Baby Steps

What About Bob?

Director: Frank Oz

Cast: Bill Murray, Richard Dreyfuss, Julie Hagerty, Kathryn Erbe, Charlie Korsmo

Released: May 17, 1991

I have seen this movie a couple times before, but it's been awhile since I've last seen it and while I remember the basic premise and it being a comedy, I had completely forgotten about just how dark it gets towards the end, and wow, does it ever get dark! I just remembered this being a laugh-a-minute riot.

The Bob in question is Bob Wiley (Bill Murray) who has obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic attacks, agoraphobia, hypochondria, germaphobia, high anxiety, and who knows what else. I almost feel bad for the guy (I easily become anxious, so I can relate), but my God, is he ever f***ing annoying! He also does some pretty abhorrent things, though many not as bad as what his therapist will do later on in the movie! 

Not surprisingly, with all his conditions and phobias, Bob has a therapist and in the first scene we see him (the therapist) calling Dr. Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss), telling him he's leaving his practice and moving out of town and wants to know if he can take on one of his patients. He strokes Dr. Marvin's ego by telling him that Bob needs someone "brilliant" and assures him he is not psychotic. When he hangs up the phone, he grins and says "Free!" I think it's safe to say that Bob also drove his first therapist crazy like he will Dr. Marvin.

Bob meets with Dr. Marvin and their first session seems to go well. Leo gives him a copy of his book called Baby Steps, telling Bob he just needs to get somewhere "one step at a time" after Bob tells him he gets a bunch of symptoms of anxiety when he's out in public. We learn that he was once married, but divorced her because she didn't like Neil Diamond. (Or maybe it's because she did like him. I forget.) Yeah, I was a bit shocked to find out he was once married, but not at all surprised that he's divorced! When their session ends, Bob freaks out when his new doctor tells him he won't see him until after Labor Day when he'll return from his family vacation. He'll be gone for a month, which seems a little extreme to me especially since they're not going to Europe or any place far away. They're only going to New Hampshire where they have a house overlooking Lake Winnipesaukee. It's a quaint little town, but really, what is there to do for a month? Dr. Marvin assures him he'll be okay and if he does need someone to talk to, he can call one of the other psychiatrists.

Bob tries to get in touch with Leo through the operator but she tells him he is unavailable and can't forward his call. Bob tries to con her, saying that he was supposed to call Dr. Marvin, but lost his number. (Please. Who would fall for that?) She firmly tells him she can't give out the number, but when he asks her if she can call Dr. Marvin, then patch him through to him, she does, which I'm pretty sure is unethical. However, not as unethical as something Bob will do a few scenes later. Bob tries unsuccessfully to figure out where Dr. Marvin is, but to no avail.

In the next scene, the operator calls Dr. Marvin again telling him that his sister is on the other line with an emergency when actually its' a prostitute whom Bob had asked to pose as Leo's sister, then taking the pay phone from her once Leo answers (after thoroughly wiping the receiver with a cloth...after all, he IS a germaphobe!) Wouldn't his sister already have his phone number to his vacation house anyway? And this isn't even the unethical scene I was talking about. No, that comes in the next scene when Bob goes to visit the operator posed as a detective and tells her that he has "questions about a Bob Wiley" and that he had committed suicide, but had left a note mentioning Betty (the operator). First question - why didn't Betty recognize "the detective's" voice as Bob's? Bill Murray didn't change his voice during this scene. Second question - shouldn't Betty be suspicious that Bob supposedly mentioned her in his suicide note? If I were her, I would want to know why he had mentioned me. Obviously this is "Detective" Bob's excuse as to how he "found out" about Betty because that's who he needs the information from. It works too, because Betty immediately gives him the information he needs (I guess that badge he had looked legit!), telling him that a Bob Wiley had called, wanting to talk to his psychiatrist. When Bob tells her he needs his information too because he'll need to ask him questions, Betty says she can't give him his phone number, but she can at least give him a mailing address and that more than satisfies Bob. (Hmmm, I think Betty is going to get fired!) I understand that she can't give him the phone number, but why couldn't she just call Dr. Marvin herself (like she did in the scene two minutes earlier!), explain the situation, and hand over the phone to "the detective"? And if this was really legit and a patient of Dr. Marvin's had killed them self, I'm sure he would rather deal with it over the phone then having the cops come to his vacation home. But I digress.

So Bob takes a bus to New Hampshire and the town the Marvins are vacationing in must be the smallest town in the world because when Bob steps off the bus and starts calling Dr. Marvin's name, the whole family is coming out of a grocery store that is right where Bob is. Leo is surprised to see Bob because he thought he was dead (Betty called him to tell him about Bob). It's obvious Bob has no concept of personal boundaries and at this point I'm thinking they could have easily gone the horror/thriller route. This movie is the comedic version of Cape Fear (which also came out the same year). While both scenarios are my worst nightmare, I'd rather have annoying Bill Murray stalking me than scary Robert De Niro!

Leo is furious when he sees Bob and tells him he needs to get back on the bus and go back to New York. Bob starts freaking out and Leo makes a deal with him that he'll have a quick session with him in two hours, then he has to go back. Yeah, things don't go exactly as Leo plans! When he tells Bob to take a vacation of his own, Bob decides to stay and take his vacation at Lake Winnipesaukee as well. Leo's family does not help matters at all. They seem to encourage Bob to stay and are overly friendly to him. I don't have an issue with them being nice to Bob, but it seems they go out of their way to include him. For example, Bob's teen daughter, Anna (Kathryn Erbe) decides to take Bob sailing with her friends. Then he gets involved with helping Leo's young son, Sigmund (Charlie Korsmo) overcome his fear of diving. Leo's wife, Faye (Julie Hagerty) invites Bob to dinner. This is actually a pretty funny scene and one I remember where every time Bob eats something, he goes, "Mmm, mmm, MMMM!" He literally does it after every bite he takes. It's really annoying, but also really funny. His family should have known better and not interact with a patient of Leo's. At this point, I am 100% on Dr. Marvin's side.

There's a big rain storm the night Bob has dinner with them and Leo is in a rush to get him out because the next morning Good Morning, America is due to arrive and do a live interview (I understand why they want it live for the context of the movie, but a piece like this on GMA would never be live; they would have recorded it in advance). They're going to be there at seven, which doesn't make any sense. Doesn't GMA start at seven? So if they were doing a live story at Dr. Marvin's vacation home, wouldn't they arrive much earlier for time to set up? Unless they were going to do the story at eight. Who knows. I'm probably putting too much though in this, anyway.

So Bob spends the night (and sleeps in the same room as twelve-year-old Sigmund which seems highly inappropriate) and while Leo is trying to get him out of the house before GMA arrives, it does't work. (Of course it doesn't!) In fact, when one of the producers finds out that Bob is a patient of Dr. Marvin's, she wants Bob to stay and be part of the interview. By this time, you can almost see the steam coming out of Leo's ears. Right away we see why the show is aired live; otherwise we wouldn't see Bob having a panic attack on live TV! When he recovers, the hosts asks him how long he's been a patient of Dr. Marvin's, and he replies, "Three or four days." He claims that Dr. Marvin's book (the reason they're there to interview Leo in the first place) has been helping him, despite only being a patient of his for a few days! Bob ends up taking over the interview, even introducing the other Marvins.

Leo tricks Bob and drives him to psychiatric ward where the director tells him that she can only hold him for 24 hours, then she will need staff corroboration. Leo is not worried in the slightest, because he knows that they will see just how crazy and erratic Bob is, but Bob seems perfectly normal to the staff, telling jokes and talking easily and he is released. This is around the time the movie turns really dark. Since whatever he does to try to get rid of Bob doesn't work, Leo now turns into a murderer. Or at least an attempted murderer since his plan doesn't work. (Probably for the best for everyone). Taking Bob by gunpoint, he leads him into the woods where he straps twenty pounds of explosives to him, both of which he stole from a store (I told you it gets dark!). Bob thinks this is all part of Dr. Marvin's therapy and after Leo leaves after he sets a timer for ten minutes, he is talking it out to himself, thinking the ropes tied around him refer to the emotional knot he has inside himself and if he doesn't untie it, he will explode, hence the explosives. He manages to untie himself, and proud of himself, he walks back to the Marvin's home.

While Leo and Bob were gone, Leo's family had been looking for him and he happily reunites with them, telling them they won't have to ever worry about Bob again. But, surprise! Here comes Bob! Leo's screaming, "No! No!" He's not wearing the explosives anymore and tells Leo that he freed himself from the ropes. Leo asks him where the bags he was wearing are and not even five seconds after Bob tells him they're in the house, we see the house blow up. And it was a nice house. Luckily nobody was inside of it!

The movie ends with Leo in a catatonic state and the family is afraid he will always be this way, but when Bob marries Leo's sister, Lily (who he met at Leo's birthday party....guess they hit it off pretty well if they're getting married so quickly) and during the wedding when the priest asks if anybody objects to this union, Leo stands up from his wheelchair (wearing a robe...they couldn't put him in a suit? I know he's catatonic, but still...) and yells, "NOOOO!" His family, which includes Bob now, are all excited that he's back and can now communicate again.

It almost felt like they didn't know how to end the movie. To be honest, I was surprised that Faye decided to stay with Leo after he tried to murder a man. I feel like that would be a deal breaker! 

We all fall down like

Toy Soldiers

Director : Daniel Petrie Jr.

Cast: Sean Astin, Wil Wheaton, Keith Coogan, Louis Gossett Jr., Denholm Elliot, Andrew Divoff

Released: April 26, 1991

Remember that Martika song from 1989?

Won't you come out and play with me?

Step by step,

heart to heart,

left, right, left

we all fall down like toy soldiers

Who doesn't remember that song? It's amazing! Unfortunately, this song has nothing to do with the movie as it isn't even played during it! Toy Soldiers the movie wasn't named after the song, but rather after a book it's based on...which I had no idea it was based on book and I've seen this movie many, many times. There is no way this movie would ever be made today because it's about terrorists taking a boarding school hostage. 

A post-Goonie, pre-hobbit Sean Astin plays Billy Tepper, a student at the Regis Prep School for boys who doesn't have a handle for authority. This is the third school he's been to as he's been kicked out of the other two. He sells alcohol to students by mixing vodka with peppermint schnapps and creme de ment so it looks and tastes just like mouthwash so no one will be none the wise. (There must be hardly any vodka in it if everyone says it tastes exactly like mouth wash because I feel like you would be able to tell if there was vodka in your mouth wash!) He hooks up a phone device he got from Radio Shack so he can call 1-900 numbers and talk to sex-phone operators. He (with the help of his friends) moves all the furniture from the Headmasters' office (we're talking couches, chairs, a huge desk, bookshelves, a globe, a phone, a bunch of books, and a rug) outside and places it exactly how it was in the office. 

Dean Parker (Louis Gossett Jr.) refuses to kick him out because he believes that's what the boy wants. Instead he punishes him with washing the pots and pans in the kitchen after meals and keeping a strict eye on him. While the dean is away, taking the confiscated alcohol off the property to confront the cop who has a brother who has a liquor store and most likely sold the whiskey to the minor, the school is overtaken by terrorists. Leading the charge is Luis Cali (Andrew Divoff) who is demanding the release of his father. They are from Colombia, so naturally, his father was sent away for being a major drug dealer. He overtakes the school because he wants to kidnap the son of the judge who is overseeing his father's trial who attends the school. However, the authorities have gotten to the kid first and took him to a safe location. While the other terrorists are "securing" the school grounds with explosives and placing men with guns at certain posts so nobody can go in or out, Headmaster Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliot) tells Cali that the boy he is looking for is not at the school and he doesn't know where he is. One of Cali's men finds proof the Headmaster is telling the truth. By the way, what exactly is the difference between a headmaster and a dean? 

Since Cali's initial plan doesn't go exactly as planned, he just keeps everyone hostage. He does let the faculty go, except for the Headmaster and the cooks (hey, terrorists still gotta eat!). One faculty member is killed when he tries to escape the initial takeover. Cali and his men do a headcount of everyone for a total of 92 hostages. He tells the students they will be allowed to go out in the courtyard, but they need to be in the dining hall every hour on the hour so he can do a headcount and make sure everyone is accounted for. He threatens that if one person is missing, then five people will be shot and if two people are missing, ten will be shot. This guy is one of the most lenient terrorists I have ever seen. If I was ever taken hostage by a terrorist, I'd want it to be this guy. I'll tell you who in a minute after I set up the scene:

Billy and his group of friends (which also include Wil Wheaton and Adventures in Baby-Sitting's Keith Coogan) decide they're going to do something about the situation and gather as much intel about the terrorists as they can. They learn how many men there are, where they're stationed, and what kind of weapons they have. They write all this information down in a notebook. While one kid is doing their research, he's paired with a buddy who can give him a signal (like coughing) if a terrorists comes to close and might see the notebook so they just quickly turn the page and act like they're drawing or working on a school assignment. Once they have all the info they need, they have an elaborate plan for Billy to escape, deliver the notes to the FBI, then return all within the hour. To do this, Billy breaks the window to unlock a door that is hidden from view from the terrorists. This is to be timed with one of his friends kicking a soccer ball and breaking a window. He runs through the school and escapes through a window at the front of the school. He hides behind a car and waits for his friends to distract the two guys on the roof with a remote control airplane. Amazingly this works and Billy is able to run across the lawn. If the terrorists had turned around, they would have plainly seen a kid running away! Cali takes over the toy plane and radios the two men on the roof to tell them to keep an extra eye out on things. When they turn around, Billy is no longer in sight. I have no idea how he knew where the FBI team would be, but as he's running through the woods, he's caught by them and patted down. He tells them he escaped from the school and gives them his notes. They want to keep him but he pleads for them to let him go back, but they refuse. He talks with Dean Parker who is also there and tells them he needs to go back or people will be killed and the dean tells the officer to let him.

Meanwhile back at the school, his friends are looking very worried because there's only one minute left before the headcount begins and there is no sign of Billy. Even though he has taken one of the Jeeps from the FBI to make up for time, he is still running quite late. He runs through an underground tunnel that has water running through it and gets soaked in the process. This time he manages to escape the eyes of the men on the roof when Coogan leaves a cigarette burning by a smoke detector and the fire alarm goes off and they go inside to investigate it. While entering through the window, Billy takes off his clothes. He grabs a towel and apologizes for being late, that he didn't hear the bell signaling it was time for the headcount.

Okay, so the reason why Cali is the ideal terrorists to be held hostage by is because he did the headcount at least four times! Most terrorists would only count once, then kill the five people without a second thought. After the fourth count, he does begin to randomly pick five people, including the Headmaster, to be killed, but luckily Billy comes in then and nobody is killed much to everyone's relief. Billy, however, is severely punished with a whipping. 

Cali decides to let Wil Wheaton's character, Joey Trotta, go because he respects his dad because he's a New York mafia boss. Instead of being happy about this, Joey doesn't want to leave his friends behind, but Cali has one of his men escort him off the premises. While doing this, Joey punches the man and takes his machine gun. He fires at another terrorist outside but manages not to hit him even though he must have fired 100 rounds. The terrorists kills him right in front of Billy's friends and classmates. Oddly enough none of the terrorists take the gun that Joey was holding until AFTER Billy and the others have run up to his body. Either they didn't see the gun or didn't take it because they knew they would be shot.

Billy and the others come up with a new plan. Cali is wearing a device around his wrist, that, if he pushed the button, will detonate the entire school. It is a last resort measure he plans to take should anyone from the outside try to come in and rescue the boys. Billy wants to switch the chip that's in the bomb located in the Headmaster's office with the chip of the confiscated toy airplane that is also now in the Headmaster's office. To do this he needs the help of a younger boy who can tell him how to switch the chips. They crawl through a vent from the bathroom to the Headmaster's office. To distract the terrorists, Coogan has an asthma attack that lasts exactly the amount of time that is needed for Billy to switch the chips. These terrorists are so dumb because they don't even give it a second thought that they might be getting duped here. And why do they need all of them hovering over him?

Billy manages to switch the chips with a few uncertainties since there's no red chip like the younger kid said there was going to be, but it was the blue chip and nothing explodes. They make their way back to the bathroom through the tunnel. Their signal is if there's running water, then it is safe to come down. However, a terrorist came in to use the bathroom while a kid was posted at the sink. He makes the kid leave and while the terrorist is washing his hands, Billy and the other kid think it's safe to come down. Luckily the kid who was posted at the bathroom sinks told one of Billy's friends a terrorists was in the bathroom and he comes in to knock the terrorists out and Billy and the kid manage to get the gun away from him.  

Meanwhile, somehow, the FBI have also planned their attack accordingly even though they have no way of knowing from the inside that Billy had switched the detonator's chip. Cali has captured Billy after he has ushered the kids into the basement. (Is it secret? Check! Is it safe? Check!) He pushes the button on his wristband, but nothing happens. Right before he is about to kill Billy with his gun, FBI agents and Dean Parker break into the office and a bullet is put through Cali's head. I should mention this movie is Rated R and does not shy away from its graphic content! 

   

As I mentioned before, I've seen this movie several times. The first time I saw it must have been in the mid '90s when my brother rented it. I watched some of it with him, then watched it later. It's one of those movies most people don't know exist so you should definitely give it a watch if you're not familiar with it.

Oh, and if for some reason you're not familiar with the Martika song of the same name, you must listen to it:

Bon Appetit

The Silence of the Lambs

Director: Jonathan Demme

Cast: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine

Released: February 14, 1991

Oscar nominations:

Best Picture (won)

Best Director - Jonathan Demme (won)

Best Actress - Jodie Foster (won)

Best Actor - Anthony Hopkins (won)

Best Adapted Screenplay - Ted Tally (won)

Best Sound (lost to Terminator 2)

Best Film Editing (lost to JFK)

I have a book (a tome, rather) called 85 Years of the Oscar by Robert Osborne and it details all the stats of the Oscars from the beginning to the 2012 Oscars in 2013. (A new, updated version comes out every 5 years, so there will be a new one in 2018). Since Silence of the Lambs was a big Oscar winner for the '92 Oscar ceremony, I knew I would find some interesting facts about it and that I did. It is the first psychological thriller to win Best Picture. It is the third movie ever in Oscar history to win five major Oscars which includes Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay. The previous two movies to do that were It Happened One Night in 1934 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1975. I don't know if it's happened since...I'm too lazy to research that! It's also the first movie to be out on video at the time it won as it had a very early release date of February 14, nearly a year before the Oscars that would take place on March 30, 1992. By the way, I want to know who decided to release this on Valentine's Day of all days...it's not exactly a date movie! Most Oscar winners tend to get a late November or December release. I do know its happened since because I remember Crash (ugh) had a very early spring release before it won. At just about twenty minutes of screen time, Anthony Hopkins is a Best Actor winner with one of the shortest amounts of time he actually appears on screen. I am a little surprised they didn't have him in the Best Supporting Actor category because he's more of a supporting character than lead.

Supposedly this movie is a sequel (!!) to a film called Manhunter, which I've never heard of. It came out in 1986, also based on a book by Thomas Harris and stars Brian Cox as Hannibal. Needless to say, it didn't do very well at the box office and didn't have the cultural impact that Silence of the Lambs had. I think most people either don't know about Manhunter or have forgotten about it, so I feel like SotL is more of a stand alone movie and people don't think of it as a sequel or even a reboot. This was a complete shock to me because I had no idea another actor had played Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter before Anthony Hopkins, but obviously, he was the actor to make that role iconic. 

Even to people who have never seen this movie, I'm sure they are familiar with the names Clarice Starling and Dr. Hannibal Lecter; they know exactly what someone is talking about when they mention "fava beans and a nice Chianti"; and they can utter, "Hello, Clarice" just as creepily as Anthony Hopkins does. (Although the line is actually, "Good evening, Clarice." I actually kept waiting for Anthony Hopkins to say that line but he never did and I read that "Good evening, Clarice" often gets mistaken for "Hello, Clarice.")

Believe it or not, this was my first time seeing this movie. And if you know me, you would believe it because I'm kind of a wuss when it comes to scary movies. But luckily this movie is more of a psychological thriller than a horror (and I wouldn't classify this as a horror) and I can handle those. This movie didn't scare me AS MUCH as I was expecting. Don't get me wrong, it was very disturbing, unsettling, and creepy, but I kept expecting the jump scares to come and there were plenty of opportunities for them to happen, but they never did. I know this is based on a book, but I have never read it. However in the past 25 years since this movie's been out, I have known some of the things that happen in the movie!

It's not difficult to see why Jodie Foster won the Best Actress Oscar. She is really good as FBI-agent-in-training Clarice Starling. She is selected by her boss (Scott Glenn) to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter aka "Hannibal the Cannibal" (Anthony Hopkins) because they think he could be helpful in helping them catch another serial killer, Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). Dr. Lecter, after all, if a former psychiatrist and a serial killer who ate his victims. Before going in to talk to him, she is told by that facility's psychologist that they have him in solidarity confinement at all times and he is never allowed to come out of his cell unless he is completely confined and tells her how one time when he was in the hospital, he managed to wake up from his drugs and bite off a nurses's nose. While the other inmates are behind bars, Hannibal is behind glass that have a few holes in them so he can smell the lotion Clarice is wearing. Compared to the other men in the prison, Dr. Lecter is actually very polite and courteous, you know for a flesh-eating serial killer! At least he wasn't masturbating and flinging, ahem, himself at her.....ewww! That really happened after she talked to him and was walking out. I audibly freaked out at the scene because I do not like bodily fluids...ewww, ughgghghg! Gag! Hopkins has a very unsettling way of never blinking.

Buffalo Bill tends to go for overweight girls in their twenties who he skins after he kills them because he wants to make himself a "woman suit". So he and Cruella DeVil have some things in common! He wants to get a sex change to become a woman but has failed the psychological tests to do so. So far he has killed at least six women and Clarice is called in to look at the latest body that was found in a lake in West Virginia. Lodged in the girl's throat is a cocoon which Clarice takes to an entomologist who tells her it's a moth that's indigenous to Asia only and that someone must have bred this particular one. I have always noticed the creepy moth on the movie poster, but never knew how they intertwined with the plot. When we see Buffalo Bill's house, or lair, rather, he has a cage with the large, creepy moths and as someone who hates just regular moths, this is enough to make your skin crawl because these moths are at least three times bigger and some are flying out in the open by the lightbulbs. Ugh!! I also learn where the movie gets its title when Dr. Lecter, wanting to know more about Clarice, asks her about a traumatic childhood memory and she recounts to him a story of how she once woke up on her relatives' farm to hear the screaming of lambs who were being slaughtered. She tried to save one and ran away with it, but it was too heavy and she was caught and the lamb was brought back to the slaughterhouse. At the end of the movie, Hannibal will ask her if the lambs have stopped screaming.

Hannibal has told Clarice he will only cooperate with her if she can move him to a facility with a window so he can look outside since he's been trapped in his cell for eight years. She manages to put something together for him (though it's a lie) and demands to know information about Buffalo Bill such as a real name, address, and physical appearance. This time he has kidnapped a young woman named Catherine who is the daughter of a U.S. Senator. I'll tell you one thing: if I ever see someone struggling to move a couch into a van, I am never, EVER going to help them! Especially if they have a broken arm! I know this may sound horrible of me, but this is how this girl got captured! She was walking to her apartment and went past Buffalo Bill who was "struggling" to move a couch into a van with a cast on his arm and she decides to be nice and help him. When she has her side of the couch, he has her step into the van and then she can't move because the couch is blocking her way out and he knocks her out and thus kidnaps her.

He has her in his creepy lair, in a well where he lowers down lotion so she can rub it on herself. He has an unsettling way of referring to his kidnap/murder victims as "it" so he doesn't have to think of them as real people. ("It will put the lotion in the basket!") He has a little white dog named Precious and Catherine kidnaps (dognaps?) the dog by luring it over to the edge. We don't actually see the dog jump/fall into the pit, so I'm not sure how that happened, but she now has Buffalo Bill's Precious (I would have laughed so hard if he cried, "My Precioussssssss!" but that does not happen). She tells him the dog needs a vet because she broke her leg as a result of the fall and that he better send down a phone or else she's not releasing the dog. A very upset Buffalo Bill goes to get his gun. 

We get the old bait and switch when we see Clarice outside the house which she thinks is the address of someone who can give her information while we see other agents outside the house which they believe to be Buffalo Bill's and have it surrounded. When they enter the house, they find it empty and nobody is there...but Clarice has walked right into it. Luckily, she's smart and immediately can tell from the sewing machine and thread, oh, and not to mention the random creepy moth, that this is Buffalo Bill's house and she pulls out her gun and tells him to freeze, but he runs away. She finds Catherine who's screaming (and Precious who's barking) in the dungeon room and tells her that the other agents are on their way. Uh...I don't think they are because she hasn't called for back up! There are a few rooms connected to the dungeon room so she checks them and they're all empty. There's only one room left she hasn't checked and it's the room where all the creepy moths are in. This was the creepiest scene in the whole movie because while Clarice is looking for Buffalo Bill, he turns the lights off so it is PITCH BLACK and he puts on night-vision goggles so we can see Clarice through his POV. Jodie Foster is fantastic in this scene. We see the fear on her face as she's feeling around to get a sense of her surroundings and to get the hell out of there! At one point, she touches a hot vent or something, then another time she trips over something and falls. But the scariest part is when Buffalo Bill is literally right in front of her face and we see his hand reach out to -almost- touch her face - ahhh!!! - and she seems to sense that something is close to her, but he never touches her. Just when she turns around and her back is to him, he lifts his gun and she hears the clicking sound it makes and turns around just in time to shoot and kill him. Very scary, intense scene!

Hannibal, meanwhile, has been moved to a different location and they have him in a mask and his arms are bound and he's being wheeled as well since his legs are also bound. However, for some reason, he manages to steal a pen that the psychologist left lying nearby. I have no idea how this happened because when he sees the pen just laying there, he's already bound. I thought maybe they would go back and show us how he managed to grab this pen with his arms constricted to a straight jacket, but we never see this amazing feat! Hannibal only uses the ink portion when two policemen bring his dinner (very rare lamb, what a jerk! Good thing Clarice wasn't there to see it) and they handcuff him to the bars as they bring the food in and sit it down. This time his cage is in the middle of a room and it's all bars, no glass. He picks the handcuffs with the pen part and kills one of the officer and smashes the other's head with a crowbar and escapes. There's a big search for the serial killer (naturally). He fools the officers by cutting off the face of one of the officers and putting it over his own face so they send who they think is the officer in an ambulance, but surprise, it's Hannibal and he makes his escape. Not really sure how they got fooled by that.

At the end of the movie, Clarice gets a phone call from Hannibal who is now in some tropical island. He tells her he won't be on the phone for long because he doesn't want to be traced, but just wanted to tell her that he doesn't have any plans to pursue her and hopes she extends the courtesy to him which she says she cannot do. He then tells her he has to run because he's "having a friend for dinner." I'm surprised he didn't add, "Literally!" As he says this, we see him eyeing the psychologist from his original holding place who he never liked very much. Oh, dear. Good thing he at least had some respect for Clarice.

As with 1999, I have now reviewed all the movies from 1991 that won Oscars in the "big 8" categories - Best Picture, Best Director, the four acting categories, and the two screenplays. Obviously, this movie knocked five of those out so that helped tremendously! I also recently reviewed The Fisher King to cover Best Supporting Actress and City Slickers to cover Best Supporting Actor. And quite a few years ago, I reviewed Thelma and Louise which won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. I wonder what year I will complete next? 

Forgive Me

The Fisher King
Director: Terry Gilliam
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Robin Williams, Mercedes Ruehl, Amanda Plummer
Released: September 27, 1991

Oscar nominations:
Best Actor - Robin Williams (lost to Anthony Hopkins for The Silence of the Lambs)
Best Supporting Actress - Mercedes Ruehl (won)
Best Original Screenplay - Richard LaGravenese (lost to Callie Khouri for Thelma and Louise)
Best Art Direction/Set Direction (lost to Bugsy)

Best Original Score - George Fenton (lost to Alan Menken for Beauty and the Beast)

The only thing I knew about this movie before watching it was that it starred Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams and was directed by Terry Gilliam. Knowing that, I knew I was in for an unusual movie since the (few) Terry Gilliam movies I've seen tend to be on the eccentric side. The Fisher King was no exception; it was a very odd movie. It's not quite all set in fantasy, but it's not all set in reality, either. The movie starts fairly normally. Jeff Bridges plays Jack Lucas, a radio personality who was clearly modeled after Howard Stern. He is very crude and arrogant and tells it like it is, with his catchphrase being "Forgive me!" Inadvertently, he is responsible for the murder of seven people at an upscale restaurant in Manhattan when he tells a recurring caller that he will never be good enough to be seen with the yuppies who frequent it. When he sees this on the news, he knows it is the same guy who he told this to because they play the transcript of the conversation he had with him on the radio. This sends Jack into a spiral of depression and things haven't gotten any better three years later when the movie takes a time leap.

He has since quit his job at the radio station (I thought maybe he was fired, but I think he just quit as he does get an offer later in the movie to go back to work) and now works at a video rental store called Video Spot! (complete with the exclamation point) with his girlfriend, Ann (Mercedes Ruehl). Ah, remember the video rental places such as Blockbuster and Hollywood Video? I still go to a local "video" rental place, but it's all DVDs....I remember when these places only had the video tapes like they do in this movie. The world was a very dark and dour time before DVDs and instant streaming were invented. Jack, still depressed and on the bottle a little too much, decides to end it one night when he goes to kill himself by jumping into the river after a drunken binge, but is stopped by two thugs who think he's homeless and aren't happy he's in their territory, so they throw gasoline on him. This is when Jack meets Parry (Robin Williams), a true homeless man who, along with his other homeless friends, attack the two young thugs (and also treat them to an impromptu Broadway show by singing, "I like New York in June, how about you?") It is a very odd scene to say the least. Parry manages to scare the two thugs away and Jack sleeps off his drunken state in the basement of an old building where Parry crashes. It is clear that Parry is mentally unstable and Jack just wants to get out of these. On the way out, the landlord tells him that Parry isn't allowed to have visitors and lets him stay in the basement out of the goodness of his heart because of the tragedy. Jack queries about that and learns that Parry lost his wife in the restaurant where the massacre happened three years ago. He immediately feels guilty and wonders, why, out of all the people in New York, he had to meet a man whose wife he had inadvertently killed.

When Jack returns home, his girlfriends asks where he was all night, thinking he was cheating on her. He tells her pretty much the whole truth, saying he was attacked, but leaves out the part where he was about to commit suicide before he was attacked. Ann tells him that if he's not happy with her, he doesn't have to douse himself with gasoline and beat himself up just to get away from her.

Parry is on a mission to find the Holy Grail, which he believes to be housed in a castle-like residence and wants Jack to help him get it. Feeling guilty and responsible for Parry's life, Jack decides to help him. He also learns that Parry used to be a college professor named Henry Sagan and after his wife was murdered right in front of him (of which we see the flashback of and it is an especially brutal scene), he went into a catatonic state. When he woke up, he became the alter ego of Parry and became obsessed with finding the Holy Grail and with the story of the Fisher King. Jack decides not to only help Parry with this, but with also helping Parry get the attention of a woman he's smitten with (Amanda Plummer). Parry knows everything about her because he follows her every day (which is a little creepy). There's one particularly funny scene that made me laugh out loud when the woman is eating at a Chinese restaurant and Parry takes Jack right up to the window where a couple are dining next to inside and keep looking at the two grown men right by the window looking in and Jack yells at them, "Yes, we're looking through the window!" There's also a scene, which I'm sure has to be the most famous from the movie, where Parry is following her in Grand Central Station and then everybody starts waltzing and the train station becomes a grand ballroom. Jack learns that her name is Lydia and finds out where she works and calls her with the disguise that she's won a free membership at the Video Spot! store. He pretends to have Parry working there so he can meet her when she comes in.

The four main characters end up having dinner at a Chinese restaurant (since Parry knows Lydia likes Chinese food) and this is my favorite scene in the movie. It's a bit of a montage where we see Lydia, who is a complete klutz, drop her food, nearly knock over everyone's food and just has about near disasters as the others are trying to keep her from causing any more damage. Ann confides in Jack that Parry and Lydia are perfect for each other and she is right because Lydia is quite quirky herself, an oddball like Parry. They are both so socially awkward, that they really are perfect for each other.

Parry slips back into his catatonic state after he walks past the restaurant where his wife was murdered and has a horrible flashback. Jack thinks the only thing that will snap him out of this will be to retrieve the Holy Grail that Parry has been obsessed over.

It is a very odd, quirky movie, but of all the (few) Terry Gilliam movies I've seen, I would say it's my favorite movie of his, but like I said, I haven't seen that many movies he's directed because the movies he makes aren't really my taste. Since Mercedes Ruehl won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for this, I wanted to watch this for my ten movie reviews of 1991. Speaking of which, we're almost to the end! So far, I've reviewed:
1. Hook
2. Boyz n the Hood
3. My Girl
4. Backdraft
5. Father of the Bride
6. Sleeping with the Enemy
7. City Slickers
8. Point Break
9. The Fisher King

I have only one left and I think we all know what movie that's going to be! There were a lot of '91 movies I could have chosen, so I will just have to review those movies later; just because I did a special dedication to that year doesn't mean that all movies from 1991 are off the (review) table forever!

Hang Ten, Dude!

Point Break

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, Lori Petty, Gary Busey, John C. McGinley

Released: July 12, 1991

I would love to know who pitched this movie and how it got greenlit in the first place. Let's have a group of surfers....and make them bank robbers! That is the plot of this movie, basically. We first meet FBI agent ("I AM AN FBI AGENT!") Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) who, along with his partner, Angelo (Gary Busey, who I'm only familiar with from Celebrity Apprentice), decide that he's going to infiltrate the bank robbing surfers and try to get into their crowd so he can stop them. Since Johnny Utah is the younger, more athletic (he is a former quarterback for the Ohio Buckeyes, after all), overall better looking one, they decide that he should be the one to work his way into the surfers' group. Although it certainly would have been funnier if Gary Busey tried to. 

Since the group of robbers are wearing rubber masks of former presidents (and even call themselves the Ex-Presidents), Johnny Utah isn't exactly sure which group of surfers are the bank robbers since this is L.A. and there are a lot of surfers in L.A. The Ex-Presidents have robbed 27 banks in the last three years, but to keep from becoming caught, they never rob the vault, only grab the cash in the drawers so they can be sure they're out in 90 seconds. Although they wield guns, they have never killed anyone. Angelo figured out they were surfers because one of them mooned the camera with "Thank you" written across his butt and he could tell by the tan line that he was a surfer. They also found traces of sand left at the crime scene.

Johnny Utah attempts his first try at surfing and nearly kills himself. He is saved by a female surfer (Lori Petty) who screams at him for being stupid. After tracking down her license plate number, Johnny Utah finds out her name is Tyler and where she works so he can ask her to give him surfing lessons. Through her, he meets Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) who is the charismatic leader of a group of surfers. He and Tyler are a bit of an item, but not since other women openly flirt with him right in front of Tyler. I didn't really get their romantic dynamic. But surprise, surprise, Tyler will end up falling for Johnny Utah anyway. I did find it peculiar that Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze didn't have the other's roles. I feel like Keanu would have been better as the surfer dude, I mean he's Keanu Reeves for god's sake. But Patrick Swayze does have the long, blond beach hair, so you gotta make him the surfer! 

Johnny Utah (don't you just love that name?) gets in good with the group and quite likes his new friends. Of course he does since his only other friend is Gary Busey! Speaking of Angelo, he leads Johnny Utah and some other agents on a raid in a house where a group of surfers are gathered. Johnny Utah had a nasty altercation with them earlier when he ran into one while he was surfing and one of the guys punched him. While he was using the beach shower, the same guy and a group of his friends came upon him with the intent to beat him up, but luckily Bodhi showed up and told them to stand down before punching the guy. Johnny Utah and Bodhi followed the car with the fist-happy surfer and thought for sure they had their bank robbers. These guys are not the bank robbers, but rather involved with some serious drugs and were all loaded with guns. There's a big shootout and Johnny Utah gets awfully close to a blade of a lawn mower when one of the bad guy pushes his head towards it. This freaked me out and I had to turn around so I wouldn't see anything too gruesome. But right before he's about to get his pretty face chopped up, Angelo shoots out the motor with his gun. Whew! An undercover cop gets really angry with them because they messed up his assignment because he was this close to finding out where the drugs were coming from. 

Well, if you haven't guessed by now (and, uh, spoilers ahead!), Bodhi and his crew of surfers are the ones pulling the bank jobs. Johnny Utah begins to have his suspicions about them and while at a stakeout at a nearby bank, he and Angelo nearly miss another heist when Angelo has Johnny Utah go into a nearby sandwich shop and get him two meatball sandwiches because he can't shut up about how great they are and how hungry he is. Seriously, this scene must go on for five minutes! When they see the four masked men, they shoot out their back car window and chase after them. Their car gets stuck as the Ex-Presidents turn into a gas station where they firebomb their car so they can get a new one and Johnny Utah runs all the way there to try to stop them. The three other guys are in the car waiting for Bodhi (in a Ronald Reagan mask) to get in, but instead, he and Johnny Utah have a wild goose chase, running through houses (like actually going inside the house from the front door to the back door). It's a pretty exciting foot chase, I must say. Johnny Utah sprains his ankle after jumping from a long drop and it's clear he can't chase after "Reagan" anymore. We see a close up of the eyes behind the Reagan mask and know it's Bodhi. Well, duh, they wouldn't spend this much time on the chase if it was just some random guy Johnny Utah was running after! 

Now that Bodhi's gang know that Johnny Utah is an FBI agent (He is an FBI AGENT!), the other surfers want to get the hell out of town, but Bodhi has other plans. He blackmails Johnny Utah into joining him on a bank robbery by telling him that someone has Tyler (oh, and she's pretty pissed about how Bodhi lied to her) hostage and the only way he can free her is if he available in the next twelve hours to call it off. So Johnny Utah has his hands tied and is forced to rob the bank with the others. Only since there is no extra Presidents masks (what, they couldn't get a George Bush mask for him? Surely they had those in 1991!), Johnny Utah has to go in sans a mask. This time Bodhi decides he's going to get money from the vault and while doing this, an undercover cop who was one of the customers in the bank at the time, tells the bank security guard to back him up and shoots at one of the surfers. I think Bodhi's brother gets shot, but manages to escape...I don't remember! Bodhi kills the undercover cop and somehow manages to escape to an airfield where he has a plane ready to take off for Mexico. Johnny Utah follows him and Angelo is also there and there's a big shoot out. Johnny Utah doesn't want Angelo to kill Brodhi because he needs him alive so he can tell him where Tyler is. Angelo gets shot by one of the other surfers and Gary Busey and his teeth are hamming up that death scene so much that I was laughing...probably not a good thing to laugh over a death scene! But it was hilarious.

Johnny Utah ends up on the plane with Bodhi, Bodhi's bleeding brother, and the pilot. Johnny Utah begs for Bodhi to call off the kidnapping of Tyler and to let her go before he jumps out of the plane just in case something happens, but Bodhi ignores him and jumps out after he's sent his brother. Since Johnny Utah is now a skydiving expert since he's already skydived once before in his life (in an earlier scene), he jumps out of the plane without a parachute and tackles Bodhi in the air, puts a gun to his head and tells him to open the parachute, but Bodhi refuses to open it, saying Johnny Utah needs to open it and in order to do so, he has to drop the gun. Guess who ends up opening it? Yep, Johnny Utah has to sacrifice his gun in order to save their lives. So Bodhi gets away with the money (even though his brother is now dead) and Tyler is safe. We fast forward a year later where FBI agent Johnny Utah has finally found Bodhi in Australia where he's surrounded by cops. There's a huge storm and the ocean has 50 foot waves and Bodhi begs him to let him surf one last time because he was going on about how he wanted to surf that one perfect wave, so Johnny Utah lets him go and we see Bodhi paddle out in the death wave and I guess it's up to interpretation what happened to him, but I'm guessing he probably drowned.

This movie has a lot of fun action, but for the most part, I didn't understand why this movie even exists. Did you know there was a Point Break remake that came out just last year? I mean, was the world really clamoring for a Point Break remake? It does have some interesting history as it was directed by Kathryn Bigelow who would become the first female to win the Best Directing Oscar for The Hurt Locker and later go on to direct Zero Dark Thirty. I feel for a surfing movie there wasn't enough surfing, but I guess if I always wanted to watch a surfing movie, I could watch Blue Crush. 

I Should've Been a Cowboy

City Slickers

Director: Ron Underwood

Cast: Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, Bruno Kirby, Jack Palance, Patricia Wettig, Helen Slater

Released: June 7, 1991

Oscar nominations:

Best Supporting Actor - Jack Palance (won)

Spoilers for a 25 year old movie! I don't like to take any chances. 

I'm more than halfway done with my 1991 reviews! I figured since this won an Oscar in an acting category, I should rewatch and review it. I have to be honest: as with Father of the Bride, this movie wasn't as good when I saw it the first time as a kid. I am a little surprised that Jack Palance won the Oscar because comedies hardly ever win Oscars for anything. Although, Hollywood loves to give veteran actors the Oscars, especially in the Supporting category. He was nominated for Oscars two times before this, both in the '50s. While I remembered that Curly, the character Palance plays, dies, I forgot that he died with at least an hour of the movie left and he really doesn't show up until half an hour into the movie so we're lucky if we have at least 30 minutes of the best character in the movie. And that's what Curly is: the best character in the movie. I do remember Jack Palance came back in City Slickers 2: The Legend of Curly's Gold to play the twin brother of Curly. I haven't seen that movie in a very long time and I can't imagine I would like it if I wasn't too keen on the original! 

Well, hi there, lil Jake Gyllenhaal!

The movie is about a man named Mitch (Billy Crystal) who just turned 39 and is having a mid-life crisis. He works in radio advertising where he sells time to different companies so they can promote their products on the air. He realizes just how lame his job and life are when he's invited to speak about his job at his son's school and goes on a tirade about how these kids should be grateful for what they have because it's just going to get worse. He then proceeds to describe for them what their next seven decades of life will be like. With each passing decade, everything goes downhill. Playing his son is Jake Gyllenhaal in his film debut. He must have been nine or ten when he filmed this. Interesting his first movie would feature cowboys and horses when he would go on to be in Brokeback Mountain more than a decade later....although he does not partake in any of the roping and riding in this movie. 

At his birthday party (which he wants to cancel, but his wife (Patricia Wettig) insists he have it), Mitch's two friends announce that their gift to him is a two week cattle drive from New Mexico to Colorado. His friends are having their own mid-life crises (is that the right plural form of crisis? IDK!). Phil (Daniel Stern) is married to a woman he clearly does not care for and the feeling is mutual...don't ask me why these two people are married if they can't stand each other! She is very controlling of him and has an icy personality. His father-in-law is a bully and expects him to help him at the grocery store he owns. Ed (Bruno Kirby) has never been able to settle down and get married and seems the older he gets, the younger his girlfriends get. He has recently married a beautiful model, so I'm not understanding how he's having a midlife crisis! Some people are never happy. During the party, a 20-year-old who works at the grocery store with Phil arrives to tell him that she's "late" and this is how Phil's wife finds out he's having an affair. I have no idea how the 20-year-old found out where Phil was that night and even if she did know, why would she announced that to him in a roomful of people, including his wife? I know it's for the benefit of the movie, but it does not make any sense. This is the best thing that could have happened for Phil because his wife divorces him and he's fired from the job he hates. At first, Mitch wasn't thrilled about the cattle drive and told the others he couldn't go because he promised he would go with his wife to Florida to visit her parents, but she tells him to go, that she doesn't want to happen to them what happened with Phil and his ex-wife. 

So the three guys head out to New Mexico where they meet the other people who have also signed up for this adventure: an African-American father and son who are dentists, two Jewish brothers who have their own ice cream line (think Ben and Jerry's), and an attractive woman named Bonnie whose traveling partner bailed on her at the last minute and she's having second thoughts about whether she should stay and everyone implores her to. Before leaving for Colorado they are given riding lessons and learn how to rope calfs. Mitch is the only one who can't seem to, ahem, learn the ropes, if you'll excuse my bad pun. The married couple who own the ranch are not riding with them, instead they tell everyone that they'll see them in Colorado...I guess they got a head start in their car? However, they decide to leave all these "city slickers" with two unruly cowboys who like to get drunk and randomly shoot their guns at empty beer bottles. We first see how slimy they are when they're trying to "help" Bonnie with her roping skills and pretty much implying that she won't be able to do it because she's a woman. Mitch goes over to try to help her, but doesn't have much luck, because, let's face it, Billy Crystal isn't exactly imposing. Instead, he gets showed up by Curly, who may be nearly forty years older than him, but he is a head taller and a lot more imposing for an old man! He throws a very long knife (Crocodile Dundee would be proud of it!) at one of the guys, nearly missing his groin and tells him they better behave. Needless to say, everyone is scared of Curly.

Curly doesn't have much time for Mitch, which I don't blame him, because on the first morning of their cattle drive to Colorado, he decides he's going to make coffee with an electric coffee mixer and ends up scaring all the cattle and they run away and trample over the camp. I would be pretty angry too! Curly wants Mitch to go with him to help him round up the cattle and Mitch and his friends are sure that Curly is going to kill him. There was a funny line where Phil says if Mitch doesn't come back, then he's going after Mitch's wife. Of course Curly does not kill anyone and over a few days he and Mitch bond and he tells Mitch he needs to find that "one thing" that will make him happy and he's the one who needs to figure out what that one thing is. 

In one scene, Mitch has to help Curly deliver a calf and Curly wants Mitch to reach "inside" and pull out the calf while he holds the mother down. I remember this scene because they actually show the calf coming out and it was pretty graphic when I was a kid watching this! After the calf gets cleaned up, he is very cute and Mitch names him Norman. However, the mother cow is dying and Curly shoots her, thus Mitch adopting the calf and feeding him. Not long after, Curly dies while sitting up in some rocks. Mitch thinks he's just "sleeping" while keeping an eye open to watch the cattle, but no, he is indeed dead. I don't know what the husband and wife team were thinking sending them out with an eighty-year-old trail supervisor and two drunk and misogynist cowboys? Because now with Curly out of the picture, the two unruly cowboys can go back to being jackasses and they get drunk one night and start shooting off their guns. After they take Norman with a gun (and this scene made me so nervous as a kid!), Mitch goes out to try to talk to them. However, it is Phil, who hates bullies because of his former father-in-law, who ends up with one of the guns and threatens them. Nobody - humans or animals - were hurt in this little altercation. They finish the rest of the cattle drive and Mitch, Phil, and Ed all go home changed men. Phil even has a glimmer of a romantic start with Bonnie. Mitch brings Norman back with him after hearing the cattle they had all herded were going to be slaughtered and sold as steaks. He plans to put Norman in a petting zoo. 

Cold Hearted Snake

Sleeping With the Enemy

Director: Joseph Ruben

Cast: Julia Roberts, Patrick Bergin, Kevin Anderson

Released: February 8, 1991

Sleeping With the Enemy is similar to Double Jeopardy and Enough where a young woman is married to a guy who turns out to be a monster. This movie probably has more in common with Enough since Ashley Judd's husband never beat her in Double Jeopardy....he only cheated on her and framed her for his "death". You know, "only"! Unlike in Enough, where we get the five minute "courtship" between J-Lo and her soon-to-be abusive husband before they get married, Laura (Julia Roberts) and Martin (Patrick Bergin) are already married and live in a HUGE house on Cape Cod. Also married to Martin is Julia Robert's hair which is a character all on its own. Seriously, her hair should have had second billing! Even though I had never seen this movie before, I knew of it and I knew what was going to happen so I figured she has such long hair because she's going to cut it...which she does, but it's still really long after she cuts it, but it is ridiculously long in the beginning. I don't know how she could stand it, especially living on the beach where the wind is whipping your hair every which way. That would drive me crazy!! And she only wears it braided in one scene. Anyway, why am I complaining about her hair style when I should be complaining about the man she decided to marry! Oh my God, this guy is a complete jackass! Yes, he beats her which is horrible, but even if he never laid a finger on her, I would still think he's a complete douche. He has this really weird OCD complex where EVERYTHING has to be just right. He makes a big show of "reminding" Laura that the three hand towels on the bathroom towel rack need to be in just the right order and placed just the right way. The cans and boxes of food in the kitchen pantry all need to be alphabetized and facing the front and stacked neatly. Everything has to be PERFECT at all times or else Laura will get a beating. And if Martin gets an inkling that Laura has been talking to the handsome doctor with the sailboat, then she will get a major beat down, only for him to "apologize" the next day with a bouquet of roses. 

Now what would possess a woman to stay with a man like this or get married to him in the first place? Laura does explain this to the audience through a woman on the bus when she finally does make her escape. She says before they were married, Martin was very sweet and kind to her and this violent behavior didn't happen until after they were married. And I guess by that point it was too late to leave him because he pretty much had her under lock and key and never let her leave unless it was the three times a week when she was volunteering at the library. She does ask him if she can work there full time and he goes, "Do you not love your house? Why would you want to be working all the time?"

You're probably wondering how she made her escape if he was always watching her. Well, I'll tell you. They go sailing with the handsome doctor one night (which Martin seems okay with even though he (wrongly) thinks his wife is having an affair with him, but whatever). Laura never goes on boats because she has a fear of water because she almost drowned as a child. Uh...she sure is living in a bad place, then! But Martin thinks this will be good for her and help her overcome her fear. On the night they go sailing, a big storm hits and Martin and the doctor have to try to get the boat in order. This takes a few minutes and when Martin looks back to where his wife was sitting, she is GONE! He screams her name and shines a flashlight, trying to find her. But what he doesn't know is that instead of working at the library, Laura has been using that time to take swim lessons at the YMCA in order to plan her escape. Now I don't know how she knew the doctor would take them out on his boat. Supposedly there's a fan theory out there that says she and the doctor had planned this. The doctor is only in a couple scenes in the movie and we never see him and Laura interact. I know this movie is based on a book so maybe there's more to the story there. Or maybe it was just coincidental and this was the perfect opportunity for Laura to make her escape. She hides behind a buoy while Martin is shining his flashlight and the only thing he finds is her lifejacket.

There is a HILARIOUS scene when Martin gets back home and he shatters one of the glass windows of his massive home with a statue, steps outside and yells, "LAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" I was cracking up! It was so overdramatic. And he literally screams it like that too.

So Laura returns to the house in the middle of the night because she already had a stash of cash and a packed suitcase. I wasn't sure if Martin was in the house at the time because even though it's a huge house, it seems really dumb to return. I thought for sure he was going to wake up and she was just going to narrowly escape, but we never see him. She even takes off her wedding ring and flushes it down the toilet. I was screaming at my TV, "What are you doing?!?" First of all, if he's in the house, he's surely going to hear the toilet flush! Second of all, why not throw the ring into the ocean...duh! I thought for sure this was how Martin finds out his wife is still alive. He will find the ring later, but it's not how he finds out. Luckily, Laura manages to escape without any problems and gets on a bus bound to Iowa where she settles into her new life. There, she rents a house and gets a job at the library. Oh, and she also visits her mother in an assisted living residence even though she told Martin her mother was dead. I didn't really get that part. 

Martin discovers his wife isn't really dead when he gets a call from her swim coach from the Y expressing her condolence and he's like, "What are you talking about? Laura never took swim lessons. She didn't know how to swim!" And the woman says, "Your wife was into gymnastics too, right? That's how she said she got all those bruises." Well, since Martin was always beating on her, he knew she had a lot of bruises and that indeed was his wife. And right after the scene he discovers the ring in the toilet. He then goes on a wild goose chase to try to track Laura down and this is when he discovers her mother is still alive.

Meanwhile, Laura has changed her name to Sarah and meets her next door neighbor, Ben (Kevin Anderson) who comes off as a little creepy when he accuses her of stealing the apples from his apple tree, but then says if she makes an apple pie she can bring it over tomorrow night when he makes pot roast. I thought it was a little too soon for Laura to go into a relationship (and so did Laura, but he was a little forceful), but I guess it was a good thing he was in her life as I'll get to that later. Laura is a little standoffish around him at first which makes TOTAL sense as she just got out of a horrible, abusive relationship, but then she starts to warm up around him. Ben is a drama teacher at a local college and takes her to auditorium one evening and there's a montage of her trying on different hats set to "Brown Eyed Girl" and "Runaround Sue". It is the strangest thing to have this cute little montage in the middle of a psychological thriller. It's like they had to have a Pretty Woman-esque montage since they had Julia Roberts and this was her first big role after the movie. 

Ben gives Laura a disguise so she can visit her mother. He turns her into a man by giving her a fake mustache and a man's wig. However, her "man's voice" is the worst excuse I've ever heard. She didn't even try to attempt to deepen her voice. But she is able to visit her mother without any questions and tells her mother it's her. I should mention that her mother is blind. It was really funny when she's feeling her daughter's face and her fingers run over the fake mustache and she gets this really concerned look on her face and Laura has to explain she's in disguise. While she's visiting her mother, Martin is there at the exact same time and there are close moments when they almost run into each other, but they never do. At one point, Laura is using the water fountain and Martin is right behind her. The fountain isn't working right so Laura has to hit it a few times so when Martin goes to use it, it hits him right in the eye. 

He has asked the receptionist to let him know if a young woman visits Chloe (Laura's mom) because he wants to "surprise" her and right after Laura leaves in her disguise, the receptionist tells him that a woman hasn't visited Chloe, but a young man just did and he goes tearing after her. Um, I'm pretty sure they're not allowed to divulge that information. I can't remember if this was before or after he almost smothered Chloe with a pillow when he was pretending to be a police officer and asking her questions, saying how her daughter was in trouble and he needed to know where Laura was. She tells him the info he needs and he almost kills her, but luckily the nurse comes in with her pills, so he's just acting like he's fluffing her pillow and puts it back behind her head. 

So far by this point, the movie isn't too scary. The only time I felt any real suspense is when she went back to the house to get her clothes and money because I was for sure she was going to be found out. But the next scene when she goes home after Martin has discovered her freaked me out! They were using all the scare tactics in the world. I kept going, "OMG! OMG! OMG!" First of all, she goes to take a bath and she notices that all her hand towels are perfectly lined up. We had seen a scene earlier in her new house where she at first makes her hand towels look neat, then she purposely messes them up as well as just throw her cans of food into her pantry. So had she hung up her hand towels neatly out of habit....or was there somebody in her house?? We then get a lot of fake out jump scenes where she sees her closet door is open and she creeps over to check it out, but right before she does the fire alarm goes off because she forgot about her toast...dumbass! She then checks her pantry....it is the scariest scene involving a pantry I have ever seen! She opens it up....and it's all messed up just like she initially had it. Whew! But later....she opens the pantry again and it's ALL ORGANIZED!!! Plus her kitchen hand towels are orderly too. I was for sure Martin was going to sneak up on her, but she just turns around and he's there, but it wasn't a scare jump. He has a gun and is about to use it when there's a knock at the door. Remember when I said it was a good thing Ben was in her life? Well, at this moment he pretty much saved her life. Martin tells Laura to make him go away and hides behind the door with the gun pointed at her while Laura opens the door with the chain still attached and says it's not a good time for him to come over. It is SOOOOO obvious that she's in danger and I thought for sure he was going to call the police, but instead after the door closes, he breaks it down and attacks Martin who proceeds to knock him out and is going to shoot him, but Laura manages to get the gun away from him. There's a struggle, but Laura ends up with the gun and is pointing it at him and calls the police telling them she just shot an intruder, then shoots her husband AT LEAST three times and then falls into a heap beside his body, dropping the gun right by him. But guess what? He's not dead yet! He has just enough life left in him for him to grab the gun and point it at her and shoot her. Luckily she used all the bullets and there was none left. Everyone knows that after you kill (or "kill" a bad guy), you never put your weapon by them! Cuz chances are they're not quite dead yet! But then he finally dies. And she can finally live her life with Ben. Let's hope he's not a psycho! 

Going to the Chapel

Father of the Bride

Director: Charles Shyer

Cast: Steve Martin, Diane Keaton, Martin Short, Kimberly Williams, George Newbern, Kieran Culkin, BD Wong

Released: December 20, 1991

I remember seeing this in the theater and liking it well enough, but after watching it again recently, I found it to be very saccharine. I also didn't understand why the father, George Banks (Steve Martin), was freaking out so much that his daughter was getting married. I can understand he thinks it's pretty soon since she announces she met someone when she was living abroad in Italy and they've only met six months ago, but he seems to be having a hard time of letting his "little girl" go. I feel like most fathers would be happy if their daughters met someone they loved and it would be an added bonus if the guy was financially stable (and this guy was more than enough financially stable!).

So it's funny that when I first saw this I had no idea who Diane Keaton was (I was barely eleven, how was I suppose to know who she was?!) and when I saw that her name was behind Steve Martin's (I DID know who he was!) in all the promotional posters, I just assumed she was the actress playing the bride. Makes sense to me: the movie is called Father of the Bride, therefore the two title characters must be the two first billed actors! I don't know how long it took for me to realize my mistake. Of course, Diane Keaton plays Nina, the wife to George. The bride, Annie, is played by Kimberly Williams (now Kimberly Williams-Paisley) and this was her first movie role at the age of twenty. I mean, that's pretty cool to act with Steve Martin and Diane Keaton in your first movie. 

After Annie announces she's getting married to a man she met when she was in Italy, her mother is happy for her, but her father immediately starts asking her questions such as what does he do (he's a computer programmer who's very good at his job and very rich), how they met, how long they've known each other, etc. I can understand where the guy is coming from. It would be one thing if Annie came home and said she met a really great guy and they're dating and things are getting serious, but she comes home and drops the bombshell that she's getting MARRIED! So I can understand why he was a little concerned, but even after meeting Annie's fiancé, Brian (George Newbern), and seeing he's a stand up guy and cares for Annie, George is still resigned about his daughter getting married. 

The entire movie is about planning the wedding and George's reluctance about it. I can't really blame him when he learns how much this thing is going to cost. Even though the Banks live in a nice house (although it's not a huge mansion like the new in-laws live in!) and drives a super nice car, he acts like they are poor and can't pay for the wedding. However, this wedding seems like it's going to drain them of their life savings so he goes about making some cut backs, such as cutting the original 500 people invited to the wedding to no more than 150. Which makes sense to me...who needs 500 people at their wedding? Who even knows 500 people? The Banks have the reception at their house and the wedding planner, Frank (Fraaaanc) and his assistant (played by Martin Short and BD Wong) insist on the most ridiculous things. They're going to build a tulip garden and a pond for swans; they start sawing away the ceiling in the house to make room for more light. I would most certainly not want people coming into my house and start messing around in it, just hacking away at the structure! George does not understand why the cake (pronounced a totally different way by Franc!) has to be $1200. And I agree. I love weddings; I've been to a few amazing ones in my life, but I don't understand why people spend a fortune just for one day! It's completely ridiculous! 

Speaking of ridiculous things, there's a scene where George and Nina go to meet Brian's parents (without Annie and Brian there, which I thought was really weird) and they live in Beverly Hills in the biggest mansion on the block. When George uses the bathroom, he sneaks into an office and starts looking at a checkbook sitting on a desk, only to find he's trapped because one of the three dobermans who live there is growling at him and he has to crawl out the window and Nina is the only one who sees him when he's climbing down, so she has to distract Brian's parents. Then somehow, George still has the checkbook in his hand (I don't know why he didn't leave it on the desk!) and it somehow gets thrown into the pool and he has to try to reach for it and while he's doing that, two dogs from each side of him attack him and he falls into the water. It's completely ridiculous and we never hear the repercussion of what happened! The only thing we hear about it is when Annie and Brian have had a fight and she tells her father that Brian told her this crazy story about what happened and of course it's all true. Annie seems a little high strung because she was about to end her engagement with Brian just because he bought her a blender for their kitchen. She thought it meant he wanted her to be his little housewife and she's all about being an independent woman, but as Brian explained to George, he knew Annie liked a banana smoothie and just wanted to buy her a blender just in case she ever wanted to make one. I mean, if you were willing to end your engagement over THAT, there's no way that couple is going to last! But of course, George talks to Annie and she forgives Brian and the wedding is still on. Ha, if I were her dad, I would be like, You're damn sure the wedding is still on....do you know how much I've already spent and all the construction work they've done on the house? 

The wedding at the church is very nice and one of the last moments George shares with his daughter when he walks her down the aisle because at the reception at the Banks' he can't seem to get a chance to talk to her. At the reception, their house is crowded with people and for some reason when they're about to eat, he has to stand in line...you think they would let him go to the front of the line since he's the freaking father of the bride! His wife seemed to be able to get her food pretty fast. Then, since there are so many people, the cops come to tell them they need to have all these cars removed from the premise because they don't have a permit to double and triple park all these cars on the street. You would think they would have realized this BEFORE the day of the reception and gotten on that. So George gets his young son, Matty (Kieran Culkin), and his little friend to move all the cars onto lawns. 

It's announced Annie is about to throw her bouquet before she and and her new husband are to leave for their honeymoon. George tries taking a short cut, but he just misses her by moments. She does, however, call him from the airport...from a pay phone, haha, oh, 1991! She calls to tell him thank you and that she loves him. Aww, how sweet, but seriously, she couldn't find him at the wedding to say these things? 

This movie has some humorous moment and some sweet moment (like when George plays basketball one on one with Annie while the song "My Girl" is playing), but overall, I found it a little flat. 

We Didn't Start the Fire

Backdraft 

Director: Ron Howard 

Cast: Kurt Russell, William Baldwin, Robert De Niro, Donald Sutherland, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Rebecca DeMornay, Scott Glenn, J.T. Walsh

Released: May 24, 1991

Oscar nominations:

Best Sound (lost to Terminator 2)

Best Sound Effects Editing (lost to Terminator 2)

Best Visual Effects (lost to Terminator 2) 

Backdraft is probably the most famous movie that features firefighters. Well, it's the only one I can think of besides Ladder 49. I have seen it before, but it's probably been ten or fifteen years. It's about two brothers who followed in their father's footsteps as a firefighter, but they don't get along. They are Stephen (Kurt Russell) and younger brother, Brian (William Baldwin). I knew a Baldwin was in this, but for the longest time I thought it was Stephen Baldwin (there is a Stephen Baldwin, right?) because I kept hearing the name "Stephen" in the movie and just associated that name with the Baldwin in the movie, but then I looked it up to double check and it's William. Seriously, I can't tell those Baldwins apart if you lined them up...the only one I really know is Alec. Fun fact: Brad Pitt was up for the role of Brian.

The movie starts out "twenty" years ago in 1971 when Stephen and Brian are kids and their dad is about to be a hero and put out another fire. He manages to save a little girl from the fire, but something terrible happens when he goes back in and there's an explosion and he dies. This all happens in front of little Brian's eyes who was there when it happened. I was so confused because the dad was played by Russell and he died within the first five minutes of the movie. I'm thinking, Uh, why did they bill Kurt Russell first when he's only in the movie for five minutes? But he also plays Stephen as a grown up so he is in the movie for more than five minutes. But I just thought that was weird. I'm sure there are examples where the same actor played a parent in the past, then played one of the grown up children in the future.

Stephen has no fear and will take on a fire head on and doesn't always listen to rules and protocol. One of the most famous images from this movie is when he goes into a burning building before they've got the hose ready. He knows there's a child in there and he knows there's no time for the hose to be set up. He is hailed a hero, but often chided for his reckless behavior. Stephen is separated from his wife, Helen (Rebecca De Mornay) who he still has feelings for, but she is fearful of his life. They have a young son.

Brian was out of the firefighting game for awhile, but has come back to it. On his first big fire, Stephen tells him to stay at his side, but during the fire, Brian sees a human and ends up leaving his brother's side to rescue a life. Only it turns out the life he "saved" was a mannequin. There were a few in the building that was on fire, so it must have been an old department store. When he comes out with the human form wrapped in a blanket, the photographers take photos, thinking it's a real person. His picture is in the paper and he is hailed as a hero even though he knows the whole thing is a fraud.

Once grown up and firefighters in Chicago, they must find out who is behind a series of malicious fires being set and killing people. De Niro plays the veteran firefighter and arson investigator who is on the case. I didn't really like this plot line of the story. We already have a movie about firefighters; why do we need to add a murder mystery to it?

It must be a requisite for movies with firefighters in them to play the song "Heat Wave." Because that song was also played in Frequency where Dennis Quaid played a firefighter.

The fire scenes were very impressive. I have strong respect for firefighters who go into burning buildings to save people. I could never do that! I was a little confused that Stephen could go into burning building without a mask...seemed kind of dangerous, but maybe they wanted the audience to be able to see his face. Apparently, one of the cameramen wore a flame-retardant suit and went into the fire to actually shoot from a firefighter's POV. The film is a little overheated (pun intended!) with its plot, but overall has a nostalgic feel to it...even though I never saw it in theaters, I do remember it when was released. 

Heaven Couldn't Wait For You

My Girl

Director: Howard Zieff

Cast: Anna Chlumsky, Macaulay Culkin, Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis, Griffin Dunne

Released: November 27, 1991

Viewed in theaters: November 28, 1991

SPOILER ALERT!!!  (I don't know why I need this because I feel like everybody knows what happens...but just in cases!) 

OMG, you guys, I love this movie so much!! This was my favorite movie as a kid, and, no joke, I probably watched it AT LEAST 30 times within two years of its release date (and I only saw it twice in the theater). Needless to say, I did own the VHS (hehe....that's a video tape for those of you who don't know...and if you don't know what a video tape is, go Google it!) Surprisingly, I don't own it on DVD. I don't know what happened to the VHS copy I had....probably wore it out since I watched it so many times! The last time I saw it was nine years ago so it's been awhile but of course I remembered everything since this movie is pretty much embedded in my brain. As I watched the movie, small details came back to me such as the grandmother randomly bursting into song or the hippie couple in the poetry class. 

I think I related to this movie because I was the same age as Vada (Anna Chlumsky), the main character. We probably only had one thing in common (we both liked to write) as I would never randomly just go to the doctor like she always did. Since she grew up in a funeral parlor and her dad, Harry (Dan Aykroyd), is an undertaker, Vada is obsessed with death and dying. She always thinks something is wrong with her and that she must be dying hence all the trips to the doctor's office (to which she even questions him if all his medical certificates are even legit.) 

I read the film's novelization before I saw the movie so I knew what would happen to Thomas J (Macaulay Culkin), Vada's best (and only) friend. But I wonder if I hadn't already known, if I would have picked up on it because there are so many clues! First of all, the whole girl's life is surrounded by death since her dad is an undertaker and her house always has a dead body in it whether it's in the basement getting embalmed (so creepy...I would freak out too if I got locked in that basement!) or if it's in the funeral parlor on display for a service. Then we get that scene where a small coffin is coming through the house and she asks her dad if it's for a child and he says, Of course not, that it's for someone who was really short. Then we get that scene of her and Thomas J in the garage when they come across a photo of her deceased mother and heaven is brought up and Thomas J asks her what she thinks heaven is like and and she explains to him this wonderful place to which he replies, "That doesn't sound so bad." Looking back, it's pretty obvious she's going to lose someone close to her. 

The film takes place during the summer of 1972. I'm not sure if there was any significant reason why that year was chosen. I had no idea it took place in the '70s when I first saw it, I had just assumed it took place in "present day" 1991 so I was a little indignant when I found that out because how can I relate to kids growing up in the '70s? As much as I would have loved to see it take place in '91, the film would be significantly different as there are little touches that add to the decade it's set in. Obviously, the soundtrack for one thing. Also, her dad watches All in the Family and there are references to The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family. And the wardrobe is very '70s. The one character who wears the most '70s style clothing is Shelly (Jamie Lee Curtis), the makeup artist who gets a job at the funeral parlor (only she thinks it's a beauty parlor when she interviews for the job and is a little skeeved out when she realizes her mistake, but takes the job anyway). She's always wearing something crazy like bell bottoms or denim jumpsuits with lots of loud, ugly colors that you can only find in the '70s. 

Vada is not having a very good summer (and it's about to get a lot worse!) After Shelly starts working at the funeral parlor, her dad begins to date her. Vada does not like this because she is no longer getting all of her dad's attention and because she does not want a replacement for her mother who

died when she was a baby. But having another female in the house turns out to be good for Vada who is usually around males all the time because Shelly teachers her to put on makeup (she's always wearing a ton herself) and when Vada finds herself "hemorrhaging" one day, she starts to freak out because she thinks she's dying (of course!) and Shelly has to explain to her the joys of being a preteen girl. (Was Vada sick that day in health class when they separate the boys and girls and have a talk with each group?) Shelly is also the one to be worried about Vada's "sicknesses" and tells Harry she's concerned about her, but he thinks it's just a phase she's going through.

Harry and Shelly get engaged, but we don't see the proposal onscreen, instead we find out the same way as Vada: when they are at a carnival and Vada wins a fish in a ring toss and while Shelly is holding the bag with the fish in it, Vada notices the diamond ring on her finger and asks Shelly where she got it with adding hopefully if she won it. (Um, I don't think so!) That's when her dad tells her they have something to tell her and Vada is very upset by this news. She decides to run away and after spending hours in a tree, she decides to go home and as she hops down, the camera pans to show that she was in a tree in her own yard the whole time!

Vada steals money from the secret stash Shelly keeps in her trailer. But this is before Vada finds out her dad is dating Shelly so it's not out of spite, but rather out of desperation as she needs $35 to pay for a writing class that her teacher, Mr. Bixler (Griffin Dunne), who she has the hots for, is teaching over the summer. I love the scene when she gets out her class photo where she's looking adoringly at her teacher and starts singing "Wedding Bell Blues". She asked her dad for the money but he refused to give it to her because she's always starting different hobbies, but never sees any of them through. When you put the DVD in, there's a journal on the home screen where you can select to play movie or go to a scene and this confused me so much because for the life of me I couldn't remember Vada keeping a journal so I figured I just must have forgotten about it (blasphemy, I know!) but there is no journal! That didn't make any sense! She does have a notepad she takes to the writing class so that would have made more sense. A mood ring or a bee hive would have made more sense!

Her first day at the writing class is so funny because she's this young kid in a class full of grow ups who are writing about very adult things. I love it when after that guy reads his poem about "You did not smell my rose, you did not see my painting", etc., that one woman goes, "Maybe she was out of town." And I love the awkward look on Vada's face when that blonde hippie woman is reading a poem about spending a night with her boyfriend, who's also in the class. "I can't fight it, there's no point. I wake up and light a joint." And after that Vada reads her cute little poem about ice cream. And I love the scene where they're all in a circle holding hands, trying to feel each other's "auras" and the one guy gets jealous when his girlfriend is having a moment with another guy.

BFFs

The mean girls in Vada's neighborhood make fun of her for being friends with the dorky Thomas J and when the nice, new girl invites her to her dad's movie theater, they snide her and tell her not to invite Vada or she'll have to bring her boyfriend. I never understood why Vada was such a recluse for being friends with him. I mean, yeah, he was a bit of a pansy because he was always worried about getting in trouble with his parents (like that night of the bingo game when Vada wants him to come with her and he says he'll get in trouble if he's out by himself after dark) and he was allergic to everything (like chocolate....and bees) and he was accused of being a pacifist, but he didn't seem that bad! He seemed a little naive and dumb at times (like when Vada decides to run away to Hollywood to live with The Brady Bunch and he wants to live with them too and she tells him they already have enough kids so he'll have to live with the Partridge family and he's like, "Ooh, really?") and he definitely lets Vada push him around (her threatening to punch him if he doesn't close his eyes before they kiss), but I never understood why the other kids were always so mean to him. Even Vada is pretty horrible to him too and she's suppose to be his best friend. She is definitely the alpha of that relationship. Don't get me wrong, she is very fond of him, but she can be a bully towards him. They never explain how long they've been friends or why they're friends as they're so different, which I thought they did, but I guess I remembered wrong. (Maybe that was from the book?)

Macaulay, no!!!

My Girl is the first movie I remember completely bawling my eyes out. Like, I was a total wreck when I first saw it (and I was prepared for what was going to happen, but it will still so sad!) I have since cried at countless other movies, but this was the first one where I remembered having to brush the tears out of my eyes so I could see and tears were streaming down my cheeks one after the other. This movie is very traumatizing! After watching it the other night for, oh, I don't know, the 50th time perhaps, I thought of a way the filmmaker could have made the death scene even more effective. So we already know the scene with the bee hive and the missing mood ring has already been established when Vada and Thomas J are playing with their new water syringes and Thomas J starts knocking down the bee hive because he wants one (um...I guess he didn't know he was allergic to bees?) and Vada notices her mood ring is gone so they start looking for it until Thomas J looks up and sees the swarm of angry bees and yells for them to "run for their lives" (no kidding, kid!) Then several scenes later we see that scene where Thomas J goes back to the woods to look for Vada's ring and he finds it, but not before all the bees start attacking him and there's an ominous slow-mo shot of his glasses falling off.  So what I would have done is take that scene out completely as well as the next scene where a police officer comes to the house to speak to Harry. (I never did understand why the police came to their house...wouldn't they have gone to Thomas J's parents' house? Why did they need to tell the undertaker?) So by this point you know something serious has happened. I think it would have been way more effective if the audience was finding out exactly the same time as Vada when her dad tells her. Just imagine if it had went from the scene where Thomas J asks Vada if she'll think of him if she doesn't marry Mr. Bixler then to the scene where her dad comes into her room to talk to her. Can you imagine the gut punch that would have? Let's make this sad movie even more sad! When her dad comes in, you can tell he's very upset and he's acting weird because he asks if the fish she's feeding is the same one she won at the carnival. Well, duh. We already know from the two previous scenes we saw that something horrible happened to Thomas J and we are pretty much confirmed his death by the way her dad is acting, but just imagine if we didn't have those scenes. We would have no idea why her dad was acting this way. That scene is already so sad the way it is, but just imagine if we were getting the devastating news the same time as Vada!

Usually from this scene until the end of the movie, the tears are streaming down my face nonstop but whenever I watch it, there's always just some little moment that makes me sob even more. The first time I saw it, it was his parents' expression at his funeral after Vada has come down and starts yelling for someone to put on his glasses that really got me. This time it was when Judy, the nice new girl, comes to the door and tells Shelly she wants to tell Vada she's really sorry about what happened to Thomas J. I'm sitting home on my couch, just crying and thinking, Oh, what a sweet girl! :::sob!::::
Oh! And let's not forget the scene where Thomas J's mother returns Vada's mood ring to her and Vada tells her that her son will be okay because her mother will take care of him. I might just start crying right now! Oh, and the poem about the weeping willow, of course. Gets me everytime. This movie is so sad, you guys!!! But I love it so much!