How To Get Away With Murder

Reversal of Fortune

Director: Barbet Schroeder

Cast: Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, Ron Silver, Annabella Sciorra, Fisher Stevens, Christine Baranski

Released: November 9, 1990

Oscar nominations:

Best Direction - Barbet Schroeder (lost to Kevin Costner for Dances With Wolves)

Best Actor - Jeremy Irons (won)

Best Adapted Screenplay - Nicholas Kazan (lost to Michael Blake for Dances with Wolves)

While watching this movie, I found that pretending it's a sequel/spin off to The Lion King really heightens the movie experience and makes it much more enjoyable. I know what you're thinking: what does a movie based on the true story of a man accused of trying to murder his wife have to do with an animated Disney movie about safari animals? Absolutely nothing, except for the fact that Jeremy Irons is in both of them and every time he spoke, all I could hear was Scar! (Let's be honest, Jeremy Irons will always be Scar to me). It was especially prevalent when we don't see him, but can hear him in voiceover when he's about to tell a story in a flashback scene. All I could think of was that it sounded like Scar was narrating the story and that's when it hit me! What if, after Scar was eaten alive by his hyena minions (I know he killed his brother, but I always thought his death was a *tad* harsh!), he was reincarnated into a skinny Danish-born/British-raised man named Claus von Bulow? (The only thing that doesn't really work is that Claus von Bulow is a real person and obviously real people can't be reincarnated from dead animated villainous lions! That's the ONLY reason why this theory couldn't really work!) But seriously, watch this movie and pretend that Scar has been reincarnated as a human. It totally works too because Claus is a bit of a shady character, and, like I mentioned before, is accused of trying to kill his wife. If this doesn't scream Scar, I don't know what does! There's even a flashback scene where he's petting a baby tiger! And there's a scene where his lawyer tells him he's a strange man and he replies, "You have no idea." Isn't this the same reply he has to young Simba after the cub tells him, "You are so weird." Obviously this is probably a shout out to this movie. 

During the opening credits, I noticed that the movie was based on a book of the same name by Alan Dershowitz and I was thinking, Why does that name sound familiar to me? Then, a few scenes later, it is revealed that the author is in the movie and he is played by Ron Silver. There was something familiar looking about him and I knew he was supposed to be somebody famous and then it clicked. He was one of the lawyers on the OJ Simpson trial and honestly, if I hadn't watched the Ryan Murphy miniseries a couple years ago, I would not have remembered him at all.

This was a murder trial I was not familiar with. And speaking of the OJ Simpson trial, before that, THIS one was the first major criminal trial to be televised in the United States. I guess Alan Dershowitz likes the limelight.

There were two incidents that involved Claus's wife, Sunnny von Bulow (played by Glenn Close), both of which happened very close to Christmas. In 1979, she fell into a coma, but came out of it within twenty-four hours. The doctors were sure that she had suffered from hypoglycemia and told her not too eat too many sweets or go too long without eating. The same thing happened nearly a year later in 1980 and this time Claus was accused of trying to murder her. She was found unconscious in the bathroom in the morning and when taken to the hospital, they discovered she had suffered enough brain injury to keep her in a vegetative state.

Sunny's adult children from her previous marriage thought that their stepfather may have injected their mother with insulin and wanted to have him investigated. They were suspicious of him the first time Sunny fell into a coma. Sunny was an heiress with a lot (A LOT!) of money and they lived in this huge mansion in Newport, Rhode Island. The two had been having marital problems for awhile now and Claus was having an affair which he didn't even keep a secret. I'm not gonna lie; Claus von Bulow comes across as being super shady (and if you come from the school of thought where he's Scar reincarnated, then of course he has the means to kill his own wife if he's already murdered his own brother!) But, on the other hand, Sunny had her own demons and did not follow her doctor's strict orders of no alcohol or overindulging on sweets. She did not take care of herself at all and it is easy to see why she would have ended that way...of course, all the more reason for Claus to have a very good motive to try to kill her! It's understandable to see why Claus was acquitted at his second trial; there was a lot of evidence pointing to Sunny did this to herself, unintentionally. But personally? Eh, I think he probably did it. Even though the movie is based on Dershowitz's book, it doesn't paint Klaus as being innocent, it more or lets you decide if he's guilty or innocent. We're just given the facts they presented themselves in the case. I would have to do some more research on the case, but my instincts says he is guilty.

The movie starts after Sunny is in her permanent coma and we hear from her in voiceover as she explains what had happened to her the first time. The maid was concerned that Sunny had been sleeping all day (to which Claus told her she had been up all night) and insisted she was not sleeping, but rather unconscious. She pleads to Claus to call a doctor, but he only does this after he notices Sunny's not breathing right. A bag of insulin was found in his closet. Of course his lawyer is able to talk it away during the trial.

After he was tried and sentenced to thirty years, he appealed and hired Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz. In the scenes we see him in with his students (which include Annabella Sciorra and Felicity Huffman) it reminded me of the first season of How to Get Away with Murder. Felicity Huffman's character voices her concern about defending Claus since he is "obviously guilty", but Dershowitz tells her it's their job to defend him. One of his students says, "I agree von Bulow is guilty, but that's the fun; that's the challenge" to which Dershowtiz replies, "Now there is a lawyer." Claus doesn't help matters when he repeats jokes he's heard about him with the law students, asking them, "What do you get a wife who has everything? An injection of insulin."

When Sunny was found unconscious, she was facedown on the bathroom floor with her nightgown hiked up. We see scenarios from the defense team of how she could have gotten there with or without Claus's help. We first see the scenario where Claus injected her with the insulin in their bedroom, then dragged her to their bathroom, then we see the scenario where she had been drinking too much the night before and hit her head on the edge of the toilet when she got dizzy and fell while she was in the bathroom. One of the students ask how did her nightgown get hiked up (which would have been been the result of Claus sliding her across the floor if he had done it), and Dershowitz comes up with the possibility that she was about to use the toilet, but hit her head before she sat down.

The real Sunny von Bulow was in her coma for 28 years; she died at the age of 76 in December 2008. I don't know why her family kept her like that for almost thirty years; maybe they thought she would wake up and then be able to accuse Claus of killing her? I feel like after a couple of years, it might be time to pull the plug. It is a little weird to think that when this movie was released (in 1990), she had been in her coma for ten years by then...and would remain in it for another eighteen years. It is a little chilling when we hear Glenn Close's voiceover as the comatose Sunny say, "I never woke up from this coma and I never will." We see nurses in the hospital massage her fingers and give her sponge baths and roll her over so she won't get bed sores. I don't know anything about comas, but it almost seems like abuse to keep someone in one for so long.

While researching this case, (this wasn't mentioned in the movie), I discovered that the daughter Claus and Sunny had together (who was 13 when her mother was found unconscious the second time) stayed loyal to her father, while, of course, her older step siblings thought he was guilty. Awkward! I also read she was disowned by her maternal grandmother because of this, which is sad. At the time of this writing, Claus von Bulow is still alive at the age of 92. Who knows if he'll ever confess if he ever did it before his time on this earth is up.

Femme Fatale

Fatal Attraction

Director: Adrian Lyne

Cast: Michael Douglas, Glenn Close, Anne Archer

Released: September 18, 1987

Oscar nominations:

Best Picture (lost to The Last Emperor)

Best Director - Adrian Lyne (lost to Bernardo Bertolucci for The Last Emperor)

Best Actress - Glenn Close (lost to Cher for Moonstruck)

Best Supporting Actress - Anne Archer (lost to Olympia Dukakis for Moonstruck)

Best Adapted Screenplay - James Dearden (lost to Mark Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci for The Last Emperor)

Best Film Editing (lost to The Last Emperor)

There are a ton of movies out there about stalkers, but Fatal Attraction is probably the first one that comes to mind, especially when it deals with a scorned lover. I had never seen this film until now, but I was very familiar with it and knew about certain scenes (that poor bunny!), but other scenes I had no idea were coming. This movie is why it is a good idea not to cheat on your spouse/significant other! This is what could happen if you do! You might run into your very own Alex Forrest and that is a very, very bad thing.

The film makes it very clear that Alex Forrest (Glenn Close), the woman Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) has an affair with is the villain and she does some horrible, vile things and is clearly unstable and unhinged, BUT Dan is no saint himself. He has a pretty good thing going. He's a successful lawyer who lives in Manhattan with his beautiful and loving wife, Beth (Anne Archer), and as far as I can tell, there are no marital spats between them. They have a six-year-old daughter named Ellen. Not gonna lie - I thought she was a boy at first because she has very short hair and she never wears any barrettes or headbands in it and she never wears any girly outfits. I also thought they were calling her "Alan", but when they referred to their child as "her" and "she", then I realized the kid was a girl. Plus the fact that she's carrying a Cabbage Patch doll in an early scene - not that boys can't play with Cabbage Patch Dolls! She's also playing with My Little Ponies in a later scene which was my toy of choice back in the '80s, so of course I would notice them. You can definitely tell the decade of this movie just from the toys the little girl plays with! So anyway, Dan's life is pretty good, but he decides he's going to mess that all up by having an affair, because, why not?

He meets Alex at a party and he is the one to sidle up to her at the bar and initiate a conversation. She is an editor for a publishing company and they both find themselves at the same meeting the next afternoon. They end up going out for a drink afterwards when neither can hail a taxi. (This is also exactly how the affair in Unfaithful started, which is also directed by Adrian Lyne). Did I mention that Dan's wife and daughter are out of town? They're in the country looking at a house they're planning to buy. Alex asks Dan if he can be "discreet" and he says he can. She says they're both adults and they have a weekend affair. Dan makes it very clear that he is married and this is a one time thing (still doesn't make it right!) and the next morning when he returns to his apartment ( and his poor dog is waiting by the door to be let out), Alex calls him right after he's gotten off the phone with his wife and demands to know where he went. She wants him to come back over, but he says he has too much work and she tells him to come over to her place and work there (like he would get anything done!) He tells her he needs to walk his dog and she invites herself along because she "loves animals" (yeah, okay, bunny boiler!). We get a weird scene here where they're playing with the dog and Dan falls and pretends to have a heart attack and won't wake up when Alex goes over to him (which is a weird thing to do to someone who you've just met) and starts shaking him. He eventually sits up and starts laughing at the look on her face. This pisses her off, which is understandable, and she tells him that her father died of a heart attack right in front of her when she was a kid. Then she starts laughing and this time she's telling the lie and tells him her dad is alive and well. So the whole exchange was just very odd. And this is just the beginning of how unstable Alex is. In fact, that scene is nothing compared to what is to come!

Beth and Ellen were suppose to come home that afternoon, but Beth calls Dan to tell him they won't be home until the next morning, so this gives Dan a chance to spend the night with Alex again. There's a scene where Alex makes Dan spaghetti (and that boiling pot of water will come back later in the movie...believe me, I noticed it, which I'm sure was the intention for people to notice when they went back and watched it a second time). While they're eating, she asks him how long he's been married and if he has any kids and Dan answers the questions. Alex says, "Sounds good" and Dan agrees and says, "I'm lucky." Alex asks, "So what are you doing here?" which is a very valid question. If he even admits he's lucky to have the life he has, then WHY is he having this affair? He doesn't answer the question (probably because he doesn't even know why he's doing something so stupid), but when Alex tells him she'd like to see him again, he quickly tells her no, that it's not possible.

The next morning, he has to leave to get home before his wife and daughter return, but Alex begs him not to go. This is when we see just how unstable she is. She slits her wrists in an attempt to get him to stay. I had no idea this was coming, so it came as a shock to me, especially the way it is presented. She is very calm  and has her arms behind her back and when she starts kissing Dan and puts her hands on his face, we see she has slit her wrists the same time Dan does. Well, we actually see it first because he just thinks the blood smeared all over his face is water because he says, "Your hands are all wet", then freaks out when he sees her wrists are cut. Is he really that dumb he can't tell water from blood? Because I feel like I would be able to tell the difference! He helps bandage them up and makes her promise him that she'll see a doctor. That should have been his first warning bell that she was a bit unhinged and it did shake him up a little, but I still don't think he knows exactly what he's dealing with. When he returns home, he musses up the bed to look like he had slept in it.

Dan may be ready to forget about the affair and pretend it never happened, but Alex sure isn't! She keeps calling him at work, but he won't take her calls, so she starts calling him at home and always hanging up if Beth answered. There were a couple of lingering, menacing shots on the phone as it rang. Dan changes his home number, but do you think that's enough to keep the crazy away? Of course not! Alex will stop at nothing. One day after work, Dan comes home to find Alex in the living room talking to his wife. She is posing as someone who is interested in buying their apartment since they will be selling it once they move to the house in the country. Dan is giving Alex a very cold look as Beth introduces them and Alex even has the nerve to ask him, "Haven't we met somewhere before?" to which Dan tells her, no, they haven't. She insists they did meet at the party and tells him she never forgets a face. Beth doesn't know it, but she is giving away too much information to Alex, but Dan can't say anything without revealing just exactly how he knows Alex. Beth tells her the town they're moving to and gives Alex their number if she has any questions. There's a great stare down between Dan and Alex as Beth is writing down the number.

Alex announces to Dan that she is pregnant and that she plans to have the child. When Dan doesn't believe her, she tells him to call her her gynecologist which he does and it is confirmed Alex is indeed with child.

No matter what Dan does, he can't seem to escape from Alex's clutches. She pours acid on his car, ruining the engine; she makes him a tape where she just goes off on him; she spies on Dan and his happy family through the bushes at their new house. She clearly has issues! At first, it's just Dan she's going after (even though there's that scene where she pretends to be interested in the Gallagher's apartment), but then she starts going after the rest of his family...including the new family pet. This is probably the most famous scene in the film and the term "bunny boiler" was coined because of this film. I looked it up on my computer's dictionary, and, sure enough, it popped up. The definition for a bunny boiler is "a woman who acts vengefully after having been spurned by her lover." It even says the origin for this term is from the 1987 film, Fatal Attraction.

I was thinking the Gallaghers already had the rabbit when we meet them, but they don't. (Why would you have a pet rabbit in a Manhattan apartment, though, right?) It's not until after Beth and Ellen look at the house in the country when Ellen excitedly tells her dad that "there's even a place for rabbits." Even though she already has a dog, she wants a rabbit. He finally caves in and gets her one when they move to their new home. All I'm thinking is, Oh, you shouldn't have given her that rabbit. Only bad things can come from this. The family goes to the city for the weekend (and thank God they take their dog with them!) leaving the poor rabbit in its outside pen. (Although it wouldn't be safe even if it were indoors because clearly Alex breaks in). The scene is brilliantly and creepily shot. Beth comes in the house and hears something coming from the kitchen and sees a large pot boiling on the stove. This alone would set off alarm bells for me as someone was obviously in my home, plus they left the stove on which is a huge fire hazard. Despite this being the first time I've seen this movie, I was well aware of what was coming and I would bet those who first saw it thirty years ago knew what Beth was going to find under that lid. Audiences who watched this in 1987 had to know, right? Even before the shots that are interwoven with Ellen running to the rabbit cage and yelling and crying, "Whitey's gone!" (By the way, what an original name for a rabbit)! Poor Whitey. He never had a chance. I really hope they told their daughter that Whitey just "hopped away".

Understandably, Beth wants to call the police and this is when Dan has to come clean to her and tell her he knows who did this horrific act and this includes having to tell her he had an affair with the woman who came to look at their apartment that one day. Beth demands that he leave. He calls Alex to tell her that his wife knows about the affair and Alex doesn't believe him until Beth gets on the phone and tells her, "If you ever come near my family again, I'll kill you."

Alex obviously doesn't take Beth's threat seriously because she kidnaps Ellen. Now this was a scene I had no idea was coming. I soon figured out that Alex had picked up Ellen from school when Beth goes to pick her up and everybody is telling her that she already left. I think they need to have a talk with Ellen about not going anywhere with strangers! We never see how Alex obtains Ellen; I image she just told her she was a friend of her father's. She takes her to an amusement park where she buys her an ice cream cone and they ride a roller coaster and she drops her off at home, asking for a kiss on the cheek. While this is going on, Beth is frantically searching for her daughter and ends up in the hospital when she crashes her car because she isn't paying attention to the road. Eventually she forgives Dan and they reconcile.

The movie ends with Alex sneaking into their house and threatening Beth with a knife in the upstairs bathroom while Beth is getting a bath ready while Dan is downstairs. Beth is in front of the sink and has the medicine cabinet open and as soon as she shut it, I just knew that we would see Alex's reflection. The water is still running and is dripping down on the first floor, but Dan doesn't notice it. He also doesn't notice Beth's shrieks because she shrieks the same time the tea kettle starts whistling. When he hears a loud thud from the two women fighting, he runs upstairs where he attacks Alex and they have a struggle. She eventually lands in the bathtub and he holds her underwater until she stops moving. She's just laying underwater, presumably dead, while he's on the edge of the tub. And I'm thinking, Oh, God, she's going to pop up, isn't she? So I'm just clutching my blanket, trying to get ready for the jump scare (which I hate!) And sure enough she pops up out of the water with the knife ready to attack Dan, and sure enough, I shriek. Beth comes in at that moment with a gun, and as she had promised Alex during that phone call, she kills her by shooting her in the chest.

Some of you may know that this wasn't the original ending of the film. When they first screen tested the original ending, the audience wasn't happy with it so they scrapped it and went with the ending where Beth shoots and kills Alex. You can find the original ending on YouTube (just type in Fatal Attraction, alternate ending). I had heard about the original ending from podcasts before watching it and I thought it was a lot more ambiguous than it actually was. The police come to the Gallaghers' residence to inform Dan that Alex is dead and he is the number one suspect. He tells them that she was suicidal and was always threatening to kill herself, but they tell him they don't think someone would kill themselves by cutting their throat with a nine inch knife (they got a good point there...obviously they didn't know just how effing insane Alex was!) Dan's prints are all over the knife because it was the same one she used when she threatened him with it and he grabbed it from her. As the police take him into custody, he tells Beth to call his lawyer and when she's in his office looking for the number, she comes across the tape Alex made for Dan and plays it. It reveals that Alex will find a way to get back at Dan and she admits she will kill herself. So now Beth has evidence that her husband is clearly innocent. Now when I listened to a couple podcasts talking about this alternate ending, I was under the impression that we were suppose to wonder if Beth was going to exonerate her husband with this evidence. Which would be quite interesting, especially if we never saw them reconcile after the kidnapping incident. After all, he had an affair with this woman and because of that, her daughter was abducted, and, not to mention, this woman caused trauma in her daughter's life by taking away her beloved pet bunny. But I must have misunderstood these podcasts because it's very clear that Beth is upset while her husband is being taken away, crying and telling him, "I love you" and you know she is going to do everything in her power to free him. And once she has the cassette, she tells Ellen, "Come on, honey, we're going to go get Daddy", so obviously you know he's not going to prison. The alternate ending would have been MUCH more interesting if you didn't know what Beth was going to do with that cassette and if there was still tension between her and Dan. I also don't buy Alex committing suicide by slitting her own throat. I understand she did it so it would look like she was murdered, but....no. I felt like she was more the type to threaten suicide, but never actually go through with it. I don't really understand why the test audience were so upset by the original ending when Dan is going to be cleared of all charges, but I guess they thought it would be more satisfying if Beth killed Alex. I prefer the ending the way they have it now, but I could have done without the cheap jump scare.

This movie was the highest grossing film, worldwide, in 1987. And second highest grossing in the United States after Three Men and a Baby. If this film were made today, I doubt it would even crack the top twenty as it is neither a comic book movie or from a popular franchise. 

Dalmatian Plantation

101 Dalmatians (1961)

Director(s): Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton S. Luske, and Wolfgang Reitherman

Voice Talent: Rod Taylor, J. Pat O'Malley, Betty Lou Gerson, Marth Wentworth, Ben Wright, Lisa Davis

Released: January 25, 1961

101 Dalmatians (1996)

Director: Stephen Herek

Cast: Glenn Close, Jeff Daniels, Joely Richardson, Joan Plowright, Hugh Laurie, Mark Williams

Released: November 27, 1996

It seems lately that there has been an explosion of live action Disney remakes taken from their animated counterparts. There was Cinderella last year and Maleficent a couple years ago and The Jungle Book out this year and The Little Mermaid coming out soon. But 101 Dalmatians may have been the first to do it since its live action counterpart came out almost twenty years ago. I can't think of any others that were around that time. Let's get one thing straight though: the remake is really bad. Like, really, REALLY bad. There are a couple of good things (mainly Glenn Close), but for the most part it's really bad! The funny thing is, while I remembered there was a live actin remake in the '90s and Glenn Close played Cruella DeVil, I had no recollection of what happened in the movie. I'm pretty sure I saw it (whether in the theaters or on video, I couldn't tell you), but I just couldn't remember anything about it. I couldn't tell you who was in it besides Glenn Close, I couldn't remember what they kept the same or changed from the animated movies, I couldn't remember if the animals talked. It was like I had totally blocked everything about it out of my head! Or maybe I just never saw it...I really have no idea! 

It's been awhile since I've seen the original animated movie, but I still remembered quite a lot. I did have the VHS as a kid and watched it a few times. I had no idea until just recently that it was based on a book by a Dodie Smith that Walt Disney wanted to buy the rights to. (I also didn't know Mary Poppins was based on a book until I saw Saving Mr. Banks.) 

Pongo, the dalmatian patriarch is narrating the story and calls his owner, Roger, his pet. With the remake, you don't get this clever narration since the animals don't talk. (Not saying that would have made the movie any better...it may have made it a lot worse!) Pongo doesn't want Roger, an aspiring musician, to be a bachelor all his life so he decides to set him up with a fine breed of woman. There's a humorous scene where he's checking out women walking their dogs and all the women look like their canine pets. He spots Perdita, who will be the dalmatian matriarch and she is being walked by an attractive woman named Anita who is around Roger's age. Roger and Anita are played by Jeff Daniels and Joely Richardson in the '96 remake. In the original, Pongo has a red collar and Perdita has a blue one, but for some reason, they couldn't remember that in the remake and Perdita has a red collar while Pongo sometimes wears a black collar and sometimes wear a blue one. So unnecessarily confusing! 

Both dalmatians and humans meet in the park in both movies. I will say it is a little more realistic in the live action one when Anita plays fetch with Perdita rather than sit on a bench with her dog sitting next to her, which is what the animated Anita and Perdita do. The dogs take a liking to each other, as do the humans, but it is just so awkward and unrealistic in the remake. I think we can believe the animated character getting together so quickly because they're, you know ANIMATED! But '96 Roger and Anita decide they should get married since their dogs like each other and they're getting married in the next scene! It's the most ridiculous thing ever! They could have at least had a little montage of them dating and then six months later they get married. Sheesh. But one thing I do like about the '96 version is that they tell us how Anita and Cruella know each other. In the animated movie, Cruella is an "old classmate" of Anita's. Maybe a former teacher I would believe because Cruella has to be at least a decade or two older than Anita. We have no idea why these two are friends. In the movie, Cruella is a fashion designer. She's not the Devil Wears Prada, but rather the DeVil Wears Dalmatians! Anita works for her so that's how they know each other. Anita has had some inspiration from Perdita for some new outfits and Cruella sees a picture of her and asks her if her dog has short or long hair; if it's soft or coarse. In both movies she lives for fur and is very excited about the prospect of having a coat made out of dalmatian fur. To me, this is what makes Cruella DeVil the most evil of all the Disney villains. She wants to kill and skin puppies, for God's sake!

After Perdita has a litter of fifteen puppies (at first they only think it's fourteen, but manage to save the 15th), Cruella comes over to buy the puppies but is dismayed when she discovers they don't have their spots. If I were Roger and Anita, I would have told her that this batch would never get their spots. But they don't know her cruel intentions and tell her that the puppies will get their spots in a few weeks and that they need to be with their mother. They also tell her that the puppies aren't for sale when she offers them a huge sum of money which makes Cruella irate. A few weeks later she has her henchmen, Jasper and Horace, who are like the animated versions of Harry and Marv, kidnap the puppies when Roger and Anita are taking Pongo and Perdita for a walk. (I didn't quite understand why they didn't take the puppies too...wouldn't they need a walk as much as, if not more than the older dogs? But I'm not a dog owner, so what do I know?) Jasper and Horace are played by Hugh Laurie (yes, Dr. House!) and Mark Williams (best known as Mr. Weasley in the Harry Potter films) in the '96 version. This is when we find out that Cruella has kidnapped a total of 99 puppies from pet stores. Now I realize that London is a big city, but I find it hard to believe that there would be 99 dalmatian puppies at one time. I say this because I've always found the dalmatian to be a rare breed! I have no idea if it is or not, but I've only seen one dalmatian in real life in my entire life, so to me they're rare! But maybe they're not that rare.

Jasper and Horace lock Nanny (played by Joan Plowright in the remake) in the closet as they take the the puppies. It's a little Fargo-esque in the live action one and seems a bit rough for a movie with a G-rating! This is around the point in that version where the movie really goes downhill (not that it was that great, but wow, it gets really bad starting here!), so I'll talk mostly about the '61 version for now.

When they discover their puppies are missing, Pongo and Perdita send out the "Twilight Bark" which is a way to signal all the other dogs in the city. I guess it's like morse code. This is kind of a funny scene because you hear a bunch of dogs barking and howling and we see an overview of London and hear a human voice shout, "Shuddup, would ya?" The message is relayed to a barn with a sheepdog named Colonel, a horse named Captain, and a cat named Sergeant Tibbs. Colonel mistakenly hears the message as "fifteen spotted puddles are missing", ha! Sergeant Tibbs is the one who rescues the puppies and gets them out of Hell Hall, the name of the DeVil place where they're being held. Jasper and Horace are in the same room, but are distracted by a TV program. How you can't hear 99 puppies leaving one room is an incredible feat!

After Tibbs pushes Rolly, the adorable pudgy dalmatian who's always hungry through the small hole, Jasper and Horace notice all the dogs are gone and know that Cruella will have THEIR hide if they don't find them. By this time Pongo and Perdita have caught up with them and take them to a barn where the cows give all the puppies milk. No surprise to see Rolly is happy about that! They get a good night's sleep in the hay and the next day, after getting help from a labrador and seeing one of his pups gets dirty from soot, Pongo gets the idea for all of them to roll in the soot so they look like labradors. Cruella and her minions are in the same area driving around because they've spotted dog prints. Cruella is suspicious when she sees a  bunch of labrador puppies walking towards a truck and getting on the back of it. When water starts dripping on them and revealing their spots she gets in her fancy-pants car and chases the truck only to get in a horrific car wreck with Jasper and Horace and their truck. I couldn't remember if she died or not, but she is fine. She doesn't even go to jail from what we see.

The reason the live action movie gets really bad at this point is because literally nothing happens and it's so boring! Well, things happen, but very stupid things. It's like an animal-esque Home Alone where animals try to stop Horace and Jasper with stupid hi jinx. A squirrel crosses the wires in their car so that it will start on fire! A woodpecker keeps knocking on the door only to confuse them when they open it to find nobody there! A raccoon puts a rock in the exhaust pipe of their car! A dalmatian puppy pees on a magazine with Cruella on the cover! It's all just very stupid. And it gets really boring fast since the only humans are Jasper and Horace and you're just watching a bunch of animals. Sure, the puppies are cute but watching a bunch of puppies isn't very exciting. At least in the animated version they have personalities and can talk! I got so bored during this time that I started playing with my phone. It felt like it was twenty minutes before we see Cruella again. Glenn Close obviously did her homework because she has the great maniacal laugh; the cool, stiff Cruella posture with the back arched when she laughs; she has her mannerisms down, she calls everyone "You fools, you idiots!" You could tell she was getting into the character and was having fun with it. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical Comedy (she lost to MADONNA for Evita?? Are you kidding me? Granted, I have never seen Evita but I know that Glenn Close is a better actress than freakin' Madonna! Now if she had lost to Frances McDormand for Fargo, THAT I would understand!) The movie sucks, but Glenn Close as Cruella DeVil is great and I can see why she was nominated for a Golden Globe.

Cruella gets apprehended by the police (after falling into a vat of molasses...which did not happen in the animated movie) along with Jasper, Horace, and Mr. Skinner who she has hired to skin the puppies. (Haha, get it, he skins animals and his name is Mr. Skinner? Yeah...) I did laugh when she tells them that they won the gold, silver, and bronze in the awards for biggest idiots and Horace asks, "Which one of us won the gold?" and she just goes off on them. That was pretty funny. She does go to jail and all the puppies are okay (as they are in the animated version, but we all knew that).

99 puppies = 99 problems!

In both movies, Roger and Anita take all the puppies in because apparently nobody is claiming any of the other 84 puppies. With Pongo and Perdita, they have 101 dalmatians! They decide to move to a bigger place so they have enough room. Roger tells Anita that they'll have a Dalmatian Plantation! Don't get me wrong, puppies are very cute, but I would NOT want 99 puppies. God no! That seems like a nightmare! I don't think I'd even want fifteen! In the '61 version, they are able to buy their Dalmatian Plantation with the money Roger made from his hit song about Cruella DeVil and in the '96 version Roger is a video game designer and used Cruella as his villain and it made lots of money for them to buy a huge mansion in the country.

101 Dalmatians was the highest-grossing movie of 1961!

Executive Decision

Air Force One
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
Cast: Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, Glenn Close, Wendy Crewson, William H. Macy, Dean Stockwell, Paul Guilfoyle, Xander Berkeley
Released: July 25, 1997

Oscar nominations:
Best Editing (lost to Titanic)
Best Sound (lost to Titanic)

Spoilers for a 16 year old movie!

While I was watching this movie (my third time), I kept wondering, What if Bill, Hilary, and Chelsea (who were the First Family when this was released) were in this situation? What if it were old Dubya, Laura, and their twin girls? What it if were Obama up there with Michelle and their daughters? And in every scenario, EVERYBODY DIES.

All-American President

Harrison Ford plays President James Marshall, the most kick-ass POTUS of all time! He's a veteran of the Vietnam War, a recipient of the Medal of Honor, a retired military aviator, a black belt in karate, a member of MENSA, and a Noble Peace Prize winner. (Okay, I may have embellished some of those!) Seriously, if something like this had happened to a POTUS like the one Michael Douglas plays in The American President (or a real life President like I mentioned before), it's safe to say everyone would be screwed and nobody would make it out of this situation alive. President Marshall has just given a speech in Russia and is headed back to Washington on Air Force One along with staff and his wife and 12 year old daughter. Also included on this flight is one mole and a group of Russian reporters who have been given permission to ride in the plane and interview the President. What nobody knows until it's too late is that the real Russian reporters were killed by a terrorist group led by a man named Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman) and their name badges and identities were stolen.

The mole is played by Xander Berkeley, one of many character actors in this movie. You think he is part of the Secret Service, but once he kills other members of the Service and tosses guns out to the terrorists, you know he is a mole! And just think, a few short years later, the same actor would go on to play George Mason in 24, a man who would sacrifice his life for the United States. I guess he was making up for this movie! Hey....wasn't Air Force One exploding and killing the POTUS on an episode in 24? There have been so many presidential deaths on that show I can't keep them all straight!

Once Secret Service hears bullets flying everywhere in the plane, they take the POTUS and hustle him down to a pod and launch him out of the plane so he will be safe and will easily be found with a tracking device. Apparently such a pod does not exist on Air Force One, but that would be awesome if it really did. Meanwhile, the other hostages on the plane have been ushered into a guarded conference room. In a creepy almost kind of foreshadowing to 9/11, the terrorists break into the cockpit and kill the pilots and divert the plane to head to their destination, which is Kazakhstan.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the VP (Glenn Close) is alerted of the situation as well as the U.S. Defense Secretary played by yet another character actor, Dean Stockwell (Al from Quantum Leap!) Korshunov contacts them and tells them he wants the release of a dictator he supports who had just been sentenced to prison. He tells them they will execute a passenger every half hour until he is released. And he is true to his word. Nobody in Washington has no idea if the POTUS is still alive or not and don't want to make any deals if they don't know for sure about the President's safety. The pod is found, but it is empty! Marshall stayed on board in the cargo area because there was no way he was going to leave his family and members of his Cabinet and his advisors up in the air with terrorists! This President doesn't run from anybody or anything!

Marshall calls the operator in D.C. and there's a bit of a comic relief moment when he tells her he's the President and wants to be connected to the White House and she tells him that the President never calls this line and scoffs at his acclaim of being the president. Once she hears gunfire, she puts him through right away and he alerts the VP and everyone else of the situation.

Korshunov takes the First Lady and First Daughter to a private section of the plane to keep an eye on them. Marshall shoots the terrorists who are guarding the conference room and sneaks everybody down to the back of the plane where everyone is fitted into parachutes and the hatch is open to let them escape that way. Soon just a few people are left on the plane including the terrorists, the First Family, a few other passengers, and the (undetected) mole. When Korshunov threatens to kill the First Lady, Marshall gives the VP the go ahead to release the dictator. Now it's been quite a few years since I last saw this movie, but I could have sworn that the Fist Lady was killed in this movie. I remember the other woman, the Deputy Press Secretary, was killed, but for some reason, I also remember the First Lady being murdered. Maybe I am thinking of another movie. After the prisoner is released, Marshall and Korshunov get into a physical altercation and it ends with the President snapping the terrorists' neck and before kicking him out of the plane (the hatch was open at the point) tells him, "Get off of my plane!" Once they don't have to worry about Korshunov anymore, Marshall races back to call off the release of the prisoner and he is shot right before he gets to his freedom.

Even though all the terrorists are incapacitated (or so they think! The mole is still among them!), the airliner is not going to be able to land due to outside damage from other terrorists (I'm telling you, this movie is non-stop action!), so outside help from the Air Force is needed. We next proceed to the most ridiculous scene in the entire movie: a huge military plane is flying in front of them and some guy (sorry, I don't know the correct jargon for any of this!) hooks up a zip line from that plane to Air Force One. The mole is the one who's standing by the door of AFO and he's supposed to let the guy in and you think he might cut the line or something, but he doesn't. A few more guys come from the other plane to help assist the others off the plane. They clip the First Daughter, then the First Lady to the zip line and they make it to the other plane. They next want Marshall, but he insists that his wounded Chief of Staff (played by C.S.I.'s Paul Guilfoyle - another character actor!) go before him. Soon the only people left on the plane are Marshall, the mole, and Marshall's Air Force advisor (played by yet another character actor, William H. Macy). Air Force One is about to crash and they only have time to get one more person to safety. Macy tells the President to go and this is the time where Berekeley reveals himself as the mole when he kills Macy. Marshall finds himself in (yet another) physical altercation and the zip line breaks at the last minute as he manages to clip onto it so he's dangling from the other plane as the men pull him up and tell Washington that the President is safe. Of course at the last minute he escapes from Air Force One, it crashes into the ocean and thus the new plane Marshall is on is dubbed Air Force One.

Now can you see why I think if this scenario happened with a real President's family everybody would die? Yep. A fun and thrilling movie nonetheless.