Miracle in the Andes

Alive

Director: Frank Marshall

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Josh Hamilton, Vincent Spano, Bruce Ramsay, Danny Nucci, Illeana Douglas, John Malkovich

Released: January 15, 1993

I was not familiar with this true story of a plane crash carrying a Uruguayan rugby team and their friends and family until the movie came out twenty years after it happened. My parents saw it and my mom told me about the cannibalism (oh, we'll get to that later!) I saw the movie a few years later and recently revisited it when I saw it was on Netflix Instant. 

When watching it the first time, when I was in middle school (or high school....I don't remember), it didn't even occur to me that the majority of the actors were caucasian Americans (there were a few Hispanic actors) playing Uruguayans. Now I didn't really have that much of a problem with that as I understand that this was an American production, but still, you're not fooling anyone that Ethan Hawke isn't from South America! I also understand why they're not speaking in Spanish because, again, this is intended for American audiences, but it is weird that this is a South American rugby team and they're all speaking in English...I thought the same thing when I saw that movie about the Chilean miners who were trapped underground and they were all speaking in English too. But seeing as that they had two survivors from the actual plane crash as technical advisors, if they didn't have a problem with it, then neither do I. But it's just so weird.

A small plane (Uruguayan Flight 571) is carrying 45 passengers across the Andes (though the movie was filmed in the Canadian Rockies) to Chile where they will have a rugby match. The 45 people include the rugby team, their family and associates, and five people made up the crew. The date is October 13, 1972, and yes, that just so happened to land on a Friday. (I only know that because Wikipedia told me). The weather is foggy, never a good mix with flying through the mountains on Friday the 13th! Because of the horrible visibility, the tail and the wings broke apart from the fuselage when the plane clips a mountain peak. The plane is still flying, though, with a huge hole, and the unfortunate people in the back are ripped out of the plane along with their seats. I can't even imagine what they were thinking, or the people who were sitting at the front who knew they were inevitably going to crash.

The plane crash lands hard and goes skidding very fast down the snowy mountain. In a way, they were lucky there was so much snow...that probably saved them. It's a bumpy and terrifying ride, but it eventually comes to a stop. Seven people died from falling from the aircraft and another five people died from the crash, including the team's physician, ironically, which would be nice to have one what with all the injuries the survivors have obtained...some much more worse than others. Two of the players are medical students and help assist the wounded. They are able to do this as they only have a few minor scrapes and bruises. The co-pilot is still alive, but has blood all over his face and begs for one of the men to get his gun for him, but he tells him he can't be a part of it. The pilot eventually dies during the first night as well as three other passengers, including a woman who had her foot caught under one of the seats and kept wailing in agony until one of the players told her to shut up or else he'll punch her face. When he learns that she died that night, he feels horrible for being so mean to her. The twenty-seven survivors have laid out the bodies in the snow and the team captain, Antonio (Vincent Spano) has taken charge. The captain's name was actually Marcelo Perez, but I learned that they changed all the names of the dead out of respect. I'll get to how he perishes later.

There is only wine and chocolate (for celebrating a victory when they win the match, I suppose?) for food and they ration it out to one capful of wine and a square of chocolate for all the survivors every so often. They sleep in the fuselage and huddle around each other for warmth and block the gaping hole by stuffing it with the luggage. I got so cold watching this movie! I had to turn my A/C off and put on my zip up hoodie and get my bedspread. There's a scene where we see one of the survivors has frostbite on their feet. This movie shows how Mother Nature (especially in the Andes!) is brutal.

Ethan Hawke plays Nando Parrado, a rugby player whose sister and mother were also on board. His mother died in the crash and his sister has horrible injuries. She is still alive, but not doing well. Nando is unconscious and doesn't wake up until the second or third day. He learns about his mother's death and does his best to keep his sister alive, but she will eventually die from her injuries a week later.

The first full day, they hear a plane but it is too cloudy and they know that if they can't see the plane, then it can't seem them. A couple days later, on a more clear day, they see another plane and start waving around brightly colored clothes. The plane dips one of its wings and they start celebrating, taking that as a sign that the plane saw them and is going to get help. I can't blame them for celebrating, I would also want to hope for the best too if I were out there, but there would also be a part of me wondering if the plane really saw the crash site. Everyone except for Antonio and Javier and Lilliana, a married couple with children back home (by the way, thank God there were no children on that flight!) are the only ones who don't eat the rest of the wine and the chocolates. In fact, Antonio doesn't know that they ate all their rations and is super pissed when he finds out. He tells them that the rescuers could be doing a land rescue and it could take days before they are reached. It turns out that the plane didn't even see them at all. I read on Wikipedia that the plane that crashed was white and it blended in with the snow, thus making it difficult for search planes to spot it.

At least a week has passed and there is no food left...or is there? This is the moment of the movie that everybody remembers. Not the horrific crash, not the dangers of being in the middle of the Andes, but the discussion of eating the dead. I can't blame them - the bodies, being in the snow are well-preserved and they do need to eat, because, what else are they going to eat? Remember, there are 27 people (maybe 26 at this time...it was hard to keep track) who need to eat. They do talk it over and how it will change them. Everyone reluctantly agrees they should do it except for Lilliana (played by Illeana Douglas). I would also say no. Not that I would feel like an evil person for eating another human beings; I do get that it's for survival, but my God! I just can't imagine humans tasting good (uh...maybe that's a good thing!) And they're eating them raw! Ughhhhhh! So disgusting! Eww! When we see the first person (Antonio, I think) cut into the rear end of one of the victims, the piece of flesh he eats looks like cold cuts. (I read that they used turkey jerky). It looks SO GROSS. I would seriously throw up. And the fact that they're eating people they know (and Nando specifically asks the others not to touch his mother or sister, which makes sense) makes it worse. If I absolutely was in this dire situation and had to eat a dead body to survive, I would want to eat someone I didn't know, for God's sake and wasn't a relative or close friend of mine. Guess I would have to eat one of the pilots! But then I would throw it up (I just know I would!) and would eventually die from starvation. I know I would die for a fact because they were stranded in the mountains for 72 days! From October 13 - December 23. A small transistor radio is found on the plane and they hear the news that the search effort has been called off, so it's up to them to get help.

The plane's mechanic survived the crash, but doesn't seem to be much help when he is asked about the radio. He says it needs batteries, which just so happen to be in the tail section. (You think the batteries would be in the cockpit). A few of the men decide to look for it and there's a scary scene where they are walking over a snow covered chasm and the snow falls and one of the men almost falls in the gaping hole, but he is grabbed by another and they form a human chain. Who knows if that really happened or if they added it in the movie. Something that really did happen was an avalanche that occurred in the middle of the night and killed eight people including the team captain, Lilliana (who eventually started eating the dead upon her husband's insistence) and the mechanic. It completely covered the fuselage and those lucky enough not to be completely covered by the snow, quickly started digging through the snow.

The search for the tail continues and this time it is found (along with a few dead bodies, still attached to their seats). The battery, however, is too heavy to carry back to the crash site, so it is decided they will return to the crash site and disconnect the radio and bring it back. Needless to say, it didn't work. Nando and Roberto Canessa (played by Josh Hamilton) decide they're going to trek down the mountains to get help. It took them ten days before they finally reached help. In the movie, it is very rushed. Before they leave to get help, Nando (or maybe it was Roberto, I don't remember) gives one of the other men one half of a pair of red baby shoes and tells him that when the shoes are united, then that means they will have been rescued. Um...why are there baby shoes on that plane? There were no babies on that flight! (And thank God!) No way this happened in real life and they were doing it to gloss up the movie a bit, but, again, I ask, why are there baby shoes on that flight? That made no sense at all!

So of course when the helicopters arrive, the baby shoes are reunited and everyone is rescued. Well, the remaining survivors are rescued. In the end, only sixteen out of the forty-five people who were on that flight survived the 72 day ordeal. It is pretty amazing that even that many people did survive!

Raising Life

Raising Helen
Director: Garry Marhsall
Cast: Kate Hudson, Joan Cusack, John Corbett, Helen Mirren, Hayden Panettiere, Abigail Breslin, Spener Breslin
Released: May 28, 2004

Life As We Know It
Director: Greg Berlanti
Cast: Katherine Heigl, Josh Duhamel, Josh Lucas
Released: October 8, 2010

I decided to review both these movies together as they have a similar plot: parents die in a car crash and leave their children to the least likely people (or person) to raise them.

In Raising Helen, Helen (Kate Hudson) and Jenny (Joan Cusack) are sisters whose older sister and brother-in-law are killed in a car accident. Or maybe their sister just moved to Wisteria Lane since she's played by Felicity Huffman and this movie came out the same year Desperate Housewives premiered. By the way, Cusack and Huffman, who are the same age, are 17 years older than Hudson. They are technically old enough to be her mother....I know the characters may not be the same age as the actors (I'm just going by the actors' ages since we don't know how old their characters), but 17 years just seems like a big gap.

In Life As We Know It, Holly (Katherine Heigl) and Messer (Josh Duhamel) are set up by a couple they're best friends with, but the date is such a disaster that there's not even a date because they piss each other off even before they drive to the restaurant. However, they keep seeing each other since their friends get married and they are the godparents of their daughter, Sophie. The parents, too, are killed in a car crash. Why is it always a car crash? I suppose that's the easiest way to kill off a couple of people. Having them murdered would be too traumatizing and a plane crash would be killing many more innocent people.

Guess who the parents left as the guardian to their children in both movies? That's right, Helen, the young party girl who is single and has a full time job as a booking agent for models is left to raise her two nieces and one nephew. Hayden Pana-whatever (I never know how to pronounce her last name, so that's what I call her in real life!) is ten years younger than Kate Hudson and even in the movie they have more of a sister relationship than an aunt/niece one, forget a mother/daughter one! Spencer and Abigail Breslin are the other two kids and Abigail is so young she looks like she was a fetus not that long ago! And Holly and Messer are left to raise one year old Sophie on their own.

In both movies, nobody knew that this was the wish of the deceased parents and if they should die, they would be raising their kids. That seems odd to me. I don't have kids so I don't know how the legal stuff works if you and your spouse die, but I would assume once you choose someone to be your guardian, THEY SHOULD KNOW and maybe even have to sign a contract prepared by your lawyer SO THEY KNOW!! Because in both movies they're all like, "WHAT? They chose me/us?" Really, movies, really?

I don't know which deceased parents were more stupid. It doesn't make sense for the parents in Life to leave their daughter with two people who aren't married and can't stand each other. Since the house mortgage is paid off, they both move into their dead friends' house together which is just weird. Not the fact that they're living in their dead friends' home...hey, if you have a free place to take care of a kid, go for it. What's weird is that they're both living there together raising a child, but yet they have separate lives. You think that would be weird for their dating lives, but they don't seem to have any problems with it. At least they explain why nobody in their immediate family would be fit parents for their daughter because Holly and Messer see if there's anything better and we meet a sister who's a stripper, another sibling who has ten kids, and a frail old father. It would have made more sense if they left Sophie to Holly (the more responsible of the two). Were they not thinking that their friends might get married (to different people!) and the situation would be awkward for everyone? Of course, they do end up together (like you didn't see that one coming) and after sleeping together, Holly says to Messer, "Do you think our friends had this all planned out so we would end up together?" Well, if that was their intention, that was pretty stupid because what if things hadn't worked out? Then they probably would have gone to court to see who would raise Sophie and everything would have been a mess. Stupid deceased parents!

And then why do the parents in Raising Helen (a title I still don't understand) have the younger sister as the sole guardian when Jenny already has two kids with one on the way and is married and knows how to deal with kids? It is established early on that Jenny is the black sheep of the family while Helen and Lynette are very close. Lynette leaves a note for her two sisters explaining why she made the choice she did and she basically chose Helen because she was more like her. Uh-huh. Not buying it, movie! By the way, I'm willing to bet that the two kids who play Cusack's children are one of the crew member's because they have no lines and are only in a couple scenes. They're just there to show us she is a Mom.

Out of the two scenarios, I think Helen is in the worst situation. She has to take care of three children by herself who are all old enough to remember their parents (and while there's the sad funeral scene, except for a few tears shed by the youngest, they seem to get over their parents pretty quickly!) while at least Holly and Messer are only dealing with one baby who will have no recollection of her parents and even calls Holly "Mama" by the end of the movie. Also, Sophie is a really cute baby (although they do have their crying baby and dirty diaper baby moments) while those three kids are super annoying. Hayden plays a very bratty teen who screams at everybody and the Breslin children are there to be the annoying kids, especially the boy. There's a scene where Helen is smoking and the boy tells her, "We don't need any more dead parents" or something to that effect. I know they were doing it for the comedy, but there is no way a child who just lost their parents days earlier would say something like that! They would not make a joke out of it!

Both movies have many wacky scenes where the new parents are taking care of their newly acquired children. There's a scene in Life where Messer has to take Sophie to work with him because Holly already had other engagement and he leaves her with the taxi driver to take care of her! And then there's a scene where Holly has just changed Sophie and has baby poo on her nose when the neighbors (one of them is played by Melissa McCarthy) come over. And in Raising Helen, there's a scene where Helen is helping with a fashion show (her boss is played by Helen Mirren who is much too good for this movie) and she brings Abigail who sees a model with a dog (played by Paris Hilton...I don't know why she just didn't play herself!) on the other side of the runway and crawls across the runway to get to it causing the models to topple over one another and thus gets Helen fired from her job. One of the most ridiculous part of the movie is that the four of them live in a tiny apartment in Queens with one bathroom. Four people and one bathroom? No, thank you! And there's a scene where Helen find out that Hayden has gone to a hotel with her boyfriend after a dance and she and Jenny go over there to confront them, but Helen chickens out and doesn't want to make Hayden mad at her, so she asks Jenny to do it. The scene was really weird because inside the room, the boy is in the bathroom and Hayden is in the room. You can tell that nothing has happened yet and when she hears someone knocking on the door, it looks like there's this flash of relief that crosses her face, but then she starts screaming at her aunt for ruining her life...maybe I just read too much into that look on her face and I'm giving this movie too much credit.

I read a review of Raising Helen that said that the funny parts weren't funny and the dramatic parts weren't dramatic which I agree with. The movie was just really boring. I didn't care about the characters and I found it annoying how Helen had this great amazing glamorous life. Not that Life As We Know It was a great movie by any means, but at least they made Holly and Messer a little more "real" and the movie kept my interest more than the other.

Actually, the more I think about it, while these two movies have similarities, Raising Helen reminds me more of Stepmom.

Here's a quick review I wrote of Raising Helen when I first saw it on DVD about ten years ago...as you can see, my opinion did not change!

Raising Helen - This movie has the stupidest, most unrealistic plotline ever. As you all probably know, Kate Hudson's sister and brother in law die in a car crash and they have 3 children and who do they ask to care for them? Cool Aunt Helen from New York who's lifestyle includes clubbing and partying and a busy career. I can just picture the writers now thinking of how they’re going to make a depressing situation into a wacky! Funny! Hilarious! one! Kate acts more like the kid's cool older sister than a mom. She doesn't give them to Joan Cusack's character who actually already has children, thus has the experience. Duhhhh. God, this movie was so friggin unrealistic. And why did Dead Mom choose cool Aunt Helen? Because she was the most like her! The whole movie reeked of bs. The oldest daughter was such a brat who needed a good bitch slappin'! Gary Marshall seems like a nice guy, but honestly, Gar? Do you really need to keep reminding me that Kate Hudson plays Helen Harris during the deleted scenes segment? Got it the first time! Thanks! 

Beware of bears!

The Edge
Director: Lee Tamahori
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin, Elle Macpherson, Harold Perrineau, Bart the Bear
Released: September 26, 1997

I've recently realized how much I love survival stories. I don't care if they're based on a true story or fictional (though being based on a true story makes them more interesting). I recently finished reading "Lost in Shangri-La" by Mitchell Zuckoff, a true story about three people who survived a plane crash in the jungles of Papua New Guinea in 1945. One of my favorite books is "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer about an expedition to Mount Everest gone wrong. I both saw the movie and listened to the audio book of 127 Hours. The Grey was one of my favorite movies of this past year. I also am obsessed with the reality show Survivor! Okay, it's not exactly the same thing as those people are never in any real peril, but I still love it. Survival stories, I do love!

Charles Morse (Hopkins) is a billionaire bibliophile who's married to a model half his age (Macpherson). She has invited him to join her on location in Alaska for a photo shoot. Charles suspects there is something going on between her and the photographer, Bob (Baldwin) because he is always flirting with her and she doesn't seem to mind it. Bob is determined to photograph some real natives and when the owner of the lodge they're staying at tells him about a friend and where to find him, he takes the opportunity to go there. Along with his assistant and the pilot, Charles also joins them after Bob invites him. While in the tiny plane (and those things are never good - whenever you hear about a crash, it's always a tiny plane!), a flock of birds fly right into them and into the windshield causing the plane to go down and crash in a large lake in the middle of the wilderness. The pilot is dead, but the other three manage to get out. There's a shot of a rifle laying on the seat as they are escaping from the plane and I thought this was important, but no, we never see it again. I guess they were just showing us that they would not have a rifle with them.

Bob's assistant is played by Harold Perrineau who is best known for playing Michael (father of Walt, owner of Vincent) on Lost. So Lost is not the first time he played a character who crashed in the middle of nowhere and had to survive in the wilderness! Unlike Michael (he survived in Lost, right?), Perrineau's character in The Edge is not so lucky. First, he stabs himself in the leg and hits an artery when he's making a spear for them to catch fish. Then he gets mauled by a bear! (Because some idiot left his bloody pants hanging out and the bear could smell the scent of the blood.) The shot of the bear ripping him apart is a bit humorous because it's pretty obvious the bear is throwing a dummy around. They probably had fried chicken pieces on the dummy!

That wasn't the first time they had contact with the bear. While hiking in one big circle to see if they could find a way out, the three of them heard the bear and it started chasing them. In a scene similar to The Grey, they're trying to get across a gorge and lift a heavy tree that had already fallen to act as a bridge. Charles is the last to cross the shaky bridge (there's rocks and a rushing waterfall below them) and while on the middle of the "bridge" (and they were walking really slowly to get across - I would have gotten on my butt and scooted across!), the bear starts shaking the tree and Charles falls off, but the strap of his knapsack catches a branch and he's holding on to his bag. Um, I'm sorry, but there's no way that bag could have held his weight...that would have snapped in a second! But he manages to hold on for quite awhile. The other two are trying to help him, but he does fall into the water. From one angle, he looks pretty high up, but when we see him falling into the water, it only looks like he's fallen two feet!

I don't know if this was in the script or if it was something Alec Baldwin did to ad-lib, but everytime he talks to Anthony Hopkin's character, he always says his name in the sentence. Like: "What do you think we should do, Charles?" "What are you doing, Charles?" "Charles, are you okay?" "Charles! Where are you going?" It was so annoying! But at least I didn't forget his name!

After the bear shows up for the third time, Charles realizes it's a man-eater and is stalking them. He and Bob create a ring of fire around them to keep the bear out and are discussing how they can kill it. This is where I thought the gun was going to come in...I thought one of them would remember there was a gun in the plane and have to dive down to get it, but nope. They set up a trap to lure the bear and Charles has created a spear out of a long branch which he kills the bear with. The bear has a ferocious roar, but when Charles has the stick in front of him, the bear is just sorta lazily following him around, like he's supposed to do. I'm guessing a non-actor bear would charge at him and rip him to shreds.

The bear is played by Bart the Bear and I love how in the end credits and on the movie's IMDb page, he is listed fourth or fifth. I've never seen an animal credited among the actors (and given his own title card to boot). Bart the Bear must have had one heck of a manager! (He died in 2000 at the age of 23). Of course, he was a big Hollywood (animal) star. He was also in The Bear (I'm assuming he played the titular character!), Legends of the Fall, and The Great Outdoors. The Edge was one of his last starring roles. I guess even bears have to retire! On his IMDb page (yes, he even has his own IMDb page), there are some hilarious message board posts like how he was always typecast. (A bear being typecast?!?! I laughed so hard when I saw that!)

Once the bear is dead, that doesn't mean Charles and Bob are "out of the woods yet", no pun intended (okay, maybe a little!). While in the plane, right before the crash, Charles asks Bob how he plans to kill him. The conversation is brought up again while hiking in the woods and Charles confesses he thinks Bob is having an affair with his wife. Bob laughs it off, but later, after they've killed the bear, they find an abandoned house and Charles, who recently received an engraved watch from his wife, finds out that Bob also received an engraved watch with a message alluding to an affair from his wife. Bob knows that Charles is on to him and with a rifle found in the house, he is about to shoot Charles, but ends up falling in a bear trap. Charles could have easily killed him at this point, but instead helps him out and takes care of his wounds. With a canoe outside the house they row down the river for awhile until Charles sees a helicopter and successfully gets its attention. By this time Bob has died from his injuries. Back at the lodge there are many reporters wanting to know what happened while he was out there and what happened to the other two men which Charles replies with, "They died saving my life." Fade to black.

Even though I had a few minor complaints about how fake things sometimes looked, it was a good movie and I would recommend it. (But then again, I do love my survival stories!) What shocked me the most was that David Mamet wrote the script. It just seems so different from somebody who wrote State and Main and Wag the Dog. It's like when I found out that Ian McEwan, author of "Atonement" wrote the script for The Good Son. 

Bart the Bear should be proud of his final performance!

An Unprecedented Day in America

"This is horrible." 

 "We have several situations going on here. It's escalating big time and we need to get the military involved in this." 

"There is simply no way to accurately describe the emotion this evokes in people all over the world; friends of the United States, and enemies of the United States, as well." 

"What we are seeing now is nothing less than the worst nightmare that one could imagine come to life, probably worse than anyone could have imagined." 

"September 11th, 2001, you're going to remember this day for a long time and a lot of things in this country will change as a result of what you're seeing on your screen now." 

I've been watching a lot of 9/11 documentaries wherever I can find them and I found the most fascinating video on YouTube. Someone had made a "dashboard" of 9/11 where events are synchronized in real time. It took me a few days to watch because it's a little over four hours long, but it was so fascinating and probably the best source for anyone who wants to learn more about that fateful day. This video has been up for one year and already has over nine million views!

Here is a screenshot so I can better explain how it works:

There's the live TV broadcast (it changes from all the major networks) that is the most prominent. Underneath that is a box which has the latest event. This will include things like when the terrorists take over, any kind of information about the planes (such as when United 93 is pushed back from the gate; resulting in a 40 minute delay or when the revolt begins on that same flight), where President Bush is during certain times, etc. You'll see the map and this tracks the flights of all four hijacked planes. Sometimes the map will turn into a diagram of the airports that the hijacked planes took off from or amateur footage of the attacks will be shown or a map of the WTC area showing us where pieces of the plane were found. It's pretty much used for anything that's a visual aid. Below that is the status monitor of the four planes. They let you know when they're still on the ground, airborne, hijacked, and crashed. Once they've crashed, they picture goes black and white. Yeah, it's pretty morbid. The pictures of the World Trade Center and Pentagon just let us known when they've been hit. When the towers collapse, they go dark. At the top you'll see a digital clock, so you know when events happen in real time. You can't really see it, but to the left of the clock it says "New York Fire Department" and "Air Traffic Control Radio". Each of these buttons light up and we hear when there are transmissions from either one in real time. At the very bottom is the timeline of major events. It shows when the planes are hijacked and the targets are attacked.

One of the most interesting things about this video is that it starts at 7:48 am Eastern time, which is exactly one hour before the first plane hit. Most live news programs of 9/11 that you can find on YouTube start right after the first plane hits so it's hard to find footage of this day when everything was still normal. In the first hour, the live TV broadcast only flips around three different networks: NBC, CBS, and CNN. As you can see, I took a screenshot of Today at 8:04 am with Ann Curry just finishing up "the top news stories of the morning." There's just something uncanny about seeing "Tuesday September 11, 2001" on the screen before knowing what the date actually would become (to the people who were watching this live). 

What were the top new stories before the biggest event in our country's history would happen in 44 minutes? Glad you asked, because if the terrorists attacks hadn't happened, this probably would have been the most mundane day in our nation's history. To be fair, most days are pretty uninteresting and not much happens (which is a good thing!). Here are a few of the news stories mentioned:

- There will be a hearing to see if Andrea Yates is fit to stand trial. If you don't know who that is, I'm sure there's many true crime podcasts that cover her story. 

- Michael Jordan is returning to the NBA. This was one of the top stories that all three networks talk about. Was this when he was still playing baseball, then returned to basketball? I'm not sure. Needless to say, I didn't remember this story at all! 

-Elizabeth Dole is running for the U.S. Senate.

-Ann mentions that President Bush will be at an elementary school in Florida today discussing literacy programs. Of course, we all remember him being in that classroom when he heard the news.

Those are just some of the stories mentioned. I won't spoil you with all of them (and let's be honest; none of them are really that interesting). But I thought it was just an interesting snapshot of what was going on in the country before everything turned to (literal) hell. 

Another interesting thing about the first hour is that it includes commercials. Once the attacks start, there are zero commercials. Now more news channels are added (FOX and ABC) so I don't know if the creator is just able to jump around the different stations without ever having any commercials, but I feel pretty certain none of the major networks were running commercials. I don't 100% remember, but it would feel pretty weird to be showing commercials at a time like this. It would just seem to be in poor taste to show a commercial of a squirrel selling Post-its (you'll soon understand the reference) while this horrific event is happening. The only commercials that I remember are the ones with celebrities: a Pier 1 commercial with Kirstie Alley and a KFC commercial with Jason Alexander. A lot of the commercials just seem so antiquated now! You should have seen the Travelocity commercial that shows their VERY '90s website. (And we'll see more terribly created websites, just you wait!) There's a promo for the Latin Grammys (featuring Jennifer Lopez) which will be on CBS that night. Hmm, something tells me they're gonna be cancelled! (Spoiler: they were.) Speaking of cancellations, Tracey Ullman is supposed to be on Today and Ray Romano is scheduled to be on The Early Show, but, no surprise, neither will be interviewed. 

We see a sneak peek with Tom Brokaw telling us what will be on NBC Nightly News. You can bet that story never saw the light of the day. Almost makes you feel sorry for the poor person who worked on it. 

On the Information Board (where the map is shown), before each plane takes off, we get a little dossier about each one: where it started from, where it will (sadly, never) land, how many passengers and crew, how many terrorists. The creator got these little fact sheets from Wikipedia.

Remember I mentioned the FDNY and ATC Radio buttons? Well, we first hear ATC at 7:50. The creator has muted the volume of the CNN story that's talking about how to get your start in the modeling business (major eyeroll) and we hear ATC telling American Airlines 11...something. Probably they're about ready to take off. To be honest, it is kind of hard to understand what they're saying sometimes and there is no transcript of it on the screen. Okay, I'm sorry, but I had to laugh because during this "how to be discovered as a model" mini story, they show a woman in her office with a freakin' Rolodex! Were people still using those even in 2001? Good Lord! At least this first hour has some lighthearted chuckles before things take a turn for the absolute worse! Another thing that gave me a good chuckle is when CNN asks viewers "What do you think of Michael Jordan's Return? Send e-mail to daybreak@cnn.com." Bwah! E-mail! So antiquated, it's hilarious! Oh, and things get worse when they show a picture of their "website" (looks like something I would have made circa 2000!). 

Speaking of terrible websites, at 8:10 the channel flips to CBS and Bryant Gumble is talking to a woman who is promoting a bunch of baby websites and they all look even worse than the CNN one. Gumble even asks if the first one they talk about, babycenter.com, is a free site...what the hell? Aren't all websites free? I'm confused. 

After this insipid segment about baby websites with outdated graphics, we see that AA 11 has been hijacked at 8:14. It is the first major event in the timeline to happen and in the information board we get data about the hijackers: how old they are and what country they're from. This information will be up when all the planes are hijacked. The oldest was 33, the others all range from 20-29, so it really puts into perspective just how young they were. The majority of them were from Saudi Arabia.

We know AA 11 was hijacked around this time because ATC calls for them to climb 35,000 twice, but receives no reply. You can hear the sternness in his voice when he says "American. Eleven. Boston." You know he's not playing games and he wants the pilot to answer him because he has a job to do. I have to wonder, if at this point, the idea of hijacking was going through his head. We even hear him call another plane to ask if he can hear him and that pilot says he hears him "loud and clear". We then again hear him say "American. Eleven. Boston." He has a tone in his voice which means "answer me".  

The guy at ATC must call his supervisor because we hear him telling a guy that AA 11 won't respond and that he's turning a different way and the guy responds, "That's fine." The hell? Maybe he said that because at the moment the plane isn't in any other flight path, but that's kind of a weird reply, especially when you've been told that the plane isn't even responding to you. 

It's been three minutes since ATC has tried calling for AA 11 and they are still trying, but to no avail. He must have tried calling them nine or ten times. He is desperately trying to get a hold of that plane. 

It's 8:19 when AA 11 flight attendant Betty Ong calls an American Airline reservation center in North Carolina and alerts them about the hijacking. Air Traffic Control has just given American Airlines 77 permission to takeoff. While all this is going on, ironically, CNN is running a segment with John Glenn who's talking about a new visitors' center at the Capitol. Ironic because that was supposed to be the target United 93 would have hit. That or the White House. 

At 8:24, Mohammad Atta, the oldest and ringleader of the terrorists (and "pilot" of the first hijacked plane) is heard by ATC. They think he pushed the wrong button and thought he was talking to the passengers because he tells them to be quiet and that "nobody will get hurt". Pretty sure ATC now knows they have a serious situation on their hands if they didn't already. Okay, I know this is super serious and this is going to turn into the worst day of our nation's history, but I'm sorry, I had to laugh when a few seconds later you hear the ATC guy reply, "And, uh, who's trying to call me here?" He just sounds so incredulous! Of course he doesn't get a reply except for when Atta tells the passengers (that he thinks he's talking to) to "just stay quiet." 

At 8:30 we see the Today crew outside greeting the crowd that has gathered around. There's just something very chilling seeing all the people outside Rockerfeller Center with their handmade signs, all happy to be there on a beautiful blue-sky Tuesday in September. Katie Couric and Al Roker are talking to a few people and everyone is all smiles and happy. They talk to one couple who tell them they're there for their anniversary and a woman who's with her husband and son on vacation. Hoo, boy. That's one vacation they'll never forget! I had to chuckle a bit when Katie talks about some of the stories that are coming up and that they have a lot to get to. Oh, Katie. Katie, Katie, Katie. Trust me, you won't be talking about ANY of those stories! Katie turns to Al for the weather and comments, "It is such a pretty morning, isn't it." Such a sad statement, but yeah she's right, it is a beautiful day, but we're now 17 minutes away from the first plane hitting the North Tower. Al agrees: "It's the perfect fall morning." He quickly corrects himself and says, "it's still the perfect summer morning." 

Here is a screenshot of the country's weather map on that day. You can see that the ATC radio button in red and you can see events in the timeline at the bottom a bit better than the previous screenshot I posted. 

At 8:32 the woman who talked to Betty Ong has gotten hold of ATC and is reading the notes she wrote about what she was told about the terrorist (from the sound of it, she's only describing one guy which is interesting). I guess she didn't know how to patch ATC through the plane itself? The plane is in "rapid descent." She tells him that the flight attendants are concerned because they can't get a hold of the pilots in the cockpit and when she asks him if he can, he says they can't either, then seems to hesitate before he tells her that they don't want to tell them (the flight attendants) that. I'm assuming they don't want to incite even more panic because they realize there's really nothing they can do. I mean what can you do besides scramble some fighter jets to shoot the plane down if you think it's aiming for an area with lots of civilians? It's a no-win situation for everyone on that plane. 

At 8:37, United 175, of all flights, confirm to ATC a sighting of AA 11. A few moments later, the pilot will again report to ATC that they heard "a suspicious transmission" (from AA 11) of someone telling everyone to "stay in their seats." This will be literal moments before they themselves are hijacked which just makes it so eerie. 

The channel flips to CNN where they are promoting their Sunday special called  "Hurricane: When the Big One Hits." Yikes! In a few short minutes, this is going to age terribly! I have no doubt the editor of this video knew exactly when to show a certain news channel. 

It's now seven minutes until the first crash will occur and CNN is live at New York Fashion Week where a reporter is interviewing pregnant models for maternity wear. This is just so weird and silly juxtaposed with what's going on with the hijacked plane. 

At 8:42, an American Airlines supervisor named Nydia Gonzalez "with expertise on security matters" is patched into a call with Betty Ong. She (Nydia) is also on the line with ATC, so we're hearing her side of the convo with them, but not with Betty. She tells Betty "she's doing a great job" and "to keep staying calm." We hear her say, "We are, absolutely" so Betty must have asked if they're doing everything they can. Surprisingly, we get info that the "passengers in coach may not be aware of what's going on". That surprised me because it's only two minutes until they hit the tower and aren't they descending rapidly? They must have known something not right was happening. At 8:45 Nydia reports that "the aircraft is erratic again." That must have been so terrifying. Thanks to Betty, we do get a lot of information such as the first class passengers were moved back to coach and before that she (or perhaps it was another flight attendant) reported that a passenger was stabbed. 

When the plane crashes in the North Tower at 8:46, in the information board we are shown that infamous footage that was taken by a French-born filmmaker who, with his brother, was working on a documentary about the NYFD. They were out with them just doing a routine check or something when the filmmaker sees the plane and turns the camera, and, of course, the rest is history. Because they were with firemen, it takes only three seconds for them to call it in.

Nydia is trying to get a hold of Betty, but obviously she's not answering. It's so eerie when you hear her say, "I think we may have lost her." I think she's just talking about she lost her on the call, but they have literally just lost her and all the other souls on that plane. ATC quickly realizes that the plane that hit the tower was their hijacked one, so they're probably the first to know that this was a terrorist attack. 

While this horrific event just happened, CNN is running a commercial about Post-its...with a squirrel. It's a cute commercial, but a bit difficult to enjoy under the circumstances. Obviously, in real time people watching CNN didn't know what had happened yet. It takes a few minutes for the stations to jump on the story. Here are the times when each station brings the story:

CNN: 8:49 (To their credit, they are the first to bring the story, so the squirrel Post-it commercial can be forgiven.)

ABC: 8:51

CBS: 8:52

NBC: 8:53

FOX: 8:54 (I believe they brought up the story a bit earlier than that; but this is the time when they bring up a live picture of the burning tower.)

Obviously, everything is just chaotic. Nobody really knows what exactly happened just yet. It's surprising how many eyewitnesses that are interviewed via phone by the morning news anchors claim it was a small plane that crashed into the tower. I don't know if it was that they were so far away or that they couldn't compute that a 767 could crash into a New York skyscraper, so their mind told them it was just a small commuter plane. Just looking at the gaping hole it left, it's so obvious it was NOT a small plane! 

Diane Sawyer from Good Morning America on ABC says they don't know yet if this crash was done "deliberately or accidentally." I do remember a lot of people thinking this was just a "horrible accident" when the first plane hit, but looking back, it's kind of stupid anyone could have thought THAT was an accident. It was a clear day and even if the pilot was having difficulties, they're not going to fly the plane into a building; they'd probably try to pull a Sulley and crash land it in the river. (Yes, I realize this predates the "Miracle on the Hudson" incident.) 

At 8:59 the phone message that United 175 passenger Brian Sweeney left for his wife, Julie, is played, as that is when it was left in real time. I believe this is the only piece of audio aside from any transmissions from ATC and the NYFD that is played. This is a pretty famous phone message from that day. I'm sure there are many people who have messages left from loved ones who perished that day and have never shared them because they want to keep them for themselves and that's totally their right, but I'm sure those who have shared their loved one messages with the public find it therapeutic for them. I know a few phone messages from United 93 have been shared as well. People grieve in different ways. I know that Julie Sweeney donated a recording of the call to the 9/11 museum. Her husband (who was only 38) sounds fairly calm, but perhaps that was for her sake. Maybe resigned is a better description of how he sounds. 

Moments before United 175 crashes into the South Tower, we hear ATC pretty much confirming in disbelief that they see the plane heading toward the building. The live broadcast is on NBC and they're showing a far away shot of the towers. I gasped when I could see the plane heading right for it. Honestly, if you were watching this live, you probably wouldn't even notice the plane because you would have been watching the tower with the gaping hole and billowing smoke. Amateur footage is also shown of the plane hitting the building at a different angle. I was literally gasping when I watched this. I KNOW what's going to happen, but it gives me such anxiety. On NBC, when the second place hits, you don't actually see it because they have gone to a close up of the first tower, but then they pull back and you see the huge fireball the explosion caused. Obviously, they will go back and show us (repeatedly; as will all the other stations) what happened since they caught it on tape. 

Katie Couric and Matt Lauer had been talking to an NBC news producer who must have seen the first plane crash and after the second plane crashes, she says the dumbest thing ever, I'm sorry, but it's true. She says, "I wonder if there are air traffic control problems." WTF? Even if the pilots couldn't communicate with ATC, they're NOT going to fly into a building! Al Roker, bless him, even says, "What are the odds of two separate planes hitting both towers?" I'd say the odds are pretty good when it's terrorism and the planes are deliberately being flown into the buildings! Katie Couric says, "It is completely impossible to understand why this is happening..." This just shows how some people could not grasp the idea of terrorism even after a second plane crash. 

But, to be fair, the Today crew aren't the only ones who have that kind of reaction. I've watched several news stations to see how they reacted that day and some of them are, honestly, just mind-boggling. If you watch the CNN footage of the second plane, they're getting it from their New York affiliates and they thought the second explosion was from the fuselage of the first plane...I guess they thought it jumped from one building to the other? I don't know how far apart these buildings were, but pretty sure that would be improbable. It's so odd because you see a quick clip of the incoming second plane, but then the camera jumps away from it. The voiceover of the anchor says, "One of our producers says perhaps a second plane was involved, but let's not even speculate to that point..." and I'm thinking, this guy is going to look stupid in a few seconds because his producer was 100% correct! They obviously figure it out when they go back to the tape and clearly see what happened. The anchor also has a similar reaction to that NBC news producer and says, "I don't know if perhaps some kind of navigating system or some type of electronics would have put two planes into the World Trade Center within about 18 minutes of each other." Uh....no. It's called terrorism. It's so OBVIOUS that they were both deliberate, but nobody wanted to admit what it was. Even if ATC was down, pilots would steer clear of two big ass buildings. It just seems too perfect of a target for that to be "an accident". 

Our international friends over at the BBC have seemed to miss the second plane completely! I'm not sure how; perhaps they weren't watching the monitor? Because you clearly see it on the screen and there is absolutely NO reaction from the male or female anchor. They're talking to an eyewitness and the woman interrupts 40 second in to say, "It looks like both buildings are on fire." (Yeah, no kidding!) Then about a minute after that, she says, "It's not really clear if there was a plane crash", then adds that there are "unconfirmed reports of a second plane" and I'm thinking, What?! Go back and check your tapes! The male anchor says that because they are seeing both towers on fire, "it could be that the aircraft went through one and the debris has affected the other tower." How are they going this long without not knowing what happened? Surely there are other people in the studio who saw what happened. Finally they do get the footage and replay it and the woman calls it "a double plane accident at the World Trade Center." I feel like "double accident" is an oxymoron. 

 

In this horrific event, I had a bit of a chuckle when Matt Lauer says something to the effect of if they could find out if ATC had contact with these planes. Uh yeah, no duh. Obviously not contact since they couldn't communicate, but they very much knew there was a situation going on. 

I believe the first mention of this being a deliberate act and terrorism is at 9:12 when the channel flips to CBS and Bryant Gumble is interviewing an eyewitness who told him the planes "aimed for it and they did a very good job." He says the towers were "targets". Although to be fair, even though this isn't shown in this video, after the second plane hits, the Fox News anchor says that it's "deliberate" and even drops Osama Bin Laden's name three seconds later. Of course, if you know your OBL facts, it's not that hard to pinpoint it on him: he was a known terrorist; he hated the U.S.; he had tried to do a terrorist act with planes back in the '90s (or even the '80s?), but it was thwarted; he had the money to fund this. If the shoe fits...

So a lot is going on right now: At 9:16 we hear ATC say they've lost contact with American Airlines 77; at 9:29 Katie Couric announces that it was American Airlines 11 that was hijacked and crashed into the WTC (I can't even imagine hearing that and having a loved one on that plane; also I was a little surprised she got that information so quickly); at 9:33 Fox News mentions Osama Bin Laden as a likely suspect (although, like I said earlier, they already mentioned his name right after the second plane hit); 9:37 is when AA 77 crashes into the Pentagon and the security camera that caught it is shown. Kinda crazy that three out of the four crashes were caught on some type of camera, especially back in 2001. By 9:49 CNN has "breaking news" of "reports of a fire at the Pentagon" and at 9:42 NBC and CBS show smoke coming from the Pentagon. Nobody knows what's happened, but they think it may be a bomb or some kind of explosion. Gumble mentions he doesn't know if this is a result of another aircraft. 

Okay, so while all this is going on, over on the map I see that United 93 has gotten pretty far into Ohio which is shocking, especially since they left from Newark and their target is either the White House or Capitol. They flew all away across the entire state of Pennsylvania. We know the flight was delayed 40 minutes and that it took the hijackers 46 minutes to take over the plane. It's no wonder we know so much about this flight because the passengers had time to find out what was going on and were able to call loved ones and tell them that they were going to storm the cabin which will happen just before ten.

This day gives me a lot of "what ifs?" and most of my "what ifs?" revolve around United 93. What if their flight was delayed just a little bit longer and never took off because by then the city of New York had already closed down their air space? What if they (the passengers and flight attendants; sadly I don't think the pilots had a chance) had successfully killed or at least incapacitated the hijackers and had managed to land the plane (probably would have been more of a crash landing)? We do know one of the passengers was a pilot (though don't think he flew big jet airliners) and another worked ATC for a few years, so it's not totally impossible to think they could (crash) land the plane. Can you imagine what heroes everyone on that plane would have been? And the stories (and many books!) they would have to tell? The Paul Greengrass film would have been totally different and he would have many consultants! Of course, they are all heroes, posthumously, for diverting the plane from crashing into the Capitol. 

 

At 9:45, in an unprecedented move, U.S. airspace is shut down and it only takes two hours for every single plane in the nation to land which is quite incredible. Of course, we know that many international flights were directed to Canada and if you have never heard of the incredible story of the Gander International Airport in Newfoundland, you should check it out. 

It's been an hour since the first crash and the three main stations have called in their anchors of their nightly national news broadcasts: Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, and Dan Rather have now joined their respective stations (NBC, ABC, and CBS) within a few minutes of 9:46. 

There is more confusion at 9:59 when the south tower (the second one to be hit) collapses nearly an hour after it was first struck. They just see a "large plume of smoke" and it takes a few moments for them to realize that the whole building has collapsed. One CNN correspondent even thinks that "the second tower is encased in smoke". 

As I mentioned not too long ago, the passenger revolt on United 93 began three minutes til ten, now it's three minutes after ten and the plane has crashed in a field in Shanksville which will be the only thing this town will be known for (and calling it a town may be a bit generous). Very eerie timing that the two United planes crashed exactly within an hour of each other. Five minute later is when ATC gets word that a plane has crashed in Pennsylvania, 10:37 is when the Associated Press first reports about it; 10:48 is when CBS first reports about it; and 10:58 is when CNN reports about it. I remember watching international coverage (might have been the UK) and when they reported about United 93 they said they didn't know if that plane was part of the terrorist attacks or if it was just a random plane crash. Okay, in the words of Al Roker, what are the odds of that? Of course that plane was involved! I suppose since the plane just crashed into a random field that's why they thought that, but, c'mon...

Once all the planes have crashed, the flight paths of all four planes is put on the information board and the map will eventually disappear as it is not needed anymore. 

At 11:15 American Airlines confirms the loss of its two flights, but what I found really interesting was that at 11:25 United Airlines says it is "deeply concerned" about flight 175. They have confirmed that United 93 went down. To me, it is odd that they used those words about flight 175 (which, ironically, is the flight the entire world saw come to its demise if they were watching live at that moment) because they have not yet confirmed it was hijacked or part of the attacks. Were there other flights that were unaccounted for? If not, wouldn't it be obvious that flight was the one used in the attacks? By 11:53 they have confirmed the loss of both flights. It's just a little detail that I have no recollection of that day.

I know it seems like I told you everything that this video offers, but trust me, I didn't. There's so much more information and graphics that I didn't tell you about, so I would definitely recommend this if you are interested in learning more about the day that nobody will ever forget. 

Cowboy, Take Me Away

Brokeback Mountain

Director: Ang Lee

Cast: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid, Kate Mara, Linda Cardellini, Anna Faris

Released: December 9, 2005

Viewed in theaters: January 10, 2006

Oscar nominations:

Best Picture (lost to Crash (UGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!))

Best Director - Ang Lee (won)

Best Actor - Heath Ledger (lost to Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote)

Best Supporting Actor - Jake Gyllenhaal (lost to George Clooney for Syriana)

Best Supporting Actress - Michelle Williams (lost to Rachel Weisz for The Constant Gardener)

Best Adapted Screenplay - Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana (won)

Best Cinematography (lost to Memoirs of a Geisha) 

Best Original Score - Gustavo Santaolalla (won)

If you've read my review of Crash and watched the last video I posted in this entry, then you know how much I absolutely hate that effing Crash won the Best Picture Oscar over Brokeback Mountain at the 2006 Oscars. And a lot of people feel the same way as me. I want to quote an excerpt from a tome I have called "85 Years of the Oscars" by Robert Osbourne when discussing the 2006 Oscar ceremony:

It was one of the biggest surprise endings in many years.

 The film the press regarded as most likely to score a triumph in the top spot 

[at the 78th Oscar ceremony] was the one that had been

universally praised since its debut, then voted best by the

Producers Guild, BAFTA, and numerous other 

prize-giving organizations. It was

Brokeback Mountain, a poignant tale

by director Ang Lee about the angst-filled

romantic relationship of two cowboys.

But Jack Nicolson's reaction when he opened the envelope

to announce the winner said it all: Crash

Whoa!

Everyone knows that Brokeback Mountain is by far the more superior film. The fact that Crash won the Best Picture Oscar over it, let alone that it was even nominated, is embarrassing! Unfortunately, a lot of Academy voters are older white men who don't always agree with the gay lifestyle and a lot of voters probably didn't even want to give Brokeback a chance. Which is really sad. Believe me, when this film came out, there were a few people I came across who were all, "Eww! That's gross! They're making out!" Of course, I live in Nebraska :::rolls eyes::: Uh, first of all, who doesn't want to see Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal make out? I'd pay money to see that..and I did! But seriously, it's sad (and kind of pathetic) how afraid of this movie some people were of it. Do they really think they'll turn gay or something if they watch two guys kissing each other? I adore this movie so, so much and it makes me sad that people refuse to see it because of the subject matter. It has been ten years since its been released and hopefully people who didn't want to see it back then have changed their minds and given it a chance.

Spoilers ahoy and if you haven't seen this movie yet, you are missing out!

Can we just take a second and applaud Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal for their brilliant portrayals of Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist? I feel like a lot of heterosexual actors would not have taken on these roles as they would probably be uncomfortable with having to kiss or portray onscreen sex with another man, so I think it was pretty brave (and smart, in the end) for Ledger and Gyllenhaal to take the roles of the gay cowboys. Let's not forget they were only in their early 20s when they made this movie. It was a big risk and if done wrongly, this movie could have turned out horribly, but luckily they had Ang Lee at the helm. Thank God he won Best Director. Fun fact: he is the first non-white person to win the Oscar for Best Director. I can't imagine Brokeback Mountain with any other director or actors (though it would have been pretty amusing if Matt Damon and Ben Affleck had signed on!) 

The movie spans nearly 20 years, starting in 1963 when Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) and Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal) meet that summer on Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming after being hired by a man named Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid) to herd hundreds of sheep through the mountains. We see them talking about their families, sitting around the campfire and eating beans, and bitching about their boss. And then after a drunken rainy night, Jack tells Ennis, who is sleeping outside in the cold and rain, to get in the tent and we all know what happens next! As my mom would say, Oh, my! At first Ennis is not having any of Jack's advances, but he is the one to, ahem, take control of the situation. The next morning is a bit awkward and they spend the entire day apart from each other until the end of the day when Ennis returns to camp and tells Jack that this was a one-time thing they did and he isn't queer and Jack replies that "It's nobody's business but ours" and that he's not queer either. They continue their strong friendship and sexual relationship on Brokeback until Aguirre suspects something going on between the two of them when he spies on them with his binoculars and sees them frolicking together with their shirts off and cuts their summer short.

The two say goodbye without any fanfare. There is no hugging or even a handshake. They just have a short conversation about what they'll do for the rest of the summer, then walk off in different directions. We see Jack in his truck looking like he's trying to hold back tears and we see Ennis go in an alleyway and start punching a wall and crying out. It is a very powerful scene.

Ennis marries his fiancee, Alma (Michelle Williams), who he told Jack about and they have two daughters, Alma Junior and Jenny. Meanwhile, Jack moves to Texas where he meets a rodeo queen named Lureen (Anne Hathaway), the daughter of a wealthy man who sells large farming equipment. She is a very forward woman ("What are you waiting for, cowboy? A mating call?") and they marry and have a son.

Ennis and Jack continue their romantic trysts in secret only seeing each other about once a year, which does not make Jack happy, but Ennis tells him he isn't able to get away with work and he is afraid of someone finding out about his secret. Jack wants him to drop everything and leave Alma and his daughters and have them run a farm together, but Ennis tells him there's no way that's going to happen because two guys living together could mean a death sentence for the both of them. He tells Jack a story of two guys who lived together when he was a kid and one of them was brutally killed and how his father took him and his older brother to see the man's mutilated body. He said for all he knew, it could have been his dad who killed this man which is terrifying. Ennis doesn't do a very good job of keeping his secret from his wife, however, when he receives news that Jack will be in town and this will be the first time in four years Ennis will have seen him since that summer on Brokeback Mountain. He tells Alma that Jack is an old fishing buddy (obviously "fishing" is code for something else!) and when he sees Jack, he can hardly contain his excitement and they aggressively kiss...right in front of the door where Alma can see them...which she does! Her expression is one of shock, betrayal, and hurt. Michelle Williams' best scene in the movie is when she confronts Ennis many years later, after they have divorced, that she knew he never went fishing because she tied a note to the end of his fishing pole telling him to bring home some fish and when he came back and she asked if he caught any fish and he said he did. She knew he was lying because he obviously never read the note and discovered the note was still tied to the pole and it had never been used. And of course this is when we get the famous, "Jack Twist? Jack Nasty!" line. 

I've seen this film five times now (I own the DVD) and I read the short story by Annie Proulx (and it really is short, about 30 pages) about five years ago. While most movies adapted from novels have to take out scenes, they added scenes in Brokeback such as the Thanksgiving scene, and the scene with Ennis and his daughter at the end. They also added the characters played by Linda Cardellini and Anna Faris. All the well-known lines from the film (you know the ones!) are taken from the text. As I mentioned earlier, I can't imagine anyone else but Heath and Jake playing Ennis and Jack, though they were probably a little too good-looking as the two main characters are described as being plain old Joes. I mean, yes, they're dowdy in the movie and there's nothing glamorous about them, but I wouldn't mind sitting between them around the campfire, just saying! 

Whenever I watch the movie, I always notice a few things I hadn't noticed previously. For instance, the scene when Ennis and Jack are saying good-bye to each other after spending some, uh, quality time on Brokeback, Ennis says something about losing his shirt up there and Jack just mumbles something. Well, of course, we know Jack took the shirt because Ennis finds it in his closet at the end of the movie. (Another great scene). That had flown over my head until now. I also never noticed that Jack never calls Ennis by his name (except at the beginning when they introduce themselves to each other), just calls him "friend". I had especially noticed that when reading the story. Something new I learned recently is about the phone conversation Ennis and Lureen have towards the end of the movie after Ennis receives a postcard back that he sent to Jack with "DECEASED" stamped on it (what a gut punch!) and he calls Lureen to ask what happened. Lureen tells him that he was pumping a tire and it blew up and knocked him unconscious and he drowned in his own blood. While she's saying this, we see an image of Jack being brutally murdered by three guys, either what really happened or what Ennis imagined to have really happened. On a podcast I listened to (there I go again with the podcasts!), I learned that Anne Hathaway had to do two takes of this scene: one where the tire story is true and one where it isn't and Ang Lee sliced together both of them to make the final cut. Very interesting. And very tragic. My take has always been that Lureen knew about Jack's secret life and was lying to Ennis about his death and she knew the real reason how he died.

The relationship between Ennis and Jack is a tricky one and having seen the movies five times and read the story once, this is my own assessment of the two characters: first of all, I don't think of them as being gay or bisexual because I don't think they would label themselves as either one, though technically they would be bisexual since they were both married (and had children) to women. I read somewhere that someone said that Ennis is more toward the straight side of being bisexual while Jack is the opposite and I agree. While Jack was willing to divorce his wife and start a life with Ennis, Ennis did seem to care about Alma and was aware of the consequences if he and Jack shacked up together. He was paranoid that people knew about his secret and even after he was divorced from his wife, he found companionship (for a very short time) in another woman, Cassie (Cardellini). Jack was the only male he had a relationship with, whereas with Jack there's the scene where he attempts to buy a beer for the rodeo clown (before he even met Lureen), the scene where he's in Mexico attempting to fill his void, so to speak, and the scene with Lashawn's (Faris) husband where he hints at them going to his boss's cabin together. Obviously Jack had been with other men. Fun fact: the actor who played that guy is David Harbour whose name I instantly recognized it when I saw it in the credits because I had just watched him in as the police chief in Stranger Things. 

Now, here's the big question: who knew about their relationship? Obviously, Alma did since she saw them making out on her front lawn. And as I mentioned earlier, I think Lureen had a good idea too. Also, Lureen's father made that comment to his son-in-law during the Thanksgiving scene when he states that his grandson should watch football and be a man, as though he's making a jab at Jack. And David Harbour's character must have known or I doubt he would have made an advance on Jack. And I'm pretty sure Jack's parents had an idea, especially his mother, when Ennis went to visit them after their son died. Hmmm, interesting that all the people who I suspect knew about them (Alma notwithstanding) are all a part of Jack's life/storyline. This makes sense though, since he was the one who was more ready to admit to their relationship. I guess he didn't keep the secret as well as Ennis did. 

The aging of the main characters over twenty years' time was done subtly with changes to hair styles (and a little gray) and make up to add wrinkles. Okay, maybe Anne Hathaway's blonde hair wasn't so subtle, but I was willing to believe Heath as Kate Mara's dad, even though she was born four years after him. She plays teen Alma Junior.  

Watching this movie always make me feel so sad. Not just because it has a tragic ending (and even if Jack hadn't died, I don't think those two would have ever had their happy ending), but just seeing Heath Ledger. He was so good in this; his performance is very subtle and quiet. He gets a lot of praise for his performance as the Joker, which he was brilliant as, of course, and won the Oscar for, but I feel like some people forget this performance because it wasn't as epic or the movie wasn't as big as The Dark Knight. But just the fact that he could take on two completely different roles and just own them is a testament about what a great actor he was and it's such a shame we'll never see what else he could have done. I've mentioned numerous times how much I adored Heath Ledger (I was a total fangirl at first (what can I say? I'm a sucker for Australian accents!), but then when Brokeback rolled around, I realized he was actually a pretty good actor and began to actually respect him an an actor). There have been plenty of celebrity deaths I've been very saddened about and got choked up over, but his was the one that got to me the most. I was in a state of shock when I found and I cried every night for two weeks after he died. It is also bittersweet watching him and Michelle Williams together, since they had a daughter named Matilda who turns eleven next month. Eleven! Where did the time go? 

To take this review full circle, let me just add one last thing (and continue my bitching): five, ten, twenty years from now, nobody is going to remember anything about Crash. But whether if people have seen it or not, like what it stands for or not, they'll at least remember Brokeback Mountain. Oh, sure, some might refer to it as the "gay cowboy movie" (and yes, I love the movie, but trust me, I make stupid Brokeback jokes all the time), but I think in the long run this movie will have longevity. Hell, if somebody ever asks me what movie won the Oscar for '05, I'm going to tell them it was Brokeback. And I'll bet you they'll believe me! Okay, from now on, in my mind, Brokeback Mountain is 2005's Best Picture Winner.

There are about 100 songs that remind me of this movie, so I made this clip video and narrowed it down to two songs! And it is no coincidence that both songs feature the word "cowboy"! Speaking of which, how great is the (Oscar winning!) score by Gustavo Santaolalla? It is instantly recognizable. 

I wish I knew how to quit you, Brokeback Mountain! 

12 '12 Reviews

1. Rock of Ages 
Director - Adam Shankman

This was a fun watch, a musical with all '80s songs. Being someone who was born in the '80s, it is in my nature to love the music from that decade. Most of the songs are great and '80s classics. I say "most" because I really hated the song, "I Wanna Rock", because those are the only words sung, more likely, screamed, during the song. But for the most part they had great songs: "Don't Stop Believing" (of course!), "Sister Christian", "Any Way You Want It" (Loved Mary J. Blige sining that - I would totally buy an album if she ever covered '80s songs...actually, I would just listen to them on Spotify for free!), "We're Not Going to Take It," and "We Built This City on Rock and Roll" to name just a few. "Paradise City" by Guns n Roses is the first song played and I must say the best rendition of that song in a movie is still from Can't Hardly Wait.  Tom Cruise was totally sleazy as Stacie Jaxx, the aging rock star. The reveal of Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand telling each other they had feelings for each other reminded me of that scene in Love, Actually with Bill Nighy and the rotund guy.

2. The Avengers 
Director - Joss Whedon

Oscar nominations:
Best Visual Effects (lost to Life of Pi)

I think I'm the only person in the world who didn't see this movie in the theaters. Of course, I'm also probably the only person who didn't see all the movies that led up to this one. I did see both Iron Man films before and I saw Captain America....after I saw The Avengers! I haven't seen Thor or Hulk. Of course, you have to keep in mind that for the longest time, I thought the character of Thor was invented for Adventure in Baby-Sitting. Wouldn't that be awesome if that were the case? I'm sure I would have seen this movie eventually, regardless, but I was super excited that Joss Whedon directed it because he's just about the coolest person on the earth. I mean, he created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of my favorite TV shows. The Avengers is a very fun and enjoyable movie, but I don't know if I would call it the best comic book movie ever...but it's probably the most fun.



3. Flight (viewed in theaters November 12, 2012)
Director - Robert Zmeckis

Oscar nominations:
Best Actor - Denzel Washington (lost to Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln)
Best Original Screenplay - John Gatins (lost to Quentin Tarantino for Django Unchained)

 This was one of the movies where I didn't really like it as I was watching it, but after thinking about it for a couple days, realized I did like it. It just got a little long-winded sometimes, but I would watch this movie again before I ever saw Les Miz or The Dark Knight Rises again. Denzel Washington's Best Actor Oscar nomination was very well-deserved. This is one of those movies where the acting is better than the movie. Denzel plays Whit Whitaker, an airline pilot who is also an alcoholic and a drug user. On a flight from Orlando to Atlanta, something terrible happens and the plane will crash if he doesn't do something. He turns the plane - a 747 - upside down and when he lands, only a few people are killed...if he hadn't done what he had done, most likely everyone would have died, so he is hailed a hero. Now I'm pretty sure it's near impossible to turn a giant airplane upside down, but those were some pretty spectacular visual effects! The NTSB is looking into the cause of the crash and Whitaker's attorney, played by Don Cheadle, tells him to get rid of all his alcohol and not do anything stupid, like drink while in public. There's a romance between Whit and a recovering female addict, but that just felt like filler to me. I won't spoil anything for those who haven't seen the movie, but there's a great, intense scene that involves a hotel room and a mini bar stocked with small bottles of whiskey, gin, and vodka and you're wondering if he's going to give in to temptation or not. You think the ending might go one way, but then they throw you a curveball and it goes into another way, unless you were already expecting it! This movie was directed by Robert Zmeckis of Forrest Gump and Back to the Future fame.

4. Pitch Perfect
Director - Jason Moore

 This movie reminded me a lot of Bring It On, just replace Anna Kendrick with Kirsten Dunst and acapella singing with cheerleading. Anna Kedrick plays Becca, a new student at Bardem college. She wants to be a DJ, but her Dad disapproves and wants her to have a college eduction so she'll at least have other choices in her life. He tells her to join one school club and if she hates the experience after her first year at college, he'll pay for her to move to L.A. so she can peruse her DJ dream. She joins the Bardem Bellas, the female acapella singing group who have a rivalry with the male acapella group, The Treblemakers. They perform at the finals where Elizabeth Bank is a judge who used to be an acapella singer in her prime and was in a group called The Minstrel Cycles. Rebel Wilson steals the movie as "Fat Amy" (whose real name is Patricia!) For some reason, I assumed she was American and they had made her character Australian because it would be funny (Australians are funny!), but I learned she is actually an Aussie. So that makes her even cooler because Aussies are cool too! Some of the characters are very cartoonish, like this one girl who talked so softly you could barely hear her and when she did speak, she would say the creepiest/weirdest things like, "You guys wanna see a dead body?" and "I ate my twin in the womb." The latter made me laugh so hard and go "WTF??!?!?" The group leader is this really bitch girl who always insists on the group singing the same song - The Ace of Base classic, "The Sign" and gets angry at Becca when she suggests the group do mash-ups of more modern songs. There's a really cool mash up of Bruno Mar's "Just the Way You Are" and Nelly's "Just a Dream" which was my favorite song in the movie. Oh, and there's this whole thing where Becca's potential love interest is trying to make her watch The Breakfast Club (apparently she doesn't like movies...what kind of crazyness is that?) and it reminded me of how there was a Breakfast Club connection in Easy A, too. The only thing I didn't like about Pitch Perfect was that it got too cartoonish. It's fine to be silly. Bring It On was silly, but never got overly cartoonish like this movie did at times. Let's just say there's a scene involving vomit that in no way could ever be realistic in any world; it was just way too over the top. It did involve a really gross, but hilarious moment as a result of it, though. This movie is probably tied with Stand By Me for most disgusting vomit scene!


5.  The Guilt Trip (viewed in theaters January 6, 2013)
Director - Anne Fletcher

Slight spoilers

I saw this with my friend Cameron. This was the first movie (in the theater) we had seen of the New Year and we both realized we saw the first movie of last year together as well. (New Year's Eve...yes, we saw New Year's Eve on New Year's Day!) Barbara Streisand and Seth Rogan are a mother/son duo who go on a road trip together. Andy, the son, lives in L.A. and has flown to New York where Joyce, his mother, lives because he's trying to sell this cleaning product and has a trip scheduled with stops on the way of where he has meeting with clients. After he learns a revealing fact about his mother - before she met her husband, she was madly in love with with another guy, in fact she named her son after him. Deciding his mother would be happier if she had someone in her life (instead of always calling him and harping on him), he invites her to come on his roadtrip with him, without telling her the reason why. The movie is very formulaic and predictable (for instance, I knew Joyce was not going to end up with her ex-sweetheart, but instead with a Texan gentleman she meets on the roadtrip), but Streisand and Rogan have a nice chemistry as mother and son and are very charming together. There's one scene where they're at a restaurant in Texas and Joyce decides to see if she can eat this huge meal in an hour. If she does, they get their meal free. If not, she will have to pay $100. The meal consists of a four-ounce steak, a potato, a salad, a roll, and a shrimp cocktail. There's no way in hell anyone could have done that, especially a woman (not being sexist, but let's face it, guys can shovel in food better than girls!), but somehow she manages to do it!

6. Looper (viewed in theaters September 29, 2012)
Director - Rian Johnson

I love anything that has to do with time travel, so I was very interested in seeing this movie. Plus it doesn't hurt that the director has directed a couple episodes of my favorite TV show ever, Breaking Bad! This movie takes place about sixty years in the future and time travel has been discovered thirty years ago. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis play the same character, Joe. He works for a  mob-like group of killers who are called loopers. They kill people who are sent from the future. (It makes more sense how it's explained in the movie!) The catch is, there's a contract that the younger self must kill his older self at a certain age. Things get a little tricky when the older Joe,  is sent back to be killed by his younger self, but he tricks his younger self and escapes death and now there are two of the same person running around. The second act of the movie goes in a direction I was not expecting at all that includes Emily Blunt (who I did not recognize at all and was shocked when I found out she was in it!) and a creepy kid that has some kind of weird power. They are both connected to the time travel plotline, but it's best not to spoil anything about the movie. To make Joseph Gordon-Levitt look more like Bruce Willis, they changed his eyes and it was REALLY distracting. He just looks weird with Bruce Willis eyes!

7. Magic Mike
Director - Steven Soderbergh

I bet when Steven Soderbegh was making this movie, he was thinking, "KA-CHING!" You know he was thinking how much money he was going to make from all the ladies and gay men who would see this movie and buy the DVDs! Soderbergh came up with this movie with Channing Tatum, the star, who used to be a male stripper. He plays Mike, a male stripper, whose stage name is "Magic Mike". He is the star because he is by far the best dancer. That guy can dance like nobody's business! He does these sideways aerial somersaults/twists. What he does looks looks like it should defy gravity, but yet, somehow he manages to do it. Between this and 21 Jump Street, I must say I am becoming a fan of Channing Tatum. Matthew McConaughey runs the club and it's like if his character from Dazed and Confused grew up to run a strip club because he says "alright, alright" a lot in his Matthew McConaughey-ish way. Mike meets a young guy who gets involved in the show and Mike becomes like a mentor for him, but "The Kid" as Mike dubs him, keeps getting into trouble and is doing a lot of stupid stuff. There's a romantic plotline with Mike and The Kid's sister and the girl who plays her is just awful. She only has one look on her face throughout the movie and doesn't know how to emote. Supposedly Lindsay Lohan was suppose to have a role as a drug dealer, but never showed up and Soderberg didn't want to deal with her and got someone else for the part. It was always funny when the guys were dancing/stripping and the women in the audience would scream and go wild. Hee! Their first act is all the guys going out in trench coats and umbrellas and doing a dance to possibly the gayest song ever, It's Raining Men. I know a woman sings it but it really is, literally, the gayest song ever. There's a scene where Matthew McConaughey is wearing biker shorts and a tight yellow jersey and it's like, no, McConaughey, no. Just no.

8. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Director - John Madden

Spoilers ahoy!

Have you ever noticed that when there's a movie with a bunch of old British people, Maggie Smith is sure to be in the cast? It's true with this movie and it's true with a new movie I saw a preview for about a bunch of old British people in a home and they play violins. And let's not forget Gosford Park! Besides Maggie Smith, the for this movie also includes Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, and Bill Nighy. Judi Dench's Evelyn is the film's narrator and main character. A group of 7 British senior citizens fly to India to stay at The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (for the elderly and the beautiful) run by Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire himself). Evelyn's husband has died recently and she gets a job at a call center where she gives the staff helpful hints on how to talk to the elderly when they call them. Muriel (Smith) is going to India to get a hip replacement because it will be cheaper and she can get one sooner than if she stayed in England. Muriel is a little bit on the racist side, but soon comes to change her tune. Graham (Wilkinson) used to live in India for quite a long time when he was younger and wants to reconnect with a man he had a relationship with. He finds the man who is now married (to a woman) and they embrace for a long time and that made me shed a tear or two! Graham has a heart condition and dies while in India which was inevitable with so many old people in one movie! Douglas (Nighy) and his wife Jean are having marital problems. Jean hates India and becomes a nagging, bitter woman. She flies back to England alone and Douglas goes back to Evelyn who he's started having feelings for. The hotel is not in the best shape when they arrive, but by the end with a little help from Muriel, it starts to thrive again. This was a cute, charming movie, but not overly saccharine.

9. The Amazing Spider-Man
Director - Marc Webb

Even though the first installment of the previous Spider-Man films was only ten (and a half) years ago,  a reboot came out last summer. Instead of Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker/Spier-Man, it's Andrew Garfield who's best known in The Social Network. Sally Field and Martin Sheen play Aunt May and Uncle Ben and when I first saw Martin Sheen (I did not know he was in the movie), I shouted, "It's Bartlett!" (Luckily, I was watching the movie alone.) Emma Stone plays Gwen Stacy, his crush turned sort-of-girlfriend turned girl-he-can't-be-with-so-she-doesn't-become-in-harm's-way. Want to hear something crazy? In the previous Spider-Man movies, Bryce Dallas Howard plays Gwen Stacy and she and Emma Stone were both in The Help. I'm sure this has been pointed out repeatedly already, but I think it's humorous. I wished they had done something, like in a class, have the teacher ask a question, then we'd see a redheaded girl answer and the teacher say, "That's right, Mary Jane." You know, it would be cool if they gave a nod to the previous installment. Even though Gwen is only 17, somehow she works at some fancy science lab - not as an intern or anything, but she seems to be one of the best scientists as she's wearing a fancy white lab coat and giving a tour. At first I thought she was pulling a Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed and was actually a 25 year old posing as a high school student. How the hell does a 17 year old get a job like that?  It's been awhile since I've seen those Spider-Man movies, so I really can't say which one is better. I'd say there about the same. They're not the best movies ever, but they're not terrible. They're both fun, popcorn Friday night kinda movies. Out of the main super heroes (including Superman and Batman), Spiderman is my favorite because I like how he just swings through the city with his web and it's pretty cool how he can scale buildings. Can Superman and Batman do that? I don't think so! The Big Bad in this movie is some guy who turns himself into a lizard. There's a scene where he enters the high school and Peter has to fight him off and Gwen helps him. It reminded me of when the troll charges into Hogwarts in the first Harry Potter movie and Harry, Ron, and Hermione fight him. Then there's another scene where the Lizard Guy is chasing Gwen in the  science building and it's basically a ripoff of that one scene in Jurassic Park because not only does Lizard Guy kinda sound like a velociraptor, but Gwen scurries to hide in a tiny compartment like Lex did. Some things are a little different like Lizard Guy doesn't come charging after her when he sees her, but instead surprises her. It was an entertaining movie. I have no desire to see the next one on the big screen, but I will rent it.

10. Moonrise Kingdom
Director - Wes Anderson

Oscar nominations:
Best Original Screenplay - Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola (lost)

This film is set on a small New England island called New Penzance that is 16 miles wide and has no roads. (A narrator tells us various facts about the picturesque island). The movie revolves around two 12 year olds named Sam and Suzy and takes place in 1965. Sam reminded me of a younger Jason Schartzman from Rushmore and Suzy reminded me of a younger Gwyneth Paltrow from The Royal Tennebaums, both which also happen to be Wes Anderson movies! I don't think that's a coincidence! Sam belongs to the Khacki Scouts (like the Boy Scouts) and is spending the summer camping with them. Suzy is the privileged  oldest child and only girl of four kids and her parents (Bill Murray and Frances MacDormand) are lawyers and her mom is having an affair with the town's sherriff (Bruce Willis). Suzy and Sam met two years ago when his Scout troop saw her performing in a local play about Noah's Ark and he went backstage to talk to her. The two start exchanging letters which results in a cute little montage of them inwardly reading excerpts of the other's letters. Both of them are misunderstood and disliked by their peers and have no need for anybody else in the world except for themselves, so Sam devises a plan for the two of them to run away together after two years of corresponding with letters. It's pretty humorous seeing the contrast between the two of them: Sam in his Khacki Scout uniform and who has packed essential camping gear and then Suzy in her pink sweater and skirt and "Church shoes" (saddle shoes) who has brought her suitcases filled with books, a record player and records, her kitten, and a bunch of cans of cat food. The movie turns their relationship into a romantic one and I thought it would have been better if they were just friends. Watching twelve year olds make out and fondle each other is really creepy. If they had kissed in a My Girl style, that would have been fine and more believable. I could see Sam and Suzy being friends because they both have a lot in common, but I couldn't see where all of a sudden they're "in love" and want to get married. I'm going to sound very shallow for a moment, so please excuse me. I can understand Sam having a crush on Suzy because she is a pretty girl, but there is no way a pretty and rich girl like Suzy would ever like Sam more than a friend. He's not that cute and he's kind of an a-hole (as is she!), so I can see why the rest of his fellow troop members don't like him.  This movie gets pretty dark sometimes, especially with what happens with the dog and Sam piercing Suzy's ears with a fish hook as she screams bloody murder. The whole town is out searching for them and that's basically the premise of the movie.

11. The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Director - Stephen Chbowsky

This movie is based on a young adult never that written by Stephen Chbowsky and he wrote the screenplay and directed the movie. I can't think of any other movie adapted from a book that was directed by its author. God, can you imagine if Stephenie Meyer directed the Twilight series? :::shudders:::: This is the only movie I've seen with one of the main Harry Potter kids being in a movie outside of Harry Potter. Emma Watson and her short haircut are in this and her American accent is fairly solid. At first all I could think was that it was Hermione with an American accent (and a short haircut), but her character, Sam, is very different from Hermione, so it was easy to quickly forget about her Harry Potter background. The main character, Charlie, is about to start high school. He's a quiet kid with no friends who likes to read and write. In fact, for awhile his only friend is his English teacher (played by Paul Rudd) who can sees he's a bright kid but is too afraid to raise his hand in class because he doesn't want the other kids to think he's the teacher's pet. Teacher Rudd gives him a bunch of books to read, so he kinda does turn into the teacher's pet, but it's just not as obvious to the other students. He becomes friends with Sam and Patrick, both seniors, who Charlie thinks are dating, but are actually stepsiblings. Charlie develops a crush on Sam but doesn't get the nerve to ask her out because he thinks she only likes him as a friend and she already has a boyfriend. He becomes a part of their circle of friends and starts dating a girl (played by Mae Whitman - she will always be the little girl from Independence Day to me). She asked him to the Sadie Hawkins dance and after that she assumed they were boyfriend/girlfriend just because they went to one dance together (huh?!) and he was too scared to tell her he didn't like her that way, so whenever she called him on the phone (everyday!), he would leave the phone off the receiver because she would talk nonstop and if he did try to cut in, she would say, "Charlie, don't interrupt me!" There is a big awkward moment when their group of friends is playing Truth or Dare and Patrick dares Charlie to kiss the prettiest girl in the room and he kisses Sam. Ouch. Needless to say, that was the end of that relationship! I should mention that this movie takes place in the '80s. They don't ever mention it and I kinda figured it was from the clothes and hairstyles, but by the time Charlie's sister gets a mixed tape (A MIXED TAPE!) from her boyfriend, I knew it was the '80s. Plus they listen to a lot of '80s songs. Charlie is played by Logan Lerman who I didn't know at first so when I checked out his IMDb page, I found out he plays Mel Gibson's youngest son, William in The Patriot. You probably wouldn't remember him because while the other six children have some sort of significance, (even if it's only being in the movie for half an hour to be killed by the protagonist, who let's not forget is played by Jason Isaacs who played Lucius in the Harry Potter films, so this kid has worked with both Mr. Malfoy and Hermione!), he's just there.

12. Ted
Director - Seth Macfarlane

Oscar nominations:
Best Original Song - "Everybody Needs a Best Friend" (lost to "Skyfall" from Skyfall)

There are some laughs in this movie, but for the most part it's your typical stupid Seth Macfarlane humor. (The kind of humor where you spout 100 jokes and out of those 100, only one is funny). I have to say one of the funniest things about the movie to me was the narrator at the very beginning and end of the film. The movie starts in 1985 with an 8-year-old friendless boy named John who gets a teddy bear for Christmas. The bear has a voicebox and can say, "I love you!" John wishes the bear could talk for real and his wish comes true. Since the movie takes place in Boston, Ted has a Bostonian accent. (And I should mention that Seth Macfarlane voices him). There's a pretty funny scene where John's parents see Ted move and talk for the first time and they freak out...which is what I would have done too. Soon, Ted becomes a national celebrity, appearing on Johnny Carson (I would love to know how they did that scene...movie magic, I guess) and how everybody has accepted that a talking, moving teddy bear lives among them. The narrator has a hilarious line about how his fame became obscure. Adult John is played by Mark Walberg (Marky Mark!) and he and Ted are still best buds. Ted is now a pot-smoking, foul-mouthed teddy bear and what's more shocking than that? Foul-mouthed children and foul-mouthed grandmas have already been done, so what's next? A teddy bear of course. Mila Kunis plays John's girlfriend and Giovani Ribisi plays the creepy guy who wants to buy Ted to give to his son. He ends up kidnapping Ted which resulted in one of the funniest moments when John calls the police and tells them, "My teddy bear has been stolen" and then you hear a dial tone. Ha! There's an ongoing gag that John and Ted are big Flash Gordon fans (have no idea who or won that is, but I know the Queen song) and John ditches a fancy party he's at with his girlfriend so he can go to a party at Ted's because the guy who played Flash Gordon is there. This results in a big party scene where Ted sings "I Only Wanna Be With You" in karaoke fashion. John and Ted have a huge fight at a motel room that I'm pretty sure will be nominated for Best Fight at the MTV Movie Awards. This was nominated for Best Song, but I don't remember a song in this movie .