This is Them

A Walk to Remember

Director: Adam Shankman

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

Released: January 25, 2002

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

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

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

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

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

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

And now I'm ready to
be extrodianary.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Dive to Remember

47 Meters Down

Director: Johannes Roberts

Cast: Mandy Moore, Claire Holt, Matthew Modine

Released: June 16, 2017

Let's play a quick game of Would You Rather? Would you rather be Blake Lively in The Shallows or would you rather be Mandy Moore in this movie? Obviously, any rational human being would choose to be neither as both young women are attacked by huge great white sharks, but that's not a choice! You have to choose one or the others, that's how the game works! I would, one hundred percent, rather be in Blake Lively's scenario. True, she has a nasty fight with a huge shark, but at least she is above water at all times. If memory serves right, she gets attacked by a shark while surfing, then swims to an island and has to make it back to the shore while going from a big rock to a buoy in the process. True, she is by herself while at least Mandy Moore is with her sister, but they have the added disadvantage of worrying about running out of air. I feel like most people would rather be in the Blake Lively situation from The Shallows for that reason, but if you disagree with me, let me know!

The movie begins with older sister Lisa (Mandy Moore) and younger sister Kate (Claire Holt) on vacation in Mexico. Lisa was supposed to go with her boyfriend, but she later reveals to her sister that he left her because she was too boring. Nice guy. They meet two local guys who tell them about a boat that will take them out and they can get into cages to watch sharks. Seriously, who the f**k would want to do that? Lisa isn't too crazy about the idea, but Kate tells her it will prove to her ex that she isn't boring and it will show him. Are they thinking this will make him come running back to Mandy Moore? Why does she want to get back with this loser jerk, anyway? But Lisa agrees and they head out to their adventure the next day. I thought for sure the two guys they meet were going to die, and, well, I'll get to that when I get to my spoiler section. The boat captain is played by Matthew Modine and he assures the girls (especially Lisa) that everything is safe and uh-huh, sure, right. While Kate has been scuba diving before and knows a lot about it, this is Lisa's first time, but they lie and say she's experienced so she can go. However, when the captain is explaining to them some very basic things, shouldn't he be suspicious that Lisa doesn't seem to know what he's talking about? I guess he just thinks she's nervous because of the sharks. When they get situated in their scuba gear, he tells them they should begin with 200 bar and once they reach 100 bar, they need to let him know and at 50 bar he will pull them up. Now as someone who's never scuba dived in her life and doesn't plan on ever scuba diving (I know for a fact I would drown if I ever went scuba diving because I would just freak out and use up all my air, so no scuba diving for me!), this means absolutely nothing to me. All I know is the lower the number is, the less time for air you have. He tells them they'll be going down five meters (which is 16 feet) and I'm thinking, Wait a minute...this movie is called 47 Meters Down...something is gonna happen here! He also tells them, "Once you're down there, you're not going to want to come back up." Uh-huh, sure! 

The two guys have already gotten in one cage already and I don't know if this is a spoiler or not, but we really don't see or hear from them for quite a while. I had just assumed, when they told the two sisters about the shark cages, the four of them would be in one together, but nope, the two guys are in one cage and the two girls are in another one. I guess the only point of having them there is that they are the ones who tell the sisters about this adventure. 

Lisa and Kate are lowered into the water and once they get settled in, they feel fine and are excited by how much they can see around them. Kate asks her sister how deep does she think the ocean floor is, and, if only, they knew they would soon find out the answer in a matter of minutes. An answer they probably didn't want to know that bad! Kate has borrowed a water camera from someone who works on the boat and, in like, ten seconds, she drops it. Nice going. I guess Lisa's scummy ex will never see the proof of what she did! From the bottom of the cage, we see a shark swoop up and swallow the camera. It's at the moment I think I would want to get the hell out of there. The bars of the cage aren't wide enough for the shark to get through, obviously, but they do seem wide enough they could get their jaw through...and I would be freaked out a shark could come up from the bottom and grab my foot or leg. In fact, in a later scene, a shark does get its nose pretty far into the cage and almost snaps it open! The cage, which looks pretty rusty and old, and is hanging by a thin rope attached to a cable, drops a few feet and freaks out the girls, especially Lisa. She has voiced her concern about the safety of this, but her sister and the captain reassure her it's perfectly safe. Sure, right. Lisa wants to come up, but Kate doesn't. I'm on Mandy Moore's side here. I would want to come up right away too if the cable started to drop the cage. They do start to bring up the cage, but alas, the cable snaps and the cage plummets to the bottom of the ocean floor and it is no longer attached to the boat. Not good. Not good at all. That would be my worst nightmare. The girls scream for help, but their transmitters are cracking and they can only hear about every third word the boat captain is telling them so they know they are out or range. Their depth gauge tells them they are at 47 meters which is about 154 feet. Kate tries to get out of the top of the cage to swim a little further up to get into range to contact the captain, but the cage door is stuck and she can't open it. She tries to get out of a wide portion of the cage, but has to take her oxygen pack off to do so. She still can't fit through because of her mask and against Lisa's protests, takes it off so she can fit through the bar and puts the mask and tank back on, though it was probably easier to put them on when she was on the boat. If I were in that situation, my first instinct would just be to swim to the surface, sharks be damned! But the girls are told by the captain, once they are able to communicate with him, that the safest thing for them to do is stay in the cage. Even if there were no sharks around, it would be dangerous for them to come up to the surface because they could get "the bends" or decompression sickness, which is when if you ascend rapidly to the surface, nitrogen comes out of your blood quickly forming bubbles. The only way to safely get to the surface is to take five minute breaks (called decompression stops) every certain meters until they safely reach the surface. Kate explains the bends as having nitrogen bubbles in your brain to her sister who wants to swim up.

When Kate communicates with Taylor at 40 meters, he tells her that Javier (I think the same guy who gave her the camera) is coming down with a spare winch to hook the cage up to the boat and pull them up. She tells him she's at 55 bar which means nothing to me other than that it is significantly lower than the 200 bar she had started with. I have no idea how many minutes of air she has left, although I guess that depends on how fast you're using the air. The more you panic (like Mandy Moore did when she realized they were trapped) or the more you exert yourself (like Kate did when she was using a lot of energy to try to get out of the cage) the more air you're going to use up. 

We have a few scary moments with sharks around the cage to remind the audience that they are still a real threat. I mean, it's bad enough you're at the bottom of the ocean with a very low amount of air, but let's just thrown in two or three huge 28-feet great white sharks. Because why not, right? Kate goes out to contact the captain again and she gets nearly attacked by a shark. She is fine, but she is a bit injured. She tries to contact them again because they hear the boat motor and think the boat has left them. I was confused by this scene because, as we later find out, the boat hasn't left them. So what were they hearing? 

Lisa has 80 bar of air left which means at that depth she has about 20 minutes of air. It's even bleaker for Kate who only has 30 bars, so what's that? Like seven minutes? Pretty sure we have more than seven minutes (and twenty, for that matter!) of this movie left! They see a light in the distance and figure it must be Javier with the extra winch cable to hook up the cage. They bang on the cage with rocks, but Javier can't hear it. (I'm surprised it didn't attract more sharks). I thought for sure he was dead and the flashlight was just (somehow) floating in the water. Since Kate is injured, Lisa goes out to swim towards the light and keeps to the ground since sharks attack from below. This works out fine until she reaches the edge of a cliff and has to swim over a deep abyss which would be terrifying with sharks all around you. She does reach Javier who is alive (at least for the next three seconds) and he tells her to get back to her cage because a shark swoops by and grabs him. She is very disoriented because everything is pitch black and she doesn't know where she came from. She takes the flashlight and the cable winch and has to hide from the shark in a cave and we see huge crushing jaws trying to get her in the cave, blocking her exit. She manages to get back to the cage, though, with Kate helping her know where she is by banging on the bars. So if Javier was alive during the time the girls were trying to get his attention, what the hell was he doing? Did he not hear them banging on the cage. This and the hearing the boat motor confused me. 

The flashlight drove me absolutely crazy because Mandy Moore would wave it around wildly. Look, I understand why they need a flashlight because it came in handy when she was in the dark and needed to find her way back, but, my God, must she wave it around like a spotlight so much? She's only attracting the sharks to them! Have these girls never seen Jurassic Park?? You NEVER shine a bright light when a large blood-thirsty animal with many sharp teeth is in the vicinity! Oh, and not to mention both girls are bleeding from their wounds they've acquired so far, so a bright light AND blood, what a great combination for the sharks to find them! 

Lisa is able to get in contact with the captain (who is still there, so apparently they never left...maybe they just moved the boat a little?) and hook up the cable and the cage starts to be lifted from the ocean floor and the girls are elated as they see they are moving up. (Wait...do you still need to make a decompression stop even if you're in a cage?) However, I know something's up because there's still half an hour of the movie left and what are they going to do with that extra half hour once they are rescued? Is Lisa going to go back to the States and make her loser ex take her back? However, when it reaches 27 meters, the cable breaks AGAIN and down they go. What the f**k, what kind of sh***y company is this where they have the worst gear? Like, what are the odds that they would have TWO cables that would snap in half? When the cage falls, one of Lisa's legs gets pinned between one of the bars and the ocean floor. Kate makes contact again with the captain to tell him that Lisa is trapped and that she (Kate) only has five bar left on her gauge...which is probably like two minutes of air left. Taylor tells her he's going to send down a couple more oxygen tanks. I have no idea how they could be so accurate when they threw them down because how can they know exactly where they are? They don't end up right next to the cage, but they're pretty close. He also tells them he's notified the Coast Guard and that they should be arriving within the hour to do a deep dive rescue. Uh, why didn't he notify the professionals as soon as they knew there was a problem? Unless he did, but from the way it sounds, I think he just notified them a few minutes ago. 

Kate gets her new oxygen tank on, but is quickly snatched up by a shark. It happens so quickly that you're not really sure what happened. Lisa uses a spear gun to grab the other oxygen tank and manages to get it on just as her old one has run out. She is ecstatic when she hears her sister on the radio because she thought she has died. However, Kate tells her she's bleeding a lot and is attracting more sharks and she's running low on oxygen because her tank has been punctured. Lisa manages to unpin her leg and finds her sister. She knows the only way to save her is to come to the top and tells this to the captain who doesn't bring up too much of a fight with her and just tells her to make sure she makes a decompression stop.

Okay, I think now is a good time to tell people to stop reading right here if they don't want to be spoiled by the movie if they do want to watch it. I will be telling the fates of the main characters and if you don't want to be spoiled, I advise you to stop reading now! But first, check out this video I made of my ten favorite Mandy Moore songs:

SPOILERS START NOW!

Okay, so the girls start heading towards the surface and they have flare guns to scare the sharks off. They get a point to where they need to make a decompression stop and they're just surrounded by sharks. I'm pretty sure they didn't stay there the whole five minutes! They make it to the surface and everyone on the boat (which includes the two guys they met the night before, so I guess we know they didn't become shark bait) start screaming for them to swim and throw them a life preserver. The girls reach the boat and they're being helped up, but then a shark comes up and snatches them again. They do manage to get on the boat, but both of them are badly mangled. Their wounds are being treated as they lie next to each other. Lisa puts her hand up where she has a nasty gash and notices the blood is just floating in the air and thinks that's weird. She also starts to hear the captain's voice coming in and out, almost like it's coming from the transmitter and tells him that he sounds funny. Well, guess what? Turns out the whole thing was a hallucination! Well, not the WHOLE thing, just everything that happened after she got the second tank. You see, there's something I didn't mention before I started my spoilers because, well, I thought it might be considered a spoiler. The captain warns Kate that he didn't give them an extra tank before because going from one to another could cause severe nitrogen narcosis and he wanted the girls to watch each other closely so they could see if the other was behaving strangely or having hallucinations which was likely to happen. Well, after Kate was snatched by a shark (and if she wasn't killed by that shark, then she definitely drowned), Lisa started having hallucinations when she got her new air. She never heard her sister on the radio, she never got her leg unpinned, she and her sister never came to the surface and were never on the boat. The deep sea divers do come and are able to rescue her and take her back to the surface and this is when she realizes that her sister is long gone. Poor Mandy Moore. She loses her husband in a fire, she loses her sister in scuba diving accident, can't the poor girl just stop losing family members! I will say the movie did get me and I was not expecting the ending at all, even though they as plain as day tell the audience that hallucinations were likely to happen, so good job for fooling me, movie!

Here's to the Hair

Tangled
Directors: Nathan Greno and Bryan Howard
Voice Talent: Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi, Donna Murphy
Released: November 24, 2010

Oscar nominations:
Best Song - "I See the Light" by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater (lost to "We Belong Together" by Randy Newman from Toy Story 3)

I remember seeing a trailer for this movie the summer before it came out (probably one of the trailers I saw before Toy Story 3) and I couldn't help thinking how awful the film looked. Not the animation (that's gorgeous), but the actual movie. All the trailer showed was the main guy character getting beat up and whipped by the long, blonde hair that belongs to the main female character. I immediately thought it was going to be one of those slapstick animated comedies that only cater to kids who have a five-second attention span and thought it would fail at the box office.

Well that goes to show you should never judge a movie by its trailer because after hearing positive reviews and people recommending the movie, I decided to watch it and see it if was good as everyone was saying, and what do you know? It was actually really good and quite an enjoyable movie. In fact, that dumb extended scene they showed as a trailer was cut down in the movie.

Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi (the guy from Chuck - yeah, I don't watch that show either) voice the two leads, Rapunzel and Flynn Rider. I'm not really familiar with the fairy tale of Rapunzel. All I know is that she has really long hair and lives in a tower, so I have no idea how close this movie stayed true to the original material.

Rapunzel is a seventeen-year-old girl who has lived in a tall tower for mostly her entire life with a woman (voiced by Donna Murphy) who has raised her as her daughter, but she is not actually Rapunzel's real mother. She kidnapped Rapunzel as a baby because the girl's hair has a magical power that made the woman appear youthful. Rapunzel has never been allowed to leave the tower and no one has ever been able to get in. For her eighteenth birthday, Rapunzel begs her mother to let her out on her birthday because she wants to explore the world and so she can inspect the "stars" she sees every year on her birthday (which are really Chinese lanterns that her real parents light every year in hope that their daughter will find them and return home). Her mother refuses and Rapunzel comes up with a plan that will make her mother have to go to the village and will be gone for three days.

Meanwhile, Rapunzel meets Flynn Rider and has information that he needs. She strikes a deal with him: if he takes her to the lights, she'll give him the information he needs, so they set out on their adventure. Of course Rapunzel's mother finds out that her daughter has escaped and tries everything she can to make sure Rapunzel never makes it to her real parents and finds out the truth.

One of my favorite scenes was a montage right after Rapunzel has escaped from her home and the scenes keep alternating from her being really happy and enjoying being free to her feeling really guilty about disobeying her mother and telling Flynn that she should go back home.

The animation is beautiful, the story is a lot of fun, and the ending even made me tear up a little. Not at all a bad movie. It should have been nominated for Best Animated Picture along with Toy Story 3 and How To Train Your Dragon.