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! 

Eternal Spring

Tuck Everlasting

Director: Jay Russell

Cast: Alexis Bledel, Jonathan Jackson, Sissy Spacek, William Hurt, Victor Garber, Ben Kingsley, Amy Irving

Released: October 11, 2002

Viewed in theaters: October 12, 2002

Spoilers start right away, so there's your warning! 

Even though I've seen this movie before, I didn't remember anything about it. I just remembered the immortality part. If you had asked me what this movie was about before I re-watched it (and I had totally forgotten this movie existed, but then I saw it was on Hulu), I would have said it's about a boy named Tuck who is an immortal. Well, Tuck is the surname of the boy whose name is Jesse (Jonathan Jackson) and the entire Tuck family is immortal. 

This movie felt more like a made-for-TV movie than a theatrical release. For one thing, it's only an hour and a half, and for another, it's just not that grand of a movie. It gets pretty cheesy in parts. I didn't think the acting by the two young leads was particularly great. I believe this was Alexis Bledel's first feature film and this came out during the third season of Gilmore Girls. Plus the all around premise is a little creepy, but I'll get to that later.

The movie is based on a 1975 novel written by Natalie Babbitt. I haven't read it, but I looked up the summary on Wikipedia to note any differences between the book and film. One of the main differences is that the main character, Winifred (who goes by Winnie), is ten in the book and fifteen in the movie. She is played by Bledel. She comes from a very well-to-do family and would rather be playing with kids her own age and getting dirty than wearing her pristine white dress while she practices piano or knits. While we know this movie is not set in the present day, we will learn later that the year is 1914.

One day she goes off into the woods after her uptight parents (Amy Irving and Victor Garber) have told her they're sending her away to boarding school. There she sees Jesse drinking from a spring. It's clear that Winifred has no people skills because she doesn't even try to be discreet that she's flat-out spying on him. She steps out into the open, watching him as he drinks. When he sees her, he's not angry, but you know he's not thrilled that this girl is out here and obviously shouldn't be. He asks her how long she's been there and she replies with, "Not long" and tells him that her family owns these woods after he tells her she shouldn't be out here. She agrees to leave, but wants a drink of water first. He tells her no, that the water is poisonous, which was pretty stupid since he was just drinking from it. When she heads towards the spring, he grabs her and she screams and runs away, exclaiming she's going to tell her father. She doesn't get very far because Jesse's older brother, Miles, catches her and they take her back to their house and their parents, Mae and Angus Tuck (Sissy Spacek and William Hurt). Of course, Winnie is totally freaked out since she's been basically kidnapped and just wants to go home. Mae is being very sweet and motherly to her, telling her they're not going to hurt her.

This is where the movie gets a little weird and makes me wonder if the novel comes off the same way. The Tuck family tell that they will let her return to her home as soon as they can trust her, but they never tell her their big secret until much later in the movie and even then, Jesse sort of just lets it slip out. We learn that Winnie has lost track of the days she's been imprisoned, but don't worry, she's having a grand old time as we see her and Jesse in this super cheesy montage where they're running slow-motion through a field of flowers while flailing their arms. Oh, how that made me cringe! I felt really bad for the actors. I can just imagine the director yelling at them, "Jump higher, move your arms more." Meanwhile, we get snippets of her poor parents who are worried sick about their daughter and get the police involved to find her. 

While Winnie and Jesse are spending more time with each other, they begin to fall in love. At one point she asks him how old he is and he tells her he's 104 years old. She tells him to be serious, and he says he's 17. And technically, both answers are right. When Winnie tells him, "I wish this moment could last forever", he tells her about the water that grants not only everlasting life, but also makes one immortal. When he said they were immortal, I just assumed they could never die of old age or get sick, but no, they can not die of anything. If they get shot in the head? Still alive! If they fall off a cliff? Still alive! If they get bit by a rattlesnake? Still alive (even without the antidote!). They literally cannot die. They're just like Claire, the invincible cheerleader from Heroes! Although, even though she could fall off high ledges and walk through fires and not die, I feel like there is a way to kill her since Sylar had a plan to do so, I just forgot how. Something about taking her brain? But with the Tucks, I get the impression they are immune to any type of death.

Jesse tells Winnie the story of the spring, how back in (hang on, let me do some quick math...) 1827, his family found it while traveling and started drinking from it. Everyone, but the cat that is. They quickly realize something is up when their horses are shot at by hunters who mistake them for deer (really?) and they don't die. We also learn that Jesse fell from thirty feet and didn't get one scratch on him and that someone else was bitten by a rattlesnake and was completely fine. Miles's wife left with their two children, saying he "sold his soul to the devil" and called the spring "witch craft" and "black magic". Needless to say, they did not drink from the spring. She ended up in a mental institution because of her ramblings about a spring that grants eternal life. While Jesse seems to embrace his eternal youth and long-lasting life, Miles sees it more as a curse and hates it. He wanted his kids to drink from it too, but that seems pretty cruel as you are permanently stuck at the age you are when you drink from it, and I imagine your brain is permanently stuck at that age too. I don't know how old his kids were, but they looked pretty young in the flashbacks. Can you imagine if you had to be five years old for the rest of your life and could never escape from it? Oh my God, that would be terrible. I'm glad his kids did not get to drink from the water, even though one of them did die when they were a teenager, but the other one lived a full life even if he never saw his dad again. And honestly, being seventeen forever (like Jesse) doesn't sound that great either. Now I realize that when he drank the water he didn't know this was going to happen. I feel like if you were going to be stuck at a permanent age, early thirties is where you want to be. You're old enough where you don't look like a teenager and you don't have to get carded for anything and you can still be an active member of society and you don't need a permission slip for anything, but you're also still young enough to be active and not worry about the psychical downsides of aging. Basically, you're not too young, you're not too old. Actually, this movie reminded me of The Age of Adaline where Blake Lively plays a character who has been stuck at the age of 29 since the early 20th century. Every few years she moves to a different location so she doesn't make anyone suspicious about her non-aging. Because of this, she isn't able to be close to anyone and even her own daughter out-ages her and they tell everyone she is her grandmother. In this film, the Tucks just seem to hang out in a house hidden in the woods and this is why they kidnap Winnie and keep her until they think they can trust her because they do not want her telling anyone about them.

Jesse tells Winnie that she's the first girl he's ever told this to because she's the first girl he's fallen in love with and wants to spend the rest of his life with. He wants her to drink the water. Now, in the book, from what I found out on Wikipedia, Jesse wants Winnie to wait until she is 17 and then drink the water so they will be the same age (remember, she is only ten in the novel!) and then they can get married. I'm not sure if there's a romance in the book like there is in the movie (God, I hope not!), but I guess he just wants someone to spend eternity with.

I don't understand the appeal of wanting to spend ETERNITY with anyone, even yourself. Sure, I understand if you meet your soul mate you want to spend as much time with them as possible and cherish every moment, but think about it - if you and your partner could live forever, then you would take each other for granted, you would be stuck with this person for the rest of your (and your partner's!) life and then you probably wish you could die! Nothing would be special anymore. This is one of the many reasons why I hate Twilight so much. Are we supposed to think it's so romantic that Bella and Edward are going to live forever? I remember one scene in the book where Bella is having a fit because Edward had to leave her for one night, and it's like, relax, you guys are going to spend the rest of eternity together, I think you can handle one lousy day apart, good Lord! There is a really bad line in this movie that could have easily been in a Twilight book - that's how much it made me roll my eyes! When the Tucks are ready to take Winnie home, Jesse tells her, "If I could die tomorrow I would do it just to spend one more night with you!" First of all, let's calm down. The girl is only fifteen. They make this line sound very sexual for a PG Disney family movie! They probably should have changed "night" to "day".

Winnie is seriously considering drinking the water, but after she hears Miles tell his story about how eternal life isn't all it's cracked up to be, she begins to waver. She does like the idea of never dying, but when Angus tells her, "Don't be afraid of death, be afraid of the un-lived life," that is what cements her decision NOT to drink the water.

Ben Kingsley plays a man in a yellow suit who is supposed to be the villain, but he didn't seem very villainous to me. Not until we learn he wants to collect the water and sell it to people "for a price", but Mae hits him in the head with a shovel before he has a chance to. Mae is arrested for murder and is to be hanged, but Winnie and the others know she won't die and then everyone will become suspicious, so they devise a plan to help Mae escape. This is when Winnie has to say her good-byes to the Tucks and can finally return to her family.

The movie ends in "present day" 2002 where we see Jesse on a motorcycle. He looks the same as he did in 1914, only now he's wearing jeans and a leather jacket. We see that he's come to visit Winnie's gravestone which says she lived a good 100 years (1899-1999) and was a wife and mother (and probably grandmother and great-grandmother), so we know she took Angus's advice and lived her life. I was glad the movie went this way and did not have Winnie drinking the water. 

"Whoever said orange was the new pink was seriously disturbed!"

Legally Blonde
Director: Robert Luketic
Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Luke Wilson, Selma Blair, Victor Garber, Jennifer Coolidge, Matthew Davis, Holland Taylor, Ali Larter, Linda Cardellini, Raquel Welch
Released: July 13, 2001

Confession: I am a redhead who loves Legally Blonde. I just adore this movie. (The sequel wasn't so good, though.) Elle Woods is my favorite Reese Witherspoon character. (And yes, that includes June Carter-Cash.) She has a very infectious, bubbly personality that you can't help but love. On the outside she looks like a bubble-headed, ditzy, dumb blonde who's very high-maintenance and probably comes off as snobby since she grew up in Beverly Hills right across the street from Aaron Spelling, but under that exterior she is fiercely smart and a loyal, caring friend. Who just happens to have great, shiny hair!

The movie starts with her sorority sisters wishing her good luck on her big date with her boyfriend, Warner (played by Matthew Davis...he played Alaric in The Vampire Diaries if that means anything to you). She thinks he's going to propose, but instead he breaks up with her because he is moving East to attend Harvard Law School and needs someone more serious than Elle. As he puts it, he needs someone who is more like a Jackie and less like a Marilyn. Elle, upset about all this, sniffles, "You're breaking up with me because I'm too BLONDE?"

While at a nail salon, a place where Elle goes when she's very upset and needs to relax, she sees a marriage announcement for Warner's older brother in the paper. He is marrying a girl who attended law school at Yale and Elle exclaims this is what she has to do to win Warner back. Now, following a guy all the way across the country and changing just for him isn't the best example for a strong-minded and independent woman to set, but when we first meet Elle, she is a little too dependent on her boyfriend.

We see her first glimmer of not being the stereotypical dumb blonde when she's shopping with her friends for a new dress and the saleswoman, thinking she's just a dumb college girl shopping with daddy's money, tries to sell her a dress full price on the sale rack, but Elle, having her major be in Fashion Merchandising, tells her she knows it's not a new dress. We also know she is not dumb because she passed her LSAT to get into Harvard Law School and studied hard for it. Although, I do think the old men at the Harvard Admission Office enjoyed her video essay where she's wearing a bikini in most of it!

After she gets into Harvard, she and her Chihuahua, Bruiser, drive her convertible all the way from L.A. to Massachusetts with a big moving van behind her. I don't know how she managed to fit everything she had in that moving van into her dorm room, but I guess she somehow managed to make it work! And her dorm room is big enough to fit an elliptical! When she arrives, she is mocked by everyone, being called "Malibu Barbie". Her first week in her classes don't go so well. She is the only one to not have a laptop, instead opting for a heart-shaped notepad and a pink pen with a feather in it. She seems more concerned with looking the part of a law student than actually preparing to be one. (Although, I must admit, her outfit for the first day of class is really cute and the glasses ARE a nice touch!) When the teacher (Holland Taylor) calls on her, she says she didn't know there was an assignment and doesn't have the textbook yet, while everyone around her does.

A snobby, preppy girl (Selma Blair, who, I must say is killing it as Kris Kardashian-Jenner-whatever she went by back then/goes by now in American Crime Story: The People vs OJ Simpson) is rude to Elle and of course later she finds out that she is Warner's fiance! He explains to Elle that they used to date when he grew up in Boston and recently got back together. Her name is Vivian Kensington and she is the Jackie to Elle's Marilyn. She excludes Elle when Elle wants to join their study group, saying they already have a full group and the notes have already been divvied up. She invites Elle to a party, but tells her it's a costume party when it's not so Elle looks ridiculous when she shows up as a bunny. Vivian is not the only one who thinks Elle is a joke, so do most of the other students in her classes. Elle decides it's time to get serious and we get a montage of her studying and doing well in her classes.

One of her closest friends is Paulette (Jennifer Coolidge), the manicurist Elle met when she went to a nail salon when she had to vent to someone about Warner and his new girlfriend. Paulette has a crush on the UPS guy, but has never said a word to him except for "Fine" or "Okay" whenever he asks her how she is. Elle tells her the secret that is the Bend and Snap to get a guy's attention. I get the "Bend" part where a woman "accidentally" drops something and bends over to show off her booty, but I don't get the "Snap" part where she pops back up with attitude. That part seems way too rehearsed and doesn't come off as natural. There's a funny, but ridiculous montage of Elle showing Paulette the Bend and Snap and a bunch of women (and one gay gay), also familiar with the Bend and Snap, volunteer their services to show Paulette how the Bend and Snap is done. A few days later, when the UPS guy comes to deliver a package ("I got a big one for you!"), she drops her pen, but just as she's starting to do her "Snap", he also bends over to pick up the pen and she ends up snapping back up right into his face and breaking his nose! Ouch!

After proving herself in the classroom, Elle gets a chance to help out a case that Professor Callahan (Victor Garber) has taken on along with some other law students including Warner and Vivian and a third year law student, Emmett (Luke Wilson), who has taken a liking to Elle. They are defending a woman named Brooke (Ali Larter) who Elle knows because she is from the same Sorority as Elle and taught a fitness class in L.A. that Elle attended a few times. She is accused of murdering her much older husband because her step-daughter (Linda Cardellini), who is the same age as her, claims she saw Brooke standing over her dad's dead body drenched in blood. When Callahan and the others asks her for an alibi, she won't give them one, but when Elle goes to visit her in jail, Brooke tells her she was getting lipo done the day of the murder and doesn't want anyone to know because she will be considered a fraud.

Brooke ends up firing Callahan (who turns out to be a jerk after he comes on to Elle) and hires Elle as her main attorney. It's a little dicey at first, but she ends up catching the stepdaughter in a lie when she repeatedly says on the witness stand that she was in the shower when her dad was shot, but when Elle asks her what she did earlier that day, she said she got a perm and Elle tells her she couldn't have been in the shower because it would ruin the perm if her hair got wet and we can clearly see her curls are still intact. This causes the stepdaughter to burst our and confess that she killed her father, explaining she thought it was going to be Brooke who was walking through the door when she shot the gun. Um...why didn't she just say she was wearing a shower cap? That's what I would have done! I feel like she did not think this through at all! Maybe the guilt was too much for her.

I loved the scene in the courtroom when her two best friends from L.A. come to visit her and are gushing how cute everything is and tell the jury to "vote for Elle!" I also love the scene when she introduces her and her dog as "Gemini vegetarians!"

A very cute and charming movie that I highly recommend! It's so beloved that even a musical has been made from it!

Argo see this movie now!

Argo
Director: Ben Affleck
Cast: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Victor Garber, John Goodman, Alan Alda
Released: October 12, 2012
Viewed in theaters: November 5, 2012

Ben Affleck, I forgive you. I forgive you for Pearl Harbor, for Gigli, for Daredevil. (I would forgive you for Armageddon, but, uh, I kinda like that movie). I forgive you for your relationships with, ugh, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Lopez. Even during your not so great moments, I have always liked you...perhaps even a little more than your BFF, Matt. How can you not like somebody who was in the music video for After 7's "Can't Stop" and who settled down with Jennifer Garner, an actress I like (and how nice of you to give a role in your new movie to her television father!) Plus with each movie you direct, I like it better than the last one!

I know Ben Affleck isn't reading this, but perhaps I have the attention of you, dear reader, and if you have not seen this movie, then I very much urge you to (Ar)go see it now! It's based on a true story, that, to be honest with you, I had never heard of until recently when I was listening to a few podcasts that were talking about this film and that's how I became aware of the movie and the events that happened on which it's based.

It's a small, but remarkable story within the Iran hostage crisis which started on November 4, 1979 when militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran because the U.S. supported the recently overthrown Shah. There's a brief history lesson as a prologue to the movie which makes things very helpful and easier to understand. It's a scary scene because there's a mob of militants and when you see they have broken the gates and are coming into the building, you feel their fear. Classified documents are being destroyed and shredded as fast as they can, tear gas canisters are being thrown at the militants, the Embassy staff are concerned about the Iranians who are already there to apply for U.S. Visas.

Since there's no place to escape, most of the Embassy are taken as hostages, but six manage to escape before the mob makes it in the building and find refugee in the home of the Canadian ambassador (played by (real life Canadian!) Victor Garber) and his wife and Iranian housekeeper, who suspects that his house guests are hiding out since they have been there two months and never go out.

Affleck plays CIA specialist Tony Mendez who is in charge of getting the six of them out of the country safely. A couple of ideas are thrown out on the table but none of them seem plausible. When Tony is watching Planet of the Apes with his son, he gets the idea to pose as a Hollywood associate producer and create fake names and Hollywood professions for the six hostages for them to be a Hollywood production team scouting out different areas for a sci-fi movie they are making, Argo. Tony believes this is the best bad idea they have.

With the help of a big shot Hollywood producer (Alan Arkin) and John Chambers, the makeup artist for Planet of the Apes who has worked with the CIA before (John Goodman), Tony picks out a script and gives each hostage a name and profession - scriptwriter, location scout, director, etc. Even though the movie is fake (well, the script was real!), and will never be made (let's face it - this movie is way more interesting than what the actual Argo would have been!), they still want everything to look as authentic as possible. While the producer is more concerned about choosing a script that would be a hit ("If I'm making a fake movie, I want a fake hit!"), Mendez chooses a script that calls for a location that could be set in the Middle East and Argo, a sci-fi fantasy movie that calls for a desert location, is their best bet for that. They also set up a casting party and an ad and article in Variety.

Also with the help from the CIA and Canadian government, Tony gets six fake passports. Their biggest obstacle will be getting past airport security. When a person enters the country they are given a white copy of their documented flight while the airport keeps the yellow copy so they can check when the person flew in. The six Americans are given (fake) white documents, but Tony instructs them to play dumb and tell the airport employees they don't know why they don't have them.

Even though I already knew the outcome of the story, they still did a great job of keeping you in suspense and on the edge of your seat. I haven't felt my heart pound that fast since I watched an episode of Breaking Bad! (Speaking of which, Bryan Cranston, Walter White himself, is in this movie!) In an odd way, I was reminded of United 93 in that both movies are based on true events and even though one movie has a successful ending and the other has a tragic ending, both movies made you worried (or hopeful in the case of United 93) that the opposite of what really happened would be the outcome.

I predict a Best Picture nod come Oscar season!

Are you ready to go back to Titanic?

Titanic
Director: James Cameron
Cast: Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Billy Zane, Victor Garber, Kathy Bates, Bill Paxton
Released: December 17, 1997; April 4, 2012
Viewed in theaters: December 24, 1997; January 24, 1998; March 24, 1998; April 7, 2012

Oscar nominations:
Best Picture  (won)
Best Director - James Cameron (won)
Best Actress - Kate Winslet (lost to Helen Hunt for As Good as It Gets)
Best Supporting Actress - Gloria Stewart (lost to Kim Basinger for L.A. Confidential)
Best Cinematography  (won)
Best Art Direction (won)
Best Costume Design (won)
Best Sound (won)
Best Film Editing (won)
Best Sound Effects Editing (won)
Best Visual Effects (won)
Best Make Up (lost to Men in Black)
Best Original Song - "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion (won)
Best Score - James Horner (won)

It's been 84 years and I can still smell the fresh paint.
The china had never been used.
The sheets had never been slept in.
Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was.
It really was.

Let me preface this review by saying I freaking love this movie. I'm not ashamed to say it! Even though I already saw it three times in the theater when it was first released and have seen it many times on video and DVD, I still wanted to see it again in the theater (even though I couldn't escape the 3-D aspect!) This is the only movie which has been re-released in theaters I've seen that I remember seeing the first time. I saw the re-release of E.T. and the first two (ugh) Star War movies, but I was way too young (or not born yet) to watch the first time around in theaters. 

Even after fifteen years, the special effects still hold up and the story still moves me and the 3-plus hour length never seemed that long to me. Now I'll be the first to admit that it isn't perfect. It had cheesy lines ("a woman's heart is like the ocean - full of secrets!") and a few scenes were unintentionally funny, like when the guy falls off the boat and hits the propellers - that always makes me giggle. :::hangs head in shame:::

It's been fifteen years and I can still remember seeing this movie in the theater for the first time. The date was December 24th, 1997 and I went to see it with my mom. I used my free movie passes. I remember being awed throughout the whole movie, crying my eyes out during several scenes (Rose jumping out of the lifeboat to be with Jack, the montage of people preparing for their inevitable deaths when the orchestra is playing, Rose letting go of Jack and calling for a boat with the whistle). Titanic was called the biggest movie ever and it was. It really was!

This time around, I noticed a few young girls in the theater between the ages of ten and fifteen and it warmed my cold little heart because while it's possible they've seen the movie before on DVD, you knew this was their first time experiencing it in the theater as many of them wouldn't have been born or way too young when it first was released in theaters. No young boys in the theater, though! There were only a couple guys...they were probably being dragged along by their girlfriends or wives! I didn't cry as much as I did the first time I saw it...but I did cry when Rose is on the drifting wood and hears somebody shouting for survivors and starts saying "Come back! Come back" and swims to a dead officer in the water and uses his whistle to get their attention. Yep, that made me cry a little! 

Somebody left the water running!

I absolutely LOVED Kate Winslet's wardrobe in this movie: the white dress with the purple trim and matching hat when she first boards the ship, her beaded red dress when she's going to jump off the ship, but my favorite was the blue dress she wore during the "Jack! I'm flying!" scene. Oh, and speaking of that scene, who hasn't been on a boat and gone to the bow and pretended to "fly" or shout "I'M THE KING OF THE WORLD!" Or is that just me?  Yes, I do that. Luckily, I haven't been on that many boats...

I was seventeen when I saw this movie, exactly in the age bracket that the movie was targeting. I always thought it was cool that I was the same age as Rose. Now, while I thought Leonardo DiCaprio was cute in the movie and while I do think he's a good actor, I was never one of those annoying Leo fangirls. (I think my mom was more enamored with him than I was!) I didn't see the movie in the theater those two (now three!) other times because of him, I saw it again because, as I've said before, I love this movie! 

You know, before I saw this movie, I hated being a redhead. Like, seriously, hated it. I would long to be a blonde or brunette and I was so jealous of my friends with dark or fair hair. But then I saw Kate Winslet with those gorgeous red curls, and I thought, damn, if the female lead in The!Best!Movie!Ever! (which is what I thought at the time, I was only 17 ;-)) has red hair, then red hair must be awesome. So now I'm all like, "Yeah, my hair is awesomel" Of course, Kate Winslet is way prettier than me! She was 22 when this movie came out and want to hear something crazy? The little girl who played Cora ("You're still my best girl, Cora!") is probably the same age now as Kate Winslet was when she was in Titanic. Stuff like that just blows my mind! 

Okay, so my favorite scene of the movie is the one at the very end. Remember, they show Old Rose sleeping, and they pan through her photos (okay, how awesome did Kate Winslet look in those, I especially love the first one - she just has that classic look, some actresses look too modern, but she really does look like she could have been born in another era) and then we see the Titanic underwater, but it morphs into before it sank and the camera pans into that room with the staircase and we see a big group of people - the men in the orchestra, Tommy and Fabrizio, Cora and her father, and I love that Mr. Andrews is the last person we see before Jack. Then of course, it's revealed that Rose is the one who has just entered and she and Jack kiss and everyone claps. Shut up, yes, I love that scene! It still gives me chills! I think she dreamed that, but died right after and is now in "Titanic heaven" with the other people who died on the ship. Yes, that's how I interpreted it!