You've Got Mail

Sleepless in Seattle

Director: Nora Ephron

Cast: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Bill Pullman, Rosie O'Donnell, Rita Wilson, Victor Garber, Rob Reiner, Gaby Hoffmann

Released: June 25, 1993

Oscar nominations: 

Best Original Screenplay - Nora Ephron, David S. Ward, and Jeff Arch (lost to Jane Campion for The Piano) 

Best Song - Marc Shaiman and Ramsay McLean for "A Wink and a Smile" (lost to "Streets of Philadelphia" by Bruce Springsteen for Philadelphia)

The only thing I remembered about this movie is the end where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan meet at the Empire State Building. Ironically, for a movie called Sleepless in Seattle, I only remember the part that took place in New York. I was also trying to remember if Meg Ryan's character lived in Seattle (I knew Tom Hanks's character did), but then I realized that if they both lived in the same city, it wouldn't make any sense for them to meet in New York! 

This movie starts in Chicago at the funeral of the wife of Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks). So right off the bat they want you to know he is now single. He decides he needs a change of scenery so he decides to move to Seattle with his eight-year-old son, Jonah. They don't really specify why he chooses to move to Seattle. He doesn't have any family there or likes the rain or says he got a job there, just seemed to randomly pick it. He and his son move into a house boat where he keeps a roll up map of the United State in the kitchen which he uses to teach his son geography. He gets a job as an architect and makes a friend named Jay (Rob Reiner) who teaches him about dating in the '90s. 

All the way on the other side of the country we meet Annie Reed (Meg Ryan), who lives in Baltimore and is engaged to Walter (Bill Pullman), a man the audience isn't supposed to like because he makes dopey jokes and is allergic to everything so he's always sneezing and blowing his nose. Yeah, not the most attractive, but despite his flaws he seems like a relatively nice guy. It's Christmas Eve and not only is Annie bringing Walter to meet her parents and family for the first time ever, but she also announces they're getting married. Does anyone else find this a bit odd that the family hadn't even met this guy while they were dating? We learn that Annie and Walter met at a sandwich shop when they both ordered a tomato and lettuce sandwich (why not just order a salad with a slice of bread?) and one of them had it on white and the other had it on wheat, but their orders got mixed up. Annie's mom gets out the wedding dress that her mom wore at her wedding because Annie wants to wear it and I'm thinking, girl, really? You really want to wear this very old fashioned and matronly dress to your wedding? Not only does it have long sleeves and a neckline that could almost be a turtleneck, but it looks like the top is a different material from the skirt. This moment is played as very sincere so it's not like we're supposed to laugh and feel bad for Annie in this hideous dress, but man, that dress is awful! Also, if I'm getting married, I want to wear my own NEW dress, I don't want to wear my mom's or grandmother's wedding dress. If they have a piece of jewelry for me, that's fine, but not the actual dress. I feel like this is a big troupe in movies, but it makes me wonder if this thing happens a lot in real life. 

After dinner, Annie and Walter leave and for some reason they're driving separate cars. There's really no reason for this except that the movie wants Annie to be listening to a Delilah-esque radio show called "You and Your Emotions" alone. The host is a woman named Dr. Marsha Fieldstone and the topic tonight is "Wishes and Dreams". Annie gets sucked into the show when Jonah calls in from Seattle and tells the host his wish is for his dad to have a new wife. He explains that his mom died and his dad has been very sad and hasn't been sleeping well which gives him the moniker "Sleepless in Seattle" (and the title of this movie, would you look at that!) Dr. Marsha Fieldstone wants to talk to Jonah's dad so he gets him. I'm honestly surprised that Sam didn't hang up the phone because that's what I would have done. Then I would have a very long talk with my child about calling national radio shows and airing my personal business for the whole country to hear! But Sam talks to her and he catches the attention of many women (including Annie) across the country as he talks about how in love he was with his wife, Maggie. He says when he took her hand to help her out of the car, "It was like coming home; only to no home I'd ever know." He also says it was like "magic" and Annie says that word at the same time, so this is supposed to tell the audience that Annie and Sam are meant to be. We'll see other instances of them where they're supposed to be meant for each other sprinkled in the movie. One example is when we see Annie peeling an apple with a knife in one long strip (I would be too scared to do that in fear that I would cut myself!) and in a later scene Sam will tell Jonah that his mother could "peel an apple in one long, curly strip."

The story goes viral (or whatever the equivalent of viral was in 1993) and Sam starts getting stacks of letters from admirers around the country. Apparently two thousand women have asked for his number. In the grand scheme, of things, 2000 is really just a drop in the bucket when it comes to the female population of the United Sates between 25-45 (my guess of the age range of the women who were writing him) in 1993, but on the other hand, 2000 letters is a lot for one guy to get. 

Jonah tells his dad that he gave out his address (um, that seems extremely dangerous...they could have some unstable woman stalking them (and in a way, they kinda do!)) and Sam (rightfully) asks, "What possessed you to give them our address?" Jonah says they called and asked for it. Sam asks how did they get their number and Jonah replies that you have to give your number to the radio show or they won't let you on the air. Okay, I need to unpack a few things here because I am a bit confused and if I missed something and somebody could clear this up for me, that would be great! I've never called in to a radio show so I don't know if you have to give them your number, but I guess it makes sense if your call becomes disconnected, or maybe it was just a plot device for this movie. I am shocked that the radio show gave out his number when women called asking for it. I feel like there's some law against that? Like a privacy law? I feel like Sam could have a lawsuit against this radio show and sue them for millions. Also, since these women already have his number, why are they calling just to ask for his address (I also find it amazing that Sam never picks up the phone when all these women have called; he must be a workaholic or something); why didn't they just ask to talk to Sam since they already have his number? I don't know; maybe I'm reading too much into this. I feel like there could have been a better way for this to be handled. 

Even though these women know that his name is Sam, all the letters begin with "Dear Sleepless in Seattle". Jonah helps his dad goes though the letters and one of them writes, "You're the most attractive man I've ever laid ears on" to which he rolls his eyes and throws the letter back. Yep, that would be my reaction as well! 

Back in Baltimore, where Annie works as a writer for The Baltimore Sun (presumably she writes fluff pieces) the "Sleepless in Seattle" story is getting a lot of attention. There's this weird line/"joke" where a couple of Annie's male colleagues are telling her that they heard a statistic that it's more likely for a woman to get killed in a terrorist attack than get married over the age of 40. This line was written as a joke (a bad one at that) and wasn't an actual fact, right? Because no way that is correct. I don't know anyone who's ever been killed in a terrorist attack. I know a lot of people who are married and while I don't know how old all of them were they wed, I'm sure there's at least one person who was over 40, so already that statistic is bullish*t. I did a bit of research and found that this was actually a statistic printed in a 1986 issue of Newsweek (and obviously not accurate...where do they even get the data to back that up?) and Nora Ephron was calling out how stupid it was. She probably should have just kept it out of the movie.

Annie and Walter make plans to meet in New York for Valentine's Day because he's going to be in Boston for a few days before the 14th. Annie has a friend named Becky (Rosie O'Donnell) who I think is her editor. Becky is not a fan of Walter and Annie keeps trying to tell her that Walter is a perfectly nice guy but even she has trouble convincing herself of that. Annie decides that she's going to write a letter to Sam and types one up on her typewriter (yes, typewriter; it wasn't even an electric one!) while she and Becky are watching An Affair to Remember. That movie plays a big role in this movie. I didn't even remember the name of it until Rita Wilson's character (who plays Sam's sister...kinda weird that a husband and wife are playing siblings, but I guess it would be way weirder if it were the other way around) mentions it. It seems all the female characters go gaga over this movie which I hated because it was such a stereotype that all women love mushy romantic movies. I've never seen An Affair to Remember, but from the few scenes they show of it here, it does not look like my cup of tea. It just looks boring. In another scene we'll see Sam's sister explaining the plot of the movie to Sam and her husband (Victor Garber) and ends up CRYING while she's talking about it. It's a great performance from Rita Wilson, but honestly, who has ever cried while explaining the plot of a movie? We will also see another scene of Jonah's little girlfriend, Jessica (Gaby Hoffmann) who is watching it and crying, declaring, "This is the best movie I've ever seen!" No, I'm sorry. No way an eight/nine-year-old child is going to say some old time-y romance movie from 1957 is the best movie they've ever seen. Not when Home Alone and Aladdin and The Mighty Ducks are most likely in her video rotation. Also she'll be changing her tune when she goes sees Jurassic Park that summer! I hated the whole An Affair to Remember subplot.

So Annie and Becky are watching the movie and they can both recite all the lines and Annie is swooning over the romance between Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. Becky says the most meta line of the film: "You don't want to be in love, you want to be in love in a movie." I laughed when Annie reads the start of her letter to Becky: "Dear Sleepless and son, I have never written a letter like this in my life" and Becky replies, "That's what everyone writes at the beginning of letters to strangers." She also asks her, "What about Walter?" and Annie dreamily says, "I would give anything to marry Walter." Okay, so then why are you writing to this man you've never met or seen that lives three thousand miles away? Annie's reasoning is, "What if this man is my destiny and I never meet him?" Sometimes I was very confused about what Annie wanted. There's a scene in An Affair to Remember where the two leads meet at the Empire State Building and Becky tells her to write that she wants to meet him there on Valentine's Day. Annie thinks this is a great idea because she'll already be in New York with Walter that day and she'll be able to squeeze in it. Then she realizes what she just said and crumbles up the letter so at least she had that much sense.

Can we just pause here for a moment and talk about this letter from Sam's perspective. You get this letter from a woman who's asking you to fly all the way from Seattle to New York to meet her at a very crowded touristy spot. Um, I'm sorry, but I'm not paying however much it cost to fly from one end of the country to the other in 1993, plus the cost of admission to go up the ESB. Not to mention that a flight from Seattle to New York is a little over five hours long and I'm guessing that's not counting layovers, though I suppose there's probably continuous flights between both cities, but that's not the point. If I'm Sam, no way I'm flying all the way across the country to meet some random woman; I don't care how much she talks about "fate" and "magic". If she wants to meet me so much, then she should come to Seattle and if she wants to meet at a touristy destination with tons of people around, then meet me at the Space Needle. Or better yet, why not a coffee shop? I'm willing to bet there's at least ten within five minutes of Sam's home! But like I said, Annie tosses the letter to the side and Sam never receives it...or does he...? 

Sam starts dating a woman he works with named Victoria. The audience isn't supposed to like her because she "laughs like a hyena" (Jonah's words) and while she does have an annoying laugh, I found it more annoying that she seemed to find everything that Sam said hilarious funny even though it wasn't, so I guess the movie did a good job of making me think she was annoying. Other than that, she seemed like a perfectly nice woman. I guess since she and Walter are in the way of Annie and Sam finding true love with each other, we're supposed to root against them. Jonah is especially a little brat towards her and she is doing her best to be nice to him. There's a moment when he's spying on them when they come home after a date and are standing outside on the deck. Jonah calls Dr. Marsha Fieldstone's radio show to give her (and the entire country) a blow by blow of what's going on. He then screams bloody murder when he sees them kiss and calls Victoria a "ho". Seriously, kid? Also, if this were my kid, he would be grounded until he went to college. Sam is a pretty chill dad as his kid doesn't seem to have any discipline. I guess his wife took care of that. Becky calls Annie to turn on the radio and once again she gets very invested in the story and wants to know who Sam is kissing. 

Annie pretty much turns into a full on stalker when she tries to get information about Sam under the guise she's wring a piece about call in radio shows and another piece on how people handle bereavement. This gets her Sam's number (why didn't she just call the radio show since they were handing out his number like free candy?) and she calls his number where she gets a message from the machine where she learns his last name. She uses this information to look him up on an extremely archaic computer on an extremely archaic database called Nexus City News Bureau. Under "Enter Your Request", she types, "Find Samuel Baldwin" and gets 216 matches. Three things here: First, there's only 216 Samuel Baldwins in the entire United States of America? That's seems quite low; maybe Baldwin is a rare surname? The only Baldwins I'm aware of are Alec, Billy Stephen, and is there another Baldwin brother? Second, doesn't she already have Sam's address? Wasn't she going to send a letter to him before she decided not to? Wouldn't it just be easier to cross reference him with his address? Am I missing something here? Also, for a newspaper writer, Annie is an extremely SLOW typer. I swear, it takes her 30 seconds just to type "Samuel Baldwin".  She does narrow the search to include Jonah's name and gets four matches. From there, she's able to deduce that her Sam is an architect (so I guess there's that new fact she's learning). She sends a fax to a detective agency in Seattle asking for a background check along with a photo on Sam. Okay. I get the background check. You want to make sure the guy you're stalking isn't some crazy maniac, cuz, god forbid! But why does she need a photo? Remember, this pre-dates social media so she can't just look him up online, but the way she gets the photo is so weird and almost invading on Sam' privacy.

Let me lead into how his photo is obtained....Sam is getting ready to go on a date with Victoria (and this is the same date that ends with both of them on the dock and Jonah screaming when he sees them kissing) and Jonah is opening fan mail for his dad. There's one letter that's addressed to both him and his dad so he opens it and surprise, surprise, it's Annie's letter. Turns out Becky sent it. Jonah reads it and thinks it's the most amazing letter and this Annie woman is the woman for his dad. He wants his dad to read it, but Sam's in a hurry so he only reads part of it. Jonah thinks it's a sign because Annie talks about baseball and declares "Brooks Robinson was the best third baseman ever" and Sam also thinks that. So I had to look up who Brooks Robinson was and he played for the Baltimore Orioles in the '60s. Sam dismisses this and says that everyone think he was great. Yeah, I have a hard time believing that just because they like the same baseball player means they're meant for each other. Also, Annie is from Baltimore so of course she's going to like a ball player that played for her city. They don't give any other examples from the letter of why they're meant to be which means the writers of the movie couldn't think of any legitimate reason why these two are meant for each other aside from the fact that it's Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. So while Sam is having dinner with Victoria at the restaurant, the waiter comes by to tell Sam that he has a phone call. Young people, this is what happened before cell phones. You had to use a pay phone or the restaurant's phone to call someone. Turns out it's Jonah who asks his dad if they can go to New York on Valentine's Day because Annie wants to meet them there. Once again, Sam is pretty chill. He's annoyed that his son called him for basically nothing (like he couldn't wait to ask him this later?) I would have yelled at him for calling me during a date for a non-emergency. So this is when the photo of Sam is taken. A man who is on the second level of the restaurant with an extremely LOUD camera that makes whirring noises as he focuses the lens on his subject, then proceeds to make more LOUD sounds as he clicks the camera several times to snap a few photos. He's totally inconspicuous. Yes, that was sarcasm. 

Annie flies to Seattle because she wants to do a story on radio shows (not specifically Sam's story, but radio shows in general), but let's face it: she's going to Seattle to do some stalking, I mean sleuthing. A huge warning bell that she knows what she's doing is wrong is that she lies to Walter and tells him she's going to Chicago. The funniest part of the movie is when she's on the plane and the woman next to her asks, "Don't you just hate flying?" and Annie replies, Yes, I do. And I just told the most terrible one to the man I'm about to marry. Do you feel that any lie is a betrayal?" The woman just looks at her and says, "I said flying." 

It just so happens that Sam and Jonah are at Sea-Tac to see off Victoria who's going...somewhere for....something. I knew that as people started to stream off from a flight that just got in, that Annie was going to be one of those people, and what do you know, I was right! Shocker, I know! Annie doesn't see him, but Sam notices her and he's instantly attracted to her and starts following her, but quickly loses her in the crowd. Jonah tells him that Jessica believes that he [Sam] knew Annie in another life. He asks who Annie is which is quite ironic since he was just following her. I did laugh when Jonah says he knows this stuff because he's "younger and more pure so he's more in touch with cosmic forces." Of course that is what Jessica told him. 

Annie goes to Sam's address and sees them on a small boat in the water, so she jumps back in her car and watches them as she drives across a bridge and she's literally turning her head back so she's not watching for traffic. Lucky for her, there doesn't seem to be too many cars out wherever she is. She then proceeds to hide behind a small general store as she peeks out and watches the father and son play on the beach. She is being such a creeper! It was at this point that I knew there had to be a trailer cut of this movie as a horror/thriller film and I was right. She even tells Becky, "I watched them play on the beach" when she returns to Baltimore. If that doesn't scream stalker-ish, I don't know what does.

There is a moment when Annie is about to cross a busy street to talk to Sam who's at a parking lot of a marina and right before she has the nerve to do so, a woman who she thinks is Sam's girlfriend comes into view and hugs Sam and Jonah. Turns out it's just Sam's sister, Suzy, who is visiting from Chicago, but Annie doesn't know that. She does get the attention of Sam when a truck honks its horn at her because she standing in the middle of a busy street like an idiot. They lock eyes and have a moment as they say "hello" to each other. Then the next scene is her back in Baltimore telling Becky what happened. She claims she just got back in her car and left. Remember this scene because I'm going to come back to it later.

So the young kids have written a letter to Annie pretending to be Jonah's dad and Annie soon receives the letter. This is when she learns that Becky sent her original letter. The letter reads, "Dear Annie, Thanks for the letter. It was great. You sound neat. We're very excited about meeting you in New York on Valentine's Day and seeing if we're MFEO. See you soon." Ha, I can only imagine how Annie, a writer, felt about receiving such an immature letter from a man she feels a connection to. I have to say that Jessica is ahead of her time. She was into using acronyms way before texting was even a commonplace thing. I don't think I've ever come across MFEO but right away I knew it stood for "made for each other". Sometimes her acronyms didn't work so well, like she she meets Jonah's dad for the first time and snottily says, "H and G", then has to clarify that it stands for "hi and goodbye". Honey, if you have to explain your acronyms, then, IDK, maybe don't use them? 

Jonah is still pestering his dad about going to New York to meet Annie, but Sam is not going to fly across the country to meet some woman he doesn't even know. Understandable. I did get a laugh when he asks Jonah if he saw Fatal Attraction and Jonah replies "You wouldn't let me!" as if he legitimately did want to see it. Glad that Sam put his foot down on that one; not an appropriate movie for an eight-year-old! 

Jonah and Jessica decide to take matters in their own hands. Since Jessica's parents are travel agents, she uses their database to book Jonah a flight to New York on the 14th. Turns out February 14, 1993 was on a Sunday so at least he wasn't missing any school! They pool their money (a little over $100) to pay for the flight, taxi fare, and ticket to go up the Empire State Building. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be enough to pay for all of those even in 1993 currency, so I'm not really sure where they got the rest of the money to pay for all of that. I'm guessing Jessica stole one of her parents' credit cards. She puts down that Jonah is twelve so he won't have to have a chaperone. For some reason, even without Jonah's documentation, she is able to book him a flight which seems a little insane. They really kind of gloss over this. Look, I know that just a few months earlier the same plot line was in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York when Macaulay Culkin flies to New York by himself. But in defense of Kevin McCallister (I can't believe I'm saying this), it wan't his fault that he went to New York. It was an ACCIDENT. He wasn't purposely booking tickets to go to New York and deceiving his father. He just got separated from his dad at the airport and followed some random dude who he thought was his dad onto the wrong plane. And he ran into the woman taking boarding passes and everything got mixed up. It could happen to anyone! Also, the Home Alone movies are almost set in a fantasy world (if you can survive several bricks hitting you on the head, you're not in a realistic movie!) and Kevin McCallister can get away with surviving the streets of New York by himself. Jonah does not process the street smarts that Kevin has and Sleepless in Seattle seems to be set in a more realistic world than Home Alone 2. What I'm saying is that I find this entire subplot extremely absurd. How did Jonah even get to the airport? We just see Jessica buying him a ticket, then the next thing you know he's on a plane Also, NOBODY, NOT ONE SINGLE ADULT, seems to be concerned that this young boy is by himself in New f**king York. I've been to New York. It's a big city. I know, duh. But I cannot imagine being eight-years-old and just getting around by myself. But he's all chipper as he hails a cab to take him to the Empire State Building. The taxi driver asks him what he's going to do there and Jonah replies, "I'm going to meet my new mother." If I were that taxi driver, I would have so many questions, but he just continues to drive. So we see Jonah reach the top and he starts going to every woman in her thirties and asking them if they're Annie. I really feel like this plan was not seen through. First of all, the letters never said a specific TIME to meet. It just said "Valentine's Day". You dummies know there are 24 hours in a day, right? Also, they never specified a certain AREA to meet, just the Empire State Building. Well, I guess they did say at the top, but they still could have been a tad more specific.

Back in Seattle, Sam is ready to go on a little getaway with Victoria. Clarice, the baby-sitter, has just arrived. Sam begins to panic when he can't find Jonah and goes over to Jessica's house where she admits where Jonah is and says he left on the 7:30 flight which is leaving at that moment. Sam books the next flight to New York and he's probably two or three hours behind. 

Meanwhile, in New York, Annie and Walter are having a romantic Valentine's dinner at the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Plaza with a view of the Empire State Building that has a huge red heart hologram projected on it. Off screen, Annie tells Walter about Sam and when they come back to them he pretty much tells Annie he needs to go find him. He is taking this break up extremely well which makes me think he wanted to break up with her all along and is relieved that she did it for him. So she decides to mosey on over to the ESB to meet her new future husband and stepson. 

While this is going on, Sam has found Jonah. The ESB is closing so they get on the elevator to go back down. While THAT is going on, Annie is trying to convince the man selling tickets to let her up even though he tells her the building is closed. She mentions An Affair to Remember and the man tells her that's his wife's favorite movie, because of course it is. Because every female in this movie has to love that movie. Just as Sam and Jonah are going down the elevator, Annie is on the other one, getting off at the top. There's clearly no one there, but she asks to look around and finds an abandoned backpack. Now in these days, a bomb squad would be called if such a thing was found at the ESB, but she just goes over and picks it up and finds a teddy bear inside. Of course it belongs to Jonah and he and Sam come back up to retrieve it and that's when everyone is finally united (or re-united?) Annie and Sam take each other's hands and keep looking at each other in this extremely awkward way as they make their way back to the elevator. The movie ends as we assume they're about to start their new life together. 

Did you know that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan share less than two minutes of screen time together in this? That is insane, but it makes sense since they're only together at the end and for a few seconds when she's in Seattle. I mentioned before that I do not like An Affair to Remember being a big plot device of this movie. I also don't like New York being the big set piece for the ending. The movie is called Sleepless in Seattle; maybe utilize the city that's in the title of your movie. If Nora Ephron wanted New York to be a part of this movie, she should have set it there and named it Not Napping in New York; though that doesn't have the same ring to it. 

Remember I told you to remember the scene where Annie and Sam see each across the street in Seattle? Well, when that happens, there's 30 minutes of the movie left. Instead of Annie flying back to Baltimore, this is where I would have had them meet. Get rid of Suzy in this scene and maybe have Sam save Annie from an oncoming truck. Here they can begin their romance and we can have a cute montage of them falling in love in Seattle. Maybe we see them sharing a kiss at the top of the Space Needle! Maybe we see Annie almost getting hit in the head with a flying fish at Pike Place Market! Maybe we see them get caught in the rain without an umbrella! Maybe we see them go to ten different coffee shops in one day! Maybe they hold hands as they walk through Pioneer Square! Maybe they go whale watching! Maybe they take a ferry boat to Roche Harbor for a romantic weekend! Maybe they go fishing off his house boat deck! Maybe we see Sam give geography lessons to Annie too! The possibilities are endless! And we can still have some drama. Maybe Annie admits to Sam that she hired a detective to look into him and he becomes angry. Maybe Annie has to figure out how to break it off with Walter. Maybe they have a fight over where they're going to live, Seattle or Baltimore. I mean, I think the choice is pretty obvious. I've been to both Seattle and Baltimore more than once and as much I liked Baltimore, Seattle is way cooler. Then, at the end of the movie, you could either have them getting engaged or even getting married, take your pick. There. Much better movie! You get rid of all the women sobbing over An Affair to Remember and you get rid of the ridiculous plot line of an eight-year-old child flying to New York by himself. And you have Annie and Sam forming a genuine relationship. I am a genius. You're welcome! 

There's No Crying in Baseball

A League of Their Own

Director: Penny Marshall

Cast: Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Madonna, Rosie O'Donnell, Lori Petty, Jon Lovitz, Bill Pullman

Released: July 1, 1992

When people think of baseball movies, I'm sure this one is always at the top of the list. And when people think of movies with a predominately all-female cast, I'm sure this one is also at the top of that list. It is set during 1943 which means since there is a war going on, there is no longer anymore Major League Baseball since all the men are overseas. This movie tells the story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (or the AAGPBL (it's still quite a mouthful even when it's abbreviated!)).

Sisters Dottie (Geena Davis) and Kit Hinson (Lori Petty) who live in Willamette, Oregon are recruited by an AAGPBL scout named Ernie (Jon Lovitz) who wants to take them to Chicago to be on a team. Correction: he only wants to recruit Dottie who is an exceptionally good player (she can easily catch a ball without a glove and without any warning a ball is being thrown to her). Dottie has no desire to leave her rural farm life and wants to wait for her husband (Bill Pullman) to return home from the war. Her younger sister, Kit, who loves baseball, but isn't as good as Dottie, really wants this opportunity and Dottie tells Ernie she'll go to Chicago, but only if Kit can also go to which he agrees. 

They make a pit stop in Fort Collins, Colorado so Ernie can check out a ball player named Marla that he hears is really great. And she is really great and she's ready to sign her and take her to Chicago until he gets closer to her and she lifts her hat up so he can see her face and it is revealed she is quite homely. At first he doesn't want to sign her, despite her being a great hitter, because image seems to be the first and foremost priority of the team. They are looking for beautiful young women to wear short skirts (although what's the point since the majority of their target audience are overseas, anyway?). However, Dottie and Kit refuse to go on unless Marla also goes with them.

They find out they will be playing for a team called the Rockford Peaches (such a...wussy name....haha, that reminds me, my dad and I went to someone's house once (I forget who or where or what for) and they owned a cat named Peaches (because it was orange) and after we left, my dad said that was a wussy name). We meet some of the other players, most notably "All the Way" Mae (played by Madonna - I think you can guess why they call her "All the Way Mae")  and her smart mouth friend, Doris (played by Rosie O'Donnell). There's also a player who can't read and needs help from another player to see if she made the team because she wouldn't know if her name was on the list or not. In another scene, we see Mae (whoops, almost typed Madonna!) teaching her how to read on the bus, using an erotic novel. Tea Leoni is also a player and last, but not least, there's a woman who has a young son who is a complete and utter brat and she has to bring him along to all the games.

The first time they are all gathered is when they learn they'll be wearing skirts which they think is ridiculous because how can they slide in skirts? This is also when we learn they'll be going to charm school because this was 1943 and everything was so sexist back then. One of the instructors gives a stylist advice on what to do with each player's hair and/or skin and when she comes to Marla, she doesn't have any advice to make her look any better.

We see a montage of the girls being photographed for newspapers and magazines and one of the headlines is (and get ready to roll your eyes!), "Trading oven mitts for baseball mitts!" Ugh. Just ugh. Oh, wait. That might not be the worst part. There's a TV ad about the new league and a voiceover says, "Girls playing baseball?" Yes, I don't know which one is worse. We also get a montage of many of their games and this is where we see Dottie catching a ball while doing the splits and a huge nasty bruise on the back thigh one of the players received after sliding onto one of the bases. I thought for sure it was just make-up because this thing is huge, but after doing some research, apparently it was real. Ewww. And ouch!

The Peaches' coach/manager is former player for the Cubs (he hit 58 home runs in 1936), Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) who is not thrilled to be coaching a bunch of women at first and spends most of his time drinking, but does come around in the end. He gives us the most famous line in the entire movie, "There's no crying in baseball!"

There's a very odd scene where he has to deliver bad news to one of the players that her husband has been killed in the war. It's odd because we first get a mail carrier who comes to the locker room after a game, announcing he has a telegram for one of the ladies from the war department. Well, this could only be bad news and all of them (well, the ones who are married and/or have a loved one overseas) are all understandably apprehensive about this news. The mail carrier is being really callous, saying how this should have been sent personally for someone to find out that their husband is dead. He looks through the list which doesn't have the name of the receiver and tells them he has to go back to the post office to straighten it out. Seriously, you just told this group of women that one of their husbands is dead, and now you have to go back and straighten something out, only making it more agonizing for them to have to wait any longer to find out who is getting possibly the worst news of their life? Yeah, that just seems really unprofessional and something that would never happen in the real world. By this time, Jimmy has taken a liking to his players now and demands that the carrier give him the telegram. He has to snatch it out of his hand and push him out of the room with the carrier protesting about it being "official war business." Dugan opens the letter and reads it, finding out who is about to get bad news. Now I realize there's no good way to tell someone their spouse is dead, but I think in this instance the best way would be for Jimmy to announce the name from where he's standing. Instead, he slowly starts to head to the brand new widow, making the other women he passes fearful that it might be one of them who he's headed to. This includes Dottie who is very scared that her husband, Bob, is dead. Of course, the woman he is headed to, Betty Spaghetti (I think they call her that because she makes a mean spaghetti?), is towards the back, so therefore he passes many women on his way to deliver her the telegram.

In the very next scene, Bob has arrived in Rockford after being discharged from from the army. This literally happens thirty seconds right after Betty received her telegram that I was sure that this was a dream sequence and Dottie was imaging her husband was with her, after hearing the horrible news about Betty's husband, but no, after a few minutes, I realized that this was reality. This is around the time where the Peaches lose a few of their players. Obviously Betty doesn't come back after losing her husband. Dottie decides to leave when her husband returns because she wants to starts a family with him. Despite her looks, even Marla finds love and marries a man she met at a club all the players snuck out to one night and marries him shortly after.

Because of the Hinson sister's rivalry, Kit has been traded to the Racine Belles (yeah, female sports teams sure had some wimpy names). Wearing skirts comes in handy for them because their motto is "Dirt in the skirt". Dottie has decided to play until the end of the season so she is playing against her sister when the Peaches and the Belles are playing against each other in a game that will determine the champion. Dottie gives the pitcher advice since she knows her sister and Kit missed the first two, but hits a home run. Dottie had caught the ball, but dropped it, declaring Kit safe.

The movie starts and ends in "present day" 1992 where Dottie is going to visit an exhibition of the AAGPBL at the Baseball Hall of Fame. At first I thought it was Geena Davis in old age makeup, because that was certainly her voice I was hearing, but it didn't quite look like her. I found out they got older actresses to play elder Dottie and Kit, but had Geena Davis and Lori Petty do the voiceovers, which was very odd. The young boy who used to be a nuisance is now a middle aged man and comes to pay his respects to the team and tells the others that his mother has died. We also learn that Jimmy has also died in 1987.

The movie ends with Madonna's "This Used to Be My Playground" playing over the credits. I was familiar with that song, but I had no idea it was used in the movie. It's a bit of a downer song for it: "This used to be my playground, this used to be my childhood dream. This used to be the place I ran to whenever I was in need of a friend....why did it have to end?" Yeah, pretty dreary lyrics! They could have at least changed the title to "This Used to Be My Ball Field."

I believe this is the only Madonna movie I've seen and she's really only a background character. Her one big scene in the movie is when they sneak out to a club called the Suds Bucket and she swings dance, which she's quite good at (I'm assuming that was really her!) This is probably smart of me that A League of Their Own is the only Madonna movie I've seen because from what I've heard, she's a terrible actress. I never saw Evita or the one where she has a baby with her gay friend or any of the ones she made when she was married to Guy Ritchie.

Past and Present

Now and Then

Director: Lesli Linka Glatter

Cast: Gaby Hoffmann, Christina Ricci, Thora Birch, Ashleigh Aston Moore, Demi Moore, Rosie O'Donnell, Melanie Griffith, Rita Wilson
Released: October 20, 1995

When I reviewed Stand By Me a month ago, I mentioned that Now and Then was the female equivalent to that movie and I remembered not liking it, but I should probably give it a another chance to see if my opinion had changed. Well, I watched it again and while I don't despise it as much as I remember hating it when I was younger, I definitely didn't love it. (Okay, maybe I still despise it a little!) Like I mentioned in my Stand By Me review, by all rights I should love this movie because it's a coming of age story about adolescent girls and all these actresses were in my age range and while I was a couple years older than the characters they played, this movie was really targeted at me, but I just never really connected with it.

The movie follows four friends: Samantha (Gaby Hoffmann and Demi Moore), Roberta (Christina Ricci and Rosie O'Donnell), Teeny (Thora Birch and Melanie Griffith), and Chrissy (Ashleigh Aston Moore and Rita Wilson) in "present day" 1995 (NOW!) and in 1970 when they were 12 (THEN!) Get it? Cuz it's called Now and Then! Although, I read on the IMDb trivia section that the "Now" section takes place in 1991, but that can't be right because "Now" Samantha listens to a cassette (yes, a tape cassette, didn't they have effing CD players in cars in the early '90s? I guess not!) of "As I Lay Me Down" by Sophie B. Hawkins and that song was released in 1994, so therefore the "Now" part can't take place earlier than then. Oh, sure, you could just do some quick math in your head because you know they were 12 in 1970, but they never tell you how old they are in their "Now" roles. There is really no clue to when the "Now" part takes place except for that song, so I have no idea why that trivia said the "Now" parts take place in 1991.

Even though the movie is called Now and Then, it mostly takes place during the "Then" time. The "Now" portions are only at the beginning and the end of the film. You think the movie would weave back and forth between the two time periods, but it doesn't. Honestly, I'm okay with that because I prefer the "Then" (the majority of the film) to the "Now". I never bought the older versions the younger versions grew up to be...something just didn't click with the casting. The casting of the younger girls was great, but when they casted their older versions, they just seemed more worried about getting "big" names (well, for the '90s!). I did not buy that any of these girls would still be friends with each other when they were in their early thirties or however old they're suppose to be. I can tell you right now that I am not still friends with anyone I knew when I was 12! Facebook friends, maybe, but I don't hang out with any of them because a) we went our separate ways and b) we have separate lives. And the friends I have now? I didn't know any of them when I was 12. Maybe if you were still living in the same town and never moved away from each other, then yeah, I can see that.

"Now" Chrissy still lives in the same town they grew up in - Shelby, Indiana. She obviously doesn't know how to dress as you can see in that awful pink atrocity she's wearing in the photo to your right. Seriously, what the hell is that? She's about to have her first baby and wants her childhood friends to be there for her. I think Roberta also still lives in the same town where she works as a doctor, so it makes sense she was there and that she and Chrissy are still friends. I did like that the movie mentioned that they hadn't seen Samantha and Teeny (I hope to God she was at least going by Tina as an adult, but I never caught that) in several years so it wasn't like they were always keeping in touch with each other. I'm not sure where Sam was living, but it's mentioned she's a science fiction writer, so probably New York. Just like Roberta being a doctor came out of left field, so did Samantha being a writer. At least with Roberta, you could say she wanted to help people since her mom died when she was young? But there was never any scenes to tell us that young Sam wanted to grow up to be a writer, and why a sci-fi writer? She was into seances and talking to the dead, but wouldn't that be a mystery writer? Obviously they were trying to copy Stand By Me as Sam is the Gordie of this group since she's the main character and Demi Moore provides us with these awful and flat voiceovers. Teeny has become an actress in Hollywood and has won People Choice Awards and has been on the cover of TV Guide. She has dreamed of being an actress since she was a little girl and of course she becomes one because everyone who dreams of becoming famous becomes famous! Seriously, this woman is famous and she's taking a limo back to her small town she grew up in to visit her childhood friends? Puh-leeze, that would never happen! So the beginning of this movie is total BS! 

While the four women are reminiscing, we cut to the summer of 1970 when they were childhood friends and are on a trek to find a dead body. I'm just joking - the movie doesn't blatantly steal everything from Stand By Me! No, they are trying to raise money to buy a treehouse from a catalogue. Um, I have never heard of being able to BUY a TREEHOUSE from a catalogue. Don't you BUILD those? I know you can buy the play sets that have the clubhouses, but that doesn't make any sense that you can buy a treehouse because how would you put it in the tree? You obviously have to build around the tree to make sure it fits. Why am I even worried about this? You think this is going to be a major part of the movie, but it's not. We just see them talking about it and counting how much money they have from time to time, then all of a sudden they have a treehouse in a tree in Chrissy's backyard (in fact, it's still there when they're adults) and we never have an explanation of them saying they had enough money for the treehouse or how the hell it got in the tree! Oh! And we see they have the treehouse, but yet they're still worried about making money for it because Roberta tells them her dad will pay them ten dollars if they paint the garage, but maybe they were just trying to get more money for something else? IDK! 

The movie quickly turns to being about the four girls wanting to find out how a 12-year-old boy was killed twenty-five years ago. Well, it may not be them finding a dead body, but the fact that they're trying to find out how a young boy died is close enough to the plot of Stand By Me! He goes by the name "Dear Johnny" and they decide to have a seance to talk to him. Now I remember being a girl around this age and while I don't think I ever participated in a seance (eh, I may have but I just forgot about it since nothing probably happened!), but I do remember all those other "spooky" activities like the Ouija board; Bloody Mary; Stiff as a Board, Light as a Feather (LOL, who didn't play that at camp or sleepovers, am I right?) and scary stories that you swore were true because it happened to a friend of a friend! And everyone knows whenever you participated in one of those, someone was always moving the little cursor on the Ouija board or swore they saw Bloody Mary or, in the case of this movie, was pretending to be possessed by the spirit of Dear Johnny which is what Chrissy does to fool the other girls since they're all so gullible. Right after she tells them nothing ever happens when they have these seances, a bolt of lightning strikes near them and it starts pouring and all the girls scream, Chrissy the loudest. This probably happened around midnight and the girls return to their homes. Well, no sooner than a few short hours later, Samantha thinks the spirit of Dear Johnny has come into her room (because it was windy outside and she left her window open) so she decides the girls need to meet again in the graveyard so she can tell them. Seriously, she couldn't wait until the next morning to tell them this? They only do this so they can show the clever way they get each other's attention because apparently they do this all the time in the middle of the night. Sam lives near Roberta and she pulls on a rope with a bell on it that wakes up Roberta, who in turn shines a flashlight into Teeny's room, and Teeny gets on her Walkie-Talkie to call Chrissy. (Maybe they should invest in more Walkie-Talkies!) When they return to the graveyard, they discover Dear Johnny's tomb has been knocked over so therefore he must be haunting them and they need to know how he died.  

That's pretty much the premise of the story: doing some research to figure out how this twelve-year-old boy died in 1945. Each girl has their own identity they bring to the movie. Of course, all of these are stereotypes. As I mentioned earlier, Samantha is the main character of the four girls (even though the Roberta character is credited first, but I suppose that's because Rosie O'Donnell / Christina Ricci were the most well known names in their respective age groups?). Sam's parents get divorced, well, actually her dad just leaves one night after having a fight with her mother without saying goodbye to her and her little sister, Angela (played by a very young Rumer Willis). Real nice guy, there. Seriously, if your parents were fighting all the time like hers did, wouldn't you WANT them to get divorced so you wouldn't have to deal with that anymore? But Demi Moore tells us in her flat voiceover that she found the fights to be soothing because she was used to them. Since divorce wasn't common back then, Sam doesn't tell her friends what happened and they all think her parents get along because she also never told them that they always fought. She eventually does tell Teeny, her closest friend from the group and eventually tells the others as well. After she tells Teeny (God, I can't get over how STUPID her name is!), Teeny in reply tells her that she read a statistic that in ten years half the population will be divorced. Har-har, movie! You're so clever and funny! Sam's mom starts dressing a little more provocatively...short shorts and tall boots and even brings home a man for dinner (played by Hank Azaria) where he can meet Sam and Angela on their first date....which is so weird. Needless to say, it doesn't go so well.

When Sam confesses to Teeny what happened, Teeny (seriously, why does she have such a stupid name?) breaks her favorite bead necklace in half and makes them into two bracelets so they can each have one and be BFFs! When Sam gasps, "You love that necklace!", I was thinking, Uh, it's just beads and a thread....she can make another one, you idiot. It does make sense that Sam told Teeny first about her parents since Teeny doesn't have a very good relationship with her parents and would probably understand the most out of the other girls, but they also make it as though Sam and Teeny are the closest from the group, and therefore, by default, Roberta and Chrissy are each other's best friends. None of these girls seemed to be as close of friends as Gordie and Chris were in Stand By Me; it felt more forced to me. I could see the four of them hanging out, but I never saw the close knit bond of any two of them. Once Sam has her new friendship bracelet, which she promises she'll never lose, she and Teeny are riding their bikes in the dark and rain, and Sam loses her bracelet! Good job, you idiot! Even though it's just a stupid piece of string with beads strung on it, she has to find it NOW! Even Teeny is like, Eff it, let's get out of the rain and look for it tomorrow. That girl may have a stupid name, but at least she has some brains! Sam sees the bracelet in the sewer and decides to hop on down there to get it. Honey, I'm sure Teeny can make you another bracelet if you just ask her. So she's down there and gets the bracelet, but the rain is pouring in and both girls are freaking out because she can't get out and she's going to drown, although I'm pretty sure sewers don't fill up with water and if she just stopped panicking for a damn second, she could probably get out just fine. But it's sooooo overdramatic and Teeny is crying for help and who should appear, but Crazy Pete, this old scary man who rides on a creaky bide in the graveyard during the night. Crazy Pete must be Old Man Marley's older brother because both are cut from the same cloth. They're both scary old men characters, but in the end they turn out to be sweet old men who save children. Crazy Pete rescues Samantha and in a serious and somber voiceover, Demi Moore says, "Teeny and I both know what would have happened if Crazy Pete wasn't there that night." OMG, shut up! You would not have died! And why are you still referring to him as Crazy Pete as an adult when by then you know he was just a misunderstood old man (just like Old Man Marley!) and WASN'T crazy!

Teeny is the boy crazy one of the group (well, with a name like that!) Her parents are never around and are always having swingers' parties while she imagines herself winning Academy Awards. One of the few times the movie made me genuinely laugh is when she's pretending to give an interview after she has "won" an "award" and takes out her retainer in the middle of it. She's the one who reads Cosmos and makes her friends take those stupid quizzes and stuffs her bra with water balloons filled with (vanilla) pudding and is the resident "expert" on sex. She craves attention and even as as adult she's still vapid and annoying, bragging her boob job was worth every penny. Teeny may have been best friends with Sam, but she was pretty horrible to Chrissy, even flat out telling the poor girl she's fat. The girls play Truth and Dare all the time and they ALWAYS choose Truth, no matter what. It's like, girls, just ask each other the damn questions without the whole Truth or Dare charade. On the day it's just her and Sam, she asks Sam who she would eat out of the four friends if they were ever in such a dire situation and Sam says she would choose Chrissy because she would feed more people and both girls snicker. You know what? Samantha and Teeny are stuck up little beeyotches so it's no wonder they clicked the most with each other! 

As you may have already guessed, Chrissy is the "fat" one of the group. She's not fat, per se, just chubby. They make such a big deal out of it and as I mentioned earlier, the other girls are pretty horrible to her about it except for Roberta. Chrissy is no doubt the Vern of this group, although when the boys in Stand By Me gave Vern a hard time, they never called him "fat" or "chubby" - that was Vern who would bring it up ("Great, spit at the fat kid!") and I always felt they gave him a hard time out of love and respect, while Sam and Teeny give Chrissy a hard time just to be mean and catty little beeyotches. There is plenty to give Chrissy crap about without it being about her weight because the girl is so prissy and whiny! She hates being dirty and has a hissy fit when Roberta splashes on her. She also freaks out when a bird poops and it lands in one of her pigtails and the other girls are laughing at her. While I did feel for her, I also thought it was a little funny. Her mom is played by Bonnie Hunt in one scene and she gives her daughter a very weird and awkward talk about sex in which she tells her every woman has a garden and it needs a hose ("big or small!") to water and fertilize it. Of course the girl that's the most confused about sex is the one who is pregnant when they're adults! We see where Prissy Chrissy (seriously, why did the other girls never give her that nickname?) gets her cleanliness phobia from as her mother tells her to keep the lid on her record player closed to keep it from being dusty and how to keep the canopy on her bed just so. 

I had no idea about this until just a couple months ago, but did you know that the actress who played young Chrissy, Ashleigh Aston Moore, died at the age of 26 in 2007? That was nearly ten years ago and I just found that out this year! I suppose it was because this was one of the very few roles she did and she stopped acting a couple years after this movie (which I think was her first one), so she was never a big name unlike the other young actresses who I knew from other things they were in. That just shocked me when I found out. Apparently she died of pneumonia. This part was offered to Kirsten Dunst, but she didn't want to gain weight for the role, according to the trivia section at IMDb.

If I had to chose a favorite out of the four girls, it would probably have to be Roberta. She's the tomboy of the group and has the best scenes out of all the other girls. She's the type of girl who will slug the boy at the baseball field when he announces that girls can't play baseball. The only thing Roberta does that is truly awful is pretend to kill herself when the girls are splashing around in a lake and she climbs up a tree and dives into the water despite the girls telling her it's too shallow. They see her floating, lifeless and the girls naturally freak out and swim over to her. That's a pretty f***ked up thing to do, pretend to have killed yourself, but she says it was just a joke and a test to see who her real friends were as Chrissy was the only one willing to give her mouth-to-mouth. In another one of her flat voiceovers, Demi Moore tells us this wasn't the first time Roberta had pretended to kill herself, that she had jumped off a roof before and pretended to have broken her neck. Chrissy punches Roberta in the face which she deserved. We learn that ever since Roberta's mom died when she was four, she's had an obsession with death and that was her own sick way of dealing with it. When the girls go to the library to see if they can find any information about Dear Johnny, Roberta is doing her own digging about her mother's death. She seems very surprised that her mother died in a car accident and it was a pretty brutal death. I'm not sure if her dad told her that her mom had died another, more peaceful way or she thought she was instantly killed in the car crash, but either way, Roberta was under the impression that the death had been quick and painless, but, in fact it wasn't, which upsets her greatly, naturally. When the girls sneak into Sam's grandmother's (Cloris Leachman) attic where they know there's information about Dear Johnny, Roberta is at first upset when they find out Dear Johnny and his mother were shot by an intruder robbing their house, then turns her agitation into being upset about her mother and breaks a mirror and I'm thinking, That's her friend's grandmother's mirror she just destroyed there! This scene was like the one in Stand By Me where Gordie says "Why did he have to die?" referring to his brother right after they found the dead body of the kid their age. One thing I never understood about this scene is why didn't Sam just sneak into the attic, then let the other girls in? Duh!

The four girls have an ongoing feud with the four Wormer brothers. Why? I'm not really sure. At first I thought "Wormer" was a derogatory term they called them, but no, that's their last name. The oldest brother, Scott, is played by Devon Sawa, who, if you were a preteen or teen girl in the '90s, you probably had a crush on. To be honest, I was never on the Devon Sawa train, though I will admit he was VERY cute. I only saw him in this movie and Casper (the OTHER 1995 movie in which he "makes out" with Christina Ricci) and his roles in those movies aren't very big. I never saw his other movies in the late '90s/early '00s when he became a little more popular. He was like a second rate Leonardo DiCaprio of that time, haha. Of course the reason he gives the girls such a hard time is because he has a crush on Roberta and there is a very cute scene where they're playing basketball together and he compliments her on her skills, saying she's good, "not just for a girl, but for a guy." (Hmm, that comment seems a little bit sexist, but I know he meant it as a compliment!) Roberta invites him to have a soda with her and while they're on the porch swing he mumbles, "Can I kiss you?" and of course she doesn't understand him so he has to ask again to which she says, "Sure" and he eagerly scoots closer to her and she goes, "Now?" Uh, what did she expect? His eagerness just made me laugh. They share a kiss and Scott's like, "That was great!" and Roberta says, "It was okay." After an awkward pause, I thought Roberta was going to attack him and start making out with him (hey, it's been awhile since I saw the movie last!), but instead she threatens that she'll beat the s**t out of him if he tells anyone. I guess that was more in character for her. While she never tells her friends about it as a kid, I'm surprised she never brought it up when they were adults. Teeny would have been jealous because she had a crush on Scott too (I mean, who wouldn't?) because wasn't that Devon Sawa she's giving the flirty eye to at the beginning of the movie when they're playing Red Rover?

Speaking of guys the girls flirt with, when they're riding their bikes back to Shelby after visiting the library a couple towns over, they run into a young veteran who just got back from the Vietnam War and is a traveling hobo hippie. He is played by Brendan Fraser who I had no idea was in this movie. It felt like this scene was thrown in at the last minute because they felt they needed something about the Vietnam War because of the time period the "Then" part is set during. The guy offers them cigarettes and gives them some sound advice about their parents not always knowing what they're talking about. When the girls are saying goodbye to him, Teeny is flirting with him, which is understandable, but flirting with him even more is Sam. It was a little creepy that a twelve-year-old was hardcore flirting with a guy in his early twenties. I thought it would have been hilarious if grown up Sam had ended up with him and we saw Brendan Fraser in the "Now" portion with old age make up, although that wouldn't have made any sense as he told the girls he doesn't stick around the same place for very long, so they probably never saw each other again. Also, "Now" Sam can't hold onto a relationship very long because she's afraid of getting hurt because she's still affected by her parents' divorce so she's bitter and single and dresses all in black and is a chain smoker. Just another cliche, you know.

All of these girls are really stupid. Why? Well, when Samantha is reading the article about how Dear Johnny and his mother died, she mentions the father/husband who found their bodies and his name is Peter Sims. My first reaction was "Crazy Pete is Dear Johnny's dad!" But none of these girls caught on. In fact, later, when Sam sees Crazy Pete at the cemetery in front of Dear Johnny's grave, she puts two and two together and says, "You're Johnny's dad!" And it isn't until several years later, during the "Now" portion when they're all adults when she reveals this to the other women and they're all SHOCKED! Seriously!??!?! You didn't know that???? That would have been the first thing out of my mouth had I been there in that attic in 1970 when Samantha read that article...I would have said, "Oh my God, you guys, Crazy Pete is Dear Johnny's dad!" And the other girls would have been like, "You're so smart!" And I would have replied with, "Well, any idiot could have figured that out!"

Can I just say how stupid the promotion poster for this movie is? It doesn't make any sense! As you see on the left, it's the "Now" actresses in the same shot as the "Then" actresses and they have their arms slung around them. This doesn't make any sense because how the hell can you touch an older/younger version of yourself. Now if this movie was a time travel movie, then sure, but it's not! What they should have done is divided the poster into two horizontal halves and have the "Now" portion on the top and then "Then" portion on the bottom. Because this just confuses everyone!

If you want to see a good coming of age movie, then watch Stand By Me!