Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome and thanks for joining us for a special edition of Technato. This is our kind of holiday insert, because we are going to be taking some time this week to spend the holidays with family and friends and loved ones, and we hope that you are, too. But as always, I am Sophie, one of your hosts. And instead of talking tech news, we're going to have something a little bit different this week. Don, do you want to give us some?
[00:00:30] Speaker B: You know, I was looking at the calendar and everybody put in vacation requests.
Literally nobody's going to be here. So what do we do for Technato? And I said, why don't we pre record something? We certainly wanted to extend a heartfelt happy holidays, Merry Christmas. Hanukkah's over at this point, but happy Hanukkah, belated Mary. Kwanzaa, happy festivus, right?
Whichever holiday event that you and your family choose to participate in, we hope that you have a good time, warm time in Florida. Everybody else is dealing with snow, and we don't have that, but we want to make sure everybody's having a good time out there. We will be taking time off to spend with our family and take a break on making fun of people for cybersecurity breaches.
So it's just a nice time to kick back and relax. But one of the ways that I spend time. Daniel, Sophie, we watch a lot of movies, and we talk about movies here on the show, and oftentimes we've all seen different movies, so we kind of give each other homework assignments. I thought it would be fun to share what were our favorite Christmas movie and assign that as a homework assignment. Out. If you haven't seen these, or if you need something to bring in the holiday spirit, here's how you can go with it. Who wants to go first?
[00:01:54] Speaker A: I think Daniel should go first because Daniel always has some real interesting recommendations.
[00:01:59] Speaker C: So what do you think my favorite holiday movie is? Let's start there.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: You want a legitimate die hard?
[00:02:05] Speaker B: Die hard? I figured it'd be the Nutcracker.
[00:02:09] Speaker C: You know me all, too.
You know, it's like we share a.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Brain, the sucker for good ballet.
[00:02:15] Speaker C: So I do really like diehard. Thank you, Brain. Come on, brain. I had to get it back from Don. He was holding it for a moment there. So diehard is a great and a must watch holiday movie, but it is not my favorite Christmas movie. My favorite Christmas movie is Blood.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: All right?
[00:02:37] Speaker C: Right. And you know, you're thinking, Daniel, that's a weird movie.
A, yeah, but b, it will get you in the holiday season, I will say, like the.
It, uh. Was it new hope or something like that? The name of the town that they were in, I forget now. It's just really decked out for Christmas. It's very 80s looking because it was early 80s.
You could tell it's cold as hell. So you kind of get that cold feeling by watching it. And living in Florida, I don't really get that often, so it really gets me in the spirit. And I just love watching that movie every single Christmas.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: I have never heard of this movie before.
[00:03:16] Speaker C: First Blood, Rambo, first Blood.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: I've never heard of First Blood. No, I've heard of Rambo. I've heard people reference Rambo, but I.
[00:03:22] Speaker C: Did not know the character in First.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: Blood, the Sylvester Stallone.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: And that's why the second movie was confusingly called First Blood part two. You're like, how many first blood can you listen?
[00:03:34] Speaker C: You notice I didn't say first Blood part two.
That's a must watch for this holiday season.
But that first blood, it's a really good movie. It's a really good story. It's well acted. It's interesting. It got a lot of stars in it. Before they were big names, and some of them were big names, but just really interesting. Done. I watched the thing with Stallone saying that they hated the movie. When they were done with it, they thought, this is the worst movie we've ever made in our whole lives. And he had to fight to get control over it. And he said, what are we going to do? We're going to cut out. He cut out all my dialogue. He goes, because it was just horrible. Every bit of my dialogue was horrible. So they cut all the dialogue out. And that is more of the movie of what we know nowadays, which is much more interesting.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: All right, well, that one will bring in the Christmas spirit right there.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: My grandma's already tuned out.
[00:04:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: Primary thing is Rambo, first blood. And if you have spare time, die hard.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: Right?
[00:04:37] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:04:38] Speaker A: That's Daniel's assignment, right?
[00:04:40] Speaker C: Oh, it will be done. Along with lethal weapon one.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:04:44] Speaker C: Yeah. That's the trilogy I watch that you.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Watch at the holiday. Okay. But for you folks out there, that is your Christmas homework, your holiday homework from Daniel. Those are the holiday movies you've got to watch. As for myself, I would say there might be a little bit of controversy with this, because I know it's not for everybody, but the movie that always gets me in the Christmas spirit is how the Grinch stole Christmas, the Jim Carrey one.
[00:05:06] Speaker C: Oh, it's a great.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: There the original animated one is, of course, great. That's always fun to watch. But it's nice. It is. It's a fun movie. It's just enjoyable.
[00:05:20] Speaker C: Prime Jim Carrey. It was when he was like.
[00:05:25] Speaker D: He.
[00:05:25] Speaker C: Didn'T become a crazy person yet. He was just on the cusp and he was just making funny jokes all the time.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: Is he crazy now?
[00:05:30] Speaker C: So he went crazy for a little while. I think he's kind of like come back down to recovered celebrities, go through a cycle. Living in Hollywood, kind of mess you up a little bit. So I don't advise it.
[00:05:42] Speaker A: I just think it's a fun Christmas time movie. It's fun to make the Grinch face.
There's so many different facets that you can enjoy. It's a comedy, it's heartwarming and I would recommend it. You've probably seen it by this point, even if it was just like you're flipping through the channels on tv and you're like, that's that stupid Grinch movie again. You've probably seen parts of it. So there's a movie that I do enjoy. It's a Christmas movie that maybe not as many people have seen. It's still pretty mainstream. But for christmases, great flick. Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn, it's like a romantic comedy, kind of very funny. It's quite entertaining.
[00:06:12] Speaker C: Dude, I was belly literally, so I watched that every year because my wife likes those kind of movies as well. And that one right there, anything with Vince Vaughn? That one. He's also in Fred Claus, if you haven't seen Fred Claus, pretty funny flick as well. Christmassy. So another recommendation, but for Christmas had me like chuckling pretty good when the baby threw up.
[00:06:36] Speaker A: I would recommend it. It is definitely more. It's like pg 13. I would say it's something that my parents used to watch when I was a kid and I could never watch it because it's pg 13.
[00:06:44] Speaker C: And then you were saying, now I.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: Can watch it with them and enjoy it and we can all laugh.
I read the Wikipedia synopsis and don't fact check me on that, but it is pretty fun to watch. So I would recommend it. If you haven't seen it, that's my homework. The Grinch and four Christmases and I guess goodfellas, if you count that as a Christmas movie. But I got some flak for that so I won't push that as hard. What about you, don? On what's your homework?
[00:07:07] Speaker B: I have two movies that I watch every year and I think I mentioned one of these in an earlier episode. But for me, like, Gremlins is my Christmas go to movie because it's Christmas through the whole thing and the soundtrack is all Christmas song. That is the soundtrack that I listen to at Christmas time.
It's just always.
[00:07:26] Speaker C: I watch it every Christmas.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a big one for me.
[00:07:29] Speaker C: I probably watch 30 movies every Christmas.
That's no joke.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I certainly have a set. And I know Gremlins wasn't intended to be a Christmas movie if we were to limit it to movies that were intended to be Christmas movies. The claymation, Rudolph, the red nosed reindeer. The Rankin bass one. Yeah.
[00:07:47] Speaker C: All the Rankin bass stuff was just so.
[00:07:49] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, some of them are really bad.
[00:07:50] Speaker C: Yeah. Like the year without Christmas or the.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: Year without a Santa Claus.
[00:07:55] Speaker C: That wasn't.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: I enjoyed that.
Of course. Yeah. I'm basically a kid, so maybe that's.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Why they made a sequel to the Rudolph one. And it's pretty bad. Some of them just did not hold up.
[00:08:06] Speaker C: But the frosty. Frosty is good.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: So many things in there are dumb. Like the little girl locking herself in a freezer car. Like, that's going to work.
[00:08:16] Speaker C: I don't remember that because Frosty was melting. So they put him in a freezer car, and then she started getting too cold, so they had this dead to jump off and build a fire to warm her up.
[00:08:29] Speaker B: But things you teach your kids not to do, like don't close yourself, don't.
[00:08:34] Speaker C: Go hobo on December 24.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: But, yeah, that claymation Rudolph, that's a classic for me. My youngest son is actually terrified of the bumble, so if I watch it with him, we have to fast forward through the first 20 minutes. That's just what he does. But I love watching.
[00:08:52] Speaker C: Did you ever see the mad tv glops?
[00:08:56] Speaker B: No.
[00:08:57] Speaker C: Skit they used to do, and it was claymation take on cops, but they lived in the land of make believe or whatever, right? It was all, like, characters and things like that. So like Gumby and the Pillsbury Doughboy. But they were all, like, criminals at this point. And it was like, cops. And they get called to a scene and they show up and there's the Pillsbury doughboy going crazy, shooting up the bakery, and they've got SWAT jumping in them. And one of them was, they pulled Santa over and he's inebriated, obviously.
And they're like, whoa, there's Santa. You know, and they're know, we want to look in the trunk here. He's like, well, it's my wife's sleigh it is hysterical.
Yeah, YouTube, that one.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: Yeah. That's his YouTube recommendation for your holiday homework, I think. Another good animated Christmas. I don't know if you'd call it a full length movie, but a Christmas special, I guess. I loved the Charlie Brown Christmas special.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: That was one of my favorites. Watch that one.
[00:09:52] Speaker C: It's a nice one that doesn't get a lot of play, but I tend to enjoy is Garfield Christmas special.
[00:09:57] Speaker B: I am not a fan of that one. And we watch Garfield Halloween like crazy.
[00:10:01] Speaker C: I love that one. That was the best one. But I do like the Garfield one as well.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: The Garfield cartoons are fun. I do forget about those. The older ones, they're a good time. So I'll have to watch that. I haven't seen the Christmas special.
[00:10:09] Speaker C: If you really want to kind of like pad this with stuff that's just kind of fun takes you. Especially if you're from Don and I's era and have a healthy dose of nostalgia, just go to YouTube and look up 80s Christmas commercials.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: Oh, the commercials are awesome.
[00:10:24] Speaker C: 2 hours, you're just like, oh, this is awesome.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: I don't know if it was as far back as the 80s, but the Eminem commercial where they come in and Santa's putting the gifts under the tree, they've been using that for like 20 years.
[00:10:33] Speaker C: Mid 90s when that came out.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: They've been using that. They're still using it.
[00:10:36] Speaker C: They've been getting great.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: It's great.
[00:10:37] Speaker C: Well, the Folgers commercial were. It's pizza.
That one got so much play.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
[00:10:46] Speaker C: Yeah. Does McDonald's pull out the, you know, helping the little kid who can't skate yet do they pulled Ronald? They did. Because he's telling kids to be fat and eat hamburgers. And I think they had to, like.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: Not a great role model.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Yeah, well, even just the character, like the guy in the suit with the painted face. I think it freaked people out.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: I think general rule of thumb is you should teach your children not to trust clowns. Just don't, don't do it.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: Even the most harmless clown is. But they are bringing back kind of.
[00:11:16] Speaker C: Goofy grimace and like the hamburger, grimace is big. We've started to see a resurgence of those old.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: The big tunnels renaissance. Merry Christmas.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: This is how we'll be remembered.
[00:11:26] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Daniel, you mentioned generations, and obviously you and I are from a different generation than Sophie, but also our producer Christian.
I'd be curious. I don't know if we're rigged up for audio there. Christian, do you have movie recommendations for Christmas?
[00:11:42] Speaker D: Well, gee, I do. And as somebody who celebrates the holiday life day.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: Life day.
[00:11:49] Speaker C: Interesting. Never even heard of it.
[00:11:52] Speaker D: My favorite Christmas movie is, in fact, the Star wars holiday special.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: The Star wars holiday special.
[00:11:59] Speaker C: Got you.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: We just watched that two days ago.
And it's one of those where I insist on watching it every year and my family doesn't. And so they'll usually make it ten or 15 minutes in. Christian, do you do it all in one sitting?
[00:12:14] Speaker D: You know? Yeah, no, I watch it like twice, maybe three times in a row, something like that.
[00:12:19] Speaker C: That's hardcore commitments. Can you guys see the red dot that's dancing around Christian's forehead out there? I think George Lucas is at the end of a rival scope.
[00:12:28] Speaker D: I like the VR scene. It's the best.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Have you guys seen the Star Wars?
[00:12:34] Speaker C: I say that I have seen, like, bits and pieces over there, but I never sat down and watched.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: I've never seen a moment of it.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: I'm going to describe it. And, Christian, you step in and tell me if I'm miss dating something here. But it's a Wookie Christmas. Chewbacca is going back home to celebrate life day with his wife and kid.
Little mutant kid. Wookie.
[00:13:00] Speaker C: As far as wookies go, he's weird as hell.
[00:13:03] Speaker B: There's a musical number by B. Arthur.
[00:13:07] Speaker C: No way.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: They're not the solid gold dancers. What was she, Arthur? Yes.
Not making up. They want it to be like a variety show. So it's got you two and a half hours long or something. It's really long.
This is on your plex?
It is on my.
[00:13:25] Speaker C: Okay, I will be checking. I will be doing homework.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Jefferson Starship performs a song in there.
[00:13:31] Speaker C: Walking on sunshine.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: I think they were Jefferson Starship at that point.
[00:13:33] Speaker C: Yeah, they advanced the airplane into a starship.
They were Jefferson airplane. And they became Jefferson Starship.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: And then they just became starship.
[00:13:43] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: Christian, what's your favorite moment of the Star Wars Christmas special?
[00:13:55] Speaker C: I think his favorite moment is right before he drinks the bottom of that tea.
[00:14:00] Speaker B: I always liked how the imperial soldiers, when they're searching the house on the bottom floor, they're just like, I'll move this little book. I'll move that book. But when they get to the kids room, they destroy everything. Like, they rip the head off his bantha doll and I mean, just destroy everything.
[00:14:18] Speaker C: They brought in the stormtrooper a team.
[00:14:22] Speaker B: When they searched the millennium Falcon, they couldn't find Hannah hiding under a panel, but this kid might have something in that doll.
[00:14:29] Speaker A: Yeah, that's not mine. I was keeping it for a mine.
Did you say Chewbacca has a wife in this?
[00:14:36] Speaker C: And a kid and a kid and a. Huh.
[00:14:39] Speaker A: All right. I don't know that I buy that, but that's.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: George Lucas absolutely hated this thing. So it's not considered mean. It has Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher. Like, the whole cast. The original Star wars movie had just come out, and I guess it had come out earlier that year, and they were like, hey, we got to make sure we sell some toys at Christmas. We need this on people's minds. We need a Christmas special.
And it was CBS or NBC, and so they were, who's. Who's on our network that has to be on here. And so they got like, oh, shoot. Not Tim Conway. Remember on Carol Burnett, they had Tim Conway and the other guy, I always.
[00:15:21] Speaker C: Think of Tim Conway.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: Yeah, but I know who you're talking about.
[00:15:24] Speaker C: He used to break and crack up all the time because Tim Conway would.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: Be killing, so they would grab him and b Arthur and friggin'Jefferson. Starship. Like, just whoever CBS could get to.
[00:15:35] Speaker C: Jam in this special.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: And they're like, it. Star wars do it.
[00:15:39] Speaker C: So you want me to sing like, you hear my voice? Right.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: Interesting.
If I can find it, I will be sure to maybe watch some of it.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: I'm sure it's on YouTube. There is no way to legally obtain, uh, the story is, and Christian probably knows more than me on this, but that George Lucas bought the masters and destroyed.
[00:16:05] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: Oh, wow. So there's a whole, like, Star wars holiday special.
[00:16:10] Speaker C: He's not a. Oh, okay. Wow. He's not a fan of the original Star Wars.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: Christian, have you watched the Lego reboot they did of it? The Lego Christmas special?
[00:16:19] Speaker D: I, in fact, did watch it, and it's pretty entertaining.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: It's actually good. Versus the original one, which is more of a camp cult.
[00:16:28] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:16:29] Speaker C: Well, your face was awesome to hear that George Lucas does not enjoy the original Star wars films.
[00:16:34] Speaker A: Yeah, that's interesting.
[00:16:35] Speaker C: He called them unfinished. He did not like them. That's why you have so many remastered, digitized, extra special effects, this, that, and the other. And he has the originals under lock and key, and they do not see the light of day because he does not like them.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: Sounds like George Lucas is a little bit of a perfectionist.
[00:16:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:52] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:16:52] Speaker B: That's one word you could use.
[00:16:59] Speaker A: We certainly do have quite a bit of. Quite a lot more homework than I thought we would have. I do want to say, though, that I mentioned goodfellows being a Christmas movie. I got some flak for that. But you could, in theory, watch as a trilogy, goodfellows being the first movie, and you pay specific attention to Tommy's story. Right. And then at the end of it, you don't really hear about much about what happened to him. Well, see, what really happened is he changed locations, he changed his name, and now he just knocks over houses in this neighborhood. He gets arrested. So you watch Goodfellas, you watch home alone. It's a prequel. It's a prequel.
[00:17:30] Speaker C: I got you.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: He's in witness protection.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: And that's why he doesn't cuss in the first and second home alone. He just goes the whole time. He just, like, mumbles. So watch Goodfellows. Watch home alone and home alone, too, and consider it a Christmas trilogy.
[00:17:44] Speaker C: I heard they had to pay McCully Culkin, like, $100 every time they swore.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: Seriously?
[00:17:48] Speaker C: Yeah, like it was a thing.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: That's pretty funny.
[00:17:50] Speaker C: And they did that so that they would keep their mind on what they were saying. Crazy, not swear.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: That's interesting.
[00:17:57] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: Didn't know that he recently got his star on the Hollywood Walk of fame, Macaulay Culkin.
[00:18:00] Speaker C: Did he?
[00:18:00] Speaker A: So merry Christmas to him. Hope he's doing well.
[00:18:03] Speaker C: Listen, he's made some movies that have been become.
[00:18:07] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I know that's a little off topic, but there you go. If you're looking for a little bit of a weird homework assignment, there's my homework for you. In addition to Grinch and four Christmases, is there anything else we want to share, movie music, YouTube wise, that folks should be watching or listening to in our absence?
[00:18:23] Speaker B: I think we've come up with a big enough of a list, so this is a good spot for us to wind things down generally. I want to thank all of you for sticking with us through the years. Technato is going into its 6th year. I think we're on episode 380 something. It's up there. So thank you all. I hope you all have a safe, enjoyable holiday season, and I hope 2024 goes cybersecurity breach free for you. It's my Christmas wish.
[00:18:55] Speaker C: That's where it will remain.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: Do you have any parting words before we go into the new year, Daniel?
[00:19:01] Speaker C: Yes. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: All right. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. And the wise words of nsync. Okay, awesome. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays.
[00:19:09] Speaker C: Modern day profits.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: Well, thank you so much for joining us for this slightly abridged version of Technato. Like Don said, this is pre recorded, so we hope that you are enjoying the holidays, spending time with loved ones, and we will see you in the new year for another full year of Technato.
