Podcast in a Pear Tree: Christmas Movie Reviews · Aaron Lee Harvey, Danielle Espino, Samantha Gifford

Run far, far away from this Christmas Twister

·22 min·10 clips

They open with Twisters on the horizon. Aaron Lee, Samantha, and Danielle are all 90s kids, so the talk quickly folds back to Twister before they move into The Christmas Twister, the 2012 pick Danielle says was her idea and that she takes full responsibility for. She owns it. Before the movie talk fully takes over, the three of them trade quick updates on Bridgerton and Hallmark's Christmas in July films, with one of them already watching plenty of Bridgerton and another only peeking at the Hallmark link before moving away from it. It is very much a summer-in-Christmas mode. Once they get into the movie, the panel keeps coming back to the same problem: the tornado is staged like a murderer, and the movie keeps trying to make weather feel like a stalker. Aaron Lee says it directly, arguing that a tornado is just a storm and does not lie in wait. The storm shelter material especially pushes them there, because the characters come out of the debris and the movie suddenly wants the scene to play like something lurking in the dark. They do not let that go. The special effects take a beating next. The hosts joke that they look like something a middle schooler might have made while learning Final Cut Pro, or maybe even iMovie. The mall aftermath gives them more to work with. After the tornado hits, the daughter is standing in debris while the mall farther down stays pristine, and the parking lot cars somehow look untouched by the destruction around them. That kind of detail keeps the room busy. They also bring up the boyfriend flying away, which only adds to the sense that the movie is throwing spectacle at them without making any of it add up. Even the bigger-weather talk cannot smooth that over. What lands, oddly enough, is the Christmas tree stuck out of the second-floor window of the destroyed house. The pool furniture still looks pristine, which only makes the shot stranger. The poolside barbecue at Christmas is where Danielle lands hardest, since it reads like the kind of setup she would never want anywhere near a holiday. By the end, she says she wishes she had not watched it and wants her time back.

As heard by us

A Christmas tornado movie gets taken apart with exacting, very funny irritation.

Podcast in a Pear Tree revisits The Christmas Twister alongside the arrival of Twisters, and Aaron Lee, Samantha, and Danielle set the tone by starting from a shared 90s-kid affection for Twister before turning to a 2012 movie they clearly relish challenging.

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Why you'd press play

You want a Christmas tornado roast with mall debris and poolside damage.

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