MOVIE REVIEW 15

DATE REVIEWED: 11/17/23

TITLE: The Pledge

BOX OFFICE RATED: NR (why was there no rating on this film and why wasn’t it at the box office?)

PRODUCTION YEAR: 2012 Bridgestone Multimedia Group / Flyover Films / Route 40 Films

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 3

REASON: This movie takes place in New York City, where teenager Tory (Vic II) Hedderman attended the Cathedral Parish School of Holden Academy. His parents, botanist Vic and hypnotherapist Marnie (British), told their son that Vic’s grant was up in NYC at his current university job so they were moving to West Virginia because Vic’s dream job at a new university would help save the endangered Harperella plant. Marnie said she could have her hypnotherapy business anywhere and Tory could adjust to a new school and people even though he wanted to separate his parents and have Vic go to West Virginia while Tory and Marnie stayed in NYC. Tory planned to apply for the summer film academy that year (as he said he was going to do the past few years but never did), so Dad made a deal that if Tory applied and got in he could go to NYC later on to attend the film academy. In the small West Virginia town, Tory discovred that there was no reliable Internet and the coffee shop that advertised free Internet was closed as well as the movie theater on Sunday. At the public school, the cheerleaders were going to have a candy bar sale to benefit the diabetes foundation. Inside the classroom, Tory refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and wouldn’t even say The Pledge with the other children. Tory’s parents tried to have a conversation with him that night over the quinoa Marnie prepared, but he didn’t want to talk. Vic and Marnie let Tory leave because Vic said that Tory had to work out his anger at the world over the move on his own. Tory met up with local hater delinquent Carl at the park statue depicting the American Doughboy, a symbol of World War 1. Carl said there was nothing to do in that town so he made his own fun, which was throwing eggs at the statue’s face. Carl threw the first and only egg at the statue’s head. Carl convinced Tory to do it, and right as Tory was about to throw the egg, the police pulled up behind him and Carl fled the scene so it looked like Tory was egging the statue because there was already an egg on it. Tory didn’t rat out Carl and Carl was never seen again in the movie. Instead, a local judge sentenced Tory to a $300 fine and 50 hours of community service at the Mountain State Veteran’s Home. Vic said his family were pacifists and didn’t believe in violence or killing, and Marnie added that the judge wouldn’t assign a vegetarian to 50 hours of community service at a slaughterhouse. The judge increased Tory’s sentence to 100 hours because of the parents’ comments. At the home for handicapped veterans, Annie Townsell, the director of the VA, told Tory that Mountain State served veterans from all branches of the military at that home, at least until the end of the fiscal year because they were running out of money and it would be closed down if they didn’t get $250,000 funding. As Tory did the vets laundry, he met Joe who told Tory that he was a local celebrity because him defacing the American Doughboy statue was on the front page of the newspaper and Joe in his camouflage attire wanted young Tory’s autograph. Joe didn’t like the delinquent teen’s attitude because Tory still thought it was no big deal that he egged the monument that represented someone who lost their life for their country and people. Joe threw laundry detergent at disrespectful Tory and told him not to go running to Annie because she wouldn’t believe Tory. Tory came out of the bathroom and saw a teenage girl named Jill Courtney in her flag outfit singing a respectful patriotic song to the veterans. At the high school, the mean girls Carol and Denise called Jill “Star-Spangled Barbie,” so Jill replied that they were still shopping retail and supporting corrupt overseas governments. Vic went to the library with his son to research the Harperella plant. Tory left shortly after he spotted Jill there and she left and he wanted to follow her so he told his dad to keep on researching because he was leaving. Later on, Jill called Tory out for stalking her at the library (where she watched a video of her deceased father returning home from service in Afghanistan to surprise Jill when she was younger), flower shop, cemetery (putting flowers on her dad’s grave) and again there at the imperial warehouse store. Tory took Jill out for lunch, where she insisted that he yell to the waitress for a peanut butter doughnut when that wasn’t how it really worked but got a good laugh out of the city slicker. Tory said he was a filmmaker but hadn’t made any films yet, and he didn’t remember 9/11 even though he lived a couple of blocks away from it. Jill thought that was crazy because even she remembered it, and she added that being around the vets every day as a volunteer made her grateful and not angry as Tory thought it would. Jill reassured Tory that Bruce Johnson, the star basketball player at school and school bully, wasn’t her boyfriend even though he wanted to be. Annie had Tory put a fresh coat of paint on the walls in hopes the donors would like it and open their checkbooks. Joe came over and tried to tell Tory the stories of the vets in the room, but Tory didn’t want to hear them and said he was just painting and anything that happened in the vets’ lives didn’t concern him. Joe made a scene by dumping paint on Tory’s head, and then Joe ran off and everyone saw “War Is Murder,” painted on the wall and thought Tory did it. In Annie’s office, she told Tory never to do that again and didn’t believe him when he said he didn’t do it. Annie said that she never got married or had children of her own because she dedicated her life to helping the vets at that facility, so the place and people were her home and family. She advised Tory not to mess with her family; otherwise she would tell the judge that it was a failed placement. When Tory found out that meant he would have to start his sentence over somewhere else and none of the time served would count, he decided to shape up because he planned on going back to New York. Tory suggested that he make a film of the veterans, and then Jill appeared and told Anne that she cleaned up Tory’s mess and finished painting over the words on the wall so nobody else would see it. Annie assigned the two high school students to work together and make the documentary to help the Vets save their home. Jill went to the Hedderman house for dinner. Marnie dissed Jill’s Americana attire. Jill asked why Tory didn’t remember 9/11, but before Tory’s parents could answer Tory appeared. Marnie made vegan lasagna, and the Heddermans were obviously uncomfortable when Jill said grace in Jesus’ name. Vic and Marnie weren’t happy to hear that the teens were doing a documentary for the Veterans because they didn’t believe in war. Marnie went on to say that men with hidden agendas started wars and the young men and women in the military were puppets for greedy and corrupt political leaders. That upset Jill, who stood up to leave and told Marnie that she didn’t want her to make a plate of vegan lasagna to-go for Jill’s nana because Nana preferred lasagna with animals in it. At the home for Vets, Annie gave Tory a list of Veterans for him to interview and told him to make them feel comfortable and respect them and let them tell their stories. Jill was late because she made Tory a patriotic USA vest like hers to wear. Joe’s name wasn’t on the list and he didn’t want to talk about his story, and he grabbed hold of Tory and told him to grow up and realize that it wasn’t all about him because the Veterans were real people with real stories and Tory should connect with them and not just brush it off as a chore and move onto New York. Tory and Jill went to see young veteran Mitch Kern even though he wasn’t on the list, and it turned out both Mitch and Tory both grew up in the same spoiled-rich-kid area of Manhattan. As Jill interviewed the Veterans, Tory filmed but was off in his own little world watching Mitch. Tory talked to Mitch again and said the documentary wasn’t going to be shown anywhere because it was for Annie, and Mitch said that art should be shared. He didn’t want to share his story, though, and said that out of all the people there he thought Tory would know how Mitch ended up there. Tory went home and suspected that his mom hypnotized him so he wouldn’t have any memory of 9/11, and Marnie replied she wouldn’t do that and couldn’t anyway because it was only possible for a person to erase their own memory. At school, Bruce spotted Tory and Jill talking to each other so he came over and slammed Tory against the lockers threatening him that he would be dead after school in the gym on Friday. Bruce tripped over Jill’s boombox and broke it, and she was upset because it was her deceased dad’s so Tory promised to fix it. Jill invited Tory to her house, where she revealed that she had been living alone for a year with her dog, Nana. Jill’s mom died when she was a baby so it was just her and her dad, until he died in the war on foreign soil. Jill’s aunt got custody of Jill and came to stay with her, but the aunt didn’t want to raise a child so she moved out of the house with a man she met at work and left the teen to live by herself. Tory said that was awful and probably illegal what her aunt did, and Jill said it was better that her aunt wasn’t around and asked Tory not to tell and he agreed not to. Tory said he didn’t understand how Jill went through all that in her short life and was the happiest person he ever knew and thought most people would be bitter and angry. (Jill lived every single day with Jesus in her heart and helped others as God put them in her life.) Annie was still having trouble getting funding for the Veterans’ home, so she told everyone to keep praying while Mitch suggested that they do an event where Jill would sing and Tory would show his film. Tory suggested that Mitch show his art at the screening, but Mitch didn’t want to. Mitch showed Tory a picture of a bird that he drew and he thought it was just a bird because he liked birds. He said that anyone who saw the picture would just see a flying bird and not the story behind it which was the artist (Mitch) dealing with daily challenges such as the inability to never walk again. Mitch added that in America people had rights, and it was Tory’s right not to stand up and say the Pledge of Allegiance if that was what he chose as Mitch sat in a wheelchair and didn’t have that option anymore (stand) after he fought for his country and lost his legs and so much more. Tory showed up at the gym, where Bruce tried to fight him but didn’t and left because Tory told Bruce that beating the innocent male up and fighting wouldn’t make the bully boy a man. Mitch and Jill were hiding in the gym and saw that Tory handled it well on his own. Mitch said that Dr. Hoffman would freak out if Mitch missed another appointment, but he wanted to go out with the kids on the town and have fun for a change verses because he knew his time was almost over. The trio went bowling and then to Jill’s house, where Mitch asked Tory and Jill why they weren’t dating and Jill left the room to get more popcorn. While there, Tory was able to convince Mitch to tell his story in his own words so Tory could finish the film and include his new friend, Mitch. Mitch gave a heart-wrenching interview about how his dad was in the South Tower and didn’t make it out on 9/11. Mitch was ten at the time and was one of the lost kids stuck in the area that got separated from the others at school. Mitch wished that when people thought about 9/11, they didn’t get all political and the news didn’t get all crazy but instead just remembered how they felt on that morning and understand the imporatance of never letting anything like that ever happen in the USA again. Instead of bringing everyone together, the tragic event divided the nation even more as the years went by. Mitch decided after 9/11 in that spirit that he wanted to serve and protect his country while all his friends were going to Yale and Harvard. Jill said Mitch’s dad would be very proud of him, and Mitch agreed and said his mom not so much because she in fact told him that if he enlisted to never contact her again, so he did and he hadn’t. Mitch explained that his Jeep drove over a landmine in Baghdad, Iraq, and rolled over onto him. He was trapped under the vehicle for 14 hours with his best friend dead in the passenger seat with a broken neck beside him. Mitch added that he had no regrets ever because he loved the USA and he believed in his country and so did all the great men and women who served alongside him. After the young adults and Mitch returned to the Vets home, Annie wasn’t happy that Mitch missed more appointments with Dr. Hoffman, but Mitch wasn’t that concerned. Mitch told Tory, “no regrets,” before he left. Annie told the teens they didn’t need to come back to the vet home until the video was done and they showed it at the screening on Community Day. Marnie came home and found Tory and Jill editing the video, and she apologized to Jill for being so insensitive to her the other night because she didn’t realize Jill’s dad had died in service. Tory and Jill worked on the video at Tory’s house for many days, and when Tory went back to the vet home, Joe gave him a hard time about Mitch not being around anymore. Tory ran to Annie to find out what happened to Mitch, and Annie explained that Mitch passed away a week before but she didn’t tell Tory yet because she had so many other people to contact. Annie was concerned how Tory found out about Mitch, and Tory said it was Annie’s employee…Joe. Annie replied that she didn’t have a Joe on her payroll, and Tory showed her the picture of Annie and Joe on her desk. Annie explained that she met Joe when he was a resident at the home, and they got engaged but Joe died the day before their wedding. Tory told Annie that he knew he talked to Joe and he wasn’t crazy, and as Tory ran outside he had flashbacks of the morning of 9/11 that he had blocked out in his own mind until that moment. Jill was upset about Mitch too and tried to approach Tory at school, but he didn’t want to talk about it. Jill helped Annie mail out the flyers for Community Day, and Jill told Annie it was nice that Mitch’s family let the Vet home use Mitch’s artwork for the event. Annie said that before Mitch passed away, he mentioned how Jill and Nana needed a roommate and it so happened that Annie needed one too. She asked Jill if she wanted to move in with Annie and bring Nana, and they both agreed that was a great idea. Meanwhile, Vic told Tory that he drove his university students five hours to see a patch of Harperella, but when they got there somebody had mowed the plants down. Vic took a sample back and gave it to Tory. Vic added that he uprooted his family from New York to West Virginia for the purpose of saving the plant but even though life didn’t go as planned; you still have to go on and keep working for what you believe in. Jill and Tory met at the American Doughboy statue, where Jill gave him one of Annie’s invitations to the Community Day. Tory said he wasn’t going because he got accepted to the summer NYC film academy and was headed back to New York. Tory said he wanted to forget about Mitch and not talk about him, but Jill said that Tory needed to remember the ones that made a positive change for the better in his life. Jill then gave Tory the New York skyline picture that Mitch had painted and Tory had complimented Mitch on previously. Tory told his friend, Jill, that his memory came back when he was upset about Mitch passing away. He told Jill his story about how he wasn’t in school on the morning of 9/11 because he was always a sickly kid and had many doctor’s appointments. His mom was terrified because she couldn’t get ahold of her husband on the phone, screamed we’re all gonna die, and then Marnie ran 20 blocks to Vic’s university carrying her son in his pajamas. They met up with Vic in the University’s auditorium, where people were praying and everyone stood up when a man took the stage and said the Pledge of Allegiance. Jill told Tory that her dad, like Mitch, sacrificed everything for their country and they deserved to be remembered and honored, otherwise she might go crazy if she tried to forget the ones that mattered most and raised her spirit to be at peace with God, always love Jesus, and respect those who serve and protect the USA each and every day. Jill apologized for upsetting Tory and told him that he was going to be missed and to have fun in New York. At the Community Day at the Veterans’ home, Annie thanked everyone for attending and asked for their donations to keep the facility running and help the vets have a home. Jill sang for the guests while Annie met Pat Kern who came to see the documentary that his nephew Mitch was in. Annie informed Pat that the film wouldn’t be shown because Tory never finished it before he went back to New York. However, Tory and his parents appeared, and Tory announced that he decided not to go to the NYC film academy. He introduced his parents to Annie and gave her the finished film, and they hugged it out. Tory took the stage and thanked everyone for sacrificing their lives to keep the USA free, and he asked those that could stand to do so and thanked those that couldn’t for their service. With the spirit of Mitch alive in his heart, Tory led everyone in the Pledge of Allegiance, and then the Vets documentary played. Pat Kern was introduced to Tory’s family and Jill. Pat then pulled out an envelope that Mitch gave Pat before Mitch died for Pat to give to Tory in case Mitch wasn’t there. Inside was a piece of paper with the words “No regrets,” along with a check made out to the Veterans’ home. The money was from Mitch’s trust fund and it was more than enough to save the Vets home from closing. Annie thanked Tory for his video contribution and she thanked Pat for delivering the envelope on behalf of Mitch. They all went to watch the film with the others. Tory sat with Jill and made plans to stick around West Virginia over the summer to stalk a certain singer, he then saw ghost Joe giving him a thumbs-up as Joe held his baseball glove instead of his ole bat. Mitch, on video, told his fellow Americans that the Vets (like police officers) served and sacrificed their own lives for We the People. In the end the son led the American dad and British mom to stand for the USA flag and it was the family’s journey that began with a search for one of GOD’s many creations and ended with Jesus at the center and prayers for HIS true heroes that lost their lives to save the real country they call home because real Americans trust in GOD’s way and not his or her own. This movie was the 2012 Official Selection at the GI Film Festival. The cover art listed, Ted Baehr, Movieguide “A heartfelt movie…wonderful!” Big Hollywood “A little film with a huge heart.” The Dove Foundation “Truly remarkable and inspiring!”

DATE REVIEWED: 11/16/23

TITLE: Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows

BOX OFFICE RATED: PG-13 (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)

PRODUCTION YEAR: 2011 Warner Bros. Pictures / Village Roadshow Pictures / Silver Pictures / Wigram Productions

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1

REASON: This movie takes places in Europe in 1891, when France and Germany were at war with each other and there had already been several bombings. Detective Sherlock Holmes went undercover to get a parcel from girlfriend Irene Adler, but then she betrayed him by taking the parcel and leaving Holmes to be beaten up by goons. The police were in on it and did not say anything when they walked past the fight but let it happen to the one person who was trying to stop the madman behind the bombings and terrorist attacks. Holmes easily outsmarted the bad guys and walked away. Irene went to an auction house for rich people and gave the parcel to Dr. Hoffmanstahl, who in exchange gave her a note to deliver to someone. By the time Holmes arrived in the room full of bidders, Hoffmanstahl had already activated the bomb inside the package that was intended to kill Dr. Hofmanstahl. Irene and Hoffmanstahl didn’t stick around, so Holmes set a fire to make the people vacate the building while he put the bomb inside an Egyptian sarcophagus to save lives since the explosion went off inside the coffin. Irene went to a restaurant to meet with Professor James Moriarty before her planned dinner with Holmes. Moriarty dismissed everyone from the restaurant by clinking his glass, and he told Irene that she was too involved with Holmes and failed at the jobs the evil man gave her so Moriarty had Irene killed inside the deserted public eatery. The next day, Holmes’ dear friend Dr. John Watson showed up at Holmes’ house, where Mrs. Hudson the housekeeper wanted Dr. Watson to put Holmes in the loonybin because he was acting his usual strange genius self. Watson told Holmes that he was getting married the next day, and Holmes showed him the map pinpointing violent attacks around the world that he set up in Watson’s old office. Holmes connected the scandal involving an Indian cotton tycoon, the overdose of a Chinese opium trader, bombings in Strasbourg and Vienna, and the death of an American steel magnate to Professor Moriarty, the mathematical genius, author, lecturer and boxing champ at Cambridge who was buddy-buddy with the prime minister. Watson noticed that Holmes appeared to be acting manic and psychotic because he was drinking embalming fluid, but they both ended up drinking it later. Holmes announced that the shadowy game of cloak and dagger he and Moriarty were playing was afoot, and Holmes was able to avert the bomb that was meant for Hoffmanstahl whose death was reported as having been caused by a heart attack when the targeted Dr. Hoffmanstahl was in reality murdered. Watson’s bulldog, Gladstone, ate some of the poisonous fruit in Holmes’ house, so Holmes gave doggie Gladstone an adrenaline shot that brought him right back to life. Watson was upset that Holmes tried to kill his dog again, and Holmes gave Watson some adrenaline shots as a wedding gift. On the way to Watson’s stag party, the two argued about marriage where Watson believed it was the beginning and rebirth and Holmes believed that it was the end and Armageddon. They met with Holmes’ brother Mycroft (indispensable to the British government in the Foreign Office), who informed Holmes and Watson that if France and Germany didn’t reach a peace treaty that night, Mycroft would be forced to attend a peace summit in Reichenbach, Switzerland. Watson then learned that Holmes didn’t organize (forgot) Watson’s stag party and invite his friends, so Watson went to the gaming tables to salvage the rest of the evening. Holmes demanded to have the wedding ring in exchange for the money, and Mycroft told Holmes that Watson was all “me, me, me.” Holmes went upstairs and visited the gypsy fortuneteller Madam Simza Heron. Holmes decided to read the fortuneteller’s fortune because he knew she was the sister of Rene, and Holmes wanted to know what Simza (Sim) was gaining from it all in their evil criminal game of terror. Holmes gave Sim the letter that Hoffmanstahl gave Irene that was intended for Sim from Rene. The letter told her (brother to sister) that his purpose was fulfilled and he would change the course of history. There was a picture with the letter showing Sim what her brother would look like when she saw him again because he altered his facial appearance medically. Holmes noticed clues then, that alerted him to the presence of a man in the rafters waiting to kill Sim, and he told her so. Holmes’ battle with Sim’s assassin interrupted Watson’s gambling and knocked all of his winnings on the floor. Everyone went after the money and fought Watson for it, so hours later after it was over Holmes and Watson showed up at the wedding beat up and hungover. Later on, a man told Holmes that James Moriarty wanted to meet him at the college, where Moriarty informed Holmes that Moriarty killed Irene with a rare form of tuberculosis that killed her within seconds. Watson and his wife, Mary, boarded a train first-class to Brighton for their honeymoon. A man staged as a waiter staff on the train came to their coach with a bottle of complimentary champagne, but then he closed the door after he stepped inside then messed with the lights and attempted to stab Watson. Watson and Mary pushed the man off the train through their open window (Mary held a gun on the imposter), and then Watson opened the outside door to see Holmes, who was also aboard the train dressed as a woman, shooting assassins in the hallway. Holmes then pushed Mary off the train into the water to save her (he had it timed out), and Watson thought that Holmes killed his wife so they fought on the floor. The hitmen opened the door just as Watson’s head was between Holmes’ legs (wearing dress) and they pointed a gun at the two men, but Holmes had already fixed the gun so it backfired on the gunman and exploded in the hallway with the hired hitmen. Once the rest of the hired guns were taken care of, Holmes assured Watson that Mary was safe because he timed it perfectly and he had his brother, Mycroft, rescue Mary in a boat seconds after she landed in the water. Holmes basically told his dear Watson that it was elementary for him to dress as a woman to sneak onto the train. Holmes added that he would never bother Watson again if he helped Holmes solve the mystery, so Watson agreed and the two boarded a boat to a Paris gypsy camp to find Sim. Once there, the two men told Simza that her brother Rene was involved with madman Moriarty, who believed that Rene told Sim something she shouldn’t know. Sim showed Holmes and Watson the drawings that Rene sent her, and they made a brilliant deduction from observing the paper that it was from a printing press near a wine cellar. Sim said there was a wine cellar used by the anarchist group Lapin Vert, that both Rene and Sim worked for but quit. Meanwhile, Mary was completely shocked at the sight of Sherlock’s brother, Mycroft, standing next to her completely naked with his bare butt exposed on camera (not full frontal) and he tried to have a conversation with her as though it were perfectly normal behavior to speak to a man completely in the nude, that Mycroft received an encrypted letter from Holmes. The trio went to see Claude Ravache, the bombmaker and leader of the Lapin Vert movement. He explained that Rene wasn’t there because he was now working for Moriarty, who dictated everything and wanted Ravache to take responsibility for Moriarty’s own acts of terror. Ravache revealed that he already planted another bomb as directed by Moriarty and it would be over after that night. Ravache added that he couldn’t back out because Moriarty had Ravache’s family and would harm them if he didn’t do as he was told. Ravache then shot himself point-blank in the head, and the men upstairs heard the gunshot and came to investigate while the trio escaped through a hidden tunnel that Holmes found. The bomb then went off in the Hotel du Triomphe, and Holmes concluded that the bombing was intended to look like Germany retaliating for the Strasbourg bombing. It also hid the death of Alfred Meinhard, who made big guns at a factory in Heilbronn, because everyone paid attention to the bomb and not the hole in the wall where Sebastian Moran, a marksman who was discharged from the British army for being dishonorable, shot a bullet to kill Meinhard. Moriarty purchased a large share of Meinhard’s company days prior to his death, so now Moriarty owned the gun factory. Holmes, Watson, Sim and some gypsies went on horseback to Heilbronn and found a way past the crossing between France and Germany, which was closed. While Holmes searched the factory, Watson sent a telegram to Mycroft. Holmes was taken hostage in the surgery and chloroformed by Moran and his goons. When Holmes woke up, he told Moriarty that he figured out the professor’s plan. Moriarty started the crisis in Europe with bombings and he bought, schemed and murdered his way into industries (cotton, opium, steel and now arms and chemicals) while covering his tracks. He planned to create the demand for the items and ship them across Europe to keep the war going. Moriarty tortured Holmes (by putting a sharp hook into Holmes’ shoulder and suspending him from the ceiling by it) to get the answer out of Holmes where he sent the telegram (Mycroft.) While that happened, Moran tried to sniper Watson. Sniper Moran tried to shoot Watson, but he escaped and he and the gypsies rescued Holmes with German soldiers firing guns and missiles at them as they ran. They made it onto a train, where Holmes nearly died from losing so much blood from his shoulder and a wood piece embedded in his leg. Dr. Watson injected Holmes with his wedding gift (dog adrenaline shot), and Holmes immediately awoke and Watson tended his wounds. They decided they would head home but stop at the peace summit in Switzerland first. At the ball, Mycroft announced that the targets were the ambassadors and prime ministers of Europe. Holmes and Watson danced together to try and blend in, and Holmes announced that he noticed several people with scars from surgical experiments that were performed by Dr. Hoffmanstahl, who was on the verge of a medical breakthrough to make one man look like another before he was killed. Moriarty planned to guarantee his world war by having Rene, facial makeover to look like one of the six ambassadors, be the assassin. While Holmes and Moriarty played a timed chess game, Watson and Sim searched the room. She tried to figure out which of the ambassadors was her brother based off from his bodily characteristics and behavior and not his changed physical appearance. When sister Simza tried to approach her brother Rene, he shoved her out of his way and pulled out his gun. Watson tackled Rene, and the guards dragged Rene away with him screaming that Germany would pay. Moran then shot Rene in the leg with a poison dart from his cane and brother Rene died in Simza’s arms instantly as Dr. Watson identified poison as cause of death. Moriarty told Holmes that war was inevitable and it would happen no matter what Moriarty did so he need only wait. Holmes then revealed that he stole Moriarty’s little red notebook where he wrote all his plans and finance information. Holmes sent the notebook to London, where an inspector at Scotland Yard used it to get ahold of James’ dirty money and donate some of it to the Widows and Orphans of War Fund. Just as Watson opened the door, Holmes pulled Moriarty over the railing down and together they fell into the massive waterfall below. The bodies were never found, and after the funeral for Sherlock Holmes, Watson finished the memoir he wrote about his genius buddy. Dr. Watson and wife Mary were packing to go Brighton for a bit of fun. However, Watson then received a brown parcel that he knew was from Holmes. He left the room to ask Mary if the mailman who delivered the parcel was different, and it turned out Holmes was sitting in the chair across from Watson’s desk wearing his camouflage outfit, alive and well. Holmes took his mask off and told Gladstone the dog to be quiet, and then Holmes snuck over to Watson’s typewriter and typed a question mark to “The End.” This movie had a budget of $125 million and grossed over $543 million at the box office. The movie cover art listed, Jake Hamilton, FOX-TV, “This is why we go to the movies!”

DATE REVIEWED: 11/15/23

TITLE: Mamma Mia!

BOX OFFICE RATED: PG-13 (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)

PRODUCTION YEAR: 2008 Universal Pictures / Relativity Media / Playtone / Littlestar Productions

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1

REASON: This movie takes place on the Greek island of Kalokairi and began with 20-year-old Sophie Sheridan’s friends Lisa and Ali visiting. Twenty-year-old Sophie announced that she was engaged to Sky Ramand and was getting married the following day, and Lisa and Ali agreed to be Sophie’s bridesmaids. Sophie explained that she invited her three possible dads (she never knew or met) to her wedding: Sam Carmichael the Irish-American architect, Harry Bright the British banker, and Bill Anderson the Swedish sailor and travel writer to her wedding. Sophie had snooped through (mama) Donna’s trunk and found the diary that Donna wrote when she was alone and pregnant with Sophie. Sophie and her gal pals read the diary and then broke into song about Donna’s one-night stands with the three different men one wild and carefree summer. On July 17th, Donna and Sam had sex together on the beach and Donna never saw him again after that because he was engaged to another woman and went back overseas. On August 4th, Donna was still obsessed with Sam but she hooked up and had sex with Bill. That relationship didn’t work out either. Then, Harry showed up on August 11th and he and Donna had sex together. Sophie admitted that she wrote the wedding invites to the men in Donna’s name so they thought they were coming to see Donna, who ran her Hotel Villa Donna. Donna’s friends and former bandmates from Donna and the Dynamos, famous author Rosie Mulligan who wrote a bestselling cookbook and present day rich Tanya Chesham-Leigh who divorced three husbands, also arrived for the wedding. Sky planned to design an advertisement for the hotel and put it on a website since nobody knew it was there, and Sophie wanted it to be the ultimate romantic vacation because it was supposed to be the site of Aphrodite’s fountain. Donna went into song about her rundown hotel with a toilet that didn’t flush right, how she hadn’t had a break for fifteen years and how she wished she had more money but it was a rich man’s world. As Donna and her girlfriends talked about how Donna didn’t miss men in her life and her partying years were behind her, Sophie snuck the three men from Donna’s past through the house to their shared room in the old goat-house. Donna spotted the threesome in the goat-house but they didn’t see her, so she sang “Mamma Mia,” about how she couldn’t believe they were back in her life after 21 years. Donna made the sign of the cross on the roof, and then she fell down onto the air mattress and landed at the feet of the three men she had sexual relations with summer so long ago. In hopes of quickly remedying the situation with the wedding the following day, Rosie and Tanya consoled crying Donna by singing “Chiquitita,” popping pills and doing Donna’s makeup. It then came out that Donna lied to her closest girlfriends that she thought Sophie’s dad was Sam when in reality she had no clue as to which one of the three men she slept with that summer had made a baby with her. Rosie and Tanya ran off to find the three dads, but they weren’t in the goat-house. They then went to Donna’s room and told her that she needed to grow back down because they didn’t like that she grew up and was being responsible since she had a child to raise and she had Catholic guilt for what she did. Rosie and Tanya sang “Dancing Queen,” and the female islanders joined in and trailed behind Donna and the Dynamos. The song ended with Donna pushing her girlfriends into the water and then jumping in with everyone else following. Sophie saw the men leaving on Bill’s boat, so she jumped into the water and swam after them. Sophie and the three dads sailed around the island, Sky had his bachelor party and Sophie had her bachelorette party that night with Donna and the Dynamos performing “Super Trouper.” Sam, Harry and Bill, joined in on the celebration, but Rosie kicked them out of the girls-only party. Donna was mad that they came to the wedding in the first place because she didn’t want them in Sophie’s life now that she raised her daughter to adulthood by herself. All the women then went after the men and sang “Gimme, Gimme, Gimme,” while the men tried to escape. Sam told Sophie that the drawing she did of him on the boat was good and he wanted her to pursue it, but Sophie said that Donna couldn’t run the hotel by herself and needed Sophie’s help. Sam admitted that he dreamt up the plans for the hotel. Harry told Sophie that his children were his dogs Lucy and Skipper, but he would have loved to have a daughter and would have spoiled her rotten. Harry asked about Sophie’s father, and she said she didn’t know who he was. Bill asked Sophie how Donna got the money to buy the hotel (because he knew she didn’t have any when they were young adults together), and Sophie replied that Donna got her money from Sofia, the old lady that Sophie was named after who Donna worked for when Sophie was little (perhaps Donna told the elderly woman that she carried Bill’s child and named the baby Sophie in order to get the inheritance). Bill realized then that was his great-aunt Sofia who Donna worked for and all of his Great Aunt’s money was supposed to have been left to “family.” The bachelors interrupted the bachelorette party by wearing tribal masks and singing “Voulez-Vouz.” Sam pulled Sophie aside and said he knew that she invited him there because he was her dad, and Sophie lied and said nobody was giving her away at the wedding when she had already made plans just a few minutes before for Bill to do that because they decided they were father and daughter. When Sky tried to dance with Sophie, she said she couldn’t breathe and she ran off into Harry, who then realized that Sophie could be his daughter. The third dad planned to walk Sophie down the aisle on the morrow, and as the result of Sophie’s scheming, she fainted and had to be carried to her room. The next morning, Sophie’s girlfriends planned to grab the men and interrogate them to decide which one was Sophie’s dad, while Donna’s girlfriends wanted to take the men fishing and do some water sports. Rosie eavesdropped as Harry and Bill talked about Sophie, and Rosie thought they were talking about liking her. When Bill got up to invite Rosie inside for breakfast, his towel was only covering his front parts and showed his bare butt to her and the screen. Sophie and Donna argued because Sophie believed that her mom didn’t want the wedding to happen since Donna just had children without marriage, whereas Sophie loved Sky and wanted to have a normal marriage and then have children and raise them with both a mom and dad. Sam told Donna that Sophie should leave the island and not settle down there, and he thought she probably would if she thought Donna would be okay on her own. Sam said he knew about letting go because he had two grown children of his own, and Donna replied that she was happy that she was single and she didn’t want a menopausal man. They both sang “SOS,” while Tanya sang “Does Your Mother Know You’re Out,” to a much younger tribal man who was hot on her and who stowed away on the boat that Harry and Tanya were pedaling. The other men went gaga over Tanya too and they all danced and sang. Harry gave Donna some money to take care of the wedding, and she didn’t want to accept it but he ran off so she had to. Sky was upset that Sophie insisted on having a big white wedding so she could invite her three possible dads when Sky wanted to have a wedding on the mainland. Sophie thought that it would help her find herself, but Sky told her that would come from Sophie finding herself, not her finding a father she never knew or ever remembered. Sky stormed off and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to marry Sophie because he knew he loved her but she was irrational and immature in her thinking and ways. Sam tried to console Sophie, but she didn’t want advice from him because Sam had a failed marriage and he wasn’t even happy when he got married whereas Sophie was in love with Sky and wanted to marry him. Donna helped Sophie get ready for the wedding and told her that she didn’t have a choice of raising her daughter alone and running a business because her mom told her to never come back to her family after she got pregnant. Sophie realized that she didn’t need a dad that she had never known (as Sky tried to tell her), so she asked Donna to give her away because her mom was always there for her over the years. Sophie rode off on the back of a donkey to the wedding, while Donna and Sam stayed behind and she sang “The Winner Takes It All,” about throwing the dice to the gods because she played all her cards and the loser must fall. Once inside the church, Donna interrupted Father Alex and confessed that she didn’t know who Sophie’s dad was. Donna realized that was why the ex lovers were all there, and Sophie admitted that she invited them and she didn’t care if Donna slept with hundreds of men because she loved her mom. Sam explained that he was engaged to Lorraine when he slept with Donna, so he left to marry Lorraine but then told Lorraine he couldn’t get married. Sam returned to Kalokairi hoping that Donna would be there waiting for him, but she wasn’t and was already with another man so Sam went back and married Lorraine. Harry chimed in that Donna was his first and last girl he loved because he was gay and his partner Petros was in attendance. The three men were okay with not knowing which one of them was Sophie’s dad and they settled for just having a third of Sophie. Inside the church, Sophie and Sky agreed not to have the wedding and just go travel the world together. Sam said they shouldn’t let the wedding go to waste and announced that he was now a divorced man and had loved Donna for the last 21 years. Sam got down on one knee and proposed to Donna, and everyone encouraged her to say “I do,” so she did and they got married on the spot because she loved him too. Rosie then sang “Take A Chance On Me,” to Bill telling him that she was free if he was looking so they got together. Water then spouted up through the cracks in the floor, and Donna said it was Aphrodite’s spring. Everyone danced and celebrated. Later that night, Donna sent Sophie and Sky off in a boat as Sophie sang “I Have A Dream.” This movie had a budget of $52 million and grossed over $695 million at the box office. The movie cover art listed Ray Bennett, The Hollywood Reporter “Irresistible.”

DATE REVIEWED: 11/14/23

TITLE: Richie Rich’s Christmas Wish

BOX OFFICE RATED: G (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)

PRODUCTION YEAR: 1998 Warner Bros. Family Entertainment / Saban Entertainment / The Harvey Entertainment Company

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1

REASON: This movie began on Christmas Eve in Richville with 12-year-old Richie Rich, the son of Richard and Regina Rich, the richest people in the world. Ritchie played with his friends Gloria, Freckles and Pee-Wee on expensive snowmobiles custom made to look like classic cars with built in snowball-firing machines. Cadbury the head butler interrupted by using the Super Remote to bring the snowmobiles back to the huge Rich mansion. Professor Keenbean, the inventor who worked for the Riches and had a private lab inside their house, invented the snowmobiles and remote. Richie wasn’t happy that he had to do his duty and attend meetings, press conferences and tea with Mr. and Mrs. Van Dough and their son Reggie (Richie’s cousin). Professor Keenbean showed Richie his newest invention, a wishing machine (with a Pegliasaurus dinosaur wishbone as one of the parts) that only worked only on Christmas Eve when there was enough wishing energy from all the children in the world to power the machine. Cadbury was skeptical, so Professor Keenbean turned the machine on and Richie wished for a big pie. However, it came out as a pigsty and Richie got covered in mud so Irona the robot maid helped him change his wardrobe for tea. Delinquent tween Reggie was busy yelling at the staff for doing things wrong and kept acting like he was the king and they were his slaves. Richie played a trick on his ill mannered cousin and poured hot sauce into what he claimed to be some super expensive tea and gave it to Reggie to teach him a lesson, and Reggie spit the tea out, drank some water and then spit the water out on a butler’s shoes. The TV crew arrived to cover the charity event the Riches were hosting where Richie and Cadbury, dressed as Santa, would drive a sleigh to Lisa Peabody’s orphanage in town and deliver presents to the children. Reggie complained that his parents weren’t rich enough and he wished he were Richard and Regina’s son so he could be on TV and more famous. Reggie then spotted the Super Remote on the floor that was accidentally dropped, so Reggie used it to make the sleigh go haywire and cause havoc in town with cars crashing into each other. The bridge was out and Richie and Cadbury jumped to safety right before the sleigh went over a cliff and exploded. Elderly Cadbury twisted his ankle from the jump and told Richie to go ahead and try to salvage Christmas while he waited for help in the cold snow, but it was too late. Richie’s parents were disappointed. Then, both Reggie and his mom lied to the news reporters that cousin/nephew Richie was a bad seed who ruined Christmas on purpose and left Cadbury alone in the woods with his injured ankle. Richie was upset and went to Professor Keenbean’s lab, where he wished that he had never been born and was sucked inside the wishing machine. When Richie woke up and tried to go play with his friends, they didn’t recognize him but believed he was one of Reggie’s friends so they played along. Richie’s friends explained that Reggie sued his parents for neglect and the court gave Richie’s parents custody of Reggie since they were his godparents. Reggie then sued Richard and Regina and now owned the entire town, which he renamed Reggieville and turned into a rundown town with homeless people everywhere. Richie realized that his wish came true and he was never born because the Christmas tree his parents planted outside the mansion for his first Christmas was no longer there, the park was now a dump and Irona was evil, fire-breathing Franken-Irona. Richie tried to tell the other kids that he was the Riches’ son, but they thought he was crazy and Richie believed his friends only liked him before because he was rich. Richie snuck into the house, where his parents were arguing and agreed they would take separate vacations that year. Reggie told Richard to close the factory because the profit margins were pathetic and Regina to get rid of the charity clinic because the sick people depressed Reggie. Reggie added that someone stole one of his presents and he would fire everyone if they didn’t find the culprit. When Reggie spotted Richie, he ordered dopey police Sergeant Kenneth Carl Mooney and other police officers to apprehend Richie. The officers failed to do that and Richie escaped out the dog door with his dog, Dollar. Reggie told the police to find and arrest Richie for dognapping Dollar (who Reggie deemed as his personal dog) and put up wanted posters all over town. The entire police department searched the streets for Richie, and when they tried to catch him at the bank the boy outsmarted the police again and escaped after locking the officers in the vault. Richie then went to see the English rock band Root Canal because earlier he spotted a tattoo that Cadbury kept hidden on his leg and Cadbury reluctantly admitted that he used to be a roadie for English band Root Canal. Richie mentioned the English band’s hit song “Coffin of Nails,” and they didn’t know what it was but thought it was a catchy tune. Cadbury and the other band members, including the Verva twin backup singers, helped Richie escape. Cadbury was arrested for helping Richie and put in one of the police cars, and tween Richie rescued Cadbury by stealing the car. Richie convinced Cadbury to help him find Professor Keebean before midnight so Richie could undo his wish since it was Christmas Eve again. The police offered a reward for the capture of Richie, and Reggie threatened to take away Mooney’s Christmas bonus money and cancel Christmas altogether if the police didn’t get Richie that night. Richie and Cadbury went to Professor Keenbean’s World of Wonders shop, where Richie explained the confusing situation to Keenbean. The professor confirmed that he created a machine that resembled the wishing machine, but he didn’t know what to use it for and couldn’t finish it because the Pegliasaurus wishbone was on display in the museum. Richie’s three friends then showed up to help, and the young children broke into the museum using professor Keenbean’s inventions to get past the security sensors. They discovered that the only jobs Reggie’s parents were able to get were museum janitors, and the kids were able to steal the wishbone. However, after they arrived back at professor Keenbean’s shop and he finished the wishing machine, Reggie and the police showed up. The group was arrested, and Dollar was muzzled and given to Reggie. Reggie had the wishing machine confiscated and brought to the mansion, and he wished for the ability to fly. However, doggie Dollar then took the wishbone from the machine so it stopped working and Reggie thought it was a piece of junk and should be scrapped. Dollar brought the wishbone to the jail. Next the kids, Cadbury and professor Keenbean were released because England’s Root Canal paid the $1 million bail that Reggie set. Reggie thought that nobody could ever bail the prisoners out because everyone in the town except Reggie was poor. However, Coffin of Nails became a hit and the British band got a huge recording contract for it. Richie and Co. broke into the Rich mansion, where the incompetent police chased them but ended up falling down the stairs. Reggie tried to stop them too, but professor Keenbean put the wishbone back on the wishing machine. Richie was able to wish himself back to being Richie Rich before the clock struck midnight. Richie woke up in the lab at his home on Christmas Day, where professor Keenbean told him that his parents were at the orphanage looking for him. Richie was happy to see that Reggieville was once again Richville and he was no longer the unknown Richie but back to being his famous self in a rich family.

DATE REVIEWED: 11/13/23

TITLE: Antitrust

BOX OFFICE RATED: PG-13 (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)

PRODUCTION YEAR: 2001 MGM Pictures / Hyde Park Entertainment / Industry Entertainment / 20th Century Fox

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1

REASON: This movie takes place in Portland, Oregon where NURV, the world’s largest computer company, was headquartered and was being investigated by the Justice Department because it was a monopoly that refused to allow other companies or individuals to be successful. Gary Winston, the NURV CEO, announced that NURV would soon launch Synapse, which would allow anyone in the world to communicate messages of any kind on any device via satellite. Young Stanford graduates and computer whizzes Milo Hoffman and Teddy Chin were invited by Gary to work at NURV. Teddy said that NURV was just in it for the money and cloned programs, and Gary was a fascist and didn’t want Synapse to be open-source. Larry Banks disagreed with Teddy and thought Milo should meet with Gary. Milo told Gary that he and his friends developed an open-source media delivery system and wanted to offer it to people for free, and Gary warned Milo that someone could make a billion dollars off that simple creation. The only problem with Synapse was that the data took so long to download and the images were fuzzy, and Gary was confident that with Milo’s help working on the Synapse adaptor, the data would download quicker and the images be clearer and Gary could meet his 42-day deadline. Gary went on to say that people were jealous of the success of his company and attacked him by creating websites about how Gary was Satan and digitizing his wife’s face on porn star bodies. Gary added that he saw himself in Milo, and Milo took the job. Teddy was still upset and informed Milo that they had to settle for a lower venture capital because Milo left. Lyle Barton from the Department of Justice then offered Milo $42,000 a year and a Buick if he joined them, and Lyle told Milo to keep the business card and do the right thing if he saw something that didn’t seem quite right. Milo joined the 19 other geniuses that Gary hired for specific aspects of developing Synapse in different stages to make it all happen by his deadline. Milo got an office, a car and a rental house for him and his girlfriend Alice Poulson to live in. The news reported that the governor of Missouri asked the President to declare a state of emergency after a Portland computer software entrepreneur named William Subb died in a car accident with illegally prescribed Prozac and alcohol in his car. Milo called Teddy to check up on him, and Teddy wasn’t mad at Milo anymore but said he couldn’t reveal any information about the open-source system because he and Larry signed non-disclosure forms. Corporate giant Gary told Milo that the Justice Department made every “good,” thing he did look bad and they were after him for no reason. Gary gave Milo a copy of some software, and Milo wondered who came up with it and Gary refused to say. Milo’s friend, Brian Bissell, came around and asked Milo for a resume recommendation. Alice spotted Milo with Lisa Calighan at a coffee shop, as the two worked on the user interfaces for Synapse. Meanwhile, Teddy was in his studio and finally cracked the code on his computer program. The Aryan brothers appeared minutes later and beat Teddy to death with a baseball bat. They also smashed Teddy’s computer and spray-painted “Die Chink,” on the wall since Teddy was Chinese-American. Alice found out first and told Milo that Teddy was dead. The Aryan brothers were in the news for spreading racist hate literature and they had been arrested two times before for targeting and beating up Asians. Larry said that Teddy told him before he died that he discovered the answer was in the band and not the box and Larry should get appointments with companies lined up so they could make millions. Gary wanted to know from Milo if he had spoken to Teddy recently, and Milo wouldn’t say much so Gary talked about Synapse and said the answer was in the band and not the box. Milo freaked out and rushed home, and he was afraid that the rental house was bugged so he brought Alice outside. He explained that Teddy was paranoid someone would steal his information so he had up several firewalls on his computer. Since nobody could hack in and see what Teddy was working on, someone must have been watching Teddy. Milo ran back inside and found in the closet a fiber optic camera piece that he found on the floor in Teddy’s studio. Milo went on to say that the unfinished Number 21 broadcast studio on NURV campus was a surveillance post with dishes on the roof. Milo wanted to break into the studio, and Alice didn’t think it wasn’t a good idea but Milo convinced his girlfriend to help him. They created a time bomb and put it in Building 12, and Milo tried to tailgate a security guard into Number 21 by but he was caught. Milo was sent to Bob Shrot’s office, and as Bob worked on printing Milo a new ID, the bomb went off as a distraction and security Bob went to take care of it. Milo printed himself an ID using the employee name of Cosgrove to get access to all buildings. Milo then viewed the camera footage for Building 21 on Bob’s computer, and he was back in his chair like nothing happened by the time Bob returned after discovering that the bomb was just a prank. Milo stayed in his office late and waited for everyone to leave Building 21, and he was surprised when Gary suddenly appeared and said that he had his eye on Milo. The security camera in 21 didn’t show Milo because he shut off the live video feed earlier, and he searched the building but didn’t find anything suspicious. Phil Grims and Randy Sheringham, two employees who were close to Gary, watched Milo using hidden cameras. However, they didn’t know he went into the daycare that Gary built on campus for the children of the employees. Milo was able to hack into a daycare computer in the lego like play computer section and look up personnel files. Milo discovered that Lisa’s stepfather was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison for injuring and molesting 8-year-old Lisa. Lisa’s life was threatened, so she and her mom relocated. Milo discovered that his own file documented the visit to the hospital he had after he ate sesame seeds and almost died from an allergic reaction. That triggered the memory of Milo and Alice eating out at a restaurant a few days before Teddy’s death, where Milo almost ate food with sesame seeds in it that a restaurant waiter brought but Alice stopped him acting as though she just saved his life. Milo’s girlfriend, Alice, name was in the system as the person who took him to the hospital, and Alice’s file stated that her real name was Rebecca Paul. She was arrested by the New Haven Police Department, expelled from the University of Illinois, and had a criminal history that included disorderly conduct, trespassing, receiving stolen goods and illegal possession of narcotics. A code name “ND47,” amended the records and transferred Alice to Stanford, and the computer record showed that the negotiation was successful. ND47 deleted the record and replaced it with the made-up alias of Alice Poulson, and Milo discovered that ND47 was linked to Cerebellum. It turned out the Aryan brothers worked for NURV, and when Milo tried to click on “Die Chink,” the video file was deleted but Milo was able to watch the video of the Aryan brothers killing Teddy because Milo knew how to restore the file. Milo then heard Phil approach so he quickly logged off and hid. Phil logged on a computer, and from Milo’s hiding spot he could see the Cerebellum file back-up. Milo was able to get out of the building undetected and so he went to the Justice Department to see Agent Lyle Barton. While Milo waited for Agent Lyle he looked around the stuff in his office and found a picture of Lyle with his football jersey ND47. Milo knew that Lyle was a dirty government agent and was in on it, and he told Lyle that he wanted to help find Teddy’s killers. Lyle replied that the Aryan brothers were apprehended the previous night, and Lyle said he was disappointed that Milo wasn’t joining the DOJ. Milo, now knowing totally who to trust and if Alice were in on it too, told her vague details of what happened and how he was going to go back to work on Synapse because his theory about Building 21 turned out to be false. Alice later called Phil and told him the news with Gary listening in on another phone that Milo was nothing to worry about (covering for her boyfriend but playing both sides). Milo went to Lisa believing she was his only friend and told Lisa that he was living with someone who was getting paid to sleep with him, and Gary would do anything to make sure that Synapse met its deadline since he had invested billions. Lisa acted disinterested and said she really didn’t want to get mixed up in it, but Milo convinced her by telling her that he knew what her stepfather did to her and she could be in danger if she left since they could possibly use her stepfather. Milo and Lisa didn’t want to go to the FBI since the DOJ was corrupt and on NURV’s corporate payroll, and they instead decided that they would go to a news station and tell everyone what Gary was up to. However, all the news stations had partnered with corp NURV in some way, so Lisa suggested they use Synapse to connect to everyone. Lisa checked on the satellites and discovered that they were active. The news reported that Gary and his wife Clarissa were inviting 50 elite couples to a gala at their house to raise money for the Portland Art Museum. Milo told Alice (Rebecca) at home that she should be invited to the gala since she was an artist, and then when Milo went back to work, Gary gave Milo and Alice (Rebecca) their invitation and apologized that it was late. Bob discovered that someone used Cosgrove’s ID to go in and out of Building 21 multiple times, and Bob knew that it was Milo who stole the other employee’s identity because Cosgrove confirmed that he had never been in the daycare area before. Milo discovered a bag of sesame seeds hidden in a box at his house. While Alice (Rebecca) talked to Gary at the gala, Milo excused himself to download a disk onto Gary’s computer and get the satellite IP addresses which he wrote down. Gary then walked in, and Milo quickly covered that he got inspired and was using the computer to do some work. Gary said that he knew Milo was distracted with coworker Lisa, but he needed to stay focused on Synapse. After Milo arrived at his home, Alice (Rebecca) announced that she bought a Hunan cookbook and spent all afternoon chopping and mincing things for dinner. Milo reminded his girlfriend that she never cooked, and she replied that she knew and went to get dressed up for dinner. Milo then searched the box and discovered that the sesame seeds were gone, and then he searched the food and the trash. At the table, Milo delayed the dinner by asking Alice (Rebecca) for chopsticks, and while she was out of the room Milo scratched his wrist with a fork and then put the food on the scratch to see if he had an allergic reaction because he wasn’t certain if she would poison him. The two had wine, and then Alice (Rebecca) sat in Milo’s lap and rubbed the food in his mouth with her finger. She whispered in his ear that she loved him, and then Milo called Alice by Rebecca and she answered yes and realized that Milo knew her criminal female identity from her past. Bob dusted the daycare keyboards for fingerprints, and they matched Milo’s that were on file. Gary wanted Phil to take care of it. Milo finished the synapse modules program and made copies of the disk, and when he drove back to the daycare center using Cosgrove’s ID, Bob was waiting for Milo and caught him red-handed with the Cerebellum file backup. Bob said he wouldn’t call Gary and Milo explained everything, and then Bob let Milo leave with the Cerebellum because Bob knew something wasn’t right about the corporate giant and how they conducted “business.” Alice (Rebecca) quickly packed clothes to leave to make her great escape now that she was caught in the act. Milo drove to Lisa’s house and told her they were using Synapse that night instead of in two days as planned. Phil told Gary that Milo left the campus with surveillance data, but they knew where he was because the car had a tracker on it so they sent out hired gunmen Redmond Schmeichel and Danny Solskjaer to stop Milo. Milo and Lisa took the Cerebellum system file disc to Brian at 2 KNQR TV station where Brian worked. For an extra $132, the security guard was paid off to help the trio do a live broadcast on the TV channel and bring down corporate NURV. The guard blockaded the door and passageways with furniture. Milo and his crew had a race against time with Gary and Phil to see who could be the first one to input the IP addresses and shut down the mother satellites. Numbers one and two failed for Milo because Gary was quicker, and then Redmond and Danny smashed the windows of the building and worked their way around the furniture. Milo figured out that Gary knew that Milo was in the system and so Gary was shutting down the satellites ahead of them. Milo skipped to number 12 at the end. Gary knew how Milo’s mind worked and also skipped to 12 after #2. Redmond and Danny held a gun on Milo and demanded to have the disk, and Lisa turned out to be a felon corporate employee too and was in on it with the others and she unplugged the system so Milo could not succeed. Milo ran with the disk and the goons chased after him, and they broke through glass to get the disk back and took Milo hostage. Meanwhile, Larry and Bob were in Building 21 using the second backup disk that Milo gave Bob to finish hacking into the satellites. Lisa did the honors and gave Gary the disk, and Alice was there as Gary said his ways were illegal but without Milo’s help they could never have accomplished Synapse. Larry was then able to connect to a satellite, and then suddenly Synapse overrode Jay Leno and the yoga instructor and TVs, cell phone and PCs worldwide were interrupted with a rogue broadcast about how Synapse was controlling everything and killing people. Gary’s voice was on the live broadcast in bits and pieces saying that NURV was a monopoly, and he said his famous phrase about how you’re either a one or a zero, alive or dead. The video of Teddy’s murder was also broadcast, and the murder of William Subbs was pinned on Gary. Gary was irate and screamed at Milo that nobody was going to believe the cyber-prank. Randy took a call and told Gary that the lawyers were at the gate and the feds were on the way. Gary sent security to Building 21 where they traced the signal to, and then they figured out that Alice (Rebecca) lied for Milo and helped take Gary’s team down because she had feelings for Milo (slept together). Milo’s team then broadcast the Synapse operating code with the message from www.skullbocks.com to take it and use it because human knowledge belonged to the world. All the corporate guilty people ran away because they knew they were caught, but Alice (Rebecca) didn’t want to go. Milo told Gary that Gary stole Milo’s and his college buddies program and killed Teddy, and it wasn’t a game because in the real world, people actually died when you murdered them and Gary was f**ked. Gary let Milo and Alice (Rebecca) walk out, and then Gary’s lawyers appeared. Gary then acted like he had been betrayed and everything had just come to his attention, and the weasel ranted how Randy and Phil were missing and the other guilty corporate employees tried to discredit Gary’s character and ruin his company. Gary added that he would cooperate with the authorities and do whatever he could to bring the criminals to justice (when Gary was the real corporate criminal mastermind all along). The news reported that Gary, Lisa, Phil, Lyle, Redmond, Randy and Danny were arrested at a Portland airfield as they tried to leave on a private jet. Larry and Brian joked that the video had more hits (over 18 million) than Clinton’s testimony. The press then tracked down Milo’s accomplices in their garage, and they became instantly famous as the reporters bombarded them for interviews. Alice (Rebecca) dropped Milo off and the two went separate ways and she seemed to drive away scot free with Milo’s help. On the live TV, Marshals led Gary away in handcuffs into the Portland federal court. The reporters got a picture of the Skullbocks team (Milo, Larry and Brian), and Milo said they gave Synapse back to the people since human knowledge belonged to the world. This movie had a budget of $30 million and grossed over $18 million at the box office. It was released the same year as 9/11. The movie cover art listed, The Wall Street Journal “A clever paranoid thriller.” National News Syndicate, “A cutting-edge, nail-biting thrill ride!” Entertainment Today, “considerable suspense.” Los Angeles Times, “ingenious, stunningly cinematic payoff.”

DATE REVIEWED: 11/12/23

TITLE: Frozen 2

BOX OFFICE RATED: PG

PRODUCTION YEAR: 2019 Walt Disney Pictures / Walt Disney Animation Studios / Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 2

REASON: This cartoon movie takes place in the Norwegian kingdom of Arendelle and began with young princesses Anna and Elsa playing a game that involved an Enchanted Forest. Their dad, King Agnarr, told them the story of the real Enchanted Forest that was protected by the air, fire, earth and water spirits and explained that was where the Northuldra people lived. Agnarr’s dad, King Runeard, built the Northuldra a dam to strengthen their waters and as a symbol of peace between the two nations. Runeard, young Prince Agnarr and a few Arendellian soldiers attended a Northuldra celebration and let their guard down as they enjoyed themselves. The Northuldra and the angry spirits attacked the Arendellians, and Agnarr was knocked unconscious against a boulder and saved by a strange voice. Runeard was thrown off a cliff and killed, so Agnarr became the king that day. The spirits vanished, and a mist in the air covered the Forest and kept people from getting in or out. Agnarr warned Anna and Elsa that the mist in the air might never return, but if it ever did it could be dangerous. Elsa, Anna’s older sister, became queen of Arendelle once both sisters were adults. Agnarr and his wife, Iduna, died when their ship went down in the Southern Sea six years before. Elsa heard a strange voice vocalizing in the distance one day, and later that evening the game of charades that she played with Anna, Anna’s boyfriend Kristoff, his reindeer Sven, and the talking snowman Olaf was interrupted by Elsa hearing the voice again from afar. Kristoff tried to propose marriage to Anna, but she was worried about Elsa who left the room in a hurry so he didn’t get the chance. Anna went to check on Elsa and knew that something was wrong because Elsa wore their mother’s scarf again and that was her tell. Anna helped her older sister by cuddling on the bed next to her and sang a lullaby about the magical river Ahtohallan that Iduna used to sign to the girls. That night, Elsa heard the voice again and tried to ignore it, but she couldn’t so she went outside and used her ice powers to conjure up mythical things while singing to the spirit and trying to follow it into the unknown. Floating icicles surrounded Elsa and the palace, and she saw the four spirits open a realm. Anna and the townspeople woke up, and the icicles fell. The light in the lanterns went out, the elements changed and a severe windstorm suddenly occurred. That created pandemonium in the kingdom, and Elsa had everyone evacuate to the cliffs. Elsa told Anna that she didn’t mention the voice because she didn’t want to worry her sister, but Elsa felt that the voice calling her was good and had something to tell her. The talking Rock Trolls who raised Kristoff then appeared. The leader, Pabbie, had a vision and informed Anna and Elsa that the wrong needed to be righted and the truth found, otherwise Arendelle would have no future. Pabbie agreed to look after Elsa’s people while she, Anna, and Kristoff went into the Forest in search of the voice. Olaf entertained everyone with questionable trivia, his favorite factoid being how water had memory. Kristoff told Olaf that being quiet on long journeys prevented insanity and everyone agreed. Kristoff tried to propose marriage to Anna again, but it didn’t go so well and big sis Elsa interrupted with the voices in her head again. Elsa cleared the hazy mist and the group was able to enter the Forest without becoming ill from the possibly contaminated fog in the air. They found the dam, and Kristoff told Anna that it was a good thing the dam was still intact otherwise the water would be enough to wash away everything on the fjord, including Arendelle. Kristoff failed at marriage proposal yet again and kept saying the wrong thing, and Anna ran off to find Elsa because she made a promise that she would stay by Elsa’s side the whole journey. The spirits tormented Olaf, and the wind spirit swept everyone up into a tornado until Elsa was able to stop it. There were ice statues depicting moments in time, and one had a Northuldra girl saving Prince Agnarr. The Northuldra people led by their chief Yelena and a small group of Arendellian soldiers led by Lieutenant Mattias then appeared and revealed they had been trapped in the Forest ever since the battle. Olaf did a play skit of the first Frozen movie (making Shakespeare proud because boy Olaf played the female roles of Anna and Elsa) to explain who they were. Anna then recognized Mattias from a portrait and knew he used to be Agnarr’s official guard. The Forest then went up in flames caused by the fire spirit, and everyone escaped to the river while Elsa used her ice to put out the flames. Elsa cornered the fire spirit, which turned out to be a very friendly pink-purple-and-blue lizard. Anna was upset that Elsa ran into the fire and wasn’t careful, and Elsa comforted Anna by wrapping her in their mom’s scarf. Anna and Elsa were told that was a Northuldra scarf (mom’s), and the sisters ran to the ice sculpture and realized that the girl wearing the scarf was their mom rescuing their dad so Iduna (mom) was from Northuldra. Elsa promised the Northuldra, the people of the sun, that she would free the Forest and restore Arendelle. Honeymaren told Elsa there was a fifth spirit that was the bridge between people and nature and some people heard it call out the day the Forest fell. Elsa and Honeymaren seemed to hit it off and have an instant connection as they sang Iduna’s lullaby around the campfire. An Earth Giant walked by and everyone hid, and Elsa wanted to follow it but Anna reminded her they were there to find the voice. Kristoff then learned that Anna and Elsa continued on their way without him because he went off with Honeymaren’s brother Ryder to learn how to propose in the traditional Northuldra way with reindeer. Kristoff imagined Sven actually singing (not Kristoff singing for Sven) and Sven encouraged Kristoff not to give up on proposing marriage to Anna. Anna and Elsa found the wreck of the ship their parents died on, and Anna knew that every Arendellian ship had a waterproof compartment. They searched for it and found inside it a scroll in another language and a map, and the sisters learned that their parents planned to cross the Dark Sea to Ahtohallan, the river that was thought to hold all the answers about the past. Elsa conjured a memory from the water that showed how Agnarr and Iduna’s ship had wrecked on the way to Ahtohallan to find answers about Elsa’s powers. Elsa blamed herself for her parents’ death, but Anna reassured Elsa that she was a gift and their mom’s good deed of saving their dad (dad’s family was enemy of mom’s) was rewarded with Elsa, a magical queen for Arendelle. Anna wanted to go with Elsa to find the truth, but Elsa insisted that she had to do it alone and she sent Anna and Olaf away in a boat of ice down the river. They passed sleeping Earth Giants and then found themselves trapped in a cave. Elsa made it to the shore of the Dark Sea, and she plunged into the sea where the water spirit, a horse, went after her. Elsa was able to get on the horse’s back and tame it, and she rode it across the water to Ahtohallan, which was a glacier. She saw visions of Iduna and realized that she herself was the fifth spirit, and then Elsa learned that her grandfather Runeard chose to bring guards to the Northuldra event because he never trusted them since they followed magic and he believed that made them think they could defy the will of the king. Runeard’s plan had been to build the dam to weaken the Northuldra’s lands so they would turn to him, and he organized the celebration so he could see how large the Northuldra tribe was and how strong they were. Runeard was the first one to pull a sword in the battle against the weaponless Northuldra leader, and as Elsa watched she sent out a message to Anna right before she transformed into an ice statue. The message reached Anna and she learned what Elsa learned, and Anna realized that the spirits forced everyone out of Arendelle to protect them from what had to be done, which was breaking the dam and flooding Arendelle. The magic within Olaf then faded away and so did he, which meant Elsa went too far and wasn’t okay. Grief-stricken Anna was forced to continue without Olaf, so she climbed out of the cave and screamed for the Earth Giants to wake up. She ran towards the dam with them chasing her, and Kristoff and Sven appeared and helped Anna get there. The Arendellian soldiers tried to stop Anna, but she convinced them that Arendelle would have no future if they didn’t destroy the dam. The Giants threw their boulders and the dam was crushed, and Anna almost went down with it but Mattias and Kristoff saved her. Elsa broke free from her ice, and the water spirit came to her aid and galloped her across the sea back to Arendelle, where she used ice to stop the wave of water rushing from the dam before it flooded the kingdom. Arendelle was restored to the way it was before and after 34 years, those trapped in the Forest finally saw the sky again (or for the first time for some of the younger Northuldra). Anna and Elsa were reunited, and Elsa revealed that she was the fifth spirit and Arendelle still stood. Elsa then asked Anna if she wanted to build a snowman, and Elsa brought Olaf back. Kristoff finally proposed marriage to Anna and she happily accepted, and then Elsa chose to live in the Enchanted Forest and gave her throne to Anna who became the new queen of Arendelle. Olaf put on an Englishman’s outfit and Sven and Kristoff dressed up for Anna back in Arendelle. Mattias, now General of the Arendelle army, got together with Halima, an Arendellian woman he had wanted to be with ever since before he went to the Forest. Queen Anna unveiled the statue of young Agnarr and Iduna in the middle of the Arendelle square which represented how the two lands were connected by love. The wind spirit took a message to Elsa in the Forest inviting her to charades at the castle. Elsa was happy, and she turned the water spirit into an ice horse and galloped off. This movie had a budget of $150 million and grossed over $1.4 billion at the box office.

DATE REVIEWED: 11/11/23

TITLE: Barbie

BOX OFFICE RATED: PG-13 (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)

PRODUCTION YEAR: 2023 Warner Bros. Pictures /Heyday Films / LuckyChap Entertainment / NB/GG Pictures / Mattel Films

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1

REASON: This movie began with a narrator that said since the beginning of time, little girls played with baby dolls as many small girls were doing calmly and quietly…but then a Goliath female Barbie appeared. Giant Barbie then seemed to possess the very young girls which caused the young children to kick their American girl like baby dolls around and smash the babies heads into the ground. Power hungry Barbie changed everything and had her own money, own house, own car and own career and because she could be anything, women could be anything and that was reflected back to the little girls of Today in the Real World. Thanks to Barbie, all problems of feminism and equal rights were solved, or that was what all the fake Barbie squad thought. The female Barbies lived together in Barbie Land, where basically things were pink and only females dominated and controlled everything especially the men. The two genders all lived there without children because the females loved females more than males.The main character Barbie, Stereotypical Barbie, was an image that someone would conjure up when they thought of a Barbie doll. Sterotypical Barbie lived in her heavily pink decorated Dreamhouse and pretended to eat and drink but didn’t actually so she could maintain her skinny self. Barbie’s pregnant friend Midge used to be a doll, but the Mattel Company that manufactured all the dolls discontinued Midge because a pregnant doll was weird for young children to play with (Barbie was originally made as a teen girl who decided to take over the job of her parents and raise her siblings Barbie’s way). In Barbieland, the black Barbie President lived at the Pink House (White House), and Lawyer Barbie argued in court that money was not speech and corporations had no free speech rights to begin with (not true in reality as mega corps use their power to change laws and silence people) so any claim on their part to be exercising a right was just their attempt to turn Barbie Land’s fake democracy into a plutocracy. The Hollywood sign was replaced with a Barbie Land sign, and the presidents on Mount Rushmore were replaced with female Barbies. Barbie always had a great day, but main character Ken only had a great day if Barbie looked at him. Ken tried to impress Barbie by surfing waves that were just decoration and not actually water, and it didn’t work so well so White Leader Ken and Asian Beach Ken wanted to beach each other off but Barbie told them not to. Ken wasn’t injured at all by the incident, but the pink Barbie ambulance came anyway and the Barbie Nurses dressed Ken in a pink hospital gown. The medical females informed Ken within seconds that he was okay, and later that night all the other adult Barbies and Kens had a party at Barbie’s Dreamhouse. Beach Ken and Leader Ken competed on the dancefloor for attention. The party stopped when Barbie asked everyone if they ever thought of dying, but soon it started again when she corrected herself that she was dying to dance. Afterwards, Leader Ken tried to kiss Sterotypical Barbie, but before his lips could touch hers, she dismissed him as though she wasn’t interested in men at all and preferred her gal pals. Sterotypical Barbie told Leader Ken that it was her Dreamhouse and not his and to get out because the Barbies, including President Barbie, were having another slumber party. Barbie declared that every night forever was girls’ night and boys were not allowed on scene. With irrepressible thoughts of death, Barbie woke up the next morning to the other Barbies in her life saying hi to her as usual. Sterotypical Barbie put on her super short, blue and white striped naughty maid dress with a heart on the front. That turned into a blue and white sailor’s outfit at the beach, where Barbie took off her high heels and realized that she was no longer on her tiptoes. She showed her Barbie gang, and they screamed about Sterotypcial Barbie’s flat feet and a random Ken that spied on the females made retching sounds as though it was a disease. The women told Barbie that she was malfunctioning because everything she did that day didn’t go right so she had to go see Weird Barbie. Lawyer Barbie said that there was a rumor Weird Barbie used to be the most beautiful Barbie of all until a girl in the Real World played too hard with her by cutting her hair and drawing on her. Barbie, in a blue and white pantsuit, went to Weird Barbie’s rainbow Weirdhouse. Eccentric and Weird Barbie in her hot-pink and multi-colored outfit said that Ken was good-looking and she would like to see the nude blob under his jeans. When Weird Barbie learned that Barbie had thoughts of death before the strange things happened, she looked at her paper Origami Fortune Teller and announced that Sterotypical Barbie opened a portal between Barbie Land and the Real World. Sterotypical Barbie was instructed to go to the Real World and find the little girl that was playing with her in order to fix the rip otherwise things would get worse and she would look like Weird Barbie. Weird Barbie went on to say that the twain had been crossed and the girl’s sad thoughts and feeling were interfering with the fake Barbie world. Weird Barbie then made Barbie trade in her pink high heels for brown Birkenstock sandals and told her to go to the country of California where the state of Los Angeles was. In order to return to Barbie Land, Sterotypical Barbie had to do the reverse of what she did to get to the Real World. Sterotypcial Barbie was given a bon voyage party and was cautioned not to get cellulite while she was in the Real World. The Barbies also gave Sterotypical Barbie a pep talk and told her that all women would be grateful to Sterotypical Barbie and want to hug her because she saved the world and made them powerful. The two Kens (White Leader and Asian Beacher) were at it again arguing about going with Barbie. Pink-wearing Leader Ken then stowed away in the back of the car and Barbie almost wrecked, and he explained that he and Beach Ken did a double bet so Leader Ken had to come go along with Sterotypical Barbie on her journey.At Venice beach, in California, Sterotypical Barbie and Leader Ken dressed in their bright-colored beach attire and wore neon bright yellow rollerblades. In the real world, straight men whistled at Sterotypical Barbie while the gay men complimented Leader Ken. Sterotypical Barbie walked over to a construction site and told the men who used sexual quips to communicate with her that she didn’t have a vagina and Leader Ken didn’t have a penis because no one from Barbie Land had genitals. The real men didn’t understand because Sterotypical Barbie looked like a normal human, but then Leader Ken added that he did have genitals. Sterotypical Barbie didn’t like that there was no women power and the construction site and she wasn’t happy that she sensed the strong male dominating presence in the real world. As Sterotypical Barbie and Leader Ken stared at a Miss Universe billboard sign, a man came over and spanked Sterotypical Barbie on the butt so she punched him in the face. The LAPD officers arrested Sterotypical Barbie and Leader Ken, but they were soon released from the jail only to end up back there when they went to a store, put on Texas cowboy attire and then stole the outfits because they didn’t have the money to pay for them. Once released from jail again, outside the police department, Sterotypical Barbie told Leader Ken to take a walk so she could figure out who and where the little girl was that was playing with her life. Leader Ken went inside a corporate building and rode the escalator up to see a large screen featuring the faces of Clinton, Bush, and Reagan at the top. Leader Ken saw Washington, Lincoln and Jackson on the dollar bills, and the real president faces on Mount Rushmore. There was also John Travolta in Grease and Sylvester Stallone in Rocky and others. Sterotypcial Barbie was able to trackdown the little girl in her head, and she watched the Hispanic girl as she grew up to tween years and changed character by wearing black clothing and acting disrespectful to her mom. The tween girl donated things to Goodwill and went to Davy Crockett Junior High, a Patriot Honor School. Sterotypical Barbie watched all the people in the park in their everyday life, and then she told an elderly woman sitting next to her on the bench next to her how beautiful she was. Leader Ken came running back and announced that men rule the real world, and Barbie said that the girl was at school. Leader Ken and Sterotypical Barbie went to the Patriot school to find the girl and as they walked off, Sterotypical adult Barbie stared back several moments at the elderly woman on the bench as the fake went forward to find the girl she called a tween (who really looked fourteen years old) in public junior high school that haunted her dreams. FBI Dan called Aaron Dinkins at the Worldwide Mattel Headquarters in LAand informed Aaron that two of his dolls, Barbie and Ken, got loose and to track them down and clean up the mess that they left in Santa Monica. Mattel employee Aaron told other employees that ten years before, Barbie’s younger sister Skipper went to a house in Key West and asked to babysit the kids but then she tried to take off with the toddler surfing. They were able to straighten it out and keep it under wraps, but this situation was much more serious than that. Aaron took the elevator all the way up, where receptionist Gloria randomly drew sketches of Irrepressible Thoughts of Death Barbie, Full Body Cellulite Barbie and Crippling Shame Barbie models that looked just like Stereotypical Barbie. The Mattel company CEO was in a meeting with other male officials talking about sparkle Barbie, and when the CEO heard the news he nearly passed out and then said it was a job for the box and no one could rest until the Barbie was back in the box. Gloria eavesdropped at the door. Leader Ken went to the school library to find books on trucks while Sterotypcial Barbie looked for the girl inside the school. Sterotypical Barbie found Sasha, Gloria’s daughter, immediately but was told by another girl in the public school that she could never talk to Sasha because Sasha would crush Sterotypical Barbie. Sasha and her friends thought Sterotypical Barbie was a psycho when she introduced herself as Barbie and they said that they hadn’t played with Barbie dolls since they were very young and they didn’t like it even then. Sasha’s girl gang told Sasha to destroy Sterotypical Barbie, and Sasha explained that Barbie had been making women feel bad about themselves since she was invented and she represented everything that was wrong such as sexualized capitalism and unrealistic physical ideals. Sasha called Barbie a fascist and didn’t like her showing up again in Sasha’s life. Sterotypical Barbie ran out of the school then in tears. Leader Ken stole the books “Why Men Rule,” “Men and Wars,” “The Origins of the Patriarchy,” and “Horses,” from the school library. Leader Ken went to try and find a corporate job but was told that he needed an MBA and PhD to get a high-paying job because being a man was against him nowadays in the real world. Leader Ken then went to the hospital and wanted to do an appendectomy but he was told that he couldn’t because he wasn’t a doctor. A female told Leader Ken that she was a doctor, but Leader Ken dismissed her as if she wasn’t and walked to a male doctor. Leader Ken then went to the beach and told a lifeguard that all he wanted to do was stand on the beach because even if someone needed saving he wasn’t trained to do it so he couldn’t be hired. Sterotypical Barbie cried because she no longer controlled the railways or the flow of commerce in the Real World. The Mattel officials then appeared to take Sterotypical Barbie with them. She was down in the dumps because girls hated her, men looked at her as a sex object and she kept getting arrested. Sasha got out of school and told her mom Gloria, who was off early because of a work (Mattel) crisis, not to call her Bunny-Boo and was glad that Sterotypical Barbie in the car in front of them was being taken away by the men in black. The Mattel CEO told Sterotypical Barbie inside their headquarters that all her problems would be solved if she got into the giant box for the original Stereotypical Barbie. Barbie said they should get Leader Ken, (Leader Ken was already headed back to Barbie Land riding a pink bicycle in the tulip fields, riding a pink spaceship and then riding a pink motorboat.) The CEO replied that they weren’t ever worried about Ken, and then Sterotypical Barbie wanted to speak to a woman in power but there were none. The CEO told Barbie there was in the past high-powered women employees at Mattel and not to hate on the all-male staff of upper management. Mattel’s CEO added that they even had gender-neutral bathrooms in the big corporation and some of his best friends were Jewish and he was the mother of a son. The CEO then told Jezebel Barbie to get in the box, and once in the box, the men in black strapped Barbie’s wrists in while they reminisced about Proust Barbie. At the last moment, Barbie was able to slip her wrists out (because she hadn’t eaten that day or ever and was super skinny) and so she jumped out of the box. Sterotypical Barbie excused herself to the restroom to make sure her hair was perfect, and the second she was out of the room she made a run for it. Alarms sounded, and the men ran around the cubicles like bumbling idiots and the dimwit male CEO decided he would climb over the cubicles because it was quicker after he came face-to-face with Barbie and they screamed and ran in opposite directions. Sterotypical Barbie went into one open room where an elderly woman named Ruth Handler, the co-founder of Mattel, sat at a kitchen table. Ruth offered Sterotypical Barbie tea that Sterotypical Barbie was suddenly able to swallow with some difficulty. Ruth helped Sterotypical Barbie escape to the lobby using a closet. Fake Sterotypical Barbie was smart enough to hop over the gate, and the CEO asked someone for a key card so he could get through. Gloria and Sasha pulled up and told Sterotypical Barbie to get in, and she jumped in. Gloria explained that she didn’t give the Barbie dolls away to Goodwill as Sasha thought, and Gloria was missing Sasha and their playtime together when she was younger so Gloria started playing with the Barbies but then Gloria became really sad and weird. That made fake Sterotypical Barbie come to the Real World. Sterotypical Barbie and Gloria then realized that Sterotypical Barbie came for Gloria and they were her memories and not Sasha’s that popped into Sterotypical Barbie’s head.Sasha then asked her mom if she was shining (Stephen King’s “The Shining”) with a real Sterotypical Barbie, and Gloria said a little. Sasha couldn’t believe her mom wished a Barbie doll to life, and Gloria replied that she just wanted to have a little fun because she had a boring job, a boring life and a daughter that hated her. Gloria drove recklessly in her Chevy to escape the Mattel Suburbans that looked like black government vehicles. They made it to Venice Beach, where the trio rollerbladed and planned to go to Barbie Land together and leave Gloria’s husband behind to learn her native language of Spanish. In their travels the same way Sterotypical Barbie came, she enlightened Gloria and Sasha that women controlled all the money and had all the power in Barbie Land.They played a song and Sterotypical Barbie said they had a female president and their lives were fun, work, friendship and female 24/7. Mattel figured out that the trio went to Barbie Land and they followed suit. However, Leader Ken had turned Barbie Land upside down and made the males more manly based on what he learned in the Real World. Madam President served beer while the Supreme Court Justices wore Dallas Cowboy-like cheerleading outfits but with red and white hearts. The Capitol building was still Pink on the outside, but Ken changed Mount Barbie to a herd of horses. After Sasha found out that each Barbie had her own house, Sterotypical Barbie said she had no idea where all the Kens stayed because they didn’t have houses in Barbie Land. Leader Ken now with California influence wore a fur coat and boxing gloves and told the other Texas cowboyed-up Kens that everything existed to expand and elevate the presence of men. Sterotypical Barbie didn’t want to be called “baby,” by Leader Ken and she had a hissy fit because he turned Barbie’s Dreamhouse into Kendom’s Saloon, aka Ken’s Mojo Dojo Casa House. The changes that Leader Ken made in Barbie Land were an instant sensation among the children in the Real World and Leader Ken’s new product designs were selling hot cakes and Leader Ken was the number one tattoo. Also, Warner Bros. started auditions for the leader Ken movie that was already a blockbuster hit. Sterotypical Barbie’s gal pal group loved what Leader Ken did with the place and the fake females now wore trashy maid’s costumes to play the part, and they even recruited Allan who they claimed like giving the other men foot massages. Allan argued that he didn’t, and Gloria commented that it was like the 1500s and the native people and smallpox because they had no immune system to combat it. Leader Ken announced that Barbie Land was now Ken Land and it would be modeled after Century City in California because they had it all figured out. Leader Ken slid off his truck in Barbie Land and told everyone he didn’t need an MBA, medical degree or lifeguard experience and was going to be the king of where he was at. Sterotypical Barbie then watched the Leader Ken TV news announcers outside the Capitol building reporting that Leader Ken was awarded a Nobel Prize for horses and he and the other Kens were voting to change the Constitution to a government for the Kens, of the Kens, and by the Kens with the Supreme Court justices. Sterotypical Barbie told Leader Ken that women worked so hard to get to where they were and he couldn’t just change it in one day. Leader Ken asked Sterotypcial Barbie how she liked the feeling of what she did to him for so long, and he told her to leave since it was his house and it was boys’ night. After Sterotypical Barbie finished crying, she told Gloria that it was Gloria’s fault because everything was perfect before Gloria came into Sterotypical Barbie’s life. Gloria replied that life changed and Sterotypical Barbie had to deal with it. Fake Barbie sat down on the grass and wanted to give up, and she told Gloria and Sasha to leave her be and go back to their own world. Sterotypical Barbie hoped that the other Barbies would snap out of it and realize that they were better than the men. After Gloria and Sasha left in Sterotypical Barbie’s car (no seatbelts), an ad came out in the Real World for Depression Barbie, who wore sweatpants, spent seven hours a day on Instagram looking at her estranged best friend’s engagement photos, ate a family-size bag of Starbursts by herself so her jaw hurt, and then watched the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice for the seventh time until she fell asleep. Weird Barbie woke Sterotypical Barbie up, and Sterotypical Barbie said that now she was ugly and unwanted like Weird Barbie. As Gloria and Sasha were in Barbie’s car singing, the radio switched songs and played Leader Ken’s favorite song about pushing people around. Allan then popped out from the backseat and the car flipped over again. Allan told the two Hispanic females that as soon as he figured out how to build the wall nobody would be able to get in or out of Barbie Land so they had to hurry up and leave. Allan then started a fight with the construction workers while Gloria and Sasha left in the car with underage Sasha now driving. However, Sasha told her mom they had to go back because Barbie Land needed saving and Gloria’s sick-minded drawings were amazing and not stupid and that was worth saving Barbie Land for. Gloria admitted that she was a weird, dark and crazy person, which Sasha copied over the years. Weird Barbie had some of the “norm” Barbies at her Weirdhouse to help deprogram the other Barbies from worshipping men. Weird Barbie was obsessed with doing the splits and did the splits to greet Gloria, Sasha and Allan. Gloria said that Weird Barbie was one of her favorite dolls and she made a Barbie weird by playing with her too hard. Two very feminine men, Sugar Daddy Ken and Magic Earring Ken, were there too with a small white dog. Gloria remembered all the Barbies she used to have, and how Gloria played with the arm on Growing Up Skipper to make her boobs grow. As Sterotypical Barbie cried to Gloria that she wasn’t pretty anymore, the British narrator said that Margot was the wrong girl to cast if you wanted to make that point. Gloria gave a speech on how it was impossible to be a woman, and then Writer Barbie snapped out of it and said that it was like she was in a dream where she was into the Zack Snyder part of Justice League. Sasha jumped up and called Sterotypical Barbie a White Savior Barbie, but Barbie said that Gloria was the warrior and Gloria needed to go say what she said to them to all the Barbies so they would snap out of it and defeat Kendom. They planned to use Writer Barbie as a decoy pretending to be brainwashed so they could get the other Barbies away from the Kens as they plotted and planned to take over Ken Land. They told Writer Barbie to make the men believe she was helpless and pathetic so when the men’s guard was down, the females could take the power back. Beach Ken put his arm around Writer Barbie and helped with her Photoshopon her laptop because she pretended to not know how the program worked. The others kidnapped Madam President Barbie, and Gloria in the van gave her speech to Madam President who was under Leader Ken’s influence. She snapped out of it and Gloria welcomed back Madam President. Sterotypical Barbie recruited the unbrainwashed Barbies to help defeat the Kens as new decoys and pretended to be terrible at sports. The last part of the plan would occur the following day when the Kens voted to change the Constitution and the Barbies had to get there first. Sasha said the Barbies had to make the Kens question whether they had enough power over each other. Gloria told Sterotypical Barbie that Leader Ken took Barbie’s house, brainwashed her friends and wanted to control the government and Sterotypical Barbie still wanted to be with him. Sterotypical Barbie went to see Leader Ken and told him that she was ready to be his long-term casual girlfriend, and Leader Ken brought Sterotypical Barbie into his saloon. He played his guitar for her, “Push You Around,” on the beach around a campfire while the other Kens serenaded the Barbies nearby. Beach Ken then text Sterotypical Barbie and she went over to sit with him while the other Barbies interrupted the song and walked away to play on the men’s egos and their petty jealousies to turn them against each other, as Sterotypical Barbie had done to Leader Ken. Sterotypical Ken and Beach Ken then went to war against each other on the beach with their groups of Kens. As the women in pink jumpsuits watched, Weird Barbie said they needed to get their Constitution back. Mattel corporate employees then arrived, and the Kens held hands and had a dance-off singing about how they were just Ken and wanted to be friend with Barbie. Away from the chaos they caused, all the females voted in the Supreme Court with Madam President to keep Barbie Land. Ken was informed after it was too late that they were supposed to change the Constitution that day. Madam President swore the f-word and informed the Kens when they appeared that they restored Barbie Land and the Barbies got their brains restored and were taking charge again. Leader Ken ran into the saloon in tears, and Sterotypical Barbie went to console him. Leader Ken thought the Dreamhouse would eventually be his and Sterotypical Barbie’s, but she didn’t correct him because she knew it would never happen. When Leader Ken tried to kiss Sterotypical Barbie, she pushed him away and told him it was time for him to discover who he was. He had a mental breakdown because he told Sterotypical Barbie that it was always Barbie and Ken and he couldn’t exist without her but she still didn’t want to have a romantic relationship with him. Sterotypical Barbie said maybe it’s Barbie and it’s Ken. Ken said, “Ken is me,” and then threw his fur coat toa black Ken because he wanted the other man to have it. Ken then went down the pink slide and was happy that, “Ken is me.”Mattel CEO came on scene, and Midge stood by with her pregnant belly and scared the heck out of the CEO because he thought they discontinued her all together. The Mattel CEO man then mentioned weirdly tickling the other men at a board meeting while another man had his left arm in his sling. Mr. Mattel wanted to be called “Mother,” and Madam President said she wasn’t going to call him that. Madam President then offered a sanitation job in her cabinet to Weird Barbie (Weird Barbie wanted to work in trash department) and Weird Barbie accepted. One Ken asked to be part of the Supreme Court, but Madam President said she couldn’t do that and could put the Ken in a lower judge position. The English narrator said the Kens had to start somewhere and would one day have as much power in Barbie Land as the women had in the Real World. Basketball Ken, Beach Ken and Cowboy Ken were happy about it. Gloria pitched a new doll called Ordinary Barbie who could be a career mom or not a mom and just an ordinary person who loved life. The CEO said that was a terrible idea, but his advisor in the sling told him that was a moneymaker so he changed his mind and agreed. The Mattel CEO said they would begin the work to close the portal between the two worlds. Sasha asked what Sterotypical Barbie got in the end, and the CEO replied that it was easy because Barbie was in love with Leader Ken. Sasha argued that wasn’t Barbie’s ending, and Sterotypical Barbie told everyone she wasn’t in love with Leader Ken and didn’t know where she belonged anymore. Ruth then showed up and told Sterotypical Barbie the point was that she would never have an ending and Ruth created her to be like that. Ruth said she was the inventor of the Barbie doll and had problems with the IRS along the way. Ruth and Sterotypical Barbie walked away because she didn’t feel like Barbie anymore, and everyone waved after them with Ken thanking Sterotypical Barbie and wearing his “I Am Ken Enough,” shirt. Ruth explained that humans had an ending, but ideas lived forever and humans made things up like patriarchy and Barbie just to deal with how uncomfortable it was to be a human and then you die. Barbie said she wanted to do the imagining and not be the idea, and she asked Ruth for permission to become human. Ruth told the Sterotypical Barbie that she didn’t need permission. Sterotypical Barbie was confused because she knew Ruth was the creator and had all the control. Ruth said she couldn’t control Sterotypical Barbie any more than she could her own daughter and Barbie was named after Ruth’s daughter Barbara. Ruth and Sterotypical Barbie held hands and she told Sterotypical Barbie to close her eyes and feel herself being human. Barbie saw visions of mothers and daughters of all ethnic backgrounds, and then Ruth disappeared. The narrator explained that Sterotypical Barbie went to live in the Real World (country of California), where Gloria’s family dropped Barbie (wearing her pink Birkenstock’s) off in LA. She went to a clinic and used the name Barbara Handler for her appointment to see her gynecologist. “Barbie World,” by Ice Spice and Nicki Minaj then played. This movie had a budget of $128-$145 million budget and grossed over $1.4 billion at the box office.

DATE REVIEWED: 11/10/23

TITLE: Thomas Kinkade’s Christmas Cottage

BOX OFFICE RATED: PG (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)

PRODUCTION YEAR: 2008 Thomas Kinkade / Lionsgate / Sterling Media / Birch Grove Films / Firm Films / Radiant Productions

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1

REASON: This movie is inspired by a true story and began in Berkeley, California in 1977 with young artist Thomas Kinkade in college sketching his girlfriend Hope Eastbrook. Thom didn’t like the picture and crossed it out, and then he and his brother Pat went home to the small town of Placerville, California in the foothills of the High Sierra for Christmas vacation as they always did. They rode on Thom’s motorcyle around the snowy landscape. Every Christmas, Thom painted the scenery for the church pageant and his mom Maryanne took the children’s choir to the mountains to listen to the wind in the trees. Maryanne also taught the kids to sing and sewed all the Christmas church pageant Nativity costumes. Maryanne’s neighbor, gossip hound Mr. Rosa, greeted Thom and Pat with his German Shepherd, Jupiter, and revealed to them that the water pipe burst in the Kinkade cottage and the roof leaked but Maryanne didn’t tell her sons. Thom said having the famous (British sounding in movie but South African born) artist Glen Wesman (Glenn Wessles on Wiki and in reality) next door(in an old barn studio home in a remote field) was like God’s finger pointing Thom toward painting and Glen taught Thom painting all through high school. When Thom went for a visit to his now elder teacher’s house after he arrived in the small town, Glen was currently learning Latin because his hands wouldn’t cooperate for painting since he was getting older and he believed that some of his pictures were better left undone. Thom told Glen that he was getting lost because he was doing expressionist painting at his Berkeley school. Glen replied that art was never about the artist and it always about life, beauty, love and emotion that was enough to topple tyranny. Glen added that if there were a God, the summer light of Paris would be like God’s hand holding the world together. Thom brought gossip back from Berkeley and said Sidney Marvin (art dealer), wanted new paintings from Glen, so Glen made note to self to call Sidney and tell him to go to hell. Thom then realized that Glen was somewhat forgetful and didn’t remember that he liked Sidney and had witnessed Glen have a moment where Glen forgot what he was going to write down. Thom told the old man to forget it and he appeared very upset at the sight of his mentor nearing the end of his life. Thom then found a letter at mom’s house that stated the bank was foreclosing on Maryanne’s cottage. Maryanne told Thom it was her business and not his. She explained that she owed over $3,000 and already had several extensions, and she had until New Year’s to come up with the back payments. The boys (young adult college students) were upset about losing the cottage, and Maryanne told them not to worry about her financial issues while they were away. Later that night as the brothers tried to sleep but couldn’t, Thom and Pat discussed how their deadbeat dad Bill walked out on them when they were babies and how difficult it was for their single mom to raise them. Thom said he wasn’t going to go see his female friend Hope like he planned and instead he was going to stay and find a job during his Berkeley break to help his mom, Maryanne. Pat agreed to do the same and got a job helping Big Jim, the town electrician, so Jim could beat his neighbors, Lloyd and Evelyn Gunderson, and have better Christmas decorations outside. Big Jim told Pat that the Gundersons were bitter, ugly sadists at heart, and he added that he hated the Gunderson cat and wanted to blow up Mrs. Claus since his Santa decoration didn’t work and smoked. Thom went to see Ernie Trevor at the local Hangtown Saloon to see if he could get a job. Ernie planned to attract tourists by setting up a Christmas pageant and tree lighting event with KRGA from Sacramento covering the event so they would be on TV all the way from the capital to the foothills. Tanya Kapinski appeared and tried to flirt her way into being in the Miss Placerville pageant, which she won in 1974 but wasn’t qualified to be in again.Ernie mentioned Tanya’s questionable borderline raunchy pictures that Ernie, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, had phone calls night and day and organized protests in the street about so Ernie didn’t want that to happen again. Tanya called what she did art and said it was age discrimination that she couldn’t run in the pageant.Ernie told Thom that there were no jobs available, but Ernie soon offered Thom $500 to paint the town mural in a simple way that portrayed the town nicely since Charlie couldn’t do the job. Ernie told Thom not to get all socialist Berkeley in his painting. Later that night, Thom called his dad Bill, who worked at Little’s Joe’s pizza parlor in Sacramento. Bill rambled on about how he planned to buy the restaurant from a 19-year-old, and Bill promised he would come to Placerville for Christmas when Thom asked Billy him to because mom needed financial help. Thom thought the small town mural was ridiculous and beneath his ability, but Glen told him it wasn’t and it was Thom’s chance to illuminate where he lived to inspire his neighbors. Glen added that art crossed all borders, surpassed all languages, was the place where everyone was one family and where one image could change lives so Thom should put his whole heart into the mural, introduce men to their souls and always give his best. Maryanne advised Butch Conran, the owner of the drinking bar, to have his bulldog checked out for a respiratory problem. Tanya was chosen to be Mary in the church pageant, and Lloyd, Mr. Rosa and another citizen were the Three Wise Men. Two Wise Men argued until Maryanne separated them, and then Mr. Rosa quit so Maryanne convinced Butch, who hadn’t been seen at church for nine years since the funeral of his son who died in the war, to take Mr. Rosa’s place. Bill then showed up in his classic car and brought Thom and Pat vintage dirty magazines for Christmas presents. Bill told the boys they had to go to Mexico soon where the beers were cold and the women were hot, and Bill didn’t want to stick around and instead just spent a few minutes with the boys outside the cottage he abandoned so many years ago. Bill added to remember what Confucius said about how “Life’s a bit** and then you die.” Bill left to get drunk at the saloon and told the boys that he decided he would stick around and whatever the matter was, all you had to do was grab your a** with both hands and never let go. Thom started painting the townspeople into the mural to capture the spirit of Placerville, starting with Mr. Rosa, Butch and their dogs. Butch came along and really appreciated Thom’s artwork and then asked Thom to walk to the cemetery with him to pay their respects to Butch’s son. Butch said he was still grieving over the loss and time wasn’t healing his wound. At the church, the children’s choir sang Christmas songs (with elderly Vesta Furniss the organ player refusing to play the songs in the order that Evelyn wanted). It was there that Tanya used her wiles and convinced Eddie (in charge of the whole shebang) to let her turn on the Christmas tree at the tourist televised event. Lloyd then quit, so Maryanne went to the bar to find her ex, Bill. She and Bill reminisced, and then she asked him to perform as the third Wise Man in the pageant to make that Christmas memorable because he owed it to Pat and Thom. Bill argued that he didn’t owe anyone anything but the addict then considered it after Maryanne said he owed her. Glen was in his studio trying to paint his deceased girlfriend Nicole’s lips red, but his hand slipped and he ruined Nicole’s face so he broke down. Thom was concerned about Glen, so he called Sidney who came and asked Glen for a new masterpiece. Glen said that Sidney only wanted a paycheck, and Glen wasn’t sure he would live until Christmas and he just couldn’t capture Nicole in his painting. Glen told Sidney in good spirits to go to hell, and then Sidney privately told Thom that Glen’s “unfinished,” pictures were unsaleable and he wouldn’t finish them but Sidney was convinced that Glen had one more painting in him. Thom then revealed that his family was in dire financial straits and asked Sidney if he thought anyone would buy Thom’s pieces of art. Sidney said no and told Thom that he hadn’t found the thing inside him because the paintings were just pale imitations of the better work that Thom’s Berkeley teachers (such as Glenn who was a Berkeley professor art teacher) did. Nanette, Thom’s first love who he hadn’t seen in a year, told him that his mural was beautiful and filled with love. Big Jim and Pat were still competing with the Gundersons and tormented them in the middle of the night using a loudspeaker. Thom worked on his mural, Tanya fretted over whether or not she was beautiful, and female Deputy Hornbuckle was able to get Maryanne a few more days to make her payments. Ernie lied to Mr. Chang (local shop owner in town) and Mr. Rosa that it was his idea to have Thom paint the townspeople, and then Ernie offered Thom an extra $45 to paint Ernie in the picture mural, that had Maryanne and the church kids in the front with the church in the background. Thom said that he had $200 in his savings account, and Pat had about $100 so they were still short and could not save the cottage for their mother. Hope from Berkeley then called Thom and told him that she was coming to Placerville to see him since he couldn’t come to Berkeley to see her. Thom went to see Bill at the bar, where Bill was still chain-smoking and heavily drinking alcohol. Bill said he was proud that Thom didn’t take up smoking, and when Thom tried to tell Bill that Maryanne was behind in her payments, Bill thought that was funny because Maryanne used to always warn him about getting behind. Bill added that Maryanne was a big spender, and Thom corrected Bill that his mom loaned people money and gave them things. Thom asked Bill for help, but Bill said he lived each day in the moment from paycheck to paycheck and didn’t have any extra money to spare (except to drink and smoke and gamble life away.) Thom stormed out, and the next day he dropped Maryanne off at the insurance building where she and Ernie worked to ask him about a speaker for the pageant. However, Maryanne then revealed that she didn’t ask Ernie because she didn’t work there anymore and was laid off by Ernie a few months before, so she was going to lose everything because she refused to ask for handouts. Tanya was mad that Thom put her in the background of the mural instead of the front. Thom said that his two worlds collided when Hope arrived from the big city Berekley, CA and Hope wasn’t thrilled about Thom’s small town mural centered around God’s church artist expression and said at least it paid the rent. Miss Placerville of 1977 knew that 1974 Tanya must have blackmailed Ernie to be in the picture with 77 in order to light up the tree in Placerville and share in the spotlight, the Christmas tree capital of the world.However, the Christmas lights sparked and didn’t work at all, and everyone blamed Big Jim who wired it. He argued that it wasn’t his fault, and the cameraman stopped filming. Meanwhile, Glen floated between the present and his younger years with Nicole. Maryanne wanted to take Glen outside for a walk and then to the church to see the pageant because he hadn’t been outside for weeks. She gave him a fresh cut Christmas tree branch to smell, and after he did he told Maryanne that he could see more than she thought and she had too much pride in that small town. Glen added that the next time he went to the church would be for his funeral. At the pageant on Christmas Eve, Tanya was being dramatic as Mary and the man playing Joseph put straw over Baby Jesus. The wax paint that Thom painted on the scenery to make it shine melted under the lights and made it look like the donkey was peeing. Bill, playacting as a Wise Man, spoke up and said that it wasn’t Thom’s fault and he put his heart into painting the mural for the citizens of Placerville. Bill added that Jesus didn’t have much money and was born in a garage, and after Maryanne corrected him that it was a stable Bill said the town was A-okay. Hope didn’t want to watch any more of the crazy drama scene and left telling Thom that he didn’t belong in Placerville (but at Berkeley with her questionable friends first and not HIS family beliefs way) and not to give up on himself. Thom replied that he didn’t know where he belonged, and then the church proceeded with the candle lighting ceremony. Maryanne read from the Bible and then told everyone that she didn’t know much about Scripture, but she could tell God was there with them and she lit a candle as a symbol of sharing God’s love with all of His children. After the pageant, the townspeople went to admire Thom’s mural that Thom had made changes to (added light in the scene) while the church people were still insideand then left to pay a visit to elder artist Glen at his home. Thom told Glen that it might be their last Christmas together and love was the only thing Thom had to give Glen to thank him for everything he taught Thom. Thom told Glenn who was in a trance like state that his family was losing their cottage and he didn’t know where they would be in a year, and he told Glen not to give up because he still had a light in him. After Thom left, Glen happily painted to Clair de Lune by the candlelight from the candle that Thom lit and left beside Glen. The next day, on Christmas morning, Thom gave Maryanne a picture of the cottage that he drew so she would always have it with her. The boys also gave Maryanne all their cash so they could stick together as a family. Then, the entire town came to the door on Christmas morning and told Maryanne that they were there to help her fix the cottage up so she could sell it since she did so much for them (fix the roof and wiring and broken appliances and paint the exterior). Mr. Chang gave Maryanne a Chinese red lantern for good fortune and happiness, and he hung it up in the front window on Christmas day. As Mr. Rosa swept the dust out of the house, Mr. Chang corrected by Mr. Chang that he should sweep the dust back into the house because it was good luck and then Mr. Change swept all the dust and dirt inside the house. Bill was able to get Maryanne’s truck fixed up because mom had no transporation for months after the older vehicle broke down. Later on after everyone left, elder Glen walked through the cold and snow using his rod and staff to gift his last masterpiece painting called “The Last Leaf,” to his beloved student, Thom. Glen had painted all night an artwork that showed the light of the sky behind the leaves of the forest. Glen had tried for years to paint a dark world without Nicole, but then Thom brought the candle to Glen the previous night and showed him the light his old Berkeley teacher had missed in life. Glen realized that the light was the best memorial he could give Nicole, and he told Thom to always paint the light (which Thom had already had completed and ”painted the light” in the town mural before he visited Glen on Christmas Eve). Thom said he would treasure the painting forever, but Glen instructed Thom to sell his “light” painting to Sidney because the last Glen Wesman should bring him enough for his mom to keep the cottage forever. That was the last thing Glen ever painted. On Christmas Evening, Glen sat at the Kinkade table for Christmas dinner at the cottage. The Kinkades then sang Christmas carols. Later on in the dark cold weather Thom walked Glen home in the snowy path to Glen’s barn house. Big Jim stayed up all night to fix the lights on the Christmas tree. Thom went to see Glen at his studio barn the next evening, and Thom found that Glen had passed away. Thom narrated how that happened 30 years ago, and today Jim still put up one star decoration and he and the Gundersons stopped competing and finally became friends. Vesta and Butch were in the cemetery too. Glen’s last painting took a journey and was now owned by a New York museum. Mr. Rosa retired but still kept track of everyone’s lives, and Tanya kept entering the Miss Placerville contest until she was well into her 50s. Ernie still promoted Placerville quietly. Pat went back to school and became a well-known writer and professor, and thanks to Glen’s gift of love with the painting, Maryanne never had to worry about another mortgage payment again. Maryanne found a job she loved with the county and retired several years later, while Bill kept living his crazy life and driving his classic car to new adventures. As for Thom, he was still trying to keep his paintings true to the lessons Glen taught him about art, life and light. In the end, love is the brightest light of all. The movie cover art had Maryanne’s real life name with the middle name Gay in the center over Thom, while Thom’s name was above Maryanne and Glen’s name was correctly above his picture.

DATE REVIEWED: 11/9/23

TITLE: The Nut Job

BOX OFFICE RATED: PG (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)

PRODUCTION YEAR: 2014 Universal Studios / Endgame Entertainment / eONE Entertainment / Redrover International / Toonbox Entertainment LTD / Gulfstream Pictures / Open Road Films / Sidus Pictures / The Weinstein Company

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1

REASON: This cartoon movie took place in Oakton City, where the rodents in Liberty Park, led by Raccoon, faced a nut shortage for the winter. Raccoon instructed squirrels Andie and pretty boy Grayson to raid Maury’s peanut cart, which had enough nuts to feed the park animals. Loner squirrel Surly and his mute partner in crime, Buddy the rat, were also on the lookout for nuts and Surly went to any length to find them, including destroying birds’ nests. Surly also spotted the nut cart and plotted to raid it. Lucky (human) owned the nut cart, and his partner, Fingers, refused to sell nuts to a little girl so she called over a police officer who asked for Lucky’s vendor permit. The distraction enabled Surly, Andie and Grayson to steal the nut cart. It went speeding out of control through the park, and Surly refused to negotiate and let the park animals have a portion of the nuts. Instead, he took his own stash and left the flaming nut cart to crash into the oak tree containing the park’s winter food supply. The tree burned to the ground, and Raccoon and all the other park animals voted unanimously for Surly to be banished from Liberty Park and be forced to live in the city. Andie was upset that they convicted Surly without a trial because they felt there was nothing else they could do for him after he cheated, lied and refused to join them. Surly was having a hard time surviving in the city because he couldn’t find food. Buddy followed Surly and still wanted to be his friend, and the two had a run-in with a rat gang and barely escaped. The duo happened upon Maury’s Nut Shop and snuck inside to stuff themselves with nuts. Fingers and Lucky’s boss, Percy “King” Dimpleweed, was released after he spent several years in jail for his last mob crime. King introduced his new associate, Knuckles the weapons and safe expert. The mob planned to use the nut shop as a cover to rob the bank across the street, and while Fingers and Lucky waited for King to get out of jail, they dug a tunnel. They would use dynamite to blow a holethrough the ceiling of the tunnel right beneath the vault, and then they would climb up into the vault and switch the bags of money out with bags of nuts. By the time the bank realized what happened, King and his goons would be long gone with the loot. Raccoon sent Andie and Grayson out to find food again, and Mole warned the squirrels to be careful in the germ-filled city. A rat gang member stole Andie’s backpack, and Grayson was separated from Andie when he went after the rat to get the pack back. Surly and Buddy were chased out of the nut shop by Precious, Lucky’s pug. Knuckles threw away Fingers’ dog whistle that he used on Precious because Knuckles could hear the high-pitched frequency and it annoyed him. Surly and Buddy snuck back into the nut storeroom, where Precious almost caught them until Andie appeared holding the whistle. She gave Surly the ultimatum that she would give him the whistle to save himself from Precious only if he agreed to split the nuts with the park animals 50/50. Surly said okay, and Precious was frightened at the sight of the whistle and revealed that she could talk and her owners would send her back to the pound if she didn’t exterminate Surly and Buddy. Precious agreed to call Surly her boss and follow his orders otherwise he would use the dreadful whistle against her. Surly wanted to build a tunnel into the storeroom to get the nuts. Andie returned to the other animals that stayed at an old mill. She told them they needed to work with Surly, and Raccoon agreed but said they would take what they needed of the nut supply and not honor any deal made with the untrustworthy Surly. The team got into the storeroom by crawling through loose bricks, and in the process, they accidentally set off a stick of dynamite that alerted the bad guys that they were there. King noticed the hole in the brick wall and ordered Fingers and Lucky to cement it. Precious appeared holding Surly, playing dead, in her mouth so the bad guys would think she killed the rodent and was worth keeping around. After Surly was tossed into the trashcan, he came up with a plan to use the trashcan with a hole in the bottom to dig a new hole into the storeroom with no bricks in the way. Andie confessed to Surly that Raccoon was going to double-cross Surly, but Surly replied that he was just helping himself and not the park animals anyway. Raccoon plotted sabotage and convinced Mole to flood the tunnel. That nearly drowned the groundhog Bruisers but Grayson reappeared (now acting neurotic) and saved them. When Surly confronted Mole, he revealed that Raccoon planned to stop the heist from happening and starve the park so he could gain more control over the animals. Surly told the others, but they didn’t believe him and thought he was blaming Raccoon since he kicked Surly out of the park. Surly decided to leave and take his share with him, but he was captured by the mob. King’s girlfriend Lana was upset that he was robbing the bank, and she set Surly free from his cage and left with Precious. The criminals blew a hole through the ceiling, stole the money and loaded some of the nut bags into the vault. Surly and the others were caught trying to make off with the nuts, and King fired his gun at them but they escaped. Raccoon convinced Andie and the Bruisers to be on his side again by telling them that Mole was working for Surly, who planned to double-cross the park animals and keep all the nuts. However, Raccoon then locked the animals inside Fingers and Lucky’s van, which drove towards state lines along with the other criminal van. Raccoon followed and told everyone they should kill Surly, but by now they figured out that Surly was the lesser of the two evils and Raccoon was the wicked mastermind. They all voted to banish Raccoon, so he tossed Surly out the back of the van. The police spotted the two getaway vans and surrounded them on a bridge. Fingers and Lucky were arrested after they learned that King cheated them and had planned to escape with all the money in his van while the van his accomplices were driving contained only nuts. Andie was knocked unconscious in the back of one of the vans when a bag fell on top of her, and Surly rescued her. A police officer shot at one of the van’s wheels, and it sped out of control and went over the side of the bridge, where it exploded because of the dynamite inside. Surly and Andie were able to escape into the water, and King’s van went over too. As King tried to save the money, Raccoon grabbed Surly and said the squirrel was going down with him. The other animals tried to rescue Surly, but he let go of the log he was holding and both he and Raccoon disappeared over the waterfall. Everyone except Surly and Raccoon washed ashore in the park, and King begged the police to arrest him to save him from all the rodents running wild. Lana told King that she was breaking up with him and she would be the new owner of the nut shop. Precious took Buddy to see Surly’s body that washed up. Precious howled, and Buddy spoke for the first time and said that Surly was his best friend. It turned out Surly was just unconscious, and he woke up and hugged Buddy. Surly told Andie that from then on, he was going to help find food for the park animals. Andie replied that the park would always honor Surly’s deals. This movie had a budget of $30 million and grossed over $120 at the box office. The movie cover art listed, Lisa Horten, POPSUGAR Moms, “Packed with action, adventure and laughs!” Avi Offer, NYC Movie Guru, “Enormously entertaining!”

DATE REVIEWED: 11/8/23

TITLE: Black Sheep

BOX OFFICE RATED: PG-13 (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)

PRODUCTION YEAR: 1996 Paramount Pictures / Lorne Michaels Production

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1

REASON: This movie began with political guy Alexander Donnelly, a candidate for governor, holding a rally in his hometown of Buckley. His younger brother Michael helped Al with his campaign but embarrassed Al when he appeared at the rally almost running into cars and pedestrians while trying to lose a pack of dogs chasing after his “Vote for Al,” truck. Outside Buckley High School (Tigers), Mike wanted to go on the road with Al, but Al didn’t want his brother to mess up his campaign and told him to stay in the state of Washington and do phone canvassing. Al told his adviser Roger to hire someone to help Mike, and Steve Dodds immediately offered in hopes that he would get a position in Al’s administration. Mike played football with the boys’ team at the recreation center where Mike worked, and the losing team turned out to be really sore losers. Mike fake head-butted his team members, and he started screaming that he broke his nose on one of the head butts. Mike then revealed that he was just joking and the “blood,” on his face was from a ketchup packet. Meanwhile, Steve almost ran into Sergeant Drake Sabitch with his car. The ex military Drake wanted Steve to get out and settle things but Steve gave Drake the middle finger. Steve then got stuck in traffic and deserted his car to escape Drake. Drake then stole Steve’s car. When Steve got to Mike’s house, he saw Mike’s butt crack when he was bent over fixing a car. Steve introduced himself as Al’s top advisor, and then Mike accidentally closed his thumbs under the hood and Steve had to pop the hood. Steve and Mike went to the grocery store to solicit votes, and Mike was too energetic and ended up getting his tie stuck in elder Harold’s trunk when he tried to help Harold with his groceries. Mike ended up being dragged along behind the car with his clothes on fire, and he got free only when old man Harold turned a corner because Harold refused to stop thinking Mike was on crack cocaine. Mike had another incident when he spotted a group of teenagers drinking and smoking weed, and he joined in and danced around with them chanting “smokin’, snortin’, shootin’, suckin’, tokin’, poppin’, droppin’.” Meanwhile, the current female governor, Evelyn Tracy, was running for her third term in a row. Governor Evelyn did a publicity stunt at the lumberjack association where she was supposed to hit a tree one time with an axe, but it took more than one blow to fell the tree and when it did it fell in the wrong direction. Evelyn told her adviser, Neuschwander, that it was a good thing the tree didn’t kill a kid, and then he informed her that she was even with her male opponent Al in the polls. Governor Evelyn instructed Neuschwander, her staff member, to rig the election for her any way he needed to. Mike was upset that he got fired from the state-funded rec center where he had worked since it opened because the establishment couldn’t afford for one of their employees to have a scandal involving kids and drugs (the story got in the news because two reporters took pictures of Mike with the teens). Mike packed up his belongings from his office, and outside he encountered two men. The criminal men (no doubt working for the power hungry governor) lit a match and threw it into the building to set it on fire, and then they fled the scene as Mike tried to put the fire out. The two reporters photographed Mike to make it look like he was a disgruntled employee committing arson at the place where he got fired. Robbie Mieghem, Mike’s police officer friend, showed up first and told Mike to leave and small town officer Robbie would (lie) tell the state troopers that he checked things out and didn’t find the arsonist. Roger told Steve on the phone to keep Mike under control during the rest of the campaign. Mike and Steve drove to a cabin in the Wenatchee National Forest in Garfield County to get votes for Al. The duo encountered a bat and both ran around screaming and running into things, and Steve failed to catch the bat in a pot. When the bat landed in Mike’s hair, Steve put a blanket over Mike and hit him in the head with a broom and then kicked him. They got the bat outside by using a sheet. Govenor Evelyn was then informed about the fire incident and how Mike was not being linked to it because Robbie covered for him, so Govenor Evelyn swore the f-word at her incompetent people to fix the election. While Mike stapled his hand when he put up, “Vote for Donnelly,” posters and then rolled down a hillside, Steve was sprayed with fire extinguisher by a carful of delinquint kids. Steve learned that Drake, who stole Steve’s car, lived in the woods inside an old yellow and black school bus surrounded by land mines. Mike and Steve ran screaming through the woods because the well bucket was filled with snakes, and then a boulder rolled down the hill and crashed into the cabin making it tilt. Later that night, the wind blew the roof off the cabin and then it hailed on top of Mike, who was on the top bunk. Mike called Roger and asked to speak to brother Al, but Roger replied that Al didn’t want to speak to Mike and called his brother an idiot when he wasn’t around. That night, Mike left Steve asleep with his Playboy magazines while Mike drove to the Rock the Vote concert in Seattle to see Al. Mike ran into a Rastafarian Jamaican band smoking marijuana, and one of them offered Mike a joint and he said that there was enough of that in the air to get everyone high. Mike (lied) added that he never touched the stuff because it gave him the munchies, but by the time the hard rock band Mudhoney was playing, Mike was backstage smoking weed with the Jamaicans. He told them they were the victims of a tyrannical, racist, oppressive society and he announced that he was going to do something about that. He accidentally ended up stage when he told the Mudhoney band that he was a Donnelly and they believed he was Al (who was actually waiting backstage to give his speech). Mike quoted Bruce Springsteen that he was born in the USA, as well as Neil Armstrong and MLK Jr. When he spotted his Jamaican buddies in the crowd, Mike screamed to “kill whitey,” and everyone went silent. Al told Mike afterwards to stay out of his way so he wouldn’t ruin things anymore. The next day, Steve and Mike went to Drake’s school bus in the woods to watch Al and Evelyn’s governor debate, where Al was doing a much better job than Evelyn. Al said on live TV that he loved his brother Mike even though he had problems (because Evelyn brought up the special sibling). Steve went outside to relieve himself, and Drake confronted Steve with his machine gun. Ex military Steve said he came back for his car, so Drake shot the tires flat on the car and threatened to kill Steve. Mike wrestled with Drake, and Drake was impressed with Mike’s fighting skills and they were immediately buddy-buddy. Evelyn had a hissy fit and told her partner in crime Neuschwander that she would have his balls in a jar on her desk if the voter turnout wasn’t in her favor. Evelyn then met with a man who went by Mister (reporter), and he said that he had pictures that made it look like either Mike or Evelyn’s goons set the rec center on fire. If Evelyn paid Mister, he would wait until Election Day and then come out with the arsonist Mike pictures to make Evelyn look good and win the election. Governor Evelyn agreed to the deal, and the news then reported that Mike was linked to the arson fire and Evelyn was in the lead in the polls. However, Mike then figured out that Evelyn had hundreds more votes in Garfield County than there were voters, and he recognized two state troopers in uniform on TV with Evelyn as the guys who really started the fire. Mike and Steve broke into the Garfield County Hall of Records to get the voter registration, which proved that Evelyn stole the last two elections (using dead legal citizen’s votes) and Al would have won otherwise. Mike planned to publicly get revenge on Evelyn at the post-election ceremony at the governor’s mansion because it was announced that Evelyn won her third term. The car wouldn’t start, so officer Robbie let Mike and Steve borrow his police car. When they came upon a construction roadblock, Mike used the police car to get through. However, they encountered a bump in the road that was a pile of construction material, and that busted one of the tanks of nitrous oxide (laughing gas) in the police vehicle’s trunk. It leaked into the car and made Mike and Steve act silly, and when they were pulled over by a motorcycle officer Steve jumped in the back. Mike (lied) said that Steve was a prisoner and Mike was taking him back to Nevada because Steve was wanted for banging horses, butchering 400 chickens and screwing a beagle. The officer informed Mike that he was driving only 7 miles an hour, which impeded traffic, so he let Mike off with a warning. However, the motorcycle officer and an officer in a vehicle then chased Mike and Steve, so they escaped using what was left of the nitro boosters. Al heard on the news that Mike was driving to Govenor Evelyn’s reelection party, and Roger told Al that if he went to the event he would be committing career suicide. When Roger tried to have Al choose between him and Mike, Al kicked Roger out of the car. Upon arrival, Mike grabbed a gun from a police officer and on stage held it on Steve and threatened to shoot him if he didn’t get to say his piece about how Governor Tracy stole all her elections (after she told everyone that the voters had spoken and wanted her to remain in office). Al told Mike to put the gun down so they could handle it a better way, but Mike went to the podium. A sniper almost took Mike out from behind, but Drake jumped into action and blinded the sniper by flashing a light in his eyes. Drake then went onstage with his machine gun, and he and Mike explained that the voter registration stated that three of Drake’s deceased relatives (died decades ago) voted for Evelyn the previous day. Mike added that was just Garfield County where half the people who voted for Evelyn was dead, and she probably committed voter fraud in the other counties too across the state of Washington. Evelyn called on her adviser Neuschwander to cover for her, but Neuschwander (under the influence of alcohol) ratted her out. Drake tried to hoist up the patriot Mike, but Mike was too heavy and Drake dropped him. The podium fell over and knocked Mike onto Evelyn, and he was photographed straddling Evelyn on the ground and making humping motions while trying to free his leg from under the podium. The news headline was “Donnelly Screwing Tracy,” and Al became governor. (Govenor Al thanks to younger sibling exposing the stolen elections) tried to offer Mike a position in his administration, but Mike refused and said politics weren’t for him. As Al and Steve left, Mike’s shirt got stuck in the plane door and it took off with Mike holding on for dear life. The movie cover art listed, Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times “Raucous and rowdy,” and “a crowd-pleaser directed with maximum energy.” Leo Quinones, KIIS-FM “the comedy team of the ‘90s!”

DATE REVIEWED: 11/7/23

TITLE: Holy Matrimony

BOX OFFICE RATED: PG-13 (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)

PRODUCTION YEAR: 1994 Hollywood Pictures / Interscope Communications / Polygram Filmed Entertainment / Aurora Productions / Buena Vista Pictures Distribution

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1

REASON: This movie began with do anything to get famous Havana Iggits at the Montana state fair dressed as Marilyn Monroe. Havana told the crowd that when the weather was hot outside, she put her panties in the refrigerator (hot that day) to entice them into hitting the bulls-eye with a ball so a fan would blow Havana’s dress up. Havana later took wads of cash out of the breast area of her dress and told the other show females that she was going places like Cher and Madonna. Havana gave herself a pep talk that Marilyn didn’t always want to do things, but she did them anyway to get famous no matter how degrading, crazy or shameful it was. Havana decided she would do the same and went to her boss Mr. Greeson and pretended to be down in the dumps. Havana started fake crying and explained that her boyfriend, Peter Jakobson, left Havana and he screwed the cotton candy girl. Greeson hugged Havana, and while closely embraced, Havana slyly pulled Greeson’s keys out of his pocket and tossed them out the window to Peter who was dressed as a maintenance man. Peter then used the keys to unlock the safe and steal the bundles of $100 bills and large stacks of cash, and then he punched Greeson out and put his keys back in his pocket. Peter and Havana sped away from the carnival, but it wasn’t long before Peter saw the article in the newspaper and learned that the police were searching for him and his accomplice because he was caught on camera stealing the money. Havana swore Jesus Christ when she heard the news, and she especially wasn’t happy about it when Peter took her to the Hutterian (Anabaptist Christian religion living like the Amish and believing that only adults should be baptized) Brethren Jerusalem Colony in Alberta, Canada planned to hideout there with Havana while he came up with a plan. Peter’s 12-year-old brother Ezekiel was happy to see Peter, and his mom Orna was surprised that Peter returned to the colony where he was raised after three years of being gone without ever contacting his family. Peter’s uncle Wilhelm welcomed him back to the colony, but they were interrupted by Havana in her half-shirt and shorty-shorts smoking a cigarette and demanding a drink. Peter took Havana outside and told her to behave herself and put on more clothes so Peter could seal the deal and get back in good graces with the clan. Wilhelm informed Peter that the Hutterites didn’t like to judge people because Jesus judged no one (in the end HE will), but Havana didn’t appear to be of their sort. Peter lied to the bible social small town men that he and Havana were engaged and would like to be married in their colony and that God asked Peter to teach Havana their ways. Peter then stashed the cash under a floorboard in a building that was a secret hiding spot known by the Hutterites. FBI agent Markowski was assigned to arrest Peter and Havana and get the money back. The FBI agent threatened by his boss that he would lose his pension and welfare if he didn’t take the case. Havana told the teenage Hutterite girls how she wanted her wedding dress designed sexy and form-fitting with slits in the front, and the females said they would but then fashioned Havana a modest dress with a high neckline. When Havana and Peter got married, she bit his lip when told to kiss him because she wasn’t happy about the forced marriage. Peter took Zeke to town and sent his little brother off to get ice cream while he went to the bar and had some beers. Peter heard on the news that the police suspected Peter and his accomplice went into Canada and were hiding in a Hutterite colony, so Peter grabbed Zeke and drove his older model camaro fast and reckless back towards the colony. In the fast moving car, Zeke was upset that Peter was leaving again after he said he would stay forever. Zeke grabbed the beer bottle out of Peter’s hand and threw it in the backseat. Peter turned around and tried to get the bottle as he sped down the dirt road, but he lost control and the car went off the road and flipped. Zeke was thrown from the car, but Peter wasn’t and so Zeke (early twenties) died when the vehicle exploded. As Havana turned the house upside down and tried to find where Peter hid the stolen money (no tears that he was dead), Wilhelm appeared with the others and told Havana to read from Deuteronomy 25, 5. She read “If brethren dwell together, and one of them die and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry unto a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in unto her and take her to him to wife.” Neither Havana nor Zeke liked the sound of that, but Wilhelm insisted that 12-year-old Zeke must ask adult Havana in her twenties to marry him because it was his obligation by Hutterite law. Wilhelm added that all Havana had to do was refuse Zeke and then she could be on her way because she was an outsider and not welcome to live there. Wilhelm gave Havana $100 for her transport to the city and told her that their way of life was not for her. Zeke didn’t want to propose to Havana at all because he still hated girls at his young age, but Wilhelm told him that he must obey God’s word and marry his brother’s wife(according to Wilhelm’s interpretation of biblical scripture). Zeke almost fainted like he did when he was nervous, but he finally blurted out the proposal and called Havana a dumb pig when the young boy proposed marriage to the adult. Surprise to all but her, Havana said yes and claimed that she saw the light and wanted to be religious and into the Bible (the real reason being she hadn’t found the cash yet and the colony was the only place she could hide out from the police). The colonists argued with Wilhelm because the Bible verse didn’t say anything about the brother of the deceased man being a child and marrying the widow. Wilhelm silenced them by saying that they wouldn’t know where to start or when to stop if they questioned the Bible (Wilhelm’s interpretatation). Zeke refused to kiss Havana at the child wedding and ran out on her after. Later on, Zeke carried his belongings to Havana’s house the other young boys tormented Zeke and asked lover boy if he knew what to do. Zeke discovered that Havana wasn’t in the house, so he moaned and jumped on the bed screaming at Havana to stop as if they were having sex while the boys listened at the window. Havana appeared next to them and put the blind up to show them what Zeke was doing so the younger boys got a good laugh out of the very disturbing scene.The next morning, Zeke banged on Havana’s door and told her to get up to church, so adult Havana got out of bed naked and opened the door for her 12-year-old husband Zeke to see all. Zeke screamed at the sight and ran outside where he fainted, and Havana told him not to do it again. When Havana preferred to sit outside and tan rather than weed the flowerbed, Zeke had to do it. Havana asked Zeke if the colony had a secret spot for hiding things (such as Peter’s money), so Zeke went to the floorboard and retrieved a few dollars of the stolen cash to use to make Havana a better wife. Zeke slyly told Havana that he found the money in the flowerbed, so Havana decided that she would do the weeding and frantically dug in the dirt. She didn’t find the money and chased Zeke around the house demanding to know where the rest of it was. Zeke said he would tell Havana if she agreed to try and be a good wife and do housework like the other Hutterite women. Havana did, and then she cleverly told Zeke that she didn’t need the dollar bills that he was carrying around with him and to put them back where he got them. Havana followed Zeke and announced that if he gave her the money, she would tell Wilhelm she was a lousy wife and oversexed so he would give them a divorce. Havana and Zeke did a spitshake on it. Havana then went before the colony council with the money and the newspaper article about the robbery. She put on fake tears and said that she didn’t know Peter was a thief, and the Hutterites wanted to burn the tainted money but Havana said it wasn’t theirs to burn and it should be returned to where it was stolen. Zeke said that he should be the one to help Havana return it since he was the brother of the thief. Havana and underage husband Zeke left the colony, and Havana told him that they would be arrested and put in jail with face-eating rats if they said they were returning the stolen money because the USA border patrol would think they were on in on the robbery. Havana instructed Zeke to lie that they were going to visit family in Montana for the day. At the border, Havana had to drive the truck and learn how to use a stick shift because Zeke’s farming permit that allowed him to drive wasn’t valid outside of Canada. Meanwhile, Wilhelm brought USA FBI Markowski to the site of Peter’s car crash in Canada and informed him that Havana went off to America with her new husband to return the money. Havana and Zeke got a hotel room, and when Zeke went looking for Havana he found her and Link from the bar (she told him her name was Marilyn) finishing having sex. Zeke told Havana that she was breaking her marriage vows and committing the second worst sin. Havana left Link, and back in the hotel room she felt sick and sat in the tub with the shower on. She asked Zeke if he had ever done something he regretted, and he said he had wished Havana would die when he first met her but he didn’t anymore. Havana said she wanted to die herself sometimes and a husband like young Zeke didn’t come along every day. She added that they didn’t need to have sex because it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. At a restaurant, Havana told Zeke that they should keep the money and split it because the Montana fair made enough money as it was and no one would ever know. Zeke refused and said that God was enough for him and he didn’t need to use the money to get famous. Havana grabbed the moneybag and left in the truck, and Zeke sat outside when he discovered that she was gone. Markowski drove up and had Zeke confirm that he was Ezekiel Jakobson. Markowski offered to take Zeke to find his wife, and they soon caught up to her. FBI Markowski ran Havana off the road and then he held a gun to young Zeke’s head and said he would shoot the boy if he didn’t get the money. Havana threw the moneybag out the window, and when Zeke tried to storm off she carried him back to the truck and told him to get down. Havana backed the truck towards Markowski as he gathered up the money, and he shot a bullet through the back windshield and jumped out of the way. Havana then circled around and had Zeke open his door to knock rogue FBI Markowski out using the moving vehicle. Afterward, Havana grabbed the gun and shot one of Markowski’s tires flat while Zeke got the money. They hitched a ride on a freight train since Havana thought riding the bus was below her and Zeke didn’t want to spend any more of the money than necessary. Havana admitted that her real name was Betsy and Marilyn Monroe was her hero because she had houses, cars, men, boats and jewels and everything else. Havana added that she didn’t think about her family much and left Milwaukee to get away from them. Zeke said (not knowing how Marilyn was and thinking she was still alive) that it sounded like Marilyn had nothing without her family and she should go home and see them before she had none left. At the state fair, Havana and Zeke said their goodbyes and he went to return the money to Mr. Greenson. Havana decided to follow Zeke instead of leaving, and FBI Markowski chased Zeke all over the fair and eventually grabbed him. Zeke got free and Havana wrestled with Markowski, and then Zeke got inside a tractor and picked Markowski up in the lift. The security arrested Havana, and Zeke spoke in Havana’s defense and begged for the FBI not to send her to jail because she changed and was wrong to help his brother Peter steal the money. Zeke added that he would work to pay back the portion of the money that they used. Everyone laughed as Greeson and Zeke did a spitshake and agreed that the FBI would keep the $25,000 reward they offered to underage Zeke (which he didn’t want) and in exchange let Zeke have his wife back without pressing charges. Zeke did a spitshake with Havana back at the colony to seal their friendship, before she went on her merry way without doing any jail time for the crime she committed that resulted in a man losing his life by helping her steal. Havana announced that she was going home to her family and told Zeke that she was going to go by Betsy from then on. Before he returned to his family, Zeke kissed Havana on the lips and told her they would do it again in ten years when he was older. This movie had a budget of $16 million budget and grossed over $713,000 at the box office. The movie cover art listed, Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel “Spicy and delightful!” St. Petersburg Times “A bundle of sensuality!”

DATE REVIEWED: 11/6/23

TITLE: Nativity!

BOX OFFICE RATED: PG (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)

PRODUCTION YEAR: 2009 BBC Films / Screen WM / Limelight / Mirrorball Films / eOne Entertainment / Protagonist Pictures

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1

REASON: This movie takes place in Birmingham, England and began with Paul Maddens, his girlfriend Jennifer Lore and their friend Gordon Shakespeare hating on their jobs as singing and dancing elves at a Christmas performance at the Midlands Academy of Dramatic Art. Paul said he was going to be a teacher soon. Jennifer and Gordon told him that those who couldn’t act, teach and those who couldn’t teach taught primary school. Jennifer went to Hollywood to be an executive producer, and Gordon became a primary school teacher at the Oakmoor school where the Nativity plays he produced every year were given five stars by critic Patrick Burns. Paul tried to produce a Nativity at the St. Bernadette’s Roman Catholic primary school where he now taught, but it was disastrous and Patrick gave Paul minus two stars. That was when Paul decided he hated Christmas. Five years later, St. Bernadette’s headmistress Patricia Bevan appointed Paul as the producer and director of that year’s Nativity which Paul wasn’t happy about. Mrs. Bevan also insisted that her adult nephew, Desmond Poppy, be Paul’s classroom assistant to help with the play. That upset Paul even further because Desmond was very immature and made the students misbehave at the Catholic school. Desmond wanted to include a death slide in the Nativity, but Paul told him no because that wasn’t safe for the kids. Desmond then overheard Paul tell Gordon that Jennifer was bringing her Hollywood agency, Independent United Pictures, with her to England to make the St. Bernadette’s Nativity into a film and a book. Desmond told the kids and they were glad that they would get to be famous like Zac Efron or Shrek. Paul confronted Desmond and admitted that he lied about Hollywood to impress Gordon. Desmond refused to tell the kids and all the reporters the truth and instead suggested that Paul tell Jennifer’s parents that his dog Cracker (who used to belong to Jennifer) blew up. The parents would feel sorry and give Paul Jennifer’s new phone number in Hollywood so he could call her and convince her to bring her agency to them. Meanwhile, Gordon decided to give his Nativity a dark twist and include King Herod for the first time as a character hungering for the blood and minds of children. Paul was exasperated because virtually none of the children he was trying to cast for the play had singing or dancing abilities. Mrs. Bevan informed Paul that the Lord Mayor’s office wanted Paul to go to a reception for Coventry ambassadors. Jennifer’s parents gave Paul their daughter’s number, but they weren’t happy and informed Paul that Jennifer’s new boyfriend, Harrison, didn’t blow dogs to smithereens like Paul. Desmond told the kids that Baby Jesus was born at the end of the Nativity story and asked them if they wanted to go on a field trip to the hospital to see a real baby being born. Paul said no, but Desmond and the kids all outnumbered him and voted in favor of the field trip. The young Catholic school children all went to the hospital, where they watched through the doorway as a female gave birth with the help of a doctor only. Desmond and one of the boys passed out, while others were horrified (and no doubt had no parental permission). Desmond and Paul also took the kids to a farm to see the animals they would use for the Nativity. Paul caught Alfie and Oli fighting in class because Alfie told Oli that the play would be rubbish if Oli played Joseph and both boys wanted the part. Paul had a flashback of one Christmas years ago when he was going to propose to Jennifer but she walked out the door before he could. Gordon told his students to go online and figure out how to contact Jennifer, and also spy on St. Bernadette’s to find out how they were doing their show so red Oakmoor could outdo their blue rival. Desmond at the Catholic school brought along a Jackson 5 song and taught the kids a warmup with questionable moves that included Desmond grabbing his private parts and twirling his hips. When the kids and Desmond spotted the spies watching them from over the fence, they attacked the other school and Mrs. Bevan scolded Desmond and Paul. The two teachers then had a meeting with the parents and informed them that the Nativity play would still be completely in line with the teachings of the church and not lose the religious meaning. Desmond added that Hollywood was going to pay a million pounds, and the parents were wondering if they should get their kids agents. Desmond convinced Paul to leave Jennifer a phone message that ended with a love-you, and Paul was mad and kicked Desmond out of his house because he hadn’t told Jennifer he loved her in five years. Desmond and the kids sent a video to Jennifer asking her to come back to England because Paul missed her terribly and was miserable without her and he hadn’t been able to get ahold of her because she refused to return his calls as the result of a relationship issue they had years ago. Paul told Desmond that the mayor’s parlor overruled the council and wanted St. Bernadette’s to do the Nativity at the cathedral ruins, so now things were getting serious and possibly fraudulent because the mayor was getting corporate sponsors involved to give money to the school. Desmond told Paul everything would be okay, and he gave Paul a hug and a kiss. Paul found letters that the students wrote to Santa. Some of them asked Santa to let Paul be happy and get his girlfriend back because he seemed depressed, and Oli asked for Santa to let his mom attend the play because she never spent any time with him. Paul decided that he was going to Hollywood, and Desmond was happy and said he wanted to kiss Paul. Desmond then convinced Paul to bring young female student Saffron and young male student William with him on the flight (an 11-hour flight with parental consent forms) to America because the England Catholic kids could sing and convince English Jennifer to return to England and bring her west coast Hollywood people. Once there, the security guard at Independent United Pictures refused to let the English trio through because Paul wasn’t on the list and didn’t have his ID. England Paul and his students hijacked a golf cart and the security guard fell in the street as he chased after them, and they made it into the building. Meanwhile, Desmond alone was in charge of getting the live animals for the play but he couldn’t handle it and there was chaos. At Jennifer’s California workplace, the male gay-talking receptionist kept interrupting Paul with phone calls until Jennifer came over. Paul explained the situation, and Jennifer said her job was a secretary and not an executive producer like he thought so she was powerless to help them. Paul and the kids ran into Jennifer’s boss Mr. Parker’s office. Saffron and William sang. However, they were unable to convince Hollywood executive Mr. Parker that their Nativity was more special than anyone else’s, so the security carried the trio out of the building. Jennifer then changed her mind and told Mr. Parker that he should bring Hollywood to England, but he said he didn’t need to travel 6,000 miles to see a Nativity in England when he could see any of hundreds of Nativities in America. Back at St. Bernadette’s, Mrs. Bevan was angry and told Paul that if it weren’t for the consent forms, Paul would be accused of kidnapping the children and the school would be shut down. Mrs. Bevan then learned that Desmond had scribbled and made smiley faces on the consent forms, so the Catholic school children’s parents never actually agreed for their children to leave the country. Miss Rye, another teacher who was in on it, admitted that Paul panicked and lied about Hollywood. Mrs. Bevan fired Paul and Desmond (her nephew), and Paul told Desmond that it turned out he was just a fool and an idiot like Paul originally thought. Paul told the Catholic students that Hollywood wasn’t coming, Mrs. Bevan canceled the show and Paul wasn’t going to see the kids again because he wasn’t coming back to school after that term. Paul went to see Gordon’s show, where the Three Wise Men were three girls and King Herod ordered for all the baby boys to be killed. The girls (mothers) ran around screaming as Herod’s guards captured the baby dolls and then wrapped them in red cloth as if the babies were covered in blood and threw the dead bloody baby in the audience. The Catholic students were depressed in class and told Paul that they wanted Mr. Poppy back, so Paul decided they would do the play. Paul went to see Desmond in his Swift trailer and apologized, and Desmond forgave Paul easily and agreed to help. Everyone practiced, and before the show started Desmond told the Catholic students to go to his caravan if they needed to do a poo or a wee. Mrs. Bevan had a fit when she found out the teachers were going through with the Nativity that she canceled, but the Mayor interrupted and smoothed things over by having Mrs. Bevan acknowledged for her service and time at the Catholic school so she said a few words. She decided to allow the Nativity to happen and said all the children were special and amazing no matter how the play went. The kids sang their song, “Barely out of school in Nazareth, parents join hand in hand, this is no one-night stand, a wedding is being planned…” The kids then paired up as Mary and Joseph and sang how they were both too young to know what it was all about and they were not as gorgeous as the people in the relationships they had before that one. One pair had two Marys, and the song ended with the couples kissing each other (two young Catholic girls). The black boy that played the angel Gabriel was lowered by a wire from the ceiling to the stage, and on the way down he grabbed his crotch just like his teacher Desmond taught him to. Gabriel sang lyrics about good news, shake your a**, and missing mass. Sam (female) had a tummy ache before her performance, so Paul told Alfie (boy) to wear the girl’s costume. Shakespeare interrupted and announced that Paul was a sham because he lied about Hollywood coming. But then, a Hollywood helicopter showed up at the outdoor Catholic theatre that silenced Gordon. One of the young Catholic girls, the Star, sang about coming out tonight, a cheeky drink, and a naughty wink. Desmond told Oli backstage that his mom was coming to watch his play act. Desmond told Paul that he gave the real donkey chocolate so he was having issues. The four kings then decided to follow the Star, and the boys rapped, wore gangster outfits, heavy gold and fake tattoos on their arms and a “Da King,” tattoo on one boy’s stomach. Jennifer decided to come back to England where her parents were, and she and Paul hugged and kissed. Mary and JoJo went to the stable at the same time the boy operating the lights plugged in the wrong thing and the power went out. Everyone lit candles and made it part of the show, and just as the song ended Desmond got the lights back on. In the end, all the England Catholic children broke out in dance to rock music and did their own thing, like a boy doing armpit farts and a girl burping in the microphone to end the Jesus Nativity Catholic school play. The adults joined in too. Paul and Jennifer got back together. The movie cover art listed, Conor Nolan, The People, “A fabulous five star festive family treat!” Also, Dr. Ted Baehr, Movieguide, “Fun, Enjoyable, Laugh-Out-Loud Funny!” In addition, Derek Elly, Variety, “Nativity! Is entertainment that gives family fare a good name…COMIC HEARTWARMER…Nativity! Will have a long future as a Yuletide Favorite.”

DATE REVIEWED: 11/5/23

TITLE: Run The Tide

BOX OFFICE RATED: PG-13 (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)

PRODUCTION YEAR: 2016 Momentum Pictures/Orion Pictures/Vicarious Entertainment/Pilar Savone Production

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1

REASON: This movie takes place in New Mexico and began with 10-year-old Oliver Hightower waking up his older brother Reymund (in his twenties) inside the trailer house by throwing rocks at the windows so they could make it in time to the prison to see their mom, Lola, before visiting hours were over.The brothers didn’t have any breakfast because there was nothing to eat in the house. Oliver screamed like a madman because he didn’t get his way and had life-long behavioral issues from the abuse he suffered at the start of life while living in a drug addict’s house. In the car, Oliver filled Rey in that Lola was about to get out of prison and Rey wasn’t happy. At the prison, a women’s group had a session with a picture of the Last Supper with a bearded man next to Jesus on his right side in the background that hung on a wall. The women read aloud letters to the people they wronged in their lives as a way of healing and letting go of the past and Lola (soon to be released from years in prison) still didn’t want to read her letter and participate. Lola greeted Oli Bear when she was let through the high-security gate, but Rey had not much to say as usual to the female who violated his youth with her ungodly selfish addict no-parent appearances.Lola told the boys that she got her beautician’s license in prison, and she said when she got out she could cut Oli’s hair and Rey said it would be better than their mom giving Oli a black eye like she did when she drugged up. Lola asked Oli to give her and Rey a minute alone, and Lola told Rey that she was being released in two days on the 15th. She informed Rey that she was taking Oli with her when she got out and Bobby (Bo), her estranged husband, would help Lola get a place set up in town. Rey argued that Oli was his brother and he was the one that raised Oli and taught him for the past six years while Lola had been in prison and Rey wasn’t just going to give him to the ex-con. Rey went on to say that he was the one always there helping mentally challenged Oli through when the kids at school kicked the crap out of Oli and called his mom a junkie and whore. Rey told Lola she was lucky that he hadn’t told Oli who she really was and Rey left telling Lola that once she was out she would probably be right back in prison for using drugs again after a week. Rey didn’t want the innocent child of God around that environment ever again. Lola said Oli was her son and then Lola told Oli to go home with Rey because she had to finish her time in prison. Rey dropped Oli off at the house and then went to see Bo (his employer) and was mad that Bo hadn’t told Rey about Lola getting out and he didn’t know why Bo kept sticking up for Lola knowing who she was and what she had done. Rey’s old high school friend Michelle Turner then visited Bo’s gas station where Rey worked. Michelle said she graduated Stanford a couple of years ago and she worked for Beat Street SF as a social media strategist in charge of the brand development in San Francisco. Michelle gave Rey her business card, and then she invited Rey and Oli to Dave’s Joint (her brother’s restaurant bar) that night where Michelle’s whole family would be there. Michelle was in town for her dad’s memorial service because dad finally passed away from cancer. At his baseball game, Oli got struck out which made the other team win. Oli wore his #7 Devils jersey to Dave’s Joint, but Rey didn’t take Oli inside and instead they watched Michelle from the window because Oli wanted to go home. However, after midnight when everyone was gone and Dave shut his place down, his sister Michelle helped clean up. Rey put Oli to bed and left the trailer house to go see Michelle. Michelle performed a solo for Rey of her song “I love you more than words can say…” The two then went to an overlook, where they drank hard liquor to dead dads, good dads and screw-up dads. Michelle said that she thought Rey working at the gas station was a sad sight, and she added that she loved about Rey that he gave up his life to give Oli a better life that Rey never had and to be raised up right because of their drug addict mom and missing dad. Michelle said if Rey could find a way to leave, she would help him get on his feet and then they kissed passionately and had sex before Rey had to go to work in the morning and Michelle had to catch a flight back to California. They fell asleep on the lookout tower afterwards, and when they woke up the next morning Michelle rushed off to the airport and Rey rushed home to take his little brother to school.However, inside the trailer Rey discovered a smashed lamp on the floor and Oliver gone. Rey drove frantically to Bo’s gas station, where Oli was asleep on the floor. Bo told Rey outside that little Oli showed up at three in the morning and told Bo that Rey was gone for good, and Bo said that child couldn’t go through life like being frightened and traumatized with irreversible damage not knowing if somebody was going to be there for him when he woke up. Bo said that Rey and Oli never got a chance for a normal life because of druggie Lola, and Bo added that Lola turned things around this time and Bo had to support his wife and his hands were tied. Rey went back to the trailer and played baseball inside destroying the wall. He then realized after looking at his map and photos that one of the places he had wanted to go that one place he had marked was where Michelle lived. Rey called Michelle using her business card and left her a message that he thought about what she said and he was going to go for it and asked Michelle to call him back. After school, Rey took Oli home to pack and lied that Lola wanted some time alone to adjust before they all lived together as a family so in the meantime Rey and Oli were driving to Santa Cruz on vacation. Oli said he was afraid of the water and didn’t want to go, and Rey said that Lola knew where they were going. Rey told his little brother not to be a dick because Oli was upset that he had a science project due and Rey wouldn’t say when they would come back and Oli didn’t want to fail school. Oli informed his brother that officially, Rey was kidnapping Oli. As Rey blasted his music in the car, Oli questioned why they were taking the back roads because it was a longer route, so Rey threw the map out the window and ignored his brother. Bo left messages on Rey’s phone wanting to know where he was but Ray wouldn’t answer. Rey and Oli slept alongside the road in the back of the SUV, and Oli wanted to go to Las Vegas to see strippers. Ray replied that there was an age limit on strippers and Oli was far too young. The next day, Bo went to Rey’s trailer and let himself in with his key and he knew that Rey took off with lil’ Oli. Bo drove to pick Lola up from the prison, shared a not so friendly reunion hug, and then he told her that the boys were gone. While Bo worked, Lola found a folder in Bo’s office that contained Bo’s wedding ring. Rey and Oli stopped to play baseball along the way, and Oli wasn’t happy because Rey threw a pitch he didn’t like. Rey explained that Oli was going to get a lot of pitchers he didn’t like because the pitcher knew he didn’t like ‘em and he needed to protect the plate at all times if someone tried to take something from him or push him around. Rey then threw a tennis ball at Oli, and he protected the plate and stood his ground. He called his brother a bit** and told him to pitch. Oli then hit the ball down the field for the first time.Meanwhile, Bo suggested they call the police about the missing boys, but Lola said “no police” and put out another chainsmoker cigarette she was already addicted to hours after her prison release. The two stared at Rey’s map in the trailer house, and Bo said that Rey liked fishing and he dreamt about it even though he had never been. Rey had torn pictures out of magazines at Bo’s store for years and pinned them up on the map. Lola then guessed Rey was headed to Santa Cruz. As Rey talked to his brother about going to Malaysia in Asia, his cell phone rang but he told Oli he wasn’t answering it because he didn’t want to talk to Bo, who wasn’t calling about Lola because he hated Lola like Rey did. Rey woke up in the middle of the night and went running to find Oli, who sat alone in the woods. Freightened Oli said he missed Lola and Bo, and he had Rey’s phone but couldn’t call Bo or Lola because he didn’t know Rey’s phone password. Rey gave Oli the 0522 password and told him to call them, but Oli didn’t call and instead gave his older brother the phone back and trusted he was told the truth about the situation and wasn’t lying. Oli said that after they went to the beach, they were going back to New Mexico to talk to Lola together as a family. Rey then threw his cell phone into the bushes. The next day, Rey and Oli stopped at the Utah National Forest. Two officers pulled up nearby, and Rey drove away but then Rey’s SUV broke down. Rey had the car towed, and at the garage the mechanic was going to charge Rey $3,000 for the repairs, but since Rey didn’t have that kind of money the mechanic said he would give Rey $100 for the car since it was going to be junked anyway. Rey and Oli were able to get $500 out of the mechanic by lying that Oli owned the car and had to sell if for $500 since it was all he had left of his mom who committed suicide. Oli said they were on their way to the ocean because their mom used to take them on road trips like that one and planned on spreading her dead ashes there. The mechanic paid $500 and in addition gave Oli a necktie from his store for free. As they slept in a motel room, Lola put lipstick on and wore her negligee nightgown to bed. When she came out of the bathroom, Bo was on the floor because he wasn’t going to sleep with Lola. She told Bo there was enough room in the bed for both of them, so Bo lay on top of the bed next to Lola with his clothes on. Lola tried to have sex with Bo, but he told her he didn’t want that and he slept on the floor instead. Rey and Oli took a bus to the California beach. The next morning, Bo pulled over on the side of the road to have a heated discussion with Lola as they drove to California to find the missing boys. Bo told Lola that the one and only thing that kept the boys going was each other, and now Lola wanted to separate the brothers and ruin their lives more than she already had. Lola then gave Bo his wedding ring and called him out for only putting the ring on when he came to see Lola in prison because he didn’t wear it any other time and had it hidden on his desk. Lola told Bo about the suicidal thoughts she had in prison because of the pain she caused others, and what helped her not end her life was the memory of Bo telling her that he wanted to create an oasis in the desert with fruit trees and vegetables. Lola told herself for six years while in the prison that when she got out of prison, that was what she and Bo would do together and start a new life with her, Bo and Oliver. Bo got back in the car because he was upset that Lola never included Rey or thought about him. At Beat Street SF with rainbow décor in the lobby, Ray and Oli (with their baggage) asked for Michelle Turner. They waited for several minutes if not hours. Rey asked the receptionist again to see Michelle but he was told that she was busy in meetings and she would talk to Rey when she had a free moment. Instead of waiting any longer, Rey told Oli to grab their luggage as they barged into the office area calling out Michelle’s name and disrupting the workplace. Rey found Michelle, and they met in a private room where Michelle’s fiancé Luke interrupted and Rey found out the truth that it was just a fling for Michelle when Michelle came to town for her dad’s funeral. Michelle told boyfriend Luke that she ran into Rey at her dad’s funeral. Oli jumped up and made a huge scene and told everyone they never even went to the funeral. Oli confronted his brother on going back because he knew then that Rey didn’t plan on it and called him a liar. Oli had an enormous breakdown and screamed that he wanted to talk to Lola at that moment and embarrassed Michelle further at her job. When Michelle tried to calm Oli down, he told her to shut her face and called her a bit**, slut and whore. Luke pushed Oli out of Michelle’s face because Oli had a violent outburst, so Rey punched Luke in the face. The office workers could see what was going on inside the office and were staring as Oli ran out and Rey grabbed the stuff and ran after Oli. Oli took the elevator, so Rey used the stairs to meet his brother in the street but Michelle ran after Rey and confessed she didn’t think she would ever hear from him again. Rey told crying Michelle that like an idiot, he thought things could still work out between him and her but now he saw that it couldn’t. Bo and Lola stopped at the same service station where the boys sold Rey’s car. Bo spotted the SUV and Lola told the man that was her son’s car. The owner mechanic filled them in that the brothers were there yesterday and hopped on a bus to go spread dead Lola’s ashes by the coast. Rey and Oli met back up and took a bus to the beach. They looked through their binoculars and saw a boat out on the ocean that was running the tide. The sibliings rented a room and got into a heated argument where Rey told Oli the truth that Lola used to leave them home alone for days at a time when she was addicted to drugs. When she got back to the house, Rey knew what was coming because Bo was at work so Rey locked Oli in his room so Rey took the brunt of the beating from the drugged up crazed female no-parent. Rey told Oli he didn’t remember because he was only two years old at the time. Rey went on to say that Lola would come back high on illegal substances and would start yelling and pushing little Rey and hitting him with whatever was around for her to grab and most of the time she would throw things like shoes in her doped-up state of mind and couldn’t remember half of what she did but Rey did because he barely survived. Rey added that Lola would whip him with a belt and a couple of times with a baseball bat. Oli attacked Rey because he didn’t want to believe the truth. Rey kept going and told him Oli one night, Oli came out of his room and started screaming when he saw Lola kicking Rey. Lola started screaming back at little Oli and that made him even more scared so he started to cry really loud. Lola didn’t know how to make Oli stop screaming so she grabbed Oli (toddler) by the face in her devlish state. Oli wouldn’t let Rey say the rest and tried to tell him instead that Lola changed. Rey told Oli that people didn’t just change. The two brothers then fought, and the result was Rey storming out of the motel room and leaving Oli alone. Meanwhile, Lola gave Bo the letter she wrote to him in prison drug rehabbut wasn’t able to read aloud during group session just two days prior to prison release (and very questionable on what truth the “healing” letter really held). After Bo read it, he told Lola one of the memories he had of them together were all the lies that Lola told Bo about trying to get cleaned up but she never did and chose to be just a repeat offender for many years. Bo said he loved Lola and the boys, but Lola was never his to begin with. Bo then walked out of the motel room and smoked a cigarette and then burned the letter Lola gave him. Meanwhile, scared and tired of a nonstop peace-stealing unsafe life, Oli again slept without HIS parental protection…but this time in a California motel room. Rey had wandered off and sat on a beach near a nighttime bonfire but he didn’t participate with the other young people. Rey then took his clothes off (except his underwear) and went swimming in the ocean that night. The next morning, Rey called Bo from a payphone outside the motel and Bo said they would meet Rey where Rey told him. Rey then went inside the motel room using his key after being gone all night and Oli was relieved that Rey came back and didn’t leave him there alone.Rey said he would always come back. Oli apologized. When Oli asked if Lola really did those abusive things to them when Oli was in diapers, Ray confirmed it. (That would explain Oli’s challenged behavior outbursts and screams that stuck with him all those years. Once the negative and unhealthy things are learned, copied, and repeated in the developing early on stages of youth, that questionable behavior is apt to stay with GOD’s child throughout his or her lifetime). The boys then went to the ocean and played in the waves, and Oli overcame his fear of the water. Rey and Bo met at Rae’s restaurant, and Rey said Oli was okay and Bo told Rey that Lola wasn’t doing so well and to just listen to what she had to say inside the restaurant. Rey said that Oli wanted him to talk to Lola because Oli believed they could be some sort of family again. Lola admitted to Rey that she was barely a teenager when she birthed Rey, and she went on to say that she wasn’t good enough for the guy that she loved and she took it out on Rey because he reminded her of the man that left her when she was a young teen mom. Lola said she knew now that Rey had to pay for all her failings as a “no parent” and she could never right the wrongs she did to God’s children. Lola wanted to try to be a family again, but in reality she was never really a mother to the kids and she had many second chances to clean up her act but she chose the addiction path for many years until she was caught and arrested for it and sent to prison. Rey wasn’t sure that Lola would stay clean this time around. Lola said she wasn’t going to take Oliver away from Rey but she wanted the chance to do right by Oli even though she was never a good mother to Rey in his 20 plus years of life. They all drove back to the motel, and Oli came outside and hugged Lola while Rey and Bo watched. That was where Rey and Oli parted ways because Rey wasn’t going back to New Mexico with Bo and Lola. The brothers both said to each other “protect the goddamn plate,” hugged it out and exchanged love-yous. Lola hugged Rey and told him he did right. Bo then hugged Rey and handed Rey his VH baseball hat with a large wad of cash (exchange for Oli). Oliver left with Bo and Lola, and the movie ended with Rey staying behind in California and hanging out at the Pacific coast.

DATE REVIEWED: 11/4/23

TITLE: American Fusion

BOX OFFICE RATED: PG-13 (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)

PRODUCTION YEAR: 2007 American Fusion Productions / Wildcat Releasing / Image Entertainment

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1

REASON: This movie takes place in California and began with 49-year-old Yvonne Zhao having a dream that she was getting married to Fabio. Yvonne’s 70-year-old mom, Margaret, woke her up and wondered why Yvonne had a pen in her bed that was actually a sex toy. Margaret complained about Yvonne’s son Josh who was 28 blasting hip-hop music in his room and playing with a machine gun and he hated being Chinese and was trying to be a black gangster. After Margaret’s husband died, she raised her children alone and in poverty in Taiwan. Margaret called Yvonne by the nickname “Kangaroo,” because there used to only be one pair of pants in the family so Margaret carried young Yvonne around in her pants tied around her mom’s belly to hide her naked bottom. The three rules in the Zhao family were 1, when a Zhao hit a Zhao it meant they loved them, 2, never take what a Chinese person said at face value, and 3, everyone else’s child was better than yours. Tony, who ran the Chinese family restaurant called the Dragon Inn, got out of jail and Margaret wanted him to follow the Righteous Path and have a job, marriage and children. Tony had all but children. Margaret often played Mahjongg with other Chinese moms and complained about the incompetence of her children (Juliet not being able to control her son Steve, Tony not being able to get his wife Suzy pregnant, and Yvonne not being able to convince her 28-year-old Josh that he should want to be Chinese because he was currently trying to be a black gangster blasting hip-hop music in his room and playing with a machine gun). One mom was concerned that her son Bernard was gay, and the others convinced her that he wasn’t when he obviously was and she agreed that he wasn’t because Bernard spent time with a girl he called a friend. Yvonne worked for the all Chinese Fortune Cookie Press newspaper as a journalist, and she was instructed by her boss, Lao Dong, to convince Jose Martinez, a new dentist in town, to buy an ad in the newspaper from the Fortune Cookie in exchange for Yvonne writing an article about Jose so the press could reach out to other communities. Jose said no because the ad was too expensive, and Yvonne was upset that Jose was staring at her breasts through her shirt which was wet from an incident a few minutes ago when Jose was trying to fix the pipes and they went haywire and soaked both him and Yvonne with water. Later that night at dinner, Margaret said the fresh fish that Yvonne picked up at her mom’s request tasted like mud and Yvonne added the fish went through a bunch of suffering so they could eat it (being chopped up alive). Juliet told her sister Yvonne that she looked old and should see her sister’s stylist, and Tony added that Yvonne looked like a lesbian. Lao Dong left Yvonne an angry message because she failed her mission to convince Jose to buy an ad. Lao set up an appointment for Yvonne the following day with O’Malley the plumber, and she interviewed him. O’Malley did some pipe work at Jose’s dental office, and O’Malley told Yvonne that he wanted a wife for loving and to cook and clean for his kids (who he brought with him on his calls and taught them how to plumb). He asked Yvonne to kiss him but she said no, and Jose got between them. O’Malley slammed Jose against the wall, so Yvonne knocked O’Malley out by hitting him in the head with a huge wrench. Margaret and her kids went to the mall because Margaret wanted to try out a new massage machine that was supposed to cure any illness. The machine wasn’t working, so Margaret’s kids told the operator to turn up the machine and sparks started flying from it. Elder Margaret fractured her lower back in the machine and was taken to the hospital. Yvonne said she didn’t have the time to care for Margaret and said her mom could stay home and take care of herself. Margaret refused to stay with Tony and Suzy because she wanted them to make babies. They weren’t having much luck, so Tony convinced Suzy to have sex with him upside down like bats using a ceiling contraption. Yvonne’s female coworkers looked at the newspaper ad for the new strip club, the Naughty Wang, and they were gaga over Juliet’s son Steve posing as a stripper. Margaret told Yvonne that it was her dying wish that Josh go to China (using Margaret’s retirement money) and learn to be Chinese before he turned black. Margaret was convinced that Yvonne was too old for anyone to want to marry her. Yvonne took Margaret to Dr. David Lee, and Margaret couldn’t believe that the specialist was black (black man with a last name of Lee). As he explained the complicated six-hour surgery, Margaret imagined Dr. Lee as Lethal Killah, a black rapper that Josh was a fan of. At the Zhao house, Steve and two other men were practicing pro wrestling upstairs. They then jumped out the window and smashed Juliet’s table in the backyard. Yvonne asked Steve about his stripping, and he replied that dancing was how he got away from his suffocating family. Yvonne wanted to finish her interview with Jose, and Tony told her that she looked too stupid for anyone to want her since she wasn’t dressed up so Yvonne hit Tony in the private parts with her purse. Margaret wanted a second medical professional opinion, and Yvonne had a hard time convincing Juliet to come with them because she said she was too busy but she eventually agreed. Margaret, Yvonne and Juliet went to an herbal doctor who smoked weed for “medicinal reasons,” and he told Margaret that she needed Dr. Lee to help her since he was good at that and helped the herbal doctor who was now hooked on medical weed. Yvonne and Jose went for a walk on the beach, where they kissed. Yvonne dreamt later that night that she and Jose had sex, but was woke up by elderly Margaret calling for her because her mom lay on the floor and couldn’t get up. The family took Margaret to the hospital, where Tony threatened that it would be the end of Dr. Lee and the whole hospital if the doctor hurt his mom, Margaret. Everyone gave the surgeon gifts as a Chinese formality. Jose then brought Yvonne to have a picnic with his Hispanic family, and Jose was disappointed when Yvonne told him that he couldn’t bring his mom Maria to the dinner party the Zhaos were having before Margaret’s surgery and Josh’s trip because it was solely a Chinese family affair. Jose and Maria came anyway, and the Zhaos made them feel unwelcome so they walked out.Yvonne followed after Jose and explained that her family didn’t approve of his Mexican race so Yvonne and Jose’s relationship needed to stay business. Margaret told Yvonne not to see Jose anymore, and Yvonne agreed that it was over. Yvonne dropped Josh off at the airport. Suzy’s pregnancy test was negative again, so Tony threw things and swore “goddamn it,” multiple times, even after Suzy slapped him and told him not to use the Lord’s name in vain. To stop Tony’s meltdown, Suzy kneed him in the crotch, and Tony shouted that he wanted a child but his wife couldn’t make him one. Suzy called Tony an ex-con ignoramus, so Tony said their relationship was over and stormed out. In the hospital waiting room as Margaret underwent surgery, perfectionist and germophobic Juliet made Steve wipe down his chair to get rid of the germs in the hospital waiting area. Yvonne declined a call from Jose, and then Dr. Lee announced that Margaret’s surgery went perfectly but she might need a transfusion because she lost blood. Tony wanted to stay and watch Margaret since Yvonne was paying most of Margaret’s medical bills. Tony took up smoking even at the restaurant, and a customer wasn’t happy because it was against the restaurant policy so Tony put his cigarette out in the customer’s food. Tony then read the paper and laughed hysterically when he saw Steve’s stripping ad inside the newspaper. Jose was waiting outside the Zhao house for Yvonne with flowers for Margaret, and he and Yvonne made amends and he thanked her for writing a flattering article about him so now several single women showed up at his office just to flirt with him because there was nothing wrong with their teeth. Yvonne revealed to Jose that she had her upper teeth removed and replaced with a denture because her husband wanted to her to have white, straight teeth and then he cheated on her. Yvonne added that it was best for her relationship with Jose to be strictly platonic and nothing more. Jose said that he almost got married recently, but a week before their wedding he caught his fiancée cheating. Juliet was convinced that Steve was so bulky because he was on steroids, so she searched his room and found dirty magazines and the strip article in the newspaper. Juliet chased Steve around the house with a golf club threatening to beat him to death, and he said that people made fun of him for being Chinese when he was growing up but now he used his brawn as a stripper to be respected. Juliet went after her husband Albert when he spoke up that he was proud of Steve and Juliet was being too tough on him. Steve then ran away, and Juliet blamed Yvonne for it because (sister) Yvonne’s newspaper published the strip club ad. Tony was angry with Yvonne for Suzy leaving him because Yvonne was the one who bought Tony the upside-down sex kit that he refused to buy. Steve went to the hospital and told Margaret that he felt attractive when he was dancing at the club and showing his body off to a room of screaming females boosted his self-esteem. Margaret told Steve he was an idiot, and then she had a medical emergency and desperately needed a blood transfusion. Yvonne realized that Margaret’s blood type was the same as Jose’s, and Jose came immediately to donate his blood (Jose had told Yvonne previously that he donated his AB positive blood one time before and never wanted to donate again). The Chinese Zhaos finally accepted Mexican Jose as a result, and when Margaret woke up she boasted about being part Mexican. Margaret made a full recovery, and Steve told his mom that he quit stripping and was now a nude model so Juliet slapped him. Josh returned from China with his new girlfriend Layla, and the Chinese American Zhaos believed that Layla had a serious tan when she was actually a Chinese-speaking African black female. Yvonne hurried to the bowling alley where she and Jose hung out once, and they kissed passionately there and at their wedding with both the Zhao and Martinez families present. Three months later, Margaret ate with Jose and his family. When Margaret learned that she was eating cow brains, she spit it out in her napkin and then told Maria that she was eating chicken butt and Maria spit it out. The movie cover art listed, Variety, “Great cast chemistry, sharp dialogue, and a free-for-all pile-on of ethnic stereotypes.” The movie packaging, “A comedy as diverse as love itself,” and, “A hilarious comedy of multicultural errors.”

DATE REVIEWED: 11/3/23

TITLE: Little Nicky

BOX OFFICE RATED: PG-13 (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.) Little Nicky and his bulldog sat on a New York park bench that showed the Twin Towers in the background on the movie cover art…right before 9/11.

PRODUCTION YEAR: 2000 New Line Cinema / Happy Madison Productions / The Robert Simmonds Company

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1

REASON: This movie began in New York City, NY with a man calling himself the Peeper sitting on a tree branch staring into the bedroom window of Veronique Dunleavy as she undressed. Veronique’s young son Scottie ran into the room as Veronique was unzipping her pants and her bra was exposed. The Peeper was mad so he called little Scottie on the phone and told him to go downstairs and out of his mom’s bedroom so the big bird in the tree could see the rest of mommy. Veronique noticed the Peeper and opened the window, and Scottie fired a slingshot at the Peeper’s head. Peeper fell backwards out of the high tree to the ground, died, and ended up in Hell, where a big crow bird followed him around and humped him as his eternal punishment for his crazed sex addiction on earth. Meanwhile in Hell, it was Satan’s last year as the prince of darkness and he was supposed to pick which of his three sons, Adrian (eldest), Cassius (middle) and Nicky (youngest, special needs because of injuries from his older siblings and Nicky was not a fan of torture), would succeed him and rule Hell for the next 10,000 years. Satan’s youngest, Nicky, told his dad’s adviser Jimmy that he wouldn’t get picked because he didn’t have a distinguished look like George Clooney and because Cassius hit him in the head with a shovel which impacted his speech for the rest of Nicky’s life. In the throne room, Cassius entered Nicky’s mind, as he was fond of doing, and forced Nicky to punch himself in the private parts multiple times before Satan appeared. Satan chose himself to rule for the second time because he didn’t think any of his sons were ready yet. Adolf Hitler (trans) then came in wearing a female maid’s dress, and he bent over as Satan shoved a large pineapple up Hitler’s butt as punishment. Adrian and Cassius remembered what Grandpa Lucifer used to say about how it was better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven, but the brothers were being forced to serve in Hell. The two oldest brothers decided that they would rule Earth as their own Hell and corrupt as many souls as possible, and then the damned souls would belong to them instead of Satan after the brothers killed the people. Dan Marino (as himself) was ready to spend an eternity in Hell as long as Satan let him win one more Super Bowl, but Satan told Dan he was too nice a guy. Adrian and Cassius ran out of the gates of Hell and froze them as they went, and the gatekeeper couldn’t stop them. Satan formed realistic looking bare female breasts on the top of the gatekeeper’s heads as horns, and he became known as Tithead and was sent off alone with Lucifer. Since no new souls were coming in through the solidified gate, Satan was beginning to die slowly and fall apart. He sent Nicky to Earth and told his son that the worst thing that could happen was Nicky being returned to Hell each time he died on Earth. Satan gave Nicky a flask that both his brothers had to drink from so they would be trapped inside it for eternity. Mr. Beefy was a talking bulldog from Hell who Satan had waiting at Grand Central Station to help Nicky. Beefy informed Nicky that his hellish brothers could possess people and take their form, so they would be difficult to find. Beefy added that the blind deacon outside talking about God was crazy, and when the deacon sensed the hellfire emanating from Nicky, he ran off screaming that the devil was there. Beefy taught Nicky how to eat food and sleep, and when a bus hit Nicky he ended up instantly in hell. Nicky made a deal with Tithead that he wouldn’t mention the Chewbacca-like male demon massaging Tithead’s head breasts, which were now covered by a bra, as long as Tithead agreed not to say anything about Nicky dying. Beefy took Nicky to the apartment of Todd, an actor who put out an ad for a roommate and took Nicky in. There was a doormat, “I Love Acting,” outside the apartment door, and Beefy peed on it and said he loved pissing. Meanwhile, Adrian was in the body of a Catholic priest at Mass in a huge mega Catholic cathedral. He stood on a pizza to absorb his hellfire as he asked the attendees if the Lord did anything for either of them. Adrian (Catholic clergyman) preached that God didn’t put a Jaguar in his driveway or give his enemy herpes. A woman stood up and said God gave her son the strength to get off drugs, and the Catholic Adrian replied that her son was better off on drugs and the doper made Adrian laugh occasionally when he was smoking hashish. The Catholic churchgoers laughed at that. Another man said that God helped his wife conceive a baby. It came out that she was cheating on her husband with his best friend, Fitzy, and NY Catholic priest Adrian said that Fitzy helped the female to conceive all night long. Catholic priest Adrian called on his brother Cassius in attendence, who was in disguised as NY Mayor Randolph and wore tinfoil on his feet, and he agreed that the Lord never did anything for him either. The NY mayor hated on God as Catholic Adrian led the way and told everyone to let the sin begin, and the NY Catholic members all agreed. Nicky approached random people on the NY street hoping they were his devilish brothers and tried to get them to drink from the flask, but the martial arts master, police officer and homeless person beat Nicky up. The restaurant owner didn’t believe Nicky, and the little kids were confused. Nicky died when he went into a polar bear’s enclosure at the NY zoo thinking it was his brother and the bear ate him. While Beefy went to go see his contacts uptown, Nicky fell asleep in the NY park and made demon growling and roaring noises. Two metalheads, John and Peter, woke Nicky up and told him that a man just stole his flask and was trying to sell it at the market. Nicky breathed fire out of his dragon mouth and then ran off. John and Peter celebrated and knew the dark prince had arrived. When Nicky confronted the thief, he denied stealing the flask but agreed to give it back to Nicky after Valerie Veran, a design student mentioned that there was a policeman nearby. Valerie and Nicky hit it off immediately, and he said he was from the deepSouth. They went to get gelati, and the blind deacon ran by yelling that there was evil in the NY streets and they were all going to die, and then he got knocked out when he ran into a pole. The news reported that Mayor Randolph (Cassius) lowered the legal drinking age from 21 to 10, effective immediately, and Adrian watched as young kids stumbled drunk out of NY bars and vomited in the street. Adrian then spotted Nicky and Valerie, so Adrian entered Nicky’s mind and forced him to say that Valerie had a juicy, heart-shaped heinie, he had always dreamt about having sex with a gross pig like her and he wanted to wash his winkie in her kitchen sinkie. Nicky gave Valerie the middle finger against his will, and she called him a jerk and stormed off. Adrian sent Nicky back to Hell by using mind control to make Nicky have a convulsion and then step out in the street and be hit head-on by a garbage truck. Nicky’s blood spattered all over his disciples John and Peter. When Nicky got back to Earth, he and Beefy watched Regis Philbin on his TV show claiming that a guy in a Cadillac cut Regis off on his way to work, so Regis followed the guy and then bashed the other man’s brains in with a bat. NY mayor Randolph was in the news for changing the city catch phrase from “I Love New York,” to “I Love Hookers.”Beefy told Nicky that he needed to learn how to use his evil powers and instructed Nicky to change a Coca-Cola can to any other liquid. Nicky released the evil that he had in him but only succeeded in turning the Coke into a Pepsi. Nicky and Todd then watched a basketball game on TV, where referee Whitey Duvall (Cassius) called a foul that didn’t even exist so the Harlem Globetrotters lost their first game in 53 years and everyone booed. A sports announcer on live TV asked a boy under ten years old why he came to the game, and he replied that he came for the beer and the bit**es. Nicky realized the referee was Cassius and rushed to the basketball course, where Cassius said that he couldn’t wait for his dad to die because then he would be Satan. Cassius and Nicky had a devil basketball showdown, and Nicky put the ball through the hoop like an expert. Cassius asked Nicky how he did it, and Nicky said his dad gave him super devil juice from inside his flask. Cassius took a drink and his soul was captured inside the flask. Back at the apartment, Todd, John and Peter celebrated by making a cake. The metalheads dumped reefer (pot) into the cake, which made everyone act like dopey maniacs and John and Peter called Todd gay (likely the truth). Todd encouraged Nicky to go find Valerie because he couldn’t stop thinking about her, so Nicky climbed up the fire stairs outside Valerie’s apartment. Nicky stopped in at the window of a NY transgender man rubbing his nipples and wishing he was a woman, and he told Nicky where to find Valerie. Valerie sprayed Nicky in the eyes with something from a can and he fell backwards over the railing, but the butterflies in his stomach that he felt whenever he was around Valerie started flapping around and gave him the ability to fly. He explained his mission and how his evil brother possessed him to say those things to Valerie earlier. Valerie forgave Nicky and they flew together past the Empire State Building. The deacon shouted that Valerie was an evil slut, so Nicky made a fire hydrant explode and hit the deacon because nobody called his girl that. Breaking news reported that the NY police chief (Adrian no longer disguised as Catholic priest but now police chief) was offering a $50 million reward for the capture of Nicky the Monster. Adrian convinced everyone that Nicky was a mass murderer by editing a video clip from a movie to look like Nicky was shooting a bunch of people. NY citizens recognized Nicky and chased him down the street, and when he was cornered in an alley he escaped by transforming himself into hundreds of giant spiders that sent everyone away screaming. People then tried to beat down Todd’s apartment door to get to Nicky, and Nicky announced that he needed to die so he could ask his dad what to do. Todd said he had always wanted to kill someone, and Nicky’s buddies agreed to meet him at Grand Central Station at noon before Todd drowned Nicky in the bathtub and sobbed as he damned Kevin Spacey for taking all his acting parts. Jimmy told Nicky that he had only until midnight to save his Satan dad. John and Peter went to the police department and told NY police chief Adrian that they knew where Nicky was, and Adrian gave them half the money now and would give them the rest after he got Nicky. The police department went to Grand Central Station, where the NY police arrested Todd and Beefy who were waiting for Nicky. Beefy escaped by peeing smoke-like gas to knock out the officers. Adrian then shed his fake NY police chief skin and showed his real self, and he waited for Nicky to reappear. Valerie went by pretending to be a homeless woman, and John and Peter played along by grabbing the paper bag out of her hand and pretending it was a booze bottle. They tried to convince Adrian to take a drink, but he knew it was the flask after he noticed the two of them were nervous and sweating. Adrian refused to free Cassius and ordered Nicky to show his true self because he could sense that Nicky had taken the form of one of the metalheads. Adrian held Valerie hostage and threatened to push her out in front of a moving train and send her to Hell if Nicky didn’t drink from the flask and join Cassius so Adrian could rule the underworld. Beefy shot an arrow into Adrian’s leg, and Adrian stumbled while still holding Valerie. Nicky pushed Valerie out of the way, and the train hit both him and Adrian. Adrian ended up in Hell, and Nicky awoke in Heaven, where the angels Holly, Jenna and Christa were waiting for him. Holly announced that she was Nicky’s mom, and he couldn’t believe it because his brothers told him that his mom was a mountain goat. Holly explained that she looked as young as Nicky because nobody aged in heaven, and Holly’s angel girlfriends jumped around cheering. Nicky declined a mambo lesson with Chubbs, the dopest dance instructor in heaven. Adrian sat on top of Satan’s throne and became the ruler of hell. The angels giggled and flirted with Nicky, and Holly explained that she met Satan at a heaven-hell mixer and he had a hot body. Holly’s friend Michelle called her and asked if Nicky was hot, and Holly called Michelle a perv and hung up because Nicky was her son. Holly went on to say that self-sacrifice automatically got someone into Heaven, and Nicky was there because he saved Valerie. The angels showed Nicky the mirror they used to use what was happening on Earth, and the newscaster Sylvia Lopez announced that hell was rising up from under NY Central Park. Some New Yorkers were afraid, while thousands of others cheered and gathered around Adrian’s fiery throne acting like there was no Heaven or Hell. Sylvia added that she was cheating on her husband with the weatherman. Adrian said there was a Hell and transformed himself into the Catholic priest again, and he told everyone they were going to die and go to Hell in 15 minutes at midnight, at that time Satan would be dead, and their souls would belong to Adrian. That created pandemonium, and Nicky decided that he was going back to Earth to save everyone. Holly gave him a crystal ball that she said God told her could help in times of need and didn’t exactly know how to use it. The airhead angels all agreed that God was Jeopardy smart. Nicky returned to Earth and used rainbow beams of goodness and pillows to battle Adrian in New York, but Adrian got ahold of Nicky and forced him to open his mouth and drink from the flask. On the way into the flask, Nicky grabbed his elder brother Adrian. The three brothers fought inside the flask and Nicky was the only one to emerge, and he and Valerie kissed. However, it turned out to be Adrian disguised as Nicky. Adrian turned into a bat, and Nicky managed to get out of the flask and dropped the crystal ball. English sided Ozzy Osbourne (as himself), wearing a cross necklace then appeared and bit Adrian’s bloody bat head off and then spit it into the flask. Nicky said that now he had to die and return to Hell, but in order to do that he needed to do something bad right before he died otherwise he would end up in Heaven. Nicky covered someone with hundreds of bees that stung the person, and Ozzy gave Valerie a huge rock. Before she dropped it on Nicky’s head to kill him, they exchanged love-yous. Nicky made it back to Hell right before his dad disintegrated, and Satan announced that he still loved Holly and she was happy to get the attention from Satan. Satan reminded angel Holly how crazy she got after a few daiquiris, and one of the angels called him a horndog. Satan told Nicky that he had Hell, Holly had Heaven, and it was Nicky’s choice if he wanted to live on Earth and rule the middle realm. Satan then put the flask containing his two eldest sons Adrian and Cassius up Hitler’s butt. One year later, Highway to Hell song played as Nicky and Valerie were together on Earth with a baby boy named Zachariah that breathed fire. Nicky’s face got fixed after Valerie accidentally hit him with a shovel, but he was still no George Clooney. Zachariah was suspended from nursery school for turning another kid’s milk into moose piss. Todd staged his own one-man show on Broadway, but only one man came to see it and that was the transgender guy. Beefy bulldog got kicked out of a strip club for excessive drinking, and he ran into his old girlfriend Heather the sewer rat. They got married and had five of the ugliest kids you’ve ever seen because they were half-dog, half-rat. Tithead and the Chewbacca-like demon had half-and-half kids too. Satan and Holly tried dating but couldn’t handle the long-distance relationship, so Satan was now romantically linked to both the Blair Witch and Cher while Holly fell in love with her new aerobics instructor, Chris Farley. John and Peter used the $25 million in reward money they had to buy Led Zeppelin’s old touring plane, and they stocked it with cake, beer and music. They forgot to stock it with a pilot and it crashed soon after takeoff, and John and Peter ended up in hell and had never been happier. The movie cover art listed, Joel Siegel, Good Morning America “Outrageous!”

DATE REVIEWED: 11/2/23

TITLE: The Dukes Of Hazzard

BOX OFFICE RATED: PG-13 (This is not suitable for God’s children.)

PRODUCTION YEAR: 2005 Warner Bros. Pictures / Village Roadshow Pictures

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1

REASON: This movie takes place in rural Hazzard County, Georgia and began with cousins Bo and Luke Duke speeding like maniacs on the dirt roads in the General Lee Dodge Challenger car, as they made Uncle Jesse’s moonshine deliveries because they wanted to arrive at the local Boar’s Nest bar in time for happy hour. Bo and Luke’s cousin, Daisy Duke, worked was a waitress there. The grown men dropped some moonshine off at Laurie Pullman’s house, and she and Luke ran inside to have sex because Laurie’s dad Bill wasn’t there. When daddy Bill showed up holding his shotgun and recent kill, Bo distracted him on the front lawn as Laurie made out wildly with Luke in the upstairs bedroom and stripped down to her bra throwing her clothes out the window. Bo said he never traveled alone and traveled with the man upstairs, Jesus (actually Luke), and Bill replied that he wanted a man like Bo to marry Laurie and not Luke. Laurie’s brother Jimmy found her and Luke then and pulled a gun on Luke, who fell off the roof. Jimmy followed trying to shoot Luke, but he fell off the roof too and Bo got the General ready for their great escape. Bill sped after them with Jimmy hanging out the window of the truck shooting at the General Lee with Bill’s new whammy shells that blew a huge hole the size of a grapefruit through anything it hit. Jimmy got the gun jammed in his dad’s lap and shot holes through the floorboard and side door inside his dad’s truck. Bo and Luke made a bet that if they jumped the ravine and didn’t break any of the moonshine bottles, the winner would use the old phone book against the loser. Jimmy and Bill wrecked because Jimmy knocked his dad unconscious with the gun and with Bill unconscious the truck went off the road into the swampy woods. Bo and Luke jumped the ravine. They almost collided head-on with a semi and the General Lee ended up getting stuck between the heavy construction trucks on the Miller farm. The delinquents then smacked each other around in the face with the huge Atlanta phone book because technically Bo won the bet because none of the bottles were broken, until he picked up the crate and the bottom came loose so it broke most of the glass jars. Thus, both men hit each other hard in the face with the GA phone book. They then ran the five miles to the Boar’s Nest, where Billy Prickett was back from Atlanta with his Coca-Cola, Ford, BF Goodrich, Castrol and Yahoo! Sponsored racecar and Billy planned to win this year’s Hazzard Rally again. Bo wanted to compete in race with the General Lee and beat Billy. Eye candy Daisy then appeared in her half-shirt and super-short Daisy Dukes. Dil Driscoll talked about Daisy’s double D chest to match her nametag. He then wanted to know if Daisy’s legs came over easy and spanked her on the butt, so Daisy kicked Dil’s chair over and put her high heel into his throat until Billy told his crew chief not to mess with Daisy. Dil asked Bo if he shucked his cousin Daisy’s corn, which didn’t sit right with the country boy so he started a barfight. Luke joined in and punched the rowdy drunken crowd and threw them against the walls, as Daisy put balls from the pool table in a fan to hit people in the face with and knock them out. The fighting ended the second Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane shot a hole through the ceiling. Rosco said that he took care of the General Lee over at the Miller farm and the car was now at Cooter Davenport’s mechanic shop. Daisy took her cousins to Cooter’s just as Jefferson Davis Hogg, Coltrane’s boss and the meanest man in the county who was as crooked as a hillbilly’s smile, showed up and threatened the sheriff to take care of the Dukes because Boss Hogg had big plans in a few days. The General Lee was in horrific shape for the race because it was falling apart and had a smashed windshield and dead raccoon attached to it, but Cooter agreed to try and fix it up and let the Duke trio borrow his truck in the meantime. At the Duke farm house, Uncle Jesse went looking for Daisy and she said she was in the shower. Jesse walked into the bathroom when Daisy replied where she ws and Daisy’s silhouette was shown behind the shower curtain. However, it turned out when Uncle Jesse opened the curtin on Daisy that she was fully clothed and it was in fact the area where Jesse made his moonshine and Daisy was fixing the still. Outside, Bo shot fiery arrows at tanks of gasoline to make them explode. Uncle Jesse appeared and made a joke about giving a politician a Viagra to make him tall, and then Rosco, Boss Hogg and the other policemen arrived and Jesse called Rosco a fat sack of sh**. Someone (on Hogg’s police payroll) planted another moonshine still in the barn, so the sheriff’s department seized the Duke farm. Pauline Powers let the Dukes stay with here, and Uncle Jesse said he lost three toes in Korea as a veteran and evicting him from his farm was how America repaid him. Pauline said Boss Hogg did the same thing and planed things on other people’s properties in the area. Bo and Duke went to the Miller farm to investigate the construction equipment and see what Hogg was up and why he was illegally kicking people off their farms and stealing their land. Daisy told Jesse that her cousins would end themselves up in jail and she would have to shake her butt at someone to get them out because they didn’t have the money to pay the bail. Sheriff Rosco paid Cooter a visit as the mechanic did a lot of work to fix the General Lee and told Cooter that he couldn’t fix an election if his brother was the governor. Rosco announced that he was impounding and auctioning off the General Lee because the Dukes used it for illegal moonshining. Bo and Luke snuck into the trailer on the Miller farm and discovered that Boss Hogg had their farm and many others in the vicinity marked. The crazy cousins decided to take Hogg’s safe for a ride by chaining it to the back of the Cooter’s tow truck and dragging it behind them down the road. The chain got wrapped around a pole, and as Luke tried to fix it Bo played a love song for his long-lost General Lee on the radio. When Luke told Bo not to hit the gas, Bo hit the gas so then Luke was stuck hanging on to the safe as it flew down the street. It stopped when it smashed into a car that Chip, the Miller security guard, took to chase the Dukes and Luke hobbled back to the General Lee to confront Bo about his bad behavior. Chip called Rosco and informed him that Bo and Luke stole the safe, and Hogg told Rosco to go lock the Dukes up and get the safe back. Boss Hogg’s Basset Hound, Flash, ate lobster off the counter. The Dukes went to the secluded bait shop to get Derek “Sheev” Sheevington’shelp opening the safe. When Rosco came around soon after, Sheev ignored him and refused to say where the Dukes were (hiding in his large freezer but the men were icy after they got out when Sheev gave them the all clear). As the sheriff left, Sheev gave him the middle finger. Sheev went outside in his underwearand caught an armadillo in a net to use for a helmet and soup bowl. Sheev used expired explosives on his private property and a Chinese fuse to try and open the safe, but it didn’t work so Luke fired a flaming arrow at the safe and it caused a huge explosion. They all somersaulted backwards with Sheev’s underwear showing his butt crack, and they then discovered core samples for mining inside the safe. Bo and Luke went to Cooter’s to pick up the General Lee, and Cooter had it fixed like new with a Hemi engine. Cooter wanted a date with Daisy or a pair of her Daisy Duke shorts in exchange for fixing the General Lee, but Luke said no to both of them so Cooter said that it was thanks enough for Bo to just win the Hazzard Rally and then Bo would pay Cooter back with his prize money. The police were outside Cooter’s shop waiting for the Dukes, but they sped right past the officers in the General Lee. Cooter told Bo (who just told his cousin was never getting out of the car and was going to have sex with the car and not in the car) and Luke over the CB radio that Cooter took care of the police by messing with their tires so they couldn’t give chase. Bo and Duke headed to the Atlanta University to see Katie-Lynn Johnson from high school (who Bo used to have a thing for) and get her help in figuring out what was in the core samples. In the Atlanta traffic, the men appreciated the General Lee, and Confederate flag that Cooter painted on the car and they supported the South rising again. The women didn’t like the General Lee as it was a dark past and gave Bo and Luke the middle finger and live in the 21stCentury and told them to go find their Ku Klux Klan members. Meanwhile, Daisy went in disguise wearing a black wig and big sunglasses and flirted with Deputy Enos to find out what Hogg was up to. Billy who appeared for his meeting with Hogg interrupted Daisy and called Enos…Anus. Daisy overheard that Hogg was paying Billy to race in the rally and was sponsoring him with a picture of Hogg’s face on the side of Billy’s car. At the Atlanta University, the females gave Bo and Luke looks and were being flirted, and Luke said to keep an open mind in college after a male blew a kiss at him. The cousins kept opening dorm room doors to girls in their underwear hanging out together, and sex crazed Luke wanted to stay behind with the indecent femalesbut Bo made him keep going. Katie and her Australian roommate Annette appeared with towels after they just got out of the shower, and Bo fainted and then said awkwardly they just wanted to pay a visit to the prettiest girl in Atlanta. The foursome headed to the lab but was stopped by the campus police in their golf cart for no reason, so the group sped off and ignored the university security. They then stole a car cover and put it over the General Lee to hide it. Bo and Luke put on white lab coats and posed as employees of the Japanese company Kamasaka Technologies looking for geologists to employ. They duped student Royce Williams into examining the core sample in hopes of him being picked to work for the Japanese company. Bo spotted Luke making eyes at Katie, and because Bo wanted to together with Katie and make it work this time, he blowtorched Luke’s Levis. Royce announced that the core sample was coal and a good-sized mine could be worth millions. That was when Bo and Luke realized that Boss Hogg planned to strip-mine Hazzard County. The campus police appeared and chased after the Dukes and the two university female students, so they all ran for it. Uncle Jesse (handle Shepherd) told the Bo and Luke (handle Lost Sheep) on the CB radio that Hogg paid Billy to race. A black Georgia gang then came over to beat up the white men playing black on their turf, but the police interrupted by arresting all of them. Hogg came to the jail and explained that he couldn’t mine the farms he stole because the county wouldn’t let him, so he planned to hold a public hearing during the rally the following day and he was paying Billy to be at the race so the townspeople would all attend it and not even be aware of the courthouse hearing so they couldn’t object to it. Hogg added that the two male Duke cousins would be taken to the Georgia work farm. Hogg then offered the prisoners $100 to first inmate who knocked out the smart mouth who kept calling Hogg a pimp as Hogg was harassing the Dukes behind bars. The next day, Daisy helped her cousins escape by posing sexy by the side of the road so the two police officers escorting Bo and Luke would stop to look at the undercarriage on Daisy’s Jeep and give Bo and Luke the chance to escape with the college girls in the General Lee. That led to a chase with police cars smashing into each other as they pursued the getaway car General Lee. Bo was even more irrate and drove more recklessly after he found out Luke and Katie had a fling in high school, and after Luke reluctantly apologized, Bo went up a makeshift ramp onto the highway to escape the police. The Lost Sheep called the Shepherd Jesse on the CB, but Hogg answered because he had Jesse and Pauline tied up and told the Duke men not to come back to Hazzard County. The cousins dropped Katie and Annette off at Sheev’s place, and Sheev said he would do anything they wanted (go to the rally and try to convince everyone to come to the courthouse and object to the strip-mining) if Bo and Luke left the two university females alone with Sheev. Hogg called Enos and told him that he and Rosco were at the Duke place, and Rosco asked why Hogg did that. Hogg reminded his puppet the sheriff of the time they tried to fix the rodeo and spread the rumor about the Mad Cow disease so Hogg’s chicken factories would make more profit, but small town Deputy Enos told the Dukes about their plans so Hogg wasn’t going to tell Enos the truth. Daisy went to the sheriff’s department in her bikini and used her feminine wiles and sexy ways to get the answer out of Deputy Enos about where Hogg was. Daisy then told her cousins, and they headed to the Duke farm. They ran into Billy and told him about Hogg’s plan, and Billy said he already knew about the strip mine and was going along with it because Hazzard County was a sh**hole anyway. When the Dukes arrived at the farm, they didn’t’ get the opportunity to rescue Jesse and Pauline because they were surrounded by the police and chased with the police shooting at them. Luke shot fire arrows out the window to blow up the police cars as Sheev (handle End of the World) and the girls failed to get the townspeople to believe them about the hearing. Daisy rescued Jesse and Pauline through a secret tunnel, and Luke jumped out of the General Lee as Bo was driving and went to meet up with Jesse and drive Hogg’s car after stealing it. At the rally race event, Hogg made a short appearance and introduced his buddy, Georgia Governor James T. Applewhite. Just seconds after the race started, Bo sped onto the racetrack with officers in pursuit. Hogg ordered all police vehicles to make a roadblock so the Dukes couldn’t get to the courthouse after they finished the race. Uncle Jesse lit his jars of moonshine on fire and threw them back onto the police cars to blow them up as he joked that divorces were so expensive because they were worth it. Daisy tried to manipulate the male officers into leaving the roadblock to help her fix her car, but one female officer told the men to let Daisy fix her own dang car and to continue maning their post. Bo won the race and left the racetrack, and Billy followed him and they sideswiped each other. Cooter came along in his tow truck and told the officers that he was there to give Daisy a tow. Cooter lowered a ramp and Bo went up it and over the roadblock of police cars. Luke then smashed into the police cars with Hogg’s car. Rosco was the only person at the courtroom hearing and he voted in favor of the strip-mining, and before the judge could do anything the Dukes and the townspeople (who they were able to convince) all broke down the door and made objections so the strip-mining ordinance was immediately dismissed. The police were going to arrest Bo and Luke, but provocative and dishonest Daisy encouraged the Georgia governor to recognize the Duke cousins as heroes and pardon all their crimes because of it. The Georgia governor pardoned Bo and Luke and also pardoned Uncle Jesse for punching Hogg in the face. At the town barbecue, Uncle Jesse, Governor Applewhite and Sheev celebrated in the smokehouse by smoking weed and hit on Pauline after exiting while laughing gayly, coughing and craving chocolate hotdogs. Luke and Katie were in the back of the General Lee making out while Bo sat in the front seat talking lovingly to his car and Aussie Annette kissed Bo and thought Bo was talking to her (and not the General Lee nuts and bolts). Laurie then pointed a gun at Luke and told him that he didn’t make his delivery that week, and Bo called Luke a man-whore and sped off with Laurie chasing them. This movie had a budget of $53 million and grossed over $109 million at the box office. The movie cover art listed, Pete Hammond, MAXIM, “A high octane, revved up good time with an irresistible cast.”

DATE REVIEWED: 11/1/23

TITLE: The Love Letter (based on the novel by Cathleen Schine)

BOX OFFICE RATED: PG-13 (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)

PRODUCTION YEAR: 1999 Dreamworks Pictures / Sanford / Pillsbury Production

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1

REASON: This movie takes place in a small Massachusetts town of Loblolly By The Sea and began with an elderly postal worker holding up the line and talking about people’s personal lives because she read the postcards and newcomber Johnny had to stand through her illegal gossip and nosy geography lesson about other people’s personal lives. A customer behind Johnny outside afterward told him to always put his postcards in an envelope so the USPS postal workers wouldn’t read the information and spread vicious gossip or ruin lives by selling out private information to the highest bidder. Helen MacFarquhar ran through town until she reached the stop sign that she slapped as her finish line. Miss Scattergoods, with an English accent, rode up on his bicycle smoking a cigarette. George Matthias drove by in his fire truck with his two very young daughters encouraging him to blast the siren through town. Ray met Helen at the broken door of her well to do house and she helped him with a slogan for his campaign because he was running for mayor. Helen sent her tween daughter Emily off to camp for the whole summer, and Emily said Grandma Lillian was in Prague and it was “pink” there. Helen then went to work at her bookshop by the pier, and her ex-husband left her a message on the answering machine that he hadn’t sent child support yet because he was supporting two families now. Helen blasted the music to drown her ex out, and didn’t want to listen (Helen’s family was rich) as he added that he was having trouble keeping up with all the bills for camp, piano, ballet, jazz tap and classic that Helen spent extra on Emily’s many activities. Helen’s employee Janet Hall then arrived late for work and said she had another date with the pilot and she couldn’t get her seat back in the upright position. Another employee, Jennifer McNeely, appeared with flavored coffees and she wanted to clean out the sociology section that was filled with outdated books. Officer Dan repeatedly told a shop owner that Johnny looked like he was on dope as Johnny pulled up in his convertible and blasted loud music. The policeman claimed that to train police dogs to sniff out dope, the dogs had to get hooked on dope. George came to get his books and had a short conversation with Janet about how the toaster fire was from an English muffin and not a Pop Tart. Janet read aloud George’s book titles he had ordered as she handed the books to him, “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Surviving Divorce,” “The Divorce Workbook,” and “How Come Nobody Loves Me?” George wasn’t watching his two little girls at the time, and so there was a bang and one started crying around a pile of books. George then left the kids with Janet while he went on a fire call. As it turned out, it was a buck loose inside a building tearing up the place. Helen asked Janet if she wanted to go out to dinner that night, but Janet replied that she had a date with Fabio’s cousin the plumber. Janet, office accounting manager, told owner Helen to go through the mail and put junk mail in one pile and bills in another. As Helen did so, she came across a love letter that was separate from the mail. Helen was so obsessed with the letter that she ignored everyone to keep reading it over and over again as the days went by. One day at work, Helen searched the mail frantically for another love letter on the floor since the outside postal drop dumped all the mail on the floor inside. Janet knelt beside Helen then, and Helen envisioned Janet reciting the words from the love letter to her in a lesbian way. Janet apologized for being late because she couldn’t find her bra, and her talked about date and great sex. Janet then hovered over Helen and conversed about how Helen’s mom, Lillian, and how Lillian left town about the same time Janet came back (a year ago) and Janet then wished her mom would leave. Everybody Helen talked to after that she imagined him or her reciting the love letter to her, including elderly people, customers, garbagemen, Johnny and George. Fireman George came to take care of the bee problem outside the shop window, and when he was on his ladder by the second story open window Helen asked him about passionand he said he got fired up when he listened to opera for three hours. Helen replied that she didn’t like opera and added it was too emotional for her. Janet popped her head into the converation and chimed in that she loved opera too. Helen told town worker George she would buy him dinner for helping with the bee’s nest. Meanwhile, Miss Scattergoods told Johnny that Loblolly used to be named Recklesstown. She went on to say that Helen’s bookstore once housed a madwoman named Aunt Batty Patty and her dogs (like Nancy Drew’s “Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake”) and Johnny’s parents’ house once housed a speakeasy during Prohibition. Johnny caught up with Helen on the beach as she ran and they had a race to the rock (Johnny running backwards) as he mentioned the madwoman and her dogs, and she said they still lived at the bookstore. Johnny (around twenty years old) won (even after he tripped), so he came to Helen’s house (in her forties) where she cooked him dinner. Helen lied that she made homecooked spaghetti for Johnny, and slyly took a store-bought sauce jar out of the bag but then the love letter inside fell out too without her knowing. As Johnny lounged about waiting for dinner, he listened to “Love Potion Number Nine,” about kissing a cop at 34th and vine. Helen told Johnny to go get the wine, and he found the love letter and couldn’t help reading it. Johnny then dazzled Helen with his juggling skills, and she watched him peel and eat an orange (spoke of oranges in love letter) on the porch as if it was a sexual act and Helen was turned on by it. Johnny offered her some of the fruit, but she refused and stormed into the house and told him goodnight and turned off the light so he would go home. Jennifer was out jogging as Johnny left Helen’s house, and she told Johnny that she just started that day (because she spying on them). Jennifer added that she had dinner at Helen’s house long before Johnny showed up, so he took the tough guy Jennifer to shoot hoops and they talked that Helen had been emotionally (not physically) celibate for years. Jennifer said she was going to be like that, and Johnny joked how could Jennifer be when she was still a virgin. Johnny added that Helen was weird. Another day, Janet told Helen that the bookshop needed New Age stuff like Deepak Chopra, crystals, tarot cards and a palm reader. Helen told Janet that Miss Scattergoods sent a letter every day to somebody and Janet thought it was kinky. Helen was thinking about love letters, so Janet told her girlfriend that you can’t f**k a letter. At the Fourth of July celebration, dopey Officer Dan tripped over people’s picnics on the lawn as he chased after a dog that stole food. Jennifer introduced her roommate Kelly to Johnny and then the two females left awkwardly. Later that night, Miss Constance Scattergoods called a young girl over so she could use the girl’s sparkler to light her cigarette. In their picnic area, George said the best-looking guy in their class was Tom Bailey. Johnny messed with Helen’s head by reciting from the love letter as they watched fireworks, and then he walked away leaving her thinking about it. As Helen stood next to the classic book “Tales & Talks About Children: Here, There and Everywhere,” she got onto her two employees for being late again and then asked where Johnny was. Johnny then showed up to work shirtless, and Jennifer started complementing Johnny on how sexy he looked until Helen told him to put his shirt back on because he smelled even though it was hot inside and outside. After Johnny rushed out of the workplace, Jennifer told her boss that she just acted like a bit** and Janet chimed in that Helen owed Johnny an apology as Janet swatted flies with a swatter and threw the dead ones on the floor afterwards. Once home, instead of putting his shirt on, Johnny stripped down to his boxer shorts outside and jumped into the pond outside his house. Johnny snuck in the back door soaking wet when he saw Helen pull up outside, and Helen went inside calling for Johnny. It all led to a game of cat and mouse, where silent Johnny came out of hiding with his shirt still off. Helen apologized for lying about Johnny smelling, and then the two passionately kissed and had sex. George showed up at the bookstore to bring Helen the new smoke detectors, but Helen was not there. Suddenly the counter gave out and Janet and George ended up on the floor together. After George left, Janet found the mysterious love letter that somehow ended up with the fire detectors. Janet started reading the love letter and thought it was from George. After her romantic rendezvous with Johnny, Helen sped out of there like a bat out of hell and Officer Dan pulled her over. Helen told the Loblolly police officer that she didn’t have her drivers’ license with her, so the policeman wrote her a ticket going 30 miles over the speed limit and running the stop sign. Helen then started crying, and Officer Dan took the ticket back, ripped it up, said there was no more ticket and then left Helen sobbing by the side of the road. Janet waited for Helen when Helen arrived back home. Janet brought Helen her purse she left at the bookstore. Janet grabbed a Budweiser beer can out of the refrigerator and told Helen that George had a crush on Janet. Janet summarized how George told her to read the manuals and then winked at her and gave her the love letter, which she presented to Helen. Helen knew something was amiss because Johnny also recited the words from the love letter, so she told her girlfriend Janet that the letter was hers and she found the love letter at the bookstore and Helen said it wasn’t in the USPS mail and that she had no idea who wrote the love letter or where it came from (stuck between the cushions on the sofa). Janet hovered next to Helen and said she found the letter the same way Helen did, and the two of them fought over whose love letter it was and who wrote it for whom. As she gazed up close into Helen’s eyes, Janet told Helen she could keep the letter. Janet then left Helen but added that she quit their friendship and the bookstore, and she was going to quit everything else too. Johnny came in the next day, and Helen (with the quote “This is very midsummer madness,” by William Shakespeare) sent him out on a field trip to get supplies with Jennifer. George called Helen to set up a dinner date because she owed him one. Johnny rode around on the back of Jennifer’s bicycle as she told him that Helen gave her two tickets to the Keaton Film Festival that night. Jennifer said it was Helen’s idea and she was trying to get Jennifer and Johnny together, and Johnny said “great,” not very enthusiastically. The movie tickets turned out to be a not so entertaining silent black-and-white movie that they thought Diane or Michael Keaton would be in so Jennifer and Johnny walked out. Officer Dan was there and told his date that he had to go to the bookstore to check up on Helen because she was acting strange and he thought she was on dope. Jennifer and Johnny then went to the same restaurant George and Helen dined at. Jennifer told Johnny that she knew George was in love with Helen because everyone was (even though Jennifer thought Helen was an older woman) but she was a bit**. Jennifer added that of course Johnny didn’t have to hold his own because he was a man and it was a man’s world and that was very unfair for women. Thinking Helen would see as she neared their table, Johnny pulled Jennifer in for a kiss to make Helen jealous but she never saw it because she turned her back at the last moment. Jennifer excused herself from the table and told her roommate girlfriend Kelly to clear out that night because she believed she and Johnny would have sex that night and they needed a place to make that happen. As Helen drove the fire truck after dinner, George said at prom he was her über date. Helen said it wasn’t a real date because George was just being a good friend and taking her because she was in a body cast at the time. They then discussed how the two never hooked up because as one got married and the other got divorced it was always a miss for them to have a romantic relationship until that moment. Helen didn’t want to hear it and told George she loved driving his old fire truck. George dropped Helen off at her house, and they shook hands and arranged their official date next week at the opera. Johnny drove Jennifer home, and Jennifer had a breakdown because of the kiss at the restaurant, which she misunderstood and just realized Johnny kissed her to make Helen jealous. Jennifer made Johnny feel guilty for not wanting to spend the night with her and have sex. Janet entertained everyone at the local bar (new workplace and taught them about clean condiments. At the bookshop, Helen tried to do Janet Frank’s job of managing the store as Johnny arrived. Helen called for Jennifer to handle the call. Jennifer appeared with her hair shaved to look like a teen boy. As Jennifer sat on the pier, Johnny sat next to her and they talked about Freud. Jennifer informed Johnny that some people know what they want but not how to get it. Johnny rode his bicycle fast to the bookstore on his day off and told Helen that he loved her and they started making out upstairs. Officer Dan entered the shop downstairs and came across a young boy looking at a book with pictures of female naked breasts so Dan scared him out of the store. Dan yelled for Helen, and then he picked up the love letter and grinned as he read it to himself. He also copied the love letter down word for word on another piece of paper before he left without speaking to Helen. Helen and Johnny made it to Helen’s house and woke up naked in bed together, and Johnny continued to profess his love for her. Helen told Johnny he had never felt that way before because he was only 20 years old, a lot younger than her. The two of them then danced in their underclothes, and they had many more sexual encounters. One day, Helen woke up in bed with Johnny and heard George on the answering machine reminding her about the opera, so she got up and showed her naked butt as she went to get dressed. Helen cried through the whole opera, and George thought it was because she was passionate about the play when in reality she was reflecting on her life choices and circle of others that made her a basketcase. At dinner, Helen said she still didn’t like opera and she and George toasted to Tosca, who died for love. The conversation between the two was awkward and it was evident that Helen wasn’t interested in a romantic relationship with George. Helen was in a hurry to say goodnight to George, and he told Helen he was going through a lot and they should probably take things slow. He added that when their relationship got started, he knew it was going to be great if Helen ever let it happen. Helen found a note on her bed from younger Johnny saying he loved her more than his car. Helen went into the attic and Helen found the old postcards from when George lived in New York that she never responded to. George had told her that the big city waited for her with x’s and o’s because he wanted her to join him. Inside the postcard was an extra note (hidden from USPS postal snooping eyes) from George telling Helen that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her and wanted to start there and it was signed “Yours, George.”Helen realized that George must have left her the love letter. At work, Jennifer read a postcard from Helen’s mom Lillian that said Lillian and Grandma Eleanor were coming for a visit. Helen showed up at Janet’s new job then, and the two women made amends and discussed how the children’s books didn’t arrive in time for back to school so Janet went to the bookstore to sort that mess out with Helen. George went looking for Helen at the bookstore, but only Johnny was there and Johnny said he was leaving in a couple of weeks to go back to New York for college. George told Johnny he was a lucky guy because George always wanted to go away somewhere to school, and he added to tell Helen that he found the bracelet Helen lost when they were at the opera the other night. Miss Scattergoods, smoking another cigarette, joined Johnny at the bar where he was drowning his sorrows in alcohol. They both had the same problem of being in love with someone they weren’t supposed to be in love with. When Helen arrived at the bookshop, Janet told her that Grandma Eleanor brought a moving van with her from Florida for her short stay. Grandma Eleanor wanted to borrow Helen’s car while she was there because her Jaguar was terrible to drive around in Massachusetts. Helen and Johnny had an intimate conversation about Tosca, and he told her that the funny thing about Tosca was she killed herself in the end to prove her love for Mario, but if she just allowed herself to love him from the very beginning then she would never have had to go through that mess. With George’s postcard in her back pocket, Helen went to speak to George at his house but he told her it was a bad time because Nancy was there with the lawyers as the really young kids ran about and they were trying to settle the details of the divorce because it was wasn’t yet finalized. Helen had an awkward moment talking to her chain-smoking mom about love, and Lillian told Helen that she couldn’t choose who she fell in love with. Lillian added that she was moving out next week but wasn’t moving away and informed Helen she had only fallen in love twice in her life, both times with people who insisted on living in that godforsaken town. Lillian explained that she was moving in with Constance Scattergoods and they were lovers years ago in New York before Lillian married her husband and then they were again together after Lillian’s husband died. Lillian confessed her lesbian love for Constance and decided she couldn’t live without Constance, and Lillian told her daughter Helen that her mommy was a dyke. Lillian thanked God that her speech was finished and drank and smoked to that. Helen thought it was funny that her mom was roaming all over the world because of Miss Scattergoods. Helen said she was going to go to bed and not bring up Johnny, but Lillian did because Constance already filled Lillian in on her daughter’s French-like affair with Johnny. Helen and Johnny met together, and he said he wanted to marry her but then said he was just kidding and he planned to ditch school and move in with Helen or his parents to stick around town so they could see where their relationship would go because he knew that she loved him since she wrote the love letter. Helen told Johnny he needed to go back to school and she didn’t write the love letter, and that was when they both found out the letter wasn’t for or from either of them. They agreed their relationship wasn’t a mistake, and as Johnny dropped Helen off at her house they kissed goodnight and she finally said she loved him too but not in the way he wanted. George sat outside Helen’s house in the chair that Grandma Eleanor put there, and he had a wine bottle and waited for Helen and overheard Helen and Johnny love conversation. George explained he just came by at two in the morning to tell Helen the divorce papers came through and it was final. Helen wanted George’s forgiveness, and he asked if it was forgiveness for being human because life was messy and f-ed up and that was the good stuff. George went on to say that for years, he had Helen framed on a wall in his mind of a relationship that he wished they had but never did together and that affected George’s life. He said he was a fool for not acting on his feelings when the time was right and instead walked the other way. He added that keeping Helen framed in his mind was the only way he could really have her, and now that George was finally ready to tell Helen that he wanted her it was too late again because she was in love with Johnny. George said they just had bad timing and he was moving to New York with his girls, and Helen told him not to go but he walked away. Helen went inside, and Grandma Eleanor was eating ice cream at two in the morning and Lillian had insomnia too. Grandma decided that they were all night owls and wondered if Emily was that way also. Helen then ripped up the love letter, and Grandma Eleanor was next seen putting the pieces of the love letter back together like a puzzle. Janet arrived at the bookshop for work on time for once and talked about getting Johnny a bottle opener for his birthday because she always needed on in college. Janet said it was going to be quiet around the bookshop once Jennifer and Johnny went back to college, and Janet gossiped about how Lillian was in love with a woman and Janet said her own mom would never be on board with that type of relationship. On her chalkboard was a quote from Emily Dickinson “Friday I tasted life.” Meanwhile, Officer Dan gave his girlfriend his handwritten (copied) love letter and claimed that the officer wrote it especially for her and she was happy. For Johnny’s birthday, Jennifer gave him a gift of a thesis she had been working on all summer called “Women Alive and Daring: The Psychosexual Sociology of Women From Ages 20 to 50.” She admitted that she was going to call it “Good Bit**/Bad Bit** What I Learned From My Boss, Helen MacFarquhar,” but didn’t and she thanked Johnny Howell in her acknowledgements and told him he would be good guy once he matured. Jennifer wanted to keep in touch with Johnny via email and writing, and he did too. Fireman George left the birthday party and told Helen that he was taking his little girls (both under six) on the train the following day to New York (about the same time Johnny was going back to college in New York). Helen said she found George’s postcard but never read the inside of it until he mentioned it to her the other night. George said he would send Helen another postcard after he got settled in New York. In their bedroom, Constance then read the love letter she had found that Grandma Eleanor pieced back together to Lillian. Constance was surprised it had been ripped up and taped back together again because Constance wrote it and revised it about 50 times before she mailed it to her lover Lillian years ago. Lillian said she never ripped it up and thought she had lost it, and she hadn’t seen the letter in quite awhile. The two women lovers agreed that the letter was written perfectly. In the end, the female to female love letter was seen flying out the open bedroom window perhaps to return across the bloody pond where it came from. This movie had a budget of $20 million and grossed $8 million at the box office. The movie cover art listed, Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times, “A real charmer!” Pat Collins, WWOR-TV, “Funny, romantic and completely charming!”

DATE REVIEWED: 10/31/23

TITLE: Rising Stars

BOX OFFICE RATED: PG (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)

PRODUCTION YEAR: 2010 Screen Media Films / Doberman Entertainment

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1

REASON: This movie takes place in Beverly Hills, California at the Rising Stars competition, where three teen musical acts and three teen filmmakers were chosen to compete on Mo Myerson’s reality TV show at the Joliet Fine Arts College and face intense competition that all the cameras would capture. The winning filmmaker got to make a million-dollar movie and the winning musical acts got a record label deal. The teen duo, JR Charles (King of Everything t-shirt) and Eigsh Herrera, danced flirty as they sang onstage in front the live audience. Mo told Eigsh afterwards to lay off the brownies backstage because they were going right to her thighs. Mo announced to his staffer that he wanted better people onstage performing. Natalie Cage, a filmmaker, got a standing ovation for her video of dead plants, fish and other creatures with the message of finding beauty in dead things. The Chance McCoy band from Atlanta performed next and Chance sang that he was never going back to Georgia. The filmmaker finalists were chosen then, Garrett Smalley, Kevin Sharpe and Natalie Cage. The musical act finalists were Brenna Steele (aka Brittany), JR Charles and Eigsh Herrera, and the Chance McCoy band. The McCoy band member Petey noticed that Chance was interested in Natalie but was too shy to talk to her, so Petey quoted Dr. Phil on how to meet women. Chance questioned it and didn’t advice from the professional who had his own life problems because Mr. McGraw had a questionable sex relationship with a 19-year-old female girl under his care at his so-called psychology doctor work place. Petey dropped Chance off at his very poor single mom run down trailer home, where his mom told him to empty the Porta Potty and fix the toilet again. Natalie’s mom told Natalie that her mood swings were the reason why her dad left both of them and Natalie should be happy that she won something instead of moping around and trying to touch dirty waterin the fountain outside their rich home. Ms. Cage went on to say if Natalie kept frowning, she would need botox by 20 to smooth out the lines on her forehead. As the contestant teen children arrived at Joliet College (via airplane and some kids without parental supervision) the next day, JR’s dad gave him a pep talk in their limo transportand told him not to rest or hold anything back because he was good. JR replied that white establishment wasn’t going to stick it to their black minority. Ms. Cage at the competition didn’t like Natalie’s gloomy clothes choice and told her to behave and not darken everyone else’s moods. Brenna told Natalie they needed to stick together because there were fewer girls than guys in the competition. Hotshot Garrett thought he was all that and couldn’t resist picking on his geeky opponent Kevin and told him that Woody Allen called and wanted his identity back from Kevin. Garrett then told Brenna that her lobotomy would be her only comfort when she lost the competition and she might as well shave her head and check into a clinic. Mo watched on the cameras that were recording the teens 24 hours a day, and he wanted the kids to keep fighting because the conflict was key for a good show and it was the spice of life. When Chance went to go say hi to Natalie like Petey advised him to, Garrett interrupted by knocking the tray out of Kevin’s hands. However, Farmer the hired school maitenance employee told McCoy that he would clean up the mess for Chance. Mo informed the contestants that the theme for their first video was unrequited love (not returned or reciprocated) and each video had to have the lyric “refund desk,” in it and a flagpole in it otherwise the filmmaker would be disqualified. When Mo drew random papers to decide who the first filmmaker would be, the paper he drew was blank (obviously rigged). Garrett was paired with JR and Eigsh. As Eigsh rapped about the National Enquirer, JR told Garret that his dad spent over $43,000 for JR to get there. Garrett said it was a waste because they were a gimmick pair who needed to rely on something else. JR and Eigsh decided they would ignore Garret and do their own thing. Farmer (always about) asked Garret who he was trying to convince that he had talent. Kevin was paired with Brenna, and they had a communication gap where he didn’t talk to her. Chance’s band was paired with Natalie, who told them that she was going to sing with them (singing not her thing) if they tried to tell her how to do the video, and they agreed they would do their part and she would do hers. Mo wasn’t happy that the audio wasn’t working on the spy cameras to hear everything the kids were saying, so he told his (do anything for a paycheck) hired staffers to fix it. Brenna said that the producers didn’t pair her and Natalie together because the producers couldn’t handle two grown women since Brenna agreed with some cultures that a 16-year-old like herself was grown and ought to make adult decisions by herself. Mo told his female assistant Kari (who he always talked down to) that the kids looked like they were all on antidepressants and he needed to shake them up and create drama by disturbing their peace. Mo then told the underage team members to eat together and do everything together all day. Chance had a flashback of when he was younger bouncing his ball against the side of the trailer and his mom told him to feed his baby brother while she went to work (the little bro was not visible in the whole picture and left out). Petey asked Natalie to cut Chance some slack because he was practically homeless and needed to win the competition more than any of them. Mo told Garrett that it was all about perception and the people were his tools so he needed to work them like his camera. Mo wanted Kari to pull off a stunt to get higher ratings, but she told him she wasn’t going to do it and the “agency” believed that Mo planned last year’s lip-syncing disaster for ratings. Natalie tried to apologize to Chance about his white-trash-trailer living situation, which made the eldest son mad. Chance then found his guitar smashed to pieces in the cafeteria, and Mo liked the drama on camera when Chance tried to attack Garrett because he thought Garrett did it. Petey refused to say exactly what he told Natalie about Chance, and Chance stated what could you expect when Petey got his advice from O entertainer masquerading as a doctor (Phil McGraw). Shortly after that staged attack using teens, Brenna’s notebook full of her lyrics and choreography went missing. Kari told Brenna that she saw Eigsh with it but Eigsh didn’t have it. Brenna was upset because everything in her notebook was perfect and there was no room for improvement, and she believed that Natalie’s family was perfect but Natalie said it wasn’t. Natalie later told Chance she was sorry for trying to sympathize with him, and even though her family had money they were split up and were no better than Chance’s poor family. Kevin’s computer then went missing, and Eigsh found it in the fountain. Kevin thought that Petey did it, and that led to a fight between the teens in the fountain that wicked Mo thought was juicy. However, asthe cameras got arrived, it was all fun and games with the kids splashing water at each other because they made amends. Mo announced that it was time to shoot the video, but all three teams quit because they figured out Mo sabotaged them using endless funds from an ungodly source for his OWN gain and power-trip career, to obtain fame, and fortune from helpless souls. The children no longer cared to be a target in Mo’s crazy hate-filled rigged circus show. As a result, criminal underneath all the “show” Mo then disqualified the teens and told Kari that she was fired. Natalie called her mom, who told her to take the taxi to the airport and get on the first flight home so they could talk about it. She added that Natalie’s dad had been planning to come to the finals but couldn’t anymore and then she hung up, which upset Natalie because she had wanted to see her dad. The teens then all decided to stay for two more days and chose not want to leave, and ganged together to manipulate the situation to their advantage. They planned to use the school’s equipment and free lodging they still had available and make a music video that incorporated all their unique musical styles, not for Hollywood or their parents but for themselves. Kari decided to go rogue and help the underage kids and used the key to unlock the room where the campus equipment was stored. Chance overheard guitar music nearby, and he discovered that Farmer the janitor played the guitar. Farmer gave Chance his electric guitar and to embrace the path and people on his journey that took him that far in his life. Kari revealed that she had the hard drive that had the footage of Mo’s dirty deeds (smashing Chance’s guitar, ruining Kevin’s computer in the fountain) that Mo took off the camera system and hid. The teens worked on their music video and incorporated all their unique music styles. Right before the teens were about to record the video, Mo appeared so they hid their instruments. Farmer denied seeing any kids around, and Kari distracted Mo from seeing the underage kids and told Mo it was cheaper for the kids to stay on campus for a couple of days than reschedule their flights home. Mo told Kari and Farmer to keep the kids locked in their rooms. Once Mo sped off in his vehicle, the teens recorded “Free To Fall,” about how they needed freedom to fall and risk it all in order to fly. It wasn’t long before all the record companies were tripping over themselves trying to sign the very large teen group to a deal because the teen rebel song had millions of hits on social media. Aussie accented Kari then said on national TV that the USA kids came together through teamwork and not cutthroat competition and they were going to do it on their “own” way. This movie had a budget of $8 million and grossed over $30 million at the box office. The film is Dove Family approved and the cover art listed, the Dove Foundation, “An inspirational and entertaining film and some really great music.”

DATE REVIEWED: 10/30/23

TITLE: A Fine Step

BOX OFFICE RATED: PG

PRODUCTION YEAR: 2014 HeuMoore 20X LLC / Vertical Entertainment

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 2

REASON: This movie takes place around Tennessee and began with 44-year-old Cal Masterson and his Paso Fino horse, Fandango, winning their fifth World Cup title in a row. Cal decided that he would compete one more time and win because six was a good retirement number and no other horse had ever accomplished that. However, shortly Cal’s wife and the hired stable man, Tucker, walked away together, Cal was then injured severely right after the competition in a “freak” accident where a hay truck rolled backwards and hit him. The commercial truck (Wiseman Wagons) also crashed into Fandango’s trailer, but the horse appeared unharmed physically. In the hospital, Dr. Wesley informed Cal that his leg couldn’t take the strain of riding ever again and his competition days were over. Cal’s wife, Maggie, reassured him that he still had her and their stud farm. Meanwhile, Developer Mason Scott and his 13-year-old daughter Claire bought the Murphy ranch next door to the Mastersons. Claire met Cal and knew who he was because she loved horses, like Claire’s mom. Maggie invited the Scotts to lunch, and Mason later told Maggie that Claire and her mom Katherine, who died of cancer six months before were close in their loves for horses and stayed home together while Mason was more concerned with his work. Claire was sad because she missed her mom and had never ridden a horse and had planned to do that with her mom someday. Maggie revealed to Mason that she and Cal had been trying to have children but with no success. Cal introduced Claire to Fandango and told her he would help her get over her fear of riding because horses were good for the soul and Cal hadn’t started riding until he was 15. Claire hugged Cal in the barn. Mason then bought a Paso Fino named Filena from Alejandro Bolivar (Cal’s biggest rival who was very wealthy and lived in his huge ranch mansion with his adult children, Marzo and Liliana) and gave it to Claire so she could take Filena to Cal and learn how to ride. However, Claire was upset because Mason interrupted their conversation and took another business call so she left her dad and horse and went next door alone and met Cal’s farrier who told her how special Paso Finos were with their unique gaits. Later that night as she was bringing the neighbors some chocolate chip cookies, Claire overheard Cal and Maggie discussing how they were in debt because of Cal’s accident (medical bills) and the bank foreclosed on them. Their other horses weren’t champions like Fandango so there was little income from their stud fees, and Cal refused to stud Fandango out. Claire wanted Mason to help, so Mason told Cal that he could help him get a loan for a year in exchange for a stake in Fandango for the next competition. Cal agreed. Mason made the deal with Alejandro, who would save the ranch from the bank only if his son Marzo could be Fandango’s trainer at Cal’s ranch. Marzo was angry and hotheaded with Alejandro for giving Fandango to Cal, and therefore giving Cal all his success. This came about because Fandango spooked during a competition and his rider, Marzo’s sister Liliana, fell and almost died (kind of like the out of the blue “accident” that left Cal hurt recently). After his daughter was inured, Alejandro had planned to put Fandango down but instead agreed to sell the pedigree horse to Cal for $12,000 since that was all the savings he had and not $20,000 like Alejandro wanted (before Cal spoke up the mega millionaire with Spanish heritage was going to kill the horse so if somebody else deemed the horse fit to live (with the right schooling, Jesus heart, and God’s love) then why put the horse down at all?). Marzo agreed to take the job and spy on Cal when Alejandro mentioned that it would give Marzo the opportunity to take back the competition and finally be first instead of second to Cal. Cal wasn’t happy about that, but Mason told him that rivals often shared the same passion and sometimes that was the strongest bond of all. However, Marzo only lasted three days as Fandango’s trainer because he was all attitude, aggressively mishandling the horse, and his rough spirited tried to be the master of the horse. He told Cal that the horse needed to respect him and not like him, and Cal replied that there was no respect between either of them and Marzo was a pompous a**. Claire then suggested that they get Liliana to replace Marzo because Fandango used to be her horse and she trained him. Mason met with Alejandro, who said that Marzo was arrogant but arrogance changed the boundaries of the world. Alejandro reminded Mason that it was in their agreement Cal would not ride again because if Cal did ride then Marzo wouldn’t win the World Cup. Alejandro said he would hold Mason in default if Cal competed again, whereas if Cal defaulted the loan, Fandango would belong to Mason and be a prize for Claire. Mason asked Liliana to be Fandango’s trainer, and she said it was impossible because Alejandro wouldn’t allow it but then changed her mind and decided to spend her vacation week training Fandango on Cal’s ranch (her dad thought his daughter was out of the USA on vacation). Liliana believed that Fandango was having trouble with his gaits because he associated reins with being trapped because he was tied during the accident when he was trapped in his trailer. Liliana’s training was successful. She told Claire that her dad kept her from riding after her accident so she wouldn’t get hurt, but Liliana wasn’t truly happy until she went behind her father Alejandro’s back and rode again. Liliana advised Claire to make herself happy by learning to ride like she and her mom wanted. Claire, having never ridden before, then took Fandango for a gallop out in the fields as if she had been riding for much longer than a few minutes. When Cal found out, he said it would be their secret. Claire was jealous that Tucker, the ranch hand, was dating Sierra, and Tucker told Claire that Sierra was 24 and Claire was 13, and Tucker wasn’t 13 anymore so he and Claire couldn’t date. Fandango was deemed fit to compete, and Cal and Maggie welcomed Liliana to the family when she wanted to stay with them without being paid. Liliana then called Alejandro and told him her decision, and he was mad and had believed she was on vacation in Cabo. Mason told Claire that he would try to be a better dad for her, and then he declined a business call to prove it. However, Mason then revealed that technically he owned Fandango, and Claire said the horse wasn’t property and if Mason wanted Fandango to love him he had to earn it just like with Claire. Claire stormed out on her dad and decided to set Fandango free from his stall on Cal’s property, and the next morning Lilliana found Claire asleep in Fandango’s stall. Cal wondered what made Claire set Fandango loose, and Mason said he didn’t know (lied) when he knew it was what he said to Claire. Maggie and Tucker went on horseback into the woods to find Fandango, and Claire wanted to help so the young inexperienced teen Claire took the Paso Fino Filena out in the woods. Filena ran off when Claire dismounted and tripped over something. When Filena was found without Claire, Mason saddled up a horse, also not knowing how to ride, to go find her. Claire found Fandango and walked home with him, and Mason found her along the way. A few weeks before the World Cup, Cal asked Liliana to ride Fandango against her brother, and she agreed. Later that night, Alejandro paid Liliana a visit. She told him that he kept her from being happy and riding all those years, and the Masterson ranch was now her home. Alejandro told Liliana that she was no longer his daughter if she rode Fandango against Marzo. At the very small World Cup Paso Fino competition in Memphis, Tennessee, the announcers apologized to the viewers who were looking forward to watching the Waltons and added it was the first time in five years that anyone other than Cal rode Fandango in competition. It was further dramatized because brother and sister were competing against each other representing two very different families. The new announcer said he googled the word Paso Fino and it translated to “fine step,” and when it was time for the voting round where competitors would be eliminated, the new guy said it was almost like American Idol, minus the voting over the telephone. The usual announcer didn’t like the commentary from the new guy and said that as analysts they remained impartial to the competition, and the new guy asked what the fun was in that and quoted Andre Agassi. Liliana and Fandango won the competition after repeatedly walking fast over a cross-shaped board in the arena without losing balance. That victory made Fandango’s sixth consecutive World Cup win. Alejandro clapped a little but then stormed out, and it wasn’t until later that he apologized to Liliana and they made amends. Liliana stayed with the Mastersons. The movie ended with Cal riding Fandango through the fields after Dr. Wes advised against it.

DATE REVIEWED: 10/29/23

TITLE: Dognapped

BOX OFFICE RATED: NR (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)

PRODUCTION YEAR: 2014 eOne Entertainment / ITN Distribution / Magic Elevator

RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1

REASON: This movie takes place in Los Angeles, California and began with tween cousins Samantha and Amber throwing rocks at their friend Ryan Robinson’s window. They convinced her to come to the park by telling her she could pick whatever game she wanted (obsessed with comic book super heroes), but the cousins knew that they could get away with changing the game when they got to the park because it was two against one. Mrs. Robinson was relieved that Ryan was leaving because Ryan usually spent all her time alone in her room reading and writing comic books. Samantha and Amber promised Mrs. Robinson they wouldn’t let Ryan get carried away playing her favorite game, superheroes, and they told Ryan that a mom promise trumped a kid promise. A suspicious acting questionable man in the neighborhood named Dragmar almost hit the three young girls with his van when they stepped out into the street with looking, and then he spit at their feet. The girls met up with the other five kids in their group. The kids in line were tired of waiting for the other kids to get off the swing set, so Amber imitated a fire truck with her whistling while Samantha told everyone that the ice cream truck was on fire and there was free strawberry ice cream, which was actually paint she took from a freshly painted bench. Cole, the only kid who ever agreed with what Ryan said, wanted to play superheroes with her but the other kids vetoed it. Lauren then realized that her dog Ginger was missing, so they used a cell phone and called the police.When Sergeant Hudson arrived, he shared the kids’ donuts with them and told them the police would keep their eyes open for Ginger and left the tweens alone (not certain if Lauren had even told her parents yet that she lost the four-legged family member in the park). Ryan suggested they use their natural abilities to be real superheroes and find Ginger and the several other dogs missing in the neighborhood. The whole group was in (reluctantly), and Amber was in too after she convinced Samantha to join after she told her cousin that she would tell her aunt and uncle that Samantha trashed the park bench if she didn’t go with the group. Ryan and the boys then spoke to Mrs. Johnson, because her dog Sybil went missing from her front lawn (while the adult was inside her house and the dog was alone outside). The only clue was an old black-and-white comic book that Mrs. Johnson threw away because it was kid-trash on her front lawn again. The kid detectives left and then noticed Dragmar’s van driving by with a box about to fall out of the back, so they ran down the street and caught the box. The kids thought Dragmar was suspicious and might have something to do with the dognappings, so they opened the box and inside were a bunch of alarm clocks. Dragmar got out of his van and said he was a heavy sleeper and needed all those clocks to wake him up, and he added that the kids’ parents should teach them manners. The kids all went home and told their parents and grandparents that they were training for a mission and practicing their natural abilities. Ryan drew pictures of her friends and came up with superhero names for them, and she hung the pictures in her bedroom window. Dragmar followed Ryan home and used his spyglass to see the names of the kids on the pictures. Evil Dragmar wrote the names down and then went through the Robinson mailbox to get Ryan’s name, which was on one of her comic books. Later on, Ryan told her group their new names and abilities and they went through old clothes in the garage to create superhero costumes. However, the other kids were skeptical and thought it was just another one of Ryan’s goofy superhero games. They thought their outfits and names were dumb and decided that Ryan wasn’t the leader, so they split up and went door-to-door and to businesses asking about the dogs. However, the adults in the hood believed the kids were trick-or-treaters or solicitors because adults always used children to fund-raise (one man having a breakdown because he thought David was selling athletic equipment and picking on the man because he was heavyset). Ryan tried to tell the other children that they should have listened to her and all stay together, so the kids told Ryan to shut up. Mrs. Johnson later told Ryan that she went through the garage and found her old comic book collection and Ryan could borrow any of the comics and showed Ryan the books in her home. Ryan found a comic book and realized that Dragmar was modeling himself after Dr. Dragmar, a comic book villain. Ryan read the book and learned Dragmar’s plans, and she told Sgt. Hudson that Dragmar was going to put time bombs, made out of alarm clocks, on every dog he stole so the police would be so distracted with it that Dragmar would be able to get away with bank robberies. Sgt. Hudson didn’t believe Ryan, and she told him that he couldn’t anticipate the plans of a comic book villain and in comic books, the villain criminal always baffled the police (distractions and wild goose chases) and it took a superhero to stop the bad guy. Dragmar later kidnapped young female Ryan by throwing a net over her and putting her in his van in broad daylight as she walked alone on the street. He took her to his hideout and explained that he read every comic book ever written and corrected all the mistakes the villains made so his plan was flawless. Dragmar had all the missing neighborhood dogs in cages with time bombs strapped to their backs, and Dragmar explained that he trained the dogs to respond to his commands using ultrasonic whistles. He also bought enough explosives to blow up the whole town, set up security cameras around the building, carried in his pocket the device he created to deactivate the bombs in case of emergency, and installed ventilation ducts too narrow for anyone to crawl through. Dragmar planned to kill Ryan because she knew too much, but then he decided to use her to create his next evil plan when he heard that she drew her own comic books. Dragmar locked the child Ryan in a room full of explosives and told her not to smoke cigarettes in bed otherwise she would blow the place sky high. The moment the door closed, Ryan wrote a message for her friends on a piece of cardboard. She attached a rocket to the message and shot it out the window, and David found it outside his house so the gang got together to rescue Ryan (no parents or police involved). Alaina by one of Dragmar’s security cameras (on purpose) lied that she needed to get to the beauty pageant and win the prize money to help her sick kitten. That melted the villain’s heart as he watched the little girl on his security camera in his control room, so he searched for maps to give Alaina directions (he voiced through the camera system) while Alaina used the distraction to help Cole get into the vents and free Ryan. Cole realized that being little in size was his superpower. After Samantha accidentally broke the deactivation device, Dragmar freaked out. The kids convinced Dragmar to call the police and confess his crime to blow up the city using dogs while David ran around turning off the bombs on the dogs seconds before they were supposed to go off. Samantha revealed that she dropped something different to fool Dragmar into thinking his bomb control device broke when in fact it didn’t. Everyone apologized to Ryan for treating her the way they did, and Lauren got Ginger back. The kids found Dragmar’s list of their names and used the first letter of each to create their team name, The Radicals. Sgt. Hudson then showed up with his gun and clumsily tripped over boxes while informing the parent-less kids that he received a call about a dangerous criminal inside the building. The young children just shook their heads at the weak acting officer because the juvenile delinquents believed that their gang already did the work of the police but in reality the kids had way too much freedom from their parents that almost got them all killed...and the lives of everyone in the area.

MAKAYLA JANE: GOD'S Spirit Reborn WithHIS Loving JESUS HEart.

MAKAYLA JANE:
GOD'S Spirit Reborn With
HIS Loving
JESUS HEart.