Where Do Broken Hearts Go?

Waiting to Exhale
Director: Forest Whitaker
Cast: Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine, Lela Rochon, Dennis Haysbert, Gregory Hines, Donald Faison, Wesley Snipes
Released: December 22, 1995

It's always frustrating when you're about to watch a movie with four women as the leads and the only thing they talk about with each other is men and their relationships with men. This is one of those movies and they literally talk about nothing else. Sometimes you think they're going to talk about their jobs or something else, but the conversation will always veer back to men and how much men suck. I read the book right before I saw the movie and it's probably even worse because there's more of it. At least with the movie there are a few parts they took out for time. I had to laugh at one scene in the book where two characters are talking about (what else?) men and one of them says something like, "Can we please change the topic? We always talk about men" and I'm thinking, yeah, no sh*t, you really do, and then what happens? They go back to talking about men! :::bangs head against the table::: If I were friends with these women, I would be like, Please, for the love of God, please stop talking about your sh*tty boyfriends and the sh*tty men who want to date you! Don't you have any other interests? Apparently not.

So let me go through each character. We'll start with Bernadine who is played by Angela Bassett. She'll start out with long hair, but will get her hair cut pretty early in the film. It's kind of funny because her hair dresser friend, Gloria, doesn't want to cut her hair, so Bernadine cuts it herself and she ends up looking fabulous! She looks much better with short hair than she did with long hair. Of all the characters, she has the right to be the angriest at the man who screwed her over. Her storyline is her and her husband, John, are going through a nasty divorce. When we first meet her, she's getting ready to go to a New Year's party at her husband's office. When he suggests that they don't go, she looks relieved because she'd rather stay home, but then he tells her that HE is still going, but just with HER, meaning his secretary that he's having an affair with. Now she seemed to know who he meant so I was a little unclear of how long this affair had been going on and how long she had known about it. Were they going through with the divorce at this time, but were trying to keep up appearances for their kids' sake? I wasn't really sure about that. All we know is that he's leaving his wife of eleven years for a white woman. In the book, not only she is white, but she's supposed to be much younger, like mid-twenties. She's played by Kelly Preston in a cameo role who isn't that much younger than Angela Bassett in real life. It is made into a very big deal (especially more so in the book) that he is leaving her for a white woman. He even asks her if it would be better if he was leaving her for a black woman, to which she says no. I'm guessing they put that in because in the book I was kind of wondering the same thing. They almost make it seem (in both the movie and the book) that interracial relationships are much worse than, you know, cheating on your spouse. Three out of the four women in this commit adultery - yikes! And only one feels like she's doing something wrong. Besides cheating on his wife, John is just not a good guy. We learn a lot about him through exposition (done pretty obviously) when Bernadine is tossing a bunch of his clothes and other belongings in his car which she will set on fire. He is very successful with his own business (I don't really remember the specifics) that Bernadine helped him start and is a big reason of the success of it, even though he never acknowledges that. We learn in a throw away line that she wants to start her own catering business (even though we never see her cook and she never, ever talks about it with any of her friends), but John never allowed her to because he needed her to help with his company. Even though John is super successful which is evident from the house they live in, it turns out he has a lot more money that he was hiding from his wife. Not only that, but we find out, along with Bernadine, that he also owns an apartment building (!), 200 acres of farmland in California (!!), and a vineyard in Arizona (!!!).  She is finding this out for the first time, despite being married him for eleven years! He tells her to sell the house for money and offers to give her $300,000 on the spot, which seems like a lot, but she knows she can get more than that. She will find out that everything he purchased in the last ten years is in his name only, including the business that she helped build. Yeah, this guy is a douche bag and it makes me wonder if he was always this awful throughout their whole marriage or if she is just figuring this out. We're just kind of thrown into their marital problems so we don't really know about why they were together for so long. Bernadine comes off as very strong and confident, it really doesn't make sense why she was ever with this guy. She is also supposed to be super business-savvy, so the scene where she's having a garage sale and selling all of her husband's things (the stuff she didn't burn!) for one dollar each (including skis, golf clubs, and a CAR of all things) doesn't make any sense. This guy has some pretty nice stuff; WHY is she selling it only for a dollar? She could have been making a nice mini fortune, instead of getting, like, fifty dollars at the end of the day. I know, I know, it's supposed to be a statement that she's selling all his nice stuff so cheaply, but I don't think she really thought it through.

So now that John is trying to cheat Bernadine out of her fair share of their money, what does she do? Does she throw all of her anger into creating her catering business she has always wanted to started? Nope, she goes out with the girls one night at a club and starts dancing with a handsome man named Herbert who's an ex-football player and now is a sportscaster. Oh, and he's MARRIED. And it's not like she's just "friendly" dancing with him, no, she is all over him. She even tells her friends, "His wife's at home, he better watch out for me." She does end up sleeping with him. Um, does she even remember when she slapped the woman her husband is sleeping with? So by every right, Herbert's wife should be able to slap her. But as far as the movie is concerned, Mrs. Herbert never finds out. I guess Bernadine thinks it's okay to sleep with him since it doesn't mean anything, while her husband's adultery feels like more betrayal since he is leaving her to marry the other woman? :::shrug::: It sounds like she only slept with Herbert once (while in the book, it's way more than once), but he is calling and paging (hehe, how' 90s!) at "all hours of the night" and even showed up to her house unannounced. Geeze, this guy fell for her fast and hard.

While having a drink at a hotel bar (don't ask me why she was there), a man hits on her so obviously it's down-right cringey. Even she is not impressed. This man, named James (played by Wesley Snipes in an uncredited role) is not only married, but he's married to a white woman. (I mean, what are the odds for Bernadine to be hit on by a black guy who is with a white woman?) But guys, it's okay that he's blatantly hitting on Bernadine even though he is married because his wife is dying of breast cancer. (Haha, so in my notes, it says breath cancer, but I'm pretty sure that's not a thing!) I mean, dude, at least wait until your wife is GONE before you start looking for your next wife. They go up to his room to get it on and he tells her he hasn't had sex in over a year because his wife stopped wanting to. They don't have sex, but just spoon on the bed. Maybe it was because Bernadine felt guilty because the guy's wife was on her deathbed or maybe, unlike Herbert, she made a connection with James and actually liked him and didn't want to start their relationship being an adulterer. She does hear from James later in the movie via a letter he sends her. It is implied they will get together after all is said and done.

At the settlement, Bernadine wins big when she is rewarded 1.5 million dollars, $500,000 in stocks and bonds, a Mercedes station wagon, the house, and another house in Acapulco, Mexico. Hmmm, I almost think her husband cheating on her is the best thing that could ever happen to her! I'm sure there's a throwaway line about her starting her catering business, but I could be thinking about the book.

Next, we'll discuss Savannah, played by Whitney Houston. Now if you just watched the movie without having read the book, you might miss the part where she is moving from Denver to Phoenix, where the movie is set. In a very quick scene, you see her driving a car and in a voiceover she says she's moving because "all the men are dead" in Denver. Savannah, we all know you're moving to Phoenix because you got a job there. Also, because your friend, Bernadine, lives there. So in the book, she is introduced to the two other women (and is extremely judgmental of them, especially Robin, my God!), but in the movie, she's never introduced to them. We just see her interacting with them as though she's known them all her life. It almost feels like she used to live in Phoenix, moved to Denver, then moved back to Phoenix. They really just should have had this character be from Phoenix the entire time. One of the things that drove me f***king crazy in the book is that all the characters kept bitching about how boring Phoenix was and how much they hated it there. And it wasn't like it was one line, no, it was often repeated. Y'all are f**king fictional characters; you can live anywhere you want; STFU and just MOVE!  Thankfully they took all that out in the movie.

So Savannah gets to say the title of the movie. Of course she does since she's played by Whitney Houston (btw, there is a scene in the book where that character is listening to Whitney Houston...super weird!) It comes super early. She's at a New Year's Eve party slow dancing with a man named Lionel who she's met at the party as a blind date set up. You could say she wants to dance with somebody, she wants to feel the heat with somebody, yeah, she wants to dance with somebody - with somebody who loves her. Anyway, in a super cheesy voiceover, she says, "And then I did it....I closed my eyes and I exhaled and pretended the man was mine and he was everything I dreamed of." Okay, so technically she didn't say the actual title, but she got to exhale after waiting so long for a good man to come along. Now don't get too excited. We're not even ten minutes into the movie; there's no way this is the man she's been waiting all her life for. In fact, right after their dance, another woman comes up to them and tells Lionel he hasn't danced with her yet and Lionel introduced her to Savannah as "his friend". Yeah, whatever.

We do find out that Lionel called Savannah after their date and they end up going out and sleeping together. We also learn that Savannah finds out she doesn't even like the guy, but is so desperate to get laid, she just deals with the stuff that irritates her about him which includes finding out he has no income (yep, that's a deal breaker!), he chain smokes (she smokes too; but she seems to be more of a social smoker...I was kind of surprised that three out of the four women smoke in this!); brags about being a vegetarian, but inhaled three hots dogs (dude, you're not a vegetarian, then!) and she gave him twenty dollars for gas which only cost $7.18 (for gas, can you imagine! Oh, to be living in 1995 (much better than 2020, am I right?!?!) and he didn't even give her any change.

He quickly disappears and Savannah's ex, Kenneth, calls her out of the blue, telling her he's coming to Phoenix for a conference and would like to see her. On paper, Kenneth seems like a great catch. He's good-looking, well educated, I want to say he's a doctor, maybe? He's also going to be the POTUS in a few years and fight some terrorism alongside Jack Bauer cuz he's played by Dennis Haysbert aka President David Palmer aka the All State guy. Unfortunately, Savannah was NOT in good hands with him! (I can't take credit for that joke!) The man is married, for one thing, and has a seven-year-old daughter. He tells Savannah that he married his wife when she was five months pregnant. I'm not really sure why they broke up in the first place. He tells Savannah that she is the only woman he's ever loved (so he married a woman he didn't even love? Yes, I realize it's complicated cuz there's a child involved). We get a super cheesy sex scene between them with lots of slow motion and a slow song.

Savannah calls one of her friends, asking, "How will I know if he really loves me? I'm asking you cuz you know about these things." Kenneth calls his wife, telling her he's going to have to probably visit Phoenix a few more times for more "conferences", uh-huh. He keeps telling Savannah he's going to divorce his wife for her, but of course, he never does and she soon realizes it's never going to happen. The real kicker is when he tells her she's going to have to wait a little bit longer because his wife is having a baby. It's like, dude, are you serious?

Guess who my least favorite character in this movie is. You'd think it would be one of the many loser men that these women keep finding themselves attracting, but nope, it was Savannah's mother. This woman....ugh. First of all, she's the one who gave Kenneth Savannah's number even though she knew the man was married. When Savannah mentions this, she says, "How happy can he be if he went and found me to get to you?" She tells her, "Every woman needs a man", which is not only extremely sexist and setting feminism back about fifty years, but also a little bit homophobic, no? I'm just saying if Savannah told her mom she was with a woman, I don't think she'd take it very well. After Savannah tells Kenneth once and for all to get out of her life for good, her mother calls her to tell her that Kenneth called her, crying, and tells her, "Men don't cry over woman unless they love them" and asks her how she could be so insensitive. Why is Savannah's mother taking this man's side over her own daughter's? I feel like she's the one who's being insensitive! Savannah tells her, "I am sick of you telling me how I should live my life, who you think I should love, marry. I'm sick of it!" I'm all, Yes! You tell her, Savannah! And then her mom has the gall to say, "It isn't too late! He's begging on his knees and you're letting him get away." Again, why is her mother not listening to her? Savannah tells her, "I have a job. I have friends. I have interests you don't even ask about. (She does?) Only one thing counts with you, Mama."  She tells her mom that she should be proud that she'd rather live alone then crawl up behind some two timing loser like Kenneth. This woman keeps defending Kenneth! She tells her daughter "He's a good man, he's just in a bad situation right now and trying to get out of it." Savannah snaps at her "Why don't you f**king marry him, then?" and hangs up on her. Oooooh, burn! She does call her back to apologize because the movie has established that they do have a good relationship even though her mother sucks. She tells her she didn't mean to disrespect her, but she meant what she said about her life. He mom tells her she just doesn't want her to end up alone like her. What happened with her and her husband? I don't know. But maybe stop trying to set up your daughter with married men.

I should probably mention the theme song since Whitney Houston (duh, obviously) sings it. It's played in the movie for about sixty seconds when she's about to meet Kenneth and then we never hear it again. It's possible it's played during the ending credits after "Count on Me" which is the first song that's played as the credits roll, but I didn't watch all the credits to find out. I like the song just fine, but I feel like when it was written, they couldn't think of any lyrics during the "Shoop, shoop, shoop, shoop de doop" part so they just made up words and just forgot to go back and put in actual words.

Now let's talk about Robin played by Lela Rochan. She's dating a married man (of course) named Russell who she's very attracted to. Well, I don't know if "dating" is the right word because he's the one who decides when they're going to meet and when it's most convenient for him. She is trying to meet other men so we see her in her bedroom with Michael, a man she works with at an insurance company where he's been promoted to her marketing team. I don't know if they've been on a couple dates before or if she works this fast. Something tells me it's the latter because she is clearly not attracted to him. He is a little bit overweight and has an extremely annoying personality. They have sex even though she is clearly not enjoying it. Why is she sleeping with a man she's not attracted to or even likes? I don't know. Because she's stupid. It's a good thing she's pretty. They're trying to make it a hilarious scene, but really, it's just awkward and uncomfortable. There's a moment when she thinks, "I could have had a V8". She'd rather have a blended vegetable drink than have sex with that man. Again, why are you sleeping with him?? These are the moments when I really hate this movie. Afterwards, Robin has this stone cold look on her face and Michael asks her how it was for her. Dude, read the f**king room! He tells her, "Tell me what you want, what you need. Because whatever it is, I'm gonna see you have it." The things she says do make sense, but the way this speech is said is a bit odd. Let me list each point she makes:
-First she says she wants a house in Scottsdale and Michael tells her he has a house there. Okay, that's fine.
-Next, she says she wants to get married and have kids, again, which is fine.
-Then, she says she wants to eat out 2-3 times a WEEK! At first, I thought she was going to say a month, but no, A WEEK! What the actual f**k? Does that seem a little extreme to anyone? She's not going to be able to maintain her figure if she goes out to eat that many times a week! Why does she need to eat out that many times in a week? Why is this the third thing she lists?
-Then she tells him she wants to have babies. Um, you mentioned this already in your first point when she said you wanted kids. Same thing.
-Then she mentions she would like to go away for long weekends. Okay, fair enough.
-Then, AGAIN, for the THIRD time, she says she wants to have a family. We get it! You want to get married and have kids. You've already told him this like five seconds ago!!
-Then she ends that she wants to be happy which is a good way to end this terrible speech. I mean, seriously, where were the editors for this screenplay? Did they not realize she was being super redundant in this? Also the whole eating out thing was weird. Yes, it's in the book, but we don't always have to keep everything from the book. She only mentions wanting kids once, though, in the book.

Michael tells her he can give her all that, plus more, and they have much better sex. However, their relationship doesn't go anywhere. She ends up firing him because he challenges her or something. I wasn't quite clear, but they break up. When she's out with her friends at a club and sees him entering with another woman, she looks super jealous.

She starts dating another guy, Troy, who she picked up at a grocery store and who she's much more attracted to. They've known each other for only three days and I don't know which is more surprising:  a) that he wants her to meet his mother already, or b) that he takes her to a coke party. And I'm not talking about the drink. It's funny because he's smoking as they're driving to the drug party and we hear her voiceover say, "I wish he didn't smoke, but I can live with one bad habit." Oh, you have no idea, honey. Run far, far, away from this one. When she finds out there are drugs at the party, she just wants to go home and eventually they do leave. She figures since this is the first time a man has asked her to meet his mother, "maybe he's not into this stuff all that much and maybe if we got to know each other better, I might be a good influence on him." Uh-huh, keep dreaming, honey.  In the end, Robin decides not to meet his mother.  He comes to pick her up two hours later, higher than a kite, wearing jeans and a black leather vest (in Phoenix in the summer!) and complaining how hot it is. He also mentions he has a thirteen-year-old son that she didn't know about.

So we get an interesting phone call between Robin and Savannah, who seems to know an awful lot about cocaine and the people who use it. This is a bit unfortunate; history was not kind to this scene. Robin tells Savannah she can't find her wallet and Savannah predicts that Troy took it. Robin gets another call from Russell, the man she's trying to break away from because she's just his mistress and he's never going to leave his wife, but when he asks her if she wants some company, she answers yes right away, explaining why he has her wrapped around his finger. This woman is so desperate, it's really quite nauseating. We get an explanation from Robin, telling us the last time she was with Russell, he told he he wanted to spend the whole night, except he had to take his mother to church the next morning. Please tell me she did not fall for this bs lie!

While taking to Savannah (for some reason there were quite a few scenes with just Savannah and Robin, even though Savannah was closest to Bernadine; they also matched up Bernadine and Gloria often), we learn that Robin had an abortion. After Savannah tells her about Kenneth, Robin says, "There was a woman in your same situation. This man kept saying he was going to leave, too. Quit her job, moved to the city he lived in. Found out she was three months pregnant. Dumped the woman because he didn't want to hurt his kids." Then Savannah asks her, "What show was this on?" because she thinks Robin is talking about a segment she saw on a daytime talk show. Doesn't she realize Robin is talking about herself? DUHHHH. Robin replies with, "I've never been on Oprah."

Robin, who has always wanted a baby, is pregnant with Russell's baby (again), but this time she's going to keep it and tells him she doesn't want anything from him.

Last, but not least, is Gloria, played by Loretta Devine. She is my favorite of the four women because she has the least drama. She is a hairdresser who has her own salon, but they should have made her the one with a catering company. They probably didn't do this because they didn't want to make the "fat" one of the group the one who likes to cook (even though she likes to cook). I get the feeling she's supposed to be a lot bigger in the book, maybe to the point of being obese. She has a heart attack (they took it out in the movie) and Savannah being the total judgmental bitch that she is has the gall to tell Gloria that she could probably get a man if she lost some weight. Luckily they kept this out of the movie.

Gloria has a teen son named Tarik (played by Donald Faison, who was also in Clueless the same year), who instead of going to college where he has been accepted to Arizona University, wants to travel to Spain to play the saxophone in the Up with People International Choir.

Tarik's father, David, who was never married to his mother, is coming to visit, but he doesn't want to see him because they don't have a very close relationship. He's also mad that his mother slept with him the last time he visited and she is planning on doing so again because Tarik is spending the night at a friend's. David, who is, er, was, bi-sexual, tells her he is now just gay so he has no interest in spending the night with her. When I was looking at the cast list for this movie, I saw Giancarlo Esposito's name in this and I was racking my brain, thinking of who he played, but he was David! He looked so different! I guess I'm used to seeing him as Gus Fringe in a yellow button down shirt and being super menacing. Also, after watching him in many episodes of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul; it's weird when he doesn't have an accent!

Gloria has a new neighbor, Marvin (Gregory Hines) who she introduces herself to. There's this super weird moment where the camera lingers on his crotch and butt and he's wearing super baggy jeans. I should mention this movie was the directorial debut of Forrest Whitaker and let's just say he should stick to acting. There was some weird choices, this one included. There was just too much '90s cheese on this. Marvin, who is a widower, tells Gloria that he "likes women with a little meat on her bones" and mentions that his wife was a "big woman" which is an adjective I'm sure every woman loves to be called.

Gloria invites him over for dinner, telling him, "It's just leftovers: collard greens, corn bread, candied yams, potato salad, fried chicken ham, and peach cobbler." We see one of the meals she made; I think it was friend chicken with biscuits and cole slaw and it looked delicious; this is why she should have been the caterer. Where is Bernadine's mouth watering food? Oh, right, we never see her make anything! I do love that Gloria is the only one to end up with a man; good for her. Oh, well I guess Bernadine also ends up with a man.

One of the very few scenes where the four women are together is Gloria's birthday. We see this amazing cake, that looks like it came from a bakery, but it's possible she made it. This scene would be the perfect opportunity for them to talk about anything but men, but guess what they talk about? I'll give you one guess (because you're going to guess it correctly!) Savannah mentions that none of them have a man. Who the f**k cares? Then she says, "I'm 33 and I still look good." (FYI: she's 36 or 37 in the book). WHAT THE ACTUAL F**K??????????? What is that supposed to mean? Thirty-three is not that old; damn, I would hope you still look good at the age of 33 or else you have a huge f**king problem!! Then we get some huge whiplash from Bernadine. One minute she's about to angry call her husband's new girlfriend, then she's crying, then she's giggling and laughing as they dance to "Creep" by TLC (great song). This all happens in the span of about ninety seconds.

Another scene where all four of them are together is at the end when they're headed to a New Year's party, so we've just spent an entire year with these women. The last shot is the four of them by a bonfire and there's a weird super slow motion of them hugging. Okay, I'm done with this review...I can now exhale!

'Heat' of the Moment

Heat

Director: Michael Mann

Cast: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Ashley Judd, Time Sizemore, Jon Voight, Natalie Portman

Released: December 15, 1995

Anytime anyone does a Robert De Niro or Al Pacino impression, I am always amused. And the better the impression, the more amused I am. I found the funniest thing when I was doing research for this movie. (Well, actually I was doing research for De Niro and Pacino impressions...) I discovered a little podcast called "The Al Pacino and Robert De Niro Show" where they interview some up and coming actor or comedian. There's about four or five episodes and they're all only ten minutes long. "Al" will always shout "OH, BOY!" or call something "TREMENDOUS!" ("That was a TREMENDOUS show!") Of course, you'll have the occasional "HOO-WAH!" thrown in there as well. And then you have "Bobby" who will interrupt "Al" while he's interviewing the guest with some stupid question that has nothing to do with whatever they're talking about (like what's your  favorite cereal?) and "Al" will always respond with, "That's a good question, Bobby!" And sometimes "Al" will ask "Bobby" a question and he replies with, "Who, me?" There was one particularly funny podcast where De Niro blurts out of nowhere, "I won an Oscar for Raging Bull!" and Pacino responds, "That's right, Bobby! And I won an Oscar for Scent of a Woman!" (I'm surprised  De Niro didn't one-up him and say he has two Oscars...he must have "forgotten".) "Bobby" asks the guest if he's ever won an Oscar and he goes, "No, I've never been to the Oscars." And five minutes later "Al" will mention his Oscar again, haha! And, I swear, in every podcast "Bobby" brings up Rocky and Bullwinkle...I'm pretty sure the real De Niro wants to forget about that movie! They were talking about comedies the two actors have been in and he brought up that one. "Al" says he can't remember if that was him in Meet the Fockers ("Was that me in Meet the Fockers?") and "Bobby" tells him that he "thinks that was Dustin Hoffman." I love that neither of them can remember who was in that movie. Funny stuff. Do yourself a favor and go to Youtube and type "De Niro and Pacino go for ice cream". It's a MadTV skit where it takes them two hours to decide on what kind of ice cream they want at Baskin Robbins.

I came across this movie when I was doing research for The Godfather movies because while both Pacino and De Niro were in the second movie, they never share a scene together (if they did, there would be some weird time traveling stuff going on!) Nearly twenty years after that movie, Heat was going to be the first time they would share the screen together. In fact, the trailers were all about this being the first time they would finally be acting together. Now, if I were some moviegoer back in 1995 excited to see these two legendary actors in the same movie, sharing scenes together, I would be a bit miffed because (spoiler alert!) they're only in two scenes together! And in one of them there's barely any dialogue between them. And this is a three hour movie! They probably literally only share fifteen minutes of screen time together (if that!) However, I think it works and the motto "less is more" is true here.

SPOILERS WILL BE RAMPANT! 

Pacino plays Detective Vincent Hanna who is trying to capture De Niro's criminal Neil McCauley who is planning a bank heist with his crew. Pacino does a lot of screaming in this movie...he is a lot more unhinged than the calm, cool, and collected De Niro. "GIVE ME ALL YOU GOT! GIVE ME ALL YOU GOT!" "DON'T WASTE MY MOTHERF'ING TIME." And lots, lots more. Even though he doesn't yell it, my favorite line is when he's interrogating Hank Azaria's character about Ashley Judd's character and when Azaria says, "Who?", Pacino goes, "Who? Who? What are you, a f**king owl?" And speaking of animals, I also laughed when he's talking to Tone Loc's character and says, "You get killed walkin' your doggie!"

There are so many people in this movie; many of them you are probably familiar with. I only listed the actors who are more well-known/have the most screen time above. There are a ton of character actors. Let me tell you how many other people are in this...some of them weren't even listed in the beginning credits:
-Amy Brenneman, best known for shows like Judging Amy, Private Practice, and  NYPD Blue is in this.
-Hank Azaria, from The Simpsons and a million other things, is in this.
-Dennis Haysbert aka President Palmer from 24 is in this.
-Speaking of 24, Xander Berkeley, is also in this for one scene.
-Jeremy Piven has one scene in this movie.
-William Fichtner, also in a million things, but maybe you might remember him from The Dark Knight, which I will bring up later in this review, is in this. He's a total, "Hey, it's that guy!" character actor that you always recognize but you may not know his name.
-Danny Trejo, who has done so many things, but I know him best from Breaking Bad, is in this.
-Tone Loc, '90s rapper and the bad guy from Blank Check (heh!), is in this.
-Ted Levine, the guy who played Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, is in this.
-Mykelti Williamson, who played Bubba in Forrest Gump, is in this.
-Tom Noonan, who they made a big deal about in Last Action Hero, is in this, but honestly, I'm not that familiar with him. I didn't know any of his movies except for LAH.
And there's a million other people, but I wasn't familiar with them. I'm sure you know at least six people from the above list!

This is a long movie. It's three hours long. Oh, did I already mention that? Usually I space out these really long movies and watch them over a course of a couple days. I watched Heat on a day I didn't feel good so I was more than happy to sit on my couch in the dark for three hours watching it. There's so much going on and a lot of information to retain, that I did have to re-watch a couple scenes to write this. It's a really good movie. Beautifully shot...you really get the essence of Los Angeles, where it takes place. Every scene in this movie was filmed in an actual L.A. location, no studios are ever used and it definitely helps the film feel much more authentic. However, I almost think this movie would have benefited to be a ten-part series on Netflix or Hulu. Unfortunately, those didn't exist twenty years ago and if you were to make it as a series today, you wouldn't get the same cast and Pacino and De Niro would be too old for their roles, so you wouldn't get that awesome diner scene between the two of them. Even though this movie is three hours long, I still feel like so much is missing. For instance, Natalie Portman (a 12 or 13 year old Natalie Portman!) plays Pacino's stepdaughter. Her mom is his third wife. Portman's character's name is Lauren, and honestly, I had to look that up because I would have never remembered that as she is probably in the entire movie for less than five minutes. When we first meet her, she's being a bratty kid, whining about how she can't find her barrettes and she needs to be ready for when her dad picks her up. He never does and we learn that it's not uncommon for him to do that. We next see her sitting at a bus stop and I just assumed she was waiting there for her dad to pick her up, but then Vincent sees her and picks her up. (Really, what are the odds he would come across the same bus stop his stepdaughter is at in L.A.?) He asks her what she's doing and she replies she wanted to be alone. I thought for sure when we first met her she was going to be kidnapped by De Niro, or worse, murdered by one of the really bad guys from his crew. However, her final act towards the end of the movie comes out of nowhere and I wasn't expecting that at all. Vincent, who's been having problems with his wife, Justine, is staying at a hotel and when he goes back there one night, he notices the floor is all wet right outside the bathroom and when he goes in he sees Lauren unconscious in the bathtub with the water all red after she has cut herself. WTF? Where the f**k did this come from? I know she wasn't happy that her dad kept making excuses not to see her, but this seemed to come out of nowhere! Maybe she was also unhappy that her mom and stepdad were fighting? We never see her in any of those scenes, but that doesn't mean she doesn't know about it. Still....I feel like if this had been a ten-part miniseries we could get some more insight of this young girl being suicidal, because, to me, it totally comes out of nowhere. She is rushed to the hospital where she is helped and will survive her ordeal. Honestly, you could have just taken out Natalie Portman and you wouldn't even miss anything. Fun fact: this was her second movie, but that's not too surprising as she is really young in this!


Another scene where this movie would benefit from being a miniseries is when Neil meets Amy Brenneman's character, Eady, for the first time. The following happens, all within, like five minutes: first we see Neil in a bookstore, where Eady works. We see her walk past him while he's looking at a book and this is probably something you wouldn't even notice if you were watching it for the first time. The next scene he's sitting in a crowded diner with just an empty seat between him and Eady. Seriously, again, what are the odds of that? Was this diner connected to that bookstore or something, cuz then at least that would make a little more sense that they would both be there. Even if that were true, it is amazing that they are both sitting near each other because this is the biggest diner/restaurant I have ever seen in my life! Even bigger than the Cheesecake Factory, haha. After he asks her to pass the creamer, she asks him what he's reading (a book about metals) and what he does. He gets annoyed and asks her why she's so interested in what he reads or what he does. She apologizes for bothering him and tells him she works at the bookstore and has seen him from time to time. He feels bad for being rude (probably only because she's young and pretty and he likes her Southern accent!) and moves to the empty seat and tells her he's a salesman and asks questions about her. You know this movie came out before Project Runway because when Eady tells him she went to Parsons for graphic design, he asks her where that is. Please. Everyone knows where Parsons is because of that show! Tim Gunn put Parsons on the map. They end up at her place and I'm thinking, Um, is this a good idea to take some guy home with you that you just met? He could be a criminal (which he is!) Well, as long as she doesn't sleep with him...which she does! She obviously has a thing for older men because we know she's been "watching" him at the bookstore and he is easily twenty years older than her. She's lucky she didn't take home the really bad guy in Neil's crew because things wouldn't end so well for her! But he isn't even attractive. Maybe that whole scene was more than five minutes, but it seems very rushed and makes Eady look very naive, which I guess she is supposed to be, as we will see more prominently later in the film.

Neil's crew consists of Chris (Val Kilmer), Michael (Tom Sizemore),  and Trejo (Danny Trejo...yes, he plays a character that has his same surname...I wonder if that was the character's first or last name?) They have hired a guy named Waingro (who is the aforementioned really bad guy) to help them steal over a million dollars in bearer bonds. (Isn't that what Jared Leto and company were trying to get in Panic Room?) Their plan is to ambush an armored truck and have someone get the bonds while a couple others keep a lookout for the police and another one keep a gun on the guards who were in the truck so they don't try anything. Unfortunately they give that job to Waingro, the worst person to give that job to as he ends up killing one of them for no reason. One of the other guards reaches for his gun and this prompts Neil (or maybe it was Michael...it's hard to tell when they're all wearing masks...the only reason I knew it was Waingro who killed the first guard was because he has long hair) to kill him. They also kill the third guard to make sure there are no witnesses. This really pisses off Neil (who calls Waingro a "dumb motherf'er" twice...this is why he and Vincent should be BFFs...they love calling people that!) because their crime went from bad to REALLY F**KED! Later they're at a diner (a slightly smaller one, but still quite crowded) and he bashes Waingro's head into a table. There's some nice continuity where we will see a nasty scar where he hit his head throughout the rest of the movie. When they walk outside, Michael and Chris keep a lookout in the parking lot while Trejo opens the car trunk where we see a body bag ready to be used. Neil is about to shoot him after punching him in the gut, but Michael tells him to wait because he sees a police car. While Neil is watching the car, Waingro gets away. Why Neil or any of the other guys don't physically keep him in their control, don't ask me. But I guess the plot of the movie calls for his escape. Waingro will go on to commit a series of murders, killing young prostitutes by bashing their heads in. At one of the crime scenes Vincent arrives at, we see a bunch of people behind the yellow tape, and there are at least two small children...seriously, who are these parents who think it is appropriate to let children view a crime scene? Vincent is pulled away while he's on a date with his wife and this starts the downfall of their marriage...he is so busy with his work and always having to run away when he is needed. She has an affair with Xander Berkeley's character.

The LAPD reach the crime of the scene to scope things and very quickly Vincent realizes these are smart criminals because they were in a good spot with lots of escape routes and they knew to get away within three minutes, the time it would take for the police to reach them. Vincent gets some intel from an informant played by Tone Loc and they run Michael's name through the system and find all his felonies. They put him under constant surveillance.

Meanwhile, in a scene where there's a lot of math, Neil's boss/mentor (I don't know what you would call him!), Nate (Jon Voight) tells Neil that the bonds came from a money laundering man named  Roger Van Zant (William Fichtner) who "runs investment portfolios for offshore drug money." If Neil sells Van Zant his stolen bearer bonds, he'll make the money back, plus another 40% on top with the insurance. I don't know, I'm not good with math! This will also give Neil more money, so he agrees. Van Zant is a real piece of work. He's exactly the kind of shady client Saul Goodman would have (everything I learned about money laundering, I learned from Saul Goodman, true story!) He sends one of his men to ambush Neil when they're at the meeting place to make the exchange (big mistake!), but Neil is warned by Chris, who was keeping an eye on things, and makes it out without a scratch and still has the bonds. The two men Van Zant sent, however, end up dead. Despite all this, Neil is quite furious at just what went down (well, you can't blame the guy...he did just escape an assassination attempt!) and let's just say Van Zant better watch his back! Not only did Van Zant try to kill him, the package of money was just blank scraps of paper. Total scumbag, this Roger Van Zant.

By survieling Michael, Vincent and the rest of the LAPD learn about the other members of the crew and find out their next score is to break into a precious metals depository. (Aha! That's why Neil was reading a book about metals!) The police set up a stake out, ready to strike when they have their thieves. One of the officers accidentally hits his gun against the van and Neil, who is keeping watch outside near the van, hears it. Not wanting to take any chances, he tells Chris to stop drilling, despite Chris almost having it. They leave with nothing and Vincent tells the others to just let them go because they don't have anything to charge them with except breaking and entering which will only give them about six months of jail time before they're out. Vincent doesn't think it's even worth it. How much do you want to bet he chewed that guy's head off for screwing up their plan when they got back?


Neil and his crew turn the tables on Vincent and the LAPD and scope them out. I laughed when Vincent figures this out and starts posing for the camera and yelling, "Yeah!" Nate gives Neil the info on Vincent, saying that Vincent thinks he's pretty smart and almost has an admiration for him. However, he's on his tail and Nate advises Neil, who is planning on robbing 12.2 million dollars from a bank with his crew, to pass because he has too much heat from the LAPD, especially Hanna, on him.  Neil refuses to pass on the job which he already has all the schematics for, plus the plan has already been set up by Tom Noonan's character: the night before the big heist, they plan to trick the alarm system computer so it turns the video recorder off twenty minutes before they walk inside.

Right smack dab in the middle of the film is the scene everyone's been waiting for with bated breath; a scene everyone has been waiting to see for the last twenty years: the scene between Pacino and De Niro. Hanna goes to great lengths to find McCauley: he's in one of a handful of helicopters, all looking for his car. When they find him driving on the freeway, a car is waiting for Vince so he can catch up to Neil and when he does, he invites him for coffee. Can you imagine being an extra in this scene? You know they all tell people, "I was in a scene with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro and that's how I got my SAG card." (Okay, I don't know how SAG memberships work, but I feel like even if you act in a scene for a half second, then you're a member of SAG). That's what I would say if I were an extra in that scene! Now I probably would have been 13 when this movie was filmed, so I probably wouldn't care if I had been an extra in this scene because while I had certainly heard of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro at the time as they were big names, I probably wouldn't know that it was such a big deal they were in a scene together. I realize now, that as they're getting older (Pacino is 78 and today is De Niro's 75th birthday), that I've always taken them for granted. I don't want to sound morbid or anything, but you know all the news shows have their Pacino and De Niro (and all the other big names from their generation) video footage of all their big movies and accolades ready to roll in case, God forbid, anything should happen to one of them. But hopefully they still have a few good years left because I will feel horrible if something does happen to one of them right after I publish this, like I cursed them or something! I don't want to take the, ahem, heat for that. (That pun was very intentional!)

Anyway, let's get off this depressing subject and return to the scene they're in together. Even though they're both on the opposite sides of the law, there's a mutual respect and admiration between the two and in another life, they could quite possible be really good friends. There's a very interesting point in the conversation which will come up later in the movie and I'll get to that later. Both of them realize the other is not going to back down: McCauley is going to continue his life of robberies and Hanna is going to continue to chase the bad guys like McCauley that are out there. Hanna even tells him, "If it's between you and some poor bastard whose wife you're gonna turn into a widow, brother, you are going down." Likewise, Neil tells him that "There's a flip side to that coin" and that he "won't hesitate" if he has to be the one to kill Vincent. He also adds, "Maybe we'll never see each other again." Ha! Yeah, right. You know these two are going to cross paths again.

McCauley recruits Dennis Hayberth's character, Donald to be their getaway driver the day of the bank heist. He sees him working behind a grill at a diner and recognizes him from his prison days. He does this after their original getaway driver, Trejo, calls him and tells him he has too many cops on his tail and he has to back out of the bank heist. The heist and the shootout that follows is probably the most memorable part of the movie (beside the Pacino/De Niro scene, obviously). Apparently, Christopher Nolan used it to inspire the opening bank heist scene in The Dark Knight, and yeah, I can see it. Neil, Chris, and Michael just walk into this huge bank in downtown L.A. and they all stand in separate places. While Neil and Chris are putting ski masks on, Chris distracts everyone by hitting a guard and soon all three of them have complete control of the bank, handcuffing guards and pointing their guns at people, telling them to stay down and to not move. Neil tells them they don't want to hurt anybody, they are just there for the bank's money, not the patrons' money which is insured by the federal government. While what happens at the bank is scary with three masked men with guns taking duffel bags of money, what happens next in the busy streets is much scarier. At least they didn't use their guns at the bank. (Well, not to SHOOT anyone...they did use their guns a couple of times to hit guards with them).

It becomes a bit difficult for the LAPD to follow McCauley and his crew as they have gotten rid of all the surveillance. But as the heist is going down, they get a tip from Van Zant's bodyguard, of all people, and are able to catch up to the thieves as they are leaving the bank. Hanna instructs his crew to wait until they are all in their car and to "take clean shots." Um, is it really a good idea to start shooting bank robbers in the middle of downtown L.A. where there are people EVERYWHERE? However, they are not the first ones to start shooting; it's Chris who takes the first shot at the police and they return fire with him and the others. This is said to be the most intense shootout in any movie and they aren't lying! What makes it really scary if just how realistic it is. This scene is insane...they are just shooting everywhere and at everyone. Both sides end with casualties...one of the detectives played by Ted Levine is killed by Chris and Donald and Michael are both killed. I'm not sure how many civilians were killed, but there was no way none were unscathed by all those flying bullets! They even continue the shooting in a parking lot of a grocery store. Michael is killed after he takes a random child hostage (she got separated from her mother through all the confusion) and Vincent takes a shot at him, luckily not hitting the little girl! Neil and Chris get away when they steal a station wagon from the grocery store parking lot. Chris got shot in the neck and he is taken to a doctor played by Jeremy Piven. Neil tells Chris they need to get out of the country because they're all over the news. He believes it was Trejo who betrayed them to the cops because he wasn't there. When he goes to Trejo's house to confront him, he finds Trejo's wife dead and Trejo near death, but just barely hanging on. When he asks him why he did it, Trejo tells him that it was Waingro working with Van Zant and he had to tell them or he would kill his wife (which they did anyway, apparently!)

In one of her earlier film roles, Ashley Judd plays Charlene, the wife of Chris. They have a young son and she has no problem with her husband's criminal activity as long as it brings the big bucks. She's having an affair with Hank Azaria's character and the cops use him to bring her in for a sting operation. They tell her if they don't cooperate with them, then she will be going to jail and her son will grow up in foster homes. Her job is to lure her husband home. When they think they have Chris approaching in a car, they tell her to go outside and see if it's him. Look, I understand why an officer didn't accompany her because they didn't want to scare him off, but nobody was keeping an eye on her at all? From the balcony, she gives  Chris a subtle hand signal and he knows what this means and gets back in his car and drives away. She tells the detective played by Mykelti Williamson that it wasn't him. Smartly, he radios another officer to stop the car and check it out just to be on the safe side. Chris has a fake ID, thanks to Nate, and has also cut his hair. They know what Chris looks like, and they should know that it's possible he would have a fake ID ready to go when he escapes, but they let him go! They let him go because they believe it's an entirely different man! WTF? Do they not realize it's still him, just with short hair? That seemed a bit...implausible. Charlene is lucky the cops were so dumb or her ass (and according to Vincent, "She's got a GREAT ass!") would have wound up in jail. While Chris is able to get away, you know he will never be able to return to his wife or son again as you know the LAPD are watching to see if he does just that.

Neil has plans to escape with Eady to New Zealand (which she seems all ready to do...seems a bit impulsive to move across the world with someone you just met!) When she sees the shootout on the news, she realizes that Neil did this, understanding why he wants to go to the other side of the world. When he comes to get her, she runs away from him and he follows her up a hill and I thought for sure he was going to kill her, but he doesn't. Neil may be a criminal, but he's not a cold-blooded killer. He only murders people who really deserve it. He even gives her the choice of staying or leaving and she chooses to stay. Again, she seems a bit naive.

There are two things Neil really wants: he wants to live his life with someone he's found who he really cares about and he wants to get revenge on the two people who f**ked him over: Van Zant and Waingro. He will not be able to have both. With Nate's help, he is able to find the former and kill him. Also with Nate's help, he has an escape plan waiting for him and he is almost home free. On his way with Eady to the plane, Nate calls him with the whereabouts of Waingro. Neil decides it's not even worth it since he's almost out of the country, but at the last minute he decides to make a pit stop at the hotel Waingro is staying at, telling Eady, "There's time." In a weird way you're kind of rooting for this criminal to make his getaway so when he decides to do this, you're screaming at your TV to leave well enough alone and just forget about Waingro and make his damn escape already! He does kill Waingro (and let's face it, the world is a better place without him in it), but also causes quite the commotion because he set the fire alarm off to distract everyone and now all the police cars and firetrucks are in the area. Poor Eady is waiting in the car, wondering what the hell is going on. Vincent knows that Neil is at the hotel and as Neil is walking back to his car, he sees his cop buddy approach him. Now, if you remember, I mentioned that there's an interesting part in the conversation that comes up between Hanna and McCauley that will become relevant later on: Neil tells Vincent that he was once given the advice, "Don't let yourself get attached to anything [or anyone!] you are not willing to walk out on in thirty seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner." This is what exactly happens to the usually solidarity Neil who has found someone he loves and has gotten quite attached to Eady and now he has to leave her behind as he runs away from Vincent, who pursues him. Eady gets out of the car and is just looking at him in disbelief. Even though I thought she was totally naive throughout the movie, I did feel bad for her.

In the end, they're both playing a game of cat and mouse in the airfield, both with guns at the ready. It goes on for awhile, but when Neil tries to make his move, Vincent sees his shadow and quickly reacts, shooting him in the chest, not quite killing Neil, but wounding him profusely that he probably has only a few minutes to live. He is nice enough to hold Neil's hand while he dies. You can tell he didn't want this, but as he mentioned before, if it had to be between Neil and himself, Neil would be going down.

Despite my slight criticism of there being too many characters and subplots for even a three hour movie to follow, it does the best it can with it and I highly recommend it if you've never seen it. Don't let the three hour length intimidate you! This is filmmaking at its finest. If you put two good actors together with a great director and super talented character actors, you really can't go wrong. 

What's in the Box?

Se7en
Director: David Fincher
Cast: Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey
Released: September 22, 1995

Oscar nominations:
Best Film Editing (lost to Apollo 13)

Seven (I'm not writing Se7en throughout this!) is similar to an arc you would see on a show like CSI: or Bones (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they did have an arc like this on CSI:) but just with bigger names, more cursing, and a little more (but not that much more) gruesome deaths. I had never seen this movie before, but I was well aware of the big spoiler at the end. (Don't worry, I will post a spoiler warning before I discuss it in case there are people out there who don't know about it).

Detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and Detective Mills (Brad Pitt) are investigating a series of murders that they soon realize are motivated by the Seven Deadly Sins. The first murder they come across in this series is an obese man who was forced to scarf down food until his stomach exploded. This is literally something you would see on an episode of CSI:; in fact, I'm sure they did a storyline about this (the show was on for, like, twelve years and they had about four spin-offs, they've done an episode about everything you can think of!). They don't get the Seven Deadly Sins connection until the second murder which has taken the life of a defense attorney and "Greed" is written in blood in his office. When they go back to the scene of the crime of the first murdered man, they move the refrigerator and see that "Gluttony" is written in grease underneath it. (Now why would the murderer hide that? I guess he was playing mind games with them). Throughout the series of murders, the killer will write down the sin in case they don't know which one it is.

The most gruesome death was the man depicting sloth. He was chained to a bed and literally rotting away. Actually, he wasn't even dead even though everyone thought he was. I'm not even sure how he was still alive. Even though his death (he did eventually die later because there's no way he would be able to live and had swallowed his own tongue so he would't have been able to talk anyway) was the worst (well, there actually might be a death that was worse than this now that I think about it!), it was hard to feel bad for this man because he was either a child molester or a rapist or maybe both, I don't remember. Either way, whatever, he can die a horrible death.

Somerset does some research at the library, checking out Dante's The Divine Comedy and Chaucer's The Cantebury Tales among other material to read up on The Seven Deadly Sins. Hey! I wonder if there's a BuzzFeed quiz out there asking Which Seven Deadly Sin are you? I'm going to check! Guess what? There's a lot of "Which Deadly Sin Are You/Which Deadly Sin Do You Represent? quizzes out there. I took the first one and my result is....drumroll please....ENVY! Oooh! Eh, sounds about right! Here's the link if you want to take the quiz: MagiQuiz

Okay, wtf? I just took the BuzzFeed quiz, Which Deadly Sin Are You? and I got Wrath! Huh? I get the Envy one, but how did I get Wrath? I just answered the question honestly! Let me give you a few examples:
- They asked me which social media site I was last one and I chose Twitter. How does that make me Wrath?
-They asked me what was my choice of drink and gave me a bunch of alcoholic beverages and water and I chose water because I really hardly ever drink unless I'm in a social setting. How does that make me Wrath?
-They asked me to choose a dog and had a bunch of different breeds and you could also choose cat and I chose cat because I have a cat! How does that make me Wrath?
There is literally no answer on that quiz that should have made me Wrath. I mean, I CAN get angry pretty easily, but I blame it on my red hair. We are quick to anger and have a fiery temper sometimes! But none of those questions really gave any evidence to that. In fact, judging from that quiz, I have no idea which Seven Deadly Sin I would be. At least the Magiquiz had questions and answers that made more sense to which of the Seven Deadly Sins one would be. Here's a link to the BuzzFeed quiz so you can how ridiculous it it: BuzzFeed Quiz

OMG! I just took another quiz and this time I got Greed! What is going on here? I am answering these questions honestly, but yet I have gotten three different sins from three different quizzes! And some of these questions even overlap!  Am I Envy, Wrath, and Greed rolled into one? I mean, at least I'm not...uh, what's the worst one? Pride? No, probably Wrath and Greed are the worst! But I thought Greed was good! I'm surprised I didn't get Sloth because I can be pretty lazy at times! Or maybe unmotivated is the better word. Why do you think it's been awhile since I last updated this blog? I bet if I took another one of these quizzes, I would get Sloth! But I'm not taking anymore! Anyway, here's that quiz if you want to take all three quizzes and see if you got three different results just like I did! Playbuzz Quiz

Okay, back to the review. Remember how I said the Sloth guy got the worst death? No, I think it was the prostitute killed by Lust. Killed by Lust, how can that be so bad, you ask? Uh...it's bad if it involves a strap-on that's a blade. Yeah. :::cringes:::: Oh, no. That's so....eugh. I'm glad we didn't see a close up of her. The guy who did it to her said the killer had a gun to his head and made him do it. The fifth murder is a model who represents Pride and she was given the option to call for help, but have her face mutilated or to overdose on pills and kill herself.

I should mention while this is going on, we meet Mill's wife, Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow) and she confides in Somerset that she's pregnant. (She tells him because she doesn't have anyone else to talk to because she and Mills just moved to New York). Why she can't tell her own husband she's unhappy living in the city and doesn't want to raise a child there, I don't know. Or maybe they do tell us and I just forgot.

They do manage to find their John Doe (Kevin Spacey, whose name isn't in the credits until the end) but rather he comes to them. He has just cut off all fingerprints so there is blood everywhere. Not to mention he's committed another murder. Now if you're keeping score at home, we still have two more murders to get though: Envy and Wrath (the ones I represent, apparently!). Now, knowing what was to come, I already knew what would by the Envy death, but I wasn't sure about Wrath. I mean, aren't all deaths Wrath if you think about it? Unless he kills another serial killer. I wasn't sure where the Wrath murder would fit into all of this. Doe tells the two detectives that he'll lead them to the last two victims and will confess to the murders. He has very specific terms on how he will do this and if they don't oblige by his rules, he will plead insanity. Even though Somerset and Mills are wary of this, they agree to do it, which seems a little ridiuclous they are letting a serial killer get his way, but whatever. He directs them to drive to some abandoned house in the middle of nowhere where presumably the last two victims are. While driving there, Mills (who totally represents Wrath as he is super quick to anger) gets into it with John Doe who's just goading him. Um, stop talking to him, Mills! Don't you see he wants to get under your skin?

Okay, this is probably the best time to stop reading if you don't want to be spoiled because I will be going into spoiler territory now. SPOILERS AHOY! STOP READING NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED! BECAUSE A HUGE SPOILER IS COMING UP! I HAVE WARNED YOU!!!!!

Okay. I feel like 99% of people are already aware of what I'm talking about, even if you have never seen this movie, but you can never be too sure. When they get to the abandoned house, they see a truck coming their way. Thinking its motives are malicious, Mills keeps his gun pointed on John Doe while Somerset keeps his eye on the truck and makes the driver get out with his hands up. The driver is a deliveryman who was told to deliver a box to this location at seven o'clock (and just a few moments earlier, John Doe had asked Somerset what time it was). Now if I wasn't already spoiled and knew what was in the box, I would have thought it was a bomb. I mean, this was during the time of the Unibomber. I'm surprised Somerset opened the box willy-nilly without consulting a bomb squad. He notices there's blood on one of the flaps and when he looks inside, he jumps back in shock. Now I'm sure if I had no idea what was in the box, the next scene would have much more of an effect on me and I would have had a "Holy Sh!t!" reaction. Mills still has his gun on John Doe and is asking, "What's in the box? What's in the box?" which of course is one of those iconic movie lines. John Doe is very calm in telling him that he was envious of him and paid his wife a visit and that he took a souvenir with him and that her "pretty little head" is in the box. I was sure we were going to see a gruesome prosthetic Gwynnie-the-Pooh head, but luckily we don't. I don't think even Mills looks in the box, which is probably for the best. No reason to upset him even more especially after learning that Tracy was pregnant.

The Wrath killing all makes sense when John Doe turns the tables on Mills and wants Mills to kill him and represent Wrath. By this time, Somerset is running to him, telling him not to do it, that this is what the murderer wants, but Mills, having nothing to lose (and would totally get Wrath if he took those quizzes if they existed back in 1995), kills his wife's murderer. Can you blame the guy?

Say Hello to Your Friends!

The Baby-Sitters Club 

Director: Melanie Mayron

Cast: Schuyler Fisk, Rachael Leigh Cook, Larissa Oleynik, Bre Blair, Marla Sokoloff, Ellen Burstyn

Released: August 18, 1995

When I was in elementary and middle school, I was obsessed with the Baby-Sitters Club. I had the books. I had the videos. I had the calendars. I had the day planner. I had the board game. I had BSC postcards. I had the Chain Letter and Secret Santa thing-ies (if you're a BSC fan, then you know what I'm talking about!). I was first introduced to them when I was eight and my aunt gave me a few books for my birthday. While I don't remember which book was the last one I read (I think somewhere in the 60s), I will always remember "Dawn and the Impossible Three" was the first one I read. Don't ask me why the fifth book in the series was the first one I read; I must not have been given "Kristy's Great Idea" for that birthday. I actually started reading the Little Sisters series, the spin off series with Kristy's stepsister, Karen Brewer, first because she was closer to my age at the time, but within a few months I was reading about the much more mature lives of the 13-year-old members of the Baby-Sitters Club. I remember I always had to go to my mom and ask her to read any entries Claudia wrote because I could never read her awful cursive handwriting. I once wrote a BSC fanfic and I had a lot of fun writing her letters because all you do is just spell everything atrociously. Here are a few examples from my fic:

Dear Mom, Dad, and Janine,

I am haveing the best time in NY! Alredy we have bean to the Nashural Hestory Moozeum and Times Schware! There are lots of grate shops in Times Scware! There was one that suld lots of chaclite!

Love, Claudia

Daer Ashley,

Oh my Lurd! Yoo our nefer going too baliv wut I did! I haf a chilly noo look. Yoo well bee sow saprized wen yoo see me! I mett a guy frum Awstrayleea. He wus really meen too me. He thut I as dume! Who rood!

Yore freind,

Claudia

P.S. NYS is grate! 

Haha, I remember once reading a BSC/CSI fanfic crossover and Stacey is found dead in the first chapter and Gil Grissom says, "Don't tell mom....the baby-sitter's dead." That STILL makes me laugh when I think about it. I am so easily amused. 

I remember going to Waldenbooks every month when a new book was churned out and spending part of my allowance on it. When the Super Specials came out, it felt like Christmas. The Super Specials were...wait for it...super special! Like I mentioned above, I'm not sure which book was the last one I read. I probably stopped reading when I turned fourteen since I was then older than the girls. I know I stopped reading before Abby was introduced (why did they need a new baby-sitter anyway? They had plenty of members!), before Mallory was shipped off to boarding school, and before Dawn moved to California permanently. God, remember how obnoxious Dawn was about California? ("Everyone in California is blonde and tanned!" Everyone in California hates junk food and only eats health food like tofu and rice cakes!" "The sun is always shining in California!" "I hate winters in Connecticut..it's so cold." God, shut up Dawn. (In my fanfic, I had Dawn wear a shirt that said "We got more bounce in California than all y'all combined" because YOU KNOW she would totally wear a shirt like that!))

About five years before the movie came out, they had the Baby-Sitters Club TV show. You might remember the theme song: "Say hello to your friends! Baby-Sitters Club!" I believe they aired on HBO, a channel I didn't get it, but luckily I was able to own all the episodes (13!) on video. I remember I used to act them out with my friend and her younger sister. Yes, we would watch them so many times we had them all memorized and could act them out. True, they were only about 25 minutes, and true, the dialogue was pretty easy to learn. Now I'm sure you're probably wondering: how did you act out the episodes if there were only three of you and there are seven main characters, not to mention all the ancillary characters like their charges and the parents and random people like Zach Braff and Grandma Gilmore (yes, imagine my surprise when I found out Kelly Bishop was in an episode!) Well, we would strategically choose which characters we would be. For instance, the first episode involves around a Mary Anne and Logan plot with a girl, Marcie, who is trying to steal Logan away from Mary Anne. (Why didn't they just have that actress play Cokie Mason? Duh. Marcie is a character we never meet from the books...) Anyway, one of us would play Mary Anne, one would play Logan, and one would play Marcie and then we would divvy up the other characters and just make sure if two characters had a major scene together, then one person wasn't playing both those characters. There's a scene where the girls are in the park and throwing popcorn and catching it in their mouths and we actually would have real popcorn and do that...that's how dedicated to our craft we were! 

Probably my favorite episode was "Stacey's Big Break" when Stacey becomes a model (huh?), but then decides it's too much for her and she is missing too many important things and Kristy tells her, "Anybody can be rich and famous...but not everyone can be a member of the Baby-Sitters Club!" and she and Stacey high-five each other, like that's suppose to make Stacey feel better. Also, not everybody can be rich and famous so that doesn't make any sense. Speaking of things that don't make sense...the girls are helping their chargers put on a production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" and Charlotte Johansson (I'm pretty much writing this assuming you know the names I'm mentioning because I'm assuming you're only reading this if you're a BSC fanatic too!) is playing Snow White, but needs help with her lines and she and Stacey make up a memory tactic where Stacey will cluck her tongue and Charlotte will automatically remember her lines. Huh? How is that suppose to help with her lines. Wouldn't it be more practical if Stacey started saying the beginning of the line? But during the production, Stacey clucks her tongue when Charlotte forgets her line, but then remembers it! WTF?

The episodes are up on Hulu and I encourage everyone to check out these masterpieces and you can also imagine three young girls acting these out!

It's always fun to ask, Which BSC member are you? I feel like I'm a mixture of a few. Physically, I'm the most like Mallory as I'm a redhead and she's the only redhead member. I also could relate to her, because as a pre-teen, I also hated the way I looked...I had the curly red hair, the freckles, the glasses, the braces...Mal, I FEEL YOUR PAIN! It was awful! Looking like that is the worst! I hated being a redhead until I was 17 and saw Titanic. Luckily, I got to leave that awkward stage of my life, but somewhere Mallory Pike is still eleven-years-old because Ann M. Martin kept her characters in this weird time paradox where they never age. I also probably have the most in common with Mallory interests-wise, because I like to read and write (though I did not draw like she did) and once upon a time I was into horses (even took horseback riding lessons which I think she does at one point). The member I'm most like internally is Mary Anne because we're both shy and hate being the center of attention. She's a total cat person and I love my kitty. I'm not as patient as her, and probably not as sensitive as her either, but I can pretty much cry over anything like she does. The main difference between us is she had a boyfriend at 13 (who the eff has a steady boyfriend when they're freaking 13...a crush maybe, but a steady boyfriend? The hell?) and she was raised by a strict father because her mother died. Speaking of which, the member whose family life is most like mine is Claudia. I can relate to her with having an older sibling that is better than you at everything.

Okay, so I've talked about my history with the BSC, BSC fanfiction, the TV show, the members I'm most like, what am I forgetting....oh yeah, the movie! See, I have so much history with this fandom it took me awhile to get here.

I didn't see the movie in the theater because by that time I was 14 and much too mature for the BSC! I did eventually see it on video. I think this is only the second or third time I've seen the movie, so obviously I didn't see it hundreds of times like I did with the TV episodes. I think this is the reason why I always picture the actresses from the TV show as the girls in the club. Most of the actresses in the movie are much more well known than the TV actresses (who are a bunch of people you never heard of...though I once saw the girl who played Jessi on an episode of Clarissa Explains it All...haha, remember that show?) and they are actually the age of the characters. The TV show actresses look to be around 14 - 16, maybe even older. I remember being SHOCKED at how young Mallory and Jessi looked, they honestly look like they should have been baby-sitting charges, not the sitters, but then again, they were only eleven which seems ridiculously young for a baby-sitter. I will go through each member and I've put them in order from most important to the story to least important.

1. Kristy Thomas (played by 

Schuyler Fisk aka Sissy Spacek's daughter) - It makes sense that Kristy is the main character and narrator of the movie because she IS the club President, after all. She has the great idea (of course) of having a daycare at the Schafer/Spier residence during the summer for the kids they sit for. However, her main storyline is about her estranged father coming to Stoneybrook to visit her (and ONLY her, not any of his biological sons). The whole thing is really shady. I thought this was an interesting plot development because in the books we know that Kristy's biological dad walked out on his family when she was young (well, she's young now...but probably when she was five) and she, according to the books, has never heard from him...until now. I have no idea if he ever makes an appearance in the books after the movie came out (and I have no idea if the events in the movie are even mentioned in any of the book that came out after the movie. Like, did Mary Anne ever say to her, "Hey, Kristy, remember that one summer [the 8th one they spent as 13-year-olds!] when your dad came to Stoneybrook?"). So, like I said, it's totally shady because her dad doesn't want her Kristy telling her mom that he's in town. He doesn't want her telling ANYONE. Uh... However, she does tell Mary Anne who does keep the secret. There's this scene where they see Kristy get into her dad's car and Stacey thinks she's dating an older man. Seriously, Stacey? I thought Claudia was suppose to be the dumb one. Anyway, while the girls are a little concerned that their 13-year-old friend is getting into the car of a 40 something man, they're not concerned enough to tell her mom. Also, why did nobody come to the conclusion that he was her biological father. Duh. It's much more plausible (and not as creepy) than thinking she's dating a much older man. Eww. But to be fair, her dad has never made an appearance in her life until now, so I can kind of understand why they wouldn't automatically think that. Oh, wait. I said she was 13, but she's actually 12 in this. :::rolls eyes::: They only do this because Kristy's dad wants to do something special for her birthday and they mention she is turning 13. Aurgh. It's so stupid. I always hated that Ann M. Martin didn't let the girls age at all. Seriously, being 14 isn't that much difference than 13. She could have at least aged them a freaking year! I know she aged them from 12-13, but she could have also aged them at least another year. But, I disgress...  Anyway, guess who doesn't show up to meet Kristy at the carnival? Yep, her dad has left town and Kristy finally confesses to her mom what happened. There's also this weird scene where Kristy wears a dress that her dad gave her to play baseball with him. First of all, Kristy would never wear a dress, especially to play baseball, and this should give her a clue of how crappy her dad is because he should know this about his daughter.  

Stacey would never
wear this outfit!

2. Stacey McGill (played by Bre Blair) - When we are first introduced to Stacey, we see her hailing a taxicab...in small town Stoneybrook to show us what a city girl she is. Uh....pretty sure there are no taxis in Stoneybrook! That was...weird. Anyway, a Stacey storyline wouldn't be complete without her falling in "luv". She has a sitting job for Rosie Wilder and her cousin Luca who is from....somewhere in Europe. It turns out Luca is seventeen and Stacey is smitten with him. He was suppose to leave, but decides to stay when he sees Stacey. Keep in mind he doesn't know how old she is (I think she tells him she's 15 or 16). Um, if I were Rosie's mom, I would NOT pay Stacey because what's the point of her being there if Luca is already there? Duh. Also, they pretty much go on a date (they go out for ice cream) with a seven-year-old. It's so weird. At one point Rosie even asks Luca if he's going to kiss Stacey and they just laugh it off. When Stacey tells the other how old Luca is, Kristy says, "That's ancient!", which kinda is if you're 13! There's a really "dramatic" moment where Stacey faints when she's taking a hike with Luka because she didn't eat enough and she confesses she has diabetes. Luka learns the truth about Stacey (heh, see what I did there? Only true BSC fanatics will get that) when they go to a "teen club" in NYC and she's not old enough. Haha, Stacey, you're not even old enough to get into a "teen club". He is aghast when he finds out how she is. ("You're THIRTEEN?") However, it turns weird when he continues to pursue her and her mom encourages her to go for it. Uh, excuse me, Maureen, but you do know that a seventeen-year-old boy is trying to creep on your 13-year-old daughter? Stacey and Luca share a kiss (so wrong) and Stacey reminds him that she will soon be fourteen. So what, Stacey? A fourteen-year-old with an eighteen-year-old is not any better than a thirteen-year-old with a seventeen-year-old. And let's not forget, Stacey, you NEVER age! Bre Blair is 37, but Stacey McGill will always remain 13. 

3. Mary Anne Spier (played by Rachael Leigh Cook) Fun fact: this was RLC's first movie. We know this movie takes place after the book where Mary Anne gets her haircut because she has short hair in this movie (although I think it's actually cut shorter in the books). Like I mentioned in the Kristy blurb, she's the one who keeps Kristy's secret for her and the other members get mad at her. She even tells Kristy it's difficult for her to keep her secret because she "tells Dawn everything, but Logan even more." This makes no sense...what is more than everything? Also, I always assumed she was closer to Dawn than she was with Logan since, you know, they were STEPSISTERS and lived together. Of course Dawn does move back to California, but this is before that happens. Anyway.... there's also a subplot where Cokie Mason (played by Marla Sokoloff) is trying to steal Mary Anne's boyfriend, Logan (played by Austin "Last Action Hero" O'Brien). She asks him to attend a Smashing Pumpkins concert with her and while he doesn't say yes, he also doesn't say no. There's this really inappropriate song playing where the lyrics are "Let's get busy"every time Cokie approaches Logan. She is really obsessed with trying to mess with the BSC  (it's really pathetic), but they are always one step ahead of her, and gets really mad when one of her friends tells her that they seem cool.  

4. Dawn Schafer (played by Larissa Oleynik) Dawn actually doesn't come across as self-righteous or irritating like she does in the books or the TV show. Like I mentioned, the BSC is having a summer daycare for the kids they sit for and it's in Dawn's backyard. An older woman lives next door (Ellen Burstyn....I was surprised as you are when I saw her name in the credits) and she is (rightfully) annoyed by all the children who are throwing things over the fence. She warns Dawn that if it happens again, she will call the police and have their organization closed down. But she and Dawn bond over...something (probably flowers). Also, there's another subplot where Alan Gray is helping the girls watch the kids and he has a crush on Dawn and asks her to the movies. Uh...I thought it was Kristy who he had the crush on? I don't remember this being a storyline in the book. But I guess it is kinda cute.

5. Claudia Kishi - (played by Tricia Joe) Claudi's main (and only!) storyline is the same storyline she has in one of the TV episodes and I know it also happened in a few of her books: she's failing a subject and if she doesn't pass the next test coming, she will have to quit the BSC! Oh no! Seriously, how many times has that been a storyline for Claudia? The BSC help her by making up a song for her test and it helps her and she passes. Yawn. There were some nice touches to her character where we saw her artwork or we would see her pulling out junk food from a hiding place in her room. I was SOOO disappointed in the way she was styled. First of all, she always just wore her hair down. She never wore it in a side ponytail which she does a LOT on the cover of the books; she never wore any crazy headbands or barrettes in her hair; and she never braided it or did anything fun with it. She just wore it down with NO hair accessories. It was so boring! That's not Claudia! Even though she may wear a shirt with a wild print, her clothes are very disappoint too. Let me give you an example of what a usual Claudia Kishi original consists of (thanks to this great website):
-Purple capris with suspenders
- Plaid purple shirt with a matching hat
-White tight with clocks on them

-Lobster earrings (I have lobster earrings!)
-hightop sneakers

In my fanfic I had her wear orange day-glo parachute pants with an orange vest with black trim, an orange scrunchie in her hair and orange rubber boots. My story took place in New York and she got inspiration from a traffic cone. Claudia is always the most fun member to write in BSC fanfics because of her atrocious writing and outrageous outfits. 

So there's also this subplot where the girls are thinking of buying a greenhouse to hold their meetings. I wasn't quite sure what was going on because I was confused. Why would they want to uproot their meeting place from Claudia's house (where she has her own private phone line...hence the reason why they hold them there!) to some random greenhouse? This makes no sense! They would have to get a whole new phone number and that would be a pain having to tell all their clients. Instead, they let Ellen Burstyn (I didn't care to remember her character's name) have it for ...something. 

6. Mallory Pike (played by Stacy Linn Ramsower) and Jessi Ramsey (played by Zelda Harris) - the two 11-year-old members are tied for last place because they're just...there. Seriously, does anybody care about these two? I have never met a BSC fanatic who said one of these were their favorite member. (My favorite? Stacey when I was younger, but now, I would say Claudia). We get a line from Mallory where she says she's working on a novel and we hear Kristy narrate how Jessi loves to dance. Other than those throwaway character traits, they're just really immature. Jessi tells Dawn that she heard that Alan likes her and Mal says, "Does he like her or like like her?" and they both giggle. Seriously, girls, how old are we? Oh, right. Eleven. Then there's a scene where Stacey tells everyone how much money they made the first day at the camp and Jessi says, "We almost have enough to buy a car!" (I don't remember the amount, but I'm pretty sure it was nowhere enough to buy a car) and Mal replies, "And in five years we can drive it." Uh, no. Because you will remain eleven forever!