The Couch Critic
The Couch Critic is your laid-back guide to movies and TV shows that deserve your attention—or maybe don’t. Nathan dives deep into storytelling, character development, and cinematic style with a sharp eye and a wry sense of humor. Whether it’s a blockbuster hit, a hidden gem, or a cult classic, Nathan’s relatable approach ensures every episode feels like a cozy chat with a friend who just happens to love film. Perfect for casual watchers and cinephiles alike, The Couch Critic brings thoughtful critique without the fluff. Grab your favorite snack, settle in, and let Nathan guide you through the world of screen entertainment.
The Couch Critic
Lights and Rivalry: A Suburban Christmas Tale
Holiday rivalries reach new heights in "Deck the Halls," where Christmas spirit becomes a battleground between two suburban dads determined to outdo each other. Matthew Broderick brilliantly portrays Steve Finch, the town's self-proclaimed "Christmas guy" whose meticulously planned holiday traditions leave little room for spontaneity. When Danny DeVito's character Buddy Hall moves in across the street with dreams of making his house visible from space through an extravagant light display, their competing visions of Christmas perfection spark an all-out neighborhood war.
What makes this film stand out among holiday comedies is the perfect casting and character dynamics. Broderick and DeVito embody the classic odd-couple energy – one obsessively organized, the other chaotically ambitious – while Kristen Chenoweth and Kristen Davis deliver standout performances as wives caught in the crossfire of their husbands' escalating antics. The supporting cast, including Fred Armisen in a quirky cameo role, adds layers of humor to this festive face-off.
Beyond the laughs and light displays, "Deck the Halls" explores meaningful themes about finding purpose, overcoming mid-life crises, and recognizing what truly matters during the holiday season. While some jokes haven't aged perfectly since its 2006 release, the film captures that cozy Christmas atmosphere with snowy landscapes, hometown festivities, and the underlying message that family connections outshine even the brightest holiday decorations. Whether you're looking for slapstick comedy or heartwarming moments, this movie delivers a blend of both that will have you appreciating your own neighborhood's Christmas lights a little differently this season. Have you ever had a neighbor whose holiday decorations went completely overboard? Share your stories with us!
On the couch. We're laughing, crying, feeling it all, Breaking down the big screen, the hits and the flaws. Grab your seat, press play, let's take the pic. Lights, camera action, it's the Couch Critic.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Couch Critic. I'm your host, Nathan, and I am joined once again by my good friend Katie. Hi, Katie, how are you?
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm so good, Just in the Christmas spirit. You know, the pool is open in my neighborhood, so this reminds me of Christmas and it's like was randomly really chilly here.
Speaker 2:Is it cold there for you guys? A little bit. It's mostly because we've had like storms and stuff.
Speaker 3:So usually when it storms, oh, that's true, that's same here.
Speaker 2:We had like flooding. Our splash pads have opened up, so yeah, it definitely, uh, definitely has christmas in the air speaking of christmas, we were reviewing our christmas movie, this one much more christmas than the last yes, very much.
Speaker 2:So this definitely has a lot to do with christmas. It is called deck the halls and, and it stars Matthew Broderick as Steve Finch, danny DeVito as Buddy Hall, kristen Chenoweth as Tia Hall and Kristen Davis as Kelly Finch. I wonder if they did that on purpose Casted two Kristens as the wives. That was kind of funny, and I do have some trivia too for this movie, and I picked this one because of what it's about. I could have picked the one that said matthew broderick had to train for like months to be an ice skater for that ice skating race scene, but that's not the one I picked. I picked this one. The ice skating race between matthew broderick and Danny DeVito is filmed on the same street. Many scenes from Smallville were filmed, that's right.
Speaker 2:Interesting Favorite show ever, smallville about Superman. So I'm assuming that means that they filmed this movie in Canada.
Speaker 3:I guess, and also so this was a pretty star-studded cast, I would say, right Like Danny DeVito, big name, matthew Broderick, big name, and then what's the? Sorry, I don't know her name? This is bad, but the girl that was just in that does Wicked. She's Glinda.
Speaker 2:Kristen Chenoweth. Yeah, you couldn't remember Kristen Chenoweth's name.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry. You know Chinua, she's Broadway. That's why she's second. It's because she's Broadway. And then the other girls from Sex and the City. She's like one of the four main characters, which is random because Matthew Broderick is married to one of the others, jessica Parker. Yeah, exactly from Sex and the City so interesting. Okay, first takes Things you found exciting.
Speaker 2:See, I liked that it actually felt like a christmas movie.
Speaker 2:After watching bing bing, this movie was a breath of fresh air a little bit and like just right off the bat I was like, okay, I feel all cozy and and ready to have a fire and some hot cocoa, because I see in the snow everywhere and I see a giant Christmas tree in the middle of the city, and so my biggest like is that it definitely had that Christmas feel.
Speaker 2:It's not necessarily anything that I mean, it just it just felt like a good Christmas movie at the beginning of it and there were funny moments. And I bet one of the funny moments because I'm a guy you probably wouldn't think is a funny moment, and I'll just tell you what the funny moment was. It's when Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick are at the Christmas festival and these girls go on the stage and they're dressed kind of provocative a little bit and they're you know they're being guys not justifying their behavior, but you know like, oh, look at those girls. And then Matthew Broderick. Matthew Broderick starts yelling who is your daddy, who is your daddy? And it turns out to be his daughter and Danny DeVito's daughters on the stage.
Speaker 3:I thought that was. Yeah, that was kind of weird. It's funny, but it's like it was weird. Yes. But it was it reminded me of Mean Girls too and that scene where they're all. I think we're also watching our Christmas list. That was kind of awkward and I think it's a little some of those jokes that would land quite the same now. But I do think it's funny because they are sort of almost poking fun at that, like poking fun at the guys being very like oh, yeah, ladies, yeah, so yeah, I did think that was kind of a clever thing and I agree with you.
Speaker 3:it was like actually christmas, though it's called deck the halls and the whole thing is about christmas lights and them basically fighting over who is in charge of Christmas in this small town. Back to the acting. I was listening to some other reviewers because I have thoughts and I was like maybe I'm thinking Most reviewers seemed to kind of troll this movie. I don't think it did very well, but I really liked Matthew Broderick and Danny Vito going back and forth. Like I think those were perfect choices for being like the nerdy, annoying guy and then being this like crazy guy.
Speaker 2:Like they were spot on yeah, they did a good job with the casting. I'm not usually a big fan of Matthew Broderick because I feel like at times he can be a little bit of an over actor, like he tries to overdo a little bit, but I thought he did a good job. I thought Danny DeVito's character was was fun, but I love me some. Kristen Chenoweth anything that she's in I'm gonna watch because she's just a fun actress, even though at times she can kind of play similar characters in the movies that she's in I'm going to watch because she's just a fun actress, even though at times she can kind of play similar characters in the movies that she's in. She played kind of a similar character in the movie RV where she played Robin Williams' wife, so she can kind of be typecast, I think, as like the Southern Belle kind of kooky character, but again, if it ain't Brooke, don't fix it it. So she's good at playing that character.
Speaker 3:So there you go, I agree. I just I thought the chemistry was great and the the matthew broderick's wife same. It just all made sense to me. People were trolling matthew broderick as being sort of like vanilla.
Speaker 2:I'm like, but yeah, that works here it's kind of like the odd couple a little bit. You know, you got oscar, who's the the slob, so that's like daniel devito's character.
Speaker 3:And then you have felix unger, who's like the neat freak who wants every, who wants everything, exactly the way it's supposed to be, and that's matthew broderick's characters here the beautiful thing was that they're total opposites but in in many ways in our world, like people who are opposite actually have a lot more in common than they realize. So it's like they were totally, totally opposite, but they still had families with like wives and children, and what they mean to their wives, what they mean to their kids um, they both still put their selfish desires ahead of their families. They both just want to find significant sustaining in life and feel like they're making a difference. So I like that. It highlights that. You know, when I watched it at one in the morning on my phone laying in bed, that's the best way to watch a movie, right? No big flirty for that. It's not like one that was so visually you know that I feel like I could watch this on a small screen. This would be a really good airplane movie.
Speaker 2:I watched it on TV like normal people do, so we talked about a little bit of what we liked about the movie. My biggest gripe, though, is the basic storyline of this movie. It's one of those films where they're trying to make you root for a character, but you're not sure who to root for, because they're both kind of terrible people. So, case in point, Danny DeVito's character. He gets a job as a car salesman and then I don't remember if they ever fully explain where he gets the idea and why he gets the idea to put so many lights on his house. I know they briefly say it's his daughters.
Speaker 3:Huh, yes, his daughters. They're like talking about the seeing things from space and he's like, oh, where's our house? And then they're like, oh, you can't see our house. And he's like, oh, man.
Speaker 2:Really, I guess I told you.
Speaker 3:Which is why there's a super mean burn that just like makes you cringe. I mean some of the script writing we can talk about later, but like there's a really big burn that matthew broderick's character says, and he's like something about like how look, how insignificant you are, you don't even matter.
Speaker 2:you're like no one can see you from space because you don't matter, or something like well, I mean, I remember that I just I just felt like his, his draw to do that kind of came out of nowhere and I guess I missed which goes with this character.
Speaker 2:But I mean, I guess I kind of came out of nowhere and I guess I missed which goes with his character.
Speaker 2:But I mean, I guess I kind of missed the whole daughter thing about them saying look at things from space. I just I mean, I guess they're kind of also going for like a midlife crisis kind of thing and he wants to do something important and but it just fell flat to me, didn't fully explain it. And then you have matthew broderick's character, who's like you're, you know, we, we kind of put it in our likes, but he's also a very stereotypical character of you know, everything has to have a routine, everything has to have a list, everything, and it just they both came off as very unlikable characters, even though we just said they play the characters well, but they both still came off as very unlikable. You didn't know who really you're supposed to be rooting for. They tried to have little moments where Danny DeVito had like emotional moments of like feeling bad for himself. But I'm like I don't feel bad for you because you're putting putting up lights ahead of your family and ahead of like actually having a job and doing all these things.
Speaker 3:You're not supposed to root for each of them individually. You're supposed to be rooting for them, like reconciliation and friendship to occur. And I think that does a good job of that movie, because multiple times you like think it's going to happen, like, hey, I got you a new car and you're like, well, ok, and then nope, never mind, or they, I don't know, they just keep. They have multiple bits where you keep thinking, ok, it'll finally turn around. So I think that was the whole point. They want you to root for these two to come together and I really liked that. They had the wives get along, right, it wasn't like a feud, like a family feud, right, the kids got along. The little boy, of course, loved the twin blonde twins. The little like the daughter all of a sudden has friends. The wives get along. So I did think that was really clever, that the feud was truly just between the two dads yeah, I kind of feel like cobra kai did it better, though like the whole.
Speaker 2:They're about to be friends and then something happens like script writing.
Speaker 3:Maybe again, maybe it was just as it got later. It didn't bother me. At first the whole second half of the movie. I felt like the script writing was so and corny.
Speaker 2:I think it got to a point where it was just drawing out too much. Like we get it, they're going to become friends, they're going to make up. It's one of those movies where you can see the ending a mile away and at some point it's like okay, this should be the ending right here, but they just kept on going with it.
Speaker 3:And it was just and not for good reason, you know yeah, there could be, like I've is similar to this, where, like, eventually someone crosses the line in a way that's just like unforgivable, right, like just the whole. You know, I was kind of expecting the whole town, which maybe happened with matthew project's character, but like where the entire town turns against you. You know, that's when you have this moment of like wow, I really did mess up, like take things too far, um, but I do think so the way that the movie plays out, literally their families leave them both. The wiping kids are both like bye, uh, y'all enjoy, and they don't really even have a like. It still takes them like 24 hours to have their moment, um, which brings me to another very petty negative.
Speaker 3:But there's a moment where they take all the lights down which would have. I mean, I would love to fact check like how much, how many lights he put up and like what that would actually cost. You know, like what would be the, the likely cost of all the stuff he put up? Because, yeah, that's just unrealistic. But they take all of it down, just the two of them in like a few hours, and then somehow have the time and bandwidth and energy to put on this giant like walkway, basically like a path made from all the lights that they've taken off the house to like lead their families back to the neighborhood. I mean, I'm just like I get that this is a movie and it's fiction, but that was not even remotely realistic and it was.
Speaker 2:It took me out of the movie for a bit well, and then at the end they all come together to put all the lights back up before MTV can show up.
Speaker 2:They just took them down too they just took them down and they had time to put them all up before MTV. I guess Cribs came or something, I don't even know. Why was it MTV? That's so random. And how did Danny DeVito's character not get arrested for cutting down the town tree? And how I? I just did so many logistical parts of this movie and they never closed the loop on the cross-dressing cop.
Speaker 3:I thought at some point the cross-dressing cop thing was going to come up like they were going to use that as blackmail or something from the armistice of this movie this movie came out.
Speaker 2:When this movie came out in 2006 so they probably didn't want to go full cross-dressing cop in 2006 because it wasn't, as I guess. Quote unquote.
Speaker 3:I just see. I just thought they were going to somehow it was going to turn out like that. That was going to mean something later I guess it was just like a little side joke. Fred Arbison so ran. I couldn't get a gauge for when this movie came out when I was watching, like I was, I could not figure out when it was, because fred's team hated them when they both hit their peaks. Um, but he is hysterical and it was so random. He's like playing some random foreign, uh, neighbor. That just has nothing to do with anything, but that was good comic relief and I laughed a few times. Some of the things that were included I don't know if they were for humor, but they were just inappropriate to me Like there was quite a bit of sexual humor with the, say, devito's wife or like the twin daughters of theirs, like that was just weird. Some of those scenes made this feel like, okay, I probably couldn't watch this with my family, which you know you watch with everybody but yeah, you watch bad santa with your family that's fair.
Speaker 3:That was that was just saying. So you can blame my parents this movie is rated pg bad.
Speaker 2:Santa's rated r and there's pg.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that is quite. To me, that's crossing the line for PG movie. That's pretty close. What do you think, though, in terms of rating?
Speaker 2:so, for Christmas it's very much a Christmas movie. So I know I said one time that I was doing my Christmas rating based on is it still Christmas if I haven't watched this movie. But for this movie, because of Chitty, chitty, bang Bang, I'm changing the reason I'm giving it this rating because it actually feels like a Christmas movie. So I'm going to give Deck the Halls a 4.5 out of 5. But the only reason I don't give it a 5 is because I am still judging it based off of like, if I don't watch this during Christmas, I'll be okay, but it is a Christmas movie, it feels like a Christmas movie.
Speaker 3:Not everybody can get a five, that's fair.
Speaker 2:I'm going to give it a four.
Speaker 3:No, no, I'm giving it a four Because it is definitely a great Christmas. The whole thing is Christmas and it does feel like it fits the mold for cheesy funny Christmas movie Like National Lampoon, except just like a lesser version. But it definitely is Christmas, but Santa was not in it really. So I gave it a five.
Speaker 2:That's true. There was no Santa. Actually, that's not true.
Speaker 3:And there was no baby Jesus. There's art where.
Speaker 2:Matthew Broderick flies in the air in the sleigh. Oh sure it's Santa. I knew he was real, which?
Speaker 1:I'm like why would Santa?
Speaker 2:be on his sleigh in the middle of the day, kid Be quiet.
Speaker 3:Okay to give it my full rating. Starting to remember all the things I've rated and how I have out of five stars in terms of just a movie, I wouldn't watch it again, but I don't regret watching it and with that we'll give it a 3.5.
Speaker 2:Nice. I'm giving it a 2.5 because it was fun. I did laugh, but it's not a movie I would watch again. You're right, I don't regret watching it, but it wasn't like yeah, sure, sure, why not? So that is deck the halls. I can't finish because it's just, that's just. Maybe that's tech the halls right there. And so this saturday, on cinema saturday, you can listen to my wife and I talk about Thunderbolts with an asterisk, but by the time this episode drops, you know what the asterisk means now.
Speaker 3:Oh my hey, listen, Tell me a sneak peek. I want to know.
Speaker 2:Was it good? I really enjoyed it, I thought, especially after all the Marvel movies that have come out and haven't really impressed, it impressed me.
Speaker 3:Okay, they had shoes to fill, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:I love me some Florence Pugh. I think she's probably my favorite actress. She's really really good. That is Cinema Saturday. Next Tuesday we're going with another Christmas-esque movie with Love Actually, which I've actually never seen. That either.
Speaker 3:A good romance movie. I can't wait. I'm going to be on that episode.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Because I love, love.
Speaker 2:So that is what we're going to be talking about these next two episodes. So that is what we're going to be talking about these next two episodes. Thank you to Sam, our loyal listener, who wants to start a fan club. That's right, he wants to start a fan club for our podcast. He told me he made a poster. Super excited. You gotta start with the generation, the younger generation of movie lovers, and that's what we're doing with this show.
Speaker 3:Thanks.
Speaker 2:Sam. So thank you, Sam. Thank you for listening to the Couch Critic, where every movie gets its close-up.
Speaker 1:It's not just a movie, it's a way of life. We'll watch it together, day or night, so settle in close and don't miss a flick. This is the moment for the couch critic.
