Seinfeld

What is this? What am I doing with my life? Watching all nine seasons of Seinfeld in five months and writing about my ten favorite episodes, that's what I'm doing! I thought I would do it, you know, just for the little kicks of it! It was a bit difficult choosing ten episodes! So grab a poppyseed muffin top and caffe latte and enjoy!

10.   The Race (Season 6, Episode 10)

This just makes my top ten because I think it has one of the funniest scenes in the show's history. Jerry is dating a woman named Lois (and as a Superman aficionado, he loves that her name is Lois and utters things to her like, "I'm faster than a speeding bullet, Lois!") It turns out Lois's boss, Duncan, knew Jerry and George in high school and there was a race that all the 9th graders were in and he accused Jerry of cheating. Jerry DID cheat because he went when their gym teacher (Mr. Bevilaqua - now that's a great question for a Seinfeld trivia question!) said "Get Set".  He was ten yard ahead of everybody else by the time Mr. Bevilaqua said "Go". He said he won and nobody had even noticed his head start which I find a little bit ridiculous! George is the only one who knows the truth. Duncan was the only one who was suspicious of Jerry's win, but Jerry refused to race anyone and would announce "I choose not to run!" whenever anyone challenged him to a race. Now that Duncan is back in Jerry's life, he wants to challenge Jerry to a race, but Jerry keeps avoiding him. 

Since Duncan doesn't know that George and Jerry know each other, George gets the idea to "accidentally" run into Jerry and Duncan and set the record "straight" about the race. We get this hilarious scene which I think is one of the funniest during the whole series, and well, you can watch it here:




9. The Stall (Season 5, Episode 12)

Elaine and Jerry's girlfriend of the week, Jane (played by Jami Gertz from The Lost Boys) unknowingly meet when they're both in the bathroom stall of a movie theater and Elaine sees she's out of toilet paper and asks the woman next to her if she can "spare a square", but the woman can not "spare a square". They each came with their date so we see Jane telling Jerry about what happened and we see Elaine telling her new boyfriend, "pretty boy" Tony about what happened. When Elaine tells Jerry the story the next day, he quickly realizes that Elaine was the other woman in the story his girlfriend told him about. Elaine says she will never forget that voice and the two couples are suppose to double date soon. In another scene where Elaine is coming up to Jerry's apartment while Jane is there, Jerry tells her she needs gum to freshen her breath and gives her a bunch of sticks so her voice is muffled when Elaine meets her for the first time. Of course, Elaine does eventually find out who she is and ends up stealing all the toilet paper from the Monk's restroom when Jane is about to go in there.

Meanwhile, Jerry calls Tony a "mimbo" (male bimbo) and accuses Elaine of dating him just because he has a perfect looking face (which is true). Both of them agree that George has a male crush on him because he's always talking about him. We see Tony and George having lunch together at Monk's and George even turns his hat around backwards just like Tony so he can emulate him. George wants them to go bowling, but Tony says you don't get a rush from bowling (though George argues that you do if you drop a bowling ball on your toe!) and wants to go rock climbing. George agrees to it as long as it's just the two of them and offers to make sandwiches. However, Kramer enters the scene and is invited to go with them which angers George. During the rock climbing excursion (terrible green screen, by the way), Tony ends up falling due to miscommunication between George and Kramer. At first, I thought he had died, but he just ended up damaging his face really bad. And Elaine is REALLY upset! "What happened to his face? What happened to his face?" I thought it was peculiar how he all his limbs were in tact, yet his face is the only thing bandaged up.

8. The Implant (Season 4, Episode 19)

Before she was Lois Lane in The New Adventures of Superman or Susan Mayer in Desperate Housewives, Teri Hatcher played one of Jerry's girlfriends. She's probably one of a handful who went on to have a successful career because there have been a lot of actresses to play Jerry's girlfriend of the week who you have no idea who they are now. Hatcher plays Sidra, who Jerry meets at the health club and really likes. Elaine tells him that her breasts are fake which is a deal breaker for Jerry and he breaks up with her. Elaine realizes she may have been wrong about her when they're in the sauna together and she trips and grabs on to her breasts to stop her fall. Sidra give Jerry a second chance and things seem to be going good until Elaine shows up (Jerry really needs to lock his door!) and Sidra realizes that she's his ex and believes that he set her up to feel her breasts. She leaves Jerry's apartment telling him, "By the way, they're real and they're spectacular!" which has become a great Seinfeld quote. When Elaine tells Jerry that Sidra's breasts may be real, he doesn't believe her because she hasn't touched any breasts, which doesn't make any sense because you think a woman would be the number one person to know if breasts were real or not since they already have them...duh!

Meanwhile, Kramer is convinced that Salman Rushdie is hanging out at the health club. "Salman" tells Kramer that his name is "Sal Bass" and he's a writer and he's spent some time in the Middle East.

Also, in this episode we see another well known actress play George's girlfriend. Megan Mullaly aka Karen Walker from Will & Grace plays Betsy. There's a funny scene where they're at her apartment and the phone rings, but George tells her not to pick it up and she asks what if it's an emergency and he tells her there's probably only 3 emergencies going on right now, what are the odds that this would be one? She answers the phone anyway and it turns out it IS an emergency because her aunt has died. George mutters, "All right, maybe four emergencies". It's funny seeing George in the background reacting to Betsy's phone call, who has her back to him. Jerry thinks George should go to the funeral (which is in Detroit) because it will score him big points and he'll be "the consolation guy". Kramer tells him "It's like ten dates in one shot". George is worried about it being an expensive flight (any mention of George being a cheapskate is always gold) and Kramer suggests he use the Death-in-the-Family fare which is where you go to the airline and tell them you have a death in the family and you get 50% off your flight. So apparently these were once a thing, called bereavement flights, but they don't seem to be offered by many airlines anymore...I'm sure many people took advantage of them as George did! There's a catch that he has to pay the full fare now, then when he returns with the death certificate, he will get a refund. The woman tells him they do this or otherwise people would take advantage and George says, "What kind of sick person would do that?" Haha.

At the wake, we get the "double dip" scene where George dips a chip, takes a bite, then dips it again and Betsy's brother sees this and calls him out on it. In my mind, I remembered it as George being the one to call the other person out doing the double dipping, but if George can take an eclair out of the trash that only had one bite taken out of it, then I can believe he would also double dip!

George talks to a family member, telling him he needs the death certificate because he's making a scrapbook for Betsy about her aunt's life. In the end, he never gets the death certificate, but tries to pass off a Polaroid of him next to the coffin as the next best thing, but it doesn't work.

7. The Dinner Party (Season 5, Episode 13)

The gang are headed to a dinner party. Elaine says they should stop to bring a bottle of wine and cake, but George says they should just bring Ring Dings and Pepsi because that's what he would prefer. (How ghetto, George!)

It's cold outside and George is wearing this ridiuclous puffy parka made out of Gore-Tex. I guess this was before they made thin coats that could keep you warm. There's a call back to an older episode where Jerry calls him "Bubble Boy." While Jerry and Elaine go to a bakery, George and Kramer stop to get a bottle of wine. George is infuriated that the bottle Kramer picks out costs $12 (LOL, I love how cheap he is) and he'll have to pay for it because Kramer forget his wallet. He only has a 100 dollar bill and the man tells him he can't give him change for that. Kramer tells him he can break the bill and goes outside, yelling, "Hey does anyone have change for a hundred?" before George tells him to stop. Kramer suggests that they buy some things at a newsstand to get change. Once they have change, they go back to the wine store to buy the bottle and when they go out to their car, someone has double parked in front of them. You can tell that a lot of time has passed because it's gotten dark and George is worried that Elaine is going to be mad. He's a little afraid of her because one time he was wearing a Panama hat when she got mad at him and she pulled the brim down so hard that his head came through the hat. Kramer is cold and they go back inside the store.  George knocks over a display of wine because of his ridiculous coat and he has to pay for all those bottles he broke. He doesn't have enough money, so he gives up his new coat. It is revealed that Saddam Hussein (or is it?) is the double parker. Super random!

At the bakery, Elaine and Jerry decide to get a chocolate babka, but when they forget to pick a number, they try to get it from a couple who they know they were ahead of. This couple is also going to the same party as them and they refuse to give up their number AND they buy the last chocolate babka. They end up getting the cinnamon babka and Jerry also buys a black and white cookie, which he loves because "it's two races living in harmony". However, the cookie isn't so harmonious because Jerry ends up getting sick and throwing up, ending his 14 year streak of not throwing up since June 1980. They find a hair on the babka (SO gross...when it comes to the "Would you rather have food in your hair or hair in your food?" debate, I always choose the former). Jerry says it's probably Elaine's, but she tells him she takes such good care of her hair, that "you could serve dinner on [her] head!" They exchange the babka for another one, but the woman is hacking and coughing and Jerry says, "Yeah, you want to trade your hair for some phlegm." As gross as hair is, someone coughing on your cake is much worse. I guess this explains why Jerry got sick, although this coughing fit for the woman seems to come out of nowhere as she was fine earlier. Surprisingly, Jerry will go back to this same bakery in "The Rye" where he will steal a loaf of marble rye from an old lady. If I went to a bakery where I threw up from eating one of their cookies, got a cake with a hair, AND someone was coughing all over my purchase, I would never go there again!

They go to the party, give their wine and babka to the woman, then leave. After the night they just had, I wouldn't want to stay at that party either!

6. The Betrayal (Season 9, Episode 8)

This episode should have been called "The Backwards Episode". It's the one with the gimmick of being shown backwards. If this were a regular episode, it wouldn't have made my top ten. Apparently, on the DVD you can watch it straight forward, but I've never seen it that way. They did a Memento before Memento was even a thing! It starts with the end credits and ends with the beginning credits and familiar theme song. We get title cards like "One day earlier" or "30 minutes earlier" or "5 minutes earlier". Watching it in "real" time, it honestly wouldn't be that great of an episode, but when you watch each scene from last to first, you get some great gags, like when Kramer goes between apartments talking to his nemesis and Jerry, the lollipop he's been licking keeps getting larger and larger. There's also a hilarious scene where Jerry opens his silverware drawer and finds a bowl of cereal (with milk!) in there for some reason. Well, a few short scenes later (earlier?), we find out that Kramer put the cereal in the drawer. He had been pouring himself some Fruit Loops and spilled them all over the counter and he hid it in the drawer when Jerry came back to his apartment. There's a funny scene where Kramer goes to Newman's apartment where he's having a birthday party and says he wasn't invited and Newman goes, "Your invitation must have gotten lost...in the mail!" and him and all his postal buddies start cackling like it's some stupid inside joke (which I'm sure it is).

Elaine, George, Jerry, and George's girlfriend, Nina, go to India to attend Sue Ellen Mischke's (played by another Desperate Housewife alum) wedding. The betrayal is in referral to Sue Ellen finding out that Elaine once slept with the groom and the wedding is off. (Who cares? It was a long time ago, before she even met him). Also, George is dating Nina, a friend of Jerry's who he asked Jerry to set him up with. He likes that Jerry has never slept with her and the reason for that is because there's never been an awkward pause in the conversation for him to make a move. To me, this doesn't make any sense. You think if two people got along so well, it would be easier for them to ignite that spark. But according to Jerry, he needs an awkward pause. He says that if Elaine ever left their group, then he would bring in Nina to be her replacement. However, he and Nina are chatting a few scenes later and there's an awkward pause and they end up sleeping together. Elaine finds out when she goes to Jerry's apartment and sees Nina leaving. Jerry pleads for her not to tell George and she says "I"ll put it in the vault" and Jerry says, "No good...too many people knows the combination!" and mimes drinking. George also knows that Elaine opens up when she's had too much to drink and when she seems weird when he mentions that Nina should go to India with them, he offers her a drink and she spills that Jerry and Nina slept together. All of this betrayal is revealed at the wedding. The show literally only has about five minutes of them in India. I love the "ending" (or rather the beginning) of the episode is "ten years ago" and has Jerry moving into his apartment and Kramer comes by to introduce himself and Jerry invites him over for pizza and Jerry tells him, "What's mine is yours." I'm sure he regrets saying that now since Kramer is such a moocher!

5. The Maestro (Season 7, Episode 3)

This episode is our first introduction to one of my favorite ancillary Seinfeld characters, lawyer Jackie Chiles who is clearly modeled after Johnnie Cochran. This episode aired in the fall of 1995 so this is primetime OJ Trial. In the previous episode, Kramer was going to the movies with Jerry, but had ordered a "caffe latte" (did people call it that back in 1995?), but he had to hide it in his pants because the staff at the movie theaters don't like patrons sneaking in outside food. Well, he ends up spilling the coffee and burning himself and that's when he finds out about Jackie Chiles who tells him he has a case against Java World. Kramer tells him he snuck in the coffee because he didn't want to buy the theaters' coffee and asks if that will be a problem and Chiles replies, "Yes, it will be a problem for THEM. This is a clear violation of your rights as a consumer. It's an infringement on your constitutional rights. It's outrageous, egregious, preposterous." Jackie also asks if there was a top on the lid and when Kramer tells him there was, he asks if Kramer put the top on or did they and Kramer says the coffee people did. He then asks his secretary to get him a caffe latte at Java World with a top so he can "run some tests on that top." He's actually asking some pretty valid questions about the ordeal. Obviously Kramer has no case because he was the one who put the coffee in his pants and snuck it in! Who does that with a HOT beverage?

Instead of going to court, Java World wants to settle and Kramer is excited because this means he's going to be a rich man. But things go bad when Kramer cures the huge burn on his stomach when he uses an herbal Chinese balm that the titular character gives him and now he's worried he won't get any money. Jackie is furious with him, wanting to know why he used the balm. But, lucky for them, Java World just wants to settle this before it gets in the papers and starts giving them bad publicity. In a scene we see of them before Kramer and Jackie meet with them, they decide to give Kramer $50,000 and free coffee for life at all their store. When they tell this deal to Kramer, they only get out "free coffee at any of our stores" when he blurts out, "I'll take it!" Jackie is furious, wanting to know what else was going to be offered. Now as much as $50,000 would be great to have, I honestly would be THRILLED to have free coffee for the rest of my life at either Starbucks or Scooters; I don't care, take your pick. I would save so much money. I don't want to reveal how much money I spend on coffee a month because, well, it's probably way too much! There's a funny scene where Kramer is talking really fast to Jerry because he's just had a few of his free cafe lattes.

Other story lines include George getting a chair for the security guard at the store Susan's (you remember Susan, she's George's fiance from season 7 who died from licking toxic envelopes because George was cheap when it came to choosing their wedding invitations!) uncle's store. He gets the guard a rocking chair so he doesn't have to stand all day, but the joke is the guard falls asleep while sitting in the chair and the store is robbed.

The titular character, "The Maestro" is the weakest part of the episode. It's some conductor friend of Kramer's that Elaine is dating. His real name is Bob Cobb, but he insists that everyone call him "The Maestro". There's this whole stupid storyline where he tells Jerry he's renting a house in Tuscany, but there are no other houses to rent, which is ridiculous. And just how rich is this maestro that he can rent a house in Tuscany...because that has to cost a fortune.

4. The Bizarro Jerry (Season 8, Episode 3)

The most memorable storyline of this episode is Elaine's, where she meets three new friends, three guys who share very similar physical traits to Jerry, George, and Kramer, but are their complete opposites, personality wise. They are the Bizarro Jerry, George, and Kramer. Elaine was dating Kevin (the Bizarro Jerry), in the previous episode but they decided to just be friends and he proves to be a better friend than Jerry is. Jerry forgets to pick up Elaine from White Plains and she tells him that Kevin is "reliable, considerate, he's like your exact opposite."It's so funny when Elaine walks into Jerry's apartment and she raises her arms and starts shaking her head and Jerry does the same thing, not having any idea why she's so angry. This is when Jerry tells Elaine that Kevin is "Bizarro Jerry". Elaine meets Kevin's friends, the short and balding and bespectacled Gene (Bizarro George) and the tall and doofy looking Feldman (Bizarro Kramer). We see Kevin's apartment, which is just like Jerry's, only everything is on the opposite side. Feldman knocks on the door and brings Kevin groceries he's bought him. There's even a Bizarro Newman named Vargus, also a postal worker, and of course he is great friends with Kevin.

We get this great scene towards the end of the episode where Elaine is on the sidewalk and coming from one side is Jerry, George, and Kramer, and coming from the other side are their Bizarro counterparts. Elaine decides to choose the latter and George asks if he can come with them, but she tells him they already have a George. However, she decide she likes her old friends better because all her new friends only read and Kevin doesn't like it when Elaine eats food out of his fridge. Plus they tell her she needs to leave when she does her famous "GET OUT!" push to Kevin and nearly hurts him.

3. The Puffy Shirt (Season 5, Episode 2)

It was really hard to choose my ten favorite episodes and rank them. To be honest, as much as I do love the episodes I chose as my #4-10, I could have easily chosen seven different episodes at another time, it would just depend on my mood. I also could have reshuffled the order depending on my mood. However, I really love the episodes I chose as my top three and these three episodes would always be in my top three of Seinfeld episodes.

Judging from the title of this episode, I know you already know which one it is. Jerry and Elaine go out to dinner with Kramer and his new girlfriend, Leslie, who is a low talker. (Fun fact: she is played by the same woman who played the teacher in The Wonder Years who Kevin had a crush on. At least you could hear her on that show!) She speaks so softly nobody can hear her, except for Kramer who is sitting right next to her, so I guess that is the trick! When Kramer uses the restroom, Leslie talks to Jerry and Elaine who are just nodding and smiling. Elaine tells her that Jerry is going to appear on The Today Show to promote a benefit for the Goodwill who clothe the homeless and the poor. Leslie, who we learn is an up and coming fashion designer, says something that of course Jerry and Elaine can't hear and they both nod and say "Sure, yeah, uh-huh."

Unbeknowst to Jerry, he has agreed to wear this awful puffy shirt when he appears on The Today Show that Leslie has designed that makes him look like a pirate, but when Jerry finds this out from Kramer, he whines, "But I don't wanna be a pirate!" It's hilarious when he sees the shirt and says, "THIS? I agreed to wear THIS?" Jerry is worried (and with good reason) he's going to look ridiculous wearing this on national TV and that it will look like he's mocking the Goodwill, especially since his aim is to help clothe the homeless. When Elaine sees Jerry in the dressing room wearing the shirt, she just starts cracking up and can't stop. She tells Jerry that he cannot wear this shirt because raising awareness for clothing homeless people, but Jerry tells her he has to because they've already put in more orders for this terrible shirt and they're making more as they speak. Leslie is depending on him wearing the shirt because she thinks if people will see it, they will get a lot of orders. (Is she really that delusional? She possibly can't think anybody would want to buy that shirt!) I'm on Elaine's side here - it's going to look really bad for the Goodwill if Jerry wears this shirt. Also, does it really count as a binding contact if you don't even know what you're agreeing to? Plus, Jerry never signed anything. But he appears on the show wearing the shirt and Bryan Gumbel gives him grief about it. Jerry, who is getting irritated with being made fun of, agrees with him and tells him he feels ridiuclous wearing it and that "it's the stupidest shirt he's ever seen." We hear Leslie SCREAM "You bastard!" from off screen and Bryan asks him if he heard that (how could you NOT hear that?) and Jerry replies, "THAT I heard!"

Meanwhile, George gets discovered by a woman who works as a modeling agent and she tells him that he has the most exquisite hands and now he has found his calling as a hand model. He gets manicures and wears oven mitts to protect them. While at a photo shoot, George learns about a man named Ray McKigney who had "the most exquisite hands you've ever seen" and that "he had it all". George asked what happened to him and finds out that while Ray could have had any woman he wanted, none of them compared to his own hands which became his "one true love". (What? Eww, LOL). We get a great call back to the well known episode "The Contest" when the man telling George the story tells him that Ray was "not master of his domain". Apparently he used his hands for that so much that they became "locked in a deformed position and he was left with nothing but a claw." He couldn't even hold utensils and  he was dependent on other people to feed him. (What the huh? This is just getting ridiuclous, but it's hilarious!)

George is feeling pretty good about his new career. He got a nice paycheck for doing like two minutes of work and an attractive woman working on the photo shoot asks him out. George goes to the dressing room where Jerry, Elaine, Kramer, and Leslie are after Jerry's appearance to tell Jerry how great his life is now. He then proceeds to make fun of Jerry's shirt and asks him who dressed him. Leslie, who is looking furious in the background, gets up and pushes George who trips and falls into a table with a hot iron and burns his hands thus ending his short-lived hand modeling career.

2. The Soup Nazi (Season 7, Episode 6)

This is probably the most famous episode of Seinfeld. Either this or The Contest, but I would say this one. There's a new place that sells the most delicious soup you've ever had, but the owner has very strict rules about how people place their orders and if they don't obey the rules, then it's "NO SOUP FOR YOU!" Hence the reason his nickname is The Soup Nazi. Jerry and George tell this to Elaine when she's about to visit the place for the first time, but she's not really paying attention. There seems to be a lot of rules for how to place an order...I would be too intimidated to go to a place like that because I would be worried I would get yelled at! When George places his order, he discovers he didn't get his bread, but when he speaks up, the Soup Nazi tells him it will cost him $2, even though the bread is supposed to be free. He marks the price up to $3 when George tells him this, then tells him "NO SOUP FOR YOU!" when George is incredulous about this and the woman working behind the cashier snatches back his bag. When George goes back the next day, he does everything right this time, but when he sucks up to the Soup Nazi, he tells George, "You're pushing your luck, little man."

During Elaine' first visit to the soup stand, she bangs her hands on top of the counter, she tells the Soup Nazi she doesn't like lima beans and makes a face, and tells him he looks like Al Pacino from Scent of a Woman and goes "HOO WAH! HOO WAH!" Pretty much everything she does angers the Soup Nazi and he bans her for a year. Elaine gets her revenge when Kramer gives her an armoire that the Soup Nazi (who Kramer has befriended) gave him after Kramer tells him the one he was watching for a friend (who happened to be Elaine) was stolen. While going through it, Elaine finds all the soup recipes and returns to the soup stand to tell the Soup Nazi that she's going to have the recipes printed.

Jerry must choose between the soup and his girlfriend of the week, Sheila, when they are caught kissing in line and the Soup Nazi is angry at this and tells them, "NO SOUP FOR YOU!" Jerry pretends not to know Sheila (even though he was just literally kissing her a few seconds ago!) When Elaine is surprised that Jerry chose soup over a woman, Jerry asks her if she's ever tasted the soup and she agrees that he made the right delicious. I also agree that he made the right decision because Sheila was super annoying. She and Jerry would baby talk to each other and call each other "Schmoopie" which seemed way out of character for Jerry. Jerry also points out that it will be easier to make up with Sheila than the Soup Nazi.

And, in case you were wondering what kind of soup you can order from the Soup Nazi, these are the soups he offers: Mulligatawny (an Indian soup, a favorite of Kramer's), crab bisque, turkey chili, jambalaya (Newman's favorite), black bean, chicken broccoli, clam bisque, split pea, French onion, mushroom barley, and tomato rice. What? No Broccoli cheese? Or chicken tortilla? Very disappointed that the Soup Nazi doesn't serve two of my favorite kinds of soups! We will learn that the Soup Nazi's name is Yev Kassem when he testifies at their trial in the last episode.

1. The Yada Yada (Season 8, Episode 19)

To this day, I still use "yada yada" in my everyday phrase. Seinfeld of course didn't invent it, but it certainly popularized it. I had remembered Elaine as being the one who starts doing it, but it's actually George's girlfriend, Marcy. Elaine does use "yada yada" later on in the episode, so that's probably what I'm thinking of. It's just really funny how Marcy uses "yada yada" to skip over crazy parts of her stories and just get to the point. For instance, she tells him, "So I'm on Third Avenue, minding my own business, and yada, yada, yada, I get a free massage and a facial." See, completely skips over the entire part of the story of HOW she got this free massage and facial. Georges uses her "succinct" method of telling stories to tell her about Susan: "We were engaged to be married, we bought the wedding invitations, and yada, yada, yada, I'm still single!" When Marcy asks him, "So what's she doing now?", George replies, "Yada."  Ahhahaha! He probably should've just changed "yada" to "nada"! However, he gets suspicious when Marcy tells him, "Speaking of exes, my old boyfriend came over last night, and yada, yada, yada, I'm really tired today." He believes Marcy has yada yada'd sex (even though he just yada yada's over his ex-fiance's death - hmm, I wonder which one is worse?) and relays this to Jerry and Elaine. Elaine says she's yada yada's sex and this is probably what I'm remembering. George tells Marcy he doesn't want her using "yada yada" anymore and asks her to tell him about the free facial. She tells him that she went to Bloomingdales where she stole a watch, then went to the salon where she got her massage and facial and skipped out on the bill. So, yeah, she yada yada'd over being a shoplifter. She wants to know the rest of George's story about being engaged, but he just gives her a look.

Elaine's storyline involves being a reference for her friend Beth, and her new husband, Arnie to adopt a child. We met Beth (played by a pre-Will & Grace Debra Messing) in an earlier episode where she was married to someone else. Jerry has a thing for Beth and wanted to grab her when she got divorced from her first husband, but it never happened. Elaine ruins any chance of Beth and Arnie adopting a child because she tells the interviewer that when she went to see Striptease with the couple, she was talking to Beth and Arnie leaned over her and said, "WOULD YOU SHUT UP?" I have no idea what Elaine is thinking telling this story! She tries to backpedal when she sees the look on the interviewer's face and says, "But they're GREAT people!' Elaine finds out that their adoption application was denied because "the adoption agency feels that Arnie has a violent temper." Beth tells her they're asking everyone who had an interview with him to see what they said. Elaine says, "I just told him what kind people you are and what a big movie buff Arnie is, and yada, yada, yada, that is it!" The second time Elaine uses the "yada yada", so no wonder I remember this as being her catchphrase. Beth calls it quits with her second husband and Jerry decides this is the time to make a move on her...which he does, but it doesn't last very long when Beth reveals herself to be a racist and anti-Semitic. Ouch. (Did she not know Jerry was Jewish?)

Jerry's storyline involves his dentist Tim Whatley (played by a pre-Malcolm in the Middle and pre-Breaking Bad Bryan Cranston) converting to Judaism which angers Jerry because he believes Whatley is only converting for the jokes. When Jerry is getting a cavity filled, Whatley starts making some off-color jokes and when Jerry asks him if he should be making jokes like that, he replies, "Why not? I'm Jewish, remember?" He also says, "It's our sense of humor that sustained us as a people for 3,000 years." When Jerry corrects him, "5,000", he replies, "5,000, even better!" When Jerry confesses his feeling about Whatley to a priest, the priest asks him if this offends him as a Jew, Jerry tells him that it offends him as a comedian. It's funny when he goes to the confessional booth because he sits instead of kneels.

Kramer's storyline is the weakest. He and Mickey (his little person friend) pick up two girls at the Gap, but when they meet them for dinner, they're not sure which girl (who are both pretty similar) they're supposed to be dating. He and Mickey can't decide which girl they like and they fight over who gets who. Mickey ends up marrying one, but it turns out she really liked Kramer and the girl at the wedding who didn't marry Mickey was crying because she wanted to marry him. But despite the one weak storyline, lots of good things in here to keep you laughing.

I just know tomorrow that my top ten (except the top 3!) are all going to change...too many good episodes to choose from!

Boston Rats

The Departed

Director: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, Vera Farmiga, Alec Baldwin

Released: October 6, 2006

Oscar nominations:

Best Picture (won)

Best Director - Martin Scorsese (won)

Best Supporting Actor - Mark Wahlberg (lost to Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine)

Best Editing (won)

Best Adapted Screenplay - William Monahan (won)

If you've never seen it, I would highly suggest watching The Departed before reading this review. I will give warnings when I get to spoilers...I have slight spoilers and I have major spoilers. It probably won't be a big deal if you're spoiled slightly, but, trust me, you don't want to know the major spoilers if you haven't seen this movie yet! 

So this film is actually a remake of a 2002 Hong Kong film called Infernal Affairs. I've never seen it, but from what I do know about it, it's an hour shorter than The Departed (which is two and a half hours long). The inspiration for that movie was a more realistic version of Face/Off and while I was watching this, I did kind of get that vibe (just not as absurd!)

Even though this is a remake of a foreign film, I did get a slight Goodfellas vibe from it. Even though I enjoy The Departed, I like Goodfellas better. Let's be honest: that's the movie Scorsese should have won for! I will say this is my favorite collaboration between Marty and Leo. Well, it's a toss up between this and The Wolf of Wall Street. I'm not too high on Gangs of New York or The Aviator or Shutter Island. 

Slight spoiler warning alert! I feel like this information is probably known to everyone because it starts pretty early in the movie, but you never can be too careful! 

The movie takes place in Boston where Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) has become a detective for the Massachusetts State Police. However, he is actually a mole to gather information who has been trained and groomed by Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), an Irish mob boss who has been like a father figure to Sullivan ever since he was a young boy. In fact, when I saw the young boy they cast as him, I knew instantly it was Matt Damon's character! They did a really job casting him. In fact, he even calls Costello "Dad" whenever he calls him on the phone right in front of the police captain, Queenan (Martin Sheen). "Hi, Dad, I can't make it to dinner, but my friends are still coming!" Seriously, how did they not figure out what that's code for when he was saying that right in front of them?

Meanwhile, while there's a rat in the police unit, Captain Queenan and Sergeant Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) have placed undercover cop William Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) to infiltrate Costello's mob group. He has just graduated from the police academy and nobody knows who he is except for one person (and I'll get to that later). Their plan for Costigan is to have him get arrested for assault, spend some time in jail, then get in with Costello's group. That way at least it will look authentic he's a hood rat. Queenan and Dignam are the only two people who know that Costigan is working undercover.

After a major transaction of microprocessors (whatever the heck this is) goes wrong, Sullivan and Costigan are well aware there are rats on the other side and warn their respective leaders of them. While Sullivan is on police duty watching this transaction go down through surveillance with the other officers, he reaches into his coat pocket and we see him text a message to Costello, with one hand, mind you, and keeping his phone in his pocket, "No phones". Okay, this is 2006, so he's doing this with a flip phone and he's obviously memorized which buttons to push and how many times to push the up/down arrow to get to his contacts, then how many down to click on Costello's name and which buttons to push to write "No phones", but....if I did that, I would probably end up sending it to the wrong person....if I even got to contacts and the message would probably read "77 74843" or whatever numbers correlate with those letters! Obviously, he probably practiced doing that until he got it right, but I was pretty impressed he could do that. So he warns Costello to shut off the phones and everyone is like, "They turned their phones off!" However, there's one person who has kept his phone on and Costigan has texted Queenan a simple "$" to let him know the buyers are there. So that's how the two infiltrators are aware of each other. They just don't know who they are. 

For a movie without any adolescent girls or hardly any female characters for that matter, there's a lot of period talk. It's really gross. Well, it's really gross and skeevy in one scene, and in the other scene, it's still gross, but it's also funny. In the opening scene, when we're introduced to Costello and see him talking to a young Colin, he asks the girl who's working behind the counter, "Have you gotten your period yet?" First of all, ewwwwwww. Second of all, the girls is clearly at least sixteen. Of course she's gotten her period. Don't be an idiot, Frank. During this whole monologue we're getting from Costello, they keep him hidden in the shadows and I thought they were doing this because it takes place in the past and they didn't want us to see Nicholson's face cuz he needs to be young, but at the very end of his speech, we see him step out of the shadows and see his face.  In the other scene where periods come up, Costigan is at a bar where Costello's guys hang out and he orders a cranberry juice. One of the guys tells him that's what his girlfriend drinks when she's on her period and asks Costigan if he's on his period and in response gets a shot glass smashed on his head.

Speaking of women, police psychologist, Madalyn (Vera Farmiga) is the only one of note, and thank God, we don't have to hear about her menstruation cycle. She strikes up a relationship with Sullivan and they start dating. Their meet cute is super annoying. They're both on an elevator with several other people and Sullivan strikes up a conversation with her. When the elevator opens, it's her floor, and she gets off, but Sullivan, who tells her he's up one more floor, stays on the elevator, but keeps his body against the door to keep the elevator from closing and is still talking to her for several minutes, eventually getting her card. And there are other people still on the elevator waiting while these two are shamelessly flirting with each other! I'm surprised nobody got pissed at them! They're all just standing there, nonplussed. I would be so annoyed! It's like, why don't you get off the damn elevator and get her information and then just take the damn stairs up one flight when you're done! UGH! I did laugh when she gives him his card and he says, "I don't need it...I'm a detective, I'll find you" and she starts to take it back, but he snatches it and tells her, "I do need it." That was pretty cute. 

So they start dating, but guess who Madalyn has an affair with? Costigan, of all people! What a small world! Later in the movie, Sullivan will get a whiff of this information and Madalyn will tell Sullivan they're having a baby, but I have to wonder, as I did, if he suspects that it's not his as he has some, ahem, problems in the bedroom. 

When Queenan tells Sullivan to follow Costello because he believes that will lead them to the rat inside the police unit, a lightbulb goes off over Sullivan's head and he tells two officers to put a tail on Queenan, telling them he suspects Queenan might be the mole. It's actually a brilliant idea, it's just too bad the bad guys thought of it first! The two officers track Queenan to an abandoned warehouse where, indeed, Queenan is meeting with the infiltrator. Sullivan calls his guys and gives them the address and tells him they found the rat. When Queenan and Costigan found out they've been exposed, the former tells the latter to use the fire escape and that he'll be okay.

And now is a good time to go into MAJOR SPOILERS! DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS MOVIE AND DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED BECAUSE NOW I WILL BE GIVING AWAY HUGE PLOT POINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!!!!!

Well, Queenan wasn't exactly telling the truth when he tells Costigan that he'll "be okay" because when Costigan walks outside and around a corner, Queenan's body literally goes splat on the pavement in front of him from being thrown out the window. Oh my God! They killed President Bartlett! This is the first of many, many characters to become departed, hence the title. Costigan starts crying and freaking out and I'm thinking, Run, Leo, get the hell outta there! But when someone comes out of the building and asks him what took him long, I remembered that he was supposed to meet there in the first place. HOWEVER....in the next scene, the guy who texted Costigan tells him he gave him the wrong address and finds it curious that he showed up. Lucky for Costigan, this guy got into a shootout with the other policemen who followed Queenan and literally dies a few second later, so his secret is taken to the grave. I mean, how convenient is that?

There's a great scene where Sullivan dials the last number Queenan dialed on his phone and Costigan is smart enough not to say anything when he answers it. Both of them are just holding their phones to their ears, waiting to see if anyone will talk first, but no one does. When they hang up, Costigan starts packing, but then calls the number back and says, "You called this number on a dead man's phone. Who are you?" Sullivan tells him who he is and that he's taking over Queenan's division. Costigan wants to confer this piece of information with Dignam, but he took a leave of absence (or rather quit because he was furious that Sullivan got Queenan killed by putting a tail on him). I don't know why he just didn't call Dignam to ask him unless he didn't have his home phone number? :::shrug:::

In another turn of events, Sullivan finds out, from going through Queenan's notes, that Frank Costello is an FBI informant. What the huh? I wasn't exactly clear who all knew that information. Queenan for sure and probably Dignam. But did Costello know that Costigan was working for the FBI too? This whole reveal really confused me. Maybe I'm just stupid, who knows! Sullivan is worried that Costello is going to rat him out, so he kills him when the police bust him and his gang for some drug thing. Costello has one of those movie deaths where he's shot in the chest and spits up blood, but psych! He's not dead yet! It takes another shot to kill him and Sullivan is hailed as a hero, so I'm guessing nobody there knew about Frank's secret. 

There's a scene where Costigan gives Madalyn an envelope and instructs her to open it if something happens to him or he tells her to and that she's the only person he trusts. Remember this piece of information. Speaking of envelopes, there's another one that's an integral part of the story. When Costello finds out there's a rat among his crew, he makes everyone fill out a form with their name, address, social security number, etc. so he can check out everyone. All of these papers will be in an envelope with CITIZENS (actually it will be written twice because the first guy who wrote it spelled it wrong) scrawled across it. Everyone is supposed to stay in the bar where they're filling out until they've all been checked, but Costigan says he's not staying, so that's a huge sign that he's the rat! Though I don't blame him that he wants to leave...if he stays, he's dead.

So this envelope with "Citizens" will come up later when Costigan sees it sitting on Sullivan's desk when he goes to get his pay and that's when he knows that Sullivan is a mole within the Force. He also knows that Sullivan knows he was the rat within the mob. He leaves without telling Sullivan, but he doesn't tell Dignam, who is, remember, the only living person who knows the truth about him. Instead he gets Sullivan to meet him at the building where Queenan was killed, baiting him by saying Costello told him he has recorded all his conversations for insurance and if they are released, Sullivan will be revealed. Costigan also called Anthony Anderson, the one person who was also in the same academy as Costigan and knows who he is. Costigan thinks he can get him to trust him, but it doesn't quite work out that way. I still don't understand why he didn't call Dignam! 

Costigan takes the elevator down with his gun pointed at Sullivan's head, but when the door opens, we see someone shoot Costigan in the head, and then when Anthony Anderson comes down the other elevator and sees Costigan dead on the floor and two of his fellow officers, he doesn't quite know what's going on. The guys shoots him too. This is someone we've seen in the background, but not a major character. He tells Sullivan that he wasn't the only one working for Costello and they have to look out for each other. When Sullivan gets the chance, he kills him. 

Not long after, Sullivan will come home to his apartment to see Dignam there with a gun and he kills him. You may have never noticed this if you've only seen the movie once, or maybe you didn't even notice on a second time, but next time you watch this movie, be on the lookout for X's when a character dies or is about to die. When Sullivan is walking down the hall to his door, the carpet in the hallway has large X's (super tacky if you ask me), when Costigan and Sullivan are in the elevator, you see an X created with duct tape about Costigan's head, and when poor Queenan falls out of the building, he pasts several windows with tape making an X. 

Remember that envelope Costigan gave Madalyn to open if anything happened to him? We never see it again. The last we see of Madalyn is her at his funeral, crying. I guess they thought it was unnecessary since we already knew what would be in that envelope, but it just seemed weird to bring up if they're not going back to it.

The movie ends with a shot of a rat on the balcony railing which made me groan for two reasons. One, this is an extremely nice apartment complex in Boston and now there are rats balconies? No, I don't buy it. (And I literally wouldn't buy the apartment if it had rats!) Two, it was a little too on the nose.  

Bridge to Sadness and Despair

Bridge To Terabithia

Director: Gabor Csupo

Cast: Josh Hutcherson, AnnaSophia Robb, Robert Patrick, Zooey Deschanel

Released: February 16, 2007

We're going straight into spoiler territory right away with this one so if you have never seen the movie which has been out for eleven years or read the book which was published in 1977 (!!!), then you have been warned!!!! 

This would have been a good movie to do a double review with My Girl because they are very similar.  (Yeah, spoiler alerts for that movie too!) The obvious thing they have in common is they're both about a friendship between a boy and a girl, about eleven or twelve years old and at the end of the story one of these friends will die in a horrible accident caused by nature. In that one, it was the boy, and in this one, it's the girl. There are other similarities and I'll point them out, but that is the main one. I actually read this book around the same time I saw My Girl, so yeah, my childhood was pretty traumatizing around that time! I saw My Girl when I was in fifth grade and I read this book either in fourth or fifth grade. I've never revisited it, so I'm not sure how faithful the film is and whether or not it changed anything or added any characters. 

I would say another thing they have in common is that they're both set in the '70s, but actually, I think the film version of Terabithia is set in "present day" 2007. The school they attend looks very antiquated...they're using blackboards, for god's sake. By the late nineties, I definitely remember teachers using white boards with dry erase markers. Also, everything is rundown and shabby; nothing is new and modern, something you would find in a school in 2007. But then we see a scene where a teacher is telling a couple students to put away their "electronic devices" and we see the main character's sisters watching MTV, so that defintely nixes this movie being set in the '70s! The story is set in a rural part of the country where the characters don't have too much money, so I guess that's why everything looks the way it does.

Jess Aarons (Josh Hutcherson) strikes up a friendship with the new girl at school, Leslie Burke (AnnaSophia Robb), but it takes a few days to warm up to her because she beat him (and a bunch of other boys) in a footrace and he's known as being the fastest kid in the class. Jess is the middle child of five kids and has two older sisters and two younger sisters. The only one that's really relevant to the story is his sister May Belle (and I thought her name was Mabel for the longest time) who is the second youngest child. This is mainly because she and Jess share a room (a blanket hangs up to divide their halves of the room) and they go to the same school. The two older sisters are in high school and the youngest child is a baby. I was really confused by this school. May Belle is probably second or third grade and according to Wikipedia, in the book, Jess and Leslie are in fifth grade. I would say they're probably in sixth grade in the movie...the actors were around 13 when they made this, so I think them being fifth grades might be pushing it. However, there's a girl named Janice who is the school bully who also goes to this school and she's in eighth grade. What kind of school combines elementary and middle school? I have never heard of this. Maybe it's because they live in a small town and don't have the funds to create a middle school so they combine K-8 all together until they go on to high school? At first I thought they were in a middle school and May Belle rode on the same bus as her brother because her school was nearby, but no, they both go to the same school! I know, I know, it's a stupid thing to get caught up on.

Jess has a huge crush on his teacher, Ms. Edmunds and who can blame him because she's played by Zooey Deschanel so he's entranced by her pretty blue eyes and her lovely singing voice. She's the music teacher so she pretty much treats her classroom like it's School of Rock and all the kids are singing and playing instruments. They sing song such as "Why Can't We Be Friends" and "Ooh Ooh Child". This is another similarity to My Girl as Anna Chlumsky's character, Vada, had a crush on her teacher. 

Leslie lives next door to the Aarons with her liberal free-spirited parents who are both writers. I have to wonder if her parents actually make any money. Jess has more strict, grounded parents, especially his father (played by Robert Patrick) who tells him he needs to "keep his head out of the clouds" when he releases a wild animal (a opossum maybe?) that got caught in his dad's greenhouse because he didn't want his dad to kill it. One of the reasons the two become such good friends is not just because they share a love of running, but because they're both bullied. Jess is bullied because he has to wear a pair of one of his sister's hand-me-down pink sneakers to his first day of school. He tries to cover up the pink with a black marker, but it doesn't really help. Leslie is made fun of when she tells her teacher she doesn't have a TV after the teacher assigns the class to watch a nature show. All the kids laugh at her like she's the biggest loser to ever exist and when she explains, "My dad says TV kills your brian cells", she gets in a good comeback to one of the bully kids who tells her, "I watch TV everyday" by replying with, "I rest my case." 

The first time Jess and Leslie hang out, they come across a wide creek near their homes with a rope

swing. Let's just call it the Rope Swing of Doom. Leslie is intrigued by it, but Jess tells her it's been there forever and it's probably not safe. (Yes! Listen to your new friend, Leslie! He is the voice of reason!) However, she swings to the other side and back and tells him how much fun it is, so they both take a few turns on it. Leslie decides they need a place just for the two of them and swings to the other side where she jumps off and Jess follows her. They call this new place Terabithia and both kids, especially Leslie, the daughter of two fiction writers, have vivid imaginations (or maybe just really good drugs!) They imagine that the trees are giant trolls, that the dragonflies are small warriors, that the squirrels are these creatures out to get them, and the sound of an old wind chime is the sound of prisoners rattling their chains. I guess you need a wild imagination when you don't have a TV! They come across this pretty amazing run-down tree house which they fix up and make their own. 

So cute!

Jess is very artistic and loves to draw, so for his birthday, Leslie presents him with a (rather nice) set of paints and brushes while they're on the bus on their way to school. Jess tells her it must have cost a fortune, but yet, later, decides to give Leslie a dog. I think giving someone a dog is a much bigger deal than giving someone a paint set! They name him Prince Terrian, P.T. for short, and take him on their adventures to Terabithia where they use him as a troll hunter. Okay, I have a few questions: how was he able to afford the dog? Did he ask Leslie's parents permission first before he got the dog for her? And most importantly, how the hell did they get the dog across the creek? They didn't swing on the rope with the dog in one hand and their other hand holding the rope, did they? Or did the dog swim across? 

After Janice, the 8th grade bully (maybe she would be a little nicer if she didn't have that horrible haircut with the awful bangs...just saying!) is mean to May Belle AND purposely falls down on the bus and blames Jess for tripping her so he is booted off the bus, both Jess and Leslie decide it's time to teach her a lesson. They write her a note, pretending it's from the cutest boy in eight grade, Willard, (seriously? The cutest boy in the eight grade is named Willard?) because surely she has a crush on him. In the note, which Jess writes while Leslie dictates, "Willard" tells Janice that he really likes her and hopes they can ride home on the bus together and see where things go from there. While Janice is waiting outside the bus for Willard and tells him she got his note and she saved them a seat on the bus, he's very confused and of course he's with all his friends and they just laugh at her as well as everybody else on the bus who witness this embarrassing display. However, a few days later, Leslie hears Janice sobbing in the girls' bathroom and wonder if they went too far. She talks to Janice and we later find out that Janice is mean to everyone because her dad hits her. I looked up the plot summary of the novel on Wikipedia to see if that was part of the book, and it is. Even down to the boy named Willard, so that explains the old-fashioned name. 

Another similarity this movie shares with My Girl is the foreshadowing of the impending death. We get it in that movie when Macaulay Culkin asks Anna Chlulmsky what heaven is like. It's done a lot more nicer in that movie; in this one, it's a little dark! Leslie, who is an atheist (although that word is never uttered), goes to church one Sunday with Jess's family. BTW: her white coat is totally amazing. She seems to enjoy the experience and on the way home, she sits in the back of the pickup truck with Jess and May Belle. She tells them she thinks the whole "Jesus thing" is really interesting, but the two Aarons kids disagree and think it's scary. May Belle tells her, "It's because we're all vile sinners, God made Jesus die." Leslie asks them, "You really think that's true?" and Jess confirms, "It's in the Bible." Leslie tells them, "You have to believe [the Bible] and you hate it. I don't have to believe it and I think it's beautiful." May Belle then drops a huge bomb on her and tells her, "God will damn you to Hell when you die if you don't believe in the Bible." Eeshh! I like Leslie's response with, "I seriously do not think God goes around damning people to Hell...he's too busy running all this!" and waves her hands around her to indicate the world around them. 

The final goodbye

Jess gets in big trouble when he loses his dad's set of keys and if they have to be replaced, it will cost $600. Except he didn't misplace them; May Belle took them because she knew Leslie was looking for something that clanged and clinked to sound like bells. She thought Terabithia needed bells after hearing the church bell from the service she attended. Rightly, Mr. Aarons is super angry with Jess because these keys cost a fortune and are a part of his job. I find it ridiculous that neither May Belle nor Leslie thought it would be wrong to take the keys. Did they not think that someone would need this set of keys? Leslie claims May Belle told her she found them on the ground, but still, you would think someone lost their keys and they weren't just junk. When Jess and Leslie go to fetch the keys, it will be their last adventure together in Terabithia, unbeknownst to them. :::sniff::: 

The following day, a Saturday, Ms. Edmunds calls Jess to take him on a date, I mean, a field trip. I'm sorry, I know they say "field trip", but this was totally a date! They go into the city to visit an art museum and have a cappuccino at the cafe! And when she drops Jess of at his home, he says, "Maybe we can do this again sometime" and she replies with, "Absolutely!" Okay, let me back up. Ms. Edmunds knows about Jess's artistic side and calls him up that morning to invite him to an art museum because she was planning on taking her nephews there, but they weren't able to make it, so she decided to invite Jess in lieu of them. I understand the point of this was to get Jess out of the house and have his parents not know where he is (he does ask his mom, but she's still sleeping and barely says "yes" when he asks if he can go). They also can't make this a class field trip because otherwise Leslie would be there and another point of this is for her not to be there, although when they pass her house, Jess almost seems to want to invite her along (which he will regret not doing for the rest of his life, poor kid), but decides against it because he wants Ms. Edmunds' company all to himself. If this ever happened in this day and age, that teacher would be arrested in a hot minute! I think it would have been a little better if she still took her nephews, but also invited Jess. At least it wouldn't look like a date! Yes, I did look this up, and yes, this does happen in the book, although maybe times were much different in the '70s and nobody blinked an eye if they saw a teacher having "one on one" time with her student.

When Jess returns home later that afternoon, his parents are relieved to see him, as they already know about Leslie's death and think maybe something had happened to him too. Jess gets a weird vibe from his family and asks what's going on and his father bluntly says, "Your friend Leslie is dead." They tell him the rope swing broke and she hit her head on a rock. This is around the time I lose it and start crying. Poor Jess is in denial and when he sees Ms. Edmunds at her service, he tells her, "Next time we should invite Leslie to go," as if Leslie is still alive. Oh, God, poor kid, you know that will haunt him for the rest of his life. He even tells his dad it's his fault, that he didn't want to invite her to the museum, when he finally breaks down and realizes that his best friend is dead, but his dad tells him it's not his fault. I then get another fresh set of tears when Jess is afraid that Leslie has been damned to Hell, but his dad reassures him that "God would never send that little girl to Hell". Mr. Burke tells Jess that he was the best friend Leslie ever had. Seriously, stop making me cry, movie!

There's quite a change in the music class. Instead of being happy and dancing around with the instruments, all the students are singing a song, something about "I wanna know what's over that rainbow" while looking sullen. Poor Jess has his arms folded on his desk with his head resting on them and it's the saddest sight. I bet all these kids feel bad for making fun of Leslie now for not owning a TV! That has got to mess you up, though. To be a kid and have another kid in your class die. Though not everybody is sensitive about her death. One of the bully kids tells Jess, "Guess you're the fastest kid in class now." Good Lord! What kind of a-hole says something like that? Jess punches him. The kid totally deserved it.

The rope swing has been replaced with a bridge that Jess has built with lumber. It's actually pretty impressive what he built.  He invites his sister to enter the world of imagination that he and Leslie created and makes May Belle the Princess of Terabithia. I love how she says it like it's two words: "Tera. Bithia."

David Paterson, the son of the book's author, Katherine Paterson, helped co-write the screenplay. I was actually surprised it took them thirty years to make this a feature film, especially since it was based on a popular book, or at least a well-known book. Yes, it shares similarities with My Girl. To me, it's hard to think of one without thinking of the other, but they also have plenty of differences. Also, My Girl came out fourteen years after Bridge to Terabithia was published and they didn't make a movie about it in those years? Although I discovered it was made into a TV movie in 1985. Apparently it's terrible and that's probably why I wasn't aware of it! Okay, I just watched a clip of it on YouTube, and eesh, the kids who play Jess and Leslie are godawful actors - it's not a surprise neither of their careers took off! It's nice that they finally got a good adaptation of the book, although it took awhile, but sometimes you have to be patient!

Wanderlust

Adrift

Director: Balastar Kormakur

Cast: Shailene Woodley and Sam Clafin

Released: June 1, 2018

Viewed in theaters: June 7, 2018

I first saw a preview for this film when I saw Ready Player One and at first I thought it was the latest Nicholas Sparks novel to be adapted to film because it showed a young couple being all lovey-dovey and about to set sail and I was like, hard pass. But that was only the first thirty seconds and the rest of the trailer continued to show that it was NOT based on a Nicholas Sparks novel (or any fictional novel for that matter...it is based on a memoir called Red Sky in Mourning) and that it was based on a true story about a couple, Tami Oldham and Richard Sharp who go on a sailing expedition where there's a nasty storm and their boat capsizes. I love survival stories so I was sold on seeing it. 

I never did look up the story it was based on before watching it. I figured I would remember it once the movie got going because I just assumed it was a recent (like within the last ten years at least) thing that happened. However, when it is revealed that the movie takes place in 1983, I didn't feel so bad for not having any recollection of this event at all! 

The film opens up right after the storm (which we will learn was a Category 4 hurricane) and we see a banged-up Tami (Shailene Woodley) in the flooded cabin with debris all around her. She's screaming for Richard, who, at this point of the film, is her fiance. When she makes her way to the outside of the boat, she will find the sail has been completely torn. The film goes back and fourth from the characters being shipwrecked to five months earlier when they first met each other and how they found themselves going on a sailing expedition. 

Twenty-four-year-old Tami hasn't been home to San Diego since she left after graduating high school. She and a friend headed to Mexico where they made salsa and surfed. She thought she would only be there for six months, but it turned into seven years and now, in 1983, she finds herself in Tahiti after spending time working on a schooner. She meets Richard, who is nine years her senior and a sailor from England. Tami is very impressed that he made his own boat and he takes her out sailing. One thing leads to another and the two quickly fall in love. He asks her to sail around the world with him and both agree they've always wanted to sail to Japan. However, their plans are thwarted when an elderly rich British couple who know Richard ask him if he can sail their 44-foot yacht, the Hazana, to San Diego. They have also offered to pay him $10,000 and a first class ticket back to Tahiti. When Richard asks if they can make it two tickets, they don't even blink. Tami isn't too thrilled about this because she's not ready "to go home yet" and I'm thinking, girl, are you kidding me? You're going to be sailing halfway around the world in this luxury sailboat, the two of you are going to have plenty of money to take a year off and sail around the world, and they're giving you tickets back to Tahiti so you don't have to stay in San Diego. Just see your mom and say hello, then head back. Everything sounds great in theory, but of course, the voyage to sail the Hazana doesn't go as planned. But she does agree to go with Richard when he says he won't do the trip without her because he loves her. He makes her a ring and proposes to her. By this time they've known each other for five months, so they've fallen pretty hard for each other. Tami writes a letter to her mom to tell her she'll be in San Diego in a few weeks and she's bringing her boyfriend and that "he might be the one" (she wrote the letter before he proposed, btw!).

After Tami accesses the damage to the boat and starts fixing up it and herself up (she has a nasty gash on one of her temples), she sees Richard limply hanging from a lifeboat and screams to him that she's coming to get him. She falls off the boat as she's attempting to fix the sail and the boat is moving away at a scary pace (not to mention moving even further away from Richard), but she proves herself to be a strong swimmer and catches up to the boat, though she is panting and heaving. We see her fixing the damaged boat as best she can; good thing she's had experience! When it's good as can be under the circumstances, she sails toward him. It should be mentioned that all the radios to contact anyone have stopped working and she is unable to get any help. 

She swims out and rescues Richard whose leg is in pretty bad shape and he is unable to move, so Tami has to do all the work and steering of the ship. Math is not her strong suit so she is worried about getting the coordinates right. She knows they are in a search area way too big for them to be found and they aren't even in any flight zones or shipping zones. She believes her best best is to head toward Hawaii. 

She finds as many rations as she can which includes peanut butter and alcohol hidden under a seat (which she also uses on Richard's leg), but they don't last too long and soon realizes that she's going to have to use the spear to catch fish. Richard is adamant about this, but Tami is a vegetarian because she loves all living things and doesn't want to any creature to suffer. Girl, I hear you, but I think in cases like this, you need to think of yourself first and get the food so you don't die. She is unable to do it the first time, claiming it too hard, but eventually she gets the hang of it and forces herself to eat the fish. 

At one point she wakes up to find a huge barge baring down them and it looks like the thing is going to steamroll right over them. Tami is shooting her flare gun, but it just passes them and disappears into the night. Tami wonders if she actually saw the thing or if she was hallucinating and starts crying, wondering if they will ever be rescued. 

The movie keeps us update to date how many days adrift they've been (and it will be a total of 41 days). Richard tells Tami he wishes that she had never met him because then she would never be in this mess and she tells him she doesn't regret a single moment. 

All right, about to get in spoiler territory so continue at your own risk! 

SPOILERS AHOY! 

You guys are going to think I'm a total moron. Okay, so I was totally duped by the movie. I should have seen it coming. It should have been so obvious. Richard was dead the entire time. Well, not the ENTIRE time...he was certainly alive and real pre-storm, but was killed during the storm. Watching this, it suddenly made sense to me why the pre-storm scenes and the post-storm scenes alternated and why we didn't see the actual storm until near the end of the movie. When they realize they are in the path of a category 4 hurricane, they decide to alter their route, but it's not enough to diverge from the path of the storm. They are caught in the storm with 160 mph winds and 50 foot waves (I looked up some info on the incident). That has to be the scariest thing ever, even for the most experienced of sailers like Richard was. He tells Tami to go in the cabin as he's trying to steer the boat out of the storm...or something. I'm not sure what he's trying to do, but it seems like nothing would really help them at that point. A huge wave crashes over them and the boat just turns over and over and Tami is flung around in the cabin. Apparently she was unconscious for 27 hours, though we never get that from the movie; I found that out while doing research. It's amazing she wasn't even more banged up than she was or didn't have any broken bones. Richard is swept out to sea and we see him sinking in the ocean. At this point, I'm thinking, huh. We go back to Tami being adrift and at this part, she's probably nearing forty days of being lost at sea. We see a close up of her and she's crying and she says "It's time to let you go now" and the camera pans back to reveal the area behind her is empty, the area where Richard was. This whole time he was dead and she was imagining him there. Sure, we get that scene earlier where she thought she had hallucinated that barge, but I don't believe she was hallucinating that Richard was there, even though it seems that's what the movie wants us to believe. For one thing, the real person this is based knew right away her fiance was dead. This was just a detail they added to the movie to make it more compelling for those who weren't familiar with the story. Also, she never freaks out about him being "gone" all of a sudden. She seems to be well aware that he wasn't there the whole time and was just imagining that he was there to help her guide her to rescue, which she eventually does when a land bird flies to her boat and when it flies off again, she steers the boat towards that direction where she will eventually see a Japanese cargo ship and is rescued. It appears in the real story, she sailed to Hawaii and was rescued there. 

Despite the obvious clues, I really should have figured this love story was going to end tragically. You have one half of the couple from Me Before You and one half of the couple from The Fault In Our Stars - this is just asking for a calamitous ending. 

By the way, the poster for this movie (Google it) totally rips off Titanic...another love story that ends tragically! 

What's in the Box?

Se7en
Director: David Fincher
Cast: Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey
Released: September 22, 1995

Oscar nominations:
Best Film Editing (lost to Apollo 13)

Seven (I'm not writing Se7en throughout this!) is similar to an arc you would see on a show like CSI: or Bones (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they did have an arc like this on CSI:) but just with bigger names, more cursing, and a little more (but not that much more) gruesome deaths. I had never seen this movie before, but I was well aware of the big spoiler at the end. (Don't worry, I will post a spoiler warning before I discuss it in case there are people out there who don't know about it).

Detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and Detective Mills (Brad Pitt) are investigating a series of murders that they soon realize are motivated by the Seven Deadly Sins. The first murder they come across in this series is an obese man who was forced to scarf down food until his stomach exploded. This is literally something you would see on an episode of CSI:; in fact, I'm sure they did a storyline about this (the show was on for, like, twelve years and they had about four spin-offs, they've done an episode about everything you can think of!). They don't get the Seven Deadly Sins connection until the second murder which has taken the life of a defense attorney and "Greed" is written in blood in his office. When they go back to the scene of the crime of the first murdered man, they move the refrigerator and see that "Gluttony" is written in grease underneath it. (Now why would the murderer hide that? I guess he was playing mind games with them). Throughout the series of murders, the killer will write down the sin in case they don't know which one it is.

The most gruesome death was the man depicting sloth. He was chained to a bed and literally rotting away. Actually, he wasn't even dead even though everyone thought he was. I'm not even sure how he was still alive. Even though his death (he did eventually die later because there's no way he would be able to live and had swallowed his own tongue so he would't have been able to talk anyway) was the worst (well, there actually might be a death that was worse than this now that I think about it!), it was hard to feel bad for this man because he was either a child molester or a rapist or maybe both, I don't remember. Either way, whatever, he can die a horrible death.

Somerset does some research at the library, checking out Dante's The Divine Comedy and Chaucer's The Cantebury Tales among other material to read up on The Seven Deadly Sins. Hey! I wonder if there's a BuzzFeed quiz out there asking Which Seven Deadly Sin are you? I'm going to check! Guess what? There's a lot of "Which Deadly Sin Are You/Which Deadly Sin Do You Represent? quizzes out there. I took the first one and my result is....drumroll please....ENVY! Oooh! Eh, sounds about right! Here's the link if you want to take the quiz: MagiQuiz

Okay, wtf? I just took the BuzzFeed quiz, Which Deadly Sin Are You? and I got Wrath! Huh? I get the Envy one, but how did I get Wrath? I just answered the question honestly! Let me give you a few examples:
- They asked me which social media site I was last one and I chose Twitter. How does that make me Wrath?
-They asked me what was my choice of drink and gave me a bunch of alcoholic beverages and water and I chose water because I really hardly ever drink unless I'm in a social setting. How does that make me Wrath?
-They asked me to choose a dog and had a bunch of different breeds and you could also choose cat and I chose cat because I have a cat! How does that make me Wrath?
There is literally no answer on that quiz that should have made me Wrath. I mean, I CAN get angry pretty easily, but I blame it on my red hair. We are quick to anger and have a fiery temper sometimes! But none of those questions really gave any evidence to that. In fact, judging from that quiz, I have no idea which Seven Deadly Sin I would be. At least the Magiquiz had questions and answers that made more sense to which of the Seven Deadly Sins one would be. Here's a link to the BuzzFeed quiz so you can how ridiculous it it: BuzzFeed Quiz

OMG! I just took another quiz and this time I got Greed! What is going on here? I am answering these questions honestly, but yet I have gotten three different sins from three different quizzes! And some of these questions even overlap!  Am I Envy, Wrath, and Greed rolled into one? I mean, at least I'm not...uh, what's the worst one? Pride? No, probably Wrath and Greed are the worst! But I thought Greed was good! I'm surprised I didn't get Sloth because I can be pretty lazy at times! Or maybe unmotivated is the better word. Why do you think it's been awhile since I last updated this blog? I bet if I took another one of these quizzes, I would get Sloth! But I'm not taking anymore! Anyway, here's that quiz if you want to take all three quizzes and see if you got three different results just like I did! Playbuzz Quiz

Okay, back to the review. Remember how I said the Sloth guy got the worst death? No, I think it was the prostitute killed by Lust. Killed by Lust, how can that be so bad, you ask? Uh...it's bad if it involves a strap-on that's a blade. Yeah. :::cringes:::: Oh, no. That's so....eugh. I'm glad we didn't see a close up of her. The guy who did it to her said the killer had a gun to his head and made him do it. The fifth murder is a model who represents Pride and she was given the option to call for help, but have her face mutilated or to overdose on pills and kill herself.

I should mention while this is going on, we meet Mill's wife, Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow) and she confides in Somerset that she's pregnant. (She tells him because she doesn't have anyone else to talk to because she and Mills just moved to New York). Why she can't tell her own husband she's unhappy living in the city and doesn't want to raise a child there, I don't know. Or maybe they do tell us and I just forgot.

They do manage to find their John Doe (Kevin Spacey, whose name isn't in the credits until the end) but rather he comes to them. He has just cut off all fingerprints so there is blood everywhere. Not to mention he's committed another murder. Now if you're keeping score at home, we still have two more murders to get though: Envy and Wrath (the ones I represent, apparently!). Now, knowing what was to come, I already knew what would by the Envy death, but I wasn't sure about Wrath. I mean, aren't all deaths Wrath if you think about it? Unless he kills another serial killer. I wasn't sure where the Wrath murder would fit into all of this. Doe tells the two detectives that he'll lead them to the last two victims and will confess to the murders. He has very specific terms on how he will do this and if they don't oblige by his rules, he will plead insanity. Even though Somerset and Mills are wary of this, they agree to do it, which seems a little ridiuclous they are letting a serial killer get his way, but whatever. He directs them to drive to some abandoned house in the middle of nowhere where presumably the last two victims are. While driving there, Mills (who totally represents Wrath as he is super quick to anger) gets into it with John Doe who's just goading him. Um, stop talking to him, Mills! Don't you see he wants to get under your skin?

Okay, this is probably the best time to stop reading if you don't want to be spoiled because I will be going into spoiler territory now. SPOILERS AHOY! STOP READING NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED! BECAUSE A HUGE SPOILER IS COMING UP! I HAVE WARNED YOU!!!!!

Okay. I feel like 99% of people are already aware of what I'm talking about, even if you have never seen this movie, but you can never be too sure. When they get to the abandoned house, they see a truck coming their way. Thinking its motives are malicious, Mills keeps his gun pointed on John Doe while Somerset keeps his eye on the truck and makes the driver get out with his hands up. The driver is a deliveryman who was told to deliver a box to this location at seven o'clock (and just a few moments earlier, John Doe had asked Somerset what time it was). Now if I wasn't already spoiled and knew what was in the box, I would have thought it was a bomb. I mean, this was during the time of the Unibomber. I'm surprised Somerset opened the box willy-nilly without consulting a bomb squad. He notices there's blood on one of the flaps and when he looks inside, he jumps back in shock. Now I'm sure if I had no idea what was in the box, the next scene would have much more of an effect on me and I would have had a "Holy Sh!t!" reaction. Mills still has his gun on John Doe and is asking, "What's in the box? What's in the box?" which of course is one of those iconic movie lines. John Doe is very calm in telling him that he was envious of him and paid his wife a visit and that he took a souvenir with him and that her "pretty little head" is in the box. I was sure we were going to see a gruesome prosthetic Gwynnie-the-Pooh head, but luckily we don't. I don't think even Mills looks in the box, which is probably for the best. No reason to upset him even more especially after learning that Tracy was pregnant.

The Wrath killing all makes sense when John Doe turns the tables on Mills and wants Mills to kill him and represent Wrath. By this time, Somerset is running to him, telling him not to do it, that this is what the murderer wants, but Mills, having nothing to lose (and would totally get Wrath if he took those quizzes if they existed back in 1995), kills his wife's murderer. Can you blame the guy?

Blade Runners

The Cutting Edge

Director: Paul Michael Glaser

Cast: Moria Kelly, D.B. Sweeney, Terry O'Quinn, Roy Dotrice

Released: March 27, 1992

This is a movie I've only seen once before and that was a long time ago, so I really didn't remember anything about it. Well, I did remember that it's about a figure skater who gets paired with a hockey player and they hate each other at first, then fall in love. So, basically, I remembered everything! I just didn't remember, you know, the little details. 

When the movie starts, it is 1988 and we see Kate Moseley (Moira Kelly), a figure skater at the Calgary Olympics with her partner. Her partner drops her and any chance of a medal is gone. Meanwhile, Doug Dorsey (D.B. Sweeney) is on the Olympic hockey team and takes a bashing to the head during a game resulting in an injury where he loses eighteen degrees of his peripheral vision and therefore will never be able to play hockey professionally again. Tough break. 

However, Kate needs a new partner and her coach, Anton Pamchenko (Roy Dotrice) seeks out Doug because he is impressed with his skating. Are you kidding me? Just the fact that a hockey player becomes a pairs figure skater is the most ridiculous thing. Just because he can skate, doesn't mean he can learn all the twists and turns and ariel moves that are required of a professional skater. Even the skates are different as we will learn later in the movie (there's a toe pick on figure skates). Being a hockey player and being a figure skater are two totally different things. Even Kristi Yamaguchi said it was very unrealistic.

This all happens two years later, but they had actually met once before at the '88 Winter Olympics. They literally run into each other when Kate was coming off from the ice and Doug had woken up late on the day he was supposed to play at the Olympics. What kind of idiot is late to the Olympics? 

You know how AFI has a list of the 50 greatest villains? Well, Kate Moseley is missing from that list because she is the absolute worst. Okay, maybe I'm being hyperbolic, but I don't find any redeeming qualities in her, even at the end when we're supposed to be rooting for her and Doug to end up together. She's just a spoiled rich girl who bitches and whines about everything and everyone. The reason she can never keep a skating partner is because nobody can stand her snooty ass! (Why she just doesn't skate as a single, I don't understand). She lives in a huge house (complete with her own ice skating rink) with her father, Jack (Terry O'Quinn). This was when he still had hair. You could almost say that this is a prequel to Lost and he just changed his name to John Locke and was thanking God when that plane went down so he would never have to see his terrible spoiler daughter ever again. Although, in the film he always seems to be on his daughter's side, I suppose he feels bad for her because her mother died when she was younger. Still can't stand her, though. I guess she has to keep the moniker of Ice Queen and she does it very well. 

Not surprisingly, Kate and Doug hate each other within the first few minutes of their introduction. I can't really blame Doug for disliking her because she's a complete bitch to him. Their first practice together is terrible, and, of course it is, because he is a hockey player, NOT a figure skater! The fact that he does learn to be a good enough figure skater to compete in the '92 Winter Olympics two years later is just sheer ridiculousness. Pamchenko has Doug pick up Kate and when she orders him to put her down, he just drops her and she lands on her butt really hard on the ice. It looked painful. Totally uncalled for, but can you blame him? He does get plenty of cheap shots in at her which only makes her more angry and more bitchy. These two really do deserve each other. 

There's another scene where they're practicing and the song playing is the most early '90s music you can imagine. I didn't even know the song, but I'm sure it was popular in 1992. Doing some quick research, I found out it's called "Street of Dreams" by Nia Peeples. You know this song was jammin' on the radio in '92. It's totally awful, but also kinda catchy. If you heard it (and you can if you look it up on Spotify!) it will totally take you to the era of the early '90s. You know what I'm talking about if you're familiar with that era. Doug keeps falling (again, because he's NOT a figure skater) and Kate keeps saying, "Toe pick!" because figure skates have toe picks that help them on the ice while hockey skates do not. Because, once again, the two sports are totally different even if both are on the ice! 

There's a scene where Doug and Kate play a game of one-on-one hockey. Kate gets pissed because Doug keeps making all the goals. Insert major eye roll here. Good Lord, girl, are you serious? He's a professional hockey player for crying out loud! That's his job to be good at hockey! And she's getting angry because he's making all the goals and she can't get one? Doug is nowhere near as talented a figure skater as she is (because, DUH!), but he doesn't complain about it! I hate this bitch so much! She also tells Doug she has a boyfriend named Hale who went to Harvard and works at her father's office in London. I totally thought she was making him up, because, really, what person would want to be romantically involved with such a horrid person? But, nope, he really does exist and we see him when he comes to visit for Christmas. At a New Year's party, Doug is clearly jealous of Hale and we see Kate look jealous when women are throwing themselves at Doug. Hmmmmm....makes you wonder if those two crazy kids actually like each other. When they do the countdown to the New Year, people not only kiss their dates, but pretty much just start kissing everybody around them. You know how you go to church and they do that thing where you greet people with a handshake? That was totally what this was, but only with kissing. Just kiss everyone in your vicinity. Thanks, but no thanks. I would not want to swap spit with so many different people. That is disgusting. You KNOW someone (more than one someone!) got sick a few days later, you KNOW IT! There is a funny moment where an older woman kisses a stunned Doug and looks like she's having the time of your life. So, uh, you get it, older lady! Then we get a moment where Doug and Kate come across each other in the kissing frenzy and we are held with a moment of suspense as they stare into each other's eyes...and are they gonna kiss? And the answer is...no! At least not yet! We still gotta hold on to that sexual tension for at least a few more scenes. Well, she does give him a peck on the cheek.

Kate and Doug have made it to the 1992 Figure Skating Championships in Chicago. So I looked this up, and uh, it was actually held in Orlando that year. Fail, movie, fail. Before their performance the first night, Doug is really nervous and throws up behind a curtain (lovely). I'm thinking, Okay, it makes sense that he's nervous since this his first time doing his routine in front of a live audience, but then he tells Kate that before hockey games he had two helmets: one to wear and one to puke in! WTF? He got nervous before hockey games too? But why if he's this so-called great hockey player? He tells an irritated Kate that he usually relaxes after ten minutes and Kate snaps back, telling him their program is only two and a half minutes. They do well enough to get third place.

During their long program the second night, they skate well again, but their scores are not high enough to secure them a place at the Olympics. However, another team messes up and Doug and Kate are back in. They go out to celebrate and Kate, who's not a drinker, has, like, twenty shots. It almost made me throw up. She becomes totally smashed and wants to sleep with Doug. He could have easily taken advantage of her, but takes the noble route and turns her down. Or maybe he didn't find her attractive as a drunk because she was super annoying and kept laughing every five seconds. Can you tell I really hate Kate? Oh, I forgot to mention that Kate and Hale were engaged for a hot second, but got unengaged off screen. Hale, you don't know how lucky you are. Kate gets mad and screams at Doug to leave.

Doug does like Kate, but doesn't do himself any favors when he ends up sleeping with (now bear with me, please) Kate's old partner's new partner. Of course Kate finds out and of course she's pissed, which I can't blame her.

Doug and Kate have five weeks before the Winter Olympics in Albertville and Pamchenko tells them a Russian couple has won the European Championships and are the favorites to win the gold. They're Russian, of course they're the favorites! He has a solution for them to beat them. He has created his own totally absurd move that is dubbed the Pamchenko twist. It's described as a bounce twist into a throw twist and then Doug catches her. Kate tells him they can't do it because it's illegal and she's totally right. There's no way this move would ever be allowed in competition because it could KILL the female skater if it went wrong and this movie could EASILY go wrong. The move has Doug holding Kate by the ankles and spinning her around. He has to make sure he keeps her at a certain height because if her head hits the ice at that speed she is looking at a serious brain injury or worse. The bounce spin is (not surprisingly) illegal in competition because of how dangerous it is, but is performed in exhibitions because I guess people love seeing near death experiences? If I were a pairs figure skater, you could not pay me enough money to do that even if I trusted my partner. Hell. No! As you can see in the clip below, Doug throws her in the air where she does a twist spin and then he catches her. 

Oh, yeah, nothing could go wrong with that move!

Doug says she probably wouldn't be able to do the move and Kate screams at him, "NOBODY CAN TELL ME WHAT I CAN OR CANNOT DO!" so we see a montage of them working on the difficult move. However, the day before the long program where they're going to put in that move, Kate has decided that the dangerous move is out, and I can't blame her as she's the one risking her life by doing it. The first night with the short program, they are bickering about a button on Doug's costume just seconds before going on and are angry with each other as they skate. The commentators can tell they they seem very cold to each other and don't look like they're having fun. The next night at their long program, right before they're about to skate, Doug chooses this time to profess his love for Kate. :::MAJOREYEROLL:::: Everyone's trying to usher them on the ice, but he keeps snapping, "Will you wait a minute?" Uh, this is the Olympics! They don't have a minute! Kate starts crying and says they are putting in the Pamchenko. The way they cut it where they go from the bounce twist to the throw twist is obviously edited together because IT'S PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO DO THAT! Everyone cheers and the movie ends. Wait, did they win the gold medal? I'll tell you what happened: they were disqualified from winning any medal or even placing at all because they did an illegal move! 

Throughout the movie we see an empty glass box where Kate's gold medal will go when she wins one. You think we would see a shot of that at the end since they keep shoving it in our face, but nope. We just assumed they won the gold medal since doing that move would ensure them of that. This is one of the most unrealistic movies about the Olympics, probably even about figure skating.