Pop Culture Blind Spots: Serendipity

Posted in Entertainment, Miscellany by Molly

I knew that Serendipity was a romantic comedy that I hadn’t seen, and I was okay with that. I love the genre, but you can’t see them all, right? That was before last week, when I was saw Serendipity in a listicle of Christmas rom-coms. A Christmas rom-com that I haven’t seen is like my holy grail of Netflix-surfing. God. Anyway, it is streaming on Netflix so I decided to remedy the situation STAT, crossing another item off of our long list of pop culture blind spots in the process.

The film opens with Louis Armstrong singing about Santa. So it’s like, CHRISTMAS-CHRISTMAS, not one scene or something. I am shocked.

Molly Shannon is in this? And John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale? I feel like Cusak and Beckinsale make a weird couple, but okay.

This version of Bloomingdale’s at Christmas-time is actually almost crowded and terrible enough to be accurate.

143 online shopping AAF

It’s time to talk about John Cusack’s haircut. It’s very feathered for the early 2000s, isn’t it? Like a youth hockey coach in 1991.

Everyone is arguing about a pair of gloves at a store. Please, let this movie not be about people I hate. Anyway, they’re trying to have a meet cute – – also they make a transgender joke that’s not necessarily offensive but still surprising for 2001.

They don’t show the part where they wait in line for 40 minutes to get into Serendipity. Those frozen hot chocolates are legit, though.

My friend who went to high school in Long Island knew girls who had “Serendipity days” where they’d go to the city and do stuff that was in the movie, presumably forcing their boyfriends to play along. It was that popular, apparently. I did wait in line to get into Serendipity 3 during its peak popularity, but as I said, the frozen hot chocolate was legit and I have no regrets.

Best part of this movie so far TBH.

I can’t lie, serendipity actually also is one of my favorite words. It’s a long list, admittedly.

Wow. Cusack (Jonathan), a man with a girlfriend, just went straight for announcing to Kate Beckinsale, a woman with a boyfriend, that he has a crush on her. I think this is about people I hate.

They proceed decide to go on a date even though they’re both dating other people, and Kate Beckinsale is wearing a chunky, short sweater like people wore in the early 2000s, along with tights and shorts even though they’re ice skating. In the snow.

Has the costume designer even been to New York? Or, like, outdoors?

Raise your hand if you’d have to beg off from this date because you’re garbage at ice skating.

Ah, yes. Yep. Jonathan begins freckle-flirting. I know that trick.

I think I’m going to end up loving this movie, as I do most rom-coms, but so far (by the end of the day they meet) I’m not sold yet because we’ve been given no information about these people, and no reason to care about them or whether they end up together.

Instead of just “losing his number,” Kate Beckinsale has Jonathan write his name and number on a $5 bill, spends it, then says if it comes back to her it will be meant to be. That is really some high order Manic Pixie Dream Girling.

For the record, we still don’t know Kate Beckinsale’s name.

It’s Sara.

I can’t help but be annoyed that both of these people already have significant others who they’ve been ditching all night.

There are a lot of Christmas sweaters! Non-ironic ones. Were those more popular 15 years ago?

Cool, now Jonathan is making a whole elevator full of people stop at every floor to find the one that Sara whimsically chose so that she could see if there was *fate* or something.

Awesome. NOW Jonathan is grabbing random brunette women on the street from behind while looking for Sara. Bro. Go home to your girlfriend.

A few years later, Jonathan is engaged to not-Sara. Sara is a therapist or something in San Francisco living in a picturesque cottage that’s got to have an insane market value. She also gets engaged in a fire hazard candle death trap with a ring inside of a Russian nesting-box scenario. Can nobody in this movie just do things the easy way?

Now playing: Burn from Hamilton.

Jonathan goes through life imagining Sara everywhere, like that one episode of Full House where the Tanners go to Disney and D.J. keeps seeing Steve.

Sara’s fiance plays sitar (?) and is inconsiderate, so you instantly dislike him and want her to find Jonathan’s manic pixie five-spot.

Molly Shannon is here! Why isn’t she in everything? She is delightful.

OK, but Sitar Fiance is hilarious. I mean you hate him, but he’s so dopey that it’s funny.

Sara and Molly Shannon are in NY to hunt for the guy she could have just given her phone number to years ago.

Know what I don’t miss? Super low-rise jeans.

Molly Shannon, the sassy strait-talking best friend who is all of us, tells Sara that if everything in life were determined by fate there would be no reason to do anything, ever.

It’s so hard to remember which one is Kate Beckinsale and which is Kate Bosworth. Kate Beckinsale, British, has a 16-year-old which I always find surprising. Kate Bosworth, American, was in Blue Crush and 21, a movie I went to on a first date with a guy who turned out to be a mistake.

Jonathan and fiancee Halley are at their wedding rehearsal, which means I may have to hate him for inevitably – but serendipitously! – falling in love with Sara, unless she’s cheating.

But he will fall in love with her, because Molly Shannon turns out to be friends with Halley. Plot twist! SERENDIPITY.

As a groom’s gift, Halley gives Jonathan a book. Not just any book, though! Sara’s Manic Pixie Dream Book with her phone number in the cover.

Either there is a ticking clock sound effect to show that time’s a-tickin’, or there’s a clock somewhere in my house living room that I didn’t know about.

Remember how big cell phones used to be? Remember how they had those little antennae?

There’s some convoluted stuff with Jonathan and Sara both flying places.

Remember when you had to pay for headsets on airplanes?

Anyway, Sara gets the manic pixie fiver on the plane.

The wedding is called off. Jonathan SITS DOWN on an ICE RINK like he doesn’t care that his BUTT IS COLD. People skate around him but you can’t just do that. You can’t just expect people to skate around you. Yet isn’t that what this whole movie is about? Being as impossible as you know how to be and making everyone else skate around you?

Just a generally bad approach to life.

Oh okay cool. Now he’s laying down, just waiting to get run over by skate blades. Like I know your wedding was just cancelled, but you seemed not that into your fiancee anyway, so.

Sara comes to take Jonathan off the ice and they fall in love, then they do that annoying thing with the gloves again.

Is the lesson supposed to be that true love is always fate? Because I think the lesson is really that if you leave things up to fate, you end up having to do 20 times more work to get what you want than if you had just gone after it in the first place.

19Nov2015

Things I’m Willing To Believe About One Direction

Posted in Entertainment, Miscellany by Molly

Here’s what I knew about One Direction last week:

They are a British boy band, except one of them is Irish.
They sing that song I hate (What Makes You Beautiful. Still don’t like it.)
Also, I knew Drag Me Down but thought it was by Maroon 5? I don’t know, you guys.
I thought it was beautifully shady how the chorus of Perfect sounded a lot like Style.
And I knew who the two cute ones are.
Don’t play. You know exactly who I’m talking about.

What with their new album and a new press-generated controversy every day, One Direction was the perfect candidate for the Things I’m Willing To Believe About series – except, with my scant background knowledge, I had to hit the books. Yeah. I took that hit for you, internet. My research included:

Watching like 4-5 interviews on YouTube.
Googling photos of the members both now and in 2010.
Listening to the new album. It’s a really good, solid pop album to be honest.
Tumblr. Enough said.

The result? I either just became a Directioner – and a Larry? Is that how you do it? – or went through puberty again. Anyway, based on admittedly not that much info, here are some totally not-true “facts” I’m willing to believe about my new favorite British-except-one-Irish-guy boy band:

Liam

The Irish One?
Once hand wrote his favorite poem for a girl he is into.
The poem was by Shel Silverstein.
Most likely to be subject of a Paul Is Dead-style rumor that he died in 2011 and was replaced by a sort-of lookalike.
Because you don’t just grow a kidney like that. Or change faces like this:

Decided to try out online dating. Didn’t believe the other boys when they told him that a fake mustache wasn’t an awesome, foolproof disguise.
Favorite literary character: Gallant of the Goofus and Gallant series:

After a show, he makes the boys watch tape to improve next time.
His favorite t.v. show is the Tim Allen classic Home Improvement.
Instituted a chore wheel on tour. Said it would be fun. Believed it.
But the chore Liam doesn’t know about? Taking away his twitter after he’s said something dumb. The others trade whose turn it is to change his password.
They also hid his hair straightener a few years ago. It was for his own good.
Liam has invested in gold bars.
He loves knock knock jokes.
And “why did the chicken cross the road” jokes.
An old lady once hit Liam in the face with her purse. He had been chasing her for half a block to give her back a single coin that she dropped.
Liam snips apart those six-pack rings so they don’t get caught around birds’ heads.
His MSN name: NotLiamPayne
Has flown a kite for fun.
Owns one of those sticks to pick up litter on the street. Uses it frequently.
Liam once sealed the windows on a tour jet with shrink wrap when he read about the high costs of heating. Oh, bless.
Has a binder full of handwritten translations and phonetic pronunciations of foreign words to use when traveling. Includes a British English to American English section.
Flosses twice a day.
Loves team-building exercises.
Called Niall “Neil” for the first two weeks.
Has a Homer Simpson-style collage, with the letters covered up by photos of Simon Cowell and 1D fans:

Niall

No, the Irish one.
Style inspiration: a my buddy doll.

Is a cross between a dad and a beagle.
Has clear braces.
Is the kind of guy who would do pranks that involve shaving cream.
Is contractually obligated to be “the blonde one.” Can’t wait to change management and finally be free of bleach burns.
Was always the star of the feis with his 3-hand reel.
But his hornpipe is CRAP.
Has kind of a lot of tin whistles.
Owns one of those sweaters your grandma would always buy you when she went to the Aran islands.

Irish-Americans, you know what I’m talking about.

But he kind of, sort of really does believe that legend that if he wears his family’s pattern they’ll be able to identify him in a shipwreck.
Has repurposed Irish oatmeal cans in his home.

You know what? Handy, frugal, and functional.

Is named after Niall of the Nine Hostages.
He lifts because he wants to be “built like Flatley.”
Says his first crush was: the girls in the Corrs.
Actual first crush was: that skanky Molly Malone statue in Dublin.

Suggested the band name because it sounded like it was about frisky Hogwarts students.
Life goal was to be “bigger than Jedward.”
His first paid gig was modeling those gloves that are also sharks in a department store ad as a child.

Louis

Acts chill if you pronounce it “Lewis,” but seethes for hours after.
Hogwarts affiliation: Hot Slytherin.
He says his personal style is “sophisticated rocker-casual.”
But really, it is: small French girl with a secret.

Has definitely been hunting with foxhounds.
But just played with the dogs the whole time.
On a yearly basis, his management has had to turn down offers for him to play a smarmy Edwardian man on Downton Abbey.
His great-grandfather was the artist’s model for the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens.

No, that was a joke. Actually he is the Peter Pan statue from Kensington Gardens, cursed by an old witch to assume human form.
Falls on the “cake” side of the Jaffa Cake debate.

Even though they are biscuits.

Has a Youtube playlist of cheek and jawline toning exercises. They work.
One time, a makeup artist applied light highlighter and contouring to his cheekbones. They literally could cut a man. It was proclaimed “too much.”
Like Phoebe Buffay, insists that he receives 23 points instead of 3 in basketball “because I’m dainty.”
When he calls Harry, the image that pops up representing Louis is a Google image result for “haughty cat”:

Was forced to play Baby Jesus in four successive nativity plays because everyone agreed that you just sort of want to wrap him in a blanket and keep him safe from harm.

Harry

When he has children, it’s because he will find a baby in a Moses basket in a woodland
Was found in a Moses basket in a woodland himself, maybe?
All I’m saying is that I’m willing to believe that he is a changeling:

File under: people who should be wrapped in swaddling clothes and lulled to sleep.

Is a cross between a glam rocker, the most charismatic student at a 1920s boys’ boarding school, and an English Springer Spaniel.

Hogwarts affiliation: Gryffindor, but “culturally Hufflepuff.”
Has a climate-controlled room in his house for his nice blouses.
Smells how you would expect Irish Spring soap to smell based on those commercials where wholesome yet sprightly men gallivant near a waterfall (not how the soap actually smells, which is like “clean uncle” if anything).

Oh. The spring is THERE, thanks.

Whenever they’re in a new city, everyone ends up looking around asking “where’s Harry?” Inevitably, he has gone off to befriend an old lady or a small child.

Has tree fort.
Has secret password to get into tree fort.
There is an elaborate secret handshakes as well.
Harry is working with a publishing company to create an adult coloring book based on his tattoos.
His house is scented with specially formulated candles that smell like exactly like autumn leaves and sunsets.
Can knit.
Over the course of a single ride to a venue, knit a pair of fingerless gloves for a tour driver whose handshake seemed a little cold.
When his boots need repair, he just leaves them outside his door and it is taken care of:

Has been described as a “little scamp” before, albeit less frequently than Louis.
Opposes the term “man bun” because “nobody should tell it what kind of bun it should be.”
Yeah, he has long hair, but you know what? Harry Styles cleans it out of the drain. Every time.
Has a dog-eared copy of Indian In The Cupboard next to his bed.
According to legend, a blind man and a deaf man used to walk together and help each other understand the world. They passed Harry Styles in the park. The blind man turned to the deaf, and solemnly said and signed “he prances.” “I know, I heard,” the deaf man replied.

Zayn

No. We are not doing this.

9Nov2015

Home Alone Moments I’ve Had To Explain To Modern Children

Posted in Entertainment by Molly

Home Alone turns 25 this month, with theatrical screenings this week bringing the movie to a whole new audience: children born after the turn of the millennium. Add that to Home Alone’s heavy tv rotation for the past 24 years, and chances are, most of the kids in your life have seen it – and they have questions. I’ve watched Home Alone with the oldest six of my nieces and nephews – ages 4-8 – and it really brought home how much the world has changed since 1990. Here are just some of the topics of conversation that have come up during repeated viewings – the actual questions and answers, as best I can remember them, with real, post-2007-born kids.

Why don’t Kevin’s parents just call him?

They have to find a phone first. Plus Kevin’s phone lines were down. Your phone used to be attached to a wall, then there were wires. If the wires weren’t attached to the house, you couldn’t call.

But they could call his cell phone.

No.

[If you want to feel really ancient, and you know my five-year-old nephew, ask him to explain phones in the ’90s to you. He takes on the tone of someone telling age-old folklore, and explains that “a long time ago, people used to have big books. You had to find the phone number in the big book, then you dialed it. EVERY TIME, they had to dial it. On buttons. If there were other people with the same name, you had to try all of them. The phone was only in their house. If someone wasn’t in their house, you couldn’t call them.” Thanks, Henry. Sounds just as awful as I remember.]

Where is Kevin’s phone?

The wall. It’s attached to the wall.

Also, he can’t call his parents, because of the phone line thing.

Aren’t Kevin’s parents going to call one of the neighbors?

Yeah. I know. This isn’t really a cell phone thing, we wondered that in the 90s, too. But they probably didn’t have the phone numbers memorized. They may have had them handwritten in an address book, though. Ask Nana. She still has one.

[Note: after this exchange, we got to the part where she did try to call everyone, using – you guessed it – an address book.]

Why is Kevin’s family so mean?

Because they’re garbage. That wasn’t a 90s thing either.

Would you ever forget me like that?

No, buddy. You’re unforgettable.

Plus Kevin’s family is garbage.

Why are the robbers listening to Kevin’s parents on the radio?

That was called an “answering machine.” When people weren’t home, you’d leave a message and they’d call you when they got back. Like voicemail.

Didn’t Kevin have to check in?

Airports were different. You used to be able to go all the way to the gate with people if you weren’t flying yourself, security basically meant that a person looked at you and checked your ticket, and if a big family of rich people stormed the check in desk, they really might have just waved them through. Kevin’s parents still should have noticed at that point, though. That’s on them.

[Note: We watched Home Alone last Thanksgiving right after driving through a Christmas light display featuring an American flag that said Never Forgotten. It was obviously purchased during the Christmas 2001 season when we were all wondering whether it was okay to be merry. Anyway, between that and his airport questions, that will always be the Thanksgiving that Jack (age 5) learned about 9/11.]

Why does Kevin dress so nice when he’s home alone?

I know, right?

30Oct2015

It’s 1988: Let’s All Decorate For Halloween!

Posted in Miscellany by Molly

Welcome to another edition of Let’s All Decorate! This month, we’re taking a look back at a creepy, garish, zany time, a time when people decorate their homes in the loudest, wackiest fashion imaginable … oh, and also Halloween.

It’s true- the 80s were a rough era, design-wise. So you’d think that incorporating the second-tackiest holiday of the year (after Valentine’s Day) would make things even crazier. However, that discounts one major development of the 2000s: the Halloween-industrial complex.

When we were growing up, the slate of Halloween activities was fairly limited. There were pumpkin patches, which were seriously just places where pumpkins were grown and sold. I thought I remembered a witch at the one we frequented in my childhood, but no: it was just a cauldron. Haunted houses and haunted hayrides existed. You’d have your classroom party, and you’d trick or treat. That sounds like a full month of fun to me, but as someone who’s recently taken kids to a “pumpkin patch” that features pumpkin catapults, a zip line, and go-carts, I can vouch that times have changed.

The simpler Halloween celebrations extended to home decor. My mom was notably Halloween-obsessed, and we had Halloween candles throughout the house, molded to look like ghosts and Frankensteins. We had a windsock that wailed whenever there was a loud noise, which meant that every family argument in October was punctuated by plaintive moans of “ooo-OOOO-ooo.” There were stretchy cobwebs, plastic graves, and probably some fuzzy spiders. We hung a string of pumpkin-shaped lights in the window.

And that’s it. That was extreme in the late 80s and early 90s. It was before every family had a bin of fall decor that came out after Labor Day. Trick-or-treaters weren’t greeted by animatronic witches, and googley, glowing eyes didn’t peak out from the attic windows of half the houses on the block.

Wall hangings were pretty popular at the time. My mom was a teacher, and those bulletin-board shapes from Teacher’s World were tacked up around our downstairs. I think some non-teacher-kid friends had them too, though. By the way, Teacher’s World smelled like cold coffee breath, exactly like you’d expect.

Just like this. In fact, I’m positive we had the cat one – I was a 6-year-old cat lady, and I loved it the best.

Then there were the candles. In one of my earliest Halloween memories, my brothers were bickering over candy. As things escalated, my mother erupted at them – and just as she started yelling, all of the candles in the room flared spectacularly.

We lost our best vampire candle that day.

The survivors are in my house now, nestled among succulents – which I imagine are the spookiest members of the plant kingdom, fly traps notwithstanding.

If you were the kind of family who had an elaborate Christmas village with glittery cotton snow and tiny Victorian people, then you probably had a Halloween village, too:

In a lot of houses, Halloween treat buckets were sort of decor unto themselves. As I said, the options were more limited. Before so many parents proudly declared that their kids NEVER have McDonald’s, the Happy Meal bucket was the gold standard:

In another instance of combining form and function, we gathered our leaves in plastic bags that looked like pumpkins. Now more and more municipalities have moved to collecting loose leaves – which makes sense, because they can decompose a lot better when they’re not in bags – and these are becoming a thing of the past:

I’m sure they existed long before the late 80s, but crafty moms were especially into tissue ghosts:

The tissue-paper honeycomb industry was red-hot in the 80s, and there were standup decorations for every holiday, Halloween included:

The suction cup market was doing okay, too, as evidenced by these spider webs that were in my home and classrooms every October:

All of the coolest characters got into the Halloween spirit, and in a time when people weren’t as into integrating holiday decorations with their grown-up decor themes, these seemed like a legit thing to hang in your kitchen:But clearest in my memory – nay, in the memory of everyone growing up in a pack of argumentative siblings – was the dancing, wailing ghost windsock, which I’m now realizing my parents probably hung in our living room to mock us during our October fights.

22Oct2015

When Heaven Was A Scholastic Book Order

Posted in Miscellany by Molly

“Take one and pass the rest back.” In elementary school in the 1990s, those seven words were the key to every bookworm’s dream world. It was a Friday afternoon, your teacher didn’t care anymore, and you had 15 minutes to leaf through four very filmy pages of the Scholastic Book Order — which was like the Sears Wish Book for a very specific type of kid.

When I think back on it, the whole thing was so 90s, and not in that cute fake way of tumblr fashion blogs. We had to mark the books we wanted in pen, copy the order numbers onto the form on the back, and then ask for a check from our parents. An honest-to-goodness CHECK, like they probably have in history museums now.

In hindsight, the whole system seems fraught with error and it almost feels like a miracle that any of us got the books we asked for. But one day a few weeks later you’d spot those Scholastic boxes in the front of the classroom, and sure enough there was the 3-pack of Ella Enchanted, Catherine Called Birdy, and The Witch Of Blackbird Pond, just like you ordered. I imagine this trio was called The Future NPR Listeners Sampler, or the Someday You’ll Own Cats Club Pack.

The real Cadillac of the Scholastic order was the club subscription (usually located on the back page, lower right, if memory serves). You’d get a new book every month and a pointless academic accessory like a pencil topper. Pencil toppers were cool then, okay? They were like the iPhone covers of 1996. Plus there were special bonuses, like a cassette tape featuring an interview with Ann M. Martin if you joined the Baby-Sitters Club Club (I assume it had a better name, but honestly maybe not). Let that sink in for a while. Before internet,if you wanted to learn about an author who wasn’t in the encyclopedia, you had to fill out a paper order, send a check, and then listen to an audio cassette.

Ann M. Martin had cats too, by the way.

The Scholastic order was also the number-one source for hot celebrity gossip, full of Unauthorized Biographies With 8 Pages Of Full-Color Photos. Sure, children these days have celebs’ actual Twitter and Instagram accounts at their fingertips, but back then it was enough to read that JTT’s favorite dessert was apple pie a la mode, or that Tay, Zac and Ike share a bedroom.

Doesn’t it feel like just yesterday that you were reading those factoids? Well, Tay, Zac, and Ike now have a cumulative nine children. That’s 3 Hansons. Or an Mmm Mmm Mmm Bop.

You would think that now, when I could find any book on Amazon in seconds, the Scholastic orders wouldn’t seem like such a big deal. But I found a few Troll and Arrow Book Club catalogs online, and I can almost smell the new book smell … and feel the papercuts. That thin-ply book order paper was for some reason notorious for paper cuts.

This has everything I remember about 90s book orders. There are pencils that, even 20 years ago, you could have bought for far less at a grocery store. Athlete bios. An inside look at the cast of 90210 with a RAP ROUNDUP (not sure what that is). I especially like how they call it “book club news,” as though they aren’t trying to sell us stuff, just keeping us informed that Midnight In The Dollhouse is only $.95.

Friends, we truly lived in a magical time. On the same page, you have Hook and Addams Family novelizations, Laura Ingalls, American Girl, and Babysitters Club. This is calling up more childhood memories than looking at family photos (because when the photos were taken, I was probably somewhere reading a book).

Ah, yes. 1991. When all the kids were clamoring for a paperback about Nelson Mandela. The Room Upstairs, an Anne Frank-y tale of World War II peril, contains a surprising number of exclamation marks in the blurb. And that pig eraser… just me, or did those gummy jumbo erasers never actually erase anything?

Lincoln, MLK, Edgar Allan Poe, medical mysteries … just some chill light reading for 9-year-olds. Boomers can knock millennials all they want, but don’t they see that we spent our childhoods heavy-burdened by their hopes, dreams, and expectations? As well as by a complete set of Boxcar Children books? That series was dope. Henry, Jessie, Violet, and the other one, right?

It’s so weird to think that most of us got these orders regularly as kids, and then one day – and you didn’t even know it was the day – you read your last one. You started buying your books at stores, and eventually the internet. You recorded over the Ann M. Martin tape doing fake commercials in Austin Powers voices at a slumber party. I haven’t seen a pencil topper in decades. But the memories live on … as do the large stack of unauthorized biographies sitting somewhere in your parents’ attic.

16Oct2015

Things I’m Willing To Believe About Lincoln Chafee

Posted in Miscellany by Molly

Like most people watching the Democratic Debate this week, I went into it with no clue who Lincoln Chafee is. And also like most people watching the Democratic Debate this week, I left it with no clue who Lincoln Chafee is. I will have to do some more homework on Chafee if he’s still around by the New York primaries, but until then I’d rather replace research with wild speculation. As in, none of the below is true – just baseless speculation that popped into my head as I watched the debate. We usually reserve this format for heartthrobs like Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Tom Brady, but hey, politicians are superstars, too. Kind of.

None of the following is the truth about Lincoln Chafee, but I am entirely willing to believe that:

Lincoln Chafee is the artist’s model for an animatronic pilgrim figure in Plimoth Colony.
Speaking of which, Lincoln Chafee’s ancestors came over on the Mayflower.
All of his ancestors.
In some parts, legend has it that Lincoln Chafee was roused from a 200-year slumber to find himself on the debate stage.
Lincoln Chafee sleeps in proper pajamas. Flannel in the winter, cotton in the summer, changed out in May and October irrespective of temperature.
Lincoln Chafee does not consider any animal under 40 pounds a “dog,” unless it’s a beagle.
Lincoln Chafee is the designated reader of The Night Before Christmas in his family. It’s amazing, but I swear he can make his eyes twinkle on cue.
Lincoln Chafee once visited a living history museum, took a liking to it, and moved in.
Nobody caught him for 3 months.
Lincoln Chafee is not Mormon, but does consider coffee a “strong drink.”
On a summer’s night, Lincoln Chafee sometimes sits on the porch, pulls out his banjo, and plays Turkey In The Straw to sooth his ruffled soul.
Lincoln Chafee can whittle.
He changed his name from Buchanan Chafee after years of schoolyard taunts that Buchanan was “not even a good president.”
He plays a solid game of jacks, and is known for his mastery of the elusive “eightsies.”
When Lincoln Chafee threw out his back, he proclaimed that “Father Time is catching up with me at last.” But he looked over his shoulder as he said it, as though he really did worry that Father Time was catching up with him at last.
When Lincoln Chafee has a picnic, his basket is lined with gingham.
When Lincoln Chafee gets ticked, he’s been known to tell people to “go fly a kite.”
He once got very riled and called an opponent a “scoundrel and a rapscallion,” and has felt sorry for it ever since.
Chafee’s wife ordered Anne Geddes checks, and she has explained it to him 1,000 times, but he still is confused by the “damn baby on it” every time.
Lincoln Chafee winds down with a glass of warm milk at night.
His pet peeve: productions that transpose Shakesepeare’s plays to other locations. A Midsummer Night’s Dream set after-hours at a theme park? Romeo and Juliet on the border of Israel and Palestine? No and thank you.
Lincoln Chafee has a grandson named Logan and a granddaughter named Skyler. He refers to them as Roy and Betty because those are “real names.”
Lincoln scored tickets to Hamilton,. After curtain call he was seen shaking his head in confusion and dismay. “Not how it was, not a’tall,” he was heard to say.
Lincoln Chafee gently chides his son-in-law for his “fantastical lawnmower.”
It is a gas lawn mower.
Will tell anyone who will listen about this “God-awful modern church” he went to one time.
It was Methodist.
Chafee’s hairdresser calls his haircut “the regular” to his face, but “the circus man” behind his back (after an iconic Little House On The Prairie guest star:

Parted his hair to the side once. Didn’t care for it.

14Oct2015

Hamilton Explained: Ten Duel Commandments

Posted in Entertainment by Molly

We’re still listening to Hamilton non-stop, and it’s time to break down another song. Last time it was The Schuyler Sisters, and today I chose Ten Duel Commandments. As before, lyrics are in italics and lines that we’re expounding on are in bold. If I didn’t get an idea or fact out of the (finally not-so-useless) history and rap references swirling around my brain, the source is credited.

[MEN]
One, two, three, four

[FULL COMPANY]
Five, six, seven, eight, nine…

References not just the “ten duel commandments” but also the count to ten paces before turning and firing.
Repeated in Take A Break, The World Was Wide Enough, Blow Us All Away. [source: genius.com]
But also: the 1-9 count is repeated in French – only by Eliza with Philip – in Take A Break and Stay Alive (Reprise).

[BURR/HAMILTON/LAURENS/LEE]
It’s the Ten Duel Commandments

We all know this one:

But also: dueling WAS super-codified and regimented. A Code Duello was a treatise explaining rules in hand-to-hand combat, and the 10 Duel Commandments is just the last in a long line, after a few centuries’ break.

[FULL COMPANY]
It’s the Ten Duel Commandments
Number one!

[LAURENS]
The challenge: demand satisfaction
If they apologize, no need for further action

Satisfaction, in a dueling context, refers to restoring your honor after a slight or an offense.
But Lin Manuel Miranda wouldn’t just leave it there, of course. Notice how he weaves satisfied/satisfaction in other contexts throughout the show: in Angelica’s assertions in Satisfied, as well as Hamilton’s. There’s a running theme that Hamilton’s greatest strength and downfall is his inability to be satisfied with his station at any given point.
This extends to Burr, always clawing his way up the political ladder; as well as Angelica, who made a calculated choice to pass on Hamilton; Phillip, who couldn’t let an insult rest; and, in later years, Eliza:

I’m not crying, you’re crying.

[COMPANY]
Number two!

[LAURENS]
If they don’t, grab a friend, that’s your second

[HAMILTON]
Your lieutenant when there’s reckoning to be reckoned

“The seconds’ duty, above all, was to try to reconcile the parties without violence. An offended party sent a challenge through his second.” [Source: PBS]
Laurens grabbed his friend Hamilton as his second in his duel against Lee. [source: Founders Online archive]
Double meaning time: a lieutenant is a subordinate acting in their superior’s stead.. but also, Hamilton was a Lieutenant Colonel.

[COMPANY]
Number three!

[LEE]
Have your seconds meet face to face

[BURR]
Negotiate a peace…

[HAMILTON]
Or negotiate a time and place

A part of every duel: in the Lee/Laurens duel, it was Edwards and Hamilton who met and negotiated a time and place (“half past three,” in a “wooded situae.” Quaint). [source: Founders Online archives]

[BURR]
This is commonplace, ‘specially ‘tween recruits

[COMPANY]
Most disputes die, and no one shoots

Burr’s right: dueling was downright trendy in the 18th century, especially among the young men of the British gentry. I’m picturing 1700s-style Rich Kids Of Instagram who would be wearing pastel shorts and Oxford shirts with rolled sleeves today. Just a couple bros, their firearms, and their tender, tender egos.
By the late 18th century, dueling was particularly popular among members of the military. ‘Tween recruits.

Number four!

[LAURENS]
If they don’t reach a peace, that’s alright
Time to get some pistols and a doctor on site

[HAMILTON]
You pay him in advance, you treat him with civility

[BURR]
You have him turn around so he can have deniability

Part of the typical Code Duello included having a surgeon on site, preferably one with experience with gunshot wounds. Again, the goal was not to have one guy shoot the other guy dead, just to prove that you had the balls to face getting shot dead to uphold your “honor.” BROS. EGOS.
[Source: Pistols At Dawn: A History Of Dueling]
Dueling was illegal, and by turning around the doctor could not be called as a witness (or, presumably, hailed as an accessory).

[COMPANY] Five!

[LEE] Duel before the sun is in the sky

Before the sun is in the sky: duels were conducted at dawn for a few reasons. First, to prevent rash decisions: from the Irish Code Duello – “Challenges are never to be delivered at night, unless the party to be challenged intend leaving the place of offense before morning; for it is desirable to avoid all hot-headed proceedings.”
Second, at dawn, neither party had the advantage/disadvantage of the sun being in their face.
Third, police were often in bed.
And finally, it would be harder for witnesses to spot the duelers.

[COMPANY] Pick a place to die where it’s high and dry

Hamilton and Burr’s duel site – also used by Hamilton’s son Phillip – fits the description. This might be an old-school application of the mom-tested rule that when splitting a piece of cake, one person gets to cut it and one gets to choose. In the Code Duello, one party chose the ground and the other the distance. If you choose soggy oceanfront property to duel on, you just up your own chances of getting stuck in the mud or staggering into the water.
The Weehawken site, for instance, was chosen because it was a high ledge only accessible by water – choosing a high location might have meant that a Colonial villager didn’t accidentally stumble upon your duel.
“This line mirrors Biggie’s line of “Don’t get high on your own supply.”” [Source: genius.com]

Number six!

[HAMILTON]
Leave a note for your next of kin
Tell ‘em where you been.

Pray that hell or heaven lets you in

Two drafts of Hamilton’s final note to Eliza exist. You wouldn’t want to tell your wife beforehand, because (a) no way is she going to let that go down, and (b) plausible deniability.
From Hamilton’s letter: “Heaven can preserve me and I humbly hope will; but, in the contrary event, I charge you to remember that you are a Christian. God’s will be done! ” [source: Trinity Wall Street.org]
And also: “Fly to the bosom of your God and be comforted. With my last idea; I shall cherish the sweet hope of meeting you in a better world. Adieu best of wives and best of Women. Embrace all my darling Children for me.” [source: it’s hamiltime!]
Great, now we’re all crying.

[COMPANY]
Seven!

[LEE]
Confess your sins.

Ready for the moment of adrenaline when you finally face your opponent

The colonies, at this point, are mostly Mainline Protestant – just Catholic-y enough that absolution before death was kind of a thing.
The opponents would arrive separately to the site so only saw each other shortly before go time.

[COMPANY]
Number eight!

[LAURENS/LEE/HAMILTON/BURR]
Your last chance to negotiate
Send in your seconds, see if they can set the record straight…

[BURR]
Alexander

[HAMILTON]
Aaron Burr, sir

Just a nice little callback to Aaron Burr, Sir earlier in the show.
As we mentioned earlier, Edwards was actually Lee’s second, but whatever, this works.

[BURR]
Can we agree that duels are dumb and immature?

[HAMILTON]
Sure
But your man has to answer for his words, Burr

[BURR]
With his life? We both know that’s absurd, sir

Fun fact, unless you’re Alexander Hamilton: the man was not that keen on dueling. In the Lee/Laurens duel, he tried to advocate against it and then successfully stopped a second shot from being fired after Lee was injured. [Source: Founders Online archive.]

[HAMILTON]
Hang on, how many men died because Lee was inexperienced and ruinous?

[BURR]
Okay, so we’re doin’ this

Oh, when he shit the bed at the Battle of Monmouth (see: Stay Alive)? Literally hundreds, all because Lee wouldn’t follow directions. From George Washington. Who by all accounts was pretty good at leading things … you know, like revolutions and America. [Source: History Net]

[COMPANY]
Number nine!

[HAMILTON]
Look ‘em in the eye, aim no higher
Summon all the courage you require
Then count

[MEN]
One two three four

[FULL COMPANY]
Five six seven eight nine

[HAMILTON/BURR]
Number

[COMPANY]
Ten paces!

[HAMILTON/BURR]
Fire!

The Code Duello said that you couldn’t play chicken and fire at the air.
But of course, Hamilton threw away his shot, and even stated his intent to do so before the duel.

12Oct2015

Essential Programming At The Ginger Pride Festival

Posted in Miscellany by Molly

If you’re a redhead – or a ginger, as, in the immortal words of Tim Minchin, only a ginger can call another ginger ginger – somebody has probably already told you about the Ginger Pride Festival. I somehow only got word of it in the past month, and while I will absolutely not be attending, I think I could lend a hand … an ice-cold, pale, freckled hand. I’m not sure what they have planned, but as far as I’m concerned the following features and programming are essential:

Sunscreen Booths

In the same way that Port-a-Potties are included in the price of music festival admissions, sunscreen should be available without extra charge. Booths can offer bottles of sunscreen, or maybe a sunscreen spray-mister. It goes without saying that they will have that unscented, sensitive skin kind that they make for babies with allergies. You know, for those of us whose eyes water and skin burns at adult sunscreen. What can I say, we are not a robust people.

Night Time Pool Party, Volleyball Tournament, and Kickball Competition

Honestly, maybe just skip the outdoor programming altogether during peak Skin Cancer Hours.

“Has Anyone Ever Told You You Look Just Like…” Contest

How is it possible for one person to look like Little Orphan Annie, Christina Hendricks and Jessica Chastain? It isn’t. But if you have red hair, people will tell you that you look like every other ginger, famous or not. In this contest, prizes are awarded for both the person who looks the most like the ginger celeb they’re told they resemble, as well as the person who least resembles their would-be doppelgänger.

Is this Conan O’Brien, or me in 1990? WHO COULD EVEN TELL?

The Burning of Carrot Top in Effigy

He has done such damage to our people’s reputation.

Booths From Ginger-Friendly Dentists And Anesthesiologists

It’s weird but it’s true: redheads require higher doses of anesthetics and pain blockers. When I was getting stitches a few years ago, I eventually pretended that I was numb after 5 shots of local anesthetic so they would get on with it. A redhead-sensitive medical professional could make a pretty penny from all these coppers.

By the way, red hair is caused by a mutation on the melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1r), and the anesthesia thing seems to be linked to the same mutation. But I’m sure you were called “mutant” enough as a child that this isn’t a surprise. The bonus is that we have higher pain tolerance in general – I’m the only person I know who described tattoos over bone as “tickle-y.”

Live Maury Povich Taping: Ginger Pride Festival Edition

Another troublesome effect of that wily MC1R mutation: it can crop up out of nowhere. A random ginger kid showing up in a brown or blonde family has caused scores of parents and children to question parentage. But Maury Povich is on the case, telling yellow- and brown- haired dads that they ARE the father, after all.

Ginger Makeup Demonstrations

Redheads are overlooked in the cosmetics industry. I can’t tell you how many times I came home with the lightest concealer or foundation, only to find that it still overpowered my see-through skin. And if you want to cover up freckles, forget it: advice ranges from “embrace them!” (if that’s what I wanted to do, I wouldn’t be Googling it) to “use a foundation in between the color of your freckles and your regular skin” (yes, I’m sure plastering my face in a color between dark brown and paper-white would make everything blend right in). Also, my kingdom for someone who can show me how to wear a strong eye or lip without looking like a clown. With redhead-friendly cosmetic vendors and live makeup tutorials, I think the world – or at least the mirror – could be a prettier place for gingers.

Caveat: darker-skinned, brown-eyed redheads do seem to look more like humans in makeup.

Round Table: Not All In The Family

A group therapy/gripe session for all those ginger couples who have to deal with the constant assumption that they’re siblings.

Fake Redheads And You

Are you flattered by their imitation hair color, or do you feel like they didn’t earn their place on our team? Do you call anyone a ginger if their hair is currently red, or do they have to be born with it? And do you have a superhuman ability to suss out a fake ginger, scoffing at the Normies who always seem shocked that someone with olive skin and brown eyebrows is a dyer? We have a lot to discuss.

Confronting Stereotypes

It’s enough to make you angry – but it probably doesn’t, because we are TOTALLY NOT ALL HOTHEADS, right? Great. This panel will include such stereotype-defiers as a non-Irish redhead, a chill ginger, a lady redhead who isn’t creeped out by guys with a ginger fetish, a tan ginger, and an actual redheaded stepchild (who is beloved and cherished).

Eyebrow Game

In a world where “brow game strong” and “brows on fleek” (…ugh) are plastered across social media, come commiserate with your comrades who have red hair but inexplicably clear eyebrows. And if you try to color them in with auburn pencil, forget it: you just look like a leprechaun. No matter how you play the brow game, redheads lose every time.

8Oct2015

What I Think Happens In Doctor Who (I Don’t Watch It).

Posted in Entertainment by Molly

Well, this one’s going to get me kicked off the internet: I’ve never seen Doctor Who. That is probably the most incendiary thing I’ll ever write here, at least until I get around to penning I’m Just Not That Into Mr. Darcy, And Other Jane Austen Opinions Nobody Asked For, or Macarons: Not That Delicious. As in What I Think Happens In Game Of Thrones (I Don’t Watch It), I haven’t abstained from this show because I think it’s bad. I haven’t watched it because:

I’m not sure where to start. One of the things I think I know about Doctor Who is that it’s been on forever and there have been a bunch of different Doctors Who. If I start at the wrong place, am I doomed to hate it?
A lot of people I know are fans. So if I don’t like it, I will take it to the grave.
Also, I always feel bad when I don’t like a show, even though I realize that David Tennant and co. won’t be crushed if Molly From The Internet isn’t a fan.
I reflexively stay away from anything with aliens. I watched a lot of Unsolved Mysteries as a kid and was terrified that I could be scooped up at any moment. [There was an admittedly half-assed abduction attempt around this time, and I just now realized I probably had a misplaced fear of humans scooping me up at any moment? Who knows.]

I’m sure I will watch a few episodes at some point. But before I do, I want to get down what I THINK happens in the show so I can laugh at it later … and you can all laugh at it now.

If you aren’t from North America, it looks like normal tv from a regular channel. If you are from North America, it looks like cable access or maybe Wishbone episodes from the late 90s.
To be clear, “like Wishbone” is never an insult.

Doctor Who is an alien who can look like anything, but who always chooses to look like a British man.

He has a sidekick, who he calls a “companion” like he’s Aunt March and somebody has to read him the Gospel Of Luke at Plumfield.

The companion could also technically be anyone, but in practice is always a young, attractive British woman.

For a while his companion is that one blonde girl who’s like British Tyra Collette.
Plus maybe some Burberry.

He has a mission. Helping people, probably? Sounds fake.

When Doctors Who quit, they just get a new one and they’re like “no, it’s still the same guy inside, but he’s an alien who turned into a different attractive but not hunky-attractive, wry but not smarmy British man, don’t worry.” And nobody does.

They always meet up at an old-fashioned red phone booth.

No. I think blue.. Police booth? I can picture it.
I wouldn’t let myself Google Image it until I had written the whole post, because I was afraid of accidentally finding something out.

Like Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
“Actually, no.” – my image search results.

I haven’t been to England for 8 years, but I definitely saw a billion red phone booths and zero police booths, so I’m not sure how incognito that is.

I think sometimes there’s time travel. Why am I not watching this again?

The spaceship is called Tardis and no, I have no clue what that means. Tennant And Regular Dudes In Space?

There’s sometimes a big Christmas episode. But I bet it airs on Boxing Day. I just bet.

I’m almost positive at some point there are dinosaurs.

The special effects are reminiscent of Space Cases or Halloweentown.
Exhibit A.

Exhibit B.

It’s not America, so sometimes they let unattractive people be on the show if they’re good at acting.

It’s not America, so adult characters have parents who are actually 55+.

I bet at some point they tried to do a social issue tie-in episode and it sucked.

The series, though generally good, has a few episodes that are just notoriously, horribly bad.

Is his companion called Poppy one time?

He’s not a doctor. Not a medical doctor, anyway.

The companion has to make up a series of increasingly implausible lies so her loved ones don’t find out.

They don’t fall in love every time.

But even when they’re not technically “in love” they totally are.

Wait. Maybe every once in a while the sidekick/companion is a dude, like Robin to his Batman.

The show has been on FOREVER. Like since the 1960s or ’70s, I think? But it took a break for a while and nobody watches the early years.

Also, the Doctor was not so attractive until the more recent reboots.

They must have catch phrases.
There’s a chance I’m thinking of Full House.

There’s something like a Dilek.

I know that isn’t the word exactly, but that IS the name of a girl who was friends with one of my college roommates, and it is something like that.

Anyway. I have no clue what the Dilek is but the phrase my brain keeps going to is “bad guy spaceship.” I don’t think that’s right, though. It might be more like a friendly alien.

Benedict Cumberbatch is not in Doctor Who. Tom Hiddleston is not in Doctor Who. Eddie Redmayne is not in Doctor Who. However, there’s a near-1:1 ratio of people who like this show and who like those guys. Which is why I always feel like they were in it.

6Oct2015

Low-Fright Movie Night: Halloween Movies That Won’t Scare Your Pants Off

Posted in Entertainment by Molly

I love almost everything about Halloween. Candy? Awesome. Costumes? Fun! Falling leaves, cider, donuts, tacky decorations? Sure! But there’s one big part of the holiday I can’t get behind: being scared. Slasher movies gross me out. I love ghost stories and spooky stuff, but as night falls and I’m alone in my 105-year-old house, I really, really wish I had skipped it. Besides, there’s plenty of real-life stuff to be afraid of, like repaying my student loans, or the prospect that the dead mouse I found this morning has left a widow and children somewhere in my house. Scaring myself silly over things that probably don’t exist doesn’t help matters.

So what to do if you want to get into the Halloween spirit, but don’t want the Halloween spirit to keep you up in the middle of the night? Here are some of my favorite Halloween movies – either gently supernatural, or set during the season – that don’t leave me feeling all goosebumpy.

Harry Potter

Pick a Harry Potter, any Harry Potter! But for the gentle, slightly witchy fun I’m looking for – before things get quite so heavy and house elves start dying – I like to stick to the first three movies. The Halloween scene in Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s (/Philosopher’s) Stone is especially festive. Note: I have also convinced myself that some of the Harry Potter movies are Christmas-appropriate due to the occasional picturesque snowfall or Yuletide celebration in the Great Hall.

The Crucible

You know what’s REALLY scary? McCarthyism. While the only demon here was the mob mentality bred by religious fundamentalism (Halloween fun!!!), the talk of witches and rustic New England setting make this a great one to enjoy in October.

When the two of us were in high school, we covered this play in English (of course), and entertained ourselves for weeks by saying things like “I saw Goody Traci with the devil, she ‘ad ‘is poppet! She signed ‘is book!” in an inexplicably Cockney accent. Yes, we have always been exactly the people we are right now.

This is coming to Broadway with Saoirse Ronan and Tavi Gevinson as Puritan teens and I couldn’t be more excited.

E.T.

There’s an awesome trick-or-treating scene, plus aliens always feel like at least a Halloween-adjacent topic. Halloween always makes me feel a little nostalgic and this movie takes me right back to my childhood in the late 80s and early 90s.

Hocus Pocus

Speaking of nostalgia, nothing could bring me back to my youth in a better way than the Halloween classic Hocus Pocus. It has an all-star cast – Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker! – gorgeous visuals, a fun plot, and even takes it back to Colonial times like the Crucible did. This movie is from 1993, but I swear it’s timeless. You can read our live blog here.

The Witches

Based on the Roald Dahl book, this movie has all the offbeat, macabre fun you’d expect, but it’s silly enough that – for an adult, anyway – it isn’t going to haunt your dreams.

Edward Scissorhands

This list is leaning heavily to movies that were shown on cable a lot when I was a child, but whatever, the 80s and early 90s were apparently a great era for non-scary, dark paranormal movies. Tim Burton movies, on the whole, are great Halloween viewing if you’re easily spooked, because everything is sort of dark and rickety, but it’s also absurd enough that it won’t scare you. There will be more where this came from!

Beetlejuice

Aha! Here we are again. Even as a little kid, I thought Beetlejuice was more fun than scary. What could be more Halloween-appropriate than an old-school “scary” movie night with Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and a few more from this list? While Tim Burton is an easy match for a list like this I’m also noticing that this is the third Winona Ryder movie so far.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Rounding out our Tim Burton trilogy, The Nightmare Before Christmas has an awesome aesthetic, great songs, and is part of a true golden era of Halloween entertainment (it came out the same year as Hocus Pocus! I was one lucky second grader).

The Addams Family

And Addams Family values: part of the weird 90s trend of making feature films out of long-dead tv shows (see also: The Brady Bunch, Leave It To Beaver, The Beverly Hillbillies). But while the show never particularly tickled my funny bone, this movie – particularly deadpan Wednesday Addams, played by a too-talented-for-her-age Christina Ricci – still holds up pretty well.

Rocky Horror Picture Show

None of the goblins and ghouls in Rocky Horror are scary – in fact, the only “scary” thing is maybe what a weird place we were at in the 70s. It’s a cult classic for a reason, with a farcical plot and catchy songs that are just as outlandish in 2015 as they were 40 years ago (while we’re at it: 40 years?! Round of applause for Susan Sarandon!).

Mean Girls

It’s not a Halloween movie, but the Halloween sequence is truly classic – and, for us nostalgia-heads, a great peak back in the Paris Hilton-y early 2000s. I still get a kick out of Cady in her “ex wife” costume. Much like Harry Potter, I also convince myself that this is a Christmas movie because there’s a Christmas scene in it.

Halloweentown

I saw (and live blogged) Halloweentown for the first time a few years ago because I didn’t have Disney as a kid, and was hit over the head by how deliciously late 90s it was. You can also follow up with Halloweentown II, Halloweentown High and Return To Halloweentown (but I didn’t).

The Village

Fun(?) fact: I worked at a movie theater at the time and multiple customers told me I looked like “that girl in The Village” and I’m not sure that was meant to be a compliment, pretty as Bryce Dallas Howard is in other movies.

This isn’t M. Night Shyamalan’s most acclaimed movie, but it IS his least scary! By the end, when the Shyamalan-required twist is revealed, you will probably not be shaking in your boots – but it does have just the right amount of atmospheric spookiness and autumn scenery to make you feel like you tried. It’s like the movie version of going on the tilt-a-whirl, but not the upside down roller coaster.

Tower Of Terror

Look. It’s a TV movie based on a Disney theme park ride. Enough said? But it’s sort of fun in a 1930s-meets-1990s way.

Kiki’s Delivery Service

I’m not into cartoons – well, except for Disney, Pixar, and Bob’s Burgers – but Hayao Miyazaki knows how to make cartoons that appeal to anyone who likes a well-made film. Kiki is a young witch flying around on a broomstick, but … I don’t know. It’s just a really nicely made movie. If you’re keeping count of the 90s child starlets, this is the second consecutive Kirsten Dunst movie. She’s gaining on Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci!

Honorable Mentions

If you like classics, To Kill A Mockingbird and Meet Me In St. Louis both have fantastic trick or treating scenes. And Goonies – which for me personally just doesn’t feel like Halloween – definitely wouldn’t be out of place either.