Movie Time Machine : A Retro Movie Review Podcast · chad the friend

EP112 How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) Review

December 28, 2023·1 hr 5 min·2 clips

Jim Carrey stayed in Andy Kaufman character during his Grinch pitch - and it sold Dr. Seuss's widow

Movie Time Machine opens with the hosts talking like they have nowhere else to be. The conversation drifts through broken laptops, hard drives, and the sort of DIY tinkering that turns dead screens into small household projects. That loose setup eventually folds into a holiday movie discussion. The target is *How the Grinch Stole Christmas*. Once they get there, the focus lands hard on the score. One of them argues that a Christmas movie ought to get a big, memorable music treatment. Instead, the score gets called generic and oddly missing in the moments where it should be doing more. The conversation gets more specific from there. James Horner comes up repeatedly, and the music is described as sounding like pieces of his other scores stitched together too quickly. The hosts hear echoes of *The Land Before Time*, *Avatar*, and *Legends of the Fall*. That becomes its own joke and complaint at the same time. The point is not subtle. The soundtrack feels assembled, not inspired. They do ease off a little with the note that some of the non-traditional Christmas songs are enjoyable. Then the soundtrack talk veers into the weirdness of pop-rock placement. Smash Mouth comes up, and that sends the discussion into a broader riff about how strange it is to make a timeless Christmas classic sound trendy. The comparison to *Shrek* and other early-2000s soundtrack energy lands as part joke, part critique. The show keeps that same casual back-and-forth right through the end. There is no hard reset into a formal closing. Instead, the hosts wrap by thanking listeners, wishing them Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year, and promising more holiday movie talk soon. A *Black Christmas* solo episode gets teased as the next stop. The whole thing feels like friends finishing one holiday assignment and already lining up the next one. It is warm, messy, and comfortable enough to let the conversation wander before it comes back home.

As heard by us

A loose, funny Christmas episode that blends Grinch talk with salvage projects, score chatter, and a stray Smash Mouth gripe.

Movie Time Machine treats How the Grinch Stole Christmas as a holiday hangout as much as a review, and that looseness gives the episode its appeal.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want a Christmas movie review that sounds like a real hangout, not a lecture.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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