How Do You Like Them Apples

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Directors: William Cottrell, David Hand, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, Ben Sharpsteen (Goodness, this movie could have been called Snow White and the Seven Directors!)
Voice Talent: Adriana Caselotti, Lucille La Verne, Roy Atwell, Harry Stockwell
Released: December 21, 1937 (premiere in L.A.)/ February 4, 1938 (United States)

Oscar nominations:

Best Score (lost to One Hundred Men and a Girl)

A few months ago, my mom and I were trying to see if we could name all the seven dwarfs. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, guess again! We came up with Doc, Sleepy, Sneezy, Grumpy, Happy, and Dopey, but we could not think of the damn seventh dwarf no matter how many times we listed them! So finally I had to get my phone and when I figured out we were missing Bashful, we were both like, "Oh! Of course!" I think we couldn't think of him because he's the only one (aside from Doc, but everyone remembers him) whose name doesn't end in a "y".

I'm trying to think of my history with this movie, which is now 81 years old, can you believe that? (And you thought The Lion King was old, turning 25 this summer!) I know I've seen it before, but it's been awhile. I don't really remember growing up with this movie. I have a vague recollection of seeing it in theaters during one of its many theatrical re-releases. While I'm very familiar with the storyline and characters from this movie, I'm pretty sure it's been quite a few years since I last saw it. There were a few things I had mis-remembered, for example, I always thought the Evil Queen says, "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?", but she actually says, "Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?" Mind blown!

Snow White is simultaneously the oldest and the youngest Disney princess. She is the oldest because she is the first official Disney Princess since her movie came out in 1937 (and was the first full-length animated film to boot), but she's also the youngest because her character is only fourteen-year old and all the other Disney Princesses have been older than that. I have no idea how it is known she is 14 since her age is never mentioned in the film, but there is an age for every Disney Princess in their movies whether they tell us how old they are or not. I bet the last time I saw this movie, I was younger than 14!

There's no doubt Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a remarkable cinematic achievement and paved the way for all other animated movies, not just ones from Disney. For a movie that was made 80 years ago, I was pretty impressed with the animation, even watching it today. I was expecting it to look really bad and while the faces of Snow White and the Prince look a little flat, there are lots of really impressive animated scenes, like when it's raining during one of the later moments in the movie. Walt Disney received an honorary Oscar for it (well, he received one Oscar and seven mini ones) and its box office total would come to over a billion dollars if adjusted for inflation. Despite all those remarkable achievements, do I like the movie? We-ell, even though there is plenty to like about the movie, there's also plenty of things I don't like. For one thing, there is absolutely no character development. When the movie opens, we see pages of a storybook informing us how Snow White's evil stepmother, the Queen, is jealous of her looks (seriously, why is she jealous of a fourteen-year-old) and makes Snow White dress up in rags and makes her do chores (sounds like Cinderella!). We learn how the Evil Queen will stop at nothing so she can be the most beautiful in the land, including killing her stepdaughter. We never learn what happened to Snow White's father, the King. Why did he ever marry this vain woman? I'm assuming she must have used one of her magic books to create a spell to make him fall in love with her, then killed him, but we are never told anything about her father.

We only meet the Prince at the very beginning, and then, not until the very end. When Snow White is singing at the wishing well about one day her prince will come, he just comes up and starts singing beside her. This is their only interaction until he will wake her with a kiss. We don't even know his name. Let's be honest: the early Disney Princes were bland, bland, bland.

Another thing I don't like is the music, more specifically, Snow White's singing voice. Oh god, it is so shrill. And way too saccharine. Maybe it's because my ears are more used to "current" music and if I had grown up in this era, it wouldn't have bothered me because maybe that's how singers sounded. While I'm not crazy about the songs (I'm somewhat familiar with them, but besides "Heigh Ho", couldn't really sing any of them for you), I think I would have liked them a lot better if that irritating voice wasn't singing them. Sorry, Snow White. Or should I say, sorry, Adriana Caselotti.

While this movie isn't very long (about an hour and twenty minutes), it can feel very long at times because there's a whole lot of nothing going on in this movie. A lot of time is devoted to cleaning the cottage, or the dwarfs washing their hands (that scene goes on FOREVER...a good time to use the bathroom or get a snack), or dancing with Snow White.

Also, I'm not sure how I feel about Snow White as a character. She comes off as very sweet and innocent and caring and while she does have all those qualities, I also found her to be very condescending at times. She's also a little bit dumb, let's be honest. First of all, she's the one trespassing in the dwarfs' home and when they confront her, she just laughs at them, calling them "little men", then asks, "How do you do?" and repeats, "I said, how do you do?" when they don't answer. Keep in mind she has just woken up in three of their beds and is asking this question like she lives there. Uh-huh, honey, you don't live there. This is not your home. You have no right to ask any questions. They should be asking the questions! Grumpy is the only one who is wondering what she's doing there, but all the others don't care because she's so pretty and looks like an angel. There is a mother/child relationship between them. Before she meets the dwarfs and sees all the small chairs and bed, she assumes that seven children live in this cottage and have no mother. She tells the dwarfs that if she can stay with them, she will cook, clean, sew, etc. Sounds like a fair trade, but then she chides the dwarfs for not washing their hands before dinner and the way she comes off across at times, I'm really surprised they didn't kick her out. I guess it's a good thing she's pretty, because I wouldn't be putting up with that.

In fact, because of Snow White's beauty, she has been saved from death twice. The first time is when the Queen orders the huntsman to take her out to the woods and kill her and bring back her heart in a box. Because she is so beautiful and young, the hunter tells her to run away and instead brings a pig's heart back to the Queen. Then, when the dwarfs see the form of Snow White sleeping under the covers and thinks it's a monster and is about to kill her, they stop when the sheet falls off her and they see such a beautiful princess. I guess you could also argue that if she wasn't pretty, then the Queen wouldn't be jealous of her.

The dwarfs all have their own personality or unique trait, thanks to their names. I thought Doc was supposed to be the smart one, though. After all his name is "Doc" and he wears glasses. But instead he either has a speech impediment or he's a total idiot because he can never say the right word or phrase. I forgot that Dopey doesn't talk at all and the reason he doesn't talk is because he never even tried. Yeah, Dopey is pretty dopey. Also, he could have been easily been called Pervy because he's always trying to get an extra kiss (on the top of his head) from Snow. Settle down, Dopey. While Grumpy seems to be the only voice of reason among the seven of them, he's also quite the misogynist. He tells them that all females are "poison" and that they're full of "wicked wiles". Makes you wonder what HIS backstory is. Did he not have good relation with his mother? Did he have a dwarf woman who scarred his heart? (I wonder if dwarf women also have beards?) I laughed when Snow White is trying to guess who is who and when she gets to Grumpy and he's being, well, grumpy, she says in a mock irritable voice, "Ooh, you must be Grumpy." Okay, now THAT was funny and it gave Snow a little bit of personality which I appreciated.

Speaking of things I liked, I really loved the woodland creatures that Snow befriends after she is told to run away. I thought they were all super cute. Once again, she is a bit condescending to them when she's telling them she needs a place to sleep (super cute how the rabbits are nodding), but tells them she can't sleep on the ground (super cute how the rabbits are shaking their heads), or in the tree or in a nest. The "Whistle While You Work" number is my favorite musical scene in the movie because I'm able to ignore Snow's shrill voice because there are lots of funny and cute (and quite unsanitary!) moments involving the animals cleaning. We see the deer and squirrels using their tails to dust and get rid of cobwebs (two squirrels try to sweep the dust under the rug until Snow stops them), the deer are licking the plates to clean them, and the turtle provides his belly as a washboard when a chipmunk is cleaning the clothes. In a later scene when she's cooking gooseberry pies for the dwarfs, the birds will help her by using their feet to create designs on the pie crust. When Snow makes her comment about the seven children not having a mother, a baby deer rubs up against his mother and cries. Perhaps a precursor to Bambi?

There's a great running gag in this movie involving the turtle. I felt so bad for him! He's always the last one to get to where all the other animals have gone and by the time he reaches his destination, all the other animals go back to where they just were. I believe this happens three times. One of the first times is when all the animals follow Snow White upstairs and by the time the turtle makes it to the top step, the other animals hear the dwarfs (wait, is the plural dwarfs or dwarves?) return home and rush back downstairs. Luckily, the turtle just slides down the stairs so he is able get away just in time!

Another character I loved is the Evil Queen. She's not in the movie much and we go long stretches without seeing her, but the few scenes we do have of her are deliciously delightful...almost like a scrumptious crisp red apple, you could say. There's a scene where she's walking through her dungeon with rats and cobwebs and human skeletons everywhere. One of the skeletons is in his cage, poised reaching for a pitcher of water that's just out of reach. The Queen cackles when she sees this and says, "Thirsty?" while kicking the water even more of out the way. You could tell the voice actress (Lucille La Verne) was having a lot of fun with it. I'd like to think that the skeleton was Snow's father. Morbid, I know.

When the Queen learns that Snow White is still alive, she goes to her sorcerer's dungeon room where she concocts a potion to  change her appearance. She gets the spell from her "Disguises" book. Other books in her sorcery library include "Black Arts", (is that the same thing as the Dark Arts? If so, I bet all the DADA professors at Hogwarts had copies of that!) "Black Magic", "Alchemy", "Witch Craft" (I bet season six BtVS Willow had a copy of that!), "Sorcery", and "Poisons".

Most of the ingredients the Queen needs for a peddler's disguise are intangible items, so I have no idea how she acquired them. I guess that's why she's a witch. There's mummy dust, the black of night (seriously, how do you capture that in a bottle?), an old hag's cackle, a scream of fright, a blast of wind, and a thunderbolt "to mix it well". Why not just stir it?

Would you let this woman into
your home????

I don't quite understand the Queen's motives. Her goal is to get Snow White to eat the tasty red apple that's poisonous, right? Well, why the heck did she disguise herself as the creepiest old woman you could possibly imagine. She has one tooth, a wart on her nose, long white scraggy hair, a long pointy nose, long knobby fingers, dark circles around her eyes, and she's wearing a ragged black robe. This woman screams no good; I wouldn't open my door to her. If you're trying to get someone to trust you, why not disguise yourself as a sweet old lady type, like a Betty White? I feel like the Queen wasn't being very smart there. Luckily for her, Snow White isn't the sharpest tool in the shed and will invite the super scary looking woman inside.

The animals are the only ones with a brain in this film. THEY know what's up. They know that this scary looking old woman is up to no good and try to discourage Snow from taking the apple from her. Snow scolds the animals, "Shame on you, frightening an old lady!" No, shame on you, Snow White, for not having any sense of stranger danger! The animals will run to the mines to get the dwarfs and once again, we will get the running rag where the turtle is the last to reach them and by the time he gets there, everyone is running back to the cottage. I really don't understand why the animals need to get the dwarfs. There were a couple of deer among them; why couldn't they just break in, then impale the Queen with their antlers? These animals are much more capable than the dwarfs.

The old fruit peddler takes out the red poisonous apple and gives it to Snow, telling her it's a "magic wishing apple" and of course the naive Snow White believes her and makes her wish of living happily ever after with the prince, you know the one she's only met for thirty seconds and doesn't even know his name. I laughed when the Queen hurriedly says, "Fine, fine, now take a bite" as if she's saying, "Just shut up about your prince and die already." I don't know, the way she said it just made me laugh.

So of course Snow White takes a bite and is cursed by the sleeping death and by the time the dwarfs arrive, it's too late. They chase the old woman up the cliffs and she tries to dislodge a huge boulder to run them over, but she ends up falling off the cliff and the boulder falls on top of her. In a really creepy scene we see two vultures watching all this, then they fly to where she had just fallen, ready to feast on her corpse.

The curse is called the sleeping death, but she's not really dead. The Queen even says, "She'll be buried alive". And I think the dwarfs know this (I hope so at least), cuz otherwise they wouldn't have kept her coffin out in the open because they claim she was too beautiful to bury. I would like to think they know she's not technically dead; that she's just sleeping, but unable to wake up, otherwise don't they know about human decomposition? The only way for her to wake up is by true love's kiss, so in a way it's very similar to the Sleeping Beauty story. A year passes and the bland Prince we met in the first five minute of the movie comes trotting up on his horse, lifts up the glass lid of the coffin and kisses the Princess. First of all, how did he even know to kiss her? Also, don't you think it's a little weird that he's kissing a dead girl? (I don't think he knows she's technically only sleeping). ALSO, they have only met once and all of a sudden, he's her true love? What the huh? I don't buy that at all. I mean, I would have bought it more if one of the dwarfs had kissed her and she woke up from that...at least she had somewhat more of a relationship with the dwarfs then she did with Prince Drip! At least on the TV series Once Upon a Time, Snow and the Prince develop a relationship and are in love before Snow is cursed by the Queen. And the Prince has an actual name! They also have a much better reason for the Queen hating Snow other than she's prettier than she is.

Snow White is like "Peace out!" as she says goodbye to the dwarfs and gives them one last kiss on their heads. Really, she could not get out of there fast enough and barely acknowledges the dwarfs for keeping a candlelight vigil at her coffin for a year.

Yes, this movie is pretty dated and definitely needed help in the character development department, but you have to give it a lot of credit for starting the Disney empire and paving the way for animated movies, so this is defintely a must see. Come for Snow White and the seven dwarfs; stay for the Evil Queen and the woodland creatures.

Another Movie Montage

I have made my ninth movie montage! If you want to check out all the other movie montages I've made, click the "montage" tag. Thanks for watching! 

Don't Make a Sound

A Quiet Place

Director: John Krasinski

Cast: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millient Simmonds, Noah Jupe

Released: April 6, 2018

Oscar nominations:
Best Sound (lost to Bohemian Rhapsody)

I am going to review this movie the same way I reviewed Searching: first I will give a quick synopsis without spoilers, then I will dive into a more in-depth review that will include spoilers. Even though I found certain aspects of this film frustrating (which I will touch on in spoilers), I would recommend it.

The basic plot of A Quiet Place is that everyone has to be quiet because there are these monster/alien-type creatures that have very acute hearing (probably to compensate for their lack of eyesight) and if they hear any sound, they attack and kill. The aliens reminded me of something you would see in a season of Stranger Things, only this movie takes place a few years in the future (I believe it's 2021, so literally it's just a few years in the future!) It's a very suspenseful movie and it's clever how the family we are following (John Krasinski and Emily Blunt play the parents, Lee and Evelyn) have to adapt to living a silent life. They play Monopoly with felt pieces and roll the dice on the carpet, they never wear shoes, they use their hands instead of silverware when they eat, they listen to music through headphones, they have their yard outlined in lights that are usually white, but they can turn them red when there's an emergency. (I don't think it's a spoiler to say the lights will turn red!) In a way, they are lucky because their daughter (Millicent Simmonds) is deaf so the family already knows sign language and are able to communicate that way. However, I do question some of their soundproofing methods. For one thing, they have a whole bunch of framed photos hanging on the wall and if one of those drops, it's making a loud thud. Also (and I don't think this is considered a spoiler), Evelyn is pregnant and I'm thinking, Hmmm, is a baby what you really need right now? You live in a world where you're supposed to be quiet and you are adding something that cries and screams a lot? Yikes! They will have a solution to this problem which I will discuss in spoilers, so at least they do address it. I know what you're thinking: why would this be a problem when they already have children? Yes, that's true, but the three children they already have were all born before the aliens appeared. When we first meet the family, we are told it is "Day 89" and the youngest is four, making all the kids old enough to know what's going on and to not make any sounds. With a baby, you really can't tell it not to cry. 

This movie is on Hulu, so if you haven't seen it, go watch it, then come back and read the rest of the review because we are getting into spoiler territory now! 

Spoilers starts right now! 

So something pretty shocking happens within the first ten minutes of the movie. I'm not sure if you can count anything that happens so early in a movie a spoiler, but I thought I'd rather be safe than sorry. Maybe everyone already knew about this, but me, but I have to say I didn't see it coming at all and I was shocked! When we first see the family, they are all at an abandoned drug store getting supplies, including medication for their older son (Noah Jupe). The younger son, the four-year-old, wants a toy rocket, but his father tells him it's too noisy and takes out the batteries leaving both the batteries and the toy on the counter. In hindsight, his dad should have just taken out the batteries and let the kid have the toy, but I guess he thought it would still be too loud. The kids follow their parents out the door and the girl gives her brother the toy, indicating for him to keep it a secret. What she doesn't see is that the kid also grabs the batteries on his way out. I guess when I said that all the kids were old enough to know they need to be quiet at all times, that wasn't exactly true. I guess his parents didn't exactly put enough of the fear of God into him because, needless to say, he puts the batteries in the toy and it starts making loud noises. His parents are a bit further ahead of him and when they hear the noise, they just have a sheer look of horror over their faces. His father runs to try to save him, (even if he did catch him, I'm not sure what he could have done), but the alien is faster and just grabs him. It's very quick and you don't see anything, but they are setting the tone that these things mean business and being quiet is an essential part of survival. 

It's been a little over a year since the boy's death and Evelyn blames herself for not carrying her son home; the girl blames herself for giving the toy to her younger brother and she thinks that her dad blames her for her brother's death as well. The older son tells his father this when they are at a waterfall and are able to speak since the water is so loud that the aliens won't be able to hear them. 

Lee has been tinkering with his daughter's cochlear implant so she will be able to hear, which seems kind of ironic since they have to be quiet at all times, yet in a situation like this, it is important to be able to hear so you know if you have inadvertently made a sound or not. Whenever we get the POV of the daughter, it is completely quiet. When he tells her he has made adjustments to her hearing device, she angrily brushes him off, telling him it never works, so he just puts it in her hands. The daughter is angry because she wants to go with her father and brother as they leave to go fishing and gather supplies and she has to stay behind with her mother, but instead she sneaks out to her brother's memorial spot.

Of course on the day Lee is gone, Evelyn's water breaks. Before that, she had been doing the laundry in the basement and when she's lugging the bag of clothes upstairs, it gets caught on a loose nail which is pulled up, sharp side at the ready for a bare foot. The camera zooms in on the nail so we know it will come into play later. All I could think of was that scene from Home Alone; wonder if John Krasinski is a fan and paid homage to it, haha. When she does go into labor, she heads to the basement where that sharp nail is waiting for her bare foot. She has to clap her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. I'm telling you right now that if that were me, I would not only scream, but also be screaming a list of curse words. This is by far the worst scene in the movie and made me cringe! And it's not any better when we see her dislodge her foot from the nail. :::shudder::: While she does keep from screaming, she puts her hand up on the wall and knocks down a frame that crashes to the ground which inevitably alerts one of the three confirmed aliens that live in their area. We see it pass by the basement door so this gives Evelyn a little bit of time to put on the red lights to alert her husband she's in trouble and to set an egg timer that will distract the alien when it goes off while she hides in the corner of the basement. This poor woman is in labor, a nail just went up her foot, AND she has a dangerous creature after her. I mean, what else could go wrong?

When the egg timer goes off, she is able to escape and goes to the upstairs bathroom where she gives birth in the tub. Lee, who sees the lights, tells his son to set off fireworks to distract the alien (and it is distracted in the nick of time as it is on its way up the stairs to where Evelyn is about to give birth and she's trying really hard not to scream!). Once the fireworks go off, she lets out a loud scream. Lee checks on his wife and newborn son. And wouldn't you know, the baby starts crying, which of course, attracts the alien back to the house. We see how they plan to keep the baby quiet by putting an oxygen mask on him and putting him in a wooden box with a lid.

Guess what? We find out these aliens do have a weakness. The girl, who is wearing the new cochlear implant that her dad gave her, is heading home and an alien comes up right behind her and her hearing aid starts emitting a high-pitched sound which makes the alien back away. I know the girl can't hear anything, but I am surprised she didn't feel the presence of this large creature which was literally only a few feet behind her. This will happen again when both kids are being attacked by one of the creatures and the hearing aid will scare it away. You think this would have have tipped off the girl, but nope, when the kids are once again being attacked by an alien, this time while they're in an abandoned truck (which reminded me of the scene from Jurassic Park), the girl takes off her implant because the sound is so painful. Their father sacrifices his life by screaming to attract the monster to him, but not before he tells his children he loves him.

I think that's what I found so frustrating about this movie; why didn't they know what the aliens' weaknesses were before it was too late? It's not until the very end of the movie, when Evelyn and the three kids are all down in the basement, when the girl finally discovers her hearing aid is the key and is able to keep the first alien at a distance while her mother shoots it. I do love the very last shot of the movie where they see on the TV monitors they have in the basement that the other two aliens are on their way to the house because of the sound of the gunshot and Emily Blunt cocks the gun, ready to kill the last two. 

Three's a Crowd

Pretty in Pink
Director: Howard Deutch
Cast: Molly Ringwald, Jon Cryer, Andrew McCarthy, James Spader, Harry Dean Stanton, Annie Potts
Released: February 28, 1986

Spoilers? For anyone who really cares that much?

I thought this movie was directed by John Hughes, but he just wrote it. Of all the Molly Ringwald movie I've reviewed (including The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles), this is the only movie where she ends up with a guy who isn't a complete douche. Don't get me wrong; he's still a douche, just not a COMPLETE one. While not great, the movie didn't make me groan or cringe as much as those two did. 

Molly Ringwald plays Andie, a high school senior who is "poor" so she has to make her own clothes, which she is made fun of for. I think they're supposed to be these amazing creations, but she tends to favor floral patterns, so she ends up looking like a ninety-year-old granny especially when she's wearing her old granny hat and old granny glasses. She also likes to wear a lot of pink, hence the title of the movie. Look, I am also a redhead who will wear the occasional pink top, but even I know my limitations and redheads should not wear that much pink! I put "poor" in quotes because she and her father live in a house (on the small side) and she drives a car and they're able to own a dog and take care of it. I think "poor" in this case just means they're not part of the really wealthy crowd. Her mom left her and her dad and her dad (Harry Dean Stanton) can only get part time work. 

John Hughes loves giving Molly Ringwald's characters a rich boyfriend (or in the case of The Breakfast Club, he made her character rich and gave her a boyfriend from the "wrong side of the tracks") and in this movie the rich boy from school who likes her is Blane (Andrew McCarthy). On the other side of the spectrum, Andie's longtime friend, Duckie (Jon Cryer) is in love with her. Even though he is scared to tell her that he loves her, he's often coming on to her, so she has to know that he likes her. Unless she thinks he's just joking around or being the big perv he is because we see him hitting on other girls. I honestly thought it was going to be revealed that Duckie is gay and he was just compensating for it by being so overly heterosexual. I mean, it is ridiculous how much he comes on to Andie and being that she doesn't seem him as anything other than a friend, it's also a bit icky, but she doesn't seem to be bothered or uncomfortable about it. But then I remembered that this is a John Hughes movie. While I found Duckie to be on the annoying side most of the time, I did laugh at the scene where he's thrown into the girl's bathroom by bullies and thinks the tampon dispenser is a candy machine and is mocked outraged that the boys' restroom doesn't have a "candy machine".

Let's turn this love triangle into a love square! As it isn't enough for both Blane and Duckie to be interested in Andie, let's bring in the super rich and super suave Steff (James Spader) who is a friend of Blane's and doesn't give a f**k about anything. Look, '86 Molly Ringwald was a very cute girl, but to have THREE guys be into her? Let's not get carried away, movie! I had to look up to see how old James Spader was in this movie because not only does he act like he's 30, but he looks like he's 30 too. I was close; he was 25. That's still quite old to play a high schooler! Of course, we all know Steff (what kind of guy's name is that, anyway?) is off the table, so we all wait with bated breath to see who Andie will end up with at the end of the movie. Did my tone sound sarcastic enough?

Duckie is upset when he finds out that Andie is going on a date with Blane. (I will admit "That's a major appliance; that's not a name!" is a great line.) For one thing, he's part of the rich group who makes fun of both of them for not having as much money even though Blane himself has never said anything bad about Andie or her finances.

Andie and Blane have a terrible first date. This guy is such a chump; he takes her to a party at Steff's house which is full of the people who are mean to Andie. All that aside, who takes someone to a party on the first date? That's a horrible first date...a party is something you go to once you're a couple with somebody. She even tells him she doesn't want to go to a party because they're his friends and he tells her if they're going to try to make "this" work, then they're going to have to hang out with each other friend's anyway. I don't think that's true. Who says you have to hang out with your significant other's friends? Nobody, that's who. Oh, and even before that he makes a rude comment about her outfit, asking her if she wants to go home and change when that's the outfit she's wearing for the date! Ouch! He does apologize for taking her to the party once he realizes just how rude his friends are towards Andie. Then they go to a club where they run into, who else, Duckie, who acts like a jerk towards Blane. He's also there with Iona (Annie Potts) who is the manager of the record store Andie works at. She is fifteen years older than both of them and Duckie tries to make Andie jealous by kissing Iona and telling Andie that she's been replaced, but of course she's not jealous. Andie doesn't want Blane to take her home because she doesn't want him to see the shack of a house (which I'm pretty sure is two stories) she lives in, but he does anyway and even though they had a terrible first date, he asks her to the prom and they share a romantic first kiss. *rolls eyes*

Iona was the Lady Gaga before Lady Gaga even existed...literally as this movie was released a month before she was even born. Iona wears some crazy outfits such as a dress made out of vinyl and is always wearing a different wig or hairstyle. She shows Andie her prom dress (which she is still able to fit into, so go Iona) and tells her she can borrow the dress if she wants. Iona and Andie have a big sister/little sister relationship which is really sweet, especially when she's comforting Andie during a scene later on when Andie will get her heart broken.

I need to have a quick Fashion Corner Segment. We see a scene of Andie in gym class about to play volleyball where the mean girls (one of them is played by a young Gina Gershon) are being, well, mean, to her and her friend. What is up with these uniforms? They appear to be blue jumpsuits with collars that button up the front and completed with a belt. WTF? When I was in gym class, we just wore a t-shirt and shorts. Plus they seem to allow the girls to wear not just dangly earrings, but humongous dangly earrings. Pretty sure you're supposed to take all your jewelry off before gym class. Also, it looks like Molly Ringwald legs are all tattooed, but she's wearing these stockings with designs on them; I'm not really sure what's going on there. And what is up with her shoes? They're these white half sneakers/half boots? I'm not sure...what are those? Only in the eighties, am I right?

Oh, and speaking of dangly earrings, there's a scene where Andie and Blane are making out and she's wearing a super dangly earring in one ear (she has three piercings: two in one ear and one in the other and wears one super long dangly earring while also wearing a pair of smaller earrings) and he puts her hand on that side of her face and I am just so worried that his hand is going to get caught in that earring and is going to rip it out of her ear! :::cringes::: But that doesn't happen, although it easily could have!

To Andie's dismay, Blane starts ignoring Andie's phone calls and starts ghosting her. Haha, was Blane the first ever ghoster? Blane does this because he is pressured by Steff who tells him if he hangs out with "trash" like Andie, then he won't be friends with him, but of course we all know Steff has a thing for Andie (which I'm not really sure why, no offense to Andie...maybe he just wants to try to get with her because it's a "challenge"?) so he probably just doesn't want Blane to be with her and Blane, being the wet blanket he is, decides that Steff is right. I don't understand why Blane and Steff are friends as Steff is a jerk to him, but I guess they're friends since they run in the same social circle.

Andie calls Blane out in school and tells him that he should just admit that he's ashamed to be with her AFTER he tells her that he can't go to the prom with her because he asked another girl to the prom and that he "forgot". Bitch, please! Oh my God, if I were that other girl he supposedly asked to the prom before Andie, I would have been PISSED! How do you forget you asked someone else to the prom? Seriously, how. Of course, we know there was never another girl. Cuz while Blane is a f**king idiot, he's not that stupid. Poor Molly Ringwald. Why can't any of her John Hughes movie characters get a decent boyfriend? First she had the super gross Jake Ryan from Sixteen Candles who had no qualms about raping his own girlfriend, then perhaps even worse is the thirty-year-old creep Bender from The Breakfast Club who is just absoluetly terrible to Claire and somehow they end up together. In comparison to these two wankers, Blane isn't really that bad, but he's still not great. And it probably is no coincidence that his name is one letter off from being "bland", heh.

Bo Peep! 

It's time for another quick Fashion Corner Segment. Even though she no longer has a date, Andie decides she's still going to the prom. Remember, she still has the offer to borrow Iona's old prom dress which is actually quite cute. It's a pink dress with white flowers that look like polka dots (you have to look closer to make out that they're actually flowers). It doesn't scream prom dress to me; it looks more like something you would wear to a Sunday brunch or a baby shower. 

Andie's dad surprises her with a prom dress, which I personally thought was really ugly. He tells her that it reminds him of Andie's mom and all I could think was that Andie's mom had some terrible taste. It's a strapless pink dress with a full length tulle skirt and dark pink flower designs on the bodice. It also has this plastic-y sheen on the bodice which makes it look really cheap. And of course there's a godawful huge bow around the waist to top it off. Andie seems to really like the dress, though. Instead of choosing between the two dresses (the choice to me is obvious), she decides to cut up both dresses and make what is truly probably the worst prom dress in all of history, probably just the worst dress ever, period. If she had been a contestant on Project Runway she would have been auf'ed on the spot! I can just see Tim Gunn now going over to Andie with a huge frown on his face as he looks up and down at this monstrosity. OMG, this thing is so fugly; I don't know what's going on. We have some bare shoulders, a weird neckline, a unflattering fit, I honestly don't know what she was thinking. I guess even Molly Ringwald herself thought the dress was atrocious, heh. If I were Iona, I would have been PISSED that my perfectly fine dress was ruined. Andie never tells her her plan that she was going to cut up her dress which I thought was a little s****y of her. I bet Iona would have loved to keep this dress and give it to her daughter one day.

At the prom, Duckie gives Andie his "permission" to be with Blane (gee, thanks Duckie) and Blane tells Andie that he loves her. Where the hell did this come from? I guess originally Andie was going to end up with Duckie, but test audiences didn't like that, so they reshot and she ended up with Bland Blane. I personally don't think she should have ended up with either of them. Why couldn't she just pull a Kelly Taylor and declare, "I choose me!"