115 – The Polar Express

Why Did We Watch This

At long last, the prophecy has come true- we’re finally discussing that Christmas white whale, that rotten chestnut, that ho ho holy hell what a piece of crap movie we’ve been threatening to do for years. That’s right, for our annual Holiday Spectacular, listen in as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss Robert Zemeckis’s 2004 motion-capture abomination The Polar Express with equal parts defeat and enthusiasm. Because everyone has already covered the nightmarish character aesthetics, we spend very little time on that in favor of instead discussing the perils of adapting a picture book to a feature film, what is “believe” and how does that even actually apply to this story, and why ill-written half-assed musicals are a particular thorn in the side of one person here. Naturally, we also drink hot chocolate as a cocktail. And of course we didn’t let it cool, lest we provoke the wrath of a weirdly-bald stickler Tom Hanks conductor.