How I Met Your Mother

Defintely, Maybe

Director: Adam Brooks

Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Abigail Breslin, Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz, Isla Fisher, Derek Luke, Kevin Kline

Released: February 14, 2008

Viewed in theaters: March 13, 2008

This is a cute movie about a father (Will, played by Ryan Reynolds) telling his daughter (Maya, played by Abigail Breslin) the story of how he met her mother who we also learn will soon be his ex-wife. It kind of plays in the same way as The Princess Bride where a young kid is being told a bedtime story and we see the story being told as well as flashbacks to the present moment so we can get commentary from the person hearing the story. Of course, the only difference is that this is a true story being told! Maya tells her dad that she wants the real story of how he met her mother and not just the basic "we met, we fell in love and got married and had you". He agrees to tell her, but is going to change the names so Maya has to guess who her mother is in the story. There are three women who are candidates to be her mother: a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead. While Will tells her the story, Maya keeps track of the women and crosses a name off once it is apparent that she cannot be her mother.

Now it's been ten years since I've seen this movie so I didn't remember who the mother was, but I did make my predictions after we met all the women and I was right. (Don't worry, I'll give you a warning before I spoil the movie). Now it could be I did subconsciously remember who she was, but it's not brain surgery to figure it out...they don't make it into a big complicated mystery. I correctly guessed who Maya's mother was and I correctly guessed who Will was really meant to be with, but that left one woman remaining and I couldn't remember what her storyline was.

Will starts his story in 1992 when he was a college student (and they make Reynolds and the other cast members look younger by giving them different hairstyles) and had a serious college girlfriend, Emily (Elizabeth Banks). They both live in Wisconsin, but he moves to New York for two months to work on the Clinton campaign because of his passion for politics. They both try to make the long-distance relationship work, but it isn't easy. However, despite the difficulties he decides to propose to Emily when she comes to visit him only to find out that she slept with his roommate back in Wisconsin. She tells him that she doesn't want to hold him back and that they don't share the same future. Maya crosses Emily's name off the list. But will Emily come back into the story in the future?

Another candidate for Maya's mom is April (Isla Fisher) who works the copy machine for the campaign. Will thinks he's met someone who is a Clinton supporter but we quickly learn that she doesn't care about politics and doesn't identify as a Democrat or Republican and is just doing the gig for the money. They run into each other later where Will finds out it's April's birthday and she was supposed to be with her boyfriend, but he ditched her. He takes her to a party she was invited to as a friendly gesture. This is the day before he proposes to Emily and April wants to know how he's going to propose so they role play. She is very touched by his genuine words and realizes how lucky Emily is. Her response after he fake proposes to her is, "Defintely Maybe! I have to think about it." So there's where we get the title. I'm not too crazy about the title; it isn't one that really sticks with you. How I Met Your Mother would have been a better title, but I think that one was taken at the time! (In fact, I wondered if the TV series inspired the plot for this movie which is a lot less convoluted than the TV show).

They go back to April's apartment which doesn't seem like such a good idea since they both have significant others and April even comments how it's nice that they don't have to worry about flirting and being attracted to each other since they are both already in relationships, but then they start making out because they ARE attracted to each other. However they quickly realize what they're doing is wrong and Will leaves quickly. In a later scene, they both decide that even if they were both single, they would never work out and are much better off as friends.

The final candidate for Maya's mother is Summer (Rachel Weisz) who is an old friend of Emily's (who Will has never met) and Emily wants Will to deliver her a package (which we later find out is a diary detailing a brief fling the two women had together). Summer is a journalist who is dating an older man, a well-regarded writer, Hampton Roth (Kevin Kline). She kisses Will the first time they meet which I thought came off a little too strongly and says she only did it because she was "curious".

Two years past and we learn that April is traveling around the world, something she's always wanted to do and she and Will keep a strong friendship as she sends many postcards to him. Will attends a reading from Hampton Roth and runs into Summer. Interestingly enough she is wearing glasses and in an earlier scene Will tells his friends he is attracted to brunettes with glasses (although his first serious girlfriend was a blonde). By this time Will is now running another campaign (for the governor of New York) and Summer writes an article about the candidate which everybody loves. There is a strong attraction between Will and Summer and out of the three possible women who could be Maya's mother, she is the one who is the most aggressive with Will...even before they start dating, even more so than his ex-girlfriend! We get a montage of them being lovey-dovey and starting to date, although I don't think she every broke up with Hampton, though something tells me they weren't mutual.

Will plans to propose to Summer but those plans are dashed when she tells him she was asked to write a follow-up piece on the man running for governor and it turns out he did a political favor for a friend in jail, allowing him to have early parole. Having this published will no doubt ruin his chances to win and Will tells her that he doesn't care if the story is leaked, but he doesn't want Summer to leak the story. He knows it won't look good if the speechwriter's girlfriend brings down the candidate. She tells him that she already sent in the article and they break up. Maya crosses her name off the list. This should leave April as the obvious choice. We see her return to New York and reunite with Will and it's obvious she has feelings for him, but this is right before he plans to ask Summer to marry him. When April finds out he is planning to ask Summer to marry him, she is shocked and angry because Will never told her this and she just thought they were dating and didn't realize how serious it was, but tells him she is happy for him.

A few more years pass and it is 1997. By this time we should be figuring out who the mother is pretty soon. Maya is 10-years-old (according to Wikipedia) and it is "current day" 2008, thus making her born in 1998. He hasn't talked to April in all those years, but they reconnect and she tells him she's dating a guy named Kevin. Will confesses that he's in love with her and she asks him why he never told her and he tells her that she would never be interested in him. Rightly, this makes April angry because it's been pretty obvious she has feelings for him (even Maya knows it!) but he was too oblivious to see it. She tells him she doesn't want him professing his love for her when he's a mess and he further angers her by insulting her for working at a bookstore and tells her she needs "life rehab". Ouch. April pulls a Clint Eastwood from Gran Torino and tells him, "Get off my front porch" before walking inside. Needless to say, things don't end well for them and Maya crosses her name off the list. So now all three women's names have been crossed off...so who is the mother? Though I know because I predicted it several scenes ago.

Okay, even though you may have already figured out who the mother is, I'm going to go ahead and post my SPOILER WARNING for the rest of this review! Read at your own risk!

Will runs into a very pregnant Summer and Maya is horrified that she is the baby and that Will isn't even her father...which doesn't make any sense because if she WAS that baby, then Will wouldn't even be her father, thus wouldn't be in her life. Oh, wait. Unless she thinks Will and Summer still got married (obviously it didn't work out with the father of Summer's baby) and Will isn't her biological father. I guess that makes more sense. She decides she does not want Summer to be the mother. She tells her dad if she does turn out to be the mother, she's moving away to Canada and she's not kidding! (Spoiler alert: Summer is NOT the mother so Will doesn't have to worry about a runaway daughter!) Out of the three women they make Summer the least likable so right away I knew she wasn't going to make the cut. Emily and April aren't without their faults (the former cheated on him and the latter smoked), but they do have redeeming qualities.

There is a huge plot point from the April storyline that comes into play around this time. At her apartment before they start making out, she tells Will why she has so many copies of Jane Eyre and tells him a touching but depressing story of how she wanted a pair of earrings for her 13th birthday but received a copy of the novel with an inscription her dad wrote inside. She lost or misplaced the book and desperately wanted it back when her father died three weeks later in a car accident and has ever since been collecting copies of Jane Eyre with inscriptions inside of them while looking for her copy. This is why she eventually gets a job at a bookstore. This plot reminded me of Serendipity where John Cusack is looking for the book Kate Beckinsale wrote her name and number in and sold to a random bookshop. Well, guess what? Will is looking for the book, knowing how much he messed up with April and wants to make it up to her. He eventually does stumble across it and there is a very touching inscription written to "My darling daughter April" from her father. Will goes to give it to April. She isn't home, but her boyfriend Kevin, who she's been with for a while now, is. Will takes the book and leaves. Why he didn't leave it there, I don't understand. I'm sure April would have been thrilled and would have called him. But it just isn't meant to be.

In the present day of the story being told, Maya gets upset when her dad reassures her there is a happy ending to the story and she doesn't understand how that can be when he's getting divorced from her mom. Too upset to go on listening to the story, she falls asleep and they continue the story the next morning when they go out for breakfast. It turns out Will attended a party hosted by Summer and guess who is there? Emily! She moved to New York after getting a job. And she and Will start a new romance and get married, thus making Emily the mother. The very first woman we meet is the mother; how do you like that? We get a cute scene where her mother is walking towards them and Maya hugs her and says, "I'm so glad it's you!" and her mom replies with, "Who else would it be?" Will tells his daughter the story has a happy ending because of her. Awwwww.

We find out Emily's actual name is Sara and when I went back to re-watch some of the scenes on Netflix, I paused on the journal entry they show Summer paging through when Will gives it to her. I noticed one of the sentences written is "School started, saw Sara. She is so cool". (This is supposed to be written by some great writer?) Anyway, I thought it was clever that they used the character's REAL name in the journal entry because it goes by in such a flash the only way you can catch it is if you pause the screen. But then I read the rest of the entry and the name Emily is used. Yes, it's true when Will's friend (Derek Luke) is reading the entry to him he uses the name "Emily" but that's because how it's being told in the story. They should have stuck with writing "Sara" for the journal entry. It would have been a fun Easter egg. And even if you do catch it while watching the movie, it's not going to spoil anything because you don't know the mother's real name is Sara. (And by the way, I appreciate that they spelled it correctly, haha, or at least the not so common way!)

So now that we know Emily, excuse me, Sara, is the mother, Will decides it's time to make amends with April, the woman who probably would have been Maya's mother if things had worked out between them. They just never seemed to get the timing right: he was always with someone else or she was with someone else and oh, the fact that he majorly insulted her. We also find out that Will never changed April's name in the story (Summer's real name was Natasha).

Will stops by April's work to give her the book and she is delighted, but when he tells her he's had it for "years" (10 to be precise!) she is not happy and asks him to leave. Maybe he shouldn't have told her that, but I guess you don't want to start a relationship off with a big lie. But don't worry, later that night he and Maya go to April's apartment to apologize and at the last second April forgives him and we know a romance will soon start between them.

So everyone in this movie gets a happy ending except for Summer/Natasha. Will has an adorable daughter and ends up with the love of his life. Maya has a loving mother and father and will soon have a cool stepmom. Emily/Sara has an adorable daughter. April gets her guy and will soon have an adorable stepdaughter. And Summer gets...nothing. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Tale as Old as Time

Beauty and the Beast

Director: Bill Condon

Cast: Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Kevin Kline, Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellan, Emma Thompson, Josh Gad, Audra McDonald, Stanley Tucci

Released: March 17, 2017

Viewed in theaters: March 21, 2017

After I saw this movie, I tweeted, "I saw a movie where Emma Watson plays a character who loves to read and spends most of her time in a castle surrounded by enchanted objects." I'm sure I'm not the only one to notice those Harry Potter parallels! Beauty and the Beast is the latest of a slew of animated movies to be turned into live action films. And so far, I believe it to be the best. Now I may be biased because Beauty and the Beast, the one that came out in 1991 and is the ONLY animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture before there was an Best Animated Movie category and before they allowed up to ten slots for Best Movie, is my favorite animated Disney movie. I have also seen it twice in the past six years while it's been over a decade since I last saw Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and God knows when was the last time I saw The Jungle Book. I've seen all of their remakes and Beauty and the Beast is my favorite.

Let's be clear here: as much as I enjoyed this live action remake of the 1991 classic, the animated film is still so much superior and remains the better of the two. I've heard people say that this movie is an exact replica of the animated movie which is true...but also not. First of all this movie is longer by about 40 minutes, so obviously it has extra scenes. There's some backstory with Belle's mom (she's not present because she died from some disease) and we do get a few more scenes with Belle and the Beast (just like with the animated movie, I don't think we ever learn what his name is, ever!). Another reason for the added length is the number of songs. They keep all of the songs from the original (which won the Oscar for Best Score and Best Song for the title song), so yay! Believe me, I was biting my lip from singing because I wanted to sing along so bad! I grew up with all these songs; I have the soundtrack and I remember my friend's mom would play it her car when she would drive us somewhere. You better believe I know all the words to "Belle" ("Little town, it's a quiet village; everyday like the one before; little town, full of little people; waking up to say...."); I know all the words to "Gaston" ("No one's slick as Gaston, no one's quick as Gaston, no one's neck's as incredibly thick as Gaston's"); I definitely know all the words to "Be Our Guest" ("Be our guest, be our guest, put our service to the test. Tie your napkin round your neck, cherie, and we'll provide the rest!"); I know all the words to "Something There" ("New and a bit alarming! Who'd have ever thought that this could be? True, that he's no Prince Charming, but there's something in him that I simply didn't see"); and, of course, I know all the words to "Beauty and the Beast" ("Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, barely even friends, then somebody bends, unexpectedly)." My favorite number was Belle...even though it did sound like Hermione was singing to me! During the reprise of that song, I did love when Belle tied a handkerchief around her head while singing "his little wife", which is what she did in the movie. And, also, just like in the movie, she ran out into an open field ala Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. It was much more awe-inspiring in the animated movie because in this one you could clearly tell it was a green screen. I did laugh a lot during the "Gaston" number when Le Fou is spelling Gaston's name and sings, "GAST...T...it just occurred to me that I'm illiterate and have never had to spell his name!"

However, those familiar tunes aren't the only songs in the movie. There are quite a handful of other songs. They're okay, but not very memorable. I couldn't sing you anything from them, but that might be unfair since I've known the original songs for the last 25 years. I had just assumed the songs I didn't know were from the Broadway play, but they're not. They were specifically written for the movie. Celine Dion sings one of them (called "How Does a Moment Last Forever") at the end credits which is a nice throwback since she sang the pop version of the title song. This time they have two current pop singers in Ariana Grande and John Legend who sing the pop version of the song. I think they're both talented (well, I might be a little too kind to Ms. Grande as I've only liked one of her songs), but I am not feeling their version of that song at all. Honestly, I don't even know why they even recorded a new pop version of the song. The reason they did it for the animated movie with Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson was to put it on the radio and I remember hearing that song quite a few times on the radio back then. Has anyone heard the Grande/Legend version on the radio? Has it even had any air play? It's not even the first song you hear during the ending credits! I've only heard it on Spotify. Of course, if they DIDN'T have a new pop version of the song, then I'm sure I would be complaining about that, so I should just shut up!

The characters are all the same characters from the original that we all love (or love to hate!) You have Emma Watson as the beautiful and bookish Belle who lives with her father, Maurice (Kevin Kline). Gaston (Luke Evans) is the arrogant and egotistical hunter who wants to marry her because she's the most beautiful girl in town (and that makes her the best! And doesn't he deserve the best?) and Le Fou (Josh Gad) is his goofy sidekick. There's a funny scene where we see Gaston saying, "You are the most gorgeous thing" and the camera pans back to reveal he's looking in a mirror. Even Philippe the horse is in the movie!

Of course, those were all the human characters; it was the inanimate animated objects that I was more concerned about. For the most part, I think they did a pretty good job bringing these everyday household objects to life. I loved the way they did Cogsworth (Ian McKellen), but I was SO DISAPPOINTED he didn't make his joke about, "Like I say, if it isn't Baroque, don't fix it!" Boo, movie! Boo for not having that awesome line! Chip was so cute and I loved he did his blowing a bubble trick for Belle. It's hard to imagine anybody other than Angela Lansbury voicing the teapot, Mrs. Potts, but Emma Thompson in this movie is a very good actress to get. There's a scene in the movie when Mrs. Potts get offended when Le Fou calls her the little tea cup's grandmother (which was not in the animated movie) and they do make a good point about how weird it was that Chip was Mrs. Potts' son rather than her grandson. When you see her in the animated movie as a human, she's this gray-haired granny type and Chip is this little five year old boy! They should have just made her his grandmother. Audra McDonald voices the wardrobe and we see her at the beginning of the movie before she changes into her inanimate object as someone who ofter sang and entertained at the Prince's fancy parties. Her husband is the maestro (played by Stanley Tucci) and he is turned into a piano, a character who wasn't in the 1991 film. Lumiere is my favorite character in the animated movie, but something about him in this movie didn't work for me. Ewan McGregor voices him and he's fine, though I don't understand why they just didn't get a French actor to voice him (though, to be fair, Jerry Orbach wasn't French either). It's very interesting that there's only one character with a French accent when the story is set in France! Ewan McGregor does fine on the singing too, but listen to this movie's version of Be Our Guest and the original and you will hear that he sings it a bit differently than Jerry Orbach did. Just listen to the way they both sing, "Try the gray stuff, it's delicious! Don't believe me? Ask the dishes!" But it's not Lumiere's talking or singing voice that I find offputting; it's the way he was designed. I absolutely hate the way he was designed! Now Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts aren't exactly designed the exact same way as they are in the animated movie, but you at least you know it's a clock and a teapot. In the animated movie, Mrs. Pott's mouth is right under the spout so it looks like the spout is her nose. In this movie, her face is painted on the side of the teapot. Lumiere has two designs: the one when he's an actual candelabra (and an actual prop so the actors could carry it around) and one when he's the CGI moving character. And I wouldn't mind that at all except for that fact when he's a talking object, he doesn't even look like a candlestick! He's this weird doll-sized brass man who has candlesticks right above his hands and his head! He doesn't look like a damn candelabra! It drives me absolutely crazy! I suppose they did it this way because it was easier, but ugh!

They must have been worried that Gaston wasn't unlikeable enough because they created a new storyline where, after Maurice has told the townspeople about the Beast and Gaston has asked him to take him to the castle where Bell is trapped, he punches him in the face once it's clear that Maurice can't find the castle, then ties him up to a tree and leaves him to the wolves. Another added storyline is that the Beast has this magical book, where, if you close your eyes and touch the page, you can wish to be anywhere you want to be and he and Belle go to Paris, the place of her childhood. We also get more information about the Beast's background in that he used to be a very sweet young boy up until his mother died, then his awful father groomed him to be a jerk just like him. In the opening scene of the movie, he is having a fancy party with all his fancy friends and turns away an old, haggard woman who is seeking shelter from a storm. She reveals herself to be this beautiful enchantress (personally she freaked me out...I thought she looked like Cate Blanchett as Galadriel when she becomes possessed for that split second in Lord of the Rings) and warned the Beast not to let looks be deceiving and thus cast that spell on him (and the other people in the castle).

Yule Ball!

Just like in the animated movie, Belle discovers the enchanted rose that is keeping the spell over the Beast and the other people in the castle who have turned into objects. The Beast yells at her and she runs away and is almost killed by the pack of wolves in the woods. The Beast saves her, but is attacked by the wolves and she nurses him back to health. She is tempted to get back on her horse and escape and she easily could, but she knows he needs her help. After that, they learn more things about each other, such as their love for books and this is when the Beast shows her his library stock full of books because he thinks she should read something better than Romeo and Juliet, her favorite book. Not gonna lie: the library in the 1991 movie was much more impressive; though I guess it is way easier to draw an amazing library than to build one! Same goes for the ballroom. Yes, the ballroom for the dance scene is beautiful with its marble floors and many chandleries, but it doesn't hold a candle to the grand ballroom in the animated movie. That scene remains one of my favorite all time scenes in any animated movie, ever. They should have just cut to the animated version during the dance scene, then cut back when it was over. Because that wouldn't have been odd at all!

The Beast lets Belle see her father in the magic mirror he has and he lets her go when she sees that he has been locked up. He apologizes to the objects, but they understood he let her go because he loved her. It's a little different in this movie, because, and correct me if I'm wrong, in the 1991 movie, if the spell wasn't broken, then everyone would remain the household object they were, but they would still be able to talk (and dance and sing); they would just never be human again. In this movie, the Beast would die and all the objects would turn into literal inanimate objects: no more talking or singing or dancing for them. Belle learns her father has been locked up for his talk about a Beast and talking teacups and a castle full of magic. (This place is a little crazy if you think about it; even Hogwarts didn't have talking teacups!) Belle defends her father and says that there IS a Beast and this makes Gaston and the others want to kill him and they lock up Belle with her father when she tries to stop them. Of course, she ends up getting them out and goes to stop the Beast from being killed. All the townspeople are in the castle, fighting with the objects. There was a scary moment where Mrs. Potts falls and you think she's going to smash to the floor, but she is caught by Le Fou who has decided to join their side because Gaston, he's learned, is not a very nice person. Belle is too late, though, as Gaston has shot him and she tearfully says "Come back, I love you!" to the dying creature. The last petal on the rose has fallen and all the objects are no longer alive. However, the possessed Galadriel-like enchantress has come to the castle and has witnessed Belle admitting her love for the Beast, so she lifts the spell and the Beast comes alive and becomes a human and all the inanimate objects return to their human forms. Whew! The townspeople are still on the castle ground and we find out that Mrs. Pott's husband and Cogsworth's wife were among them, so that was a bit of a new twist. The movie ends with Belle and the Beast dancing to Audra McDonald as the opera singer singing "Beauty and the Beast" and I'm thinking, "Ooh, I bet Mrs. Potts is mad that she's singing HER song!", but then she sings the next verse. I absolutely loved the dress Belle was wearing in this scene.

So this movie gets point knocked off for 1)Too many songs I didn't care about, 2)Weird Lumiere design, 3)No "If it isn't Baroque, then don't fix it!" line. Other than that, I give it high marks. 

A Case of Mistaken Identity

Dave
Director: Ivan Reitman
Cast: Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Frank Langella, Ben Kingsley, Ving Rhames, Charles Grodin
Released: May 7, 1993

Oscar nominations:
Best Original Screenplay - Gary Ross (lost to Jane Campion for The Piano)

When Bill Mitchell, the President of the United States (played by Kevin Kline), suffers a stroke while having an affair with one of his interns, a normal guy named Dave Kovic (also played by Kline) is called in to "pose" as Mitchell as he could be his twin. It's the idea of the Chief of Staff, Bob Alexander, (Langella) because his plan is to feed Dave everything he wants Dave to do as POTUS, but Bob is the one making all the calls.

It turns out that Dave looks so much like the President, he has everyone fooled, including the First Lady (Weaver). The President and First Lady have been having marital problems lately and haven't been spending much time together except for press conferences, but she knows something is amiss when her husband all of a sudden starts caring about things and wanting to help people because the real President was known for being kind of a prick.

There are lots of cameos in this film, most of them being politicians who I didn't know at the time and didn't know now. One of the cameos I did know but shouldn't have was John McLaughlin of The McLaughlin Group. If you're under fifty, you probably have no idea what The McLaughlin Group is. It's a boring show that was on Friday nights on PBS and it had the host, who was, like, 100 years old and other old geezers on it talking about really boring political issues. I only know this show because my brother (who was high school aged around the time) wanted to watch it because he was into politics. I always wanted to watch my TGIF shows like Boy Meets World or Step by Step, but noooooo! We had to watch the stupid McLaughlin Group! Ugh!

There's a funny cameo with Oliver Stone being interviewed by Larry King because he thinks there's a conspiracy behind President acting differently all of a sudden. If I hadn't seen JFK recently, I probably wouldn't have gotten the joke. Arnold Schwarzenegger even has a cameo and this was way before he became the Govenator.

Fun movie, but not believable in the least.