Change the Channel

Stay Tuned

Director: Peter Hyams

Cast: John Ritter, Pam Dawber, Jeffrey Jones, Eugene Levy

Released: August 14, 1992

This is a movie I have no recollection of from my childhood, but I've heard it mentioned a few times on some film podcasts I listen to, so when I saw it was on Amazon Prime, decided to check it out. Well, no wonder I don't remember it. It probably made -$300 and was never heard of again. Yes, it is that bad! 

The movie stars John Ritter and Pam Dawber as married couple Roy and Helen Knable (oh, I get it; that's their last name because it rhymes with cable!) Roy is obsessed with watching TV and that seems to be the only thing he does. Okay, it's 1992. What exactly are you watching that you need to have your butt parked in front of the TV all the time? Murphy Brown? Cheers? LA Law? Seinfeld? Quantum Leap? Unsolved Mysteries? The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air? The Golden Girls? Perfect Strangers? Home Improvement? Family Matters? Okay, so there were shows to watch (BTW, he doesn't even watch any of these; he just seems to watch sports and old black and white movies all the time), but it's not like this is circa 2013 and he's watching Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad or anything on Netflix. 

His nerdy pre-teen son introduces his dad to the audience and basically tells us that his dad watches TV all day, with maybe a few hours of sleep. He gives us the statistic that the average American watches 7.5 hours a day which seems like a LOT to me! Back in the '90s, I probably watched 2-3 hours every night, depending on the day of the week and if I watched the one hour drama that came on at 10/9 central (like ER). Haha, remember when shows like Caroline in the City and The Single Guy would get such high ratings because they were on between Friends and Seinfeld and people would just leave their TVs on after Friends and probably go do something while CitC was on, then return to watch Seinfeld? Anyway, back to my point, I might watch an hour or and hour and a half after school to unwind, so my daily average of TV back in the day was about four hours a day. Roy's son (as you can tell, I didn't bother remembering his name) tells us his dad watches three times as much as the average American! WTF? What is he watching in 1992 all day? Like I said, the only good shows came on in prime time...there's nothing else on during the rest of the day! No wonder his wife is so pissed off at him and wants to leave him! I'd leave his sorry ass too! 

There's a bit of a hint that Roy may be depressed and buries his depression in TV watching because his wife is the breadwinner of the family as she works as an advertising executive who recently got a promotion (which she doesn't even tell her husband about until later in the movie and even then it just sort of accidentally slips out). Roy actually has a job too. He sells plumping supplies. 

Helen wants to go away with Roy for the weekend to the mountains so they can rekindle their romance and not be distracted by anything like their kids, phones, or the TV. (Especially the TV!)  As she's trying to suggest this idea, he's watching basketball and tells her, "You go ahead, I"ll be there in 4 minutes and 16 seconds."  

Helen gets so fed up that he's not going to change, she throws a statue at the TV and breaks the screen. I have to say, for someone who loves their TV so much, I was surprised at how antiquated their television was. Antiquated even for 1992. It was one of those big boxy TVs with knobs on the side. It was also quite small; you'd think he would have one of those big screen TVs. I guess they want the new TV (spoiler alert!) he will eventually get be the more new and flashy TV that he watches. However, his wife breaking the TV doesn't deter Roy; he just gets an even smaller TV and places it on top of the broken one. This one also has knobs and appears to be one of those old-fashioned TVs where you have to get up and turn the knob to change the channel, but I was surprised that he actually had a remote for it. 

That very same night, a salesman named Spike (Jeffrey Jones) comes to his door and tells Roy he's been "personally selected to receive a most irresistible offer." He shows him a chirping TV remote with flashing lights and tells him he can "escape from all [his] failures and woes, at the touch of [his] thumb." He tells Roy he will have "666 channels of heart-pounding, skull-blasting entertainment" on his "brand new 44-inch, 900-line resolution, three way expanded-matrix Dolby stereo TV." Honestly, I had no idea of half the things he was saying. He gives him a contract to sign and then they'll be in business. Roy says he better not (oh, in case you're wondering, Helen is randomly out for the night), but when Spike tells him there's a free trial he perks right up. Hell, I can't blame him. The word "free" or "on sale" always perks me up too. 

And just like that a huge satellite dish (so gaudy) is installed in his backyard and Roy is told he'll have to adjust it to "fine tune reception."

Spike drives away cackling and we see a terrible effect of the ground opening up and swallowing his car whole. When Helen comes back home, she is not happy to see the new TV. Roy turns it on and there's a promo for a show called Three Men and Rosemary's Baby. As you may have already guessed, Roy has made a deal with the Devil. Well, technically Spike isn't the devil, but works for him, I guess? This movie can't use real TV shows, but I guess they can spoof on ones that already exist. When they watch TV, they see shows like Beverly Hills 90666, I Love Lucifer, or Fresh Prince of Darkness. We get a whole slew of these and none of them are that clever. Roy tells his wife, "The salesman said we'd get a lot of shows you can't get on regular TV." Well, why the hell would you want to get this TV, then? Can you still get the regular shows you usually watch? Why would I want to get a TV that doesn't air any of my favorite shows? That makes absolutely no sense. 

Roy goes outside to the huge satellite dish to improve the reception and moments later, Helen comes outside with a suitcase to tell him she's leaving him. As they're arguing, the dish moves towards them and sucks them into a vortex that sends them to TV Hell (quite literally). They find themselves on a game show called You Can't Win! While they're there, we get some backstory on how this whole thing works. The suckers who fall for this scam are brought to TV Hell and there is a scoreboard of all the people who are "playing" and, as we learn,  the goal is to "kill them before they reach the end", the end being 24 hours. If the Knables are able to survive for that long, they will get to go home. We are told that sometimes people go quickly and sometimes it takes awhile, but they never make it out alive, although there was one man who did manage not to get killed and Spike says that won't happen again. 

Eugene Levy plays someone who works for Spike, and besides John Ritter, he is the only name I was familiar with from this movie. I know Pam Dawber is from Mork and Mindy (though I had to look that up), but I never watched that show, so she wasn't familiar to me. 

You know, this isn't too unlike Squid Game. We have a bunch of people who are brought to a place where the odds of survival are very slim. Of course, here, we're just following Roy and Helen and never meet any other people who have been brought here (with an exception of one, which we'll get to later). Squid Game also has way higher stakes because you know people are gonna die and in that way, it's more exciting and intriguing and makes you sit on the edge of your seat. In this movie, I never doubted for one second that either Roy or Helen would die. (Spoiler: they don't). Actually, the more I think of it, this is nothing like Squid Game. So don't quote me on that. 

So Roy and Helen avoid being thrown into a pit of eels when they answer the final question correctly and they win "a trip of a lifetime" and are sent through a static screen that sends them to a wrestling match where they have to compete against another couple who are bigger and stronger than they are. Thanks to sheer dumb luck, they win the match and the floor opens up (another static screen special effect) and they are dropped into Northern Overexposure, "the story of a young doctor from New York who comes to Alaska, complains about everything, and freezes to death." My mom watched Northern Exposure back in the day (she loves any show, reality or scripted, that takes place in Alaska) and I was usually in the room with her when it was on, so I guess I used to watch it too, though I don't really remember anything about it. All I remember was there main doctor guy, an old guy, a woman with short dark hair, and a young blonde woman. I think there might have been an old lady, too? And maybe a moose? Maybe the moose was just in the opening credits and that's what I'm thinking of. 

Eugene Levy is there since Spike sent him there for pissing him off. (Being who he is, Spike has the power to send anyone to any channel with his special remote). He is digging through the snow and sees the static that will send them to the next channel. Wolves are out to get them and they all hide in a ice fishing shack that's located on a sheet of ice. Levy explains they just need to stay alive for another fifteen hours (wow, have they already been there for nine hours?) and then they will be home. When the wolves start attacking again and get Levy, he tells them he's already dead so he'll be fine. For some reason I can't remember, a fire has started in the shed and Helen and Roy can't escape it because the wolves are outside, ready to pounce. (Those must be some seriously hungry wolves! Where's Liam Neeson when you need him?) They walk the shack across the ice to the static hole and escape from the wolves, though Roy gets stuck in the hole but makes it just in time as the wolves come near him. 

Meanwhile, back at their house, their nerdy son and bratty teenage daughter find a note from their parents saying they went away, so they have no idea what's going on. The boy goes outside to ride his bike, but as he's pedaling, the satellite dish turns towards him and starts to suck him and the bike back and he's having a tough time moving forward. He is able to hold onto a pillar on the porch and the dish sucks his bike away which he will later see on a show called Meet the Mansons, starring a young "Chuck". 

Roy and Helen find themselves as cartoon mice who have to escape from a robot cat who is trying to kill them. This is probably the most clever part of the movie, but that being said, it goes on for way too long. Their son sees this on TV and he doesn't recognize their voices, but it's when Helen literally says her full name and address is when he realizes it's his parents. He gets his sister to show her, but she just scoffs at him and I can't say I blame her.  Animated mouse Roy is able to escape and he becomes a guest on Duane's Underworld with "Duane" and "Garf" as zombies and if this doesn't scream 1992, I don't know what does. This whole movie screams "1992", honestly. They are trying to "help" Roy find his wife, but he escapes by running upstairs and escapes into a black and white noir film where his wife is as well. This time when the kids see the movie on TV, the sister believes his brother since she actually sees her mother (and not a cartoon lady mice) on the TV and now she realizes her parents are trapped in the TV. 

So, back at the beginning of the movie, we see Roy and Helen's neighbors (an elderly couple) get caught up in this nonsense and they both end up in TV Hell. The wife is killed (by Godzilla, no less), but the husband is still hanging about and they obtain a remote from him which will take them to any channel if they just click it. By this time, I'm so bored and fed up with the movie, that I really don't care. I guess this movie bombed at the box office and I can certainly understand why. They click the remote and find themselves in a miniseries about the French Revolution and it looks booooring! Roy is disguised as a woman, but is captured and sent to the guillotine. Don't ask me how, but the kids have somehow connected some device to the satellite dish so the boy can communicate to the TV world and he acts as the voice of God and demands that they let go of Roy, which they do. 

They have made it to 24 hours, but only Roy is sent home because the contract was only for him. Spike sends Helen to a Western where she's tied up to a railroad and Roy comes back to try to save her. He ends up going through a lot of shows when he changes the channel on his remote to try to get away from Spike including Star Trek, a Salt 'n Peppa music video on "HTV" (that's Hell Television, for you), a hockey game, Driving Over Miss Daisy,  and Three's Company (never got the Hell-ified name) where the two girls (NOT Suzanne Sommers or the other one) ask simultaneously, "Where have you been?" While I get that it's a clever joke, it doesn't make any sense since at this point, that show had been off the air for almost a decade so why would Chrissy and the other one be asking where Jack Tripper has been? I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't matter. 

Roy ends up in a fencing movie with Spike and Roy reveals he was the co-captain of his junior college fencing team. Once he defeats Spike, he "cancels" him with the remote and transfers himself to Helen's channel and is able to save them both and return home by simply pushing the "off" button on the remote. Everything goes back to normal and the boy reveals to the audience that the only show his dad watches now is 60 Minutes and he now teaches fencing.

This movie has an interesting premise, but it is so boring! Change the channel on this one! 

Get those Nail Breakers!

Ladybugs

Director: Sidney J. Furie

Cast: Rodney Dangerfield, Jonathan Brandis, Jackee Harry, Vinessa Shaw, Ilene Graff

Released: March 27, 1992

When I reviewed She's the Man a little over a year ago, I ended my review with this:

I don't think this movie would fare very well today. It's not very woke...... That said, this movie has to be much better than Ladybugs, that movie where Jonathan Brandis dresses as a girl and plays on the all girls soccer team that Rodney Dangerfield coaches. I've never seen it (don't think I'm missing anything), but it seems to send a very sexist message saying girls need the help of a strong boy to win sports! Again, I've never seen it, so maybe it's an empowering movie, who knows, but somehow I highly doubt it. At least She's the Man is above that...but I don't know how much higher the bar goes! 

Okay, so I saw Ladybugs and it is NOT an empowering movie. SHOCKING, I know. It's a terrible movie. I definitely wasn't missing anything. While it is pretty sexist, the boy dressing up as a girl isn't even the most problematic part. No, that was just more stupid than anything else. But before I dive into my review, let me preface this by saying that I usually watch movies I review twice: first I just watch them straight through, then the second time I turn on the subtitles, I take notes, I write down quotes, sequences of events, anything notable. When I watched Ladybugs the first time, it was free on Amazon Prime, but when I went back a few days later ready to take notes, you had to pay to watch it and I was like, Nope! I'm not paying for this dreck! I'd be willing to watch it again for free, but I will NOT be paying to watch it again! So just keep that in mind as I go through this review. I may not remember everything that happens or have the exact quotes or remember how events transpire, but really, does anyone really care? Really? No? Good, okay, so let's get started.

So while I've been aware of this movie for a long time, I never saw it until recently. I guess it was a movie I never really wanted to see, even as a kid and that would have been the more desired time for me to see it. I have to wonder if I would have liked it as a kid and I don't think I would have because the movie is mostly focused on Rodney Dangerfield's character, Chester (terrible, terrible name...don't name your kid "Chester"). Maybe if the movie was more focused on the girls' soccer team or Matthew, the Jonathan Brandis character, I would have liked it more. 

Probably one of the reasons why I was never inclined to watch this movie because I was never a Jonathan Brandis fangirl. And considering the tragic fate that happened to him, I'm glad I wasn't. I can admit he was cute and I can see why all the pre-teen girls from the '90s loved him, but I just never watched anything he was in. The only thing I may have seen is The Never Ending Story II, but I just may be confusing that one with the first movie and I haven't seen that one since I was a literal child (that's a movie I always intended to watch and review, but then I got distracted by other movies I'd rather watch and review), but I never saw Sidekicks or this one (until now, at least). I was mostly familiar with him from SeaQuest DSV, a show I never watched because I was watching the competition, The New Adventures of Superman, with Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher. All I know about SeaQuest was that there was a talking dolphin and Jonathan Brandis was in it. So I just assumed he did all his movies during his time on the show, but imagine my surprise when I found out SeaQuest premiered in 1993 and this movie came out in '92, so was he already popular when he did SeaQuest and that's how he got cast? Because I honestly don't remember. I have a feeling it was SeaQuest that made him popular because he's not really in Ladybugs that much...he has nowhere near as much screen time as Dangerfield and I feel like if the movie producers knew they could get more pre-teen girls in the seats, they'd be focusing more on the Brandis character. 

I have to wonder who is this movie for. If they're trying to get the Brandis fangirls, they're going to be bored through most of it and probably not going to enjoy looking at Rodney Dangerfield and his bug eyes. (So did he get cast in this movie because it's called LadyBUGS and they just immediately thought of him?) Also, the actual girls on the soccer team, aside from a couple of them, get no screen time at all. This movie is 80% Dangerfield, 15% Brandis, and 5% soccer girls. 

The basic premise of this movie is that Rodney Dangerfield is trying to get a promotion at his job (he was 70 when he made this movie, so how old is his character supposed to be and why is he still working?) so when he finds out that his boss's daughter's soccer team, the Ladybugs, needs a coach for the season, he volunteers, saying he knows a lot about soccer because he used to play, but of course he doesn't and he's never played. He's told if he can get the team to the championship, he will be promoted. So that's how he gets roped into being the coach. Before he goes in to talk to his boss about a possible promotion, there's an extremely uncomfortable and awkward scene where he's "flirting" with the secretary, who is this librarian-type woman in her 60s and he greets her with "Hey, sexy" and tells her can't believe she never got married and how he bets "there's still heat in her furnace" or something gross like that and that she's just his "type". Yeah. I know, right? Oh, boy. Something tells me if Rodney Dangerfield were still alive today, he would be cancelled! There's a lot of very uncomfortable scenes like this (some even worse!), so stay tuned!

When Chester goes to meet the team the next day, we find out that only two girls are returning and the rest are new (and seemed to have never played soccer before). So where did the girls from last year go? Did they age out? (I would guess these girls to be about fourteen). Did they not want to be on the team anymore? I guess we need girls that suck because that's how we get Jonathan Brandis on the team. As his assistant coach, he has his assistant (I honestly don't know what he does for a job), Julie (played by national treasure Jackee Harry (pretend there's an accent over the first e, "Jack-ay")). The day of their first game, she brings a book that is basically Soccer For Dummies and starts reading it on page one. Um, why didn't they go over this BEFORE the game (or the first meet, really?) There's this scene where Julie is eating a sub sandwich and the way Jackee chose to eat it was very interesting to say the least. Instead of starting from one end to eat it, she eats it from the top.

Most of the time, when we meet a kids sports team in a movie, while not every player may get equal screen time, we usually know their first (and sometimes last!) name(s) and they at least get one line and have some kind of character trait. The Mighty Ducks is a good example of this. Yes, it did have two sequels, but all thirteen players in the first movie had first and last names and all were given lines. This does not happen in Ladybugs. There are five girls who have lines and are given names. I looked up to see how many people are on a soccer team and it's usually 11: ten people in the field and one goalie. Now I did not count to see how many girls were on the team, but when they're all huddled together, you see girls who don't get any lines or you have no idea what their names are. Why don't we meet the girls we do get to know?

The first is Kimberly (Vinessa Shaw...she's probably the only person in the world who spells her name like that...even my spellcheck wanted to "right" it back to "Vanessa"), who is the boss's daughter. She's a terrible soccer player because she kicks the ball way too high and it goes over the goal, but isn't a powerful kicker somebody you want in soccer? IDK, I'm no Mia Hamm (literally the only female soccer player I can name!), so what do I know? If they could just train her to kick it in the goal, she'd be set. We find out that Matthew, the Jonathan Brandis character, has a crush on her and this causes some slight mishaps and awkward moments. There's a scene where he has a fantasy of them running into each other's arms and she's wearing a bikini version of her soccer uniform (red with black polka dots) and she's running in slow motion and it's a little uncomfortable considering the actress was 14/15 when she filmed this. In this dream sequence they are eating a "fancy" dinner which consists of the world's most bland hamburgers: they're just meat on a bun. There's no cheese, lettuce, tomato, ANYTHING on these burgers that would make them more enticing to eat. It's like craft services couldn't be bothered to get anything to add to the burgers to make them look mouth watering. Isn't this supposed to be a dream sequence? Wouldn't you want the most delicious looking food? But I digress...

Then there's Nancy who was on the team last year (so was Kimberly, I believe). She's the only one who seems to know what she's doing. Julie claims this is because she's black and all the greatest sports stars  - in baseball, basketball, boxing, and football - are black. Chester scoffs at this and ask her what about hockey. She makes a face like, Okay, I'll give you that one. And you think the joke would end there, but then he goes on to include badminton, fox hunting, and fencing. Yeah, that just got really awkward really fast. There's also another awkward racial joke when Chester is in the elevator standing between Julie and Bess, his fiancée (Ilene Graff aka the mom from Mr. Belvedere). He's holding a scrapbook with details about their wedding and an older woman who gets on the elevator mistakes him for getting married to Julie and tells them how brave they are. I did have to laugh when Julie muses what their children would look like.

Carmelita Chu is the butterfly girl. She's a little space cadet who loves butterflies and gets easily distracted by them when she sees them. This problem will get solved later when Matthew puts a bunch of butterfly stickers on a soccer ball and she just chases the ball down the field. I did laugh when she makes a goal and Julie was cheering her on and yelling, "Chu! Chu! Chu! Chu!" and it sounded like she was sneezing. 

Sally Anne Wellfelt (terrible last name, but it's surprisingly not the worst of the last names of the girls on this team!) is the team floozy. According to her, she likes to shop, cute boys, paint her nails, cute boys, go to the mall, cute boys, talk on the phone, cute boys, etc. When Matthew reveals he is a boy, she is making the biggest googly eyes at him. There is a stupid, but funny moment when they're playing the championship game (yes, they make it that far, because, of course they do) and she breaks a nail and starts crying about it and it motivates her to score a goal. The spectators are shouting, "Get those nail breakers!" The coach on the other team is so enraged that he not only makes his own players get down and give him twenty push ups, but also the people watching the game.

Wikipedia tells me there's a girl named Tina Velez (I assume she was on the soccer team), but I have no recollection of this person at all. 

Last, but not least, we have Penny Pester. THIS is the girl with the horrible last name. Why are we giving this girl that name when we already have a character named Chester? So stupid. Penny is this really socially awkward nerdy, non-athletic girl. She wears glasses that are held into place with a band and her frizzy hair is held back into a ponytail. When she reveals to her coach that boys don't like her because she's not pretty, we get an extremely awkward scene where he takes off her hair clip to see her with her hair down and takes off her glasses. He tells her that if he were younger, he'd ask her out. Um, eww. But it's even worse when he says that she probably wouldn't say yes, and she replies, "Yes, I would, Coach Chester" and proceeds to give him a kiss on the cheek. Ugh! Girl, don't lie! Also, when he did that She's All That makeover on her, she looked worse because her eyes are all squinty without the glasses. There's a point during the championship game when she takes off her glasses and takes out her ponytail claiming, "This is for you, Coach Chester!" before scoring a point. Um, how the hell does that help her? Her hair is just in her way (the actress kept pushing it out of her face as she was running down the field) and I would assume she would need her glasses to SEE! 

So, yes, those are all the girls on the soccer team that we meet. Chester decides they need a ringer so he recruits the son of his fiancee. For some reason, a younger woman (the actress was 45 when she filmed this) has decided to marry somebody who looks like Rodney Dangerfield, has a dead end job, and blatantly sexually harasses and ogles other women. We see numerous occasions where he is straight up staring at other women in a blatantly sexual way. WHAT does she see in him? Her son, of course, is Matthew, who was on a soccer team, but got kicked off because he acted up in school or was failing one of his classes. Who knows, I don't remember. At first, with good reason, Matthew is reluctant to dress up as a girl and join the team, but when he finds out that his crush, Kimberly, is on the team, he decides to help out. 

Kimberly has to be the dumbest girl on earth because she's had two recent run-ins with Matthew and he's literally only wearing a wig (that's pretty much the same color as his own hair), so you'd think she would recognize him. Even though she is super rich (her house has a racketball court, for God's sake!), she goes to the same public school as Matthew. In one scene, Matthew and his friend are walking behind her at school and his friend is telling him he should ask her out and tell her that he likes all her "parts". I am shocked that she didn't hear them talking about her because they are within earshot of her when they're saying all this. They go outside and his friend throws a football which lands near her and she sees Matthew and tells him, "Nice catch." Then, when Chester brings Matthew to one of the soccer practices, he's sitting in the stands and Kimberly does one of her infamous kicks and the ball lands near him and she runs up to grab it from him. So she's seen him just as himself twice now. Later he will reveal his true self to her and she is SHOCKED! Girl, why are you so stupid? It's a good thing you're rich and pretty, damn! 

The fact that they put no effort in him being being a girl at all makes me laugh. At least Amanda Bynes in She's the Man put some effort into it. Yeah, she had that weird voice she did and it did change a few times, but I will give her a lot more credit. Brandis does not even attempt a girl's voice. He doesn't have a super deep voice, but it is noticeably male. He does have high-pitched girly voice during a scene where Kimberly has come to visit "Martha" (Matthew's female alter ego) at "her" house. (For some reason, Kimberly thinks of "Martha" as her best friend even though we've seen no evidence of them being that close). I have to wonder if that scene was filmed first and they tried the girly voice out and they decided not to do it anymore because it didn't work. Because it seems weird he would talk normally when he's a girl, but then later on in the movie, have that high-pitched tone to his voice. I don't know. This movie is so stupid. So during that scene, his mom comes home and, of course, she has no idea about the charade, so while Kimberly is in the living room and his mom is in the kitchen (he's closed the door to the rooms), he has to switch back and forth between Martha and Matthew and put on a wig when he's Martha. You know, it's like the restaurant scene in Mrs. Doubtfire (which, oddly, came out a year later....do you think this was the inspiration for that scene? Nah!) The way he slides down the stairs to his basement room is one of the best things about this movie. Seriously.

After his first practice as Martha (and none of the other girls have any clue. They're just as dumb as Kimberly), Chester tells Matthew he needs to learn to be more feminine, that he can't be so aggressive and talk about how he needs to take a leak. So we never actually see him try to get in touch with his feminine side; the only thing they really do is shop for a dress. This entire scene is so flipping' stupid and nonsensical and will later turn into a dark, disturbing moment. So they go to a boutique and Chester tells the saleswoman he needs a dress and when she asks him what size, he turns to Matthew and asks him what size he is. The woman is confused, but Chester explains it away as the dress being for his twin sister and they're the same size. Then he wants Matthew to try on the dress. But why? Why does Matthew need to even wear a dress? He's only Martha when he's on the soccer field, so "she" only needs to wear the uniform. Yes, yes, I know Kimberly comes to visit "Martha" at "her" house so Matthew puts on the dress then. But, still. So when Chester and Matthew are in the dressing room, oh boy, things get misconstrued and we get a joke about sexual abuse! Oh, yay! Oh, dear. Oh, dear, oh dear, oh dear. This old lady and her granddaughter are waiting outside the dressing rooms (I guess there's only one dressing room?) and they overhear an interesting conversation between a man and what they think is a young girl. Chester and Matthew are facing each other (so the old lady only sees their feet) and Chester is putting the wig on Matthew. Matthew is complaining that it's "too tight" and "it hurts" and Chester's telling him to hold still and "not to tell his mother about this" because she'll kill him. The old lady is just besides herself. Now, I think if a little girl was actually being raped in a dressing room, there would be a lot more screaming and crying and the police would be called (hopefully!), yeah...that's pretty horrible. Matthew just sounds like an irritated teen, NOT like somebody who is having something horrendous done to them. Chester continues to be a creep to young girls when he comes out of the dressing room, sees the little girl with the older woman and proceeds to caress her on the cheek and say, "Oh, what a cute little thing. What's your name?" This causes the old woman to faint in horror. Dude, know your boundaries! We'll also get a weird scene later on where Chester is talking to a bar tender about how how he dressed up his girlfriend's son in a dress and wanted him to "play with him." Um, maybe, clarify what you're talking about or maybe just not talk about this at all? Of course the man is enraged and kicks him out of the bar. 

So far we've had racist jokes, sexual harassment jokes, sexual abuse jokes, what else are we missing? Oh, yes, homophobic jokes! So, in a scene that really does not need to be in the movie at ALL, Chester and Bess are looking at a house and outside they see a man riding a bike with a little kid in the back, in one of those booster bike seats. Bess comments how cute that is and Chester makes a "joke" that the kid is going to turn out gay because he's just staring at his dad's butt. Yeah, not funny. Not even clever. It feels like Dangerfield thought of that on the fly and they thought it would be funny material for the movie? 

Matthew has other close calls to being found out that he's not actually -gasp!- a girl! He and the other girls are invited to Kimberly's house. He calls Chester to pick him up because the girls have decided to go skinny dipping. WHY skinny dipping? Why not just swimming. I'm pretty sure if he was in a swimsuit, the girls would notice something was amiss! So Chester, dressed in a dress and hat with a veil over it, comes to pick up "Martha". You'd have to be really stupid to not recognize Rodney Dangerfield in drag. Just saying. His boss has an attractive wife who is wearing a short skirt that day and of course Chester, dressed as a woman, ogles her when she bends over to pick something up. I'm surprised (and disappointed, frankly) that Matthew didn't notice this and report this to his mother. His mom deserves better than this creep. Still trying to figure out why she is with him (apart from it being convenient to the plot). 

Bess finds out what Chester has been doing and becomes angry with him, so their relationship is on the rocks (oh no!) and Matthew, who has helped the Ladybugs make it to the championship game as Martha can no longer play with them. This is when he reveals his true self to Kimberly by taking off his wig (don't worry, he wasn't wearing a dress) and she shrieks, "Oh my God!" He encourages Kimberly, who has been kicked off the team due to her father making Chester do so because she sucks so much, to go to the game. Yeah, this douche made his employee kick his own daughter off the soccer team. Matthew and Kimberly go to the soccer game where Matthew reveals his true self to the other girls (who are also SOOO shocked!) and Chester puts Kimberly back in the game, despite his boss's threats to fire him. But Kimberly gets a penalty shot and ends up winning the game, yay. She and Matthew also start dating and Chester gets his promotion and gets back together with Bess, so double yay. (In case you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic cuz I could really care less!) 

In the end, Chester doesn't learn his lesson about cheating. We see him on a bus with boys dressed in baseball uniforms. When they get to their destination, the coach of the opposing team tells him he heard a rumor that he dressed up a boy as a girl to play on the soccer team, but Chester vehemently denies this. Cue to the boys stepping off the bus, all dressed in wigs, posing as girls. 

You know what would have made this movie better? Or at least more passable? Get rid of Rodney Dangerfield and have it be Jackee who needs the promotion. Maybe Matthew is the son of her friend or she sees him and recruits him. Maybe you get more dynamic between the girls on the team and you get rid of all the stupid and offensive jokes that don't move the story anywhere. 

Doggone It

Beethoven
Director: Brian Levant
Cast: Charles Grodin, Bonnie Hunt, Dean Jones, Stanley Tucci, Oliver Platt, David Duchonvy, Patricia Heaton, Nicholle Tom, Christopher Castile, Sarah Rose Karr
Released: April 3, 1992

When you hear the name "Beethoven" and think of a St. Bernard before the dead classical composer, then you might be a child of the early '90s. I remember seeing this in theaters...I think my dad took my brother and me. Seeing it again in a very long time, I forgot how dark (especially for a kids' film!) it is! I remembered there's a bad guy and that Charles Grodin, who was the only one in the family who doesn't care for the dog, saves Beethoven from said bad guy. However, I didn't remember that the bad guy was going to flat out MURDER the dog; my memory was foggy and I thought he was either dognapping or at the worst, going to injure Beethoven. When I realized what the bad guy's motives were, I was like, Holy crap, THIS is in a kids' film??? But we'll get to that later. This movie gets SUPER DARK, y'all!

But first...let's start with something everyone loves....PUPPIES! We first meet our dog hero (whose name isn't Beethoven just yet) as a puppy in a pet store. Oh. My. God. HE IS SO FRICKIN' CUTE!!!!  Cuuuuute! Suuuuuper Cuuuuuuuute! I want a St. Bernard puppy! They're so adorable! I mean, what is wrong with Charles Grodin? How could he not want this dog? But before the dog meets his new family, he is first dognapped by two bumbling minions (Oliver Platt and Stanley Tucci) who are working for the bad guy who wants them to bring him puppies. Two dogs manage to escape: the St. Bernard puppy and a Jack Russell terrier. The bad guys chase them, both dogs get away and go their separate ways. The next morning the St. Bernard follows Charles Grodin into his home as he's getting the newspaper and he's so preoccupied looking at it, that he doesn't even notice the puppy. His wife (Bonnie Hunt) and two oldest children don't notice the dog either, but when he hops into the youngest daughter's bed, she hugs the puppy and when her mom and siblings see her, she exclaims, "Look! I dreamt I had a puppy and it came true!"

Bonnie Hunt and the three Newton kids (who include 13-year-old Ryce (Nicholle Tom aka the oldest kid on The Nanny); 10/11-year-old Ted (Christopher Castile aka Suzanne Somer's son on Step by Step); and 4/5-year old Emily (Sarah Rose Karr), want to keep the puppy, but Charles Grodin isn't too keen on the idea, but finally gives in when they tell him it will teach them responsibility. He tells them they're only keeping the dog until they can find the owner (good luck with that, Charle Grodin!)

The Newtons are trying to come up with a name for the newest addition of their family and nobody can agree with anything. Ryce wants to name the dog MC Hammer (terrible) and Ted wants to name him Ultimate Warrior (stupid). Finally, when Emily plays a few chords of Beethoven's (the composer!) Symphony Number 5, the puppy barks along to it. You know, the one that goes da-da-da-da! I'll sing my cat's name to those notes when I talk to him, "Mi-mi-mi-lo!" They take that as a sign and the puppy is christened "Beethoven".

Oh, hell no! 

I have to wonder, though, if the name "Beethoven" was chosen for the dog because of the song, "Roll Over, Beethoven", which will be played in a montage scene. I can see it now in the pitch meeting: they already have the idea for the movie, they just don't know what to name the dog. Someone says, Hey, you know that Chuck Berry song, "Roll Over, Beethoven?" Well, dogs roll over so let's call the dog Beethoven and we can use that song in a montage!" I bet you exactly that's how it happened! Of course during the montage (where we see Beethoven grow from a puppy to a full grown adult), we see the kids having fun with the dog while Charles Grodin is cleaning up after him. There's a funny scene where he's just come in from the rain and there are muddy paw prints on the front and back of his clothes. The montage ends with an extremely muddy and wet Beethoven (btw, not a cute look for any dog!) on the master bed and when Charles Grodin comes in and shouts "YOU!", Beethoven gets up and in slow motion we see him shake all the water, mud, and dog drool all over the place. It's really gross. I would have been so mad! Speaking of dog drool, my memory of it is that there was a lot more, but they really only show it a couple times during the montage. Maybe I was thinking of Turner and Hooch; doesn't that dog drool an excessive amount? (I just looked back at my review for that movie and just answered my own question! Yes, that dog drools a lot).

Beethoven sleeps in his doghouse which is inside its own little fenced in area in the backyard. However, he has dug a hole (which is super obvious, but yet nobody knows about it) and when the kids are at school, he meanders through town, getting treats and pats from the local people. You can tell this is an everyday occurrence because everybody seems to be expecting him. Beethoven gets a treat at a bakery and we see him bring it to a back alley where he gives it to the Jack Russell Terrier who had escaped from the dognappers with him and is now making his life on the streets as a homeless dog. I was super impressed they got a dog to carry a treat in his mouth without eating it! Beethoven visits a park where he shares an ice cream cone with a little girl. It's super gross; he slobbers all over it and she willingly puts it in her mouth!

Beethoven is a super smart dog. He seems to understand the English language (and more than just "Sit!" or "Stay!") and we will see this throughout a few times. One of the first times is when he comes to meet Ryce at the end of school (who doesn't seem at all surprised to see her dog, so this must be a regular thing too) and when she starts telling him about Mark, the boy she likes, and how he likes this other girl who's super popular, Beethoven grabs a stick and walks over to Mark and brings him over to Ryce. Ryce is ecstatic that he knows her name (of course he does; your name is Ryce! Who would forget a name like that) and exclaims quite loudly, TWICE, "He knows my name!" Honey, why don't you at least wait until he's out of earshot? Oh, here's the best part: this so-called "most popular girl in school" was wearing a completely dorky outfit: a pink sweatshirt with white hearts on the bottom and pink jeans with blue, purple, and white flowers. Even I wouldn't be caught dead in this atrocious outfit in the early '90s. (Although I'm sure I wore some pretty terrible stuff!)

Charles Grodin is in the air freshener business and he has a snooty married couple (played by a pre-Everybody Loves Raymond Patricia Heaton and a pre-The X-Files David Duchovny) who want to invest in his firm and who are trying to swindle him. When Charles Grodin invites them over to a barbecue at his house to sign the papers, we learn about this when the Newtons are out of earshot and the couple are talking, but luckily Beethoven is in the yard and he hears every word...and seems to understand what they're saying! He's on a long leash to roam around in the backyard and winds it around the table the snooty couple are sitting at. When Charles Grodin throws a ball for him to chase so he'll leave them alone, he ends up taking the table and the two chairs the couple are sitting at with him and they fly over the fence when Beethoven jumps over it. It is absolutely ridiculous, but maybe not as ridiculous as another scene where Beethoven sneaks into the house one night and gets in the bed before Charles Grodin gets back in after investigating things. What Charles Grodin doesn't know is that his wife is in the bathroom, so when Beethoven starts licking his ear, he thinks it's her. Okay, seriously, how do you confuse your wife with your dog??? Dogs tongues are absolutely disgusting...you can tell a dog's tongue from a human tongue.  And there are other ways you can tell. He dismisses the smell by thinking it's him since he spends so much time around Beethoven cleaning up after him. Yes, very stupid scene and seemed highly inappropriate for a kids' movie!

Bonnie Hunt is going back to work and has the kids go to an older woman's house in their neighborhood even though Ryce is old enough to watch after her younger siblings. The woman likes to sing showtunes and while she and the two older kids are inside doing their homework, little Emily is outside playing with a bouncy ball by the pool. The camera ligers on the pool for a second so you know something is going to happen, like, I don't know, the little girl is going to fall in it! Well, guess what? She does! She screams for help and Beethoven saves her. I was confused by the geographic layout of where they were. At first I though their backyard faced the baby-sitter's backyard and that's how Beethoven saw her, but that doesn't seem to be the case as he runs along a sidewalk, then jumps over a few fences. He must have really good hearing. After he brings Emily to the pool steps, she tells him he needs to go home since he might get in trouble for leaving the yard. As far as I know, she will never tell anyone that if it hadn't been for Beethoven, she may have drowned. Remember that. I thought it was a bit unbelievable that her siblings didn't notice their little sister thrashing around in the pool. Yes, I know the piano was (supposedly) drowning (haha, unintended pun!) out her screams, but they were right in front of the glass door and while they weren't looking outside directly, there is something called peripheral vision and they would have definitely noticed! In fact, Ryce only has to tilt her head a fraction when she notices Emily sitting on the pool steps after Beethoven has rescued her. (I guess they thought she managed to swim to the steps). Needless to say, the woman is fired.

I haven't even touched on the bad guy yet! So the bad guy (Dean Jones) is...get this...a VET. Not just any vet, but Beethoven's vet. He is in cahoots with a gun manufacture who wants him to acquire a dog with a large skull (like a St. Bernard) and SHOOT IT IN THE HEAD to see "how messy it is". WHAT. THE. F**K!!!! What kind of sick bulls*** is this? This is in a kids' movie?!? Wow, good thing I didn't remember this or maybe it just went right over my head, cuz this movie should have traumatized me as a kid! This seems vey extreme...why can't they just shoot a watermelon to see how much of a mess the bullet makes? Why do they even need to know "how messy it is"? After Beethoven has a routine checkup with Dr. Evil Vet, he wants to keep the dog overnight for "observations", but the kids say no, that he'll be too scared. He does put a seed in Charles Grodin's head that St. Bernards can be dangerous dogs and to watch him closely. Here's what I don't understand about Dr. Evil Vet: did he become a vet after he went into this shady business? He is being paid (seemingly) lots of money to murder dogs, but why would you go through veterinary school for all of that? Was he already a vet when he was approached with this offer and because he is so greedy, he has no qualms about murdering one (or more!) of his client's pets? I'm very confused...and troubled about this whole thing. I was listening to a podcast about this movie and the hosts were saying this should have been a test for vets to see if their license should be renewed or not. The gun would be a blank and if you actually went through with it and shot at the dog, you would be dismissed as a vet! Might I add, that they should also be sent to jail for attempted murder!

Dr. Evil Vet pays Beethoven a "home visit" telling Bonnie Hunt that he just wants to check on their dog to see if everything is okay. I would be highly suspicious because there is no reason for a vet to pay a home visit, especially if there is nothing wrong with the animal, as in their case, but she just lets him into the yard. Nobody is paying any attention except for Emily who is playing upstairs in her room. (With a stuffed St. Bernard animal! It is so cute! Ryce is a bit of a traitor as she has a poster of a dalmatian in her room. ) The Evil Vet puts fake blood on his arm. I don't think Emily saw that part, but she defintely saw the moment when he hits Beethoven (obviously filmed in a way where the dog isn't actually hit). He eggs Beethoven on to attack him and when he does, the Evil Vet calls for help and everyone comes running out. Emily tells her parents that she saw him hit their dog, but Evil Vet dismisses her by saying of course she would want to defend her dog. He tells the Newton parents that they must surrender their dog and he must be put down at once! While they're not happy with this news, they do what the man says without any questions. At this point I'm thinking, why isn't Emily telling them that Beethoven saved her life? Also, don't they think it's a little weird that they've never once had a problem with their dog, but all of a sudden this vet makes an unannounced house call to "check on their dog" and allegedly gets attacked by him while unsupervised? Also, why aren't they listening to their own daughter? Bonnie Hunt will bring this up to her husband after they've surrendered Beethoven. I understand if you think your dog is dangerous, you definitely don't want him around your children, but I think they should have gotten a second opinion! I thought it was a little weird that they didn't put a muzzle on Beethoven when Charles Grodin drives him to the vet to be put down. At this point, they think he's just attacked their vet, so if you think he's dangerous, why are you just letting him ride in the backseat of your car? Charles Grodin does seem genuinely upset that he has to put down the family pet. The receptionist tells him that they won't put down the dog until the next day, so he will have to pay for an overnight stay. There is a bit of a humorous moment in this depressing scene where all the dogs in the waiting room look down at the floor when Charles Grodin walks past them as if they know why he's there. When he returns home, his kids won't look or talk to him except Emily who calls him a "Dog killer!"

Bonnie Hunt tells him that she thinks they were too rash and they should go and talk to the vet. The kids, who were eavesdropping, tell them they're going too. When they get to the home of Dr. Evil Vet (how did they even know where he lives?), they see he has no fake bandage on his arm like he was wearing when Beethoven was taken to the vet earlier that day and there are no bite marks on his arm. The vet tells him it's too late; that the dog has already been put down, but Charles Grodin knows it's a lie and they follow him to his lab. Charles Grodin climbs up to the roof with a glass ceiling and right when the evil vet is pointing the gun at Beethoven, he jumps through the glass and right on top of Dr. Evil Vet. He's about to shoot the gun at Charles Grodin, but the Jack Russell Terrier (who was caught earlier in the movie) saves the day by running up and biting Evil Vet in the groin. And if you think that's the worst thing that happens to him, think again! The kids are still in the car, waiting for their mom who is calling the police. When they hear gunshots, Ted drives the car through the wall and hits a table that sends fifteen syringes filled with god-knows-what flying and they all land in the chest of Dr. Evil Vet, who somehow manages to survive this. I don't think so. However, the evil vet's minions are still loose and all the caught dogs (who are freed by the kids) run after them. We're supposed to think the dogs are menacing and are out for vengeance, but in reality these are cute and friendly dogs who just want to play. I laughed so hard when they run through an outdoor market and a bunch of cabbages roll out on the sidewalk and one of the dogs is running with a cabbage in his mouth! You can tell he just wants to play!

Beethoven is reunited with his family and at the end of the movie we see he is sleeping at the foot of the Newton parents' bed. The camera pans down and we see the Jack Russell Terrier that they've named Sparky. (If I had a dog, I would totally name it that). So I'm thinking, that's cute, they gave a new home to Beethoven's friend. But then the camera pulls down even further and we see that they have brought home ALL of the dogs. I think it's safe to say they brought them to the Humane Society the next day. They also probably double checked the credentials for Beethoven's new vet!

Wish Fulfillment

Aladdin
Directors: Ron Clements and John Musker
Voice Talent: Scott Weinger, Robin Williams, Linda Larkin, Jonathan Freeman, Gilbert Gottfried
Released: November 25, 1992
Viewed in theaters: December ??, 1992

Oscar nominations:
Best Sound Effects Editing (lost to Dracula)
Best Score - Alan Menken (won)
Best Song - "A Friend Like Me" by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman
Best Song - "A Whole New World" by Alan Menken and Tim Rice (won)

This is one of the Disney Renaissance movies (the animated Disney movies from 1989-99) that came out during my youth, so of course I saw it in the theaters and have seen it several times on video. Now it's actually been a while since I last saw it, so while there were a few plot points I didn't remember (while I remembered Aladdin's first and third wishes, I forgot what his second wish was, but we'll get to that later), I remembered the storyline and was able to hum along with the songs. ("Come on down, stop on by, hop a carpet and fly to another Arabian Night." "A whole new world! A new fantastic point of view! No one to tell us no! Or where to go! Or say we're only dreaming!" "Riff rat! Street rat! Scoundrel! Take that! "Can you friends do this? Can your friends do that? Can you friends pull this out their little hat? "Prince Ali! Fabulous he, Ali Ababwa.") Okay, I'll stop. But with these Disney movies sometimes it's impossible not to sing! But seriously, the songs are so catchy in this movie. And it's no wonder since Alan Menken and Howard Ashman composed the music and they also did the music for Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid which also have amazing soundtracks. Tim Rice, who did the score for The Lion King (another amazing soundtrack), also worked on the score after Ashman died.

I just thought of something that has never occurred to me, strangely. When "A Whole New World" won the Oscar for Best Song, was it for the version in the movie that Brad Kane and Lea Salonga sing as Aladdin or Jasmine? Or is it for the pop version that was on the radio that Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle sing? I suppose they still have the same lyrics and the award is for that, but that thought just occurred to me. Now I'm going to wonder the same thing for "Beauty and the Beast", "Can You Feel the Love Tonight", and "Colors of the Wind" which also have pop companions to their film version. (But the Eton John version of "CYFTLT" and the version sung in the movie have different lyrics!) The pop version of "A Whole New World" is probably my favorite pop Disney song (and I say this as someone who loves Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson's pop version of "Beauty and the Beast" and Vanessa William's version of "Colors of the Wind"). I even remember where I was when I first heard it on the radio. I was in my sixth grade art class (which I hated because I am not artistic!) and our teacher let us listen to the radio as we worked on whatever we were creating that week. It was the first class of the day and this was probably in late November or early December so I have no doubt I was half asleep and probably freezing, but then this song came on and it just captivated me. I just love it so much and I'm pretty sure I've sung it at karaoke with a friend!

I just thought of something else. While I was looking up the Oscar nominations for this movie, I noticed two songs from The Bodyguard (which also came out the same year) were also nominated ("Run to You" and "I Have Nothing", which are fine, but I can take or leave). Oh my God, can you imagine if "I Will Always Love You" was eligible for a nomination? I'm 99.9% sure it would have won and while I do really like that song, it would have broken my heart if "A Whole New World" hadn't won!

Aladdin is probably best known for Robin Williams voicing the Genie. I don't know the ratio, but I'm guessing 92% of the movie is ad-libbed while the rest is from the script! I read that he did so much dialogue  that there's an extra sixteen hours of audio of him as the Genie! Can you imagine being an animator for the Genie? Everytime he did an impression (and there are quite a few), he would shape-shift into Jack Nicholson or Arnold Schwarzenegger or Arsenio Hall or Rodney Dangerfield and those are only the ones I can name off my head right now! Obviously the Genie is a time-traveler. How else would he know who those people are? Not to mention the fact that he talks into a microphone when he pretends to be hosting a game show with Aladdin as a contestant and he treats the magic carpet like an airplane when they fly out of the Cave of Wonders. How else would he know about those modern items? One of the funniest scenes with the Genie that made me laugh is when he's singing "Prince Ali" during the parade scene and pretends to be a female host like it's the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and says, "Fabulous, Harry, I love the feathers" after the parade-goers sing about Prince Ali's peacocks. I don't know why, but that just made me laugh. I also thought it was funny when he asks Aladdin if he can call him "Al" or "Din" or my personal favorite, "Laddi".

Speaking of humorous voice work, Gilbert Gottfried is really funny as Iago the macaw who is Jafar's minion. Can you imagine having a parrot with that grating voice? Oh, God, I would set it free! But in this movie, it works. I like that when he and Jafar are around other people, he acts like he doesn't know more than a few words, but in reality he can have a conversation. He's actually a pretty smart bird because he can change his voice to impersonate other people and that comes in handy with their dastardly deeds. One of my favorite Iago moments is when they're packing to leave the palace and he finds a photo of him on Jafar's shoulder and says, "And how about this picture? I don't know; I think I'm making a weird face in it."

I read that Jafar was modeled after Maleficent and looking at him, it makes a lot of sense. They both have the same physique being tall and thin, they both carry a staff, and they both have a sidekick bird that sits on their shoulders. Jafar is so obviously evil (c'mon, anyone with a twisted beard is gonna be, well, twisted!), but yet he's the sultan's (Jasmine's father) "most trusted advisor". Jafar wants to obtain the genie lamp hidden in the Cave of Wonders but is told the only one that can enter is the Diamond in the Rough who he soon learns is the street rat Aladdin. He disguises himself as an old man, telling Aladdin that if he fetches him the lamp, he will be rewarded handsomely. At first I thought that Jafar had magically disguised himself, but no, it's just a costume. It's an amazing costume as he looks totally different with the long white beard and bald head and jacked-up teeth. He even uses Iago under his shirt to make it appear he's hunchbacked.

I need to stop for one second to point out something that's been bugging me about the new live-action Aladdin trailer (aside from the Genie, yeah, that doesn't look quite right.) When you see Jafar say, "Fetch me the lamp" to Aladdin, he's not disguised as the old man! What the eff? Maybe it will be explained in the movie.

The old man tells Aladdin to touch nothing but the lamp, however, when he and his "esteemed effendi", the capuchin monkey, Abu, are in the cave, Abu steps on the magic carpet and nothing happens. Wouldn't that be considered part of the treasures? Maybe because it was an accident and Abu wasn't intentionally touching the carpet to take it, the Cave of Wonders Gods swept it under the rug (yeah that was an intentionally lame pun!) Can I just say how much I love Abu. He is the cutest thing ever. He just may be the best Disney animal sidekick ever. (Although I really love Sebastian). Abu isn't perfect though, because he sees a huge red jewel he wants (seriously, wtf is a monkey going to do with that?) and grabs it right before Aladdin grabs the lamp and the cave starts to crumble and tells them, "You have touched the forbidden treasure. You will never again see the light of day." The magic carpet is able to save them and we get what is possibly the most exciting scene (or one of the most exciting) of a Disney animated movie where the carpet flies them out of the cave while they are dodging falling rocks and lava. It's a very fun scene and thrilling scene. The carpet gets caught under a rock and Aladdin and Abu are flung toward the entrance where Aladdin is hanging onto the precipice of the cliff. He asks the old man to help, but he tells him to give him the lamp first which really should have set off Aladdin's warning bells, but he gives the man the lamp and when he's about to strike Aladdin's hand with a sword, Abu bites Jafar's hand and both he and Aladdin are flung off the cliff. Luckily the carpet manages to free itself and save them before they hit the rocky ground.

Of course this is when we meet the all-knowing, time-traveling, wise-cracking, shape-shifting, jovial Genie (because Abu managed to swipe the lamp from Jafar) and he tells Aladdin the rules for wish-making, the first one being no wishing for more wishes. (Have you ever noticed that's always a given whenever a genie is in a movie or a TV episode? I've never seen Kazaam, but I bet that's the first thing Shaq tells the kid.) The other rules are he can't bring anyone back to life, he can't take a life and he can't make anyone fall in love. I mean, these are pretty solid rules. It makes you wonder what you would wish for if you came across a genie lamp. This is something I would have to take into serious consideration because you don't want to waste your wishes (like Jafar does later on, but we'll get to that later).

Aladdin tricks the Genie into escaping from the cave without using one of his wishes. When he tells Aladdin he used a wish, Aladdin tells him, "I never actually wished to get out of the cave." When Aladdin asks the Genie what HE would wish for, he tells him his his freedom, but someone has to wish it for him. Aladdin promises after he uses his first two wishes, he will grant the Genie's freedom for his last wish. While I remember this moment at the end of the film, I forgot it was brought up earlier. I guess I thought since Aladdin had become so close to the Genie, he set him free.

Before all this goes down, Aladdin comes across the beautiful Princess Jasmine who he meets in the marketplace. Jasmine has never been outside the palace walls (really?) and doesn't like any of the princes who are asking for her hand in marriage and tells her father she wants to marry for love. Sounds like she needs to find a lookalike and do a Princess Switch! Jasmine has a pet tiger named Raja which I thought was super cool when I was 12 and I love that she talks to him the same way I talk to my cat: "Raja was just playing with that over-dressed, self-absorbed Prince, weren't you Raja?" while cooing and rubbing his face. Hehe, and by "playing", Raja had bit him in the bum and torn off his pants so his boxer shorts were showing.

I find Jasmine interesting in that she's the only Disney princess where her movie isn't her story; she's the secondary character (and even then, the Genie may surpass her). She doesn't even get her own song; she shares it with Aladdin. I would say she's the Disney princess with the least amount of screentime, but there's no way she has less screentime than Aurora in Sleeping Beauty!

Jasmine decides she's going to sneak out to the marketplace and "disguises" herself by throwing a brown cloak around her. Girl, please, you're not fooling anyone. With her heavily made-up eyes and HUGE gold earrings, it's clear she's not a commoner. While at the marketplace ("Sugar dates? Sugar date and pistachios!"), she gives an apple to a kid while not paying for it and the merchant is about to cut her hand off (it's barbaric, but it's home!) before Aladdin intervenes. They escape and Aladdin learns she's the Princess and he realizes there's no way he could ever be with her.

Fast-forward back to his first wish with the Genie, and, since he can't make Jasmine fall in love with him, he wishes to be a prince so he at least has a chance, and, voila! Prince Ali Abwaba is born. And poor Abu is turned into an elephant. Meanwhile, Jafar is plotting to become the next Sultan and Iago tells him that he should marry Jasmine, then, when he gets rid of her and her father, he will be the new Sultan. Jafar hypnotizes the Sultan with his scary snake staff (this is how he gets him to do things) to make him agree that Jafar should marry his daughter. (Eww, Jafar is easily twice as old as Jasmine, if not older).

Prince Ali comes to town with his shiny parade and catchy song. (I loved how even Iago is bouncing up and down to the beat). Jasmine is having none of it and sees Prince Ali as just another moronic suitor. When her father, Jafar, and Aladdin are arguing over who should marry her, she tells them all, "I am not a prize to be won!" You go, girl! I did laugh every time Jafar referred to Aladdin as "Prince Abubu."

Aladdin as Prince Ali apologizes to Jasmine and she recognizes him as the boy she met in the marketplace, but he denies that's him when she asks him. She thinks he has a sweet ride with his flying carpet and this is when we get the "A Whole New World" ("Unbelievable sights! Indescribable feeling!") scene and they go soaring, tumbling, freewheeling through an endless diamond sky. At one point they carpet does a 360 and they don't even fall off! I don't know how that's even physically possible. However, the carpet will do it again and this time they fall off and the carpet catches them. I laughed when they fly through a flock of birds and one of them looks at them in surprise. ("Every turn a surprise!") This magic carpet was really booking it as they visited Greece, Egypt, and China. (Hope they said hello to Mulan as she and Jasmine share a singing voice in Lea Salonga!)

Jasmine catches Aladdin in a lie when she brings up Abu and he pretty much admits he was the boy she met in the marketplace. He continues to lie to her by telling her that he "dresses up as a commoner so he can escape the pressures of palace life." He dismisses the Genie's advice earlier when he told Aladdin that he should tell her the truth. He really should have taken that advice because it's probably not smart to lie to a girl who has a TIGER for a pet! After they return to the palace and smooch (is this the first time the romantic couple in a Disney movie kiss in the middle of the movie instead of the end?), Aladdin is captured by Jafar and thrown in the sea and becomes unconscious. He is saved by the Genie, using his second wish even though he couldn't speak. Does it still count even though he never said "I wish?" We already saw earlier the Genie is able to save his master without wishes being used. Though he did tell Aladdin he would get no more freebies, so I guess he was cashing in one wish for the price of two. This means that Aladdin is down to one wish, the one he's supposed to use to set the Genie free. However, being the chump he is, Aladdin tells the Genie he can't wish him free because he needs him to help keep up the charade of being a prince and is too much of a putz to tell Jasmine the truth.

I laughed so hard when Jasmine twirls around and tells her father, "I just had the most wonderful time!" It reminded me of the scene in Elf when Buddy comes into his dad's office after his date with Jovie and he says, "I'm in love and I don't care who knows it!" 

Iago tricks Aladdin by pretending he's Jasmine calling for him and when he leaves, Iago steals the lamp and Jafar summons the Genie, making him the new master, much to the Genie's dismay. I guess the Genie just hangs out in his lamp when he's not doing anything. Jafar is terrible at making wishes. He first wishes to become Sultan, and not more than five minutes later, he wishes to become a powerful sorcerer.  ("If you won't bow before a sultan, then you will cower before a sorcerer!") Way to waste your first wish, Jafar! He exiles Aladdin and Abu to the cold, snowy mountains where poor Abu is shivering, and yet, Aladdin, only wearing pants and a vest, doesn't seem to be cold. They are able to return to Agrabah with the help of the flying carpet where Jafar is treating Jasmine and her father cruelly. He wants his third wish to be for Jasmine to fall in love with him, but lucky for her, the Genie can't abide that rule. When Jafar is aware that Aladdin has snuck back and is trying to get back the lamp, his pun game is on point as he uses his new found powers of sorcery. Here are all the puns he uses:

"Your time is up!" - when he traps Jasmine in a large hourglass.

"Don't toy with me!" - when he turns Abu into a toy monkey.

"Things are unraveling fast now!" - when he destroys the magic carpet.

"Get the point?" - when swords fall before Aladdin.

"I'm just getting warmed up!" - when he starts a fire.

Oh, Jafar. You and your puns! He continues to make terrible wishes when Aladdin convinces him he's still not as powerful at the Genie and the only way to make him the most powerful being on earth is to become a genie. Jafar, you f**king idiot. Smart move on Aladdin's part, though. So Jafar wishes to become a genie and he's all giddy and high on a power trip. I laughed when Aladdin grabs the lamp and says, "Not so fast, Jafar, aren't you forgetting something?" and Jafar replies, "Huh?" before realizing what's about to happen. The way he says "Huh?" is so funny. I did feel a little bad for Iago who tries to fly away, but is grabbed by Genie Jafar before being trapped in the lamp, then thrown into the mountains. Being trapped alive in a lamp (or anywhere, really) has to be worse than death and I almost feel bad for him. I never saw The Return of Jafar, but I'm assuming he returns and I heard (spoiler alert!) that he dies, so at least he doesn't have to be kept alive for all of eternity. Look at the Genie: he was in there for 10,000 years! My God! How he was so jubilant is anyone's guess. I guess I'd be happy too if I were freed from someplace I'd been spending the last 10,000 years!

The Sultan changes the rules so his daughter doesn't have to marry a prince (oh, yeah, Aladdin finally tells her the truth) so she and Aladdin can marry. As promised, Aladdin uses his last wish to set the Genie free and it's a very sweet scene. "Genie, you're free."

Blade Runners

The Cutting Edge

Director: Paul Michael Glaser

Cast: Moria Kelly, D.B. Sweeney, Terry O'Quinn, Roy Dotrice

Released: March 27, 1992

This is a movie I've only seen once before and that was a long time ago, so I really didn't remember anything about it. Well, I did remember that it's about a figure skater who gets paired with a hockey player and they hate each other at first, then fall in love. So, basically, I remembered everything! I just didn't remember, you know, the little details. 

When the movie starts, it is 1988 and we see Kate Moseley (Moira Kelly), a figure skater at the Calgary Olympics with her partner. Her partner drops her and any chance of a medal is gone. Meanwhile, Doug Dorsey (D.B. Sweeney) is on the Olympic hockey team and takes a bashing to the head during a game resulting in an injury where he loses eighteen degrees of his peripheral vision and therefore will never be able to play hockey professionally again. Tough break. 

However, Kate needs a new partner and her coach, Anton Pamchenko (Roy Dotrice) seeks out Doug because he is impressed with his skating. Are you kidding me? Just the fact that a hockey player becomes a pairs figure skater is the most ridiculous thing. Just because he can skate, doesn't mean he can learn all the twists and turns and ariel moves that are required of a professional skater. Even the skates are different as we will learn later in the movie (there's a toe pick on figure skates). Being a hockey player and being a figure skater are two totally different things. Even Kristi Yamaguchi said it was very unrealistic.

This all happens two years later, but they had actually met once before at the '88 Winter Olympics. They literally run into each other when Kate was coming off from the ice and Doug had woken up late on the day he was supposed to play at the Olympics. What kind of idiot is late to the Olympics? 

You know how AFI has a list of the 50 greatest villains? Well, Kate Moseley is missing from that list because she is the absolute worst. Okay, maybe I'm being hyperbolic, but I don't find any redeeming qualities in her, even at the end when we're supposed to be rooting for her and Doug to end up together. She's just a spoiled rich girl who bitches and whines about everything and everyone. The reason she can never keep a skating partner is because nobody can stand her snooty ass! (Why she just doesn't skate as a single, I don't understand). She lives in a huge house (complete with her own ice skating rink) with her father, Jack (Terry O'Quinn). This was when he still had hair. You could almost say that this is a prequel to Lost and he just changed his name to John Locke and was thanking God when that plane went down so he would never have to see his terrible spoiler daughter ever again. Although, in the film he always seems to be on his daughter's side, I suppose he feels bad for her because her mother died when she was younger. Still can't stand her, though. I guess she has to keep the moniker of Ice Queen and she does it very well. 

Not surprisingly, Kate and Doug hate each other within the first few minutes of their introduction. I can't really blame Doug for disliking her because she's a complete bitch to him. Their first practice together is terrible, and, of course it is, because he is a hockey player, NOT a figure skater! The fact that he does learn to be a good enough figure skater to compete in the '92 Winter Olympics two years later is just sheer ridiculousness. Pamchenko has Doug pick up Kate and when she orders him to put her down, he just drops her and she lands on her butt really hard on the ice. It looked painful. Totally uncalled for, but can you blame him? He does get plenty of cheap shots in at her which only makes her more angry and more bitchy. These two really do deserve each other. 

There's another scene where they're practicing and the song playing is the most early '90s music you can imagine. I didn't even know the song, but I'm sure it was popular in 1992. Doing some quick research, I found out it's called "Street of Dreams" by Nia Peeples. You know this song was jammin' on the radio in '92. It's totally awful, but also kinda catchy. If you heard it (and you can if you look it up on Spotify!) it will totally take you to the era of the early '90s. You know what I'm talking about if you're familiar with that era. Doug keeps falling (again, because he's NOT a figure skater) and Kate keeps saying, "Toe pick!" because figure skates have toe picks that help them on the ice while hockey skates do not. Because, once again, the two sports are totally different even if both are on the ice! 

There's a scene where Doug and Kate play a game of one-on-one hockey. Kate gets pissed because Doug keeps making all the goals. Insert major eye roll here. Good Lord, girl, are you serious? He's a professional hockey player for crying out loud! That's his job to be good at hockey! And she's getting angry because he's making all the goals and she can't get one? Doug is nowhere near as talented a figure skater as she is (because, DUH!), but he doesn't complain about it! I hate this bitch so much! She also tells Doug she has a boyfriend named Hale who went to Harvard and works at her father's office in London. I totally thought she was making him up, because, really, what person would want to be romantically involved with such a horrid person? But, nope, he really does exist and we see him when he comes to visit for Christmas. At a New Year's party, Doug is clearly jealous of Hale and we see Kate look jealous when women are throwing themselves at Doug. Hmmmmm....makes you wonder if those two crazy kids actually like each other. When they do the countdown to the New Year, people not only kiss their dates, but pretty much just start kissing everybody around them. You know how you go to church and they do that thing where you greet people with a handshake? That was totally what this was, but only with kissing. Just kiss everyone in your vicinity. Thanks, but no thanks. I would not want to swap spit with so many different people. That is disgusting. You KNOW someone (more than one someone!) got sick a few days later, you KNOW IT! There is a funny moment where an older woman kisses a stunned Doug and looks like she's having the time of your life. So, uh, you get it, older lady! Then we get a moment where Doug and Kate come across each other in the kissing frenzy and we are held with a moment of suspense as they stare into each other's eyes...and are they gonna kiss? And the answer is...no! At least not yet! We still gotta hold on to that sexual tension for at least a few more scenes. Well, she does give him a peck on the cheek.

Kate and Doug have made it to the 1992 Figure Skating Championships in Chicago. So I looked this up, and uh, it was actually held in Orlando that year. Fail, movie, fail. Before their performance the first night, Doug is really nervous and throws up behind a curtain (lovely). I'm thinking, Okay, it makes sense that he's nervous since this his first time doing his routine in front of a live audience, but then he tells Kate that before hockey games he had two helmets: one to wear and one to puke in! WTF? He got nervous before hockey games too? But why if he's this so-called great hockey player? He tells an irritated Kate that he usually relaxes after ten minutes and Kate snaps back, telling him their program is only two and a half minutes. They do well enough to get third place.

During their long program the second night, they skate well again, but their scores are not high enough to secure them a place at the Olympics. However, another team messes up and Doug and Kate are back in. They go out to celebrate and Kate, who's not a drinker, has, like, twenty shots. It almost made me throw up. She becomes totally smashed and wants to sleep with Doug. He could have easily taken advantage of her, but takes the noble route and turns her down. Or maybe he didn't find her attractive as a drunk because she was super annoying and kept laughing every five seconds. Can you tell I really hate Kate? Oh, I forgot to mention that Kate and Hale were engaged for a hot second, but got unengaged off screen. Hale, you don't know how lucky you are. Kate gets mad and screams at Doug to leave.

Doug does like Kate, but doesn't do himself any favors when he ends up sleeping with (now bear with me, please) Kate's old partner's new partner. Of course Kate finds out and of course she's pissed, which I can't blame her.

Doug and Kate have five weeks before the Winter Olympics in Albertville and Pamchenko tells them a Russian couple has won the European Championships and are the favorites to win the gold. They're Russian, of course they're the favorites! He has a solution for them to beat them. He has created his own totally absurd move that is dubbed the Pamchenko twist. It's described as a bounce twist into a throw twist and then Doug catches her. Kate tells him they can't do it because it's illegal and she's totally right. There's no way this move would ever be allowed in competition because it could KILL the female skater if it went wrong and this movie could EASILY go wrong. The move has Doug holding Kate by the ankles and spinning her around. He has to make sure he keeps her at a certain height because if her head hits the ice at that speed she is looking at a serious brain injury or worse. The bounce spin is (not surprisingly) illegal in competition because of how dangerous it is, but is performed in exhibitions because I guess people love seeing near death experiences? If I were a pairs figure skater, you could not pay me enough money to do that even if I trusted my partner. Hell. No! As you can see in the clip below, Doug throws her in the air where she does a twist spin and then he catches her. 

Oh, yeah, nothing could go wrong with that move!

Doug says she probably wouldn't be able to do the move and Kate screams at him, "NOBODY CAN TELL ME WHAT I CAN OR CANNOT DO!" so we see a montage of them working on the difficult move. However, the day before the long program where they're going to put in that move, Kate has decided that the dangerous move is out, and I can't blame her as she's the one risking her life by doing it. The first night with the short program, they are bickering about a button on Doug's costume just seconds before going on and are angry with each other as they skate. The commentators can tell they they seem very cold to each other and don't look like they're having fun. The next night at their long program, right before they're about to skate, Doug chooses this time to profess his love for Kate. :::MAJOREYEROLL:::: Everyone's trying to usher them on the ice, but he keeps snapping, "Will you wait a minute?" Uh, this is the Olympics! They don't have a minute! Kate starts crying and says they are putting in the Pamchenko. The way they cut it where they go from the bounce twist to the throw twist is obviously edited together because IT'S PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO DO THAT! Everyone cheers and the movie ends. Wait, did they win the gold medal? I'll tell you what happened: they were disqualified from winning any medal or even placing at all because they did an illegal move! 

Throughout the movie we see an empty glass box where Kate's gold medal will go when she wins one. You think we would see a shot of that at the end since they keep shoving it in our face, but nope. We just assumed they won the gold medal since doing that move would ensure them of that. This is one of the most unrealistic movies about the Olympics, probably even about figure skating.