The Witches are Back

Hocus Pocus 2

Director: Anne Fletcher

Cast: Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy, Tony Hale, Whitney Peak, Belissa Escobedo, Lilia Buckingham

Released: September 30, 2022

It's been twenty-nine years since the Sanderson Sisters have wrecked havoc upon Salem and once again, they are back. Now, if you remember, I watched Hocus Pocus for the first time ever last year. Yep, it took me 28 years to finally watch that movie, but I watched the sequel only a couple days after it was released. It was so easy because all I had to do was reactive my Disney+  subscription. We are so spoiled in the twenty-twenties. All we have to do is click a few buttons on our remote and we're watching a new movie! We don't have to physically get into a car and drive to the movie theater and buy tickets and all that nonsense. However, that being said, there is something sad about this not getting a theatrical release because it's a long-awaited sequel to a beloved cult film. However, I'm perfectly fine watching it at home.

In a weird way, I don't think a sequel for this movie would have worked if it was released two to five years after the first one. Maybe even ten years. Having it (and taking place) twenty-nine years (what? they couldn't wait an extra year to make it an even thirty? Oh, who am I kidding? No one didn't want to wait an extra year! We've all been waiting 29 years for this! Well, I guess I only had to wait one year!) after the first movie gives it enough time where we're introduced to new youngsters who wouldn't have been around when the Sanderson Sisters were resurrected the first time. If someone had tried to resurrect them again after two-ten years afters the events of the first movie, well, that would just be really stupid. Although, if I remember right, really nobody even knew they were resurrected because the witches had bewitched them and the only ones who knew were the three young protagonists. 

The movie starts in 1653 Salem where we see the Sanderson sisters before they become witches. The young actresses they got to play the younger Sanderson sisters did a good job and were really funny. Young Mary even talked out of the side of her mouth and little Sarah was so ditzy! And young Winnifred wasn't much different than the grown Winnifred!

It's Winnie's 16th birthday and she's in a foul mood even though her sisters have surprised her with a sign that says, "Bless-ed Birthe Day" and have made her a treat that looks like jell-o. It's even in one of those jell-o molds. Not sure how they got it in that shape in the seventeenth century! Mary and Sarah tell her they made their concoction by grinding pigs' hooves, mixing it with water and adding a drop of goat's blood. (Eww, wtf?) It made me laugh when Sarah pokes it and exclaims, "It jiggleth!"  I love how they add -eth to words to make them more old-fashioned. 

Winnie is furious because she's been told she's getting old and must marry John Prichett, which has been arranged by the reverend. He knocks on the door, announcing himself, and Winnie tells her sisters to hide. When the reverend tells them to open the door, Sarah calls out, "We're not here!" Hehe. Typical ditzy Sarah. Winnie has to open the door now and not only is the reverend outside her home, but pretty much the whole town. Winnie tells them all she refuses to marry John Prichett and if she were to marry anyone, it would be Billy Butcherson (you may remember him from the first movie, though here we see him as a young man and not a decrepit zombie) because they are "soul mates" as they shared a kiss in the grave yard. Billy would beg to differ, though. 

There's a big uproar as the reverend thinks Winnie is a bad influence on her sisters and wants to take them away. (I'm not sure where their parents are in this scenario. Are they dead? We do get a mention of their dad owning an apothecary shop. Okay, so I looked it up on the Disney Wiki, and, according to that, they are orphans. I guess I missed that little detail). Winnie and her sisters manage to escape to the Forbidden Wood where they meet a witch who can transfer into a raven. She asks the sisters why they came to her woods and Winnie tells her they had to hide or her sisters would be taken away. I laughed when the witch tells them, "Thou art different from the other children I have eat...met." Yeah, not so subtle there. She tells them the woods are a sacred place for witches and they come here to charge their magic. For Winnie's sixteenth birthday (since she's a witch, she knows it's her birthday) she gives her the "Manual of Witchcraft and Alchemy", which, of course is the book with the eye and made of human skin that we saw in the first movie which Winnie refers to simply as "Book". I'm not really sure why this powerful witch gives Winnie this all-powerful book, but I suppose she sees something in her to do so. This is the moment when Winnie and her sisters become witches. 

Winnie looks through the book with her sisters and there's a nice callback to the first movie when they see a spell for cat transfiguration and Mary wants to try that on John Prichett. Of course, they will perform that spell on Thackery Binx forty years later. We see, that even as a young lady, Winnie has always been power hungry. She wants to perform Magicae Maxima, otherwise knows as the Power Spell. It makes a witch all-powerful. The witch tells her it is "frowned upon to perform it" and "doomed is the witch that uses this spell." Okay, if this spell is so bad, why is it even in the book? Who wrote this spell? Before disappearing (or turning into leaves as Sarah thinks), she tells the sisters how lucky they are to have each other and that "a witch is nothing without her coven."

The sisters return to Salem and use the spell book to set fire to the reverend's home and thus is born the Sanderson Sister Witches of Salem. 

Now we're in present day Salem at Samuel Skelton High School where we meet our young protagonists. (Fun fact: Samuel Skelton was the first pastor of the First Church of Salem, the original Puritan church in North America. I know this because I looked it up on Wikipedia). Becca (Whitney Peak) is turning sixteen today (which so happens to be Halloween) and she's planning on having a slumber party with her best friend, Izzy (Belissa Escobedo), where they will watch scary movies and dabble in some witchcraft. This has been Becca's birthday tradition for a long time. 

But, because they are teenagers, we have to throw in some extra drama. There's a third girl who is part of this group, or at least used to be part of it. Cassie (Lilia Buckingham) doesn't hang out with Becca and Izzy anymore and has a boyfriend, Mike, who often makes fun of them. Cassie does still invite them to hang out, but it's only with her and her boyfriend or her new friends. Yeah, that is really annoying when someone invites you to hang out with them, but they also invite their other friends who you either don't know or don't like. Do we need all this drama? Eh, not really.

Cassie tells Becca happy birthday and asks what her plans are which Becca thinks is weird because she knows Cassie knows what she does every year. Izzy takes this to mean that Cassie is hoping that Becca will invite her so when Becca is about to do just that, Mike starts talking about the Halloween party Cassie is throwing for the whole class. My question is, if she wanted to be invited to her friend's birthday which she knows is on Halloween, then why is she throwing a Halloween party? Maybe I'm just reading too much into this.

After school, Becca and Izzy go to the Salem Scare Fest where they come across Cassie's dad, who happens to be the mayor. There's a reelection coming up and he's handing out fliers and we see a billboard with him, his wife (who we never meet in the film), and Cassie on it and the tag line reads, "Traske...Making Salem Better than Ever." That is a terrible tagline. Also, is that supposed to be a dig at MAGA? I mean, they are pretty similar! I was getting Buster Bluth vibes from Mayor Traske, then realized that was because he's played by Tony Hale. We also get a quick mention that Cassie's family line dates back to the witch trials and that the reverend who we met at the very beginning of the movie (also played by Tony Hale) was Reverend Traske and he is an ancestor of Cassie and her family. As you can imagine, this will play a pivotal role later on. 

Mayor Traske is super excited because Sandy's Candy Cauldron is being set up at the festival and he's looking forward to the caramel apples. This is pretty much his only plot point (aside from coming across a few witches), and yeah, it's pretty stupid. They will show some of the caramel apples and they do look pretty amazing with their crushed peanuts and chocolate drizzle, so I can understand why he's looking forward to them! 

Mr. Traske gives the girls some campaign posters to pass out when they go to the Olde Salem Magic Shoppe, which is Becca's favorite shop as it is mentioned she goes there pretty much every week and the owner calls her his favorite customer. I feel like these so-called "magic" shops only exist in movies and TV shows. Wasn't there one in the town of Mystic Falls where The Vampire Diaries was set? Also, there was one on Buffy the Vampire Slayer around the time Willow was dabbling in witchcraft. And wasn't Giles the owner of it? This was after they graduated high school so he wasn't the librarian anymore. Oh my God, what was the name of that store? Half of you are probably screaming the name at me and the other half are probably wondering what the hell I'm talking about. Okay, I looked it up and it was called The Magic Box. Of course it was. I can't believe I couldn't remember that. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that I've never seen a shop like this in real life; they're only in TV shows where the supernatural run abundant. Of course, it does make sense for Salem to have a novelty store like this since their history is seeped in witch lore. 

The owner calls himself Gilbert the Great and he's telling the story of the Sanderson sisters to the patrons (I guess they have story time at this store?). This is basically just a rehash of what happened in the first movie. Thanks, movie, I appreciate that, but I just read my review of the first movie to remind me what happened. Gilbert mention that the Sanderson sisters were the most powerful coven to ever live thanks to Winnie's Book of Spells. Not to nitpick or anything, but as far as I'm concerned, this is the only coven they have some kind of proof that existed, so of course they're gonna be the most powerful. Again, I'm probably reading too much into this. When he mentions the book, we see the actual book is displayed in a glass case with straps around it like it's in a straight jacket. Someone in the audience comments they really don't want people taking the book and Gilbert replies all that is to keep the book from from escaping. He continues to tell them that twenty-nine years ago someone saw three figures flying across the moon. The same patron who commented about the book (I guess they wanted to give this guy all the lines), says, "Sounds like someone had a little too much candy." This was definitely a nod to the first movie because it's what Dani's mother says to her when Dani tells her the witches are back from the dead and the cat she's holding can talk. I remember thinking it was a weird reply because eating a lot of candy isn't going to make you delusional; it's just going go give you a stomachache. They're acting like eating too much candy is the equivalent of having too much to drink. No, it's not. 

Gilbert reveals, with a flourish, the black flame candle that was lit back in 1993, the very same one that brought back the Sanderson sisters. It's all melted and the same guy who got the previous lines, once again gets another line by thinking this means the witches have been walking around for the past twenty-nine years. Gilbert tells him, "The candle's magic only brings them back for one night. They disappear at sunrise. Okay? Can I just finish this?" I absolutely love his exasperation and I would probably be getting exasperated with this bozo who keeps interrupting and asking questions. 

Finally, someone else gets a line besides that annoying guy and a kid points out if the candle's melted, then no one can light it and the witches can't return. Gilbert agrees with this assessment, unless, of course, there is another black flame candle to light. Gee, I wonder if one will make an appearance? 

Becca plans on buying a crystal, but Gilbert tells her she should get more than that since it's her birthday. He tells her he has a gift for her and presents her with a candle that looks like a big melted goop of wax. Not very attractive at all. At least he gave it to her for free as a birthday present, because I certainly wouldn't pay for that thing. He tells her, "Legend has it, it's on the sixteenth birthday that a witch gets her powers." Hmm, could this be foreshadowing? He also gives her Angelica leaves which you burn to lift curses. (Could this be more foreshadowing?) Apparently, these are free for everybody in the store. What kind of shop is this guy running? You're not going to make any money if you're giving out everything for free. 

Becca and Izzy ride their bikes to the Salem Historical District which was founded in 1626. This, incidentally, is the exact same village where the Sanderson sisters grew up and it's quite a feat these houses are still standing so many centuries later. The girls head to what is the Forbidden Wood (I don't think it has a name in the twenty-first century) and light the candle. Now you could not pay me to go into the woods at night in October (on Halloween, no less). Oh, hell no. I'm honestly surprised their parents let them do this, but since the only parent we meet is Cassie's dad, maybe they aren't even aware of this. 

After the girls light the candle, it ignites a bigger flame than they expected and they freak out and extinguish the candle and are relieved for a nanosecond, but then the candle reignites and they are unable to put it out. That's when they realize it's a black flame candle and they soon hear a female voice singing. Like, that's not creepy. Then it gets very quiet and the ground starts rumbling. It gets very dark so we're not seeing anything on the screen and we get flashes of light and we see the silhouettes of the three witches for a few seconds. 

Yep, the witches are back. Winifred, Mary, and Sarah (Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker) start singing a song called "The witches are back" set to the tune of Elton John's "The Bitch is Back".  Becca and Izzy realize all the ingredients to bring back the witches (black flame candle lit by a virgin on Halloween) are the reason the Sanderson sisters have appeared before then. 

The girls start to run and the witches are still performing. Becca asks, "Who are the performing for?" and Sarah suddenly pops up face to face with them and exclaims, "You!" That would freak me out! This won't be the last time one of the sisters pop up seemingly out of nowhere in front of the girls. 

Soon, all the sisters are surrounding the girls and without missing a beat, Winnie calls for "Boooooook!" and while we see the book struggling to get free, we see it cannot escape. 

The witches remember being tricked by teenagers last time (well, technically, they were tricked by two teens and one eight-year-old) and this time, they have decided, if any cross their path, they will kill them. It absolutely makes no sense they know the word "teenager" because it most definitely did not exist in the seventeenth century. In face, the word "teenager" wasn't coined until the twenieth century, in the forties. There's no way the Sanderson sisters would have that word in their vocabulary. I'm just going to attribute them knowing about it when they were around in 1993. 

The girls tell them they're actually forty and they look so youthful because they "eat young souls all the time" and they brought the witches back because they're their idols and want to be just like them. Of course, flattering these three witches (especially Winnie) is a great way to distract them as they absolutely love it. Winnie tells them, "Idols? My favorite word. Thou dost worship us? Sayeth more." It cracked me up when Sarah says,"Get in line, get in line." 

Izzy tells them they don't have to brew potions anymore, that they can just buy them and tells them about lotions and serums you can buy at the store that already have the children's souls mixed in. When Sarah asks, "No more luring children to their demise?", she looks absolutely devastated; it is hilarious. Mary, on the other hand, seems to think this is more convenient. She tells the girls, "Oh, that's a great time hack. Thank you kindly." Sarah mutters, "I delighted in the luring. 'Twas my only job." This is such a messed-up thing to say, but it's so funny. 

The girls take them to Wal-Greens and at this point, I'm not really sure what their plan is. I get that they're trying to fool the witches so they don't harm anyone and they can get what they need at this store, but they really don't have a plan of how to escape. There is a funny joke where the witches gasp as they watch the sliding doors part for the two girls. Sarah says, "The gates parted for her. She must be very powerful." I am surprised that this joke wasn't used in the first movie, but I guess they never went anywhere with sliding doors. 

The girls tell the witches the "childrens' souls" are in aisle four (where the lotions are) and as the witches start down the aisle in their synched stride, the girls turn to leave, but suddenly Mary is in front of them, just like that scene earlier where Sarah appeared before them out of nowhere. That would give me a heart attack! They're making sure the girls aren't out of their sight!   

While the witches are preoccupied drinking the lotions and hand creams (hilarious! Mary even eats a face mask at one point), Becca tells Izzy they need to get salt because it will protect them against dark magic. When the witches get distracted, Izzy runs to find some salt. When the sisters see themselves in an unflattering mirror, they freak out because they're all distorted. Winnie stops an employee and demands to know "how many childrens' souls are in those potions?" The poor guy is freaked out, understandably, and tells them "zero". The witches start chasing Becca who finds Izzy who has the salt and they are able to escape from the witches' zaps. 

So Izzy and Becca have finally managed to escape from the Sanderson sisters, but this won't last for long. Winnie decides they need to find the book and brew their potion and the fastest way to do that is to fly. We get a similar scene of the first movie where Winnie is flying on a broom, Sarah on a mop, and Mary on a vacuum. Only this tine the flying floor cleaners have been updated. Winnie still grabs a broom, which is part of a Halloween prop, Sarah grabs a Swiffer (and not just any Swiffer, a Swiffer Wet Jet), and Mary grabs two Roombas that she straps on both feet and exclaims that she's "surfing" and cries, "Cowabunga!" I can tell you with confidence that she would not know either of those words. Again, I'm just going to assume she learned this in 1993. When it comes to mops vs Swiffers, give me a Swiffer any day. I hate mops; they're heavy and gross and I just feel like I'm mopping the floor with a dirty water. Of course, Swiffers are more home-friendly while mops are used more for work/industrial places, which I understand, because using a Swiffer for a large area wouldn't make any sense. I have a Swiffer; I don't have a Swiffer Wet Jet, but if they really do make bubbles like is shown in the movie, then I want one. See how easily amused I am? Now when it comes to vacuums vs Roombas, give me a vacuum. I had a Roomba once upon a time. I think it was fine the first three times, then after that, it was useless. I don't know, maybe I didn't clean it right and it wasn't picking anything up. Anyway, never had one again after that. 

Becca and Izzy come charging into the Magic Shoppe and demand to know where the candle came from and tell Gilbert they have to get the book out of there. Gilbert notices that the book has woken up and is ecstatic about this. He takes it out of the glass case and the book opens and reveals the light so the withes know where to find it. Gilbert exclaims, "I can't believe it worked!" and admits that he tricked the girls into lighting there candle because it wouldn't have worked if he had done it. (Heh.) Becca doesn't understand why he would do this because the Sanderson sisters are evil and he says, "They were ahead of their time and they were misunderstood. Then, the whole world was against them." He says now everybody loves them and gestures his hands at all the Sanderson sister souvenirs people can buy.

The witches appear at that moment. They are happy to be back in their old home (wasn't their old home a museum in the first movie? I wonder how it became a kitschy niche shop?), but realizes it's not the same. Sarah wants to know where the cobwebs and rat tails are. Mary says, "It no longer smells like death. Now, it smells like..." As she's trying to determine what the scent is, Gilbert tells her it's "Clean linen" and that they have a Glade plug-in for that. 

Winnie is ecstatic to see her book that she doesn't even blink twice when Gilbert tells them he's their biggest fan. Mary sniffs out the "two forty-year-old teenagers" and asks Winnie what she should do with them. Winnie gives Sarah the book and says, "Here, hold my book. And don't drop it like you just did." This is hilarious because when Winnie conjured the book to come to her, it dropped before it reached her hand and Sarah had nothing to do with it falling. She's so mean to her sisters! I have to wonder if it was supposed to fall or if it was an accident and Bette Midler just ad-libbed that line.

Winnie tells Mary to throw the two girls in the dungeon and she reveals a secret door in the floor. After they are quite literally tossed into the dungeon, the girls try running up the stairs, but they dissipate into thin air. They overhear Gilbert tell the witches that he's been trying to bring them back ever since he saw them "that night" and that it wasn't a great Halloween for him because some boys stole his candy. Now we all know he's referring to the two '90s bullies who were giving Max a hard time in the first movie. Gilbert tells the sisters he saw them riding on their broomsticks...or other cleaning supplies.....and chased them to the cemetery where he saw them "die." He found Book who was awake and showed him how to make another candle. I'm sorry, this book is just going to let some random kid make another black flame candle? Of course, now that I think about it, he probably didn't create the candle until much later because if he had made it as a child, he would have been able to light the candle and bring them back. So basically he had this book for the past twenty-nine years and was waiting for the perfect time to bring back the witches? I'm so confused. I'm not really sure why he wanted to bring them back. Yeah, he says he idolizes them and that they were misunderstood, but we don't really get a good, solid reason why he wants to bring them back. Only that we want a sequel! 

The campaign posters that Becca and Izzy were handing out earlier catches the eye of Winnie and she recognizes the name Traske and realizes he must be a descendant of the Reverend. She wants herself and her sisters to be the most powerful witches so nothing can stop them: not teenagers (heh), not Traske, not the sun. She decides they will perform the Magicae Maxima. Mary reminds her she promised to never do that spell and Winnie's excuse to ignore it is, "That was 300 years ago. That promised has expired." She tries to open Book to the page of the desired spell, but Book keeps slamming shut. She finally zaps the book and it opens up to the Power Spell. There is a huge BEWARE warning that begins with, "For it is most dangerous..." She says they "have no time for warnings." She reads the directions and ingredients they will need. The incantation needs to be recited seven times in "a most sacred place." Winnie reads they will need "the head of a lover, witch's butter, juice of an aralia berry, one petrified spider, and one drop of thy's enemy blood." That is quite the list! I love how it pretty much implies you'll have to commit murder with the first "ingredient." Luckily, they won't have to because Winnie says they'll just dig up her old lover, Billy Butcherson. Not sure what witch's butter is and have never heard of an aralia berry. I guess it grows mostly in the eastern U.S. which explains why I'm not familiar with it. 

Mary says with glee, "Don't you love it when the recipe requires blood?" This is a nice nod to the beginning of the movie, when, as a child, she excitedly tells Winnie they made the "jell-o" with goat's blood. Winnie asks Gilbert if he has the Sanderson hourglass. He makes a big show of thinking, then tells them he doesn't have it. Mary tells him that's not a problem and since he doesn't have it, "We'll just have to kill thee." I laughed when he said, "Oh, you said "hourglass" with an "h". Yes, that I do have, actually. I think I misheard you when you said it before." 

At that moment, his black cat, Cobweb, jumps up and all the witches thinks it's Thackery Binx and are about to kill it. This doesn't make any sense because wouldn't they remember the spell they cast on Thackery wouldn't let him die? We saw that cat get ran over by a bus and he was still fine. The only reason he did die was because the curse was broken. The cat is able to run away when Gilbert distracts them by showing them the hourglass. Winnie creates a spell on the hourglass and calls it a binding contact. She tells Gilbert, "You shall gather all the ingredients and bring them to the Forbidden Wood and we shall sniff out the blood of our enemy. If you fail, you forfeit your life with the last grain of this sand." 

Izzy's line to Becca, "Don't freak out, but the idea of a vengeful maniac obsessed with getting revenge on Salem becoming an invincible, all powerful, vengeful maniac obsessed with getting revenge on Salem sounds very bad for Salem!" is very funny, but doesn't make sense for her to say this to Becca because I think she would realize this. It feels like she's mostly saying this for the viewers. 

The girls call Cassie to warn her, but the witches have also hexed their phones so Cassie can't hear or see them. They don't know what to do, but then Izzy remembers the Angelica leaves that "lift curses" and they use that so the stairs appear again, and what do you know, it works! 

The witches go to the Scare Fest to find the mayor and we see the Roombas following them, like little obedient dogs. They see people bobbing for apples and this delights them to no end because they think they are being drowned. I can understand why they would think that because there's some guy holding the heads of the two people who are bobbing. I don't understand why you would need to have somebody holding your head while you're bobbing for apples; this makes no sense to me. I have only bobbed for apples once, as a wee child, and I just remember it's impossible to grasp an apple with just your mouth. One guy comes up with an apple and Winnie says, "He has an apple in his mouth. Perhaps they're gonna roast him on a spit." Oh, man, that was so funny. The writers must have had so much fun with this movie. 

Once the girls escape, Becca calls Mr. Traske to tell him his daughter is throwing a party at his house and he freaks out and leaves. I guess the idea was just to get him away from the Scare Fest since she knew the witches would be looking for him there. They try to get the book to keep it out of the witches' hands, but it refuses to go with them. They decide they need to get to the Traske house before the witches do. 

Winnie, Mary and Sarah come across a Sanderson sister costume contest with drag queens and I nearly spit out my drink with the host tells them, "Looking good, fellas. Very authentic." When asked what their stage name is, Winnie says they call themselves, "The Originals." When the winning group is about to be announced, Winnie tells her sisters to look surprised, but another group who calls themselves The Sandersonettes, ends up winning. Sarah is bouncing around, all happy thinking she won, and exclaiming, "We won! We won!" Winnie is pissed and takes the trophy and the audience starts booing. Winnie tells the audience, "People of Salem, we have come for the blood of thy Mayor." One of the drag queens gets excited and thinks they're "doing a bit." 

The witches put the audience under a spell by singing "One Way or Another" and has them lead them to the mayor. I thought it was an interesting song since it's not really witch-related. In the first movie, they sang "I Put a Spell on You", so that makes sense. I guess "One Way or Another" does work as they're singing what they mean: "One way or another, I'm gonna getcha, getcha, getcha." However, the residents of the town are walking too slow (like zombies...also if the witches were the ones to put a curse on them, you'd think they wouldn't have them going so slow!), so they decide to find the mayor themselves. There's a completely meta scene where Winnie flies past a house where a couple is watching the original movie. It's a scene with Garry and Penny Marshall where he's dressed as a devil. Okay, this makes no sense, but here's the theory I'm going with: in this universe, the original Hocus Pocus came out in 1995. There's no way it could have come out in 1993 like the original because the events this movie is based on HAPPENED in 1993, so they couldn't make a Hollywood movie in that short of time, ergo, Hocus Pocus that is shown in Hocus Pocus 2 came out circa 1995. Okay, I really need to stop before I give myself a headache. (Too late!) 

At another house, we see a young kid in his bedroom and Mary pops up right outside his window. He screams, then Mary screams. Oh my God, that would care the sh*t out of me! 

Becca and Izzy get to Cassie's house who's not happy with them for ratting her out. When they ask her where her dad is, she tells the he went back to the festival to get his caramel apple. Their plan certainly worked like a charm. (That was sarcasm, in case you couldn't tell).

The girls see the witches and they enter the house to hide. When the witches enter the house, Winnie tells them to spread out and look for Traske. Sarah takes this quite literally and starts to spread her arms and legs across the foyer. This prompts Winnie to tell her, "Be serious" which prompts a Siri device to speak up and say, "Sorry, I didn't quite catch that." Now when I first watched this (without the subtitles), I thought it was an Alexa that spoke and was confused why she turned on since nobody said her name, but watching it with the subtitles it confirms it's a Siri. Do Siris come in devices like Alexas? I thought Siris were just embedded in phones and computers. This joke doesn't really work for me. Not because I'm pretty sure that was an Alexa, but because it wasn't really funny. The witches think there's a "small woman trapped inside that box" and they run away, screaming. 

They find Becca "hiding" in the garage (and when I say "hiding", I mean, she's just standing in plain sight), but before they can kill her, she quickly tells them she has the only Aralia berry juice left in Salem and shows them a water bottle that's only about a quarter full. She tells them to let her go or she will pour it out. While the witches are distracted, her friends pop out and pour salt in a big circle around them so they can't harm anyone with their magic. 

I just love how ditzy and dumb Sarah is. With the three girls standing right there, she tells her sisters, "Let us bewitch them with song and lure thee into setting us free." Winnie snaps at her, "Next time, do not tell people we wish to bewitch that we are about to bewitch them!" Bwah! 

While girls are outside talking, Mr. Traske comes home and opens the garage door. He sees the Sanderson sisters and assumes they were there for Cassie's party and is wondering why "the Gothic Golden Girls" are in his garage. The girls just leave the witches hanging out in the garage with the door open and the Roombas come by and start cleaning up the salt. I will say this was a clever idea they (the writers) came up with. I laughed when Mary tells Winnie to look and Winnie says, "I cannot. My eyes have misted over with the tragic tears of a lifetime of failure." I just love how dramatic she is. 

The witches grab Cassie since they know she is a Traske, so she will work just as well as her father. As they fly away, Becca and Izzy chase after her and some kind of blue lightning is zapping from Becca's hand; something that has never happened before. But there's no time to worry about that now because she needs to help her friend. 

On his quest to find all the ingredients, Gilbert first digs up Billy Butcherson (Doug Jones). When Billy is told the Sanderson sisters are back, he wants nothing to do with whatever's going on and starts to go back to his grave. Gilbert lies to him and tells him he's going to kill the sisters for good and needs Billy's help to collect the items. Billy wants to clear the air because everyone thinks he was Winnie's lover, but turns out he just shared one kiss with her (the one we heard about at the beginning of the movie). Gilbert tells him if he helps him get everything on the list, he will tell everyone the truth and Billy agrees to this. I mean, really, do people in twenty-first century Salem really care that much? Once he has gathered most of the stuff, he comes back to the Magic Shoppe to see the hourglass is almost up and tries to cheat the system by turning it, but Winnie has bewitched it so it will remain the same no matter which way he turns it. Billy catches him and realizes that Gilbert has been cursed and accuses him of helping the Sanderson sisters. Gilbert manages to take his head and goes to the graveyard to meet the sisters now that he has all the ingredients for the spell. 

Winnie calls for the book which comes flying to her. She uses her sharp fingernail to scrape Cassie's neck to get the blood of her enemy. Ouch! That looked so painful. I cringed watching that. Mary even comments, "Ooh, that's gotta hurt." I'm surprised Cassie didn't have more of a reaction. 

Winnie and her sisters start reciting the incantation and Becca's hands start glowing again. Izzy comes with the conclusion that she must be a witch because it's her 16th birthday. Sure, makes sense to me. Witches exist in this universe. I guess it's only three hundred years the town of Salem has a witch. She asks Becca if she thinks she can use her magic to stop the witches and save Cassie and Becca replies, "I guess we're gonna find out." She interrupts the sisters' chant while Izzy unties Cassie and helps her escape. (Oh yeah, the witches have tossed Gilbert aside so he's somewhere in the woods right now). Becca starts a zap fight with the sisters only to realize she's severely outmatched. Winnie tells her she's against "the most powerful coven in history" and is about to zap Becca when Cassie throws a pinecone at the witches and tells them that she (Becca) has her own coven. 

Becca says, "You don't have to do this spell. I know it may not feel like it, but you have a choice." Winnie thinks she is talking to her, but she is saying this to the book who has its own opinions. Becca holds out her hands and the book flies to her and she runs off with it. She reunites with her friends and asks Book if there's anything she can do. The book flips open to the warning page of the Power Spell where it warns the user of the spell if they want to claim all the power, "a price must be paid. What is valued most dearly, thou shall have to trade." 

The witches come flying overhead and zaps them and Becca protects herself and her friends with an invisible force shield, but the sisters are too powerful and she can't hold them off much longer. Izzy remembers reading "the power's meant to be shared" from the book and tells Becca to give her hand. The three girls clasp hands with each other and hold up their free hand to keep up the invisible shield. It's a little awkward. I feel like this would be much easier if they could hold up both hands, but they have to hold hands for the power to work. 

The witches are unable to obtain the book and Winnie tells the girls she does not need a book to perform her spell and she and her sisters continue to go on reciting the incantation. (I wonder if they have to start over or if the incantations they already recited counts as the seven they need to recite). Becca tells her friends they need to warn them about the warning. Unfortunately, they're too late. They hear Winnie putting the final touches on the spell where she says, "Underneath this full moon light, I sacrifice my love tonight." Now that they're all-powerful, the flame on the candle has got out and they are amazed they are still alive. The sisters are celebrating and laughing and zapping their witchy powers around. This is when Becca tells Winnie the Power Spells takes what she values most and Sarah's and Mary's hands and arms start turning into glitter dust. They seem to accept their fates as Mary tells Winnie to never forget them and adds, "I know I was your favorite" and makes a "Shhh" gesture even though Sarah is literally right there next to her. Hilarious. Winnie is devastated when her sisters evaporate into thin air and fondly remembers them as her "passionate partners in unholy mischief." 

Here, is where we get a sudden character change from Winnie. She asks Becca for her help, tearfully, almost begging. The Winnie we know would never this. She would have just killed the girls and took the book. But here, after Becca has found a spell for reuniting and will be able to send Winnie to be with her sisters, Winnie is thanking her and telling the three friends how lucky they are to have each other. This brings it back to the beginning when the witch Winnie and her sisters meet as young girls tell them the same thing. I don't know, I just don't like how they softened Winnie's character, but I guess they needed a quick way to end her storyline. 

The movie ends with the girls walking home and they start doing the Sanderson sister shuffle and they start giggling and exclaiming, "What are we doing?" The way they do it just feels so forced and awkward, it doesn't come naturally like when the actual Sanderson sisters do it. Also, it doesn't make sense Cassie would know it because she wasn't in the Wal-Greens where Becca and Izzy saw them doing it.

I can see Disney + making a show about these three girls and their witchy powers. Now if they made a series about the Sanderson sisters as young girls in 1600s Salem, I would be way more likely to watch that. 

Happy Halloween, everybody!

Corresponding in New York

You've Got Mail

Director: Nora Ephron

Cast: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Greg Kinnear, Parker Posey, Dabney Coleman, Dave Chappelle

Released: December 18, 1998

Wow, this movie brought back memories of AOL. Not necessarily good memories, but aggravating memories. Remember how long it took to get onto AOL and that ANNOYING dial tone sound (which I was reminded of because that irritating sound is used in the movie when they get on AOL). It was like EUGHGHGHGHGHRRRRH,,,RRRRRRRR...!!! Okay, I can't really mimic it with my typing, but if you've ever used America Online, you know what I'm talking about! Now, I liked AOL when I had it, but I didn't have anything else to compare it too, but once internet connection got better, you can bet I was done with that sh*t! 

So as you may or may not know, this is the third movie Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan star in together. Even though they have way more screen time together in this movie than they did in Sleepless in Seattle, I would say Sleepless is the more iconic and beloved movie. The first movie they were in together was Joe Versus the Volcano, a movie I don't think I've ever seen (if I have, I've forgotten everything about it). 

The beginning of this movie with the credits has some of the worst computer graphics I've ever seen, but I'm guessing for the time (1998), they were supposed to be innovative or something. Yikes! We are first introduced to Kathleen (Meg Ryan) who lives with her writer boyfriend, Frank (Greg Kinnear). After he leaves for work, she tiptoes around the house to make sure he's gone so she can sign onto AOL and essentially cheat on her significant other as she's been having a relationship with someone she's met online. The movie wants you to think this is the cutest thing ever. As soon as I heard the sound of that irritating dial tone, I thought to myself, Yep! That's a sound I sure don't miss! As soon as she signs on, we hear the computerized voice tell her, "Welcome! You've got mail!" That's a sound that will be forever etched into my brain, even though it's probably been more than twenty years since I last heard it. (Okay, obviously that's a lie since I just saw this movie not that long ago, but you know what I mean). Kathleen mouths "You've got mail" along with the computer voice and that is kinda cute, I will admit. We see her screen name is Shopgirl which would never happen. More likely, it would be Shopgirl1962 or Shoppppgirrrll. There's no way she would be able to get simply "Shopgirl". I still remember my AOL screen name: it was Hourless. I didn't want to add numbers (I don't know why I was so opposed to numbers in my screen name, I guess because it doesn't look as nice, but now I usually do have to add number to any site where I have a screen name and I usually just use my birthday...now you know my birthday!) I got the name from a horse that won the Belmont Stakes in the early 20th century. I scoured my almanac of the list of horses that won races that are part of the Triple Crown; you can find a lot of interesting names and unusual names since they have very strict rules about what people name their horses since you obviously you can't have repeat names. 

Anyhoo, Kathleen does indeed have mail just like the AOL computer guy tells her. It's an e-mail from someone with the screen name NY152. I suppose this screen name is more realistic to get than "Shopgirl", but yawn, how boring! Though "Shopgirl" isn't particularly exciting or original. BTW, you may be thinking Kathleen chose the name "Shopgirl" because she likes to shop, but you would be wrong. While I am sure she does like to shop, she has it because she owns a children's bookstore called The Shop Around the Corner. The e-mail from NY152 is presumably from a man around her age (how would she even know for sure since she's never met him?) that talks about his dog and how much he loves New York in the fall. This scene establishes that they don't know each other's names or addresses (or what they look like, for that matter). NY152 tells Shopgirl "this not knowing has its charms." Uh-huh, sure. 

If you haven't already guessed by now, NY152 is Tom Hanks, whose character's name is Joe. His screen name is what it is because he lives on 152nd street in New York. These people aren't the most original with their screen names! Like Kathleen, Joe also lives with a significant other. His girlfriend, Patricia (Parker Posey), lives with him. After she leaves, like Kathleen, Joe is also tiptoeing to the computer to make sure he's not caught. I'm not really sure why they gave our two main characters live-in significant others. I guess to be an obstacle, but it just made our main characters unlikeable because they were essentially cheating on them. Sure, Shopgirl and NY152 have never met, but they were still having an emotional connection online and were keeping the other a secret from their significant others. Super shady if you ask me! It's also so weird how Kathleen is acting like she is in love with this man she's never met (and could be anyone from a sixteen-year-old boy messing with her or an eighty-year-old lonely man or a man her age....but who is a serial killer...I guess the concept of being "catfished" wasn't something people thought of back then). She writes him, "I can't wait to hear those three little words (she means "you've got mail", not the other three you may be thinking of!). I don't hear the streets of New York, jut the sound of my heart beating." Huh, what? Who says that?

As "Dreams" by the Cranberries (the only good song in this movie) is playing, we see a montage of both Kathleen and Joe walking the streets of New York...and just barely missing each other several times! Joe goes into Starbucks just as Kathleen is coming out of it and we see them walking parallel each other on opposites sides of a gate. 

So I mentioned Kathleen owns a small children's book shop called The Shop Around the Corner. It used to belong to her mom, but Kathleen took over when her mom died...whenever that was as we're not given a definite time when this happened. Since it only caters to children (and probably only children to a certain age because I didn't see any young adult novels in there, though maybe there were) it's a very niche shop. It is a very charming little shop and feels very cozy and homey. Kathleen is very personable with her patrons and knows many of them by name. She has story hour and just makes sure everyone who comes to her store has a good experience. The only thing people might gripe about on their Yelp page might be the prices because they tend to be a little higher than what you would find at a chain bookstore. 

And speaking of chain bookstores...Joe's father (Dabney Coleman) owns a chain of Barnes and Noble clone bookstores called Fox and Sons and they're opening on on the Upper West Side which isn't too far from The Shop Around the Corner. (In fact, I'm pretty certain where they filmed was a B&N). Joe tells his friend/employee, Kevin (Dave Chappelle), about their customers: "We're going to seduce them with our square footage, our discounts, our deep armchairs and our cappuccino." 

Joe's dad is getting married again. The "again" implies that he's been married quite a few times. The woman he is marrying, Gillian, is quite younger than him as they have a four-year-old son together. They've been living together for five years. At this point, why even bother getting married? So a thirty-something man has a four-year-old brother. Granted, it's his half-brother, but still, that's odd. The whole thing with Joe's unusual family situation doesn't really add anything and doesn't need to be in the movie. 

I had to chuckle during a scene where we see Kathleen on the subway and she's reading a book as are some of the other people around her. No way this would happen now; most people would be on their phones! I say that even though I would be someone with a book.

When Kathleen opens her shop the same day she's just messaged Joe, her young employees, Christina and George (Heather Burns and Steve Zahn) can tell something is up with her because she's acting all lovey-dovey. When they ask her what's going on, she asks, "Is it infidelity if you're involved with someone on e-mail?" Uh, yes, especially if you're building an emotional bond with that person. We find out that she met NY152 in the "Over 30" chatroom. Oh, man, the only thing I remember about chat rooms were the stupid A/S/L template somebody would type every thirty seconds, I swear. Also, I remember that in chat rooms everyone was talking at the same time and it was just a mess. That got real old real fast. She tells her co-workers they both started chatting about "books and music" and how much they "both love New York." You know, I listened to a podcast where they said they treat New York like it's some quaint little town and I have to agree with that statement. I wonder if they went into their own private chat room or just kept chatting while there were other people in the chatroom. Oh, besides not knowing his name or what he looks like, she also doesn't know what he does because they agreed not to tell each other that for some reason. Gee, how totally convenient! Because if she learned he was part of the Fox Books empire, she would not take so kindly to him! 

And speaking of Fox Books, Kathleen and her employees see the building where they have painted "Fox Books Coming Soon" ON THE BUILDING. Why did they paint that on the building? Why not just make a sign? They're just going to have to paint over the letters. 

We get a montage of NY152 and Shopgirl (aka Joe and Kathleen) exchanging cutesy little stories and insights. We see Joe attempting to read Pride and Prejudice as we hear a voiceover from Kathleen telling him she's read it 200 times (200 times? That seems like overkill.) She tells him that she gets "lost in the language" and we see Joe looking really bored and flippantly toss the side aside. I'm on Joe's side here. I've never read Pride and Prejudice. I once tried to read Wuthering Heights. Boy, that didn't last long. I think I read the first chapter, then was like, Nope, not for me. But when Kathleen tells him, "Read it. I know you'll love it," he throws up his hands in defeat and reaches for the book which he does read. I'm not really sure why Kathleen thinks he'll love it. I guess they've had enough discussion about books for her to come to that conclusion.

The day Joe meets Kathleen (without knowing she's the one he's been corresponding with, obviously) is the day he spends with his four-year-old half-brother, Matt. Also along with them is Annabel, the daughter of his grandfather, who is probably around ten. What the heck is up with this family? They sure like to have children when they are old! Gillian brings the kids to him along with the nanny in case he couldn't handle them, but he tells the nanny to take the day off. Gillian tells Joe to kiss her because she's going to be his "wicked stepmother" and as he hesitantly kisses her on the cheek, she turns her head so they're kissing on the lips. I thought she was making a pass at Joe because she is closer in age to him than she is to Joe's father, and let's face it, she's only getting married to Mr. Fox because he's worth a lot of money. 

We see a cute montage of Tom Hanks and the two kids at the fair doing cute stuff like a ring toss, riding in cars that go around in circles, getting their faces painted, eating cotton candy, and hitting a scale with a hammer to see how much weight they can hit (which when Joe does, the hammer goes flying, so I don't know if this was purposeful or something they left in because Tom Hanks accidentally lost control of it). When they leave the fair, they walk past Kathleen's shop where there is a sign saying that story hour is about to begin and the kids want to see the "Storybook Lady", who is obviously Kathleen. While she reads from a children's book (I don't even remember what it was, but I wasn't familiar with), the children are engrossed in the story and Joe is clearly charmed.

Afterwards, Kathleen is showing Annabel some books. She assumes Joe is her dad, which, I can't blame her, because I would probably think the same thing. I would not think that this little girl is the aunt to this grown man, but that is what she tells Kathleen. 

Annabel sneezes and Kathleen offers the girl her (unused) handkerchief. Okay, why would you give a child (or anyone for that matter) a handkerchief to blow their snotty nose with? There are daises on it and Kathleen tells her that her mom embroidered them on it because daises are her favorite flower. I thought this was going to tip off Joe, like maybe Shopgirl had mentioned daises being her favorite flower, and he was going to figure out who she was, but he doesn't. I suppose even if he did know that fact about Shopgirl, I'm sure a lot of people like daisies. However, daisies will come back later on in the movie. And it wouldn't make sense for one of them to know who the other is so early in the film. We still have a lot of shenanigans to go through! Anyway, in a later scene, Kathleen reaches under the counter to retrieve a box of Kleenex which she offers to a woman who is crying because she is upset that Kathleen has to (spoiler alert!) close her store. This is proof that Kathleen didn't need to give Annabel her handkerchief! I would rather give someone my handkerchief to dry their tears than to someone who just sneezed! Look, I get that we need to have a link to the daisies, but that just bugs me! 

When Joe asks who she is, she tells him her name and that she owns this store. When she asks who HE is, he just replies, "Joe. Just call me Joe." This won't be the first non-truth that he keeps from her! 

The Fox bookstore has been opened for six days and Kathleen learns that they did $1200 less than the same week last year. Her young employee, Christina, is worried they will have to close and she will never be able to find another part time job and won't be able to pay her rent and will have to move to Brooklyn. I have so many questions: Where does she live now? And does she have another job? Because surely she can't afford anything in Manhattan if she's working part time at a children's book store unless Kathleen is super generous with the salary. Also, I'm sure it wouldn't be that HARD to find a part-time job....there must be thousands of them in NYC. Of course, I don't live there, so what do I know? Also, when she mentions she'll have to move to Brooklyn, she says it with such disdain dripping in her voice. I guess this was before Brooklyn became a cool place to live. 

Kathleen learns who Joe really is (as in that he's part of the Sons of Fox and Sons Bookstores, not that he's NY152, because, again, it is to early for them to find out who they really are) when she's attending a party with Frank. After she sees Joe and chats with him for a few minutes, someone comes up to her and tells her he can't believe she was talking to Joe Fox. She confronts Joe and accuses him of spying on her because she is the competition. 

Later that evening, Kathleen e-mails NYC152 to vent to him about Joe (which is hilarious since she is talking to Joe), but of course she's being as vague as possible so he doesn't even have a clue she's actually talking about HIM. When he replies back, he asks her if she thinks they should meet and Kathleen responds by closing her laptop. 

We then get a montage of either Kathleen seeing Joe everywhere she goes and trying to avoid him or Joe seeing Kathleen everywhere he goes and trying to avoid her. 

Things aren't looking too good for Kathleen's bookstore. A children's book author will be signing books soon at Fox and Sons, an author who used to have a good relationship with Kathleen and the Shop Around the Corner. Also, it's around Christmas and Kathleen sees many holiday shoppers walking by holding Fox and Sons Bookstore bags. How depressing is that? 

Kathleen emails NY152 and tells him she wishes her mother was still alive so she could ask her for some advice and Joe replies and ask if he can help. When Kathleen is about to reply, she gets an IM from Joe who tells her he had a feeling she would be online. (Um, if I remember right, you can see when someone is online unless they have you blocked or something. It's not like you're blindly sending them an instant message and guessing that they're online). Anyway, this seems to be the first time they're chatting live. She tells him her business is in trouble and he replies that he's a "brilliant businessman" and that he can help. When he asks her what she does, she refuses to tell him since they had both agreed on "no specifics." Obviously, this is done for plot purposes. Haha, can you imagine if she had told him she owned The Shop Around the Corner and he realized he was talking to Kathleen? But it's not time for either of them to realize who the other really is yet. 

So she vaguely tells him the problem and he tells her she "needs to go to war". Basically he writes a three paragraph essay on IM; doesn't he know that's what emails are for? I almost wanted to type out the entire thing he wrote to her, but that would take way too long and I didn't want to bore you with the details. (There were a lot of references to The Godfather). He writes her, "It's not personal, it's business" and tells her to recite that until she's all psyched up.

She asks Frank if he could write something about the store and he does. After his article comes out, people start picketing in front of Fox and Sons with signs that read "Bigger isn't better" and "Put socks in Fox" (eh, I feel like that one's kinda stretching it). They chant, "1, 2, 3, 4 we don't want your superstore, 5, 6, 7, 8, go away and close the gate." 

Ever after all this publicity, there hasn't been any difference in Kathleen's store's sales. So she e-mails NY152 to tell him she needs help and ask if he still wants to meet. They really hadn't talked about meeting since he had asked her earlier and she just ignored his comment about it. So now this is when the movie starts to get interesting. They're finally going to realize who the other person is and that they actually hate each other in real life! Ruh-roh! So they agree on a time and place to meet.

While Kathleen is already at Cafe Lalo (insert Better Call Saul joke here) Joe is walking with Kevin to meet Shopgirl. He has brought Kevin with him so he can check out the woman he's to meet. Shopgirl has told Joe that she will be have a book with a rose in it (ugh, how cliche is that? I would be too embarrassed to have a book (that she so prominently places on the table) with a rose sticking on it. If I were meeting somebody I never met, I would just tell them what color top I'm wearing or something like that) so that's how he will know it's her. Joe plans to only stay ten minutes. He'll say hello, have a cup of coffee, then "split". Now I know what you're thinking: couldn't have Joe just peered into the cafe and take a peek and see for himself? Well, yes, of course he would have, but it wouldn't have the same impact. You see, Kevin knows what Kathleen Kelly looks like because he saw her being interviewed on TV. 

Cafe Lalo -
they serve killer coffee!

So Kevin peers through the entrance and spots the book with the rose in it and first tells Joe that the woman looks very similar to Kathleen Kelly, then tells him it IS her. Joe is such a douche in this scene and I'm wondering why we are rooting for these two to get together? Instead of going in and admitting that he's NY152, he decides to let her wait there for a few minutes, then go in and act like he just popped in for a coffee and pretty much torments her and makes her feel bad about being stood up even though he's the one who stood her up! He tells her "this is a coincidence" that he ran into her. He sits at her table even though she tells him she's waiting for somebody (although, unbeknownst to her, the person she is waiting for is already sitting at her table!). He tells her he'll just sit there until her friend arrives. Obviously he knows nobody will be coming and just wants to rub it in her face and watch her face fall as any guy who enters completely ignore her. He even makes fun of the rose she brought. And when she asks him to leave, he just sits at the table behind her. This has to be the worst character Tom Hanks has ever played! He's such a jerk! He's just making her feel bad for being stood up and she tells him the man she's meeting is nothing like him (Oh, honey, if you only knew...) and tells him, "If he's not here, he has a reason." Joe takes offense to this and tells her she doesn't really know him to which she replies, "If I really knew you, I know what I would find. Instead of a brain, a cash register. Instead of a heart, a bottom line." She also tells him nobody will remember him or his and store and that he's "nothing but a suit." 

Of course she e-mails NY152 to tell him she went to meet him but he wasn't there and she felt foolish and wishes she knew why he wasn't there. I feel like if this happened in real life, the person who was stood up wouldn't even contact the person who stood them up because, odds are, they wouldn't even reply. She tells him while she was waiting for him, "a man who has made my professional life a misery" showed up, and, "for the first time in my life, when confronted with a horrible, insensitive person, I knew exactly what I wanted to say and I said it." She writes him this because they have had conversations about this. She had told him when she is provoked by someone she doesn't like, she gets tongue tied and her mind goes blank, then she "spends all night tossing and turning, trying to figure out what [she] should have said." She tells him it was the first time in her life she was able "to say the exact thing [she] wanted at the exact moment [she] wanted to say it. She goes on to say she she felt terrible afterwards and pretty much apologized to Joe without realizing it.

When Joe receives this e-mail, he thinks of an excuse as to why he wasn't there and starts typing things like he was out of town or he was stuck in a meeting and the electricity went out and he couldn't get out of the building. This scene drove me absolutely crazy because every time he would delete something, instead of highlighting the section he wanted to delete and pressing the "delete" button, he would press the backspace/delete key several times to delete the individual characters he had just typed! UGHGHGHGH! That was so irritating! WHY do people own a computer if they don't know how to use one?? 

After taking ten minutes to delete everything, he starts over and writes, "Dear friend, I cannot tell you what happened last night." (Oh, yeah, that doesn't sound shady at all!) He continues to say he feels terrible she found herself in a situation that caused her "additional pain" and that he will "explain everything" someday. Why not just come clean right now? I think the longer he waits, the worse it's going to be. At least, in theory. 

The movie takes a surprisingly realistic turn when Kathleen finally realizes she needs to close her store. I honestly was expecting her to come through and "win" and be able to keep her store. It is very sad when she has to close it. She puts a sign on the door which reads, "After 42 years, we are closing our doors. We have loved being part of your lives."  Now, ironically, Fox and Sons Bookstore would be closed (probably not too long after Kathleen's shop closed) because Amazon would be taking over. So suck it, Joe Fox!

She and Frank break up and it is the most mutual break up ever. They go out for dinner (well, first, actually they go to a movie, but they end up leaving during the previews because Frank can tell Kathleen is upset about something, so basically they wasted their money on a movie they never saw). At the restaurant Kathleen basically tells him she wants to break up and he agrees. He even admits he has his eye on someone. It's like, dude, maybe not mention that. I know she wants to break up with you, but you don't need to justify why you want to break up with her. Though to be fair, she's essentially been cheating on him this whole time so I guess it's only fair that he has someone else on the sideline He asks her if there's someone else and she says no (:::coughthat'saliecough:::), but that "there is the dream of someone else." Okay, Kathleen, whatever makes you feel better. 

For some reason, she goes to the children's section at Fox Books. I guess to make herself even more depressed. No, the reason for this scene is for Joe to observe her. While she's there, someone comes up to a guy who is working and asks him about a certain book he can't find but the employee has no idea what he's talking about. Kathleen, overhearing all this, gives them her expertise. 

Joe also breaks up with his girlfriend and moves into his boat. Because apparently he can't afford an apartment? They sure tied up Kathleen and Joe breaking up with their significant others into a nice little bow, didn't they? We also found out Joe's dad broke up with Gillian. She ran off with the nanny, of all things. I was so confused by this because throughout the movie it seemed like she was coming onto Joe. There was the scene where she tricked him into kissing her on the lips. There's also another scene around Christmas where the entire family is listening to Annabel sing Christmas carols and Gillian sits next to Joe on the couch and starts massaging his thigh! Like, what the hell? This prompts Joe to get up and the nanny sits in his spot. I guess you could say that was a ruse to get Joe to leave so the two secret (very secret, as this came out of left field!) lovebirds could sit together. 

Okay, I mentioned earlier that Dreams is the only good song in this movie. I totally forgot that Signed, Sealed, Delivered plays while Joe goes to Kathleen's apartment to bring her flowers. And not just any flowers, but daisies! Aha! That scene with the daisies on the handkerchief has finally paid off! Joe is bringing her flowers because he heard she was sick (from who?). He rings her buzzer and she doesn't want him to come in. Even if they were on good terms, I doubt she would want him to come in because when you're sick, the last thing you want is to socialize! You just want to stay in bed and sleep! Even though she has adamantly told him she doesn't want him to come in, he does anyway when someone is leaving the building. Kathleen is in her pajamas and she's got Kleenex everywhere and is eating soup. Joe tells her he wants to be her friend and wants to know what happed with the guy at the cafe. Obviously, he knows what happened! He seems to have a sick pleasure of messing her this way. She replies "nothing" and affirms she is crazy about him. But why? Why is so so head over heels about this guy she's never met and (as far as she's concerned) stood her up? It doesn't make sense to me. Joe suggests that she should meet him. Oh, really, Joe? 

Kathleen agrees with Joe (for whatever reason; I know, I know, it's all part of the plot) and later e-mails NY152 to tell him she wants to meet him and he agrees and replies, "I'm in the middle of a project that needs tweaking" and they will meet after that. Of course, his project is to groom Kathleen to make her fall for him and get info about her conversations with NY152, to see her side of things. He gets Kathleen to tell him what NY152 wrote to her and he suggests that he might be married. She doesn't believe this at all, but he's all, "Oh, are you sure?" and this makes her write to NY152 to ask if he's married and he replies with something like, "I can't believe you would ask me something like that" and never gives her a yes or no answer. Aurgh, at this point he is just messing with her for his own amusement. I honestly don't understand what the point of all of this is except for him to be an a$$h0le. 

We find out that Kathleen is working on a children's book and she tells Joe that that NY152 was the one who got her thinking about writing, so you know he felt pretty smug when she told him that!

Kathleen mentions that they keep bumping into each other (because he is low-key stalking her, it's all part of his plan) and Joe suggests that they "bump" into each other on Saturday, knowing full well that Kathleen can't meet with him because she's already made plans to meet with NY152 that afternoon at Riverside Park. Joe suggests he mights be a "westside" and Kathleen says, "Maybe I've seen him and don't even know it" and Joe replies, "You could have seen him every day and not know it. He could be anybody." At this point, I'm wondering if Kathleen is beginning to suspect it's him. We get no real evidence that she might. 

Joe tells her this guy has great timing and has waited until he's convinced "that there's no other man that [she] could possibly love" and proceeds to tell her that if he wasn't who he was or she wasn't who she was (basically if they had different careers that didn't conflict with each other's), then he would have asked her for her number and took her on a date. He also wants to know, "How can you forgive this guy for standing you up, and not forgive me for putting you out of business." Yeah, I might be annoyed if someone stood me up, but if it was someone I had never met before, I probably wouldn't be as annoyed if it was someone I had an established relationship. I think someone taking your business and your means of making a living is way worse than some rand-o standing you up. She doesn't even answer him; just tells him she has to go. 

During this scene, I thought the movie might go in a different direction. I thought she and Joe might have a long, serious talk and Joe would confess his feelings for her and she would decide he was the one for her and just stop communicating with NY152 altogether. At this point, it seems like too much time has gone by for Joe to reveal he is really her pen pal without her getting ticked off. I don't know what you would do in a situation like this. If you started a relationship with a person who didn't know you were the one they were talking to online, would you tell them or just let it slide? However, this movie knows that their audience wants Kathleen to find out who NY152 is so it's not surprising it ends the way it does. 

NY152 (btw, super weird that you would be meeting someone in real life you met online and not even know their name; I get it's for plot points, but this makes no sense) told Kathleen he would be with his dog, Brinkley. Joe has never told Kathleen he has a dog. Very clever, movie. When Kathleen goes to the park to meet him, she hears a dog barking and hears someone yelling, "Brinkley!" That's when she sees Joe. She is surprised at first, then just smiles and laughs, shaking her head, like, "Oh, you." I'll tell you one thing. I would not have this reaction. I don't think anyone would realistically have this reaction. I think most people would be a little irked that he was basically jerking her chain this entire time. She tells him, "I wanted it to be you." Okay, she had to know it was him, right? Does she know how astronomical the odds are that NY152 and Joe would be the same person? They kiss and Brinkley jumps up on Joe which made me laugh. 

And they lived happily ever after. Until Fox Books went under because of Amazon. Yeah, this movie infuriated me how Joe was pretty much messing with Kathleen the last third of the movie and she seems to be okay with it when it's revealed he's NY152. Also, the weird subplot with his soon-to-be stepmother didn't need to be in there at all. 

So I found this wild fact when I was cruising through the movie's IMDb page. I don't know if any of it is 100% accurate because I know nothing about computers from 1997, let alone how much they would cost, but this blew my mind:

Joe is using an IMB Thinkpad 770 series, which had a retail price of $6,900 in 1997 dollars. Kathleen is using an Apple PowerBook G3 250, which had a list price of $5,700 in 1997 dollars.

Good lord! I can't imagine paying $6-7 thousand dollars for a laptop in any year's money! Apparently, $7,000 in 1997 is equivalent to nearly $13,000 in today's money. WTF? That seems insane! Is that even right? Basically I got my iMac, my MacBook, and my phone all for less than what Joe paid for his stupid clunky-ass laptop in 1997! Good thing he's a multi-millionaire!! 

More Than Friends

When Harry Met Sally

Director: Rob Reiner

Cast: Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, Bruno Kirby

Released: July 21, 1989

Oscar nominations:

Best Original Screenplay - Nora Ephron (lost to Tom Schulman for Dead Poet's Society) 

This is a movie I've always known about but have never seen until now. I didn't love it as much as I expected to, but I also didn't hate it as much as I thought I would. Yep, I know I totally contradicted myself! I thought there were charming parts of the movie, but there were also parts that just made me internally groan. Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan as the titular Harry and Sally are very good together and have a good chemistry. The very first scene is when they meet; how perfect! It is 1977 and we're at the University of Chicago where Harry and Sally are graduating and off to New York for a new life. We don't really get too much other than Sally is friends with Amanda, who is Harry's girlfriend. Apparently Amanda found out that both her friend and boyfriend are going to New York so she suggested they car pool together. I don't know. I'm just speculating. I have no idea how they both ended up driving together to New York. All I know is I would never drive halfway across the country with anyone I was just meeting for the first time; I don't care if we have a mutual friend. Eff that! I do find it weird that Sally has never met her friend's boyfriend before. Why is this the first time they're meeting? (I know, I know, it's for the plot of the movie). They never tell us how close Sally and Amanda are (not very, apparently). Are they best friends? Did they have a couple classes together and just know each other that way? My guess is the latter is more on the right track. Still, it's just weird that Sally would agree to drive 788 miles (I Googled the distance) with a guy she's just met. 

The way they style Billy Crystal (who was 40) and Meg Ryan (who was 27; I didn't realize there was such a big age gap between the actors!) to look like college students in their early twenties is hilarious. They give Billy Crystal a hairpiece to hide his receding hairline and they dress him in a hoodie and jeans. At least he's wearing something that a young college person would wear; what they give Meg Ryan to wear is super bizarre even though she can pull off a young twenty-something much better since she is much closer to the actual age. She is wearing khaki shorts, knee high socks, and a blue cardigan over a yellow collared shirt. No college girl would ever wear this. What is this? Was this some kind of trend in the mid '70s? Or are they just trying to tell us she's an academic by the way she dresses? 

Once they get started on their road trip, we immediately see how different they are. Sally is very structured and tells him she thinks they should take turns driving in three hour shifts. Meanwhile, he's not paying attention to her and rifling through the backseat for his grapes (this happens seconds after they start driving, so why didn't he just keep the grapes with him in the first place?), pops one in his mouth, then spits out the seeds which splat onto the car window. I guess he thought it was rolled down? Who spits out grape seeds? Is this a thing? Also, he just sheepishly rolls down the window (without cleaning the nasty grape spit!) and continues to eat the grapes and spit the seeds out of the open window. If I had been driving that car, I would slam on my break so fast and tell him to "get the f*ck outta my car!" That would drive me bat-sh*t crazy! They've only known each other for less than two minutes and already I would want to murder him. 

He asks her why she's going to New York an she replies she's going to journalism school to become a reporter (and even though later we do learn that she did become a reporter for a newspaper (or maybe it was a TV program; I'm not really sure...or perhaps it was a magazine) called The News, nothing else about her career is ever mentioned in the movie). He replies with, "So you can write things that happen to other people" and says it like it's a bad thing. What does he care if she wants to become a journalist and what's so bad about that? He then proceeds to tell her (and keep in mind they've probably only known each other for an hour when he says this), "Suppose nothing happens to you. Suppose you live there your whole life and nothing happens, you never meet anybody, you never become anything and finally you die one of those New York deaths." Wha-what? 

Sally comments that Amanda told her he had a "dark side" and he agrees, telling her he reads the last page of whatever book he's reading just in case he dies before he's done reading it. I don't know; I don't think that means you have a dark side. I think it just means if the book is worth continuing to read! They get into this (one-sided) stupid competition about who thinks about death the most. He tells her he "spends hours, days thinking about it and that for her, it's probably just a "fleeting thought that drifts in and out of the transom of [her] mind." 

So at this point, I'm fine with Sally and I feel sorry for her having to deal with Harry (at one point he accuses her of never having "great sex" and I firmly believe Sally would be justified in smacking the sh*t out of him), but then they stop at a diner for dinner and this is what she orders: 

"I'd like the chef's salad, please, with the oil and vinegar on the side. And the apple pie a la mode. But I'd like the pie heated and I don't want the ice cream on the top, I want it on the side. And I'd like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it. If not, then no ice cream just whipped cream, but only if it's real, if it's out of a can, then nothing."

Oh my God. I can't even. If I was the waitress, I would have told Sally to f*ck off. Let's dissect her order, shall we? I have no problem with her asking for the oil and vinegar on the side for her salad. That is very reasonable. It's the dessert order that is insane and over the top. Having the pie heated doesn't seem like an odd request; in fact, don't most places heat up pie? I don't know; I guess I haven't ordered pie that much to really know. But ordering strawberry ice cream instead of vanilla? What kind of monster is eating apple pie with strawberry ice cream? That is some whack thinking right there. If I were the waitress, I would tell her we don't have strawberry ice cream and I would have told her you can have vanilla ice cream of whipped cream or just plain. None of this fancy special stuff. If you want this so bad, go buy an apple pie at the store with strawberry ice cream. Ugh, I hate people who order like this...it's like just order what's on the menu and shut the f*ck up. Apparently this is how Nora Ephron ordered so she wrote from experience. I'll tell you what, I feel sorry for all the people who have ever had to take her order at restaurants! Yeah, the whole thing just comes off very privileged. 

While Sally is figuring out the tip, Harry stares at her and tells her, "You're a very attractive person" and how Amanda never said how attractive she was. (Why would she? What does that have to do with anything?) Sally thinks he is coming on to her (which I don't think is unreasonable for her to think) and reminds him that Amanda is her friend and he's dating Amanda. Harry claims he wasn't coming on to her and asks, "Can't a man say a woman is attractive without it being a come on?" Oh, boy, this guy is gonna find himself in a lot of sexual harassment lawsuits! I can just see him using that line to get out of them, too. He tells her he takes back the comment, but she says he can't do that "because it's already out there" and to "just let it lie." He asks her if she wants to spend the night at a motel (he is half-joking), then makes a joke about how he didn't "let it lie." She firmly tells him, "We are just going to be friends, okay?" The way Harry is acting, I almost forgive Sally for her obnoxious ordering. Almost. 

Harry tells her that they can never be friends. He has a theory that men and women can't be friends "because the sex part always gets in the way." Sally tells him she has "a number of men friends and there is no sex involved." He tells her, without ever having met any of these male friends of hers, that they all want to have sex with her and that "no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive" because he just wants to have sex with her. Sally replies, "So you're saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive." Harry replies that they "pretty much wanna nail them, too" which made me laugh but also made me wonder if they threw that line in so they wouldn't offend any "non-attractive" women watching this. I don't know; just a theory. 

She drops him off at Washington Square Park and they say good-bye with a handshake and tell each other to have a nice life. This is such a weird place to drop someone off. Harry walks toward the park with his bags like he's going to camp out there. Doesn't he have an apartment he's staying at that she could have dropped him off in front of? 

This version of Harry is the worst Harry we see and it's pretty clear why Sally doesn't like him. Honestly, I'm surprised she even offered to be friends with him, although maybe she's just saying that and doesn't really mean it, not knowing she will later run into him in a few years. 

And that time comes five years later when we see Sally at an airport, kissing her boyfriend, Joe. Fun fact: Joe is played by Steven Ford who is the son of Gerald Ford. At first I was like, if they're going to cast an ex-POTUS's son as the love interest for Sally, why not JFK Jr? But then I looked up Steven Ford and apparently he is an actor (or was; he hasn't been in anything since 2007) and has had bit parts in a handful of movies (some I've even heard of!) 

As they're kissing, Harry walks past, sees them, and backtracks his steps. It turns out he knows Joe as they used to live in the same building (I feel like the chances of that are very astronomical). I really thought it was Sally that he had recognized, but it's Joe who he says hello to. It's also super weird that he's waiting patiently for this couple to stop making out before he says anything. I don't know what is more weird: a couple making out in the middle of a very public place (a quick kiss is fine, but full on making out in the airport? C'mon, people.) or someone waiting for a couple to stop making out. As soon as Joe says his name (he says something like, "Hey, Harry Burns, how are you doing?" which is really weird because who ever calls someone by their first and last name like that?), she immediately knows who he is and is trying to avoid eye contact. 

So I'm a little confused as to whether Harry had recognized Sally or not. When Joe introduces him to Sally, he seems to recognize her name, but doesn't say anything about knowing her. But then, as soon as Harry leaves to catch his plane, Sally says to Joe, "Thank God he couldn't place me. I drove from college to New York with him five years ago and it was the longest night of my life." This is such a weird line to have in the movie. As an audience, we know this because it just happened minutes ago in the movie! I guess it's for the benefit for Joe to ask what happened and for her to tell him Harry made a pass at her...I don't know. Or maybe it's a reason for Joe to tell Sally that he loves her, seemingly for the first time. (They've only been together for a month). Also, the airport is a weird place to say that for the first time. 

So guess who else is on the plane that Harry boarded? That's right, it's Sally and she's sitting in the row right in front of Harry. Here's her eye-rolling drink order:

"Here's what I want. Regular tomato juice. Fill it up about three quarters then add a splash of Bloody Mary mix, just a splash and a little piece of lime, but on the side."

Arrgh. Does she not realize there are probably over 100 people on this flight that also want drinks? Just order a simple drink and stop being so extra extra. The movie implies that this is when Harry recognizes Sally (because of her obnoxious ordering) because he leans over and asks if they knew each other at the University of Chicago. Now, I could have sworn he recognized her when Joe introduced him to her, but maybe he just thought he recognized her name and this is when he definitely remembers her, who knows. But he must not have remembered her that well because he asks her if they ever slept together (without actually saying it, but he implies it). You think he would remember sleeping with an attractive woman like Sally if he did. How can he not remember making the big spiel about men and women not being able to be friends because sex gets in the way...surely he remembers that he did not sleep with her! 

The guy sitting next to Sally offers to switch places with Harry so the two of them can catch up. This is when we learn that Sally has become a journalist and this is pretty much the only scene in the movie that mentions her job. (I must admit I did laugh when he says to her, "You were gonna be a gymnast" (LOL, what?) and she replies, "A journalist.", and he says, "Right. That's what I said."). In fairness, this is also the only scene we really learn about Harry's job; he works with a small firm that does political consulting. (Yawn!)  

Harry asks about Joe and wants to know if they're getting married (kinda presumptuous to assume just because somebody is a couple they're going to get married), but she tells him they've only known each other for a month and neither are looking to get married at the moment. To her surprise, Harry tells her he's getting married. She tells him it's optimistic of him and he replies, "You get to a certain point where you get tired of the whole-life-as-a-single-guy thing." (And by the way, he's not getting married to Amanda, his college girlfriend; it turns out neither of them still keep in touch with her). 

When they land (not even sure where they are), Harry asks her to have dinner with him, just as friends. When she says she thought men and women can't be friends, he tells her, "They can't be friends unless both of them are involved with other people, then they can." (It feels like he's just making up the rules as the movie goes along). Sally tells him goodbye and they don't have dinner. 

Another five years goes by and now it's 1987 so we're very close to the movie's "present day" 1989. Sally is having lunch with two of her girlfriends, Marie (Carrie Fisher) and someone else whose name I don't remember because she's really not that important. Marie has been seeing a married man for two years and lamenting about how he's never going to leave his wife. Nonchalantly, Sally tells them that she and Joe broke up three days ago. Her friends are shocked since they were together for five years and seemed to have this perfect relationship. Marie's kind of a terrible friend because she asks, "Joe's available?" like she's ready to pounce. Both of her friends can't believe she waited three days to tell them about this, but Sally tells them she's not upset about it; that they've "been growing apart for quite awhile." Marie takes that as a sign that she's "ready" and proceeds to pull out a ROLODEX (I am not joking) that has the names and numbers of single men she knows. I understand this is 1989 and smart phones are not a thing yet, but they had those little black books where people wrote down numbers and addresses. A small leather book seems way more plausible for a woman to carry around in her purse than a clunky freakin' rolodex! Sally tells her even though she's over Joe, she's not ready to date yet. (Yeah, it's only been three days; give the woman some room to breathe!) Marie tells her not to wait too long or the man she's meant to be with could be scooped up by another woman. 

We transition over to Harry who's at a baseball game with his friend, Jess (Bruno Kirby) and telling him that his wife recently left him and he found out she's in love with someone else and she moved in with that guy. A few days later, Sally and Marie are in a bookshop where Harry also happens to be and Marie notices that he keeps glancing at Sally and tells her some guy is checking her out. Sally recognizes him instantly and tells Marie he's obnoxious and that he probably doesn't even remember her anyway and that's when he comes over and says her name so he obviously does remember her. This scene is basically here to have them reunite and for Harry to find out that Sally broke up with Joe and for Sally to find out that Harry's getting a divorce.

They go out to dinner (as friends, of course) and Sally tells him when she and Joe first started dating, they wanted the same thing: to live together, but not get married because "every time anyone [they] knew got married, it ruined the relationship." But that's not true, it seems the real culprit was that having children is what seemed to ruin their friends' relationships. She talks about how they all have kids and can never have sex because they're too exhausted to have it. Okay, two things:

1. You don't need to be married to have kids and you don't have to have kids if you're married. The two do not go hand in hand.

2. It seems like sex is the number one priority for Sally in a relationship. Like, if you don't want to have kids, that's fine, but not wanting them because you'll never be able to have sex seems odds. 

Sally realized that even though they don't have kids, they aren't very spontaneous when they could be. They have the luxury to be able to go anywhere they want without worrying about kids. She then realized she DID want to get married and have kids and when she had a talk with him about it, he said he didn't want those things, so they decided it was over. She tells him she's fine about the decision and that she's over him, a statement she will keep reiterating throughout the movie.

Around this time, Harry and Sally become friends (and they're both single!) We hear a phone conversation between the two of them while we see a montage of them doing things by themselves or having dinner together. Harry talks about how he misses his ex and Sally says she doesn't miss hers at all (see, again, we get another example of this...makes me wonder if this is going to be a big factor later on in there movie...hmmm!). 

They're both in their own beds, on the phone with each other as they're watching the end of Casablanca and Harry comments how Ingrid Bergman is "low maintenance" and goes on to say, "There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance." It's a very generalized, sexist statement, but in a way, he is right. He's just treading in some dangerous territory with it, especially when Sally asks which kind she is. Because she is his friend, he replies with the truth (I don't think he tells her this if they are dating!): "You're the worst kind. You're high maintenance, but you think you're low maintenance." Ha! He is so right. Of course, Sally disagrees. He mocks her ordering habits and says "on the side" is a very big thing. Personally, I don't have a problem with Sally ordering things "on the side"; it's just the minute stupid nitpick-y details of her ordering that really grates on me. Her very privileged response is, "Well, I just want it the way I want it." Ugh, shut up. Or go to Burger King and "have it your way." (Is that even still their slogan?) They continue to watch the movie and Harry remarks that, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" as the best last line of a movie. 

Later, Harry asks her to go to the movies, but she tells him she has a date. She didn't want to tell him about it because she "felt strange about it" since they've "been spending so much time together" (this makes no sense) and tells him that he should "get out there too", but he claims he's not ready. 

However, it turns out he did go on a date because in the next scene we see Harry and Sally together, they are telling each other about their first dates after splitting with their exes. They are in Sally's ridiculously huge apartment unrolling a Persian rug that is the size of an Olympic swimming pool (seriously, how does she afford this on a journalist's salary, especially when she's never at work??) and she tells him that after she and her date finished dinner, the guy reached over, pulled a hair out of her head and began flossing!? What the actual f*ck? That seems like something a serial killer would do. This scenario seems a little far-fetched; I feel like they could have come up with something a little more realistic, but still make the guy look like a loser, like maybe he conveniently left his wallet at home and made Sally pay or even have him pay and maybe have him leave a terrible tip. 

Harry says he had a "massive anxiety attack" because he found out his date went to Michigan State and it reminded him of him ex, even though she went to Northwestern and justifies it by saying, "They're both Big Ten schools." His anxiety attack must not have been as big a deal as he thought, because he admits to Sally that he slept with his date. I can't imagine any woman sleeping with someone on the first date if her date is freaking out over something stupid like where they went to school. I did wonder if he was lying to Sally but we never get any confirmation about it. 

Then we get the famous scene in the deli that everyone knows even if they've never seen the movie. In a scene previous to this, Harry was telling Jess how he can talk to Sally about the women he's dating and get a female perspective on things. At the deli with Sally, she tells him, "most women at one time or another have faked it" and he is very sure that's never happened with him. Sally asks, "How do you know?" and he replies, "Because I know" which isn't answering her question at all. That's when she fakes an orgasm right there at the booth in the middle of the deli with a bunch of people just staring at her like she's crazy. I do have a hard time believing somebody like Sally, who is more on the conservative side, would do that in a very public place, but at the same time, she loves to prove Harry wrong and has a smug look on her face when Harry realizes how easy it is for a woman to fake one. Then, of course, we have the line of the movie, delivered by Rob Reiner's mom as one of the customers in the deli, "I'll have what she's having." 

It's soon New Year's Eve and since neither of them have date, they attend a party together as friends. We see a little spark as they're dancing (as each one faces the camera, we see a look of forlorn longing on their faces). When the countdown begins, they go outside to get some fresh air and they watch as all the couples are kissing each other and they just look at each other, then give a peck on the lips and hug each other. It's a nice, friendly moment. They both agree that if they're both single at this time next year, they'll be each other's date for whatever New Year's party they'll attend. Well, a lot can certainly happen in one year! 

Sally wants to set up her best girl friend, Marie (remember her? She's the one seeing a married man) with her best guy friend, Harry. Likewise, Harry wants to set up Sally with his friend, Jess. I can sort of understand why Sally wants to set up her two friends: Marie did see Harry in the bookstore that one day (and was briefly introduced to him) and did admit to Sally she thought he was cute, plus Sally wants her to stop seeing a married man, especially one that's never going to leave his wife. The Sally and Jess pairing doesn't make any sense and seems to be done because they're both single. 

The four of them all go out on a double date which seems like a terrible idea. Who goes out on a double date for their first date? I don't know, maybe that's more common than I think. The only reason they go on a double date is to serve the plot of the movie. 

They're eating dinner at a restaurant and the couples are sitting next to each other, talking to each other. You can tell it's not going well for either of them as they have nothing in common. Everyone looks bored and annoyed to be there. Sally tells Marie and Harry that they're both from New Jersey and they're interested in that fact for two seconds, and then it doesn't go anywhere. 

Right before they order, Jess says, "I think restaurants have become too important" (what does that even mean?) and Marie agrees and says she read a line she loved in a magazine, "Restaurants are to people in the '80s what theater was to people in the '60s." This is the most pretentious thing I've ever heard (okay, not really, but pretty close). Jess (who is a writer) tells her he wrote that line in New York Magazine and there's an instant connection between him and Marie. Harry sees this and interjects that Sally also wrote for them. (I suppose that's one reason why Harry thought Sally and Jess would connect; they're both writers). I laughed when Jess looks at Sally for one second, then turns back to Marie and they continue their conversation. 

After dinner, as they're walking home, Marie takes Sally aside and asks her if she had any intentions of going out with Jess and tells her she likes him. Meanwhile, Jess is having the same conversation with Harry about Marie. In the end, Jess and Marie take a cab home together. I kind of love that they end up getting together and threw a wrench in Harry and Sally's plans. 

It goes so well for Jess and Marie that they get engaged four months later (that seems awfully quick!). Harry and Sally are at Sharper Image trying to find a wedding gift. Okay, seriously, who the hell registers at freakin' Sharper Image? Crate and Barrel? Sure. Williams-Sonoma? Of course. Pottery Barn? Your basic wedding registry store. Look, I understand this is the '80s when Sharper Image was a big thing and they do have a lot of fun things, but nothing you really need. I remember going into their stores at the mall when I was a kid and loving it. But, really, they just sell a bunch of crap. You're lucky if you get a year's use out of their products. A few years back I ordered a clock radio with different ambient noises (I need some kind of background noise when I'm sleeping...ironically, dead silence keeps me awake!) and that thing lasted a year before it went to sh*t. Now I have an Alexa that serves the purpose of an alarm clock and plays any ambient noise I wish (I'm pretty boring though, I usually just go for white noise). Anyway, while they're there, they run into Harry's ex-wife, Helen (this is the first time we see her) and her new beau. After they exchange some awkward polite banter,  Harry says to Sally, "She looked really weird, didn't she?" and Sally replies, "I've never seen her before." That exchange made me chuckle. Like Sally, I had never seen her before either, but I have to agree with Harry. She has A LOT of hair. That's the only thing I could think of when I saw her: just SO MUCH hair.

When Harry and Sally are over at Jess and Marie's new place, Harry is still reeling from seeing his ex. He tells them right now everything is great and everyone's in love, but "sooner or later they're gonna be screaming at each other" over who's gonna get what in their inevitable divorce. Yikes! He storms outside and Sally follows him and tells him, "You're gonna have to try to find a way of not expressing every feeling that you have every moment that you have them. There are times and places for things." Heh, I can't believe this came from a woman who faked an orgasm in a public place. 

Harry is annoyed that she is giving him advice because nothing bothers her and she never gets upset about anything. He gives the example of her never getting upset over Joe (you know, if you made a drinking game out of this movie, you could drink every time it's pointed out how Sally is "fine" with her breakup with Joe). They get into a spat, but then Harry apologizes and they hug and they're friends again. 

Some time goes by and both Harry and Sally are dating (different people, not each other). They have both brought their dates to Jess and Marie's place to play Pictionary. We see Sally and her date kiss as Harry looks at them sadly; we see Harry and his date kiss as Sally looks at them sadly. It's almost like the movie is trying to tell us something! Both Harry and Sally gossip about each other's dates to their same-sex friends. Harry asks Jess if he thinks Sally's date seems "a little stuffy" to him and Sally comments to Marie that she thinks Harry's date is a "little young" for him. While talking with Jess, Harry admits that she is young. He tells him he asked her where she was when Kennedy got shot and she thought he meant Ted Kennedy. I did some quick arithmetic in my head and Harry would have been around seven when JFK was assassinated. I suppose a seven-year-old could be old enough to remember a national tragedy like that. Though it is weird for him to ask her that since if she is younger (not sure how much younger), then she probably wasn't born yet. That would be like me asking a teenager where they were when 9/11 happened. 

Okay, remember how Sally keeps reiterating to Harry how she's fine with having broke up with Joe and she's over him and all that? Well, all that has been building up for the scene we get when Harry gets a call in the evening from a very upset Sally. She tells him that Joe is getting married and asks Harry if he can come over, which he does. She tells him that Joe had called her earlier that day and asked her how she was, then told her he was getting married to a paralegal who works in his office. She tells Harry, "All this time I've been saying that he didn't wanna get married, but the truth is he didn't wanna marry me." I do feel for Sally in this moment because that has to be painful that your ex tells you he doesn't want to get married, but ends up engaged to somebody else (even those Joe seemed very bland and boring, so she was most definitely better off without him!) 

She starts named her negative qualities, almost to justify why Joe wouldn't want to marry her, but Harry spins them in a positive way. When she says, "I'm difficult", Harry tells her, "You're challenging." When she says, "I'm too structured and I'm completely closed off", Harry adds, "But in a good way." Then she starts crying (again) and exclaims she's gonna be forty "someday". As Harry tells her, she still has eight years to go. Eh, I'm not a big fan of movies that implicate if you're a woman and not married by a certain age, your life is pretty much worthless and you should just kill yourself, but only if you're a woman! It seems like Harry got married because it was just convenient for him and nothing to do with the fact that society would shame him if he didn't get married by a certain time. 

Harry comforts Sally by hugging her and that turns into them making out which turns into them sleeping together. After the act, their reactions are opposite of what you would expect. Sally is happy and smiling while Harry looks like he's just made a huge mistake. Sally gets up to get some water and when she returns, she cuddles close to him and asks with a smile, "Do you wanna go to sleep?" Clearly she is ready for another round. Harry says, "Okay" and a hurt Sally slides over to her side of the bed. To be fair to Harry, I think he knows that Sally is vulnerable and this is not the best time for her to have sex after hearing her ex is with someone else. He probably thinks he is a coping mechanism for her to get over Joe. 

The next morning, Sally wakes up to see Harry getting dressed and asks where he's going. He tells her he needs to go to work (she couldn't figure that out?), but wants to take her out to dinner later if she's free and then he goes.

The next scene is a great scene of our four main characters having a phone conversation all at the same time. Marie and Jess, both sleeping in their bed, are woken up by their ringing phones. Yes, phones. They each have a phone on their bedside table (and remember, this is the late '80s so it's those huge honking' phones with a cord and receiver; they're not using cell phones!) so that means they both have their own phone line. Um, please tell me, why do you need TWO phones in the bedroom? That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Now if one of them had a phone in a study with their own private line for work (I have no idea what Marie does), then yes, I could get behind that. Yeah, yeah, I know this is done solely for the scene, but this would have made so much more sense in a more modern version where both couples had cell phones laying on their bedside table. 

So Marie's phone rings first and it's Sally, then seconds later, Jess's phone rings and it's Harry. (Both phones sound alike when they ring, so how do they even tell which phone it is?) Sally is calling from her bed and Harry is calling from a payphone. They both tell their friends about what happened and Jess and Marie think it's great until their friends tell them after it was over, they felt awkward and embarrassed. Marie gives Sally some good advice: "You should never go to bed with anyone when you find out your last boyfriend is getting married." 

Both Sally and Harry, who can hear their friends' significant others, also talking, ask if they're also on the phone, but they just reply it's the TV. At the same time, Jess and Marie asks their friends, "Do you wanna come over for breakfast?", then look at each other with uh-oh faces when they realize they said the same thing, but luckily both Harry and Sally decline their friends' invitations. 

When Harry takes Sally out to dinner that night, we get a voiceover from him telling us he hopes Sally realizes last night was a mistake, but he wants her to say it first and we get a voiceover from Sally telling us she hopes she gets to say it first. She does and Harry replies, "I am so relieved that you think so too." 

We see Sally with Marie at her fitting for a wedding dress. This dress is so ugly. It has a weird bodice that's a different shade of white than the rest of the dress. I always feel like when a movie features a wedding dress, nine times out of ten, I hate the dang thing! Probably the best wedding dress I've seen in a movie is the one from Crazy Rich Asians. Sally tells Marie she looks beautiful and she seems sincere. I would be a terrible person to take wedding dress shopping. Not that I would tell someone I hated their dress (even if I did) because I wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings if they did like the dress. But if they said they didn't like it first, then I would definitely agree with them! Sally asks her if Harry's bringing anyone to the wedding or if he's seeing anyone, but he's not. 

At the wedding, Sally and Harry, as the Maid of Honor and Best Man, appear to be the only people in the wedding party. Meg Ryan's curls are perfection in this scene. Here's a controversial opinion (IDK, maybe it's not as controversial as I might think): not a big fan of when Meg got her pixie cut. Will probably discuss this more in an upcoming review, *hint hint*. Sally and Harry are looking at each other while the vows are being read. 

During the wedding party, they get into an argument about what happened three weeks ago. She accuses him of acting like what happened didn't mean anything. He asks her, "Why does it have to mean everything?" He says they both agreed it was a mistake and tells her, "I did not go over there that night to make love to you. That is not why I went there." He says that she was asking him to hold her longer and what was he supposed to do? Sally takes this as he was taking pity on her. They are in the kitchen where all the food is being prepared as they're having their argument. I notice this is a troupe used many times in movies...characters finding their way into a kitchen while food is being prepared. There's no way the head chef or anyone working back there would allow two random people to come in and start arguing...they would tell them to get out of there. But we need our two main characters to be out of the area where the reception is because they need to enter it again as Jess and Marie are holding up their champagne glasses, ready to make a toast. Jess says, "I'd like to propose a toast to Harry and Sally. If Marie or I had found either of them remotely attractive, we would not be here today." While this is funny, I don't think it's true. Marie did tell Sally she thought Harry was cute when she first spots him in the bookshop (and thought he was checking out Sally) and it seems that Jess and Sally didn't have anything in common, I never got the impression that he wasn't attracted to her.

This was one of the rare late fall weddings because we see a Christmas montage of Sally carrying a Christmas tree home and Harry keeps calling her, trying to speak and apologize to her, but she won't answer the phone and just screens her calls. Finally, she does answer and he says he's sorry and asks her what she's doing for New Year's and if she's going to Tyler's party (who the heck is Tyler?). He tells her he doesn't have a date and reminds her about the deal they made last year that they would be each other's date if they were both still single, but Sally shuts him down and basically says she's not going with him. 

While Sally is at the New Year's party (I guess this is Tyler's party...seriously, who is Tyler and when did we meet him during the movie?) with some random guy (probably set up by Jess and Marie who are also at the party), she pretty much tells Marie that she doesn't want to be there. While this is going on, we see Harry walking outside, just moping around. He is obviously sad that he has lost Sally as a friend and something potentially more. But then he seems to get an epiphany and starts running toward the building where the New Year's party is being held. This is just like many movies where one half of a romantic couple will run to the airport to find their other half to proclaim their love. 

When Sally, wearing her strapless party dress, is about to leave, Harry comes in, wearing his street clothes. He tells her he's been doing a lot of thinking and that he loves her and tells her what he loves about her: "I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts." (Of course the camera cuts to Sally with said crinkle above her nose as he's talking). "I love that after I spend a day with you I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I wanna talk to before I go to sleep at night. I came here tonight because when you realize you wanna spend the rest of your life with somebody you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

Aww, that's sweet. You know he came up with that speech as he was moping around previously. Or maybe he just came up with it on the fly; that would be very impressive. I liked the examples he gave for reasons he loves her. They were really cute and funny, although too bad we never get an example of her being cold when it's seventy degrees. By the way, is Sally from Florida or something? Only people from warm weather places get "cold" when it's seventy degrees. That is hilarious. For me, it has to be in the lower 50s when I truly get cold (and even lower than that for me to be freezing). I am one of those people who would much rather be cold than hot because it's so much easier to get warmed up by putting on a sweater, but when you're sweating and dying from the heat, it's not fun. I attribute this to my Norwegian heritage, my people are used to the cold, heh. Plus I like winter clothes better than summer clothes. Of course, I absolutely hate snow...I mean, it's fine as long as I don't have to drive in it. Anyway, I'm getting off topic. I just thought it was funny that Sally gets cold when it's seventy degrees! 

Sally replies, "That is just like you, Harry. You say things like that and you make it impossible for me to hate you! And I hate you, Harry." Of course, she doesn't really hate Harry. It's more like he drives her crazy at times. By this time the countdown has started and when they kiss as a new couple, they are ringing in the New Year. 

So throughout the movie, short clips of senior citizen couples talking about how they met have been peppered in. At first, I thought they were real couples telling their stories, but then thought they were way too polished. I found out while the "couples" were actors, they were taken from real stories of how elderly couples met when they were younger. The movie ends with a confessional from Harry and Sally. It's months later and we find out they've gotten married. Harry says the first time they met, they hated each other, but Sally corrects him and says she hated him (ha!) The second time they met, Sally says Harry didn't remember her, but Harry says he didn't forget (I'm with him...I think he knew it was her the entire time). And the third time they reconnected, they became friends and were friends for a long time until they weren't and fell in love and got married. 

The last line of the movie calls back to Harry making fun of her for "on the side" being a thing for her because she's describing the wedding cake they had and says they served the rich chocolate sauce "on the side." That was funny; that made me laugh. 

I do have to wonder if it would have been better if Harry and Sally had just remained friends. After all, it's proving Harry's stance about men and women not being able to be friends because sex gets in the way. Or romance. Or both. But I guess since the entire movie is about both of them, the audience is (probably) rooting for them to get together so I get why they did it.