It's no secret that Hallmark movies are objectively trash. There's nothing particularly interesting about them and any form of "stakes" are as hard to find in them as a lead actress who didn't star in a late-80s/early-90s sitcom. That's why for the past few years I've written treatments for movies I thought would be perfect when it comes to placating the rubes who eat up Hallmark's holiday offerings. Who could forget the heartwarming tale of a woman overcoming her husband's death by autoerotic asphyxiation,  A Conundrum For Christmas ? Or the Christmas/Hannukah mashup we all needed, The Christmas Dreidle ? How could I top those? Well, it won't be easy, but perhaps with this... *** A Very Christmas Christmas By Matt Reigle Warren Christmas (played by me) and Jeanine Christmas (Kate Beckinsale) live on a quiet cul-de-sac in the town of Humbugsville, Maryland. Everyone in Humbugsville hates Christmas, and the townspeople  even banned celebrating b...

Nothing feels like a warm, creepy, claymation-y hug quite like a Rankin/Bass holiday special. Even if you're not familiar with the name Rankin/Bass, you'll no doubt be familiar with their filmography which boasts classics like Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, The Year Without A Santa Claus, and  The Little Drummer Boy. The company is synonymous with Christmas, but they have a little-known gem to their catalog for the Halloween season:  Mad Monster Party. Released in 1967,  Mad Monster Party ( sometimes inexplicably written as Mad Monster Party? with a seemingly superfluous question mark)   tells the story of Baron Boris Von Frankenstein summoning all the monsters to his Isle of Evil (which oddly enough is in the Caribbean) to tell them about a major discovery he has made and inform them that he will be retiring from his position as the head of the Worldwide Organization of Monster. In attendance are Frankenstein's Monster (who is sometim...

Last year, I tried to weasel my way onto the lowest rung of show business aside from freak shows: The Hallmark Channel. I wrote a treatment for what many felt was destined to become a holiday classic, A Conundrum For Christmas . It would've starred Kate Beckinsale and myself, and followed a woman as she tried to enjoy Christmas again after her husband's untimely death by way of autoerotic asphyxiation. Since those people at Hallmark will air anything and their audience will gobble it up, I couldn't believe this wasn't optioned. Quite, frankly, it's a travesty. However, I'm not one to give up that easily. So I decided to try again. Enjoy. *** The Christmas Dreidle By Matt Reigle Sheryl Christmasberg (played by Kate Beckinsale) is the owner of an artisanal soap shop in the small town of Sugar Plum Ranch, Kansas. She lives there with her handsome husband, Jerry Christamsberg (played by me) and their four-year-old daughter, Florence-Anne, who wears glasses. This way...

About a week and a half ago, I tore off the latest page on my Far Side desk   calendar, revealing a delightful vignette featuring two kangaroo nerds with pouch protectors. After several minutes of side-splitting, Gary Larson-induced laughter,  I realized that the date was December 13, which in this case fell on a Friday. Not one for superstition, I decided to go about my day as I normally would, but not before grabbing a my lucky horseshoe and tapping on the door-frame exactly 4 times. I decided that I would go see a movie. I arrived at the theater and surveyed the posters that lined the lobby. I was struck by one particular poster that really piqued my interest. Knives Out, read the poster. Standing front and center was a familiar face, one that I had seen at least four times previously. "Why that's Daniel Craig," I said to no one. "James Bond himself." I had heard that a new Bond movie was in the works. Maybe they finished it up early ...

Hallmark movies seem to be so formulaic that literally anyone could write one. Seeing as I fall into the category of "literally anyone," I decided to write up a treatment. *** A Conundrum For Christmas By Matt Reigle Carol Holly (played by Kate Beckinsale) is a an executive at a high-powered ad agency living in New York City. Christmas is the agency's busiest time of year, and it has caused Carol to lose her Christmas spirit, however her husband, Steve, and her son, Timmy, really like Christmas. Timmy has some sort of ailment (he can't stop hiccuping) and he tells his mom that he finds her lack of Christmas spirit disturbing, but Carol brushes him off and goes to work. At work, Carol's boss tells her that he will need her to work on Christmas, and she agrees because Christmas doesn't mean much to her.  Carol returns home from work and finds her husband dead (it's from auto-erotic asphyxiation, but we keep it implied only. It's a...

Movies and television shows are cultural touchstones. We learn behaviors from the things we see which in turn influences the way society acts as a whole.  Yet there's an iconic film and an iconic TV show that I have never seen, and quite frankly I'm in no rush to see either of them.  Game of Thrones This isn't because I don't currently have Home Box Office (what smart people know "HBO" stands for). I had HBO through most of college and still never hopped on the bandwagon. I'm sure it's good because that's what everyone with a pulse has tried to tell me. I'm just not a huge fan of high fantasy (which sounds like a Cheech & Chong movie where they play knights). I think it's because I can't relate to the subject matter. I've never been chosen to go on a quest to find the Shield of Grimblegär or had to rescue an orc from a bunch of other orcs or whatever it is happens in those things. I feel the same way about Lord ...

Who didn't see this one coming? A Utah-teenager was involved in a car crash while trying to drive blindfolded.   The driver was inspired by Netflix's Bird Box, the world's okayest horror movie. I watched it, it's fine. It's by no means bad, but it's no Citizen Kane . If you're going to risk your life trying to emulate something from a movie, why not try to emulate a classic? I thought I'd pitch some ideas and see if we can get one of these bad boys to go viral: The Silence of the Lambs Challenge This one is similar to the Bird Box Challenge in that it involves obscured vision. You and a friend find a cluttered basement (try an abandoned house. If authorities try to stop you, tell them it's for the Silence of the Lambs Challenge, they'll be cool with it). One friend hides in the basement while wearing a pair of military-grade night-vision goggles. This friend should breathe heavily to make it more movie accurate. The person without the...

Hollywood Award Season.  The glitz, glamour, and the self-congratulatory back-patting. It all kicks off Sunday night with the Golden Globes, and who better to give you a preview of the nominees and give their selections than myself; a man who hasn't actually seen any of the nominees. Let's dig in, shall we? We'll start with the small screen. Television Best Television Series - Drama The Americans (FX) Bodyguard (Netflix) Homecoming (Amazon) Killing Eve (BBC America) Pose (FX) We starting off on a tough one for me. I'm not exactly one to seek out dramas and generally if people tell me that I need to watch a show (looking at you  Game of Thrones ) I won't end up watching it. I haven't even heard of  Bodyguard, Killing Eve,  or  Pose  which really narrows down my options here. I saw a lot of commercials for  Homecoming  while I was watching other things on Amazon that weren't  Homecoming,  which annoyed me and cam...

Matt discusses his disdain for the abundance of comic book movies and prepares to give his thoughts on the controversial Brett Kavanaugh situation... only to be interrupted by a rogue, conspiracy-spouting, tin-foil-hat-wearing fellow podcaster.

Anyone that knows me knows that I'm a big #PuppetGuy.  Their incessant flailing will always make me laugh and when Kermit starts plucking away on his banjo and singing "The Rainbow Connection," forget it. I'm in shambles. In fact, I once had a friend tell me they didn't like the Muppets, and I think I would have been less upset if he said that he used puppies for batting practice instead of baseballs. (That's a bit of hyperbole, but I was still pretty upset.) I would consider myself something of a pro-puppet activist. If they had legs and could march in parades, I'd be right there right along side Burt and Ernie as a "puppet pal," a friend to the puppet community. Because of this, when I learned about The Happytime Murders, the new film from Jim Henson's (AKA Puppet Jesus's) son, Brian Henson, I was very excited. An adult-comedy-mystery-puppet movie. Sign me up! I told anyone who would listen about the movie. "Yeah, t...

I'd like to start with a disclaimer: I did not see the previous Jurassic World (Park?) movie so it's entirely possible that I missed a key piece of info, but I did see the O.G. Jurassic Park, and bits of pieces of the second one. I was watching the local news this evening because I like to be informed and where better to turn than the fine news men and women that make up our nations journalistic force. They decided that there must not be any crazy shit going on the world tonight, so they did a preview of movies coming out this weekend, one of which is Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. They talked about the premise which was that the movie's protagonists are trying to save some dinosaurs from a volcanic eruption, y'know, because the dinosaurs were so kind to them in the previous films. My question is this: If these dinosaurs die, why can't they just make more? That's how they got to this point in the first place. It's also not things have gone swimmingly...

James Cameron’s Titanic is inarguably one of Hollywood’s greatest accomplishments. But, I’ve never seen it and have no desire to. Part of the fun of any good story is the unexpected. For example, look at any episode of The Twilight Zone as well as Planet of the Apes (which features an ending written by Rod Serling, who wrote the first draft of the script). Titanic has no twist. In fact, I think the movie was spoiled for me in second grade when we learned about the actual Titanic. Sure, there’s the whole character dynamic, but I even know how that ends. DiCaprio drowns, because that chick wouldn’t scooch over and let him climb up on that floating door or something. In fairness, Titanic couldn’t have a twist ending, otherwise it would have been spitting in the face of its source material. I honestly think that the true star of Titanic is the iceberg. Imagine the story without it. I’ve taken the liberties of rewriting the scene right before impact: Sailor Captai...