An Unrealistic Fairy Tale

Pretty Woman

Director: Garry Marshall

Cast: Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Hector Elizondo, Jason Alexander

Released: March 23, 1990

Oscar nominations:

Best Actress - Julia Roberts (lost to Kathy Bates for Misery) 

This movie is just like Cinderella....but with a hooker! I can't take credit for that joke; it was said by a comedian on VH1's I Love the '90s (1990 edition). The more "family friendly" version of this movie would be Maid in Manhattan.  (Because she's a maid (in Manhattan!) and not a prostitute! Actually, the first sentence of that review is about that movie being the PG version of Pretty Woman.

One thing I want to know is how the hell did Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) become a prostitute in the first place? Is it because her roommate/"friend" (you'll soon learn why I'm putting friend in quote marks), Kit, is one and she got her into the "business"? Now I don't know any prostitutes in real life, but I'm guessing, most, if any, don't look like Julia Roberts - because if you looked like Julia Roberts, you wouldn't need to be one! Seriously, she's in L.A. and she can't get work as a print model or on a game show modeling the prizes for the contestants or an acting gig on a soap opera? Everyone knows you don't need to be a good actor on a soap; you just need to be attractive! 

What we do know is that Vivian does want to "get out of here" and I don't blame her. She lives in a seedy apartment with her roommate and she has to avoid going out the front door or otherwise her landlord will stop her and demand the rent money which they do not have. She keeps her cash in a plastic box in the toilet tank and it looks like she barley has five bucks. She goes to a club called the Blue Banana (after getting dressed in her hooker attire) and confronts Kit who spent all their rent money on drugs. Not only that, but she still owes $200! Kit sucks! Why are they even friends? 

Meanwhile, at a business party, we meet Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) who is in town for business (and pleasure as we'll (and he'll!) soon find out!). He lives and works in New York City where he buys companies, then sells parts of them off. Later, Vivian will compare it to stealing cars and selling the parts and he agrees, but says what he does is legal. Wikipedia says he is a corporate raider. While Edward does have investors and banks give him money to help buy the companies, it is clear he has beaucoup d'argent. 

He leaves the party to go back to his hotel in Beverly Hills (not sure where the party was located) and he ends up taking his friend/lawyer's car because the limo he came in is buried behind other cars. His friend's name is Phillip, but let's be honest, most people would probably call him George because he's played by Jason Alexander aka George Costanza from Seinfeld. So Seinfeld premiered in 1989, but I feel like most people didn't start watching it until '92 or '93 so I doubt most people would know who he was if they saw this movie in the theater, but if they watched it much later, they would definitely be like, "Hey, it's George Costanza...and he plays a character that may be way more unlikable than he is in Seinfeld!" 

So the car Edward drives is a Lotus Esprit, which I admit, I've never heard of (eh, but I'm guessing most people have never heard of it). They wanted to use a Porsche or a Ferrari but they didn't give the film permission because they didn't want their cars associated with picking up prostitues....which I can't really blame them, but I'm sure they're kicking themselves after the fact, but I feel like they're fine. It's not like they needed the publicity and I'm sure it helped the Lotus Esprit with sales! He stops a couple of times asking people for directions. How the hell did we ever live in a society without GPS? He stops along the side of Hollywood Boulevard where Vivian and Kit are working. Right away they can tell it's a guy with a lot of money because of the car. Kit tells Vivian she "should go for him" because she "looks hot" and she shouldn't "take less than 100." Less than $100? WTF? She should be charging WAY more than that! That seems really cheap! There will be other monetary head scratchers that I'll mention later. I guess 1990 was so long ago that the money seems like a lot, but today, it just seems like it's barely nothing. 

So she struts up to his car and asks if he's looking for a date and he tells her he needs directions. She charges five dollars at first, but then ups it to twenty when she gets in the car to personally be his navigator. He's staying at the Regent Beverly Wilshire, a posh hotel. 

When they reach the hotel, Vivian tells him she's going to take a cab back with her twenty bucks. She had told him earlier she charged $100 an hour and he asks her to accompany him into the hotel. Now I don't know if he felt bad that he made her wait outside for the bus (she told him she was going to take a cab back, then a minute later, she tells him she prefers the bus...this is very confusing) or if he was just horny. Could be both. I mean, it's not like they go at it once they get up to the penthouse where they're staying. He wants them to talk a little first. Before they enter the hotel, he gives Vivian his coat so she can cover herself up. Keep in mind she's wearing her hooker attire which consists of a short skirt and thigh high black leather boots that just scream STREET WALKER. They also looks seriously uncomfortable and look like a pain in the ass to put on and remove. 

They enter the hotel and instead of keeping the jacket cinched around her (yes, the unfortunate boots are still visible), she keeps it open, purposely showing off her outfit. Of course, people are staring at her and this prompts her to be especially uncouth in front of a conservative elderly couple and she pretty much flashes them. Honestly, at this point, she's being rude just for the sake of being rude and Edward should have told her to leave. 

Before they get on the elevator, Edwards stops at the front desk to request champagne and strawberries be sent up to his room (what a cliche!) and I have to give the concierge a lot of credit for keeping her business face on because she can clearly see Vivian in her hooker attire standing against a post. Like, she knows what's up. Then later, the man who delivers the stuff sees her. I can only imagine the gossip among the staff at this posh hotel. When you think of hookers, you think of seedy motels. I've seen CSI:; that's where they always find the bodies of prostitutes. Speaking of which, that has to be the best way to get yourself murdered. The clientele for prostitues has to be pretty unsavory. This is why I don't understand why Vivian isn't behaving a little more ladylike. Edward is a good-looking rich guy who hasn't given any indication that he's going to murder her, so she's on the right path so far! He's not even married or seeing anyone! We know she knows this because she asks him if he has a wife or a girlfriend and he tells her he has both, but that's not true because they're both his exes. He should have told her he used to be married and that he just broke up with his girlfriend (which is the first scene of the movie). 

He asks her how much it would cost if she spent the entire night and she tells him that he couldn't afford it, then tells him it would cost $300. Huh? The math isn't mathing. First of all, he's staying the week in a penthouse of a posh hotel. I think he can part with a measly $300. Also, if she says her hourly rate is $100/hr, why would she charge him only $300 for the whole night? It makes no sense. 

There's a scene where she's in the bathroom and when he comes in, she quickly hides something behind her back. He thinks it's drugs and tells her to get out, but when he reaches behind her to grab her hand, it's just dental floss that she was using because she was trying to get the strawberry seeds stuck in her teeth. Aside from having the scene to think she was using drugs, I'm not sure why she was hiding floss behind her back. Was it his dental floss and she didn't want him to know she was using it? I'm sure he was confused too because why didn't she just tell him it was dental floss when he was accusing her of using drugs? 

The next morning it is revealed that the blonde bob Vivian was sporting was just a wig and she has a whole mass of curly red hair...how the hell did she pile all of her hair under that wig? She asks Edward if she can use his tub before she leaves and he lets her. He's getting ready for his day of meetings and is on the phone with Phillip who has set up a dinner meeting for Edward with Mr. Morse, the owner of Morse Industries which Edward is planning on buying. He'll be bringing his grandson, David, who will eventually take over the company. Philip doesn't think Edward should attend the meeting alone and he should bring a date and "keep it social." I would understand this if Mr. Morse had brought his wife, but obviously this is only in here so Edward can ask Vivian to accompany him. 

He goes in the bathroom where she's taking a bubble bath and has her eyes closed and is singing along to Prince with headphones on. She seems unaware that he's in the room for a good couple of minutes which I find hard to believe. He tells her he has "a business proposition" for her. He will be in town until Sunday and wants her to spend the week with him. They start negotiating a price. She wants $4000 for the full six days and nights. He goes down to $2000 and when she says $3000, that price is agreed on. Huh? Again, this seems really cheap. I guess $3000 was a lot in 1990 because she seems ecstatic about it. She could have easily gotten $10,000. That was terribly negotiating on her part, especially when she tells him later she would have stayed for $2000. He tells her he would have paid $4000. Before he leaves for the day, she tells him, "I'm gonna treat you so nice, you're never gonna want to let me go." He says he will let her go and her face drops. But don't worry, they haven't properly fallen in love yet! 

After he leaves, she calls Kit to tell her what's going on. She tells her she's already got $300 from last night and is going to leave it at the front desk for Kit to come and pick up. Why the hell is she leaving money for this woman? The same woman who spent their rent money on drugs? 

Edward has left some money for Vivian to buy some clothes. Now we all know what happens next: she goes into a very chic shop on Rodeo Drive wearing her hooker attire because that's the only outfit she has. The shopkeepers are rude to her and tell her she needs to leave because she's "obviously in the wrong spot." Yes, they were being snotty as all hell, but I don't know why Vivian thought it was appropriate to wear a short skirt, a top where a bunch of skin is showing and her hooker boots to a very luxurious Beverly Hills shop. Let's workshop how she could have done this better:

-She could have worn her red coat over her outfit. (I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but she does have her own coat.) Sure, it would look like she wasn't wearing any pants, but at least she would be a bit more covered up. Though there is still the problem of her hooker boots. 

-She could have worn one of Edward's white button down shirts. That's actually what she does when they go shopping the day after and by then she will have more appropriate heels, but she would still have those damn ugly boots. 

I actually 100% blame Edward for this. Even if Vivian did cover herself up with her jacket or one of his shirts, she'd still have the boots which are by far the sleaziest part of her outfit. I'm sorry, but they are just so cheap looking! It turns out that if he had asked the hotel's manger, Bernard Thompson (Hector Elizondo), he would have been able to get the right ensemble for Vivian. That's what happens when Vivian comes back to the hotel after her failed shopping excursion. Bernard stops her and asks to have a chat with her. He tells her that "things that go on at other hotels don't happen at the Regent Beverly Wilshire", but since Mr. Lewis is "a very special customer", they're willing to overlook the fact that he hasn't signed her in. He prompts her to say that she's a relative of his (Edward's) and she agrees, saying that she's his niece. He confirms that he won't see her again once Mr. Lewis leaves and assumes she has no other uncles here and she just rolls her eyes. When he encourages her to "dress more appropriately", she tells him she tried, and this is when he gets on the phone and asks for women's clothing. Now I wasn't sure if this was part of the hotel because when we see her getting the dress, it looks like she's in a hotel, but when Bernard calls, he introduces himself as being from the Beverly Wilshire. She ends up getting a cocktail dress and heels that she wears to dinner that night with Edward.

The next day she will go with Edward to continue shopping, but this time she's wearing a white shirt over her hooker attire (which has to stink; this is the third day she's worn it!), but this time she's wearing heels so at least the look doesn't scream STREET WALKER. They go to a store and this is when we get the "Pretty Woman" montage with Vivian trying on all the clothes she will buy. Of course, this is when we get the famous scene where she's all dolled up in her white dress and black hat looking gorgeous and she goes back to the snooty store and asks them if they remember her. Of course they don't recognized her, so she reminds them she was in there yesterday and they wouldn't wait on her. When she asks if they work on commission and they confirm, she holds up her many shopping bags and tells them, "Big mistake. Big. Huge." It's probably the most famous scene in the movie so I get why they plotted it that way.

When she returns to the hotel in her sophisticated new look, Bernard looks like a proud dad. Before she went to the fancy dinner with Edward and Mr. Morse and his grandson, Bernard had taught her what fork to use for what item and how to behave like a lady. Isn't this what he does for Mia Thermopolis before she becomes the Princess of Genova? They should have had Hector Elizondo play the same character in The Princess Diaries! Maybe Bernard gets promoted to being an assistant for Queen Julie Andrews! Missed opportunity there! 

So at the fancy dinner, Edwards orders food for Vivian while she's in the ladies' room and when she comes back, she finds a plate of escargots. Now I've had escargots a couple times at a French restaurant (they were good!), but they were much smaller and weren't in the shell like they are here. She has to use some kind of tool to crack the shell and ends up sending the snail flying. You would think at a fancy restaurant, they would have the escargots all prepared; it seems like a pain trying to crack the shell, and honestly, it didn't look that appetizing either. 

To be honest, I didn't quite understand/care about the business parts of this movie (boring!), but all I know is that Edward wants to buy Morse Industries, but Mr. Morse doesn't want to sell and wants his grandson, David to take over. Something like that. 

Edward and Vivian attend a polo game (it's all part of business because David plays in the game) and Phillip and his wife are also in attendance so Edward introduces Vivian to them. After the match, David comes over to say hi to Vivian and shows her his horse. Phillip sees this and is worried Vivian might be a spy working for the other side. He asks Edward how they met and what she does. He replies that he helped him with directions and that she's in "sales". Phillip presses more, but Edward won't tell him what she sells. Phillip asks him, "How do you know she hasn't attached herself to you and is bringing information to Morse?" He thinks she might be "industrial espionage." This is when Edward reveals that she's a hooker and he picked her up on Hollywood Boulevard. That's such a jerk move to do. While he talks to a VIP guest, Philip has a smug look on his face and walks over to Vivian and asks her if she's having a nice time and that it "must be quite a change from Hollywood Boulevard." Her smile quickly disappears and she's clearly uncomfortable. He explains that Edward told him and that her "secret is safe with [him]" and sleazily tells her that maybe they could get together sometime. 

Rightly, Vivian is angry at Edward and lashes out at him when they return to the penthouse. He tells her that he's not happy he told Phillip that, but makes an excuse that he's his lawyer and he's known him for ten years and that he (Phillip) thought she was "an industrial spy" and that he's "paranoid." 

They fight and Vivian tells him she's sorry she met him and that she ever got in his car. She gathers her stuff and asks for her money, but when he throws it on the bed, she doesn't take it. While waiting for the elevator, he apologizes, saying he doesn't want her to go and admits he was jealous when she was talking to David. She stays and tells him he hurt her and not to do it again.

We find out Vivian ended up in L.A. because she followed a guy there, but quickly found herself without any money or friends and it didn't work out with the guy. Before she became a prostitute, she worked at a couple fast food places, but couldn't make the rent and was too ashamed to go home. She met Kit and she made being a hooker "sound so great" (I'm guessing the money), and she started doing it and "got some regulars". I guess she wasn't too ashamed to do that! 

After the shopping montage and revenge line, the scene that's probably tied with it for most famous in the movie is when Vivian is wearing the iconic red dress and Edward shows her the (very expensive) necklace to go with it. When she reaches to touch it, he snaps the box close and she laughs. Everyone knows this scene even if they've never seen this movie. This is when they fly to San Fransisco to attend an opera. They see La Traviata and the main song is one of my favorites and one of the only opera songs I'm familiar with. They sit in balcony seats and after the opera, an elderly woman asks Vivian if she enjoyed it and she replies, "It was so good, I almost peed my pants." The woman is confused and Edward tells her, ""She said she like it better than Pirates of Penzance." Sure, it's a funny moment, but it doesn't make much sense. Usually people "pee their pants" if something scares them, not if they like something a lot. I liked the few seconds where the confused old woman is trying to figure out if that's what she actually said. 

The next day, Vivian suggests Edward take the day off and he agrees since he owns the company. Taking a day off is something Edward hardly does so you know this means that he has feelings for her! We see them eating a picnic in the park as he reads Shakespeare sonnets to her, then they have dinner in a diner. They end their day in bed with some passionate kissing and you know that she has feelings for him because when they first met, she told him she does "everything" except kiss on the mouth. I guess because it's too intimate and that's only reserved for people she has true feelings for. Now you know they are both in love! 

The week is nearly over and Edward tells Vivian that his business is nearly done and he'll be going back to New York. He tells her he would like to see her again and he can arrange for her to have an apartment, a car, and "a wide variety of stores that'll suck up to you anytime you want to go shopping." Vivian does not look thrilled. He asks her what she sees happening between them and she says "I don't know." She tells him about when she was a little girl and her mom used to lock her in the attic when she was bad "which was pretty often." She would pretend to be a princess "trapped in a tower by a wicked queen." A knight on a white horse would climb up the tower to rescue her. Never once when she thought about this fantasy did the knight say to her, "Come on, baby. I'll put you up in a great condo." Before they can discuss anything further, Edward gets a phone call from Phillip and needs to meet with Mr. Morse. He tells Vivian "this is all I'm capable of right now." Vivian replies, "It's a really good offer for a girl like me." She just wants more.

Kit comes to the hotel and they talk at the pool. Kit realizes her friend is in love with Edward, but Vivian denies it, but then pretty much admits it, but knows it won't work out and wants Kit to name someone that something like this has happened to before. Kit has to think, then comes up with Cinderella. (Well, actually she says "Cinder-f***ing-rella"). They just both laugh. 

Edward decides to work with Morse instead of buying his company and this doesn't make Philip happy. While he was being sleazy at the polo game, he physically assaults her and tries to sexually assault her at the penthouse, but Edward comes back in time before anything worse can happen and tells him to get out and to never come back. After making sure Vivian is okay, they talk about his previous offer. She tells him a few months ago, she would have taken it, but things have changed and now she "wants more", she "wants the fairy tale." He basically tells her he can't offer her that. He pays her and gives her his card, telling her that if she ever needs anything, for her to call him. Before she leaves, he asks her to stay the night with him; not because he's paying her, but because he wants her to. She tells him she can't. 

After Vivian says goodbye to Bernard, he insists that he have Darryl (the hotel's designated driver, it seems) drive her wherever she needs to go instead of taking a cab. The next day, back at her crappy apartment with Kit, we find out she plans to move to San Francisco where she'll get a job and finish high school. She gives Kit money and says it's "from the Edward Lewis scholarship fund." I'm not sure how much she gave her, but I'm assuming at least half. Is this really a good idea to give a drug addict all that money? Hmm, probably not. They say goodbye because Vivian's bus will arrive within an hour...gee, I hope that's enough time for a certain somebody to get there before she's gone forever! (Oh, it's not like you know what's going to happen at the end!) 

Back at the Beverly Wilshire, Edward tells Bernard that he'll need a car to the airport and he arranges for Darryl to take him wherever he needs to go. (Question: what if Darryl is driving someone else at that moment? Do they have other drivers on standby?) Edward also requests that the necklace be returned (oh, did I mention he was only borrowing it?). Bernard asks permission to open the box and look at it. He comments, "It must be so difficult to let go of something so beautiful." Subtle, Bernard. And if you didn't think Edward didn't get his point (or if the audience didn't get it), he adds that Darryl drove Vivian home yesterday, thus hinting that Darryl knows where she lives. 

Well, surprise, surprise, Edward ends up arriving at her apartment in the white limo (not a white horse, but close enough) and climbs up the fire escape. Once he reaches her, he asks, "So what happened after he climbed up the tower and rescued her?" and she replies, "She rescues him right back." They kiss and I roll my eyes. This would be a great time to comment about the trailer because this exchange is in it! What the hell? Why would you show the very last scene in the movie? Also, it seems they're telling the audience that they end up together in the end. The trailer for this movie makes it look like a slapstick comedy. She's a prostitute who doesn't know how to behave in social situations and must learn how to act like a lady! He's the millionaire who can't seem to find love and ends up falling for her! Hijinx ensue! 

Also, we can all agree these two aren't staying together, right? I give it six months, tops. Ironically, it probably would have been better for her to go to San Francisco and finish school there. In New York, she's probably just going to be Edward's trophy girlfriend and just sit around in his nice apartment and go shopping all the time. Sure, it sounds cushy, but what's going to happen once they break up? She'll probably end up on the streets again! 

However, if they do make it and end up together and have children, there's no way they're going to tell their kids how they met, right? They're going to need to come up with a cover story! 

This movie is a bit unrealistic, but it is a '90s classic for sure. 

Love Stories

Valentine's Day

Director: Garry Marshall

Cast: Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner, Julia Roberts, Jamie Foxx, Anne Hathaway, Hector Elizondo, Shirley McClaine, and a million other people

Released: February 10, 2010

When I start watching a movie, the first thing I usually do is check to see how long it is and this one is a little over two hours. At first, I was surprised (and a little annoyed, ha!) because why would some romcom be over two hours long, but then I remembered that half of Hollywood is in this movie and there are a billion little storylines, so that quickly explained that. 

I feel like Garry Marshall watched Love, Actually (which would have come out 7 years prior) and wanted to do that except have it set in L.A on Valentine's Day. There's even a plot line that's sorta similar to one in Love, Actually, but I'll explain more when I get there. 

It's clear Garry picked up the phone to call many of his favorite people to work with: Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride, Anne Hathaway from The Princess Diaries, Hector Elizondo from pretty much everything he's directed, and Patrick Dempsey and Eric Dane from the one episode of Grey's Anatomy he directed. Just kidding. He never directed an episode of Grey's Anatomy, but I did have to double check to see if he did or not since two actors from that show are in this movie!  

As you can imagine, some of the storylines collide with each other. There are at least two, maybe three (hell, perhaps even four) storylines that could have easily been cut and it wouldn't have affected the movie at all, but I'll tell you about those later. 

It's Valentine's Day morning and Reed (Ashton Kutcher) has just proposed to his girlfriend, Morley (Jessica Alba) and she says yes. (By the way, I had to look up pretty much everyone's characters name because I only remembered a couple of their names in the movie!) Reed sells flowers and obviously this is a big day for his business and he's got his friend and co-worker, Alphonso (George Lopez) to help him on this big day. 

Reed is friends with Julia (Jennifer Garner) and she has recently started dating a cardiothoracic surgeon named Dr. Derek Sheperd, oops, I mean Dr. Harrison Copeland (Patrick Dempsey - actually, Dr. Shepard was a neurosurgeon, wasn't he?). Haha, I wonder if they call him Dr. McDreamy at his hospital? Julia is so in love with him and basically has hearts for eyes. Unfortunately, he can't spend the day with her because he has to go to San Francisco for something work related. Later, we'll see him call Julia from his car, telling her he's just gotten to the airport, but in actuality, he's pulling into the driveway of a nice house. My first thought was, OMG! He's married! and not five seconds later we see him take a ring out of his pocket and slide it onto his finger. What a jerk! 

Julia goes to see Reed and she's a little surprised that Morley said yes to his proposal, but is happy for him. When she tells him her new flame will be in San Francisco for the day (so she thinks!), he suggests that she go up there and surprise him. Boy, he's going to regret suggesting that when Dr. Copeland will stop by his flower shop in a few hours to buy two arrangement for his two ladies. Before he gives his credit card to Reed, he asks if he can be discreet about this. He agrees, but then when he recognizes his name on the card, he clarifies that Julia Fitzpatrick is his girlfriend and Pamela Copeland is his wife since she has the same last name as him. 

He's having a huge dilemma of whether he should tell Julia or not that her boyfriend is married. He asks Alphonso what he would do and Alphonso asks him what HE would do if the roles were reversed. Reed knows he needs to tell Julia and he tries to when he delivers the flowers from Harrison to her, but isn't able to. 

Unfortunately, Reed will get hit with his own dose of bad news when he comes home to find Morley packing a suitcase and tells him she is leaving him and can't marry him. I saw this coming a mile away because in an earlier scene he asks why she's not wearing her ring and she tells him she doesn't want people asking a bunch of questions since it's Valentine's Day and that they should keep their engagement secret for now. At the last minute, and I mean at the very last minute, he runs to the airport where Julia is waiting to board a plane. He tells her that Harrison is married, but she thinks this means he used to be married and is still being stubborn. 

We see that Julia did not get on the plane, but instead went to the hospital where Dr. Copeland works and asks a nurse if he's working tonight and she says no. She then asks if he's married and the woman confirms he is and he and his wife just celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary. An older nurse comes over to Julia and whispers to her what restaurant he'll be at tonight and what time. It just so happens that one of Julia's students' (she's an elementary school teacher) dad is a maitre'd at that restaurant (or maybe he owns the place, hell, I don't know), so she is able to pretend to be a waitress for Harrison and his wife. At first, he's not paying attention as he's looking at the menu and talking to his wife as Julia pours them water, but when she announces she'll be their waitress, he chokes on his water. She tells them one of their specials is called "the lying, stinking pig." The wife is not getting the clue and is amused by this special and asks how it's made and Julia goes into gruesome detail (and some fast thinking for being put on the spot; guess she got the training when she was a spy in the CIA, haha) about what the chef does to its scrotum and heart. The wife says she'll go with the salmon, but Harrison stutters that he's not hungry. Surely, the wife had some suspicion. Oh, well, I suppose if she did, she decided to wait until they got home before she went off on him. This scene reminded me of the one in Adventures in Baby-Sitting when Elisabeth Shue sees Bradley Whitford with some girl in a restaurant when he told her he couldn't go out because his sister was sick and when she goes in to confront him she overhears him say to the girl, "Girls like you only come around once in a lifetime" which is a line he told Chris (Elisabeth's character) and she's like, "Or twice in the same night." 

Julia thanks her student's dad and picks up some carry out she's taking to a party and tells him to charge it to her "friend over there." He says he figured and tells her he also added some extra lobster tails and cheesecake, heh.

So now Reed's (one day) fiancee has left him and Julia's boyfriend is married. Guess who gets together? They find out they were meant for each other all along! How sweet! Okay, so that wraps up their storylines (for the most part), who's next? 

Like I said, Julia is an elementary school teacher (fourth or fifth grade) and one of her students is a boy named Edison. His grandparents are Edgar (Hector Elizondo) and Estelle (Shirley McClain). This is the storyline that (sort of) reminded me of Love, Actually when Liam Neeson's son tells him he's in love with a girl in his class. Edison tells his grandfather he wants to send flowers to his Valentine and we see him trying to order a bouquet of roses at Reed's shop even though he doesn't have enough money. I think we're supposed to think he has a crush on this girl in his class, Rani, an Indian girl who's also a good friend of his and they both play soccer together. Another one of their teammates calls her his girlfriend to Edison's face, but he denies it. But when Julia (Ms. Fitzpatrick to her students) is telling her students the history of Valentine's Day, he's the only one paying attention so I knew that he had a crush on his teacher. For some reason, his flowers aren't delivered to the school (probably because he didn't have enough money!), so he has to make it his mission to make sure his Valentine gets her flowers THAT day. He finds out from Rani that she has to work at her family's restaurant that night (and keep in mind this girl is ten) because they're hosting two parties: a wedding reception and an "I Hate Valentine's Day" party that Ms. Fitzpatrick will be attending because her friend Kara is hosting. Okay, let's put a pin in this story (there's not too much left to tell, but I need to introduce some other characters before I wrap it up. This movie's kind of a pain to try to summarize!) 

In a movie about love and Valentine's Day, we at least need one anti-Valentine's Day person and that is Kara (Jessica Biel) who hosts an annual "I Hate Valentine's Day" party. She is upset because nobody has RSVPed to her party, but don't worry, she ends up having a nice gathering. Julia is the first to arrive. At first she wasn't going to attend because she had planned to be in San Francisco surprising her boyfriend, but we all know how that turned out! There's a heart-shaped piñata and Julia takes a bat and just beats the crap out of it. Before she smashes the piñata, she twirls the bat around in her hand and it's very Sydney Bristow.

Kara is a publicist for an "aging" (he's 35) football player named Sean Jackson (Eric Dane) who's thinking about retiring because he wants more out of life. He wants to call a press conference and everyone thinks he's going to announce his retirement. His agent is played by Queen Latifah and she has one amusing moment where she's getting a massage and when it turns out that Sean's big announcement is that he's gay (but he's still going to continue to play), she looks up and says, "I knew it!" 

But let's back up (again) and introduce another character. Kelvin (Jamie Foxx) is a sports journalist, but his producer, Susan (Kathy Bates), wants him to do a lifestyle piece (because it's a slow sports day, but this was before Sean Jackson announced he was holding a press conference) and ask people on the street "what does Valentine's Day mean to you?" Kelvin isn't thrilled about this because he wants to be taken seriously as a sports journalist and he's not a fan of Valentine's Day. (Guess who he ends up with?) I did laugh at his reply about Valentine's Day not even being a real holiday because they don't get the day off. I totally agree with him. If you don't get time and a half for woking on a holiday it's not a real holiday! When he hears that Sean Jackson (I have no idea why I keep calling him by his first and last name, maybe because that's how they referred to him in the movie) is announcing a press conference, he goes to Kara's office to ask is he can ask Sean one camera on question. Kara is in her office, stuffing chocolate in her mouth, a little unhinged, and asks him if she's the only person who's alone on Valentine's Day and tells him how her best friend is candy and the only relationship she has is with her Blackberry. (Haha, this movie is so dated.) Now I don't know if this is the first time these two have met, but it's super cringe and she breaks down and he's trying to comfort her. Anyway, he is able to get his question for Sean Jackson and he ends up coming to Kara's party (because he hates Valentine's Day too!). They share a kiss at the end of the movie and I guess they end up together. 

We get a storyline set on an airplane where U.S. army captain Kate (Julia Roberts) is sitting next to a well-dressed man named Holden (Bradley Cooper). They strike up a conversation and we learn that Kate is on a one-day leave. Holden tells her he thinks it's a romantic gesture what she's doing since she's taking a fourteen hour flight just to be home for one day, then turn around the next day and take another fourteen hour flight back and mentions the guy she's going to see is a lucky man. Okay, right away I knew she wasn't going home to see a husband or a boyfriend or any kind of romantic partner. I knew that Edison was her son and he was who she was going home to see. I knew this because when Edison is playing soccer we see him looking at the moms cheering on their kids and he looks really sad. I thought it was weird that she never corrected him and told him she had a son and was going home to see him. I guess it's because they wanted it to be a surprise for the audience. Well, you're not fooling me, Garry Marshall! It is a sweet moment when she comes home and hugs her son and I may or may not have had something in my eyes during that scene. We also find out that Holden is in a relationship with Sean Jackson. So I guess they were in a relationship, but it wasn't public since Sean wasn't officially out? 

Okay, let's go back to Edison for a second. For some reason, he has a baby-sitter even though he has two able-bodied grandparents who are able to take care of. Grace (Emma Roberts) is a high school senior who watches him after school. I would understand if the grandparents weren't home to watch him, but there's a scene of her at their house and she's talking to them. If the grandparents are home, why do they need a baby-sitter? Okay, this scene will come into play later so I get why it's there. 

Let's talk about Grace's (very cringey) storyline. That morning, her teacher asks her if she can help with a "test-prep group for the class" after school, but Grace tells her she has to baby-sit. When she asks if she can do it during lunch, she tells her she can't because she plans to have sex with her boyfriend for the first time and they're going to her house during lunch break because her parents will be at work. I for sure thought she was trying to get out of helping the teacher and just said that so the teacher would be uncomfortable (which she was!) and leave it alone, but no, Grace was being serious. She even offers to help her the next day with the study group. 

During lunch break, Grace's boyfriend, Alex (Carter Jenkins, the only person in the main cast I wasn't familiar with), gets to her house first (he knows where the key is hidden; under a doormat, with an obvious hiding place like that, they're probably going to get burglarized) and heads up to her room and covers her bed in rose petals and lights a bunch of candles. It's the most cliche thing ever. Also, isn't lunch break usually only half an hour? And they have to drive home, then back to school? This all just seems very rushed and not very special or romantic. Are they just doing this today because it's Valentine's Day? I guess. Alex is an inspiring musician and has brought his guitar and starts playing it and singing a cheesy song about her. He is completely naked (ready to go, I guess!) and the guitar is strategically placed around him. In a very predictable move, we see the front door open and in walks Grace's mom! I guess she had to come home form work to get something. She can hear the music upstairs and thinks Grace is home, so she opens the door to get quite the surprise. Alex also gets quite the surprise too and falls onto Grace's bed. We get a very awkward scene where he tells his girlfriend's mom the reason he is naked because he's rehearsing for "an experimental show". (Okay, but why is he "practicing" in Grace's room?) He stands up and steps on a thorn of a rose, then backs up and crashes into one of Grace's shelves, then he bumps heads with Grace's mom. You would think the mom would tell him to get dressed, close the door, then they could discuss what he was doing. Alex wraps his jacket around his wait and grabs his guitar case and runs out of the house completely naked, but he's covered up. He runs down the block and runs into Grace who is on her way home. She stops and lets him in the car and he tells her what just happened. Boy, she must have been mortified that her mom saw her boyfriend naked in her bedroom! 

So they decide to wait to have sex because reasons I don't even remember. Grace chats with Edgar and Estelle and asks them who's only been with one person and they tell her they are those people. Except lies! Because Estelle confesses to Edgar that she had an affair with his business partner many years ago. Damn, that's cold, Estelle! When he asks why she's telling him this now, she replies she wanted to tell him the truth and he tells her, "The truth makes everything else seem like a lie."

There are a couple storylines that could have been deleted from the movie. One of them is the relationship between Liz (Anne Hathaway) and Jason (Topher Grace - thank goodness I have the Wikipedia cast list up because I would not have remembered their character's names!). They recently started dating and go on a dinner date. They go to this super crowded restaurant where the tables are literally right next to each other and they're sitting shoulder to shoulder with the other patrons and are across from each other and have to talk loudly to be heard. The couple next to them are leaning across the table and making out and the other couple next to them is fighting. It doesn't seem very fun or intimate. One of the moments of dialogue I genuinely laughed at is when the waiter comes over and asks them, "Would you like the four-course Sweetheart's Menu or the eight-course Eternal Love?" and Jason replies, "Whoa slow down. Is there a one-course 'only been dating
for two weeks but it looks promising option?'" Yeah, that's pretty awkward, but I think his reply was pretty good. 

During their scenes together or when Liz is at work, she has to take calls because she makes extra money on the side as a phone sex operator. It's all very PG-13 dirty talk and she talks in accents, usually Russian or Southern. She seems to have the same two clients. During the dinner date, she has to excuse herself to take one of these calls and goes outside. Jason (he doesn't know what she does on the side) goes to find her and overhears her "talking dirty" (I say it in quotes because it's pretty tame) in a Southern accent to someone who he believes is her boyfriend. This guy is really dumb...any idiot would realize what she's doing. She admits she's a phone sex operator and when he asks why she didn't tell him she says it's because she's broke and has a $100,000 student loan and no insurance. So I guess because of shame? He's such a jerk and tells her "I'm out." But why? Because she's the a phone sex operator? Because she's broke? For some reason, after he tells her that, she asks if he's going to call her, but I guess this is so he can be snarky and reply, "I'd like to say yes, but I don't know if I can afford it." He does immediately apologize for saying that, but says this is all too much for him.

So I would say this is a storyline that could be deleted, but it does merge with the Edgar and Estelle storyline. Both couples are supposed to go to a movie night in the cemetery, but the guys end up going alone and they start chatting about their forlorn love lives. Edgar and Estelle go every year on Valentine's and this is the first time he's been there without Estelle. The movie they're showing is a 1958 movie Shirely McClaine was in called Hot Spell, so I guess Estelle is/was an actress, but I don't know if this is supposed to be Hot Spell or another movie because Shirley McClaine isn't playing herself. Anyway, Estelle comes to the screening and she and Edgar make up and kiss in front of a huge crowd of people and everyone claps. Also, Jason realizes he was being a jerk to Liz and they make up and get together. 

I would also say you could delete the Emma Robert and her boyfriend storyline, but it also connects to Edgar and Estelle. One storyline you could definitely delete and it wouldn't affect the movie is the Taylor Swift and Taylor Launter one. They play a dating high school couple and they're friends with Grace and Alex, but that's really only the connection they have with other characters in the movie. The Taylor Swift song "Today Was a Fairytale" is featured during the movie and at the end credits. I thought she specifically wrote it for the movie, but looking at Wikipedia (which I already had up!) she had already written it and offered it to be used in the movie. Taylor Swift has many, many amazing songs and this....is not one of them. It's very bland and generic, much like this movie! 

The absolute best part of this film is the very, very end when they're showing the bloopers and the last blooper we see is Julia Roberts being driven home in a car and they go past Rodeo Drive and the driver asks her if she's ever been there and she replies she has and it was a "Big mistake, huge!" 

Teen Royalty

The Princess Diaries

Director: Garry Marshall

Cast: Anne Hathaway, Julie Andrews, Hector Elizondo, Heather Matarazzo, Mandy Moore

Released: August 3, 2001

The Princess Diaries is a cute movie. That's about the highest compliment I can give it. The title isn't exactly accurate because (spoiler alert!) she doesn't become a princess until, like, the last five minutes of the movie. It's based on the 2000 book by Meg Cabot. I've never read it, but I believe it's written entirely in diary format, hence the title. I knew this was a series, but I didn't realize there are well over ten books in it and they're still being written. (Well, the last one published, according to Wikipedia, was in 2015.) It looks like there's spinoffs to this series as well. I really do not know anything about this world! I guess it does make sense there's a series because I'm sure it's fun for young girls to read about this girl who became a princess and how she's living her life now. But we're just going to stick with the first installment.

Mia Thermopolis (played by Anne Hathaway in her first lead role) is a gawky, clumsy, unpopular fifteen-year-old high school student with frizzy hair and glasses. Her only friend at school is Lilly (played by Heather Matarazzo) who is just as unpopular as Mia, but she doesn't care about that and cares more about social issues affecting the world than the social politics at school. Mia has a bad crush on the popular Josh Bryant (which her mom will later refer to as a "Backstreet Boy clone", heh) and often fantasizes about kissing him. For the longest time I thought he was played by Chad Michael Murray because this was around the time he was really popular, but it's not him. His girlfriend is the popular Lana (played by Mandy Moore in her first movie) who is just a mean bee-yotch! There's one particular scene where she's being extra bee-yotchy and Mia shoves an ice cream cone into her cheerleading uniform, which was most definitely deserved. Lilly's older brother, Michael has a crush on Mia despite her fizzy hair and clumsiness. He'll especially like her more after she gets her makeover. He works at an auto shop and is fixing up Mia's first car, a 1966 Mustang, a sweet ride, if I do say so myself. 

I love how much of a cat person Mia is. She has a black and white cat named Fat Louie (who isn't even fat) who is fairly present throughout the movie and her bedspread has cats on it and she wears cat pajamas and cat shorts. Her wall is decorated with cutouts of cats from magazines (she must subscribe to those pet magazines) and I'm pretty sure I saw one of a Himalayan...I love Himalayans! Her cat's cathouse has stickers and cutouts of cats all over it. There is also a stuffed cat on her bed, although it is an orange cat. You think she would want a black and white stuffed cat to look like her real cat. 

Mia lives in San Francisco with her mother, who is an artist. She must make a killing selling her artwork because they have a pretty nice place. Apparently selling two pieces of her artwork, she was able to afford Mia her car. As far as I know, Mia has never had any type of relationship with her father who recently died within the last couple of months. Her parents met in college and got married very young, then divorced. All Mia knows about her father is that he's from the small European country of Genovia and comes from a wealthy family.

When her grandmother, Clarisse (played by Julie Andrews...okay, how amazing would it be to work with her in your first movie? Anne Hathaway had to be freaking out!) is in town and wants to meet with Mia, Mia is not super enthused as this is the first time her grandmother has shown any interest in her and thinks of her as "snooty". She thinks her grandmother made her parents get a divorce, but her mother tells her it was a mutual agreement. While they're having tea (and the tea Mia is drinking looks super weak), Clarisse asks her if she is familiar with Edward Christof Philippe Gerald Renaldi and when Mia says she isn't, her grandmother drops a bombshell on her when she tells her he's her father and was the Prince of Genovia (making her, Clarisse, the Queen) and now that he's gone, Mia is now the legal and only heir to the throne and she wants to train her to be a princess. Mia has the funny "Shut up!" moment that was in all the trailers when this movie came out, but she is not thrilled at the prospect of becoming a princess as the thought terrifies her and she just wants to remain invisible, something she is good at. Queen Clarisse tells Mia that if she refuses to accept the throne, Genovia will "cease to exist" - I'm not really sure how that works. Surely there is some other blood relative out there like a distant cousin? But goodness, that's a lot of pressure to put on a fifteen-year-old! But hey! Now I understand how Mia's mother is able to afford her daughter a nice car, enroll her in private school, and have a nice house: her ex must have been sending her some nice checks! Now it all makes sense. I knew there was no way that artwork could pay for all that!

We never find out how Mia's father died, but it had to be something that was sudden like a car or plane crash. (Suicide? But that would be really dark!) If he had been sick with something and they knew he wouldn't have long to live, then surely they would have time to prepare and tell Mia about this before he died?

When Mia confronts her mother who knew about all of this, she tells her that after she and Philippe divorced, they decided that he and Clarisse would keep their distance so Mia could have a normal childhood and that they had planned to tell Mia everything when she turned eighteen. Mia, her mother, and Clarisse all compromise that Mia won't have to make a decision until the Genovia Independence Day Ball, but in the meantime her grandmother will give her princess lessons. This includes how to dress, how to sit and eat properly while dining, how to talk properly, how to wave etc., etc. There's a funny moment when Clarisse is teaching Mia how to sit and tells her, "Princesses never cross their legs in public" and Charlotte, the Queen's assistant, who has been sitting with her legs crossed, very discreetly uncrosses her legs. Instead, they sit with one ankle behind the other. And of course we get the famous montage where Mia gets the She's All That makeover where they give her contacts and do something with her hair (at least in this movie it's a little more than just taking out her ponytail as they get rid of her frizz and give her sleek, straight hair). Everyone is shocked she is a beauty! Everyone acts like she was so ugly before, but she really wasn't. She just wasn't as polished as she is now. The guy who gave her the makeover is played by Larry Miller (aka the dad from 10 Things I Hate About You) and there's a funny moment when he asks her if she has contacts and she says she does, but doesn't like to wear them. He snaps her glasses in half and tells her she'll be wearing them now. Aghast, she says, "You broke my glasses" and he simply replies, "You broke my brush" because just moments before he had been brushing her unruly hair and the handle broke off when the brush got stuck in her hair. He also tells her, "If Brooke Shields married Groucho Marx, their child would have your eyebrows."

Let's learn some fun facts about Genovia, shall we? (And by the way, when you type it into Wikipedia, it guides you to the page about the Princess Diaries novels.) Genovia is a small country located between France and Spain. Now, in this world, is Genovia Andorra? Does Andorra even exist? Are there TWO small countries between France and Spain, Genovia AND Andorra? English and French are the two national languages, the capital is Pyrus (terrible name), they do a lot of trade with Spain (but not with France?), and they are very well known for their pears. Their flag is three vertical stripes of lime green, white, and turquoise. I'm surprised the colors aren't hot pink, white, and lilac or something really girly like that. Oh, and Julie Andrews is their Queen...so not too shabby!

The Queen has a driver, Joe (played by Hector Elizondo), who drives Mia to school. When they pick up Lilly, she is wondering what is going on with the limo and Mia's new hair style. Now that Mia has a new look and is carrying a new expensive backpack and riding in a limo, Lilly accuses her of being an "A-crowd wannabe" and that Mia used to care more about what's in her head then what's on it. She is also mad at Mia because she was too busy to sign a petition that was important to her.  Knowing that she might lose Lilly's friendship, Mia tells her what's going on, but swears her to secrecy. The news excites Lilly and she apologizes to Mia. Mia wears a hat to cover her new hairstyle, but Lana points out that students aren't allowed to wear hats in school and the teacher makes Mia take it off. Now you know Lana thinks Mia is wearing a hat because she's having a really bad hair day and just wants to embarrass her, but HA, joke's on you, Lana!

The next day at school, all the paparazzi has arrived at the school because they have learned that Mia is royalty. Lana tells that that she's best friends with Mia. You wish, Lana! Lilly swears to her that she didn't tell anyone. Clarisse and Mia's mom arrive at the school to address the issue with the vice-principal who is played by a pre-Grey's Anatomy Sandra Oh. She is very different from Christina Yang here. She lets the Queen sit in her chair and serves her coffee in a porcelain mug while she offers Mia's mother coffee in a paper cup. She asks her, while kneeling very close to her, "What's it like in Genovia? Do people just fawn all over you?" It turns out that the stylist was the one who told the press about Mia because he wanted the whole world to know that he was the one who gave her the transformation.

Her debut as a princess-in-training is a State Dinner her grandmother is having with a bunch of dignitaries from around the world. It doesn't go quite so smoothly for Mia. You would think when she accidentally catches the sleeve of the person sitting next to her on fire and has to douse his arm in an ice bucket, that would be the biggest scene she caused of the night, but it wasn't. (And also, how did that guy not even notice his arm was on fire until she put it in the ice bucket?) No, the biggest faux pas she of the night she makes is when a grape rolls off her plate and she goes under the table to retrieve it (why?) and while she's under the table, the guy next to her gets up and trips over her and he trips a waiter who throws his platter in the air and water and food spill all over the table. It looks like Mia is going to be in serious trouble, but everyone starts laughing. Oh, ha, ha, ha! Whew, that was a close one!

Lilly asks Mia to be on her access cable show Saturday night and Mia promises she'll be there. She is also asked out to a beach party by her crush, Josh, who has recently broken up with Lana. When she tells her mother this and her mom points out that he was never nice to her and Mia says, "He is now", I have to wonder how many brain cells she has. Does she not understand that he's only being nice to her because she's famous and has better hair? The party turns out to be a disaster for Mia because somebody called the press (I wasn't clear if it was Josh or Lana) and when Josh goes in to kiss Mia who isn't ready for it (she wants her first kiss to be perfect and for her foot to "pop" (meaning she wants her foot to lift as she's being kissed like in the old movies)) the paparazzi snaps an awkward photo of them kissing. And if that's not bad enough, when Mia runs away from the press, Lana and her minions "help" Mia by telling her to hide in this changing tent. I actually really thought Lana was being genuine at this moment and did want to be friends with Mia since she was a princess and you would think Lana would want to be on her good side, but nope. While Mia is changing from her bathing suit into her clothes, Lana motions for the press to come over and she tips over the changing tent where we see Mia with just a towel around her and the press starts snapping photos.

Now...I have a huge issue with all this press/paparazzi stuff. I'm trying to imagine this scenario happening in my hometown: a young teenaged girl has been discovered to be the descendant of a royal from a small country and is indeed a princess by birthright. Of course, that would be exciting news. I can see the local news interviewing her and there being a spread about her in the paper. However, I cannot see the paparazzi giving a crap and following her around. Granted, I live in a place where there is no paparazzi, but I really can't see anyone following her around with their cameras and snapping photos because, honestly, I really don't think anybody would care that much. No offense to Genovia, I'm sure it's a lovely country, but does anyone really care about that country? Does anybody even know where it is? I just can't see Mia being followed around by the paparazzi and getting those photos published in the paper. Also, why are they taking photos of her in just a towel? Shouldn't common sense tell them that this isn't right, that they're taking photos of a nearly naked fifteen-year-old girl? And yet these photos are still being published? This smells likes a lawsuit. This makes FRONT PAGE news on the freakin' San Francisco Chronicle. You think it would be in the entertainment or lifestyle section, but no, this is front page news! Interestingly enough, the date is June 11, 2001. Hmm...something tells me in three months nobody is going to care about this anymore!

Her grandmother is disappointed with her because she embarrassed the family. Lilly is angry with her because she ditched her radio show to go to the beach party and Mia tells her she forgot to tell her she wouldn't be able to make it. Mia tells her she's decided to abstain from being a princess and this news makes Lilly sad, that even though she's angry and jealous of Mia, she wants her to be a princess because she could have the power to affect change and do something good with her new title. I have to say, Lilly is an amazing best friend. Had I been in her situation, I probably would have persuaded Mia not to take the position. I wouldn't want my best friend to move all the way to Europe! But Lilly realizes that this is an amazing opportunity for Mia and encourages her to rethink about refusing the throne.

Mia also ended up disappointing Michael, who had invited her to see his band practice and then they could get a pizza together, but it was the same day as the beach party and she ended up ditching him to be with Backstreet Boy clone Josh. I have to say that Michael is much better looking for Josh. I really never understood what Mia saw in that douche anyway. Fun fact: Michael is played by Robert Schwartzman (you might be more familiar with his brother, Jason who's been in a lot more movies). He is the son of Talia Shire, who you might remember from my Godfather review, played Connie Corleone. Which means his uncle is Francis Ford Coppola, so that's pretty impressive. To apologize to both Lilly and Michael, Mia invites them to the Genovia Independence Day Ball. Even though she's not going to be a princess, she's still expected to come.

Mia has a neighbor, who is a self-loathing soap opera writer and won an Emmy (daytime, I assume). I really have no idea why he's even in this movie because his scenes add nothing and if you took them away, you wouldn't even notice. The only mildly amusing scene with him is when he's chatting with Joe who's waiting for Clarisse who's visiting with Mia. He tells Joe that he once wrote a character who was a spy, just like him. Joe tells him he's not a spy and the neighbor tells him that that's what the character said too. Yeah, this character was completely unnecessary and didn't add anything to the story at all. I guess he does give Joe some information about which way Mia went when he's looking for her.

Queen Clarisse tells Mia that she wants to formally renounce her title at the Ball, but Mia has plans to run away to Colorado with her cat. I'm not really sure if she's really thought this entire plan out. Where is she going to stay? Or do about money? However, as she's packing the diary her grandmother gave her for her (early) 16th birthday present that was from her father, an envelope falls out and she reads a letter from her father. Reading this letter makes Mia change her mind and she decides to go to the Ball. She's already late and wearing jeans and a sweatshirt (one of the guests will question her date, "Do you think they're trying to save money on the gown?" when Mia shows up) and it's pouring and she can't get the top up on her convertible so she her to drive without it up. As she's going up that crazy steep hill (if I lived in SF, I would avoid that hill like the plague!), her car doesn't make it, but she is rescued by Joe who has been sent out to look for her. (This is when the neighbor tells him which way she went and how long ago she left.) They make it to the Ball and there's an amusing moment where Charlotte is squeezing the water from Mia's hair into a glass as they walk towards the Queen who's about to announce her granddaughter couldn't make it. Mia tells the audience that she had every intention of abdicating the crown, but had a change of heart when she realized how many people she could reach and help if she accepted her title of being a princess. She wants to be forever known as Amelia Minunet Thermopolis Renaldi, Princess of Genovia. (That's a mouthful!)

Mia changes into her princess gown and has her first dance as a princess with Michael. She also has her first real kiss with him and her foot pops to lift a lever. At first I thought she was going to turn the lawn sprinklers on, but it was the lever that turned on all the lights to the fountain so it was this perfect, you might even say, fairy tale kiss. The movie ends with Mia on her private jet (well, it was probably the Queen's private jet) on her way to live in her new palace in Genovia, writing an entry in the journal her dad gave her. So now she's officially a princess and writing in her diary, hence the title. I love that her cat is sitting on a fancy pillow and wearing a tiara. I'm sure he loved that! Michael and Lilly spent the summer in Genovia with Princess Mia, but the relationship between Mia and Michael must have fizzled out because he's not in the sequel called Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement where she is looking for a husband. Heh, Chris Pine is the one who plays her romantic interest in that movie.

If they ever write a book where Mia has a baby, they should call it Princess Diaries [insert Roman numeral here]: Mama Mia! 

All hail King Louie

Raising Life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weekly Movie #1

For my (extremely lame) New Year's resolution, I decided to see at least one movie a week in the theaters. Who knows how long this will last as none of my resolutions never do. But for now, every time I see my weekly theater movie I will post a review on it, whether it be short and sweet or long and convoluted. It might be a written or video review. So we'll start with the first one, which I saw on the first day of 2012...

New Year's Eve
Director: Garry Marshall
Cast: Everyone in Hollywood
Released: December 9, 2011
Viewed in theaters: January 1, 2012

This is the type of movie I would rent than see in the theaters, but I saw it with my friend Cameron after we had a delicious dinner of sushi and I ate some hot pepper that nearly set my mouth on fire! We saw New Year's Eve on New Year's Day, heh. This is from the same director as Valentine's Day and is the same idea as that movie and even features two actors who were in that movie (Ashton Kutcher and Jessica Biel), but it is not a sequel to that movie. I liked this movie a tad better, probably because I like the holiday better, even though I could care less about the New Year.

Basically if you've seen Valentine's Day, you know how this movie works. Just change the actors and the day. Hilary Swank is in charge of the ball dropping in Times Square, but it gets stuck and she has to call on Marshall's requisite actor Hector Elizondo to fix it. Halle Berry is a nurse caring for a dying Robert De Niro whose last wish is to see the ball drop at midnight. Michelle Pfeiffer is a dowdy woman who wants to cross everything off her resolution list she made for 2011 before midnight and gets help from Zac Efron. I seriously thought we were going to get a Mrs. Robinson romance going on there...but don't count on it. Sarah Jessica Parker has her doubts about letting her daughter, Abigail Breslin, go to Times Square by herself. We also find out that she and Zac are siblings. Zac and SJP, that is. There is no way in hell that could happen - she is old enough to be his mother! Ashton Kutcher and Lea Michele find themselves stuck in an elevator...and of course fall in love! Jessica Biel and Seth Meyers play a couple about to have a baby and they find out from another pregnant couple that the first woman to give birth in 2012 wins $25 grand. Josh Duhamel is out to meet a woman he met last New Year's Eve and there a lot of fakeouts about who it might be. I won't say who it is because I don't want to spoil it. ;-) At one point, Cameron said to me, "I bet it's Fergie!" LOL, it was not Fergie. There's some stupid storyline between Katherine Heigl and Bon Jovi (who plays a rock star!) that nobody cares about. The best thing about her storyline was Sofia Vergara who is hilarious. And looks good even when wearing a chef's coat.

I think I covered all the storylines. It's a cute movie, but forgettable. The funniest scene in the movie is John Lithgow playing Angry Birds.  I would say wait to rent it.

The Wind Beneath My Wings

Beaches
Director: Garry Marshall
Cast: Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey
Released: December 21,1988

Oscar nominations:
Best Art Direction (lost to Dangerous Liaisons)

Is Beaches a chick flick? One might say unequivocally so. Is Beaches a schmaltzy film? You could say one of the schmaltziest ever. Are there problems with the script? Most definitely yes. Did I cry my eyes out while watching it? I am not ashamed to say that yes, yes, I did. Do I know every word to Wind Beneath My Wings? Who doesn't?

In a one sentence summary, Beaches is a film about the friendship between two women that spans over thirty years. Cece Bloom and Hilary Whitney meet on the beach in Coney Island one summer as eleven year olds and strike up a lifelong friendship. The two girls couldn't be more different. Cece is from the Bronx, a rough and tumble kinda New York girl with an attitude and wants to be a STAH! She sings, tap dances, acts. Her mother is the typical stage mother and Cece calls her Leona. Leona's played by Lainie Kazan whos' probably best known for playing the mother in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but she also played Andrea's grandma in Beverly Hills, 90210. I should also note that young Cece is played by Mayim Bialik. If you don't know that name, shame on you! She only played the titular character on  Blossom that was on 8:30/7:30 central time Monday nights on NBC right after The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the early nineties. Is it weird that I can remember what was on Monday nights on NBC twenty years ago, but I couldn't tell you what's on Mondays on NBC presently? And if you still have no idea what Blossom was, maybe this will refresh your memory:

Hilary is from San Francisco and comes from a rich family. Her mom died when she was young and her extracurricular actives include horse back riding and ballet, activities that young, proper girls do.

Hilary and Cece exchange addresses and keep a correspondence, writing letters to each other often. We see them grow up and graduate college and they're still writing each other. Now this is the first problem with the script I have. There is no way that two eleven year old girls that live on opposite sides of the country are going to write each other for that long after they've just spent, what, half a day together? Maybe they would write to each for a few months after meeting, but it would eventually stop.

Fast forward to Bette Midler as older Cece who is a struggling performer and Barbara Hershey as older Hilary who is a lawyer and has decided to defy her father and move to New York to visit Cece. Apparently they never sent pictures of themselves to each other because Cece doesn't even know it's Hilary when she approaches her at a nighclub Cece sings at.

After that, the rest of the movie revolves around this cycle: they fight, they cry, they make up, they cry again. I swear, that must happen four or five times in the movie! The first time is when Cece likes a guy (Macaulay Culkin's dad from Home Alone), but he likes Hilary in return. Hilary ends up marrying a lawyer when she goes back to San Francisco for awhile (more letter writing!) to take care of her sick dad and Cece marries Mr. McCallister. By the time Hilary returns to New York with her new husband, Cece has become more famous and she and her husband are now living in a lavish penthouse. The two haven't seen each other in awhile and another fight breaks out. Hilary says it's because they've fallen apart, but Cece accuses Hilary, saying that she's broken apart. Eventually they make up down the line. (More crying! And hugging!)

I watched the commentary with Garry Marshall and he mentioned that he wanted to make this movie because most people didn't want to make a movie about the friendship between two women and how he was interested in that aspect. He then went on to say that he finds women friendships fascinating because, according to him, when men fight, they won't speak to each other for years, but when women fight, they've made up in a couple of hours and are shopping! Not only is this extremely sexist, but I find it quite untrue. I'm no expert, so I'll just pretend to be: when guys fight, they just need to hit something (like each other (see, I can be sexist too!)), but I think females hold grudges way longer than guys do. If you piss me off, I will not talk to you from anywhere as long as a week to eternity. To be fair to the movie, when Cece and Hilary had their biggest fight, they didn't talk to each other for months and Hilary ignored all of Cece's letters, so it wasn't like they were BFFs again after a couple of hours and SHOPPING! Shopping makes everything better!

Both of their marriages fall apart. Hilary catches her husband with another woman (eating breakfast) and Cece's husband feels like he comes second to her career. This bonds the two lifelong friends together again and Cece finds out that Hilary is pregnant. She is beyond ecstatic as both women have mentioned how much they would love to have kids. Hilary has a girl...who grows up to be a psychotic ballet dancer. Sorry, couldn't resist a Black Swan joke! Actually, Darren Aronofsky or whoever cast that movie is a genius because during Beaches, I was struck by how much Barbara Hershey looked like Natalie Portman, especially after she got sick. (Hmm, did I just inadvertently diss Natalie Portman?)

That's right, bring on the terminal illness that befalls one of the friends. Hilary has some heart problem and after spending the last moments of her life (minus in the hospital) with her daughter, now six or seven, and Cece on the beach, she eventually dies.

This is where I lost it. Between the montage with Bette Midler singing "Wind Beneath My Wings" Hilary's daughter, Victoria, sitting forlornly at her mom's funeral, and Victoria's tear-stained face while petting her cat for comfort, I was a sobbing mess. Sooo glad I was watching this alone!

Cece tells Victoria that her mother said she wanted her daughter to live with Cece in her will. Wait, what? What about her dad? Even Cece asks Victoria if she wants to live with her father and Victoria says she's never met him! They didn't really explain it well, but either Hilary never told her ex that she was pregnant or he knew about it and didn't want anything to do with his child. In either case, it makes one of the parents look like a jerk. So Cece adopts Victoria and that's the end. Cue "Wind Beneath My Wings" again.