Love Stories

Valentine's Day

Director: Garry Marshall

Cast: Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner, Julia Roberts, Jamie Foxx, Anne Hathaway, Hector Elizondo, Shirley McClaine, and a million other people

Released: February 10, 2010

When I start watching a movie, the first thing I usually do is check to see how long it is and this one is a little over two hours. At first, I was surprised (and a little annoyed, ha!) because why would some romcom be over two hours long, but then I remembered that half of Hollywood is in this movie and there are a billion little storylines, so that quickly explained that. 

I feel like Garry Marshall watched Love, Actually (which would have come out 7 years prior) and wanted to do that except have it set in L.A on Valentine's Day. There's even a plot line that's sorta similar to one in Love, Actually, but I'll explain more when I get there. 

It's clear Garry picked up the phone to call many of his favorite people to work with: Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride, Anne Hathaway from The Princess Diaries, Hector Elizondo from pretty much everything he's directed, and Patrick Dempsey and Eric Dane from the one episode of Grey's Anatomy he directed. Just kidding. He never directed an episode of Grey's Anatomy, but I did have to double check to see if he did or not since two actors from that show are in this movie!  

As you can imagine, some of the storylines collide with each other. There are at least two, maybe three (hell, perhaps even four) storylines that could have easily been cut and it wouldn't have affected the movie at all, but I'll tell you about those later. 

It's Valentine's Day morning and Reed (Ashton Kutcher) has just proposed to his girlfriend, Morley (Jessica Alba) and she says yes. (By the way, I had to look up pretty much everyone's characters name because I only remembered a couple of their names in the movie!) Reed sells flowers and obviously this is a big day for his business and he's got his friend and co-worker, Alphonso (George Lopez) to help him on this big day. 

Reed is friends with Julia (Jennifer Garner) and she has recently started dating a cardiothoracic surgeon named Dr. Derek Sheperd, oops, I mean Dr. Harrison Copeland (Patrick Dempsey - actually, Dr. Shepard was a neurosurgeon, wasn't he?). Haha, I wonder if they call him Dr. McDreamy at his hospital? Julia is so in love with him and basically has hearts for eyes. Unfortunately, he can't spend the day with her because he has to go to San Francisco for something work related. Later, we'll see him call Julia from his car, telling her he's just gotten to the airport, but in actuality, he's pulling into the driveway of a nice house. My first thought was, OMG! He's married! and not five seconds later we see him take a ring out of his pocket and slide it onto his finger. What a jerk! 

Julia goes to see Reed and she's a little surprised that Morley said yes to his proposal, but is happy for him. When she tells him her new flame will be in San Francisco for the day (so she thinks!), he suggests that she go up there and surprise him. Boy, he's going to regret suggesting that when Dr. Copeland will stop by his flower shop in a few hours to buy two arrangement for his two ladies. Before he gives his credit card to Reed, he asks if he can be discreet about this. He agrees, but then when he recognizes his name on the card, he clarifies that Julia Fitzpatrick is his girlfriend and Pamela Copeland is his wife since she has the same last name as him. 

He's having a huge dilemma of whether he should tell Julia or not that her boyfriend is married. He asks Alphonso what he would do and Alphonso asks him what HE would do if the roles were reversed. Reed knows he needs to tell Julia and he tries to when he delivers the flowers from Harrison to her, but isn't able to. 

Unfortunately, Reed will get hit with his own dose of bad news when he comes home to find Morley packing a suitcase and tells him she is leaving him and can't marry him. I saw this coming a mile away because in an earlier scene he asks why she's not wearing her ring and she tells him she doesn't want people asking a bunch of questions since it's Valentine's Day and that they should keep their engagement secret for now. At the last minute, and I mean at the very last minute, he runs to the airport where Julia is waiting to board a plane. He tells her that Harrison is married, but she thinks this means he used to be married and is still being stubborn. 

We see that Julia did not get on the plane, but instead went to the hospital where Dr. Copeland works and asks a nurse if he's working tonight and she says no. She then asks if he's married and the woman confirms he is and he and his wife just celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary. An older nurse comes over to Julia and whispers to her what restaurant he'll be at tonight and what time. It just so happens that one of Julia's students' (she's an elementary school teacher) dad is a maitre'd at that restaurant (or maybe he owns the place, hell, I don't know), so she is able to pretend to be a waitress for Harrison and his wife. At first, he's not paying attention as he's looking at the menu and talking to his wife as Julia pours them water, but when she announces she'll be their waitress, he chokes on his water. She tells them one of their specials is called "the lying, stinking pig." The wife is not getting the clue and is amused by this special and asks how it's made and Julia goes into gruesome detail (and some fast thinking for being put on the spot; guess she got the training when she was a spy in the CIA, haha) about what the chef does to its scrotum and heart. The wife says she'll go with the salmon, but Harrison stutters that he's not hungry. Surely, the wife had some suspicion. Oh, well, I suppose if she did, she decided to wait until they got home before she went off on him. This scene reminded me of the one in Adventures in Baby-Sitting when Elisabeth Shue sees Bradley Whitford with some girl in a restaurant when he told her he couldn't go out because his sister was sick and when she goes in to confront him she overhears him say to the girl, "Girls like you only come around once in a lifetime" which is a line he told Chris (Elisabeth's character) and she's like, "Or twice in the same night." 

Julia thanks her student's dad and picks up some carry out she's taking to a party and tells him to charge it to her "friend over there." He says he figured and tells her he also added some extra lobster tails and cheesecake, heh.

So now Reed's (one day) fiancee has left him and Julia's boyfriend is married. Guess who gets together? They find out they were meant for each other all along! How sweet! Okay, so that wraps up their storylines (for the most part), who's next? 

Like I said, Julia is an elementary school teacher (fourth or fifth grade) and one of her students is a boy named Edison. His grandparents are Edgar (Hector Elizondo) and Estelle (Shirley McClain). This is the storyline that (sort of) reminded me of Love, Actually when Liam Neeson's son tells him he's in love with a girl in his class. Edison tells his grandfather he wants to send flowers to his Valentine and we see him trying to order a bouquet of roses at Reed's shop even though he doesn't have enough money. I think we're supposed to think he has a crush on this girl in his class, Rani, an Indian girl who's also a good friend of his and they both play soccer together. Another one of their teammates calls her his girlfriend to Edison's face, but he denies it. But when Julia (Ms. Fitzpatrick to her students) is telling her students the history of Valentine's Day, he's the only one paying attention so I knew that he had a crush on his teacher. For some reason, his flowers aren't delivered to the school (probably because he didn't have enough money!), so he has to make it his mission to make sure his Valentine gets her flowers THAT day. He finds out from Rani that she has to work at her family's restaurant that night (and keep in mind this girl is ten) because they're hosting two parties: a wedding reception and an "I Hate Valentine's Day" party that Ms. Fitzpatrick will be attending because her friend Kara is hosting. Okay, let's put a pin in this story (there's not too much left to tell, but I need to introduce some other characters before I wrap it up. This movie's kind of a pain to try to summarize!) 

In a movie about love and Valentine's Day, we at least need one anti-Valentine's Day person and that is Kara (Jessica Biel) who hosts an annual "I Hate Valentine's Day" party. She is upset because nobody has RSVPed to her party, but don't worry, she ends up having a nice gathering. Julia is the first to arrive. At first she wasn't going to attend because she had planned to be in San Francisco surprising her boyfriend, but we all know how that turned out! There's a heart-shaped piñata and Julia takes a bat and just beats the crap out of it. Before she smashes the piñata, she twirls the bat around in her hand and it's very Sydney Bristow.

Kara is a publicist for an "aging" (he's 35) football player named Sean Jackson (Eric Dane) who's thinking about retiring because he wants more out of life. He wants to call a press conference and everyone thinks he's going to announce his retirement. His agent is played by Queen Latifah and she has one amusing moment where she's getting a massage and when it turns out that Sean's big announcement is that he's gay (but he's still going to continue to play), she looks up and says, "I knew it!" 

But let's back up (again) and introduce another character. Kelvin (Jamie Foxx) is a sports journalist, but his producer, Susan (Kathy Bates), wants him to do a lifestyle piece (because it's a slow sports day, but this was before Sean Jackson announced he was holding a press conference) and ask people on the street "what does Valentine's Day mean to you?" Kelvin isn't thrilled about this because he wants to be taken seriously as a sports journalist and he's not a fan of Valentine's Day. (Guess who he ends up with?) I did laugh at his reply about Valentine's Day not even being a real holiday because they don't get the day off. I totally agree with him. If you don't get time and a half for woking on a holiday it's not a real holiday! When he hears that Sean Jackson (I have no idea why I keep calling him by his first and last name, maybe because that's how they referred to him in the movie) is announcing a press conference, he goes to Kara's office to ask is he can ask Sean one camera on question. Kara is in her office, stuffing chocolate in her mouth, a little unhinged, and asks him if she's the only person who's alone on Valentine's Day and tells him how her best friend is candy and the only relationship she has is with her Blackberry. (Haha, this movie is so dated.) Now I don't know if this is the first time these two have met, but it's super cringe and she breaks down and he's trying to comfort her. Anyway, he is able to get his question for Sean Jackson and he ends up coming to Kara's party (because he hates Valentine's Day too!). They share a kiss at the end of the movie and I guess they end up together. 

We get a storyline set on an airplane where U.S. army captain Kate (Julia Roberts) is sitting next to a well-dressed man named Holden (Bradley Cooper). They strike up a conversation and we learn that Kate is on a one-day leave. Holden tells her he thinks it's a romantic gesture what she's doing since she's taking a fourteen hour flight just to be home for one day, then turn around the next day and take another fourteen hour flight back and mentions the guy she's going to see is a lucky man. Okay, right away I knew she wasn't going home to see a husband or a boyfriend or any kind of romantic partner. I knew that Edison was her son and he was who she was going home to see. I knew this because when Edison is playing soccer we see him looking at the moms cheering on their kids and he looks really sad. I thought it was weird that she never corrected him and told him she had a son and was going home to see him. I guess it's because they wanted it to be a surprise for the audience. Well, you're not fooling me, Garry Marshall! It is a sweet moment when she comes home and hugs her son and I may or may not have had something in my eyes during that scene. We also find out that Holden is in a relationship with Sean Jackson. So I guess they were in a relationship, but it wasn't public since Sean wasn't officially out? 

Okay, let's go back to Edison for a second. For some reason, he has a baby-sitter even though he has two able-bodied grandparents who are able to take care of. Grace (Emma Roberts) is a high school senior who watches him after school. I would understand if the grandparents weren't home to watch him, but there's a scene of her at their house and she's talking to them. If the grandparents are home, why do they need a baby-sitter? Okay, this scene will come into play later so I get why it's there. 

Let's talk about Grace's (very cringey) storyline. That morning, her teacher asks her if she can help with a "test-prep group for the class" after school, but Grace tells her she has to baby-sit. When she asks if she can do it during lunch, she tells her she can't because she plans to have sex with her boyfriend for the first time and they're going to her house during lunch break because her parents will be at work. I for sure thought she was trying to get out of helping the teacher and just said that so the teacher would be uncomfortable (which she was!) and leave it alone, but no, Grace was being serious. She even offers to help her the next day with the study group. 

During lunch break, Grace's boyfriend, Alex (Carter Jenkins, the only person in the main cast I wasn't familiar with), gets to her house first (he knows where the key is hidden; under a doormat, with an obvious hiding place like that, they're probably going to get burglarized) and heads up to her room and covers her bed in rose petals and lights a bunch of candles. It's the most cliche thing ever. Also, isn't lunch break usually only half an hour? And they have to drive home, then back to school? This all just seems very rushed and not very special or romantic. Are they just doing this today because it's Valentine's Day? I guess. Alex is an inspiring musician and has brought his guitar and starts playing it and singing a cheesy song about her. He is completely naked (ready to go, I guess!) and the guitar is strategically placed around him. In a very predictable move, we see the front door open and in walks Grace's mom! I guess she had to come home form work to get something. She can hear the music upstairs and thinks Grace is home, so she opens the door to get quite the surprise. Alex also gets quite the surprise too and falls onto Grace's bed. We get a very awkward scene where he tells his girlfriend's mom the reason he is naked because he's rehearsing for "an experimental show". (Okay, but why is he "practicing" in Grace's room?) He stands up and steps on a thorn of a rose, then backs up and crashes into one of Grace's shelves, then he bumps heads with Grace's mom. You would think the mom would tell him to get dressed, close the door, then they could discuss what he was doing. Alex wraps his jacket around his wait and grabs his guitar case and runs out of the house completely naked, but he's covered up. He runs down the block and runs into Grace who is on her way home. She stops and lets him in the car and he tells her what just happened. Boy, she must have been mortified that her mom saw her boyfriend naked in her bedroom! 

So they decide to wait to have sex because reasons I don't even remember. Grace chats with Edgar and Estelle and asks them who's only been with one person and they tell her they are those people. Except lies! Because Estelle confesses to Edgar that she had an affair with his business partner many years ago. Damn, that's cold, Estelle! When he asks why she's telling him this now, she replies she wanted to tell him the truth and he tells her, "The truth makes everything else seem like a lie."

There are a couple storylines that could have been deleted from the movie. One of them is the relationship between Liz (Anne Hathaway) and Jason (Topher Grace - thank goodness I have the Wikipedia cast list up because I would not have remembered their character's names!). They recently started dating and go on a dinner date. They go to this super crowded restaurant where the tables are literally right next to each other and they're sitting shoulder to shoulder with the other patrons and are across from each other and have to talk loudly to be heard. The couple next to them are leaning across the table and making out and the other couple next to them is fighting. It doesn't seem very fun or intimate. One of the moments of dialogue I genuinely laughed at is when the waiter comes over and asks them, "Would you like the four-course Sweetheart's Menu or the eight-course Eternal Love?" and Jason replies, "Whoa slow down. Is there a one-course 'only been dating
for two weeks but it looks promising option?'" Yeah, that's pretty awkward, but I think his reply was pretty good. 

During their scenes together or when Liz is at work, she has to take calls because she makes extra money on the side as a phone sex operator. It's all very PG-13 dirty talk and she talks in accents, usually Russian or Southern. She seems to have the same two clients. During the dinner date, she has to excuse herself to take one of these calls and goes outside. Jason (he doesn't know what she does on the side) goes to find her and overhears her "talking dirty" (I say it in quotes because it's pretty tame) in a Southern accent to someone who he believes is her boyfriend. This guy is really dumb...any idiot would realize what she's doing. She admits she's a phone sex operator and when he asks why she didn't tell him she says it's because she's broke and has a $100,000 student loan and no insurance. So I guess because of shame? He's such a jerk and tells her "I'm out." But why? Because she's the a phone sex operator? Because she's broke? For some reason, after he tells her that, she asks if he's going to call her, but I guess this is so he can be snarky and reply, "I'd like to say yes, but I don't know if I can afford it." He does immediately apologize for saying that, but says this is all too much for him.

So I would say this is a storyline that could be deleted, but it does merge with the Edgar and Estelle storyline. Both couples are supposed to go to a movie night in the cemetery, but the guys end up going alone and they start chatting about their forlorn love lives. Edgar and Estelle go every year on Valentine's and this is the first time he's been there without Estelle. The movie they're showing is a 1958 movie Shirely McClaine was in called Hot Spell, so I guess Estelle is/was an actress, but I don't know if this is supposed to be Hot Spell or another movie because Shirley McClaine isn't playing herself. Anyway, Estelle comes to the screening and she and Edgar make up and kiss in front of a huge crowd of people and everyone claps. Also, Jason realizes he was being a jerk to Liz and they make up and get together. 

I would also say you could delete the Emma Robert and her boyfriend storyline, but it also connects to Edgar and Estelle. One storyline you could definitely delete and it wouldn't affect the movie is the Taylor Swift and Taylor Launter one. They play a dating high school couple and they're friends with Grace and Alex, but that's really only the connection they have with other characters in the movie. The Taylor Swift song "Today Was a Fairytale" is featured during the movie and at the end credits. I thought she specifically wrote it for the movie, but looking at Wikipedia (which I already had up!) she had already written it and offered it to be used in the movie. Taylor Swift has many, many amazing songs and this....is not one of them. It's very bland and generic, much like this movie! 

The absolute best part of this film is the very, very end when they're showing the bloopers and the last blooper we see is Julia Roberts being driven home in a car and they go past Rodeo Drive and the driver asks her if she's ever been there and she replies she has and it was a "Big mistake, huge!" 

What Happens in Vegas...

The Hangover

Director: Todd Phillips

Cast: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifinakis, Justin Bartha, Heather Graham, Ken Jeong

Released: June 5, 2009

Viewed in theaters: June 15, 2009

I know this movie is already ten years old, but I will be spoiling key plot points, so there is your spoiler warning.

I remember this movie being a big hit when it came out. (Of course I remember! It was only ten years ago!) It was the highest grossing rated R comedy in a very long time and it won the Golden Globe for Best Comedy/Musical. Usually the movies that win in those categories are usually musicals or slight comedies like Shakespeare in Love or Lady Bird. There might be a few laughs, but they're not giving you belly laughs. It was so popular and talked about that I even went to see it in theaters. I did see the other two sequels (terrible...the second one was exactly the same as the first one, only set in Thailand and I barely remember the third one except it was set in Vegas again). Obviously the sequels were made because the first one was so popular and made a ton of money. The first movie was lighting in a bottle; it's just hard to recapture that magic. 

The Hangover kind of reminds me of a comedic Memento. Now it's not told backwards, but our main characters are trying to piece together the puzzle of what happened "the night before", during their friend's bachelor party in Vegas with the clues they obtain. It's a fun and clever concept and you're going along for the ride along with Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) as they try to find their friend, the soon-to-be-married Doug (Justin Bartha). And when I say soon-to-be-married, he has his bachelor party two days before the wedding which seems a bit crazy, especially since the wedding is in Los Angeles and they go to Vegas for the bachelor party. But they need to set the stakes high. If there wasn't a chance Doug might miss his wedding, it wouldn't have an urgency to it and wouldn't be as compelling.

Most movies would have just shown this movie with the bachelor party as the focus: we would have seen them stealing a cop car, Stu getting married to a stripper, and them stealing Mike Tyson's tiger among their many hi-jinxes. It probably still would have been funny, but not nearly as satisfying as watching these three guys try to figure out what the hell happened the night before. And there is some crazy stuff that happened!

Phil and Stu are friends of Doug's, but Alan is meeting them for the first time as he is the brother of Doug's fiancee. It's not just me, but there's something a bit...off with Alan, isn't there? It's not just that he unknowingly gives the other guys roofies (he puts them in their drinks when they're having a toast before they start their night) he bought from some guy at the drug store thinking it was ecstasy. What is up with that scene when he and Doug pick up Phil at the school he teaches at and Alan says, "I'm not supposed to be within 200 feet of a school or Chuck E. Cheese." And later, when they're talking about returning to Vegas another week, Alan tells them that week won't work because "The Jonas Brothers are in town." Pretty sure the Jonas brothers were teens back then. And then you get that weird line when he tells Alan that he "found" a baby before at Coffee Bean. I don't think he's a sinister person, but there's definitely something off about him. Not to mention he keeps insisting that he's best friends with Phil and Stu even though they've just met. He's a bit...intense when he declares his friendship towards his sister's fiancé's friends. He tells Doug that he doesn't care if they kill someone during their stay in Vegas (spoiler alert: they don't, thankfully!) and while he's giving his speech on top of the roof, he gets out a pocketknife and starts to slice open his palm so they can be blood brothers! A bit much!

I was confused by Bradley Cooper's character, Phil. Through most of the movie he's a pompous jerk. He tells his students (who he refers to as "nerds") he needs the money for the field trip they're going on, but we find out he's using the money for his Vegas trip (and he has a LOT of it!). He sarcastically says he's going to miss his wife and kid on their way to Vegas and claims he hates his life. Basically, he's not a very nice person. You could even say he's a bit, ahem, shallow. However, at the end of the movie when he's at the wedding and his wife and son meet up with him, he's very lovely to her and super sweet to his kid....so is this all an act? Does he just act like a douche when he's around his friends or did the events of Vegas change him into a better person? I suppose watching the sequels again could help me figure this out, but I really don't want to watch the sequels again.

The straight man of the group is Stu. He's the most responsible one (although only when they're sober!), though that's not a hard feat with this group! I had seen all The Hangover movies many years before I binged-watched The Office on Netflix this past year. I knew Ed Helms was on that show, but I didn't realize he doesn't show up until the third season so when I started watching it, I kept wondering where "that guy from The Hangover was". It is pretty humorous when watching that show and Andy (Helm's Office character) is gone from several episodes or is written off the show for awhile and you know that he's filming one of The Hangover movies. Andy doesn't wear glasses and that took me awhile to get used to that since I was used to Ed Helms as Stu who DOES wear glasses. Stu is also a bit of a pushover as he has a girlfriend, Melissa, who is horrible to him and he's so afraid of her that he has to lie to about everything because he doesn't think she'll approve of anything he does, so he tells her the bachelor party is in Napa Valley where they're going for a weekend of wine tasting. 

On the rooftop, before their wild and crazy night, Phil makes the toast, "To a night we'll never remember, but the four of us will never forget." Truer words have never been spoken! We see a time lapse, then it's the next morning and we're back in their hotel suite. You know, their suite isn't as trashed as you think it would be. Sure, housekeeping isn't going to be too thrilled, but nothing you wouldn't be able to clean up and be good as new. We see a bubble-filled hot tub, a TV askew on the wall, a woman's bare legs as she leaves the room, a chicken strutting about (we never do find out how the chicken is involved in this story), and Stu is the first one to wake up with a missing front tooth.  

One of the most surprising reveals is the tiger in the bathroom. We first see it when Alan uses the toilet and when he sees the tiger, he just blinks at it and says, "Stupid tiger", then realizes that there's a TIGER IN THE BATHROOM and runs out screaming. The other surprising reveal is the baby in the closet. (Super cute baby, by the way). I love it when Alan says, "Check its collar or something." I also like the Three Men and a Baby reference when he says, "It's got Ted Danson, Magnum PI, and that Jewish actor." Now that's a movie I haven't seen in a long time!

Of course we'll find out that the baby is the son of Jade (Heather Graham), the stripper who Stu married in the early hours of the morning during their crazy night and the woman who is leaving the apartment, we find out later, to grab coffee for everyone. Jade isn't getting any Mother of theYear awards anytime soon. First of all, who marries a man she just met the night before? And who leaves their child with that man? She's lucky that Stu is a good person and is responsible (when he's not under the influence of drugs and alcohol!) I'm sure many mothers cringed when they put the baby in the police car (which they stole the night before) without a car seat and drove over the sidewalk; not to mention the part when the bad guy bashes in the windshield with the baby in the backseat!

Through clues they find in their pocket they find that Stu has an ATM receipt from the Bellagio for $800 and that Phil is wearing a hospital band where he went for "a mild concussion and some bruised ribs." This is also when they learned that they had roofies in their systems. Yikes! 

Stu's overbearing girlfriend keeps calling him during the worst times such as when they're in the police car with the baby who is crying and when the bad guys, who are after their money, are bashing in the windshield. He tells her they're just about to go on a tractor ride and for her benefit, says, "Sir can you please start the tractor?", but of course she can hear all the commotion and is highly suspicious of him.

When they return back to their suite, Mike Tyson is there singing along to Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight", one of the scenes I remember most from seeing it in theaters. I do agree with him; the part with the drums is the best part. We learn that the tiger belongs to Tyson and he wants them to return it to his mansion. At first I was wondering why he just didn't call animal control, then realize he was probably owning this tiger illegally as it is probably not legal to own wild animals. Oh, wait, hold up. I just did some Google research and Nevada is one of eight states where owning a pet tiger is considered legal. (Good to know my state isn't on this list! I don't want to run into anyone with their "pet" tiger!)

I did some research to see if Mike Tyson had a pet tiger and not only did he have one, but he had three of them! (I also found another source saying he had seven of them at one time...good Lord!) I'm not sure if the one used in the movie was one of his or was a tiger "actor". He doesn't own them anymore because he didn't have the proper license so they were taken away. That's probably best for everyone involved!

They put some roofies in a raw steak to knock out the tiger and drive him to Tyson's mansion, but the tiger ends up waking up on their way and claws Phil, who's driving, in the neck. Now you can tell it's a fake tiger head (the only part you see) in the backseat when they're all in the car because they didn't want any of the actors in close proximity to the tiger. They have to push the car with the tiger inside the rest of the way. There, Tyson shows them a video of them stealing the tiger so that's how they ended up with it. Now, I've never been to Las Vegas, but I can only imagine that people are up during all hours of the night so I find it peculiar that nobody saw them with the tiger when they returned to Caesars Palace. At the very least, you think there would be cameras and the tiger would have been caught on those! Oh, and this probably shouldn't come to a surprise to anyone, but Mike Tyson is a horrible actor.

They find their Mercedes, the one Doug told his father-in-law that he would be the only one driving and when they hear something in the trunk, they think Doug is in there, but it is Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong) who accuses them of stealing his 80 grand and that he has kidnapped their friend, Doug. Alan, who brought a book about counting cards, gets an idea of how to get the money back for Chow and this is when we get the Rain Man scene (with Alan as Rain Man and Phil as Tom Cruise) where they're coming down the elevator in the casino complete with "Iko Iko" playing. I laughed when there's all these equation swirling around Alan's head on the screen. They obtain the money and make the trade, but the man is not Doug. He is named Doug, but he's a black guy who they start calling "Black Doug".

Stu finally figures out that Doug is on the roof of the hotel and they find him there and have to get him back to California with just hours before he's about to get married. The poor guy was there for nearly a day! If I were his fiancee, I would have been so pissed he was late to our wedding! The do manage to make it just in the nick of time, but it's pretty down to the wire. Stu breaks up with his girlfriend and makes a real date with Jade who tells him the reason he lost his tooth was because Alan bet him he wasn't a good enough dentist to pull out his own tooth...and he did! We see this as one of the pictures on the digital camera they find where they took a bunch of pictures of the night they didn't remember. We still never find out how they came to get a chicken! 

Dating Advice

He's Just Not That Into You

Director: Ken Kwapis

Cast: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Connelly, Jennifer Aniston, Scarlet Johansson, Bradley Cooper, Ben Affleck, Drew Barrymore, Justin Long, Kevin Connolly

Released: February 6, 2009

They should have called this movie He's Just Not That Into You...Unless You Are Scarlett Johansson. (Insert laughing emoji here). This movie is based on a self-help book of the same name which you have probably heard of. I am amazed and baffled that there is a book out there telling women the signs of when a guy isn't interested in her. It's really not that hard to figure out; you don't need to read a freakin' book! I suppose there are women out there like Ginnifer Goodwin's character (bless her adorable soul) who can't get a clue and need it, but there is no reason to be shelling out ten dollars for a book that tells you a guy may not be into you if 1) he doesn't call you, 2) he doesn't ask you out (again), 3) he doesn't want to date you, 4) he doesn't sleep with you, 5) he's sleeping with someone else, etc. No s&(%, Sherlock! (BTW, I looked up the price and some of the chapters on Amazon.com. I guess ten dollars isn't too much to spend if you just want to read it and have a good laugh!) 

This movie revolves around a bunch of characters whose story lines interconnect and interweave within each other. Like I mentioned earlier, Ginnifer Goodwin's character, Gigi, is the clueless girl who can't get a hint when a guy isn't interested in her. She spends most of the movie going out with different guys and wondering why they never call her back. When we first meet her, she's on a date with Conor (Kevin Connelly), who her sister, Janine (Jennifer Connelly) has set her up with. (And I already forgot how Conor and Beth know each other....through work stuff, maybe?) Through Gigi's eyes, the date seems to be going okay, but after it's been a week and he hasn't called, she begins to second guess herself and how the date actually went. Poor thing is even more confused when Conor had told he he would give her a call. Doesn't she know that doesn't mean anything? She even goes so far as to stake out the bar where he usually hangs out. Oh, honey, you are so very adorable, but a little stalkerish! Luckily, he's not there, but she does find out the main bartender, Alex (Justin Long), is a friend of Conor's. Alex sets her straight and tells her that Conor isn't into her. She goes on dates with a couple more guys and when she gets cryptic messages about whether they'll call or not, she calls Alex for advise. Alex offers to set her up with one of his friends, but when he tells her he gave him the wrong day and his friend won't be there and it's just the two of us, Gigi thinks that Alex made up his friend because Alex is into her. There were also a few other reasons (such as he would call her out of the blue to talk to her) why she thought he might be into her. Although her reasoning is sound, I just felt so embarrassed for her because I knew - I just knew! - that she was dead wrong and I was right. Turns out he wasn't into her and did have a friend to set her up with (who was not attractive, btw, nice job there, dude!) But wait...he found out he actually WAS into her and they end up together. Insert groan here.

I already mentioned Gigi's older sister, Janine. She is married to Ben (Bradley Cooper). She tells Gigi that it took Ben eleven days to call her after they went out on their first date. Holy crap; that is insane! After the third day is when I give up hope! They have been married for awhile, but it's revealed they haven't had sex in a long time (which is a chapter in the book that he may not be into you!) When she asks if he's been smoking, he denies it (though later it turns out to be true), but he does admit that he slept with another woman, Anna (Scarlett Johansson). She is also being lusted after by Conor (remember, he was the guy who went out with Gigi). In fact, after Conor and Gigi had their first date, she saw him take out his phone as they parted their ways and was convinced she was leaving her a message, but he was actually calling Anna, who he used to date and they still sometimes hang out and he's confused by her feelings for him. I am glad they made a storyline where a guy wasn't sure if a woman was interested in him, because, trust me, there should be a book called She's Just Not That Into You! Needless to say, Janine tells Ben she wants a divorce. Thank God!

Then we have Beth (Jennifer Aniston) and Neil (Ben Affleck) who are friends with Janine and Ben. They have been together a long time, but aren't married because Neil doesn't want to get hitched. Beth wants to get married and one of her friends or sisters (I already forgot who because there are so many damn characters in this movie!) tells her (like one of the chapters from the book!) that he's just not that into her because he doesn't want to get married. They break up, but realize they miss each other when they meet other people who they have nothing in common with. Beth tells him she doesn't need to get married, but Neil ends up proposing and they have a happy ending. Honestly, I found this storyline to be the most boring of the movie. 

Anna's friend, Mary (Drew Barrymore) has been meeting guys online. One she likes in particular, she met on MySpace. MYSPACE, OMG, remember MySpace? Wow, that was a blast from the past! I literally had forgotten that site existed until this movie reminded me. Now this movie came out in 2009, but was it suppose to take place in 2004 ish? Because I feel like MySpace wouldn't be relevant anymore by 2009! One of the funniest moments of the movie comes when she gets a message from a musician she met on that site who calls and leaves her a message and sings her a song with her name. She then listens to a second message and it's the same guy, only he's singing a song with a different woman's name and he realizes his mistake in the middle of the message. She ends up meeting Conor and they hit it off. 

I think I got all the storylines! 

Ode to 'Joy'

Joy

Director: David O. Russell

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Virginia Madsen, Diane Ladd, Isabella Rossellini, Elisabeth Rohm

Released: December 25, 2015

Viewed in theaters: December 29, 2015

I saw this movie with my friend Cameron. He has joined me for a couple of video reviews you've all had the pleasure to watch. (All fifteen of you, haha!) You may remember our video reviews of the last two Twilight movies. We were originally going to see Sisters, but it was already sold out for the evening shows, so we decided to see this one instead. (And before you ask, we didn't even consider seeing Star Wars: A New Hope and Force Awakens or whatever it's called!) In a way, I think it worked out for the best because I probably wouldn't have seen this movie until it was released on DVD and I'm glad I saw it in the theater because I really enjoyed it. I had no idea what this movie was about going in. I just assumed it was a Christmas movie since it opened on Christmas Day and was called Joy, but, spoiler alert....it's not! (Although there is a scene that takes place at Christmas). We joked that it was the sequel to Silver Linings Playbook since it had the same director and Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, and Bradley Cooper were in it.

The "Joy" in question is the name of our main character (Jennifer Lawrence). This movie is based on the true story of a woman named Joy Mangano (never heard of her!) She's struggling with her finances and being a young, single mother of two while living with her grandmother (Diane Ladd), her mother (Virginia Madsen), and her ex-husband, who she's still friendly with, lives in the basement. At first, I thought her mother was sick and bedridden because all she did was stay in her room and watch soap operas, but later in the movie, she's walking around with no problem. There seemed to be something off mentally with her mother.

Joy works at an airport but has to quit when they change her hours and she can't work those because of her kids. She and her older half-sister, Peggy (Elisabeth Rohm who I didn't recognize at all because she had dark hair) help out at their dad's (Robert De Niro) auto-repair shop. Rudy, their dad, who has been married twice and is all about being in love, has joined a dating service. At first, I was so confused by this scene because he would call a number and leave a four digit number and a voice would give him a four digit number of a potential match and he would call that number and talk to the woman. It seemed very complicated. I was wondering, Why doesn't he just join eHarmony or Match.com? Then I remembered that this being based on a true story, it probably isn't "current" day! (I don't remember if it gives us a date, but I'm guessing it started out in the late '80s/early '90s). He meets Trudy (Isabella Rossellini) and they are just having a laugh over their rhyming names. Trudy is a widow of a wealthy businessman and she and Rudy hit it off quite well that she invites Rudy and his family to spend the day on her yacht. She tells him to bring the wine, but not red wine because it will stain the teakwood floors. Joy's ex, Anthony, who is well-meaning, brings a bottle of red wine. It ends up spilling (who didn't see that coming?) and Joy mops the deck, but when she wrings out the mop with her hands she gets lots of nasty cuts with the glass shards. This inspires her to come up with an idea for a mop where one doesn't have to wring it out with their hands and the mop head is detectable and can be thrown in the washing machine. The year is 1995 when the finished product is ready. I can tell I have never mopped until the 21st century. I have never in my life even known of a mop that you had to wring out with your own hands. Never mind glass shards, who would want to touch that nasty mop head with the dirty water? Ewww! 

She patents the design and has some prototypes made with some money she asked Trudy to invest in (Trudy agreed after Joy passed the test she gave her). Unfortunately, when she tries to take it to stores and sell them, her product gets declined. One man tells her that he doesn't want to sell a mop for twenty dollars to his customers that will last a lifetime when he can sell five or ten dollar mops that will need replacing every few years and that way the customers will have to keep coming back. Joy and her friend Jackie try to sell the mop outside a K-Mart by Jackie being the salesperson and Joy being someone who is being sold the mop. They get a crowd of curious onlookers who seem to like the mop, but are quickly caught by the police and the mop is confiscated. 

It kept bugging me whenever I saw Jackie because the actress looked so familiar and I knew that I knew her from somewhere, but I just couldn't place it! When I looked her up, I realized it was Daya from Orange is the New Black. She has such a distinct accent and distinct facial features, but I guess she's unrecognizable to me if she's not in her prison garbs or pregnant, haha! 

Joy arranges to meet with Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper), an executive at QVC. When he sees and hears about the mop, he tells Joy to have twenty thousand of them made and Joy has to take out a second mortgage on her house. She still owes Trudy money and Trudy does not want to invest any more until she knows the mop will make money. Neil takes Joy on a tour of the set and tells her they only have celebrities hawking the products. The only celebrity I recognized was Joan Rivers. She is played by Melissa Rivers who looks EXACTLY like her mother (perfect casting, right?), but I don't think she has her mother's voice down...she tried, but Joan had a very distinct sound to her voice. 

There's a big scene at Joy's house where everyone is gathered in the living room to watch the big debut of Joy's mop and I just knew something bad was going to happen. And it did! The guy promoting it had no idea how to use it! They get no calls or questions for the mop and they go straight to the next product (the most hideous evening gowns I've ever seen!) The whole segment is less than twenty seconds! Did they not give the guy a tutorial on how the mop is used? Not surprisingly, Joy is pissed. At first I thought Neil was trying to sabotage Joy, but that doesn't make any sense because they want their products to sell. I watch Shark Tank; I know how it works! Joy goes to the QVC office and demand the she be the one to sell it on TV. She does and they sell like hot cakes. 

This, however, is not the end of Joy's troubles. She still has a rack of debt to pay and she finds out that the manufacturing company is taking credit for her designs. There's a bunch of legal battles she's fighting. She goes through one obstacle after another. There are several times when she just wants to give up, but by the end she fights for what is hers and emerges victorious. We see her in the future, in her forties, helping others patent their ideas. (Why is this woman not on Shark Tank?) I got a very Cate Blachett-like vibe from an older made-up Jennifer Lawrence. 

Cameron and I both agreed that this was our favorite Jennifer Lawrence performance. I have not seen the last two Hunger Games movies, but I hated the last book so I'm willing to bet that's not going to change my mind. 

During the movie, somebody behind us started snoring! Really loudly! It was quite distracting. And then all of his friends were giggling so that made it even more annoying. This movie was not boring at all so I don't know what his problem was. I guess that was bound to happen at a theater where you can recline all the way back in the seats. They even have a commercial for the theaters of some old guy in his pajamas telling his son he's ready to see the movie. Like, are they trying to encourage people to fall asleep and snore and annoy people who are trying to watch the movie? Great marketing! (That was sarcasm in case you couldn't tell!)

Wonder Drug

Limitless
Director: Neil Burger
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Abbie Cornish
Released: March 18, 2011

Imagine you could take a pill and it would let you use one hundred percent of your brain instead of the supposed twenty percent we can only access. That is exactly what happens when Eddie (Cooper), a struggling writer, takes the pill which is offered to him by his ex-girlfriend's brother. Before he took the pill, he looked like a homeless person, his apartment was a mess, and he hadn't written one word of his story. When he takes the pill, his mind suddenly become clear, he seems to remember everything he ever learned in his entire life, and he finishes his book in four days. He also gets a sleek and clean makeover.

When the effect wears off, he knows he has to get more pills, but his ex's brother has been killed, but Eddie manages to find them in his oven. Taking one pill a day makes him smart and powerful. He can suddenly become fluent in a foreign language, do difficult math problems in his head, and know the answer to everything at anytime. He even states he has a four-digit IQ which is just ridiculous. If you had a four-digit IQ, then you would be the smartest person in the world and everyone else around you would seem quite stupid in comparison. You would be bored by everything too if you had an IQ that high! At one point in the movie, his girlfriend takes a pill because she's carrying a stash of them around for Eddie and is being chased by one of the bad guys who wants to kill her, so she takes a pill so she'll know what to do. At that point I was thinking that she was going to start taking them too and they were going to become the most self-important and pretentious couple in the world. Luckily she didn't like that she didn't feel like herself, so that's the only time she takes it.

This movie has an interesting premise, but it doesn't quite deliver in the end. There are too many plot holes that aren't mended by the end. During one scene when he's on the drugs, Eddie goes through an entire evening only remembering snippets of it. He finds out a girl he remembers being with was killed and apparently somebody saw him leave the hotel room where her body was found. He hires people to remove any of his fingerprints from the room, but we never found out if he murdered her or if it was someone else. Also, it sounded like the drug wasn't going to be made anymore, so I don't know how he was going to keep this charade going of being smart and powerful if he didn't have the thing that was making him smart and powerful anymore.

Interesting premise, but falls flat. I will give the film props for being the first time I've ever seen a child being used as a weapon (well technically, the ice skates were the weapon, but a kid was in the ice skates when they were being used!).