The Sibling Switch

She's the Man
Director: Andy Fickman
Cast: Amanda Bynes, Channing Tatum, Julie Hagerty, David Cross
Released: March 17, 2006

This is one of those movies where you have to wonder if every character is really that stupid and the answer, it seems, is yes, they really are all that stupid. So to set up the story, high schooler Viola (Amanda Bynes) is dismayed when she finds out her school is cutting the girls' soccer team because not enough signed up for it. After asking the boys' soccer coach if they can play on the boys' team and trying to get support from her boyfriend who is the team captain, they both pretty much laugh in her face. She (rightfully) breaks up with her boyfriend. Viola has a twin brother, Sebastian, who, we find out, got kicked out of their school for skipping, so he will be attending a boarding school, Illyria. He is a musician and is sneaking out to fly to London to play at some music festival and asks Viola to pretend to be their mom and call the school to tell them he's sick and will be out the first two weeks. After Sebastian's girlfriend, Monique, makes the comment that Viola and Sebastian look alike (they don't), Viola gets the brilliant idea to pretend to be her brother and attend his school as him. Then she will be able to play on the boys' soccer team and will prove that girls can play soccer with boys. Since she will be staying at the school, she tells her mom (played by Julie Hagerty) that she will be at her dad's house for the next two weeks. Very convenient plot device that her parents are divorced! 

We get a makeover scene of Viola asking her hair dresser friend to make her into her brother. She gets the same haircut cut as him (complete with sideburns) and that's pretty much where the similarities end. This all happens within the first twelve minutes of the movie.

Her first few days as Sebastian at her new school don't go so well. She's trying way too hard to fit in with her roommate, Duke (Channing Tatum) and his friends, who are also all on the soccer team. Because of her short stature (compared to a guy at least) they think he skipped a few grades. As a guy, she doesn't have a consistent talking voice. Sometimes she talks with a deep voice (as deep as she can make it), sometimes she seems to forget she's supposed to be a boy and talks with her normal voice, and sometimes she talks with this really weird accent like she's trying to be cool, like trying to fit in with one of the guys. When she tries out for the soccer team, she doesn't make first string.

I question some of the things she does. For instance, her first day of school, a box of tampons falls out of her bag and Duke and his two friends are staring at "him", obviously confused. Viola tells them "he" uses them to stick in "his", nose when "he" gets nose bleeds, claiming David Beckham does the same thing. She then proceeds to show them how it's done - WHY? Why do you need to show them how to stick a tampon up your nose? Seems very unnecessary. Also, if I were "him", I would have told them that my sister likes to play pranks on me and most likely put her box of tampons in my bag to embarrass me. This scene does get a payoff in a later scene when we see Duke has a tampon in his nose after he gets into a fight. Definitely not Channing Tatum's finest moment, but I guess we all gotta start out somewhere; this was one of his first movie roles, after all. Another thing I question is that Viola didn't really seem to think her whole plan through. She almost gets caught in the communal shower, but right before she undresses (she's just taken off the wrap around her chest) two guys come in. It appeared to be late, but not that late. I mean, what would have happened if those guys came in five minutes later? We then see her getting up at four in the morning to take her showers. Also, they never address this, but why aren't Viola's parents getting calls from HER school? Aren't they wondering why SHE isn't attending school?

Viola's guy friend has a great idea of how to make "Sebastian" cool with the guys and has this whole thing planned where Viola's two closest (and prettiest) friends will be at the pizza joint where all the high school kids like to hang. Viola as Sebastian will walk in and right in front of Duke and the other two guys (whose names I did not care to learn), the two girls will walk up to "Sebastian" one at a time and basically drape themselves over "him" and tell "him" how much they miss "him". Basically, they're trying to make Viola as a guy look like a lady's man to impress the guys. Seeing that Viola posing as a guy has a Boys Don't Cry vibe going on, I'm surprised they tried to make her a heterosexual male (and a bit of a player at that) because I wouldn't buy it for a second. After Viola as Sebastian impresses the guys, she has to quickly hide her face because Monique, Sebastian's girlfriend (or maybe it was his ex, I was always a little fuzzy on that until the end when we know for sure where their relationship lies) walks in and is trying to talk to "Sebastian". You think the guy's own girlfriend would know her boyfriend's own voice and realize that this person she thought was her boyfriend was half a foot shorter. Viola manages to get away, but it won't be the last time she has to escape from Monique.

There's a scene in this movie that's like the one in Mrs. Doubtfire where Robin Williams is at a restaurant where he has to be Mrs. Doubtfire with his family, then his real character with a client or something (I don't remember...it's been awhile since I've seen that movie!) In this case, Viola has to be herself and her brother at a carnival her mom is the head of. Viola shows up as Sebastian with Duke and the other two guys, then they split up and she changes back to her regular self where she makes an appearance in front of her mom who asks where her brother is. Viola tells her she's going to find him and we see her change into Sebastian - on a tilt-a-whirl ride of all things. She literally puts a wig on while she's on a ride that spins around and around. I think that's pretty much impossible. Once again she is spotted by Monique who thinks she's Sebastian and is trying to chase him. Viola manages to lose her by diving into the ball pit where she changes back to herself while her friends (Viola's friends, not the Illyria guys) stand guard. I don't think it was necessary for Viola to change back to herself since Monique had left, but I guess she had to make an appearance at the kissing booth (as herself) where she was scheduled to work it. Actually, you know what? It really doesn't make sense that Viola was ever Sebastian in this whole scenario! Yes, I know her mom said she expected to see both her children at the carnival but you know Viola can't fool her as Sebastian; I would hope the woman knows what her own children look like! And I know Viola shows up at the carnival with the Illyria guys as Sebastian, but "he" could have just told them "he" was coming later. Yeah, the more I think about it, the more stupid this whole scene is.

Oh, I guess this is a good time to tell you about another little subplot of the movie right here. Duke has a crush on a girl named Olivia but he's not good at talking to girls (despite the fact that he looks like Channing Tatum!) and asks Sebastian if he'll help him since Sebastian is lab partners with Olivia in their biology class. Olivia is working the kissing booth and right before Duke is ready to kiss her, Viola is her relief and takes over, much to Duke's dismay. He and Viola share a kiss and that's when Viola realizes she has feelings for Duke (though let's face it: she was attracted to him since the beginning). Sidenote: even though kissing booth make great plot devices for movies and I understand why they're used, they are super gross and surely they are not used in real life, right? RIGHT? Just the fact of having to kiss hundreds of strangers makes me shudder and gag; I don't care if the money is going for charity!)

Duke finds out he has kissed Sebastian's twin sister and later tells "Sebastian" who eagerly tells him he should pursue Viola and forget about Olivia. Meanwhile, Olivia has decided she's falling for Sebastian who has told her earlier that she's not "his" type (yeah, no kidding), so to make "him" jealous, Olivia starts flirting with Duke right in front of Viola as Sebastian, which of course makes Viola angry.

To complicate matters more, the real Sebastian gets home a day early and is greeted with a kiss by Olivia who runs up to him as he's getting out of his taxi and tells him she'll see him tomorrow at the big soccer game, then runs off. Yes, I realize it was dark when she did this, but still, she couldn't tell it was a completely different person? Duke sees this from his dorm and when he sees Viola as Sebastian he accuses "him" of going behind his back and kissing Olivia which confuses Viola since she has no idea what he's talking about. At first she thinks Duke has figured out who she really is and is about to confess, then Duke says he saw "him" kissing Olivia.

Somehow, Viola has found somewhere else to sleep and the actual Sebastian sleeps in the dorm room and is woken up by the guys so he doesn't miss the big game. Okay, I realize everyone was in a big hurry and Sebastian's face is painted, but still? Nobody noticed that Sebastian's voice was completely different or he had grow half a foot or his face no longer had his delicate and smooth features? No more smooth, dainty hands? NOBODY noticed any of this?

Yep, can't tell these two apart!

A student at the school finds out the truth about Sebastian and Viola and tells the principal (played by David Cross) and is ready to expose Sebastian as a girl during a time out in the game. Sebastian says he is not a girl and to prove it, he pulls down his pants. The fact that he's so willing to pull down his pants in front of a whole stadium of people is a little weird, but maybe that explains why Olivia is so ready to end up with him. Yes, Olivia ends up with the real Sebastian even though it was really Viola she was into and the one she got to know. I really thought we were going to get a scene where Olivia finds out she likes girls, or, at least discovers she is bisexual, but nope! She's ready to date a guy she's never met before in her entire life. Super weird. The movie tries to make it out like they've been soul mates all along because in an earlier scene Olivia finds Sebastian's lyrics in the coat Viola is wearing when she's posing as her brother and she's just so enamored by them.

Viola manages to switch places with a confused Sebastian and explains to him what she's been doing for the past two weeks. She plays in the game and scores the winning point. That's when she reveals she's really a girl...by lifting up her shirt. Again, if I were these two kids' parents, I would be a little concerned they're so willing to strip in huge crowds of people. Also, wasn't she supposed to be wearing a bandage around her chest to disguise her breasts? That bandage is magically missing when she lifts her shirt (though she you don't see anything...this is a PG rated movie, after all!)

In the end, Viola ends up with Duke and attends Illyria. I don't think this movie would fare very well today. It's not very woke. There's some blatant homophobia coming from Duke whenever Viola as Sebastian tells him how hot he is. He seems very offended that who he thinks is a guy is telling him that. If I were Viola, I would re-evaluate this guy and ask myself if I would want to go out with him. That said, this movie has to be much better than Ladybugs, that movie where Jonathan Brandis dresses as a girl and plays on the all girls soccer team that Rodney Dangerfield coaches. I've never seen it (don't think I'm missing anything), but it seems to send a very sexist message saying girls need the help of a strong boy to win sports! Again, I've never seen it, so maybe it's an empowering movie, who knows, but somehow I highly doubt it. At least She's the Man is above that...but I don't know how much higher the bar goes! 

Ten Favorite and Least Favorite Super Bowl Half Time Performances

In the past week, I've been watching all the Super Bowl (should that be one word?) half time shows since 1990 and thought I would share my ten favorite performances and my ten LEAST favorite. I was going to rank all of them, but honestly that would take way too long, plus I wouldn't know where to place the ones that were in the middle. You can find these on YouTube.

Let's get the bad over with and start with my ten worst/least favorite Super Bowl half time shows from least offensive to downright awful:

10. 1994 - This one had a country theme with Clint Black, Tanya Tucker, Travis Tritt, and the Judds. This one is fine and everyone sounds good (I love the song Wynona Judd sings), but it's just not my cup of tea. There's a lots of square dancing and yee-hawing going on for my taste. I'm surprised they haven't had another country themed half time show with more modern country artists. (Well, I guess Shania Twain played a couple of her songs in 2003). I could have sworn that Carrie Underwood had performed when she first became big, but I must be thinking of another sporting event. I would love to see Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert headline a Super Bowl half time show and I'm not just saying that because they're my two favorite country artists...actually, that's exactly why I'm saying it! It's interesting to note that this is the first SB half time show (well, since 1990, but possibly ever...who knows) that takes place at night.

9. 2004 - This was the infamous half time show headlined by Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake where the "wardrobe malfunction" happened. That's not reason why I put it on my least favorite list. Besides what happened at the end, does anyone remember the actual show? Did you know there were other acts besides those two there? Jessica Simpsons introduces the show (but doesn't even perform, ha!), Janet sings one of her songs, then P. Diddy sings a couple of his songs, then Nelly comes in and sings "Hot In Here", then more P. Diddy, then Kid Rock sings a couple of his songs including "Cowboy", then Janet sings "Rhythm Nation", then we end with Justin singing "Rock Your Body" and we all know how that ended! I had no idea Justin was only there at the very end. This is a very good example of too many cooks in the kitchen. They should have just had Janet headline the show; at the very least drop two or three of the other acts! It was just so chaotic. If the nip slip hadn't happened, nobody would ever remember this show. So after this show, for a long time they only had classic rock "safe" acts like Paul McCartey, Tom Petty, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, etc. They did let Justin come back to headline the show in 2018.

8. 1995 - This one had performances by Patti LaBelle and Tony Bennett and also had a skit where Indiana Jones (NOT Harrison Ford so don't get too excited) and Marion Ravenwood are trying to retrieve a trophy from a temple. Disney produced the show and I guess this was supposed to promote a new attraction? Its hilarious because you can tell the actors for Indy and Marion pre-recorded their dialogue earlier and they played it later because you see close ups of the actors and they are not even talking while you hear the characters talking! So hilarious! It's just super weird. Patti LaBelle sounds great; she kills it on "New Attitude". Tony Bennett is a weird choice; he's not exactly the performer you want to see at the Super Bowl. At the end they both sing "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" from The Lion King. (Remember, this was produced by Disney!)  None of this is coherent at all; it's just one big mess.

7. 2011 - This one was headlined by the Black Eyed Peas. I give them an E for Effort, but it just didn't come together well. The sound was terrible for one thing. I love "I Gotta Feeling" but that needs to be LOUD and it was....muted. I think when they were singing "Pump it! Louder!" they were trying to tell the sound guy something! Slash from Guns N Roses make a guest appearance and Fergie sings "Sweet Child of Mine". She sounds super weird and it's obvious she's trying to emulate Axl Rose because she sounded normal when she was singing her own songs. Usher also drops by (literally!) and performs. When they perform "Where is the Love" there's an arial shot of what is supposed to be the word "love" lit up in red lights, only half of the v isn't even lit. Oops. This show, as the kids say, was not lit.

6. 2019 - This one was headlined by Maroon 5. I like some of their songs okay, but I'm not a huge fan or anything. If I never hear "Girls Like You" again for the rest of my life, I would be okay with that, but I guarantee I will hear it at least ten times next week!  They don't really have songs that you can jam to. Adam Levine doesn't have the strongest voice and his stage presence isn't the best. Oh, imagine that...he sings that song and he's joined by a choir. Look, I understand why there was a choir when Madonna performed "Like I Prayer" at the Super Bowl in 2012, but for this song? Really?  He's joined by Travis Scott who I'm not familiar with. He's a rapper and I had to laugh because he had to be bleeped about four or five times. Big Boi (from Outkast) also joins the stage and he's wearing this huge fur pimp coat and all I can think of is how hot he must be in that thing! This was in Atlanta. I  rolled my eyes so much when Adam took off his shirt during "Moves Like Jagger" and was attempting this sexy dance that was just hilarious. I read that the FCC was sent 55 complaints because he was showing his nipples. Obviously these had to be trolls, but I love that 55 people out there took the time to do that. Oh, and all this time I thought he was saying "Shut up" when he was actually saying "Sugar". Ohh...who knew? The audience must have gotten strict instructions not to touch the lead singer of Maroon 5 because there are times when he gets very close to the stage and his adoring fans are waving their hands near him, but they don't touch him. He also doesn't high five or shake hands with people which kind of makes him a douche. Beyonce, Bono, Justin Timberlake, and Chris Martin (and those are the ones I can remember) don't have a problem touching hands or giving high fives with their fans, so what's his problem? Overall, this just felt uninspiring.

5. 1990 - I guess this was okay for its time, but it was a bit boring. Sine this was 1990, it was before they booked really big acts. This one commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Peanuts comic strip so there are people dressed up as Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy, etc and marching in a parade. There's also a nod to New Orleans with a huge riverboat float since it took place in New Orleans. There's one cute moment where an animated Woodstock is flying in front of a tuba and gets blown off the screen when the tube player plays a long note. It was fine, but we've certainly come a long ways!

4. 1997 - This one was called Blues Brothers Bash and had actors from the movies performing - Dan Aykroyd, John Goodman, and Jim Belushi. I don't think Jim Belushi was in either movie, but his brother was in the first one so I guess that's why he got an invite? Blues Brothers 2000 came out in 1998 so I guess they were promoting the movie? I've never seen either movie and so I really don't care and this performance bored me. I'm sure my dad loved it because he likes the first movie at least. I did know a few of the songs. There are also performances by James Brown and ZZ Top. While looking into this particular halftime show, I found out that a stuntwoman had died during a rehearsal while bungee jumping. Obviously, they took away the bungee jumping portion of the show. Can you imagine if that had happened during the live show? I don't know about you, but I'd much rather see a women's nipple than someone die on live TV!

So the remaining three are just pure crap.

3. 1991 - This one had an all kids theme which means performing kids, singing kids, dancing kids. :::Groans:::: I'm sure the adults in the audience loved this. There was a nice sentiment behind it as it was dedicated to the men and women serving in the Persian Gulf. Ironically, kids probably didn't even get to see the show as a special report on the Gulf War was shown instead and the show was later aired after the game so by that time kids are in bed! This was produced by Disney (the Disney produced half time shows are the worst) so there were appearances by Minnie Mouse, Goofy, and Chip 'n Dale. There's a solo by a blond boy with a bowl haircut singing "Wind Beneath My Wings" and he must have been the son or relative of one of the producers because he is terrible. What? They couldn't find a kid who could actually SING? Somewhere he is now in his late 30s/early 40s (guessing) and he probably cursed the day YouTube was invented because now everybody can see this. But damn, then they have kids representing all 50 states and all have parents serving in the Gulf War and that was a nice moment. A video message from George and Barbara is played about the brave men and women in the Persian Gulf. So amongst all the cheesiness, there were some nice moments. To conclude the show, New Kids on the Block (oh, goody) come out and perform "Step by Step." It is hilarious watching all the kids go crazy. They also sing a song called "This One's For the Children" which I'm not familiar with and it's as sappy as you would think it is. They are all sitting on steps and are holding a small child (like four or five years old). It is so weird.

2. 2000 - Once again we have a terrible Disney produced halftime show. This time the theme was Millennial Celebration. Even though this is better produced than the 1991 show and even though it has more star power with Christina Aguilera, Enrique Iglesias, Phil Collins, and Toni Braxton, I ranked this lower than the one because at least in 1991 they didn't know yet. This is 2000. They should know by now what makes a great show and this isn't it. First of all, you have Christina and Enrique singing some sappy song about "celebrating the future hand in hand" that was obviously written just for this moment. GAG. If I were there, I would want to sing along with their songs that I know! Give me some "Genie in a Bottle" or "Come on Over" or "What a Girl Wants" or whatever hit songs Enrique had at that time. This played more like something you would see at the Opening Ceremony at the Olympics. Phil Collins sings one of his songs from Tarzan because, you know, Disney. Then Toni Braxton sings a sappy song that was written for the show and is later joined by the others. I think this was the last half time show Disney produced and thank God for that.

1. 1992 - Dear God, what the eff was this? This was just awful. The theme was "Winter Magic" and it's just an absolute mess. The entire field is full of dancers and singers and musicians and where would you even know where to look if you were in the stadium? After singing a dorky song about "winter magic", they start singing CHRISTMAS songs and there's a "dance" number to The Nutcracker.  In January. What. The. Actual. F---?  Kids do a terrible rap about Frosty the Snowman. It's way worse than anything the kids do from the 1991 show. There are some famous people as they have Brian Boitano (what WOULD Brian Boitano do, indeed) and Dorothy Hamill ice skating to "One Moment in Time" (NOT sung by Whitney Houston so don't get too excited) on tiny circles of ice. The song is sung by a man and woman, but they never show them so you have no idea who is singing or where it's coming from. The rinks are so small they really can't do more than twirl around. There's also a terrible (and hilarious) rendition of Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now". Gloria Estefan shows up and sings a couple of her hits. She sounds fine, but the theme is "Winter Magic" and Minneapolis is the setting. Cuz when I think of WINTER and MINNESOTA, I think of Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine. Yeah....God, what a TERRIBLE show. How PISSED do you think the audience was here (and during the '91 and '90 half time show) when they found out Michael Jackson would be performing at the '93 halftime show? Hahahaha...

Okay, now it's time for my ten best/favorite half time shows.

10. 2007 - So I couldn't find an entire video of when Prince performed, but his performance of "Purple Rain" while it was raining is pretty epic. However this gets last place out of my best list because I wasn't able to watch his performances of the other songs (thought I saw some snippets of "Let's Get Crazy" and that was good, too) and I noticed "When Doves Cry" wasn't on his playlist and the is the best Prince song ever. Well, at least it's my favorite!

9. 2017 - This one was headlined by Lady Gaga. She sings a lot of her big hits after she propels down from the stadium roof. Don't get me wrong, she was great, but I kind of expected more from her show, you know? It's Lady Gaga for crying out loud. It would have been awesome if Beyonce showed up while she was singing "Telephone" (that doesn't happen...but I guess Beyonce had just performed the year before). My favorite moment was when she performed "Million Reasons" at the piano. I love the part when she says hi to her parents. That was cute. She ends the show with "Bad Romance" which is a song I don't really care for. I wish she had ended with "Edge of Glory" (she gives us a little teaser of it at the beginning) because that's my favorite Gaga song.

8. 2014 - This one was headlined by Bruno Mars singing all his hits, then he was later joined by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and performed "Give It Away" with them. It was a fun, energetic performance. He ends the show by singing his most famous song (yes?), "Just the Way You Are" and a crapton of fireworks go off as he sings the last note.

7. 2001- This one was headlined by Aerosmith! And N'Sync! And Britney Spears! And Mary J. Blige! And Nelly! The whole thing is so perfectly 2001. So this particular show has nostalgia elements for me because it's the first Super Bowl half time show that I remember. It's possible that I watched ones prior to this, but I don't remember any of them if I did. You have N'sync performing "Bye Bye Bye"! Then Aerosmith performs "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing"! Then N'sync performs "It's Gonna Be Me"! (And 20 year old Justin Timberlake shoots fireworks out of his gloves - heh, he had Power Gloves). Then Aerosmith performs "Jaded!" Then they perform "Walk this Way" with N'Sync and that's when Britney and Mary J. Blige come out and they start singing. Then Nelly comes out and starts rapping. There were so many damn people singing at once the camera had no idea where to go. Let's get a shot of Britney and Justin! Let's get a shot of Mary J. Blige singing next to Steven Tyler! Let's get a shot of Nelly! Let's get a shot of one of the N'Sync guys who isn't Justin! Wait go back to Britney! So I read that this was the first half time show where they allowed people to come up near the stage, but it looks like there were people surrounding Michael Jackson' stage when he performed in '93, so maybe this was the year when they started doing it regularly?

6. 1993 - So after terrible halftime shows from 1992, 1991, 1990, and let's face it, probably since the beginning of the Super Bowl's history, this has to be the first truly great half time show. They got one of the biggest pop stars, Michael Jackson, to headline the show. Like I mentioned before, you know the people who attended the '90, '91, and '92 Super Bowls were pissed! He pops out of the stage and literally just stands there for 90 seconds and the crowd is going insane. The first part is great cuz he sings bangers like "Billie Jean" and "Black and White." During the latter, people in the field are holding large squares that are white on one side, and black on the other and they flip them around. Oh, 1993, you are so adorable. The second part becomes a little schmaltzy when a children's choir sings "We Are the World" while cards in the stadium are turned over to reveal crude drawings of children. He ends by singing "Heal the World" which is a nice song, but c'mon, I want to hear  something with a little more oomph like "Man in the Mirror" or "Beat It" or "Bad" or "Smooth Criminal" or "The Way You Make Me Feel". Still, pretty good show. I had to laugh that they shot off fireworks as this took place during the day.

5. 2013 - Twenty years after Michael Jackson headlined the show, Beyonce headlined it. And boy did she deliver. She performed all her hits starting with "Crazy in Love" while strutting down the stage. Of course the best part was when Kelly Roland and Michelle Williams popped out of the stage ala Michael Jackson and performed "Bootylicious", "Independent Women" (loved the Charlie's Angels pose they did at the end) and "Single Ladies" with their former Destiny's Child member. Beyonce ends the show with "Halo". I laughed when she's kneeling down very close to the audience and someone just reaches out and touches her leg. I'm sure whoever that person is they still haven't washed their hand since that day! Love you, Bey!

4. 2020 - This is the most recent halftime show headlined by Shakira and J. Lo, but you probably already knew that. To me, this one was come for Shakira, stay for J. Lo's daughter. Look, J. Lo was fine. She did great. She looked amazing, of course. She has some catchy songs (I hadn't heard "Waiting For Tonight" in forever so when she started singing the beginning of it, I was like, "This sounds familiar...oh, THAT song!"), but I just don't think she's the strongest singer. Of course her voice isn't the reason why people are watching her if you know what I mean! Shakira has the more impressive dance moves and she has some bangers like "She Wolf", "Whenever,  Wherever", and "Hips Don't Lie." I read that after this performance there were 4,000 downloads of "Whenever, Wherever" in the next 24 hours. That's awesome...but these people didn't already have that song? What the hell?  I've had the album it was on since 2001 or 2002 when it came out! I thought J. Lo's daughter was super cute and sounded great. Very entertaining, energetic show.

3. 2016 - This one was headlined by Coldplay with special guests Bruno Mars and Beyonce who have already gotten mentions on this list. This one is particularly notable because it's one of the more recent shows to take place during the day. Since they really couldn't use lights or laser, they use a lot of color with people marching out with large paper flowers. The show begins with Chris Martin crouched in the field singing "Viva La Vida" while the crowd runs out towards the stage. I'm sure they told the crowd not to trample the lead singer of Coldplay. They also utilize kids playing violins during that song. You can tell Chris Martin has no rhythm because he just sort of hops back and forth and jumps up and down, but that's what makes him so endearing. And no hate here because I'm exactly the same way. (I'm not saying I'm endearing; I'm saying I have no rhythm, just to be clear!) After singing a couple more of their songs (including "Para! Para! Para! Paradise! Whoooo-oooooooo-ah!"), Bruno Mars sings "Uptown Funk" (the best song of the last decade, yes it's true) and Beyonce sings "Formation". There's kind of a friendly showdown between the two of them, then Chris Martin joins them and they sing "Uptown Funk" again. The show ends on a sentimental note as Coldplay performs "Fix You" while moments of past half time shows are shown on a screen. This was the 50th Super Bowl so that's what they were celebrating. I noticed they didn't include any images from the infamous 2004 half time show!

2. 2002 - This one was headlined by U2.  Obviously it was the first Super Bowl after 9/11 and they were lucky they got a band like U2 to perform because the previous year's line up probably wouldn't work. The show opens with Bono walking through a crowd to get to the stage while singing "Beautiful Day" (or should I say, "beautiful daaaaaaayyyyyy!"). I guess the crowd wasn't told not to touch the lead singer of U2 because everyone is putting their hands on his jacket as he walks through. When they perform "Where the Streets Have No Name", a projector of all the names of people who died on 9/11 is shown. At the end, Bono opens his jacket to reveal the lining is an American flag and the crowd goes INSANE. I remember this time after 9/11 and it was just the performance America needed; you can see why people loved it.

1. 2015 - My favorite Super Bowl half time performance was the one headlined by Katy Perry. Girlfriend knows how to put on a spectacular show! She enters on a huge mechanical (?) lion float opening with "Roar", then follows it with "Dark Horse" on some weird chess board floor. Probably her most well known set is when she sings "Teenage Dream" and "California Girls" with a beach background of people dancing in palm tree, shark, surfboard, and beach ball costumes. It is absolutely adorable, plus everyone was a buzz about "left shark" who couldn't keep up with the choreography. It was hilarious, but it wasn't like it made the show awful or anything. If anything it added a charming element. Honestly, my favorite part were the palm trees singing. Also, I loved when everyone in the audience sang one of the opening lines to "California Girls".  Lenny Kravitz shows up to sing "I Kissed a Girl" with Katy (which does't really make sense for a straight dude to sing that song, but whatever) and Missy Elliot sings a couple of her hits. Sometimes the featured acts don't work well with the headliner, but those two meshed well together. Katy ends with singing "Firework" while a million fireworks are going off (because the song is literally called "Firework", it really couldn't be more perfect) and she's riding on some shooting star pedestal over the audience. Like this song was made for this moment. It's definitely the best closer to any half time show. Plus during the entire 13 minute act, Katy changed her outfit at least four times.

A Hard Day's Night

Yesterday
Director: Danny Boyle
Cast: Himesh Patel, Lily James, Kate McKinnon, Ed Sheeran
Released: June 28, 2019

Yesterday is a movie with an interesting premise that asks the question, what if the entire population lived in a world where the Beatles never existed? And only one young man remembers them and their timeless songs. This is what happens when a global blackout occurs (not sure why it would erase the memory of certain pop culture phenomenas (the Beatles aren't the only thing that are forgotten by the human race)). The blackout is equated to something they were expecting for Y2K....I guess it just happened 18 years later! It only lasts for 12 seconds. Our main character, Jack Malik (Himesh Patel), a struggling musician, is hit by a bus while riding his bike during that time and I guess that explains why the memory loss of certain things didn't affect him. A lot of things in this movie don't make sense, but you're just supposed to go with it.

His first clue that something is amiss is when he's in his hospital bed and says, "Will you still need me, will you still feed me when I'm 64?" to Ellie (Lily James), who is his friend and manager (and also a school teacher). She laughs at the comment and asks, "Why 64?" But then when he plays "Yesterday" for his friends with a new guitar, they are all amazed by the song and tell him how great it is and they have never heard of it. He thinks they are playing a joke on him (like anyone would; you would have to live under the biggest rock in a hole forty feet beneath the earth to never heard of the Beatles!) They think he is referring to an obscure pop group!

When the "joke" keeps going on into the evening, he gets on his computer and Googles "The Beatles", but the site only comes up with a page for the insect beetle. When he types in "John Paul George Ringo" he gets a hit for Pope John Paul.  He checks his albums and all of his Beatles records are gone. He also checks to see if some of his other favorite groups still exist and finds out that Oasis has also disappeared from everyone's memory. Now I understand why he is "saving" the Beatles catalogue, but it would be a shame if "Wonderwall", "Champagne Supernova", and "Don't Look Back in Anger" were lost to the world. C'mon, those are some quintessential '90s songs! We also find out that Coca-Cola and cigarettes don't exist any longer (the latter might actually be a good thing!)

I have a question: do/did the members of the Beatles exist/existed in this world, but they just never formed the Beatles, or is this a world where John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison were never born into? This question will be answered later on.

Jack takes it upon himself to try to remember all the Beatles songs(or at least the popular ones; but still, that's quite a lot!) and tries to remember the lyrics and the music. I think this would be super difficult! Even with an artist I'm familiar with and like, I don't know if I could remember all the lyrics to their songs. Perhaps just the super popular ones, but even then I wouldn't be sure. I can sing the lyrics to any song I know when it's playing, but when I just have to remember it on my own? Nope, can't do it. At least not the entire song.

I love the scene where his parents want to hear one of his "new" songs and he starts playing "Let It Be" (probably one of the best Beatles songs there is!) and he keeps getting interrupted by their neighbor or someone's phone. He keeps starting over after he gets interrupted and everyone keeps getting restless because he keeps repeating the same line. All the poor guy is trying to do is play the entire song without any interruptions, but he never gets to because he gets so fed up after the fourth of fifth interruption and tells them that they're the first people on Earth to hear this song and that it's like watching da Vinci paint the Mona Lisa right in front of them. They're all just staring at him, probably thinking he's super full of himself and he never gets to play it for them because they are interrupted once again when the neighbor's wife stops over.

Jack begins playing the songs at small festivals, but nobody seems to really care. He thinks the problem is him and he doesn't have the je ne sais quoi that the Beatles did, but then a guy from a recording company takes notice of him and Jack and Lily record a demo and the thing takes flight, at least at a local level. Jack is about to confess to Lily where the songs really came from, but he gets distracted when Ed Sheeran (played by Ed Sheeran) wants him to come to Moscow with him and be his opening act. I did laugh when he refers to himself as "the ginger geezer". And when Jack's dad tells him, "You look like Ed Sheeran!" But please tell me his ring tone isn't one of his own songs in real life because that's so...tacky. Also, I like about 90% of his music, but I really do not care for "Shape of You", which is the song he has as his ringtone in this movie.

Everyone loves Jack's opening act and we see a tall man in the back and right away I can tell he has heard the songs Jack is singing before because he has a look of recognition on his face. So this got very interesting; Jack is not the only person in the world who remembers the Beatles. Of course he sings "Back in the USSR" and Ed Sheeran tells him he really likes the song and he thought it was cool that he called it USSR even though it probably stopped being called that before he was born. Doing some Google research, I found out the song was released in 1968 and stopped being called that in 1991. You think a lot more of his younger fans (hell, any aged fan!) would be confused by the title of this song, but they seemed to be loving it.

Ed Sheeran challenges Jack to a "song writing competition" just for fun, just to see who can write the better "new" song in just a matter of minutes. The Ed Sheeran song is pretty good; it's very Ed Sheeran-y. And of course he should have won considering Jack cheated when he passes off "The Long and Winding Road" as his own and something he wrote in under fifteen minutes just that evening. It's pretty funny because Ed Sheeran is starting to question his status as a song writer and if he really is that good and he goes off, defeated. He tells Jack that he's Mozart and he (Ed) is Salieri. I had never heard of Salieri before and looked him up. He was a well established composer until Mozart came along and took over and (obviously) became the much more recognized name. So I guess there's a reason why I'm not familiar with the name Salieri. Maybe Jack should have picked one of the lesser known, lesser regarded songs to not make poor Ed Sheeran feel so bad! I was very amused by this scene and you can tell Ed Sheeran had a lot of fun with it.

Jack is brought to L.A. by Ed's manager, Debra (Kate McKinnon), who wants him to write more songs and make them both super rich. Her plan is to have Jack make "an astonishing era-defining double album that changes popular music forever". (He definitely has enough material to make a double album!) At his going-away party, Ellie confesses that she has always been in love with him (you knew it was coming!) and now things are complicated between them because he's about to leave for Los Angeles where his life is about to change drastically. His (well, The Beatles') five most popular songs are released online and they're getting colossal hits and everyone is raving about them. We don't know which songs were picked (I guess they didn't want to start a debate about which are the five greatest Beatles songs of all time because I'm sure it's different for everyone) but "Let It Be" was definitely one of them (I think most people would agree about that anyway) because you see a news clip of Jack's dad saying that he and his wife were the first ones to ever hear "Let it Be". (Even though it was only the first line four times!) If I had to choose my five favorite Beatles song, they would be "Let it Be", "Hey Jude", "All You Need is Love", "Oh La Di, Oh La Da" (why wasn't that song called "Life Goes On"? The TV show with Corky got it right!), and "Here Comes the Sun." Ask me tomorrow and my list might change, but I feel pretty good about those. "Imagine" would also be in this conversation, but I don't know if it counts as a Beatles song since it was just John Lennon. In fact, I actually prefer "Imagine" to all of those songs, except maybe "Let It Be".

While working on the album in Los Angeles, he feels he needs to go to Liverpool to find more inspiration because certain things aren't clicking for him. While there we see a woman following him and she appears to be another person who is aware of the Beatles. (Of course someone from Liverpool would have to remember them!) Lily comes to Liverpool and they almost sleep together, but Lily tells him she doesn't want a one night stand because that's what it would be since he's going back to L.A. the next day.

Back there, he meets with the head of the label (who's played by Lamorne Morris aka Winston Bishop from New Girl, a show I'm currently watching on Netflix). They're in a huge room with other people who work at the company who are all applauding Jack on his major talent and success. The next step is to put everything together "into one single, irresistible album." The album title suggestions from Jack are rejected - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band because it's too many words and too confusing; The White Album because it has diversity issues (even though Jack is of Indian descent); and Abbey Road because "it doesn't have a lot going for it". (Probably because it's just a picture of the street!) He wants Jack's album to speak for itself and wants to call it One Man Only, to tell the world that Jack didn't have any help in the process of creating this album. I had a little chuckle when he says, "No 'featuring Cardi B.' No 'featuring Bieber." Ugh, the Beatles in the same sentence with those two? Just, no. No, no, no. Can we please live in a world where those two never existed? I seriously doubt we would miss ever miss anything. I also had a chuckle when the back of the album is revealed with a silhouette of Jack's head and it says "All songs, music and lyrics by Jack Malik. Only" and everyone is gasping and oohing and ahhing and clapping.

There's a very cringe-worthy scene where Jack is recording "Hey Jude" and Ed Sheeran is there and he thinks it would be better if the words were "Hey Dude" instead. (Heh, remember that show on Nickelodeon? That's what I think of when I hear "Hey Dude"). Debra also thinks this is a brilliant idea and tells him it's so much better and Jack is like, "Is it? Is it really?" No, it's totally awful!

At a press conference, the Russian man and the woman from Liverpool are there in the audience and one of them holds up a yellow submarine (which hasn't become a thing yet in this parallel universe) and the other one asks him who is his favorite - John, Paul, George, or Ringo? They want to talk to him privately and I'm thinking, Ooh! This is going to be interesting. They're either going to extort him for money or make him feel guilty and tell him to confess his big secret and reveal who is really behind all of these amazing songs that everyone loves. But, no. They thank him for giving the world the music of the Beatles. Then they all start dancing around in a circle singing "Yellow Submarine." The way they shot these two prior to this scene really made it seem like they were being ominous about the whole thing. The fact that they're thanking Jack and being super nice to him made me feel disappointed. I want some damn drama in my movies!

This next part may be considered spoiler-y; so take that as a warning!

One of them tells Jack they "did some digging" and hands him an address of someone he may want to talk to. Remember when I was wondering if the Beatles themselves as individual people existed in this world? Well, we get the answer to that question when Jack goes to the address given to him - a small house near the beach - and an elderly man wearing denim with long hair and round glasses answers the door and introduces himself as "John". At first I was like, That can't be John Lennon! He died nearly 40 years ago! And then I realized, if he was never in the Beatles, then he never got famous, thus never got assassinated. So in this world, he most likely would still be alive. He is played by Robert Carlyle aka Mr. Gold/Rumplestiltskin from the TV series Once Upon a Time. I know they style him the way they do so the audience knows it's John Lennon, but I did find it amusing that if he were still alive today, he'd be wearing the same glasses and have the same haircut. This version of John Lennon seems totally chill that a random stranger showed up on his doorstep and doesn't really question why he seems so in awe of him. John tells Jack that he is happy and gives him some advice including, "Tell the girl you love that you love her" and "Tell the truth to everywhere when you can." As you may have guessed, Jack will heed this advice. When he asks how old John is and hears his answer, he replies with, "Fantastic! You made it to 78!"and gives the befuddled man a hug.

At his first big concert at Wembley Stadium, Jack confesses his love to Ellie and tells the truth about the Beatles. Ellie is somewhere under the stage and there's a camera on her that puts her face on full display on a jumbo tron. Luckily she is beautiful and fresh-faced, but ooh, if that were me, I would be so pissed! I don't want a close up of my face on some big ass screen where everyone can stare at it! Just one of my many worst nightmares! Jack offers the Beatles songs for free and releases all of them online which makes Debra furious.

So I predicted this movie would end with everything going back to normal; that the world would once again remember the Beatles, but being that John Lennon is alive in this world, I guess it would be cruel to take him away and the world (except for three people) still goes on without remembering a group called the Beatles ever existed, but at least they have their music to enjoy (for free!) thanks to Jack. We also find out that "Harry Potter" has also been erased from everyone's memory. I hope Jack remembers enough to write all seven books! I feel like trying to write one book from memory would be difficult enough, let alone seven.

So I guess in this universe, the movie Across the Universe doesn't exist either! I need to watch that and review it soon. I saw it when it first came out and liked it, but just never took the time to revisit it. I do have the soundtrack and shhh, don't tell anyone, but I actually like the movie's rendition of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" better than the Beatles'!

Murder Mystery

Knives Out

Director: Rian Johnson

Cast: Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Christopher Plummer, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Katherine Langford

Released: November 27, 2019

Viewed in theaters: December 19, 2019

Since this movie has only been out for a month and I'm sure there are plenty of people who have yet to see it, I will review this movie without spoilers first, then I will have a separate portion for spoilers. Believe me, this is the kind of movie you want to see without being spoiled as it is a murder mystery and half the fun is trying to determine "whodunnit". I highly recommend that you watch it. I was thoroughly entertained throughout the film and you could tell the actors were having a lot of fun too.

You probably already know the basic plot: the patriarch of a wealthy family has been found dead the night of his 85th birthday when all of his family were there celebrating with him, so any of them could be suspects. It is up to the detective to figure out what happened.

Christopher Plummer plays Harlan Thrombey, the mystery writer who is found dead with his throat slashed. Daniel Craig plays Benoit Blanc, the detective hired by somebody in the family (we don't find out until the end) to figure out how he died. When he first spoke, it took me a few seconds for my brain to register he was talking in a Southern accent since I'm so acclimated to hearing him with a British accent that I just assumed he was speaking with one, but no, it's quite a thick Southern accent! I loved the moment when he is referred to as "CSI: KFC". Since Harlan's family was at his home the night before for his party and spent the night at his massive home, they are all considered suspects: The players include:

-Harlan's daughter, Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her husband, Richard (Don Johnson). She is a successful real estate agent mogul and her husband helps her run her company. Their son goes by Ransom (Chris Evans), who left the party early.

-Harlan's son, Walt (Michael Shannon) his wife, Donna, and his teen son, Jacob. Walt is the CEO of his father's publishing company. His wife is mostly in the background and doesn't really have any lines and you kind of forget about her with all the other loud, colorful characters. Because of her invisibility, I did assume she might be the murderer...but I won't tell you if she is or isn't!

-Harlan's daughter-in-law, Joni (Toni Collette) and her daughter, Meg (Katherine Langford (she was the main character in 13 Reasons Why)). Joni was married to a son of Harlan's who died. She still stays in touch with her husband's side of the family, but more for the money than anything else.

-Harlan's mother. Yes! The mother of an eighty-five year old man was still alive. That seemed pretty absurd to me. Nobody knows how old she is. I never even considered her as the murderer...or was she? Dun, dun, dun! Again, I won't tell you if she is or isn'!

-Harlan's nurse, Marta (Ana de Armas) who has a good relationship with him. There is a running joke that nobody in the Thrombey family knows where she's from because we hear she's from different South American countries like Peru, Ecuador, and Brazil.

-Harlan's housekeeper, Fran.

When Blanc interviews each person, you hear them tell their version of the story, but then a flashback of the party is shown and you see what really happened. Most of them have tweaked their stories just a tad. We see quite a few people could have a reason to murder Harlan. We see Harlan tell Walt that he no longer wants him as CEO of his company, we see Harlan tell Joni that he knows she's been taking the money that's supposed to be for her daughter's school and he will no longer be giving her any more, and we see him tell Richard that he's aware that he's cheating on Linda and unless Richard tells her about it, he will.

So I just assumed we would get plenty of clues (and red herrings!) and by the end there would be enough information to determine who the murderer was. Imagine my surprise when it is revealed what happed in the middle of the movie. I knew there had to be a catch: either we weren't getting the true story or either there was more to the story than we were told. There's a very amusing speech from Blanc when he does figure out what actually happens and calls it "a donut hole within a donut hole". Not exactly sure where he was going with that, but it gave me a chuckle.

Okay, starting here I will begin my spoiler warning, so if you haven't seen the movie, you should stop reading right now! I repeat, spoilers start now. If you haven't seen this movie and do not want to be spoiled, then stop reading now! You have been warned! And you should really see this movie without being spoiled! Major spoilers ahoy!

So before I get to the spoiler of who murdered Harlan, there's another scene that might be considered slightly spoiler-y. (Hence the reason I have it after my spoiler warning!) The entire family plus Marta has gathered at the house to hear the will reading of their late father/grandfather. They're all excitedly speculating amongst themselves who will get what and how much each of them will get what. To their shock and anger, Harlan has left his fortune and publishing company to Marta. (I would be pretty upset too if I were them!) There's a funny moment when Linda snarls at Marta to get out of their house, then she turns to the lawyer (played by Frank Oz) and asks him, "This is still our home, right?" and he proceeds to tell them that the mansion now belongs to Marta. He left everything to his nurse.

While all this is going on, Ransom has a s**t-eating grin on his face. During the interrogations the previous day, everyone said he left the party early, storming out of his grandfather's office, after having a heated conversation with Harlan. Because he was gone during the time of Harlan's death, he was ruled out as a suspect and wasn't interviewed. We learn that Harlan had told him he was cut out of the will, but what the others didn't know is that he knew Marta was getting everything, so he was enjoying their looks of disbelief as the will was being read.

Ransom helps Marta get away and she ends up confessing everything to him because she feels she can trust him. (I mean, if you can't trust Captain America, then who can you trust, right?) In the flashback, we learn that Marta was the reason Hanson died; accidentally, of course. The two medications for him got knocked off the table and she accidentally administrated him a much larger dose of morphine than was intended when she meant to give him regular medication. She only meant to give a little dose of morphine. The camera lingers when we see Marta injecting Harlan with the needles so I figured this was the real reason of his death (even though we see him with his throat slashed!) Naturally, Marta is freaking out as she is (unsuccessfully) trying to search for the antidote in her bag. She tells him that she needs to give it to him within the next ten minutes or he will die, When she can't find him, she goes to call 9-1-1, but he stops her, telling her the ambulance won't make it in time since they are in the middle of nowhere. He knows Marta will be blamed for his death and since he knows her mother is an illegal immigrant, he doesn't want anything to happen to her. Being the mystery writer he is, he comes up with an intricate plan (within a matter of minutes, mind you) where she should make a big deal of leaving and stating the time, then sneak back into the house (coming through a secret window) and put on his robe and come down for a snack so people will think he's still alive at the time. Since I've only seen this movie once, the details are a little fuzzy for me. I feel like you can probably catch a lot of little details with re-watches. He the proceeds to slit his own throat (at first, his death is considered a suicide...which I guess is technically true). Being that he left all of his possessions to Marta and was willing to take his own life, he obviously thought a lot of her.

We find out that Ransom learned about a slayer clause which means if the person who the inheritance of the deceased is intended to go to is found guilty of that person's death, then they will not receive anything (seems like a good idea to have that in place!) His plan is to make sure Marta doesn't get anything. He actually had switched the labels of the two medications and had taken the antidote from Marta's bag. So, when Marta gave Harlan what she thought was the wrong medication, it was actually the right stuff (because she was so used to the weight of the bottle of something like that, it just came second nature to her, but when she read the label, she freaked out). Ironically, Harlan was never in any danger of dying and slit his throat for nothing. That may have been the real twist to this whole thing!


I love the ending shot where see Marta on the upper deck of the house looking down below at the Thrombey family while sipping from Harlan's mug which reads, "My coffee, my house, my rules." It was a nice callback to when we first see that mug in one of the very first shots of the movie and it was   gave me a good laugh.

Skipping Christmas

Christmas With the Kranks
Director: Joe Roth
Cast: Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dan Aykroyd, M. Emmet Walsh, Cheech Marin, Jake Busey, Erik Per Sullivan
Released: November 24, 2004

If ever a thing called Christmas shaming existed, this movie proves it's a thing. It's about a couple, Luther and Nora Krank (Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis), who plan to skip Christmas the year their daughter is in Peru in the Peace Corps. Instead of doing their usual holiday festivities, they decide to go on a Caribbean cruise instead. This will be the first time in 23 years their daughter won't be home for Christmas so they decide to do something different. Luther crunches some numbers and tells his wife that they spent $6,100 (!!) on Christmas last year and $63 of that was spent on ornament repairs. We also know that $600 was donated to the children's hospital and the church. First of all, how do you spend that much money? I assume most of it was for gifts, but what are they buying and how many people are they getting gifts for? Does Luther buy gifts for his entire office? Do they buy gifts for all the neighbors? They do mention an annual Christmas Eve party they have, so I imagine the food and wine and dessert may dig into their wallet, but surely not over a thousand dollars worth! Also, when they say ornament repair, do they just throw away the ones that are broken/don't work, and get new ones? I have never heard of anybody getting their ornaments repaired. I would love to see a spreadsheet of what they're spending for Christmas. Luther tells his wife that the cruise will only cost them three thousand dollars and she's delighted that they will save money.

So they make plans to go on a ten day luxury cruise in the Caribbean. Nothing wrong with that. Except all their neighbors, who are all extreme Christmas fanatics (I guess they don't let any Jews or Muslims in that neighborhood!), are so outraged that the Kranks have the gall to skip Christmas. The neighborhood, led by Vic Frohmeyer (Dan Aykroyd) who seems to be the unofficial head of the neighborhood committee, can't believe that the Kranks won't put up Christmas decorations, including a tree that the Boy Scouts are selling for $90 (seems kind of steep for something you only use for less than a month) and a huge plaster Frosty the Snowman decoration that's seven feet tall. Apparently everyone in the neighborhood has their own snowman that they are expected to put up every year. Where does everyone keep their Frosty decoration? (We find out the Kranks keep theirs in their basement). I would hate to live in this militant neighborhood where you're expected to follow all these asinine rules.

Evidently, it's such a big deal that they're skipping Christmas that it makes the front page of their local paper. The. Front. Page. This must be the smallest suburb of Chicago. There's a picture of their dark house only adorned with a wreath on the front door surrounded by their neighbors with all their Christmas lights lit and their Christmas decorations on full display. The photo of the Kranks they print is one where they're in their bathing suits (ill-fitting ones at that) when they're at a tanning salon at the mall. Nora bumps her head when some perv walks in on her and when her forehead starts bleeding she goes to the entrance, which is open to the public, and her priests happens to walk by and stares at her in her skimpy bikini. Luther later joins her in his Speedo and somebody must have taken a picture of them because it's in the paper the next day. Don't you need permission to print somebody's picture in their paper? When Luther shows Nora the paper, neither of them seemed outraged that somebody printed a photo of them in their bathing suits on the front page.

The whole thing with the neighbors vs. the Kranks is so exhausting. On the one hand, it's the Kranks' prerogative if they don't want to go all out and deck their house with boughs of holly or string up lights or put up their ridiculous Frosty statue. (By the way, every Frosty looks the same...same plaid scarf and hat and each one is holding a broom. If they were all different, I could kind of understand the appeal of them, but they're all the same). On the other hand, the neighbors are offering to put up Frosty. Hey, as long as they're offering, what's the harm? While Nora seems ready to give in all the time, Luther stands his ground and tells her not to let the neighbors pressure her into anything. There's also a scene where carolers start singing and they're crawling around on the floor, so nobody sees they're home. What is wrong with enjoying some carolers? But I guess Luther wanted a total boycott of Christmas, which again, is his prerogative. I guess what I'm saying is that maybe the Kranks and their neighbors could have come to a compromise. He doesn't even buy his secretary a gift which is pretty crummy and he almost didn't donate to the charitable causes, but Nora put her foot down on that. I'm surprised she didn't yell at him for not getting his own secretary a gift. There is a funny line where she (his secretary) tells him, "Wa-Mart called. They told me I had to buy my own cheap perfume since Santa isn't coming this year" after he asks her if there's any messages.

Luther even goes so far as to pull a Kevin McCallister and sprays his front walkway with the hose so that whenever anybody comes up to their front door, they'll go flying across their ice. He even sprays his neighbors' cat with the hose and we see it frozen a few scenes later (but we know it's alright because it blinks it's (terrible) CGI eyes and we see the cat later, back to its regular self, although that would have killed the animal).

The Kranks are supposed to leave at noon on Christmas Day for their cruise, but everything changes the day before when they get a call from Blair, their daughter, who tells them she's in Miami and she's coming home for Christmas with her Peruvian fiance, Enrique, and they'll be there by eight that evening. I'm not sure what time she calls, but I'm guessing it's either late morning or early afternoon. She asks her dad if it's snowing because Enrique has never had a white Christmas before and her dad replies, "No, but I sense a storm coming" which gave me a chuckle because Blair is going on about how she's so excited to show Enrique the lights, the decorations, the tree, and her parents' annual Christmas Eve party.

Instead of telling Blair that none of their decorations are up or they're not hosting a party because they're leaving for a cruise the next day, Nora tells her she's happy she'll be home and she's so excited to see her. If they want to cancel their cruise to spend Christmas with their daughter, that's fine, but why not tell her the truth? I know they think Blair is expecting all this stuff, but maybe she should have let her parents known sooner that she was coming home (as Luther will point out after the call ends) However, I am surprised that the Kranks didn't let their daughter know where they would be in case she needed to get in touch with them. But if that happened, then we wouldn't have the next few zany scenes where they're trying to get everything ready by that evening. This includes putting up Frosty, Nora buying a honey hickory ham and ingredients for a caramel cream pie which is Blair's favorite and her mother promising they'll be served at the party, and Luther having to find a Christmas tree.

When Nora goes to the grocery store to buy the honey hickory ham, there's only one left and both she and another lady are racing down the aisle for it. Nora ends up tripping over a shopping cart and knocks over a display of crackers and the other lady grabs the last ham. This ham is in a tin can and I don't know about you, but I'm a bit wary of meat in a tin can (tuna fish being the exception). At the checkout line, Nora sees a couple with a young boy who also have a ham. She begs them for it, then bribes them, telling them she will pay well above sticker price. They are not willing to budge, but when she tells them it's never too late to think of their child's future, we see her walking out of the grocery store with the ham in her hand. Makes me wonder how much she wrote a check for! I'm guessing a couple hundred dollars because she was really begging them for that ham. Well, whatever she paid for it, certainly wasn't worth it! She ends up dropping it and it rolls all the way into the street where a huge semi flattens it to smithereens (and nearly flattens Nora herself as she just barely manages to jump back). At one point, when the ham is rolling towards the street it goes under a car that stops and instead of running around the car, she stops to bend down and peer under the car to watch it continue rolling. If she hadn't taken the time to do that, she may actually have caught the ham. She ends up buying smoked trout instead, ick!

Luther goes to buy a Christmas tree and the only ones left are these small dead trees with no pine needles on them at all. They're selling them for $15 (again, pretty steep, especially for a dead tree), but they charge him $75 since supply is low. Plus, the guy is mad at him for not buying the $90 tree in the first place. He pays for the tree even though he know he can't use it (so why did he buy it?) and instead asks a neighbor who's going out of town for Christmas if he can borrow his tree. (Nobody seems to be mad at that guy for being out of town for Christmas!) The neighbor agrees as long as he doesn't break anything (spoiler alert: he breaks a lot of ornaments) and puts it back after he's done with it. Luther recruits Spike (Erik Per Sullivan aka Dewey from Malcolm in the Middle), who is Frohmeyer's son, to help him with the tree. We see them taking off ornaments, so I figure he's going to adorn the tree with their own ornaments. However, when they bring the tree over to his house, it still has some of the ornaments on it and when Nora sees it, she's confused by the ornaments on it that aren't even theirs. But hey, at least they have a fully grown tree and not some scraggly tree. While Luther and Spike were transporting the tree, the cops (Cheech Marin and Jake Busey) are called by one of the neighbors who think Luther is breaking and entering. He is arrested but is free to go once the misunderstanding is cleared up.

By the time Blair and Enrique arrive at the airport, her parents aren't ready for her (what a shock) so they send the two cops to get her and ask them to stall them until they're ready. Even though the neighbors are angry at the Kranks for wanting to skip Christmas, they agree to help them because of Blair.

The editing of the cops picking up Blair and Enrique drives me crazy. We see a quick shot of them putting their luggage in their car. Then see a quick shot of her parents and the neighbors decorating cookies at the Krank household. Then we see another quick shot of Spike on a Walkie, telling the cops to stall Blair and Enrique. And while this is going on, it jumps to another quick shot of something else. Super annoying. What is this? A Michael Bay film? They do stall pretending they see a robbery, but they actually do catch a guy trying to escape down a fire escape.

This movie is based on a book called Skipping Christmas by John Grisham of all people. Yes, the same guy who wrote A Time To Kill and The Pelican Brief and The Firm and all those other legal-themed dramas/thrillers. I'm not sure what the tone of the book is, but I'd be curious to read it. Nothing about it screams John Grisham to me. I guess he just wanted a break from all his serious books. Maybe I'll put it on my reading list for next Christmas. They changed the movie's title to Christmas with the Kranks because Surviving Christmas, the movie with Ben Affleck and James Gandolfini, came out the same year and they didn't want to confuse the two of them. The new title doesn't really make any since the Kranks aren't actually celebrating Christmas...but, whatever.

Blair and Enrique attend the party and Blair is none the wiser that her parents (and neighbors!) got it all ready in one afternoon. Everything seems to be going great, except Luther still wants him and Nora to go on the cruise tomorrow because the tickets are non-refundable. Nora is appalled by this since their daughter and her fiance flew all the way from Peru to spend Christmas with them. Luther ends up giving the tickets to his elderly neighbors (the ones who own the cat that he froze), the husband (M. Emmet Smith) who he's been feuding with the most. He even offers to take care of their cat (I wouldn't let him take care of my cat!). It's really sad because their son hasn't been to visit them "in years" and while everyone is at the Kranks' Christmas Eve party, this couple are at their own home. I assume they were invited, but didn't go because the wife has cancer and they wanted to have their own quiet Christmas Eve dinner.

Oh, so in this world Santa Claus does exist. Because, why not? No reason, really, it's just a little subplot they throw in.

Airport Christmas

Unaccompanied Minors
Director: Paul Feig
Cast: Tyler James Williams, Wilmer Valderrama, Lewis Black, Paget Brewster, Rob Cordrry
Released: December 8, 2006

Much like Home Alone was a Christmas movie targeted towards me, a kid in the early '90s; Unaccompanied Minors was a Christmas movie targeted towards kids in the mid 2000s. Both have children wreaking havoc among adults, but while Home Alone is considered a classic Christmas movie, this one did not really stand up to the test of time and you never hear about it being a beloved Christmas movie. In fact, you wouldn't know this was a Christmas movie just by looking at the title (that's probably why they make the "o" in "Minors" look like a wreath). Now it could be beloved to the kids who grew up in the mid 2000s, but there is nothing about this movie that makes it join the ranks of the greatest Christmas movies of all time.

Unaccompanied Minors is about a group of young teens who meet when they are snowed in at an airport on Christmas Eve. We meet the four of them before the have met each other. There's Charlie (the only young person of the cast I was familiar with. He's played by Tyler James Williams, who is from Everybody Hates Chris) who lives on the east coast (I believe he says he's from Massachusetts). There's a weird scene where he's with his dad, about to meet Santa at the mall, but he ends up fainting because he apparently does this every year when he meets Santa. Keep in mind that Charlie is no younger than twelve. And then hid dad faints? WTF is going on here? We also meet rich girl, Grace, who lives in the "north"; rebellious androgynous Donna who lives in the "south" (her mom is played by Kristin Wiig in a blink and you'll miss it scene); and last but least, we meet Spencer and his bratty kid sister, Catherine, who live in the "West" (most likely Southern California). At first I thought Spencer was played by Jesse Eisenberg, but he would have been way too old to be in this. I listened to a podcast review of this movie and they kept referring to this character as "Jesse Eisenberg" which was hilarious.

We really only know Spencer and Catherine's backstory: they are flying to Pennsylvania to spend Christmas with their father. (I guess that family doesn't care about Christmas Eve if they're flying out on the 24th). They have to switch planes at the Hoover International Airport (not a real airport; I looked it up). According to whoever wrote the Wikipedia entry, it is located in D.C., but that can't be right because we see Catherine take out a NORAD map of where and when Santa will make his stops. Apparently this airport will be one of his stops (since when does Santa visit airports?) and judging from the map, it looks like the airport is located in Minnesota. It's a bit hard to tell because the words "Hoover Intl. Airport" stretches out from South Dakota and Minnesota and even touches the border of Iowa. Since this is an international airport, it would have to be in the biggest city in this area, Minneapolis. They don't really make it clear, but considering there is a huge snowstorm, Minnesota makes a lot of sense, plus we'll get another little clue why this is probably where the airport is located later on.

Spencer and Catherine meet a TSA agent named Zach (played by Wilmer Valderrma aka Fez) who is going to stay with them during the layover. The kid notice the airport isn't adorned for Christmas aside from some very minuscule decorations and he explains that his boss, Mr. Porter, isn't into Christmas decorations or Christmas in general.

Mr. Porter (Lewis Black) is in a great mood because it's his first Christmas off in fifteen years and he's planning to spend it in Hawaii, but when he's about to board the plane, the gate closes and the flight is cancelled due to snow. In fact, all the flights are cancelled and Zach takes Spencer and Catherine to the Unaccompanied Minors room where all the kids 17 and under who are traveling by themselves are being kept. Oh. My. God. This would be my worst nightmare; even as a kid, I would absolutely hate this. The room is full of screaming kids who are running around and throwing food. There are two frazzled flight attendants who are in charge of watching them, but they leave when they see Zach has arrived. I definitely don't blame them!

They want to keep the kids confined to this room so that means not letting them out even to use the restroom (even though there is a bathroom in the room, but it soon becomes inoperable because some dumb kid flushed his cell phone down the toilet due to a bet and it overflowed), but when Zach becomes pelted with snack and drinks, the door is no longer guarded and Spencer leaves the room followed closely by the other kids we met in the first scene, plus a fat kid, Beef (please tell me that's not his real name), who doesn't talk much and has an Aquaman action figure who seems to be his only friend.

All the kids go on their own little grown up adventure now that they are by themselves in the airport. Spencer decides to get a bite to eat and we see Mindy Kaling as the waitress. Seeing that Paul Feig directed some episodes of The Office, it doesn't surprise me to see cast members make cameos in this. Grace uses her High Flyer's Club card to enter a swanky part of the airport where she gets a massage and gets something to eat which includes fancy cheese and caviar. Okay, I don't care if you're rich or not, no kid would ever eat caviar. No human should want to eat caviar. It is disgusting. Yes, I've had it before, and I don't understand the appeal. It was the first and last time I ever ate it. It's a little bit funny because after that scene it transitions back to Zach where he's sitting at the restaurant and orders nachos, an actual food an actual kid would actually eat. He tells Mindy Kaling that his mom never lets him eat nachos or drink soda, so he orders those. When she tells him her mom never let her eat mozzarella sticks, he orders those too.  When he gets the bill, he leaves her an IOU note on his napkin (the bill was for $75! How much stuff did he order?!) and that she should e-mail his dad for payment and provides a gmail.com address to reach him. What? Is his dad going to use Pay Pal to send the money? He also mentions that he left his mozzarella sticks for her. Why would anyone want his cold mozzarella sticks? Charlie plays with all the gadgets at The Sharper Image, which includes sticking a nose trimmer gadget in his nose and turning it on. Gawd, kids are disgusting! Donna steals one of the little cars they use to transport old ladies and people who can't get around at the airport. Beef goes into the emergency equipment room (which surprisingly is unlocked). One by one, the kids get caught by security and have to escape them before they are brought back to the room of doom. Donna, driving the go-kart, picks up Spencer and the other kids. I thought Grace had a clever, but ballsy way of escaping security: she joins a couple with their son and acts like she's part of their family and puts her arms around the young boy and tells him, "Hey, bro." Lucky for her, the parents of the boy just look at her and start speaking in German. They don't know what's going on.

So these five kids on a go-kart are driving through the crowded airport, probably no more than five mph, ten at tops and there's about five out of shape security officers who can't even reach them! They are eventually surrounded by more security officers, including the mean old grinch, Mr. Porter, and brought back to the room where all the other kids (including Catherine) have been sent to a lodge. He tells the other kids they won't be going there because of the blizzard. If that's the case, then how did all the other kids get there? Wasn't it snowing when the room was chaotic and full of screaming kids? There's really no good reason why the five remaining kids can't go to the lodge; Mr. Porter just wants to punish them for escaping the room. He tells them they will stay in this room (which is a disgusting mess) and that Zach will watch them.

They kids concoct a plan to escape once again because Spencer needs to get to the lodge because he promised his sister that Santa would know where she is and leave her the doll she wants for Christmas. Or something. They call B.J. Novak (the other Office alum), who works at the information center and tell him they have a message for Zach, who in turn, is paged to the information desk. While Zach is gone, the kids hide in the rafters and he comes running back after B.J. Novak tells him a group of kids had the message "Goodbye" for him. He thinks they have escaped and runs out, leaving the door unlocked so the kids can escape. They must have used Grace's cell phone to place the call.

Beef tells Spencer he'll get his sister a Christmas tree and runs off, leaving the remaining four. I'm pretty sure there's already a Christmas tree at the lodge. Doe this mean this kid is the Chunk of the group since he is now separated from the other kids who are having the adventure?

Charlie tells the others they need to go to the baggage claim area in the northeast part of the airport because that's where security is the most lax. He knows this because he flies out of this airport every week. EVERY. WEEK. HE FLIES OUT OF THIS AIRPORT EVERY WEEK. Oh my God, this poor child. His parents are divorced, so his mother must live far away from Massachusetts. Even Mr. Porter knows who he is and was very disappointed in him since he called Charlie his "model underage flyer." But, dear God, I can't imagine being twelve years old and having to fly every single week. I can understand holidays and summer vacation, but EVEY WEEK? How does school work for this kid? Does he fly out after school on Friday, stay with his mom for a weekend, then head back Sunday night? This is no way for a child to live! I want to know where his mom lives and why she lives so far away from her son that he has to FLY OUT EVERY WEEK to see her! As someone who doesn't like flying (because of all the hassle), this would be my worst nightmare.

The kids distract the three or so security officers blocking the door by letting out a dog in its kennel. Mr. Porter hears the commotion and the kids hide in the baggage claim area. Charlie hides inside a suitcase that he's somehow able to fit into even though it's already packed. He is also able to zip it closed from the inside to hide from Mr. Porter, but will not be able to open it back up for some reason. He sees the suitcase on the floor and puts it on the conveyor belt to send it to the unclaimed baggage area, sending Charlie on a grand adventure that should have killed him, or at the very least, left him brain dead. Also, I find it hard to believe the two security officers who pick up the suitcase don't find it suspiciously heavy. There's a 12-year-old boy in there for god's sake!

They all end up safe and sound in the unclaimed baggage area which is huge and has fifty years of unclaimed baggage. At the beginning of the movie, we saw a commercial for an unclaimed baggage sale at this airport. As the saleswoman put it, "If someone's lost it, you can buy it!" And that's exactly what the kids do: they start playing with all the toys and gadgets and take what they want. Spencer sees a really ugly doll that looks to be from the '50s with a hard plastic body and a frilly purple dress. He knows it will be the perfect thing for his sister; guess Catherine didn't have a specific doll in mind that she wanted. Charlie finds four Walkie Talkies (complete with batteries!) that, believe it or not, will come in handy later on in the film.

While the kids are playing with their toys, then later having a dance party to a jazz song (cuz 2000s kid love jazz!), they are spotted by Porter on the security guard and have to escape him and the other security guards once again. They head outside where they slide down a giant hill on a canoe. The lodge they need to get to is at the bottom. Zach is the only one who has caught up with them, so they take him with them because he knows too much about their plan. Or something. Porter and the other security guards follow suit and take down items to slide down the hill: a kayak, a tire, a grill, among others. I'm pretty sure this "hill" they're sledding down is actually a mountain because it goes on and on and on. It's pretty obvious they shot the kids and Wilmer Valderrama on the canoe in front of a green screen. Of course the kids arrive safely in front of the lodge while Porter and the other security guards either crash or fly into some deep dark abyss.

So I'm thinking, great, the kids have reached the lodge, the bad guys are all gone, and now Spencer can give his sister the Christmas she wants. So that must mean the movie is about to wrap up, right? Nope! Wrong! We haven't even reached the one hour mark yet and there's still thirty-five minutes left!

Spencer is able to give the doll to his sleeping sister who had had to endure her own hell at the place by having to hang out with the granddaughter of one of the flight attendants (played by Jessica Walter aka Lucille Bluth) who's only a few years older than her and treats her like a living doll. Porter comes back and takes them back to the airport where he tells them instead of being confined to the large room, they'll now each have their separate private rooms. He also tells him that he's bumped the four of them from their flights so the people who are waiting in the airport can go ahead of them since they haven't gotten in trouble. Uh, he does realize he only has four people he can let go early, right?

As you can imagine, this is when the Walkie-Talkies come in handy. They can each communicate with each other in their individual cells. Porter has their security footage on a TV, but I guess he doesn't seem to notice they're all talking to each other (it's not like they make a point to hide it from him). I guess he figures it's harmless as long as they can't leave. You think a tough-ass like him would want to keep the kids from communicating with each other.

Grace, the rich girl, tells the others she lives twenty minutes from the airport. If you remember, she was the one from the "North", so her being from Minnesota would make sense. I bet she's from Edina, that Cake Eater. (Shout out to The Mighty Ducks). She flew in from boarding school and thought it would be more fun to stay at an airport than hang out with her nanny in her McMansion while her parents were in Paris. Girl, are you crazy? I bet you have a ton of fun things to do in your huge house. Who would want to hang out in an airport?

The kids concoct another plan to escape their cells and it involves recording themselves on their Walkie-Talkies, switching the video over to the security camera, then leaving through the vent. Crawling through a vent in movies/TV shows is one of the biggest tropes there is as I bet nobody in real life could even fit through a vent! These vents are so wide and spacious that two of them can crawl next to each other at the same time! Of course the plan goes perfectly without a hitch. They end up in the room where Mr. Porter keeps all the Christmas decorations. (Question: why does he even have these if he hates decorating for Christmas?) Around this time Beef returns with a Christmas tree that he traded his Aquaman action figure for and Spener comes up with the brilliant idea of decorating the airport for Christmas so when everyone wakes up, they'll get a nice Christmas surprise..bet you didn't see that coming! I had to laugh when Donna replaces one of Mr. Porter's tiny Christmas tree stickers with a bigger one, but it really wasn't that much bigger.

Mr. Porter and the kids come to an understanding and we learn that he doesn't like Christmas because his wife left him five years ago. They really only decorate one main area of the airport, including the tree, where they lead everybody to on Christmas morning. It's a nice sentiment and all, but truth be told, if I were in that group of passengers, I would not be impressed by the Christmas display. It's just a bunch of cheap plastic doo-dads. The kids from the lodge also gather with them and Catherine is reunited with her brother. Mr. Porter redeems himself by dressing up as Santa and surprising all the kid, including Catherine.

Mr. Porter tells the kids they'll be the first to leave when the weather has cleared and Spencer invites Grace to spend Christmas with him and his sister at their dad's house. Since they're both the older kids of the group, there's been a little spark between them. They also try to make Donna and Charlie into a thing, (she kisses Charlie at the end) since they're around the same age, but why do they need to couple up both pairs of kids? Also, shouldn't the kiss have happened between Spencer and Grace? They're the ones who have been serious quasi-flirting with each other this whole time.

So while all this is going on, the movie jumps to a scene with the parents of Spencer and Catherine. We see their mom (played by Paget Brewster) fretting about her kids being snowed in. She can't reach them because they don't have a cell phone (her ex-husband convinced her not to let them get one because they're bad for the environment). She's staying with her sister (played by Teri Garr) who is scarily into Christmas. Her yard and house is chock full of Christmas decorations and, according to her, she still has six boxes of lights she needs to put up. (And it's Christmas Eve! What's the point of even putting them up?) Her house looks like one of those little shops that has nothing but Christmas memorabilia. She offers a cup of hot chocolate to her sister, who says she's already had three and that it's 80 degrees. There's a terrible joke where the sister thinks she has a defective M&M because it has a "W" on it. This is really terrible humor, even kids have to groan at that, right?

The kids' dad (played by Rob Corddry) receives a call from his ex-wife and tells her he'll pick them up. This guy is very into the environment and drives a small dinky car he calls a biomobile that only takes a certain "vegetarian" type of gasoline. Of course there's noway that car can make it from Pennsylvania to (possibly) Minnesota (damn...if that airport is located in Minneapolis, that's quite a long drive!) A mechanic helps him out and lets him borrow a Humvee to drive which scandalizes him and he hopes the guys from the Sierra Club don't see him driving that monstrosity. (Those are pretty obnoxious vehicles).  He reaches the airport on Christmas morning, just in time to surprise his kids.

While this isn't the worst Christmas movie out there (just turn on the Hallmark Chanel to find those; hell, even Netflix is churning out some Christmas crap), it's defintely not going to be considered a holiday classic anytime soon and there are better movies to watch during this time of the year!