Dating Advice

He's Just Not That Into You

Director: Ken Kwapis

Cast: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Connelly, Jennifer Aniston, Scarlet Johansson, Bradley Cooper, Ben Affleck, Drew Barrymore, Justin Long, Kevin Connolly

Released: February 6, 2009

They should have called this movie He's Just Not That Into You...Unless You Are Scarlett Johansson. (Insert laughing emoji here). This movie is based on a self-help book of the same name which you have probably heard of. I am amazed and baffled that there is a book out there telling women the signs of when a guy isn't interested in her. It's really not that hard to figure out; you don't need to read a freakin' book! I suppose there are women out there like Ginnifer Goodwin's character (bless her adorable soul) who can't get a clue and need it, but there is no reason to be shelling out ten dollars for a book that tells you a guy may not be into you if 1) he doesn't call you, 2) he doesn't ask you out (again), 3) he doesn't want to date you, 4) he doesn't sleep with you, 5) he's sleeping with someone else, etc. No s&(%, Sherlock! (BTW, I looked up the price and some of the chapters on Amazon.com. I guess ten dollars isn't too much to spend if you just want to read it and have a good laugh!) 

This movie revolves around a bunch of characters whose story lines interconnect and interweave within each other. Like I mentioned earlier, Ginnifer Goodwin's character, Gigi, is the clueless girl who can't get a hint when a guy isn't interested in her. She spends most of the movie going out with different guys and wondering why they never call her back. When we first meet her, she's on a date with Conor (Kevin Connelly), who her sister, Janine (Jennifer Connelly) has set her up with. (And I already forgot how Conor and Beth know each other....through work stuff, maybe?) Through Gigi's eyes, the date seems to be going okay, but after it's been a week and he hasn't called, she begins to second guess herself and how the date actually went. Poor thing is even more confused when Conor had told he he would give her a call. Doesn't she know that doesn't mean anything? She even goes so far as to stake out the bar where he usually hangs out. Oh, honey, you are so very adorable, but a little stalkerish! Luckily, he's not there, but she does find out the main bartender, Alex (Justin Long), is a friend of Conor's. Alex sets her straight and tells her that Conor isn't into her. She goes on dates with a couple more guys and when she gets cryptic messages about whether they'll call or not, she calls Alex for advise. Alex offers to set her up with one of his friends, but when he tells her he gave him the wrong day and his friend won't be there and it's just the two of us, Gigi thinks that Alex made up his friend because Alex is into her. There were also a few other reasons (such as he would call her out of the blue to talk to her) why she thought he might be into her. Although her reasoning is sound, I just felt so embarrassed for her because I knew - I just knew! - that she was dead wrong and I was right. Turns out he wasn't into her and did have a friend to set her up with (who was not attractive, btw, nice job there, dude!) But wait...he found out he actually WAS into her and they end up together. Insert groan here.

I already mentioned Gigi's older sister, Janine. She is married to Ben (Bradley Cooper). She tells Gigi that it took Ben eleven days to call her after they went out on their first date. Holy crap; that is insane! After the third day is when I give up hope! They have been married for awhile, but it's revealed they haven't had sex in a long time (which is a chapter in the book that he may not be into you!) When she asks if he's been smoking, he denies it (though later it turns out to be true), but he does admit that he slept with another woman, Anna (Scarlett Johansson). She is also being lusted after by Conor (remember, he was the guy who went out with Gigi). In fact, after Conor and Gigi had their first date, she saw him take out his phone as they parted their ways and was convinced she was leaving her a message, but he was actually calling Anna, who he used to date and they still sometimes hang out and he's confused by her feelings for him. I am glad they made a storyline where a guy wasn't sure if a woman was interested in him, because, trust me, there should be a book called She's Just Not That Into You! Needless to say, Janine tells Ben she wants a divorce. Thank God!

Then we have Beth (Jennifer Aniston) and Neil (Ben Affleck) who are friends with Janine and Ben. They have been together a long time, but aren't married because Neil doesn't want to get hitched. Beth wants to get married and one of her friends or sisters (I already forgot who because there are so many damn characters in this movie!) tells her (like one of the chapters from the book!) that he's just not that into her because he doesn't want to get married. They break up, but realize they miss each other when they meet other people who they have nothing in common with. Beth tells him she doesn't need to get married, but Neil ends up proposing and they have a happy ending. Honestly, I found this storyline to be the most boring of the movie. 

Anna's friend, Mary (Drew Barrymore) has been meeting guys online. One she likes in particular, she met on MySpace. MYSPACE, OMG, remember MySpace? Wow, that was a blast from the past! I literally had forgotten that site existed until this movie reminded me. Now this movie came out in 2009, but was it suppose to take place in 2004 ish? Because I feel like MySpace wouldn't be relevant anymore by 2009! One of the funniest moments of the movie comes when she gets a message from a musician she met on that site who calls and leaves her a message and sings her a song with her name. She then listens to a second message and it's the same guy, only he's singing a song with a different woman's name and he realizes his mistake in the middle of the message. She ends up meeting Conor and they hit it off. 

I think I got all the storylines! 

50 First Dates

50 First Dates

Director: Peter Segal

Cast: Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Rob Schneider, Sean Astin, Blake Clark 

Released: February 13, 2004

Viewed in theaters: February 16, 2004

Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore are like the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan of my generation in that they have starred in three movies together just like Tom and Meg did. Those three movies are The Wedding Singer (1998), this one, and Blended (2014), the last of which I've never seen. I haven't seen The Wedding Singer in awhile, but that's probably my favorite of the trio of movies they've done together, but this movie is very cute, albeit pretty stupid at times. It's simultaneously sweet and raunchy.

Sandler plays Henry Roth, a guy who lives and works in Hawaii as a veterinarian at an aquatic park. He is a bit of a player (okay, that may be an understatement!) and has commitment issues because when the movie opens, we see a montage of women (and Kevin James, haha) who are talking to their friends about this amazing guy they met and had a fling with while on vacation in Hawaii. He never dates women who are from Hawaii so he doesn't have to be tied down. He always has some kind of excuse to end a relationship and makes up some elaborate lie whether it be he's a secret agent or married or gay. I don't know why he has to come up with these excuses when all he has to say it won't work because none of the women lived in Hawaii! 

One day, by chance, he has breakfast at a place he's never been to before and that's where he sees the quirky Lucy (Barrymore). She is making an architectural design out of her waffles and he's intrigued by her, so much so, that he goes to the same place the next morning where she is also back, and starts a conversation with her. They hit it off and he becomes smitten with her and she invites him to have breakfast with her the next morning, which he accepts. There's a funny scene where they're each by their car, both of which are blocked by a large truck. They both start dancing in front of their cars and when the large truck between them moves, they catch each other dancing and sheepishly look at each other.

Henry goes golfing with his friend, Ula (Schneider) who gives him a phone number of an attractive woman he met. Ula is married with four kids and lives vicariously through Henry's trysts. To Ula's shock, Henry doesn't want the number. That is, until he gets hit in the head by a golf ball and has a daydream of Lucy wanting to date him and it freaks him out, so he agrees to go on a date with the woman, but when he's with her, he discovers he's not interested in her and keeps thinking about Lucy. He also tells his date, who claims she's drunk enough to go back to his place and have sex, that there wasn't even any alcohol in the fishbowl drink she had, haha. I think that would be an interesting experiment and I'm sure it's been done before: tell people they are drinking an alcoholic drink when there's no alcohol in it at all and see how they act. I'm sure many would act drunk.

When he goes back to meet Lucy the next day, she has no idea who he is. When he introduced himself the first time the other day, he apologized that his fingers smelled like fish because he had been feeding the walrus where he works. She said that she liked the smell because it reminded her of her father and brother who are fishermen who are gone for months at a time, so when they come back, she gives them long hugs and they smell like fish. So, the next day, when Henry arrives for their second date, he tells her, "My fingers are extra fishy today if you care to take a whiff" and wiggles them in front of her face and she says, "What was that?" and he says, "I was petting my walrus this morning and thinking of you" and she goes, "Okay, pervert, I think that you should leave." The waitress, who has known Lucy for quite some time because she was friends with her mother, takes Henry, who is obviously confused, aside and tells him that Lucy lost her short-term memory and doesn't retain any new information. Every day she wakes up, the previous day has been wiped from her memory. This happened nearly a year ago when Lucy and her dad were in a car accident. Her dad broke some ribs, but she suffered a terrible head injury which resulted in her short-term memory loss. I guess being a guy, Henry never noticed or thought it odd, on his third day in a row of seeing Lucy, that she was always wearing the same outfit: a pink shirt and white pants. (Actually, I never caught that on my first viewing!)

The day of the accident was October 13, which is also her dad's birthday, so she wakes up each day thinking it's her dad's birthday. When she parted ways with Henry yesterday, she told him she had to go because it was her dad's birthday and they have a tradition of picking a pineapple. Her dad, Marlin (Blake Clark), and brother, Doug (Sean Astin), do the same thing every day so they won't upset Lucy with the fact that she lost her memory and nearly a year has passed. They're living their own Groundhog Day! They got a bunch of papers of the day of the accident that she reads so she thinks it's October 13 everyday. As the waitress explained to Henry, she has breakfast at that place every Sunday, and since October 13 was a Sunday, she starts her day every morning having breakfast there.

When she gets home, she's ready to go pineapple picking, but her dad tells her he already got one at the farmer's market. Now I'm not sure if he does this because of the traumatizing accident when they went to pick a pineapple on his real birthday or because he doesn't want to drive all the way out to pick a pineapple every day, but I guess it could be a combination of both. Instead, he tells her he painted his workshop white, but it's too white and wants her to paint something. Since she teaches an art class at an elementary school, she loves painting. She tells him to watch a football game the Vikings are playing (hmmm, they must originally be from Minnesota!) she knows he's been looking forward to, so they watch a tape of the show. They're not even paying attention to it while she's painting, but when she comes in the house, they turn their attention to the TV and act like they're interested in the game. Lucy makes a bet with her brother about a play and he in return bets there's going to be a very specific play, and of course, having seen the game hundreds of times, he's right. My favorite part of the movie (and the only thing I really remembered from seeing it in theaters) was when Marlin opens his birthday present from Lucy and it's a copy of The Sixth Sense. Now you all know how big I am a fan of that movie (do I need to remind you?) so I got a big kick out of that. I love the looks on her dad's and brother's faces when she suggests they watch it right away because you know they've been watching this movie every day for nearly the past year! I don't care how much you love a movie; I would get so sick of watching the same movie every day! I can't even watch the same movie once a year! And after the movie, Lucy is like, "I can't believe it! The whole time, Bruce Willis was a ghost! Did you guys see that coming?" and both of them go, "No, I had no idea!" (At least Lucy didn't give her dad Groundhog Day because that would be a really sick joke!)

Once Lucy goes to bed, they get ready to do the whole thing again the next day: they repaint over the wall Lucy has painted on, they wrap up the copy of The Sixth Sense, they find a pineapple, they wash her pink shirt and white pants she always wears, and they get the October 13 newspaper ready for her.

Why Marlin and Doug just didn't do what Henry did, I will never understand. He makes a video that he has her watch everyday explaining how she was in a car accident and how they met. Of course, she is very upset when she learns this information (which is new to her each time she starts a new day), but at least she isn't living a lie and her dad and brother don't have to re-live the same day over and over again! Lucy starts keeping a journal to help her remember things. As the title of the movie, Lucy and Henry go on 50 "first" dates and each time Lucy tells him she wishes she had met him before the accident. There's a funny montage where they share their "first" kiss about five different times and after each one, Lucy says, "There's nothing like a first kiss!" Of course the morning after they sleep together, Lucy wakes up to find a stranger in her bed and she screams bloody murder at her. Henry had said the night before he should probably leave, but she insisted he stay a little longer and they both fell asleep. It did take Henry awhile before he became a part of Lucy's life. Each day at the restaurant he would try to reintroduce himself, but it didn't always work. He even sets up a scenario where he's pretending to be mugged by Ula so Lucy will see them when she's driving by. She does and gets out a bat to beat Ula with it. Ouch.

When Lucy discovers that Henry wants to go out to sea to study walruses, she decides to erase him entirely from her life because she doesn't want to hold him back, but being that this is a romantic comedy starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, of course Henry finds a way to win her back and tells her he loves her and wants to be with her. And we learn, that even though she doesn't remember him, there is some part of her that does because she's been painting pictures of him in her studio so we know he has made an impression on her. At the end of the movie they are married and have a kid and both are out at sea so Henry can study walruses. Each morning, when Lucy wakes up, she has a video to watch to remind her what's going on in her life.

Good Morning, Angels

Charlie's Angels
Director: McG
Cast: Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, Bill Murray, Sam Rockwell, Luke Wilson, Kelly Lynch, Crispin Glover, Matt LeBlanc
Released: November 3, 2000

Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
Director: McG
Cast: Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, Demi Moore, Bernie Mac, Luke Wilson, Crispin Glover, Justin Theroux, Robert Patrick
Released: June 27, 2003
Viewed in theaters: June 30, 2003

This is one of those (not-so-rare) instances where I loved the first movie and loathed the sequel. The first movie was a lot of fun and effortless and the second movie just felt like it was trying too hard. The first movie even pokes fun at itself in the first minutes of the film when one of our angels is on a plane (disguised as L.L. Cool J - don't ask...I mean she's not actually disguised as rapper/actor L.L. Cool J, (though that would be kind of awesome) but rather an African dignitary who  is played by L.L. Cool J in a small cameo) and the movie playing on the flight is T.J. Hooker: The Movie and he (she?) makes a comment about another retro TV series being turned into a movie. Moments later, the disguised Angel has apprehended the bad guy on the plane with the bomb, blown a hole through in the plane to escape with the bad guy and bomb (though most likely everyone else still on the plane probably died since, um, hello, DECOMPRESSION!!! That plane probably crashed into the ocean moments later!) and landed in a speedboat where the other Angels met up with her. We see "L.L. Cool J" take off "his" mask and it's Dylan (Drew Barrymore). Now I can believe the (ridiculously believable) mask and she had a voice box to change her voice, but how do you explain how she suddenly grew at least a foot? This was the only time in the movie any of the Angels have Mystique-levels of transforming into other people.

The Angels of 2000 are Natalie (Cameron Diaz), who is the happy-go-lucky one. She comes across as ditzy sometimes, even though she's actually quite smart and a bit of a nerd. And she loves to dance. Dylan is the rebel and Alex (Lucy Liu) is the studious, serious one. They get their assignments from their boss, Charlie, who we never see. He is voiced by John Forsythe who also voiced Charlie in the TV series (which I've never seen, but of course am aware of). His assistant, Bosley helps the angels out with missions, though let's be honest, they do all the work.  He is played by Bill Murray who wasn't in the sequel (smart choice) and was replaced by Bernie Mac who is his adopted brother. Or something like that.

What I like about their missions is that they're not trying to save the world from destruction like so many superhero movies are about. I understand that world destruction is the worst thing that can happen, but it can get a little tiring and redundant sometimes. Instead they are tasked to find a kidnapped computer programmer, Knox (Sam Rockwell), who has created a voice recognition program that is widely coveted. They come across a strange man who calls himself the Thin Man (Crispin Glover - George McFly himself!). He has a strange fetish with women's hair as he'll yank out quite a bit from the girls' heads and then creepily runs it under his nose. The Angels find Knox who is suspected to be kidnapped by the Thin Man and reunite him with his business partner, Victoria (Kelly Lynch).

But it turns out Knox and Victoria were behind the whole thing and were working with the Thin Man to fake the kidnapping! They are planning on killing Charlie at his beach house with a missile and the Angels must stop him. But before they do that, they must rescue Bosley who has been kidnapped. Dylan has been taken and tied up to a chair and in a scene ripped off from the one in True Lines where Arnold tells the bad guys exactly what he is going to do to them and proceeds to do exactly what he said, Dylan tells her captors what she's going to do to them and ends with the movie's most memorable line, "And that's called kicking your ass!"

There's a lot of dressing up in sexy costumes (like dominatrixes and race car assistants), although in one scene Natalie and Dylan are dressed as businessmen to break into the software company building. All the angels have love interests. Alex is dating an actor named Jason (played by Matt LeBlanc, although he's an action star and not a soap opera star like Joey Tribbiani) who she keeps what she does from and tells him she's a massage therapist. Natalie meets a bartender, Pete (Luke Wilson) and they date in the first movie and get...a puppy in the second. Not engaged, like everyone thought she would. Dylan is seeing this guy, Chad. He's played by Tom Green and I had completely (and happily) forgotten about his existence until I was reminded of it when I saw him again. I don't know if Dylan was that serious about him because she ended up getting seduced by Knox and sleeping with him when he was trying to get information from him before she found out he was part of the bad guy team. Tom Green is so painfully unfunny in this that it's not even...funny. I forgot that he and Drew Barrymore were married for, like, 3 months around this time. He even ruins one of the songs on the soundtrack, "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)"  because he sings a verse before the song starts and it hurts your eardrums.

Speaking of the soundtrack (which I own...both movies'), pretty much any song with "angel" in the title is in the movie. "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel" is in it. "Angel's Eye" by Aerosmith is in it. I'm pretty sure I heard "Angel of the Morning" during it.

Then we have Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle which is so bad. While the fight scenes appeared to be ripped off from The Matrix at times in the first movie, they could be plausible in the context of the film. There's a lot of action scenes in the second movie and there all so ridiculous and ludicrous. There's a scene where the Angels are at a motorbike competition (and Pink has a cameo as the person who starts the race and while this is going on, they're playing a Pink song, which just seems way too on the nose). The Angels are after their bad guy and there's a scene where the bad guy has gone up in the air on his motor bike, flips upside down, takes out two guns and shoots at the angels, does a flip and sits upright on his bike...all before landing on the ground! Of course, this is all done in slow motion, but there is no way in hell anybody could do all that in real time. How stupid do you think we are, movie?

This time, the Angels are trying to locate two rings, that when put together, produce all the names of those in the witness protection program. Yeah, totally ridiculous...but at least they stayed clear from going the saving the world from imminent destruction route! The bad guy, Seamus (Justin Theroux), needs this list because he used to date Dylan who we learn is part of the witness protection program. (Well, at least she didn't have to move to Omaha and work at Cinnabun!) Her name used to be Helen Zaas (and yes, they did every joke under the sun with that name) who dated Seamus back in the day, but when she saw him kill someone, she ratted on him and had to be taken into protective custody. They found out Seamus had been released "that day" and now he wants to get revenge on Dylan.

The other bad guy is Madison (Demi Moore), an ex-Angel who has gone rouge. She tries to kill the Angels (because she uses guns as opposed to just fighting) because...I really don't know because this movie is so stupid and I really didn't care. Oh...and the Thin Man is back! For no reason whatsoever. For some reason, I was sure they had killed him in the first movie, but I was probably confusing him with Knox. And in this movie he's HELPING the angels. Huh? When did this happen? He and Dylan even share a "moment" right before Seamus throws him off the rooftop of the building they're on top of and he falls to his death and Dylan is devastated that this guy she's been in love with for two seconds (and let's not forget...tried to KILL her in the first movie!) is dead. Just go away, movie. You're exhausting me.

Shia LaBouf is in the movie for about twenty minutes. His parents were killed by Seamus and I guess the Angels are worried that he will be his next target, so he is taken into hiding at Bosley's mother's house. I have no idea why he was even in the movie...maybe someone on this movie worked on that Disney series he did and wanted him to be part of it. Who knows. There was a clever cameo where Jaclyn Smith plays an ex-Angel, Kelly (which was her character's name on retro Charlie's Angels...I checked) who helps guide Dylan. A not so clever cameo is from the Pussycat Dolls. Remember them? God, they are the worst. I think this was back when they were popular. The Angels have to do a sexy dance to...get something from a bad guy. I don't remember and I don't care.

There was one funny moment where they're at a crime scene and spoof CSI: but that's the only nice thing I can say about this movie. It is just so awful! They have the girls dance to "Can't Touch This" for no reason other than it's funny! Every time the girls try to escape from being killed, they jump up in the air and do a backflip...in slow motion. Every damn time! There are stupid sound effects that make it seem like you're watching a Saturday morning cartoon. It is so bad! I can't, I just can't!

So here is my verdict:
Charlie's Angels - Heaven
Charlie's Angels 2: Full Throttle - Hell

I Take You With Me

Boys On The Side 

Director: Herbert Ross

Cast: Whoopi Goldberg, Mary-Louise Parker, Drew Barrymore, Matthew McConaughey, James Remar

Released February 3, 1995

Spoilers for a 20 year old movie...just in cases! 

This movie came out when I was in middle school and I remember seeing it in the theater with my mom. While I remember that, I didn't remember anything about the movie except the singalong to "You've Got It". And that Mary-Louise Parker's character dies at the end. Well, she was still alive at the end, but it was implied she died although for some reason, I remember a funeral scene. It's funny what your mind chooses to remember and what not to remember. Other than that, I didn't remember anything so I decided to see it again. I didn't even look at the rating on the DVD cover because I just assumed it was PG-13. Nope, it's an R. I was shocked that my mom let me see this movie as a young middle schooler! There is language in this movie that would make even Nancy Botwin blush! 

This movie reminded me a bit of Steel Magnolias (a group of women with a friendship and one of them is dying and one of them has a baby....luckily it's never been the same woman!) and then I realized it's directed by the same director, so there you go. This movie reminded me of a cross between that one and Thelma and Louise since the group of women are on a road trip. (And Whoopi Goldberg even makes a crack about how she's not driving over a cliff for the others). 

Jane (Goldberg) is a lounge singer in New York who has broken up with her girlfriend and has been fired from her job so she is looking to start over somewhere. She meets Robin (Parker) who has placed an ad in the paper that she is looking for someone to accompany her on a trip to California. I can tell you one thing, there is no way I would ever let a stranger join me on a road trip. That could end up either being very dangerous...or very irritating! But both women agree on taking the trip together and drive to Pittsburgh so Jane can see her friend, Holly (Barrymore). While traveling, we see the first glimpses of Robin acting odd. They have to stop at a fast food place because Robin gets sick. She tells Jane it's just allergies, but I knew (or thought I knew!) she had cancer. Well, no, I was wrong. I THOUGHT she had cancer because I guess that's what I remembered, but no, she has AIDS. Because this was 1995 and AIDS was all the rage in the '90s! It was kind of weird she had AIDS because she was this very uptight woman...she didn't look like the type to use drugs of have unprotected sex. I guess they just wanted to show us anybody could get AIDS? I don't even know how she got them.  

Hey, hey, hey, it's McConaughey!

When they pick up Holly, her abusive and drunk boyfriend is with her and won't let her go until he gets his drug money that he thinks she's stolen. Holly hits him with a baseball bat and the women tie him up. While they are gone, he tries to get to a phone, but ends up falling and hitting his head and dies. When they see this in the paper, the other two convince Holly to join them because she can't go back. She reveals to the others that she is pregnant. They make it to Tuscon before they have to settle there because Robin has gotten really sick and needs medical care. I believe this is when Jane and Holly (and the audience) finds out that Robin has AIDS. 

Holly starts seeing an old friend, a young cop played by a young  and pre-famous Matthew McConaughey (who, ironically won an Oscar for portraying a man with AIDS in Dallas Buyers Club. It's like the circle of life, film style!) He finds out about her dead boyfriend and is torn between his feelings for her and obeying the law as his duties as a cop. Even though Holly goes to court and serves a short sentence, they end up married. Oh, and she names her daughter Mary Todd because McConaughey's name is Abe. :::GROAN::::  

Jane and Robin live in a house together with Holly and Abe until they have a fight and Jane moves out. While at a bar, they meet some people and one of them is a guy (Remar) who appears to be interested in Robin and Jane tells him that she has AIDS just so he already knows and Robin doesn't have to worry about having that awkward conversation so Jane thinks she's doing Robin a favor. One night, Robin and the guy get really drunk and pretty much start having sex outside right in the open. I mean, really! They do make it to a hotel room before clothes start coming off, but when Robin is about to tell him about her condition, he tells her he already knows and that he has come protected. I can understand why Robin was so upset, but at the same time, shouldn't she be relieved that at least he already knows and seems to be okay with it? (Obviously as he has his hands all over her). It doesn't surprise me that this guy was willing to have sex with her because he seemed like he would do it with anyone...he even makes a comment earlier in the movie about how hot the bar owner's 12 year old daughter is. It was really creepy.

Robin finds out Jane told him about her AIDS and that's why they have a fight and Jane moves out. When Robin's mother comes to visit, she is aghast when she learns that a lesbian (and a black one to boot!) has been living with her daughter! She should meet Keira Knightley's mother from Bend it Like Beckham! 

Like I mentioned earlier, the only scene I really remember is when Jane and Robin sing "You've Got It" to each other in a room full of people. It's a very sweet moment and got me choked up. 

This movie came out twenty years ago nearly to the day...and did you know that Drew Barrymore turns 40 this month? She was a very young 19 when she was in this movie and yet it seems like she had already been around forever! 

Weekly Movie #9

Big Miracle
Director: Ken Kwapis
Cast: Drew Barrymore, John Krasinski, Kristen Bell, Ted Danson
Released: February 3, 2012
Viewed in theaters: February 29, 2012

I go from one movie that takes place in Alaska and deals with wildlife to another movie that takes place in Alaska and deals with wildlife. Only with this movie, they're trying to help the wildlife! Fun fact: this is the only movie since 2000 I've seen in the theater on Leap Day. Heck, it might be the only movie I've seen in the theater on Leap Day...I started my movie journal in 1999, so I can't tell you if I've seen any on that particular day before that.

This movie is based on a true story that happened in a small town in northern (it is literally at the top of the state!) Alaska called Point Barrow in October 1988 when a family of three grey whales (mommy, daddy, and baby) became trapped when the ice quickly starts enclosing around them. They have plenty of room to swim, but there's only one hole available for them to come up and breathe. The only way they can get free is if the ice is broken for them so they can swim back towards "real" ocean. I had never heard of this incident in my life even though I was in second grade when it happened. In the movie they show school children who only want to do their reports on the whales; but maybe it was an Alaskan school, I wasn't sure on that. There were a few things like that that confused me about the movie. Like I didn't know what the relationship between John Krasinski's character and the young boy was...at first I thought he was his son or little brother...but I think they just knew each other? I don't know.

Drew Barrymore plays Rachel, a Green Peace activist who's an ex-girlfriend of Krasinski's reporter based in Anchorage who's the one who first reports on the whales. While her intentions of helping the whales are admirable, she's a total Dawn Schafer and if you have any idea who I'm talking about then, first of all, high-five, and second of all, you know how annoying she is! There's one scene where she has all her scuba diving gear on because she wants to check in on the whales and I swear she said she's never been trained to scuba dive, so that was stupid! Especially in really cold temperatures! Of course she finds a net on the baby whale's tail, so they can make her doing something really stupid justified, but whatever.

I cried about, oh, four times during this movie. Just one of the many reasons why I see movies by myself! It was a feel-good (and sad at times) movie, but I have a feeling in a few years I'm going to be mistaking this movie with Miracle, the movie that came out a few years ago about the U.S./Russian hockey game during the '80 Olympics.

Are you ready to go back to high school?

Never Been Kissed
Director: Raja Gosnell
Cast: Drew Barrymore, Michael Vartan, David Arquette, Mollly Shannon, John C. Reilly, Leelee Sobieski
Released: April 9, 1999

This is the only teen movie I've reviewed where the main character isn't a teenager (notice I said character and not actor). Drew Barrymore plays Josie Gellar, a mousy editor at one of the large newspapers in Chicago (I forget which one) who is assigned to go undercover as a student and check out what high school kids are up to and what they think is relevant. So 25-year-old newspaper editor Josie transforms into 17-year-old high school senior Josie and enrolls at a nearby public school where Jessica Alba and James Franco are students.

Her boss (played by John C. Reilly before he became well-known) wants her to befriend the popular kids because he thinks they're where the stories are. The one problem with this is that Josie isn't sure how to do this because back in her high school days, she wasn't just painfully unpopular, but was also unaware of how nobody liked her and it just made me cringe because I've known people like this in my lifetime. She was called "Josie Grossie" by the other students and was subjected to a very cruel joke when the boy she had a crush on asked her to the prom. Of course any person could see he was going to play a horrible prank on her, except for her (and her equally dorky friend) and he ends up throwing eggs at her when he drives by her house in the limo with his real date. Ouch.

Mean girls

At first, Josie befriends a nerdy girl played by Leelee Sobieski who invites her to be part of the school's math club, the Denominators, but has to ditch her when her boss tells her to befriend the popular girls.

Michael Vartan (who is also very familiar with playing people going undercover) plays the English teacher, Mr. Coulson, who becomes very smitten with his "student", Josie. It becomes a tad creepy because, remember, he thinks she's 17! Since Josie is always wearing a hidden camera, everyone at the newspaper is always watching what's going on and her boss wants her to do a story about student-teacher relationships. I don't understand why Coulson was so mad when he found out the truth about Josie. Okay, so he probably wasn't happy that she was planning on writing a story about his inappropriate relationship with a student, but she wasn't going to do that in the first place, and she's 25, not 17! He should be happy that he wasn't flirting with a 17 year old!

He doesn't stay mad at her very long and realizes that he's in love with her and she gets her first real kiss and finds her first true love. Awww.

Is there a party scene? Affirmative. 

Is there a prom scene? Affirmative. Their prom was really weird, though. They were going to go with the theme "The Millennium", but once they found out another school was also going  to have the same theme (gasp! "The Millennium" as a prom theme in 1999???), they decide to change it to "Famous couples in history" and people come to the prom dressed as couples such as Romeo and Juliet, Mary and Joesph, the hare and the turtle...but that's not all. Josie's brother (David Arquette, who is also posing as a student) dresses up as Tom Cruise from Risky Business, so he's wearing no pants; a group of guys come dressed as the Village People, so they're wearing no shirts, Jessica Alba and her clique come dressed as Barbie and one of them is Malibu Barbie so she's only wearing a bikini. Leelee Sobieski and her nerd group come dressed as strands of DNA. WTF? This is the prom, not a Halloween dance! You wear formal crap to prom, not costumes! 

Is there a football scene? Negative, but baseball is an important plot point to the film.

Is there a makeover scene? Affirmative, but it's shown off-screen. Josie makes herself over when she enters high school (again). 

Is there a scene where all the different high school cliques are being shown? Negative, the only two main cliques there were shown were the popular kids and the nerdy kids. 

Was this movie spoofed in Not Another Teen Movie? Affirmative. They have this woman who is obviously in her 50s pose as a high school student. 

Do I own the soundtrack/favorite song - Yes, the soundtrack is really good and the best part is I got it for free because my friend burned it for me, yay! I like all the songs, but my favorites include "Candy in the Sun" by Swirl 360, "Erase and Rewind" by the Cardigans, "Lucky Denver Mint" by Jimmy Eat World, and "Watching the Wheels" by John Lennon.

Darkest scene - Definitely the cruel joke that was played on Josie when she was in high school. Even though they tried to play it for laughs, it was pretty brutal. Most disturbing scenes were Mr. Coulson hitting on his student.

Favorite line - When Leelee Sobieski tells Josie that she wants to go to Northwestern, Josie says, "I went there! Uh, I mean, I went there to use the bathroom once." 

Favorite character -  I enjoyed Molly Shannon's character who worked with Josie.

Favorite scene -  It was totally a cliche, but I did laugh when Molly Shannon's character comes by the school to visit Josie and it just so happens that a guest speaker is supposed to talk to the students about sex-ed during English class (why English class, I don't know) and Mr. Coulson sees her and mistakes her for the guest speaker. It was much, much funnier than the time Gwynnie the Pooh was on Glee and was teaching the kids about sex through freaking singing. Ughhhh.

Hey, it's the '90s! - Cell phones look ridiculously outdated,  soundtrack is very '90s, several shoutouts to the class of '99 :-)

And speaking of shoutouts to the class of '99...

1. Many teen/high school movies came out in 1999.

2. The song  that told people to "party like it's 1999."

3.  Buffy Summers is an alum from the class of '99.

4. Bella Swan is not a graduate from the class of '99.

5. "You Get What You Give" by the New Radicals was released when the class of '99 were seniors.

6.  "Graduation Song" by Vitamin C may have been released for the class of 2000, but it was recorded and probably written in 1999, so I like to think that she got inspiration from the class of '99 for that song.

7. At my school, our class was the last who could leave campus for lunch as freshman.

8. Baz Luhrmann's "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)" was released in the spring of '99 and has advice for graduating students.

9. While there were many teen movies that came out in '99, it was also a great year for movies in general.

Okay, I know I'm reaching with some of these reasons, but I'm saving the best for last!