The (one-hit) Wonders

That Thing You Do!

Director: Tom Hanks

Cast: Tom Everett Scott, Liv Tyler, Steve Zahn, Tom Hanks, Johnathan Schaech, Ethan Embry, Charlize Theron

Released: October 4, 1996

Oscar nominations:

Best Original Song - "That Thing You Do!" (lost to "You Must Love Me" from Evita)

You!

Doing that thing you do!

Breaking my heart into a million pieces

like you always do!

And you!

Don't mean to be cruel!

You never even knew about the heartache

I've been going through.

Well I'm trying and try to forget you girl!

But it's just so hard to do!

Everytime you do that thing you do!

It's probably been well over twenty years since I last saw this movie or heard the song, but I can still sing along to every word; it all just came flooding back to me. I'm pretty sure my family owned the soundtrack (don't quote me on that, but it wouldn't surprise me) and the song is played at least a million times during the movie, so it's no wonder (no pun intended) that I haven't missed a beat (again, no pun intended). Even though I don't remember hearing this song on the radio, it must have been played on popular radio stations because I read it was released as a single. 

It was robbed of an Oscar win for best song. "You Must Love Me" from Evita won instead. The other songs nominated were "Because You Loved Me" from Up Close and Personal; "I've Finally Found Someone" from The Mirror Has Two Faces; and "For the First Time" from One Fine Day. Now I think all those songs cancelled each other out because they were all from romantic or romantic-adjacent movies (two of which starred Michelle Pfeiffer!). So I wan't familiar with "For the First Time" so I went to listen to it. Kenny Loggins sings it and I immediately recognized it when it started playing it. I think it was on a compilation CD of movie songs I owned (back in the heyday when people used archaic artifacts like CDs -ask your ancestors, kids). Funnily enough, this CD also included "I've Finally Found Someone." I don't think of "Because You Love Me" being from a movie; I think of it as a single from Celine Dion's grammy-winning album, Falling Into You. I feel like "You Must Love Me" only won because Madonna sung it and was composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Now if "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" (which wasn't even nominated) had won, I would have been fine with that because that song slaps. "You Must Love Me" is a boring, insipid ballad. What I'm simply trying to say is that from the five nominated songs, "That Thing You Do!" should have won. 

I saw this movie in theaters with my dad. He was a teenager in the '60s, when this movie is set, and played in a band, so of course this movie was made for him. This movie is basically about a small town (Eerie, Pennsylvania) band who are discovered and soon become a national sensation with their hit song, the same as the title of the movie, That Thing You Do! 

Guy (Tom Everett Scott) is asked to fill in as the drummer of a band who his friends are in (I guess Guy isn't initially in the band because he works at his dad's appliance store, I'm not really sure) after the drummer, Chad (Giovanni Ribisi), breaks his arm right before they're supposed to play at the Mercyhurst College Talent Show. The other band members include lead singer, Jimmy (Jonathan Schaech); lead guitarist, Lenny (Steve Zahn); and the bass player (Ethan Embry). For some reason, he is credited as T.B. Player as in The Bass Player, so he wasn't given a name. I'll just refer to him as Ethan. 

This band must have just formed after Jimmy wrote a song called "That Thing You Do!" (you might be familiar with it) and wanted to perform it at the talent show. I say that because when Guy comes over to practice with them after he's replaced Chad their band still doesn't have a name. Jimmy has suggested The Heardsmen and The Chordvettes. As you can see, he likes being creative with how he spells the name. I'm sure there's a word for that, but I have no idea. When Guy asks if they're only playing the one song at the show and Jimmy confirms that, he replies, "Wonderful", emphasizing the "won" sound. Jimmy's girlfriend, Faye (Liv Tyler), is there and she lights up when she hears him say that and tells them they should call themselves The Wonders. Jimmy also likes this idea, probably because he can spell it in a creative (and let's be honest, really dumb) way. On a notepad he writes it as THE ONEDERS. Of course, the other band members thinks it reads as "Oh-nee-ders." They will later write it as One-ders, which is a little better, but why not just write it as 1-ders? Actually, scratch that. Now that I see it, it looks awful written that way. Later, they will spell it correctly, but personally, I think The Wonders is not the best name for a band. Why? Because of one-hit wonders. What if you only have one hit and you're called The Wonders? (And this is pretty much what happens to them.) That's just asking to be mocked. 

They're practicing "That Thing You Do" and it's a slower-paced song than what we will eventually know and love it as. 

At the talent show, Guy brings his girlfriend, Tina. She is played by....wait for it....Charlize Theron! This was one of her first movie roles and I did not remember she was in this at all. I probably didn't remember because she was in this before she was famous and she's not in it that much. She's not really impressed that Guy is playing in a talent show and doesn't seem to be into this whole thing at all. Charlize has bigger and better things ahead for her! 

When it's the One-Ders turn to perform, Guy starts playing the drums really fast and at first there's confusion because that's not how the song is supposed to go, but the rest of the band goes with it and this is probably the best decision Guy ever made because it's going to change all their lives. First of all, everyone loved the song and they won first place - a whopping $100 split four ways. I supposed back in 1964, that was a lot of money. Maybe? 

There's an applause-o-meter chart with different rankings that a girl uses her arm to point to a ranking after each performance depending on the audience's reaction. (Obviously a very scientific method. The rankings include: "You Stink", "Not Terrible", "Good", "Extra Good", "Super", and "Wicked.") Not surprisingly, they got the highest score. 

They later play at an Italian restaurant (of all the random places) and some guy asks them where he can get a record of their songs. This gives Guy the idea for them to do just that. He has a relative "in the record industry" who records church music and he could record their songs for them and sell them for a dollar a piece. They play their songs in a church while his uncle is using some very old-fashioned technology to record them. His uncle is played by Chris Issak of "Wicked Game" fame (you know, the song). 

A guy who introduces himself as Phil Horace comes down to the appliance store to talk to Guy about the band. He wants to take them to rock 'n' roll shows to play their music, specifically "That Thing You Do!" He tells them he can get that song on the radio and if the radio doesn't play the song within ten days he'll tear up the contract. 

We see a scene of Tina at the dentist. She's a first-time patient and is very attracted to her handsome dentist. Later, we will later find out she ends up with him. I'm not really sure what the point of having her in the movie was for; it's no wonder I don't remember Charlize Theron at all in this. I heard the director's cut is two and a half hours (way too long!) and I'm sure we get a lot more backstory with her character. 

The band members (and Faye) are wearing ear pieces, listening to the radio so they don't miss it should their song be played on the radio. Guy is working at the store and his dad yanks it out of his ear and tells him to go help the two women who are looking at stoves. Faye is mailing a letter when a song has just finished and the DJ announces the next song as being from "a local Eerie band" and that they just won the Mercyhurst Talent show. She starts screaming and shrieking and running down the street like a maniac, but her enthusiasm is infectious. She sees Ethan who is coming out of a store and they are shrieking in joy together. They run into the appliance store where Guy's telling the two women what colors the stoves come in and Faye tells him to turn on the radio, so he does. In fact, they go around the whole store turning on several radios. Now you can hear the music more clearly; before it sounded a little more muddled. Outside the window we see Lenny and Jimmy pull up and park right in the middle of the street and run in. Guy's dad and sister (who also works at the store) don't look very happy, but his mother, who is sitting in the back where she's doing some paperwork, is smiling and grooving to the music. This is the best scene in the movie; you can't help but smile when you watch it. It's gotta be pretty exciting when your song is played on the radio! 

Later that evening, Guy calls Tina to ask if she heard the song which played three times on the radio that day and she said she didn't and points out she's heard that song many times already. She doesn't seem to care that his band's song was on the radio. Not the most supportive girlfriend! 

Because of their radio success, they've been invited to play at the Orpheum in Pittsburg (the closest big city to them). This is a big deal for them, but unfortunately it turns out to be a disaster. Right before they're about to start, they notice the mikes not working (didn't someone do a sound check?), then when it's turned on, it gives that awful screeching sound and the entire audience are holding their hands to their ears. Once that's corrected, they start playing the song, but then one of Guy's cymbals fall and it's not a great performance. They're lucking that this was pre-Internet/social media or otherwise this would become viral!

The next day, Phil takes Guy to meet a man named Mr. White who is with Play-Tone records and was in town to catch the show. He is played by Tom Hanks and I didn't catch the characters' first name, but according to Wikipedia, it's Amos. He wants to release their record and add The One-ders to their record label. He's also the first person (outside the band and Faye) to get the pronunciation of the band correct and after he becomes their manager, his first order of business is to have them spell their name as The Wonders so there's no more confusion. Many of the label's bands and artists will be touring state fairs and he wants The Wonders to be one of those bands. 

Their record will be released nationally and they will be doing a lot of promoting of it, mostly on radio shows. Mr. White tells them they will be touring until Labor Day (I think it's the beginning of summer when they start), but Ethan tells them he joined the Marine Corps so he has to report to South Carolina at the end of August, but he can stay with the band until then. Maybe this is the reason Ethan Embry isn't given a name in this movie? But he's still in quite a bit of the movie. Mr. White decides the band needs a gimmick so he give Guy a pair of sunglasses to wear while he's performing and has given him the nickname "Shades". 

Their song ends up hitting #93 on the Billboard 100 charts. It was right below "Viva Las Vegas" by Elvis Presley. I paused the movie to look at the other songs, but I didn't recognize any of them. You're probably wondering if they perform any other songs besides "That Thing You Do!", and yes, yes, they do, but honestly, I don't even remember how they go. I think we hear two other songs. 

After getting a montage of them touring many of the fly-over states, Mr. White tells them that there's been a change of plans and they'll next be flying to Los Angeles because their song has become "the fastest-rising single in the history of the Play-tone label." Not only that, but they also have the number 7 record in the country. Not bad for an amateur band! 

As they're leaving to get into the car to take them to the airport (they're currently in Wisconsin), they are attacked by a mob of screaming girls. One of them even jumps on the car. Honestly, it's so embarrassing and we've seen this from the Beatles to One Direction. (Okay, I know One Direction is old news by this point, but I can't think of anything more current.) On the plane, Mr. White tells them he can get them to appear in a motion picture and The Hollywood Television Showcase. Jimmy is the only one who doesn't seem to care about any of that. He just wants to get into the studio to make some music.

The movie they have a cameo in is some lame film called Weekend at Party Pier and they're wearing sailor outfits, playing their instruments outside of a shrimp shack. The main actors, playing characters named Rick, Anita, and Goofball (what is this? The Archies?) are dancing in front and when they have lines, the music stops, but everyone keeps dancing or pretending to play their instruments as though they're still hearing it. There is no way this is being released in theaters; this has to be a TV movie. I would say it's going to straight to video, but I don't think video rentals were a thing back then (just like they're no longer a thing now, heh). Jimmy thinks what they're doing is pretty lame and I have to agree with him. 

Guy gets the chance to meet his hero, a jazz player named Del Paxton when he goes to a jazz bar and is introduced to him by the cocktail waitress (played by Rita Wilson). The old man gives the young musician some sage advice: since bands come and go, he's "got to keep on paying, no matter with who." You could also call this foreshadowing. (Because The Wonders won't last, spoiler alert!)

When they're about to be on the Hollywood Television Showcase, everyone is there except the unnamed bass player. Nobody knows where he is, so Mr. White just brings in a new member named Scott Pell who goes by the nickname Wolfman. I guess since he knew they would be losing their bass player anyway, he had somebody waiting in the wings. It's funny that this guy gets a name and nickname and poor Ethan Embry's character didn't get either! By the way, he was at Disneyland. I guess he didn't take this band that seriously! 

We see some acts/interviews before them and one is astronaut Gus Grissom and he is played by Bryan Cranston and as someone whose favorite show is Breaking Bad, this was very amusing to see. So I did a quick deep dive on him (Gus Grissom; not Bryan Cranston): he was a pilot in the United States Air Force and was selected by NASA for Project Mercury, which trained and launched astronauts into outer space. (Yes, I got this from Wikipedia.) The movie The Right Stuff is all about Project Mercury and Fred Ward played him in the movie. Sadly, Grissom died long before the movie was released in 1983. I noticed on his Wikipedia page that he died at the age of 40 in 1967 in Cape Canaveral and right away I knew he died of something going wrong on a launch. And, yes, during a pre-launch test, the command module interior caught fire and Grissom and two other astronauts were killed. Anyway, back to something a little more light-hearted...(or maybe not, but at least nobody dies in a horrific way in this movie...)

While they play their hit song, we see the camera zoom in individually on all the band members with their names on the bottom of the screen. When they get to Jimmy, there's added text that says, "Careful girls, he's engaged." I mean, c'mon, why do they need to add that? It's not like these girls would have a chance with him anyway! Jimmy sees this on the monitor and he's not singing enthusiastically as he once was.
He's not very thrilled by this. 

We get a funny moment where Guy's family and Chad (the original drummer that Guy replaced) are watching the show on the TV and his mom yells, "Quiet down, I'm trying to hear it!" even though nobody is talking. 

Afterward, in the dressing room, Jimmy yells at Faye, asking her where she got the idea they were engaged and that's "the last thing [he] needs." But it wasn't Faye who told the producers to write that on the screen (I don't think she would even have the authority); it was Mr. White. Oh, and if you're wondering why Faye has been following them around the country even though she's not in the band, there's really no good reason aside from the fact that she's Jimmy's muse. A sad-looking Faye addressed Jimmy in front of everyone and tells him she's breaking up with him and "I have wasted thousands and thousands of kisses on you...shame on me for kissing you with my eyes closed so tight." In my mind, I can see Peter Jackson watching this movie and when he sees Liv Tyler looking so sad he knew right away he had found his perfect Arwen! And also because Liv Tyler is so, so pretty and would make the perfect elfin princess. 

The band ends up breaking up because Jimmy wants to record his own music, Leo has gotten married (and soon divorced) and Guy ends up with Faye. Throughout the movie we see little snippets that he likes her, so it's not a big surprise that they end up together. 

Ready to Run

Runaway Bride

Director: Garry Marshall

Cast: Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Joan Cusack, Christopher Meloni, Hector Elizondo, Rita Wilson, Paul Dooley, Donal Logue

Released: July 30, 1999

More like Runaway Viewer, am I right?

This 1999 Julia Roberts rom-com might be even worse than her other 1999 rom-com, Notting Hill. Clearly, this was an excuse for Garry Marshall to capitalize on the success of Pretty Woman and make a movie with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere (and Hector Elizondo!) again. 

So much about this movie drove me crazy and didn't make any sense to me. Anyway, let's just get into it, shall we?

Ike Graham (Richard Gere) is a writer who lives in New York with his fluffy cat named Italics (which, I won't lie, I kinda love that he named his cat that) where he has his own column in USA Today and everyone seems to know who he is. We see him outside walking to a bar (where he apparently writes his columns; like that helps when there are drunk people around you talking and laughing or playing darts while you're trying to finish your column by a certain deadline) and the people on the streets of NYC are asking him what his next column is going to be or give him ideas on what he should write about.  

At the bar, a drunk man gives him an idea for a story he could write about. There's a woman from his hometown who dumps grooms at the altar. She is called "the runaway bride." The man tells Ike she's done this 7-8 times and she's already engaged to someone else. Without even interviewing her or anyone else (I guess he didn't have time since the article was in the next day's paper), Ike writes about the woman, Maggie Carpenter (Julia Roberts) who lives in the small town of Hale, Maryland and works at her father's hardware store. He calls her a "man eater" and writes that "she like to dress her men up as grooms before she devours them." 

Maggie sees the column, but thinks her best friend, Peggy (Joan Cusack), and cousin, Cindy, wrote the column as a joke. I don't know how she thinks these two small-town women could have a "joke" article published about her in USA Today. I was a bit confused by that. When she realizes it was not a joke, she begins to hyperventilate and writes back to the columnist to accuse him of slander and to set some things straight and points out he had fifteen "gross factual misrepresentations". 

It just so happens that Ike's editor, Ellie (Rita Wilson), is also his ex-wife. (That's gotta be awkward!) She tells him she has to fire him for what he did. Look, I understand writing an article without checking your facts is really, really bad, BUT it's not like this is a major national or international story. This is just some random woman in small town USA who runs away from marriages at the last minute (the very last minute!) If anything, he should have been suspended from writing his article for a month, written Maggie a sincere apology, and maybe the paper should have given Maggie a nice little compensation. Then maybe Ike could have interviewed her and written a factual, actual article about her. Also, how did this article even get published without anyone checking it first? 

Ike claims he did have "a source" and when Ellie guesses, "Some boozehound in a bar?", she's not wrong. She tells him if he goes quietly, he'll get severance pay. Hopefully he'll get enough to pay for the rent for the ridiculously lavish NYC apartment he resides in! I guess columnists for USA Today make a nice little chunk of change! The next day Maggie excitedly reads in USA Today that Ike has been fired and his column will no longer be appearing in the paper. The apology is written under the headline "USA Today divorces columnist Graham." 

Ike's friend and Ellie's husband, Fisher (Hector Elizondo), does free lance for GQ and tells Ike he can still write his story. Maybe his facts weren't all correct, but his theory might be and if she runs again, he'll have a story. So Ike is up to the challenge and he decides to spend the next two weeks in Hale. Honestly, I have no idea why he cares about this story so much. 

Even though Hale is a homonym for Hell, it is an idyllic small town where everyone is friendly and knows each other (and knows everyone's business...that part isn't so idyllic). There are many jokes where Ike compares Hale to Mayberry: he literally calls it Mayberry at one point, he whistles The Andy Griffith Show theme song when he and Maggie are walking through Main Street (I did laugh when she goes, "I know what that is"), and he calls this old woman "Aunt Bea". I'm surprised he didn't have an interaction with a little redhead boy so he could call him "Opie." 

Ike first stops at her family's hardware store and there's a note on the door saying she's at the beauty shop, so that's where he goes. It's called Curl Up and Dye which is a funny pun, but I wouldn't go to a salon called that! Maggie's best friend, Peggy (her name is Peggy Flemming, but she's not the ice skater) works there and Maggie is on the floor, working on one of the swivel chairs. She hears Ike ask Peggy he's looking for her and is trying to hide behind the chair, but since the chair is only about a couple feet from where he is, of course he can see her, though they're trying to angle the camera like he can't see her. Uh-uh, Garry Marshall, you can't fool me! Peggy asks if he's a reporter, that reporters have been wanting to talk to Maggie "about getting that a-hole from New York fired." Maggie gets up to talk to him and everything seems fine at first, but then she takes a peek at the USA Today which is lying on one of the counters and it just so happens to be opened to Ike's column where there's a photo of Ike. Realizing he's the enemy, she and Peggy offer to give him a wash to get rid of all that city grit from his hair and they end up dying his hair about six different colors, which is quite impressive they could do that. Okay, my question is, why didn't Maggie recognize him as soon as he walked into the salon because she had already seen his picture before. 

 

We find out that Maggie is getting married a week from Sunday. Now I'm not sure what day it is when Ike first meets her, but just keep in mind that Maggie is getting married "a week from Sunday." We'll come back to that later. 

To Maggie's dismay, Ike tells her he's staying until the day of the wedding because he knows she's going to run again. (And honestly? I would place my money on him). While in Hale (why does that make me laugh?), Ike meets Maggie's father and grandmother (her mother died when she was in college) and even talks to the previous three men who were supposed to be Maggie's husband at one point. There's even a video of all three near-nupitals and Maggie is captured running away from all three. The fact that this video exists is hilarious. 

So through the videos and Ike's interviews with the men and from what Maggie tells him, I've compiled a list about all of Maggie's fiancés:

The first husband-to-be- was to be Gill Chavez and their wedding had sort of a 60s/Woodstock vibe going on. This is probably because they were into going to concerts (they went to a couple in San Francisco) and they each got a rose tattoo (we see Maggie wearing a dress that shows off her back, that shows off her tattoo) and Gill proposed with a rose ring. (Maggie kept all her engagement rings (which she shows to Ike), which is a bit...odd. I feel like you should return the ring if you're not getting married to the guy!) On the wedding video Ike watches, the groom is playing the guitar and Maggie jumps on a trampoline and crowds surfs. Already, this seems like the worst wedding ever. Before she's about to get married, a guy with a motorcycle shows up (no, not her next husband, just some random dude she knew) and she hops on and they drive off. She has a fun, youthful look with her hair in pigtails with a sunflower crown. I am a bit confused by the time line of these weddings since we never get a solid year when each one occurred. Were they all about five years apart? Only a year? That would be a nice little detail to know. Ike exposes Maggie's tattoo as being a fake and this crushes Gill, even though this all presumably happened years ago. 

Her second wedding is as opposite as her first one as you can get. This time, she's getting married in a huge Catholic church to a man named Brian Norris (played by Donal Logue) and everything is a bit more prim and proper than her previous wedding! I do love her lace trimmed dress, but her train is ridiculously long! I have never understood the point of having a ridiculously long dress unless you're Lady Gaga trying to make a fashion state or getting married in a royal wedding. Perhaps it was a sign their wedding was in a huge church, because we see Maggie go to confession (even though she's not Catholic) and tell the priest she's "been having bad thoughts - I want to destroy this man's life, career, everything. I want revenge." Of course, she's talking about Ike and she already got him fired from USA Today, so she's doing a pretty good so far! It turns out the priest is Brian, who has found his true calling. Out of all of Maggie's exes, he seems the least burned and has no anger with her whatsoever. We do learn that she dated Brian ten years ago, so that gives us some perspective on the time. She tells Brian about Ike and how he'll probably stop by to interview him with a bunch of ridiculous questions, but Brian says he's already been by to interview him and he only asked one ridiculous questions which was "how does Maggie like her eggs?" 

The third wedding was to be to an entomologist named George Swilling, who happened to be the guy from the bar in New York who gave Ike the idea for the story in the first place. They have an outdoor wedding where Maggie rides in on a horse, only to gallop away. So by this time, it's absolutely ridiculous that Maggie is having a THIRD wedding, don't you think? The first wedding, okay, whatever, it's the first wedding and you just think Maggie wasn't ready to marry this guy or he wasn't the guy for her. The second wedding didn't bother me since everyone is probably thinking this is the guy she's meant to be with. But a THIRD wedding? After she's pulled this sh*t twice now? Uh-huh, no way. At first, I thought the poor schmuck (aka groom #3) didn't know about Maggie because he was from the city, but then I remembered he tells Ike that Maggie is from his hometown, so he knew about her. Why would you ever get engaged to someone who's run off on two previous weddings? And this guy seems to be the most vitriolic towards her, which is so stupid since he knew about her track record. 

And speaking of people who are aware of Maggie's track record, this brings us to husband-to-be number four, Bob (Christopher Meloni), who is well aware of Maggie's past, but seems to think he will be able to get Maggie to marry him. Bob is a high school PE teacher and has climbed Everest twice (as someone who's read Into Thin Air and watched the movie, I have never understood the appeal of wanting to doing that). They will be traveling to Nepal for their honeymoon to climb Annapurra, which sounds like the worst honeymoon ever. Also, pretty sure Maggie has never climbed any mountain, so why would you take an inexperienced climber all the way to Nepal? Even Ike knows this is bs and tells Maggie she doesn't want to go there for her honeymoon, but she keeps insisting she does. To Maggie's dismay, Bob has invited Ike to the wedding and she asks him, "Don't you realize that he's writing another article about me?" Bob isn't worried because he's convinced she's not running. Poor Bob. Why does he think he's so special that this time will be different? Actually, Bob is special in a way, but we'll get to that later.  

Since this is a small town, Maggie is able to convince the manager of the inn where Ike is staying to give her the key to him room and he does as long as she promises "not to take anything big" - now you think that sentence would stop after the word, "anything", but no, just as long she doesn't take "anything big" (I assume that means in value terms, not actual physical size, but still!). While snooping around, Maggie finds some of his Post-Its with notes about his story. She reads one of them aloud: "How does she get all those guys to propose? She's not that beautiful?" Eesh, that's harsh. And if he doesn't think Julia Roberts is beautiful, he must have some ridiculously high standards. But, of course, he thinks she's beautiful. We all know this. 

None of his notes she finds paint her in a flattering light, so Maggie tells Ike that she will help him "write the truth." She tells him, "I've decided to cooperate and let you interview me for a thousand bucks." She wants this money to help buy a dress she really wants. For this, she will let him interview her and follow her around. They negotiate and she agrees to $650 in the end. 

The dress Maggie wants is the one in the display window. She tells the store's owner (an elderly woman, the one who Ike calls "Aunt Bea" to her face) that she wants to buy it and that she has the $1000 that it costs to pay for it. For some strange reason, the woman, who remember, is the owner of this stores, tries to talk Maggie out of buying a $1000 dress and to instead buy the $300 one they have on hold for her in the back. She tells her she's only going to wear it for a few minutes (heh, even "Aunt Bea" thinks she's gonna run again). In a movie full of head scratching moments, this has to be high on the list. Her job is to SELL dresses and here is a customer willing to give her $700 extra for a different dress. She should be ecstatic about this and ringing up the dress for Maggie and thanking her for her purchase and telling her to have a wonderful wedding. Why does she care so much that she take the cheaper dress? This makes absolutely no sense. Now if Peggy or Maggie's grandmother were with them, I could see them persuading Maggie not to overindulge on a dress, but this is a woman who's trying to make a sale. If Maggie wants to blow $1000 on a dress she's only going to wear for a few minutes, then let her! Since when did sales people grow "morals"? Gimme a break! Now that I think about this scene, it kinda reminds of that famous scene in Pretty Woman where the sales women refuses to help Julia Roberts because she's dressed like a hooker. So I wonder if this is a homage to that? Either way, it's totally stupid that this woman wouldn't want to make sell a thousand dollar dress. Ike just grabs the dress and tells "Aunt Bea" they're taking it. 

Out of all the wedding dresses Maggie wears in this movie, this one is my least favorite. Yes, it is pretty, I will admit that, but it would have been much better if it was a strapless dress without that weird sheer fabric.

So, surprise, surprise, we see Maggie and Ike growing closer and Maggie tells Ike how her dad began drinking more and more after her mom passed away and how she had to quit school (she was studying design) to come back home to help out with the hardware store. They even had a moment where they almost kiss, but they don't. 

A luau-themed (an elaborate luau-themed!) wedding reception is held for Maggie and Bob (again, why are we spending so much money on this woman's THIRD reception? Did I miss the part of the movie where Maggie's dad is filthy rich?) and when Maggie's family and friends stand up to give a toast, they all make jokes such as, "May the groom's heart be filled with hope, and the bride's feet filled with lead" and "May the gifts be returnable." Her dad even makes this one: "You know the old saying, 'You're not losing a daughter?' Well, I'd like to! Maggie may not be Hale's longest running joke, but she is certainly the fastest." Ike is really offended by these toasts. (Oh yeah, did I tell you that Ike was invited?) So much so that he goes up to the table where Maggie is sitting with Bob, kneels down and asks if she's okay. Then he decides to give his own toast, or rather, roast: "To Maggie's family and friends. May you find yourselves the bull's eye of an easy target. May you be publicly flogged for all of your bad choices, and may your noses be rubbed in all of your mistakes." That sure shut everyone up! Also, I think Ike is overreacting just a tad. Yeah, maybe they should have toned it down with the jokes, but he just acts so sanctimonious about it. 

A rehearsal is held two days before the wedding. Bob insisted on this because he wants Maggie to "visualize the ceremony." It has been discovered if Maggie loses eye contact with the groom, then she gets freaked out and runs, so he keeps telling her to "keep her eye on the ball." Ike is there (of course) and Maggie suggests that he play the pastor because it will give him "a great view." 

So they start the rehearsal and Maggie is supposed to walk down the aisle, but she keeps tensing and walking really slowly. Bob decides he's going to walk with her and has Ike play the part of the groom. There's his first big mistake. Bob tells her not to break eye contact with the groom and Maggie is gazing intently into Ike's eyes. Bob, now playing the part of the pastor, yada yadas through the ceremony, and ends with "I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride." He continues on with instructions about what they'll do next, but Maggie and Ike are still staring at each other and kiss in front of Bob, not to mention Peggy and Maggie's cousin, who are also there (as they are the bridesmaids). 

Of course, Bob is not happy about this and asks them how long this has been going on. Maggie says a minute and Ike says a little longer for him, which Maggie seems very happy about. She smiles and says, "Really?" WTF?  Bob asks them what he's supposed to say to this and Ike replies that he could say, "Well, I hope you two will be really happy together." Again, WTF? If I were Bob, I would punch Ike in the face. Oh, wait, that's exactly what he does after he says what Ike suggests he should say. He storms out of the church with Maggie running after him, apologizing. She tells him, "At least this time I backed out before the wedding." 

Yes, so Bob is special in that while Maggie still left him, at least it wasn't at the altar! No, she just left him for another man which might be even worse.

Maggie must be a sociopath because she does not care at all what she did to Bob (and we'll see pretty soon that Bob gets over it pretty fast too) because she and Ike start making out again. These two are shameless! Then we get this ridiculous moment where Ike suggests to Maggie that since she already has the dress, the church, and the wedding date, she may as well just marry him. This guy certainly has some nerve, doesn't he? He tells her, "You do have to go down the aisle with somebody that you love and who loves you back." Ugh, barf. No, Maggie does not have to go down the aisle if she's not ready to get married! Especially to some guy she's only known a week? Maybe a week and a half at best. So stupid and ridiculous. But she agrees to get married to him in two days. 

When the big day arrives, it's covered by the media. One of the reporters says, "Maggie Carpenter, always a bride, never a bridesmaid" which made me laugh. But, seriously, does the country really care about some random small town woman's wedding? No, no they do not. 

The ceremony is probably only an hour away and while Peggy and her cousin are in their bridesmaid dresses, Maggie is only wearing her veil and her her jeans and flannel shirt on. Hmm, something tells me she doesn't want to get married. Peggy tells her, "He's the one. He really is the one." Why? Why is he so different than the rest? Because he's Richard Gere and she's Julia Roberts? I really don't get it. 

Ike has invited Ellie and Fisher to the wedding. Ellie whispers to him, "I have a car waiting out back for you in case she decides to run." Hmmm, did she jinx him? Remember how I said we'll see that Bob gets over his fiancee dumping him for another man pretty fast? Well, he actually comes to the wedding! Yes, he comes to the wedding that was supposed to be his. That seems weird, no? But, no, he's perfectly fine and even gives Ike a flower to wear on his lapel and gives Ike the advice to "maintain eye contact." Have I mentioned how stupid and unrealistic this movie is? 

 

Okay, so I did laugh when the ceremony is about to start and Maggie tells her bridesmaids not to saunter down the aisle: "Just make time, just get there, just go." And they show the two women walk really fast down the aisle. That was actually pretty funny. 

Then Maggie walks down the aisle and we see a reporter nearby, whispering into his mic. How did a reporter get into the church? At one point, Maggie pauses and everyone gasps and worries, but she just flashes her iconic Julia Roberts smile and continues down and everyone is relieved and laughs. Her dad takes a photo from the front pew and the flash blinds Ike who blinks and loses eye contact. This makes Maggie panic and she backs away and flees outside where she jumps onto a Fed-Ex truck. Ellie and Fisher watch as Ike runs after her. Ellie asks, "Where do you think she's going?" Fisher replies, "Wherever it is, she'll be there by 10:30 tomorrow." I'm sure Fed Ex loved the publicity. To give her credit, Maggie does look guilty as the truck drives her away.

While watching this, I wondered why they made Maggie work at a hardware store because that's so unlikely for a woman in a romcom to work. When a random citizen of Hale reads outloud the headline in the paper the next day, I think they chose this profession for her just to have this punny joke: "Hardware Honey Goes Nuts and Bolts." You know someone was proud when they came up with that. In fact, I bet they came up with that first, then decided to make her work at a hardware store. 

The summer of '99 must have been a really slow time for the news because this story is on the FRONT PAGE (yes, the FRONT PAGE) of USA Today with the headline, "Maggie's Mad Dash." I'm sorry, but WTF? Why would this make the FRONT PAGE of USA Today? Is that not the stupidest thing you've ever heard? 

A couple months later (I'm not really sure how much time has passed, actually) Maggie talks to Ike about why she runs away from things. She tells him, "When I was walking down the aisle, I was walking toward somebody who had no idea who I really was. And it was only half the other person's fault because I had done everything to convince him that I was exactly what he wanted. So it was good that I didn't go through with it because it would've been a lie. But you knew the real me." She says she didn't know the real her. Before this scene and after the scene where she runs from the wedding, we see a montage of her "finding herself" (I guess). This includes trying different cooked eggs. While talking to her exes, Ike had discovered that they all told him Maggie's favorite kind of eggs were the same way they liked their eggs. And of course we saw Maggie tell Gill she would get a matching tattoo with him (even though hers was fake) and told Bob she would go mountain climbing with him (I wonder how long she would have gone on with the trip before she told him she couldn't climb a freaking mountain?) So apparently she was just making herself into something she wasn't so these guys would like her? Maybe subconsciously she did this because she was worried about her dad and didn't want to leave him? Maybe she just likes the attention and didn't want to be with the same guy? To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure why she ran away from so many relationships and why she did it at the last moment. I mean, it's fine if you don't want to marry someone, but maybe figure that out before the day of the wedding.

I have to complain about the scene where we see Maggie trying all the different eggs. This is one of the stupidest scenes (and there are so many!) because we see a big table with about ten plates that each hold different types of cooked eggs - poached, fried, sunny side up, scrambled, omelette - you name it. Okay, real talk here - if you wanted to see what kind of cooked egg was your favorite, you would realistically cook an egg one way, eat it, then cook the next egg and so on and so forth. Or you would go to a breakfast restaurant (like Le Peep! I don't think that's a chain, but it's this awesome place near where I live that serves breakfast. My mom always orders the Hen Pen) for a week and just order your eggs cooked differently every day. You don't cook all the eggs at once! They're going to get cold and nasty! Anyway, if you're dying to know (because I know you are), Maggie's favorite is eggs Benedict and she hates all other kinds of eggs. She also reveals she hates big weddings "because everyone is staring." WHAT? Then why did she have four of them? She tells Ike, "I'd like to get married on a weekday while everybody's at work." Again, why did she have so many weddings with so many invitees? I'm so confused. 

 

Maggie then proposes to Ike and they get married outdoors on a hill top (it was very beautiful) and once the nuptials have been read we see a few of their friends and family appear and everyone is happy Maggie has finally tied the knot. I bet it even made the national news. 

The movie credits end with Mark Anthony singing "You Sang to Me" which is a song I forgot existed, but I totally love.

They should have just made Pretty Woman 2. Big mistake. HUGE. 

You've Got Mail

Sleepless in Seattle

Director: Nora Ephron

Cast: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Bill Pullman, Rosie O'Donnell, Rita Wilson, Victor Garber, Rob Reiner, Gaby Hoffmann

Released: June 25, 1993

Oscar nominations: 

Best Original Screenplay - Nora Ephron, David S. Ward, and Jeff Arch (lost to Jane Campion for The Piano) 

Best Song - Marc Shaiman and Ramsay McLean for "A Wink and a Smile" (lost to "Streets of Philadelphia" by Bruce Springsteen for Philadelphia)

The only thing I remembered about this movie is the end where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan meet at the Empire State Building. Ironically, for a movie called Sleepless in Seattle, I only remember the part that took place in New York. I was also trying to remember if Meg Ryan's character lived in Seattle (I knew Tom Hanks's character did), but then I realized that if they both lived in the same city, it wouldn't make any sense for them to meet in New York! 

This movie starts in Chicago at the funeral of the wife of Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks). So right off the bat they want you to know he is now single. He decides he needs a change of scenery so he decides to move to Seattle with his eight-year-old son, Jonah. They don't really specify why he chooses to move to Seattle. He doesn't have any family there or likes the rain or says he got a job there, just seemed to randomly pick it. He and his son move into a house boat where he keeps a roll up map of the United State in the kitchen which he uses to teach his son geography. He gets a job as an architect and makes a friend named Jay (Rob Reiner) who teaches him about dating in the '90s. 

All the way on the other side of the country we meet Annie Reed (Meg Ryan), who lives in Baltimore and is engaged to Walter (Bill Pullman), a man the audience isn't supposed to like because he makes dopey jokes and is allergic to everything so he's always sneezing and blowing his nose. Yeah, not the most attractive, but despite his flaws he seems like a relatively nice guy. It's Christmas Eve and not only is Annie bringing Walter to meet her parents and family for the first time ever, but she also announces they're getting married. Does anyone else find this a bit odd that the family hadn't even met this guy while they were dating? We learn that Annie and Walter met at a sandwich shop when they both ordered a tomato and lettuce sandwich (why not just order a salad with a slice of bread?) and one of them had it on white and the other had it on wheat, but their orders got mixed up. Annie's mom gets out the wedding dress that her mom wore at her wedding because Annie wants to wear it and I'm thinking, girl, really? You really want to wear this very old fashioned and matronly dress to your wedding? Not only does it have long sleeves and a neckline that could almost be a turtleneck, but it looks like the top is a different material from the skirt. This moment is played as very sincere so it's not like we're supposed to laugh and feel bad for Annie in this hideous dress, but man, that dress is awful! Also, if I'm getting married, I want to wear my own NEW dress, I don't want to wear my mom's or grandmother's wedding dress. If they have a piece of jewelry for me, that's fine, but not the actual dress. I feel like this is a big troupe in movies, but it makes me wonder if this thing happens a lot in real life. 

After dinner, Annie and Walter leave and for some reason they're driving separate cars. There's really no reason for this except that the movie wants Annie to be listening to a Delilah-esque radio show called "You and Your Emotions" alone. The host is a woman named Dr. Marsha Fieldstone and the topic tonight is "Wishes and Dreams". Annie gets sucked into the show when Jonah calls in from Seattle and tells the host his wish is for his dad to have a new wife. He explains that his mom died and his dad has been very sad and hasn't been sleeping well which gives him the moniker "Sleepless in Seattle" (and the title of this movie, would you look at that!) Dr. Marsha Fieldstone wants to talk to Jonah's dad so he gets him. I'm honestly surprised that Sam didn't hang up the phone because that's what I would have done. Then I would have a very long talk with my child about calling national radio shows and airing my personal business for the whole country to hear! But Sam talks to her and he catches the attention of many women (including Annie) across the country as he talks about how in love he was with his wife, Maggie. He says when he took her hand to help her out of the car, "It was like coming home; only to no home I'd ever know." He also says it was like "magic" and Annie says that word at the same time, so this is supposed to tell the audience that Annie and Sam are meant to be. We'll see other instances of them where they're supposed to be meant for each other sprinkled in the movie. One example is when we see Annie peeling an apple with a knife in one long strip (I would be too scared to do that in fear that I would cut myself!) and in a later scene Sam will tell Jonah that his mother could "peel an apple in one long, curly strip."

The story goes viral (or whatever the equivalent of viral was in 1993) and Sam starts getting stacks of letters from admirers around the country. Apparently two thousand women have asked for his number. In the grand scheme, of things, 2000 is really just a drop in the bucket when it comes to the female population of the United Sates between 25-45 (my guess of the age range of the women who were writing him) in 1993, but on the other hand, 2000 letters is a lot for one guy to get. 

Jonah tells his dad that he gave out his address (um, that seems extremely dangerous...they could have some unstable woman stalking them (and in a way, they kinda do!)) and Sam (rightfully) asks, "What possessed you to give them our address?" Jonah says they called and asked for it. Sam asks how did they get their number and Jonah replies that you have to give your number to the radio show or they won't let you on the air. Okay, I need to unpack a few things here because I am a bit confused and if I missed something and somebody could clear this up for me, that would be great! I've never called in to a radio show so I don't know if you have to give them your number, but I guess it makes sense if your call becomes disconnected, or maybe it was just a plot device for this movie. I am shocked that the radio show gave out his number when women called asking for it. I feel like there's some law against that? Like a privacy law? I feel like Sam could have a lawsuit against this radio show and sue them for millions. Also, since these women already have his number, why are they calling just to ask for his address (I also find it amazing that Sam never picks up the phone when all these women have called; he must be a workaholic or something); why didn't they just ask to talk to Sam since they already have his number? I don't know; maybe I'm reading too much into this. I feel like there could have been a better way for this to be handled. 

Even though these women know that his name is Sam, all the letters begin with "Dear Sleepless in Seattle". Jonah helps his dad goes though the letters and one of them writes, "You're the most attractive man I've ever laid ears on" to which he rolls his eyes and throws the letter back. Yep, that would be my reaction as well! 

Back in Baltimore, where Annie works as a writer for The Baltimore Sun (presumably she writes fluff pieces) the "Sleepless in Seattle" story is getting a lot of attention. There's this weird line/"joke" where a couple of Annie's male colleagues are telling her that they heard a statistic that it's more likely for a woman to get killed in a terrorist attack than get married over the age of 40. This line was written as a joke (a bad one at that) and wasn't an actual fact, right? Because no way that is correct. I don't know anyone who's ever been killed in a terrorist attack. I know a lot of people who are married and while I don't know how old all of them were they wed, I'm sure there's at least one person who was over 40, so already that statistic is bullish*t. I did a bit of research and found that this was actually a statistic printed in a 1986 issue of Newsweek (and obviously not accurate...where do they even get the data to back that up?) and Nora Ephron was calling out how stupid it was. She probably should have just kept it out of the movie.

Annie and Walter make plans to meet in New York for Valentine's Day because he's going to be in Boston for a few days before the 14th. Annie has a friend named Becky (Rosie O'Donnell) who I think is her editor. Becky is not a fan of Walter and Annie keeps trying to tell her that Walter is a perfectly nice guy but even she has trouble convincing herself of that. Annie decides that she's going to write a letter to Sam and types one up on her typewriter (yes, typewriter; it wasn't even an electric one!) while she and Becky are watching An Affair to Remember. That movie plays a big role in this movie. I didn't even remember the name of it until Rita Wilson's character (who plays Sam's sister...kinda weird that a husband and wife are playing siblings, but I guess it would be way weirder if it were the other way around) mentions it. It seems all the female characters go gaga over this movie which I hated because it was such a stereotype that all women love mushy romantic movies. I've never seen An Affair to Remember, but from the few scenes they show of it here, it does not look like my cup of tea. It just looks boring. In another scene we'll see Sam's sister explaining the plot of the movie to Sam and her husband (Victor Garber) and ends up CRYING while she's talking about it. It's a great performance from Rita Wilson, but honestly, who has ever cried while explaining the plot of a movie? We will also see another scene of Jonah's little girlfriend, Jessica (Gaby Hoffmann) who is watching it and crying, declaring, "This is the best movie I've ever seen!" No, I'm sorry. No way an eight/nine-year-old child is going to say some old time-y romance movie from 1957 is the best movie they've ever seen. Not when Home Alone and Aladdin and The Mighty Ducks are most likely in her video rotation. Also she'll be changing her tune when she goes sees Jurassic Park that summer! I hated the whole An Affair to Remember subplot.

So Annie and Becky are watching the movie and they can both recite all the lines and Annie is swooning over the romance between Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. Becky says the most meta line of the film: "You don't want to be in love, you want to be in love in a movie." I laughed when Annie reads the start of her letter to Becky: "Dear Sleepless and son, I have never written a letter like this in my life" and Becky replies, "That's what everyone writes at the beginning of letters to strangers." She also asks her, "What about Walter?" and Annie dreamily says, "I would give anything to marry Walter." Okay, so then why are you writing to this man you've never met or seen that lives three thousand miles away? Annie's reasoning is, "What if this man is my destiny and I never meet him?" Sometimes I was very confused about what Annie wanted. There's a scene in An Affair to Remember where the two leads meet at the Empire State Building and Becky tells her to write that she wants to meet him there on Valentine's Day. Annie thinks this is a great idea because she'll already be in New York with Walter that day and she'll be able to squeeze in it. Then she realizes what she just said and crumbles up the letter so at least she had that much sense.

Can we just pause here for a moment and talk about this letter from Sam's perspective. You get this letter from a woman who's asking you to fly all the way from Seattle to New York to meet her at a very crowded touristy spot. Um, I'm sorry, but I'm not paying however much it cost to fly from one end of the country to the other in 1993, plus the cost of admission to go up the ESB. Not to mention that a flight from Seattle to New York is a little over five hours long and I'm guessing that's not counting layovers, though I suppose there's probably continuous flights between both cities, but that's not the point. If I'm Sam, no way I'm flying all the way across the country to meet some random woman; I don't care how much she talks about "fate" and "magic". If she wants to meet me so much, then she should come to Seattle and if she wants to meet at a touristy destination with tons of people around, then meet me at the Space Needle. Or better yet, why not a coffee shop? I'm willing to bet there's at least ten within five minutes of Sam's home! But like I said, Annie tosses the letter to the side and Sam never receives it...or does he...? 

Sam starts dating a woman he works with named Victoria. The audience isn't supposed to like her because she "laughs like a hyena" (Jonah's words) and while she does have an annoying laugh, I found it more annoying that she seemed to find everything that Sam said hilarious funny even though it wasn't, so I guess the movie did a good job of making me think she was annoying. Other than that, she seemed like a perfectly nice woman. I guess since she and Walter are in the way of Annie and Sam finding true love with each other, we're supposed to root against them. Jonah is especially a little brat towards her and she is doing her best to be nice to him. There's a moment when he's spying on them when they come home after a date and are standing outside on the deck. Jonah calls Dr. Marsha Fieldstone's radio show to give her (and the entire country) a blow by blow of what's going on. He then screams bloody murder when he sees them kiss and calls Victoria a "ho". Seriously, kid? Also, if this were my kid, he would be grounded until he went to college. Sam is a pretty chill dad as his kid doesn't seem to have any discipline. I guess his wife took care of that. Becky calls Annie to turn on the radio and once again she gets very invested in the story and wants to know who Sam is kissing. 

Annie pretty much turns into a full on stalker when she tries to get information about Sam under the guise she's wring a piece about call in radio shows and another piece on how people handle bereavement. This gets her Sam's number (why didn't she just call the radio show since they were handing out his number like free candy?) and she calls his number where she gets a message from the machine where she learns his last name. She uses this information to look him up on an extremely archaic computer on an extremely archaic database called Nexus City News Bureau. Under "Enter Your Request", she types, "Find Samuel Baldwin" and gets 216 matches. Three things here: First, there's only 216 Samuel Baldwins in the entire United States of America? That's seems quite low; maybe Baldwin is a rare surname? The only Baldwins I'm aware of are Alec, Billy Stephen, and is there another Baldwin brother? Second, doesn't she already have Sam's address? Wasn't she going to send a letter to him before she decided not to? Wouldn't it just be easier to cross reference him with his address? Am I missing something here? Also, for a newspaper writer, Annie is an extremely SLOW typer. I swear, it takes her 30 seconds just to type "Samuel Baldwin".  She does narrow the search to include Jonah's name and gets four matches. From there, she's able to deduce that her Sam is an architect (so I guess there's that new fact she's learning). She sends a fax to a detective agency in Seattle asking for a background check along with a photo on Sam. Okay. I get the background check. You want to make sure the guy you're stalking isn't some crazy maniac, cuz, god forbid! But why does she need a photo? Remember, this pre-dates social media so she can't just look him up online, but the way she gets the photo is so weird and almost invading on Sam' privacy.

Let me lead into how his photo is obtained....Sam is getting ready to go on a date with Victoria (and this is the same date that ends with both of them on the dock and Jonah screaming when he sees them kissing) and Jonah is opening fan mail for his dad. There's one letter that's addressed to both him and his dad so he opens it and surprise, surprise, it's Annie's letter. Turns out Becky sent it. Jonah reads it and thinks it's the most amazing letter and this Annie woman is the woman for his dad. He wants his dad to read it, but Sam's in a hurry so he only reads part of it. Jonah thinks it's a sign because Annie talks about baseball and declares "Brooks Robinson was the best third baseman ever" and Sam also thinks that. So I had to look up who Brooks Robinson was and he played for the Baltimore Orioles in the '60s. Sam dismisses this and says that everyone think he was great. Yeah, I have a hard time believing that just because they like the same baseball player means they're meant for each other. Also, Annie is from Baltimore so of course she's going to like a ball player that played for her city. They don't give any other examples from the letter of why they're meant to be which means the writers of the movie couldn't think of any legitimate reason why these two are meant for each other aside from the fact that it's Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. So while Sam is having dinner with Victoria at the restaurant, the waiter comes by to tell Sam that he has a phone call. Young people, this is what happened before cell phones. You had to use a pay phone or the restaurant's phone to call someone. Turns out it's Jonah who asks his dad if they can go to New York on Valentine's Day because Annie wants to meet them there. Once again, Sam is pretty chill. He's annoyed that his son called him for basically nothing (like he couldn't wait to ask him this later?) I would have yelled at him for calling me during a date for a non-emergency. So this is when the photo of Sam is taken. A man who is on the second level of the restaurant with an extremely LOUD camera that makes whirring noises as he focuses the lens on his subject, then proceeds to make more LOUD sounds as he clicks the camera several times to snap a few photos. He's totally inconspicuous. Yes, that was sarcasm. 

Annie flies to Seattle because she wants to do a story on radio shows (not specifically Sam's story, but radio shows in general), but let's face it: she's going to Seattle to do some stalking, I mean sleuthing. A huge warning bell that she knows what she's doing is wrong is that she lies to Walter and tells him she's going to Chicago. The funniest part of the movie is when she's on the plane and the woman next to her asks, "Don't you just hate flying?" and Annie replies, Yes, I do. And I just told the most terrible one to the man I'm about to marry. Do you feel that any lie is a betrayal?" The woman just looks at her and says, "I said flying." 

It just so happens that Sam and Jonah are at Sea-Tac to see off Victoria who's going...somewhere for....something. I knew that as people started to stream off from a flight that just got in, that Annie was going to be one of those people, and what do you know, I was right! Shocker, I know! Annie doesn't see him, but Sam notices her and he's instantly attracted to her and starts following her, but quickly loses her in the crowd. Jonah tells him that Jessica believes that he [Sam] knew Annie in another life. He asks who Annie is which is quite ironic since he was just following her. I did laugh when Jonah says he knows this stuff because he's "younger and more pure so he's more in touch with cosmic forces." Of course that is what Jessica told him. 

Annie goes to Sam's address and sees them on a small boat in the water, so she jumps back in her car and watches them as she drives across a bridge and she's literally turning her head back so she's not watching for traffic. Lucky for her, there doesn't seem to be too many cars out wherever she is. She then proceeds to hide behind a small general store as she peeks out and watches the father and son play on the beach. She is being such a creeper! It was at this point that I knew there had to be a trailer cut of this movie as a horror/thriller film and I was right. She even tells Becky, "I watched them play on the beach" when she returns to Baltimore. If that doesn't scream stalker-ish, I don't know what does.

There is a moment when Annie is about to cross a busy street to talk to Sam who's at a parking lot of a marina and right before she has the nerve to do so, a woman who she thinks is Sam's girlfriend comes into view and hugs Sam and Jonah. Turns out it's just Sam's sister, Suzy, who is visiting from Chicago, but Annie doesn't know that. She does get the attention of Sam when a truck honks its horn at her because she standing in the middle of a busy street like an idiot. They lock eyes and have a moment as they say "hello" to each other. Then the next scene is her back in Baltimore telling Becky what happened. She claims she just got back in her car and left. Remember this scene because I'm going to come back to it later.

So the young kids have written a letter to Annie pretending to be Jonah's dad and Annie soon receives the letter. This is when she learns that Becky sent her original letter. The letter reads, "Dear Annie, Thanks for the letter. It was great. You sound neat. We're very excited about meeting you in New York on Valentine's Day and seeing if we're MFEO. See you soon." Ha, I can only imagine how Annie, a writer, felt about receiving such an immature letter from a man she feels a connection to. I have to say that Jessica is ahead of her time. She was into using acronyms way before texting was even a commonplace thing. I don't think I've ever come across MFEO but right away I knew it stood for "made for each other". Sometimes her acronyms didn't work so well, like she she meets Jonah's dad for the first time and snottily says, "H and G", then has to clarify that it stands for "hi and goodbye". Honey, if you have to explain your acronyms, then, IDK, maybe don't use them? 

Jonah is still pestering his dad about going to New York to meet Annie, but Sam is not going to fly across the country to meet some woman he doesn't even know. Understandable. I did get a laugh when he asks Jonah if he saw Fatal Attraction and Jonah replies "You wouldn't let me!" as if he legitimately did want to see it. Glad that Sam put his foot down on that one; not an appropriate movie for an eight-year-old! 

Jonah and Jessica decide to take matters in their own hands. Since Jessica's parents are travel agents, she uses their database to book Jonah a flight to New York on the 14th. Turns out February 14, 1993 was on a Sunday so at least he wasn't missing any school! They pool their money (a little over $100) to pay for the flight, taxi fare, and ticket to go up the Empire State Building. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be enough to pay for all of those even in 1993 currency, so I'm not really sure where they got the rest of the money to pay for all of that. I'm guessing Jessica stole one of her parents' credit cards. She puts down that Jonah is twelve so he won't have to have a chaperone. For some reason, even without Jonah's documentation, she is able to book him a flight which seems a little insane. They really kind of gloss over this. Look, I know that just a few months earlier the same plot line was in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York when Macaulay Culkin flies to New York by himself. But in defense of Kevin McCallister (I can't believe I'm saying this), it wan't his fault that he went to New York. It was an ACCIDENT. He wasn't purposely booking tickets to go to New York and deceiving his father. He just got separated from his dad at the airport and followed some random dude who he thought was his dad onto the wrong plane. And he ran into the woman taking boarding passes and everything got mixed up. It could happen to anyone! Also, the Home Alone movies are almost set in a fantasy world (if you can survive several bricks hitting you on the head, you're not in a realistic movie!) and Kevin McCallister can get away with surviving the streets of New York by himself. Jonah does not process the street smarts that Kevin has and Sleepless in Seattle seems to be set in a more realistic world than Home Alone 2. What I'm saying is that I find this entire subplot extremely absurd. How did Jonah even get to the airport? We just see Jessica buying him a ticket, then the next thing you know he's on a plane Also, NOBODY, NOT ONE SINGLE ADULT, seems to be concerned that this young boy is by himself in New f**king York. I've been to New York. It's a big city. I know, duh. But I cannot imagine being eight-years-old and just getting around by myself. But he's all chipper as he hails a cab to take him to the Empire State Building. The taxi driver asks him what he's going to do there and Jonah replies, "I'm going to meet my new mother." If I were that taxi driver, I would have so many questions, but he just continues to drive. So we see Jonah reach the top and he starts going to every woman in her thirties and asking them if they're Annie. I really feel like this plan was not seen through. First of all, the letters never said a specific TIME to meet. It just said "Valentine's Day". You dummies know there are 24 hours in a day, right? Also, they never specified a certain AREA to meet, just the Empire State Building. Well, I guess they did say at the top, but they still could have been a tad more specific.

Back in Seattle, Sam is ready to go on a little getaway with Victoria. Clarice, the baby-sitter, has just arrived. Sam begins to panic when he can't find Jonah and goes over to Jessica's house where she admits where Jonah is and says he left on the 7:30 flight which is leaving at that moment. Sam books the next flight to New York and he's probably two or three hours behind. 

Meanwhile, in New York, Annie and Walter are having a romantic Valentine's dinner at the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Plaza with a view of the Empire State Building that has a huge red heart hologram projected on it. Off screen, Annie tells Walter about Sam and when they come back to them he pretty much tells Annie he needs to go find him. He is taking this break up extremely well which makes me think he wanted to break up with her all along and is relieved that she did it for him. So she decides to mosey on over to the ESB to meet her new future husband and stepson. 

While this is going on, Sam has found Jonah. The ESB is closing so they get on the elevator to go back down. While THAT is going on, Annie is trying to convince the man selling tickets to let her up even though he tells her the building is closed. She mentions An Affair to Remember and the man tells her that's his wife's favorite movie, because of course it is. Because every female in this movie has to love that movie. Just as Sam and Jonah are going down the elevator, Annie is on the other one, getting off at the top. There's clearly no one there, but she asks to look around and finds an abandoned backpack. Now in these days, a bomb squad would be called if such a thing was found at the ESB, but she just goes over and picks it up and finds a teddy bear inside. Of course it belongs to Jonah and he and Sam come back up to retrieve it and that's when everyone is finally united (or re-united?) Annie and Sam take each other's hands and keep looking at each other in this extremely awkward way as they make their way back to the elevator. The movie ends as we assume they're about to start their new life together. 

Did you know that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan share less than two minutes of screen time together in this? That is insane, but it makes sense since they're only together at the end and for a few seconds when she's in Seattle. I mentioned before that I do not like An Affair to Remember being a big plot device of this movie. I also don't like New York being the big set piece for the ending. The movie is called Sleepless in Seattle; maybe utilize the city that's in the title of your movie. If Nora Ephron wanted New York to be a part of this movie, she should have set it there and named it Not Napping in New York; though that doesn't have the same ring to it. 

Remember I told you to remember the scene where Annie and Sam see each across the street in Seattle? Well, when that happens, there's 30 minutes of the movie left. Instead of Annie flying back to Baltimore, this is where I would have had them meet. Get rid of Suzy in this scene and maybe have Sam save Annie from an oncoming truck. Here they can begin their romance and we can have a cute montage of them falling in love in Seattle. Maybe we see them sharing a kiss at the top of the Space Needle! Maybe we see Annie almost getting hit in the head with a flying fish at Pike Place Market! Maybe we see them get caught in the rain without an umbrella! Maybe we see them go to ten different coffee shops in one day! Maybe they hold hands as they walk through Pioneer Square! Maybe they go whale watching! Maybe they take a ferry boat to Roche Harbor for a romantic weekend! Maybe they go fishing off his house boat deck! Maybe we see Sam give geography lessons to Annie too! The possibilities are endless! And we can still have some drama. Maybe Annie admits to Sam that she hired a detective to look into him and he becomes angry. Maybe Annie has to figure out how to break it off with Walter. Maybe they have a fight over where they're going to live, Seattle or Baltimore. I mean, I think the choice is pretty obvious. I've been to both Seattle and Baltimore more than once and as much I liked Baltimore, Seattle is way cooler. Then, at the end of the movie, you could either have them getting engaged or even getting married, take your pick. There. Much better movie! You get rid of all the women sobbing over An Affair to Remember and you get rid of the ridiculous plot line of an eight-year-old child flying to New York by himself. And you have Annie and Sam forming a genuine relationship. I am a genius. You're welcome! 

Dashing Through the Mall (of America)

Jingle All the Way

Director: Brian Levant

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rita Wilson, Phil Hartman, Sinbad, Jake Lloyd, Jim Belushi

Released: November 22, 1996

This is a movie I've never actually seen all the way through, but I did know the plot and I had seen plenty of scenes on TV, so I knew the basic plot was that Arnold Schwarzenegger's character, Howard Langston, is trying to get his son the hot action figure toy called Turbo Man for Christmas.

This was not a great movie by any means (in fact, it's pretty bad), but when it gets to the end, it really turns into a steaming pile of crap. But I'll come back to that when we get there. The entire movie is about consumerism and buying your kid's love and affection. It "tries" to teach you a lesson, but I don't think it succeeds. 

The movie quickly establishes that Howard is a workaholic and often misses his son's events. After he misses his son's karate tournament and how upset little Jamie (Jake Lloyd) is, he tells him he will give him anything he wants to make it up to him and Jamie tells him he wants a Turbo Man. (It's like a Power Ranger? I guess?) Jake Lloyd is so bad in this and I'm confused how George Lucas picked him to play young Anakin. Maybe he became a better actor when he made that movie? I would have no idea as I've never seen that movie. But something tells me that's not the case. In Jingle All The Way, most of the time he looks like he's reciting his lines and it is not natural at all. I know he was only seven or so, but there are better six year old actors out there! He is just atrocious. Luckily he's not in the movie too much. 

Howard goes to pick up the toy the next day, which happens to be Christmas Eve and this upsets his wife, Liz (Rita Wilson, that he's going out, but Howard promises her and his son that he will make it to the Christmas parade. He goes to a toy store that hasn't quite opened yet and there are a bunch of people also waiting to get in. He meets a postal worker, Myron. He's played by Sinbad and is not funny at all, but he's trying to be. All he does it rant about nonsensical things. He's also trying to get a Turbo Man for his kid. When the store opens, everyone rushes in and tramples over a store employee like it's Black Friday. The shelves where Turbo Man is supposed to be are all empty. The only toy they have is Booster, who is Turbo's pet tiger and apparently nobody wants that toy. Howard asks an employee if they have any more Turbo Man dolls and the guy just laughs in his face and basically says, "Good luck finding one on Christmas Eve!" I guess Howard or Myron didn't realize they were looking for the Tickle Me Elmo of that year. (Ironically, Tickle Me Elmo was THE hot toy of 1996). And if you didn't know what year this movie takes place in, Arnold wears an Atlanta 1996 shirt.

We get a montage of Howard going to a bunch of shops looking for the Turbo Man, but coming up short. This movie takes place in Minneapolis and I was thinking, Why doesn't he just go to the Mall of America? Which he eventually does. I guess I can't blame him for avoiding it as long as he could because the Mall of America is the last place you want to go to on Christmas Eve, or anytime near Christmas for that matter. I've been to Minneapolis and the Mall of America a few times so it was cool seeing familiar sites. At a toy store in the MoA, there is one Turbo Man left and there will be a lottery to determine who gets it. (And they will be paying double the original price!) Each person will get a rubber bouncy ball with a number on it and whichever number is called is the winner. The only problem is, there are more people than there are numbered balls so an employee just tosses them up in the air and it's every man for himself. Myron also happens to be there (he and Howard keep running into each other) and the two of them fight over a ball. Howard chases it through the mall where it goes through Legoland (I've been there!) and it bounces down and lands in a kid's stroller (and this kid looked way too old to be in a stroller) and she takes it with her through an indoor playground and ends up in a ball pit. Howard follows her through all the obstacles. They had to have build a bigger one for Arnold because there is no way Arnold friggin' Schwarzenegger could have fit through those! I have been on those kiddie playthings with my nieces and I have trouble fitting through those and I am no six foot tall bodybuilder! The kid puts it in her mouth (eww) and Howard is beat up by a bunch of mothers who call him a pervert. Yeah, the movie went there! 

He gives up on getting the ball back (it's not like his number would have been called anyway) and comes across a mall Santa played by Jim Belushi. He tells him he knows where he can get a Turbo Man and takes him to a warehouse with a bunch of Santas. I guess they sell toys on the black market? I wasn't really sure what was going on there. But it was definitely illegal!  He tells Howard it will cost him $300 and stupidly Howard gives him the money before inspecting the item, which is wrapped, and "Santa" tells him not to open it right away. Like that doesn't sound shady. It turns out the toy is a cheap knockoff and the doll's appendages fall apart as soon as Howard touches them and the voicebox is in Spanish. Howard and all the Santas get into a fight which includes a large candy cane prop Howard uses to knock a bunch of Santas out at the same time and candy cane nunchucks used by one of the Santas. The police arrive and Howard uses a fake toy badge to tell them he's an undercover cop and manages to escape. He never did get his $300 back, though. 

The great, late Phil Hartman plays Ted, the Langston's neighbor who is always trying to one up Howard. Ted is divorced and has his eye on Liz. He's the kind of dad who has already bought his son a Turbo Man way in advance and has it wrapped under the tree already and he also brings a reindeer to his house for all the neighborhood kids to pet. He goes over to the Langston's house where Liz is baking cookie and tells her to take a nice bubble bath and he can finish baking the cookies while he watches the kids, playing in the next room. I did laugh how he's being very pleasant when she's around, but as soon as she's upstairs, he yells at the kids, "PIPE DOWN IN THERE!" Howard calls from a pay phone during this time and is not happy that Ted is over at his house while his wife is in the shower. He's also not happy that Ted is eating Christmas cookies as he tells him, "Put down the cookie!" 

The whole conversation enrages Howard and he is reminded what Ted told him (very smugly) about already having bought a Turbo Man for his son and decides to steal it. He goes inside Ted's house while everyone is outside fawning over the reindeer. Just as he's about to leave, he feels guilty about what he's done and knows he can't take another kid's toy, so he goes to put it back, but somehow he ends up starting a fire in the house and the reindeer attacks him. (Don't ask). The fire is put out, but Liz and Ted find out what he tried to do and both are disgusted with him. Howard goes to Mickey's Diner, (the same diner where Charlie Conway's mom worked in The Mighty Ducks if I recall right!) and guess who he runs into again? Yep, Myron. They hear the DJ announce that the first person to call in and can correctly tell him the names of Santa's reindeer will win a Turbo Man. They both race to the diner's pay phone (remember, this was 1996!), but Myron ends up ripping the cord from the phone and somehow they're both trying to call the radio station...did they not notice the phone was no longer connected? The diner owner tells them the radio station isn't that far from where they are so they both race there and start spewing the names of reindeer while the DJ (Martin Mull) thinks they're both crazy. And he's not wrong because Myron gives him a parcel and tells him it's a bomb and he's not leaving without the doll. The DJ tells him he doesn't have the toy at the station and I thought he was going to tell them they had to go to another location to get it, but instead he just has a gift certificate for the toy which doesn't make any sense because how is that even relevant if the damn toy is sold out everywhere anyway? 

The police are called and there's a running joke throughout the movie where Howard keeps running into the same police officer (played by Robert Conrad) at least four or five times. I found that a little hard to believe seeing that Minneapolis is quite a big city and, really, what are the odds of that? Pretty slim, I'd say. Howard and Myron are able to escape because Myron tosses another parcel to them and tells them it's a bomb. The parcel he gave to the DJ wasn't a bomb, but it turns out this one was so the movie turns pretty dark when we see an explosion. However, the police officer just has some torn clothes and soot on his face. Must have been a pretty weak bomb. 

The parade is about to start and Liz and Ted have just arrived there with their kids. Little Jamie is looking around for his dad, but doesn't seem him. Meanwhile, Howard is also at the parade and is grabbed by someone who mistakenly thinks he's covering for the guy who was supposed to be Turbo Man in the parade but couldn't make it. This is where the movie just turns into a pile of reindeer poo. As Turbo Man, Howard is suppose to pick "one lucky kid" who will come up on the float with him and win a "special edition" Turbo Man toy. I was listening to a podcast review of this movie and one of the hosts said they thought he was going to see Myron in the parade with his son and would have a change of heart and choose Myron's son. But that doesn't happen. In fact, we never actually see Myron's son in this movie. Instead, Howard obviously chooses his son and when he says his son's name, Jamie is sooo amazed that "Turbo Man" knows his name. I mean, how stupid is this kid? He can't tell that's his dad? His dad has an Austrian accent and this Turbo Man has an Austrian accent! His dad has a prominent square jaw and this Turbo Man has a prominent square jaw! This Turbo Man also happens to be the exact height and has the exact same muscle mass of his dad. And he's not even wearing a mask; only his eyes are covered by goggles. Seriously, this kid couldn't figure that out? Uh-huh. So Jamie gets his super duper extra special Turbo Man doll, but Myron, somehow dressed as Turbo Man's arch nemesis, Dementor gets into a fight with Howard as Turbo Man and starts chasing Jamie, who has stuck the doll into his backpack, up a building. This Turbo Man costume seems very dangerous. It has blades in the wrists which he shoots at Myron/Dementor. There's also a freaking jet pack (how did they even afford that?) which takes him way up in the sky and he goes all over the city and crashes through one side of a family's apartment and out the other....I sure hope they sued the ass out of the parade people for making such a dangerous costume that ruined their home! The special effects, as you man have guessed, are just awful and look cartoony and fake. Howard rescues Jamie when he sees his son dangling from a building and flies to him as he slips off and catches him. 

Everyone cheers when they both safely land and Liz comes up to them. I thought for sure that she would notice that was her husband, but no, apparently she's as stupid as her son because when "Turbo Man" reveals himself to be their father/husband, she is as shocked and surprised as her son is. Really, movie? Little Jamie has a change of heart as the police have arrested Myron for pretty much everything he's done that day and lets him have the toy to give to his son. And yes, you could say that was a very sweet and generous thing to do, but when Howard asks him why he gave away a toy he wanted so badly, Jamie tells him, "Why do I need a toy when I have the REAL Turbo Man at home?" So basically the only reason he gave him the toy was because he had a bigger, better, LIVE Turbo Man and he would have held on to it if his dad had never been Turbo Man. What a spoiled little punk. Also, he's going to be in for a world of hurt when he realizes that this will be the only time his dad will ever be Turbo Man and will most likely go back to his workaholic ways.