Adventure is Out There

Up

Directors: Pete Docter and Bob Peterson

Voice Talent: Ed Asner, Christoper Plummer, Jordan Nagai, Delroy Lindo, Bob Peterson

Released: May 29, 2009

Viewed in theaters: June 7, 2009

Oscar nominations:

Best Picture (lost to The Hurt Locker)

Best Animated Feature (won)

Best Score - Michael Giacchino (won)

Best Original Screenplay - Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, and Tom McCarthy (lost to Mark Boal for The Hurt Locker)

Best Sound Editing (lost to The Hurt Locker)

I propose a challenge for everyone reading this. I challenge you to watch this movie and not cry within the first ten to fifteen minutes. Or at the very least, not get a lump in your throat. I obtained the lump in my throat during the Carl and Ellie montage when we discover that Ellie isn't able to have children and by that point, I knew the waterworks were about to start. Sure enough, the tears are starting to form when (a much elderly by then) Carl is helping Ellie up a hill to have a picnic, then the next thing we know she's in a hospital bed, then he's at her funeral and the tears are flowing by then. But guess what? That scene doesn't even evoke the most emotion out of me; oh no, there will be another scene later on in the movie that will make me cry even harder if that's even possible! Those Pixar movies really know how to mess with your emotions, don't they?

Up is probably the most famous for its first ten minutes. Even if you've never seen it (for shame!), you're probably well aware of the opening montage as that's all anybody ever talks about when it comes to this movie. While watching this, I couldn't help asking myself such questions as, How does this man fly his house with only balloons attached to it? How does he get said balloons to fit through his chimney (and there are thousands of them!)? When they land in South America on top of the cliff where Paradise Falls is located, how does Carl, an eighty-year-old man, mind you, have the strength to keep hold of his house via the hose as though he's just carrying a balloon? (I mean, I guess he is carrying a balloon, along with several hundred others and his HOUSE!) Why does Russell's mom seem not to be worried about him? Why is Russell himself very lackadaisical about being on the outside of the blimp and nearly gets killed several times as he has many close calls of falling to his death, but all he can say is, "Whee, this is fun!"/"This is so cool!", even though he is scared to death when he's on Carl's front porch when the house starts its ascent (and he's much more safe when he's on that porch than any other time in the movie!) There are definitely some scratch-your-head moments (and there are more I will point out), but I really can't quibble about that. After all, this is the same studio who gave us sentient toys and talking fish and a rat who cooks at a restaurant in Paris. And whatever anybody says, this movie is still more believable than any of the Cars movies. (I just don't understand how a society of vehicles work. How do they eat? Is fuel their food? How are new cars made? Why are there no humans in that world?)

We first meet our protagonist, Carl Fredrickson, as a young wide-eyed introverted boy who loves watching movies about adventures, his favorite being about his hero, the famed explorer Charles Muntz who has discovered a skeleton of some sort of "beast", but has been accused of fabricating it. He vows to return to Paradise Falls, the place in South America where he discovered the fossils, and find the creature. He has a blimp called The Spirit of Adventure where he travels with his many canine companions. Carl is about eight when he watches these documentary films and Charles looks to be in his thirties; maybe in his twenties at the youngest. Just keep that in mind.

Carl meets another explorer enthusiast and Charles Muntz fan, Ellie, a loquacious girl who graciously invites him to join her adventure club. She shows him her adventure book where she tells him she plans to one day follow in the footsteps of their hero and travel to South America where she wants to live in her clubhouse on top of Paradise Falls. She doesn't know how she's going to get there and Carl suggests a blimp just like Muntz has. Ellie thinks that's a great idea and makes him "cross his heart" that he'll take them there someday and he promises he will. I love how she describes South America - "It's like America, but it's south!"

They form a friendship which will inevitably turn into an unbreakable bond and the two marry and this is when we get our montage and where we need to get our Kleenex handy! We see where the balloons come in because they both work at the zoo; Ellie looks to work in the aviary (she has a bird on her shoulder) and Carl sells balloons. They create a fund for their South America trip, but life keeps happening and they have to dip into their savings to fix a broken car or repairs on the house or anything of that sort. (Not sure why they kept smashing the jar with a hammer when they needed to get their money when they could have just as easily turned the jar over and poured the money out!)
They are getting older and Carl realizes that he still has not taken Ellie on her adventure so he purchases airline tickets to Peru which he plans to surprise her with. Alas, it is too late and Ellie will never get to go on her adventure of a lifetime. And Pixar is making everybody cry buckets.

Carl (voiced by Ed Asner)  is now a curmudgeon who refuses to leave his house even though the other homes around it have been torn down to build a new development with much larger buildings. The contractor keeps bribing Carl with money to move, but he refuses, so they just keep building around him. I'm not really sure how something like that works, but I would think if your neighborhood is being torn down, you would HAVE to move (and hopefully they would compensate you nicely). I don't think you could just stay there. But, remember, this is a movie with talking dogs.

After a small incident where Carl injures a construction worker in a fit of rage, he is sent to court where he is deemed "a pubic menace" and is sentenced to move to the retirement home, Shady Oaks. (Wonder if it's a sister company to Shady Pines; I can see Carl and Sophia Petrillo getting along just fine!) When Shady Oaks employees come to retrieve Carl, he has other plans and to their surprise, they watch as the house breaks free from its foundation and lifts into the sky with a whole bunch of balloons streaming out of the chimney. (Still not sure how he managed to get all those balloons in that chimney!) I read that over 20,000 balloons were animated for this sequence. We also see a small cameo from a  stuffed Lotso bear when the house passes by an apartment building where we see a young girl's room. Pixar likes to put in a little Easter egg for their next movie and Toy Story 3 followed Up. Hopefully this Lotso got lots of love from his owner so he doesn't turn out jaded and cynical like Lotso from Toy Story 3! Not gonna lie; I got really nervous when Carl got awfully close to those wires even though I knew he wasn't going to hit them!

Carl promised a young Ellie he was going to take her to Paradise Falls and he still vows to keep that promise; even if Ellie is no longer physically with him. He soon finds out, however, he's not alone, and I'm not talking about Ellie's cremated remains in a vase on top of the mantle. Russell, a young boy who belongs to a Wilderness Explorer Club who we were introduced to a couple scenes ago when he asked Carl if he could help him in order to get his "Assisting the Elderly" badge, the only one left he needs, was hiding under Carl's porch, looking for a fictitious perky bird Carl had made up to get rid of the kid so he could leave him alone. Ha, joke's on you, Carl! It is pretty funny when he discovers Russell is airborne with him. He's sitting in his chair when he hears someone knocking on the front door...while he's several thousand feet in the air. This is when he discovers Russell visibly shaking on the front porch...and this fear of heights will soon diminish. I did laugh when Carl takes out his hearing aid when the kid is rambling on and on.

They soon manage to travel all the way to South America (I have no idea how that is even feasible!) and land on top of Paradise Falls. This is where the movie turns a little bit crazy, but at the same time, we learn how everything ties in. First we meet a tall colorful exotic bird similar in size and stature to an emu or an ostrich, I would guess. This bird seems to love chocolate; actually it loves eating anything as it eats Carl's walker (before spitting it back up) and tries to eat a balloon which pops in its throat. I was afraid she was going to choke on it, but she spits the deflated balloon out. Despite being dubbed "Kevin" by Russell, we soon find out she is a female bird. Then we will meet Dug, a "talking" golden retriever who is easily distracted by squirrels. "SQUIRREL!" Dug has a device on his collar that allows him to "speak" English. This thing doesn't seem to be translating his barks, but actually his inner thoughts because he's not barking when he's "speaking". Dug is my favorite character in this movie.

Dug isn't the only talking dog in Paradise Falls. Remember Charles Muntz, the guy who should be dead by now because he is, at the very least, fifteen years older than Carl, who is now 80? (And I'm willing to bet there's more than fifteen years between them). The point is, this guy should be dead, but he's still very much alive (and voiced by Christopher Plummer) and still in South America where he is still trying to seek the creature of the skeleton he found (who, coincidentally, looks a lot like Kevin -ruh-roh!) He has a whole crew of canine companions who have these high tech collars that allow them to talk. I don't understand why this guy is so obsessed with finding this bird when he could literally be making millions of dollars (if not billions) by manufacturing this collar. Do you know how many people would love to communicate with their dogs? This things is a goldmine! I know, I know, he wants people to believe him about the bird being real, so he's set on finding one.

Carl is in awe when he meets his childhood hero (probably because he's still alive!) and he invites them to dinner onboard the Spirit of Adventure. (Should that be in italics?) Not only can his bevy of dogs talk, but they perform tasks such as house (airship?) cleaning and even cooking. This guy trained dogs how to cook. Just let that sink in. I love when the dog serves Russell his hot dog, he tries to eat it! When Muntz tells Carl that it's "a real treat" to have guests visiting him, all the dogs get excited when they hear the word "treat." There's just lots of little funny moments with the dogs that even I, as a cat person, can enjoy.

Muntz's top dogs are Alpha, Betta, and Gamma. Alpha is an intimidating doberman, but his collar has broken and he speaks with a squeaky cartoon-y voice which doesn't make him very intimidating at all. I not only love the way his cadence sounds; but the language he uses is also quite amusing: "Master will be most pleased." Muntz has all these dogs, not only to perform all these household tasks for him, but to help him track the bird. When he shows the skeleton of the creature he is trying to capture, stupid Russell is all like, "Hey, that looks like my new giant bird pet!" and proceeds to tell Muntz pretty much exactly how to capture the bird by telling him she likes chocolate. Carl tries to play it off, telling Muntz the bird ran off and is gone now. See, Carl could have easily let Muntz take the bird, but he knows Russell is attached to it and doesn't want anything bad to happen to her. You know that saying, Never meet your hero because you might end up being disappointed? Well that applies to this scenario because Carl is soon learning that his hero is kind of a huge jerk.

Kevin is spotted by Muntz and he orders his dogs to attack her. She is saved by Carl and Russell and Dug, who now considers Carl his new master. However, Kevin get injured by Alpha while trying to escape and they help her get back to her nest and offspring. Muntz is waiting with a net and captures her and it's a very upsetting scene! Carl has to choose between saving Kevin or saving his house. In order to stop Carl from freeing Kevin, Muntz sets his house on fire and Carl runs to pull it out of harms way while the dogs drag Kevin onboard the blimp.

Remember when I said that there's a scene that made me cry even more than the montage? After Carl has placed the house by the waterfall, exactly where Ellie dreamed of living, he looks at her adventure book. She had a section labeled "Stuff I'm Going To Do" which would document all her adventures in South America. We see Carl looking at this page earlier in the movie, forlorn that Ellie never got to have her adventure but it isn't until this moment when he noticed that there are photos beyond that page. She has their wedding photo and all the memories they spent together. She may have never gotten to go to Paradise Falls, but this was her adventure. At the bottom of the last page, she wrote, "Thanks for the adventure. Now go have a new one! Love, Ellie." Yes, this is the scene that made the tears flow. I bet with all the crying I've done watching Pixar movies, I could fill up a two-liter bottle!

This motivates Carl to rescue Kevin and this is when we get a crazy scene with Russell nearly falling to his death on the outside of the airship and dogs are flying bomber planes and Carl and Muntz have their old man fight (which was pretty funny) and Muntz gets his Disney-esque death by falling to his demise. Kevin is returned safely to her babies and the others return home with the Spirit of Adventure and Carl becomes a grandfather figure for Russell, who seems to have adopted Dug, even though he said earlier in the movie that his apartment building doesn't allow dogs.

There are definitely flaws with this movie, but the good outweigh the bad; I mean, I can't say there's really anything bad about this movie. Among Pixar's movies, I would personally rank it in my top - SQUIRREL! - ten, maybe even five, but I'd have to really think about where it would be on my list. Perhaps a Pixar ranking is in the works, wink, wink.

You're Either In or You're Out

Ocean's Eleven

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Julia Roberts, Don Cheadle, Carl Reiner, Elliot Gould, Bernie Mac, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan

Released: December 7, 2001

Viewed in theaters: December 18, 2001

Ocean's Eleven is a fun movie. It's also a ridiculous movie if you really stop to think about it. I mean, there's no way that eleven people could ever simultaneously rob three Las Vegas casinos in one night such as they did in this movie. Once we get introduced to the characters and the plot for the con, you can just sit back and enjoy the ride. 

Danny Ocean (George Clooney) has just been released from prison (for attempted robbery, as we will soon see that is what he likes to do) and decides he wants to rob the Bellagio, the Mirage, and the MGM Grand casinos all in one night. I mean, why be so greedy? Why not just rob one of the places? There is a reason why he is targeting these three particular casinos. Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), the man who owns these casinos, is involved with Danny's ex-wife, Tess (Julia Roberts) and even though he says this isn't about her, it's totally about her.

He reunites with his partner-in-crime pal, Rusty (Brad Pitt), where he tells him his idea and they recruit a handful of men to help him with the job. They all have a role to play in the heist; some are a little more important than others. They need someone to help finance the heist and with casino security knowledge so they go to an old friend, Reuben (Elliot Gould), who once owned a casino of his own. Terry Benedict is a rival of his, so he's happy to help with the heist. I assumed he helped pay for the replica of the vault they reconstruct and he offers his home as a sort of headquarters, but other than that, he really doesn't help with the actual heist. You always need a tech guy in a heist like this so this is where Livingston Dell (Eddie Jamison) comes in. He is in charge of all the electronics and surveillance. He has to sneak into the security room to set up cameras so the crew can see what's going on. Of course we get the inevitable scene with him where it looks like he's about to get caught by a security guard, but instead he gives him something back he forget and asks him a question about how the wires are working. They need someone with knowledge of explosives when it comes times to blow the vault door open, so Basher (Don Cheadle) is recruited He will also help when they need to turn off the electricity in the city for under a minute. For some reason, they made him British and he talks in this really heavy accent which is hard to understand at times. I was really surprised when they replaced Don Cheadle with Terrance Howard in the other two movies. The Malloy brothers, Turk and Virgil (Casey Affleck and Scoot Caan; I'm not sure who plays who) come in handy as drivers and just help with little things, such as pretending to get into a fight at the casino when one lets go of a bunch of balloons to block a security camera. They're just sort of there to assist with small little details. Rusty flies to Florida to convince con man Saul (Carl Reiner) to join them. He will come up with an elaborate story to fool Benedict. Somebody needs to fit into a small money cart that will be wheeled into the vault room (aka the room where all the money is!) so they hire Yen (Qin Shaobo) of "The Amazing Yen" after they see his acrobat show in Vegas. He's very small and limber and can bend his body in ridiculous ways so he's the perfect person to fit into a small box. Danny gets a card dealer he knows, Frank (Bernie Mac), to be transferred from Atlantic City to Vegas so he can cause a diversion later on. I guess he's the closest thing they have to an inside man. Last, but not least, they feel like they need one more person so Danny travels to Chicago where he finds Linus (Matt Damon), after observing his pickpocketing skills. These skills will come in handy with their heists.

When Danny and Rusty propose their idea to Reuben, he tells them robbing a Las Vegas casino (let alone three!) can't be done and tells them about the three closest times anyone's ever come close to robbing a casino. One happened in the sixties, one in the '71, and one in '87. Each time the perpetrator gets a little bit closer to getting a step outside (in fact the '87 guy actually does get outside), but none get away with the crime. I like how this scene is shot: each scene is shot in correspondence to how that time period would look on film (compete with what everyone is wearing and the lighting), the music matches the era ("Take My Breath Away" is played for the '87 con).

Turns out Benedict keeps all the money in the Bellagio's vault, so while they are still robbing three casinos, they only need to do it one place. At least that's a little more realistic..as much as this movie can be realistic! They plan to hit the casino on the same night a big boxing match is being held in Vegas because they know that will bring in a lot of gamblers with all the tourists coming to see the fight (not to mention all the celebrities) and all casinos are supposed to always have a set amount of money on hand so they will have enough. They estimate there will be 160 million dollars in the vault that night and will divide the money eleven ways. The fight will be held in two weeks so that's how much time they have to prepare. In order to do that, Linus goes to the casino everyday where he observes every move Benedict makes and where he is at all times. Lucky for him (and everyone else), this guy has a very set schedule and does the same thing everyday, at the precise minute right down to going to the bathroom. Seems quite convenient for our con artists! This is also when we're introduced to Tess, who works as the curator at a museum at one of the hotels, and Rusty finds out the real reason why Danny is so set on stealing from three casinos that belong to Benedict.

They build a replica of the vault so they can practice with Yen in the money-cart. This is the most dangerous part of the job because he will only have thirty minutes before he runs out of air so they need to make sure he gets where he needs to be in time so he won't suffocate. They also use this replica to make sure he can jump from the cart to another location without signaling the laser lights. While they do get blue prints to the vault, I find it hard to believe they would know the exact replica of it. And exactly how much did it cost to build this replica? If they had an inside man, this would make more sense. They do mention that Frank provided some information, but I doubt a blackjack dealer who just started working there would know all this information! Maybe I'm putting too much thought into this as this is a movie you're just supposed to watch and enjoy.

I do love the scene where the eleven of them are meeting in Vegas for the first time at Reuben's house going over the plan. Yen, who knows very, very little English, asks something in Chinese and Rusty answers him (in English, but still impressive that he knew what Yen was asking) with a very detailed answer. The look on Basher's face as Rusty is answering him is highly amusing.

Saul has a very good question. He wants to know if they get though the security doors and down an elevator they can't move and pass security guards with guns and though a vault that's pretty much impossible to open and not be seen by the cameras, that they're just supposed to walk out of there with all that money. Danny simply answers, "Yes" and Saul seems satisfied with that. Now, of course they don't want to give anything away with how they do plan to do this. As a viewer, I'm screaming at my screen because I want to know, but presumably Danny and Rusty tell everyone their idea off camera.

Danny has been red-flagged by Benedict himself because he has come to see Tess so Benedict knows he's in town and doesn't want him in his hotel. All security will be watching him when he sets foot in the casino. Of course, this is all part of Danny's grand scheme because he thought of everything. They play it off like it's a problem, but Danny knows what he's doing. This is when everyone else (who knows Danny used to be married to Tess) find out about Tess's involvement and there's a funny line where Saul says, "Tess is with Benedict now? She's too tall for him!"

There's an elevator that requires a six digit passcode every so many hours and this is where Linus will come in and will swipe the codes from Benedict being the stealthy pickpocket he is. They will need to turn the laser lights in the elevator shaft off in order to go through it. Basher suggests a device called a pinch (which they steal from The California Institute of Advanced Science) which can shut off all the power in Las Vegas for thirty seconds. While this is going on, Danny and Linus are doing a Mission: Impossible type move where they have to rappel down the elevator shaft before the lights turn back on. When the electricity comes back on thirty seconds later you see that everyone at the fight has become rowdy, so Terry and Tess leave. The patrons at the casino have also gone crazy and it turns into a free for all. Nobody seems to question that the electricity has gone out and there's not even a storm to justify it.

This is the type of movie where you know nothing bad is going to happen and that our protagonist are going to get away with this ridiculous task of stealing $160 millions from a highly guarded casino. You don't know how they're going to do it, but you know it's going to happen. There may be a few hiccups along the way (and we see plenty of them!), but you know they're going to get out of any jams they may find themselves in. You're really not sure what's going to happen until it folds out on screen, so it's fun to see the twists and turns they take. I had forgotten about how they planned to walk out with all the money, but I have to wonder, where did they get SWAT uniforms and trucks? Did Reuben provide those too? Did they share a cut with someone who provided those for them?

There is an amusing running joke throughout the film, where in each new scene he's in, Rusty is usually eating some type of food. I remember seeing nachos, a fruit cup, shrimp cocktail (very Vegas-y), ice cream, and a burger. And those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head.

Something I've never noticed before was during the credits (probably because I never watched the end credits), after they credit everyone, it ends with, "And introducing Julia Roberts as Tess". Obviously this was a joke/Easter egg because she was already a huge star by then and had already been in many, many famous movies and had won her Oscar the previous year. It just made me do a double take when I saw that!

I've seen this movie a handful of times, but I've only seen Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen once. I don't remember anything about either of them except that I didn't enjoy watching them and thought they were a bit boring, or at least not as fun a the first one. There is one part I remember about the second movie and that's when Tess pretends to be Julia Roberts as she bares a striking resemblance to her...because she IS Julia Roberts, haha. I don't remember why she had to pretend to be the famous actress, but it was an amusing scene, although you have to wonder...if Julia Roberts exists in the same world as these characters, then why not George Clooney or Brad Pitt or Matt Damon? How come nobody mistakes Danny, Rusty, or Linus for those famous actors? I also saw the spin-off,Ocean's Eight, where Sandra Bullocks play Danny's sister and she recruits her own team of thieves to rob jewelry at the Met Gala. While not as good as the original (and while I know the 2001 is a remake of a 1960 movie of the same name with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr, I consider the 2001 film the original because nobody ever talks about the 1960 movie or probably even knows it exists because the 2001 film is much more well known; heck, I didn't even know this was a remake until several years later!), I did enjoy it more than the sequels. My only gripe (and spoilers for Ocean's Eight about to come) is that they make this big deal how all these women were able to pull off his huge con, but psyche! Yen from the other movies was there all along (recruited by Sandra Bullock unbeknownst to the viewing audience) and helped them with a major part of the scheme. I was like, seriously? I know they wanted to have a fun cameo from the other Ocean movies, but I groaned out loud when I saw that. 

Death Wish

Free Solo
Directors: Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Released: September 28, 2018

Oscar nominations:
Best Documentary (Won)

I don't mean to start out this review with such a morose statement, but I predict that the guy who this documentary revolves around will be dead by the time he's 40. Alex Honnold is 33 at the moment and he's known for free soloing which is where you rock climb without any ropes or basically any kind of safety gear. Sounds pretty stupid if you ask me. Two years ago he became the first person ever to free solo El Capitan, a massive rock formation in Yosemite National Park and it was captured on camera and thus this documentary was born. I vaguely remember hearing about this on the news when it happened.

Before I started watching this, I checked to see if he was still alive (I didn't know for sure!) He is, but even knowing that it still made me nervous while watching him climb so high without any safety gear! I can't imagine that they would still release the film if he had died. I mean, they wouldn't do that, would they?

In the mid-2000s, Honnold free soloed cliff walls  around 1,500-2,000 feet tall and this is where he started becoming known to people who follow this kind of thing (unlike me!) He has his eyes set on El Capitan because nobody has ever free soloed it and it seems like the reason that has never happened is because it seems impossible (and very dangerous!) They talk to a mountain climber (one of many they talk to and I don't remember any of their names) who has climbed El Capitan many times and he said he would never free solo it, although he has free soloed many other mountains in Yosemite.

Of course it would be stupid for Honnold to climb this mountain sans safety gear on his first try and the film documents him climbing it many times with ropes and harnesses and taking copious notes. We see pages and pages of a notebook filled with pretty much every little detail you can find on the mountain. It kind of reminds me of a playbook coaches uses in football games because he's using it to plot every move he'll make when he'll eventually free solo it. He has to assess every crack and crevice on the rock wall (some just barely big enough to hold only your big toe!) and determine which maneuver will be the safest. We see him fall on many of his trial attempts, but luckily he is attached to ropes so these trial runs are quite important! I don't remember if they said how many times he climbed El Capitan in the film, but I watched a TED talk he did and he said he climbed it 50 times within the last decade.

The mountain is divided into "pitches" and each one is given a name. One of his dilemmas while free soloing El Capitan will have to be choosing between "The Boulder Problem" route or "The Glass Wall" route. Both are very scary and seem impossible for someone free soloing. Also, both are high enough that if he falls, he's dead. In "The Boulder Problem", he will have very narrow crevices to work with and will have to know exactly how he plans to maneuver his arms and legs on each crevice. I think he even mentions that there's a small crevice just barely big enough to put his toe on. Towards the end of this pitch, he'll have to do a karate kick to reach a bigger rock he needs to get to and really stretch his leg to get to it. "The Glass Wall" is exactly what it sounds like: it will literally be like trying to climb a glass wall. In the end, he will choose "The Boulder Problem" route. I guess it was the lesser of two evils. There's another pitch called the "Monster Offwidth" where he says in order to get through it you have to do these crazy yoga poses and if you can't hold them, then you will die. It almost looks like he's climbing straight up a chimney because he's between these two narrow vertical rocks. It looks very claustrophobic to me! Needless to say this guy is in pretty good shape. While that is important, it still won't stop you from making a fatal mistake!

His camera crew consists of other mountain climbers and people who know him pretty well and this will be the first time one of his climbs will be documented. Even they have to assess the mountain to know where they're going to set the cameras and where they will film him. They are nervous because they don't want to accidentally kick a rock out of place or anything that could drastically change Honnold's outcome. They are also nervous about filming him because knowing he has a camera on him could add more pressure to Honnold and he could lose his concentration which is something he needs 100% of when doing something like this. While his family and close friends are supportive of him, none of them are thrilled that he wants to free solo this massive rock (or any formation of rock, really). His mom says she doesn't even want to know when he'll be free soloing or else she'll just be worrying while it's going on. His rock climbing friends tell him he does not have to do this; that he doesn't owe anybody anything. His camera crew friends are super nervous about filming this crazy expedition. You can't really blame anybody for being scared about his determination to accomplish this crazy feat because it's mentioned that every free solo climber (at least the well known ones) are now all dead. We get a little montage of how this one died and how that one died (yeah, basically they all fell off a mountain to their deaths). Some were in their 50s when they perished, others only in their 20s or 30s.

The person I feel the most bad for is his girlfriend, Sanni, who he met at a book signing in Seattle. Now I don't know how long they had been dating when we see them discussing his upcoming free solo climb and he says having her in the equation will not change his mind about free soloing El Capitan. It seems like they had been dating long enough that they bought a house together in Las Vegas so it seems like it's somewhat of a serious relationship. At the beginning of the movie Honnold is asked if he has a girlfriend and he says he's headed in the direction of having one, so I can only assume that part was filmed when he first met Sanni (if this is the same woman he's talking about) and he says he will always choose rock climbing over any woman. Ouch. Now, again, this was presumably filmed before they started having a serious relationship, but if I were that girl, I would be a little ticked off if I saw that. If I were her I would dump his sorry ass because he does not seem to care at all that she doesn't want him to do this because she's scared for his life. He's determined to do this whether or not anyone else wants him to or not. She is relieved (of course!) when she gets the phone call from him once he has successfully scaled the mountain and repeatedly tells him she is proud of him. Now I have no idea if they're still together or if he retired from the dangerous sport once he completed his White Whale of free solo climbing. He does mention that there's always a mountain bigger than the previous one that someone will try to attempt. He seems to make a good amount of money from sponsors so he could comfortably settle down, but the question is, does he want to? I think she would be stupid not to dump him if he does continue to free solo because why put yourself through that constant worry and trepidation?

I wouldn't say that Honnold doesn't seem to care about the possibility that he could die, but it almost seems like he doesn't care about the possibility that he could die. He seems more concerned that his friends would have to witness it if it did happen. He is not a reckless climber by any means as he thoroughly did his homework on El Capitan and knows how to turn his full attention to what he's doing while climbing, but that still won't stop you from the possibility of falling because any small wrong move you make could mean the end of your life. We see him get a scan of his brain and apparently his amydala doesn't get stimulated very much which could explain why he free solos, but it seems like he doesn't do other thrill seeking activities like bungee jumping or sky diving (though maybe he finds those too safe!)

He first attempts to free solo El Capitan in the fall of 2016 and wakes up super early when it's still dark outside. The thinking is they want to start at a certain time so the sun won't be in his eyes during critical moments of the climb. It's still dark when he decides to bail. I don't know exactly how high he was, but I think if he had fallen at that point, he would have only broken some bones. I guess he didn't feel comfortable going on with the climb, plus all the cameras were making him nervous. On the day of the accomplished climb, they reconfigure the cameras so they're not as obvious, though at certain points you see him saying something to the camera so they're not that hidden. I have to wonder if the complete darkness was the reason why he bailed the first time because this time it's daylight when he starts out. Yes, he had a flashlight on his helmet, but it was pitch dark!

He completed the task two years ago on June 3, 2017. It only took him just under four hours to climb up almost 3,000 feet which seems pretty fast to me...but what do I know. I literally know nothing about rock climbing. We see about maybe twenty minutes of the actual climb and the film speeds up at times (through the "boring" parts, I guess). We see him successfully complete "The Boulder Problem" and all the other scary parts of the mountain. One of the cameramen at the bottom who had his camera on a tripod turns around for the majority of Honnold's climb (pretty much when he's high enough to kill himself if he falls). I can't blame the poor guy; I knew Honnold survived this climb while watching it and even I was getting super nervous! I can only imagine how nerve-wrecking it was to be there while it was happening live. He (the stressed-out cameraman) said he would never do anything like this ever again.

To everyone's great relief, Honnold makes it to the summit and that is when he calls his relieved girlfriend. We never see how he gets down, though. Did a helicopter take him back down? Did he take the steps in the back? Did the two cameramen who were up there have an extra set of ropes? I hope he didn't have to free solo down the mountain!

I hope he doesn't feel any pressure to have to climb a mountain that's taller and more terrifying than El Capitan; I think he should just retire. He already accomplished his dream and lived through it and he might not be so lucky the next time or the time after that. It's just not worth it to gamble with your life like that!

The Fresh Prince of Agrabah

Aladdin
Director: Guy Ritchie
Cast: Will Smith, Mena Massoud, Naomi Scott, Marwan Kenzari, Alan Tudyk
Released: May 24, 2019
Viewed in theaters: May 29, 2019

My review of the original movie.

I'll say the same thing about this movie that I said about the live-action Beauty and the Beast and that I'll inevitably say about the upcoming The Lion King: it wasn't as good as its animated counterpart. That said, even though I had my doubts, I did enjoy the movie (for the most part) and it did bring a sense of nostalgia for me. Now if I had watched this movie without ever watching the animated movie or even knowing about it (and I would have to been born yesterday for that to happen, but just go with me!), I would have found this movie to be very weird and probably wondering what the heck was going on. But since I have seen the animated movie, I understand what they were going for, but there are just many aspects of Aladdin that doesn't quite translate nicely to a live-action remake. (:::coughcoughTheGeniecoughcough:::) While the movie pretty much keeps to the same beats as the original, there were a few changes, so beware that there might be spoilers if you haven't seen this yet.

We'll first start with the Genie. Let's just get him out of the way, shall we? Will Smith had some big shoes to fill but I think it's a bit unfair to compare him to Robin Williams who made the Genie such an iconic character. There's no way anyone could have ever lived up to his performance. The character is still a wise-cracking, jubilant, fun-loving all-powerful being, but Will Smith brings a different vibe to him. I didn't have a problem with his performance; what I had a problem with was the look of the genie. When he was the blue CGI genie, it just looked so weird. It's one thing to animate the Genie and do a bunch of crazy things that you're provided with Williams' voiceovers, but when you bring the Genie to real life, yikes! Not pretty! The Genie does disguise himself as human when he's around other humans so we get a break from the CGI monstrosity for a few scenes. That said, the Jafar evil genie is much worse; probably because he's only in abut five minutes of the movie and they wanted to make sure the Will Smith genie looked better, which, it does, but not by much.

They throw in a new plot twist by giving the Genie a love interest. Yeah, it's a little weird that this all powerful being falls in love with a mere mortal. (Although (uh, spoiler warning if you've ever seen the original!) he does become freed of his genie duties, so does that mean he no longer has his genie powers and is now just a human?) When we first meet the Genie, he's on a boat in his human disguise and talking to his children and I thought that we were going to see the origin story of how this man became a genie, but then the movie starts and I start getting into it because they're singing the songs I know and, honestly, I just forgot about that scene. It isn't until the end of the movie when they return to that scene of him on the boat with his kids and wife that I realized that this scene takes place after all the events of the movie and he has married the woman he fell in love with and these are their children.

Aladdin (Mena Massoud) and Jasmine (Naomi Scott) get to wear more clothes in this version as Aladdin wears a shirt and Jasmine never bares her mid-drift. She also gets to wear more than one outfit (which seems more realistic!) and has some exquisite ensembles and even wears a beautiful dress in her signature turquoise shade during the "A Whole New World" scene. I love that they even styled her hair the same way as animated Jasmine in that scene (tied back with three different hair ties). While she has some gorgeous jewelry, I was a little disappointed she never wears those huge gold earrings her animated version sports.

Jasmine has much more of a bigger role than she did in the animated movie. We learn more about her backstory like why she isn't allowed to to leave the palace (because her mother was killed and her father fears for his daughter's safety). Her father (who comes off much more competent than his bumbling animated counterpart) and Jafar (Manwan Kenzari) want Jasmine to marry a prince because they need somebody to become Sultan (the idea for Jarfar to marry Jasmine so he can become Sultan doesn't come into fruition until the end of the movie), but Jasmine has other ideas and she wants to be Sultan. She doesn't understand why she has to marry an outsider who will lead a country that nobody knows better than she does and that she's been prepared for this her whole life.

When Aladdin and Jasmine meet, he thinks she's the handmaiden to the Princess and she goes along with it. When Aladdin sneaks into the palace to return a bracelet Abu had nabbed from her, he comes face to face with both Jasmine and Dalia, the real handmaiden to the Princess (and a character that isn't in the animated version). Jasmine has to get Dalia's attention to make sure she knows that she needs to pretend that she's the Princess. While it's a comical scene, I have a hard time believing Aladdin would believe the girl he met in the marketplace is only a handmaiden because she's wearing this gorgeous silk colorful dress (I can't remember what color is is in this scene..she has a turquoise dress, a pink dress, an orange dress, a purple dress, you get the idea!) and Dalia only wears simple gowns in muted colors. Plus there's her jewelry....I mean, c'mon, Aladdin... But he doesn't find out she's the Princess until the Genie transfers him into Prince Ali.

Abu, Raja, Iago, and the magic carpet are all in this movie but none are as fun or as lively animated as their '92 counterparts. Obviously they're all CGI. There were some cute moments with Abu, but then other times you could tell he was a CGI creature (especially in the eyes) and it just looked really creepy. I feel like this movie won't age very well in the future. The CGI just isn't the best. I was really disappointed with Iago. He's the character out of these sidekicks that lost a significant amount of screen time from the original. He's voiced by Alan Tudyk which I had no idea because he just sound like a generic parrot squawking. What make Iago so great in the original is that he was voiced by Gilbert Gottfried (brilliant casting because who would want a parrot that sounds like Gilbert Gottfried?) and while he does use a squawking parrot voice when he's around other people, when he's alone with Jafar he talks to him as he were a normal human and we see he's a lot smarter than he lets on and has a vast vocabulary. They seem to keep it a bit more realistic in this movie where the parrot, while sometimes says smart-aleck things, only talks in a few words and phrases and probably wouldn't be able to carry on a conversation with a human. Also, I never heard anyone refer him to as "Iago", although it's possible I just missed that, but I swear towards the end of the movie Jafar calls him simply, "Parrot". There are a lot of scenes from the original with him that were cut, but he does get a pretty big part (no pun intended!) during an action scene towards the end of the movie where he becomes a huge bird (helped by Jafar who has become a sorcerer with one of his genie wishes) and chases Aladdin and Jasmine, who are on the magic carpet, around Agrabah to seize the lamp.

We have the same songs as the original, plus a new song that Jasmine gets to belt out called "Speechless" that's very empowering, so it's nice she finally gets her own song. Too bad it's just kind of meh. I mean, I guess it's okay, but I feel like it's trying to be "Let It Go", but it's just not as good. Also, if you were to ask a young kid who didn't know all the original songs which one wasn't in the animated version, they would probably guess right. Some of the music arrangements were changed around a little bit, but it' still (pretty much) the same lyrics. I did notice that they changed some lyrics to "Arabian Nights"  which isn't the most culturally sensitive song and instead of using "barbaric" in the line, "It's barbaric, but hey, it's home!" they use "chaotic." There were probably other slight changes, but that was the only one I noticed. The end credits pull a Slumdog Millionaire where the cast is doing sone Bollywood (I didn't know Agrabah was in India!) dance to a remix version of "Friend Like Me" featuring DJ Khaled. Ugh, no thanks. I love "Summertime" and "Getting Jiggy With It" as much as the next person, and while Will Smith does a decent job with the genie songs, he just doesn't hold a candle to Robin Williams who sang those songs with a lot more energy (and a lot more different voices!) He doesn't even scat during "Friend Like Me", but he has more hip hop influences. I think he was slightly better singing "Prince Ali", but I think that might have been because he was in human form and I didn't have to look at that scary CGI genie. I was disappointed that they didn't have the "Don't they look lovely, June?" and "Fabulous, Harry, I love the feathers" lines, but  I did laugh when he sings, "He's got monkeys, a lot of monkeys" which is taken out of the original song. The new pop version of "A Whole New World" isn't as good as the '92 pop version, but I do think it is much better than the new pop version of "Beauty and the Beast." The songs from the '92 version are much superior than the newer versions and they will always be.

So there appears to be some new rules since the last movie with the wish-making. Remember in the animated movie when they're trapped in the Cave of Wonders and Aladdin tricks the Genie into getting them out of there without using one of his three wishes? In the remake, Aladdin says, "Genie, I wish for you to get us out of this cave" and I'm thinking, Oh, so they're counting this as one of the wishes. But, no. Apparently, when making a wish, the master of the Genie has to be rubbing the lamp. What kind of bs is that? Also, wouldn't an all-knowing genie KNOW when one isn't rubbing the lamp? Duh. I don't know, I thought that was really stupid. The wishes are all the same: Aladdin wishes to be a prince, the Genie saves him from drowning after Jafar captures him and tries to kill him, and of course, he sets the Genie free.

Speaking of Jafar, he's not as, ahem, animated as he is in the '92 movie. He doesn't come off as very menacing to me. He has this weird obsession with invading the country Jasmine's mother is from. I can't remember the name of it which is surprising because he must mention invading it at least 3,000 times. Sadly, this Jafar does not have his pun game on because that scene where he spits out pun after pun in the animated movie is not in this one. But I feel like this Jafar doesn't have any fun and thus his pun game isn't up to par. This Jafar also never calls Aladdin "Prince Abubu."

I admit I haven't seen many of Guy Ritchie's movies, none of them really appeal to me. I've only seen Sherlock Holmes. I heard he likes to use a lot of slow motion in his movies and live-action Aladdin was no exception. He especially likes to use it when characters are falling. We see it when Aladdin is falling towards the water when he's been tied to the chair by Jafar and when Abu falls off the magic carpet with the lamp.

One of my biggest complaints about this movie (besides the CGI) would have to be how dark it is during some pivotal scenes. It's very dark in the Cave of Wonders and it's very dark during the "A Whole New World" magic carpet ride scene. Yes, it is nighttime during these scenes in the animated movie too, but at least they can work with color and make it more vivid, not too mention you have more room with animation and this story just lends itself better to animation, especially with the Genie. There were quite a few young kids (twelve and younger) in my audience and I can only hope that their parents showed them the animated movie and that's why they were seeing it. Give me the animated movie, all day, every day.

 Haha, so when I was walking out of the theater there was a display for the new Chucky movie and this girl, probably eight or nine, tells her mom she wants to see that (WTF?) and her mom goes, "No, you are not seeing that! It's too creepy."

Want to know the most outrageous thing about my excursion to the movies? I paid $5.76 for a small drink! I had a free movie pass and a coupon for a free small popcorn, so at least that was all I spent, but still! That much for a small drink; can you believe that? I can get a large iced latte at Scooters for the exact same price! This is why I sneak my snacks into theaters!

Oh My Disney!

I took the Which Disney Princess Are You? quiz on Oh My Disney. Watch to find out which Disney Princess I'm most like and if I agree with the results: 

Jean Therapy

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Director: Ken Kwapis
Cast: America Ferrera, Blake Lively, Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel, Bradley Whitford,
Released: June 1, 2005

I have never read the book this movie is based on, but I would be curious to check it out (literally as I would most likely get it from the library) as I am not beneath reading young adult fiction. Maybe on my next trip to the library I will get it, though that will be awhile as I currently have seven books checked out.

This movie is about four high school-aged friends who will be spending their summer apart and they stay connected with each other through a pair of jeans that just happens to fit all of them perfectly. The four friends are Carmen (a pre-Ugly Betty America Ferrera) who seems to be the main character as she narrates the film (though they really all pretty much share equal screen time); Bridget (a pre-Gossip Girl Blake Lively) who is sporty, outgoing, boy crazy, and seems to be the leader of the group as she is the oldest (only by a week, though, we'll find out); Tibby (a currently on Joan of Arcadia at the time (this was the only show from the four main actresses that I never watched) Amber Tamblyn) who, despite being sullen and sarcastic most of the times, has a good heart; and Lena (a currently on Gilmore Girls at the time Alexis Bledel) who is the quiet and sensitive one of the group and likes to sketch.

We learn that the four girls have been friends since birth because all their mothers met in a pre-natal aerobics class (I know; I'm rolling my eyes too) and they were all born within the same week. I know, it's absolutely absurd. The way they "met" is way too cutesy. Why couldn't they just have met in middle school and still be friends as sophomores/juniors in high school? There, it's simple and not overly ridiculous. I assume the book goes into more detail about their friendship when they were younger, but the movie just sort of skims over important details that happened before their summer of separation (not that I'm complaining or anything; if anything, I appreciate it!) like Carmen's dad leaving his family and Bridget's mom dying.

During that summer, Carmen will be visiting her dad in Charleston, South Carolina (I've been there!); Lean will be visiting her grandparents in Greece (I have not been there!); Bridget will be attending soccer camp in Baja, Mexico (never been there either!); and Tibby will be staying put in their hometown of Bethesda, Maryland (I've been to many places in Maryland including Baltimore and Annapolis, but I have never been to Bethesda) where she works at Wall-Mans, an obvious knock-off of Wal-Mart.

The girls are in a boutique the day before they are to go their separate ways and find a seemingly normal pair of jeans which Carmen encourages Tibby to try on. When she does, Lena gushes how great they look on her (seriously, they're just a pair of jeans, I have never in my life seen anyone get so excited over a pair of jeans) and Tibby tells her to try on the jeans since she loves them so much. Even though Lena prefers skirts or linen pants to jeans, she does and they fit her perfectly too. Now these two girls are pretty much built the same, so it's not really a huge stretch that the jeans would fit both of them. Then Bridget, who is easily two to three inches taller than everyone else decides to try on the pants, and, guess what? They fit her like a glove! Please! Those pants should have looked like capris on her! The girls are all amazed by this and persuade the curvaceous Carmen to try them on, and, of course she's skeptical, but even though she does have a bit of trouble getting into the at first, they fit her perfectly as well. Yes, you could say this movie has a touch of magical realism to it. The girls take this as a sign and buy the pants which they decide they will all share during the summer, with each one having a week to "own" the pants before they ship it to the next girl. They make up rules such as they aren't allowed to wash the pants (as they believe that will make it lose its magical powers) and they aren't allowed to wear a shirt tucked into the jeans (who even wears their shirts tucked into their jeans? Reveal yourselves!). The last rule is pants = love. Love your sisters, love yourself. Awww. They decide that Lena will be the first to be in possession of the jeans since she will be the furthest away.

I think we can all agree that Alexis Bledel got the best storyline of the movie as she got to film in the beautiful Greek isles (can you imagine if that was actually all filmed on a Hollywood sound stage with backdrops?) and gets the best wardrobe with these beautiful linen tops and pants and skirts and dresses. One day, while she is sketching (and wearing the jeans) on a dock, she sees a cute boy on a boat and to get a better look, tips the chair she's sitting in until she falls into the water and the pants catch on a chain and she is unable to free herself. Hmm, those pants might not be so lucky after all! Fortunately, the cute boy saw what happened and dives in to rescue her. On second thought, maybe those are lucky pants; that is sure one way to get a boy's attention! Lena finds out his name is Kostas and he is fluent in English because he lived in Chicago with his parents until he was 12, then moved back to Greece to live with his grandparents when his parents died in a car accident. He is here to help them out during the summer, but attends the university in Athens. When Lena reveals to her grandmother about the boy she met, her grandmother is furious, telling her she must not engage in any socializing with him as their family and the boy's family are in some feud over money or something. Apparently one's grandfather sold the other's grandfather fish that made his restaurant patrons sick. We have a little bit of the Montagues and Capulets going on here. Of course this is very old-fashioned thinking and the grandmother is being quite ridiculous as this so-called feud goes back decades and neither Lena nor Kostas have anything to do with it (since it began even before they were born!) They begin to see each other in secret until her grandmother finds out and makes a big fuss over it, but then her husband, Lena's grandfather, makes her come to her senses and they allow Lena to see Kostas even though this will be just a summer fling as they live on two different continents.

Since Lena likes to sketch, she ends up sketching Kostas and one of the sketches is of him laying in her bed with his shirt off (but he has pants on). Ooh! Scandalous! Nevertheless, I still wouldn't want my grandmother finding that which is what happens to Lena. Seeing those sketches reminded me of that scene in Titanic. ("Lena, I want you to draw me like one of your Greek boys.")

Bridget probably has my least favorite storyline. She is disappointed the soccer camp she is going to is an all-girls camp, but luckily for her she finds a college-aged coach she starts flirting with. First of all, this guy isn't that cute. I mean, he's okay looking if you like bland, but he's no Ryan Reynolds. And second of all, why did they cast someone who looks like he could play Blake Lively's older brother as they both share the same sun-kissed flowing blond hair? She seems to go after him because he's the only guy (within her age) around and she reeks of desperation as she tries to get his attention. But since she looks like Blake Lively, he is into her and they have sex (off screen and he did try to hold back for as long as he could because he knew it was wrong for coaches to hook up with the players!) and she feels like she may have made a mistake, but then he apologizes to her and tells her that they can still be friends and that she should give him a shot when she's 20. Ugh. We learn that Bridget has this reckless behavior because her mother committed suicide. Why did she kill herself? I'm not sure, but I assume we learn why in the book. Is there such a thing as suicide shaming? Because they totally shamed this woman for committing suicide. The priest at her funeral says, "It only makes her choice that much more unfathomable. What measure of despair compels one to commit such an act?" Well, obviously she needed help and was unable to get said help.

Speaking of death, Tibby meets a twelve-year-old girl named Bailey who has leukemia. She first comes in contact with her when she finds the girl has become unconscious at the drug store she works  at and an ambulance picks her up. She later properly meets her when Bailey comes to her house with the pants. They were accidentally sent to her house because they live in the same neighborhood and have similar house numbers, so the pants bring them together as Bailey will later point out. Tibby doesn't find out she has leukemia until Bailey's neighbor tells her. When she starts treating her differently (i.e. more nicer), Bailey knows she knows because she used to treat her like an annoying kid sister. Tibby is working on a documentary which Bailey helps her with as her assistant. This has to be the most boring documentary ever because it's about working at the drugstore. But, spoiler alert, it will end up being something completely different.

I always assumed it was Stranger Things that brought the '80s video game Dragon's Lair back into the pop culture conscience, but this movie actually has a scene of a kid playing it (at a gas station, no less) and Bailey thinks he would make a good subject for Tibby's film.

Of course, Bailey dies (off screen) and it is a very sad scene when Tibby goes to visit her in the hospital for the last time. She brings the pair of jeans because she believes their power will help her get better, but Bailey tells her the pants already did their magic which was they brought them together.

Carmen's dad (played by Bradley Whitford) drops a bombshell on her when he introduces her to Lydia (Nancy Travis), the woman he is to marry and her two (very blond!) kids, Paul and Krista. Carmen is hurt that her dad never told her about his upcoming nuptials or the fact that he was engaged to someone. She feels like he loves his new family more than he loves her and feels very left out. It's very weird how he met his future new wife: apparently he called the wrong number (hers) and ended up asking her out. I mean, who does this? Not Josh Lyman! Josh Lyman would never do that!

Just a small note: I have been to Charleston in the summer and you do not want to wear jeans in Charleston in the summer! Way too humid for denim!

She ends up going back home early, not intending to attend the wedding. She does eventually call her dad and pours her heart out to him, telling him she's angry with him for not telling her about his new family and how she feels like an outsider. It's a very heartbreaking scene. America Ferrera and Amber Tamblyn definitely get the heavy-hitting storylines. So does Blake Lively, I guess, with her dead mom storyline.

When Carmen, Bridget, and Tibby pick Lena up from the airport, the girls have a surprise for Carmen which is that they're driving to Charleston to attend her dad's wedding. Carmen protests, saying she has nothing to wear and ends up wearing the magical jeans. In the end, her dad will stop the wedding before it even starts when he sees Carmen sitting in the audience and tells his new wife that there's a member of their family that should be up there with them.

The worst thing about this movie is easily the music. Oh my God, the music is horrible. Music from the mid 2000s was just the worst, especially from 2003-2006. Now to be fair, the only song I recognized from this movie was the super popular "Unwritten" from Natasha Bedingfield, which I admit, is a catchy tune, but it is also the theme song to the sucky show on MTV with Lauren Conrad. (The Hills?) So therefore, it sucks by that association. "Pocketful of Sunshine" is a much better song, anyway. The other songs I didn't know, but they were SOOOOOOOOO bad. There were a lot of sappy stupid songs that played, like when Lena and Kostas kiss for the first time. My eyes nearly got stuck in the back of my head.

I guess all four actresses are still friends in real life which is super cute and there's going to be a third movie. The second movie came out in 2008, so it's been over a decade since they made a movie. Here's a photo of them that was taken last year, I believe:

Toy Story Thoughts

As you know, Toy Story 4 is coming out this summer. It's probably my most anticipated summer movie. I recently re-watched the first three films and would like to share some observations and thoughts I had. Now I already reviewed these films back in 2010 (click the Pixar label to find it), so think of this as a little bonus!

1. Sid: Psychopath in the making or misunderstood kid? Of all the humans in the Toy Story universe, I find Sid the most interesting. There are some concerning things about him such as he loves blowing up his toys (he even has a sticker on his bedroom wall that says "I 🖤 explosives") and his door has about seven deadbolts. Seriously, where are his parents and why aren't they checking his room (probably because there's seven deadbolts!) or the boxes of explosives he's ordering? Are they even aware that he's ordering explosives? The only parental figure we see in that household is the father (I assume it's the dad; you only see the socked feet of someone on a recliner) who seems to be passed out. I heard a really grim theory that the father is an alcoholic who beats Sid which would explain his morbid fascination of being cruel to his toys and why he has so many deadbolts on his door...to keep out his abusive dad. However, being that this is a family friendly Disney/Pixar movie, I doubt that's the case. In any case, his parents are not being very parental as they seem to let him skateboard by himself at night to Pizza Planet and back home. I wasn't aware that Sid is supposed to be the garbage man  in Toy Story 3; I guess the telltale sign is that he's wearing a shirt with skulls and crossbones, much like the shirt he wears when he's a kid. For someone who had to go through the horror of seeing his toys come alive, he sure seems like a well-adjusted young man.

2. That claw has some mighty powers. Indeed, in Toy Story 3, we will find out that the claw does have some mighty powers as it will save our toy heroes, but I'm sorry, there's no way in hell that a claw in a toy machine could grasp the slippery plastic helmet of a Buzz Lightyear toy. No way in hell! It would have slipped right off. Not buying it! Maybe Sid is just good at controlling the claw; he did manage to get an alien before he grabbed Buzz and Woody. When I played the claw machine as a kid, I was lucky if I barely grasped a little stuffed animal. Those things were the best way to lose money, but there was something so enticing about them.

3. Why is Andy not the least bit suspicious? We know that Andy has been looking for Woody and Buzz for about twenty-four hours and we know that he's looked everywhere. I'm pretty sure that includes the box that is sitting next to him in the car when he makes the move with his mom and sister. As we all know, Woody and Buzz fall into the box ((a, they're lucky the sky roof was open) and (b, how did Andy not hear two large thumps or see two of his toys fall from the sky?)) and that is how Andy just suddenly discovers them. He just accepts that they were there the whole time when he's been looking everywhere for them. If I were him, while I would be happy that I found my two favorite toys, I would be asking myself such questions as, "How did these toys get here?" and "I checked everywhere a million times and suddenly they're in this box right next to me? What's going on here?" It would just drive me absolutely crazy. If there isn't a logical explanation to why something isn't working or if something isn't adding up, I drive myself mad trying to figure out why.

4. Emily is Andy's mom? This is a theory that's floating around the web. As you may recall in that super sad scene from Toy Story 2, Emily was Jessie's owner who loved her doll and had a lot of fun adventures with her, until she started to grow up and forgot about poor Jessie who was collecting dust under Emily's bed for years before Emily eventually donated her (and some other stuff from her childhood that she didn't want/need anymore). Cue tears. There are some good reasons why this is a theory: the time period lines up, Andy's mom would have been the same age we see Emily as a teenager; Emily is wearing a hat very similar to the one Andy wears. While this is a fun theory, I don't think it's true because it's way too convenient. Also, wouldn't we have known? Wouldn't Andy's mom tell her son that she had a Jessie doll when she was younger? Wouldn't Jessie have recognized her pervious owner?

5. I don't like the bloopers at the end of Toy Story 2. When I saw the movie the first four or five times, yes, I did enjoy the bloopers and thought they were quite funny, but now I don't like them because they don't make any sense. The characters of the toys are acting like they're making a movie and they're actors, not toys who actually belong to Andy. If that's the case, then what's the point of these movies? They should have done what they do at the end of Toy Story 3 did where you see a little montage of what's happening with the toys at Bonnie's house or you see what's up with Barbie and Ken at Sunnyside Day Care. I think it would have been fun to see Stinky Pete with his new owner, the "artistic" Amy and we could have seen Andy playing with his new toys.

6. Big Baby is creepier than any of the disfigured toys Sid had. Enough said.

7. Does Lotso deserve all that hate? Hearing Lotso Bear's backstory is pretty heartbreaking. To remind you, he belonged to a little girl named Daisy, who, while one day at the park, left him along with Big Baby and Chuckles the Clown. (Chuckles the Clown was also creepy...what is up with this little girl and her creepy toys? Though I will admit Big Baby wasn't creepy here). Daisy falls asleep and her parents pick her up to put her in the car. You think they would see her toys too, but nope, they just leave them. They eventually find their way back to her house, Homeward Bound-style, but by then Lotso discovers he has been replaced when he sees Daisy with another Lotso Bear. They eventually make their way to Sunnyside Daycare where Lotso becomes a dictator deciding where toys are going to go. When all the toys are in the landfill and about to heads towards certain death, Woody does the right thing and saves Lotso when they're about to go through the shredder, but when Lotso climbs a ladder to a button that will stop the incinerator, he doesn't push it and just leaves the other toys to burn. So yes, Lotso deserves all the hate. Lotso is a piece of sh*t. Who happens to smell like strawberries.

8. I love the callbacks. Of course in the first movie, we have Woody telling Buzz, "You are a toy!" and Buzz will reiterate that point to Woody in the second movie. There are several little callbacks in the movies, but my favorite is probably The Claw. ("The Claaaawwww!") Of course a huge claw would rescue the toys right before they're about to go into the incinerator. If they didn't worship The Claw before, they certainly do now!

9. What happened to Bo Peep? I guess we will find out in Toy Story 4! 

Looking Back at Tragedy

We Are Columbine

Director: Laura Farber

Released: various dates in 2018 at different film festivals

The twentieth anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings was not that long ago (how is that possible? It seems like the ten year anniversary was only last year!) and I found this documentary on Hulu. The director is a former student of Columbine and she graduated in 2002, so, if you do the math, she was a freshman when the murders occurred. She interviews four of her former class of '02 classmates (two boys and two girls), a teacher who started his first year at Columbine as a freshman English teacher during the '98/'99 school year (yikes!), but is still teaching there, and Frank DeAngelis, who was the principal from 1996 to a few years ago when he retired.

So before you're wondering if any of the former students interviewed were in the library where ten of the thirteen murders and the two suicides occurred, no, they were not. Three of them were in their classes and one of them was in the cafeteria. The girl who was in the cafeteria tells the director it's very hard telling her memories of this horrific event, but she's only doing it because the director is her friend (she was also eating lunch with her that day) and she knows what she went through that day. As far as I know, she (or anyone else interviewed) didn't see anyone get killed in front of them, but if she has a difficult time talking about this, then there's no way someone who was in the library would want to relive their memories. I'm not saying that they had it "easier" because they're weren't at Ground Zero, because if I put myself in their shoes, where, if I was a freshman at my high school and two seniors brought guns to school and killed twelve students and one teacher before offing themselves, yeah, I would be pretty shook up and freaked out too. I'm surprised they returned to their school to finish their next three years of high school, because, honestly, I don't know if I would be able to do that. One girl said she knows where all the exits are anywhere she goes in case of something like that happening again and that any loud noises like fireworks or a balloon popping makes her anxious. I would also imagine a fire alarm going off also puts them all on edge since one was going off that day. I've never been in a situation like that and fire alarms make me anxious; I can only imagine what it does to them! 

The four former students go through their memories of that day. The girl who was in the cafeteria says she heard loud shots and thought it was a senior prank and then a teacher told everyone to get under the table, which she did with the other students she was sitting with. They later ran to a nearby house where the man who lived there called the police. She would later find out that one of the two duffel bags with a bomb inside was placed under the table she hid under...yikes! But luckily it didn't detonate. If you didn't know, this wasn't supposed to be just a school shooting: it was supposed to be a bombing that would rival Oklahoma City. Their plan was to "top" McVeigh and kill as many students and faculty members and then each one would be in a different parking lot with their guns and shoot any survivors streaming out of the doors, then they planned to kill any media and police that would make their way to the school. Yeah, their plan went a bit differently... In fact, DeAngelis points that out, saying they could have lost hundreds of people that day and that's how he knows there's a God. 

One of the former students who was in a locked classroom talks about how they were in there for hours (three or four, maybe by that time) before the police came in and told them to put their arms locked behind their heads and run out of the school. Unfortunately the police came right at the time he said he and a few of the other boys in the class had to use the bathroom so they got a trashcan to urinate in and right when he was about to go (in as much privacy the corner of the room could offer him), that's when they barged in. Understandably, that's the only humorous part of the film. He also says when they were locked in the classroom, he heard keys rattling in the door and a teacher came in without his shirt on, covered in blood, and rummaged through the cabinets before running out again. I have to wonder if he was helping the teacher who was shot and would eventually die? Or a student who was wounded when they got shot? We don't really find out what that was about.

The title of the movie comes from their rally cry which was created in 1989 by a coach. One of the interviewees said he thought that had transpired after the shootings, which, I can't blame him, as it has more of a poignancy. Before the shootings it jut sounds like an obvious statement. Also, he probably doesn't remember anything from his only normal year of high school, plus, as he adds, he was probably getting stoned somewhere!

Another former students says when he was running outside and a policeman told them to get away from the school, he had asked him if they had to return to class later that afternoon. He says now he realizes how ridiculous that was, but in that moment it was just a confusing and surreal moment. 

I never really though about it before, but the Columbine class of '02 had it pretty rough. They had one normal year of school before everything turned to hell and during their next three years, security was heightened to the max. That school probably became the safest school in America, ironically. They had all these security measures that was super frustrating for them. Think of the airports after 9/11. Remember how people used to be so lax about airport security? DeAngelis says that he knew the students hated the ridiculous security measurements, but the parents insisted on them. They also talk about how the media would always be harassing them for interviews and how tour buses would pull up to their school with tourists. Look, it's one thing if a couple of young idiots drive there in their own cars if they're into ghoulish things, but a tour bus? Someone is making money off of this? Ick. One of the girls was on the track team and volleyball team and when she would wear her uniform people at the other schools she was competing at would ask her if she was there THAT day. I won't lie; if I ever met someone that attended Columbine, I would probably think, Oh, they go to THAT school. (Why I would ever be conversing with a teenager from Littleton is beyond me, though!) 

As one of the girls says, "It's not a normal experience". Despite this, all four former students (who are in their mid-30s) have normal and stable lives. A couple of them are in steady relationships and they all went on to have some sort of career. One became a teacher at Columbine and he says he's one of five teachers there now who were students on the day of the shootings. Another became a social worker, another one is in the medical field, and one became a recording artist. One of these things is not like the other! Would it surprise you if I told you the stoner kid became the recording artist?

In this hour and a half documentary, there's probably really only about twenty minutes of interesting information. I find that even if you had never heard of this massacre, you really wouldn't be surprised by what the former students were saying. It's really more about their experience that day (though they don't really go that much into depth about it) and then how the rest of their high school career was like living after tragedy. If you are interested in the Columbine school shootings in much more detail, I would recommend two books. The first is called Columbine by the Denver-based journalist Dave Cullen. It's probably the most well known account of the shootings and goes into a lot of detail before, during, and after the tragedy. It's vey disturbing, insightful, fascinating, and while I was reading it, I would go, "What?...What?....WHAT??" Because there were a lot of things that shocked me; either things I didn't know or had forgotten or vaguely remembered. If you're into true crime stories, it's worth checking out. The other book is A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy and it's by Sue Klebold, the mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the two shooters. Her story about what happened that day is much more interesting and devastating than any of the class of '02 graduates who were interviewed. The parents of the shooters went through absolute hell and she talks about what it was like. She's only started sharing her story within the last few years and the book is really quite interesting. Not surprisingly, she is an advocate for parents checking their kids' bedrooms. I think it's a terrible idea for parents to snoop through their teenagers' stuff, but of all people, I can understand why she would insist parents to do that. It's probably never a bad idea to check under your kids' beds or in their closest just to make sure they're not hiding any guns or bombs. Both of those books made me cry while reading them; this documentary really didn't evoke any emotion from me. 

Doggone It

Beethoven
Director: Brian Levant
Cast: Charles Grodin, Bonnie Hunt, Dean Jones, Stanley Tucci, Oliver Platt, David Duchonvy, Patricia Heaton, Nicholle Tom, Christopher Castile, Sarah Rose Karr
Released: April 3, 1992

When you hear the name "Beethoven" and think of a St. Bernard before the dead classical composer, then you might be a child of the early '90s. I remember seeing this in theaters...I think my dad took my brother and me. Seeing it again in a very long time, I forgot how dark (especially for a kids' film!) it is! I remembered there's a bad guy and that Charles Grodin, who was the only one in the family who doesn't care for the dog, saves Beethoven from said bad guy. However, I didn't remember that the bad guy was going to flat out MURDER the dog; my memory was foggy and I thought he was either dognapping or at the worst, going to injure Beethoven. When I realized what the bad guy's motives were, I was like, Holy crap, THIS is in a kids' film??? But we'll get to that later. This movie gets SUPER DARK, y'all!

But first...let's start with something everyone loves....PUPPIES! We first meet our dog hero (whose name isn't Beethoven just yet) as a puppy in a pet store. Oh. My. God. HE IS SO FRICKIN' CUTE!!!!  Cuuuuute! Suuuuuper Cuuuuuuuute! I want a St. Bernard puppy! They're so adorable! I mean, what is wrong with Charles Grodin? How could he not want this dog? But before the dog meets his new family, he is first dognapped by two bumbling minions (Oliver Platt and Stanley Tucci) who are working for the bad guy who wants them to bring him puppies. Two dogs manage to escape: the St. Bernard puppy and a Jack Russell terrier. The bad guys chase them, both dogs get away and go their separate ways. The next morning the St. Bernard follows Charles Grodin into his home as he's getting the newspaper and he's so preoccupied looking at it, that he doesn't even notice the puppy. His wife (Bonnie Hunt) and two oldest children don't notice the dog either, but when he hops into the youngest daughter's bed, she hugs the puppy and when her mom and siblings see her, she exclaims, "Look! I dreamt I had a puppy and it came true!"

Bonnie Hunt and the three Newton kids (who include 13-year-old Ryce (Nicholle Tom aka the oldest kid on The Nanny); 10/11-year-old Ted (Christopher Castile aka Suzanne Somer's son on Step by Step); and 4/5-year old Emily (Sarah Rose Karr), want to keep the puppy, but Charles Grodin isn't too keen on the idea, but finally gives in when they tell him it will teach them responsibility. He tells them they're only keeping the dog until they can find the owner (good luck with that, Charle Grodin!)

The Newtons are trying to come up with a name for the newest addition of their family and nobody can agree with anything. Ryce wants to name the dog MC Hammer (terrible) and Ted wants to name him Ultimate Warrior (stupid). Finally, when Emily plays a few chords of Beethoven's (the composer!) Symphony Number 5, the puppy barks along to it. You know, the one that goes da-da-da-da! I'll sing my cat's name to those notes when I talk to him, "Mi-mi-mi-lo!" They take that as a sign and the puppy is christened "Beethoven".

Oh, hell no! 

I have to wonder, though, if the name "Beethoven" was chosen for the dog because of the song, "Roll Over, Beethoven", which will be played in a montage scene. I can see it now in the pitch meeting: they already have the idea for the movie, they just don't know what to name the dog. Someone says, Hey, you know that Chuck Berry song, "Roll Over, Beethoven?" Well, dogs roll over so let's call the dog Beethoven and we can use that song in a montage!" I bet you exactly that's how it happened! Of course during the montage (where we see Beethoven grow from a puppy to a full grown adult), we see the kids having fun with the dog while Charles Grodin is cleaning up after him. There's a funny scene where he's just come in from the rain and there are muddy paw prints on the front and back of his clothes. The montage ends with an extremely muddy and wet Beethoven (btw, not a cute look for any dog!) on the master bed and when Charles Grodin comes in and shouts "YOU!", Beethoven gets up and in slow motion we see him shake all the water, mud, and dog drool all over the place. It's really gross. I would have been so mad! Speaking of dog drool, my memory of it is that there was a lot more, but they really only show it a couple times during the montage. Maybe I was thinking of Turner and Hooch; doesn't that dog drool an excessive amount? (I just looked back at my review for that movie and just answered my own question! Yes, that dog drools a lot).

Beethoven sleeps in his doghouse which is inside its own little fenced in area in the backyard. However, he has dug a hole (which is super obvious, but yet nobody knows about it) and when the kids are at school, he meanders through town, getting treats and pats from the local people. You can tell this is an everyday occurrence because everybody seems to be expecting him. Beethoven gets a treat at a bakery and we see him bring it to a back alley where he gives it to the Jack Russell Terrier who had escaped from the dognappers with him and is now making his life on the streets as a homeless dog. I was super impressed they got a dog to carry a treat in his mouth without eating it! Beethoven visits a park where he shares an ice cream cone with a little girl. It's super gross; he slobbers all over it and she willingly puts it in her mouth!

Beethoven is a super smart dog. He seems to understand the English language (and more than just "Sit!" or "Stay!") and we will see this throughout a few times. One of the first times is when he comes to meet Ryce at the end of school (who doesn't seem at all surprised to see her dog, so this must be a regular thing too) and when she starts telling him about Mark, the boy she likes, and how he likes this other girl who's super popular, Beethoven grabs a stick and walks over to Mark and brings him over to Ryce. Ryce is ecstatic that he knows her name (of course he does; your name is Ryce! Who would forget a name like that) and exclaims quite loudly, TWICE, "He knows my name!" Honey, why don't you at least wait until he's out of earshot? Oh, here's the best part: this so-called "most popular girl in school" was wearing a completely dorky outfit: a pink sweatshirt with white hearts on the bottom and pink jeans with blue, purple, and white flowers. Even I wouldn't be caught dead in this atrocious outfit in the early '90s. (Although I'm sure I wore some pretty terrible stuff!)

Charles Grodin is in the air freshener business and he has a snooty married couple (played by a pre-Everybody Loves Raymond Patricia Heaton and a pre-The X-Files David Duchovny) who want to invest in his firm and who are trying to swindle him. When Charles Grodin invites them over to a barbecue at his house to sign the papers, we learn about this when the Newtons are out of earshot and the couple are talking, but luckily Beethoven is in the yard and he hears every word...and seems to understand what they're saying! He's on a long leash to roam around in the backyard and winds it around the table the snooty couple are sitting at. When Charles Grodin throws a ball for him to chase so he'll leave them alone, he ends up taking the table and the two chairs the couple are sitting at with him and they fly over the fence when Beethoven jumps over it. It is absolutely ridiculous, but maybe not as ridiculous as another scene where Beethoven sneaks into the house one night and gets in the bed before Charles Grodin gets back in after investigating things. What Charles Grodin doesn't know is that his wife is in the bathroom, so when Beethoven starts licking his ear, he thinks it's her. Okay, seriously, how do you confuse your wife with your dog??? Dogs tongues are absolutely disgusting...you can tell a dog's tongue from a human tongue.  And there are other ways you can tell. He dismisses the smell by thinking it's him since he spends so much time around Beethoven cleaning up after him. Yes, very stupid scene and seemed highly inappropriate for a kids' movie!

Bonnie Hunt is going back to work and has the kids go to an older woman's house in their neighborhood even though Ryce is old enough to watch after her younger siblings. The woman likes to sing showtunes and while she and the two older kids are inside doing their homework, little Emily is outside playing with a bouncy ball by the pool. The camera ligers on the pool for a second so you know something is going to happen, like, I don't know, the little girl is going to fall in it! Well, guess what? She does! She screams for help and Beethoven saves her. I was confused by the geographic layout of where they were. At first I though their backyard faced the baby-sitter's backyard and that's how Beethoven saw her, but that doesn't seem to be the case as he runs along a sidewalk, then jumps over a few fences. He must have really good hearing. After he brings Emily to the pool steps, she tells him he needs to go home since he might get in trouble for leaving the yard. As far as I know, she will never tell anyone that if it hadn't been for Beethoven, she may have drowned. Remember that. I thought it was a bit unbelievable that her siblings didn't notice their little sister thrashing around in the pool. Yes, I know the piano was (supposedly) drowning (haha, unintended pun!) out her screams, but they were right in front of the glass door and while they weren't looking outside directly, there is something called peripheral vision and they would have definitely noticed! In fact, Ryce only has to tilt her head a fraction when she notices Emily sitting on the pool steps after Beethoven has rescued her. (I guess they thought she managed to swim to the steps). Needless to say, the woman is fired.

I haven't even touched on the bad guy yet! So the bad guy (Dean Jones) is...get this...a VET. Not just any vet, but Beethoven's vet. He is in cahoots with a gun manufacture who wants him to acquire a dog with a large skull (like a St. Bernard) and SHOOT IT IN THE HEAD to see "how messy it is". WHAT. THE. F**K!!!! What kind of sick bulls*** is this? This is in a kids' movie?!? Wow, good thing I didn't remember this or maybe it just went right over my head, cuz this movie should have traumatized me as a kid! This seems vey extreme...why can't they just shoot a watermelon to see how much of a mess the bullet makes? Why do they even need to know "how messy it is"? After Beethoven has a routine checkup with Dr. Evil Vet, he wants to keep the dog overnight for "observations", but the kids say no, that he'll be too scared. He does put a seed in Charles Grodin's head that St. Bernards can be dangerous dogs and to watch him closely. Here's what I don't understand about Dr. Evil Vet: did he become a vet after he went into this shady business? He is being paid (seemingly) lots of money to murder dogs, but why would you go through veterinary school for all of that? Was he already a vet when he was approached with this offer and because he is so greedy, he has no qualms about murdering one (or more!) of his client's pets? I'm very confused...and troubled about this whole thing. I was listening to a podcast about this movie and the hosts were saying this should have been a test for vets to see if their license should be renewed or not. The gun would be a blank and if you actually went through with it and shot at the dog, you would be dismissed as a vet! Might I add, that they should also be sent to jail for attempted murder!

Dr. Evil Vet pays Beethoven a "home visit" telling Bonnie Hunt that he just wants to check on their dog to see if everything is okay. I would be highly suspicious because there is no reason for a vet to pay a home visit, especially if there is nothing wrong with the animal, as in their case, but she just lets him into the yard. Nobody is paying any attention except for Emily who is playing upstairs in her room. (With a stuffed St. Bernard animal! It is so cute! Ryce is a bit of a traitor as she has a poster of a dalmatian in her room. ) The Evil Vet puts fake blood on his arm. I don't think Emily saw that part, but she defintely saw the moment when he hits Beethoven (obviously filmed in a way where the dog isn't actually hit). He eggs Beethoven on to attack him and when he does, the Evil Vet calls for help and everyone comes running out. Emily tells her parents that she saw him hit their dog, but Evil Vet dismisses her by saying of course she would want to defend her dog. He tells the Newton parents that they must surrender their dog and he must be put down at once! While they're not happy with this news, they do what the man says without any questions. At this point I'm thinking, why isn't Emily telling them that Beethoven saved her life? Also, don't they think it's a little weird that they've never once had a problem with their dog, but all of a sudden this vet makes an unannounced house call to "check on their dog" and allegedly gets attacked by him while unsupervised? Also, why aren't they listening to their own daughter? Bonnie Hunt will bring this up to her husband after they've surrendered Beethoven. I understand if you think your dog is dangerous, you definitely don't want him around your children, but I think they should have gotten a second opinion! I thought it was a little weird that they didn't put a muzzle on Beethoven when Charles Grodin drives him to the vet to be put down. At this point, they think he's just attacked their vet, so if you think he's dangerous, why are you just letting him ride in the backseat of your car? Charles Grodin does seem genuinely upset that he has to put down the family pet. The receptionist tells him that they won't put down the dog until the next day, so he will have to pay for an overnight stay. There is a bit of a humorous moment in this depressing scene where all the dogs in the waiting room look down at the floor when Charles Grodin walks past them as if they know why he's there. When he returns home, his kids won't look or talk to him except Emily who calls him a "Dog killer!"

Bonnie Hunt tells him that she thinks they were too rash and they should go and talk to the vet. The kids, who were eavesdropping, tell them they're going too. When they get to the home of Dr. Evil Vet (how did they even know where he lives?), they see he has no fake bandage on his arm like he was wearing when Beethoven was taken to the vet earlier that day and there are no bite marks on his arm. The vet tells him it's too late; that the dog has already been put down, but Charles Grodin knows it's a lie and they follow him to his lab. Charles Grodin climbs up to the roof with a glass ceiling and right when the evil vet is pointing the gun at Beethoven, he jumps through the glass and right on top of Dr. Evil Vet. He's about to shoot the gun at Charles Grodin, but the Jack Russell Terrier (who was caught earlier in the movie) saves the day by running up and biting Evil Vet in the groin. And if you think that's the worst thing that happens to him, think again! The kids are still in the car, waiting for their mom who is calling the police. When they hear gunshots, Ted drives the car through the wall and hits a table that sends fifteen syringes filled with god-knows-what flying and they all land in the chest of Dr. Evil Vet, who somehow manages to survive this. I don't think so. However, the evil vet's minions are still loose and all the caught dogs (who are freed by the kids) run after them. We're supposed to think the dogs are menacing and are out for vengeance, but in reality these are cute and friendly dogs who just want to play. I laughed so hard when they run through an outdoor market and a bunch of cabbages roll out on the sidewalk and one of the dogs is running with a cabbage in his mouth! You can tell he just wants to play!

Beethoven is reunited with his family and at the end of the movie we see he is sleeping at the foot of the Newton parents' bed. The camera pans down and we see the Jack Russell Terrier that they've named Sparky. (If I had a dog, I would totally name it that). So I'm thinking, that's cute, they gave a new home to Beethoven's friend. But then the camera pulls down even further and we see that they have brought home ALL of the dogs. I think it's safe to say they brought them to the Humane Society the next day. They also probably double checked the credentials for Beethoven's new vet!