5 Reasons to Watch “Pretty Little Liars”

Posted on July 29, 2012 by judisunshine

So my boyfriend went away this weekend to visit his son, and though I knew I’d be working ’round the clock at Townhouse, I wanted to get some TV on DVD that was totally girly, that I could sink my teeth into and try and celebrate “girl/me time.” I chose “Pretty Little Liars.” The show had interested me since I saw it on “The Soup,” but I assumed that it would be just exploitative ridiculousness. But TWoP’s Jacob has been busy recapping this show all the while, and that was enough for me. Even if the show sucked royally, watching it would allow me to appreciate his recaps. His “American Idol” recaps are works of art.

Turns out, “Pretty Little Liars” is AWESOME. It could have been a way lesser show, and I’d still have enjoyed it. But it’s so not lesser. Y’all KNOW my love affair with television, so it is a pretty huge testament to PLL that I may possibly deem it as THE most fun show I’ve ever watched in my entire life. And I’m only three episodes in.

Five reasons to watch it:

1) The music
I’m a sucker for music, especially on television. “Pretty Little Liars” not only has one of the most kickass opening themes (I love opening themes!): “Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead” — but I have to say that I’ve never heard any song they’ve used on the show, IRL. That’s impressive. And it’s all very teen-friendly, but so not crappy. AND it does that “The Real World” thing, where they drop the dialogue and let the song metastate what’s going on, but they do it in such a cool way.

2) The Non-Crappiness
I texted my boyfriend earlier, that this show could have used the same cast and same source material, made a truly terrible show, and it still would have been popular. Instead, “Pretty Little Liars” went way more “Veronica Mars” meets “The O.C.,” than any number of meh shows that have made bank simply because their stars are pretty.

And speaking of which.

3) Eye candy
The title tells us from the jump that we are dealing with pretty people. But usually, in my experience, that means textbook BS that I’ve never liked in the first place, all influenced by the media and assorted others whose tastes I do not agree with.

But Lucy Hale is possibly THE prettiest girl I’ve ever seen in my entire life, and everyone on the show is beautiful in his or her own way (not damnation with faint praise, that IS how I praise). Thing is, the show’s so awesomely not about that, title aside. Aria’s not conceited, and Hale’s an awesome actress. So many times on shows like this, the actors just mug and pose. “Pretty Little Liars” is not that show. All the actors can act, and prettiness is secondary, if not…thirdary.

Everyone is interesting looking on this show. I love that it’s not white beefcakes and plastic chicks. It’s ethnically diverse (more with the women than the men), and while people are pretty, people are complicated. They age; they have terrible secrets…many times, the people feel like backdrop to the cool cinematography. Not with this show.

4) The scariness/suspense/intrigue
This show is soapy to the extreme. It’s also legitimately scary and ominous. I said to my boyfriend earlier that this show has the scariest use of technology since “The Ring.” Phones go off with text alerts, and it’s scary. Flashbacks happen during thunderstorms, and that’s scary too. In each episode, we learn new information about all the secrets. And it’s chilling.

5) It’s a good show for girls.
Hannah is an emotional eater, and that’s something that I haven’t seen addressed too much, for teens. I was TOTALLY an emotional eater, and I felt deep shame over it. I wish I’d had a “Pretty Little Liars,” when I was a teen. Flashback!Alison is always giving Hannah shit over Hannah’s eating anything. That’s a theme that extends to some of the other pretty little liars, and I think it’s great. Girls SHOULD know that there is a happy medium between the overeating that makes Flashback!Hannah heavier, and the “I don’t eat breakfast” problem that plagues many young women.

As for the other non-Hannah women, it’s just GOOD. Family issues, life issues, the idea that friendship is way more important than boy drama. Or girl drama. Looking forward to what comes next!

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Pilots

Posted on July 27, 2012 by judisunshine

I just rewatched a particular series premiere for the first time in years, and I since I’ve only seen it I believe twice to begin with, I was pretty blown away all over again by what a strong pilot it is. Even the best shows don’t always have the best pilots, or first seasons for that matter, because they are still finding their footing. But a stellar series premiere can go a long way. So I made a list of what I think are some of the strongest pilots of the shows that I love!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Welcome to the Hellmouth/The Harvest

Season One was a weaker one compared to other seasons, according to most fans that I’ve talked to/read. But it was still awesome television; I personally love Season One, and the opening two-parter is extremely good. Despite many “Buffy” fans’ greater preference for future seasons, the pilot makes it to many a fan’s list of favorite episodes overall. It opens with a vampire murder, and does a great job of covering a lot of exposition and character introduction very nicely. It set itself apart as something different than other shows about kids, when it has another vampire kill someone you think may be one of the main characters of the show, and in turn Buffy has to kill her new friend since he’s a vampire now, when all she wanted to do is fit in like a normal girl. But Sunnydale High is no fresh start, for in every generation…

Oh and this pilot gets extra props for fixing itself after a pretty dismal first attempt. Wait, that’s not fair. It still had a lot of awesomeness. But while I feel bad for Original!Willow, I love Alyson Hannigan too much to fully apologize.

Six Feet Under
Pilot (Fitting!)

Another show that opens with a death, in this case, Nathaniel Fisher, owner of Fisher & Sons Funeral Home, and patriarch of the Fisher family. He gets hit by a bus while driving his hearse. The episode in general is, as the Wiki recap says, “emotional chaos.” We meet the whole Fisher family, plus/including Brenda and Keith. Oh oh oh! And maybe I just like pilots starring Eric Balfour, because he’s there getting Claire to smoke crack!

Rewatching the following clips (Youtube is a strange, unpredictable mistress), I’m struck even more by the artistry of this show. I’ve already gone on about it, and can’t go on without spoiling, so I will just leave you with some awesome SFU pilot scenes:

Degrassi: The Next Generation
Mother and Child Reunion

While this pilot does not star Eric Balfour, it does star JOEY JEREMIAH, so need I say more? Well, I’ll say more anyway. I’m going to write in greater detail about this show soon, but for now, just know how astonished I was to tune in for the original “Degrassi (Junior) High” cast members, now adults, only to get drawn in by the show overall, including the new Degrassi students. I think it’s an extremely cool premise to begin with. Spike got pregnant at 13 in “Degrassi Junior High,” so they rebooted the series when her baby, Emma, reached junior high age herself. Emma is the main focus of the pilot, as she is carrying on what we find out to be a dangerous relationship with a man on the Internet, who is lying about his identity, claiming to be a kid himself. More on this later, but right from the jump, this show lets us know it’s still “Degrassi,” no kid-safe zones here, as Emma gets attacked. I thought it was great for kids and parents alike to have a show where they can talk about things like why the Internet needs to be treated with great caution, especially for kids. The reboot of the show was much different from the original, but it kept that spirit, of presenting realistic issues of what adolescents go through, even when it’s uncomfortable for parents to hear about.

And of course, it was awesome to see some of the original cast members, who get their own storylines, along with blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em reappearances of many other original cast members, as they are all in town for a school reunion.

The New Adventures of Old Christine
Pilot (Again!)

I have NO idea why I haven’t written more yet, about this show that awesomely, even with my love of television and pre-existing shows, came out of the woodwork to become one of my favorite-favorites of all time. Maybe because I usually get it out on Facebook: “Julia-Louis Dreyfus is a goddess.” “Clark Gregg is the MAN.” “Why isn’t Hamish Linklater more famous?” I’ll write more about it another day, but in the time being, “Old Christine” is on my list as a great pilot. I lol every time I (re-)watch it, and it also does a pretty stellar job setting up Old Christine and Richard’s relationship. The first few minutes feel just like any other (plus well-written and -acted) sitcom about a family. Things are good; we’ve worked it out; the ball is rolling — yay to life! Then Richie goes to private school, and Christine finds out about Richard’s new girlfriend the hard way — from the meanie moms. There’s so much going on in this show, and I WILL write more about it soon, out of principle if nothing else. For now, let’s just say that it’s a solid pilot to an awesome show. According to Wiki, it’s the most second-most watched ep of the entire series!


LOST
Also Pilot! Come on, guys.

Upon being stood up for a date back in 2005, I decided that It Was Time. “LOST” had come out while I was in a whole other failed relationship, also known as marriage. We didn’t have cable (hence, divorce), so I missed out on a lot of things in real time. “Gilmore Girls” Season 4, “Miss Match” — no woman should have to endure such trials.

Especially since “LOST” was on, and I was missing it. Too hard to get into a show like that mid-first-season. So after I got stood up for the date, I was like, oh well, who cares, what’s good at Blockbuster? Has Jennifer Aniston made a new “Picture Perfect?” This was before TV on DVD was really a thing, but Blockbuster totally had the first few “LOST” Season One DVDs (tapes???), so I grabbed ’em. The guy at the register cheered my choice; I got home and popped one in, and the rest was history. Immediate addiction. The pilot of “LOST” is truly epic, and feels like a movie unto itself.

Alias
Truth Be Told

And speaking of shows that feel like movies unto themselves, remember the pilot I mentioned in the first paragraph?  That’s what inspired the whole blog! Because, oh man. The first episode of “Alias” is pure…is there a synonym for KICKASSERY? Because that’s the only word coming to mind.

Jennifer Garner (convincingly) cries seventeen times, and looks great with no makeup. But she also gets glam, dyes her hair pink, and speaks in different accents AND languages! AND gets her teeth ripped out via torture, but not before putting Black Widow’s chair scene to shame, or at least giving it a run for its money in the coolest hot-chicks-beat-up-mean-dudes-whilst-attached-to-chairs contest that I’ve ever witnessed.

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How to Run a Successful Lemonade Stand

Posted on July 26, 2012 by judisunshine

So y’all know about my ice-cream truck endeavor when I was six. Well that was just the tip of the iceberg. Though the truck never hit the streets, I had tasted the power. The power of entrepeneurship.

Growing up in the apartment building, I spent most of my time reading. One of my favorite books at the time was something about “How to Run a Successful Lemonade Stand.” But this was no whimsical childhood tale. This was serious business, a kid’s book about how to run a quality lemonade stand so you’re not like all the other suckers with their inferior stands. I’m not kidding, the ’70s were a weird time. The creepiest horror movies, and the creepiest children’s books. I will write more about this another time, promise. There will be dinosaurs eating children. Anyway, this lemonade stand book I remember as starring the little naked “Love Is…” people, but that can’t be right. And it was really ambitious! You had to squeeze lemons fresh, and in the book the kids had this really exotic lemon squeezer, so it PISSED me off that my parents would not give me the only thing I’d ever wanted all of a sudden, a lemon squeezer. This may be why as an adult, I own more kitchen gadgets than anyone I’ve ever known.

My lemonade stand dream could not come to fruition, no pun intended, at that time, lemon squeezer or no lemon squeezer. While I used to hang up my beautiful drawings of stickish figures on lined legal paper, and sell them in the lobby for 10 cents each, I was not allowed to sell beverages. Fair enough. So when we moved to a house in suburbia, I overcame ticky-tacky ennui by using my knowledge to establish a primo lemonade stand.

I gathered my friends, and got all Chef Ramsay on them. “More sugar!” “They must be fresh squeezed!” I did not want to fail like the Goofus stands in my book. I did not want to be mocked behind closed doors. I’d had six whole years to do my research, and this was the big test!

It went horribly. People wouldn’t even buy the lemonade for 10 cents. I made no profit, and felt very sticky all day from the lemon squeezing, not to mention opening up individual packet after individual packet that I think my parents “borrowed” from Howard Johnson’s when they worked there, rather than buying bags of sugar.

Defeat. Until another friend suggested that Kool-Aid would be a good supplement. And that kids didn’t want fresh lemonade; they wanted it from powder. I felt so dirty, but realized my friend had a point. We made our colorful chemical beverages at her house, because I had one of those “health” moms, and powdered drinks were out of the question. So we sat outside and got other kids from the neighborhood to help chant, “LEMONADE! KOOL-AID! FIVE!CENTS!A!GLASS!” It really became quite the festival. By the end, we’d raised the price to 50 cents, and made a lot of money! Well, a lot of coins. But it felt very glamorous, and I was thrilled to at last have my successful lemonade stand. And entrepreneurial success has been mine ever since!

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Intentionally Cheesy Movie Night 15: Cheerleader Massacre 2

Posted on July 25, 2012 by judisunshine

Please click here for the logical first half to this double feature, obviously, “The Care Bears Movie!” And sorry for the lack of pics in this one. There just are none on the Internet, apparently, besides the poster!

Photobucket

“Cheerleader Massacre 2” is like a cross amongst a (bad) soft-core porn, (good) Lifetime® movie, and one of those films from the late ‘90s about brunette empowerment. That is all you really need to know. But I’ll tell you the details anyway because…they can’t just stay in my brain. I’ll go mad.

It starts out with a short bus full of cheerleaders, and they are all wearing their workout clothes which are not unrealistic as workout clothes, but implausible choices to wear on a bus, because it’s dirty and also you stick to the seats, and this one skanky chick in the front is acting…skanky…doing a *racy* routine/stretching at the front of the bus, and it’s like, who are you showing off for; everyone there can do that already and sit down, that’s dangerous. Plus she has anger in her eyes.

But mostly, I don’t like this cheerleader because she throws her pom-poms out the window onto the road!

1. That is littering.

2. That is just stupid in general.

3. WTF, do you think pom-poms grow on trees?!?

So yeah, this chick is all badass ‘cause she acts “sexy” and throws away her pom-poms, so you know she’s gonna die. And sure enough, this alienesque metal blade thingy accompanied by a light whizzes around. First it kills the creepy bus driver I forgot to mention; he was all, “Yeah I’m just a dude driving these cheerleaders…” and his guts fall out of his body and so he dies as a shoutout to the Joker and Krysi’s dream.

Then the blade kills the cheerleaders one by one. Blonde by blonde by blonde, until only the lone brunette remains. She gets hit by the blade, but lives — and fights back! With a stick, using it like a bat! So we know she is a Real Athlete and not Just A Cheerleader.

But she dies anyway, after awhile. And the pom-poms blow in the wind like tumbleweeds. The opening credits are splashed with blood. And I’m realizing that this totally is like a “Grindhouse” movie, only I can’t for the life of me tell whether any of the irony is intentional, and besides, the rest of the movie is completely different anyway. This movie messed with my mind. It is possibly the worst movie I’ve ever seen.

I must move on however, because now there is a girl bathing in the tub. Obviously. It is SO WEIRD, the sex in this movie. There is no sex in this movie. But all the scenes with boobs are bizarre, like all spliced in and the movie totally can’t decide what to do with itself, and I’m starting to think it’s all one big societal metastatement, and possibly the most BRILLIANT movie ever made, but probably not.

Still, it’s like they have the “Porky’s”-esque stuff that I guess would lure you in on a Saturday night on Cinemax back in the day if you were looking for it, but it’s totally misleading, because most of the movie is either people having really, really stupid and boring conversations, or running through the woods. My point is, I understand how a movie like this gets made in 1987. I do not understand how a movie like this gets made in 2008. There are plenty of boobs on the Internet and you do not need to suffer through listening to this one chick scoffing that cheerleading camp is “the wilderness,” so she will stay right there in her bath where she can be clean even though a bath really is just sitting in your own filth; just ask Bill Haverchuck, in order to see aforementioned boobs. But there you have that scene, and frankly, I was GLAD this chick was not going to cheerleading camp, because she is obviously not a team player.

Well now, of course. Here is where you get into the Chyler Leigh introspection of “Not Another Teen Movie,” only without ANY of the self-deprecation, self-awareness, comedy, or likability. She is the Sensitive Brunette, and you know she is special because she is working on her car. And after she’s done, you just know she will take a shower and not a bath, because she is just that self-sufficient, but you will not SEE her take a shower because she knows better than to do that in a horror movie.

Scene with a shady dad who has secret passageways in his house, giving his daughter her mother’s bracelet.  And you know what I said before about the Lifetime movie? It’s more like an ABC after school special, these parts of the movie. Also this chick is going to cheerleading camp, even though she is not dressed skankily, and even though the other cheerleaders look 23 and she looks 12. Don’t ask questions, because we must move on…

…to cheer camp. Everyone is wearing hot pink. And in the introduction to one of the creepiest yet to the best of my recollection, unexplained, relationships of the movie, we see the camp director getting hit on by a cheerleader.

Confusing conversation in the kitchen amongst the self-proclaimed “aging cheerleaders.” And that whole thing is very awkward. Like the entire movie, they have this fearful desperation in their eyes, because they are No Longer Young, even though I personally would LOVE to get paid to be an Aging Cheerleader! Give me $$$ to help run a cheerleading camp; that would rule! What’s with hating on ourselves for aging, anyway? We can’t do anything about it. More on that another day. Anyway, this was a pretty offensive subplot, but I find it fascinating, now that I have decided this movie is so bad it’s secretly brilliant. Still, let’s move on, as I wish I could have during most of the Aging Cheerleader scenes.

Oh apparently, they are doing some kind of documentary. And someone does a good sidekick in the air, like where you do a split vertically like Britney Spears used to. That is always impressive to me. And new cheerleaders arrive.

Sensitive Brunette is driving the little blonde chick who I’m just going to call Skipper (thanks, Tomato Nation!) and they are on their way to cheerleading camp and talk about how SB hates the cheerleaders or she doesn’t fit into that world anymore, or she doesn’t understand why Skipper hangs out with them, and Skipper hates the player but she loves the game, and Sensitive Brunette’s hair blows in the desert (mountain?) wind, and she wears hippie-esque tops with beads so you know she doesn’t fit in anywhere, and she squints a lot and stares off into the distance many times, so we now know that she is not only sensitive, and not only misunderstood, and not only rebellious, but also deep.

Oh, it’s my favorite! Defeated-looking white dudes in bad suits talking in a sanitarium-esque room about…something. Codes, maybe.

Here is a random dude named Jimmy, and he looks like a male stripper in his getup, not so much in structure, but in presentation. And he delivers the cheerleaders to the cabin so they can all take a shower together. As you do.

And this shower scene is very, very confusing. Not only because we were two seconds ago listening to a dad and daughter talking about missing her mom and now girls are showering, but also because…well, why as film makers would you choose to spend the moments you DO have cheerleaders showering together, and use them to show two of them, albeit naked, having a weird conversation, looking as much like drowned rats as possible?

And most of all, why would you choose to have one half of that equation be a chick who could compete with Gob and Jack Donaghey in a “talking like this contest.” There is sexily husky, and then there is, “Hello, so-and-so. I’d like to play a game.” Aforementioned chick is the latter.

Sensitive Brunette leads us to a story about a guy who gets tricked by two hitchhikers, one male, one female. Guy tries to help hitchhiker, and they kill him with a drill.

Cheerleading camp. Sensitive Brunette walks in and calls the cheerleaders strippers, then with pleasantries taken care of, goes into the woods and hears a Strange Noise!

It’s Hector, who’s sort of an amalgamation of Hagrid, Sloth from “The Goonies” and Creepy Camp Director. He tells Sensitive Brunette to enjoy her morning.

Oh yeah, the cheerleaders invited some boys to come visit them. Here they are. And in a(nother) shoutout to the Joker, one of the three dudes goes, “No, I’m not nuts. I’m not.” Their car is broken down and they’re all conflicted, what to do, and this one guy obviously hasn’t been laid, ever in his entire life, and goes off by himself to walk to the girls, all hypnotized by their sexuality or something.

Now, one of the Aging Cheerleaders is having a swan song of angst because she is plastic and exploited and past her prime, and also used by society and men. So she of course electrocutes herself, and someone we don’t see drags her body away.

Girls walking together. It’s “Critique Day.” All right. Really, the best part about this scene is watching the girls who don’t have lines “chatter naturally” and “walk,” all at the same time.

Something is going on, accompanied by filler dialogue written by people who obviously have never done cheerleading, but rather watched “Bring It On” and a bunch of cheerleading porn, but this scene isn’t even dirty, just weird; like, people are arguing and the actors’ reels are filling up with Deep Emotion as we speak. Cheerleading routine stealing, high school politics, yada yada, Sensitive Brunette has to go because she is not part of the squad.

Hector throws Aging Cheerleader’s body in a ditch. The dead one I mean, not one of the ones who are still alive. BUT IS HE THE KILLER???

Cheerleading montage. Girl on top of the mound gets electrocuted by the sky.

Oh yeah, there are two cameramen directing this documentary. One is the director I guess; then there is a dorky dude who is actually pretty cute, and because this is a horror movie, he is alone in the dark with a flashlight and gets killed by…stuff. Something metal but not the little flying blade.

Hector, stabbing a sword into a mountain for some reason.

Sensitive Brunette and Skipper go for a walk so they can bore us some more and SB talks about wanting to be part of the crowd but getting rejected and she falls down, prolly to represent all the emotional vulnerability of that moment.

Creepy Camp Director yells at Blonde Aging Cheerleader for putting an alcoholic (Helen from the shower) in charge. In charge of what, I’m not sure. It’s all very mysterious and full of intrigue.

For the record, Skipper is the love child of Lizzy Caplan, Chloe Sevigne, and possibly Sarah Polley.

Pool scene. One girl wants to take off her top, because she is brunette — not slutty, just rebellious. So it becomes a fight for rights, and she is sticking it to authority by trying to get topless, even though the other girls already did all that anyway, and in doing so manages to encapsulate every single problem I have with “Sex and the City.”

Jimmy and some people are walking with flashlights and looking for Helen and Jimmy says “Bermuda Rectangle,” because he is the comedic relief.

The dude who left the broken car to chase sex has a flashlight and gets killed by the metal blade thing.

Cheerleading cabin. They not only have on all their clothes, but they have on LOTS of clothes, like jeans and sweaters and stuff. But the murderer always knows if you’ve been naked. Sweaters will not stop the metal blade or metal robot thingy or the electrocution from nowhere. Well, unless you’re Debbie!

Jimmy (oh, he is a security dude) is telling the cheerleaders to stay inside and uses Spanish words badly accented for no reason whatsoever except he thinks he’s very funny and then to calm them down says:

“Just think about girl things that…make girls happy, like Christmas and princes and candles that smell like unicorns and…boyfriends…and things.”

And OMG THERE IS A PERRY MASON REFERENCE!!! Seriously, I cannot figure this movie out.

The two boys who stayed with the car have made it to the cabin. But Ben (the dude who chased the sex) is missing, and so is Sensitive Brunette AND so is the Blue Team, which is the squad from the bus o’ doom in the beginning.

Sensitive Brunette’s back, and she and Skipper have another interminable scene about life and emotions, and turns out Skipper needs a scholarship so she can’t just abandon the cheerleaders. Nothing about all the hard work she’s put in to get where she is on the squad in her own right. It is all about Sensitive Brunette and her pissiness.

Oh well, I don’t know how they decided who got the two boys; maybe they flipped a coin or something, but they are on a double date with the cheerleaders for sex in the woods and it’s all awkward and creepy. One couple sits on a bench and makes out.

The other makes out in a playground but I can’t tell if it’s a good playground of yore or a shitty playground like most today. And although the girl is brunette, she starts to get naked, so you know that couple is going to die. And you think that now will be the time where in a movie like this, there will be sex. But nope. One of the dudes hears a noise in the woods and goes to investigate, because he’s never seen “Scream 2.”

He gets split in half, just like the Mayor in “Buffy,” only this guy doesn’t heal. The other guy also gets killed, and the blonde is running away, and the brunette is waiting for her guy to return. Which is riveting.

The blonde chick screams and despite not showing her boobs, she was sexual enough, and gets her crushed by…something.

A police officer is asking Creepy Camp Director why everyone is dying at his camp.

And a random older cowboy dude who seems like he’s wandered into the wrong movie finds the dead Blue Team.

Oh there is this reporter chick I forgot to mention, but she yells every single line and is now on a bridge fighting with that officer. Who shoots the metal blade thingy, and picks it up.

The officer discovers the dead blonde girl and somehow gets killed inside his car.

The…thing (murderer/monster(?)) is carrying a fireball of some nature and it kills a cheerleader, but not sure which one.

Dorky cameraman’s body is discovered.

Reporter Chick has a French manicure.

Skipper is now in the woods, and I’m wondering why no one is wearing any shoes, while venturing through the woods.

The…thing becomes like a spider web and kills another cheerleader.

Reporter Chick is on the news telling the audience to call the National Guard, but people just want to watch hockey and cheer and high five when it comes back on.

Skipper is walking with a brunette cheerleader so you have some hope because the only blonde around is very virginal, so things might be okay. But oh no, here is Hector! Because his entire existence serves to provide misdirection! Skipper shoots Hector, but he doesn’t die and it turns out he is officially not the bad guy, but also then gets SHOT by…

…SENSITIVE BRUNETTE!!! 😮

Oh right, SB is Skipper’s sister. Totally forgot. And their dad is like, Inspector Gadget or Batman or something, and SB has used his highly technological creations to kill the cheerleaders, and all the while she does her Standard Villain Confession Before The Final Kill while the metal blade thing spins ominously about, and then the movie gets EVEN WEIRDER as SB says that all her revenge is in response to her humiliation. I mean, that makes sense, but then she starts saying that men are evil and run the show. And gives a speech about how women are trained to be bimbos and cheerleaders, but if the Earth was rid of cheerleaders, things would be fine, and it is a WAR. Against female oppression. But (Not So Much Now)-Sensitive Brunette says she needs Skipper to support her. But Skipper says no! And they fight.

The metal blade spins through the air and kills Sensitive Brunette.

Time has passed. Skipper comes home and hugs her teddy bear and is either a waitress or a candy striper. She is weary, but an Honest Blue-Collar Woman, and safe at last. Until…

Sensitive Brunette is on the computer! “It’s time for the revolution to begin.” And Skipper SCREAMS! And you see lots of brunettes across the world on their own computers putting on black gloves.

“Phase One is completed. You know your targets.”

DUM DUM DUMMMM!

~ THE END ~ 

Posted in AcTING!, Celebrities, Driving & Other Transportation, Entertainment, Intentionally Cheesy Movie Night, Miscellaneous, Movies, Superheroes/Villains, Women | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Just Biology

Posted on July 23, 2012 by judisunshine

“We really are just biology, aren’t we?”

Nate Fisher says, upon seeing a corpse in “The Invisible Woman,” an episode of S2 “Six Feet Under.” It was a woman who’d become particularly decayed, as no one found her for awhile, after she died. Rico was doing his “Grey’s Anatomy”-God-complex thing, all psyched for this particular restoration challenge, though his eyes showed some fear that he may fail, which he eventually does, in a heartbreaking scene that Freddy Rodriguez nails.

Meanwhile, Nate is doing what he does throughout the episode — stares at coffins and dead bodies, knowing he soon may be in one, and one. He wasn’t religious, but he’d always believed in God, until his wicked-smart girlfriend challenged him on that faith. Right before he found out there was something severely bad going on inside his brain.

And it’s all so unfair:

“There’s got to be some kind of mistake. I don’t smoke. I haven’t had any red meat since 1989. I run three miles a day,”

Nate says, upon hearing the news of his condition in an earlier episode.

EVERYTHING
EVERYONE
EVERYWHERE
ENDS

is the tagline for the S5 box set of “Six Feet Under” DVDs. And it’s really remarkable, rewatching the series, knowing how it ends (shoutout to my friend’s book!). The artistry of the show is incredible, and I don’t understand why Peter Krause isn’t a bigger star, unless he doesn’t want to be, in which case, rock on.

Because he was breaking my heart all over the place last night. Luckily I don’t have health insurance, so if there’s some wonky stuff going on in my brain, I am blissfully unaware of it.

But I am aware of my mortality, and my inability to rewind time, and go back to my early 20s, but with the knowledge of my almost-late-30s, including vegetarianism (NO DIET PILLS, early-20s Me!). I’ve had a Peter Pan complex since I was younger than Peter himself. I don’t want to grow up. I don’t want to get old.

I don’t want to die.

Especially with the question hovering in my head, “We really are just biology, aren’t we?” Because even before Nate said that, that’s what I was thinking, upon seeing the body of Emily Previn. That’s what I think, when I watch “Six Feet Under.” That one day — who the hell knows, maybe today — I’m going to be a dead body. And I don’t know, if I will continue in an afterlife. I hope so. I still have a mustard seed.

But I don’t know.

“We were such children when we met. Then we watched those children disappear,” Ruth says to Ghost!Nathaniel in an earlier episode. In “The Invisible Woman,” she makes all of her children go to the funeral in their home, their funeral home, because Emily Previn had no one. Ruth saw her own possible future, as a woman who, despite her glorious red hair, was a long ways from the Nielsen demographic. As was Emily Previn.

And no one should be invisible; everyone deserves someone there to say goodbye. Then Ruth goes and stares remorsefully at the pictures of her children when they were children, and cries, and of course, I do too.

Because everything ends.

“Why do people have to die?” A woman asks Nate in one of the most famous clips of the show ever.

“To make life important,” he answers, after a long pause, as he ponders the question for himself, as well as her. And continues:

“None of us know how long we’ve got. Which is why we have to make each day matter. And it sounds like your Aunt Lilian did exactly that.”

“Yeah, she did,” the woman replies, looking happy for the first time in the episode. And Nate continues,

“Then you can be happy for her. A life well lived. That’s the most any of us can hope for.”

And he says all that right after finding out about his brain thing. He’s working a job he never wanted, and just found out he may die soon, but simply rises above and helps someone who is grieving terribly. In the process, he finds some of his own answers. Some of his own hope, in his own words.

I don’t have many answers whatsoever. But I still have hope. And whether I die today or at 105, I want to know that I lived. So when I’m lying there one day, just biology perhaps, my loved ones can still smile, and live their own lives. And so on, and so forth 🙂

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Life : Death as Forgiveness : Revenge

Posted on July 23, 2012 by judisunshine

(Warning! “Saw III” spoilers ahead!)

Who do I want to kill?

What if I were given the opportunity to kill that person?

Would I take it?

In “Saw III,” Jeff wants to kill the drunk driver who’d taken the life of his son three years ago. He wants it so bad that vengeance is the only thing keeping him going. Jeff walks through life as a ghost, ignoring his wife and daughter. Coming alive only at night, when he acts out the fantasy of shooting his son’s killer as he checks out bit by bit in his son’s bedroom, which he’s kept exactly the same, obsessing over every last stuffed animal as if his life depends on it. Which maybe it does.

So Jigsaw decides to play a little game. Jeff will have to pass a series of tests, where he will come face to face with people involved with the accident – a bystander who’d walked away, a light-sentencing judge, and finally, the drunk driver himself. Will he choose to forgive them, and to literally save them? Or will he choose to let them die, and reap his vengeance?

Jeff does not do very well on any of the three tests. He hesitates too long on the first one, conflicted. So even though he at long last tries to help her, she freezes to death, naked and alone. And Jeff let her.

Jeff doesn’t let the judge die, but he sure does wait a LONG time, and lets a LOT of pureed dead pigs fall on top of the judge before setting him free.

Then comes the final(?…) test.

Hello, Jeff. If you are listening to this, that means that the confrontation you so long dreamed of…is finally unfolding. In your head, he is a cipher. A symbol of your life changing. A symbol of death. I present him to you now, as a simple human being. His name is Timothy Young. He’s 27 years old. A medical student with a mother and a father, just like you. A man whose life also changed the day your son died.

Who is my cipher?

That day he made a terrible mistake. You believed he didn’t pay for that mistake. And now is your chance to make him pay. The device Timothy is strapped to is…my personal favorite. I call it “The Rack”.

Would The Rack be punishment enough, for my cipher?

What if s/he was right there in front of me, screaming? While The Rack twisted?

The human body is a miraculous creation. Ever wonder how far an arm can twist? This device is going to start twisting. There is a chance he might live though, with your help. To your right is a box. At the back of the box, is a key. It is tied to the trigger of a shotgun. The question you’ll have to ask yourself, is this: Are you willing to take a bullet for the man who killed your son? Does “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” apply here, Jeff?

What if s/he begged me for mercy?

Make your choice.

Jigsaw lets everyone make a choice. Usually when he lets someone make a choice, when he plays a game with someone, the choice is to live or die. Jigsaw never sets up a single game that is unwinnable.

In Jeff’s game, his choice is to forgive or to kill. No in between.

Eye for an eye. Justice.

Equality.

Judge: Jeff, just standing there, you’re an accomplice to murder. Are you a murderer, Jeff?

Am I a murderer?

Jeff: I’ve been wanting to kill him for two years. Yeah. Maybe I am.

Once again, Jeff waits too long; Timothy twists to death, and in the process, gets the Judge killed as well. He still passes though, right?

But when Jeff seemingly crosses the finish line, he goes into the room where his wife Lynn has been shot, though non-fatally, by Amanda, Jigsaw’s protégé. Jeff shoots Amanda in the neck, and she bleeds to death.

However, Jeff has not failed his test by shooting Amanda. He has one final challenge.

Can he forgive Jigsaw, the man responsible for this nightmare? If he can, Jigsaw will have an ambulance there in four minutes, and save Lynn’s life.

Can I humble myself?

“I forgive you,” Jeff says, but apparently not * meaning * it, as he cuts open Jigsaw with a circular saw.

Boom! Lynn is dead, her harness killing her as soon as Jigsaw dies.

FAIL!! Pictures, Images and Photos

 

It’s over now. Can’t get any worse than this.

Or can it?

Hello, Jeff. I made this tape as an insurance policy, if you will. And, if you’re listening to it, then it’s time to collect. I was your final test, Jeff. Your final test of forgiveness. And if you are listening to this, then you’ve failed. Now you must pay the price. The price of holding on to all that anger, the price of driving your own wife away from you, the price of living for nothing but vengeance. Now I will give you something to live for. I told you, that you couldn’t kill me, Jeff. But I didn’t tell you why. The answer is simple. I am the person responsible for the loss of your child. I am the only person who knows where your daughter is. She only has a limited supply of air, and if you want to get her back, you’ll have to play a game.

How much blood is on my hands?

I’d say that I reposted this now, because I truly hate the Aurora terrorist. But I’d already posted the first part of the blog, before that happened. I initially reposted this blog because while I originally written this after forgiving the last person I hated, a new one came out of the woodwork. And I don’t want it, the hate. More on that to come. Nate Fisher is involved! Sit tight.

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I <3 Rob Zombie

Posted on July 19, 2012 by judisunshine

So I’ve done a lot of lists lately, and part of me wants to do a big list of my favorite things that Rob Zombie’s ever done. And maybe I WILL, in the future. But for today, I just want to sit here and chat about why this man is truly one of my favorite IRL artists of my lifetime.

Back in the day, I was scared of harder-sounding music. Part of that was because of my confusing, Epcot Center-y religious upbringing (a beer from every country! Only with different churches!). Part of it was probably due to growing up surrounded by Judy Collins and Simon & Garfunkel LPs. And we cannot discount Adventureland’s haunted house, in the overall equation. Freddy Krueger! Iron Maiden! “Why did you come! I told you not to come! <*Chainsaw*> So you can imagine my nightmares after seeing the Metallica “One” Video.

All of that aside, there was always a part of me that gravitated towards harder music. Hair bands and GNR aside, the first music I really just liked, like, the way I did Debbie Gibson and such, was White Zombie. Perhaps it was because I was in that very blink-and-you’ll-miss-it post-high school, mid-depression, pre-drinking-and-sexuality phase of my life.

Anyone out there playing the hyphen drinking game is sooooo drunk right now. But anyway, something about Rob Zombie always just did something to me. However, I put it aside and forgot about it due to not listening to the radio so much anymore, and this was before Napster/Youtube/whathaveyou. So I forgot about Mr. Zombie until 2000, when Mr. Whedon reminded the universe at large of his awesomeness, by using the FUCKING AWESOME song “Living Dead Girl” as the accompaniment to a dance by one of the most universally *admired* television characters of all time (Faith!). She danced, then beat up some dude, and that was just the beginning of “Five by Five.”

But more on that another time. Point is, that was when I truly became obsessed. This was also during the time of my CD-making-therapy, and a friend asked, “Are you going to put this (“Living Dead Girl”) on every CD you make?” And normally, my reaction to having a Cool Musician call me out on such a thing would have gotten me to lose my religion right there on the spot. Instead I laughed, and said, “Probably!”

My intolerance for violence is pretty well documented throughout my blogs, and I’m going to Denver soon and there is NO TIME for links, but basically, I love the scary, but hate the violent. Sometimes you can’t cafeteria choose between the two.

“This is the journey back to fear…guilt…anxiety.” That’s how “American Witch” opens, a song about the Salem witch trials. And maybe it’s because I’ve always been drawn to witchcraft, then told it was dangerous (which I agree with either way), or because one of my relatives was purportedly a witch, I don’t know, but even if there is no god to begin with, the Salem Witch trials are fascinating to me, and one of the things throughout history that I consider to be evil incarnate. Not the witchery, but the murder of said witches.

“His actors must feel so safe. Like, that girl was getting murdered horribly before, but I could only think that she must feel so safe.” That’s what my boyfriend said earlier, not positive on the exact wording, but the attempt was there, and ergo quotation marks. And I knew exactly what he meant.

And that, I think, is the crux of why I adore Rob Zombie. His movies are incredibly violent, but I can handle it in a way that I usually can’t. I still look away a lot, but I appreciate his take on things. From my understanding, he became a vegetarian in the early ’80s after seeing a slaughterhouse film in high school. And that is badass, because guys STILL get crap for that, in 2012. Never mind women. More on that another time, but to me, that implies like, the opposite of a serial killer spirit, that you always hear about, and Zombie totally examines in his “Halloween” remakes. Both “Halloweens” feature the murder of animals, and everyone’s all horrified. But you know Rob Zombie’s like, “Well slaughterhouses are even worse, so what’s up?”

Suffering as the result of status quo and groupthink — that is what I’d call Rob Zombie’s overall theme. I think it’s an amazing testament to an artist, when s/he can span not only genres, but media, and maintain a voice. And I’m not trying to put words in his mouth, but that’s why I personally love Rob Zombie, what I perceive to be his theme. His music and movies are everything that should have scared me throughout my life, but they all actually soothe me. Because I feel like he “gets it.” He doesn’t shy away from boobs, quite the opposite, but you can tell the difference between his appreciation of a woman’s body, and his critique on the society that objectifies her. And he does it with true fucking aplomb.

When I listen to Rob Zombie’s music, and watch his movies, I feel safe. And all of this is not even to speak of his insightful commentary in “A Headbanger’s Journey,” but I will hasten to mention that reason number 50 billion why he’s the man is that he and his wife seem like the COOLEST couple since Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Sherri Moon Zombie’s a rock star unto herself, and is so freaking awesome in Rob’s films. She epitomizes, to me at least, the idea that you can be both sexual and maternal at once — no need for madonna/whore complexes; we need to move past that.

Okay, not trying to pontificate, I just wanted to say, Thank you, Rob Zombie. You kick ass all over the place, but your sensitive side does not go unappreciated.

Lol to “Halloween 2” being about anyone’s sensitive side. But there you have it!

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Jigsaw Is Kind of the Man

Posted on July 19, 2012 by judisunshine

This is part one of a blog. The second part will be about forgiveness. I am relating it to “Saw III,” but you don’t have to have seen it, or any “Saw,” to read part two. This part one is for the “Saw” fans, or for people curious as to why I would watch these movies to begin with, or if you just want to accompany me on my neverending journey for Life Meaning. Just don’t read if you don’t want to be spoiled by “Saw III.”

Onward!

“Saw.” Man. As many of you know, I am relatively new to horror movies. I love “Poltergeist” and ’70s-eeriness, but I have a very active imagination and a very selective tolerance for violence. And I hate torture. I hate anything (say it with me) regarding helpless feelings.

However.

“Saw” was awesome. I was really turned off to “torture porn” after “Hostel II,” but many people I respect said that “Saw,” though it gets lumped in with torture porn, was/is different.

And it is. The first movie had a lot of really horrifying moments, a lot of gross moments, but it was at its core a psychological thriller. While “Hostel II” and many other movies examine, “What would you do to kill?” “Saw” examines, “What would you do to live?”

What DO you do to live?

Are you living at all?

These are the uncomfortable issues that the “Saw” movies examine.

“Saw II” was a bloody sequel that I fittingly accompanied with red wine, and it didn’t really affect me, except on the level that it was cool and exciting and I’m happy that my personal New Kid favorite is doing well for himself as an actor.

“Saw III,” now.

I was prejudiced towards both liking this movie, and being disgusted by it, thanks to my brother Eric. Now, in case you don’t already realize this, Eric is the man. He’s a 17-year-old dude (UPDATE FROM THE FUTURE!: He’s now 21, but the latter sentiments remain the same:) filled with morals, a brain, talent and good taste. Plus, he is very metal.) If you live in Colorado and need a guitarist and/or lead singer, look him up! You’re welcome.

So anyway, when Eric told me that “Saw III” was awesome, and described in great detail, a scene where maggot-ridden pigs get juiced on top of a guy trapped in a well-type place, I both was intrigued and repulsed.

And as much as I liked “Saw” and “Saw II,” I am still “Gilmore Girls”-loving me, and wasn’t especially jonesing to see maggoty pigs. (I’d blocked out the rest of the description.)

But my friend wants to see “Saw V” in the theaters with me, so I had to see “Saw III” and “IV.” Fittingly, Luke from “Gilmore Girls” is in “IV!”

First, however, I had to brave the maggoty pigs. And I am very glad I did, because not only was “Saw III” phenomenal (though I won’t lie, I looked away for entire scenes), it taught me an invaluable lesson about the meaning of life. At least, I hope so ❤

More to follow 😉

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“Revenge” Season One: Awesomeness from Beginning to (Especially) End (Non-spoilery first half for anyone curious about the show)

Posted on July 15, 2012 by judisunshine

Okay so I was trying to figure out some kind of cohesive way to write about how kickass the finale of my favorite new show of the season was, and realized that my brain is FAR too discombobulated, due to all of the SHEER AWESOMENESS THAT IS “REVENGE”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To quote Nolan,

O.
M.
G!!!!!

This is how strongly I feel about the matter, that I’m willing to risk my reputation as a Serious Writer to squee the night away. Because, omg.

So rather that try to form a cohesive essay, I will just share with you my favorite things about the episode. Which is pretty much the whole episode. I am going to divide it up by spoiler and non-spoiler, because I really want everyone to be able to read about the show, remain unspoiled, and go watch it on Hulu Plus, like I did! And/or buy the DVDs on August 21st, like I am going to!

Because, seriously? This show is amazing. All the mesmerizingness of a good soap, with all of the artistic craftsmanship I could ask for in a show. And y’all know how seriously I take my television shows! Emphasis on “my,” as, while I can veg out to E! and a “Next!” marathon with the best of ’em, I haven’t had cable in a while.

Anyway, but I also want to geek out over the awesome deets (cool kid lingo TM Lyndsey) with fellow fans, so I’ll WARN YOU WHEN THE SPOILERS SHALL COMMENCE.

NON-SPOILERY REASONS AS TO WHY I LOVED THE “REVENGE” FINALE!

1) My jaw literally dropped. Several times, throughout the ep. And I’ve been rewatching “Six Feet Under,” AND reading a really dark and awesome book. So that the “Revenge” finale got me so many times, complete with bugged-out eyes, is saying a lot, IMO.

2) Great flashbacks! David Clarke is amazing. As is little kid Amanda. And by the finale, the flashbacks flow seamlessly with present time. It’s impressive.

3) Charlotte Grayson. More in the spoiler section, but Christa B. Allen rocks pretty hard, no?

4) Don’t want to risk spoilers, so I’ll just say for now: great, great finale. Some shows, it can be like, do I really want to get invested in a show, only for it to crap out on me? “Revenge” does not crap out on us. Totally the opposite. It was one of the most satisfying finales I’ve ever had the pleasure to watch, capping off an already amazing season.

5) I cried. Now, this is nothing new, for me to cry at television. But in this case, those kinds of tears were shed at the penultimate episode. In the case of the finale, I actually cried at how good it was. Maybe because it’s based on The Count of Monte Cristo, but something about the craftsmanship of the show at large, and how climactic it all was, satisfied me on a deeper level that I don’t often get, even from my most beloved of shows.

*********NOW FOR THE SPOILERS!************

1) Nolan, normally so eloquent, says BOTH “OMG” and “revenge-y”!!!!!!!!

2) Emily and Daniel FINALLY break up. They sucked as a couple, IMO. While Emily’s real feelings for Daniel were a great catalyst for the entire season, as she did seem to care about him very much, I was never a ‘shipper. Daniel’s a decent dude at heart, but weak, and in no way prepared to be with Emily. I loved the moment when Emily called Daniel out on not only changing, but becoming his most loathed adversary: a Grayson. Emily’s always so full of self-shame & -blame, often for good reason, but it’s true that Daniel sold out. I look forward to seeing Josh Bowman in the next season. He was great as a good guy in S1, but I have a feeling that he’ll be an excellent S2 villain/ambivalent, like Lindsay from “Angel” with a more sympathetic back story.

3) Unanswered questions galore!
– Is Jack the father of Amanda/Emily’s baby?
– Are Madeleine and Lydia really dead?
– Is Charlotte?

4) And speaking of Charlotte, I mentioned her in the non-spoiler section, but I’d like to say again how awesome I think Christa B. Allen is. I’m always impressed by realistic teenagers, of which Lauren Ambrose is the reigning queen. Allen manages to portray a truly sympathetic character, because even when she’s being a stone-cold beeyotch, there’s so much more going on, that she is great at portraying just with her eyes. I loved that from the beginning, even though how she got with Declan was so Hamptons-privilege-y, that she really liked him, for him, right away. When she watched the television and called Declan, her desperation was heartbreaking.

5) And speaking of Declan, I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen a character quite like him on television. He would have been a pushover on many shows, and he’s a mush, but he also has a spine. I wished he hadn’t had such a strong one when Charlotte called him in aforementioned 3), but I like seeing teenagers on television not just let people they like walk all over them, and what Charlotte did to Yonkers girl was awful, so I can’t blame Declan for telling Charlotte never to call him again.

6) We’d seen a lot of Human Emily/Amanda, but mostly in flashbacks, and in bits and pieces, except for when she was a kid, when she was all human. While I enjoyed the hell out of Emily VanCamp throughout the season, I really hadn’t seen her in much before this show, so I wasn’t prepared for her flawless switch to vulnerability, when the time called for it. It started especially in “Grief,” the penultimate episode, and continued through the finale. I don’t know which made me cry more, her choosing not to kill white-haired man so as to honor her father, or her breaking down once she realizes she’s lost not only Sammy, but Jack. The two things that connected her to the child that had been essentially murdered along with her father.

7) I love “Ems”/Nolan as BFFs! So many shows have will they/won’t they romantic tension. In “Revenge,” it was friendship tension. Nolan’s been one of my favorite things about “Revenge” throughout the season, and it was awesome to see the two of them finally just love each other. His reaction to Emily’s getting rid of white-haired man, then effortlessly escape from her chains, was stellar.

8) The ending montage was nothing short of spectacular. I’ve never seen a Season One finale that pulled out quite so many stops. I mean sure, “Buffy” had its heroine die, and that was great. But this finale left us with potentially a dead queen, a dead princess, and a dead lady-in-waiting. Pretty epic. I loved the bridal imagery with Madeleine Stowe dressed in white and boarding the plane, ready to meet the love of her life in the same sky where he died. She looked afraid, but finally at peace — happy, even. More like Flashback Victoria. And my song+TV-montage-loving-heart was bowled over by the use of Florence and the Machine’s song, “Seven Devils.” I’d never heard this song before, but it was perfect, and I’ve listened to it twice since watching the finale yesterday.

9) Even if Victoria, Lydia, and/or Charlotte are dead, on “Revenge,” that doesn’t mean we say goodbye to the actors, necessarily. Lots o’ flashbacks.

10) In the beginning of the season, I and a lot of viewers were like, how can this last more than one season? Many suggested that the show pull a “Glee” and scrap the cast once the story was over, and in the case of “Revenge,” move on to a different storyline of elaborate revenge. When the show got renewed for a second season, I was super psyched, but worried that it would stretch out what should have been a tighter storyline. The best I was hoping for was that it would be like “Veronica Mars,” and keep the characters, but have a new mystery for the second season. Instead, “Revenge” finished the season like a superhero movie or something! Just when you think things are all wrapped up, you realize that instead, so much more has been triggered.

And I can’t wait to “Let it play” next season.

“Tick-tock.”

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Intentionally Cheesy Movie Night 14: The Care Bears Movie

Posted on July 9, 2012 by judisunshine

So the other night, I took a poll for the next Intentionally Cheesy Movie Night: “The Care Bears Movie” or “Cheerleader Massacre 2?” And “The Care Bears Movie” won by one vote. But because I am a foolish, foolish woman, I was sad to not watch CM2. So it was suggested I do a double feature, which is obviously awesome, because what a fitting pair! However, although I did indeed watch “Cheerleader Massacre 2,” I will do that blog later on, due to length. Also…I don’t know where to begin with CM2. Ho.lee.crap. But for now, dum dum dum dummm:

Intentionally Cheesy Movie Night 14
The Care Bears Movie!

The Care Bears Movie Pictures, Images and Photos

“The Care Bears Movie” opens at the Cherrywood family home. Mr. Cherrywood juggles some balls and his kids go completely apeshit for it. I mean, I actually find juggling sexy (no really) but a) not if it’s my dad doing it and b) even if it was a guy I liked, I don’t think I would get quite as excited as these kids are right now.

Mr. Cherrywood then tells the kids to dream about the circus but the kids can’t sleep, what with all the excitement from the juggling, and they ask for a story about the circus because they are OBSESSED.

Mr. Cherrywood begins the story with a baby on his lap, only he doesn’t support the baby’s head and neck at all. And starts to tell the tale about two children, Kim and Jason…

CREDITS! SONG! Everything is so pretty! And the song is by Carole King. Yay “Gilmore Girls!”

And Mickey Rooney is the voice of Mr. Cherrywood, for those keeping score at home.

There is a star blowing a whistle! Awww! And a cloud car! And a butterfly!

Guys, I’m sorry but I’m getting a feeling that my awww factor is going into full overdrive with this movie. It is just so adorable. EVERYTHING. Feel free to back out now, while there’s still time.

“Care A Lot! It’s a place we all can go!”

Directed by Arna Selznick – is he related to David O.?

Secret Bear and Friend Bear want to be friends with Kim and Jason for some reason, but Kim and Jason don’t believe in love. However, the Care Bears are super invested in these kids and persist. But Kim and Jason would rather not be friends because they have abandonment issues.

Here we are at the circus, and there is a Mean Fat Cat with a handlebar mustache making a house of cards. Some boy walks in and breaks stuff, and Fat Cat calls the kid hopeless and Tenderheart Bear is there, because the Care Bears are stalkers, and overhears this.

Alone in a room, the kid makes a wish to find people who like him, saying he’ll give anything. This book starts glowing green and talking to him.

I don’t know what all the Care Bears are called, so I will keep it real. Cupcake Bear and Milkshake Bear and Grumpy Bear are trying to fix this Rainbow Machine thing. Grumpy gets a star unstuck from the machine. So cute!!! Some more stuff happens, and we see BABY Care Bears! They’re trying to make square bubbles, but they break the machine.

Funshine Bear! I have that one!

2012 update: not anymore 😥 😥 😥 I lost him whilst dressed as Goldilocks and drinking on Colfax Street on Halloween. I had him and two other bears when I set out, but Funshine went missing in the night. I was devastated (at 37 years old) to have lost him and was crying, and my incredible now-husband went out in the morning and looked through the streets of Denver in hopes of finding him. ❤

Kim and Jason are pretty awesomely misanthropic, like, no thanks, bears, pump your sunshine (or funshine) elsewhere, but the Care Bears exhibit more Gift of Fear behavior and completely ignore them, giving them an “I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here” welcome and this dude sings about friends and caring! And they hug! And now Kim and Jason get all Patty Hearst about things and want to be friends.

“Nobody cares like a bear!”

Oh, Fat Cat’s name is Fetuccini, with only one “t.”

The book is talking to that kid again, and we find out the kid’s name is Nicholas. The book says he could get more friends with magic, and convinces him to unlock the book. It shoots out green light and a face appears like the Queen in “Snow White” and starts teaching him magic and telling him to take over the circus.

Tenderheart comes in to try to stop Nicholas, saying he is his friend, so the book locks Tenderheart in a cage and Tenderheart and the book fight for Nicholas’s soul. Tenderheart grows a bigger heart to break free of the cage.

Now Nicholas is performing a magic show for the neighborhood kids, but the book is sabotaging his performance and everyone is laughing at him. The book tells Nicholas to teach the kids a lesson, so he chants, and they all start fighting. Nick and the book disappear.

Tenderheart: “This is a job for ALL the Care Bears!”

But is it too late? A bad force is coming. Care A Lot starts rumbling like it’s experiencing an earthquake, and breaks all over the place. And worst of all, the Care-O-Meter drops two whole points!

So Kim and Jason are stuck on Care A Lot since they were kidnapped, and bad timing, someone wants to adopt them back on Earth! But they need the Rainbow Rescue Team to get them home!

Kim and Jason are already in the cult though, and staying to help. They rally the troops and Tenderheart gives a key to Jason, telling him to keep it safe; it’s very important. So WTF, Tenderheart, why are you giving it to a little kid? At least give it to his older sister. Tenderheart is sexist 😦

Nicholas keeps casting spells and more and more people stop caring. Nicholas has no friends, so neither will anyone else!

Storms: growing! Care Bears: trapped!

A big starship comes to get the bears, and I don’t mean Grace Slick and that dude with puffy hair; it is a boat in the sky, made of clouds, manned by a star. Brilliant. They float on water in the…sky.

Secret Bear and Friend Bear are trapped in the Forest of Feelings! They meet up with a lion and monkey, like basically the Forest of Feelings have creatures that are like Koosas, the animals of the Care Bear world. Even though bears are animals, as well.

Montage! Singing! Explaining their worlds! Maypole! OMG a cloud slide of RAINBOWS that I desperately want!

The lion and the monkey are going to help the Care Bears find their way out of the Forest of Feelings. Glad that is resolved.

Meanwhile, the book gives heads up to Nicholas that Kim and Jason still care! Nick is like, let them go, I already got even, but the book has mad blood lust and tells Nicholas he “must finish it.” So because Nicholas has NO SPINE, he chants and the book says everyone needs to learn a lesson, and you’d think at some point Nicholas would realize that the book has her own agenda.

Starship. Bedtime Bear falls asleep and goes overboard, and I’m starting to think he is metaphorical for a drunk person.

A PENGUIN!!!

Oh no, a black cloud! Like the smoke monster on “LOST.” It shape shifts and becomes a a fish and makes a whirlpool! And not the fun kind! But it is okay, because a star saves them!

And if there was any lingering doubt that Care Bears are the product of drug-using hippies (which I mean as a total compliment), a pink elephant has joined the crowd!

Care Bear Stare Pictures, Images and PhotosShit! The Care-O-Meter is down to five! If it goes down to zero, they’re finished! Luckily, Luck Bear has a shamrock and Grumpy Bear gets a lollipop and he can fix that Rainbow machine with it. Which makes sense. The question should be, what can’t you fix with a lollipop?

Oh no! The smoke monster is now in a scary tree! I’m so scared of scary trees! Lake George! “Poltergeist!” Now this!

The lion tries to save them! No!

Tenderheart Bear tries! No!

Awww they are all trying to fight back and here is a BUNNY and it is too fast for the tree and gets the monster to fly away and, oh its name is Swiftheart Bunny.

The starship is in this like, Cloud Pirates of the Caribbean ride. The ride-ride, not a ride based on the movie, if one exists; it’s been awhile since I’ve been to a theme park. And the star is so worried and sad! But oh, there is a light at the end of the tunnel so the star is happy!

As a shoutout, the monkey goes, YAY! And now the smoke monster has turned into a hawk. Which I needed to have explained to me, because apparently I can’t even follow the plot of a Care Bears movie, but no time for shame, because they are doing the CARE BEAR STARE!!!

The starship is back! They have a rainbow bridge to get on land! Seriously, to paraphrase Michael Scott, I don’t understand what people spend their money on. Millionaires and billionaires, with identical homes and cars. If I’m ever stinkin’ rich, I’m totally turning my house into Care A Lot, complete with starship and rainbow bridge!

Everyone is together and happy now, and the animals agree to go with the bears, because everyone leaves behind their lives to go live with the Care Bears, like some kind of pastel cult! Although I can’t say that I blame them.

Puppy!

Kitty!

Sheep! I think?

Pig!

They’re all coming out to help and they are singing and dancing!

“It’s the power to share! It’s the power to care!”

Then there is a verse that goes, “And when you put it all together, then there’s a power no one can deny/When you care, you’re not afraid to try!” And seriously, I thought they were going to say “When you care, you’re not afraid to die!” Which I realize was improbable, but I still think would have been awesome.

The book is yelling at Nicholas again.

Time is running out for the Care Bears to get the Care-o-Meter up! They’re on Earth, and everything is sad! The Tunnel of Love is now the Tunnel of Hate 😥 And because no one cares, it is dark, or maybe just nighttime; I can’t tell. Tenderheart talks with Jason about the safety of the key some more and it’s very “Lord of the Rings,” especially with all the wind.

Nicholas has gone crazy and is looking pretty haggard for a kid, and he’s collecting things to put in his spell to rid the world of love. Starting with a spider web.

Mean kids are throwing something at the Care Bears. I think balls. To be fair, spell or no spell, I’m not sure how I’d react if some acid trip in the form of teddy bears showed up right in front of me on Earth. Probably, I’d be excited, but I wouldn’t be expecting it (most days).

A calliope? An organ? Something with pipes is all musicing about, and an awesome song plays as the Care Bears, et al. navigate the funhouse-esque place that reminds me of the Killer Klowns lair. The lyrics help keep the gang stay safe by telling them what to do, but implore them to go help Nicholas, who is “out of control.” No shit, Song.

“This power’s wrong but incredibly strong! If only we can make him understand!”

Nicholas gets distracted from killing the Care Bears by some bubblegum on his shoe – the last ingredient for his spell! But why he didn’t just go buy some bubblegum rather than search around in the dark outside?

Now the Care Bears are encouraging the animals to share their feelings. And it’s like, is this really the time and the place, but it’s because that is how the animals can help themselves!

More stress over the Care-o-Meter.

Nicholas is having trouble bringing himself to drop the bubblegum in the potion. The book and the Care Bears, et al. fight for Nicholas’s soul some more. Nicholas says they are too late!

But the Care Bears are like Iron Eagle! They never say die! As Tenderheart puts it, “We care about everyone. Even when they don’t care about us.”

Awww!

MEGA Care Bear stare. Boom! BUT the book fights back and the Care Bears get taken out, and Nicholas plans to attack the two last caring people – Kim and Jason. Nick is really creepy now, and green like the book, and goes, “Wherrrrrre arrrrrre theyyyyy.”

Oh hooray, the Rainbow Rescue Beam (that’s what it’s called) works again! So Luck Bear and Grumpy are now joined with the others for a new…

…CARE BEAR STARE!

Rainbow of lights!

Animals making a bunch of noise to express their feelings!

Jason is like, “Nick, dude, I feel you! My sister and I are also of confusing origins, and we thought no one cared either! But WE care about YOU!” Nicholas is like, “I…I believe you” and he pushes the book closed! Take that, Book!

But because Tenderheart in all his sexist wisdom gave the key to Jason, there is almost catastrophe, because Nicholas can’t keep the book shut and the book grabs the key so they can’t lock it, until Secret Bear makes a new key from his chest and they use that! And I don’t understand why the key was so important to protect if Secret Bear could just create one himself; it’s the Quidditch Snitch meets “Survivor” Rupert all over again, but no matter, because we’re here to celebrate Nicholas growing a pair and standing up to the book and everyone literally says “YAYYYY!”

Birdies sing! Bumblebees fly! The sun shines! And the humans are friends back on Earth!

I love this movie.

Mr. Fetuccini’s up and about. Nicholas apologizes but Fetuccini’s smoked a bowl and taken his meds and says he had a great dream and offers Nicholas a partnership! They will be Fetuccini and Nicholas! When Nicholas doesn’t immediately say yes, Fetuccini goes, “Nicholas and Fetuccini!” so it’s like when you don’t want to break up with someone so you agree to one too many compromises, because like, how in the world does Nicholas deserve to be the main circus dude, when it is Fetuccini’s business and Nicholas sucked at magic as of yesterday? But Fetuccini’s all high and says that friends is what it’s all about.

Care Bears Pictures, Images and PhotosEveryone’s chilling in Care A Lot and they inaugurate the animals into the Care Bear family, calling them Care Bear Cousins. Expansion of merchandise! The Care Bears and their cousins strut around and do that dance that everyone did in the ’80s, and many still do at weddings.

Oh man, this is epic! Lyrics come onto the screen, and a heart bounces over them, karaoke-style. Everyone is clapping except Grumpy Bear, but he sneaks away to dance alone. I’d love to psychoanalyze that one but there is NO TIME because we are…

…back on Earth! Nicholas does a magic trick and Kim and Jason are with their new parents.

And now we are back to the present, as Mr. Cherrywood finishes the story, but his kids are asleep. And Mr. and Mrs. Cherrywood share a loving moment. And wouldn’t you know it, but Mr. Cherrywood is Nicholas, all grown up and as we all know, a wonderful juggler.

Tenderheart flies the cloud car into a heart and they wave goodbye!

~ THE END ~

 

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