This is Them

A Walk to Remember

Director: Adam Shankman

Cast: Mandy Moore, Shane West, Peter Coyote, Daryl Hannah

Released: January 25, 2002

Disclaimer: I apologize for how this review looks; I know it looks like a hot mess. 

SPOILERS AHOY! MAJOR SPOILERS AHOY IF YOU'VE NEVER SEEN THIS MOVIE! YOU HAVE  BEEN WARNED! 

Oh, Nicholas Sparks. He has a way of creating a love story between two unlikely people that you're rooting for, then at the very end, putting the knife in you side and twisting it. I've never actually read any of his books and I've only seen two movies his books are based on: this one and The Notebook. I would say these two (especially The Notebook!) are the most popular. I heard the book version of A Walk to Remember takes place in the '50s. I'm very glad they updated it to "modern" times for the movie. Also, interestingly enough, The Notebook was published three years before A Walk to Remember was, but as a film, The Notebook came out two years after the release of A Walk to Remember. Did that make any sense? Wait, should book titles and movie titles both be italicized? Now I'm confusing myself! 

When I first saw this way back when, I had no idea what the "walk" they were referencing in the title meant, but after seeing the movie, I was like, oh, yeah, duh, I should have gotten that. This movie is as hokey as it gets and I know it's emotionally manipulating, but it got me, I won't lie. The main premise of the movie is that the "bad boy" falls in love with the "good girl", you know, that old cliche! They are both high school seniors and live in the small town of Beaufort, North Carolina. 

When we first meet Landon (Shane West), our bad boy in question, he is part of the cool and popular kids at school and he and his friends have skipped out on a school dance (where they have been drinking beer) to go to some abandoned factory near a lake. They are waiting on a kid named Clay because they have told him if he does some sort of initiation, he will be able to be part of their group. Now you would think Clay would be some kind of stereotype of the type of kid high school bullies like to make fun of: the fat kid or the geeky scrawny kid with glasses, but Clay appears to look fairly normal. He seems like he's perfectly capable of making his own friends and not hanging out with this group of cretins. Also, if you need to do something dangerous (or anything, really, but especially if it's something dangerous) to prove your worthiness to be friends with someone, maybe you shouldn't be friends with them in the first place. Just saying. They want Clay to climb some scaffolding, then jump into the lake below him. The whole time they are all giggling, which is another sign that Clay shouldn't have done this. They obviously want him to make a fool out of himself. It looks to be about a three story jump and looks to be very dangerous if they don't know how deep the lake is. He does ask them, but they tell him they don't know, but that it's perfectly safe. Landon even climbs up there with him and tells him he's going to jump with him, but of course he doesn't, he just pretends like he's going to jump. We do find out later that Landon did this jump before and while he didn't seriously injure himself, he did admit it hurt like hell. I guess that's what he was thinking that would happen to Clay. I honestly couldn't remember what the end results were, but I knew they weren't going to kill him off because they do want the audience to like Landon by the end of the movie and I knew if he had involuntarily killed another kid, that probably wouldn't be a good look on him! After he jumps, he doesn't resurface for the longest time, so they do make you think that something might have happened to him and even the other kids are quite concerned. He does resurface, but he appears to be hurt and/or unconscious. Landon manages to pull him out of the lake, but has to run because the police has caught up with them and ends up crashing his car and needs to walk around with crutches for awhile. Clay ends up in the hospital, but I'm not exactly sure what happened to him, like, was he paralyzed or did he break a bone? 

The following Sunday, his mother (played by Daryl Hannah) makes him attend church where Reverend

And now I'm ready to
be extrodianary.

Sullivan (played by Peter Coyote) talks about what happened the other night and how Clay's life was saved by the lord. He tells the parish, "Let us pray for the lives of the others involved who are clearly not on the path of righteousness" while giving the stinkeye to Landon. This pastor does not like Landon one bit. His daughter, Jamie (played by Mandy Moore), sings in the church and even has her own solo, because, of course she does. She's the pastor's daughter, after all! We get our first little hint that Landon finds her attractive when she starts singing in her angelic voice. Landon's ex-girlfriend, Belinda, who hangs in the same cool kid group and wants to get back together with him, notices Landon noticing Jamie. The movie does its best to make Mandy Moore look pretty frumpy, but you can still tell she's a pretty girl. She's supposed to be this religious bookworm who doesn't have any friends because everyone makes fun of her for wearing dumpy pea-colored cardigans and long skirts and matronly dresses. One thing they do to make her look less pretty is give her these awful bangs. I don't know what is going on with them, but even Mandy Moore can barely pull them off. I mean, they're so bad that she has her bangs pulled back in a barrette in the movie poster!  She's not totally socially incapable, though. When one of Landon's cool kid friends (and the biggest douche of the group), Dean, asks her, "If there's a higher power, why can't he get you a new sweater?", she retorts, "He's too busy looking for your brain." Ooh, burn! 

The next Monday, Landon reports to the principal's office where he informs Landon that students saw him drinking Saturday night, the night of the dance, on school property. That seems to be the main thing he's getting in trouble for as Clay isn't talking about what happened (interesting; why is he protecting those a*holes or is he just worried what will happen if he does squeal?) and the factory owner isn't pressing charges for trespassing. Not sure what kind of factory they were trespassing in. Landon doesn't get expelled, but he does get a hefty punishment: he will help the janitorial staff after school (he even makes a remark about wanting to get paid for it; shut up, dude!), he will tutor "disadvantaged students" at their sister school on Saturday mornings, and will participate in the drama club's spring play. Now, if I were a theater student, I would be a little offended that that would be considered as a punishment, but they will also have more to be offended about concerning all of this. 

Of course Jamie also tutors on Saturday mornings, but not because she's in trouble, because if you haven't

Walk me home;
I don't wanna go
all the way alone.

realized by now, she never gets in trouble. Not that I'm judging her because I was a goody goody in school too even though I got detention once because I was one minute (if that!) late to class after lunch. Don't you think that's a bit extreme? I sure do. No, Jamie does it out of the goodness of her heart, because she wants to. She really does not care what people think about her because on the bus ride home, she goes over to sit next to Landon, who is listening to his headphones, and asks him if he wants to buy raffle tickets to raise money to buy new computers. He ignores her and she tries to give him tips on tutoring, but he is still ignoring her. She then proceeds to ask him if he's visited Clay in the hospital and when she is still ignored by him, she says to herself, "That would be a no." She then tells him that Clay has been moved from the hospital to the rehab place. Again, I have no idea what happened to Clay after he jumped off that scaffolding. Landon tells her that her social skills need some work and you know what? I kinda agree with him. She really needs to know how to read a room, or in this case, bus. Also, what is the point of talking to someone if they don't want to talk to you? Since he is already talking to her, he continues by telling her that nobody forced him to jump and she tells him, "It's called peer pressure." He asks her if she knows about that from her "precious book" and we see a shot of her holding her bible in her lap. I guess this is in case we may have forgotten that Jamie takes God and religion very seriously. This is also where we learn that Jamie and Landon have known each other since kindergarten and this is probably the first time they've ever talked to each other. 

We see Landon at his next form of "punishment" when his friend Eric drops him off for play practice and he reminds him when it will be over so he can pick him up later. We get this bizarre comment from Eric where he says that they should do West Side Story so they can get that "nice, big booty-lookin' girl from Selena". Two things: first of all, why would Jennifer Lopez be in some random small town North Carolina high school musical? Huh? That doesn't even make sense. Also, wouldn't Jennifer Lopez already be a household name by now? Why is he referring to her as the "girl from Selena?" To be honest, I'm not really sure when this movie is supposed to take place. I assumed it was 2001 since the movie came out in early 20002, but I'm pretty sure people would've known her by then. We at least know it's after Selena came out, which was early 1997. Maybe I don't remember and J-Lo WASN'T super famous by then. (She definitely wasn't referred to as J-Lo yet, I'm pretty sure of that). After I looked up Adam Shankman's (the director) filmography, it makes sense that this is in here because he directed The Wedding Planner with Jennifer Lopez, which came out a year before this movie. So I guess that was a shoutout to her. 

The school spring musical being put on isn't already an established play. Rather, it's an original piece of work written by a student called "Thornton's Way" and Jamie wrote the lyrics and music for all the songs which is quite ambitious of her. It "follows the rise and fall of Tommy "The Gun" Thornton in prohibition era New York" and is described as "a story of burning passions and blazing Tommy guns." I guess its supposed to be some early twentieth century gangster play. Everyone sits around in a circle and does a read through of the play, including Landon and he is absolutely terrible. The drama teacher even asks him, "Are you trying to be bad at this?" and he replies, "No, it just comes naturally." So how the hell he got cast as the lead, I'm not quite sure. I guess this was part of his punishment? Again, if I were one of the drama kids and wanted this role, I would have been majorly pissed! I guess we got that scene of him reminding Eric what time to pick him up to show us that Eric did NOT show back up to pick him up, so Landon asks Jamie if she can give him a ride home, which she does. 

As they drive, she turns on the radio, and I swear to God, she's listening to herself. The singer sounds exactly like Mandy Moore...but it wasn't a song I recognized. The only songs I knew from this movie were "Cry", "Only Hope", and "Dare You to Move". I did look up the soundtrack list and Mandy Moore is listed as having a few other songs that I'm not familiar with, so maybe one of them was during this scene? But why is she listening to herself? Is that supposed to BE Mandy Moore? I don't think it's supposed to be Jamie - I'm pretty sure she would be much more popular than she is if people knew she was a recording artist! I don't know, it was really weird. Maybe it's not even Mandy Moore, but it just sounds like her. This is when we learn about Jamie's "To Do" list, which, is really her Bucket List. Things included on this list include spend a year in the peace corps, make a medical discovery, befriend someone she doesn't like (I think she sees the perfect opportunity for that in Landon), be in two places at once, and get a tattoo. I'm not sure how many items she has, but each one is listed and the lower the number, the more important the item. When Landon asks her what her number one is, she replies, "I'd tell you then I'd have to kill you" and I'm thinking, Wow, she must want to do something really illegal or something. But no, it's just personal. We'll find out about it later. Hint: it has something to do with the title of the movie. When they drive pass a bunch of his friends at a hangout, Landon slouches down in the street so they can't see him. What a tool. 

There's three weeks until the musical and Landon is worried about memorizing his lines. He tries reading his lines with Eric, who tells him, "De Niro couldn't even make this work." Huh? I'm pretty sure this, a musical about mobsters, is up De Niro's alley. Okay, maybe not the musical part, but I would think the mobster part he would be quite familiar with. Of course maybe he's just saying how terrible the dialogue is. When Landon realizes that Eric or any of his other friends aren't going to be any help in the line reading department, he asks Jamies to help him with his lines. I should point out that Jamie is playing Alicia, the "mysterious club singer." So, yes, Landon and Jamie got the two leads in the musical. Contrived, much? Nah, I didn't think so either. Jamies tells him she will, on one condition. With a straight face, I swear to God, there's not even a crack of the smile to indicate she's joking, she tells him, "You have to promise you won't fall in love with me." Okay. Wow. This girl sure has a lot of unwarranted confidence. Look, I get why this line is in the movie...it will come back later. However, this is a TERRIBLE place to have her say it. Maybe have her say it when he DOES start having feelings for her and wants to date her. This just makes her look really...socially inept. Does she really think this boy is going to fall in love with her (at this moment?) Landon just kind of smirks at her and says, laughing, "That's not a problem." Which, honestly, would have been my reaction too. If somebody ever said that to me, I think my eyes would get stuck at the top of my head from rolling them so hard. Also, I would never say something so cheesy to anyone unless it was an obvious joke (and I would only say something like that if it were an obvious joke!)

That night, Landon is driving along and stops when he sees Jamie sneaking into a graveyard with a

I saw the crescent;
you saw the whole
of the moon.

telescope. For some reason, he feels the need to follow her and asks her what she's doing. She show him and tells him she wants to build a bigger telescope to view the comet, Hyakutake (yes, I looked it up, and yes, it is a real comet). Supposedly it's to make a reappearance that spring. They have a little bit of a heart to heart and Landon tells her, "There's too much shit in this world", to which she responds, "Without suffering there'd be no compassion." Jamie has agreed to help Landon with his lines after he asks her and they run lines together.

They seem to have bonded, at least Jamie thinks so, so the next day at school when she sees Landon talking with his friends, she says hello to him and says, "I'll see you after school?" since they've made plans to go through their lines together. He totally snubs her and replies, "In your dreams" and his friends laugh like it's the funniest thing ever. This totally reminds me of that episode of The Wonder Years when Kevin has to be partners with this weird girl named Margaret Farquhar who he doesn't like, but once he gets to know her, he thinks she's pretty interesting, but he still can't get himself to hang out with her in public, so he tells her they can be "secret friends". Needless to say, that doesn't go over too well! Just like in this movie when Landon shows up at Jamie's after school and she shuts the door in his face. When she opens the door again, Landon tells her he wants to run lines together and she says, "Okay, but just not so anybody knows, right?" Landon figures they could surprise everyone with how good he gets. Jamie sarcastically says, "Like we could be secret friends?" and Landon, totally unable to read her, says, "Exactly! It's like you're reading my mind." She tells him, "Maybe you can read mine" and glares at him, then tells him she thought she saw something good in him, but was "very wrong". So yeah, you can probably see why that reminded me of that episode of The Wonder Years. 

We next get a montage of the next couple weeks of Landon learning his lines (by himself) and rehearsing (by himself). But just so it's not scenes of that, also thrown into the montage is him looking through the yearbook and seeing that Jamie's ambition is "to witness a miracle" and a slow motion scene of them in the hallway eyeing each other as they pass each other and it is everything. 

The first night of the play, everyone important to the movie has come to see it, including Landon's dad who he doesn't talk to. Eric is sleeping in the audience, which I don't blame him because the play looks pretty boring...until we get to the big musical number where Jamie sings "Only Hope". If I were in the audience, I would wonder why she wasn't a recording artist or writing songs for musicians because I would be thoroughly impressed that a seventeen-year-old wrote that song! Actually, Switchfoot wrote that song. I had no idea. And apparently it came out in 1999, but I had never heard it until I saw this movie. They do play the Switchfoot song later in the movie, but I like the Mandy Moore version better. She slays the song.

Before Jamie's character, Alicia, sings her big number, she's wearing a hooded cloak and she takes it off to reveal a blue dress that's showing a little more skin than what we're used to seeing Jamie wearing and her hair is done up in curls and she's gotten rid of those godforsaken bangs. Apparently they never had a dress rehearsal and this is the first time they've run the play on a stage with costumes because Landon is gobsmacked that - GASP!- Jamie is really, really pretty! Look, I understand they want this to be his first reaction to seeing her all dolled up, but in what world do you put on a play for the first time for an audience without doing a dress rehearsal? And then she sings and everybody is dead because she KILLS it. (Oops, probably shouldn't be making "dead" and "kill" jokes with this movie!) Landon tells her, "All I know is you're beautiful" and leans over and kisses her, which was not written in the script. We see reactions shots of Jamie's dad and Landon's ex, Belinda, and neither of them are very happy. 

Now that Landon finds Jamie attractive, he wants to be with her and the nexts day at lunch he sits with her, not caring who sees them together and tells her that she "inspires" him. Now THIS would be the time for Jamie to tell him not to fall in love with her. Instead she tells him, "You don't know the first thing about being someones's friend" and he tells her, "I don't want to just be your friend" and when Jamie tells him, "You don't know what you want", he replies, "Neither do you, you're too scared somebody might actually want to be with you", which, I'm confused why he thinks this because he doesn't know her big secret yet. Yes, if he knew, I could understand that. He tells her it scares her because she wouldn't be able to hide behind her books or telescope of her faith and the real reason why she is scared is because she wants to be with him, too. A little presumptuous of us, hmm? 

We know Landon is serious about Jamie because we get a scene of Eric telling Landon that it seems he doesn't have time for his "real" friends anymore and Landon tells him he's "sick and tired of doing the same shit all the time", to which Eric replies, "This girl has changed you and you don't even know it." Oh, I think he realizes it. He pretty much admits he's outgrown his old friends. 

I got a crush on you; I
hope you feel the
way that I do. I get a 
rush when I'm with you.

Jamie warms up to Landon after he gives her a pink cardigan (so I guess it was the color and not they type of sweater they were making fun of) and sticks up for her after a prank Belinda and her mean girl friends play on her. Belinda invites Jamie to have lunch with her after she tells her she'd "be so beautiful if she knew how to do her make up". Jamie doesn't seem too insulted by this, even though I think she she should be, and agrees, thinking Belinda is going to give her beauty tips or something. Belinda also tells Jamie that there's no hard feelings because she and Landon are over and Jamie tells her, "I really don't know what you're talking about" which I'm sure pisses Belinda off. Anyway, Belinda makes this whole show of inviting Jamie to eat lunch with her just so they can both walk in the cafeteria together and Belinda can show Jamie the worst photo-shopped photo in the history of the world. A picture of Jamie's face - just her face, not her head - has been pasted on the body of a busty model wearing underwear. This thing is so obviously fake that I don't know why Jamie is so upset. I understand why she's humiliated, but this thing looks like a five-year-old made it and all the kids are laughing like it's the most hilarious thing they've ever seen. What a bunch of immature dweebs. Instead of spewing a witty comeback about how shoddy their photo-shop skills are, Jamie instead turns and prepares to flee the scene, crying, but runs into Landon who tells her, "This is about me, not you." He gets into a physical altercation with Dean after Dean makes some crude comments about Jamie and Dean tells him that they're through. Even though school is still in session, Landon and Jamie leave and Landon asks her out, but she tells him she's not allowed to date. So Landon gets permission from her dad which is kinda cute and they are able to go out to some restaurant on the water and Jamie is wearing the pink cardigan Landon gave her. They are both the youngest people there by at least forty years. Landon asks her what her number one on her list is, but she still won't tell him and he tells her his number one "to do" is getting out of Beaufort. The subject of her list is brought up because he has a surprise for her. He takes her to the state line and tells her to put one foot here and the other foot there and tells her she's in two places at once: North Carolina and Virginia. In another scene, we see him giving her a temporary tattoo of a butterfly since getting a tattoo was on her list. First of all, does a fake tattoo even count? Second of all, she doesn't seem the type to want to get a tattoo. Nonetheless, it is the most sensual scene in the movie cuz he's blowing on her shoulder to dry the tattoo. And once again, it sounds like they're listening to Mandy Moore on the car radio. 

I wanna be with you. 
If only for a night, to be the
one who's in your arms 
to hold you tight.

We get a cute scene of him telling her, "I might kiss you" and her replying "I might be bad at it" and he tells her that it's "not possible" and he drops the big bombshell that he loves her and she starts to freak out because she has a MAJOR secret that she hasn't shared with him yet and she's all, "I TOLD you not to fall in love with me!" Even though she doesn't tell Landon that she loves him (at that point, anyway), she does tell her father and he tells her to "be fair to him before things get worse." Hmm, whatever could he be talking about?

Jamie does tell Landon that she loves him the night they go star gazing and he tells her he had a star named after her (another item on her list). Since she has professed her love to him, he once again asks what her number one is and she tells him it's to get married in the same church where her parents were married. It's also the same church where her mother grew up and I assume it's the same church now where her dad is a minister? 

Being with Jamie has motivated Landon to write his own lists of things he wants to accomplish. He left it in the pocket of his pants and his mom found it when she was doing laundry. (Seriously, this senior in high school can't even do his own laundry?? Maybe his first item should be "Do my own damn laundry".) As Jamie, Landon has aimed high for his ambitions too: "examine a moon rock, go to college, get into medical school." Uh, when has Landon ever expressed interest in the medical field? That was a little baffling. He's embarrassed that his mom has found his list, but tells her that he can do it and that Jamie has faith in him and that "she makes me want to be different, better." It's actually very sweet. 

One evening they're walking around the small town of Beaufort (I say small because it seems like they're always running into Landon's old friends like they do that night). Jamie seems particularly upset about something one night and runs into an alley. Landon asks her if she's worried about college applications and she tells him she's not applying to college. He thinks she must be taking a year off since she did say the peace corps was on her to do list, but she tells him he just assumed she was going to college. She tells him she's sick and he thinks she's talking about she doesn't feel good at that moment and offers to take her home. I can't fault him; I probably would have had the same thought. But no, it's much worse than that. She tells him she has had leukemia and two years ago she "stopped responding to treatment." She doesn't give how much time she has, but considering she feels it's not even worth applying to school, it's probably not very long, probably less than a year (and she will die in less than a year). Of course Landon is shell shocked by this and I feel bad for the guy. Here he's found this girl who brings out the best in him and he's totally in love with her and has just found out she doesn't have long to live and she's only eighteen years old. I mean, damn movie, are you trying to make me cry? He asks her why he didn't tell her and she replies, "The doctor said I should go on and live life normally as best I could." She didn't want anybody to be weird around her, especially him. She tells him she was getting along fine with everything and had accepted it, "and then you happened. I do not need a reason to be angry with God." I probably feel even worse for Jamie. Not only is her life cut considerably short and she's pretty much waiting to die, but she's found someone who loves her for who she is and she loves him back and she won't be able to live her life with him. Damn, movie, like are you seriously trying to make me cry?? Because you're doing a really good job! 

In the middle of the night, Landon drives to his dad's house and knocks on the door until he answers. He asks him if he can help Jamie and his dad calmly tells him he's a cardiologist (this is the first time I'm learning that his dad is a doctor!) and doesn't know Jamie's case or history and would have to talk to her physicians. What he says totally makes sense and he didn't say he WOULDN'T help him, but Landon, who has a tempestuous relations with his dad, snaps, "Just forget it! I knew it!" and abruptly leaves. Dude, I know you're upset about your girlfriend, but maybe give you dad a chance to explain himself. 

So I'm not exactly sure when Jamie was diagnosed with leukemia, we just know that treatment stopped working two years ago. I find it hard to believe that she lives in this small town where she's pretty much known all the kids she goes to school with since kindergarten and nobody knows about this. It seems something as big as that would be hard to keep in a small town. But after she tells Landon, word gets out she has cancer and Landon's old friends suddenly start being nice to him again since now they know that Jamie is dying. He does make amends with all of them after they offer their condolences and apologizes. Dean offers to help him with the surprise telescope he's been building for Jamie to see the Hyakutake comet. Belinda gives Landon pictures of the play (I guess she's a photographer for the school newspaper?) and apologizes about the first-grade level photoshopped pics. 

The next time Landon talks to Jamie after she told him she was dying she asks him if she's scared and she replies, "To death", which he doesn't think is very funny. (I mean, it is a little bit). She tells him she's scared of not being with him and he tells her, "That will never happen".

I'm craving for you; 
I'm missing you like candy.

Jamie has a health scare and lands in the hospital. I must say for someone who is sick and is going to die in a few months, she looks absolutely glowing and healthy. I mean, they could have at least tried to make her look like she was on her deathbed! When Landon visits her (and he pretty much never leaves her side), Jamie gives him a journal that belonged to her mother that has quotes from her favorites books and famous people, and, being that it is a journal, her own thoughts. She tells him that maybe God has bigger plans for her than she had for herself and that he (Landon, not God) was sent to her to help her through all of this and she calls him her angel, awww. The thing that really got me was a few days later when she told Landon she was going home because his dad was paying for private home care and Landon goes to see his dad and hugs him and oh no, I think there's something in my eye right now...

Landon finishes his surprise telescope for her and they are both able to look at the comet and I'm sorry, but it is absolutely adorable how he's holding her hand throughout the whole thing and damn movie, why you gotta kill off 1/2 of this adorable couple? It just isn't fair! 

Okay, so you remember how Jamie told Landon her number one on her bucket list was to get married in the same church as her parents? Well, this is where the title comes in. The Walk to Remember...is a walk down the aisle! Bet you didn't see that coming!  (I didn't when I first saw this because I'm a moron). While looking through the telescope, Landon asks her to marry him and she says yes. Now I understand that he's doing this because he loves her and because this is the thing she wants more than anything, but this has to be a bit psychologically damaging to Landon. Not just because he's getting married at the ridiculously young age of eighteen (yeah, that is insanely young to get married), but because his wife will DIE in a few short months. You could say the Walk to Remember wasn't actually all that rememberable because the scene is very rushed. In fact after this scene, is when we get the wedding scene where the Switchfoot version of "Only Hope" is played. Jamie's dad is the officiant of the wedding. I don't know how I'd feel about my dad being the officiant of my wedding, but I guess if I were dying, it would be a nice touch. As he reads the "Love is patient and kind" vows, Jamie and Landon mouth "I love to you" to each other, and oops, got something else stuck in my eye! 

In a voiceover, Landon tells us they "had a perfect summer with more love than lots of people know in a

It was there that I 
realize that forever was
in your eyes, the
moment I saw you cry 

lifetime", then she died. The movie closes with an epilogue where it's four years later and Landon, who made it to med school (would love to know how...guess he was smarter (book smarter) than he let on) is visiting Jamie's dad to return the book that Jamie gave him. He tells him, "I'm sorry she never got her miracle", because, as you may remember, that was her yearbook's ambition. Jamie's dad tells him, "She did. It was you." Okay, I'm not going to lie: after the scene of him reading that in the yearbook is when we see him learning his lines and I thought he wanted the miracle she witnesses was to be him learning his lines by himself. I guess this is a little better. 

As he leaves, Landon tells us in voiceover about Jamie: "Her love is like the wind; I can't see it, but I can feel it" - a callback to when Jamie compared her faith being like the wind for that reason. Cue "Cry" playing over the credits. I remember when that song came out and I freakin' love that song. 

Yes, this is truly a manipulative, schlocky movie that would normally make the dark-hearted cynic in me roll my eyes, but the two leads make this movie work and it's one of the better Nicholas Sparks adaptations (although, to be fair I haven't see that many...probably because most of them don't look that good!) 

How to Save a Life

John Q

Director: Nick Cassavettes

Cast: Denzel Washington, Robert DuVall, James Woods, Kimberly Elise, Anne Heche, Ray Liotta

Released: February 15, 2002

I assume this movie was overlooked by many because it came out during the middle of the Oscars campaign when Denzel was nominated (and won) for Training Day which came out in late 2001. While there are super cheesy moments that make me feel like I was watching a made for TV movie at times (the music, the slow motion), I thought this was pretty entertaining (but when has Denzel ever let us down?) and it has to be the most exciting movie I've ever seen about health insurance!

John Quincy Archibald (Denzel Washington) is a man who is trying to make ends meet, but it is hard for him and his wife, Denise (Kimberly Elise). He works at a factory where he's supposed to be full time but because they don't need him that much, his hours have been reduced to only twenty a week, and she works at a supermarket and has to wear the ugliest brown and yellow uniform. We are introduced to them on the morning their car is being repossessed, but despite that, they seem to be in good spirits. But the day is still young. While at their nine-year-old (??) son's baseball game, the young boy collapses while running from one base to the other. Michael's parents rush him to Hope Memorial Hospital in Chicago and are told by doctors that his heart is three times larger than what it should be (sounds like the opposite of the Grinch's heart!) and not enough blood is being pumped into it, thus making it work too hard. They have put him on a monitor for now where his blood pressure is at 88, when it should be above 90. If it goes below 70, that means heart failure. It's probably not a big surprise to hear that before this movie is over, it will go down to 68.

The hospital administrator supervisor, Rebecca Payne (Anne Heche), and Dr. Turner (James Woods), inform the Archibalds that their son's heart is useless and needs a transplant, otherwise he may only have weeks to live. The decision seems to be easy for the parents (by the way, stellar acting from Denzel here...tears are running down his face, while he's trying to remain composed as he's having the conversation): of course they want their son's name to be put on the donor list and get the transplant as soon as possible. Rebecca tells them that his insurance doesn't cover the procedure and if they do want the procedure, they have to treat it as a "cash account" which means it will cost $250,000 and will require a down payment of $75,000 before they can put Michael's name on the transplant list. This is horrifying news for parents of a dying child who only have a little over a thousand dollars in savings. As Payne coldly states, "It costs money to provide health care."

The next part of the movie focuses on the parents doing anything they can do to change the fate of their son. John talks to his boss about his insurance and is informed they recently changed carriers from a PPO to HMO (my eyes usually glaze over when any type of insurance is being discussed, so I really don't know the differences). As a non-management part time employee such as he is, John only qualifies for "second tier" catastrophic coverage, which only has a max payout of only $20,000. (Can you tell I was taking notes? No way I can remember all this! Though I actually take notes for all of my movie reviews). John argues that he was hired as full time, but is only getting part time hours because work is slow and his boss replies that the coverage is based on hours worked. He regretfully tells him there's nothing he can do, but John can file an appeal which will take seven working days to process. 

The parents talk to someone at State Services who tells them she can't help them because they already have medical insurance and that they should be on welfare, which surprises Denise because they both already have jobs. They next go somewhere for financial aid and they end up in the wrong line (which was already long to begin with) and had to enter another long line. I really felt for them in that moment. They're in a cramped, crowded room. They have other things they could be doing to progress things and standing in a line for hours probably makes them feel like they are not getting anything done. Worst of all, when they do finally talk to someone to see if they can get financial aid, the answer they get is, "No, you don't qualify." A defeated and angry John replies "My son is dying. I'm broke. If I don't qualify who the hell does?" 

The next week he gets back a reply to the appeal he filed and things are starting to look a little better until after he shows it to Payne and she tells him that he filed the wrong paperwork. The one he filed was an appeal for an already existing claim when he should have filed a grievance that will take a month to get. Oh, man, if I were him, I would have been so tempted to reach across the desk and slap her! Maybe tell these poor people what they need to do! 

We next see a montage of them raising money, and their church and neighbors, despite not having much money either, pitch in and raise money for them. (If ever there was a time for a Go Fund Me, this would be it, but unfortunately they were living in the archaic times of two thousand and two!) One of Denise's friends, who is a waitress, gives her tips to her. John goes to a pawn shop where he sells his wife's engagement ring and they have a garage sale where they sell their TV and car among other things. In the end, they come up with $22,000, which is pretty impressive, but still a long way off from the $75,000 they need.

Unfortunately, the hospital can't wait any more and decide they're going to release Michael. I wasn't quite sure how much time had elapsed since Michael was first admitted to the hospital, maybe a month? John isn't there when this decision is made, so his wife calls him from a pay phone (yes, they were still using pay phones in 2002!) to tell him what's going on and hisses at him to "Do something." Now I'm sure when she told him this, she didn't mean for her husband to take an emergency room hostage (spoiler alert!), but rather try to talk some sense in the doctors and see if they can show a little compassion. To be fair, he does try to talk to the doctor first before he takes a drastic turn. He tells Dr. Turner that he did some research and found out the hospital does 300 surgeries every year which are $250,000 each and that comes out to $75 million and he doesn't understand why they can't perform the surgery on his son in good faith and promises him he will pay the rest of the money back. When the doctor apologizes and tells him he can't do this, John pulls a gun out of his jacket and tells him, "I'm not asking anymore; I'm telling you, you are going to give my son a new heart, do you understand me?" You can tell he really hasn't thought this plan through (or has never done anything like this before!) because he is nervous and doesn't exactly know what to do. The doctor tells him, "If you do this you are on an irreversible course of action."

John ends up bringing him to an emergency room where he locks the doors, breaks the security camera and tells the security guard (played by Ethan Suplee) to shut down the elevators. We get the first great Denzel line of the movie: "Hospital's under new management now: from now on, free health care for everybody."

Along with the doctor and security guard, there's also another young doctor (played by Kevin Connelly), a guy with a bleeding hand, an abusive boyfriend and his girlfriend, a Spanish-speaking mother with her baby, and a pregnant woman and her husband. He also lets a gunshot victim in and lets the young doctor work on him.

Word quickly gets out what is happening at the hospital and a team is quickly assembled outside. Robert DuVall plays Frank Grimes, the hostage negotiator who gets in touch with John. When he asks him if anybody is hurt, John replies, "It's an emergency room; everyone's hurt." When Grimes asks him his name, this is when we get the movie's title as he tells him to call him "John Q". (Can't give away his full name, though, let's be honest, they're going to find out!) John tells Grimes to find Rebecca Payne and to tell her to put his son's name on the donor list. He adds that if his son's name isn't on that list by 4:15, somebody will die. I think that gives them an hour.

John agrees to let a few hostages go and releases the mother and her baby and the pregnant wife and her husband (honestly, I'm surprised he let the husband go, but as we will soon find out, John Q is a stand up guy). When they are released, they tell news crews (by this time there's a whole crowd outside the hospital) that John Q is a "very good man" and they praise him for letting in the man with the gunshot or else he would have died. 

Ray Liotta plays Gus Monroe, the Chief of Police, and he wants to take more drastic measures, despite the fact that John seems to be cooperating with them and Grimes doesn't agree with his tactics. He wants to put a sniper in through the air ducts so he can take a shot at John. Payne is also brought onto the scene and tells Grimes and Monroe, "If you give in to this guy, there's gonna be guns in every hospital." She decides that she's going to lie and tell John's wife that she has decided to put Michael's name on the list and the hospital will pay for everything. Then Denise will tell her husband and he'll let the hostages go.

Of course Denise (who is with her son) is thrilled to hear this (and I think this may be the first time she hears about what her husband is doing?), she calls him to tell him Michael's name is on the list. Somehow, the local news is able to get live video feed of John talking to his wife, then to his son. (And the swarmy news guy says, "This is my white Bronco.") Rebecca is so touched when she sees this that she changes her mind and gives permission for the young boy to actually have his name on the list. This kind of surprised me that she changed her mind as she was portrayed as a cold corporate bitch who wasn't budging one bit...until she was moved to tears. Meanwhile, while John is distracted talking on the phone, the sniper Monroe has sent through the vents takes his aim at an unarmed John, who see's he's on TV right before he gets shot in the arm. He pulls the sniper down and punches him several times. I'm not sure how long it's been since he first took the ER hostage, but I love that he started as a bumbling everyday guy who didn't know what he was doing and now he's this bad ass who's also quickly becoming a hero as we will soon see when he brings out the sniper who he has duct taped his hands behind his back.

Grimes tells him, "Nobody wants to kill you" and an angry John yells "What is this?" and throws the sniper's rifle towards the lieutenant. By this time an even bigger crowd has gathered and they are cheering for John. They cheer in the right spots and they boo in the right spots (like when John shows the gun after Grimes tells him they're not trying to kill him.) We get a little foreshadowing as Grimes tells hm, "There's only two ways out for you: jail or dead." Without spoiling too much (or maybe I'm spoiling a lot!), one of those two things will happen. We then get what is perhaps the most Denzeliest line from this film, which was in all the trailers: before he lets the sniper go, he declares, "I am NOT going to bury my son; my son is going to bury ME!" I mean, even if you've never seen this movie, I'm sure you can hear Denzel say it. That line reminds me when he says, "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock; Plymouth Rock landed on us!" in Malcolm X. Probably because it has a similar structure and it's another iconic Denzel line that's said in a very Denzel-ish way. (I mean, if anyone can say their lines in the most Denzel-ish way, it's Denzel Washington!)

John's demands are that he want his son brought to the ER and he will let the hostages go. This is agreed upon and they prepare to receive the young boy. When John said he wanted his son to bury him, he was thinking the next day, apparently, because his plan is to kill himself and have his heart be given to his son. Dude, that's very noble, but a TERRIBLE idea. As the two doctors tell him, there are too many risk factors like bloody type, chest cavity measurements, and both blood tissues must be compatible. John tells them that they're both B positive, their tissues match, and his heart should fit since his son's heart is three times the normal size. I still think this is a terrible idea and there's still the slight chance his heart won't be compatible for his son and then he will have died for nothing. This is when the hostages find out that John's gun only had one bullet in it and he was never planning on killing anyone except for himself (interesting he had that suicide plan all along, but I guess it makes sense because he had to make sure his son got a heart one way or the other).

So John is lying down (not sure why), ready to shoot himself, but he first decides he's thirsty and needs a drink of water. Really, what does it matter if he's thirsty if he's going to be dead in a few minutes? Obviously, they're trying to prolong the moment and make it as dramatic as possible because while this is going on, the doctor who was staying with Michael receives a fax that a brand new heart that fits the criteria for Michael perfectly has just been harvested from a young woman who died in a car accident. I should back up here and say this is how the movie opens: we see a young, well-to-do woman driving her fancy BMW in Montana, I think. She's driving super fast through the curvy, mountainous roads and at one point she passes a truck in an obvious no-passing zone and while she's passing him, surprise, surprise, another truck appears in the view. Now this moron had plenty of time to pass the truck and get back in her lane and hopefully learn her lesson that it's not a good idea to pass cars on roads like these. Oh, she will learn her lesson, all right, but just more in the deadly way. I think she is able to pass the truck, but barely and her car gets clipped and spins in the other lane and she is hit by the oncoming semi. I don't mean to be callous or anything, but the dumb bitch kinda deserved it. Also, where is she going that she's in a hurry to get to? And why is she so dressed up? She appears to be in the middle of Nowhere, USA. I was very confused when I was watching this scene; I had no idea how she was internal to the plot, but once she was hit, I figured it out. I don't think you need this scene; especially not as the opening to the movie!

When Denise is informed about the heart, she calls her husband on the walkie, telling him she needs to talk to him, but he doesn't want to respond because he doesn't want to change his mind. I'm yelling at the screen, "Tell him you found a heart!!!" I found it a little bit weird that nobody is trying to stop him while he's "preparing" to kill himself. While there are people who don't agree with what he's doing, nobody is actively trying to stop him. In a very, very tense moment, he pulls the trigger with the gun pointed to his head, but oops-a-daisy! The safety is on. I mean, whew, right?

We see his wife outside the building and she's screaming something (presumably they found a heart), then in the very next scene we see a bunch of doctors, including John who is dressed up in scrubs. It's a weird scene because we don't see his reaction when he learns that 1), a heart has been found for his son, and 2), he doesn't have to kill himself after all. I guess they wanted it to be a surprise for the audience to see if he had pulled the trigger before it was too late. I personally would have rather seen his reaction as I figured he wasn't going to die. It didn't seem like that kind of movie; this is a guy you're rooting for, after all, they're not going to kill off the hero in such a horrible way.

The surgery is performed and the organ fits Michael perfectly so he now has a healthy heart. The ending of the movie shows John in court. We see all his hostages who are there to support him and most most likely gave witness statements. He is found not guilty of attempted murder and armed criminal action, but is found guilty of kidnapping and false imprisonment. I'm not sure what the sentence is, but his lawyer tells him she will try to get it down to two years. I'm thinking since everyone is on his side, it will be even less than that. But I guess they gotta show that he needs to do the time as he did commit a crime cuz you just can't hold everyone at gunpoint in a hospital even if your intentions are noble.

I'm not sure how realistic this movie is (something tells me not very) and it definitely is very emotionally manipulative, but it's a fun throwback early 2000s Denzel movie to watch.

Speaking of 2000s Denzel movies, I will be reviewing a few more this week, so I hope you enjoy those! I guarantee you will like them! 

Eternal Spring

Tuck Everlasting

Director: Jay Russell

Cast: Alexis Bledel, Jonathan Jackson, Sissy Spacek, William Hurt, Victor Garber, Ben Kingsley, Amy Irving

Released: October 11, 2002

Viewed in theaters: October 12, 2002

Spoilers start right away, so there's your warning! 

Even though I've seen this movie before, I didn't remember anything about it. I just remembered the immortality part. If you had asked me what this movie was about before I re-watched it (and I had totally forgotten this movie existed, but then I saw it was on Hulu), I would have said it's about a boy named Tuck who is an immortal. Well, Tuck is the surname of the boy whose name is Jesse (Jonathan Jackson) and the entire Tuck family is immortal. 

This movie felt more like a made-for-TV movie than a theatrical release. For one thing, it's only an hour and a half, and for another, it's just not that grand of a movie. It gets pretty cheesy in parts. I didn't think the acting by the two young leads was particularly great. I believe this was Alexis Bledel's first feature film and this came out during the third season of Gilmore Girls. Plus the all around premise is a little creepy, but I'll get to that later.

The movie is based on a 1975 novel written by Natalie Babbitt. I haven't read it, but I looked up the summary on Wikipedia to note any differences between the book and film. One of the main differences is that the main character, Winifred (who goes by Winnie), is ten in the book and fifteen in the movie. She is played by Bledel. She comes from a very well-to-do family and would rather be playing with kids her own age and getting dirty than wearing her pristine white dress while she practices piano or knits. While we know this movie is not set in the present day, we will learn later that the year is 1914.

One day she goes off into the woods after her uptight parents (Amy Irving and Victor Garber) have told her they're sending her away to boarding school. There she sees Jesse drinking from a spring. It's clear that Winifred has no people skills because she doesn't even try to be discreet that she's flat-out spying on him. She steps out into the open, watching him as he drinks. When he sees her, he's not angry, but you know he's not thrilled that this girl is out here and obviously shouldn't be. He asks her how long she's been there and she replies with, "Not long" and tells him that her family owns these woods after he tells her she shouldn't be out here. She agrees to leave, but wants a drink of water first. He tells her no, that the water is poisonous, which was pretty stupid since he was just drinking from it. When she heads towards the spring, he grabs her and she screams and runs away, exclaiming she's going to tell her father. She doesn't get very far because Jesse's older brother, Miles, catches her and they take her back to their house and their parents, Mae and Angus Tuck (Sissy Spacek and William Hurt). Of course, Winnie is totally freaked out since she's been basically kidnapped and just wants to go home. Mae is being very sweet and motherly to her, telling her they're not going to hurt her.

This is where the movie gets a little weird and makes me wonder if the novel comes off the same way. The Tuck family tell that they will let her return to her home as soon as they can trust her, but they never tell her their big secret until much later in the movie and even then, Jesse sort of just lets it slip out. We learn that Winnie has lost track of the days she's been imprisoned, but don't worry, she's having a grand old time as we see her and Jesse in this super cheesy montage where they're running slow-motion through a field of flowers while flailing their arms. Oh, how that made me cringe! I felt really bad for the actors. I can just imagine the director yelling at them, "Jump higher, move your arms more." Meanwhile, we get snippets of her poor parents who are worried sick about their daughter and get the police involved to find her. 

While Winnie and Jesse are spending more time with each other, they begin to fall in love. At one point she asks him how old he is and he tells her he's 104 years old. She tells him to be serious, and he says he's 17. And technically, both answers are right. When Winnie tells him, "I wish this moment could last forever", he tells her about the water that grants not only everlasting life, but also makes one immortal. When he said they were immortal, I just assumed they could never die of old age or get sick, but no, they can not die of anything. If they get shot in the head? Still alive! If they fall off a cliff? Still alive! If they get bit by a rattlesnake? Still alive (even without the antidote!). They literally cannot die. They're just like Claire, the invincible cheerleader from Heroes! Although, even though she could fall off high ledges and walk through fires and not die, I feel like there is a way to kill her since Sylar had a plan to do so, I just forgot how. Something about taking her brain? But with the Tucks, I get the impression they are immune to any type of death.

Jesse tells Winnie the story of the spring, how back in (hang on, let me do some quick math...) 1827, his family found it while traveling and started drinking from it. Everyone, but the cat that is. They quickly realize something is up when their horses are shot at by hunters who mistake them for deer (really?) and they don't die. We also learn that Jesse fell from thirty feet and didn't get one scratch on him and that someone else was bitten by a rattlesnake and was completely fine. Miles's wife left with their two children, saying he "sold his soul to the devil" and called the spring "witch craft" and "black magic". Needless to say, they did not drink from the spring. She ended up in a mental institution because of her ramblings about a spring that grants eternal life. While Jesse seems to embrace his eternal youth and long-lasting life, Miles sees it more as a curse and hates it. He wanted his kids to drink from it too, but that seems pretty cruel as you are permanently stuck at the age you are when you drink from it, and I imagine your brain is permanently stuck at that age too. I don't know how old his kids were, but they looked pretty young in the flashbacks. Can you imagine if you had to be five years old for the rest of your life and could never escape from it? Oh my God, that would be terrible. I'm glad his kids did not get to drink from the water, even though one of them did die when they were a teenager, but the other one lived a full life even if he never saw his dad again. And honestly, being seventeen forever (like Jesse) doesn't sound that great either. Now I realize that when he drank the water he didn't know this was going to happen. I feel like if you were going to be stuck at a permanent age, early thirties is where you want to be. You're old enough where you don't look like a teenager and you don't have to get carded for anything and you can still be an active member of society and you don't need a permission slip for anything, but you're also still young enough to be active and not worry about the psychical downsides of aging. Basically, you're not too young, you're not too old. Actually, this movie reminded me of The Age of Adaline where Blake Lively plays a character who has been stuck at the age of 29 since the early 20th century. Every few years she moves to a different location so she doesn't make anyone suspicious about her non-aging. Because of this, she isn't able to be close to anyone and even her own daughter out-ages her and they tell everyone she is her grandmother. In this film, the Tucks just seem to hang out in a house hidden in the woods and this is why they kidnap Winnie and keep her until they think they can trust her because they do not want her telling anyone about them.

Jesse tells Winnie that she's the first girl he's ever told this to because she's the first girl he's fallen in love with and wants to spend the rest of his life with. He wants her to drink the water. Now, in the book, from what I found out on Wikipedia, Jesse wants Winnie to wait until she is 17 and then drink the water so they will be the same age (remember, she is only ten in the novel!) and then they can get married. I'm not sure if there's a romance in the book like there is in the movie (God, I hope not!), but I guess he just wants someone to spend eternity with.

I don't understand the appeal of wanting to spend ETERNITY with anyone, even yourself. Sure, I understand if you meet your soul mate you want to spend as much time with them as possible and cherish every moment, but think about it - if you and your partner could live forever, then you would take each other for granted, you would be stuck with this person for the rest of your (and your partner's!) life and then you probably wish you could die! Nothing would be special anymore. This is one of the many reasons why I hate Twilight so much. Are we supposed to think it's so romantic that Bella and Edward are going to live forever? I remember one scene in the book where Bella is having a fit because Edward had to leave her for one night, and it's like, relax, you guys are going to spend the rest of eternity together, I think you can handle one lousy day apart, good Lord! There is a really bad line in this movie that could have easily been in a Twilight book - that's how much it made me roll my eyes! When the Tucks are ready to take Winnie home, Jesse tells her, "If I could die tomorrow I would do it just to spend one more night with you!" First of all, let's calm down. The girl is only fifteen. They make this line sound very sexual for a PG Disney family movie! They probably should have changed "night" to "day".

Winnie is seriously considering drinking the water, but after she hears Miles tell his story about how eternal life isn't all it's cracked up to be, she begins to waver. She does like the idea of never dying, but when Angus tells her, "Don't be afraid of death, be afraid of the un-lived life," that is what cements her decision NOT to drink the water.

Ben Kingsley plays a man in a yellow suit who is supposed to be the villain, but he didn't seem very villainous to me. Not until we learn he wants to collect the water and sell it to people "for a price", but Mae hits him in the head with a shovel before he has a chance to. Mae is arrested for murder and is to be hanged, but Winnie and the others know she won't die and then everyone will become suspicious, so they devise a plan to help Mae escape. This is when Winnie has to say her good-byes to the Tucks and can finally return to her family.

The movie ends in "present day" 2002 where we see Jesse on a motorcycle. He looks the same as he did in 1914, only now he's wearing jeans and a leather jacket. We see that he's come to visit Winnie's gravestone which says she lived a good 100 years (1899-1999) and was a wife and mother (and probably grandmother and great-grandmother), so we know she took Angus's advice and lived her life. I was glad the movie went this way and did not have Winnie drinking the water. 

Too Many Clauses

The Santa Clause

Director: John Pasquin

Cast: Tim Allen, Judge Reinhold, Wendy Crewson, Eric Lloyd, David Krumholtz

Released: Novemer 11, 1994

The Santa Clause 2

Director: Michael Lembeck

Cast: Tim Allen, Elizabeth Mitchell, David Krumholtz, Spencer Breslin, Judge Reinhold, Wendy Crewson, Eric Lloyd

Released: November 1, 2002

The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause

Director: Michael Lembeck

Cast: Tim Allen, Martin Short, Elizabeth Mitchell, Alan Arkin, Ann-Margaret, Judge Reinhold, Wendy Crewson, Eric Lloyd, Spencer Breslin

Released: November 3, 2006

Oh, boy. This is a Christmas trilogy that gets considerably worse with each movie. I saw that they were all on Netflix and watched all of them in a span of two days. I had only seen the first one, but it had been a very long time since I had revisited it. All I had remembered was that Tim Allen kills Santa Claus (accidentally, of course, as this IS a Disney movie) and becomes him. There are a lot of unanswered questions and things that don't make sense, but they just brush over all of these.

The movie begins on Christmas Eve where Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) is spending the day with his six-year-old son, Charlie (Eric Lloyd). His ex-wife, Laura (Wendy Crewson) and her new psychiatrist husband, Neil (Judge Reinhold) drop him off. Scott is upset because apparently Neil has told Charlie that Santa isn't real, but Scott tells his son that he IS real and, just to humor his son, tells him he believes in him too. This movie would have made more sense if it had been Scott who told his son there was no Santa Claus. 

While there are no funny moments in the sequels (well, there are, but none of them made me laugh), there were some funny moments in the first movie. One of them is when Scott is reading his son "The Night Before Christmas" and when he sees Charlie is (seemingly) asleep, he yada-yadas through the last few pages. However, since it's Christmas Eve, of course Charlie is still awake. They both hear something on the roof and go outside to check it out. Scott sees a man dressed as Santa and yells at him. The man slips and falls off the roof with Charlie exclaiming, "You killed Santa!" Scott pulls out a business card from the man that says "Santa Claus North Pole" and there's a little riddle on the back telling the person who finds the card whoever puts on the suit will become Santa. There's also some very fine print on the border of the card that goes into more detail. Scott, like any sensible adult, is trying to make sense of it and just thinks it was some dude dressed up as Santa. I think he's more concerned that there's a dead guy on his front lawn than that it was actually Santa. However, he can't explain how a sleigh and eight reindeer (why does Rudolph always get the shaft?) and the body somehow seems to disappear.  He doesn't want to put on the Santa suit, but his son convinces him to do so and he becomes Santa Claus, delivering the rest of the presents. Apparently, it looked like the previous Santa was 99.9% done with delivering his gifts because Scott only goes to about three homes before the (scary CGI) reindeer take him and Charlie "home" to the North Pole.

None of the elves (who are all played by children, in fact, there's even a shot of a baby dressed in an elf costume at one point!) seem upset that the previous Santa had died. They welcome their new Santa with no questions. I thought for sure they were going to be upset that their Santa had died and wouldn't be accepting of the new guy, but nope that isn't the case. They just go on with business as usual. I had just assumed the Santa Claus who fell off the roof had been Santa for eternity, but we don't discover until the third movie that there have been thousands upon thousands of Santas throughout time. We know this because Santa Scott shows his ex-wife's daughter who she had with her new husband (the little girl refers to Scott as her uncle) a room filled with thousands of snow globes and tells her each one represents every Santa Claus that has ever been. Does this mean that being Santa Claus is like being a Vampire Slayer? When one dies, the next one takes its place? What if a Santa dies, but is revived? Does that mean there are two Santas? (Actually, that wouldn't be a bad idea...one could do the Northern hemisphere and the other could do the Southern. Why am I asking such stupid questions?) Also, why have there been so many damn Santas? No way Santa didn't exist back in the cave man day. Also, we know he has a long life span. We meet one of his elves who tells Santa Scott that she has been perfecting her hot cocoa recipe for twelve hundred years. There shouldn't have been thousands of Santa...unless the original was the only magical one who could live for thousands of years and when he did finally die, he passed on his powers to just mere mortals who only lived out the rest of their lives. But what happens if a woman puts on the suit? Or a child? I'm so confused. Why do I have so many stupid questions about this movie?

Anyhoo....Santa Scott (btw, notice Scott Calvin has the same initials as Santa Claus) and his son land at the North Pole and he meets Bernard (David Krumholtz), the Head Elf. He explains to him about the Santa Clause, showing him the fine print on the card. He also tells him that he's free to leave tomorrow to get his "affairs in order" and is due back at Thanksgiving to get ready for the holiday season. Now in the sequels, he lives at the North Pole year round, so I guess when they're making the transformation, they're allowed to go back to their real lives to make changes.

Scott wakes ups the next morning in his own bed and just thinks he had a crazy vivid dream. Okay, that does make sense, but shouldn't it send warning signals that his son is also talking about visiting the North Pole and his dad turning into Santa? It's pretty funny when Laura and Neil come to pick up Charlie the next morning who's blabbering on about this and they're just giving Scott a strange look.

Scott goes through some physical changes he can't do anything about on his first hiatus as Santa. For one thing, he gains a lot of weight. So much so that he can only fit into sweatpants and sweatshirts and even goes to an office meeting in a sweatsuit. Nobody believes him when he tells them he's all bloated because he got stung by a bee. And especially not after he orders a bunch of desserts when he's giving his lunch order. Supposedly in this universe, Santa loves his sweets. A LOT. When he goes to the doctor about his weight gain (among other changes), he tells the doctor that he's only been eating cookies and milk. Okay, real talk: If you visited billions of homes once a night (oh, and by the way, in case you really care, they explain how Santa is able to visit so many homes in one night by saying there's a space-time continuum) and ate all the cookies and milk the kids left out for you, would you want to eat cookies any other time of the year? No, I don't think so! I would think Santa would get so damn sick of all the sugar, he'd want to only eat vegetables the rest of the year! But, nope! According to this Santa lore, he loves the sweets! I like cookies too, but, ugh! Even Cookie Monster would get sick of all them cookies! Another physical change is that no matter how many times he keeps shaving, a beard keeps growing on his face and eventually turns into the snowy white  beard we all associate with Santa. There's even a scene where he has just shaven it, looks in the mirror and pats his face dry, and the beard automatically grows back. His doctor dismisses it as "a hormonal imbalance".  But even more concerning is that his doctor also dismisses the fact that when he listens to his heartbeat, he hears it thumping to the tune of Jingle Bells. Uh, you should have this man on the operating table, STAT!

Fed-Ex sends Scott a ton of boxes filled with the names of all the children in the world and whether they're on the naughty or nice list. While it's a funny visual gag because we see his house is just filled with all these boxes, from floor to ceiling, it just doesn't make sense. This is a world where Santa has magic so shouldn't it just be a magical scroll that has every name of all the children on it? (Also, wouldn't it be a pain in the ass to update that sucker every year?) And is Fed-Ex in on this?

The movie takes a bit of a weird, dark turn when Charlie's mom and stepdad are worried that he truly thinks his dad really is Santa Claus and want to take away his visitation rights. I had totally forgotten about that part. They also think Scott is intentionally changing his appearance so he does look like Santa. Someone made this great trailer of The Santa Clause as a horror/thriller and it's super creepy considering that they used footage and dialogue from the actual movie, a Disney family comedy! Now if they had made this movie, it would have been way more interesting! Click here to watch.

So clearly this is set in a universe where Santa does exist. I have no problems with movies like this, but if that is the case that he DOES exist, then why are people, like in this movie, so skeptical that he does exist? How do they explain the presents under the tree the next morning? Unless Santa skips the houses where he knows they don't believe in him because he knows the parents have the presents covered? Or do the parents just assume their spouse put the gifts under the tree while they slept? I am so confused by this. Also, over the course of the three movies, a lot of people find out about Santa, so they're not keeping him top secret or anything.

Scott seems to accept his duties as Santa without question and is fine taking on such a big responsibility. It's too bad there's not some way he can get out of this job he never asked for in the place...oh, wait, we'll get to that later! By the time next Christmas comes along, he does much better than last Christmas. There is a funny moment the first time he's Santa he tells a little girl he's lactose intolerant, hence why he doesn't drink the glass of milk she left out for him. The next Christmas she has soy milk for him because she remembered what he told her.

Laura and Neil realize that Charlie was telling the truth about his dad being Santa all along and give Scott (even though he is now Santa, he still goes by Scott throughout the movies...only the kids and elves seem to call him Santa) back his visitation rights. They now believe in Santa because Laura gets her Mystery Date game she always wanted and Neil gets the "weenie whistle" he always wanted when he was three, but never got, hence the reason he doesn't believe in Santa. A few things:

1. If there REALLY is a Santa, wouldn't he know what Laura and Neil wanted when they were kids? Duh.
2. Neil's parents couldn't splurge for a stupid "weenie whistle?" (BTW, if you don't know what that it, it's a whistle in the shape of a hotdog).
3. Isn't a whistle a choking hazard for a three year old? This one is especially small. That's probably why you didn't get it, Neil! Although, that doesn't explain why Laura never got her board game.
4. Who stops believing in Santa when they're three?
5. Who even remembers anything when they're three?

I did laugh at the end of the movie when Charlie says he wants to go into the "family business." Um, is he going to kill his dad so he can be Santa? Oh, one more thing. This movie came out during prime Home Improvement time so of course we get a scene of Tim Allen grunting "Ho, ho, ho" like he did on that show. No kid watching this movie today or in the future will get that at all. Also, in an early scene before he turns into Santa, we see a store in the background called something Timone. This is a cute little Easter egg (um, Christmas cookie?) because Timone is a character from The Lion King, another Disney movie from 1994 and it stars Allen's TV son, JTT!

Okay, it's time to move on to the second movie. The third one is probably the worst in the trilogy, but this one might be my least favorite. The main premise of this one is that Scott can't continue on being Santa unless he gets married because he needs a Mrs. Claus! Ugh! Can you imagine if the roles were reversed and this was a movie about a woman who couldn't keep her job unless she got married? Also, um, I don't remember the previous Santa being married because we never met his wife in the first movie! Unless, when you die as Santa, Mrs. Claus automatically dies as well!

Santa Scott goes back to wherever he was from in the United States for two reasons:
1) to find a wife
2) his son, Charlie, now in high school, is now on the naughty list because he's been spray painting around the school. And he's super surprised when Bernard tells him this (or maybe it was Spencer Breslin, who plays the next-in-line elf, who told him...I don't remember). Um, you're Santa Claus. You're the one making the naughty or nice lists! Shouldn't you know this? Especially your own kid?

There is an amusing scene where Scott's ex sets him up with one of her friends (Molly Shannon in a terrible blonde wig) who is obsessed with Christmas. She wears a sweatshirt with a huge print of Santa's face and shows him her Christmas charm bracelet. Nevertheless the date is a bust. While Scott is in "the real world", he begins to look like his old self and thus looses weight and gets rid of the awful beard so he no longer looks like a Santa doppleganger. This is probably only for him to attract a mate, because, let's be honest: Who would be attracted to Santa Claus?

Guess who he ends up falling for? The principal of Charlie's school, Carol (Elizabeth Mitchell aka Juliette from Lost).  They bond over Christmas or something...IDK. I could really care less. Scott ends up telling her, after their first date that he's Santa Claus, but she doesn't believe him. Not until Charlie shows her the snow globe that makes her believe. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention the damn snow globe. It's kind of an important thing in the movies. Get this: whenever Charlie wants to see his dad (since he lives so far away in the North Pole), all he has to do is shake the snow globe and his dad will appear. However, in the third movie we find out the snow globe is locked in a special room in Santa's workshop. So why is it there and not with Charlie? Did he give it back when he got older and didn't care about seeing his dad that much anymore? These movies make no sense.

While Scott is gone, he makes this really creepy clone of himself (played by Tim Allen with a weird plastic head) because they still need to have someone in charge of the elves since it's so close to Christmas and they need to continue making toys. Why didn't he just put Bernard in charge? All of these elves are really stupid because they believe he's the real Santa. He slowly becomes a dictator and it's a really weird B plot line and it's just best to forget about it.

Somehow Carol goes back to the North Pole with Santa Scott and, after, like a month of dating, he asks her to marry him and she's like, "Of course! Yes!" Excuse my langague, but what the f**k? Who decides to marry someone after only knowing them for a month? And who would uproot their whole entire life to move to a cold, remote location with the only company being a bunch of elves and a jolly fat man who eats sweets all day? No, thank you! I would much rather live on the Lost island! They are married right there on the spot and Scott automatically turns back into Santa. You know, I never really thought of this, but I was listening to a podcast and someone pointed out while Scott physically turns into Santa, Carol (haha, I almost typed Juliette) doesn't become a Mrs. Claus type: elderly, plump woman with gray hair and round glasses, but rather she stays young, thin, and blonde. So yes, they are married on Christmas Eve, exactly the deadline he needed to be hitched by, and hooray! Christmas is saved! Ugh!

In the third and (hopefully!) final movie, we learn there is an Escape Claus where, if in the event the person who assumes the role of Santa, does NOT want to be Santa, all he has to do is hold the super special Snow Globe and say "I wish I were never Santa" and everything goes back to the way it was. Gee, they conveniently left this out of the first movie! They never told Scott there was a way out of this. Of course, by this time, twelve years later, Scott loves being Santa and blah, blah, blah. He is now married to Carol and they are expecting a baby, and eww...I don't want to think of Santa procreating. Besides, it seems really unfair that Santa has his own child. You just know this kid is going to be the most spoiled kid in the world! He has every single toy right at his fingertips! What kind of bs is that?

In the second movie we were introduced to the Council of Legendary Figures (or whatever they were called) which includes Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman, Mother Nature, and Father Time. (Hey! Where is the Hanukah Armadillo?) In this movie we are introduced to Jack Frost (Martin Short) who wants to take over Christmas and become Santa. I know "jack frost" is mentioned in The Christmas Song ("jack frost nipping at your nose"), but I don't think of it as a legendary holiday figure. Apparently he's the one who gives children their runny noses. He ends up tricking Santa into making him not be Santa anymore (and it takes awhile to get there) so he can take over the job. Scott is now back to his old self and we learn that he and his son are no longer close, his ex-wife divorced her new husband (yet their daughter was still born...I thought for sure in this timeline she wouldn't exist) and everything and everyone is so miserable. We also learn that Jack Frost as Santa Claus has made the North Pole into a theme park, charging everyone to come and visit. Scott tricks the Santa Frost into saying he wished he never became Santa and they go back in time to when Scott first became Santa. I thought for sure Scott was going to find a way to save the original Santa, the one who fell off the roof in the first movie, so he would continue on being Santa and Scott would remain himself and still maintain a good relationship with his son and ex-wife AND marry Carol, but live a nice, normal life in Wherever, USA. But no. He was destined to be Santa Claus.

There's also this stupid subplot where Carol's parents (played by Alan Arkin and Ann-Margaret) are coming to visit for her upcoming birth. They, of course, have no idea she's married to Santa Claus and think her husband works at a toy company in Canada. To trick them, they make signs all over saying they are in Canada and everyone says "Eh!" at the end of every sentence. Santa Scott brings the Sandman with him so he can make Carol's parents fall asleep while they're riding in the sled.

Yeah, these movies are terrible. Maybe I would have liked them better if they came out when I was a kid. The first one has its moments and is the most interesting so I would slightly recommend that one as a movie to watch around the holidays, but definitely skip its sequels!

Unfaithful

Unfaithful

Director: Adrian Lyne

Cast: Diane Lane, Richard Gere, Olivier Martinez, Erik Per Sullivan

Released: May 10, 2002

Oscar nominations:

Best Actress - Diane Lane (lost to Nicole Kidman for The Hours)

If, for some reason, you've never seen this movie in the fifteen years it's been released, I highly recommend that you see it before you read this review because I will be spoiling it! It is a really good movie and you do not want to be spoiled! Okay, you have been warned!

Diane Lane and Richard Gere play Connie and Edward Sumner, a couple who have been married for eleven years. They have a young son, Charlie (Erik Per Sullivan...you may remember him as Dewey from Malcolm in the Middle) and live in quite the house in the suburbs outside of New York City.

As you may have guessed from the title, it doesn't take a genius to figure out one of them is going to commit adultery. Connie is in the city on a very blustery day, trying to catch a taxi. She is carrying two shopping bags and the heavy winds are whipping her hair and skirt (why is she wearing a skirt? Didn't she check the weather forecast for that day?) every which way. She runs into a man carrying a stack of books and falls on top of him. So you could say she literally fell for him. He is Paul (Olivier Martinez) a good-looking young French guy who collects and sells books (hence the stack of books he was carrying). He tries to help Connie hail a taxi as she watches his books, but he doesn't have any luck either. Connie has a nasty cut on her leg and he tells her she can come up and bandage it since they are right in front of his apartment. She sees a taxi pass by right then and she could have easily hailed it, but decides to follow the handsome stranger instead. We see the elevator is out of order which is going to come into play later on in the movie. There is some slight flirting on Paul's side and it makes Connie a little jumpy. Paul offers her a book to take with her and she sneaks it into her bookshelf amongst the other books. While she doesn't tell her husband about the book, she does tell him about what happened that day and how this man offered to help her when she scraped her leg. Edward jokingly asks if that man was good-looking. Little does he know he has to worry about him!

Connie finds Paul's phone number while flipping through the book he gave her. She decides to call him, but it's obvious she knows she shouldn't be doing it because she's calling him at a pay phone in Grand Central Station. She has to get up the nerve to call him a couple times before she actually places the call. She gets his machine and is about to hang up until she hears his voice answer the phone. She calls under the pretense to say thank you for helping her and that her leg is doing better. Of course, we know this is not true! He asks her over for coffee and she looks at the paper cup of coffee she's holding and places it in front of her and goes over to his place. There is more flirting occurring and it still makes Connie a little bit uncomfortable. After she tells Paul she took some French in high school, he says something to her in his native language and she thinks he wants her to take something off, but he meant would she like to take her coat off.

Despite her nervousness, she returns a third time. He has some music playing and they start to dance. She realizes what she's doing is wrong and decides to leave. However, when she comes back in to retrieve her coat she forgot, Paul grabs her and takes her to his bed and they have sex. This seemed a little rape-y to me. She's saying no to him, that this isn't right, but he keeps on going. We see this part as a flashback because as she's on the train back home, we see her having flashbacks of them together. While she did seemed to enjoy her little tryst, you can tell she also feels really guilty. They will meet up several more times to continue their affair and the first time is really the only time where she's uncertain they should be doing that. The other times she seems very happy and excited to be with him even though she still knows what she's doing is wrong.

There really is no rhyme or reason why she's cheating on her husband. We see a scene of them earlier in the movie where they are being intimate and they both seem to be attracted to each other. Edward is a good guy; he's not a jerk and he's very attentive to his wife. In order to sneak out and see Paul, Connie makes up stories why she needs to go to the city. During one visit to the city, she runs into two friends she hasn't seen in awhile. They ask her what she's doing in the city and she lies and says she's shopping for window shades. They invite her to coffee and she has to go because she can't get out of it. I had to pause the movie at this point because the two women looked so familiar, so I had to go on IMDb and see where I knew them from. One of them played Meredith's mom on Grey's Anatomy and the other one played Blair's mom on Gossip Girl and it was like, Oh, duh, of course. Doesn't it drive you crazy when you see a character actor and you can't quite place where you know them from? Thank God for IMDb! Since Connie is stuck having coffee with the two women, she uses the pay phone to call Paul and tell him she's going to be late. (One of her friends is confused she uses the pay phone and says Connie could have borrowed her cell). He actually comes to the coffee shop and they go at it in the bathroom.

The other two women saw Paul when he came in and was sitting at the counter. They talk about how hot he is and one of them says she would be on her back in a second if he looked at her. This scene felt very forced because what are the odds that your friends would be discussing how hot the guy you're hooking up with right in front of you and they don't actually know you're hooking up with him? You know what I mean, right? The Kate Burton character (that's Dr. Grey) says she once had an affair a long time ago and it was the worst thing she ever did.

Edward starts to have suspicions about his wife. The stories she tells him don't match up and he notices that she's been wearing sexier dresses and heels out. She's also been a little distant towards him. He hires a private detective to have her followed and his worst fears come true when he finds out that his wife has been with another man. I should mention that Connie and Paul have been out in public, which is how the PI caught them: when they were coming out of a movie (they were the only ones in the theater and were having sex - I would hate to be the person who had to clean that theater! Ugh!) he snapped photos of them holding hands and embracing. The first time they're out in public together is when they're at a restaurant and Connie feels very exposed, as she should. She is seen by someone that knows Edward (but she doesn't notice him) and you think that might be the way Edward finds out, but, obviously it isn't. I felt it was very stupid for Connie to be in public with Paul. Well, I thought it was stupid of her to have this affair in the first place, but don't flaunt it in public! We've already seen that she knows people in the city and is bound to run into someone she knows. Just really sloppy on her part.

Edward confronts Paul at his apartment and we see an aerial shot of Connie running out of his apartment just as Edward is about to cross the street and enter it. He confronts Paul and tells him he's Connie's husband and Paul tells him that Connie finds the city more exciting and implies that she is bored with her life. Edward sees Paul's bed and you know he's imagining what was going on in that bed with the handsome young Frenchman and his wife, but things get even worse for him when he notices a snow globe on his bedside. Earlier in the movie we see a collection of snow globes at the Sumner's home so it was obviously taken from that collection. This particular snow globe seems to mean a lot to Edward and he demands to know where Paul got it and he says that Connie gave it to him as a gift. I have to say that was a pretty stupid thing of her to do. Why would she give him a gift from her house that her husband was bound to know it was missing? Why not buy him something? She was certainly capable to go shopping; she even did it with her husband when she stopped by his office to bring him a sweater she had bought for him, obviously out of guilt. And why would she think Paul would want a snow globe anyway? It just seems like a weird gift to give your lover. But all that really doesn't matter because this snow globe is going to play a huge role in the movie.

Overcome with rage, Richard smashes the snow globe on Paul's head, cracking his skull. While this is defintely the most cringe-worthy scene of the movie, I can't say it's the grossest scene of the movie, even with the blood. No, the grossest scene happens much earlier when Connie tells Charlie to spit out whatever he's chewing (I'm not sure what it was, maybe gum?), then later pops it in her mouth! Ugh, eww! That just churned my stomach! Yes, I understand it hadn't been in someone else's mouth when Diane Lane put it in her mouth, but it was meant to be that way in the movie. To me, that was the most disgusting part of the movie! Anyway, back to death by snow globe. Edward (rightfully!) starts to panic. He has a lot of work to do: wrap up the body in a rug, thoroughly clean the apartment, and wipe down his fingerprints. He must have done a pretty damn good job because he is never caught! While he is doing all of this, the phone rings and there's a message from Connie telling Paul that she needs to end their affair. She realizes this once their affair starts affecting her life as she forgot to pick up Charlie at school. Edward was probably thinking, Great, I just committed murder for nothing! Remember the broken elevator that I said would come back into play? It stops working on the way down and Edward has to heave the carpet/body up onto the floor and climb out. When he finally gets outside, lugging the heavy carpet, someone offers to help him carry it, but he says he's good. By this time he's late to his son's play and when he gets there he's very flushed and out of breath (he went into the bathroom to throw away his blood-stained shirt and change into an extra shirt he had) and Connie asks if he's okay. When they are about to get in his car and leave, someone accidentally bumps into the back of his car and the trunk opens just a little. What are the odds that would have happened?! Edward has to slam it a few times before it latches and you can tell he's in a panic. It's not like the body was showing, but I do understand why he didn't want that open! The guy who hit his car wants to double check the trunk to make sure it's not broken, but Edward snaps "NO!" at him.

In the middle of the night, Edward sneaks out to rid the body in a junkyard. He's a little too good at this if you ask me. In fact, he's much better at murdering someone and hiding the evidence than Connie is at having an affair! Although, he didn't get rid of ALL the evidence because a few days later policemen show up at their house, investigating the disappearance of Paul. Edward didn't see that Paul had Connie's name and number written down. The police question her with Edward present and she lies and tells them she was going to buy a book from him, but never did. They obviously don't believe her, but don't have any real evidence to press further. Connie figures out pretty quickly that her husband has something to do with the disappearance of Paul when she sees the snow globe she gave him back in its place. Okay, maybe Edward isn't that great at getting away with murder...why would you keep the murder weapon? But remember, he never got caught while Connie did. But there's no way he could have thrown it away because it has sentimental value to Edward. We realize why he was so upset when he found out his wife gave her lover it because he gave it to Connie during a trip to Chicago on one of their anniversaries and Connie finds out that he had hidden a note in the base that told her if she found this before their 25th anniversary, she had to wait to open it. Of course she opens it then and Edward, who is playing the piano with Charlie, looks over as she reads the note which says "To my beautiful wife, the best part of every day." It's written on the back of a photo of them with Charlie as a baby. I bet she felt pretty s***y for what she did!

I think Edward should have left Connie. Not only did she cheat on him, but she gave a very personal gift from her husband to her lover! I would have been livid! Obviously, Edward was furious and even admits to Connie that he wanted to kill her. They decide to try to make it work as a couple, although it's left a little ambiguous what happened with them. Did Edward turn himself in (the last scene shows them in their car next to a police station) or did they continue on with their life as though nothing happened?