Meanwhile, Harper and Lily (you know, Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis) decide the best way to split up their parents is to try to get Harper's mom back with her old high school boyfriend, Jake (oh, yeah, that's his name). They find him on Facebook, something "only old people use" according to Harper. (Heh, she's not wrong. I actually remember when you had to have a college e-mail to use it. Also, if you think the Facebook reference is dated, I'm pretty sure they make a MySpace reference in the 2003 movie. Now that's antiquated!) They find out he works at a record shop and there's another joke about listening to a band that only old people like and that band is Coldplay. Lindsay Lohan as Harper is "flirting" with Jake and it's the most awkward, excruciating thing ever. He's very confused because he knows she's engaged and as far as I remember, they don't really keep in touch anymore. Though I don't know if that moment was more awkward then when he sees Tess and is asking her if her husband was still around. You remember how he had a connection with Tess in the first movie, but of course that was because it was actually Anna. It could also be that Jake is into older women.
Monday, September 1, 2025
Lohanissance
Meanwhile, Harper and Lily (you know, Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis) decide the best way to split up their parents is to try to get Harper's mom back with her old high school boyfriend, Jake (oh, yeah, that's his name). They find him on Facebook, something "only old people use" according to Harper. (Heh, she's not wrong. I actually remember when you had to have a college e-mail to use it. Also, if you think the Facebook reference is dated, I'm pretty sure they make a MySpace reference in the 2003 movie. Now that's antiquated!) They find out he works at a record shop and there's another joke about listening to a band that only old people like and that band is Coldplay. Lindsay Lohan as Harper is "flirting" with Jake and it's the most awkward, excruciating thing ever. He's very confused because he knows she's engaged and as far as I remember, they don't really keep in touch anymore. Though I don't know if that moment was more awkward then when he sees Tess and is asking her if her husband was still around. You remember how he had a connection with Tess in the first movie, but of course that was because it was actually Anna. It could also be that Jake is into older women.
Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Something in the Water
Brody is just surveying everything and we get a few faux shark moments:
-a woman is floating on her back with her eyes closed and something gray pops up near her, b
ut it's just some guy in a swimming cap who seemed to come out of nowhere. Seriously, where did he come from?
-a young woman starts screaming, but then we see her boyfriend pop up from under her and she's on his shoulders.
All of a sudden, a BUNCH of people go into the water and I'm thinking, all this splashing is going to attract and alert the shark to this area. I'll find out later I'm right about that. Brody's two sons also are in the water, or maybe it's just his oldest son, I don't remember.
The guy with the black lab is calling for his dog and since we never saw the dog getting attacked, I'm going to tell myself the dog got thirsty and ran home to get a drink of water. Yes, that is totally what happened! The dog is okay! And anyway, if the shark had already had a doggie snack, why would he attack a human next (which is what he will do)? The dog is okay, folks! No body, no shark attack, is what I say!
Alex Kitner, the twelve-ear-old kid, is the one who is viciously attacked. Now, if this movie were made today, they would have introduced him to the audience a little earlier, perhaps have him be a friend of Michael's so his death would hit a bit harder. Not that it wasn't horrific a young boy is attacked by this shark. There is A LOT of blood, it's like a fountain. If I were there that day, there's no way in hell I would ever set foot in any body of water ever again! Oh, yeah, did I tell you that this movie is rated PG? What kind of parent would take their young kids to see this? This was before the PG-13 rating was a thing (like a decade before), but this definitely would be a PG-13 if it came out today.Everyone is scurrying out of the water and there's a terrible moment when Alex's mother is calling his name, but of course he doesn't answer her and his ripped floaty washes up to the shore.
Soon after, there'a a town meeting at the school for a discussion about what had happened and what they're going to do about it. Brody tells them they're going to put "shark spotters on the beach." When asked point blank if they're going to close the beaches, he tells them they are and everyone starts grumbling. Who are these people? A young boy is killed by a shark and they still want to go back in the water? The f***? He tells them they'll be bringing in an expert from Oceanographic Institute from the mainland.
The Mayor tries to calm the people down by telling them this will only be for twenty-four hours and Brody tells him he didn't agree to that, but everyone ignores him. They're still pissed even about the twenty-four hours. These people really only care about their money and making sure people are spending money at their shops.
While everyone is arguing, we get the introduction of Quint (Robert Shaw), which is my least favorite scene of the movie because he gets everyone's attention by scraping his fingernails down a chalkboard and, ugh! I HATE that whole sensation/sound. It just mades me SHUDDER. That scene was way worse than any shark attack! Quint is a fisherman and tells them he can catch this shark. He'll find it for $3,000, but wants $10,000 to kill it. Okay, so of course I had to go to the conversion calculator! Three thousand dollars in 1974 (the movie came out in '75, but it's set the year before) would now be $19,608 (I rounded up) today in 2025. Ten grand would now be a whopping $65,360! (Again, I rounded up.) This guy would be making out with nearly $85,000 today! I guess thirteen thousand dollars was a lot of money back in the mid '70s! Too bad he won't be around to enjoy any of it (spoiler alert!)! He wants that much because he knows it's not going to be easy (spoiler alert: he's right about that!)! The Mayor tells him they'll take his offer under advisement.Later that evening, Brody is at home, studying a book about sharks at a desk when his wife sneaks up right behind him and leans in over his shoulder. He clearly sense something and jumps, startling her and she tells him that he scared her! Lady, why would you sneak up on someone like that? You clearly started him!
Brody realizes that his youngest son is sitting in a boat tied to the dock while the older one is sitting on the dock (or maybe it's the other way around). He yells at whichever son to get off the boat and when he tells his wife he doesn't want the kids in the ocean, she replies he's not in the ocean, but on a boat. Lady, do you not realize that a shark could easily just tip this little row boat over? She looks at his shark book and sees an illustration of a shark crashing into the bottom of a boat and yells at her son to get off the boat.
After the death of her son, Mrs. Kitner had posted an ad (that was put in the back of the newspaper) rewarding $3,000 for the person who killed the shark who killed her son. It's evening when we see two guys looking to collect their bounty. They have an idea to entice the shark with one of the men's wife's holiday pot roast. He says they better catch something since they're using it. (Something tells me the wife didn't give him permission to use it!) The other guy joke that $3,000 will buy him a lot of roasts. Side note: who the hell has a pot roast for the Fourth of July? That is a day reserved for hot dogs and hamburgers, grilled chicken perhaps. NOT a frickin' pot roast! That's something you have for Christmas. What kind of American are you if you're not eating grilled hot dogs on the Fourth? Look, I honestly don't care if you have hot dogs on the Fourth, but POT ROAST? The hell? Am I the only one who thinks that's weird?
Anyway, the two guys have tied the roast to a buoy, then have tied the chain connected to the buoy around one of the dock's posts. Some time has passed and we see the buoy moving and the chain on the dock starts to uncoil so they know they have caught something. The shark is so strong that part of the dock falls off, taking one of the men with him. The guy starts swimming back, then we see the dock turn around (I guess to show that the shark is following him, even though it doesn't make sense why the shark would be attacked to the dock). I did laugh when his friend calls out to him, "Charlie, take my word for it, DON'T look back! Just swim!" I thought FOR SURE Charlie was going to be the main course after the little appetizer of the pot roast for the shark, but he manages to make it back unharmed. This guy doesn't seem like he's in great shape; there's no way he could out swim a shark, so the shark must have just been toying with him.
The next day, on the docks, we see a bunch of people who have seen Mrs. Kitner's ad and are out hunting for the shark. We also meet Matt Hooper (a young Richard Dreyfuss) who is from the Oceanographic Institute. He wants to see the remains of the girl on the beach, the first (known!) victim of the shark. He reads the girls' cause of death as "probable boating accident" as the medical examiner takes her remains out. This is the scene I was referring to earlier when I said what's left of her fits in a small box. From what Hooper examines, he tells them this was clearly not a boat accident nor the cause of a propellor.We see many of the men who are trying to catch the shark out on their boats just being so careless and I thought FOR SURE at least one of them was going to become shark chow. They obviously didn't know what they were doing and weren't even equipped to kill it. One of these dummies didn't even know what "chumming" was. However, someone has caught a shark and thinks it's THE shark. This shark is pretty small and I know it's not our guy. (Plus, there's more than an hour left of the movie so of course it's not the shark!) Hooper takes measurements of its mouth and tells Brody that they don't align with the wound bites found on the victim. He wants to cut the fish open since the digestive system of a shark is very slow and if they cut it open, they can see what it's eaten in the last 24 hours (how long has it been since the boy was killed?). Speaking of which, Mrs. Kitner has arrived from her son's funeral, dressed in all black. She approaches Brody and slaps him, telling him she found out about the girl who was also killed by a shark and how he knew it wasn't safe to go in the water. The Mayor is standing next to him during this whole exchange and he seems to have no remorse because he knows he is the one who convinced Brody not to close the beaches. By now, I'm one hundred percent convinced this guy will be a victim of the shark's. (Spoiler alert: he's not! If this movie was made today, he totally would be.)
That evening, Hooper and Brody do cut the shark open to make 100% sure it's not their shark. All they get are some fish, a can, and a license plate. There's a joke about how it came up from the Gulf Stream in souther water because it's a Louisiana plate.
They go searching for the shark at night (no, thank you!) and come across fisherman's Ben Gardner's boat drifting in the water. Hooper wants to check the under the boat. There is absolutely no reason for him to do that right this instance since they're going to haul the boat to the shore anyway. But he does and we quickly see why this scene is here: it's for the jump scare (which totally worked on me; it scared the sh*t out of me!) we get when Ben's ghoulish corpse pops out from the boat. This startles Hooper too and he drops the shark tooth he had collected from the boat.
They both tell the Mayor about this great white shark. The Mayor still isn't budging about closing the beach and doesn't seemed all that concerned. As they're walking, we see them stop in front of the sign we saw earlier. The girl on the sign has painted on wide eyes and a painted on open mouth. There's a dorsal fin in the water near her and above her an air quote bubble with the words "Help!!! Shark". The Mayor is not amused by this and already he has people painting over it. He doesn't need any advertisement of a shark!Brody tells him they could still save August if they close the beach now and start shark hunting, but the Mayor just laughs at him and tells him they WILL be open tomorrow for the 4th. He adds that Brody can do whatever he needs to do to make sure the beach is safe if he's so concerned...just short of actually closing the beach.
The ferry arrives crowded with tourists ready to spend their money and swim in the ocean! It's unclear to me if they know about the shark attacks. I don't think they were making the national news, much less the local news.
On July 4th, the beach is packed, but nobody is going in the water. Hmm, perhaps these people know that humans can get attacked by sharks in three feet of water, about ten feet away from the shore; a fact that Hooper confirms for Brody in an earlier scene.
There's a reporter on the beach (played by Peter Benchley, the author of the book this movie is based on) who's talking about Amity Island and the shark.
The Mayor orders suggests to somebody he knows (it looked like an older couple with their grandkids) to get in the water. The two adults, especially the woman look pretty scared, but they go in with the two kids. Once they go in, more people go in. There are several boats out on the water with men who have guns and are watching the water with binoculars.
Brody sees Michael and his friends about to take a sail boat out and he tells them to use the pond instead...the pond that is connected to the ocean! How is that going to help? This is probably one of the dumbest things Brody does in the movie.
We see the Mayor giving an interview of how he wants to reiterate that they "caught and killed a large predator that supposedly injured some bathers." First of all, yes they caught A large predator, but not THE predator. Second of all what is this "injured" nonsense? That shark straight up ripped them apart and all his victims died. How did this a**hole not die (I'm talking about the Mayor!)?
There's a lot of underwater footage of legs thrashing around in the water which I'm sure look like a tasty treat for a shark. A dorsal fin pops up right behind two oblivious girls. Another girl sees the fin and starts screaming, causing a panic. The lifeguard starts blowing his whistle and Brody tries to get him to stop since the noise will just attract the shark (although I think any shark would already be attracted to this area with all the splashing). I guess there was no contingency plan for what to do if a shark appeared! But that whole scene reminded me when Sam Neill is telling everyone to stay still around the T-Rex in Jurassic Park.
Once it is revealed that it was actually two young brothers snorkeling underwater with a cardboard fin, I wondered if I was a terrible person for hoping the real shark would show up and make a snack out of one or both of them. But on the other hand (fin?), also kudos to them because these people do need to be scared out of the water. If you know there's a blood thirsty shark in the water, why would you go in the ocean? There is an amusing moment when the two boys look up and see all these guns pointed at them from the people on one of the boats. The little brother points at his older brother and tells them, "He made me do it."
A girl standing near the estuary sees a fin and yells, "Shark!" Well, guess where it's headed for? That's right: the pond! The very pond that Michael and his friends are in! The very pond that Michael and his friends are in that is CONNECTED to the ocean! Well done, Brody, well done! :::slow clap:::
Michael and two of his friends are on the boat working on a sail. Some guy in a boat rows up to them and behind him you can see a fin. It's almost comical how obvious there is a shark in the water and nobody seems to notice it. The guy is asking the boys a question when he falls into the water and gets his leg bitten off and becomes the shark's latest victim. One hour and four minutes into the movie and this is the first time we see the shark. Previously, we had only seen his dorsal fin.Michael and his friends make it out of the water, but Michael has passed out from shock and is taken to the hospital. Now the Mayor realizes he's messed up and Brody wants him to hire Quint to kill the shark, which he does.
That was the first hour of the movie. Now the second hour of the movie will focus on our three main characters (Brody, Quint, and Hooper) out on Quint's shabby fishing boat attempting to find and kill their shark.
Before he leaves, Brody's wife asks him what she should tell the kids and he replies to just tell them he's "going fishing." I mean, he's not totally wrong!
Once they're out to sea, Brody starts chumming the water to attract the shark. We get some foreshadowing when Brody accidentally unties the wrong knot (I forget what he was trying to do) of a rope that was holding canisters with compressed air. Hooper tells him, 'If you screw around with these tanks, they're gonna blow up."
There's a passage of time (there will be a lot of these!) until Quint gets the sense that the shark is near. He straps himself into a chair that is bolted to the boat and hooks the pole to the contraption. Despite all that, I feel like that still wouldn't hold him in! He knows he has something and is reeling the line, but can't see anything. My question is, would a fishing pole really work on a shark? Especially one so big?
Every time someone would get super close to the edge of the boat, I would scream at my TV, "What are you doing? GET AWAY FROM THERE!" Seriously, sometimes they would lean over, like they weren't expecting a huge shark to pop out from under the water. In one scene, that does happen and it made me jump a mile!
There's more passage of time and Brody chums the water again. His back is towards the water as he's throwing chum in the water and this is that famous scene when the shark pops up right behind him. You see this scene in every retrospective or TV special about Jaws, so I knew it was coming, otherwise, it would have probably made me jump! I love Brody's reaction. He quickly stands up and stares at the shark, then walks to the cabin and tells Quint, "You're gonna need a bigger boat," unquestionably the most famous line of the movie. Hell, one of the most famous lines in cinematic history!Now they all see the shark swimming near the boat and Quint measures it to be 25 feet. Now, I Googled how big a great white shark gets and females are 15/16 feet while the males are 11 to 13 feet, so I guess this means this is a female shark? (Even though I constantly refer to it as a male.) Isn't one of the sequels one of this shark's offspring getting revenge on the people who killed its parent? IDK, that sounds pretty ridiculous, but I've heard the sequels are pretty bad. I've only seen the one that takes place at an aquarium (?) and even then I barely remember it.
There is a very narrow strip of wood (it reminds me of a plank) at the front of the boat that looks very unsteady and is surrounded by a railing that doesn't look like it will keep you from falling into the water. From there, Quint shoots at the shark with a harpoon and a barrel is attached. I guess the barrel is so they know where the shark is.
The barrel disappears under the water and more time passes as darkness starts to fall. The three men are in the cabin, having just eaten dinner when Quint tells a harrowing story of how he was on the USS Indianapolis during the war which delivered the Hiroshima bomb to the island of Tinian (yes, I had to look this up on Wikipedia!). After it was delivered, a Japanese submarine "slammed two torpedoes into [the] side" and 1100 men went into the water. The vessel sunk in twelve minutes and they didn't see the first shark, a thirteen-foot tiger shark, until half an hour in. Because their mission was top secret, no distress signal had been sent. The men huddled into groups and tried to fight the sharks away, but that didn't work and 100 men were lost after the first night. So if anyone has a vendetta against sharks, it's Quint!
It's the next day and they have shot a second barrel at the shark. Brody wants them to lead the shark to shore instead of the shark leading them out to sea. The shark is so strong, it's able to tow the boat where he wants to go. Honestly, I'm not that surprised because Quint's boat is the shabbiest thing. It's not that they needed a bigger boat (though that certainly would have helped!), they needed a better boat. The Orca is a terrible boat for this kind of excursion.The shark had rammed into the bottom of the boat so now it's starting to flood and they cut the barrels away so the shark doesn't cause any more damage. They start heading towards the shore and the shark is following them.
One thing that baffled me is that when Brody attempts to call the Coast Guard, Quint takes the receiver from him and smashes the radio. Dude, what are you doing? The boat is flooding, there's black smoke coming from the cabin, the engine is about to run out of gas, and while you can see the shoreline, you're still pretty far from land. Oh, and let's not forget there's a very LARGE and very HUNGRY shark out there. (Actually, he was probably more vengeful.) Maybe he's thinking he won't get the money if the Coast Guard comes and this is his best shot to kill the shark.
Soon half the boat is underwater because of the flooding. Quint gives the other men life jackets. Hooper wants to "pump 20 ccs of strychnine nitrogen into [the shark]." He won't be able to stick the needle into the thick skin, but if he gets into a cage underwater, he can get him in the eye or mouth. He makes it sound so easy! (Spoiler: it won't be that easy!)
The cage with Hooper is lowered into the water and here comes the shark, but it passes by him and disappears into the dark murky water. Hooper has a spear fashioned into a needle and is ready to jab the shark, but unlucky for him, the shark sneaks up from behind him and rams into the cage, causing Hooper to drop the spear. Oopsie daisy! The shark is biting at the cage and bending the bars and soon Hooper is exposed. The shark's jaws are so huge he could swallow a person whole, no problem. Yikes! Hooper fights against the shark and manages to escape and hide behind some rocks while the shark is thrashing against the cage. The other two men bring up the cage and when they see it's all mangled with no Hooper, they think the worst.
Now the shark has leapt onto the boat's stern like he's my cat leaping up on my bed. Quint starts sliding towards the shark's upper jaws and even though Brody is doing his best to hang onto him, he slips from his grasp and slides down towards the massive jaws of the shark. He's kicking his legs against the shark, but he is no match against the aquatic man-eater and soon everything below his sternum is in the shark's jaws. While I was watching this, I couldn't help but think, That looks like fun! Not the getting mauled by a shark part, but the acting part of being in this scene and having a mechanical shark thrash you around, back and forth. It really did look like fun! Okay, yes, there's blood squirting everywhere and Quint is screaming, but it's so obvious the shark is fake and the whole thing is ridiculous, it's hard to be horrified by it. They both disappear under the water and the boat is sinking even more. Not even a minute has passed when the shark pops up again. He sure ate Quint really fast!
Brody throws one of the canisters (remember, they're full of compressed air) into the open jaws of the shark. For some reason, the shark is trying to chow down on this metal container. For a shark who's been outsmarting the humans for most of the movie, this is the one time where he's just an idiot for the sake of the plot.
Brody has now climbed onto the the crow's nest, the highest point of the boat, which is now almost parallel with the water and aims his gun at the shark, trying to get the perfect shot. As he finds the perfect aim and shoots, he says, "Smile you son of a -", then the canister is hit and it blows up and the shark blows up. He's 100% dead. Hooper pops up and Brody is surprised but relieved to see him and they both laugh. I guess they're going to split Quint's reward money. Actually, I wonder if they even did get paid. I can see the Mayor or whoever was supposed to hand over the reward money, refusing on a technicality since they promised it to Quint and he's gone.
They use the barrels to swim back to shore...which still seems pretty far from where they are. But I know Roy Scheider is in the sequel so at least we know Brody made it back!
Friday, May 30, 2025
If the Shoe Fits
Cinderella (1950)
for them. But this is an animated Disney Princess movie, so of course they're her friends and can communicate with her.
He is played by Richard Madden, best known for playing Robb Stark in Game of Thrones, and let's just say he gets a much happier ending in this movie!
There is a fun callback to the animated film when we see Kit having his portrait painted. In the original, we see many portraits of the Prince, each one bigger than the last.
We don't meet the Prince until near the end of the 1950 film. (Remember, he's only in the movie for three minutes!) The stepsisters are being presented to him when Cinderella enters and he sees her and is enchanted by her beauty and walks over to her, totally dismissing Anastasia and Drizella, which was hilarious. They waltz to "So This is Love" and seem to be in love after that exchange. It seems the Prince is only interested in her for her beauty, and doesn't get to know her on a deeper level like he does in the 2015 movie.
The King - The prince's father in both movies wants his son to marry, but for different reasons. The animated (in more ways than one!) King is discussing his son (who is out of town at the moment, I guess) with the Grand Duke, saying how "it's high time he married and settled down." He adds that he (the King) isn't getting any younger and wants to spend time with any grandchildren before he goes and that he's lonely and "wants to hear the pitter-patter of little feet again." So he's pretty much trying to marry off his son for his own selfish gain.
In the remake, the King is sick and doesn't have long to live, so he wants to ensure that his son will be set up for success and (at first) wants him to marry for advantage. But the King will have a change of heart when he realizes that his son is in love with a country girl and on his deathbed will tell him to marry for love and to "find that girl."
The planning of the ball/the invitations - In the '50 film, the King wants to have a ball to celebrate his son's return home from wherever the hell he's been. All the eligible maidens in the kingdom will be invited and the King is certain he's "bound to show interest in one of them." Huh...was this animated Disney character from a 1950 movie the first person to come up with the idea for The Bachelor? Because isn't that what this is? The Prince will be home that day and they'll be having the ball that very night. Like, WTF? Who has an extravagant dance the same day they come up with the idea to have one?In the '15 film, the portrait of the Prince will be sent abroad "to induce the high and mighty to attend the ball" where he will choose a bride. By this time, he has already met Ella and wants the invitations to "go to everyone, not just nobility," so at least they address how commoners were invited to the ball. I was also under the impression the King had been thinking about having this ball for awhile and didn't just come up with it on a whim.
In the animated film, the invitation to the ball is delivered by a messenger. While Cinderella answers the door, one of her stepsisters is (awfully) playing the flute and the other is (awfully) singing "Sing Sweet Nightingale." She sees that the letter is marked "urgent" (I'll bet it's "urgent" because the ball is that night!) and there's a funny moment when she tells the mice, "Maybe I should interrupt the, uh, music lesson." You can just hear her putting quotes around "music lesson". This is one of those little moments that made this Cinderella have a bit of a personality.
Lady Tremaine reads the invitation and she and her daughters become super excited when she reads, "by royal command, every eligible maiden is to attend." Cinderella points out she can go to because it did say "by royal command." I don't know, if I were ordered to attend a dance, I would be pretty annoyed. I feel like this should be optional. Lady Tremaine tells her, "I see no reason why you can't go if you get all your work done...and if you can find something suitable to wear." Cinderella is too happy to realize there's probably a catch and promises her stepmother that she will. After she leaves the room, Anastasia and Drizella are aghast that Cinderella could possibly attend the ball and their mother cackles and says, "I said, 'If'".
Of course, Cinderella will be given so many chores on top of the already many chores she has to do. Jaq is indignant because he knows Cinderella won't have time to work on her dress with all the domestic work her stepmother and stepsisters are ordering her to do. Cinderella has a dress that she wants to wear to the ball that used to belong to her mother. The bodice is pink with capped sleeves with white ruffles and the skirt is white with a light pink sash around the waist and a light pink ribbon at the hem. All the female mice are there when she takes it out and shows them and one of them comments, "It's pretty, but it looks old." Heh. Who does she think she is, Tim Gunn? But as we'll see, these mice will show their dress designing skills and could be valid contestants for Project Runway! Cinderella is looking through a pattern book and decides she's going to give the dress a whole new look. She'll "have to shorten the sleeves, [she'll] need a sash, ruffles, something for the collar..." One of the mice even comments, "It'll be easy." Seriously? It's not like she's adding more ruffles, it looks like a completely different dress! Anyway, the other mice agree with Jaq and one of the female mice says they can fix the dress for her. These mice are definitely a product of the 1950s because when one of the male mice offered to sew, she tells him, "Leave the sewing to the women!"There's more shenanigans with the cat when Jaq and Gus see that the sisters are complaining about their "old rags" to the mother, one dropping a sash and the other dropping a necklace. The mice decide they'll be perfect for Cinderella's ball look, but Lucifer makes it difficult for them to acquire, but after ten minutes (I may be slightly exaggerating, but not by much) they finally have the items.
We see the mice (with some help from the birds) doing all this time consuming work on the dress, which, of course, will be all for naught. Like, their hard work will be ruined in minutes by a few petty bitches.
But before I go any further, let me go back to the live action remake. Cinderella is in town when it is announced the ball will be in two weeks (NOT that night!) and the prince will choose a bride and every eligible women is invited. Notice that nobody is commanded to go! I think it actually makes more sense how they deliver the invitations to every house in the animated film, because at least you know everyone will be getting one. Maybe the guy making the announcement is just hoping that everyone who is in the town square will past the word along. I do understand why they do it this way, though. Cinderella runs home to tell her stepmother and sisters the news. She is excited mostly because she'll see Kit the apprentice (remember, he lives at the palace!). I love Cate Blanchett's reaction. She literally jumps out of her chair (and Lucifer has to quickly hop off her lap!) and runs to her girls, telling them, "One of you must win the heart of the prince." Because they are in a lot of depth, it will help quite a great deal if they can marry into some money. She sees Cinderella is still standing there and tells her to run into town (which she literally just returned from) and ask the seamstress to make them "three fine ball gowns." Cinderella thinks she is talking about her and her stepsisters, but nope, Lady Tremaine means for herself and her daughters. Unlike in the animated movie, she never tells Cinderella she can go to the dance as long as she finishes all her chores, but she never says she can't go either.
Like her animated counterpart, this Cinderella also has a pink dress that used to belong to her mother. She thinks if she provides her own dress, she will be able to attend the ball. She works on fixing the dress, though it doesn't go through a complete transformation like the other pink dress. Even though she's the one to mainly work on the dress, we do a get a shoutout to the original with the mice under the table rolling spools of thread or tying a ribbon to a shoe.
Before they leave for the ball, Lady Tremaine gushes over her daughters (in their super garish dresses), saying one of them is bound to snare the prince and how happy she is she has "two horses in the race." She must be a little bit delusional if she actually thinks one of her daughter has a chance with him. Cinderella comes downstairs wearing her dress, telling them it cost nothing and she doesn't even want to meet the Prince. She wants to go to see Kit, she has no interest in the Prince! Because Lady Tremaine didn't have to pay for an extra dress and because she's taking herself off the table as an option for the Prince, she thinks they will allow her to attend the ball with them. Wrong! Her stepmother tells her she won't meet him because she's not going and that it would "be an insult to the royal personage to take [her] to the palace dresses in these old rags." After Cinderella tells her it belonged to her mother, she disparages her mother's taste in fashion and tells her the dress is "old-fashioned and practically falling apart" and reaches over and rips off one of her sleeves, then tears at the dress a couple more times. Cinderella asks, "How could you?" and she replies, "How could I otherwise? I will not have anyone associate my daughters with you...[it will] ruin their prospects to be seen arriving with a ragged servant girl. Which is what you are and what you will always be." She acts as though she is embarrassed by Cinderella, but I think she is jealous because she knows she would catch the prince's eye and she doesn't want her there as competition.The animated version of this scene is the same, but different. Cinderella sees that the carriage has arrived to take her stepmother and sisters to the palace. She informs Lady Tremaine of this and when her stepmother comments that she's (Cinderella) not ready, Cinderella informs her she's not going. This is because she thinks she doesn't have anything to wear because she's been too busy with chores. You know, being that the ball was THAT VERY NIGHT, I find it hard to believe she would be able to finish her dress even without all the chores. Good thing she has all her mice and bird friends. They really should be on Project Runway, seeing they finished that dress in a couple of hours! She goes back to her room and looks out the window where she can see the palace and insist to herself that the ball w
ould be "frightfully dull and boring" (and who is she kidding?) "and completely wonderful." Her mice friends surprise her with the dress and this is the cutest scene in the entire movie. I love how they're all, "Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!" in their squeaky little mice voices and Gus, being a little slow, tells her, "Happy birthday!"
e her all dressed up. Lady Tremaine notices the necklace she's wearing is the same that Drizella discarded earlier, and, knowing Drizella will get a rise out of Cinderella wearing it, comments how they give the dress a nice touch. Drizella indeed notices that it's her discarded necklace and calls her a thief. Anastasia notices she's using her sash and soon the two sisters are ripping apart Cinderella's dress. It gets way more trashed then the live action dress, which is mainly just a sleeve was torn off. The Fairy Godmother scene - So whenever I think of Cinderella, this is the scene that always comes to mind first. Both versions are pretty similar during this scene, with a few differences. Our protagonist in both movies runs outside, upset about what has just happened. The animated Cinderella is crying at a bench and her Fairy Godmother just materializes out of thin air. There's no explanation of who she is or how she got there and once she's talking about her magic wand, Cinderella figures out it's her Fairy Godmother. Honestly, if I were her, I'd be asking why she hasn't shown up a lot earlier!The 2015 Fairy Godmother (played by Helena Bonham Carter) first appears as an old lady who hobbles over to her and asks her for milk which the kind Cinderella fetches for her. This seems to be a test that Ella has passed with flying colors. The old woman turns into a much younger woman with blonde hair and wearing quite the dress that even lights up. Fairy Godmothers had been established earlier in the movie when Ella's mother tells her young daughter that they are the ones "who look after us."
Both Fairy Godmothers turn a pumpkin into a carriage and four mice into horses. In the '50 film, Bruno the dog is turned into the footman and her horse is turned into the coachman while in the '15 film, two lizards are turned into footmen and one of the many goose who live on the property is transformed into the coachman. Both girls are told they must leave before midnight because that is when the spell will be broken and everything will go back to the way it was.
The dress and glass slippers - I figured these needed their own separate category being so iconic and all. I always thought original Disney Cinderella had a blue dress because that's the color I usually associate her with, so I was a little surprised when the Fairy Godmother transformed her tattered dress into the ball gown and it's more of a silver color. It's seemed to change into blue over the years; look at 2015 Cinderella, after all! Now that dress has to be one of the best to grace the screen in recent years. It just moves so fluidly with her and the way the skirt twirls, it just looks like so much fun. The only thing I wasn't too keen on was the little butterflies attached to the top. It just felt very early 2000s to me. Before her Fairy Godmother transforms the dress, Cinderella tells her she wants to keep it because it's her mother's and her Fairy Godmother says she'll just tweak it a little, but to me it's a completely different dress! Maybe the bodice is the same? I don't know, I'm not really fashion savvy so I can't really tell. Before she gets into the carriage, her Fairy Godmother wants to change her shoes because "they're really quite hideous" and gives her the glass slippers, telling her they're comfortable even though they're made out of freaking glass which I appreciated because wearing shoes made out of glass can NOT be comfortable. Plus, putting all your weight on glass shoes just seems like a bad idea to me!
In the remake, Kit is sitting in the balcony with his father, watching as all the princesses and non-royalty single ladies are being announced. The King knows his son invited the commoner because he knows Kit is trying to look for the girl he recently met. When he reminds him he's only met the girl once, Kit replies that he's supposed to marry a girl he'll be meeting for the first time tonight. His dad tells him it's different because he'll by marrying a princess.
Just as it is announced that the Prince will choose his partner for the first dance, Cinderella enters just a few moments later and he walks towards her as she's gliding down the stairs. I think we know who he's choosing to dance with! I just loved it when she twirled in that dress; it was so hypnotic!
Animated Cinderella immediately catches the Prince's eyes when she enters, so much so that he walks over to her, dismissing her stepsisters who are being introduced to him at the time. Cinderella definitely stand out because of her dress. For one thing, it's the only one that sparkles and it's also the only dress that doesn't have a weird part that poufs out in the back, making everyone's butt look huge. (I'm sorry, but that's how it looks!) When the King sees his son taking interest in a woman, he is beyond excited and prompts the conduct to play a waltz for them to dance to. While they dance, he decides he's going to go to bed and tells the Duke to stay where he is to make sure his son and the girl aren't disturbed and to notify him immediately when his son proposes. WTF? He's been going on all day about how he wants his son to find a wife and he's not going to stay up for the rest of the ball to make sure that happens? Also, it's just so weird and random that the King, the one who is throwing the ball, decides he's just going to go to bed while the ball is still going on. This King is really stupid, I'm sorry. Also, he thinks his son is going to propose that night? I was thinking maybe he thought his son would meet a nice girl, wine and dine her, and then propose. One little detail that I appreciate them addressing in the remake is the fact that Lady Tremaine and her daughters may recognize Cinderella at the ball, so the Fairy Godmother puts a spell on her ensuring she won't be recognized by them. In the '50 film, when Cinderella is dancing with the Prince, her stepmother and sisters are wondering who she is. They don't seem to recognize her. I guess since she's wearing a fancy dress and her hair is up, she looks completely different. Lady Tremaine admits, "There is somethingfamiliar about her." Gee, lady, why don't you put two and two together?
In the '15 movie, when they see the Prince dancing with this beautiful girl, Lady Tremaine tells her daughters, "This does not bode well" and that they "must turn the prince's head."
Another big difference between the two movies is that in the remake, Cinderella realizes he's the Prince and he tells her he didn't tell her when they first met because he thought she might treat him differently. When they're having this discussion, they're in a room with a bunch of portraits and we see one of Kit on horse, which is a nice homage to the animated movie. They go outside and he shows her a secret garden with a swing. He tells her that he is "expected to marry for advantage" and that his father and the Duke will be choosing the princess they think is best suited for him. We, along with Lady Tremaine, learn that the prince has been promised to marry Princess Chelina of Zaragosa.
In the animated movie, Cinderella has no clue he's the Prince. When she has to run off because she hears the clock striking midnight, she tells him she has to go because she hasn't met the Prince yet. He's about to tell her he's the Prince, but she runs off.
In both movies, our heroine runs off, leaving one glass slipper behind. In the remake, while the carriage is being turned back into a pumpkin, I like that we see her sitting inside a large pumpkin with seeds surrounding her. As she's walking home, she lets the four mice sit in the glass slipper she's carrying. Why did I find that so adorable?
Lady Tremaine becomes suspicious - The Duke in the animated film has to inform the King "that the young lady has disappeared, leaving behind only this glass slipper." There's a funny reveal that he was talking to an empty chair and that he was practicing his speech because he knows the King will be irate. And he is. The King is dreaming of playing with his (not yet existing) grandchildren when he hears the Duke knocking on his door and thinks this must mean that his son has already proposed. His face turns beet red when he is told the girl has gotten away. He seems to calm down a bit when the Duke informs him that the Prince loves her and is determined to find her because he wants to marry her. He must have had a conversation with the Prince off screen. The fact that the Prince "loves" this girl he's just met and only danced with and barely talked to is ludicrous. Yes, I think the remake did the right thing with developing their relationship a lot more! He also tells the King about the glass slipper and the King declares that he wants him to try it on every maiden in the Kingdom "and if the shoe fits...bring her in."
The next morning, Lady Tremaine has heard the news and urgently tells her daughters to wake up. While Cinderella is coming up with their breakfast (apparently they eat their breakfast in bed every morning), she overhears her stepmom telling Anastasia and Drizella how the Grand Duke is coming to the house because he is searching for "the girl who lost her slipper at the ball last night." Cinderella knows she is talking about her and when she hears it was the Prince she danced with last night and how he's "madly in love with her", she drops the breakfast tray.
Anastasia and Drizella don't know why they should even bother getting up if the Prince is in love with another girl but their mothers tells them, "There's still a chance one of you can get him" and proceeds to tell them about the glass slipper and how he doesn't even know who this girl is. I mean, yeah, he doesn't know her name, but I'm sure he would recognize her and realize one of these ugly stepsisters certainly wasn't her! I guess that makes sense why he's not the one to visit the house to try the shoes on the sisters. He would take one glance at them and wouldn't even let them try on the shoe because he would know neither of them were the girl he danced with!
Lady Tremaine is telling her stepdaughter what she needs her to do for the day and she gets suspicious when Cinderella has a lovestruck look on her face and walks away singing, "So This Is Love", the same song she danced to with the prince last night. Lady Tremaine suddenly realizes that the girl from last night was Cinderella and follows her upstairs to her room where she locks her in.In the 2015 version, Cinderella arrive home minutes before her stepmother and stepsisters and the sisters tell her all about the ball. They start talking about the mystery girl and Lady Tremaine becomes suspicious about how lovey-dovey her stepdaughter is acting.
We see that she has hidden the shoe in a box that she keeps under one of her floorboards.
The next morning, a proclamation is sent out and it is announced the new King (Kit's father has passed away so he is now the King) has proclaimed his love for "the mysterious princess" who wore glass slippers and "requests that she present herself at the palace" and if she is willing, he will marry her.
Ella is in town when this is announced (she always seems to be in the Town Square for all the announcements!) and I thought for sure she was just going to head to the Palace because surely Kit would recognize her, but instead she heads home to retrieve her glass slipper only to find it isn't in her keepsake box anymore. It's revealed that her stepmother is sitting in a corner, holding the shoe. She tells Ella about how she was once "a beautiful young girl who married for love...[and] one day, her husband, the light of her life, died." The next time she married (to Ella's father) was for the sake of her daughters, but after that man was taken from her too, she was "doomed to look every day upon his beloved child." She asks Cinderella if she stole the shoe and when Ella tells her it was given to her, she scoffs, "Nothing is ever given. For everything you must pay." Cinderella replies, "That's not true. Kindness if free. Love is free." Lady Tremaine has her own ideas of what she wants to happen. Unlike her animated counterpart, she knows there's no chance anymore with one of her daughters with the new King so she has some demands for Cinderella: "When you are married, you will make me the head of the royal household. Anastasia and Drusilla will pair off with wealthy lords." She says Cinderella will not know how to rule a kingdom and this way they will all get what they want. Cinderella tells her no dice, and is especially not happy when her stepmother says she "shall manage that boy." In retaliation, Lady Tremaine smashes the shoe against the door. When Ella asks her, "Why are you so cruel?", she replies, "Because you are young and innocent and good. And I..." she leaves and locks her in the attic. You get the idea that she was once like Ella, but then became cynical after these terrible things happened to her.
Lady Tremaine pays a visit to the Duke to show him the remnants of the shoe, telling him that "the mystery princess is a commoner." He tells her that she's "spared the kingdom a great deal of embarrassment" and when she tells him she "would like to keep it that way," he asks if she's threatening him and she simply replies, "Yes." He agrees to her terms of her becoming a countess and "advantageous marriages for [her] two daughters."
If the Shoe Fits - So in the remake we get a montage of the shoe touring the village and women trying it on. We even see a long line of women at the palace waiting to try on the shoe. There are some comical moments, such as one woman greasing her foot and a woman with feet that stink so bad that when she takes off her shoe, everyone around her faints.
We don't get a scene like this in the '50 film; we're just told that all the single ladies will be trying on the shoe. The Duke and some small random dude (I didn't catch his name or title, but he's part of the royal parsonage who is there to assist the Duke, I guess) stop at the chateau so they can try the slipper on Anastasia and Drizella. While he is reading from the royal proclamation, Jaq and Gus are trying to sneak the key out of Lady Tremaine's pocket. This will involve more hi-jinx with the mice and cat which will last fifteen minutes (again, I'm exaggerating, but probably not by much).
They manage to obtain the key and now the two mice have to lug this heavy key all the way upstairs. It seems to take them forever, but before they can get to the door, Lucifer is ready to pounce and this is the scene where he will eventually fall out the window.
While all this was going on, the sisters are claiming the glass slipper belongs to them. Anastasia is the first to try on the slipper and she has freakishly long feet and the shoe obviously doesn't fit. The dumb little guy attempts to pound the shoe so it will fit her. Okay, A) he's going to break it because it's made of glass and 2) Does he not see how large her foot is? It's like Jeff Probst says during puzzle challenges on Survivor: "If you have to force it, it won't fit!"
Drizella doesn't have much luck either. She tries to "make it fit", but of course that doesn't work.
Apparently the sisters were struggling with the shoe for a long time because just as the Duke and the little man are leaving, Cinderella comes running down the stairs. Lady Tremaine is dismissive of her, but the Duke says he has orders. Remember how in the remake it was the shoe that Cinderella already had that was destroyed? Well, in this one it's the shoe that she lost and the Duke has been trying on everyone that is destroyed. When the little man is walking over to present the show on a pillow, Lady Tremaine trips him with her cane and it shatters. But it's okay because Cinderella pulls out the other shoe, because of course she had it! Her stepmother really didn't think that through, did she? The expression on her face when Cinderella pulls out the shoe is hilarious...both her eyes and mouth are wide open. But again, why is she so shocked? She already had the suspicion that Cinderella was the mystery girl and she was right.The 2015 movie does this scene a little differently. The Grand Duke and the Captain, who is very close with the Prince-turned-King, are the ones to enter the chateau, but they have seemed to brought the whole royal entourage because outside the house is a row of horses holding uniformed guards (or something, I don't know what their title would be). Anastasia and Drisella are super excited to see them because it's "now [their] chance." Anastasia is the first to try the shoe on and she claim that "it shrunk" when it doesn't' fit her. Drisella is straining as she's trying to fit her foot into the shoe. I laughed when the Captain says, "Bad luck, miss."
They're about to leave, but Lady Tremaine isn't worried that the shoe didn't fit her daughters because she knows they're good with the deal she made with the Duke. She tells her girls, "But fate may yet be kind to us, girls."
Meanwhile, Ella is upstairs, singing, having no clue who is downstairs. The mice know because they work together to open the window so everyone downstairs can hear her singing. Of course, the Duke knows who it is and insists they leave. The Captain asks Lady Tremaine if another girl lives in the house and she assures him there is nobody else. He quips, "Perhaps your cat has learned to sing?"and she just laughs nervously.
One of the men on one of the horses takes off his hat and it's King Kit. Both the Captain and the Duke look surprised so they must not have known he was among them. He asks the Captain to investigate and the Captain is happy to oblige. Lady Tremaine has an "oh, sh*t" look on her face because she knows she can't not take him up to the attic. When she does, she just points at Cinderella and tells him, "I told you it was no one of any importance." Cinderella gets mixed messages when the Captain tells her she is "requested and required to present [herself] to [her] King", then her stepmother tells her, "I forbid you to do this" and the Captain tells Lady Tremaine, "And I forbid you to forbid her!" When he asks her who she think she is, she gestures to Cinderella and says she is her mother. Cinderella tells her, "You have never been and you never will be my mother." I like that this Cinderella gets to tell off her stepmother.
Kit is waiting downstairs with the shoe in his hand and he recognizes her when he sees her and when he asks who she is, she replies, "I am Cinderella," calling herself by that name for the first time.
Before she leaves, being the kind and courageous person she is, she tells her stepmother, who is coming down the stairs, "I forgive you." It also shows us that Cinderella is the bigger person.
The movie ends with Cinderella and Kit's wedding and the whole kingdom below them is cheering as they share a kiss on a balcony overlooking their people. We are told that her stepmother and sisters left with the Duke. I'm not sure if this was voluntary or forced! I do wish we had seen her mice friends at the wedding, I thought that would have been a cute touch. After all I assume (in both versions!) that the mice moved to the palace with there. The mice in the animated movie are so talented, that they can make all her gowns!As much as I prefer the remake (and even though I haven't seen all the live action remakes, I feel pretty confident saying it's probably theist) to the animated film, you have to give the 1950 film some credit. They didn't have many well-known movies in the '40s, mostly due to the war and when this one came along in 1950 it jump-started their beloved animated movies again and it was a huge box off success, being the fifth highest grossing movie of 1950. Also, Cinderella is just iconic. It's her castle that you see at Disney World and her story has been told countless times.
I found this print advertisement for the 1950 movie on its Wikipedia page. I just found this really fascinating because I've never seen so many words on a movie poster! Usually they just have the title, the big name actors, the date it will be released, and a tag line to give you an idea of the movie. Walt really wanted the people to see this movie and was selling it big time. "6 years in the making making!" "Even the birds will be singing!" (That one made me laugh because bird seem like the most obvious ones to sing!) "...ready to thrill the world as no picture ever has!" It's a good thing this movie was so successful otherwise this poster would've looked embarrassing in hindsight!