Live From New York

Saturday Night

Director: Jason Reitman

Cast: Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott, Dylan O'Brien, Lamorne Morris, Nichloas Braun, Matthew Rhys, Willem Dafoe, J.K. Simmons

Released: September 27, 2024

This is a movie about the very first episode of Saturday Night Live which aired on October 11, 1975 (nearly 50 years ago!). Correction: This is a movie about the chaotic ninety minutes before the very first episode of SNL went live. 

Like Jeopardy, SNL is one of those shows that has always just been around all my life. And also like Jeopardy (which is a show SNL loves to parody!), while I don't watch it religiously, I've seen my fair share of episodes. It's just so engrained in the culture. I'll talk about my history with SNL later. 

I'm pretty sure they took more than a few liberties with this movie. If everything that happened in this film actually happened in real life, there's no way this movie would exist because SNL wouldn't have existed. I'm not saying that all the problems and obstacles they run into didn't happen in real life, but I just doubt they all happened ninety minutes before the show started! But who knows. 

The movie begins with a title card that has a quote from Lorne Michaels: "The show doesn't go on because it's ready; it goes on because it's 11:30." 

Everything is set in pretty much real time as the audience is following a very young Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) around as he's getting ready for the first episode. Of course, we follow other main players around, but for the most part, we are with Lorne. You kind of have to already know the people involved in this world because they just throw them in, expecting you to already know them. For instance, there's this guy named Dick who is usually with Lorne, giving him advice. It wasn't until someone had called him "Ebersol" did I realize it was Dick Ebersol, who was the Vice President of NBC. He and the President of NBC were the ones who approached Michaels about creating a variety show for Saturday nights on NBC (I read that on Wikipedia). 

Backstage is just chaotic with actors, writers, producers, musicians everywhere; props and sets are being built and/or tested; there are sound checks and light checks. Nothing seems to be organized. During a skit they're rehearsing, the lights from above fall down, causing major commotion. Luckily, nobody was hurt, but it did start a fire on the couch. Can you imagine if that happened live? (Though I'm guessing the screen would go to static very quickly!) 

The original cast members are Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtain, Laraine Newman, and Gilda Radner. I think they did a good job of casting people who looked similar to them (someone tall and lanky for Chase) and could do the voices. I was only familiar with two of the actors they cast for these roles: Dylan O'Brien as Dan Aykroyd (I've never seen any of his stuff, but I had heard of him) and Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris who I knew from New Girl. 

Garrett Morris (who is still alive at 88 and presented a clip at SNL's 50th anniversary show) has a bit of an identity crisis as he is the oldest cast member and the only black cast member (the only non-white cast member, really). He's wondering why he was cast and is worried he'll only be regelated to stereotypical roles like "the butler, the shoeshine guy, or the pimp." 

Chevy Chase just comes off as an ass****, and yeah, that tracks. There's a huge altercation between him and John Belushi. It's obvious he's already looking for ways to become the next big star and it makes sense that he was the first to leave the show and gain success (and Clark Griswold will always have a special place in my heart). Gildra Radner just comes off as super loopy and I was like, wait, I thought John Belushi was the one who did drugs. Speaking of him, he's babied by Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennott) who was Lorne's wife at the time and a writer for SNL. Belushi is not happy that he has to shave his beard or that he has to wear a bee costume for a skit. She keeps placating him and telling him that he's the star of the show and all the girls are going to love him and it was so weird. Granted, she could be doing all that because they go live in thirty minutes and he still has't signed his contract yet.

There's a few scenes of men smacking women on the butt, but it's okay because the women will smack the men right back. Yeah, different times back then! Another sign you can tell it's the '70s is that everybody is smoking.

On the wall there is a huge bulletin board covered with index cards that have all the different segments that will be on the first episode and what time they'll go on. We find out that there will be four host monologues, two stand-ups, two musical performances by two musical guests, a solo piece by Andy Kaufman, five commercial parodies, Weekend Update, a film by Albert Brooks, a muppet skit featuring Jim Henson's muppets, and seven additional sketches! I'm sorry, but what the f**k? There's NO WAY they can fit all of that in an hour and a half show (probably more like a little over an hour with the (non-parodying) commercials)! As a page points out to Lorne, the dress rehearsal was three hours. Honestly, I'm surprised it wasn't longer! Lorne seems positive that everything will fit and says there's something for everybody. That may be true, but he must be on something if he thinks all of that is going to fit in one episode (it was the '70s, after all)! 

Let's take a moment to unpack all the segments they have planned for the first episode because I have a few questions:

-Four host monologues: George Carlin was the first ever host of SNL (he's played by Matthew Rhys). I read that he wasn't in any skits, but instead did a monologue and appeared three mores times to do a stand up routine. I guess they originally wanted him to do four monologues, but why? I admit I've never watched any of the early days of SNL (maybe a few sketches, but that's it) so I don't know when it started to feel more like the SNL I grew up with and the one we're all familiar with today. But four monologues just seems insane and redundant! 

-Two stand ups: At first I thought these were for George Carlin and I was so confused why he would need four monologues and two stands up and was wondering what the difference was, but I think these were for Billy Crystal and Valri Bromfield. We see the up and coming talents backstage and both are worried that their routines are going to be cut (because they see the board!) and Billy tells Lorne that they both want four minutes each. In the end, Lorne tells them he can only give them two minutes and Billy says he can't set up in that amount of time and when Lorne asks Valerie if she can do hers in two minutes, she tells him she can. I've never heard of Valri Bromfield and I looked up her Wikipedia page and she's done stuff, but certainly doesn't have the career like Billy Crystal. So what I guess I'm trying to say, it seemed to work out in the end for him.

-Two musical guests each with two musical performances: this one surprised me a lot. I'm used to one musical act with two performances. The first musical guests on SNL were Billy Preston and Janis Ian. I admit, when someone mentions "Janis" rehearsing, I thought they were talking about Janis Joplin. I've never heard of Janis Ian. Though I guess if I knew anything about music history, I would know that Janis Joplin died in 1970 (yes, I just looked that up on Wikipedia). Like, I knew she died at a young age, just didn't know when. According to nbc.com where I'm getting all my information about the first episode, they both performed two songs each. I'm honestly surprised they didn't cut them down to one song each. I looked at the musical guests for the rest of the first season to see if they learned their lesson and it seems to be all over the place. The second episode had four (4!!!!) musical acts, the third episode didn't have any, then for the rest of the season, sometimes it's only one and sometimes it's two. Season two still has a few episodes with two musical guests, but mostly it's just one. 

-A solo piece by Andy Kaufman/a skit featuring Jim Henson's muppets - I put these two together because Nicholas Braun (who I recognized because I'm watching Succession (along with a million other shows) at the moment) plays both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson (luckily they're never in a scene together!) and according to the article I referenced before, both of these made the show. The only thing I know about Andy Kaufman is that the R.E.M. song "Man on the Moon" is about him and Jim Carrey played him in Man on the Moon, a movie I've never seen. Either the movie ripped off the title of the R.E.M. song (it was released seven years after the song) or there's some reason why he's called "the man on the moon", but I really don't care that much to research it. 

-"Weekend Update" (I have no idea if that should be italicized or in quotes or just left alone) - even after fifty years, some things never change. "Weekend Update": has always been a part of SNL (although it did try new formats and changed its name to "Saturday Night Newbreak" and "SNL Newbreak" which just don't sound as good) but that makes sense because the news provides a great source for comedy. When they're rehearsing for the first ever "Weekend Update", we see Lorne Michaels sit in as the anchor and I was like, Whaaat? because I had no idea he was ever supposed to have a part in the show. Whenever we see him, he's always just playing himself, for a few minutes, usually in the monologue. When he's rehearsing, he's reading the cue cards but nobody laughs. John Belushi plays the meteorologist for the weather report and is talking about how March sometimes goes in like a lion and out like a lamb or vice versa and starts commenting about how other countries use different animals. This doesn't really make sense because the first episode ever of SNL aired in October (October 11, 1975, to be exact). Also, he ends up just screaming and everyone is laughing like it's funny, but it's not. 

-Five commercial parodies - usually SNL only has one parody commercial, so I was shocked when they had five. I read that they played one during a break between Weekend Update and I assume they played another one at the beginning of the show, so I'm not sure where the rest were sprinkled throughout or if they ended up playing all five during the first show. Surely, three of them got axed! Why not save them for other shows so they're spread out a little? 

-A film by Albert Brooks - I don't really have anything to say about this. I don't even know if they played this during the show or it got moved to another episode. 

-Seven additional skits - I still can't believe they wanted to show all that, PLUS seven additional skits! Did they not know the concept of time back in the '70s?!

Lorne has to meet with about fifty NBC executives in the green room. They are with affiliates from all across the country and will decide if the show is good enough to continue to air. Chevy is there to do some stand up, and, yikes, lots of racist and sexist jokes. Again, a very different time in our history. Lorne tells them about some of the stuff they'll be seeing tonight and adds, "There's never been a television show made for or by the generation that grew up watching television." That is pretty cool when you think about it that way. Lorne has admired to Dick Ebersol that he doesn't know what the show is, but once he sees it, he'll know. That seems like something you should know before the show goes on national television! 

At one point we see Don Pardo practicing announcing all the cast members' names. When he gets to Dan Akroyd's last name, he struggles with it and says, "How the f*** do you pronounce it?" You think he would have known that much earlier than thirty minutes before they go to air! Whoever played him, did a great job of emulating his voice. As soon as I heard him, I was like, Oh, yeah, that's the announcer guy from SNL. 

Lorne gets a phone call from Johnny Carson (we only hear his voice and whoever did his voice did a very good job) who basically tells him that his (Lorne's) show (meaning SNL) isn't going to last and that it's his (Carson's) f***ing network" and his (Carson's again) night. So I was confused when he said that because I thought hisbshow aired Monday through Friday, you know like most late night talk shows. I tried to look this up and from what I could gather, they showed reruns of The Tonight Show on the weekends. (Seems like overkill to me.) Or at least on Saturdays. Sounds to me like every night was Johnny's night! I knew The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was on for a long time, but I had no idea it was on for forty years, running from 1962-1992! I also had no idea it was filmed in New York the first decade before moving to Burbank. Anyway, not sure why Carson was so angry. He still had his show. 

Willem Dafoe plays Dave Tebet, who is head of talent (I'm not sure exactly what his job was, but I looked him up and he's the guy who found Johnny Carson to fill in for the host before him (the hell? I thought Johnny Carson WAS the first ever host! TIL something new!). For some reason Milton Berle (played by J.K Simmons) is there and Tebet introduces Lorne to him. We find out that 97% of the American viewing audience was watching his show which is insane, but then again, back then they only had a limited amount of channels they could watch. The only thing I've ever seen Milton Berle was when he was in an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, lol. I think he played some guy at an old folks' home that Brandon was volunteering at. Berle is depicted as having a huge ego (and a huge appendage which he flashes at Chases's girlfriend (fiancee?) who he's blatantly hitting on in front of Chevy. He comes off as a creepy old man, hitting on all the pretty younger women. We get a little foreshadowing when Milton tells Lorne that he's looking forward to hosting the show and Tebet tells him they'd be honored to have him. I say foreshadowing because he did host in season four but was banned from ever hosting again and it was 30 years before the show was aired again as a rerun. I guess he was very arrogant, thinking he was better than everybody (I mean, when you have 97% of the American television viewing audience watching you in your prime, you'd probably have an ego the size of Alaska too) and his jokes weren't funny and nobody liked him. Anyway, I read that there's no proof that Berle was at the studio on the first night of SNL's airing, but they probably just wanted that in there because of his reputation with SNL...but that's just speculation on my part. 

Tebet tells Lorne he's heard that there's been some issues, but Lorne assures him that everything is under control. Tebet says "If, for some reason you can't lock your script or commit your cast to legally binding contacts, rest assured, the country will be happy to watch Johnny Carson." Sounds like a threat to me! Lorne replies that could just play the tape of the dress rehearsal. We see that the tape for The Tonight Show is cued up and ready to go just in case. 

It's getting closer to going live and everything is still in chaos. Dick Ebersol tells Lorne that they should forgo the show this week and "come back stronger next week, debut with Paul Simon." Paul Simon was the second ever host of SNL (though not the musical guest for some reason, I guess the days of having someone host and be the musical guest wasn't invented quite yet) and having him be the first ever host would make more sense in hindsight because of his relationship with the show. He's hosted four times and been a musical guest 13 times and was at the 50th anniversary show. George Carlin only hosted twice. Now, to be fair, they couldn't see the future, but yeah, Paul Simon would have been a pretty epic first ever host. Lorne refuses and still wants to go on with the show and Dick tells him that NBC wants him to fail because they "make more money playing reruns of The Tonight Show." (I guess because more people will be watching it?) The reason they don't just do that is because "it's a contract dispute - they're trying to prove to Johnny Carson that the reruns are inevitable so they built a show that was guaranteed to fail." They don't think a ninety minute live show with a bunch of unknowns will last. Dick predicts that they'll play the Carson tape. 

He finally gets John Belushi to sign his contact (I think? We never actually see him sign anything, but he was a cast member, so he must have) and now there's fifteen minutes to the show. Finn Wolfhard (who I am shocked has never hosted; I feel like he or Millie Bobby Brown should have hosted by now!) plays an NBC page whose job is to get people off the street to come in for a free show and he manages to get a pretty good crowd. 

Now there's ten minutes to go and Tebet tells Lorne the show's not ready and they're going to play the Carson tape. Lorne rebuffs this and Tebet  wants him to show him something to prove that show is good enough to go on air. Andy Kaufman is on stage ready to perform and Lorne puts on the Mighty Mouse theme song (with a record player, no less) and Kaufman lip-synchs to the "Here I come to save the day" part. Everyone (except Tebet) is laughing, but personally, I didn't get it. They next perform Weekend Update and as a last minute change Lorne tells Chevy to be the anchor. While all this is going on, all I can think is, I can't believe they're doing all of this with ten minutes before the show is supposed to start. Shouldn't Tebet have watched the dress rehearsal? 

There is some tension right before they're to go live. Are they gonna air the show live or will they play the Carson tape? There are literally five seconds left when a guy in the control room asks if they're going live or to the tape. But, of course, as we all know, the show airs. (This movie wouldn't exist if it hadn't!) Tebet is the one who tells him to go live. 

The movie ends with the very first skit of SNL (with John Belushi and Michael O'Donoghue, a head writer) called where Belushi plays a foreigner (from Eastern Europe, I'm guessing from its accent) who is learning English from O'Donoghue's character. The skit really isn't that funny (but that's SNL for you, sometimes the skits can be hilarious and other times, they can fall flat and sometimes they're just meh) and the most iconic part is when Chevy Chase comes onto the set when the skit has ended wearing a headset and utters the iconic phrase for the very first time, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" 

I first started watching SNL in the early '90s when I was probably too young and I'm sure many of the jokes and all the political stuff flew over my head. I do remember getting a kick out of Toonces the driving cat. I started watching in the Phil Hartman era and he was my favorite cast member (and he'll always be my favorite Bill Clinton) during this time. One of my absolutely favorite sketches from this era was when Chris Farley played a motivational speaker who "lives in a van down by the river!" LOL, I'll still quote that every now and then. There's so many great skits, that I'd really have to think about my favorite. Maybe one day I'll post my top twenty SNL sketches after I've had time to review them. 

I have't watched the show live in many years; now, thanks to YouTube I just watch the clips at my own leisure. I'll find some from, like eleven years ago that I had never seen before. 

How about a couple of SNL fun facts? The show has had many young hosts, many in their earlier 20s and a handful of 17, 18, and 19 year olds, but do you know how old the five youngest hosts were? I knew the three youngest already, but didn't know who rounded out the top five.

5. Malcolm Jamal Warner (Theo from The Cosby Show) was 16 when he hosted in 1986. 

4. Jodie Foster was 14 when she hosted in 1976. Sometimes I forget that she was a child actor.

3. Fred Savage was 13 when he hosted in 1990. 

2. Macaulay Culkin was 11 when he hosted in 1991.

1. Drew Barrymore was 7 (yes, SEVEN!) when she hosted in 1982, obviously promoting E.T. I watched her monologue and while she is very adorable, it's a little cringe. No fault of her, though. She comes out with one of the cast members (I don't know who, I'm not familiar with that era except for Eddie Murphy and Julia Louis-Dryfus and it wasn't either of them). They talk about E.T. for a few minutes, which is fine, but then he asks her which cast member she would marry. Like, why are we asking a seven-year-old which adult she would marry? It's so weird. 

I recently learned that a total rand-o once hosted this show. And when I say rand-o, I mean a civilian. Someone who isn't an actor or musician or athlete or politician or isn't in the pubic eye at all. In 1977, there was a contest called "Anyone Can Host" where anyone off the street could write an essay (of 25 words or less, IDK why that made me laugh so much when I read that) of why they would be a great host for the show. An 80-year-old German immigrant from New Orleans named Miskel Spillman won. And the crazy thing is, they knew how old she was when she was selected. According to the Wiki article on this, her essay was "I'm 80 years old. I need one more cheap thrill, since my doctor told me I only have another 25 years left." Yes, it was funny, and I'm not trying to be ageist or anything, but why are we asking an 80 year old nobody to host this show? To be fair, I think this was a terrible idea no matter how old the civilian host would have been. Nobody wants to tune in to watch SNL when it's hosted by a mere mortal. Oh, well, I'm sure her friends and family enjoyed the show! She would be the oldest person to host the show (not a shock!) until Betty White hosted 32 years later (!!) in 2010 when she was 88. At least Betty White was and will alway remain a National Treasure. I watched the episode (usually skipping ahead quite a few times) and it wasn't that great. She was only in a few skits (probably for good reason) and didn't have good comedic timing and was blatantly staring at the cue cards. Not that I blame her because she's not a trained actor, but they obviously learned their lesson because that never happened again! 

I already mentioned the skit where Chris Farley plays a motivational speaker is one of my faves, so here's a clip of that if you've never seen it:

Emotions

Inside Out 2

Director: Kelsey Mann

Voice Talent: Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Tony Hale, Liza Lapira, Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan

Released: June 14, 2024

Oscar nominations:

Best Animated Film (lost to Flow)

A few years ago I ranked the Pixar movies and Inside Out was my #2. (Toy Story 3 will always be #1 in my heart!) While there have been more Pixar movies added, none of them are pushing the top two out of the way. I remember seeing Inside Out (and crying my eyes out!) and thinking how clever it was with the emotions of an eleven-year-old girl named Riley being the main characters of the movie. Now Riley is thirteen and the original emotions are back, but we're about to meet some new ones! Of course the original emotions are Joy (Amy Poehler), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale), Disgust (Liza Lapira), and my favorite (as a character, not an emotion!), Sadness (Phyllis Smith). 

Now that Riley is thirteen, she is beginning to form a Sense of Self and her own beliefs. Every time she comes up with a new belief, it is taken to the Belief System. Many of Riley's beliefs include the same sentiment such as "I'm kind," "I'm a good friend," I'm a good person", "I'm strong and brave", "Mom and Dad are proud of me." As you can imagine, Joy is delighted that Riley has such a strong Sense of Self. 

Riley and her two best friend, Grace and Bree, who all play hockey together, have been invited to a three-day overnight hockey camp. Now three days seems really short, but I'm guessing they did it because they thought two weeks would be too long. They were invited by Coach Roberts, the coach of the high school team,  the Fire Hawks, and these three days could determine whether the girls make the team or not. 

The girls will be starting high school next year and it's only on the drive to the camp when Grace and Bree tell Riley that they will be attending a different high school from Riley. I'm so confused because they were invited by the coach of the Fire Hawks, so why would she invite two girls who will be going to a different high school? The whole point of this storyline is for Riley to have anxiety about her friends going to a different high school, so she tries to impress the older girls who are already on the Fire Hawks so she can be friends with them and thus won't be a friendless loser when she starts high school. 

Riley is starting to have doubts that she's any good at hockey because she recently got a penalty. There's a funny scene of Joy taking that memory and tossing it in the Back of the Mind with all the other negative memories so they won't weigh on her. Joy has catapulted many of these not-so-great memories to the Back of the Mind including one where Riley was waving at a guy who was actually waving at a girl behind her. Heh, poor Riley. I loved it when they were talking about that particular memory and Joy says, "Oh, yeah, that was awkward." 

While the Emotions are sleeping (they sleep when Riley sleeps), they are awakened by a loud beeping noise and wake up to see a big red button blinking. Now, if you remember at the end of the first movie when their control console is remodeled, they see this big red button that's labeled "puberty" or "poo bore tee" as one of them (I think it was Disgust) pronounces it. At that time they're not worried about it (and don't seem to even know what it means), but now the red light is getting brighter and the siren is getting louder. They're frantically trying to turn it off, but that's one switch you can't turn off! Joy manages to rip the button off and places it in the tube that will send it to the Back of the Mind but of course that's not going to work. Did these Emotions not get the handbook on puberty? 

A demolition team appears and has come to expand the place for "the others". Of course, this means the new Emotions that we are introduced to. These include Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment, and Ennui. I would argue you can definitely have all these emotions before you turn thirteen, you may just not realize what you're feeling. Also, I understand from a movie perspective, they can't have all these emotions in the first movie. 

Anxiety is an emotion I know all too well because I'm pretty sure  anxiety controls me most of the time. I am someone who worries about everything all the time. While Sadness is the main Emotion in the first movie, Anxiety is in the driver's seat in this movie for the most part. Poor Riley. I love the designs and personalties for the new Emotions. Because yellow (Joy), blue (Sadness), red (Anger), green (Disgust), and purple (Fear) are already taken, we get new colors for the new Emotions. Well, sort of. Two colors are used again, just a different shade. I was a little surprised that Envy is more of a blue shade than green but after looking up some information about her on the Pixar Wiki fandom (now there's a site you could get lost in the wormholes!), I found out she was supposed to be emerald, but her color was changed to aquamarine so she wouldn't look too similar to Disgust. I think a dark green would have worked for her because Disgust is a shade of light green. Embarrassment is pink (of course) and the biggest Emotion in size and wears a hoodie that he hides his face in throughout 99% of the movie. He mostly just talks in squeaks and yelps and he doesn't utter a sentence until the end of the movie. Quick sidetone: I find it interesting that Riley's Emotions are both male and female while when we see other people's Emotions controlling them (like her parents or her friends), they're all the same gender of whoever the person they're controlling. Ennui is voiced by a French actress so I love the Emotion that's a French word has a French accent. We are told that Ennui emulates boredom, but I found her to have a "too cool for school" attitude, like she didn't give a flying you-know-what. I think being bored and trying too act like you don't care are two completely different things. Anxiety's design is my favorite. She is orange with hair that sticks up and reminds me of a Fraggle Rock. I was listening to the Filmspotting review of this movie and one of the hosts said the same thing, heh. She is also the definition of her name, always scurrying about and worrying about everything. 

The same day the new Emotions arrive is the same day that Riley arrives at the hockey camp with her friends. When she gets to the campus, she bumps into Valentina (Val) Ortiz who is the captain of the Fire Hawks. Anxiety takes over because she thinks if Riley becomes friends with Val, she'll be with the in crowd and have friends when she attends high school. This causes Anxiety and Joy to get into an argument about whether Riley should stick with her original friends or befriend the cool new girls. Anxiety says that while it's Fear's job to protect Riley from the scary stuff she can see, it's her job to protect her from the scary stuff she can't see. You know, I never really thought of it that way. 

In the locker room before the first practice, Val introduces Riley to the other Fire Hawks, a group of four or five girls. Again, I'm not really sure why they're at this skills camp if they're already on the team, but I guess extra practice is always good. Val invites her to sit with them, but Riley tells her she's saving seats for her friends (they're in the locker room getting ready to play hockey, it's not like they're going to be in there that long). Bree and Grace come in and the three friends are all excitedly taking selfies with Riley's phone, making faces and chatting animatedly. Coach Roberts enters and tells everyone to "settle in" and while all the other girls are giving her their full attention, the three friends are still gigging. When the coach gets stern with them and tells them they need their focus, they get quiet, but it's too late and the Coach starts passing around a box telling everyone they need to put their phones in it. This makes everyone pretty (and rightly) annoyed with Riley. Yeah, I'd be pretty irked if I had to surrender my phone because of someone's moronic actions. 

You would think after that, Riley would be on her best behavior, but she keeps talking with her friends and now the Coach has them skate lines. Anxiety does her work and pretty much has Riley groveling to Val so she can get on her good side and try to make a better impression. When Coach Roberts tells them to split into two teams, Anxiety wants her to join the team with Val, but Joy wants her to be on the team with Bree and Grace. Okay, I'm confused....why is Riley even getting the option to choose? Shouldn't the Coach have numbered them off or something or have two captains with a schoolyard pick? I get that it's for the purpose of the plot, but in no universe would this ever happen. Says the person who never participated in sports because no athletic bone exists in my body. 

Anxiety ends up getting her way after she tosses Riley's "Sense of Self" away (all the way to the Back of the Mind) and tells Joy that they'll build her a new one. The original Emotions are bottled up (literally - they're all stuffed into a bottle. As Fear puts it, "We are suppressed emotions!") and sent away to The Vault while the new Emotions take some new thoughts down to the Belief System: "If I'm a Fire Hawk, I won't be alone" and "If I'm good at hockey, then I'll have friends." (Aren't these pretty much the same exact thought?)

The Vault is a lair-like place that holds Riley's deep dark secrets, one being that she still likes Bloofy (I'm a guessing a portmanteau of Bluey and Goofy) an animated kids' show about a dog that has an educational element to it. I'm not sure why a thirteen-year-old would like a show that's geared towards three-year-olds. From what I gather, this show seems like it's very basic, teaching toddlers very simple things, but I guess that's why it's one of her deep darks secrets. 

Joy tells the others they need to go to the Back of the Mind to get Riley's Sense of Self back and all they have to do is follow the Stream of Conscience (reminds me of the Train of Thought from the first movie) that will take them there. Joy is already imagining how the scenario will go: "Riley will be Riley again" after they put back her Sense of Self and Joy adds, "And then I'll tell Anxiety, 'Hey don't worry so much anymore.'" Heh, that made me laugh. That's like telling Joy not to be so chipper all the time. 

Meanwhile, Anxiety has made Riley get up super early to get in some practice. (Probably not too hard for Riley because I know when I have anxiety I can't sleep!) Anxiety feels validation when Val comes in early as well and tells Riley, "You get what it takes to be the best" and invites her to come hang out with her and her friends later that evening. Both Anxiety and Envy are super excited about this. 

"Oh, Poooooouchyyyyy!"

The suppressed emotions are released with the help of Bloofy and his pal,     Pouchy. It was amusing because Bloofy and Pouchy are animated in that  crude, simplistic way of a children's daily animated half-hour TV show and it was funny seeing them juxtaposed against the gorgeous computer animation of a Pixar movie. Pouchy is a talking pouch (imagine that) with the zipper for his mouth. I think I now understand Riley's secret and shameful love for this show because Pouchy is hilarious and he's not even trying to be. Joy tells their new friends they need to get out of the Vault and Bloofy turns to the camera and asks the audience what they should use to escape and Pouchy takes out a few objects with only one being obvious to get then out (that would be the exploding dynamite!). 

Once they're released, they come to the Stream of Conscience which has whatever Riley is thinking about at the moment floating in it. What I want to know is what if she's thinking an abstract thought? They see a bunch of food including pizza, an apple, a burger, popcorn, chips, and milk (eww...pizza and milk...two foods that should never go together, but then again I think milk is only good paired with chocolate). Just moments before, after practice had ended, Riley had told Val how hungry she was and how she could go for a pizza so she had food on the mind. 

Joy wants them all to hop on a piece of pizza to use as a raft, but Sadness points out that they'll need somebody at the console at Headquarters to bring them back (this movie gets a bit convoluted with its geography of Riley's mind) in the tube so Joy says someone is going have to climb all the way back in the tube (and it's a loooong way) and Sadness is picked for the job. 

So right now, we have three different storylines going on. We have the one with Joy, Anger, Fear, and Disgust continuing their quest to restore Riley's Sense of Self, we have the one led by Anxiety with Envy right beside her both wanting to make sure Riley is set up well for her future in high school, and we have the one with Riley herself at hockey camp. 

Anxiety and Envy are now worried when the girls from the Fire Hawks and Riley are looking through the window of Coach Brown's office door and see a red notebook on her desk. The girls tell Riley that their coach keeps all the notes about all the players in there. The emotions (especially Anxiety) are worried that something bad may be written about Riley in there. Now, Val and the other girls (sorry, I don't remember their names; I don't know if they were even given names) are not portrayed as mean girls, but this was kind of a dick move for the girls to tell Riley about it. Now the poor girl is going to be worrying over it. Maybe it wasn't the older girls' intention (and, again, I know it's for the purpose of the plot), but I didn't love this. 

Later that evening Riley is hanging out with Val and the other girls in a lounge area when she's asked who her favorite band is. She replies, "Get Up and Glow! They're so awesome!" My first thought was it would have been a clever crossover if she had named the band the girls see in Turning Red, 4*Town, but then I remembered that movie takes place in 2002 or 2003 so it wouldn't have been in the right time frame. I assume its supposed to be 2017 in this movie since it takes place two years after the first movie. Anyway, Get Up and Glow gives me Panic! At the Disco vibes. (Do you think it's Get Up and Glow or Get Up and Glow! or perhaps even Get Up and GLOW! Punctuation is everything, you know.) She immediately becomes embarrassed when Val says she was "all over them in middle school", indicating only immature middle schoolers like them. Oof. Anxiety and Envy are both freaking out and Envy says they need to think of a band the other girls think is cool, not one that Riley likes. They recall everything Riley knows about music and this causes all those musical memories to push Sadness back to Headquarters (undetected because she's buried under all those memories). Just imagine recalling every single artist, band, and song you can think of. Yeah, that would open a FLOODGATE of recollections. 

Ennui decides to take over so Riley sarcastically tells the other girls how much she loves Get Up and Glow and passes off her original answer as a joke. We now jump back to Joy and the others who have been floating down the Stream of Consciousness but have to abandon ship when a huge chasm appears. They are told by a demolition worker that it's "a sar-chasm." Heh, I can only imagine how proud whoever came up with that in the writers' room was. You know the writers for this movie (and the first one) had a lot of fun with the word play (Train of Thought, Stream of Conscience, and later we'll get a Brain Storm). What I loved about the sar-chasm is that whatever Joy and the others yelled across the chasm to a couple of demolition workers, they heard it as sarcasm. When Joy calls over to them in a very sincere way, "We're lucky to run into you guys, we really need your help", they heard it in a very sarcastic tone and of course aren't happy about it and don't help them. 

Back in reality, Riley finds out they're having a scrimmage tomorrow and the girls tell her it could decide her fate of being on the team. The more I think of it, the less I like these girls. They sure do love to taunt Riley for no reason. 

While Anxiety and Envy are ensuring that Riley makes the team and maintains her friendships with the hockey girls, Embarrassment finds Sadness and she indicates for him to be quiet. (Lucky for her, he hardly talks.) She is looking at files and he helps her by finding the ones she needs. 

Now Joy and the others have entered Imagination Land (I believe that was also in the first movie...isn't that where Riley's dreams were produced?) only to find that Anxiety and Envy are using Rileys imagination against her. They have several workers there (I'm not sure what they were called) drawing different scenes of all the scenarios Anxiety has Riley thinking of that could happen during the scrimmage. These include things like what if she hits the puck in her own net or what if she misses a pass or what if the other team wins. Joy and the others quickly come up with more positive scenarios such as Riley wins and everyone hugs her. Okay, I'm going to let you in a little secret why I think it's better (and maybe that's not the right word) to be a pessimist than an optimist. When you think of all the worse scenarios and it happens, then at least you're prepared for it. However, when you're hoping for the best outcome or a good one, and it doesn't happen, it's even worse! But if you're expecting something bad to happen, but something good happen, it's the best scenario! In this case, if I were in Riley's shoes, I would totally be thinking of all the horrible things that could happen during a hockey scrimmage...the last thing I would be thinking is that I would win and everyone would hug me. But like I said earlier, I'm pretty much controlled by anxiety! 

Anxiety is being projected on a large screen and she and Joy have a back and forth:

Anxiety: "What if Riley is better than Val and then Val hates her?"

Joy: "What if Riley is better than Val and then Val respects her?"

Anxiety: "What if Riley is so bad she has to give up hockey forever?" 

Joy: "What if Riley does so well that the coach cries and the Olympics call and she rallies a weary nation to victory?"

Heh, even Disgust has to remind Joy that "reality is also a thing." 

So there's a very niche reference to a famous Apple commercial from 1984 that was only aired once. I only know about it because I learned about it in an economics class in high school....I think, I don't really remember how I learned about it honestly, but it's a pretty famous commercial. One of the Imagination Land illustrations throws a chair at the screen with Anxiety's face and as soon as I saw that I knew they were parodying that 1984 Apple commercial. Yeah, I felt pretty smug about knowing that. I won't lie. Go Google it. Another reference that I caught was one from Network when Anger tells the Imagination Land workers, "You don't have to take it anymore!" I've never seen Network but even I know the "I'm mad as hell and I don't have to take it anymore!" line from Peter Finch (I did have to look up the name of the actor). 

Now that Anxiety's plans have been foiled, she wakes a sleeping Riley to make her consider sneaking into the coach's office to read the notebook to see what was written about her. Over a walkie-talkie (Riley's mind truly is a complex place), Sadness warns Joy and the others what Riley is up to and Joy tells her she has to stop her. Apparently Coach Roberts doesn't keep her office door locked. I sure hope she does't keep anything valuable in her office! And it's not like she keeps her notebook locked in a desk, no, it's just sitting on her desk just asking to be read. I'm guessing it's really early in the morning (or maybe late at night?) because right before she enters the office, she hears a janitor down the hall and quickly slips into the office and slides down to the floor and locks the door so the janitor can't get in (or see her when he uses a flashlight to peer in the room). 

Riley picks up the notebook. Sadness has control over her and she starts crying until Anxiety takes over and Riley wipes away her tears and determinedly opens the notebook. All she sees written under her name is "not ready yet." I'm sorry, but that's all that was written? What are the reasons she's not ready? Some coach! You'd think she'd have a list of things Riley needs to improve on. But maybe that's for the best because I'm sure that would have wrecked Riley even more had there been specifics. 

Anxiety and Envy are freaking out and Anxiety says they're going to have "to change Coach's mind" and all they need are "lots of idea." Cut to the other Emotions who are getting pelted with little colorful pellets. It is, of course, a "brain storm". Joy catches a few of them and some of the ideas include "hog the puck" and "trash talk the other team." I don't know how much the latter would help Riley make the team. If anything, you would probably be called out for bad sportsmanship. Anxiety and Envy realize the ideas are too small and they need to come up with a "big idea" (which is in the shape of a lightbulb that gets screwed into the console). Since Val made two goals at the scrimmage that made her a Fire Hawk, Riley's idea is to score three goals. 

At this point, Joy and the others have reached the Back of the Mind to retrieve Riley's old Sense of Self which is sitting on top of a giant heap of bad memories that Joy has previously sent there. Riley's new Sense of Self now has a new mantra, "I'm not good enough" and this alarms Anxiety, but she spins it as Riley knows there's "always room for self-improvement." 

The only way for the original Emotions to get back to Headquarters has diminished and Joy admits to the others that she "doesn't know how to stop Anxiety." (Who does, am I right?) In the end, they summon their good friend Pouchy who's carrying a bunch of dynamite and they use that to blow up the cliff so they can "ride an avalanche of bad memories back to Headquarters." I couldn't help notice that some of the bad memories were yellow which would indicate joy. All the other colors/emotions I can see being part of a bad memory, but shouldn't there be no yellow in that pile of bad memories? 

While playing the scrimmage, Riley makes her first score even though one of her teammates was open and told her to pass it. She continues to play erratically, stealing the puck from one of her teammates and makes another goal. She's happy, but her teammates aren't. She makes her third goal, but at the result of slamming into another player (who happens to be Grace) who goes flying cross the ice. The coach puts Riley in the penalty box for two minutes. She appears to be having a full-blown panic attack (as we see Anxiety furiously controlling the console and Envy tells her she's putting too much pressure on Riley). 

The other Emotions have returned and Joy tells Anxiety that she can't choose who Riley is and that she needs to let her go. In the end, Riley's Sense of Self is a mixture of the old ("I'm a good person") with the new ("I'm not good enough"). Riley, like everyone else, is a complex person and her Emotions love her just the way she is. Riley apologizes to her friends and feels much better as Joy takes over and she is able to have fun playing hockey. (And in the end, she does make the Fire Hawks. At least, it's implied that she does.)

Like I mentioned earlier, Inside Out is my second favorite Pixar movie, so of course I was delighted when I found out there would be a sequel. I thought this movie was solid, but nowhere near as good as the first one. While I did cry during this movie, I was bawling during the first one. I also though the stakes were much higher for Riley in the first movie when she moved from Minnesota to San Franscisco. Yeah, having your close friends go to a different school would suck, but she's still going to be able to see them. In the first movie, she moved from Minnesota to San Fransisco. Her parents (voiced by Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan) aren't in this one as much as the first one. I did forget to mention a fun side character, Nostalgia (voice by June Squib) who is this adorable granny-looking character who likes to reminisce about the past and the other Emotions have to remind her Riley's not quite ready for her. (She is only 13, after all...does anyone really have nostalgia when they're 13? Well, maybe she has nostalgia for the days when she watched Bloofy!)

The (one-hit) Wonders

That Thing You Do!

Director: Tom Hanks

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

Released: October 4, 1996

Oscar nominations:

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

You!

Doing that thing you do!

Breaking my heart into a million pieces

like you always do!

And you!

Don't mean to be cruel!

You never even knew about the heartache

I've been going through.

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

But it's just so hard to do!

Everytime you do that thing you do!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Merry Christmas From the Family

The Family Stone

Director: Thomas Bezucha

Cast: Sarah Jessica Parker, Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Luke Wilson, Dermot Mulroney, Claire Dane, Craig T. Nelson, Elizabeth Reaser

Released: December 16, 2005

Viewed in theaters: December 21, 2005

This film, set at Christmas, is about a woman meeting her boyfriend's family for the first time. Now I had seen this before, but hadn't seen it since I saw it in theaters so I didn't remember too much about it. When the opening credits start, Claire Danes is the first name to appear and I was thinking, I don't remember Claire Danes being the main character. Well, she's not. As soon as the next two names popped up, I realized that the names were appearing in alphabetical order which makes sense since it's an ensemble film. If anything, Claire Danes' character is probably the one person you could take out of the movie and she doesn't even appear until later (although her hair looks absolutely fantastic). 

Meredith Morton (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Everett Stone (Dermot Mulroney) both have successful business jobs in Manhattan and met last summer in Hong Kong and have been dating ever since. Everett is taking her to his folks' home in some idyllic, charming, snowy town in Massachusetts for Christmas so she can meet his family for the first time. Now if it were just his parents, Sybil and Kelly (Diane Keaton and Craig T. Nelson), that would be one thing, but no, she'll be meeting his entire family which will consists of eight people. Meeting my significant other's extended family for the the first time on Christmas would be my absolute nightmare and I do feel for Meredith because she's not exactly the kind of person who makes friends easily and has everyone fall in love with her. I am a little surprised she agreed to meet his entire family for Christmas. Besides his parents, here is who else she will be meeting: 

-Amy (Rachel McAdams), Everett's youngest sibling. There are five Stone siblings and Everett is the oldest. Even though she will come around in the end, Amy does some things that make her quiet unlikeable. I was listening to a podcast about this movie and one of the hosts joked that Rachel McAdams wanted to play a character even more despicable than Regina George.

-Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser; this was before she had her arc on Grey's Anatomy and was in the Twilight movies) is the middle child of the Stone siblings. She's probably the only one who doesn't cause any drama and just seems to be there. She is pregnant and has a daughter. Her husband won't show up until late on Christmas, so not until the very end of the movie. I can't remember if they even tell us why he's showing up so late, but I'm guessing they didn't want to add another character with so many already. I just don't know the reason within the confines of the movie. According to Wikipedia, Susannah lives in Chicago, but I also don't remember that being mentioned.

-Elizabeth, Susannah's daughter and the only kid at this family Christmas. I guess they wanted to throw in at least one kid! She's probably eight or nine.

-Thaddeus, or Thad as his family calls him, is the second youngest Stone. He is deaf and his family communicates with him through sign language, but he can also read lips and it seems like he can hear a little bit. 

-Patrick, Thad's partner. Yep, Thad is also gay. And Patrick is black, so they put all the diversity into these two characters. These two might be the smartest in the movie because they're the only ones staying at an inn. This family is kind of a lot so that might explain why Susannah's husband doesn't show up until the last minute and I don't know how long Thad and Patrick have been together, but Patrick probably was the one who told Thad they would be staying at an inn whenever they visited. Smart move. 

-Ben (Luke Wilson) is the second oldest Stone. He's the last to arrive (not counting Susannah's husband and I just realized I don't even know his name) and he's very chill. Let's just say he lives up to his surname. He lives in San Francisco where he works as a film editor. 

Everyone is at the house (besides Ben) before Everett and Meredith arrive. Amy is the only one who's already met Meredith and she tells her family she hates her and how "phony" and "uptight" she is. Apparently she took her out to dinner at a fancy restaurant and talked the entire time. She tells them about how when she's nervous she has this nervous tic where she clears her throat several times. Before this scene, while in the car on the way to the house, Meredith had been clearing her throat.

While I don't think she's a bad person, Meredith comes off as cold and aloof. Look, I know not everybody has a bubbly personality and doesn't always make the best first impression; I count myself as one of those people, but Meredith is not impressing any of her boyfriend's family members as they're all watching from the window as Kelly goes out to greet them. Everett gets out of the car first and Meredith waits for him to go around the car and open the door for her. Good Lord, you're a successful businesswoman, open your own damn door! But I think this is the first moment showing that Meredith is a bit on the old-fashioned side. Then, as if that's not awkward enough, Kelly tries to embrace both of them, she ducks out of the hug and shakes his hand instead. I can kind of side her with this; I don't like hugging people I just met either, but the way she gets out of the hug just makes it worse.

When she and Everett are unpacking in one of the bedrooms, she tells him she doesn't want to be sleeping in the same bed as him in his parents' house. Obviously they don't care since they're the ones who gave them that bedroom. It would be one thing if there were plenty of bedrooms, but with all those people in the house, all the bedrooms are taken. She is given the bedroom in the attic which was supposed to be Amy's room and now she (Amy) will have to sleep on the couch. She's not very happy and I don't blame her; I would be pretty ticked off too, especially since Meredith already had a perfectly fine bedroom to sleep in. I think when you're meeting your boyfriend's family for the first time, it's just best to go with the flow and not make any waves. 

Her sister calls her and she talks to her in private, telling her that everyone hates her and how she's "being herself." Heh, I'm guessing her sister knows everyone hates her because she was "being herself". 

Elizabeth, the young girl, had commented on how much she liked Meredith's shoes earlier and before Meredith's sister called, she, Sybil, and Amy had been helping Meredith get her room ready, but left when Meredith took the call. Elizabeth had taken a pair of shoes and when Meredith goes down to the kitchen, she sees she had broken off one of the heels. Now this is when Susannah (who had Elizabeth in her lap, so she clearly saw what happened) should have offered to replace them (actually, she should have told her daughter not to touch them in the first place!), but instead she just says they can glue the heel back on, but Meredith just takes the shoes and goes to take them back upstairs. By this time Ben has arrived and tells her not to "diddy-daddle" because they're "all going to be down here talking about you." Even though he's joking, this makes her super uncomfortable and self-conscious. 

After dinner, while Sybil is doing dishes Everett comes into the kitchen and tells her he wants to ask her something. She knows what he wants to ask her and tells him "now is not the time." 

They play charades and it's quite clear nobody in this group has ever played charades before because they're not doing it right! No, I get that the only reason they play it like this is for the plot of the movie. So when you normally play charades, you divide up into teams (usually two or more, depending on how many people) and the person who's "it", takes a card, looks at it and acts out whatever is on the card. Nobody knows what the card says except whoever's acting it out. At least that's the way I've always known how it's supposed to be played! Here, there don't seem to be any teams, which, okay, fine, they're all trying to guess. I don't have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is that Amy is giving people cards to act out. When it's Meredith's turn (and she doesn't want to play, but they insist), Amy shuffles through the card and gives her one to act. THIS IS NOT HOW YOU PLAY CHARADES! What's the fun of that, anyway? She can't even play! She does try to "guess", but someone points out she can't participate because she already knows the answer. These people are perfectly capable of picking out their own cards and acting out what it says on them so EVERYBODY can participate! It's just so contrived and it irritates me so much! They only have it this way because it needs to be part of the plot that Amy purposely gives Meredith the card she chose for her. So here's what happens: after shuffling through the cards (instead of just taking the one on top), she gives Meredith the card she (Amy) wants her to act out. The card is a movie title, "The Bride Wore Black" (which I've never heard of; it's from 1969). Meredith is able to get "bride" from the audience, but is having more difficulty with the other two words (I'm not counting "the"). At the fourth word, black, she looks frustrated (how would you act out a color?) and Patrick tells her "it's okay" and tries to be supportive and Meredith subtly points at him by acknowledging what he's saying. May I remind you that Patrick is the black boyfriend of Thad. Well, Amy sees this and immediately jumps on Meredith, telling her, "I can't believe you're pointing at him." This is the reason why they needed Amy to know what the clue was. To accuse her of pointing at the black guy in the room when the clue has the word "black" in it; otherwise, she probably would have just thought she was poinitng at Thad for what he was telling Meredith. If I were Thad, I'd be pretty ticked with Amy for even choosing that clue and he is once they find out what the clue was (after Meredith gets upset and runs out of the room). 

Later, when Sybil and Kelly are getting ready for bed, we find out what Everett wanted to ask her earlier when she tells her husband that she knows Everett wants to ask for her mother's wedding ring to propose to Meredith. Get it? It's called The Family Stone because Stone is the surname of the family AND the ring is a family heirloom, hence "the family stone." 

The next morning, Meredith wakes up before Everett (bad call wanting to sleep in a separate room; at least if she were still in the same room as him she would know he wasn't up yet!) and is downstairs in the kitchen with Sybil and Amy. Sybil tells Amy that they got a card from the Stevenson. We find out they have a son named Brad who Sybil reminds her daughter "is still in town and still available." She then proceeds to tell Meredith that Amy lost her virginity to Brad. I'm not sure why she thinks that's any of Meredith's business! 

Sybil leaves the kitchen and Meredith apologizes to Amy for having to sleep on the couch and suggests they could take turns. That just seems very inconvenient. Amy just has a snide comeback for her and Meredith decides she's just going to get a room at the same inn where Thad and Patrick are staying at so Amy can have her room back. We find out she used having a bad back as an excuse, but nobody believes her. We also find out that her sister, Julie (Claire Danes), will are joining her, for moral support, I guess. 

Everett talks to his mom again about the ring and tells her, "This is the woman I'm going to marry." She clarifies, "We're talking about Meredith, right?", ha! He reminds her that she told him that when he met the woman he knew he was going to marry to come to her because she "wanted that woman to wear [Sybil's] mother's wedding ring." He wants to propose to Meredith tomorrow, which is Christmas. She simply tells him, "No" and when he tells her, "You promised," she replies, "Tough sh*t." 

Meredith has returned from checking in at the inn and is in the kitchen with Patrick when Sybil comes in and gets needlessly angry because somebody had taken the pot of coffee without making more and apparently it's a rule that whoever takes the last cup of coffee needs to make more. Well, the audience sees Meredith at the sink washing out the pot before Sybil does. Gee, Sybil, maybe not everybody knows your rule. Then Sybil gets pissed again when she sees all these ingredients are on her desk (which is in the kitchen) and Patrick tells her Meredith is making breakfast for them tomorrow. I feel like Patrick and Susannah have been the only nice ones to Meredith. I guess Kelly hasn't been too awful to her. And yes, I'm not including her own boyfriend in that list. Meredith tells her she's making strata because it's a family tradition for her and her sister. 

While Meredith and Patrick are working on the strata, Susannah comes in and asks them if they've seen her mom and Patrick tells her she's upstairs taking a nap. This is the first sign you know something might be wrong when Susannah lies next to her mother in bed and Sybil rolls over and asks her, "Who else knows?" We find out that she used to have cancer and it has come back. So now I can kind of forgive her for being little snappy towards Meredith. Ben knows about it and his dad confirms "it's not good" and that they only found out a couple weeks ago and she wanted to wait until after Christmas to tell them. It seems as though all the Stone children know about their mom except for Amy. When she sees Ben embracing their mom for a long time, she wants to know what's going on, but nobody answers her. 

Since Everett and Thad had to run errands in town, they're going to meet Julie at the bus station. It seems weird that her own sister isn't meeting her. I would understand if Julie had met Everett, but they've never met before. Again, this is done for the plot of the movie. We can't have Meredith there because Everett is going to...gasp....fall in love with Julie. The way it's framed when he first sees her, you know it's love at first sight. And this is the reason why we don't need Claire Danes in this movie. What is this, the dude version of While You Were Sleeping where he's in a relationship with one sister, but ends up falling for the other sister? 

She meets the rest of the family and they all love her, probably because she comes off natural and likable. When the sisters have a private moment, Sybil tells Kelly that Julie would be perfect for Ben. I have to feel bad for Meredith in that moment. So her sister is good enough for one of their sons, but she isn't good enough for their other son. 

They're having Christmas Eve dinner and chit-chatting. When everyone is done eating, Elizabeth asks to be excused, but the conversation continues. It's a good thing the young girl left because it's about to get ugly! Julie has found out Thad and Patrick want to adopt a baby and she asks them if they have a preference about the child's race. They tell her it doesn't matter to them; they're just excited to raise a child. Then Meredith decides to put in her two cents and asks them, "Do you believe in nature vs nurture?", telling them that studies have shown it's the environment that may be of the contributing factors that makes people gay. Kelly tells her they don't believe that, they think that people are born gay and Sybil makes a joke that she wanted all her sons to be gay so they would never leave her (which is a weird thing to say; not that she wanted them all to be gay, but that she thinks if they were, they would never leave...like, why?). Meredith says, "You didn't really hope for gay children, did you?" and it gets so quiet you can hear a pin drop. Oof, Meredith, why did you say that? I cringed so hard. She apologizes, but goes on to say, "I don't think any parent would hope for a child to be challenged like that. Yikes. She keeps putting her foot in her mouth as she keeps trying to explain herself instead of just dropping the subject until finally Kelly slams his hand on the table and yells "That's enough!" and she excuses herself. 

Julie speaks up and tries to apologize for her sister, but Sybil interrupts her and throws a fork at Thad's plate to get his attention. He's looking down dejected. She signs to him that she loves him and that he is more normal than anyone else at this table. I get she's trying to make him feel better, but it feels like she's being a bit patronizing. I just get he feeling that he's the favorite child because he's gay AND deaf and she constantly has to remind him or something. Although she does think Everett is amazing, so he could be in her running for her favorite child. 

They hear the door slam and Everett's car starts and they realize it's Meredith. She crashes into some bushes. I'm not sure if it was because of the snow or she's just so distraught. Ben goes out to check on her and she's sobbing. He tells her to move over and drives her to O'Malley's, a nearby bar. I should have included Ben in the list of people who are nice to Meredith, but I don't know if I should count him because he's the type of person who's nice to everybody (remember he's always so chill!), plus you know there's a romance a-brewin' between those two, because, why not. Actually, this romance doesn't irk me as much as the way more contrived Everett/Julie romance. 

At the bar, Meredith unleashes all her pent up frustration to Ben about his family (mainly Amy). He tells her to "stop trying" and that she must be "exhausted." After getting a few drinks in her, she loosens up and dances to her favorite song, "Right Back Where We Started From" by Maxine Nightingale. Two guys who Ben knows come in and when he introduces one of them to Meredith as Brad Stevenson, she recognizes his name as the guy Amy lost her virginity to and invites him over for Christmas breakfast tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Everett wants to go looking for Meredith and Julie tells him she' coming with him. They check the inn first, but she's not there. They walk around downtown, talking and bonding. The movie is trying to show us they seem to have bonded on this deep, emotional level, ugh. When he takes her back to the inn he pretty much asks her out on a date, asking her if she wants to get some coffee. Like, dude, what are you doing? You're still dating her sister. They're just trying too hard to make them a couple. As Regina George would say, "Stop trying to make fetch happen; it's not going to happen!" 

The next morning Meredith wakes up and discovers she's in Ben's bed. He's in the en suit shower (is there more than one bedroom with en suit showers in this house?) so she's the only one in the bed when Kelly knocks on the door. He knocks a few times, freaking Meredith out because she doesn't know what to do. She's shuffling around and grabs her shirt from the night before (she's wearing a tank top and has the bedspread covering her). When he opens the door, he sees Meredith in the bed, clutching her shirt and looking away with her eyes squeezed shut. He seems just as embarrassed as her and quickly leaves. 

Everett is in the kitchen when Sybil tells him "Merry Christmas" and gives him the ring. Then, in one of the stupidest moments of the movie, Julie enters and Everett shows her the ring and wants her to try it on because he wants to see if "it will fit" even though she tells him her hands are bigger than Meredith's and Sybil points out it's bad luck. Yes, I would think putting an engagement ring that's intended for you girlfriend on her sister instead would be very bad luck (and very poor taste as well!), but obviously he wants Julie to try it on because she's the Morton sister he truly wants to marry, but dude, maybe break up with the other sister first. He puts the ring on Julie's finger and they're both so speechless because the ring is so beautiful! Surprise, surprise, when Julie tries to take the ring off, she can't because it's stuck. 

Meanwhile, Ben has come out of the shower in a towel and Meredith slaps him and says, "How dare you!" He tries to tell her something, but she's dressed and it looks like she's going to leave, but when she walks downstairs by the front door Everett sees her and demand to know where she's been and she tells him she just arrived. 

She hears Julie crying in the bathroom (yes, she's crying because she can't get the ring off) and goes in to check on her and asks her what's going on. Julies holds up her hand with the ring on it and tells her, "It's your wedding ring." Meredith is shocked because she had no idea Everett was planning to propose. When asked why she's wearing her wedding ring, Julie tells her he wanted to see it on her and Meredith has a very good question: "Why did he wants to see it on you?" (Maybe that's a better question to ask Everett!) Julie changes the subject by asking her sister where she was last night and Meredith tells her she can't tell her and looks guilty and Julie quickly figures out what she means. 

Get ready for some more drama! The door bell rings and Amy answers it to find Brad with flowers and a gift. When asked what he's doing there, he tells her that Meredith invited her. Everyone is now gathered in the living room and Amy pointedly tells Meredith, "You know Brad" and asks her to share with everyone how she knows him and Brad tells them met at O'Malley's last night. Meredith quickly distracts everyone by handing out gifts to all the Stone siblings and Sybil and Kelly. They had all received the same framed photo of Sybil pregnant with Amy and this makes everyone start crying because they all know this will probably be Sybil's last Christmas. They're all very touched by the gift an Sybil tells Meredith, "You did good." 

Everett wants to talk to Meredith and thinking he's going to pop the question, she keeps brushing him off and when he keeps insisting to talk to her, she yells, "No, I will not marry you!" in front of everyone. She lowers her voices and tells him she can't marry him and he replies, "I didn't ask you." She then feels really stupid and tells everyone that this is what they all wanted, to see her humiliated and she goes on a tirade and ends up announcing to everyone she slept with Ben. Ben tells her they did not sleep together and she's had enough humiliation that she runs into the kitchen. Ben tells the others that he slept on the floor while Meredith slept in his bed. 

In the kitchen, Meredith has gotten the two pans of strata from the fridge when Sybil and Amy decide to check on her and when they open the swinging kitchen door it knocks into Meredith and the pans of strata (with all the milk and uncooked eggs) goes flying all over the floor. The women all start laughing and soon music from The Nutcracker starts playing as the Stone family continue to have their dysfunction family Christmas: the women are slipping and sliding on the floor as they try to clean the mess, Everett is chasing Ben around the house because he wants to know why Meredith would think she slept with him (even though Everett isn't into her anymore), and the table ends up falling over and all the food is ruined. 

The ring has finally slid off Julie's figures and she gives it to Elizabeth to give to Everett and tells her to say goodbye for her, but of course he goes running after her. 

The last scene of the movie is one year later when everyone has gathered at the house for Christmas again. This time Sybil is no longer with them, but I'm sure she's smiling down at them because now all her three single children have somebody: Ben is with Meredith, Everett with with Julie, and Amy and Brad are now together. Honestly, out of those three couples, Amy and Brad are the only ones who I think will be in it for the long haul. Ben and Meredith just don't make sense and Everett and Julie should have never happened. I feel like they just threw that in there because they didn't want Everett to be the only one without a partner, but they could have just said he met somebody and was bringing her. It's just too cute that the two sisters found love in the same family.