Airport Christmas

Unaccompanied Minors
Director: Paul Feig
Cast: Tyler James Williams, Wilmer Valderrama, Lewis Black, Paget Brewster, Rob Cordrry
Released: December 8, 2006

Much like Home Alone was a Christmas movie targeted towards me, a kid in the early '90s; Unaccompanied Minors was a Christmas movie targeted towards kids in the mid 2000s. Both have children wreaking havoc among adults, but while Home Alone is considered a classic Christmas movie, this one did not really stand up to the test of time and you never hear about it being a beloved Christmas movie. In fact, you wouldn't know this was a Christmas movie just by looking at the title (that's probably why they make the "o" in "Minors" look like a wreath). Now it could be beloved to the kids who grew up in the mid 2000s, but there is nothing about this movie that makes it join the ranks of the greatest Christmas movies of all time.

Unaccompanied Minors is about a group of young teens who meet when they are snowed in at an airport on Christmas Eve. We meet the four of them before the have met each other. There's Charlie (the only young person of the cast I was familiar with. He's played by Tyler James Williams, who is from Everybody Hates Chris) who lives on the east coast (I believe he says he's from Massachusetts). There's a weird scene where he's with his dad, about to meet Santa at the mall, but he ends up fainting because he apparently does this every year when he meets Santa. Keep in mind that Charlie is no younger than twelve. And then hid dad faints? WTF is going on here? We also meet rich girl, Grace, who lives in the "north"; rebellious androgynous Donna who lives in the "south" (her mom is played by Kristin Wiig in a blink and you'll miss it scene); and last but least, we meet Spencer and his bratty kid sister, Catherine, who live in the "West" (most likely Southern California). At first I thought Spencer was played by Jesse Eisenberg, but he would have been way too old to be in this. I listened to a podcast review of this movie and they kept referring to this character as "Jesse Eisenberg" which was hilarious.

We really only know Spencer and Catherine's backstory: they are flying to Pennsylvania to spend Christmas with their father. (I guess that family doesn't care about Christmas Eve if they're flying out on the 24th). They have to switch planes at the Hoover International Airport (not a real airport; I looked it up). According to whoever wrote the Wikipedia entry, it is located in D.C., but that can't be right because we see Catherine take out a NORAD map of where and when Santa will make his stops. Apparently this airport will be one of his stops (since when does Santa visit airports?) and judging from the map, it looks like the airport is located in Minnesota. It's a bit hard to tell because the words "Hoover Intl. Airport" stretches out from South Dakota and Minnesota and even touches the border of Iowa. Since this is an international airport, it would have to be in the biggest city in this area, Minneapolis. They don't really make it clear, but considering there is a huge snowstorm, Minnesota makes a lot of sense, plus we'll get another little clue why this is probably where the airport is located later on.

Spencer and Catherine meet a TSA agent named Zach (played by Wilmer Valderrma aka Fez) who is going to stay with them during the layover. The kid notice the airport isn't adorned for Christmas aside from some very minuscule decorations and he explains that his boss, Mr. Porter, isn't into Christmas decorations or Christmas in general.

Mr. Porter (Lewis Black) is in a great mood because it's his first Christmas off in fifteen years and he's planning to spend it in Hawaii, but when he's about to board the plane, the gate closes and the flight is cancelled due to snow. In fact, all the flights are cancelled and Zach takes Spencer and Catherine to the Unaccompanied Minors room where all the kids 17 and under who are traveling by themselves are being kept. Oh. My. God. This would be my worst nightmare; even as a kid, I would absolutely hate this. The room is full of screaming kids who are running around and throwing food. There are two frazzled flight attendants who are in charge of watching them, but they leave when they see Zach has arrived. I definitely don't blame them!

They want to keep the kids confined to this room so that means not letting them out even to use the restroom (even though there is a bathroom in the room, but it soon becomes inoperable because some dumb kid flushed his cell phone down the toilet due to a bet and it overflowed), but when Zach becomes pelted with snack and drinks, the door is no longer guarded and Spencer leaves the room followed closely by the other kids we met in the first scene, plus a fat kid, Beef (please tell me that's not his real name), who doesn't talk much and has an Aquaman action figure who seems to be his only friend.

All the kids go on their own little grown up adventure now that they are by themselves in the airport. Spencer decides to get a bite to eat and we see Mindy Kaling as the waitress. Seeing that Paul Feig directed some episodes of The Office, it doesn't surprise me to see cast members make cameos in this. Grace uses her High Flyer's Club card to enter a swanky part of the airport where she gets a massage and gets something to eat which includes fancy cheese and caviar. Okay, I don't care if you're rich or not, no kid would ever eat caviar. No human should want to eat caviar. It is disgusting. Yes, I've had it before, and I don't understand the appeal. It was the first and last time I ever ate it. It's a little bit funny because after that scene it transitions back to Zach where he's sitting at the restaurant and orders nachos, an actual food an actual kid would actually eat. He tells Mindy Kaling that his mom never lets him eat nachos or drink soda, so he orders those. When she tells him her mom never let her eat mozzarella sticks, he orders those too.  When he gets the bill, he leaves her an IOU note on his napkin (the bill was for $75! How much stuff did he order?!) and that she should e-mail his dad for payment and provides a gmail.com address to reach him. What? Is his dad going to use Pay Pal to send the money? He also mentions that he left his mozzarella sticks for her. Why would anyone want his cold mozzarella sticks? Charlie plays with all the gadgets at The Sharper Image, which includes sticking a nose trimmer gadget in his nose and turning it on. Gawd, kids are disgusting! Donna steals one of the little cars they use to transport old ladies and people who can't get around at the airport. Beef goes into the emergency equipment room (which surprisingly is unlocked). One by one, the kids get caught by security and have to escape them before they are brought back to the room of doom. Donna, driving the go-kart, picks up Spencer and the other kids. I thought Grace had a clever, but ballsy way of escaping security: she joins a couple with their son and acts like she's part of their family and puts her arms around the young boy and tells him, "Hey, bro." Lucky for her, the parents of the boy just look at her and start speaking in German. They don't know what's going on.

So these five kids on a go-kart are driving through the crowded airport, probably no more than five mph, ten at tops and there's about five out of shape security officers who can't even reach them! They are eventually surrounded by more security officers, including the mean old grinch, Mr. Porter, and brought back to the room where all the other kids (including Catherine) have been sent to a lodge. He tells the other kids they won't be going there because of the blizzard. If that's the case, then how did all the other kids get there? Wasn't it snowing when the room was chaotic and full of screaming kids? There's really no good reason why the five remaining kids can't go to the lodge; Mr. Porter just wants to punish them for escaping the room. He tells them they will stay in this room (which is a disgusting mess) and that Zach will watch them.

They kids concoct a plan to escape once again because Spencer needs to get to the lodge because he promised his sister that Santa would know where she is and leave her the doll she wants for Christmas. Or something. They call B.J. Novak (the other Office alum), who works at the information center and tell him they have a message for Zach, who in turn, is paged to the information desk. While Zach is gone, the kids hide in the rafters and he comes running back after B.J. Novak tells him a group of kids had the message "Goodbye" for him. He thinks they have escaped and runs out, leaving the door unlocked so the kids can escape. They must have used Grace's cell phone to place the call.

Beef tells Spencer he'll get his sister a Christmas tree and runs off, leaving the remaining four. I'm pretty sure there's already a Christmas tree at the lodge. Doe this mean this kid is the Chunk of the group since he is now separated from the other kids who are having the adventure?

Charlie tells the others they need to go to the baggage claim area in the northeast part of the airport because that's where security is the most lax. He knows this because he flies out of this airport every week. EVERY. WEEK. HE FLIES OUT OF THIS AIRPORT EVERY WEEK. Oh my God, this poor child. His parents are divorced, so his mother must live far away from Massachusetts. Even Mr. Porter knows who he is and was very disappointed in him since he called Charlie his "model underage flyer." But, dear God, I can't imagine being twelve years old and having to fly every single week. I can understand holidays and summer vacation, but EVEY WEEK? How does school work for this kid? Does he fly out after school on Friday, stay with his mom for a weekend, then head back Sunday night? This is no way for a child to live! I want to know where his mom lives and why she lives so far away from her son that he has to FLY OUT EVERY WEEK to see her! As someone who doesn't like flying (because of all the hassle), this would be my worst nightmare.

The kids distract the three or so security officers blocking the door by letting out a dog in its kennel. Mr. Porter hears the commotion and the kids hide in the baggage claim area. Charlie hides inside a suitcase that he's somehow able to fit into even though it's already packed. He is also able to zip it closed from the inside to hide from Mr. Porter, but will not be able to open it back up for some reason. He sees the suitcase on the floor and puts it on the conveyor belt to send it to the unclaimed baggage area, sending Charlie on a grand adventure that should have killed him, or at the very least, left him brain dead. Also, I find it hard to believe the two security officers who pick up the suitcase don't find it suspiciously heavy. There's a 12-year-old boy in there for god's sake!

They all end up safe and sound in the unclaimed baggage area which is huge and has fifty years of unclaimed baggage. At the beginning of the movie, we saw a commercial for an unclaimed baggage sale at this airport. As the saleswoman put it, "If someone's lost it, you can buy it!" And that's exactly what the kids do: they start playing with all the toys and gadgets and take what they want. Spencer sees a really ugly doll that looks to be from the '50s with a hard plastic body and a frilly purple dress. He knows it will be the perfect thing for his sister; guess Catherine didn't have a specific doll in mind that she wanted. Charlie finds four Walkie Talkies (complete with batteries!) that, believe it or not, will come in handy later on in the film.

While the kids are playing with their toys, then later having a dance party to a jazz song (cuz 2000s kid love jazz!), they are spotted by Porter on the security guard and have to escape him and the other security guards once again. They head outside where they slide down a giant hill on a canoe. The lodge they need to get to is at the bottom. Zach is the only one who has caught up with them, so they take him with them because he knows too much about their plan. Or something. Porter and the other security guards follow suit and take down items to slide down the hill: a kayak, a tire, a grill, among others. I'm pretty sure this "hill" they're sledding down is actually a mountain because it goes on and on and on. It's pretty obvious they shot the kids and Wilmer Valderrama on the canoe in front of a green screen. Of course the kids arrive safely in front of the lodge while Porter and the other security guards either crash or fly into some deep dark abyss.

So I'm thinking, great, the kids have reached the lodge, the bad guys are all gone, and now Spencer can give his sister the Christmas she wants. So that must mean the movie is about to wrap up, right? Nope! Wrong! We haven't even reached the one hour mark yet and there's still thirty-five minutes left!

Spencer is able to give the doll to his sleeping sister who had had to endure her own hell at the place by having to hang out with the granddaughter of one of the flight attendants (played by Jessica Walter aka Lucille Bluth) who's only a few years older than her and treats her like a living doll. Porter comes back and takes them back to the airport where he tells them instead of being confined to the large room, they'll now each have their separate private rooms. He also tells him that he's bumped the four of them from their flights so the people who are waiting in the airport can go ahead of them since they haven't gotten in trouble. Uh, he does realize he only has four people he can let go early, right?

As you can imagine, this is when the Walkie-Talkies come in handy. They can each communicate with each other in their individual cells. Porter has their security footage on a TV, but I guess he doesn't seem to notice they're all talking to each other (it's not like they make a point to hide it from him). I guess he figures it's harmless as long as they can't leave. You think a tough-ass like him would want to keep the kids from communicating with each other.

Grace, the rich girl, tells the others she lives twenty minutes from the airport. If you remember, she was the one from the "North", so her being from Minnesota would make sense. I bet she's from Edina, that Cake Eater. (Shout out to The Mighty Ducks). She flew in from boarding school and thought it would be more fun to stay at an airport than hang out with her nanny in her McMansion while her parents were in Paris. Girl, are you crazy? I bet you have a ton of fun things to do in your huge house. Who would want to hang out in an airport?

The kids concoct another plan to escape their cells and it involves recording themselves on their Walkie-Talkies, switching the video over to the security camera, then leaving through the vent. Crawling through a vent in movies/TV shows is one of the biggest tropes there is as I bet nobody in real life could even fit through a vent! These vents are so wide and spacious that two of them can crawl next to each other at the same time! Of course the plan goes perfectly without a hitch. They end up in the room where Mr. Porter keeps all the Christmas decorations. (Question: why does he even have these if he hates decorating for Christmas?) Around this time Beef returns with a Christmas tree that he traded his Aquaman action figure for and Spener comes up with the brilliant idea of decorating the airport for Christmas so when everyone wakes up, they'll get a nice Christmas surprise..bet you didn't see that coming! I had to laugh when Donna replaces one of Mr. Porter's tiny Christmas tree stickers with a bigger one, but it really wasn't that much bigger.

Mr. Porter and the kids come to an understanding and we learn that he doesn't like Christmas because his wife left him five years ago. They really only decorate one main area of the airport, including the tree, where they lead everybody to on Christmas morning. It's a nice sentiment and all, but truth be told, if I were in that group of passengers, I would not be impressed by the Christmas display. It's just a bunch of cheap plastic doo-dads. The kids from the lodge also gather with them and Catherine is reunited with her brother. Mr. Porter redeems himself by dressing up as Santa and surprising all the kid, including Catherine.

Mr. Porter tells the kids they'll be the first to leave when the weather has cleared and Spencer invites Grace to spend Christmas with him and his sister at their dad's house. Since they're both the older kids of the group, there's been a little spark between them. They also try to make Donna and Charlie into a thing, (she kisses Charlie at the end) since they're around the same age, but why do they need to couple up both pairs of kids? Also, shouldn't the kiss have happened between Spencer and Grace? They're the ones who have been serious quasi-flirting with each other this whole time.

So while all this is going on, the movie jumps to a scene with the parents of Spencer and Catherine. We see their mom (played by Paget Brewster) fretting about her kids being snowed in. She can't reach them because they don't have a cell phone (her ex-husband convinced her not to let them get one because they're bad for the environment). She's staying with her sister (played by Teri Garr) who is scarily into Christmas. Her yard and house is chock full of Christmas decorations and, according to her, she still has six boxes of lights she needs to put up. (And it's Christmas Eve! What's the point of even putting them up?) Her house looks like one of those little shops that has nothing but Christmas memorabilia. She offers a cup of hot chocolate to her sister, who says she's already had three and that it's 80 degrees. There's a terrible joke where the sister thinks she has a defective M&M because it has a "W" on it. This is really terrible humor, even kids have to groan at that, right?

The kids' dad (played by Rob Corddry) receives a call from his ex-wife and tells her he'll pick them up. This guy is very into the environment and drives a small dinky car he calls a biomobile that only takes a certain "vegetarian" type of gasoline. Of course there's noway that car can make it from Pennsylvania to (possibly) Minnesota (damn...if that airport is located in Minneapolis, that's quite a long drive!) A mechanic helps him out and lets him borrow a Humvee to drive which scandalizes him and he hopes the guys from the Sierra Club don't see him driving that monstrosity. (Those are pretty obnoxious vehicles).  He reaches the airport on Christmas morning, just in time to surprise his kids.

While this isn't the worst Christmas movie out there (just turn on the Hallmark Chanel to find those; hell, even Netflix is churning out some Christmas crap), it's defintely not going to be considered a holiday classic anytime soon and there are better movies to watch during this time of the year!

Taylor-Made

I'm sharing my ranking of Taylor Swift's albums on this totally random day!  

Taylor Swift is one of my favorite artists, so I thought it would be fun to rank her seven albums from my least favorite to absolute favorite. I do not take in account who or what the song is about; I judge the song on its own merit and if I just like it. I do not own any of her albums with the bonus songs so none of those will be mentioned when taking my ranking into account. 

7. Speak Now, 2010 

I looked at a lot of other rankings of her albums and a lot of people had this ranked #1, if not at least #2 or #3. Hardly anybody had this ranked at the bottom of the list, but here I am placing it dead last.  This album does not speak to me, or, should I say, does not speak now to me, ba-ba-dum. I admit this is the TS album I've listened to the least; I have tried giving it several chances, to see if my opinion of it has changed (because this has happened with a couple of her other albums), but no, still feel (mostly) nothing for this one. I can listen to this album and one hour later, if you ask me to sing one of her songs (with a couple of exceptions), I could not tell you how they go. I just feel a lot of these songs are forgetful; they don't have that hook that she's so great at creating and get into your head. Even a song like "Look What You Made Me Do" (which is not one of my faves) can get into your head, but the songs on Speak Now? I'm just like, wait? How does that one go? The fast songs aren't that fun and the slow songs are too slow and long. This album has the most songs I dislike/don’t care for, thus why it’s ranked last. Many of her songs are way too long; clocking in at over five minutes. 

“Dear John” is nearly seven minutes long and people seem to love it, but I just find it endless and boring (Which is exactly how I feel about "Last Kiss", the other song on this album that clocks in at over six minutes...WHY?) Also, why is she wasting her time writing/singing a song about John Mayer who everyone knows is a douche. (He has a song called "Your Body is a Wonderland" for God's sake). I know what you're thinking: that I should like the song because I don't like John Mayer and this song is not a positive one, but honestly, this one is a skip for me. 

"Innocent" is about the Kanye West/MTV music video awards fiasco and you think it would be interesting, but yawn, the song is SO BORING. This might be my least favorite song of hers, truth be told. At least the music is interesting in "Dear John". She has a lot of boring songs on this album. 

"Better Than Revenge" is so obnoxious. I find it a bit hypocritical that in "Mean" (a song I do like) she's crying about a music critic being mean to her, but yet she's being quite mean and catty to the girl (actress Camilla Belle) who apparently "stole" whichever Jonas brother she used to date (I think she dated the one who's married to Sansa Stark now?) With lines like, "She's not a saint and she's not what you think, she's an actress. She's better known for the things she does on the mattress", this is not one of Taylor's finest hours. It's also super obnoxious the way she starts the song with, "Now go stand in the corner and think about what you did." In the words of herself, "Why you gotta be so mean?” 

“Back to December”, “Sparks Fly”, “Speak Now”, “The Story of Us”, and “Haunted” are ones I just don't care for and usually skip. I don't dislike them as much as the others I just mentioned, but I'm not invested in any of them and when/if they come on if I'm listening to her music, I'm not singing along with them (probably cuz I don't know the words!) like I would with one of her songs that I do like. “Never Grow Up” has a sweet melodic harmony. It’s not my favorite, but I like it better than the songs I already mentioned. 

Believe it or not, there are actually songs I do like on this album! I really like the popular singles, "Mine" and "Mean". It's no wonder they became hit singles with their catchy hooks. "Do you remember, we were sitting there by the water? You put your arm around me for the first time. You made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter. You are the best thing that's ever been mine" is one of the best stanzas she's written. 

I used to be on the fence about "Enchanted" and "Long Live". While I like them better than the string of songs I dislike, I never put them up there as my favorites. While working on this ranking, I've listened to them a lot more and I really like them. Especially "Long Live." It's like I was sleeping on that song and suddenly woke up and realized what an amazing song it is. It’s pretty epic and I understand why her fans love it so much. "Enchanted" has a dreamy quality to it and sounds like it could be theme song for a Disney Princess.

6. Taylor Swift (aka Debut), 2006

Her debut album is good. It's not great or groundbreaking, but it's good. She can only go up from here. And while her first four albums have some sort of country influence, this is definitely the most country out of all of them. You can hear the banjos, fiddles, and all those other yee-haw! instruments.

I divided all the songs into four tiers. The first tier, the top tier, include my stand out songs which are "Tim McGraw", "Teardrops On My Guitar", "Our Song", and "Mary's Song (Oh My My)". The first three were singles. "Our Song" is infectiously catchy and even though it was played on the radio a thousand times a day, I never seemed to get tired of it. 

"Mary's Song" is a bit of a sleeper as nobody ever seems to mention it. It's such a cute song, about the lifespan of a couple. The first line is, "She said, 'I was seven and you were nine. I looked at you like the stars that shined'." And the last line is, "I'll be 87, you'll be 89. I'll still look at you like the stars that shine." I mean, c'mon! How can you not love this song? And that banjo-fiddle thingy throughout? Don't get me started! This song deserves more love. I have no idea who Mary is, though. 

The second tier includes "Stay Beautiful" and "Should've Said No”, songs that I enjoy, but don’t quite love as much as the other four I mentioned. They're both catchy and can get stuck in your head.

The third tier includes “Picture to Burn” and “Cold As You.” "Picture to Burn" is a bit of a cousin to "Before He Cheats", but not as good. Sure, it has a great beat, but honestly, the line, "So go and tell your friends that I'm obsessive and crazy, that's fine. I'll tell mine you're gay" makes me cringe. It's like, oh, no, honey, no, no, no. I understand you were only fourteen or fifteen when you wrote this, but that did not age well. I must be as cold as the "you" in "Cold As You" because a lot of people seem to love it (as much as you can love a non-single from her first album), but it just leaves me, ahem, cold. 

The forth tier, the bottom tier, include the songs I aways forget about which are “The Outside”, “Tied Together With a Smile”, and “A Place in This World.” If you asked me to sing a line from any of those songs, I would just stare blankly at you. I at least recognize “Picture to Burn” and “Cold as You” when they come on, thus the only reason they’re not in this bottom tier. 

5. Fearless, 2008

While I have much respect for this album for giving me “Love Story”, “You Belong With Me”, and “Breathe”, which all belong in my list of favorite Taylor Swift songs of all time, I can't rank it any higher. 

Obviously “Love Story” and “You Belong With Me” were huge hits and were not only played on country radio stations, but also on pop stations. You still occasionally hear then on pop stations that play "old" music. Sometimes I forget just how good "Love Story" is. I feel like I listened to a lifetime of it, so I admit I will sometimes skip it, but the storytelling of this song is quite brilliant, not to mention it's super catchy. I also love how it builds with anticipation when you get to the last part where "Romeo" proposes to "Juliet". (Uh, Taylor, did you ever READ the play or at least see the Baz Luhrmann movie?) Well, great song, nonetheless. I remember being at a piano bar with my family circa 2009 and of course somebody suggested "You Belong With Me" because it was the popular song at the moment and it got a lot of cheers. This song still puts a smile on my face when I hear it on the radio. It's just so cute and catchy. Has anyone ever noticed in the video that the boy she likes (who looks like the most vanilla white bread teen boy in all of existence) lives next door to Taylor, but yet there's a line in the song that goes, "I remember you driving to my house in the middle of the night." Wait, what? Guess they didn't take that lyric into account when they created the video! "Breathe" is an amazing beautiful song that is extremely underrated and doesn't get any credit or much love from what I've seen. She wrote it with Colbie Caillat who sings backup. That was my favorite Taylor song for quite awhile. It's so good, you guys! I just don't understand why people are so dismissive of it!

"Hey Stephen" is a fun, catchy song that seems criminally underrated. I think it's cute when she says, "All those other girls, well, they're beautiful, but would they write a song for you?" I love those Irish fiddles (or whatever they are - I'm horrible at trying to identify instruments!) on "Tell Me Why".

"Fearless", "Fifteen", and "White Horse" are good, butI can't quite put them up as my favorites even though a lot of people love these songs. When one sees the title of "Fearless", they might think it's an empowering song about an independent young woman, but no, it's just another song about not being afraid of falling in love or going on a date or something like that. :::rolls eyes::: I know a lot of teen girls love "Fifteen" because it "speaks" to them, but while I appreciate the message, it's just not for me. I see your "White Horse" and I raise you a "You're Not Sorry", which is the sad song I prefer more on this album. It has a little more oomph. 

There are a few songs I don't particularly care for. "The Best Day" is usually a skip for me. It's a bit too saccharine for me. It's a song she wrote to thank her parents for moving to Nashville so she could pursue her dream. It's a sweet sentiment, but I'm not her parents so I really don't care. Also, with all the money she has, I hope she's done more for them than just write them a treacly song! 

This one is going to make everybody mad because everybody seems to love this song: "Forever and Always." I'm sorry, I just don't like this song. People say it's really catchy, but I just find it frenetic and disjointed.

I really have no opinion on "The Way I Loved You" or "Change". They're just there. Apparently "Change" was used as an inspiring song for the 2008 Olympics and was used during daily clips. I do not remember this at all...probably because the song really isn't all that memorable. It's okay, but, eh. Honestly, I feel like "Long Live" would have been a better Olympic song than this one. It has more of an epic feeling. 

4. Red, 2012

This is a pretty good album, although it's a bit all over the place. There's country, there's pop, there's rock. There's a few songs I really love and a few I don't particularly care for and all the rest, they're pretty good. I feel like this album being ranked squarely in the middle is the perfect place for it. I like more songs on this one than on Fearless (though to be fair, this one has 3 more songs), but I can't justify ranking it higher than her three recent albums (which, you may have noticed, haven't been ranked yet). 

Let's start with the songs I love:

-"All Too Well" - When I made my top 15 Taylor Swift songs, I ranked this as number one. I thought I was going into the deep cuts for this one (you know, because it was never made into a single), but turns out this is EVERYONE'S favorite TS song! Like, EVERYBODY'S. I guess I can't blame them: it IS a good song. It's almost like listening to a musical audiobook because you're sucked into this story about this doomed romance. She even uses the scarf as a literary device as we hear about it in the first stanza, then the last. Sidenote: I was surprised when I learned that this song was about Jake Gyllenhaal (quick! somebody do a fact check: did he have glasses as a kid and play on the T-ball team? At least we know he has a sister!) I remember when they dated for like a blink of an eye way back when, but I thought they "dated" as in, You're famous, I'm famous, let's hang out together in front of the paparazzi and get more famous. I had no idea she was so into him that she would write such a heartfelt song...they were only together for three months! Also, I always thought it was weird when they dated because he's nine years older than her! Especially when this was around Taylor was barely 21. Jake, don't make me not like you! But yeah, I had no idea she had those feeling for him. 

-"We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" - This is probably my favorite lead single. It is a bop and a half. They never play this on the radio anymore which is a real shame. She is bringing her "Oooh-oooo-oooo-oooooh" a-game on this one. Apparently this song is about Jake too, which is kinda funny because in "All Too Well" she's all forlorn and sad he messed up the special thing they had and in this song she's pretty much, "F**k you!" The little "phone conversation" in the middle is stupid, but you know what? I love it. 

-"22" - "Twenty-twooooooo, oooo-ooooh!" I love this song; its' so fun and infectious. I will say this song has one of the stupidest lines when one of the "cool kids" says, "Who's Taylor Swift, anyway? Ew." Bitch, please. PLEASE. The cool kids may not like your music, but they know who you are! Was this supposed to be ironic? While I appreciate her poking fun at herself, it does not make any sense! 

-"Starlight" - Yes, it's true. I love all the fun boppy songs (aside from "All Too Well") on this album. I love the old school vibe of it. Is it super cheesy when she sings, "Ooh, ooh, we could get married, have ten kids and teach then how to dreeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaMMMMMM!" I love the passion in her voice. Also, true story, for the longest time I thought she was saying "I'm a Barbie on the Boardwalk" instead of  "I met Bobby on the Boardwalk." 

Her one-two-three punch of "State of Grace", "Red", and "Treacherous" are a very solid start for the album and I think those songs are all very good. For the longest time after I acquired this album, it was bugging me because "State of Grace" reminded me of another song and I finally realized it reminded me of "Space Age Love Song" by A Flock of Seagulls. 

Here are the songs I don't care for:

-"I Almost Do" - There are a few songs that are still a lit bit of country and this one has some country stank on it. This song is pretty unmemorable and boring, so I usually skip it. Also, the lyrics are a little disturbing if you really look at it because its about trying not to contact an ex because she's still obviously into him and this just seems to send the wrong message to her more impressionable listeners who still might be mooning over an ex. I just get an icky feeling when I hear this: "I just wanna tell you it takes everything in me not to call you. And I wish I could run to you. And I hope you know that every time I don't, I almost do. AUGRH. Taylor, you are a strong, independent woman...grow a backbone and tell this guy to F off! Don't give this guy any satisfaction that you're still thinking about him!  I suppose it's probably cathartic to write a song when you still have feelings for someone. I did some research and found out this song is about Jake Gyllenhaal too, which I had feeling. I guess she wrote this before "WANEGBT". She should have just called this the Jake Album because I'm pretty sure 90% of the songs on here are about him! 

-"The Last Time" - she sings this with Gary Lightbody who I just recently decided to look up to see who he was and he is (or was, I don't even know if this band is still together) the lead singer of Snow Patrol. I guess I always figured he was some country singer even though this particular song doesn't have a country vibe to it. It's just a weird combination, why are these two singing together? "Oh, I really want to hear a collab between Taylor Swift and that guy from Snow Patrol," said nobody, ever. The song isn't really one of my favorites, so I skip.

-"Stay, Stay, Stay" - This song is so lame, lame, lame, I wish it would go away, way, way. There was a time for, like, five minutes, when I liked this song, but it’s not one of the album’s best. First of all, the music at the beginning sounds like a theme song for a children's show (it sounds like a plastic child's piano is being played) and they lyrics are just so juvenile with the annoying repeating words: "And I said, Stay, stay, stay. I've been lovin' you for quite some time, time, time. You think that its' funny when I'm mad, mad, mad." UGH. I'm rolling my eyes as I write this. Also, why does this dude think it's "funny" when she's "mad, mad, mad." Why the f**k would you want to be with someone who think it's funny when you're mad?? That would just irritate the s**t out of me...like this song does! This song seems like it would it have been a better fit for one of her first two albums; there's something very immature about it which doesn't fit with the rest of the album. "I threw my phone across the room at you" seems more like a teen girl thing to do. 

Here are songs I also don't particular care for, but I won't skip them as often as the others I just mentioned. It just depends on my mood. They're okay, but they're not my favorites:

-"Sad Beautiful Tragic" - As you may have guessed, a song with the words "Sad" and "Tragic" in them is a bit of a downer. While I like the sitar or banjo (I seriously cannot identify any instrument!) that is prominent throughout, the song can either be a meditative experience that can put you in a trance  or super boring and slowly paced. 

"Everything Has Changed" - this is her first collaboration with Ed Sheeran. Everyone seems to go gaga over this song, but honestly, this sounds exactly like a song you would expect from those two. Sometimes I enjoy it, sometimes I skip it, sometimes it plays and I didn't even realize it was on. This is also how I feel about "The Lucky One" and "Holy Ground". They're both fine songs and have catchy hooks, but it just depends on my mood how I feel about them. 

"Begin Again" - When hearing the first stanza of this song, one might think this is about Taylor breaking up with a guy who didn't like certain qualities about her and now that she's single she can embrace those qualities because this is who she is and she likes them: "Took a deep breath in the mirror, he didn't like it when I wore high heels, but I do. Turn the lock and put my headphones on. He always said he didn't get this song, but I do." But no, this song isn't about embracing yourself or being single...it's about meeting someone new who accepts you after being in a bad relationship. :::rolls eyes::: This song is nice, but not overbearing or anything. It's something you would put on during brunch (I'm trying to think of the most milquetoast event for the most milquetoast Taylor Swift song). This is the song she ends the album and she usually ends with a strong song. While I don't hate this song, I definitely this it is the weakest of her ending album songs. “Long Live”, ”Clean", "New Year's Day, and "Daylight" are all much better.  I wouldn’t say "Our Song" is much better, but I do prefer it more. The only last song of an album it might be better than is "Change".

"I Knew You Were Trouble" - I think this is Taylor's most manufactured song and what I mean by that is that I can hear just about any current pop singer performing this song. I can hear Pink singing it. I can hear Kelly Clarkson singing it. I can hear Rihanna singing it. I can hear Miley Cyrus singing it. I can hear Katy Perry singing it. You get the idea. This song is somewhat catchy, so I understand why people like it, but I seriously hate it when she does those weird "Ahhhh! Ahhhh! Ahhhh!" whatever the f**k she's doing. It's just very distracting and not very pleasant to my ears. The dubstep is super prominent in this. There's just a lot going on.  This song is sometimes a skip for me, not gonna lie. However, I did find it super cute when she was performing this at the AMAs and her parents were singing along in the audience. 

3. reputation, 2017

This album being ranked at #3  is pretty good considering I did not like it the first few times I listened to it. In fact, had I ranked her albums right after this one came out, it probably would have been ranked lower than Red and Fearless. I think there are a few factors that made me not like it - for one thing, it followed what I believed was one of the best TS albums (slight spoiler there, but there's only two spots left and I haven't mentioned 1989 yet!), so I knew there was no way this album was going to live up to that one. Also, the first single is what I believed to be her worst single - EVER, "Look What You Made Me Do." Oh, dear God. I totally loathed that song. There was  just something really irritating about it, but yet it had a tendency of getting stuck in your head. "Ooh, look what you made me do, look what you made me do, look what you just made me do, ooh, look what you just made me do, look what you made me do." AUGH! STOP! There is nothing melodic or audibly pleasing about this song. The first time I listened to this album all the way through I skipped it because I had already heard it a million times on the radio, so I already knew I didn't like it! You may have noticed that I wrote I loathed it in the past tense. I don't hate this song anymore. Oh, sure, I still think it's terrible, but I can listen to it and enjoy it because I find it so damn funny. It just makes me laugh when I hear it. I'm also able to listen to it because it's never played on the radio anymore. At least not on any of the Top 40 stations I listen to. Has anyone else noticed that? They'll still play "Delicate" and other songs from her older albums, but it seems that the radio stations only played this song when it first came out, then stopped when they didn't have to play it anymore because nobody likes this song! While I understand why it was her first single, there were better songs to release as a first single. As I read somewhere, this song was more of a publicity stunt than anything else. I think it being released as the first single left me with a sour taste in my mouth because I really did not like it, which is rare because, honestly there's never been a Taylor Swift hit single I didn't like...until the summer of 2017. What a dark time for everyone! When I listened to reputation the first few times all the way through (sans "LWYMMD", of course), I only liked about four of the fifteen songs. The others, I was either meh about or just didn't like. It just seemed like she was trying way too hard to be "cool" as many of the songs you could hear being playing in the clubs. Also, several songs mention drinking alcohol and drinking. It's like, nobody cares that you can drink, Taylor. You've been of the legal drinking age for the past two albums! I didn't listen to this album for several months, then went back to it and listened to it a few more times and found that there were songs I really liked that I was lukewarm about before. There are still songs I don't care for, but this album was a big turnaround for me. It gets the award for most improved.

Here are the songs I originally liked (and still do!):

"Gorgeous" - I love the humorous undertone about Taylor having a crush on her now boyfriend. The line about her stumbling home to her cats kills me. I  watched her Netflix special (you know, nearly a year after it came out) and when she sang this song, multiple pictures of her cats popped up on the screen. That made me laugh. The triangle chime at the end of some of the lines is a nice touch and I like that funky '80s electro-pop whatever you want to call (call it what you want!) it is totally my jam. Oh, and Blake Lively's and Ryan Reynold's baby saying "Gorgeous!" at the beginning is super funny and cute.

"Getaway Car" - this has a very '80s vibe to it and sounds like something that could have been on 1989 (or could have been released in 1989!) SUPER duper catchy! When she sang this for her Netflix special, EVERYONE was getting into it and waving their arms and singing along; it's just that kind of song. When this song comes on my iPod, I have to turn it up and sing along. This MIGHT be my favorite song from this album, but there are still a couple more I really like, so it's a tough call. I loved this song when I first heard it and I think I love it even more now. You could say my love for it accelerated...like a (getaway) car, ha, ha, ha. 

"This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things" - Even though I could care less about her feud with Kim and Kanye and even though I could care less about Kim and Kanye, this song (which is about her feud with Kim and Kanye) is seriously catchy and infectious. Like, seriously, how can you not sing along when this song is on? How can you not? "This is why we can't have nice things, dar-lin'.....This is why we can't have nice things, hon-ey…..cuz you break them, I have to take them aw-ay-ay-ay...........didn't you think I wouldn't hear all the things you said about me-e-ee-e-e-e-e."  I've noticed this song being compared to "It's a Hard Knock Life" from Annie and I totally see (or hear) it. 

"New Year's Day" - a very lovely ballad that ends the album, so at least it ends on good note. It feels very different from the rest of the high energy songs that have pumping bass and slick production as a piano is the only instrument. This song is very simple compared to the others. This is definitely a song that can bring the feels if you're feeling a certain way (i.e. sad).

While not my favorites, I liked "Don't Blame Me", "King of My Heart" and "Dancing With Our Hands Tied" alright enough and I still like them well enough. "Don't Blame Me" has a very "take me to church" vibe (probably because of the background choir). It reminds me of something Christina Aguilera would sing. She really loves using a voice enhancer on this album because her voice has this computerized quality in "King of My Heart". I do love the drums on this song and the bridge is very catchy. 

I did not like "Delicate" and "Call It What You Want" (I know, I know) when I first heard the album, but now I consider them among my favorites. I did not like "Delicate" because of the autotune at the beginning (there's quite a few songs that use autotune on this album, thus another reason I wasn't a big fan of it at first) and I thought the way "Delicate" was said in that weird voice was just laughable, but I do really like the song now. I do think her music video for this song is her best one. I didn't like "Call It What You Want" because of its generic title and I thought it was boring, but one morning, I was listening to it and I was like, 'Damn! This song is really good!' The whole "My baby's fly like a jet stream, high about the whole scene, loves me like I'm brand new" stanza just gets into your head and never leaves. And that's okay with me cuz it's a cool groove. 

Songs I'm slowly coming around to:

"...Ready For It?" - This is the first song on the album and it starts off with these thumping beats like I'm in the club or something, and then she starts rapping and I'm like, Uh, no thanks. Although I do think the "And he can be my jailer, Burton to this Taylor" line is very clever. Haha, for the longest time I thought she was saying "Let blood games begin" and I was super confused, thinking maybe "blood games" were similar to The Hunger Games? Which, I know, makes absolutely no sense. She's saying "Let THE games begin which makes more sense...she just punctuates "the" so it sounds like "blood" to my ears. I call this song "Dot, dot, dot, ready for it?" just to be obnoxious.

"I Did Something Bad" - I have a love/hate relationship with this song. I could listen to the chorus again and again on a loop. However...I don't really love anything else. I hate the weird vocal chanting thing. 

Songs I might skip:

“Dress” - I think for a song that could be either super cheesy or super sleazy, she does a good job of not making it either of those things. Even though I think it’s produced and written well, this is a song I usually skip because I feel so weird about listening to such an intimate song. It just feels like I’m intruding on a private moment. I can't imagine her sharing this song with her parents, let alone the world! Also, the “ah, ah, ahs” are a bit much. This song totally sounds like something that would be on a 50 Shades soundtrack. 

“End Game” has some catchy lines (The “big reputation” part, am I right?), but this feels like she’s trying to be too cool with not one, but two special guest rappers, Future (who I’m not familiar with, but I don’t really listen to rap, but he had to lose some street cred for rapping on a Taylor Swift album) and Ed Sheeran. You know, the famous ginger-haired rapper! But no hate here, he’s not too bad with the rapping. The part where Taylor sings "I swear I don't love the drama, it loves me" makes me roll my eyes. 

“…So It Goes” is okay, but it’s the song I alway forget about. Apparently she forgot about it to because she doesn't even sing it during the Netflix special where she sings all the songs on this album (plus a few of her past songs!), but not this one! They just play it over the end credits. I don't hate this song or anything, but it's the one where I'm like, "So how does "So It Goes" go again?" (That was a weird sentence!) There's a line in it that always cracks me up cuz it's really dumb. When she says, "You did a number on me, but honestly, who's counting?; I did a number on you, but honestly, who's counting?" which is all fine and well, but then she literally proceeds to count with "1, 2, 3...."

2. Lover, 2019

Her most recent album is so good with hardly a miss and I was really, really tempted to put it as my #1, but I'll explain why I put my #1 as my #1 when I get to it (which you should know what it is by now!) But this was definitely right behind it. I love pretty much every song on the album and even the songs that rank towards the bottom are still pretty good. There are only three songs I MIGHT skip; depending on my mood, but I'm happy to listen to the entire album either straight through or on shuffle. Two of them I skip because they're just not my favorites, although they are growing on me- "I Forgot That You Existed" and "It's Nice to Have a Friend." The former starts out this album so it was the very first song I heard when I first listened to Lover. I liked it well enough when I first heard it; it has a bit of a sassy attitude and kind of reminds me of something Mariah Carey would sing in the early '00s. Even the little laugh and the indifferent "so, yeah..." at the end reminds me of something MC would do in a song. However, after listening to the entire album, I came to the conclusion that this is the weakest song on the album. (Well, either this one or "ME!"). I don't know who the person she's referring to that she forgot existed (I've read many theories), but it has to be a fellow musician because of the "Would've been right there, front row, even if nobody came to your show" line. I just assumed it was about Calvin Harris, *shrug*. HOWEVER, if the point is she's telling this person that she forgot they existed, then why is she writing a song about it? She obviously didn't forget they existed if she went out of her way to write a song about how she forgot they existed. But I digress... As for "It's Nice to Have a Friend", it's a different sounding song with a choir in the background. I wasn't crazy about it the first few times I heard it, but I'm slowly coming around to it. Even my lowest ranked songs on this album are still pretty good. The only other song I sometimes might skip is "Soon You'll Get Better" and that's only because it's a sad song, not because I don't like it. It's about when her mom had cancer (hopefully it's still past tense) and it's probably the first time I cried listening to a Taylor Swift song. I like the inclusion of the Dixie Chicks because I am a big fan of theirs (if you're not familiar with their work, go listen to "Goodbye Earl" and "Not Ready To Make Nice"; so good!), but I like that they don't overshadow Taylor.

When I see people's rankings of the songs on the album (this would be nearly impossible for me to do!), I notice that her first two singles, "ME!" and "You Need to Calm Down" are generally towards the bottom. I don't know if this is due to song fatigue because those songs were everywhere by the time this album came out or if there are so many other great songs that they got pushed to the bottom. I can see a case for both. I like both songs; I think they're both fun, poppy, upbeat songs. Are they among my top favorites of this album? No. You know, when "ME!" first came out way back in April or May or whenever it was, I had no idea it was the first single to Taylor's new CD. I just figured there was a new Panic! At the Disco album coming out and it was a single from that. You know, like when she collaborated with Boys Like Girls (remember them? What was their big hit? :::Goes to look it up::: Ah, yes, "Love Drunk"; that was a banger!) and they did "Two Is Better Than One" and that was on their album, not hers. 

"False God" has a smooth jazz feel to it. It's a different sound for her, but I like it. I feel like this song is for her older audience. It has a sexy, grown up, mature vibe to it. And that saxophone! 

When I first saw that there was a song called "Cruel Summer" on this album, I knew it wouldn't be a cover of the Bananarama song, but I thought she might sample from it. She doesn't, although that would have been cool. This song sounds like a sister song to "Getaway Car"; very similar vibes. I love this song. I love the "ooooh-aaaahhh, cruuuueeeel summer" and when she shouts, "He looks up grinning like a devil" because it just comes out of nowhere (especially the first time you hear it; it certainly took me by surprise!)

I think "Lover" is her first truly great single from this album. It has the dreamy quality that makes you want to sway back and forth and sing along. I see this being the new song that will be played at weddings. Even though I hate the word "lover" in this context (because, seriously, who introduces their S.O. as their "lover"? NOBODY), there's really no other word that would work. She can't sing, "You're my, my, my, my significant other." Doesn't work. And she definitely can't sing, "You're my my, my boyfriend." Ick even worse!

"The Man" is her most clubby sounding song with the strong bass and that weird horn thing. It's a female empowering song where Taylor tells us that if she were a man, she'd be THE man. I like the end where they alter her voice to almost make it sound like she's waking up from a dream/fantasy of pondering how her life would be different if she were a man.

If there was any song that had the potential to take over "All Too Well" as my #1 favorite TS song, it would be "The Archer", (so yes, it's my favorite song on this album), which she didn't release as a single, but did leak it on YouTube a couple weeks before the album was released. It has that '80s dream pop vibe with the synthesizers and I love how it builds and builds. However, for now, this song will have to settle for my second favorite TS song of all time because I just can't see anything passing "All Too Well". Hmm, interesting that both songs are Taylor at her most vulnerable. 

I freaking love "I Think He Knows." Bless my soul, what a fun song!  It reminds me of something you would hear in a musical (I think because of the finger snapping sounds) and it also reminds me of something Prince would sing (I think because of her falsetto voice). When I first heard the "He got my heartbeat skippin' down Sixteenth Avenue" lyric, I just assumed she was referring to New York, but it's actually Nashville. In my defense, I am familiar with neither city. The drum beat after the bridge is SO good. Like, I have to pretend play the drums whenever that part comes on.

When I first heard "Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince" (great title), it reminded me of "Toy Soldiers" by Martika because of the children's chorus, although in the Taylor song it's cheerleader chants. I think it's clever how she uses cheerleading words (like, "Okay!" and "Go! Fight! Win!") throughout the song. I really want this to be a single because I think a music video for this would be really cool. 

"Paper Rings" reminds me of something that would play during the prom scene in 10 Things I Hate About You. Can't you see Letters To Cleo singing this circa 1999?  I'm not the only one who thinks this. I saw someone post this on Twitter and had to tell them I had the exact same thought. Apparently, searching for "Paper Rings" and "10 Things I Hate About You" on Twitter, many people have also came to the same conclusion. It's a very fun song; uh huh, that's right! 

I love "London Boy" (heh, and so does Ms. Swift!), another super fun song on the album. When I first heard the song, I assumed the guy talking at the beginning was her boyfriend because it's a guy with a British accent and, you know, the song is about her boyfriend. But, no, it's actually Idris Elba. Do you think they were on the set of "Cats" and she recorded a conversation they had? Or, probably, less creepily, do you think she asked him to say something for her song? I'm sure she got his permission either way. This song is so darn catchy and I must sing it every time it comes on. I laugh every time she sings "I'm your queen like a Tennessee Stella McCartney on the Heath" because she's obviously name dropping. Now I know she and Stella have a fashion collaboration, but could the name dropping be any more obvious? 

I love the pan flute (probably the wrong instrument!) that's throughout "Cornelia Street", another great song. I love the plucky instrument that's played throughout "Death By A Thousand Cuts", which is quite upbeat for a breakup song. "I ask the traffic light if it will be alright, they say, "I don't know" is my favorite line. Apparently this song was inspired by the Netflix movie, Someone Great (when does Taylor Swift have time to Netflix and chill??), which I haven't seen. "Afterglow" is also another good song. 

She continues her string of amazing album ending songs (well, except for "Change" which is her weakest ending song...oh, and I guess "Begin Again" also wasn't my favorite ending song) with "Daylight". Between "Long Live", "Clean", "New Year's Day," and "Daylight," I don't know which is my favorite album ending song from her. (I mean, I think "Our Song" is super fun, but no way it's in this conversation!) But "Daylight" is definitely a contender. I like how there's an echo of her voice and it almost sounds like a ghost of her past self (ooh, that's deep!), especially with the lyric, "I once believed love would be burning red, but it's golden like daylight", obviously a nod to her song "Red" from the titular album.

1. 1989, 2014

You guys, this album is amazing. A. MAZE. ING. No wonder it won a Grammy for Album of the Year. First of all, it gave us so many great singles: "Shake it Off". "Blank Space". "Style". "Wildest Dreams". You still hear these songs all over the radio occasionally. Compare that to her singles from reputation where only "Delicate" is still played on a regular basis. Even "Bad Blood", the weakest song, is still pretty darn catchy. It was another big single, but you don't hear it as much anymore...at least as not as much as the others I mentioned. Really, this album is so good that all the tracks could have been singles.

This is her first full pop album. When she first ventured into pop with Red, I was all, "Wah-wah, she should stick with country" (even though I loved "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" the most poppiest pop song, so yes, I am a hypocrite). How wrong I was! Transitioning to pop was the best thing she ever did. Of course, I do prefer pop music to country.

Not gonna lie; when I first listened to this album (I bought it off iTunes), I was sitting on my bed and the first words out of my mouth were, "What the f**k is this?" when hearing the opening to "Welcome to New York". It was just something different, so it just took me by surprise. Was I enamored with this album the first time I listened to it? No, but I did like it and I listened to it every single day for at least a year (probably more) and the more I listened to it, the more I loved it.

This might be a hot take, but "Welcome to New York" is my favorite opening to a TS album. When I went to NYC in 2004, they were playing the Frank Sinatra song ("Start spreading the news...") in the lobby of the hotel we were staying at in a loop. They need to play "Welcome to New York" at every hotel in NYC on a loop (cuz that wouldn't get irritating!) I'd be the one dancing and singing along, "It's the new soundtrack, I could dance to this beeee-eeee----eee-at....the lights are so bright, but they never blind meeee-eeee-eeeee--eee!" I always thought this song should be the theme song to The Carrie Diaries (remember that show? Probably not) even though that show was already cancelled by the time this album was released and it takes place in the '80s, but can't you see AnnaSophia Robb looking around in wide eyed wonder as she walks through the city during the credits while that song is blaring?

Speaking of the '80s, there's definitely an '80s throwback vibe to many of the songs and it's no wonder I love this album since I love '80s music. If Style had come out in 1984 instead of 2014, I could totally see it being used in a John Hughes movie in a scene with Molly Ringwald looking at herself in a mirror as she's getting ready for a date with the coolest boy in school.

Whenever I listened to "Blank Space" (which is tied with about ten other songs for my favorite song on 1989), I kept hearing her say, "Got a lot of Starbucks lovers" and I was all, sure, that totally makes sense! I was very intrigued by these Starbucks lovers, then decided that lyric probably wasn't right and looked it up and she's actually saying "Got a long list of ex-lover".  Ohhhh. But you know what, I still hear the Starbucks line whenever I listen to it, but I also hear the real line. It's like that portrait where sometimes you see an ugly old woman or you sometimes see a beautiful young woman depending on how you look at it. Love the sound effect of the pen clicking; this entire song is just pure pop perfection (I mean, let's be real: the entire ALBUM is pure pop perfection).

"Out of the Woods" could have become easily annoying with its repetitive chorus, but it works, at least for me. Please excuse the terrible pun, but I like the swiftness of it; there's a bit of an urgency to it. I just love the way she shouts, "GOOD!" at the end. The bridge is probably my favorite from the album....at least tied in first place with about eight other bridges. There's also a sense of urgency to "I Wish You Would"; another great song with a great bridge.

Her fans have pointed out that all her track five songs have been ballads where she's usually at her most vulnerable, but I don't think Taylor was privy to this until after 1989 because her track five song on this, "All You Had To Do Was Stay", is super poppy and doesn't really follow the track five formula. Don't get me wrong; I love the song, but "This Love" would have made more sense in this spot.

"Shake it Off" is probably the most overplayed Taylor Swift song of all time (is there any data  on this?), but I love it, especially now since they don't play it 50 times a day on the radio like they did back in 2014/15! It's just a really fun song and I like the big band influence with the horns. This song just makes you want to dance and you have to clap your hands during the clapping parts (much like you have to clap your hands whenever you watch the opening credits to Friends). A couple years ago, when my niece was two, this song came on, and she started shaking her little booty - she couldn't deny the power of this song making you want to dance; it was pretty cute! I also love the "You could've been getting down to. This. Sick. Beat" part. I think this is the song that Taylor is best known for.

I mentioned "Bad Blood" is the weakest song on the album, but I still kind of love it, cliche lyrics and all. It's about her stupid feud with Katy Perry, but they've made up, so does that mean this song is no longer relevant?

She gets a little breathy on "Wildest Dreams" ("in your wiiilllllllllldddddeeeessstt dreeeeaaammmssss, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh----ahhhhhhhhhh"), but I still love it (the song, not the weird breathy part!)

"How You Get the Girl" doesn't seem to be a favorite among many people, but I love it. It's just so darn catchy! I've seen criticism of it sounding like it belongs in a teeny bopper Disney channel movies and damn it, they'e right. It is a very bubblegum pop song. Perhaps I just loved the boppiness of it, that I never really dissected the lyrics and they are a tad problematic - the whole song is Taylor giving advice to some dude on how to win his girlfriend back. Shouldn't she be on the girl's side; I mean, maybe there's a reason why they broke up in the first place. But it's such a fun, upbeat, song and my favorite part is when she sings, "and yooooooo-oooooou knoooooooo-oooooooow (oooooh-oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh!) that I dooooooon't want yoooooouuuuu to go oh oh." Okay, that probably doesn't translate as well in text, but you know what part I'm talking about. I LOVE that part!

When I first started listening to this album, for about the first month or so, I would skip the last three songs (and I deeply regret this because I was wrong for doing so!) because I just didn't care for them. Now I listen to the entire album ("Bad Blood" is the only one I might skip). I love the last three songs on the album and one of them is one of my favorite TS songs of all time. I used to skip "This Love" because it was the slowest song on the album (thus the reason it would have been a great track five) and I just wanted this to be a fun, upbeat, poppy album to listen to and I guess I felt it disrupted its flow. Now I appreciate it more and love the dreamy, atmospheric mood of it with the synthesizers. It kind of reminds me of "Love You 'til the End of Time" - a deep cut Mariah Carey track from the early '90s.

I used to skip "I Know Places" because it was just such a different sound, not only from the album, but from Taylor herself, I guess it just took awhile for me to get used to it, but now I really dig it. It's pretty apparent that this song was brought to you by the letter "I"!

Why did I ever skip "Clean"? I really don't remember, because this song is amazing and when I did my TS song ranking (before reputation), it was ranked #5 and it would still be in my top ten. I know I said that I didn't know which album ending song was my favorite, but I lied. I do know. It's this one. I would recommend this song to someone who isn't familiar with TS songs other than her singles. I love the music, I love the lyrics, I love the bridge, I love the inclusion of Imogen Heap, I love the song! And, obviously, I love the entire album!

Thanks for taking your time to read this! 

Ten Favorite Childhood toys

I made a video of my ten favorite toys when I was a kid. If you are my mom, you should know the first two, possibly even the first three. The last two are tied with all the other ones that didn't quite make the cut; I just chose them because I thought they would be interesting to talk about/felt nostalgia towards them (even though I didn't quite play with them as much as I did with all the others). What were your favorite childhood toys?

The "poem" I recite for my #1

An American in London

What a Girl Wants
Director: Dennie Gordon
Cast: Amanda Bynes, Colin Firth, Kelly Preston, Eileen Atkins, Anna Chancellor, Jonathan Pryce
Released: April 4, 2003

Let me rank all the things titled "What a Girl Wants" I've come across in my life:

1. Boutique in Langely, Washington. Back in 2004 when my cousin got married on Whidbey Island, my mom, my aunt, her daughter, and I would visit this shop daily because it was within walking distance from the inn we were staying at. (I think everything was in walking distance, though). This shop was accurately named as it had clothes, jewelry, accessories, knickknacks, pretty much everything was pink and girly. Now I'm not a girly girl but even I oohed and aahed over this shop. We spent a lot of time (and money!) in that store. My cousin bought a brown leather bag with a cat on it and a black top with a white collar and I bought a black tote bag with pink lining and a pink poodle holding an umbrella on it, a matching coin purse (I don't particularly like poodles, but I guess I thought it was super cute and had to have it!), a pink oval alarm clock with a black cat on it, a white top with a boat neckline and a ribbon around the collar and a black top with sleeves that had black laces. The only things I still have are the tote bag and coin purse.

2. Christina Aguilera song. If this were my favorite song of hers, it would rank #1, but it's not, though it's certainly in the top tier. The only thing that could have made the What a Girl Wants boutique in Whidbey Island better is if they had "What a Girl Wants" playing on a loop. Every time you say "What a Girl Wants" in whatever context, you have to sing it to the tune of the song, am I right?

3. This movie. Just because I have this ranked last doesn't mean I didn't like it, but it also means I don't love it. It's also ranked last because I don't understand why the movie has the title it does. At least it makes sense the Whidbey Island boutique and Christina Aguilera song being called "What a Girl Wants." It just seems like a generic title for the movie and there had to be a better title for it. They don't even play the Christinas Aguilera song in the movie. What's up with that?

Good on Colin Firth for being a good sport to be in a movie that's (barely) one step above a tween movie that you would see on the Disney Channel. Of course, this was years before he won his Oscar for The King's Speech, heck, it was even before Love, Actually, which is the first thing I knew him from. Oh, wait, I guess he was in Bridget Jones's Diary, but to be fair I've only seen that movie once and I've seen Love, Actually at least ten times. I will still sometimes say "Just in cases" randomly. Looking at his IMDb, he was also in Shakespeare in Love, but I definitely do not remember him in that! The only thing I literally remember from that movie is Gwyneth Paltrow spinning around in her corset and saying "It is a new day" and that probably isn't even right!

Also in this movie is Amanda Bynes. Oh, yes, remember her? She's a former child star who has gone through some rough patches. I remember her from her All That days. God, she was annoying in that show, wasn't she? Granted, she was like, what? Seven, eight, nine? She was in a handful of movies in the mid 2000s and she always seemed to play the same character (wacky, outspoken), though I only saw this one and She's The Man, so I could be wrong. She plays a seventeen-year-old girl named Daphne who lives in New York with her mom, Libby (Kelly Preston). Daphne really wants to meet her father who doesn't even know she exists. We know the backstory of her parents is that her mother, a free-spirited wedding singer (who can't particularly sing very well) met Henry Dashwood (the guy Colin Firth plays) when they were both in Morocco and fell in love and got married, though its uncertain if they were actually legally married. He brings her back to England so they can get married for real, but she doesn't quite fit in with his rich, uptight family and leaves. He never knew she was pregnant.

Henry thinks Libby left because there was someone else and Libby left because she thinks it's what Henry wanted.

Daphne often works as a waitress at the weddings her mom sings at and she gets sad every time her mom sings a song (like "Because You Loved Me") for the father-daughter dance and laments how she will never be able to have a father-daughter dance. She decides it's time she find and meet her father, so she flies to London and leaves her mom a voice recording explaining where she is. When she first arrives in London we get a cliched montage of her on a double decker bus as all the tourist attractions flash by as "London Calling" plays. Speaking of the music, most of the songs in this movie are awful mid-2000 songs (the Michelle Branch one notwithstanding because I love her first album). The mid-2000s truly had the worst music of all time. The movie begins with a song called "Good Life" by Leslie Mills (never heard of her) and it contains insipid lyrics such as "Gotta get me out of the junkyard heap, kicking back in marigold dream" and "Falling in love under the raspberry sun, turn up the stereo, have some fun" and "Bean bags, bobby pins, glitter gel, I'm home again." Like, WTF are these terrible lyrics? Just because they rhyme doesn't mean they're good. No wonder nobody's ever heard of this woman (who I assume also wrote the song, but I could be wrong).

She checks into a hostel and meets a boy named Ian who works there as one of his many day jobs. Right away you know the movie is setting them up for a romance, even though it isn't needed. I understand why they want to give Daphne an ally while she's in London, but the romance part seemed forced.

Henry is running for Prime Minister and Daphne sees him on TV and learns that he is getting married to a woman who has a daughter about Daphne's age. I really thought Daphne was going to try to break them up, but if anything, its the mother, Glynnis (Anna Chancellor), and daughter, Clarissa, who are trying to make Daphne leave.

Daphne only has a photo of her father from the eighties, but she seems to know exactly where he lives. I guess since he's a well-known member of society, it was easy finding his home (not to mention it's a huge manor). Instead of going through the front (guarded) gates and asking to speak to him, she decides it would be more fun to sneak in through the back and go over a brick wall and into the garden maze. I guess this is done for comedy purposes as Glynnis and Clarissa are sitting in the kitchen and Clarissa keeps seeing flashes of what she believes is a "large bird". At one point, Daphne stands directly in front of the window and Clarissa screams and clearly sees a human has intruded upon their grounds. Henry thinks it's the paparazzi and calls security, which prompts Daphne to run away. Seriously, what was her plan here? They will call back to this scene later in the film when Daphne and Henry are trying to get away from the paparazzi who are in front of the house, so Daphne has him climb over the back gates, so I guess in the context it makes sense.

Henry catches her and demands to know which paper she's working for and Daphne springs the surprise on him that she's his daughter. She also does this in front of Glynnis, Clarissa, and Henry's mother, Jocelyn (Eileen Atkins), the first two who are scandalized. They let Daphne stay at their house (it's not like they don't have enough rooms to spare!) and Daphne claims her room is bigger than her apartment back home, which is true. She gives Jocelyn a hug who recoils and tells her, "I'm British. We only show affection to dogs and horses." I'm not British, so maybe that's why this joke went over my head. I guess they're saying British people tend not to be very affectionate. Henry calls Libby to tell her that Daphne is with him. It's a bit weird that he knows her number when they haven't spoken in seventeen years! Also, if Libby knew her daughter was headed to London to find her father, why didn't she give Henry a heads up? I assume she also had his number.

We see a scene of Henry talking to his campaign manager, Allistair (Jonathan Pryce) who also managed Henry's father's campaign and is the father of Glynnis. Allistair is worried about this American teenager who is now living with them, but Henry assures him that Daphne is a soft-spoken, well-behaved young woman and as he says these things, we see juxtapositions of Daphne being obnoxious and doing things like sliding around on the wood floor in her socks, boxer shorts, and a t-shirt like she's Tom Cruise or something or walking around in her tank top and pajama bottoms while dancing and listening to her awful mid-2000s music on her headphones. You're a guest in this house, girl, have a little decorum.

Pretty much the next part of the movie is Daphne attending all these important events with her father and his fiancee and stepdaughter to be. Glynnis and Clarissa are always trying to sabotage Daphne and make her look like a fool, but Daphne seems to one up them most of the time. When she's invited to the Royal Fashion Show, Clarissa tells her she should wear something "funky"; that if she were to show up in pearls and a sensible dress, she would be a "plonker". Daphne wears jeans and a tank top (the only thing she appears to own) and shows up late at the show and ends up being confused with one of the models (even though they're all modeling dresses...how did the dumb idiot backstage mistake her for a model?) and she ends up walking the runway, instead, of you know, getting down as quickly and discreetly as possible. People seem to love her, though, but she ends up falling where faux Prince Charles is sitting with his two faux sons, William and Harry.

Daphne realizes that Clarissa did not explain it all to her and she calls her "my evil stepsister" and I had to laugh when she asks Clarissa if she's seen "Cinderella" and says, "Let me clue you in: I win."

She goes to another event that's a coming out party for the twin daughters of another Lord. Again, Clarissa and Glynnis try to sabotage her by picking out the most hideous dress for her to wear, but she ends up altering it so she's the most beautiful girl there. It's not a very happening party and Clarissa is being rude about it, so Daphne convinces Ian, who is playing with his band (and Ian and his band will show up at another three more events in this movie; apparently he's the only gig in London) and he plays a James Brown song and the music is so loud that it shatters a huge chandelier that's the pride and joy of the Lord that lives there. Henry saves her by getting her out of there as quickly as possible, but the press (why are they even there at a private event?) get their picture anyway.

This is around the part of the movie where Daphne starts to bond with her dad. She learns that they both love '70s music and Coco Pops. Yes, you read that right. Apparently the movie didn't get the right to Coco Puffs. They also use All-Bran for another made up cereal because when Daphne sees Henry pouring himself a bowl of Coco Pops, she tells him she thought he would be an All-Bran guy. Henry also gets concerned when he sees Daphne going out with Ian who drives a motorbike and is in a band. This is especially hilarious because Ian is the least threatening boy ever. Like I said earlier, I could care less about the romance between Daphne and Ian. Yawn.

After a few more mishaps with Daphne (she can't help it! She's kooky and free-spirited!), Henry sits down with her to tell her that a certain code of behavior is expected with this family, so she trades her jeans and funky jewelry for tweed jackets, skirts and pearls and attends functions without acting like a fool anymore. This angers Ian and he tells her he wants the old Daphne back.

Towards the end of the movie, her father throws a big, fancy party for Daphne's honor which will be attended by the Queen (and Ian is playing it with his band, which I find hilarious; why would he agree to play that party if he's so angry with Daphne?) and Jocelyn has invited Libby. Clearly Henry still has feelings for her when he sees her and asks her to dance which infuriates Glynnis. Daphne overhears Glynnis and Allistair talking of how he got rid of Libby once and he can do it again. Ruh-roh! Glynnis locks her in a closet (what are wicked stepmothers for?) and chooses that moment to have Ian play the traditional father-daughter dance and has Clarissa dance with Henry. Libby finds and frees her daughter and when Glynnis puts her hands on Daphne to keep her from interrupting her dad and Clarissa, she tells her, "Keep your hands off my daughter or you'll get a Broadway musical, not just a scene." Heh. I thought that was a good line.

Daphne tells Clarissa and her dad that she doesn't want any of this and she and her mom head back to New York. We get a few scenes of her looking sad, but we all know how this story is going to end, especially after we see a scene of Henry announcing he's stepping down from his position and basically tells Glynnis it's over. He flies to New York where he and Daphne finally get their father-daughter dance to "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?" Well, it's half a dance because he also brought Ian to surprise her and they start dancing, so he starts dancing with Libby and obviously they get back together and officially get married and they all live in Henry's manor.

Oh, so throughout the movie (like in two scenes) Daphne has been applying to different colleges. The funniest line in the movie is at the end when she tells the audience, "I didn't get into NYU, but I got into Oxford!" Wait......what? HUH? WTF? EXCUSE ME??? She wasn't accepted into NYU, but yet she got into freaking Oxford which is probably even more prestigious than Harvard? HOW THE MOTHEREFFINGHELL DOES THAT EVEN HAPPEN? Me thinks Daddy Warbucks did some illegal underground paperwork to get her in and worked his privileges and connections. This girl doesn't even know that "loo" means toilet in England. We never got any sense that she was a serious, Ivy League scholar. In a movie full of questionable things, that was probably the most unbelievable.

10 Year Anniversary!

Ten years ago on this very date, I posted my very first entry on this blog and to celebrate I created a montage of all the movies I've since reviewed: 

Boy Meets Monster

Little Monsters
Director: Richard Greenberg
Cast: Fred Savage, Howie Mandel, Daniel Stern, Ben Savage
Released: August 25, 1989

I know it's been awhile since I last posted, but I'm back with a new review and it's a review of a terrible movie! Yay! Lucky you! Seriously, I don't know which young Fred Savage movie is worse: this or The Wizard. At least The Wizard has the Nintendo nostalgia and the immortal Power Glove scene and another bonus is that it doesn't have the annoying character of Maurice. It's a good thing Fred Savage has The Wonder Years, because he was in some sh*t movies.

This movie shares some similarities with Monsters, Inc., but it's missing the Pixar charm. Actually it lacks any charm. They're both about monsters who enter children's bedroom to scare them. At least in Monster's, Inc. there's a reason why they're scaring the kids (their screams power Monstropolis); in this movie they just do it because they can? Because it's fun? Because they're literal monsters?

The movie opens with twelve-year-old Brian (Fred Savage) who has just moved to Boston with his family. (I had no idea they were in Boston; I had to look it up on the Wikipedia). His little brother, Eric, is played by his real-life brother, Ben Savage, who is not very good in this. But in his defense, he was probably only seven or eight and was only in this because his brother was. I had to laugh that his name is Eric since that's the name of his brother in Boy Meets World  and every time I think of Eric Matthews, I think of "Fee-nay! Fee-nay! Fee-eee-eee-nay!" And when he thought "Yale" was pronounced "Ya-lay". His dad is played by Daniel Stern which is really weird since they both played the same character on The Wonder Years...it's like young Kevin Arnold from the '60s is meeting future adult Kevin Arnold from the '90s. It's like that episode of Quantum Leap when Sam Beckett leaps back into his own body when he was a kid...oh, boy!

The parents have not been getting along and they tell their sons they are getting a trial separation. It also doesn't help that every morning they wake up to little nuisances they believe Brian has caused such as leaving his bike behind the dad's car so he runs over it when he backs up or messes being made in the house. Brian believes it's Eric who is causing this, but his little brother insists it's the monster who lives under his bed. To prove there are no monsters, Brian switches rooms with Eric and this is when we meet a monster named Maurice (played by Howie Mandel). Good effing Lord. This has got to be the most irritating character in the history of cinema. He acts like he's on cocaine and has a bad case of ADD and has just eaten about a thousand pixie sticks. God, I wanted this character to die a slow, painful death that's how much I despised him. And we almost get that because sunlight makes him melt (so he's just a pile of clothes) and if the sun completely rises, he will die. He begs Brian to push him under the bed, but Brian isn't having it since he wrecked his bike, but then his conscience catches up with him and he shoves him under the bed where he heals and becomes a fully formed monster again. If only Brian had just left him...

Mandel's idea of acting is just flaring his arms around and jumping around and being really loud and obnoxious. When he sees Brian's baseball cards, he says, "Need them got them, have them, got them," just super obnoxious. Why would anyone want to be friends with this guy is beyond me. The opening line of the movie is Brian saying how he met his first friend Maurice in this new town and how he's never had a friend like him. Well, thank God for that is what I say! If I had to hang around someone that irritating, I would have to force myself to drink just so I wouldn't murder the person! He should be banned from the human world just for calling pizza "'za". What kind of person says, "Let's order some 'za?" A person who I never want to meet, that's who.

We learn that Maurice is part of a monster community (aka extras dressed up in Halloween costumes) who live underground (aka a cheap set with boxes and staircases) and who wreck havoc during the night where they can enter kids' bedroom from underneath their bed and pull pranks, making the parents believe it was their kids who caused all these shenanigans. Maurice seems to be proud of this as he gleefully tells Brian, "We're the reason why kids get sent to their rooms; the reason why brothers hate their sisters; the reason why parents send their kids back to camp." Brian also seems to love this which doesn't make any sense since HE was blamed for all the crap that Maurice pulled that made his parents (especially his dad) furious. Why would any kid like this guy who's "job" it is to get kids in trouble? Maurice brings Brian along with him as we get a montage of them "visiting" (aka breaking and entering into) childrens' bedrooms and pulling pranks. For some reason, Brian is able to materialize from the floor into the monster world even though humans should not be able to do this, right? I don't know, I didn't write the rules of this stupid world. It seems like the writers of this movie didn't think about that either. During the montage we see Maurice and Brian track mud on a white carpet with shoes; paint a girl's bedroom wall, then paint her face to look like she's the culprit; put plastic wrap over a toilet seat; put peanut butter on a phone receiver; smear their hands in chocolate sauce, then place handprints all over the fridge; Maurice places a q-tip with his ear wax back into a glass jar full of clean q-tips (that reminded me of that scene from Shrek), and even though we don't see it, apparently they also shaved someone's cat as someone's parents scream to them about that when we see the inevitable (and painful) montage of the innocent victims who get screamed at by their parents.

The only part of the movie I genuinely laughed at is when they enter the first bedroom and Brian says, "This is someone else's house" and Maurice replies, "No, duh, where'd you park the squad car, Dick Tracy?"

During their night of chaos, they also visit Ronnie, the big bully at Brian's school who is played by Buzz McCallister. They find his school lunch in the fridge and replace the tuna fish with cat food, and, more reprehensibly, Maurice drinks/spills his apple juice, then proceeds to pee in it, claiming, "Ronnie's gonna be pissed!" The next day everyone at school is beyond thrilled when Ronnie takes a swig of the urine and spits it out on the principal. I don't think he even warrants getting such cruel treatment; even though he's the bully he doesn't do anything bad except use his bigger size to intimidate the younger kids. Not even Buzz McCallister would deserve such a cruel punishment. However, he will join Brian and the others good kids by the end of the movie and I have no idea when they suddenly became friends.

There's a lot of inappropriate things in this movie and I'm not just talking about how many times the word "shit" is uttered and not just by kids. There's a scene where Maurice pulls down Brian's pants so he's just standing in his boxer shorts (no reason why he does that) and a female monster who is played by a young girl tells him, "Nice ass." Yeah, that really happens. Then Maurice and Brian visit Kiersten, the girl Brian has a crush on, but he won't admit he has a crush on her even though he's thrilled to find a Polaroid picture of himself in her bedroom that she took (she's into photography). They are literally standing over her bed watching her and it's really creepy. Then we get one of two masturbation jokes when Maurice makes his hand into a dog puppet who "eats" her big science paper that's due the next day while stroking his hand and saying something like, "The right hand...man's best friend." Like, really movie? Also, what is Brian doing that he doesn't even notice that Maurice is ruining his crush's homework? Kiersten ends up failing and Brian is pissed at Maurice. He also gets angry at him when Maurice brings him along to scare a baby and decides to saw off all the legs of the beds so Maurice can't come out from under the bed anymore. His mom believes this is how he's learning to cope with the separation and seems to be okay that her son is ruining all the beds. Way to be a parent, lady.

Brian finds out that since he's been spending so much time down in the monster world, he's suddenly starting to become one because his limbs are starting to disappear when light appears. (So does this mean that Maurice and the others were once kids who turned into monsters? Maurice does tell Brian he is eleven, but I thought he meant he was eleven in monster years. I guess I should have paid more attention while watching this!)

When Eric goes missing, Brian knows where he is and gets Kiersten and Eric's friend, Todd, to help with the rescue and later Ronnie will join them. By this time I have no idea what's going on and I really don't care. After Brian convinces Kiersten and Todd  that a monster underground exists (since it's so easy for humans to access), they get a bunch of flashlights and defeat this monster who we've never met before named Boy (because he's dressed as a school boy, I guess?) who has Eric held hostage. I guess he's the ruler of this monster world and we're just meeting him in the last ten minutes of the move. Because that makes sense. He tells Brian that he'll let Eric and the others go if Brian stays and becomes a monster and that's when they use the flashlight to get away. Maurice also comes to the rescue, they defeat the bad monster, yada, yada, yada, they need to get home but they can't go to Boston because the sun is up so they need to run to California (on the set they just put a bunch of signs with American cities in geographical order) to return to the human world.

Brian and Maurice have a tearful goodbye (WHY?) and while I'm watching this, I'm thinking that they're trying to make this like the friendship between Chunk and Sloth in The Goonies, but at least Sloth isn't annoying and that was actually a sweet friendship. Brian calls his parents to tell him he found Eric and that they're in Malibu. I don't know which is more ridiculous: the fact that his parents don't know Malibu is in California (SERIOUSLY?) or the phone on the wall that has a HUMONGOUS keypad...is this phone for people with a vision impairment? Also, I've never seen a home phone with the keypad on the wall instead of on the phone. That was super weird. When his parents ask how they ended up in California (fair question), he simply replies, "Uh, it's kind of a long story" and that's the end of the movie. Lame, lame, lame. And lazy AF.

While watching this movie, I noticed there's a lot of close up of people's faces, especially that of Kiersten and they do it with Brian a couple of times. It was just a really odd choice. If I were an actor, I sure wouldn't want people seeing my face so close up on the screen!

Brian's favorite food is an onion and peanut butter sandwich...and those are raw onions, ugh! Not that it would be any better if they were cooked, but at least it would be more tolerable to eat. This has got to be the most disgusting sandwich and I say this as someone who knows someone who likes peanut butter, lettuce, and mayo sandwiches (yeah, I'm just as baffled as you are).

This movie is truly awful. I feel sorry for all the parents whose kids dragged them too see this garbage. Luckily my parents were spared since I have no recollection of this movie from my childhood. (But I'm sure they had to see a lot of other crap! Sorry, Mom and Dad!)

I did some research (pretty much watched YouTube reviews of this movie) and a common thread I noticed was that everyone brought up this ad that was played before the movie on the video cassette where kids could call a 1-900 number to enter a contest and win prizes. You need to watch it to believe it because it's so amazingly awful and hilarious. It's like the late '80s threw up all over it. While watching I took note of the fine print at the bottom that they know that kids aren't reading when they watch this! They do say the call is 95 cents a minute and that kids should get permission from their parents first, but still. It sounds like you call the number and have to answer trivia questions, then you send your answers to the sweepstake address. Now you KNOW this game probably last about twenty minutes and they are milking you for all that 95 cents a minute. No sensible parent would agree to this. I would love to know how many kids entered this contest and they must not have told their parents, right? Boy, I bet their parents were pissed when they saw their telephone bill! I also noticed that the address they sent their answers to was in Blair, Nebraska, of all places. Now I live in Nebraska and I have never been to Blair, but now that I know it's the home of the Little Monsters sweepstake, I may have to visit. Was my sarcasm thick enough for you? Also, how did I go nearly thirty years without ever knowing this terrible rap song existed? I feel robbed.