Top Chef

Chef

Director: Jon Favreau

Cast: Jon Favreau, John Leguizamo, Sofia Vergara, Scarlett Johansson, Dustin Hoffman, Oliver Platt, Robert Downey Jr.

Released: May 30, 2014

Viewed in theaters: June 17, 2014

I'm a big fan of Top Chef and since I don't have Bravo, I have to buy the season pass from iTunes and while watching last season, they had an episode where Jon Favreau was a guest and he was there to promote his upcoming film, Chef. I am also a fan of Master Chef (US version is great, but the Aussie version blows it out of the water and sadly I have not been able to see the past couple of seasons because I can't find them on YouTube!) and I knew I would enjoy this movie about a chef who quits his job at a fancy restaurant to follow his dream of owning a food truck. 

Before I get into the movie, let me tell you something a little irritating that happened at the theater. I went on a Tuesday afternoon because movies cost $5 on Tuesdays and I was the only one in the theater when I arrived which didn't surprise me since it had been open for a month. I was thinking I would be the only one in the theater (and it has happened before) as I took my seat in the middle of the theater in the middle of the row. Then, a few minutes later, a guy comes in and out of ALL the empty seats in the theater, where does he choose to sit? Right behind me! I mean, not in the chair directly behind me, but he was sitting in the one next to it. Seriously, out of all the seats he could have chosen, he had to sit in that row? Sheesh, he could have at least put a row in between us. Yes, I am the kind of person who likes to have my own space especially when there are all those empty seats! Then, during the previews, the guy's wife comes in with the popcorn and drinks and I'm sure she thought her husband was there first and that I chose to sit right in front of them! 

Luckily they didn't talk or do anything annoying so I was able to enjoy the movie and forget that two people were sitting right behind me. 

Favreau plays Carl Casper, an acclaimed chef at a Los Angeles restaurant where he clashes with the owner (Dustin Hoffman). When a well-known critic, Ramsay Michael (Oliver Platt), is set to review their restaurant, Carl wants to cook something special, but his boss tells him he can't and stick to the regular everyday menu the restaurant is known for. 

When Carl reads the review the next day, he and the food are slammed and after getting a Twitter lesson from his ten year old son, Percy, he writes a not so nice message to the critic thinking he sent it as a private message, but instead Tweeted it so anyone could see it. His son is amazed that he has so many followers the next day then has to set his dad straight that anyone can read the messages he tweets. This starts a Twitter war between Carl and Ramsay and soon things get out of hand and Carl is fired and blows up in front of Ramsay which results in an unfortunate YouTube video. 

Deciding that he needs to lie low for awhile and spend time with his son and get out of L.A., his ex-wife (Sofia Vergara) suggests he come to Miami with her and Percy. There he gets in contact with his wife's other ex-husband (played by Robert Downey Jr. - when you're the director of Iron Man, it's easy to get him and Scarlett Johansson (who plays the hostess of the restaurant) to have small parts in your other movies!) who hooks him up with a food truck. The thing is a mess, though, so he and his son spend a day fixing it up - throwing junk out and buying a new stove and other necessities. He is pleasantly surprised when his sous chef, Martin (John Leguizamo), has quit his job to come down to help him. (Good thing too because he needed all the help he could get!) 

Carl and Martin are going to drive the truck all the way from Miami to L.A. (that makes the road trip I took from Omaha to Charleston, SC sound not so bad!) and Carl invites Percy to join them since he's out of school for the summer. Percy tells him that he'll ask his mom to see if it's okay and two seconds later he says, "She says it's okay." That was a cute running joke in the movie because he would just text his mom to ask her permission for things. Percy, being the tech savvy kid he is, promotes the food truck online with pictures and videos posted on Facebook and Vine and this gets them a lot of press and word of mouth.

While driving they see a sign for Disney World and Carl asks his son if he wants to stop there, but Percy tells him he'd rather to go New Orleans, a place they discussed going to earlier in the movie. I don't know what kid wouldn't want to go to Disney World, especially if you are right there anyway! At each locale they visit, they serve food that is familiar to that particular region. In Miami, it's Cuban sandwiches; in New Orleans, it's po'boys; in Texas it's pork sandwiches, etc. I have to say the food in the movie does look good, but the food they fix on the food truck looks really delicious. I have never ordered food from a food truck (I have never seen a food truck in real life - I don't think they have them where I live!). I would not recommend seeing this movie on an empty stomach because it will just make you hungry! Hell, it will probably make you hungry even if you are full!

Of course, being that they are getting a lot of press out there, Ramsay decides to check out the food truck when they return to L.A. and tells Carl he would like to back him and have him open his own restaurant. The movie's ending was a little weak because Carl and his ex-wife get back together and while there were little hints of that, it seemed tacked on. 

If you are a fan of Top Chef or Master Chef, I would recommend this movie! And if you're not, I still think you might enjoy it. 

Dying Love

The Fault in Our Stars

Director: Josh Boone

Cast: Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Laura Dern, Willem Dafoe

Released: June 6, 2014

Viewed in theaters: June 15, 2014

I read the young adult novel this movie is based on a little over a year ago. I had a subscription to Entertainment Weekly at the time and they kept raving about this book (which was written by John Green and was published in 2012), so finally, after I acquired a Barnes and Noble gift certificate, decided to buy the book to see what the fuss was about. I really liked it. Honestly, if I had never read the book, I probably would have never seen the movie, especially not in the theater. The movie follows the book pretty faithfully and since I only read the book a year and a half ago, I remembered a lot of what happens.

If you have not read the book, it's the story of a sixteen-year-old girl, Hazel, who has been living with lung cancer since she was 13 and her parents and doctor think a support group would be good for her since she's more on the mopey negative side with sarcastic quips about how short her life is going to be. At this support group, which she thinks is lame, she meets Gus, who had bone cancer and had a leg amputated because of it. They have a pretty serious relationship for such young ages, but this isn't at all like Twilight where the "romance" is contrived. They don't fall in love within ten minutes and while there is attraction, it's not the only reason they like each other as is the case in Twilight where Bella has to remind the reader every other page how hot Edward is. (Seriously, have you read the books? I am not lying!) Hazel and Gus actually, you know, build a relationship and aren't in love with each other by page ten. 

The two main leads are played by Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort. I have been well aware of Shailene Woodley for about ten years where I barely remember her from playing Marissa Cooper's younger sister (the first one!) on The O.C. and she played Felicity, from the American Girl Collection, in a TV movie. (Which I totally watched because I owned Felicity!) I never watched Shailene's show on the Family Channel and was only reminded that she existed a few years ago when she was in The Descendants. With this movie and Divergent, she's sort of been put in the spotlight. Now, Ansel Elgort, I have never heard of him and had no idea who he was. Apparently he was also in Divergent and plays Shailene's brother! And then they make out in The Fault in Our Stars! If that's not weird, I don't know what is! I'm glad I didn't see Divergent because that would have just weirded me out. Even knowing this information weirded me out a little.

So it's easy to see why Hazel falls for Gus because he is, for real, like the most perfect guy in the world. He's probably a little too perfect. I'm sorry, but no guy, especially no 18 year old guy like this exists! I can't remember if he's this perfect in the book. We are told the story from Hazel's point of view, so of course we're going to see her view of this great guy and it is easy to see why she likes him. He tells her she's beautiful, he is interested in HER story (and not just her cancer story), he reads her favorite book (and quotes it!), and when they visit the author in Holland and do not get a welcoming reception, he tells Hazel that HE will write the sequel to her favorite book and I'm pretty sure he was being serious.

Willem Dafoe plays the author of her favorite book and he only wrote one book and then became a recluse. Hazel and Gus track him down in Holland and Gus suggests to her that she use her "wish" to visit Holland but she tells him she already used it to go to Disney World, but Gus, who still has his, uses it to travel to Holland and invites Hazel and her mom (Laura Dern) because he is Perfect Guy. When they visit Peter Van Houten, he is a complete jerk to them and it reminded me of that saying that you should never meet your hero because you will always be disappointed by them. Isn't that a saying? Well, if it isn't, I think it should be because it's probably true! Despite that, they have a wonderful time in Holland and make out in the Anne Frank house and while watching it on film it seemed highly inappropriate (despite everyone applauding for them), but it didn't seem as bad when reading the book.

Like I mentioned earlier, the movie follows the book pretty faithfully, but there are some things I noticed were left out. One of them was the explanation of the title! I can't remember in what context they use "the fault in our stars" or what they were talking about, but it is mentioned in the book because I remember thinking, "Oh, that's where the title comes from." But I don't remember the title being uttered in the film. Another scene they cut was my favorite from the book. It is when they are on the plane flying to Amsterdam and everyone around Hazel and Gus are asleep, but they are still awake (even though they took sleeping pills!) watching 300, a movie I've never seen but apparently has a lot of deaths and this leads into a fascinating discussion about how many people in the world have died since the beginning of time and I find this kind of stuff fascinating and I was really disappointed it wasn't in the movie. Once they showed them on the plane and played a song, I knew it would montage into them at the airport and getting around Amsterdam and I was right.

I'm sure there are more, but I found one little shout out to the book. One of them (I think it was Gus) has a V for Vendetta poster in his bedroom or basement (I know, I have the worst memory ever) and in the book he tells Hazel she looks like Natalie Portman from that movie and that was the first movie they watched together. He doesn't say this to her in the movie because Shailene Woodley does not look like Natalie Portman!

Of course, if you've read the book, then you know the ending and it is the same in the movie. Let's just say a film about two teens with cancer is not going to end well, so bring your tissues! I would recommend reading the book, then watching the movie.

Not So Wicked

Maleficent
Director: Robert Stromberg
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Lesley Manville, Sam Riley
Released: May 30, 2014
Viewed in theaters: June 8, 2014

Slight spoilers even if you've already seen Sleeping Beauty.

I watched Sleeping Beauty about 10 years ago and found a review about a paragraph long I wrote for it. I was not impressed. I called it "hokey" and declared it had me "rolling my eyes most of the time." Ooh, burn!  Princess Aurora has to be the worst Disney princess ever (EVER!). She's just there to look pretty and sleep. She is so lame! And I know a lot of people think "Aurora" is a pretty name,  but I hate it. It sounds like you have a mouthful of marbles when you say it...it also sounds like a name Scooby-Doo would have no problem pronouncing...Aurora! Obviously if this film had been called Aurora, I would not have seen it. Maleficent, on the other hand, is way more interesting and a frightening Disney villain. She's evil, she knows it and she owns it.

I was curious to see if they were going to keep Maleficent evil from start to finish or give her an origin story and redemption arc and was not surprised when it was the latter since just making her like the animated version would be too one-dimensional. I was thinking it was going to follow the story of Sleeping Beauty but have flashbacks of Maleficent's backstory and twist the ending to make her redeeming. Well, it took some liberties with the original. I can't remember what stayed the same and what they drastically changed.

We learn that Maleficent is from the Moors a magical land filled with CGI creatures. Some are so ugly they're cute and some are just terrifying. She is a fairy who was orphaned as a young girl and the first time she ever sees a human is when she's about 12 years old. His name is Stefan and he will later grow up to become Aurora's father. As teenagers, they have a romance, but eventually he starts coming around less because he's more interested in becoming King which he does when the King at the time declares whoever brings him Maleficent's wings, he will give him the throne. (He was attacked by Maleficent and died from his injuries). In a scene that's been compared to rape, Stefan drugs Maleficent, then cuts off her wings leaving her to wake up in agony and disbelief. He is shown about to kill her after he drugs her, but can't go through with it.

If she wasn't already angry at Stefan for ignoring her before, you can bet she's irate at him now and has become full blown evil. We see how she acquires her staff and raven (who can turn into a human...can't remember if he did that in the animated movie! ) The one scene they do almost verbatim from the 1959 version is Aurora's christening when Maleficent comes in to crash the party which is pretty bad-ass. As Maleficent, Angelina Jolie plays her very theatrically and you can tell she's having fun with the role. Now while she did come off as a little menacing, I didn't find her that scary, but I heard a little kid crying during this scene. She could have been crying for some reason unrelated to the movie though. This movie is rated PG but I feel like it might be scary for anyone under 6...who should just stick to the G rated movies, anyway, or just don't bring anyone under 6 to the movies... 

The baby they had for that scene to play Aurora was seriously the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. And she was super smiley which was adorable. Yes, most babies are cute, but I would never call a baby "beautiful" but this baby was really pretty! And Angelina's own daughter, Vivian plays five year old Aurora in a couple of scenes because she was the only kid who wasn't afraid of Angelina in her Maleficent get-up, ha! While watching the movie, I couldn't help but be impressed with Angelina's cheekbones because those things could cut some serious glass, but then I read they enhanced those as well as her eyes with some movie magic. 

As we all know, Maleficent puts a curse on Aurora that will cause her to prick her finger on a spindle on her 16th birthday and this will cause her to fall into an endless sleep which can only be lifted by true love's kiss which Maleficent knows doesn't exist because she had her heart broken by Aurora's father. King Stefan (Sharlto Copely) orders all the spindles in the land to be burned and locked into the dungeon but still sends Aurora away to live in a cottage in the forest with the three pixies (played by Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, and Lesley Manville). I found the pixies to be so annoying in the animated film and could not stand them. They are still quite annoying, but even more so, terrifying to look at! They made CGI pixies, then glued the face of the actress on the pixie they were portraying. It was absolutely terrifying and just didn't look right. They make themselves into normal humans during the time they're watching Aurora in the cottage and that was a huge relief for me! I don't know why they just didn't do what they did with Julia Roberts when she played Tinkerbell in Hook and have the actresses just acting against really large objects to make themselves small. To be fair, I haven't seen Hook in ages so maybe that doesn't hold up as well, but it couldn't have been bad as what they did in this movie. That was just scary! 

Aurora (Elle Fanning) still manages to find her way back to the castle and prick her finger and fall into a deep sleep. One of the pixies tells the King that "she's only sleeping" and he goes ballistic which I don't really blame him. She may be "only sleeping", but there's only one way to wake her and at that point it's looking impossible she'll ever wake up. 

As Maleficent has been spying/keeping an eye on/checking up with Aurora/whatever you want to call it, she's actually developed a soft spot for the girl who thinks Maleficent is her fairy godmother as she knows she's been keeping watch over her since she was a young girl. Maleficent scoffs at this, but then invites the girl to play with the magical GCI creatures of the Moors. In one scene, a generically cute boring boy comes by to say hello Aurora. Oh, look, it's Phillip! Yawn, I mean, yay! 

Phillip comes back later when he's at the castle and the pixies encourage him to kiss Aurora which he does and she doesn't wake up. At first, I thought she didn't wake up because that was seriously the lamest kiss I have ever seen. He barely brushed his lips against hers. Just between you and me, I think Prince Phillip might be gay. But no, it doesn't work because Phillip doesn't love Aurora....because he's gay? But in a scene similar to another Disney  movie that came out last year and stars Adele Dazeem (sorry, that will never get old!), a tearful Maleficent tells Aurora she's sorry and kisses her forehead...and then she awakes. She's probably not asleep for longer than an hour and in the animated movie, wasn't she asleep for a few months weeks? Months? Years? I really don't remember. 

If you're waiting for Maleficent to turn into a dragon, you will sorely be disappointed. There is still a dragon though, but it's just not her who morphs into it. And as with any Disney movie, the villain (who is King Stefan in this instance) dies by falling to his death.   

If you're a firm believer Maleficent should always and forever remain evil, this movie is not for you. And even I had mixed feelings about Maleficent showing a more human side, but I knew there was no way they couldn't make a movie about her story without giving her a redemption arc. But seriously, the only reason to really watch this movie is for Angelina Jolie's performance. It's now my second favorite AJ performance...after Lisa in Girl, Interrupted, of course! 

OS Love

Her

Director: Spike Jonze

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Chris Pratt, Olivia Wilde

Released: December 18, 2013

Oscar nominations:

Best Picture (lost to 12 Years a Slave)

Best Original Screenplay - Spike Jonze (won)

Best Original Score - Will Butler and Owen Pallett (lost to Steven Price for Gravity)

Best Original Song - "The Moon Song" by Spike Jonze and Karen O (lost to "Let It Go" by Kristin Anderson Lopez and Robert Lopez for Frozen)

Best Production Design (lost to The Great Gatsby)

This is a movie I would not recommend watching with your parents or other family members or with somebody you've just started seeing. In fact, just watch it by yourself. Let's just say there are a couple awkward scenes that I was very glad I was watching it by myself! 

This movie takes place in the future (when exactly, we're not told) and I knew what it was about going in so it wasn't a huge shock that Joaquin Phoenix's character, Theodore, has a relationship with his OS system. Before seeing the movie, I assumed he was an anti-social, socially awkward person who had never had a (real human) girlfriend, but he used to be married (to Rooney Mara's character) and has friends (played by Amy Adams and Chris Pratt) so he's not a total, in lack of a better term, weird-o creep.

In this future world, everyone is always walking around with a headset on and everything is automated. Theodore works for a card company where he dictates letters for people who want to send a heartfelt message to loved ones, so they hire a company like the one Theodore works for to do it for him, which is a little messed up that that they have to hire a total stranger to write their personal messages! Theodore does this by verbally saying what he wants written down and the computer writes it down for him.

When he sees an ad for a new operating system with advanced artificial intelligence, he gets one and while setting it up, he's asked a couple questions which includes things like, "What is your relationship like with your mother?" He chooses to have a female voice and soon Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) is born. Samantha is the anti-Suri. I don't have Suri, but I have seen plenty of people interact with "her", and if you ask her a totally off the wall question she will say (in a very robotic voice), "I do not know" or something to that affect and even if you do ask her a simple question, she will misunderstand it and say "I do not know" or give an answer that has nothing to do with what you asked. If I had Suri, I would just get aggravated with it. I can verbally tell my iPod touch to play a certain artist and four times out of five, it always gets it wrong! Samantha, being voiced by an actual person, has a "real" voice and communicates like a real person and she's very charming and makes jokes and can answer questions within seconds and reminds Theodore when he has meetings and reads him his e-mails. She is very organized and friendly and you can see why Theodore is so taken with her even though she is just a computer. She and Theodore have deep, philosophical conversations and she confesses to him she wishes she were human to see what it would be like.

There was one thing that confused me. This new OS is supposed to be super advanced and something that nobody has seen, but there's a scene where Theodore is playing a video game and at one point he gets to this weird little alien who talks to him and calls him names and while this is going on, he's also having a conversation with Samantha who's telling him he got an e-mail from a friend who sent pictures of her friend who she wants to set him up with. He is able to post the pictures on the screen, along with the game, and the character in the game is able to see the pictures and comment on the girl and says how fat she is (obviously she is not since she is played by Olivia Wilde). If the OS Samantha is supposedly to be part of this new marvel of technology because the OS can interact with you in personal ways, is it really that amazing if your video game characters (even if they are jerks) can also interact with you outside of the game? And to me, that is just creepy.

Samantha insists Theodore go on a date with the woman because she's noticed that Theodore hasn't had much interaction with women. Now I don't like it when real life people meddle in my personal life, you can bet that I would really not like it if some Suri-like computer was meddling in it! So they go out and here is this beautiful woman who is interested in him, but like I say, if it's too good to be true, then it is and she just goes crazy on him and the date does not end well.

He and Samantha start connecting on a more deeper level and one night one thing leads to another and then one of the most awkward sex scenes I've ever seen onscreen happens which is pretty amazing how awkward it is considering there is no nudity and there's only one human (perhaps that's the reason it's so uncomfortable?) It is a lot like watching people have phone sex with a lot of heavy breathing. I don't know how Samantha could know what it's like to have sex since she doesn't have a physical body, but whatever.

Theodore, the human, and Samantha, the OS, become an official couple and you're waiting for his friends to find out and look at him funny or ask what he's been smoking, but they seem to take it very well and are happy for him. In fact, in this future world, it is not so weird for a true odd couple like that to happen as Theodore is not the only human dating his OS. If you think about it, people are already more interested in their iPhones and other technological devices than paying attention to the real human beings around them, so maybe it's not so far fetched that people will be in relationships with their iPhones in the future....which would be so weird and I hope that never happens! But perhaps it's not so off the mark. Theodore's friends are so welcoming of Samantha that they all go on a mini vacation together, the four of them. There's a scene where the three humans are outside enjoying a picnic and Theodore's phone is also lying on the blanket and they're all having a conversation and Samantha seems perfectly content joking around with them even though she's not physically there. In fact, she even makes a statement saying she's glad she's not a human because she can be anywhere and everywhere at once and doesn't have to worry about mortality.

As with any relationship, theirs has a few problems. (Hmm, you think?) Samantha is worried that Theodore is becoming distant and has asked a woman to be a surrogate and have sex with him so they can have a somewhat real physical relationship. The woman doesn't talk, but instead attaches a little fleck that looks like a mole to her upper lip and it allows Samantha to be connected to her...or something...I didn't quite get that and Samantha does the talking for her. I thought it would have been clever if they had Scarlett Johansson playing the woman but understood immediately why they didn't when Theodore can't go through with it and the woman, now out of character, is totally horrified and embarrassed and starts speaking.

Theodore gets jealous when Samantha says she's been talking to other operating systems (one of them with a very suave voice!) and is incredulous (as was I!) when she admits that she's in love with 641 other people because she is also the OS for 8,000 other humans. I think this shocked me because I just assumed that an individual OS was created for each human, but I guess there is only one Suri for the millions of people who have her services, so I shouldn't have been so surprised by that.

Inevitably, their relationship doesn't last, but it's not who you would think it is that ends it. A very interesting and thought-provoking movie, but like I said, make sure you watch it alone. 

Raising Life

Raising Helen
Director: Garry Marhsall
Cast: Kate Hudson, Joan Cusack, John Corbett, Helen Mirren, Hayden Panettiere, Abigail Breslin, Spener Breslin
Released: May 28, 2004

Life As We Know It
Director: Greg Berlanti
Cast: Katherine Heigl, Josh Duhamel, Josh Lucas
Released: October 8, 2010

I decided to review both these movies together as they have a similar plot: parents die in a car crash and leave their children to the least likely people (or person) to raise them.

In Raising Helen, Helen (Kate Hudson) and Jenny (Joan Cusack) are sisters whose older sister and brother-in-law are killed in a car accident. Or maybe their sister just moved to Wisteria Lane since she's played by Felicity Huffman and this movie came out the same year Desperate Housewives premiered. By the way, Cusack and Huffman, who are the same age, are 17 years older than Hudson. They are technically old enough to be her mother....I know the characters may not be the same age as the actors (I'm just going by the actors' ages since we don't know how old their characters), but 17 years just seems like a big gap.

In Life As We Know It, Holly (Katherine Heigl) and Messer (Josh Duhamel) are set up by a couple they're best friends with, but the date is such a disaster that there's not even a date because they piss each other off even before they drive to the restaurant. However, they keep seeing each other since their friends get married and they are the godparents of their daughter, Sophie. The parents, too, are killed in a car crash. Why is it always a car crash? I suppose that's the easiest way to kill off a couple of people. Having them murdered would be too traumatizing and a plane crash would be killing many more innocent people.

Guess who the parents left as the guardian to their children in both movies? That's right, Helen, the young party girl who is single and has a full time job as a booking agent for models is left to raise her two nieces and one nephew. Hayden Pana-whatever (I never know how to pronounce her last name, so that's what I call her in real life!) is ten years younger than Kate Hudson and even in the movie they have more of a sister relationship than an aunt/niece one, forget a mother/daughter one! Spencer and Abigail Breslin are the other two kids and Abigail is so young she looks like she was a fetus not that long ago! And Holly and Messer are left to raise one year old Sophie on their own.

In both movies, nobody knew that this was the wish of the deceased parents and if they should die, they would be raising their kids. That seems odd to me. I don't have kids so I don't know how the legal stuff works if you and your spouse die, but I would assume once you choose someone to be your guardian, THEY SHOULD KNOW and maybe even have to sign a contract prepared by your lawyer SO THEY KNOW!! Because in both movies they're all like, "WHAT? They chose me/us?" Really, movies, really?

I don't know which deceased parents were more stupid. It doesn't make sense for the parents in Life to leave their daughter with two people who aren't married and can't stand each other. Since the house mortgage is paid off, they both move into their dead friends' house together which is just weird. Not the fact that they're living in their dead friends' home...hey, if you have a free place to take care of a kid, go for it. What's weird is that they're both living there together raising a child, but yet they have separate lives. You think that would be weird for their dating lives, but they don't seem to have any problems with it. At least they explain why nobody in their immediate family would be fit parents for their daughter because Holly and Messer see if there's anything better and we meet a sister who's a stripper, another sibling who has ten kids, and a frail old father. It would have made more sense if they left Sophie to Holly (the more responsible of the two). Were they not thinking that their friends might get married (to different people!) and the situation would be awkward for everyone? Of course, they do end up together (like you didn't see that one coming) and after sleeping together, Holly says to Messer, "Do you think our friends had this all planned out so we would end up together?" Well, if that was their intention, that was pretty stupid because what if things hadn't worked out? Then they probably would have gone to court to see who would raise Sophie and everything would have been a mess. Stupid deceased parents!

And then why do the parents in Raising Helen (a title I still don't understand) have the younger sister as the sole guardian when Jenny already has two kids with one on the way and is married and knows how to deal with kids? It is established early on that Jenny is the black sheep of the family while Helen and Lynette are very close. Lynette leaves a note for her two sisters explaining why she made the choice she did and she basically chose Helen because she was more like her. Uh-huh. Not buying it, movie! By the way, I'm willing to bet that the two kids who play Cusack's children are one of the crew member's because they have no lines and are only in a couple scenes. They're just there to show us she is a Mom.

Out of the two scenarios, I think Helen is in the worst situation. She has to take care of three children by herself who are all old enough to remember their parents (and while there's the sad funeral scene, except for a few tears shed by the youngest, they seem to get over their parents pretty quickly!) while at least Holly and Messer are only dealing with one baby who will have no recollection of her parents and even calls Holly "Mama" by the end of the movie. Also, Sophie is a really cute baby (although they do have their crying baby and dirty diaper baby moments) while those three kids are super annoying. Hayden plays a very bratty teen who screams at everybody and the Breslin children are there to be the annoying kids, especially the boy. There's a scene where Helen is smoking and the boy tells her, "We don't need any more dead parents" or something to that effect. I know they were doing it for the comedy, but there is no way a child who just lost their parents days earlier would say something like that! They would not make a joke out of it!

Both movies have many wacky scenes where the new parents are taking care of their newly acquired children. There's a scene in Life where Messer has to take Sophie to work with him because Holly already had other engagement and he leaves her with the taxi driver to take care of her! And then there's a scene where Holly has just changed Sophie and has baby poo on her nose when the neighbors (one of them is played by Melissa McCarthy) come over. And in Raising Helen, there's a scene where Helen is helping with a fashion show (her boss is played by Helen Mirren who is much too good for this movie) and she brings Abigail who sees a model with a dog (played by Paris Hilton...I don't know why she just didn't play herself!) on the other side of the runway and crawls across the runway to get to it causing the models to topple over one another and thus gets Helen fired from her job. One of the most ridiculous part of the movie is that the four of them live in a tiny apartment in Queens with one bathroom. Four people and one bathroom? No, thank you! And there's a scene where Helen find out that Hayden has gone to a hotel with her boyfriend after a dance and she and Jenny go over there to confront them, but Helen chickens out and doesn't want to make Hayden mad at her, so she asks Jenny to do it. The scene was really weird because inside the room, the boy is in the bathroom and Hayden is in the room. You can tell that nothing has happened yet and when she hears someone knocking on the door, it looks like there's this flash of relief that crosses her face, but then she starts screaming at her aunt for ruining her life...maybe I just read too much into that look on her face and I'm giving this movie too much credit.

I read a review of Raising Helen that said that the funny parts weren't funny and the dramatic parts weren't dramatic which I agree with. The movie was just really boring. I didn't care about the characters and I found it annoying how Helen had this great amazing glamorous life. Not that Life As We Know It was a great movie by any means, but at least they made Holly and Messer a little more "real" and the movie kept my interest more than the other.

Actually, the more I think about it, while these two movies have similarities, Raising Helen reminds me more of Stepmom.

Here's a quick review I wrote of Raising Helen when I first saw it on DVD about ten years ago...as you can see, my opinion did not change!

Raising Helen - This movie has the stupidest, most unrealistic plotline ever. As you all probably know, Kate Hudson's sister and brother in law die in a car crash and they have 3 children and who do they ask to care for them? Cool Aunt Helen from New York who's lifestyle includes clubbing and partying and a busy career. I can just picture the writers now thinking of how they’re going to make a depressing situation into a wacky! Funny! Hilarious! one! Kate acts more like the kid's cool older sister than a mom. She doesn't give them to Joan Cusack's character who actually already has children, thus has the experience. Duhhhh. God, this movie was so friggin unrealistic. And why did Dead Mom choose cool Aunt Helen? Because she was the most like her! The whole movie reeked of bs. The oldest daughter was such a brat who needed a good bitch slappin'! Gary Marshall seems like a nice guy, but honestly, Gar? Do you really need to keep reminding me that Kate Hudson plays Helen Harris during the deleted scenes segment? Got it the first time! Thanks! 

Bed of Poo

Bed of Roses

Director: Michael Goldenberg

Cast: Christian Slater, Mary Stuart Masterson, Josh Brolin, Debra Monk

Released: January 26, 1996

As I was watching this movie, I knew it had to be written by a man and I was right. It was written by Michael Goldenberg, who also directed it. I could tell that whoever wrote it, was trying to cater to women (being that this is a romance movie, it's geared towards the female population) and thought they knew what a woman would like to see, but was oh so off the mark. 

Mary Stuart Masterson plays Lisa, a workaholic who was raised in foster care by a man who was abusive with her so now she has issues with men, which is understandable. She has a friends with benefits deal going on with her co-worker (Brolin) but she has never been in any romantic relationship.The man who raised her has recently died and her resentment towards him are starting to well up. 

One day, at work, Lisa receives a bouquet of flowers. They're delivered to her by Lewis (Christian Slater), a flower delivery guy. There is no name on the card and she starts calling everyone she knows that would possibly send her flowers, but everyone tells her it wasn't them. Well, I knew it was the flower delivery guy and not just because he's played by the co-lead, but since nobody she knew sent the flowers, then who else could it be? She goes to the flower shop to ask if they know who sent them but he tells her they can't give out that information because the guy asked to remain anonymous. Finally, he admits it was him after she keeps being persistent about how she need to know who it is. I figure he's going to tell her that he's delivered many flowers to her office and has seen her a few times and developed a crush on her, but no. He tells her he was taking a walk in her neighborhood at night one evening and looked up and noticed her in a window and how sad she looked and then followed her to work one day so that's how he knew where she worked. Oh my God, can we say creep-o? If some guy ever said that to me, I would be so freaked out. And she is a little freaked out at first, but decides, since he is such a nice guy (and he is a seemingly nice guy although he goes about things in the wrong way!), gives him a chance.

But, wait! That's not the worst scene in the movie! No, the worst scene is when they've been dating a few months and it's Christmas and he's going to introduce her to his family at his parents' house where there's going to be a big gathering. Lisa is really nervous about this and keeps making excuses not to go, but finally agrees. She has not told him about her childhood and whenever he asks about her parents and family, she always changes the subject. Lewis's family is all nice and welcoming to Lisa and everything seems to be going fine until it's the end of the evening and they're about to each open a present because their family tradition is that everyone is allowed to open one present on Christmas Eve. Well, Lewis gives Lisa a small box and guess what it is? Yep. An engagement ring. He's asking her to marry him in front of his entire family and the very first time she's meeting them! What a tool! And I didn't blame her when she ran out of the house and started berating him when he followed her and asked what was wrong. He tells her he thought it would be nice if they shared such a happy occasion in front of his family and she tells him he just doesn't understand. It was this scene when I knew a guy had to write this movie because no woman would ever want a guy to ask her to marry her in front of his family! Especially a woman like Lisa who has issues with men and is a bit closed-off to people. How could he be that clueless? Ugh!

And I said that was the worst scene, but the ending may be just as bad. After that debacle, Lisa and Lewis have broken up, but Lisa goes to his apartment to give him back something...I forget...and they exchange a few words and she's turning to leave and going very slowly, but then turns around and says, "This is the part where you're suppose to ask me to stay and hug me and never let me go." UGGGHHHHH, are you serious? And when she turns around to leave (again), he does just that and they are all happy blah, blah, blah. Oh, and I watched the trailer and they show a scene of them making love in a literal bed of roses, but that wasn't even in the movie. I guess it was so cheesy they had to take it out. I found everything to about this movie to be nauseating and eye-roll inducing. 

Time for Romance

About Time

Director: Richard Curtis

Cast: Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy

Released: November 8, 2013

Rachel McAdams is not just the go-to actress for romance films (The Vow, The Notebook), but she has found a nice little niche of playing the female lead in romance movies with a time travel twist - The Time Traveler's Wife, Midnight in Paris, and now this one. She better be careful before she's type cast! I love time travel movies, even the ones where they don't really explain why said characters can travel through time (like this one!) and when I saw a trailer for this movie last summer, I was really looking forward to going to the theaters to see it, but once November came, I kept checking my local listings and never once saw this movie! So I don't know if they had moved it up and I missed it or it just didn't get a wide release, but I was finally able to see it on DVD a couple weeks ago.

When he turns 21, Tim (Gleeson) learns from his father (Nighy) in a very straight-forward manner that he can travel through time, like all the men in their family can. This is one of the very first scenes to be able to set up the movie. Like I mentioned earlier, it is never explained why the men in this family can time travel...they just can. I don't have a problem with that since this movie isn't meant to be realistic in that way, but the, "Hey, guess what, you're a time traveler!" scenes are always awkward and hard to write. His father tells him all he has to do is go to a small, dark place (like a closet), close his eyes and imagine the time and place where he wants to travel back to. Which is kinda lame, but the movie doesn't get into any of the logistics of time travel, so we'll forgive that aspect of it.

Tim, who is a bit awkward, goes back to a recent New Year's Eve party where he didn't kiss a girl who wanted to be kissed at the stroke of midnight and when he goes back, he grabs her and kisses her. He uses his time travel ability to gain confidence around girls. When his sister's beautiful friend visits for a summer, he goes back and relives any moment where he does something stupid or awkward around her so he can learn from his mistakes and be more cool around her. He learns, though, that no matter how many times he goes back in time, she's not interested in him that way.

When Tim moves to London to start a new job, he meets Mary (McAdams) at one of those restaurants where you eat entirely in the dark so you can appreciate the taste or something. They get to talking and even though the entire scene is pitch black and you can't see anything, it's still a very engaging scene with their conversation. It's also very sweet that they like each other without knowing what the other one looks like....except for the fact that when Tim returns home, he's realized he's made a big mistake with his job, forgetting something important and and has to go back in time to correct it (this is why I wish I had the ability to time travel!) However doing this erases the time he had with Mary and it literally erases her phone number from his list of contacts. However, even though his meeting with Mary thus never happened, he still remembers her and what they talked about (which doesn't make sense to me, but we'll go with it since there would be no movie if he had no recollection of her!) and he goes to an exhibit of Kate Moss because she's a fan (totally random....who is a fan of models?) and stays there for hours each day until he finally sees her and proceeds to creep her out by knowing her name and all this stuff about her. It takes him a few times to go back and he finally reconnects with her at a party. I never knew why he just didn't go back to the time when he first Mary at the restaurant in the dark, but maybe they didn't want it to become repetitive. Who knows.

Tim and Mary get married (she wears a blood red dress...interesting choice!) and have a baby. It's a girl so we don't have to worry about any complicating time traveling sons in the future. In fact, they end up with three children and they're all girls. I'm sure they made them all girls just so things wouldn't get complicated! However, when Tim tries to go back in time to help his younger sister who's been abused by her boyfriend, he messes up the time space continuum and when he returns to the present, he discovers his daughter has now become his son. His father explained that once any children are born, if they go back before the child was born (like Tim did in this instance), they might change the DNA of the child. However, Tim is able to correct everything and gets back his original child, but in order to do that, he can't alter his sister's life from meeting her abusive boyfriend so instead has to insist that she leave him. There are a few things in this movie that are a bit confusing and probably would have benefitted from a second watch!

Mary is an editor and she must make a lot of money because there's one scene where an author is coming over to have dinner and she tries on about ten different dresses to decide what to wear (and of course she chooses the first dress she ended up trying, heh), but dang, I only own one dress and I've only worn it once - to a wedding a couple years ago.

I did choke up at the end when Tim's dad dies and he goes back in time to tell his father about how his funeral went. Mary is pregnant with their third child and Tim is trying to get as much time as he can with his father before the baby is born and he is unable to ever see his father again.

This was a charming movie and although some things don't make sense or are maybe too lax, I would recommend it. 

Let it go, let it snow

Frozen

Directors: Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee

Voice Talent: Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, Santino Fontana

Released: November 27, 2013

Oscar nominations:

Best Animated Movie (won)

Best Original Song - "Let it Go" by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (won)

When I announced as my Facebook status that I was watching Frozen with Kristen Bell and Adele Dazeem, I thought I was being clever, but only six of my 150+ friends liked it. Perhaps not everybody saw my status or maybe not everybody saw the Oscars and didn't get the John Travolta screwing up Idina Menzel's name joke. Oh, well, I thought it was funny and that's what counts, right?

I really enjoyed this movie....except for one tiny, little, miniscule thing that bothered me. Elsa and Anna are sisters born into a royal family and live in a huge palace. One morning, Anna (the younger sister) wakes up Elsa and pleads for her to do her thing. In one huge room that is completely empty, we discover Elsa has the power to create ice and snow. She makes the entire floor an ice skating rink, she makes it snow, she builds large snow hills for Elsa to slide over, snowmen, if it can be made out of snow or ice, she can build it! As I was watching this, I was thinking how cool that was and how I couldn't wait to see the scene where we discover how Elsa got her power....except we never do! They never explain to us WHY she has this unusual power. Nobody else in her family has this ability either. At least that would explain it's a generation thing passed down to each family member.

While Elsa is performing her magic, she accidently points at her sister and the magic hits her in the head, rendering her unconscious. Her parents rush her to a colony of magic trolls who heal her, but also make her forget that Elsa has these powers so she won't be tempted to make Elsa build her her own personal winter wonderland. The trolls warn Elsa that her powers can be good, but can also be dangerous if she isn't careful. This has Elsa wearing gloves (because everything she touches with her bare hands turns to ice) and pushing her sister away. She is worried if she plays with Anna again, her magic will come out and she will hurt her.

Being a Disney movie, the music was a large component and was heavily promoted. A lot of people have complained that "Let it Go" is overplayed, but I don't hear it on the radio that much. Not, like, say, "Happy". I don't think "Let it Go" is as good as or will be a classic like "Beauty and the Beast", but it's the movie's big epic song and the only one sung by Idina Menzel. A lot of the songs are just the characters singing what they would normally just say in a dialogue so I find that highly amusing. It would be like if I were to read this review and just start singing it. In the song, "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" (the title is as straight forward as it sounds), we see a montage of Anna as a kid, teen, and young woman (or maybe as a kid, pre-teen, and teen? I'm not really sure how old our two main characters are) trying to persuade her older sister to come out and play with her. I do enjoy the song Olaf the snowman sings about loving summer and he sings, "Winter's a good time to stay in and cuddle, but put me in summer and I'll be a.....HAPPY SNOWMAN!"

As expected, Elsa's powers get out of hand and to protect herself and everybody else, she runs away to live in isolation in a huge ice castle and an abominable snowman to keep people away, not knowing that she has left her own village in an eternal snowstorm. When Anna goes to confront her, Elsa's magic hits her in the heart which is the worst place for someone to be struck. Her friends are told that if she receives an act of true love, then she will be revived. Her new companion, Kristoff, who has been helping her get to Elsa's ice castle thinks this means she needs to be rushed back to the man she's only known for one day and got engaged to (because he was gorgeous!) but I (and I assume everyone else!) thought this meant that Kristoff was going to save her life, but Disney went another direction and had it as the sisters saving each other's lives which I thought was a nice touch.

Learning to Fly

Dumbo
Director(s): Samuel Armstrong, Norman Ferguson, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, Bill Roberts, Ben Sharpsteen
Voice Talent: Edward Brophy, Verna Felton, Cliff Edwards, Herman Bing, Sterling Holloway
Released: October 23, 1941

Oscar nominations:
Best Score - Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace (won)
Best Original Song - "Baby Mine" by Frank Churchill and Ned Washington (lost to "The Last Time I Saw Paris" from Lady Be Good)

This movie is so old that I wasn't even born yet when it was re-released (in the United States) the first time (1972) OR the second time (1976). Dumbo is the cutest thing ever and very endearing. I remember the "cameo" he had in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I found out that TIME magazine was to feature a cover story on Dumbo in its December 1941 issue, but had to scrap it when the events of Pearl Harbor rightfully became the top priority.

The movie starts out with the stork delivering baby animals to their mothers and it's all very cute. We see a mother tiger bonding with her two cubs, a mother giraffe delighted by her new baby, and many others. Dumbo's mother, Mrs. Jumbo, is expecting her own little one, but whenever a wrapped-up bundle of joy floats near her, it always diverts and goes another direction. She doesn't receive her baby until the next day when she's on a train with a traveling circus. The stork gives this whole production where he reads a poem and sings a song and it's like, c'mon, get on with it! It always begs the question why did he do this whole show for Mrs. Jumbo, but all the other animals just got their babies dropped in front of them?

Before Dumbo is delivered to his mother, the stork is sitting in a cloud trying to locate Mrs. Jumbo. He knows he's in the right location because when he looks down, he sees an outline of the state of Florida (complete with the word FLORIDA written across it). And he's only sitting in a cloud, so it was pretty amazing that he could see the entire state of Florida! At first I thought, well, Disney World is located in Florida and this is a Disney film, then I remembered that Disney World didn't even exist when this movie was released (it wouldn't open for another 30 years) and even Disneyland didn't open until 1955.  So I think it's just pure coincidence that the movie takes place in Florida and Disney World would eventually find its home there.

You're no prize either, kid! 

Mrs. Jumbo names her baby Jumbo Jr. and the other female elephants coo over how cute he is, but once it is revealed he has huge ears, they all laugh and recoil and give him the nickname "Dumbo" (because big ears apparently make you dumb?). It's a bit mean-spirited that the title of the movie is the cruel nickname those repugnant elephants gave him! The animation is very pretty, although the drawings were very simple at times. I did take some issue that Dumbo's ears were huge in some scenes, while in others they weren't as big. And I wanted to smack those kids for making fun of Dumbo's ears, especially the main one who had huge ears himself AND an overbite AND buck teeth.
At least Dumbo is cute...can't say the same for that ugly kid! And did nobody see this jerk kid go into the elephant's territory and GRAB Dumbo and assault him? Well, gee, no wonder Mama Dumbo went crazy on that kid's ass!

Being that the other elephants shunned him and his mother is now in solitary confinement, Dumbo is all alone until he meets Timothy the Mouse, who has a very grating accent. It was amusing when he scares all the female elephants and they all try to escape from him. One is holding on to a pole, one is perched on a stool, and another is hanging upside down from a clothes line...try to explain the logistics of that one!

"Baby Mine" and "When I See an Elephant Fly" are two songs I remember quite well and fondly from my own childhood. I'm sure I must have seen Dumbo when I was a kid, even though I have no memory of it, but I'm quite sure I had a Disney songbook and tape with all the classic Disney songs. The start of the song when Dumbo is nuzzling his head and trunk against his mother's trunk and being cradled and rocked by it and tears start pouring out of his eyes...awwww.  And then you see that cute montage with all the baby animals and their mothers. I loved that the hyenas laughed while they slept and the mama kangaroo was acting like a rocking chair to rock her baby to sleep. I didn't know that hippos slept underwater, though! I always thought "When I See an Elephant Fly" was a clever song and enjoy the puns..."I've seen a horse fly", "I saw a peanut stand", "I saw a front porch swing" .... just very clever with its use of words. I had never known that the main crow was named Jim Crow...that's uh, interesting! And I don't think that was a coincidence! "Pink Elephants on Parade" is just frightening and goes on way too long. I had completely forgotten about that song, so I must have blocked it from my mind!

Killer Whale

Blackfish

Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Released: Various dates in 2013 in select U.S. cities

I have never been to SeaWorld, even though I remember wanting to go when I was a kid, but after watching this documentary about killer whales in captivity, I'm so glad I never did! I hate SeaWorld so much now! I have never seen an orca in real life, although I did once go on a three hour boat tour when I was in Whidbey Island, Washington a decade ago. It was a whale watching tour and we had crossed over into Canadian waters by the time we even saw any sign of killer whales, but I don't know if this really counts because they were so far away and we only saw their tails.

They show footage from the early '70s when the first few killer whales were captured for captivity. While I assume now most whales who live in captivity are now born in captivity, they obviously had to get the whales from the ocean. They interviewed a guy who was part of the capture and you could tell he was still pretty distraught by the experience as he even admits it's the worst thing he's ever done. What they did was separate the males from the females and babies, then trapped the females and babies and caught the babies to be taken for aquatic parks. The guy interviewed said three whales ended up dead and they had to cut them open and put rocks in them so they would sink to the bottom. And that's not even the saddest part of this whole ordeal! No, the saddest part is when they showed a baby orca being hoisted by a crane and it was making these crying noises (a wailing whale?) It was so sad! The guy involved in that capture being interviewed started crying and with his beard and tattoos, he didn't look like the type of guy who cries much! I started crying too.

The documentary focuses on one particular killer whale, Tilikum, who has been involved in the deaths of three people. He was caught off the coast in Iceland in 1983 at the age of 2 and brought to Vancouver where he was put in a marine attraction park called Sealand of the Pacific, a place that actually makes SeaWorld look humane! Tilikum shared the pool with two female orcas who were older and let him know who was boss by biting him. To "train" Tilikum, they wouldn't feed him or the other two whales if he didn't do a trick properly so that was one reason he would get so abused by the other whales. Also, the pool was more like a bathtub....at least the whales look like they have some room to swim at SeaWorld (even though it's not much, you know, for a freaking whale! - (well, technically, killer whales are part of the dolphin family.)) At night they were kept in a small pen that was just barely longer than the whales and they couldn't even turn around if they wanted! It was pretty horrible and inhumane. This sea park did eventually close down, but not because of the awful way they treated the orcas. They closed because Tilikum claimed his first victim in 1991 when a 20 year old who worked with the whales, slipped into the tank and was snatched and thrashed around by Tilikum. Humans never got into the water so I'm sure the whales became very agitated when she entered their territory. Two women who were at the park and witnessed the whole ordeal were interviewed and they were still very much haunted by it to this day. They said for sure that it was Tilikum who instigated the whole thing, but the female whales were blocking any path for the young woman to escape.

The whales were sold to SeaWorld and Tilikum made his new home in Orlando where he still lives today. His main purpose was to get female whales pregnant. He wasn't really involved in the shows other than to do a big final leap. There were interviews with former SeaWorld employees who said they had no idea how dangerous working with these orcas could be and many of them realized that they really didn't know anything about the animals they were working with.

The second death caused by Tilikum was the most bizarre. One morning in 1999 they found Tilikum swimming around with a deceased nude guy on his back. They made it sound like Tilikum had stripped the guy's clothes off, but how could a whale do that? Methinks the guy (who was homeless and had snuck in after hours) decided to go skinny dipping in the orca tank because he thought it would be fun to swim with the whales. (Maybe he was a fan of Free Willy? But did that kid go swimming with the whale in the tank? I haven't seen that movie in ages, so I really don't remember...)The official reports said that he died from drowning and hyperthermia...which is technically probably true...but seeing as that his body was mutilated, it doesn't take a genius to realize that a huge killer whale aided him in his death. I want to point out that I do not fault Tilikum in any of these deaths. He is a wild animal! And a 12,000 pound wild animal at that! This is what happens when you treat wild animals like pets! Your tiger trained to do tricks may attack you or your pet chimp may bite off your face or those bears who you thought were your friends may maul you in your sleep or a killer whale might get irritated when you enter his space and may thrash you around and drown you! While the other two deaths were just really bad, horrible accidents, I think this guy is to fault for deliberately going into an orca tank.

The third death  happened in 2010 when 40 year old trainer Dawn Brancheau was attacked and drowned by Tilikum. There were some people who blamed Brancheau for it, saying her long ponytail was the trigger for the attack, but to me, it sounds like Tilikum was already agitated because he didn't get a treat when he performed a trick wrong and could tell that the fish bucket was almost empty. I don't think anyone knows the real reason why he attacked...other than that he is, once again, an unpredictable and wild animal! I do remember this being in the news, but the story I remember the most about an orca incident was when a trainer was pulled down by a killer whale in 2006 and submerged for a long period of time before the whale would bring him back up, then submerge him again. The guy survived and he happened to be a scuba diver so they think since he knew how to control his breathing underwater, that's what helped him.

One interviewee mentioned that there has never been a record of orcas harming a human in the wild, but if you put them in captivity where they're around humans all the time (and depend on them), it's bound to happen. I did happen upon a list on Wikipedia where they list orca incidents on humans in the wild, but it was a very short list and no one was killed or even harmed that much. The list, however, for orca incidents in captivity was quite long and mostly involved a bunch of injuries. I'm sure it's much easier to record the injuries that happen by captive whales, as I am sure it's easier for a human to get hurt by a captive whale for the obvious reasons!

This documentary make me tear up quite a bit. It was upsetting to hear that people were unnecessarily killed by one orca, but I think it's horrible that they keep the orcas in these tanks and feed them dead fish just so they can perform some cute tricks. It's really quite sad! They showed footage of orcas in the wild that were attacking a poor seal on an ice flow and that was more awe-inducing than any orca in a theme park jumping through a hoop. 

Knight Moves

A Knight's Tale
Director: Brian Helgeland
Cast: Heath Ledger, Mark Addy, Alan Tudyk, Paul Bettany, Shannyn Sossamon, Berenice Bejo, Laura Fraser
Released: May 11, 2001
Viewed in theaters: May 11, 2001

This was Heath Ledger's first movie where he played the lead. There are three main instances where he became known in the public eye. The first, was this, his first starring role; the second was his Oscar-nominated turn in Brokeback Mountain; and the third was his critically-acclaimed performance in The Dark Knight which was sadly overshadowed by his death. Now, I don't want to brag or anything, but I was a Heath Ledger fan (oh, okay, fangirl!) before any of those movies. Heath had a lot of female admirers before 2001, but, trust me, A Knight's Tale cinched many more! I know this for a fact because after 10 Things I Hate About You and The Patriot, I raved about him to my friend. Did I praise his amazing talent and tell her to watch out for a few Oscar nominations in his future? Haha, please! I was a shallow college student! I was going on about how hot he was and how I loved his Australian accent (those are seriously the best!) I was a little infatuated, you could say. My friend agreed he was cute but she wasn't as into him as I was....until she saw A Knight's Tale (more than once!) and suddenly starts raving to ME about how hot he is and I'm thinking, This is what I've been telling you all along! It was like she suddenly saw the light. It was pretty amusing!

I wasn't the biggest fan of this movie the first time I saw it. I just couldn't get past how these 14th century people could sing Queen and dance to David Bowie when obviously that music didn't exist back in those days, duh! (Or, in the words of Wat, "Hellooooo!") But after seeing its sort-of-but-not-really sequel, The Order (same director and stars Ledger, Addy, and Sossamon), I came to appreciate this movie and realize, despite a few flaws (and if you can look past the music, which I have), it is quite an entertaining movie. Or maybe The Order was just that bad! Ha!

Ledger plays William Thatcher, a poor peasant who takes on the alias of Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein so he can compete in jousting tournaments. He has to hide the fact that he is poor because only nobles are allowed to compete in tournaments. He practices jousting with his friends, Roland (Addy) and Wat (Tudyk). They meet famous writer Geoffrey Chaucer (Bettany)  - even though they don't know who he is - and he's the one who comes up with William's new name and forges his signature so he can compete as a noble.

"Excuse me, did you just say you named
your son Audio Science?!?"

William falls in love with the beautiful Jocelyn (Sossamon) who is wealthy and only knows him as Ulrich. She is a little weary of his courting at first as he is just another guy trying to get her attention. I used to think she was a major bee-yotch for making him lose those jousting matches to prove his love for her, and furthermore, I thought he was a love sick fool for going through with it and letting her walk all over him, but now I can kind of understand where she's coming from. It doesn't mean anything to her that knights tell her they'll win a tournament for her because that's expected of them anyway. Making him choose between her or winning the match was brilliant on her part. Evil, but brilliant. It's a great ultimatum for every woman to have! And it was sweet of him to lose to show her that he did love her, but honestly, if some guy, no matter how hot he was, came up to me and said the things William said to Jocelyn, I'd probably laugh in his face. Or roll my eyes. "Love has given me wings so I must fly!"; "If I could ask for one thing, it would be for time to stop so I can be in this moment with you forever!"; "I would give my ears just to hear your name!" And let's not forget the love letter. Good Lord, that was filled with cheesy goodness.

There are two actresses (basically the other two that aren't Shannyn Sossoman since there are only three women in the whole movie!) who would go on to become more well known in projects much later on in their careers. The first is Berenice Bejo who would later go on to play the female lead in The Artists ten years later. (A perfectly nice movie, but a bit forgetful even if it did win the Oscar). She plays Jocelyn's lady-in-waiting, or personal assistant. Wikipedia says her character's name is Christina, but honestly, I don't even remember her ever being called by her name. At first, whenever she is on screen she doesn't have any lines (early practice for The Artist, ha!), but she does eventually get to speak. I would be totally annoyed if I were her because whenever she's around Jocelyn, Jocelyn gets complimented about her looks by everyone and they just treat her lady-in-waiting like she's invisible when she's a very pretty girl too!

And then there's Laura Fraser who plays Kate, the blacksmith, who joins William's entourage and makes William a new suit of armor that's thinner, but still as strong, so he can easily move around in it. Fraser is best known for playing everyone's favorite stevia-addicted neurotic who can provide an "ocean of methylamine." That's right, I'm talking about Lydia Rodarte-Quayle from Breaking Bad, which just so happens to be my favorite show of all time. It's a good thing William wasn't interested in Kate since we know she's not into blondes! (Oh, Todd, you poor, creepy, guy). She's very fresh-faced and cute and not so uptight in this film! And she does speak with her own natural Scottish accent. There's not a murderous bone in her body! 

"Will, I am!"

After reading Michael Crichton's Timeline (which also takes place in the same century), I became quite intrigued with the time period. There's a chapter where two characters are jousting against each other and I didn't realize what a dangerous sport it was until I read that book. I mean, from the movie I could tell it looked a bit painful, but it takes a lot of precision and you can easily get killed if someone aims the lance at your head. Which is why the last scene where William jousts without his armor or a helmet AND just got stabbed in the chest if a little bit WTF?, but I think everyone knew he was going to win. After all, his blind father was "watching". Supposedly they have modern-day jousting with "strict guidelines" (yawn!) and "development of the use of breakable lance tips for safety" (boring!) You know it's lame compared to the bloodshed and excitement of the real thing. Don't you wish you lived in the 14th century? Yeah, me neither. 

The saddest hour of TV

I usually only talk about movies, but I have been known to delve into TV talk from time to time (as I'm sure you all know and love my Beverly Hills, 90210 season recaps!) I've been rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer because I'm listening to two different podcasts that discuss each episode. One of the podcasts is alternating between Buffy and Angel (which is my first time watching) so they just finished the fifth season while the other podcast is almost done with the series. That one is the Buffy Rewatch. Both hosts have seen the show before, but keep it spoiler free. They have a very structured podcast where they discuss external and internal references (such as pop culture references and references to past episodes), the fashion, and Buffy firsts and lasts (this is the first time we are introduced to a certain character, this is the last time we ever see this location).

The other one, PotentialCast, is a group of four people who are often joined by a guest. Only of of them has seen the entire series and the others are watching it for the very first time...and are trying to be spoiler-free as possible. They kind of go all over the place when discussing each episode and can get a bit off topic which can get annoying, but it's always great to hear their reactions at certain key moments. They have listener feedback and voice mails and rate the episodes and say their favorite quotes.

I started watching and listening to the podcasts in mid 2011 and I've only just finished the fifth season, so as you can see, with two seasons left, I still have a ways to go. I first watched the entire series in just a few short months from late 2004-early 2005. This time around, when I got to season 5, I was kind of dreading it...and season 5 is actually a pretty good season (although I am partial to seasons 2 and 3). 

Let me just pause here to warn everyone that I am about to reveal a huge major spoiler, although if you don't know about this spoiler, I would be very shocked, Buffy fan or not! I feel like I found about this spoiler the night the episode aired in 2001 even though I didn't watch it until 2005! (But I do slightly spoil other things that aren't people's deaths!)

Of course I am referring to Buffy's mother's death. Joyce Summers was just an ancillary character and while she and Buffy had a nice mother/daughter relationship (even though there was that time when she kicked Buffy out of the house....not cool, Joyce, not cool!), there have been more prominent mother/daughter relationships in other TV shows. (I never watched Gilmore Girls, but considering the two main characters are mother and daughter, I would assume that would be one of them!) Joyce was featured heavily in a few earlier episodes ("School Hard"and "Ted" are ones that come to mind), but she didn't have a character arc until season 5...which is she starts getting sick, is diagnosed with a brain tumor, gets operated on, finds out her youngest daughter isn't really a human, starts dating again, dies. You know, in a nutshell!

"The Body", the episode that deals with her death, is not only probably the saddest hour of TV ever, but also probably the hardest TV episode to watch. I was dreading watching this again! And it had been nine years since I had last seen it! It's a very good, well-done episode, but perhaps a little too well-done as it is a little TOO real. The cliffhanger from the previous episode has Buffy coming home and finding her mom dead on the couch with the creepy bonus of having her eyes open. And her, "Mom...Mom.....Mommy?" is so heartbreakingly sad! The cold open of "The Body" begins right where we left off and  during the opening credits, we see a happier time when Joyce was alive during Christmas dinner with her family and Buffy's friends. This was only thrown in the episode so they didn't have to show the credits during the very serious scenes of Buffy reacting to finding her mother dead. I have never watched the commentary, but apparently that is what Joss Whedon tells the audience.

I have (fortunately!) never been in a horrible situation like this, but I can only imagine my reaction being very similar to Buffy's: confused, in shock, terrified, numb, all rolled into one. When she calls 9-1-1 to tell them her mom's not breathing, the operator asks her if she's administrated CPR and Buffy replies that she forgot how to do it and panics when she breaks one of her mom's ribs while pressing down on her. She tells the operator her mom is cold and the reply is, "The body is cold?" to which Buffy exclaims, "No, my mom is cold!"

There are deliberate camera choices such as a lingering shot on the phone's buttons as Buffy stares at it, Buffy talking to an EMT and only showing the bottom half of his face on screen, Buffy leaving the room in a daze to throw up and going outside for a few seconds to get fresh air. It is a very surreal scene. It also feels very voyeuristic - like you are actually watching this young woman reacting to her mother's death and you feel like you are prying. It's certainly how I felt! I think it is suppose to be a very uncomfortable situation for the viewer.

There is no music at all in this episode and it is very jarring because you know something is missing and TV shows without music just seem odd and disconnected. Something interesting about this episode is that you could watch it without having to see any other episode before it. You may not know who Buffy's friends are and you might not get Anya's heartbreaking speech about not understanding why Joyce had to die since she herself was not born originally human (like Dawn!) and does not understand the concept of mortality. That speech made me bawl like a baby and I don't even like Anya! The scene where Buffy has to tell her sister always got me the most the first time I saw this episode (and the second time will also be my last time watching it!)

The only thing that takes me out of this episode (and reminds me what show I'm watching!) is the vampire at the end. They didn't have anything of the supernatural sort until that moment at the end and it was like they threw the vampire in there as an afterthought.

Sarah Michelle Gellar knocks it out of the park in this episode and it is a shame she wasn't even nominated for an Emmy!