger than I am now walked straight into me. We collided shoulder to shoulder and he looked at me with the same degree of shock and confusion as I wore on my face.

He wore an Air Force uniform, complete with Canada arched across the shoulder seam of his overcoat, just as solid and real as I was. Until he disappeared in front of me. In the blink of an eye, he was just gone. I walked downstairs, I sat on the sofa beside my dad.

Looking away from his paper. He asked me, you all right, sunshine? To which I looked at him and shook my head and said, no.

He gave me a hoof and smiled before he said, yeah, I've seen him too. Oh, and he's got a bit of an aside about the house as it happened.

But one can only assume that affair for you never made it back in one piece.

This is creeping me out. I'm not gonna lie, Scott.

I remember Darren was looking forward to this, people. And then we've got some voicemails.

It sounds like it's a glitch in the matrix of.

I know, I know.

Voicemails as well.

Yeah, voicemails as well.

Feel like we need to do a morning show if we're getting like public listening in. Going live now to one of Darren's fans.

This is. This is Kieran. Still sent in voice message.

Hello. So yes, with my ghost story, it was a very clear minded day. Day of my granddad's funeral. I think I was maybe 13, 14 years old.

Essentially it was after the funeral, I'd gone back from the crematorium, you know, tears have been shed, etc, but we're back at his house where my uncle still lived and it's just, you know, get together in the evening, think of the good times and, you know, just have a laugh. Think of the, you know, the positives of his life. It was one of those buildings where it's three story one, but it's a small three story building.

You know, they're connected to many of the houses. So everyone's downstairs. I went upstairs where there was two bedrooms and the bathroom. Then my granddad's bedroom was upstairs.

I was looking around, I was being snoopy as a child and I was kind of going, looking into different rooms. Wonder what there is. So he had his room and there was my uncle's room.

So I was looking at them as I looked away, just like turned around and lo and behold, I'd saw my granddad walking past. It was a bit of a weird moment where he just kind of say, walked by me and I blinked and gone. Yeah, that, that's basically what mine was.

But yeah, that's my ghost story. Hope you have a good recording, lads. Bye.

That's a common one.

People seeing someone, a relative who just died.

Never had that. Have you anything like that, Darren?

No, the closest I've had tends to be just creepy stuff my kids said when she first started to talk, all.

Kinds of stuff like a kid that age shouldn't be saying.

Yeah, yeah.

Have you been here before?

Exactly right. She has been here before and she knew stuff that she shouldn't know. So that was kind of cool.

But I've also had many other parents say that kind of stuff. I'm like, okay. Even down to like.

I mean, there's some personal stuff, but there's other stuff where like she'd be crying in a room and would go up and be like, you know, what's up? And she's like, who's that boy in the corner? And I, I was like, well, well, what's he wearing? And her mum was like, no, no, there's no point, Nicole.

And don't be silly. And I'm like, damn it. Like she can see a boy. We could get details here.

What's she seeing?

And that's what I've heard happens is that kids can kind of see more than we can. And yet we then tell them over and over again there's nothing there. So they stop seeing it. So they stop believing, you know, which.

Goes almost into our episode with the elf Magicky thing.

Isn't that he.

Did she ever see the boy again?

There's times when she would get her mum to come up and she'd like, you just stand there. You just stand there until I fall asleep. And she had to stand between her and wherever my daughter was, maybe she was seeing.

Cool. Well, thanks for that, guys. That was really interesting. If you've got any more you want to send them in, you can get in touch with us.

Our links are in the show notes. You can send us a voicemail all usual ways. Okay, so let's move on to the question of the week.

This week's question of the week, which is what constitutes a Christmas movie? How do you define a Christmas movie?

Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Like, there's no. I mean, it's just dumb. It is a Christmas movie. Nine years it a Christmas movie.

It's in the top five of almost everyone's list of Christmas movies. And the director says, it's a Christmas movie, and I say, it's a Christmas movie.

It's not.

It's not Christmas until you've seen Alan Rickman fall off the Nakatomi Plaza and.

Then he's going to pick his wife up. Works Christmas party.

Yeah. It's about a guy learning to say his stories to his wife.

His wife's called Holly.

Opens with Let it snow, Let it snow. Finishes with Let it snow, Let it snow. It's got a cute singing of kissing in the back of the limo at the end. It. This is at Christmas.

I got to see their New Year. It's a Christmas movie.

Christmas movie. I agree.

But. But it's frustrating because I've heard the argument so many times. It's like the. On dating apps, you say, well, does pineapple belong on pizza?

No one gives a crap anymore. Get back to the 90s.

Of course it does. Of course it. Batman Returns.

Yeah, that's.

I'm throwing that in as a Christmas movie.

Lethal Weapon.

Yes. Enemy of the State. Yes.

Now we're talking about.

Anyway, that's. That's the. That's our question. Which is the most contentious Christmas movie? Or just give us some. Give us. Give. Cinnamon. Cinnamon. We'll read them out.

We'll put it in. In the links in the show notes to our contact details. You can send us in and we'll do it.

We'll do it on our socials as well, so you can send them in that way. So that takes us on to next week's movie, which is over to the horn section.

Oh, yeah, that's Me. That's me. Okay, so not feeling massively Christmassy. So I tried.

I looked on streaming services and I tried to find one that didn't have a girl in a red top and a guy in a GRE top smiling into the camera because it made me vomit all over my tv.

There's a lot of those.

I tried to avoid anything with Chad Michael Mowing. Then I tried to avoid anything with Lindsay. Lindsay Lohan from Mean Girls in I.

Can feel the venom behind yours.

And I was like, okay, well, Santa Claus, the movie, let's see if that holds up. I couldn't find it on anything. Then I was, oh, one of my favorite movies, Branded in the Genie. And apparently that's been deleted from the universe.

You can't even buy it.

You can.

Where?

Region one America DVD costs a fortune.

That would be. How. How are fans going to be able to engage with that? If you want to buy a Christmas present for me, though, I can't play Region one.

I almost bought it just for the hell of it, but it was about 20 or 30 quid.

So. Anyway, I did remember I come across a film that I do remember liking. So I'm gonna go with a romantic comedy.

This is just Dangerous Dares.

From everything you just said, it is called the Holiday. Yes.

Never heard of it.

It's got a great cast. It's got Kate Winslet, Catherine. Catherine Cameron.

Cameron, yes.

Jude Law, Jack Black.

That does ring a bell, actually.

Yes, Rufus.

I know of it. Yeah, he's in it, but I've not seen it.

I. I remember liking it because it's very movie centric. Like, I think, like.

What do you mean by that?

Jack Black's characters, edits, trailers for movies.

And if I remember right, doesn't Hans Zimmer do the score as well?

I think he does, yeah. And then Eli Wallach is in it. I think it's 19 in it. And he's like an ex writer for Hollywood. Like, it's. They talk about movies a lot, so.

Sounds right up your street.

Exactly.

I've seen it before and everything he's saying, I'm nodding along too. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So nice, Nice.

I'm quietly optimistic that I might be able to give a film higher than 4.

You can do it happens every once in a while.

It does, it does.

Okay, Next week it is the Holiday Now. I've not seen it. I'm looking forward to it. Looking forward to it.

I think it's on Netflix or Prime. See, I'm one of these.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to adding another film. Hopefully I like it and I can add it to my Christmas repertoire films.

We really appreciate your time taking time of your busy schedules to give us a listen.

Why wouldn't you and if you if you want to get in touch with us and say hello you can email us hello@moviesinnutshell.com the links to our socials and our contact details are in the show notes so we'd love for you guys tell us where you are where you're listening from and how long you've been listening where you heard us from and all that stuff sort of stuff.

Very interested and my copy of the Crow graphic novel hasn't turned up yet so we might want to check with war Check the tracking.

Love it.

On its way yeah.

Okay this episode is officially over. This is Mark saying goodbye and Darren.

Saying goodbye for now.

Bye buddy.

I hope you find your dad. I hate you.

Hey everyone.

Sam.