You Can Forget All Your Troubles; Forget All Your Cares

Girl, Interrupted

Director: James Mangold

Cast: Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Whoopi Goldberg, Brittany Murphy, Elisabeth Moss, Clea DuVall, Vanessa Redgrave, Jared Leto, Jeffery Tambor

Released: December 21, 1999

Viewed in theaters: January 22, 2000

Oscar nominations:

Best Supporting Actress - Angelina Jolie (won)

  

This movie is based on the memoir of the same name written by Susanna Kaysen (portrayed by Winona Ryder) who wrote about her time (a year and a half) at a psychiatrist ward called Claymoore in the late '60s. This is a book I've always meant to read because I like the movie, but I can never find it.  

Right after high school, Susanna is sent to Claymoore. Her parents are worried about her because she is depressed and has no desire to go to college. When her counselor asks her what she's going to do, she tells her that she wants to write. She sleeps with a professor who is married and a guy she met at a party (Jared Leto) so she is deemed "promiscuous". After trying to kill herself by taking an entire bottle of aspirin and chasing it down with a bottle of vokda (she says she had a headache), she is sent to the ward that helps young women with mental problems. 

There's Polly, a schizophrenic who has half of her face badly burned. She is played by Elisabeth Moss who of course went on to be in Mad Men, but I've never seen that show, so to me, she will always be Zoe Bartlett from The West Wing. She is nicknamed "Torch" by AJ's character. It's been about ten years since I last saw this movie and I remembered she had a nickname, but I could have sworn it was "Flame". Close enough! Also, I'm not sure if she calls her this because Polly has red hair or because her face has been badly burned. Hopefully not because of the latter because that would be messed up, but with Lisa you never know! 

Susanna's roommate is Georgina (played by Clea DuVall...okay, I always thought her name was pronounced "Clee-ah", but apparently it's "Clay-ah"?) who is a pathological liar. She tells Susanna this after she has told her how Polly burned her face. Her account is that Polly had a dog she was allergic to and got a big rash on her face and put some ointment on her face, then lit a match. So how did Polly really burn her face? It's never brought up. 

Sociopath Lisa is played by Angelina Jolie for which she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. You may remember that being the ceremony where she wore a vial of Billy Bob Thorton's blood (remember when they were married? How long ago that seems!) and made out with her brother. Sometimes I miss the crazy AJ. Did you know that when you look at Angelina's IMDb page, this movie isn't even featured as one of her "known for" titles? I'm sorry, but what kind of bull**** is that? When I think of Angelina Jolie in terms of film roles, Girl, Interrupted is ALWAYS the first movie I think of! It's probably a combination of several things: it was the first movie I saw AJ in, she has a very memorable role, and for a long time it was the only thing I liked her in. Oh, and she did win the Oscar so you think that would have edged out, say, Salt to make the cut! Anyway! I digress! Let's get back to the review of the movie. Lisa has been at Claymoore for eight years and is the ringleader of the five or so girls who have their own little clique. (This includes Polly and Susanna as well as a anorexic girl named Janet and a mentally disturbed lesbian named Cynthia). She has a captivating, charming personality and draws Susanna into her circle of madness. She is also a bully and manipulative and gets a thrill out of taunting those she does not like. I loved Jolie's performance, but I really hated Lisa. She is an awful person. But I could see how the other girls were drawn to her.

The most interesting, disturbing, and tragic character is Daisy. She is played by Brittany Murphy and I'm gong to say it: I think this was her best role. Now I didn't say most iconic or popular, because that would be Clueless, but I do think this is her best acting. If anyone needs a psych ward, it's her. (I mean, they all need one...but she really needs one). And yet, for some reason, she is released early. She has this weird eating disorder where the only thing she will eat is rotisserie chickens from her father's deli and she keeps the eaten carcasses under her bed. She has a private room because she prefers to keep to herself, oh, and did I mention the most disturbing thing of all: her father has sex with her. :::shudder::: So why she is released, I wasn't really sure. But we'll get back to her later.

Lisa invites Susanna into her little circle. She encourages her to fake take her medication, talk back to the staff (which includes Whoopi Goldberg as Nurse Valerie and Vanessa Redgrave and Jeffrey Tambor as psychiatrists), and sneak out with her and the other girls where they go under the building where there is an old bowling lane. This place has the worst security I have ever seen. They do checks every night, but they always do it at the same time, so of course the girls have beat the system because they just stay in the rooms until the nurses have made sure they're in there, THEN they sneak out. Well, duh, if they had their checks sporadically every night, then they wouldn't know when to sneak out. 

After Susanna and Lisa get in trouble for stealing a guitar from the music room and singing "Downtown" to an upset Polly (this must have been my fourth or fifth time seeing the movie and this was the first time I caught that "Downtown" is played in the car radio on Susanna's drive to Claymoore! I had oddly never noticed that before). I had actually never heard of that song until I saw this movie and I just love it. Music is the one thing that makes her happy and it works, except when the male orderly comes over to shut them up so they don't wake anybody up, Susanna and the orderly  end up kissing (she's taking her "promiscuous" diagnosis to heart!) and are found sleeping with their arms around each other and Nurse Valerie catches them in the morning and writes her up.

This prompts Susanna and Lisa to decide to run away to Disney World which is opening soon where Lisa will be their new Cinderella and Susanna will be Snow White (well, she does have the right haircut for it!) They are able to walk right out the doors after their checks (because they know they are at the same time every night!) I'm sure the doors are locked from the outside, but what kind of place that is home to many mentally unstable people don't lock their docks from the inside? There aren't even any night nurses monitoring the halls! As you can imagine, this makes it quite easy for the girls to escape. Lisa has acquired the address to Daisy's new apartment her father bought for her where she now resides with her gray cat, Ruby. 

There has never been any love lost between Lisa and Daisy and Daisy only lets them in because she thinks it's only Susanna who tells her she has Valium. It is clear Daisy hasn't gotten better because the only thing she has in her fridge is mayonnaise and rotisserie chickens and she is cutting herself. Lisa cruelly taunts her about her dad molesting her and the fact that Daisy likes it. Susanna pleads Lisa to stop, but being cruel to Daisy makes Lisa feel superior. 

In the morning, when Susanna comes back with breakfast, Lisa tells her that Daisy hasn't come down yet and the same song has been playing over and over on a loop. The song is "The End of the World" by Skeeter Davis and because of the lyrics; the fact that Daisy hasn't come down yet; and Daisy's all-around well-being; Susanna, as well as the audience, I'm sure, is a little bit concerned. Not finding Daisy in her room, Susanna fears the worst when she creeps down the hall to the bathroom with the door closed. She opens it to find that Daisy has hung herself. After Susanna starts shrieking and crying, Lisa comes up and calls Daisy an idiot and checks to see if she has any money on her. Susanna says she's going to call an ambulance and Lisa says she should call a hearse. Very little concern that her comments from the night before prompted Daisy to kill herself! I am surprised that she didn't comment that Daisy had a tub after all because the night before she asked if there was a bathtub upstairs and Daisy said no. 

Susanna is so distraught by this that she doesn't want to go anywhere with Lisa anymore and goes back to  Claymoore. Lisa is also brought back a few days later, although against her will. Susanna has a heart to heart with Nurse Valerie who she was quite awful to before she ran away and starts to make progress with her treatments and is eventually released.

The soundtrack to this movie is great; lots of '60 favorites. I especially love the song, "The Weight."

Here's a Cinematic Sara first for you: you know how at the Oscars the big 8 includes Best Picture, Best Director, the four acting categories, and the two writing categories? Well, I reviewed all the movies that won those awards at the 2000 Oscars for the movies that came out in 1999. They include American Beauty (for Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Original Screenplay - that one knocked out half of them!); The Cider House Rules (for Best Supporting Actor and Adapted Screenplay); Boys Don't Cry (for Best Actress);  and now I can add Girl, Interrupted (for Best Supporting Actress) to that list! 

Dalmatian Plantation

101 Dalmatians (1961)

Director(s): Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton S. Luske, and Wolfgang Reitherman

Voice Talent: Rod Taylor, J. Pat O'Malley, Betty Lou Gerson, Marth Wentworth, Ben Wright, Lisa Davis

Released: January 25, 1961

101 Dalmatians (1996)

Director: Stephen Herek

Cast: Glenn Close, Jeff Daniels, Joely Richardson, Joan Plowright, Hugh Laurie, Mark Williams

Released: November 27, 1996

It seems lately that there has been an explosion of live action Disney remakes taken from their animated counterparts. There was Cinderella last year and Maleficent a couple years ago and The Jungle Book out this year and The Little Mermaid coming out soon. But 101 Dalmatians may have been the first to do it since its live action counterpart came out almost twenty years ago. I can't think of any others that were around that time. Let's get one thing straight though: the remake is really bad. Like, really, REALLY bad. There are a couple of good things (mainly Glenn Close), but for the most part it's really bad! The funny thing is, while I remembered there was a live actin remake in the '90s and Glenn Close played Cruella DeVil, I had no recollection of what happened in the movie. I'm pretty sure I saw it (whether in the theaters or on video, I couldn't tell you), but I just couldn't remember anything about it. I couldn't tell you who was in it besides Glenn Close, I couldn't remember what they kept the same or changed from the animated movies, I couldn't remember if the animals talked. It was like I had totally blocked everything about it out of my head! Or maybe I just never saw it...I really have no idea! 

It's been awhile since I've seen the original animated movie, but I still remembered quite a lot. I did have the VHS as a kid and watched it a few times. I had no idea until just recently that it was based on a book by a Dodie Smith that Walt Disney wanted to buy the rights to. (I also didn't know Mary Poppins was based on a book until I saw Saving Mr. Banks.) 

Pongo, the dalmatian patriarch is narrating the story and calls his owner, Roger, his pet. With the remake, you don't get this clever narration since the animals don't talk. (Not saying that would have made the movie any better...it may have made it a lot worse!) Pongo doesn't want Roger, an aspiring musician, to be a bachelor all his life so he decides to set him up with a fine breed of woman. There's a humorous scene where he's checking out women walking their dogs and all the women look like their canine pets. He spots Perdita, who will be the dalmatian matriarch and she is being walked by an attractive woman named Anita who is around Roger's age. Roger and Anita are played by Jeff Daniels and Joely Richardson in the '96 remake. In the original, Pongo has a red collar and Perdita has a blue one, but for some reason, they couldn't remember that in the remake and Perdita has a red collar while Pongo sometimes wears a black collar and sometimes wear a blue one. So unnecessarily confusing! 

Both dalmatians and humans meet in the park in both movies. I will say it is a little more realistic in the live action one when Anita plays fetch with Perdita rather than sit on a bench with her dog sitting next to her, which is what the animated Anita and Perdita do. The dogs take a liking to each other, as do the humans, but it is just so awkward and unrealistic in the remake. I think we can believe the animated character getting together so quickly because they're, you know ANIMATED! But '96 Roger and Anita decide they should get married since their dogs like each other and they're getting married in the next scene! It's the most ridiculous thing ever! They could have at least had a little montage of them dating and then six months later they get married. Sheesh. But one thing I do like about the '96 version is that they tell us how Anita and Cruella know each other. In the animated movie, Cruella is an "old classmate" of Anita's. Maybe a former teacher I would believe because Cruella has to be at least a decade or two older than Anita. We have no idea why these two are friends. In the movie, Cruella is a fashion designer. She's not the Devil Wears Prada, but rather the DeVil Wears Dalmatians! Anita works for her so that's how they know each other. Anita has had some inspiration from Perdita for some new outfits and Cruella sees a picture of her and asks her if her dog has short or long hair; if it's soft or coarse. In both movies she lives for fur and is very excited about the prospect of having a coat made out of dalmatian fur. To me, this is what makes Cruella DeVil the most evil of all the Disney villains. She wants to kill and skin puppies, for God's sake!

After Perdita has a litter of fifteen puppies (at first they only think it's fourteen, but manage to save the 15th), Cruella comes over to buy the puppies but is dismayed when she discovers they don't have their spots. If I were Roger and Anita, I would have told her that this batch would never get their spots. But they don't know her cruel intentions and tell her that the puppies will get their spots in a few weeks and that they need to be with their mother. They also tell her that the puppies aren't for sale when she offers them a huge sum of money which makes Cruella irate. A few weeks later she has her henchmen, Jasper and Horace, who are like the animated versions of Harry and Marv, kidnap the puppies when Roger and Anita are taking Pongo and Perdita for a walk. (I didn't quite understand why they didn't take the puppies too...wouldn't they need a walk as much as, if not more than the older dogs? But I'm not a dog owner, so what do I know?) Jasper and Horace are played by Hugh Laurie (yes, Dr. House!) and Mark Williams (best known as Mr. Weasley in the Harry Potter films) in the '96 version. This is when we find out that Cruella has kidnapped a total of 99 puppies from pet stores. Now I realize that London is a big city, but I find it hard to believe that there would be 99 dalmatian puppies at one time. I say this because I've always found the dalmatian to be a rare breed! I have no idea if it is or not, but I've only seen one dalmatian in real life in my entire life, so to me they're rare! But maybe they're not that rare.

Jasper and Horace lock Nanny (played by Joan Plowright in the remake) in the closet as they take the the puppies. It's a little Fargo-esque in the live action one and seems a bit rough for a movie with a G-rating! This is around the point in that version where the movie really goes downhill (not that it was that great, but wow, it gets really bad starting here!), so I'll talk mostly about the '61 version for now.

When they discover their puppies are missing, Pongo and Perdita send out the "Twilight Bark" which is a way to signal all the other dogs in the city. I guess it's like morse code. This is kind of a funny scene because you hear a bunch of dogs barking and howling and we see an overview of London and hear a human voice shout, "Shuddup, would ya?" The message is relayed to a barn with a sheepdog named Colonel, a horse named Captain, and a cat named Sergeant Tibbs. Colonel mistakenly hears the message as "fifteen spotted puddles are missing", ha! Sergeant Tibbs is the one who rescues the puppies and gets them out of Hell Hall, the name of the DeVil place where they're being held. Jasper and Horace are in the same room, but are distracted by a TV program. How you can't hear 99 puppies leaving one room is an incredible feat!

After Tibbs pushes Rolly, the adorable pudgy dalmatian who's always hungry through the small hole, Jasper and Horace notice all the dogs are gone and know that Cruella will have THEIR hide if they don't find them. By this time Pongo and Perdita have caught up with them and take them to a barn where the cows give all the puppies milk. No surprise to see Rolly is happy about that! They get a good night's sleep in the hay and the next day, after getting help from a labrador and seeing one of his pups gets dirty from soot, Pongo gets the idea for all of them to roll in the soot so they look like labradors. Cruella and her minions are in the same area driving around because they've spotted dog prints. Cruella is suspicious when she sees a  bunch of labrador puppies walking towards a truck and getting on the back of it. When water starts dripping on them and revealing their spots she gets in her fancy-pants car and chases the truck only to get in a horrific car wreck with Jasper and Horace and their truck. I couldn't remember if she died or not, but she is fine. She doesn't even go to jail from what we see.

The reason the live action movie gets really bad at this point is because literally nothing happens and it's so boring! Well, things happen, but very stupid things. It's like an animal-esque Home Alone where animals try to stop Horace and Jasper with stupid hi jinx. A squirrel crosses the wires in their car so that it will start on fire! A woodpecker keeps knocking on the door only to confuse them when they open it to find nobody there! A raccoon puts a rock in the exhaust pipe of their car! A dalmatian puppy pees on a magazine with Cruella on the cover! It's all just very stupid. And it gets really boring fast since the only humans are Jasper and Horace and you're just watching a bunch of animals. Sure, the puppies are cute but watching a bunch of puppies isn't very exciting. At least in the animated version they have personalities and can talk! I got so bored during this time that I started playing with my phone. It felt like it was twenty minutes before we see Cruella again. Glenn Close obviously did her homework because she has the great maniacal laugh; the cool, stiff Cruella posture with the back arched when she laughs; she has her mannerisms down, she calls everyone "You fools, you idiots!" You could tell she was getting into the character and was having fun with it. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical Comedy (she lost to MADONNA for Evita?? Are you kidding me? Granted, I have never seen Evita but I know that Glenn Close is a better actress than freakin' Madonna! Now if she had lost to Frances McDormand for Fargo, THAT I would understand!) The movie sucks, but Glenn Close as Cruella DeVil is great and I can see why she was nominated for a Golden Globe.

Cruella gets apprehended by the police (after falling into a vat of molasses...which did not happen in the animated movie) along with Jasper, Horace, and Mr. Skinner who she has hired to skin the puppies. (Haha, get it, he skins animals and his name is Mr. Skinner? Yeah...) I did laugh when she tells them that they won the gold, silver, and bronze in the awards for biggest idiots and Horace asks, "Which one of us won the gold?" and she just goes off on them. That was pretty funny. She does go to jail and all the puppies are okay (as they are in the animated version, but we all knew that).

99 puppies = 99 problems!

In both movies, Roger and Anita take all the puppies in because apparently nobody is claiming any of the other 84 puppies. With Pongo and Perdita, they have 101 dalmatians! They decide to move to a bigger place so they have enough room. Roger tells Anita that they'll have a Dalmatian Plantation! Don't get me wrong, puppies are very cute, but I would NOT want 99 puppies. God no! That seems like a nightmare! I don't think I'd even want fifteen! In the '61 version, they are able to buy their Dalmatian Plantation with the money Roger made from his hit song about Cruella DeVil and in the '96 version Roger is a video game designer and used Cruella as his villain and it made lots of money for them to buy a huge mansion in the country.

101 Dalmatians was the highest-grossing movie of 1961!

What a Way To Make a Living

9 to 5

Director: Colin Higgins

Cast: Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, Dabney Coleman

Released: December 19, 1980

Oscar nominations:

Best Original Song - Dolly Parton for "Nine to Five" (Lost to Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford for "Fame")

I have long been familiar with the snappy song, "Nine to Five" sung by Dolly Parton, but had never seen the movie she had sung it for and starred in until just recently. While I knew it was a workplace comedy, I really never knew what exactly was about and now I think that Horrible Bosses got its inspiration from it...although that movie was a lot darker! 

Violet (Lily Tomlin), Judy (Jane Fonda), and Doralee (Dolly Parton) all work at a place called Consolidated Companies and their boss, Mr. Hart (Dabney Coleman) is, and I quote, "a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot." I'm not really sure what they do at this place, but there's lots of writing of reports and answering of calls and making of copies. 

Violet has been at the company for eleven years. She has by far the most experience out of anyone else and knows everything there is to know about the company. She is expecting to be rewarded with the big promotion Mr. Hart will be giving to someone soon. Judy is the new woman at the company and Violet shows her around and introduces her to everyone and warns her about Mr. Hart and tells her to watch out for Roz, the office snitch who goes and tattles on Mr. Hart anytime she hears a piece of gossip. Doralee is Mr. Hart's secretary and everyone hates her because they think she's sleeping with the boss. He sexually harasses her and when she tells him that she's a married woman, his reply is that he's married too and that's what makes it perfect for them to have an affair. 

Violet is beyond furious when she learns that the promotion has gone to a man who has been at the company five years less than her. Mr. Hart explains to her that he got the job because people would rather deal with a man than a woman in that particular situation (whichever that might be...I'm not sure what the promotion was for!). Judy is furious at Mr. Hart when a woman gets fired for being overheard by Roz that they are getting unfair wages. Doralee is furious when she learns that Mr. Hart has been spreading rumors that they are having an affair. The three woman get a drink, then later smoke a joint and share their fantasies about getting even with their jerk boss. Judy's fantasy is to hunt him down and mount his head as a trophy kill on his office wall (where he keeps his other trophy kills like deer). I would have thought this would be more apt to Doralee's fantasy because she's the one who keeps a gun in her purse! (She is from Texas, after all!) She threatens Mr. Hart that if he continues to tell people they are having an affair, she'll take her gun and change him from a rooster to a hen with one shot! Doralee's fantasy is that she wants to turn the tables on Mr. Hart and give him "a taste of his own medicine" and be the one to sexually harass him and oogle his body. This seems like a lame fantasy. I would imagine somebody in her position would rather call out their harasser as being the pig they are. Although at the end of her fantasy, she's roasting him over a fire like a pig. Violet's fantasy is that she's like Snow White (dressed in a similar costume) and Mr. Hart is akin to the Evil Queen and she poisons his morning coffee. There are animated animals in her fantasy which I'm impressed they could do way back in 1980. I didn't think being able to mix live action and animation was achieved until 1988 with Who Framed Roger Rabbit? 

The next day, Mr. Hart is rushed to the hospital right after Violet gives him his coffee. She freaks out and thinks she's poisoned him when she realizes she's accidentally put rat poison in his coffee instead of the Sweet and Low. You see, the rat poison and Sweet and Low are both kept in boxes of the same color and size and are kept in the same cabinet on the same shelf...wtf? I don't know if this is just a plot device or if people were really that stupid in the early '80s and kept food and poison in the same cabinet! I'm hoping and guessing it's the former! What really happened is that Mr. Hart fell out of his chair and hit his head. He had been having trouble with his office chair in prior scenes. He spilled his coffee and never drank it, but Violet has no idea and she and Judy rush to the hospital where Doralee took him.

Mr. Hart is fine and walks out and in the same room he was in, they bring in a man they're trying to revive, but he dies. The women arrive when the doctor talks to a police officer telling him the man in the room has died and he thinks it was poisoning. This mistaken identity reminded me of the scene in Adventures in Baby-Sitting when the doctor tells Elisabeth Shue that the young man with the stab wound died, but he was actually talking about another person and not Brad. Violet is sure this means jail time for her and wants to get rid of the body before they can do an autopsy on it and confirm that it was indeed poisoning. When no one's looking, she takes the body on the gurney and wheels it to her car and puts it in the trunk. They find out the body isn't Mr. Hart, and confused, sneak it back to the hospital. 

The next day all the women are confused, but relieved when Mr. Hart comes to work, quite alive. They discuss the matter in the bathroom and are glad to get on with their lives. They had checked under the stalls and nobody was in any of them, but when they leave we see Roz the snitch had been there the whole time with her feet up on the toilet taking notes with toilet paper! OMG, is this woman for real? I would hate to work with someone like her! She, of course, snitches to Mr. Hart and he confronts the women and threatens to have them all prosecuted for attempting to kill him and will only forget about it if Doralee sleeps with him. 

During this time, Mr. Hart's wife is on a cruise so the women decide to kidnap him in his own house. They keep him tied up (though he is free to move around in the bedroom) and bring him his meals and always have somebody at the house to watch him. They find a way to blackmail him when Violet discovers he's been embezzling money and want to keep him tied up until they have evidence to prove it. Their only obstacle is Roz because after a few days she starts to get suspicious on where Mr. Hart is since she sees him every day. They finally send her to Paris when they tell her Mr. Hart wants her to go there to learn French. (I don't know why you would have to go all the way there just to learn the language...haven't these people ever heard of Rosetta Stone? Haha!) 

While Mr. Hart is "away", the three women pretty much run the place and make up new rules and even give the office a new makeover. The woman who was fired unfairly is given her job back and a daycare center is put in. When Mr. Hart is finally released after the women know he will not snitch on them, he gives the Chairman of the Board a tour of the places and all its new amenities even though Violet has to explain everything since Mr. Hart has no idea about any of it. The Chairman is so impressed by what Mr. Hart did that he sends him to Brazil to oversee their operation. Everyone is happy except for Roz who never got to say goodbye to him.

When this movie came out, Dolly Parton was 34, Lily Tomlin was 41, and Jane Fonda was 43. With the huge Granny glasses and the awful old lady hair cut she has, I would have guessed Jane Fonda to be closer to the age she is now - which is nearly 80! I don't know why people dressed so horribly and had terrible hair cuts in the early '80s...why would you want to look two decades older than what you actually are? Don't get me wrong, I love the '80s, but I'm kind of glad I was a baby/little kid during it! 

A Man and His Cat

Harry and Tonto

Director: Paul Mazursky

Cast: Art Carney, Ellen Burstyn, Larry Hagman, Geraldine Fitzgerald

Released: August 12, 1974

Oscar nominations:

Best Actor - Art Carney (won)

Best Original Screenplay - Paul Mazursky and Josh Greenfield (lost to Robert Towne for Chinatown)

I discovered this movie through a podcast I listen to called Battleship Pretension where two hosts in their early thirties discuss a topic involving movies. They both went to film school so they seem to be reputable in discussing film...much more than I am, anyway. On this particular episode, they were discussing movies with animals as the main focal point. As you can imagine, there were many movies with dogs brought up, but only a few with cats and Harry and Tonto was one of them. They both praised the movie so I typed it down on my "Notes" section of my iPod Touch under a list of movies to watch. (Otherwise if I didn't, I would probably forget about it!)

The movie is about a seventy something man, Harry (Art Carney) who travels from New York to Los Angeles with his cat, an orange tabby named Tonto. His building is being torn down so he is forced to move. At first he stays with his oldest son, but decides to travel cross country. At first, he plans to fly but when he learns that Tonto will have to be separated from him on the flight, he refuses and takes a taxi to a bus stop and will travel that way. But after he realizes that Tonto needs to use the bathroom (and won't use the toilet when Harry holds him over it...pretty sure NOBODY likes being touched when they need to use the restroom!) and asks the driver to pull over so his cat can relieve himself. Tonto ends up running away and Harry tells the bus driver to go on without him and the driver tells him he has to go so he won't be late to the next destination. He tells Harry there's another bus coming in another hour. Tonto does come back to Harry, but instead of getting on the next bus, he rents a car. Keep in mind this is 1974 and his license expired in 1958, haha!

Along the way, as you do while on a roadtrip, he meets new people and reconnects with some familiar ones. His daughter, Shirley (Ellen Burstyn) lives in Chicago and he finds out his old girlfriend, Jessie (Geraldine Fitzgerald) who he dated long before he married his wife is still alive and living in an assisted care facility with Alzheimer's. He picks up two hitchhikers, which is never a good idea, but it seems even worse considering it's the '70s! There were some shady people in the '70s! He picked up a teenaged girl and a guy in his twenties. The guy kept sprouting off verses from the Bible. He was a little freaky. I've no doubt Harry was relieved when the Bible-thumper said he was going to get a ride with someone else who was heading his way. Harry thought the girl, Ginger, was going with him but she told him they had just met on the car before his. Harry doesn't seemed concerned that a sixteen year old (and later we actually learned she's fifteen!) is running away and they stay in a hotel together and she's standing around in her underwear in front of him! I don't think she was trying to seduce him; I think she was just clueless. She later meets Harry's grandson and they seem to hit it off. 

Harry also meets a hooker on the way. He tells her she's too beautiful to be a hooker and she says she's a high-price one. She also says she's been with men older than him! I think it was implied that they had sex...I'm not sure though. Maybe this was why the movie was rated R even though we don't see anything. There is no nudity or violence and maybe there was a couple of curse words, but I don't really recall. There was some sex talk, so maybe that's why it was rated R? I feel like if this movie was made today, it would be rated PG. Speaking of the time it came out in, everything must have been cheap in the '70s...I know about inflation, but there's a scene where a homeless man asks Harry for thirty five cents so he can buy a coat. What the what? Did coats seriously costs 35 cents in the NINETEEN seventies? That cannot be right! 

Even though Tonto is with Harry throughout the movie, I wish there was more of him. Half the time, he feels just like a background character. I was wondering if we were ever going to get the story behind the name and we do when Harry is arrested for peeing in a potted plant on a street in L.A. (and in front of a window so I'm sure the people inside the building got a pleasant view!) His cell mate is a Native American man and he explains that Tonto is named after the character from The Lone Ranger, the radio show. I knew I was familiar with that name and when he said that I realized I knew it from the Johnny Depp remake (never saw it though, looked awful!) Interesting that it was a Native American man he told it to. Makes me wonder if he had a cat named Schindler, would his cell mate have been a Jewish man? I also wish we had gotten backstory on how Harry acquired Tonto. The one scene where Tonto is really a focal point is the one I mentioned earlier when Harry takes him off the bus to relieve himself and he gets lost and Harry is really worried that his cat has ran away. 

Harry walks Tonto on a leash and if you know anything about cats, they do NOT like to be on leashes. I know because I've had experience with a cat and a leash before. Let's just say he did not want to be led around by me and wanted to do his own thing and explore the shrubs and pounce on bugs. When he didn't have Tonto on a leash, Harry was carrying him around in the most awkward way: one hand under the front legs of the cat with his back legs dangling down. I felt bad for the cat cuz it didn't look too comfortable. I did love it when Tonto would curl up on the dashboard when Harry was driving his car...totally something a cat would do, though it seems dangerous to let a cat roam a car since they might get down by the gas and brake pedals. I also love the scene where Harry is on the bus next to a fat man eating a sandwich. He is holding Tonto and you can tell he's trying to hold him back because that cat wants that sandwich! He ain't acting! It cracked me up when he took his paw and swatted at the sandwich. That's something my own cat, Milo, would do. 

At the end of the movie, as you would expect, Tonto dies of "old age". I put that in quotes because Tonto, according to Harry in a voiceover, was eleven years old when he died. What the what? Since when is eleven old for a cat? That's more "mature", but not "senior". Unless, like people who are living longer these days than forty years ago, maybe that's true for animals too? Then he says in the voiceover that Tonto was 77 in people years. That is so wrong! Because I had a cat, McKenzie (the one who hated the leash....he was a very independent cat! (Well, that's all cats!)), who died when he was 18 and on the cat conversion chart I looked at, said he was 80 something in human years. Obviously, Harry must have been going by the dog chart where you multiply the age by 7. I don't even know if that dog conversion is even accurate anymore, but it most certainly isn't for a cat! McKenzie would have been 126 years old when he died if we went by his cat conversion chart. I checked a cat age conversion chart and it said an eleven year old cat is 61. My cat, at age 18, was 89! A little more believable than 126! Milo is 49 going on 54...poor thing! They age so fast. 

I do wish there was more backstory and interaction with Tonto, but I do understand that the latter probably wasn't alway the easiest. There's a scene where Harry puts down some water for Tonto after they come back from their walk and you know the director wants the cat to drink the water, but he just sniffs it and walks away. Ha! This is the reason there are tons more movies with dogs...you can train a dog, you can't train a cat. They're gonna do what they wanna do! 

Art Carney won Best Actor for this movie, which is a bit surprising considering he was against Jack Nicholson for Chinatown and Al Pacino for The Godfather Part II. I hoped at least he thanked the cat! Or cats, I should say since I read they had two playing Tonto. 

Ode to 'Joy'

Joy

Director: David O. Russell

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Virginia Madsen, Diane Ladd, Isabella Rossellini, Elisabeth Rohm

Released: December 25, 2015

Viewed in theaters: December 29, 2015

I saw this movie with my friend Cameron. He has joined me for a couple of video reviews you've all had the pleasure to watch. (All fifteen of you, haha!) You may remember our video reviews of the last two Twilight movies. We were originally going to see Sisters, but it was already sold out for the evening shows, so we decided to see this one instead. (And before you ask, we didn't even consider seeing Star Wars: A New Hope and Force Awakens or whatever it's called!) In a way, I think it worked out for the best because I probably wouldn't have seen this movie until it was released on DVD and I'm glad I saw it in the theater because I really enjoyed it. I had no idea what this movie was about going in. I just assumed it was a Christmas movie since it opened on Christmas Day and was called Joy, but, spoiler alert....it's not! (Although there is a scene that takes place at Christmas). We joked that it was the sequel to Silver Linings Playbook since it had the same director and Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, and Bradley Cooper were in it.

The "Joy" in question is the name of our main character (Jennifer Lawrence). This movie is based on the true story of a woman named Joy Mangano (never heard of her!) She's struggling with her finances and being a young, single mother of two while living with her grandmother (Diane Ladd), her mother (Virginia Madsen), and her ex-husband, who she's still friendly with, lives in the basement. At first, I thought her mother was sick and bedridden because all she did was stay in her room and watch soap operas, but later in the movie, she's walking around with no problem. There seemed to be something off mentally with her mother.

Joy works at an airport but has to quit when they change her hours and she can't work those because of her kids. She and her older half-sister, Peggy (Elisabeth Rohm who I didn't recognize at all because she had dark hair) help out at their dad's (Robert De Niro) auto-repair shop. Rudy, their dad, who has been married twice and is all about being in love, has joined a dating service. At first, I was so confused by this scene because he would call a number and leave a four digit number and a voice would give him a four digit number of a potential match and he would call that number and talk to the woman. It seemed very complicated. I was wondering, Why doesn't he just join eHarmony or Match.com? Then I remembered that this being based on a true story, it probably isn't "current" day! (I don't remember if it gives us a date, but I'm guessing it started out in the late '80s/early '90s). He meets Trudy (Isabella Rossellini) and they are just having a laugh over their rhyming names. Trudy is a widow of a wealthy businessman and she and Rudy hit it off quite well that she invites Rudy and his family to spend the day on her yacht. She tells him to bring the wine, but not red wine because it will stain the teakwood floors. Joy's ex, Anthony, who is well-meaning, brings a bottle of red wine. It ends up spilling (who didn't see that coming?) and Joy mops the deck, but when she wrings out the mop with her hands she gets lots of nasty cuts with the glass shards. This inspires her to come up with an idea for a mop where one doesn't have to wring it out with their hands and the mop head is detectable and can be thrown in the washing machine. The year is 1995 when the finished product is ready. I can tell I have never mopped until the 21st century. I have never in my life even known of a mop that you had to wring out with your own hands. Never mind glass shards, who would want to touch that nasty mop head with the dirty water? Ewww! 

She patents the design and has some prototypes made with some money she asked Trudy to invest in (Trudy agreed after Joy passed the test she gave her). Unfortunately, when she tries to take it to stores and sell them, her product gets declined. One man tells her that he doesn't want to sell a mop for twenty dollars to his customers that will last a lifetime when he can sell five or ten dollar mops that will need replacing every few years and that way the customers will have to keep coming back. Joy and her friend Jackie try to sell the mop outside a K-Mart by Jackie being the salesperson and Joy being someone who is being sold the mop. They get a crowd of curious onlookers who seem to like the mop, but are quickly caught by the police and the mop is confiscated. 

It kept bugging me whenever I saw Jackie because the actress looked so familiar and I knew that I knew her from somewhere, but I just couldn't place it! When I looked her up, I realized it was Daya from Orange is the New Black. She has such a distinct accent and distinct facial features, but I guess she's unrecognizable to me if she's not in her prison garbs or pregnant, haha! 

Joy arranges to meet with Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper), an executive at QVC. When he sees and hears about the mop, he tells Joy to have twenty thousand of them made and Joy has to take out a second mortgage on her house. She still owes Trudy money and Trudy does not want to invest any more until she knows the mop will make money. Neil takes Joy on a tour of the set and tells her they only have celebrities hawking the products. The only celebrity I recognized was Joan Rivers. She is played by Melissa Rivers who looks EXACTLY like her mother (perfect casting, right?), but I don't think she has her mother's voice down...she tried, but Joan had a very distinct sound to her voice. 

There's a big scene at Joy's house where everyone is gathered in the living room to watch the big debut of Joy's mop and I just knew something bad was going to happen. And it did! The guy promoting it had no idea how to use it! They get no calls or questions for the mop and they go straight to the next product (the most hideous evening gowns I've ever seen!) The whole segment is less than twenty seconds! Did they not give the guy a tutorial on how the mop is used? Not surprisingly, Joy is pissed. At first I thought Neil was trying to sabotage Joy, but that doesn't make any sense because they want their products to sell. I watch Shark Tank; I know how it works! Joy goes to the QVC office and demand the she be the one to sell it on TV. She does and they sell like hot cakes. 

This, however, is not the end of Joy's troubles. She still has a rack of debt to pay and she finds out that the manufacturing company is taking credit for her designs. There's a bunch of legal battles she's fighting. She goes through one obstacle after another. There are several times when she just wants to give up, but by the end she fights for what is hers and emerges victorious. We see her in the future, in her forties, helping others patent their ideas. (Why is this woman not on Shark Tank?) I got a very Cate Blachett-like vibe from an older made-up Jennifer Lawrence. 

Cameron and I both agreed that this was our favorite Jennifer Lawrence performance. I have not seen the last two Hunger Games movies, but I hated the last book so I'm willing to bet that's not going to change my mind. 

During the movie, somebody behind us started snoring! Really loudly! It was quite distracting. And then all of his friends were giggling so that made it even more annoying. This movie was not boring at all so I don't know what his problem was. I guess that was bound to happen at a theater where you can recline all the way back in the seats. They even have a commercial for the theaters of some old guy in his pajamas telling his son he's ready to see the movie. Like, are they trying to encourage people to fall asleep and snore and annoy people who are trying to watch the movie? Great marketing! (That was sarcasm in case you couldn't tell!)

You Had Me at Hello

Jerry Maguire

Director: Cameron Crowe

Cast: Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding Jr., Renee Zellweger, Regina King, Jay Mohr, Bonnie Hunt, Jerry O'Connell, Kelly Preston, Jonathan Lipnicki

Released: December 13, 1996

Oscar nominations: 

Best Picture (lost to The English Patient)

Best Actor - Tom Cruise Cruise (lost to Geoffrey Rush for Shine)

Best Supporting Actor - Cuba Gooding Jr. (Won)

Best Original Screenplay - Cameron Crowe (lost to Joel and Ethan Coen for Fargo)

Best Editing (lost to The English Patient)

There's a lot going on in Jerry Maguire. This movie is two hours and a half hours and it does lag at times. Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) is a sports agent who works at a huge agency, Sports Management International, who represent the best and brightest in sports. He is all about his career and making sure his clients are the best at their profession and making sure they have all the endorsements to make them even more money. Jerry, narrating the movie, tells the audience that he is missing something in his life and has an epiphany. He thinks instead of all the agents taking in as many clients as they can, that they should only take a few clients so that they can have more one on one time with them and get to know them better and really understand what they need and want. He writes a 25 page "mission statement" and delivers it to all the agents at SMI. This results in him getting fired. He tries desperately to keep as many clients as he can, but loses the majority of them to a sleazy agent, Bob Sugar (Jay Mohr), who fired Jerry. Jerry manages to keep two clients: Frank Cushman (Jerry O'Connell), an up and coming star quarterback (think Tom Brady) and Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.), a wide receiver for the Arizona Cardinals. I know nothing about football so I'm not really sure what a wide receiver does...not really sure what a quarterback does either. I also thought the cardinals were a St. Louis team...but I guess that's baseball. I didn't know there was a cardinals football team. Rod has two kids with a third on the way. He is a spokesperson for a mattress company, but his wife, Marcee (Regina King), tells Jerry that  they want Rod to have the four major advertising spots which are shoes, cars, clothing lines, and soft drinks. That's where the big money comes in. While Jerry is on the phone with Rod, he loses all of his potential clients because they are hanging up since Bob Sugar is getting to them faster. This is the famous scene where Rod tells Jerry, "Show me the money" and Jerry screams, "SHOW ME THE MONEY!" while in his office and everyone is looking at him like he's a lunatic.

"Show me the money!" is just one of the many quotable lines that help make this movie memorable. We also remember the more sappy, "You had me at hello" and "You complete me." (The "You complete me" line was a call back to when Jerry and Dorothy are in the elevator with a deaf couple who are signing to each other, and Dorothy, who knows sign language, tells Jerry that the guy had signed "You complete me" to his girlfriend.) And there's also "Help me help you" and "Did you know that the human head weighs eight pounds?" This is the movie where everybody in the world learned (and still remembers!) that fact.

The "romance" between Jerry and Dorothy (Renee Zellweger...I think it's fair to say that this is the movie that helped launch her career) is interesting at best. At the start of the movie, he is engaged to another woman (Kelly Preston). Dorothy works as a secretary (I think?) at SMI and has a crush on Jerry. She read his "mission statement" and tells him she liked what she read and believes in him. When he is fired and leaves the company, Jerry asks if anybody is going to join him and like an idiot, Dorothy tells him that she'll go with him. I don't know if this is suppose to be romantic, but I thought she was really stupid for doing that. Okay, she probably doesn't get paid much at this job, but it's better than going somewhere where you'll get paid less...or more likely, nothing at all. (I never did understand exactly how that worked...did Jerry ever pay her out of his pocket?) She has a six-year-old son, why is she leaving this place that at least gives her health benefits? And, at this time, she knows Jerry is engaged to another woman. But over time Jerry and Dorothy become close and Dorothy is thrilled that her son, Ray (Jonathan Lipnicki), really likes Jerry and almost treats him like a dad. In a way, I think Dorothy was looking more for a father for her son than a husband for herself. It's good she was looking out for her kid, but it's almost as soon as she saw Jerry and Ray bond, she wanted it to make it work with Jerry so her son could have a father who really cared for him. It's even obvious that Jerry prefers Ray over Dorothy because there's a scene where they're in bed with the TV on and Dorothy is trying to talk to Jerry about something important and Ray comes in asking if he can watch TV with them. Dorothy says, "Not now", but Jerry says, "Sure, come on in." And the kid comes in. Oh, I should mention that Jerry broke up with his fiance and married Dorothy after they go out on, like, one date. I did love it when Dorothy's sister, Laurel (Bonnie Hunt), gives her the advice of, "Don't cry at the start of the date...cry at the end like I do." Haha! Because Dorothy was crying because she just so overwhelmed with happiness. 

Jerry has had many girlfriends. While he's great at friendship, he is horrible with intimacy. No wonder he and Dorothy break it off about a week after they got married (when they had only known each other for two weeks prior...gee no wonder it didn't work out! And I had no idea how much time had passed in this movie!).

This was my third time seeing the movie. It had been quite awhile since I'd last seen it. I remember enjoying it the first time I saw it. I don't really remember the second time...it was probably on TV and I was just casually watching it. But this time, I was kinda bored. There were still some enjoyable moments (like the one when Rod is in a public place (the airport, I think?) and two girls come up to him thinking he's Hootie from Hootie and the Blowfish!), but mostly I was wondering when it was going to end. I remember thinking how cute Ray was the first time I saw it, but now I just found him too saccharine. He was just there to be cute and sprout useless information. And help Dorothy score a man. I found myself more invested and interested in the Jerry and Rod relationship rather than the Jerry and Dorothy one. I totally cringed at the scene where Dorothy is talking to Laurel in the kitchen after Jerry has spent the night and is babbling on about how much she loves him and she "loves him for the man he wants to be and the man he almost is!" and, of course, Jerry is in the hall eavesdropping on them and Ray says really loudly, "Hi Jerry!" Well, what was she thinking? He was in the house. Why not wait to tell her sister AFTER he is gone. Duh. Dorothy may be the "oldest 26 year old" as she calls herself, but she's also the dumbest! 

As for Cameron Crowe movies, I prefer Almost Famous to this one. 

Seeing is Believing

The Polar Express

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Cast: Tom Hanks, Nona Gaye, Peter Scolari, Michael Jeter

Released: November 10, 2004

Viewed in theaters: December 23, 2004

Oscar nominations:

Best Sound Mixing (lost to Ray)

Best Sound Editing (lost to The Incredibles)

Best Original Song - "Believe" written by Glen Ballard and Alan Silvestri (lost to The Motorcycle Diaries for "Al Otro Lado Del Rio" written by Jorge Drexler)

I remember reading this book by Chris Van Allsburg around the Christmas season when I was younger and loved looking at the beautiful illustrations. This book was so popular that one year my brother and I (and I think our friends also received the same things from their parents) each got a sleigh bell. As you remember from the story, if you can hear a sleigh bell from Santa' sleigh, then that means you believe in Santa. Well, of course anyone can hear a bell....unless you are deaf, so that would be a very cruel gift to give a deaf child! I'm sure I was very proud I could hear my bell! I haven't read or looked at in years, but I'm sure my parents still have it somewhere in their house. I've refreshed my memory by looking at it on Amazon.com since it lets you look at a few of the pages inside the book. The movie does a very good job of creating the same color palette the book uses and it's like the story coming to life. Since the book is only 32 pages, you know they embellished to add length to the movie. Since I haven't read the book in so long, I'm not totally sure what was added, but I have my guesses.

Tom Hanks voices multiple characters in the movie, just changing his voice slightly so each character has their own sound. He voices the conductor, Santa Claus, the hobo ghost (or it is a ghost hobo?), the boy's father, and the main character as a grown up narrating the story. We never learn his name (IMDb has him listed as "Hero Boy" in the credits) but we learn he is having doubts about Santa Claus which is why he is picked up by the Polar Express which stops right in front of his home on Christmas Eve. I would be scared s***less if some huge, rumbling freight train pulled up right in front of my house! Miraculously, the boy's parents or younger sister don't seem affected by the train! He is hesitant to board the train when the conductor invites him on and the train leaves without him and he runs after it at the last minute and boards. His was the second to last house the train stopped at. The last stop is for a boy named Billy, a couple years younger than the narrator, who also hesitates to board (I guess these kids were all taught about Stranger Danger!), but decides he wants to get on when the Polar Express starts chugging along again. He sits alone in the train car connected behind the one all the kids are in.

Even though the train has many children riding it on the way to the North Pole, there are only a few children that the film focuses on. Besides the main character and Billy, there is an African-American girl in a pink nightgown (I should point out that all the children are in their pajamas and robes - which hardly seems to be proper Arctic attire if you ask me!) who befriends the narrator and a really annoying nerdy, know-it-all-kid who has one of those grating voices. I would have loved to throw him off the train! I don't remember if they were in the book (I don't even remember if Billy was in the book - I really need to read it again!), but I'm guessing they were added for the movie.

There's a scene in the book where the children are served hot chocolate (I know this for a fact because I saw a picture of it on Amazon!) This scene is also in the movie, but there's this really weird song and dance that doesn't quite look right. It looks like they filmed the children in the train and that looks fine and normal, but then when they add the dancing wait staff and their hot chocolate machine, it looks like they were sloppily pasted on the "normal" photo. It just looks very jarring to me and the waiters are doing these awkward flips that don't look natural at all....even for a computer animated movie. The song is pretty bad too, if you want to call it a song. I do love the song called "Believe" at the end credits that Josh Groban sings. Very beautiful Christmas song. I wasn't familiar with the song that the three kids sing when they're outside the train looking at the stars.

Having a ticket is a very big deal when one boards the Polar Express so when the young girl goes into the next car with the assistance of the conductor to give Billy a cup of hot chocolate, our main character sees that she has left her ticket on her seat. Instead of hanging on to it and keeping it safe for her until she returns, he decides he needs to return it to her right that minute. Yes, I realize this scene is here to fill out the movie more, but the rational part of me doesn't understand it. While trying to cross the cars, the blowing wind whips the ticket out of his hand and it goes on a little adventure through the snowy woods. At one point, a bird catches it and tries to feed it to her babies. Um, I'm pretty sure birds know that paper isn't food! However, the ticket makes its way back. This whole thing would have been avoided if the dang kid had just kept the ticket in a safe place! But, nooo!

There's also a subplot with a hobo living on top of the train who's really a ghost. I'm pretty sure he's not in the book. The kid is up there with him for a good ten to fifteen minutes in nothing but his robe and slippers...he's not even wearing a hat or mittens. One would think he would get frost bite, or at the very least, be shivering, but nope! He seems to be just fine. I guess one doesn't get cold when one is a computer animated character!

If I were a little kid and saw this movie, I think I would have reservations about boarding the Polar Express. That train is a death trap! It nearly crashes several times while going down steep inclines, it nearly falls into cracking ice, the main character almost gets killed when he's on top of the train with the hobo and they're skiing along the cars and nearly smash into a tunnel...and don't get me started when they get to the North Pole, another death trap destination! The main character, the girl, and Billy get separated from the group when they get back on the train and that train car separates from the others. They end up on a swiveling platform that leads to different tunnels, but each tunnel is separated by a bridge over a deep chasm where you will certainly fall to your death if you fall! There is a huge, swirling slide that actually looks like a lot of fun, but you're moving so fast you're getting lots of g-forces so that could kill you if you get out of control and crash. There are a lot of ways one could die in this movie! Oh, and let's not forget when they're in the air blimp controlled by the elves and nearly crash in that!

I love how the elf to kid ratio is like 1000 to 1. When Santa Claus makes his big appearance, all the elves cheer and applaud and act like he's some big rock star even though they see him every other day of the year! If I were one of those kids, I would have been pissed at the elves! They're standing one on top of the other and nobody can see over them. I'd be like, Hey, let me get a look at Mr. C.; you guys get to see him ALL THE TIME BECAUSE YOU LIVE HERE! But of course, Santa comes over to the main character and the other kids and greets them personally and our protagonist is chosen to be given the first gift of Christmas. Which is a sleigh bell he loses because there's a hole in his robe pocket. If I remember right, this was part of the book. Luckily, Santa knows where he lives. Although Santa's big red bag is heaping with presents, it certainly didn't look like it was enough presents for all the kids of the world.

The Steven Tyler as a rocking elf was totally unnecessary and dated the movie, though I suppose some people would consider Aerosmith timeless. And it would make sense Steven Tyler is an elf since his daughter is the elfin princess, haha! I thought the scene where the elves and kids are singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" was really cute.

Trading Holidays

Switchmas

Director: Sue Corcoran

Cast: Elliot Gould, David DeLuise, Angela DiMarco, Elijah Nelson, Justin Howell

Released: November 1, 2012

This is another Christmas gem I found on Netflix. It reminded me of a kids' version of The Holiday. Remember that movie where Kate Winslet lives in London and Cameron Diaz lives in L.A. and they decide to switch houses for the holidays? This wasn't a TV movie though, it was a small independent movie. I watched the trailer for it and it was called All I Want is Christmas. I guess that was an earlier name for it. That name is way too generic and Switchmas is much more clever and more memorable. 

In this film, 12 year old Ira Finklestein is a Jewish kid who lives in Hollywood with his movie producer dad and party planner mom. He loves Christmas and wants to do all the traditional things people who celebrate Christmas do around the holidays such as decorate a Christmas tree, sing Christmas carols, and look at Christmas lights. He is looking forward to a trip to Aspen for winter vacation because this will be the first time in his life he will see snow. However his dad gets an opportunity to make his big break as a director as he gets a big "name" to headline his weird sci-fi holiday movie. They have to cancel because Jennifer Cameo can only film during that time. Since both parents will be busy they decide to send Ira to Florida to visit his grandparents who he hasn't seen in a few years. 

Meanwhile, Mikey Amato is a kid the same age as Ira who lives in Chicago. He lives with his single mother and since she has to work over the holiday break, she's sending him to Washington where her sister lives with her family. Mikey hasn't seen his aunt, uncle, or three cousins for 5 years. His dad can't take him because he'll be with his new girlfriend. 

Ira has a stopover in Chicago and he meets Mikey in a room in the airport where both boys are wearing passes so the airline knows they are unaccompanied minors. They start chatting and Mikey says he wishes he could go somewhere warm and Ira gets jealous when Mikey tells him he's going to a town called Christmastown! What could be better for a kid enamoured with Christmas? Since both boys are the same age and both have dark hair, Ira gets the idea for them to switch jackets and passes and gives Mikey his glasses (luckily his mom gave him his extra pair). They also exchange phone numbers. It's off to Florida for Mikey and off to Christmastown for Ira.

Even though Ira's grandparents haven't seen him for a few years and Mikey's aunt, uncle, and cousins haven't seen him in a few years, I found it hard to believe that they didn't immediately know they had the wrong kid because you think they would get school photos each year or have Facebook. But both kids go with each family without question.

Christmastown is the kind of place Ira has dreamed about going to for years. There's snow, everything is decorated with lights, his "family" has a huge Christmas tree, and he gets to go to the Christmas carnival the next afternoon with his "cousins". I thought there was going to be an awkward moment when Ira gets a crush on his "cousin" Claire who's about his age, you know like a George Michael Bluth/Maebe Funke situation. He never gets a crush on her; if anything, Claire seems to have the crush on her "cousin" - and she really thinks he's her cousin! But she does find out his secret a few days before the cat's out of the bag and they're just really good friends.

Ira still celebrates Chanukah every night by creating a makeshift menorah. He bribes his oldest "cousin", Jessica, into taking him, Claire, and Kyle to the Christmas carnival by giving her $50, all of his spending money his parents gave him for the trip. He has a credit card his dad gave him that he's only suppose to use in emergencies and since all his spending money is gone and there are tons of shops to buy Christmas ornaments, trinkets, and goodies, he declares this an emergency. 

At one store that sells all holiday things, he buys a mini menorah. Claire comes into the store when the saleswoman is wising him a happy Chanukah and calling him Ira, the name on the card. Claire questions him about that and be says Ira is his dad's name even though Claire knows him as "Uncle Steve". After a bully, Jack the Jerk, trashes the items Ira bought and has his dog chase him (it was established earlier in the movie that Ira is afraid of dogs), he calls Mikey, telling him he wants to trade back, but Mikey is having a grand old time in sunny Florida with his "grandparents". 

After getting a pep talk and some inspiration from a Jewish Santa, Ira gets the idea to put on a holiday pageant show after Claire shows him her secret spot, an old rundown stage. This is when he reveals to her that he is not actually her cousin and he knows about productions because his dad is in the movie business. They began working on the script (Claire even writes her own song) and casting for the pageant. Everything is ruined, however, when Jack the Jerk and his bully friends have totally trashed the stage and all the props the day of the play. The night before, Ira and Claire were putting up fliers for it and happened to come across Jack's trailer park home where he lives with his mean father. Right away we figure out why Jack's such a bully. His father is threatening to take Killer, Jack's dog, back to the pound because he can't afford to feed another mouth. Feeling sorry for Jack, the two kids take Killer back to Claire's house so he doesn't have to go to the pound (and Ira finds out he's actually a very sweet dog). Jack, not realizing they were only trying to save his dog, thinks they kidnapped him even though he told him to run away. (He saw Killer walk off with Ira and Claire). This is why he trashes their stage play. But after Claire gives him a good lecture, he and his friends help out with the production.

Meanwhile in Florida, Mikey is pretending he knows the words to a Jewish song (he just inserts random words into the medley) and is enjoying his spare time at the pool, the beach, or the tennis courts with his "grandparents". He falls off a fence while climbing it and breaks his arm. His grandparents call the parents and they fly out to Florida where they eventually find out that their son is not there. They find out where Ira is and the parents, the grandparents, and Mikey all fly to Washington just in time for the play. It seems a little implausible that Ira's parents could fly from L.A. to Florida to Washington in one day what with having to go through airport security and driving to their locations and the airports and still making it in time for the play, but whatever. Mikey's mom is also there because her sister thought it would be nice to fly her out so she could spend the holidays with her son. Even though Ira has been found out, the play goes on and it's a big hit and his father is very proud of him.

This was a very cute, charming little Christmas (and Jewish!) film. The only thing I really didn't like was when they spent time with Ira's father and mother on the set of the movie with their difficult star. I found those scenes to be boring and wanted to get back to the kids, especially Ira's story. The tagline of the movie is "Jingle all the oh vey!" which cracks me up

A Very Short Engagement

Holiday Engagement

Director: Jim Fall

Cast: Bonnie Somerville, Shelley Long, Haylie Duff

Aired: November 28, 2011

I can't help myself; I'm addicted to these TV Christmas movies that can be found on Netflix. I've actually watched more movies than I will be reviewing. Some are just okay in that they aren't even that great (or that bad!) to deserve a review. They're just middle of the road holiday movies. There have been a couple I've started then stopped watching after ten minutes because I didn't want to waste the time on them.

Holiday Engagement is entertaining and it's also kind of bad at the same time which makes it a perfect movie to review! It's also the first one I've watched that takes places during Thanksgiving rather than Christmas as you may have noticed by the air date. Although there are several mentions of Christmas. This TV movie aired on the Hallmark Channel, but wasn't as schmaltzy as one may think. 

Hilary (Bonnie Somerville) is going to her parents' home for Thanksgiving. She is suppose to be bringing her fiance, Jason, who her family hasn't met yet. They've been dating seven months and got engaged a month ago. (Okay, if you get engaged within less than a year of dating, I feel like that's a warning sign!) Hilary lives in L.A. and I'm not sure where her folks live, but it can't be too far away since she drove there. Hilary's fiance is a lawyer and therefore a workaholic and he's not sure if he can make it and she tells him he has to because she needs to prove to her family that he's real! Apparently her mother, Meredith (Shelley Long) thinks that Bonnie has made him up! 

A few days before they are to arrive at her parents', Jason breaks up with Hilary, telling her that she's been a "mistake." Ouch! He tells her they are not compatible and he has plans to move across the country for his work and she has reservations about leaving California. She tells her friend that she cannot face her family without bringing her fiancé and her friend gives her the idea of getting a guy through Mate.com (I think that's what it was called) and bribe him with the two tickets she won to Mexico on a radio show she gave the right answer to to a trivia question. Naturally, Hilary is appalled by this idea and does not want to bring a potential murderer home to her family but when her mom leaves her a message for her, telling her how she hopes she's not disappointed "this time", Hilary posts an ad for a fake fiance.

Now earlier in the movie there had been some foreshadowing as Hilary, a writer, and her friend (the same one who came up with the idea for the ad), a photographer, are interviewing people about their jobs...or something, I really don't remember. They interview a guy who's dressed as a cell phone trying to get people to come to the store that sells them. He told them he was an actor. Well, it doesn't take an idiot to figure out he's going to come back into play here and will be the one to answer the ad. Especially when the audience sees how attractive he is once he takes off his headpiece. He is David and David is the one to answer the ad and Hilary hires him since she already met him and he's the most normal out of all the weirdos that applied for the job.

They manage to con her family although there are awkward moments when Hilary's dad is asking "Jason" for some legal advice and David is not too familiar with that aspect of his new identity. I think there was something shady going on with her dad cause he be asking some shady questions! 

Hilary's mom, who is pushing for all her daughters to be married (one is and the other two are engaged) asks her if she and Jason have set a date and feeling the pressure, Hilary tells her they are getting married on December 21st and this makes her mother over the moon happy. Obviously she panicked, but WTF? Why not tell her that they have set the date for Christmas of NEXT year so you don't have to worry about getting fake married in less than three weeks? What an idiot! Also, if I were David, I would be very afraid that some strange woman wants to fake marry me. 

Hilary's mom is the worst. She's one of those people who think women need to get married and not only that, marry a guy who has a good job so that he can support her daughters. She set up her youngest daughter with a foot doctor even though she was in love with a waiter, but I guess she broke up her daughter and the waiter and got her to start dating the doctor who she says is a nice guy, but she's not in love with him. Of course, Meredith is happy that Hilary is getting married to a lawyer. But when it looks like Jason has bailed on her, Meredith gets angry with Hilary and tells her that she has nothing to show for herself. Sheesh, what a bitch! But Jason comes back...I forget why he left in the first place, obviously this movie didn't stay with me that long! 

If you think that Hilary and David fall in love over the course of this Thanksgiving weekend, you would be...correct! (Gee, who didn't see that coming?) And then the REAL Jason comes to apologize to Hilary (I had totally called that one), but Hilary dumps him to be with David. She also patches things up with her mom who apologizes for the way she acted. And the kicker is that she and David actually get married on the December 21st date they set up. Really? Like, you couldn't date for a year, then getting married...like normal people? 

A Christmas Crap

A Christmas Kiss

Director: John Stimpson

Cast: Elisabeth Rohm and the rest are people you don't know

Aired: December 11, 2011

This movie wasn't as good or as charming as the other two I reviewed and I think I know why. Unlike the other two, which were from ABC Family, this TV Christmas movie was from the ION channel which I had never heard of. It wasn't very good, so I don't recommend this one. In this one, some unknown brunette actress plays Wendy who is the assistant to the Bitch Boss from Hell, Priscilla (Elisabeth Rohm) who runs an interior designing company. 

We first meet Wendy as she is getting ready to go out on the town with her two friends. One is an aspiring actress and the other is an aspiring makeup artist. The makeup artist is putting makeup on Wendy and good God, has she ever heard the motto, "Less is more?" No, because she puts on GOBS of silver eyeshadow and glitter on Wendy. She looks completely ridiculous. Wendy's boss calls her and wants her to run to her apartment and turn on the heat and the lights so it will be ready when Priscilla gets back from her vacation. After she does that, she's on the elevator when a handsome stranger enters and they share a romantic kiss that later Wendy will describe to her friends "as the most memorable kiss she's ever have in her entire life!!!" Ugh. Apparently, the elevator broke and they both thought they were going to die so they shared a passionate kiss, I don't know. It was really forced if you ask me. 

But wouldn't you know it, the next day Wendy is called to Priscilla's apartment to help her again with something and Priscilla says she needs to get out before her boyfriend arrives, only her boyfriend has arrived early...and it's the guy Wendy kissed in the elevator!! But the guy, Andrew, doesn't even recognize her because she's wearing glasses! :::GASP::: What is it with people being completely transformed when they're wearing glasses (or not wearing them)? But to be fair, she also wasn't wearing the GOBS and HEAPS and MOUNDS of glittery eye shadow. You would think Wendy would be concerned that this man randomly kissed her in the elevator when he's dating another woman, but no! She thinks this is true love and she and Andrew are destined to be together and she tells her friends who also agree. The only thing is, Andrew is planning to propose to Priscilla! Oh, no!!  

Andrew has asked Priscilla to help decorate his home in Boston for a Christmas event he's putting on where he's invited all the Boston theater production people to help raise money for underprivileged children....or something. I'm not totally sure. To be honest, I wasn't always paying attention to this movie as I was also folding my laundry and wrapping Christmas presents. Priscilla tells Wendy that this is their number one priority and they're not even going to worry about their other clients because a lot of  important people from Boston will be from this party. She has found an engagement ring in Andrew's coat pocket and also knows that he is going to propose to her at this event.

Priscilla is such a huge bitch that it's almost comical what a big bitch she is. Take this great example: Wendy comes over to show Priscilla these drawings she's done for the Christmas designs which she think Andrew will like. He's a fan of A Christmas Carol, so she has this idea to have three Christmas trees: one representing Christmas past, one for Christmas present, and one for Christmas future. And the children from the homeless youth foundation can make the ornaments for the future tree because children are our future. Oh, how precious. Who does she thinks she is, Whitney Houston? So Bitch Boss is like, "OMG, those are the most terrible and horrific drawings I've ever seen! Andrew will hate them! You are such an imbecile! I hate children! Ugh!" Then Andrew comes in and Priscilla shows him her drawings which he says are great, but he was thinking of something more tradtional, so what does she do??? You guessed it: she hands him Wendy's drawings with WENDY SITTING RIGHT THERE and tells him that she had a second choice for him "just in case" and of course he loves them. She even tells him that the children can make the ornaments for the future tree. Oh, no, she did not! Oh, snap!  Rightly, Wendy is furious about this and blows up at Bitch Boss when Andrew leaves but Priscilla tells her that since Wendy works for her, then they are HER designs as well. What a beey-otch.

Wendy gets to spend more time with Andrew when Priscilla has to leave on an impromptu trip to NYC to see her plastic surgeon after she was smacked in the face by a decorative lamp post when Wendy and her makeup artist friend are helping Priscilla decorate Andrew's house. During this time alone, she goes on a carriage ride with Andrew, goes ice skating with Andrew, learns they share the same interest in literature and theater, and watches Christmas movies with Andrew where they fall asleep on his house only to have Priscilla find them the next day snuggled up with each other on the couch. Ooh, scandal! 

Can I just say that Elisabeth Rohm is a horrible actress? I call her Robotic Kate Hudson because she resembles Kate Hudson a bit, but she talks in this monotone voice. Haha, I used to listen to this podcast for the TV show, Angel, called Redemption Cast and she had a recurring role as "Kate" a police officer and love interest for the "vampire with a soul". Everyone on the podcast hated her and it was so hilarious. They asked the one guy who had seen the show before, at the end of the season, if she comes back and he said no and they're all like, "Oh thank God!" 

Anyway, back to the crappy movie. Andrew eventually finds out what a bitch Prisilla is and doesn't propose to her and she throws a hissy fit and fires Wendy, but Wendy ends up okay as Andrew starts dating her and they eventually get married. Gag! Skip this one! 

They're singing Deck the Halls, but it's not like Christmas at all

The Mistle-Tones!

Director: Paul Hoen

Cast: Tia Mowry, Tori Spelling, Reginald VelJohnson

Aired: December 9, 2012

This is another ABC Family and Cinematic Sara presents. I couldn't resist; I had to watch and review another ABC Family TV Christmas movie! This time it was a movie that took advantage of the popularity of Pitch Perfect which was released earlier in 2012. All I knew about it was that Tia Mowry's character is a singer who forms a group and challenges her rival for the chance to sing at the mall on Christmas Eve. My first thought was, Her rival is going to be played by Tamara Mowry and she's going to find out she has a long lost twin!!! Just like in Sister, Sister! Remember that show from the '90s? Was that part of the TGIF lineup? Was it even on ABC? I don't even remember. Didn't the more laid-back, don't give a crap attitude twin live with the strict, uptight adoptive father (Tim Reid) and the more studious, organized, and rational twin live with the ditzy, unorganized, and fly by the seat of her pants adoptive mother? (Played by national treasure, Jackee (Jac-kay!)) But like I said, I haven't seen that show in years! But alas, Tia's sister (sister!) isn't in this movie.

So Tia plays Holly (oh, movie, you did not give our main character a very Christmas-themed name!) who is looking forward to trying out for a group called the Snow Belles who sing at the mall's annual Deck the Mall show every Christmas Eve. This means a lot to Holly because her mom was a Snow Belle and she has since passed. I can't even remember if they addressed how or why her mom died. She barely makes it to the audition on time and the head Snow Belle, Marcy (played by Tori Spelling...you should have heard me squeal when I saw her name in the credits...I am always overjoyed to see any of my BH 90210 alums in anything! It also made me laugh because I have a longstanding joke with my brother about her because he cannot stand her!) doesn't want her to audition even though she still has ten minutes left and belts out "O Holy Night" anyway. I am very impressed with Tia Mowry's voice unless they dubbed in someone else's, but I assume it's her. I mean, she's no Adele (but who is?), but it's obvious she should easily make it into the group. 

However, Marcy calls her the next day to tell her she did not make it in and they decided to go with another girl. This is because Marcy wants to be the best singer in the group and letting in Holly would change that fact! Holly goes to the mall and asks the manager (who is also doing double duty as the mall Santa...they must be really short of help!) and gives him the idea of instead of having the Snow Belles sing, they should have a competition where different groups can sing the week before Christmas Eve and the one who wins will get the honor to perform at the real show. Holly realizes she needs to get a group, so she quickly gets some people from her work: her goofball friend and cool dude AJ; the chubby Asian, Larry who everyone thinks is gay but is surprised to learn he's married to a woman...a tall, thin, and beautiful woman, no less!;  and Bernie, the nerdy redhead in HR who has the "voice of an angel". 

Marcy, who has a spy and knows that Holly has talked to the manager about letting different groups try out for Deck the Mall, goes to him when he's once again playing Santa and threatens him when he has a little girl on his lap. It is hilarious because we see through the POV of the young girl as "Santa" covers her ears and we hear a long muffled string of expletives come from Marcy. 

We see a montage of the Snow Belles and Holly's new group singing and dancing to "The 12 Days of Christmas" and I did not like the way it was arranged! They just totally butchered the way it is usually sung and why mess with something that doesn't need to be fixed? My favorite version of that song is sung by Ray Conniff and random females singers. It's a very festive song. Their voices are decent (but it was hard to tell since I hated the arrangement so much!), but their choreography is way off and they can never stay in sync.

One evening Holly crashes her car into a snowdrift and goes into a bar where they're having karaoke that night ("Yule love it!" proclaims the sign) while she waits for help to arrive. An announcer tells everyone it's time for the "King of Karaoke" and we hear a guy with a great voice start singing "Burnin' Love" and we don't see him until Holly looks up. Right away I KNEW it was her boss, Nick. He's a young and attractive guy, but he's a hard-ass with no sense of fun. He's dressed in jeans and a leather jacket and going around the bar singing to all the women. Holly's "Oh. My. God!" reaction is hilarious. Seeing him in this kind of environment is completely foreign to her. She confronts him afterwards and he is totally embarrassed and she blackmails him into helping her group because she has taken a video of the whole performance and threatens to publish it on the Internet and since he doesn't want anyone to see this fun side of him, he grudgingly agrees. He tells the group they need a name and after a few lame names like "Sled Leppin", "The Backstreet Joys", and "Snow Time" (it's like Show Time, but it's Snow Time!), Holly comes up with the Mistle-Tones, which wasn't a huge reveal since it's the name of the movie! 

A romance blossoms between Holly and Nick (and who didn't see that one coming? I wasn't born yesterday, ABC Family!) as they start to spend more time with each other. She eventually deletes the karaoke video (I at least hoped she saved it onto her computer!). Holly goes to sign up for the Christmas Duel at the mall and there are already five pages with about twenty groups on each page. Good thing we only see snippets of each group because that would take forever! (We actually only see three groups before The Mistle-Tones and The Snow Belles perform.) I was hoping for a Battle of the Groups sing-off ala Pitch Perfect where each group has to come up with a Christmas song on the whim and perform it in a certain style. That would have been amazing! But that might have been a little difficult if there were 100 groups trying out! Well, the mall manager says there's only 20 groups trying out, but judging from those five pages, it looked like a lot more! We see the Chest Notes, a group with five buff guys who are shirtless and only wearing jeans and Santa Hats and bowties swaying their butts and flexing their pecs..it's like they walked out of Magic Mike and into an ABC Family movie! Then we see a white skinny guy who calls himself Ludi-Chris Kringle and he raps "Away in a Manger" and it's like, no. Then we see some tweens perform an awful rendition of "O Christmas Tree." 

The Mistle-Tones are up next and are waiting for Nick, but he isn't there. Why? Because last night he was offered a job to oversee the overseas department in Asia...or something, I don't know, but the workaholic chose the job over Holly and staying in...whatever town they live in. But still the show must go on and they sing "Winter Wonderland" which was also the song Holly sang with Nick last night at the Office Christmas Party. AJ had brought in a karaoke machine and Nick decided it was time to share his special talent with the people he works with. 

However, even though they did a fine job, they weren't good enough to beat The Snow Belles singing "All I Want For Christmas Is You." How much residual money do you think Mariah Carey has gotten from that one song alone? Obviously the most famous example it's used in is Love, Actually but there are so many Christmas TV movies out there and I'm sure this isn't the only movie that uses that song. She probably has a summer home in the Bahamas that she bought just with "All I Want For Christmas is You" money alone. 

Speaking of people with money, the Snow Belles must have a lot of it because they wear these beautiful red intricate gowns at the duel, but then at the actual Deck the Mall performance, they are all wearing green beaded dresses! Feeling low that she's not able to sing (she really wanted to sing the closing song her mom would always end with: "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)". But as she's walking through the streets with her family and co-workers, a float comes by and it's Nick singing...you guessed it, "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." He's singing the U2 version. I like that song just fine, but honestly, I like the Mariah Carey version better. I love "All I Want For Christmas is You" as much as the next person, but it drives me crazy that she has so many other great Christmas songs that are never played and this one is a great example. Nick has decided to come back to this town he lives in because he realized he didn't want the job after all and he wants to stay here and be with Holly so Holly joins him and sings with him and everyone is gathered around their float and even the SnowBelles (minus Marcy cuz she's a huge bitch!) come out to watch the fun and festivities.