Is It Love, Actually?

Notting Hill

Director: Roger Michell

Cast: Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant, Hugh Bonneville, Rhys Ifans, Alec Baldwin

Released: May 28, 1999

This is a movie I liked when I watched it when it first came out, but now that I'm a little older and wiser, I can see that this movie is really not that good. These two people getting together makes no sense at all and there are so many things that don't really make any sense.

I should warn there will be spoilers though it's probably a moot point since this movie is very predictable and even if you've never seen it, you probably know that that two leads get together. Uh, spoiler alert! I WISH there was a reason for me to put a spoiler warning; I wish there was a bit of a twist in this movie, but, alas, there is not.

This is the movie where Julia Roberts basically plays herself. It reminds me of when Whitney Houston played a mega pop star in The Bodyguard. Julia Roberts, the most famous actress in the whole entire universe at the time, plays Anna Scott, the most famous actress in the whole entire universe. Hugh Grant plays William Thacker, a charming and self-deprecating English lad with floppy hair who owns a travel bookstore in Notting Hill, a charming and affluent area of London. He used to be married to a woman who left him for a man "who looked exactly like Harrison Ford." He says his shop doesn't sell many travel books and that basically business hasn't been booming. If that's the case, how doe he afford his house (which seems pretty nice). Well, good thing he ends up with a movie star who makes $15 million a movie (spoiler alert!)! I can't help but wonder if that's the real reason he was so enamored with her. I bet it was a pretty big big reason.

Our two leads meet fairly early in the movie when Anna comes into the bookstore and you can tell he recognizes her because he looks at her, then does a double take. Like with any other customer, he asks if he can help her and she politely says no. He will continue to try to engage in conversation with her by telling her she shouldn't get the book she's looking at and recommends another book on the same country (Turkey) and continues to give the author's credentials. He's just babbling and you just want to to him to SHUT UP! (and this won't even be the worst example of this!) and Anna is just nodding and trying to be polite, but you can tell she doesn't want to really have any conversation with him. She will end up buying the book she was looking at, but he throws in the recommended book for free. Celebrities; they have so much money, but yet they still get everything for free! Such BS! Also, why is he just giving her a FREE book when he could sell it to someone who may actually want it when his shop isn't doing so well. Oh, right, because he's so starstruck. 

She leaves, but they will have their real meet cute five minutes later, or an hour later (not really sure how much time passes once she leaves the store) when Will has gone out to buy orange juice and a pastry and he's headed back to his store. He's rounding a corner and who should be coming from the opposite side, also at a face pace. Why, it's Anna Scott, of course (with seemingly no bodyguards...don't really big time celebs have bodyguards with them? Unless they were watching from a distance. But then why would they let her...oh, never mind!) They collide into each other and Will (I honestly don't even remember if he's referred to as "Will" or "William" in this movie, but "Will" is shorter to type, so we're going with that!) spills his OJ all over her blouse. Thank God it wasn't coffee; I can only image how much she would sue him for that! She's sopping wet and he offers to let her clean up at his place which is just down the street and she can see it with the blue door from where she's standing. She says she needs to get her car back (was it in the shop or something?) and he says she can use his phone. This is how you can tell this movie takes place pre-Smart Phone! This is also the time where, if indeed she did have a bodyguard, they would intercept her and stop her from going to a strange man's house...which she does! This is SHOCKING that a woman, especially someone who is a public figure like Anna Scott, would just go into this man's house without a second thought. What if he was some crazy stalker and had planned this to lure her back to his house? But she's just like, Okay, I'll change at your house and use your phone. Seriously, would Julia Roberts ever go into some random person's house after they spilled OJ on her? No, she would not! I wouldn't do it and I'm not even famous! 

I should mention that Will has a flatmate named Spike (Rhys Ifans) who is a complete slob and the house is always just a mess. He also has no filter and no common sense. A lot of his scenes are just there for comedic purposes and I'll talk more about him later. Will apologizes for the messy kitchen and I noticed a chalkboard on the wall with the message, "Spike, clean up" which I thought was a nice touch. 

Anna changes her shirt (she had been shopping, so she had a top to change into) and when she comes downstairs, Will is gazing in awe at her. He seems to be enamored with her fame and beauty more than anything else. There is an extremely awkward and cringe-worthy scene where she's clearly ready to leave once she's gotten everything situated and he asks her if she wants something to drink. He just offer her twenty different beverages and she says "no" to all of them. Dude, get a clue, she doesn't want anything to drink! She also doesn't want anything "to nibble". He offers her apricots soaked in honey and rambles on about how they taste like honey and if you wanted honey, then you should just get honey. First of all, it's like, UGH, SHUT UP! Second of all, it's pronounced AP-ra-cot, not APE-ra-cot. (I know, I know, that's how British people pronounce it). Will asks her, "Do you always say no to everything?" to which Anna predictably replies, "No."

Before she leaves, Will tells her, "It was nice to meet you. Surreal, but nice." After she leaves, he berates himself for saying something so stupid. But seconds later, his doorbell will ring and he will find Anna there! She has forgotten her bag with the books which she had left at the bottom of the stairs before she went up to change. To be honest, I had also forgotten about that bag. The question is did she really forget her bag or did she leave it on purpose? He gives her the bag, she thanks him, looks at him, then kisses him. And I'm not talking a peck on the cheek, but a full on make out session. HUH? Where did this come from? Why is she kissing him? It had been awhile since I last saw this movie and I thought they had eventually warmed up to a romance, but it seems to start, like, ten minutes after they meet. I can understand why he's so enamored with her since she's a big time movie star, but I'm not sure why she's so into him? I mean, he seems like a perfectly nice guy and he isn't bad-looking, but there is absolutely no reason she should be kissing him like that. If he had saved her life or defended her honor, then maybe I could see a reason. Will apologizes for his "surreal, but nice" comment and Anna tells him she thought the low point was when he started babbling on about the honey-drenched apricots. Hey, she's not wrong! And at least she pronounced "apricots" the right way! Before she leaves (again), Anna tells him, "It's probably best not to tell anyone about this." Obviously, she's only looking out for herself. If a gorgeous famous celebrity kissed you, of course you're going to tell everybody! Duh! That's the only natural human response. Of course, nobody is going to believe you anyway! 

That night, Will and Spike watch a movie starring Anna Scott and Matthew Modine and it looks like the most pretentious, God-awful film. Its called Gramercy Park and it's in black and white. The scene we see Will and Spike watching has them at an art gallery and Matthew Modine's character keeps telling Anna Scott's character to smile and she's all, "I've got nothing to smile about." Also, nothing more obnoxious than somebody telling you to smile. Moments later, he asks her to marry him and she breaks out into her wide Julia Roberts grin. Oh, barf. Spike says, "Imagine, somewhere in the world there's a man who's allowed to kiss her." And he says that to the very guy who had just kissed her that very day! What are the odds of that?    

A day or two passes and Spike tells Will he has a couple messages, but he didn't write them down. Because that's the kind of person he is. He does remember that "an American girl named Anna called a few days ago" and told him she wanted Will to call her at the Ritz under a different name that Spike can't remember since he didn't write the message down. It's really too bad for Will that Smart Phones don't exist in the world yet. How did Anne get his phone number? Did he ever give her his last name so she could look him up in the phone book? While Will is talking to the Ritz and trying to convince them to let them talk to world famous movie star Anna Scott, Spike suddenly remembers the name she used was "Flintstone" and Will is able to get through.

He goes to her hotel suite, but it turns out it's set up for a press junket where journalists are interviewing Anna and other actors for her new film called Helix. When he's asked which magazine he's from, Will sees a copy of Horse and Hound lying on a coffee table nearby and tells the woman he's with that publication. He also uses his real name. Wouldn't they have him on the roster? They must not even have one because they let him in without checking his identification or credentials. This movie definitely lets thing slide so they can tell the story they want to to tell. 

Will is able to go in the private room where Anna is giving her interviews, but her publicist keeps popping in and out, so every time he's in the room, Will has to pretend to be a journalist and ask dumb questions about a movie he hasn't seen and knows nothing about. Keeping with the magazine's theme, he asks if she wanted more horses in it and she replies it would be too difficult since the movie is set in space. She says it in kind of a bitchy tone which I thought was a bit rude since she was the one who got Will in this mess. It's not his fault he hasn't seen this crappy movie (we see a very little clip of it and we hear snippets of what its about and it sounds terrible) and that he has to pretend to be interviewing her. When the publicist is out of the room, Anna does sound apologetic and tells him she thought this would be over by now. Still, she could have arranged a rendez-vous with him without putting him in this awkward position. She also apologizes for "the kissing thing." This prompts Will to ask her if she's busy that night and she says she is. When the publicist brings in the next journalist, Anna tells Will it was nice to meet him and throws in "surreal, but nice", making it full circle, though it absolutely makes no sense why a movie star would say that to a journalist. Will tells her she is Horse and Hounds favorite actress, other than Black Beauty. 

This scene will continue when Will is getting ready to leave, but he ends up having to interview the other actors who are also in the movie. This includes a pre-The O.C. AND a pre-The Sixth Sense (though only by a few months) Mischa Barton. When she tells Will she's been in 22 movies (and this girl can't be older than 12!), he asks her which one was her favorite and she replies the one she did with Leo. Will has no idea who Leonardo DiCaprio is cuz he asks if she means DaVinci (HUH?) and she clarifies who she means. Will still has no idea who this DiCaprio fellow is because he asks her if he's her favorite Italian director. HUH??? How does he know Anna Scott, but has never heard of Leonardo freakin' DiCaprio, who's on the same level of fame (and probably higher!) than Anna Scott?? I know it was played for laughs, but it did not make any sense. This happens a lot in this movie: a scene played for laughs that absolutely makes no sense. 

Anna catches Will before he leaves and tells him she can cancel her plans so she's free that night. Will is happy, but then suddenly realizes it's his sister's birthday and they're supposed to be having dinner with friends. (Dude, I'm sure your sister wouldn't mind if you were missing her birthday dinner to go on a date with a famous movie actress). Anna gets the great idea to invite herself along which I don't fine believable at all. I'm beginning to think she's one of those celebrities who became famous to be famous and does not care about acting at all (she often even jokes she's not that great of an actress!) She invites herself because she knows everybody will be fawning over her. Will has time to call his friends who are hosting the birthday dinner to tell them he's brining a date, but he doesn't have time to give them a heads up that his date just so happens to be the world's most famous actress. 

When they arrive at Max and Bella's house (the couple hosting the party), Bella is about to tell Anna she's the spitting image of Anna Scott, but Will introduces her and she realizes she IS Anna Scott. When Will's sister, Honey (please tell me that is just a nickname), arrives, she is fawning over Anna and it's so awkward. I think Anna herself is even pretty uncomfortable. Honey babbles on, very similar to her brother, so that must have been a hereditary trait passed down to them. She tells Anna, "This is one of those key moments in life when it's possible you can be really genuinely cool and I'm going to fail just 100%. I absolutely, totally, and utterly adore you. I think you are the most beautiful woman in the world." While that's a little cringey, it's not as bad as when she continues on to tell her she believes they could be best friends. WTF? At least form a friendship with her before you tell her you want to be best friends. That's about bordering on obsession stalker territory. She asks Anna what does she think about this and Anna, who is pretty diplomatic in this scenario replies, "Lucky me." Honey then continues to be creepy and quite forward when she tells Anna to marry Will because he's "a really nice guy" and then they can "become sisters." Oh. My. God. Girl, this is their FIRST date. Calm the eff down. I would feel a little bit sorry for Anna, but she is the one who invited herself along. She had to know what she was getting herself into, although I'm sure she didn't think she would be propositioned to be someone's new best friend or ask to get married to the guy she's on a first date with. 

When their unlucky in love stockbroker friend, Bernie (Hugh Bonneville), shows up, he doesn't even recognize Anna at first. He asks her what she does and when she says she acts, he says he used to do some amateur acting and tells her it must be a tough job because "the wages are a scandal." Even though it is extremely rude that he asks how much she made on her last film, I don't think she would reply with 15 million dollars like she does. Realistically, she would probably just tell him she gets by. I would imagine rich people don't like talking about how rich they are, but then, I'm not rich, so what do I know? He does realize who he had been talking to when Anna uses the restroom that Honey eagerly shows her where it is even though she could have found it just fine.

Dinner seems to go by fine and after they've all had a brownie for dessert, there's one left and it is offered as a prize to whoever has "the saddest act here." (Why the hell didn't they just make sure there was two for everyone in the first place!) This is clearly an exposition scene for the audience to learn more about the characters. We learn that Bernie works at a job he doesn't understand and everyone keeps getting promoted above him; Honey doesn't make much money and she attracts "cruel men"; Bella is in a wheelchair and can't have kids. We know that she was in an accident 18 months ago; I think they mention she fell down the stairs? Will is divorced with an unsuccessful profession. (Still, how does have such a nice home?) They are about to let Will take it (really? The woman who is in a wheelchair and can't have children doesn't have the saddest story of them all?), when rich-ass, beautiful, world-beloved and famous Anna Scott whines that she should get a chance to claim the last brownie. Bitch, please. She'd probably just throw it up anyway. I say this because she tells them she's been on a diet since she was 19 as well as she's had a bunch of "not-nice boyfriends", and every time she gets her heart broken, it's all over the newspaper. Oh, and it took two painful operation to look like she does. Um, you were the one who went into a line of work who has high standards for the way you look and of course the tabloids are going to paste your business all over their papers. I don't think the woman in the wheelchair who can't have children asked for those things. The other guests sort of humor her and cluck their tongues in sympathy, but then they're like, Nice try, you're rich and beautiful, so GTFO. (They didn't say it that way exactly, but you know that's what they were thinking). 

Honey continues to be intrusive when Will and Anna are leaving and saying good-bye to everyone and Honey tells her to call her if she ever wants to go shopping because she knows "lots of nice cheap places." Yeah, because the woman who makes $15 million a movie is worried about finding cheap places to shop! Anna, bless her, is super nice and tells Honey she's her "style guru", but it's an obvious lie because those two could not have fashion senses more different. When Anna and Will are outside the house, they hear his friends screaming in excitement and Will tells her they do that every time he leaves. I thought that was one of the funnier scenes in the movie. 

One of the scenes I remember the most is the next one where they're walking and come across a private garden with a locked gate. To impress Anna, Will tries to climb over, but fails and this is where we get him saying "Whoopsie daisies" not only once, but twice, and Anna makes fun of him for that. They both manage to make it over and kiss while they're in front of a beautiful garden and a sappy song starts playing, so you know they're in love. 

We get a montage of them going on dates and doing mushy romantic stuff. After eating dinner together one night, they walk back to Anna's hotel and she invites him up, but tells him to give her five minutes before he arrives. It doesn't make sense why she makes him wait five minutes before he's allowed to enter her suite because she can just primp herself in the bathroom, but they only do this because Anna's movie star boyfriend, Jeff (played by Alec Baldwin), has shown up to surprise her! Ruh-oh! She only has seconds to warn him before Jeff shows his face. I guess we're supposed to think Jeff is some kind of a-hole and while he does make comments about Anna not ordering too much food so she doesn't get fat, he actually comes off better than Anna does in this scene. For one thing, he's not lying to anybody. Anna tells Jeff that Will works at the hotel and is there to take orders for room service. Jeff asks for some water and asks Will if he can clear the dirty dishes and take out the trash. Again, I think the audience is meant to think Jeff is being a jerk for asking Will to do this, but I can't blame him! He thinks the guy works there and he's just asking him if he can clear the dirty dishes and take out the trash. He's not being rude or anything. That seems like a perfectly normal request to ask somebody who works at the hotel. 

I realize this movie takes place before Google was a mainstream thing and even before the Internet was huge, though they did have the Internet back in 1999, so why didn't Will do any research on Anna on the web? Was her relationship with Jeff hidden from the press, so nobody knew about it? Somehow, I doubt that. Also, surely Will's friends and especially his sister, who is Anna Scott-obsessed must have know that Anna had a boyfriend! Why didn't they take Will aside and mention this to him? We will get a scene later with his friends when one of them asks him, "You didn't know she had a boyfriend?" and he replies, "No, did you?" and his friends all look knowingly at each other. SO WHY DIDN'T THEY TELL HIM? For the convenience of the movie's plot, that's why. 

Anyway, Will is obviously hurt that Anna was lying to him that whole time and they break up. His friends start to set him up with different women. We meet Tessa who has frizzy hair and while social, is also very blunt. When she first sees Bella (her first date with Will is a double date with Bella and Max), she exclaims, "Hello! You're in a wheelchair!" She knows Max from somewhere (work, maybe?) and tells Will that Max has told her a lot about him and that he (Will) "is a naughty boy." Now, was this before or after Hugh Grant got busted being caught with prostitute? (I can't take credit for this joke; I heard it on a podcast. And for the record, it was after). But what is she talking about? Nothing about Will screams "naughty". I don't know what kind of stories Max has been telling her! 

The second woman they set him up with refuses to eat a meal because she's a "fruitarian" which means she "believes fruits and vegetables have feelings, so cooking is cruel" and she only eats those that have fallen on the ground since they're "dead" already. The dish she was offered had carrots that were murdered. So I thought this whole fruitarian thing was made up for the movie, but it seems to be a real thing. I understand why people are vegetarians and I respect that, but I don't quite get the point of being a fruitarian. 

The last woman they set him up with, played by Emily Mortimer, seems perfectly normal and she is lovely and beautiful and doesn't have any weird quirks and even Will admits that she is "perfect, absolutely perfect" after she has left the date and his friends ask him what he thought. We then get some interesting backstory on him where we learn that besides Anna, he's only loved two girls, "both total disasters." One was his ex-wife and the other was Bella, who ended up marrying his best friend. Wow, that's got to be awkward that he used to be in love with the woman who married his best friend and now he remains friends with today. He must have gotten over her. I don't know why they had to make that part of his history. Also, he only dated Anna, for what, a month, and he claims he was in love with her? Give me a break! Here he has beautiful and lovely Emily Mortimer (she doesn't have a name in the movie, so I'll just call her by her real name) who clearly likes him and she's not even going to hear back from him because he's too busy swooning over a movie star who will probably dump his ass in six months if they ever got back together. What a chump. I wish they at least had Will date Emily Mortimer so when Anna will shows up at his door months later, there's a bit of a love triangle. But, alas, we will not hear from or see Emily Mortimer anymore in the film. 

Anna shows up because she is upset that nude photos of her taken "years ago" are now in the tabloids. She had them taken before she made it big to make a few bucks. Apparently, someone was filming her as well, "so what was a stupid photo shoot now looks like a porn film." I don't quite understand why these photos and videos are being released now since it appears that Anna has been famous for at least a decade. It doesn't make any sense, but they just need to find a reason for Anna to be upset while she just so happens to be in London for two days and she goes to Will to ask if she can stay with him for awhile so she can hide from the press. Of course Will says she can stay with him because he is in love with her, but we all know that "love" is purely infatuation. We also find out that Anna has broken up with Jeff. 

Two things of note that happen during this time that will come back later in the movie:

1) Will is helping Anna with her lines for her next movie where she saves the world from a nuclear threat. He calls the script "gripping", but it isn't Henry James.

2) They bond over a Chagall painting called La Mariee (pretend there's an accent mark over the first e) that features a violin-playing goat. 

They end up sleeping together and everything is great until it isn't. The next morning while Anna is in the kitchen getting breakfast ready, the doorbell rings and Will answers it wearing his boxers and a t-shirt. He opens the door to find a crapton of paparazzi snapping pics of him and quickly shuts the door. When Anna sees Will's shocked face, she asks him what's going on. He says "nothing" and she says, "You're up to something" and proceeds to open the door only wearing his dress shirt. Why didn't he stop her? And why is she opening the door only wearing his shirt? You would think being a public figure, she would know better. Of course photos get snapped of her dressed like that and she is livid. She accuses Spike of calling the papers and telling them where she was to make "a buck or two." Spike did tell a couple of his friends (it's not like Will told him to keep quiet about it and what do you expect from somebody like Spike? Anna had met him before and knew what he was like) and that's how it got leaked. I can't blame her for being pissed because Will had every opportunity to tell her NOT to open the door, but he didn't until it was too late. She probably still would have been angry that the press was there, but at least they wouldn't get her photo. Will tells her it will be forgotten by the next day and nobody will care anymore because it will be yesterdays' news. But Anna doesn't agree with him and leaves in a huff and once again they are no more. 

I do love the next scene where we see the passing of time as we see an establishing shot of Will walking through the market and they show the seasons changing. At the beginning, we see him pass a pregnant woman, then by the end she has a baby. We also see his sister with a new beau, but by the end, they are arguing. It's a nice way to show the passage of time:

During this time, Bernie has lost his job and at a dinner with friends, Honey announces she's engaged. Turns out it's to Spike. Wha-? How did Will not know his sister was dating his flatmate? How did we not know about this? This must have been a storyline they cut out of the movie...but then why leave in their engagement? Also, I hate that they get engaged because they're the kooky characters. But, whatever, it's not even important and won't be part of the movie anymore and I'm not really sure why it's even in the movie. I am vexed; it vexes me. 

Will finds out that Anna is back in London, filming. (Does she even film in any other city??) Apparently she won a Best Actress Oscar...for Helix, that craptacular sci-fi movie. Um, excuse me, but nobody ever wins acting Oscars for sci-fi movies. Well, thank goodness for Julia Roberts, the movie she actually did win an Oscar for, Erin Brockovich, is better than that movie (and this movie too, let's be honest!) So, I guess in this universe, Anna Scott wins the Oscar instead of Hilary Swank for Boys Don't Cry. I mean, there is clearly some shady stuff going on! 

Anyway, remember I told you to remember a couple of things because they would come back later? Well, turns out Anna is filming an adaptation of a Henry James novel and Will goes to visit her on the set. She sees him and invites him to stay and watch, then they can chat later. He does, but I guess she doesn't know that someone gave him headphones so he can hear the dialogue, and he ends up hearing Anna's co-star ask Anna about him (Will) and Anna just dismisses him (Will, again), saying he's "just some guy from the past" and she doesn't know "what he's doing here." Good Lord, what a bitch! Will must think so too because he just leaves and goes back to work.

Later, Anna comes to the bookstore to bring him a wrapped gift because it make her think of him. (It's the original Chagall painting. Apparently, when they were bonding over it, she forgot to mention that she OWNED the original!) Anna asks if they can spend some together and he replies, "No, bitch, get your hoity-toity ass outta my shop." No, he did not say that. He actually said, "Can I just say "no" to your kind request and leave it at that?" He goes on to tell her they are two different peoples; he's from Notting Hill, she's from Beverly Hills, yada, yada, yada. This is when we get the famous line, "I'm just a girl... standing in front of a boy.... asking him to love her." Will STILL says no, but when he tells his friends later that day what happened, he realizes he made the wrong decision (no, he didn't!) and needs to find her (no, he doesn't!), so he and all his friends drive to the Savoy where she's at a press conference and they get in using their shenanigans. Someone asks her how long she will be in the UK and she replies she will be leaving that night. Will better make his move soon! Lucky for him, another journalists asks about the "graphic photos" taken of her with "some young English guy." First of all, WTF, "graphic photos"? They weren't even nude! Second of all, they weren't even photographed together! Anna replies that he was just friend, then Will, posed as a journalist asks her, "Are there any circumstances in which the two of you might be more than just good friends." Anna realizes it's him and tells him if he would be willing to give her a second chance and Will basically admits he was wrong and Anna announces she will be staying in Britain "indefinitely." Yay. Whoo-wee. We end the movie with them getting married and seeing her pregnant when they're at a park. 

It absolutely makes no sense that he ends up with Anna! I would have loved it if the movie had a twist and he ended up with Emily Mortimer's character. Also, you know those two are no longer together. They should make a sequel about their kid (who would be 22 now). I'm sure we would find out their parents divorced when they were a little kid! 

Many of the scenes that featured the zany roommate, Spike, didn't come off realistic to me. Nobody can be that stupid, can they? Pretty much every scene with Spike infuriated me because he comes off....so unnecessarily stupid and socially inept and his scenes are clearly played for laughs and I just hated this character so, so much:

-There's a scene early on in the movie where he's getting ready for a date (how did get get someone to go out with him in the first place?) and he asks Will which shirt he should wear. The first one he models features a plastic T-rex head and is splattered in red and it reads "I love blood." What the actual f**k? Why would anyone think this would be appropriate to wear on a date or anywhere, for that matter? The second one has an arrow pointing at his genitals and it says "Get it here." Will, of course, is appalled by these shirts. The third shirt Spike wears has a heart and says "You're the most beautiful woman in the world." Will tells him, "That's perfect." WTF, Will? No, it's not. You say, "Don't you own any solid colored shirts?" Encourage him to wear a black or blue or red polo shirt. If I went on a date with a guy who wore a shirt that said that, I would be terrified and totally weirded out. That is CREEPY AF. There is nothing romantic or cutesy about that. When Spike turns around, Will sees it reads "Fancy a f**k?" (Klassy!) and still Will doesn't tell him NOT to wear it. 

Then we get a scene of Spike eating something and he tells Will there's something wrong with the yogurt, who replies, "It's not yogurt; it's mayonnaise" and Spike continues to eat it! Ugh, why? It would have been more believable if the yogurt was just expired and he continued to eat it because he didn't mind the taste of it. 

At one point, we see him wearing Will's wet suit (from a vacation he took once) because he doesn't have any clean clothes because he never does laundry. This is only in the movie because Will says the goggles are prescriptions and we see him wearing them at the movies when he's dating Anna because he can't find his glasses. I'm sorry, but if you're trying to impress a girl, especially one who is a MOVIE STAR, you're not going to wear your stupid scuba diving goggles because you look like a COMPLETE moron! Well, lucky for him, Anna seems to think it's charming. 

During the time Anna is staying with Will, she takes a bubble bath in the bathroom. Spike, who had been reading the tabloids that features Anna's nude photos, walks into the bathroom, sees Anna in the tub with the bubbles surrounding her, then walks out and thanks God. And she acts like it's no big deal; like she was suspecting Will's flatmate to walk in on her while she was in the tub. You would think she would LOCK the door! 

If you're looking for another  Richard Curtis romance, I would recommend About Time which also has an interesting premise. I should mention that Richard Curtis did not direct Notting Hill, but he did write it. I've never see Four Weddings and a Funeral, so I can't say if that's better or not than this one. That's one I should put on my list of movies to review. 

Check

Searching for Bobby Fischer

Director: Steven Zaillian

Cast: Joan Allen, Ben Kingsley, Laurence Fishbourne, Joe Mantegna, Max Pomeranc

Released: August 11, 1993

Oscar nominations:

Best Cinematography - lost to Schindler's List 

In case you weren't sure, the title is NOT referring to trying to find the actual Bobby Fischer, but rather the NEXT Bobby Fischer. Good, glad we cleared that up! 

So I should probably preface this by saying I know nothing about chess. I have never played it, I don't know the rules (I probably wouldn't understand the rules!). Much like one Jon Snow, I know nothing (about chess)! That said, I quite enjoyed this movie (even though I had no idea what was going on when chess was being played). You'd think watching people play chess would be one of the most boring things (and I'm sure it is in real life!), but the movie does a good job of keeping it cinematic.

This movie sort of reminded me of The Wizard. You know, that movie was about a young boy who is a video game prodigy and this movie is about a young boy who is a chess prodigy. I will say that this movie is better, but let's be honest, pretty much any movie (within reason!) is better than that one! 

The chess prodigy in question is a seven-year-old boy named Josh Waitzkin (played by Max Pomeranc). I had no clue Josh was a real person and that this movie was based on a book of the same name written by Josh's dad, Fred Waitzkin. But to be fair, I don't follow the chess scene, so I'm not familiar with any big name chess players (and to be honest, I'm not sure how big a name Waitzkin was as he was really a child chess prodigy). Yeah, I've heard of Bobby Fischer, but I feel like he's one of those big names everybody's heard of. I didn't know anything about him except he was really good at chess. We get some small Bobby Fischer history lessons sprinkled into the movie and he seemed kind of like a jerk. I did a quick skim through his Wikipedia page and yikes! He allegedly idolized Hitler and was glad that the 9/11 attacks happened. I'm not sure why you would want to be compared to him! Yes, I realize that they're only comparing Josh's chess skills to Fischer's chess skills and they make it a point to say that personality wise, Josh is nothing like Bobby. At this point in time (1992/93), I'm not sure how much is known about Fischer's truly problematic view of the world. If we really were searching for Bobby Fischer, I don't think I'd want him to be found! We don't need to search for him anymore, though, because he died in 2008. 

Heh, one of my notes I wrote was, "Bobby Fischer seemed like a whiny baby". I can't remember exactly why I wrote that, but it seemed like he was always complaining about something as young Josh tells us in voice over. (BTW, this kid was not the best enunciator of words so it was sometimes difficult to understand what he was saying in voiceover). I swear he told us that he complained about his view of his hotel in Iceland was too nice. WTF? 

So when we meet Josh, he's a kid who's just turned seven and he lives in New York with his parents, Fred and Bonnie (Joe Mantegna and Joan Allen) and his little sister. He enjoys watching Vinnie, a presumed homeless man (played by Laurence Fishbourne) play chess in Washington Square with other men. This movie never states what year it's supposed to be, but the real Josh Waitzkin was born in late 1976, so it would have been 1984 around the time he got into chess. Funnily enough, that was the year his portrayer, Max Pomeranc, was born, so there is only an eight year difference between them. I did wonder if they got a kid who was a chess player to play Waitzskin since they'd probably want to cast somebody who knew what they were doing and sure enough, according to the Wiki, Pomeranc was was one of the country's top 20 chess players in his age group at that time. Like I said, this came from Wiki, so who knows how reliable it is. 

So I haven't read the book (obviously, or otherwise I would have known Josh Waitzkin is a real person), so I'm not exactly sure how Josh learned how to play chess. His parents didn't teach him and he didn't learn at a friend's house. The movie makes it seem like he learned just from watching Vinnie and the other men in the park. Can you just self-teach yourself to play chess? I would think you would need to know the rules. Bonnie notices that her son has been fascinated with the chess players in the park, so she takes Josh to one old man in the park who's supposedly some great chess player from the past. His table has a sign that says you can play a game with him or have your picture taken with him for five dollars. (We will later learn that you don't make a lot if you're a world renowned chess player). Josh plays the man and loses, but Vinnie is watching him play and is impressed with the young boy's chess skills. He tells Josh's mother, "Your boy used pieces in combination to attack." Whatever that means, but it certainly impressed Vinnie. He asks Josh his name and Josh tells him. When he asks him, "Josh what?" his mother tells him not to give out his last name, but of course he does and Vinnie writes it down. 

When Bonnie reveals to her husband that Josh played chess in the park, her husband replies with, "Josh doesn't know how to play chess." She answers with, "Yes, he does. Don't ask me how, but he does." Yeah...the movie really never explains HOW he learned how to play chess and the parents seem to accept it. I'm sure it's more expanded on in the book. Josh's dad works as a baseball analyst/sports writer (something like that!) and likes to bond with his son over baseball; Josh is even on a Little League team. This has nothing to do with the movie, but the actor who played him sounded so much like Ray Romano, that I kept expecting Doris Roberts to come out and exclaim, "Raymond!" 

After hearing this revelation that his son knows how to play chess, Fred decides to bring out the chessboard to play a game with Josh. The game ends fairly quickly and Fred wins. He confesses to his wife that he should have let Josh win and was even giving him an opportunity to win. Bonnie tells him that Josh wasn't trying to win. Fred decides to play again with Josh and this time he tells him to "really try."

This time they play seriously and it takes so long for Fred to decide how to move his pieces that each time it's his turn, we see Josh playing with his sister during one of his dad's turns, talking on the phone to his friend (who he tells that he'll be right back when his dad calls to him that it's his turn, he runs to the living room, moves his piece, then runs back to the phone), and most humorously, Josh is taking a bath after his dad his finished thinking over a move and when he tells Josh it's his turn, Josh tells him exactly what he wants moved and he ends up winning the game. While it seemingly takes his dad several minutes to make a move, it only takes Josh a few seconds and he knows exactly how to move the pieces to win the game. 

Fred takes Josh to the Metropolitan Chess Club that he knows about from a guy that writes the Chess Column at the same newspaper he also writes for. Um, excuse me, Chess Column?? What? Is this only found in big city papers? I have never heard of a Chess Column in a paper before; granted I've never actively looked for one before. I also don't read the newspaper, I mean, how archaic.  

Anyway, Fred is there to look for a man named Bruce Pandolfini (played by Ben Kingsley). Obviously, he is a real person and I looked up his stats on Wiki:

-He is still alive at the time of this review; he is 73.

-Wiki tells me "he is considered to be America's most experienced chess teacher."

-I thought this little tidbit was interesting; I haven't seen The Queen's Gambit; but now I'm interested to check it out:

In 1983, Pandolfini was the chess consultant to author Walter Tevis for the novel The Queen's Gambit, for which Pandolfini had also suggested the title. Decades later, Pandolfini returned as consultant for the 2020 Netflix miniseries of the same name.

- He looks nothing like Ben Kingsley. Okay, that wasn't in his Wikipedia page, but just thought I would throw it out there. 

Before Bruce accepts tutoring Josh in chess, he invites Fred to an adult chess tournament where all the national chess champs are gathered. This is where we find out that one of the great chess champs, Asa Hoffman (again, somebody I've never heard of), who grew up in a wealthy family and went to prestigious schools, plays 200 games a year and only makes $2,000 from doing it. I suppose if you come from a wealthy family, you can afford to immerse yourself in chess! Fred tells Bruce, "Clearly, you had me come here so I could see all this. But if you really wanted me to say no to letting my son play, you wouldn't have bothered. You want me to think you want me to say no, but you actually want me to say yes." Bruce just replies with, "I want back what Bobby Fischer took with him when he disappeared." I don't know if I was clear when I was talking about Fischer, but supposedly he would just disappear and nobody had any idea where he was. But then he would pop back up to play a game, then disappear again. 

Bruce has agreed to tutor Josh and during their first session they don't even talk about chess, let alone play it. Josh has a large selection of board games in his room and they play Clue. I did notice he had Stratego which is a game my brother also had. We used to play it and he would always beat me because I sucked so bad. That's probably the closest game to chess I've ever played. 

At their next session, Josh is at the Metropolitan Chess Club and Bruce has set up the board for him. He tells his new pupil, "The mate is four moves from the position in front of you." This absolutely means nothing to me! He wants Josh to figure out the moves in his head; Josh tells him he can't do it without moving the pieces. This prompts Bruce to knock the pieces off the board and they clatter onto the floor. A bit overdramatic if you ask me. But after staring at the board for several minutes he gives him the answer, "knight to C8" which pleases Bruce. It pleases him so much that he gives Josh a certificate that he deems is "very rare." It says "Master Chess Certificate awarded to ______ for highest achievement on ______ (date)." Bruce continues to oversell the certificate. He tells him it's only been given out a few times in history and "only to those who achieve a lot of master-class points." This is just a piece of paper; it can't be that significant, but he wants to encourage Josh to earn master class points because it will show that he's learning chess the way Bruce wants him to learn it. 

Speaking of which, Bruce tells Josh's parents that Josh shouldn't be playing chess with Vinnie and the other men in Washington Park. He tells them, "What I'm trying to teach him and what he's learning there are two very different things. Park hustlers play tactics, not position. They rely on wild, unpredictable moves meant to intimidate their opponents. ...It'll cost Josh dearly in real games." Fred was willing to agree to Bruce's terms, but Bonnie refuses because she knows how much it means to Josh and how much he loves playing chess there. Bruce tells her it will make his job harder and she just replies, "So your job's harder." This is the first hint we get where the mother has the kid's interest at heart while the father is more about honing the kid on his skill. 

Fred takes Josh to his first chess tournament (I missed where it was held) and while Josh was swimming at the hotel pool with the other kids who were also there for the tournament, another father asks Fred what his kid's rating is. I guess Fred has no idea what this means (I certainly have no idea what it means!) because he sees a sign that has the number 15 on it and tells him "fifteen" which the other father is amazed by the 1500 rating and tells him he doubts their sons will play against each other because his son, Morgan, isn't even rated 1000 yet. I looked up what a chess player with a rating of 1500 would look like. They would be an intermediate player with 5-6 years of playing the game under their belt. It said a bunch of things that didn't mean anything to me and added that they "will probably need a chess coach to improve further." I'd be curious to know what the rating he really was at that time; he certainly could have been close to 1500! I would definitely be rated a 0! 

At the actual competition, which takes place at a high school gym, the director of the tournament seems to be more concerned about the parents than the kids. He tells the parents they can watch, but he doesn't want any funny business - no throat noises, no comments, no eye contact, nothing where they might be giving a hint or a sign to their child on what to do.  

There's a funny moment where Fred is standing behind Josh, watching him play. Josh's opponent's dad is behind him and he's this big burly guy with his arms crossed, just glaring at Fred. I guess he's trying to intimidate him? Elsewhere, a fight breaks out when a father is accuses of pulling his ear and giving his kid a hint. The man claims he was just scratching it, but like the tournament director told them all, "Nobody cares if you're guilty or not" so all the parents are kicked out of the room and sent downstairs to the locker room (and locked in until the end of the tournament!) All the kids start clapping once the adults are gone and they can finally concentrate. I'm surprised they let the parents stay in the room in the first place. 

This movie is full of big name actors: Joan Allen, Laurence Fishbourne, Ben Kingsley....and we get another one when William H. Macy shows up as the father of the kid who is playing Josh in the final game. (A young Laura Linney will also show up later as Josh's teacher). A random kid keeps running back and forth to tell the parents what's going on in the game. When he finally comes to tell them the game is over, he just walks away and doesn't say who won (um, that's what they're waiting to hear, kid!) It is revealed that Josh won (of course) when he and Fred are on the train traveling back home and a sleeping Josh is clutching a trophy. This leads us to a montage where we see Josh collecting a bunch of trophies as he wins game after game. Their mantle is getting quite full! We also see him building a tower with all the chess pieces which seems kind of impossible. 

Trouble comes in the form of a new kid named Jonathan Poe who is deemed the new Bobby Fischer. Josh sees him playing the old man in the park and it appears that he's an even better player than Josh. I would hope he would be because he's been trained by his chess master, a stuffy elderly man with a beard, since he was four. It seems his parents just gave their son to this chess master (WTF?!) and he does nothing but play chess; he doesn't even go to school. (Again, WTF?!) Good Lord, I can't imagine anything more tedious than having to play chess all the time. All. The. Time! This kid is a chess robot; at least Josh is a normal kid who goes to school and as other interests like baseball and astronomy and building things out of Legos. Poe seems to have a uniform AND a catchphrase. In the three scenes or so we see him (all on different days, mind you) he's always wearing a white polo. He also says "Trick or treat" after he wins a game. I mean, he can't come up with a better or more relevant catchphrase? There's already one built in the game with "Check mate"! 

Seeing that he's not the best anymore and not wanting to disappoint his dad, Josh tells Fred he doesn't want to go to the State Finals. He reasons that if he wins, everyone will be expecting it since he's a top ranked player. And if he loses, he's afraid of what other people will think, especially his dad. (Though he doesn't tell his dad that part). He tells Fred, "Maybe it's better not to be the best. Then you can lose and it's okay." I totally get what he's saying. Being ranked the best at something has to put a lot of pressure on that person. But if nobody is expecting you to win, if you lose, nobody will care and if you DO happen to win, people will probably make a bigger deal because they weren't expecting it! If you're already the best at something, does anybody really care THAT much? Thank God I'm so mediocre so I don't have to worry about this! Josh does go to the State Finals but ends up losing in seven moves; he clearly lost on purpose. 

Bruce sets some new rules for Josh including no more speed chess or games in the park. He knows Josh likes it, but it isn't good for him. He tells Josh they're teaching him all the wrong things. He also asks Josh if he knows what "contempt" means and tells him, "You have to have contempt for your opponents". Josh says he doesn't even when Bruce insists that his opponents hate him, which I seriously doubt since there are seven/eight-year-olds. Josh has the best response when Bruce says, "Bobby Fischer held the world in contempt." (What a shock). He simply replies, "I'm not him." This is pretty much the thesis of the movie: This kid is NOT Bobby Fischer.

At another lesson (this one at Josh's home; I'm confused, sometimes they had lessons at the Waitzkin household and sometimes they had the at the Chess Club; they seemed to be wherever was more convenient for the scene), Josh wants to know how close he is to getting his so-called "very rare" certificate. A frustrated Bruce pulls one out of his briefcase and tells him it doesn't mean anything and starts pulling out many more copies he has and asks him if he wants those too. Geeze, what an a**! Bonnie thinks so too because she tells Bruce to get out of her house. On his way out, he tells her, "To put a child in a position to care about winning and not to prepare him is wrong."

Later that night, Bonnie and Fred get into a fight. Fred agrees with the chess coach and says Josh is in a slump and is afraid of losing. Bonnie retaliates with, "He's not afraid of losing; he's afraid of losing your love." Fred finally sees the light and tells Josh it's okay if he wants to stop playing chess, but Josh tells him he wants to play at the National Finals in Chicago, where, to become the champion, a player must win all seven games.

Even though Bruce was a total jerk to Josh, Fred still invites him to go to Chicago with them. He says he can't go so they end up taking Vinnie instead. It's kind of amusing they take a presumed homeless man with them. But it is kind of sweet and Vinnie was a much better coach to Josh than Bruce ever was. Bruce does end up coming to Chicago and he patches everything up between him and Josh when he gives Josh a framed certificate saying that he "obtained the rank of Grand Master in the eyes of his teacher". He tells Josh he's proud of him and is honored to be his teacher. Aww. 

So it shouldn't surprise anyone that Josh makes it to the seventh and final game and his opponent is Jonathan "Trick or Treat" Poe. Josh's parents, Vinnie, Bruce, and Poe's chess master are all watching the game on a monitor. Right away, Vinnie and Bruce have a disagreement when Bruce doesn't want Josh to bring out his Queen, but Vinnie thinks he should. As usually, I have no idea what's going on. Josh ends up getting Poe's Queen and tells him, "Trick or Treat." I'm sure Poe loved that! 

On the monitor, Bruce sees that Josh can win in 12 steps. (How?!?!  I mean, I guess it is possible to see your moves in advance). We see Josh concentrating on the chess board as we're hearing voiceover from Ben Kingsley telling us the moves he should make as though Josh is hearing what his teacher is telling him the moves he needs to make. Even before he makes a move, Bruce can tell that "he's got it". Being the nice and decent kid he is, Josh offers Poe a draw so they can share the championship. Poe just scoffs at this and Josh tells him, "You've lost; you just don't know it." Poe still doesn't believe him and tells him to look at the board and Josh replies, "I have." He insists on them sharing the title, but Poe still refuse to take his deal and tells him to move. He does and he wins. Yay. 

The movie ends and a few title cards show up, telling us that Josh "still" plays chess and he is "currently" the highest-ranked player in the U.S. under 18. Remember, this movie came out in 1993 so those key words are no longer relevant! And since Bobby Fischer's name is in the title, we get a title card with an "update" on him: "In September 1992, Fischer emerged from secession to challenge his old rival Boris Spassky. After winning, he promptly disappeared again." I guess Bobby Fischer was not a fan of this movie. What a shock.

Get those Nail Breakers!

Ladybugs

Director: Sidney J. Furie

Cast: Rodney Dangerfield, Jonathan Brandis, Jackee Harry, Vinessa Shaw, Ilene Graff

Released: March 27, 1992

When I reviewed She's the Man a little over a year ago, I ended my review with this:

I don't think this movie would fare very well today. It's not very woke...... That said, this movie has to be much better than Ladybugs, that movie where Jonathan Brandis dresses as a girl and plays on the all girls soccer team that Rodney Dangerfield coaches. I've never seen it (don't think I'm missing anything), but it seems to send a very sexist message saying girls need the help of a strong boy to win sports! Again, I've never seen it, so maybe it's an empowering movie, who knows, but somehow I highly doubt it. At least She's the Man is above that...but I don't know how much higher the bar goes! 

Okay, so I saw Ladybugs and it is NOT an empowering movie. SHOCKING, I know. It's a terrible movie. I definitely wasn't missing anything. While it is pretty sexist, the boy dressing up as a girl isn't even the most problematic part. No, that was just more stupid than anything else. But before I dive into my review, let me preface this by saying that I usually watch movies I review twice: first I just watch them straight through, then the second time I turn on the subtitles, I take notes, I write down quotes, sequences of events, anything notable. When I watched Ladybugs the first time, it was free on Amazon Prime, but when I went back a few days later ready to take notes, you had to pay to watch it and I was like, Nope! I'm not paying for this dreck! I'd be willing to watch it again for free, but I will NOT be paying to watch it again! So just keep that in mind as I go through this review. I may not remember everything that happens or have the exact quotes or remember how events transpire, but really, does anyone really care? Really? No? Good, okay, so let's get started.

So while I've been aware of this movie for a long time, I never saw it until recently. I guess it was a movie I never really wanted to see, even as a kid and that would have been the more desired time for me to see it. I have to wonder if I would have liked it as a kid and I don't think I would have because the movie is mostly focused on Rodney Dangerfield's character, Chester (terrible, terrible name...don't name your kid "Chester"). Maybe if the movie was more focused on the girls' soccer team or Matthew, the Jonathan Brandis character, I would have liked it more. 

Probably one of the reasons why I was never inclined to watch this movie because I was never a Jonathan Brandis fangirl. And considering the tragic fate that happened to him, I'm glad I wasn't. I can admit he was cute and I can see why all the pre-teen girls from the '90s loved him, but I just never watched anything he was in. The only thing I may have seen is The Never Ending Story II, but I just may be confusing that one with the first movie and I haven't seen that one since I was a literal child (that's a movie I always intended to watch and review, but then I got distracted by other movies I'd rather watch and review), but I never saw Sidekicks or this one (until now, at least). I was mostly familiar with him from SeaQuest DSV, a show I never watched because I was watching the competition, The New Adventures of Superman, with Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher. All I know about SeaQuest was that there was a talking dolphin and Jonathan Brandis was in it. So I just assumed he did all his movies during his time on the show, but imagine my surprise when I found out SeaQuest premiered in 1993 and this movie came out in '92, so was he already popular when he did SeaQuest and that's how he got cast? Because I honestly don't remember. I have a feeling it was SeaQuest that made him popular because he's not really in Ladybugs that much...he has nowhere near as much screen time as Dangerfield and I feel like if the movie producers knew they could get more pre-teen girls in the seats, they'd be focusing more on the Brandis character. 

I have to wonder who is this movie for. If they're trying to get the Brandis fangirls, they're going to be bored through most of it and probably not going to enjoy looking at Rodney Dangerfield and his bug eyes. (So did he get cast in this movie because it's called LadyBUGS and they just immediately thought of him?) Also, the actual girls on the soccer team, aside from a couple of them, get no screen time at all. This movie is 80% Dangerfield, 15% Brandis, and 5% soccer girls. 

The basic premise of this movie is that Rodney Dangerfield is trying to get a promotion at his job (he was 70 when he made this movie, so how old is his character supposed to be and why is he still working?) so when he finds out that his boss's daughter's soccer team, the Ladybugs, needs a coach for the season, he volunteers, saying he knows a lot about soccer because he used to play, but of course he doesn't and he's never played. He's told if he can get the team to the championship, he will be promoted. So that's how he gets roped into being the coach. Before he goes in to talk to his boss about a possible promotion, there's an extremely uncomfortable and awkward scene where he's "flirting" with the secretary, who is this librarian-type woman in her 60s and he greets her with "Hey, sexy" and tells her can't believe she never got married and how he bets "there's still heat in her furnace" or something gross like that and that she's just his "type". Yeah. I know, right? Oh, boy. Something tells me if Rodney Dangerfield were still alive today, he would be cancelled! There's a lot of very uncomfortable scenes like this (some even worse!), so stay tuned!

When Chester goes to meet the team the next day, we find out that only two girls are returning and the rest are new (and seemed to have never played soccer before). So where did the girls from last year go? Did they age out? (I would guess these girls to be about fourteen). Did they not want to be on the team anymore? I guess we need girls that suck because that's how we get Jonathan Brandis on the team. As his assistant coach, he has his assistant (I honestly don't know what he does for a job), Julie (played by national treasure Jackee Harry (pretend there's an accent over the first e, "Jack-ay")). The day of their first game, she brings a book that is basically Soccer For Dummies and starts reading it on page one. Um, why didn't they go over this BEFORE the game (or the first meet, really?) There's this scene where Julie is eating a sub sandwich and the way Jackee chose to eat it was very interesting to say the least. Instead of starting from one end to eat it, she eats it from the top.

Most of the time, when we meet a kids sports team in a movie, while not every player may get equal screen time, we usually know their first (and sometimes last!) name(s) and they at least get one line and have some kind of character trait. The Mighty Ducks is a good example of this. Yes, it did have two sequels, but all thirteen players in the first movie had first and last names and all were given lines. This does not happen in Ladybugs. There are five girls who have lines and are given names. I looked up to see how many people are on a soccer team and it's usually 11: ten people in the field and one goalie. Now I did not count to see how many girls were on the team, but when they're all huddled together, you see girls who don't get any lines or you have no idea what their names are. Why don't we meet the girls we do get to know?

The first is Kimberly (Vinessa Shaw...she's probably the only person in the world who spells her name like that...even my spellcheck wanted to "right" it back to "Vanessa"), who is the boss's daughter. She's a terrible soccer player because she kicks the ball way too high and it goes over the goal, but isn't a powerful kicker somebody you want in soccer? IDK, I'm no Mia Hamm (literally the only female soccer player I can name!), so what do I know? If they could just train her to kick it in the goal, she'd be set. We find out that Matthew, the Jonathan Brandis character, has a crush on her and this causes some slight mishaps and awkward moments. There's a scene where he has a fantasy of them running into each other's arms and she's wearing a bikini version of her soccer uniform (red with black polka dots) and she's running in slow motion and it's a little uncomfortable considering the actress was 14/15 when she filmed this. In this dream sequence they are eating a "fancy" dinner which consists of the world's most bland hamburgers: they're just meat on a bun. There's no cheese, lettuce, tomato, ANYTHING on these burgers that would make them more enticing to eat. It's like craft services couldn't be bothered to get anything to add to the burgers to make them look mouth watering. Isn't this supposed to be a dream sequence? Wouldn't you want the most delicious looking food? But I digress...

Then there's Nancy who was on the team last year (so was Kimberly, I believe). She's the only one who seems to know what she's doing. Julie claims this is because she's black and all the greatest sports stars  - in baseball, basketball, boxing, and football - are black. Chester scoffs at this and ask her what about hockey. She makes a face like, Okay, I'll give you that one. And you think the joke would end there, but then he goes on to include badminton, fox hunting, and fencing. Yeah, that just got really awkward really fast. There's also another awkward racial joke when Chester is in the elevator standing between Julie and Bess, his fiancée (Ilene Graff aka the mom from Mr. Belvedere). He's holding a scrapbook with details about their wedding and an older woman who gets on the elevator mistakes him for getting married to Julie and tells them how brave they are. I did have to laugh when Julie muses what their children would look like.

Carmelita Chu is the butterfly girl. She's a little space cadet who loves butterflies and gets easily distracted by them when she sees them. This problem will get solved later when Matthew puts a bunch of butterfly stickers on a soccer ball and she just chases the ball down the field. I did laugh when she makes a goal and Julie was cheering her on and yelling, "Chu! Chu! Chu! Chu!" and it sounded like she was sneezing. 

Sally Anne Wellfelt (terrible last name, but it's surprisingly not the worst of the last names of the girls on this team!) is the team floozy. According to her, she likes to shop, cute boys, paint her nails, cute boys, go to the mall, cute boys, talk on the phone, cute boys, etc. When Matthew reveals he is a boy, she is making the biggest googly eyes at him. There is a stupid, but funny moment when they're playing the championship game (yes, they make it that far, because, of course they do) and she breaks a nail and starts crying about it and it motivates her to score a goal. The spectators are shouting, "Get those nail breakers!" The coach on the other team is so enraged that he not only makes his own players get down and give him twenty push ups, but also the people watching the game.

Wikipedia tells me there's a girl named Tina Velez (I assume she was on the soccer team), but I have no recollection of this person at all. 

Last, but not least, we have Penny Pester. THIS is the girl with the horrible last name. Why are we giving this girl that name when we already have a character named Chester? So stupid. Penny is this really socially awkward nerdy, non-athletic girl. She wears glasses that are held into place with a band and her frizzy hair is held back into a ponytail. When she reveals to her coach that boys don't like her because she's not pretty, we get an extremely awkward scene where he takes off her hair clip to see her with her hair down and takes off her glasses. He tells her that if he were younger, he'd ask her out. Um, eww. But it's even worse when he says that she probably wouldn't say yes, and she replies, "Yes, I would, Coach Chester" and proceeds to give him a kiss on the cheek. Ugh! Girl, don't lie! Also, when he did that She's All That makeover on her, she looked worse because her eyes are all squinty without the glasses. There's a point during the championship game when she takes off her glasses and takes out her ponytail claiming, "This is for you, Coach Chester!" before scoring a point. Um, how the hell does that help her? Her hair is just in her way (the actress kept pushing it out of her face as she was running down the field) and I would assume she would need her glasses to SEE! 

So, yes, those are all the girls on the soccer team that we meet. Chester decides they need a ringer so he recruits the son of his fiancee. For some reason, a younger woman (the actress was 45 when she filmed this) has decided to marry somebody who looks like Rodney Dangerfield, has a dead end job, and blatantly sexually harasses and ogles other women. We see numerous occasions where he is straight up staring at other women in a blatantly sexual way. WHAT does she see in him? Her son, of course, is Matthew, who was on a soccer team, but got kicked off because he acted up in school or was failing one of his classes. Who knows, I don't remember. At first, with good reason, Matthew is reluctant to dress up as a girl and join the team, but when he finds out that his crush, Kimberly, is on the team, he decides to help out. 

Kimberly has to be the dumbest girl on earth because she's had two recent run-ins with Matthew and he's literally only wearing a wig (that's pretty much the same color as his own hair), so you'd think she would recognize him. Even though she is super rich (her house has a racketball court, for God's sake!), she goes to the same public school as Matthew. In one scene, Matthew and his friend are walking behind her at school and his friend is telling him he should ask her out and tell her that he likes all her "parts". I am shocked that she didn't hear them talking about her because they are within earshot of her when they're saying all this. They go outside and his friend throws a football which lands near her and she sees Matthew and tells him, "Nice catch." Then, when Chester brings Matthew to one of the soccer practices, he's sitting in the stands and Kimberly does one of her infamous kicks and the ball lands near him and she runs up to grab it from him. So she's seen him just as himself twice now. Later he will reveal his true self to her and she is SHOCKED! Girl, why are you so stupid? It's a good thing you're rich and pretty, damn! 

The fact that they put no effort in him being being a girl at all makes me laugh. At least Amanda Bynes in She's the Man put some effort into it. Yeah, she had that weird voice she did and it did change a few times, but I will give her a lot more credit. Brandis does not even attempt a girl's voice. He doesn't have a super deep voice, but it is noticeably male. He does have high-pitched girly voice during a scene where Kimberly has come to visit "Martha" (Matthew's female alter ego) at "her" house. (For some reason, Kimberly thinks of "Martha" as her best friend even though we've seen no evidence of them being that close). I have to wonder if that scene was filmed first and they tried the girly voice out and they decided not to do it anymore because it didn't work. Because it seems weird he would talk normally when he's a girl, but then later on in the movie, have that high-pitched tone to his voice. I don't know. This movie is so stupid. So during that scene, his mom comes home and, of course, she has no idea about the charade, so while Kimberly is in the living room and his mom is in the kitchen (he's closed the door to the rooms), he has to switch back and forth between Martha and Matthew and put on a wig when he's Martha. You know, it's like the restaurant scene in Mrs. Doubtfire (which, oddly, came out a year later....do you think this was the inspiration for that scene? Nah!) The way he slides down the stairs to his basement room is one of the best things about this movie. Seriously.

After his first practice as Martha (and none of the other girls have any clue. They're just as dumb as Kimberly), Chester tells Matthew he needs to learn to be more feminine, that he can't be so aggressive and talk about how he needs to take a leak. So we never actually see him try to get in touch with his feminine side; the only thing they really do is shop for a dress. This entire scene is so flipping' stupid and nonsensical and will later turn into a dark, disturbing moment. So they go to a boutique and Chester tells the saleswoman he needs a dress and when she asks him what size, he turns to Matthew and asks him what size he is. The woman is confused, but Chester explains it away as the dress being for his twin sister and they're the same size. Then he wants Matthew to try on the dress. But why? Why does Matthew need to even wear a dress? He's only Martha when he's on the soccer field, so "she" only needs to wear the uniform. Yes, yes, I know Kimberly comes to visit "Martha" at "her" house so Matthew puts on the dress then. But, still. So when Chester and Matthew are in the dressing room, oh boy, things get misconstrued and we get a joke about sexual abuse! Oh, yay! Oh, dear. Oh, dear, oh dear, oh dear. This old lady and her granddaughter are waiting outside the dressing rooms (I guess there's only one dressing room?) and they overhear an interesting conversation between a man and what they think is a young girl. Chester and Matthew are facing each other (so the old lady only sees their feet) and Chester is putting the wig on Matthew. Matthew is complaining that it's "too tight" and "it hurts" and Chester's telling him to hold still and "not to tell his mother about this" because she'll kill him. The old lady is just besides herself. Now, I think if a little girl was actually being raped in a dressing room, there would be a lot more screaming and crying and the police would be called (hopefully!), yeah...that's pretty horrible. Matthew just sounds like an irritated teen, NOT like somebody who is having something horrendous done to them. Chester continues to be a creep to young girls when he comes out of the dressing room, sees the little girl with the older woman and proceeds to caress her on the cheek and say, "Oh, what a cute little thing. What's your name?" This causes the old woman to faint in horror. Dude, know your boundaries! We'll also get a weird scene later on where Chester is talking to a bar tender about how how he dressed up his girlfriend's son in a dress and wanted him to "play with him." Um, maybe, clarify what you're talking about or maybe just not talk about this at all? Of course the man is enraged and kicks him out of the bar. 

So far we've had racist jokes, sexual harassment jokes, sexual abuse jokes, what else are we missing? Oh, yes, homophobic jokes! So, in a scene that really does not need to be in the movie at ALL, Chester and Bess are looking at a house and outside they see a man riding a bike with a little kid in the back, in one of those booster bike seats. Bess comments how cute that is and Chester makes a "joke" that the kid is going to turn out gay because he's just staring at his dad's butt. Yeah, not funny. Not even clever. It feels like Dangerfield thought of that on the fly and they thought it would be funny material for the movie? 

Matthew has other close calls to being found out that he's not actually -gasp!- a girl! He and the other girls are invited to Kimberly's house. He calls Chester to pick him up because the girls have decided to go skinny dipping. WHY skinny dipping? Why not just swimming. I'm pretty sure if he was in a swimsuit, the girls would notice something was amiss! So Chester, dressed in a dress and hat with a veil over it, comes to pick up "Martha". You'd have to be really stupid to not recognize Rodney Dangerfield in drag. Just saying. His boss has an attractive wife who is wearing a short skirt that day and of course Chester, dressed as a woman, ogles her when she bends over to pick something up. I'm surprised (and disappointed, frankly) that Matthew didn't notice this and report this to his mother. His mom deserves better than this creep. Still trying to figure out why she is with him (apart from it being convenient to the plot). 

Bess finds out what Chester has been doing and becomes angry with him, so their relationship is on the rocks (oh no!) and Matthew, who has helped the Ladybugs make it to the championship game as Martha can no longer play with them. This is when he reveals his true self to Kimberly by taking off his wig (don't worry, he wasn't wearing a dress) and she shrieks, "Oh my God!" He encourages Kimberly, who has been kicked off the team due to her father making Chester do so because she sucks so much, to go to the game. Yeah, this douche made his employee kick his own daughter off the soccer team. Matthew and Kimberly go to the soccer game where Matthew reveals his true self to the other girls (who are also SOOO shocked!) and Chester puts Kimberly back in the game, despite his boss's threats to fire him. But Kimberly gets a penalty shot and ends up winning the game, yay. She and Matthew also start dating and Chester gets his promotion and gets back together with Bess, so double yay. (In case you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic cuz I could really care less!) 

In the end, Chester doesn't learn his lesson about cheating. We see him on a bus with boys dressed in baseball uniforms. When they get to their destination, the coach of the opposing team tells him he heard a rumor that he dressed up a boy as a girl to play on the soccer team, but Chester vehemently denies this. Cue to the boys stepping off the bus, all dressed in wigs, posing as girls. 

You know what would have made this movie better? Or at least more passable? Get rid of Rodney Dangerfield and have it be Jackee who needs the promotion. Maybe Matthew is the son of her friend or she sees him and recruits him. Maybe you get more dynamic between the girls on the team and you get rid of all the stupid and offensive jokes that don't move the story anywhere. 

A Slice of Heaven

Mystic Pizza

Director: Donald Petrie

Cast: Julia Roberts, Annabeth Gish, Lili Taylor, Vincent D'Onofrio, Conchata Ferrell

Released: October 21, 1988

This is a movie that follows three Portuguese-American teen girls in the town of Mystic, Connecticut. Julia Roberts, Annabeth Gish, and Lili Taylor play Daisy, Kat, and Jojo, respectively. I'm pretty sure none of them are of Portuguese descent and only Annabeth Gish was a teenager when they filmed this. She was 17, Julia Roberts was 20, Lily Taylor was 21; so at least they were close to being teens. They don't really say how old the girls are supposed to be; it's just that the Netflix description said they were teens. Daisy and Kat are sisters and Jojo is their friend. 

The movie follows the love lives of these three young women as well as their job at the Mystic Pizza where they all work as waitresses and wear different colored shirts that have a picture of a slice of pizza and the restaurant's motto which is "A slice of heaven." So I know there is an actual Mystic Pizza in the Connecticut town, but what I didn't know is that it existed before the movie and that's where the director got the idea for the film. I have a feeling the inside doesn't even look the same as the restaurant in the movie or if it's even in the same location, but I can assume it's a tourist trap! 

Kat is planning to attend Yale next semester after she's saved up money to pay for tuition. She plan to major in astronomy. She was offered a part scholarship and will be starting in February. This movie appears to start in late summer/early fall. She already has two jobs, including working at Mystic Pizza and at the planetarium, and is planning on getting another job. She has an interview to be a baby-sitter/nanny for a four-year-old girl named Phoebe while her dad, Tim, renovates a house from the 1880s. His wife is in England for something, I don't know, the point is they need her out of the country. When Kat meets Tim, she tells him how she's planning on studying astronomy when she attends Yale and he tells her he also went to Yale and graduated in '79 and he met his wife there. While there, the shy Phoebe seems to open up to Kat who reads her a story while Tim is on the phone. Tim is impressed by her (in more ways that one, we'll soon later find out!) and she tells him she's been baby-sitting for another family since she was nine. Um, does that seem young to anyone else to be baby-sitting? I would never hire a nine-year-old to baby-sit my kids. You're still an effin' kid when you're nine! So Tim hires Kat to be Phoebe's baby-sitter and here is our most icky relationship of the movie. Keep in mind that Kat is about to attend college soon, so she's probably 17 or 18. Tim has to be in his early 30s. For a 30-year-old guy (and one that's married with a kid, mind you) to be falling for his kid's teen nanny, ewww, it just makes me feel gross all over. I mean, they don't make it as Tim is some predatory creep who is coming on to Kat; she is very much having the same feelings for him as well even though she knows he's married with a kid and has a good decade on her. I guess she's attracted to him because he's an intellect. I guess this is shown by the huge, unattractive glasses he wears. We see Tim and Phoebe go to the planetarium where Kat is giving a lecture. When Kat sees them come in, she locks eyes with Tim and starts to stutter during her speech. Smooth, Kat. 

There's a super awkward scene where Kat is helping Phoebe get ready for bed and the girl mentions her mom lives in England. Kat assures her that her mom is only working there and she'll be home in a few weeks. Phoebe says, "I know. We're not getting a divorce." It's so weird and it's almost like the girl is telling Kat to back off, but of course she wouldn't know anything about her dad's and Kat's budding relationship; it's not like they haven't done anything except talk in front of the girl. And at this point, they haven't even kissed; there's just been some very mild flirting.Tim has come home at that point and starts to read Phoebe a bedtime story as Kat is getting ready to go home. He's only been reading to his daughter for five seconds when he comes down the stairs before Kat has left and gives her the sweater (the one he was wearing) because he doesn't want her to get cold (she's wearing a polo shirt). A couple of things:

1) Why didn't Kat bring a sweater or jacket with her? I think by this time, it's around September so the days are still warm enough you don't need long sleeves, but I'm sure by the time the sun goes down, it gets a little chilly. She knew she would be leaving when it was dark outside, so surely she knew it would be cold by then! 

2) But really, my main issue is why did Tim have to take off the sweater off his back to give to her? Why not just give her a sweater/jacket from his closet or dresser? It's like, oh, here, let me take off this ugly brown fair isle sweater so you can smell my manly odor since I've been wearing it all day. Ugh... but she takes it and puts it on and they share a moment looking into each other's eyes until Phoebe calls for him and he has to go back upstairs. Kat wears the sweater home and Daisy asks about it. 

Kat starts to get a bit more bold around Tim; I guess since he gave her his sweater, she knows that he likes her. When he comes home one evening, she's out on the front porch looking through the telescope while Phoebe is upstairs, sleeping. He asks her if she wants any soda or juice (hehe, something you would so offer a child or a teen), and she replies that she'll have wine. Girl, stop pretending like you're older than 21. She will also call in to the pizza place, claiming she has to "baby-sit", but of course she's just spending time with Tim.

Kat asks Jojo to baby-sit for Phoebe so she and Tim can have a romantic pizza dinner date in the attic of the house he's refurnishing. Kind of ironic that she's the baby-sitter, but the dad is taking the baby-sitter on a date, so the baby-sitter needs to find a replacement baby-sitter! They end up kissing, and I'm assuming they do more than that though we're just shown them making out. Later, they're in the car driving back to Tim's house and they're both just so in love, kissing and holding hands. It's pouring when they get to the house and Kat is huddled close to Tim while he has his arm around her with his coat over both of them and they're both laughing and smiling as they come barreling through the front door. And guess who is there to greet them? It's Nikki, Tim's wife, who has returned from whatever she was doing in England. Ruh-roh! Luckily, Jojo has a cover story ready, asking Kat how her mother is and if she got her medicine. I don't know how much Nikki is buying this story. Kat's mom being sick explains why Kat wasn't baby-sitting Phoebe that night, but why would Tim be with her? Sure, you could say he was trying to be supportive and there for her and Jojo even explains it away that he was just being nice because what if her mother had died? But then why would they both be laughing and smiling when they enter the house? I think Nikki knows there's nothing wrong with Kat's mother! She has to know something is up. They never really say, but I think she has a hunch. Kat is shell-shocked as Jojo drives her home, but what did she expect? Did she really think this thirty-year-old married man with a daughter was going to leave his wife for a seventeen-year-old? Honestly, this guy should be in jail; he's pretty despicable. Kat is still in shock the next day at work because she takes an uncooked pizza to a table instead of grabbing the cooked one. Tim does try to make things "right" by stopping at the Mystic Pizza with Phoebe in tow telling her that Phoebe wanted to say good-bye to her. He offers her a check to help her with Yale, but it does seem more like he's paying her off. After he leaves, Kat rips up the check much to Jojo's dismay, but Daisy approves of her sister's action, saying that Kat will find another way to pay for Yale. 

Not to spoil anything, but Kat is the only one of the three girls who doesn't have a happy ending with her love interest. You don't think Daisy or Jojo will get happy endings either, but their guys come around in the end, or in Jojo's case, she comes around to her guy.

The opening of the movie begins with Jojo about to be married to her boyfriend, Bill (Vincent D'Onofrio) in a church ceremony. She looks like she's about to be sick and before they can get to their vows, she faints. We don't see any of the aftermath; the next scene shows Jojo is at work at the Mystic Pizza telling her co-workers that she basically got cold feet and couldn't go through with it. She tells them, "I saw myself ten years from now, fat and ugly and all these kids swarming around me and I was picking fish scales out of Bill's boots." (Bill is a fisherman). She mentions that her dad is angry that she didn't get married since he paid $5,000 for the wedding. (Is it me or does that seem like a bargain? Of course, maybe in 1988 that was extreme and it's not like these girls come from families with a lot of money). 

Jojo tells them Bill still isn't talking to her which makes me wonder how many days has it been since the wedding that never took place? Of course, just as soon as she says that, here comes Bill walking into the restaurant! This is the kind of thing that only ever happens in movies! She takes him outside where she apologizes to him and he still wants to get married, but she is hesitant about it. We kind of have a gender role reversal where the guy is the one who wants to get married while the woman doesn't want to commit to her partner, but instead just wants to use him for sex. I'm not sure where Bill lives, but he must have roommates or something because Jojo still lives with her parents and they're (well mostly she is) always trying to find places for them to have sex, including the bathroom at the Mystic Pizza....eww. She also tries to get him to use her sister's apartment when it's revealed that she and her husband will be out of town for three days. He's not interested, though. 

One night, they're going at it on the floor of her living room, but when Bill looks up he sees a bust of a creepy and disapproving Jesus staring right back at him. He tells Jojo he can't continue and she suggests they go to her room and tells him it will be okay because her parents are asleep. He declines, telling her he has to leave. She's still trying to make him stay. He tells her that he loves her and wants them to make a commitment, but she seems more interested in having sex with him. He wants them to get married and she tells him if she hears that word one more time, she's going to scream. Of course "married" is the next word to come out of his mouth and true to her word, she lets out a scream, waking both her parents who come down to find their daughter with her boyfriend who has his pants around his ankles. Jojo's father starts to attack Bill who manages to pull up his pants and run out the door. This scene is played for laughs, even Jojo is laughing about it the next day when she's recounting the story to her friends, but it felt more awkward than anything else. 

Oh, I want to point out something I noticed when they were in her living room that I see in movies and TV shows, but never in real life: the couch has a plastic cover over it. I have never understood the plastic cover over the couch. I guess it's supposed to keep the couch from getting dirty/dusty, but it just looks so tacky! And are you supposed to keep the cover on all the time or take it off when you sit on the couch? But then, if you're sitting on the couch (probably with some sort of snack or drink if you're watching TV), then it's bound to get crumbs on it, so I would assume you just leave the ugly plastic cover on it all the time, right? I'm so confused. I've just never understood it. Like I said, I've never seen this in real life, so is this a movie/TV show thing? I just don't understand why you would buy a couch/chair, then make it super ugly by covering it with plastic. Plus, it can't be comfortable to sit on it! Luckily, this seems like a trend that has seemed to die out! 

Like I mentioned before, Bill is a fisherman and he has a boat he named after Jojo, which she finds very romantic. However, the day after their little tryst at her house, he has covered the word "Jojo" with a sign that says "nympho" and she doesn't find that funny at all. He will later apologize about the sign. They will break up because they're not on the same page about marriage, but in the end, they are not only back together, but it is revealed that they have just gotten married after Jojo tells him that nothing has changed except for her name and the last scene of the movie is the wedding reception held at the Mystic Pizza. (Seems like kind of a small place to hold a wedding reception, but whatever). Jojo makes a joke to her two friends how her mother-in-law asked her when she (Bill's mother) is going to have grandkids and how she (Jojo) has been only married for two hours. Um, Jojo, I'm pretty sure your mother-in-law knows you guys have been doing it for awhile, so it's not out of the realm for you to be pregnant! 

Then we have Daisy and it is easy to see why Julia Roberts became such a big star. This was her first big movie, then she did Steel Magnolias the year after that, then Pretty Women the year after that, then she won her Oscar ten years after that, and the rest, as they say, is history. I can see why she was cast in Pretty Woman because she is very, very pretty. In fact, she pretty much tells her sister that she (Kat) has the brains and she (Daisy) at least has her looks, which her mother will sink her ship by telling her that she won't always look that way.

When Daisy, Kat, and Jojo go to a bar with Bill and a couple of his friends one night, Daisy catches the eye of a young, rich guy who is on a double date with one of his friends. He goes over to a guy shooting darts and makes a bet with him that if he gets three bullseyes in a row, he gets $50, plus he will take a shot between each throw as the guy has instructed. He manages to get the first two in the center and by this time a crowd has gathered around him, including Daisy. As he's taking his shot of tequila before his final throw, he locks eyes with Daisy and then he biffs the last throw. So she literally catches his eye. I guess he was so distracted by her that he missed the last one. 

We will later find out his name is Charlie. His date, Lorna, is dressed as a flight attendant; there's no better way to explain it. His friend's date is dressed like she's from the 1800s: she's wearing a white blouse, a cable knit sweater vest, and a long skirt. Very odd choice of wardrobe for going to the bar. But maybe they wanted to put these girls in frumpy clothes to make Daisy stand out even more, but I don't think you have to do that. Charlie wants to play pool, but Lorna isn't interested, so he asks Daisy if she'll play with him (and his friend and his date). The girlfriend of Charlie's friend takes her turn and misses and her boyfriend tells her, "That's why we play boy-girl. To even things out." Oh my God, what a douche. STFU, dude. But Daisy shows everyone up by being ridiculously good at pool. While all this is going on she's giving sultry looks to Charlie and there's a sexy song with lots of saxophone in it and the lyrics go something like, "It's getting hot in here; I know you feel it and I feel it too." They're laying it on pretty, pretty thick there. [/Larry David voice). 

After the game is finished, Lorna, who is clearly threatened by Daisy, wants to leave and Charlie obliges. I'm still not sure if Lorna was his girlfriend or just a girl he was on a date with. Either way, he's kind of a tool for doing that to her. We'll never see her again after this, anyway. 

We will later find out that Charlie found out where Daisy lives as she comes home one day to find him sitting in the living room with her mother. I'm super confused how he found her. All we know is that Charlie tells her, "You are a very difficult woman to find." I'll say! They didn't even have social media back then and he didn't know her name or address. They never tell us how he found her; I guess it will always remain a mystery. If some guy I just met the other day found where I lived and was sitting in my living room with my mom when I came home, I would be mortified! I assume Charlie told Daisy's mother he was taking her out for dinner because she tells Daisy she didn't know she was going out for dinner.

They go out and Daisy is wearing a new dress we saw her modeling for Kat in an earlier scene. It's a short black strapless dress with a big white bow on the bust. It seems a little cold for this dress considering it's nearing autumn in New England. She tells Kat she plans to return it after she's worn it and she's modeling it on the stairs when her mom is in the kitchen and could come through the door anytime and see her daughter wearing the $160 dress. I guess it's not that cold since she's wearing that dress and they're riding in Charlie's red Porsche convertible. The car ends up getting a flat tire and they have to flag someone down. It doesn't work when he does it, so Daisy tries to be all sexy in her short dress and high heels, but that still doesn't stop traffic. So finally when Charlie drops his pants in front of a car with a bunch of young women, they stop for them. Charming. 

I guess their new friends dropped them off at the restaurant where they have dinner, but I'm not sure how they returned home! During dinner, Charlie tells Daisy he's not at Yale or Harvard or whatever Ivy League school he attends because he "needed a vacation from law school." A few days later, after they've slept together in his parents' bedroom of their summer home, Charlie reveals to Daisy that he actually got kicked out of school because he cheated on his final because he was flunking the course. Daisy tells him he shouldn't have lied. She's glad he told her and tells him, "Don't do it again." This dumbbutt has the gall to ask her if she means cheat or lie. Um, what do you think? I think the two go hand-in-hand. Of course, she replies, "Neither." 

After the episode where Jojo sees the "Nympho" sign on Bill's boat, we see the three girls outside the parking lot of a bar where Bill's truck is parked and Jojo finds a spare key he keeps under his vehicle and they steal his car and drive to the country club while singing "Respect" on full blast. It really makes no sense why they'd want to go to the country club where they sneak around the back and sit on a golf cart and watch the people dancing and eating and mingling through the windows. Not until Daisy and Jojo start dancing the jitterbug on the lawn and Kat is looking through the windows and sees Charlie with a beautiful young blonde woman (who I thought was Lorna at first because they looked very similar) and a few scenes earlier Daisy had told the other girls that Charlie had told her was going to Greenwich to visit his 90-year-old grandmother. Hmmmm......

Kat is trying to get them to leave before Daisy sees him, but of course she spots him. They return to Bill's truck and Daisy starts screaming so loudly that I'm surprised nobody heard her and they didn't send security out! She's literally screaming at the top of her lungs, "I'm gonna kill him! I'm so stupid!" She notices his convertible and asks for the keys. At first I thought she was going to key his car. Then, when she gets into the truck, I thought she was going to ram into his car. But she pulls the truck right in front of the convertible and ends up dumping two huge barrels full of gallons of fish into his car. These things are huge and full of fish and water; there's no way she would have been able to topple them over by herself. Nuh-uh. Not buying it. Charlie and the blonde girl are coming out at this moment and he sees what's just happened to his car. Man, this guy cannot get a break with his car. First, the flat tire and now this. Daisy screams at him that he's supposed to be at his grandmother's and we get a simple explanation that his grandma has a migraine and that he called to tell her, but she was out. (See, this wouldn't have happened if texting existed!) He also introduces the girl he's with as his sister. I thought he was lying and we were going to later find out that the girl isn't his sister, but she is. Despite having two huge barrels of fish and water just dumped into his car, he doesn't seem to be at all mad and gives her a hug after she tells him she messed up and that she's sorry. I guess he is rich so he can just buy another car. I do have to wonder how someone who wasn't so financially well-off would take it? I feel like in most instances the person whose car was ruined would never want anything to do with the person who ruined their car ever again. 

When Kat decides to call in to her job at the pizza parlor because she'd rather hang out with Tim, Daisy is super pissed because she was supposed to meet Charlie's parents that night and now she has to stay and cover Kat's shift. I'm with Daisy on this one. There is nothing more infuriating when you think you're going to be done with your shift by a certain time, but then you have to stay because one of your coworkers decided they don't want to come in and call in. Daisy tries to call Kat (to yell at her, presumably), but the phone is off the hook because Tim and Kat are sitting on the couch talking and eating popcorn and they're not paying any attention to Phoebe who is playing on the floor with her stuffed animals and one of them is "talking" on the phone. We see Charlie stop by the Mystic Pizza (hmm, is the Mystic Pizza close to the Mystic River?) and she apologizes and is worried that his mom is going to think she blew her off. Can't Charlie just tell his parents what happened? I would think his parents would understand if she had to stay and work. 

Daisy does eventually have dinner with Charlie and his family and she gets to meet his parents, his aunt and uncle, his sister (again), and his little brother, Steamer (terrible name!), who is played by a 17-year-old Matt Damon in his first movie. They're having lobster and it is amusing because just before this scene Daisy was looking in her own fridge where there are so many lobsters that her mother had caught and she complains that lobster is the only thing they have to eat. Daisy is dressed up in an off-the-shoulder black dress and these huge sparkly earrings. The family has a Portuguese maid named Theresa who knows Daisy (of course they know each other even though we've never met Theresa until now) and she asks Daisy if she's still working at the pizza place. This prompts Charlie's dad to tell her that Charlie never told them she was in "the pizza business". Soon Charlie and his dad start arguing about him not finishing school and as this is going on, Theresa is scooping sour cream onto the plates of the diners to go with their baked potatoes. This is the weirdest thing; rich people in movies are so weird. I'm sure these people are perfectly capable of scooping their own sour cream onto their plates. But they only have her doing that because she accidentally drops a dallop of sour cream onto the arm of Charlie's uncle. His wife mentions how "These Portuguese girls are hard to train. I had one that barely spoke...." she trails off either because she knows she's being horribly racist or she knows Daisy is Portuguese and better shut up. Charlie and his dad continue to fight until his dad tells him, "That's enough" and Charlie says, "I guess that means dinner is over" and as he says this, he gets up and pulls the tablecloth from under the table and all the dishes crash into each other. A furious Daisy gets up and leaves with Charlie following her outside and she accuses him of using her to get to his dad and that his dad didn't cheat him out of law school; he did that on his own. Before asking for a ride home from Theresa, she tells him, "You're not even good enough for me." 

Daisy will get a happy ending when she and Charlie reconcile. During the reception for Jojo and Bill's wedding, he comes to apologize and tells her she was right about what she said about him and his father. 

So while all the storylines with the girls and their love interests are going on, of course, since this film IS called Mystic Pizza, we do get scenes of them working there and wondering what the secret ingredient their boss and the owner, Leona (Conchata Ferrell) puts in the pizza that makes it taste so good. She promises to tell the girls what it is when she retires, but for now, it's going to remain a secret. She claims that her grandfather taught her father how to make the pizza and her father taught her. I'm guessing it's some sort of Portuguese spice. 

Because it's nearing autumn, business isn't doing so well at the Mystic Pizza and it is mentioned they seem to only get really good business during the summer months with all the tourists. The girls think they should ask Hector Pleshette, a stuffy local food critic who calls himself the Fireside Gourmet to come and critique their restaurant, but Leona is against that idea. However, he does show up, seemingly randomly one day (the day after Kat has slept with Tim only to find out his wife has come home that very night) and orders the Mystic Pizza. I guess when you order "the Mystic Pizza" you get pretty much whatever because there are three pizzas all with different toppings and Leona tells Kat to "take her pick" when Pleshette orders "the Mystic Pizza." You'd think people would be more specific when they order their pizzas. If Kat had asked him what toppings he wanted and he told her to surprise him, then that would make more sense. Also, do they not allow people to buy pizza by the slice at this place? Every time they take pizza to a table, it's a whole pie. They give Pleshette one as well even though he only eats a couple bites of one slice! The initial meeting of the Fireside Gourmet doesn't go well because there's a glass of water with dentures in it. This was established at the beginning of the movie when we learn that Mr. Lopes, a regular customer, left his dentures in a glass of water again. Unfortunately, Mr. Lopes had just been at the Mystic Pizza right before Mr. Pleshette and he (the Fireside Gourmet) has a glass of water with dentures in it and asks Kat to bring him a fresh glass of water. Now I'm not sure if Mr. Lopes had been sitting at that table before the food critic arrived and they just forgot to clear the glass or if Kat had accidentally brought him that glass of water in her daze (this was also the same day she brought the uncooked pizza to that one table). Either way, not a great start! Kat, Daisy, Jojo, and Leona are all watching him eat the couple bites of pizza from the front counter as he writes something in his notebook. When he looks back and notices them all watching him, they all look away, only to return to their obvious staring. After eating a few bites, he beckons Kat over and asks for the check after she asks him if he would like anything else. She tells him she'll get him a box so he can take the rest of the pizza home, but he tells her no. This is why I'm certain this place doesn't let you order by the slice. Surely this guy knew he only needed a couple of bites before he knew what his review of the pizza would be; otherwise why order a whole pizza? It also explains why their sales haven't been up. Of course people are going to be more hesitant to come if they can't order pizza by the slice; who wants to waste all that money on a whole pizza if you're not even going to eat it all? I will say; that pizza does look mighty tasty. 

A few days later, the girls and Lorena (and all the customers in there at the time) are watching their restaurant being critiqued on the small TV that hangs above the front counter. Pleshette begins his review by saying, "The atmosphere was rustic, the service was oversolicitous to say the least." Jojo interrupts to ask, "Is that good?", but is quickly shushed by the others. Pleshette goes on to say, "I am not a pizza person. I am not particularly fond of cheesy cuisine." The Mystic Pizza staff is pretty much resigned to think he's going to give them a terrible review, but he goes on to say that, the pizza, "in a word, is superb" and that it "has a blend of spices I can't quite identify." We get a funny line from Lorena where she says, "You bet your ass you can't!" He gives them four stars, his highest rating. This did not surprise me at all; I knew he was going to love the pizza despite the signs of him not being all that interested in it. As soon as the show is over, they immediately get a phone call from someone asking if they need reservations and it's clear that they will be getting a lot more customers. Hopefully they now decide to sell pizza by the slice. 

Business is booming and so great, in fact, that Lorena gives money to Kat to pay for Yale and tells her she can pay her back later. She also tells her that since she and her husband could never have children, the three of them are like her own daughters and wants to help her. 

So Jojo and Daisy get their guys, Kat gets the money to attend Yale, and Leona gets good publicity The movie ends with the girls laughing and wondering what Leona puts in her pizza as the secret ingredient.