Author: theveryspecialblog

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles/An Open Letter to Kevin Bacon?

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There are not a lot of Thanksgiving movies to chose from, so this one always come to mind when November roles around. However, this movie makes me so angry. Only one John Hughes movie makes me more irate than this (She’s Having a Baby) and I don’t think it’s just because Kevin Bacon appears in both of them. But on that note:

  1. Kevin Bacon is such an ass. I mean, upon re-watching this I see that he and Steve Martin (btw, I just started to write Tom Cruise. Wtf? Where is my mind? I must be tired)…ah, yes where was I…Steve Martin and Kevin Bacon are running to catch the same cab and Kevin gets there first. But I’ve always remembered it as Kevin stealing the cab. I think I have just sort of hated him ever since he wasn’t very nice to my friend, who said hi to him when he and his daughter were touring our college theater. But like it was our space. She didn’t run up to him on the street or even approach him at all. She just excitedly said hello when he was near her and he acted like she was a bother. Jerk.
  2. Sorry, Kevin Bacon. It’s actually John Candy who steals the cab, which really makes sense with how the rest of the movie plays out. But we’ve still got bad blood. And it’s not because you’re a celebrity. It’s because I don’t like rude people.
  3. I love John Candy, but I just want to shake him in this movie. I mean Steve Martin gets mad at you for clearing your sinuses in the bed next to him (after John Candy spilled beer in it, I might add) and John Candy accuses him of hitting his kid if he spills milk. Like what the heck? I mean that’s just nuts. I feel like there are certain rules about sharing a bed with a stranger and they certain don’t allow for weird phlegm noises in the middle of the night.
  4. Okay, Steve Martin telling John Candy that spending time with him is “like going on a date with a Chatty Cathy Doll” is taking it a little too far. I think I just hate both of them.
  5. But this soundtrack, I am LOVING. It’s all like late-80’s light instrumentals and it’s exactly what I imagine would be the soundtrack to my life as a late 80’s business person, such as Steve Martin.
  6. Omg and Steve Martin was so mean to the really nice lady at the Marathon Car Rental desk. I feel terrible for anyone who has to work in any kind of service industry during the holidays. You’re getting blamed for so much crap that you have no control over.
  7. But then John Candy uses Steve Martin’s credit card to rent a car without telling him. And that car catches on fire. So now John Candy is the bigger jerk in this movie. It’s like a constant battle of who is the least tolerable!
  8. But then it turns out that John Candy really likes Steve Martin and he’s only been driving him away because he doesn’t know how to relate. 😦
    And then they actually start to have some fun!
  9. But I think they still suck…though they did kind of learn and grown from their experience together…how very special is that?
  10. And then there’s the ending which is the whole freaking reason why I watch this movie. Gets me every time. This is like one of the most beautiful thing in cinema history to me (right up with the ending of City Lights).

And suddenly we realize that John Candy was probably so cheerful and annoying during all of these weather delays just because he was really, really happy to have someone to spend quality time with. And like he is actually a nice guy. They’re both actually nice guys. And this song is just so perfect. And you know that Steve Martin’s wife is happy because she can tell that Steve Martin has grown as a person by simply witnessing this wonderful act of kindness. P.S. Did you notice tiny little Matthew Lawrence playing Steve Martin’s son?

BEST THANKSGIVING MOVIE EVER

Amazon Pilot Season

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I guess I’ve been accidentally plugging Amazon original streaming content lately. Well, this post will be no exception. It’s “pilot season” on Amazon. And that means you get to watch a bunch of pilot episodes and then help Amazon decide which episodes will get a full season order.

So that’s pretty amazing. And basically it’s like they’re making all of my TV fanatic hopes and wishes come true.

There are 12 pilot episodes up for screening and feedback. Half of them are for children, but here is a brief rundown of the 6 pilots for grownups:

  • One Mississippi–Tig Notaro stars in this black comedy loosely-based on her life. But I have to warn you, I love Tig Notaro but I stopped watching this after 3 minutes because it was too even darker than her usual fare.
  • Z–Christina Ricci stars in this historical fiction piece about Zelda Fitzgerald. Atrocious southern accents abound, but if you can get past that it’s pretty interesting.

    I haven’t sampled the rest of these, so here are Amazon’s descriptions:

  • Highston–“Highston Liggetts is a kind and curious 19-year-old struggling to find his place in a world he doesn’t quite understand. To help him cope, Highston imagines a constantly changing roster of celebrity friends who provide him with comfort and advice – much to the concern of his bewildered but empathetic extended family.”
  • Patriot–“Intelligence officer John Tavner’s latest assignment, to prevent Iran from going nuclear, requires him to forgo all safety nets and assume a “non-official cover” as a mid-level employee at a Midwestern industrial piping firm.  A bout with PTSD, the government’s incompetence, and the intricacies of keeping his day job cause a barrage of ever-escalating fiascos that jeopardize the mission.”
  • Good Girls Revolt–“In 1969, while a cultural revolution swept through the free world, there was still one place that refused to change with the times: newsrooms. Good Girls Revolt follows a group of young female researchers at “News of the Week,” who ask to be treated fairly. Their revolutionary request sparks convulsive changes and upends marriages, careers, sex lives, love lives, and friendships.”
  • Edge–“Missouri, 1865. Josiah Hedges aka “Edge” returns home from the Civil War to discover his closest comrades-in-arms have betrayed him, sparking a bloody reign of vengeance. A mysterious beauty crosses Edge’s path, and together they will uncover a dark conspiracy that extends to the highest ranks of American power. From Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, Iron Man 3).”

The Very Special Notebook is Missing!

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Have you seen me?

On Saturday, I took notes on the (spoiler alert) 90-minute special The Facts of Life Goes to Paris. Sunday morning, I was looking for The Very Special Notebook so I could take further notes on something else that I’m not going to tell you about yet! As of this morning, The Very Special Notebook is still nowhere to be found! This is really putting a damper on my blog planning…

Oh just kidding…I found it under a pillow & in between the couch cushions. Guess I should have checked there before I sifted through the trash…yuck!

Things I Can’t Explain

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It’s been decades since we’ve heard from Clarissa and when I started this book I was pretty nervous. There’s a lot of legacy to live up to here. Did she turn out okay? Will I feel okay reading about her outside of the TV series? Things I Can’t Explain, is written by series creator Mitchell Kriegman and will be released November 10th. You can pre-order it now on Amazon.

But full disclosure, I did not care for this book. Frankly, parts of it felt like a real chore to get through. I found myself a bit bored by the plot. And I found it hard to get past the fact that the math glaringly does not add up. I’m sure this was done for creative reasons, but Clarissa is such a cultural icon of the early/mid 90’s to me, as I’m sure she is for many other girls of that era. So to hear that she graduated from college in 2009 (and figuring that means she must have spent over a decade in high school for that to even remotely make sense) just doesn’t sit right with me.

Plus, financial crisis recent-grad millennial is not Clarissa as we grew up with her. Clarissa Explains It All first aired in 1991 and Clarissa was in the 9th grade. She’s on the cusp of the Gen-X/Millennial generation. She’s the teenager that all of the younger millennials (the one’s who actually did finish college in 2009 without any math tricks) looked up to and aspired to be. If she’s suddenly supposed to be the same age as a younger millennial, then it somehow spoils everything.

I’d be much more interested in reading about her in her early to mid thirties. She could still have a life-crisis. I’m down to hear about that. But something about this book rings false. Clarissa doesn’t belong with her contemporaries in this book. Suddenly, she’s a “millennial” and she throws around words like “SnapChat” but it doesn’t even sound like she knows how what she’s saying. She describes a friend, who is presumably Clarissa’s age, who changes her Facebook profile picture every “43 minutes.” That’s not something a late-twenties millennial would do. That sounds more like something a seventeen or eighteen year old millennial might do. And those kids don’t even have Facebook because Facebook is what “old people” use.

I feel like the character’s voice is missing, and maybe that’s a by-product of how amazingly Melissa Joan Hart depicted her on the television show. But I don’t think that’s entirely the problem. Rob Thomas wrote a couple of books using Veronica Mars as a character and the character was still very much Veronica Mars. This just does not feel like Clarissa. She feels like she’s in the wrong time and place and I feel like just about anyone could be telling me this story. Frankly I just do not care about this character, and that’s mostly because I don’t feel like there’s much of a character to care about.

I guess there are a few other elements of insincerity to me as well, but I’m not sure they’ll bug others as much. As a former New Yorker, I find it really odd that Clarissa, while trying to convince her parents that a near-stranger is her boyfriend, would mistakenly pick Riverdale as his neighborhood of residence. I’ll point out that this guy runs a coffee stand in the lobby of a corporate building in lower Manhattan, so he’s pretty much as far socioeconomically and geographically as possible from Riverdale. She also has all of these stupid rules about little New York interactions that require you to not know anyone’s names. So she’s been getting coffee from this one guy for years and has intentionally not learned his name. Aside from making her sound like a jerk, this is also another weird attempt at a “local’s characterization” of New York City–like people have these little interactions and then intentionally do not learn each others names? It’s odd and patently false, in my experience.

I hate to say it, but I couldn’t recommend this book to you. The best thing about Clarissa in the Clarissa Explains it All  years was that she managed to be a totally genuine kid while also being a trendsetter. Actually, the whole fact that she was a trendsetter stemmed naturally from the fact that she was genuine and creative. Now, it feels like she’s a square peg forced into the round hole of the 21st century, and the transition is not happening smoothly. And no, it’s not because she is having a “quarter-life crisis.” The few shining moments in this book are those in which we get a fun graphic or cool list that remind us of Clarissa’s glory days. Those are fun, but not worth the price of trudging through everything else.

I say this as someone who runs a nostalgia blog: this character is certainly better left in your memories.

Saved by the Bell: Teen-Line

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Warning: This is a Tori episode.

In the alternate reality where Kelly and Jessie don’t exist, new-girl Tori suggests that Bayside implement an anonymous Teen helpline. Basically, these kids just give really bad advice to their peers with no adult supervision. Everything is going okay until Zack gets a call from “Melissa.” (Also, guys. You may have known about the unsightly gum infections smoking can cause, but did you know that smoking can cause sinusitis as well? Thanks to the poster behind Zack’s head, we can all remember to just say no.)

He breaks all of the rules of teen line. He asks for her last name, where she lives, and of course–if she’d like to go out on a date. They decide to meet at the Max. When Zack arrives, he’s found that she’s already sitting at a table, and he’s like woah she’s hot. And then he realizes she is in a wheelchair and he’s like woah that freaks me out.

He’s not even trying to be a respectful human.

My first instinct here is to make fun of Zack for being insensitive, yet again. But this was the early 90’s and the Americans with Disabilities Act had only been enacted a few years earlier. For 30 second I tried to be understanding, but then he qualified Melissa’s help with the teen-line as cool because she can give great advice “even though she’s handicapped.” Like wtf, you dick.

Tori is uncomfortable enough for all of us.

Then he embarrasses the hell out of her at their movie-date that night. He gets on a soapbox about literally everything, including asking the dude sitting in front of Melissa to “slump down” because she’s in a wheelchair. I’ll point out that Melissa wasn’t complaining about having trouble seeing the screen. The following day, he gets super defensive when Slater asks him, “how was your date with Melissa?” Zack think that Slater is curious about the date only because Melissa is handicapped. Like okay, clearly Zack is delusional.

Exactly.

No one’s ready to call Zack out on his crap just yet, so we head to the max to plan a way to save the Teen-line. (Oh yeah, I should probably mention that they’ve just learned the budget’s been cut.) Zack says he has an idea and Screech gets creepy, as per usual.

but. no...when did that EVER happen?
but. no…when did that EVER happen?

So then they decide to raise money with a wheelchair basketball game. But instead of involving actual kids in wheelchairs, they Bayside gang decides that THEY should play a game of basketball in wheelchairs. It’s kind of like a really offensive version of The Harlem Globetrotters.

At the end of the game, Zack makes a speech about how remarkable Melissa is for living life in a wheelchair. After that, she doesn’t want to talk to him anymore and he’s all like aw man, why doesn’t she like me wahhhh. And Tori is basically like, it’s because you’re an insensitive turd.
Screen Shot 2015-11-02 at 9.08.51 PM

I know I’m putting it in writing, but if you throw this back at me I will STILL deny it: I kind of like Tori in this episode…

Anyway, Zack takes Melissa to a dance and manages not to be a total prick. He’s learned his lesson, and grown as a person! Until the next time he’s a jackass and we somehow find it endearing…#teamslater

Very Special Lesson: Melissa is a person who is in a wheelchair not a wheelchair person. Shut up, you know what I mean.

Clarissa Darling: A Style Guide

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No 90’s kid was a fashionable as Clarissa Darling, the title character from Nickelodeon’s iconic Clarissa Explains it All.
Clarissa was all about bold accent colors with a little black mixed in.Clarissa Darling: A Style Guide Part III

Civil beach shirt
backcountry.com

Pleated pants
choies.com

Sophia Webster high heel sandals
$585 – net-a-porter.com

Or adding a pop of color to an otherwise black and white outfit. Extra points, for successfully mixing prints.
Clarissa Darling: A Style Guide Part II
Perhaps, most importantly she knew how to be comfortable and relaxed without looking bland or boring. She’s basically the anti-“normcore.”Clarissa Darling: A Style Guide Part I

Rainbow shirt
$23 – mingalondon.com

STELLA McCARTNEY jeans
$655 – harrods.com

5 Things I Learned from Danielle Fishel’s Memoir

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Danielle Fishel’s memoir is super funny and a very quick read! You could probably knock this book out in a day or two, but it took me about a week because I do most of my reading at 11 pm right until my eyelids give out on me. Nevertheless, I did finish this book! And here are some of my favorite moments:

  1. She played Skipper in a live-action commercial for Mattel. I totally remembered seeing this as soon as I read about it. But when I turned to the internet to confirm my memories, I could not find the commercial. But in retrospect, I feel like they probably cast Danielle because of her really great hair.
  2. Justin Timberlake called her pretending to be Lance Bass because Lance was too nervous to call her himself. Also, Lance took her to a taping of Celine Dion’s Christmas Special on their first official date. And after prom, he gave her a set of gifts: a Barbie nightgown (referencing the commercial above), a Prada makeup bag, and a book on Taurus Birthdays (they’re both born in early May). And at no point in their relationship did it ever once crossed her mind that he might be gay.
  3. The BMW cast regularly goes over to Will Friedle’s house to catch up with each other. This was how she and Rider Strong learned that they were most likely getting married on the same weekend. And then Rider leaked that to the media and Danielle’s low-key wedding in downtown LA turned into an paparazzi event so whoops…
  4. She’s incredibly dedicated to her dogs. Like the phrase “animal lover” would not even being to cover it. This included adopting an aggressive rescue who had to have regular insulin shots (among other serious health problems). For obvious reasons, it’s kind of hard to give an angry dog a shot. And Danielle accidentally gave herself the shot when she pulled away quickly as he tried to bit her hand. I feel like any normal person would have called 911, but she drove herself to class and asked her professor to make sure she didn’t die. And she still takes care of that dog to this day. So I kind of want to be her best friend.
  5. She really wants people to follow her on Twitter and also has some really great food suggestions if you’re traveling to Maui. So if you have Twitter and are going to Maui, you should reach out to her. I think she’d have some great ideas.

The Waitresses

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Look, I’m doing NaBloPoMo right this year. I’m using a prompt: What did you think was the coolest job in the world when you were younger? Do you still feel that way now?

When I was a childlike creature, like most juveniles, I was an idiot. My career of choice from ages three to seven was “waitress.” This ironically had nothing to do with my love of the food service industry (primarily because I don’t have one) was yet again a manifestation of my obsession with office supplies.

I just couldn’t wait to get my hands on one of these:

One time my family ordered Chinese take-out and the delivery bag arrived with like 5 pages left on a Guest Check pad. Instead of calling the store to let them know they’d accidentally dropped a critical piece of the order-taking process, I insisted that my parents let me keep it. This could be nothing other than divine intervention–a serendipitous gift that indicated that my prayers were heard and my dreams answered.

But it wasn’t just the Guest Check pad that lured me into thinking that waitressing was the best job on the planet–one that I imagined paid a living wage and wasn’t too exhausting-hah!–it was my exposure to some pretty cool fictitious waitresses over my formative years.

First there was Carla. I knew Carla before I can remember knowing Carla, having watched Cheers with my dad and laughed at jokes I couldn’t understand at all. Carla had an especially cool job because she didn’t have to deal with greasy food. She got to carry classy drinks to well-dressed people and insult Cliff Clavin all day long. Sometimes she even harassed the customers and no one ever had a problem with it. Plus, she was a barmaid who managed to buy a gigantic house as the primary bread-winner as a single mom of like 4+ children. With literally no knowledge of economics or personal finance, I thought this job sounded like a dream.

Then there was Alice. Alice was okay, but my personal favorite was Vera. She was a total idiot. Yet no one ever fired her and she still made a living. So it made seem working in a restaurant seem like a laid-back, nurturing environment where the other waitresses are your bff’s and never try to steal your tables or pocket your tips.

I even briefly considered a return to my original passion after I was Waitress with my long-time idol Keri Russell. It was the pies and the cute outfits that clouded my vision, but I quickly snapped back to reality and got a college degree.

And then I graduated and every entry level job required 5 years of experience and I rued the day I chose not to get any waitressing experience.

But hey, I definitely know my way around a Guest Check pad, though sadly I know there are many other requirements.

Boy Meets World: Everybody Loves Stewart

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I’ve been watching The Grinder lately. It’s not the best show, but Rob Lowe is always entertaining and I’m really loving that Fred Savage is acting again! So here’s a little reminder of that time he guest starred on Boy Meets World.

This episode is weird because Fred Savage plays the “cool young professor,” Stewart, and no one notices that he looks exactly like his brother Ben Savage, a.k.a. Corey. This guy is so cool. He treats them like friends and plays pool with them after school. Everything you ever wanted in college was to chill with your professors in the student union, right?

Eric doesn’t like him. This is because Eric realizes he’s not a great teacher like their mentor, Mr. Feeney. Everyone else is too into Stewart’s suave style to realize he’s not that great. So Topanga is super relaxed when Stewart shows up at her dorm room to go over a paper. He has conveniently forgotten to bring Angela’s paper, so she leaves them all alone to discuss the “gray areas” of morality. Even when he starts using his attraction to Topanga as an example of “crossing the line,” she still seems to think he’s just an edgy educator. Then he puts his hand on her hand, which is positioned dangerously close to her crotch and things get a little intense on Boy Meets World.

But then before anything happens, he lifts up her hand and says, “See where it gets gray.” Ugh, no that wasn’t gray. That was creepy, Professor Creeper. Then he starts creepily stroking her hair. Yuck. And when she tells him to leave he says, “that’s not what you want.” Ughhhhhhhh this is not  how Kevin from The Wonder Years is supposed to behave!

Anyway, Stewart leaves without anything more gross transpiring because Corey comes to visit Topanga and interrupts them.  But Corey tracks him down at the student union once Topanga reveals how sketchy their interaction was. Then Corey kind of assaults him in the heat of the moment, which causes Stewart to fall back wards through the door to the student union. Then Stewart announces in front of everyone that Corey will be kicked out of college.
No one really knows what to do, so Topanga approaches Stewart and tells him to make sure Corey isn’t kicked out of college or she will tell the dean that he behaved inappropriately. I feel like she could bypass Stewart on this one and just go straight to the dean, but anyway she gives him this ultimatum and he tells her he’s going to tell the dean that it was the other way around and Topanga was the aggressor. Ultimate douche bag.

I’d just like to say that this is the most depressing episode of Boy Meets World ever. Fred Savage is such a douche bag. And when Topanga calls him out in the hearing the female dean tries to silence her. And then Corey interrupts and gets to speak on behalf of Topanga! Then Shawn gets a moment too! Why won’t the let Topanga speak!!

The dean does seem to figure out what’s up though because she only suspends Corey for one day. Then she tells he awful Stewart he isn’t a teacher. She doesn’t fire him, but she makes it clear she’s going to keep an eye on him. But like. I feel like she should have fired him. Or at least suspended him pending some sort of investigation. Ugh, I’m just going to go back to watching The Grinder where Fred Savage is not an asshole.

Very Special Lesson: If someone you know gets creeped on major then let that person tell you how to respond. I’m disturbed that no one let Topanga have a say in this.