There’s something different about the newest American Girl doll. It’s a boy. Which is a fine thing to be, if you’re a human, but I have to admit that my knee-jerk reaction was more like:
As if white boys couldn’t already be EVERYTHING, now they’re an American Girl doll? Ugh. What would Felicity think? (Trick question, she’d just note whether they wore the same britches size in case she had to steal another pair under cover of darkness.) Okay, also the boy looks like this:
Of course he does.
Anyway, the Boy American Girl is named Logan Everett.
Of course he is.
Logan is apparently the drummer for the doll version of 2008-era Taylor Swift. As the latest addition to our series Things I’m Willing To Believe About, here are some things I am willing to believe about Logan Everett, Boy American Girl:
His working name was Logan Bruno because he was 100% based on Logan Bruno, boy associate member of the Baby-Sitters Club. He’s even Southern.
Not to put all Logans in a box but all Logans are exactly one way, right?
Logan would like to invite you to a fun laser tag outing with his youth group.
His dad is in the worship band. Logan’s first performance was Lord I Lift Your Name On High.
The original plan was for Boy American Girl Doll Logan Everett to be a historical character from 1994. He would have had the requisite Cute Boy In The 90s Haircut (see: Rider Strong), a plaid flannel with a heather gray hood, and you could buy him a scaled-down, working Talkboy for $19.99.
Like this.
In a frozen pioneer cemetery in Minnesota, Logan’s great-great-great-great grandmormor Kirsten is rolling over in her grave due to his coddled and simple lifestyle.
He calls his dog a rescue dog but it’s just a regular dog.
Logan rarely looks up from his Nintendo DS when he is forced to visit his great-grandma Molly. To be fair, all of her “harrowing war stories” are, like, “one time I curled my hair when it was wet and I got a cold” and “I ate turnips, once.”
Get a grip, Molls.
I’m not saying Logan smirks mockingly at people, I’m just saying that doll is smirking mockingly at me, right?
That face where you dropped something on your shirt and he’s not gonna laugh, he’s just gonna stare at you condescendingly.
His parents buy Lunchables.
And Sunny D.
And maybe Cheez Wiz?
Logan’s instagram is all skating pictures he stole off of other people’s instagrams (he doesn’t skate) and quotes.
Just really wants to bring hacky sack back.
Is the main character’s older brother who the best friend has a crush on on a Disney show.
If his name wasn’t Logan, it would have been Hunter. Or Kyler.
Was the first kid in his class whose parents didn’t care if he watched PG 13 movies.
Was in a commercial for a local amusement park 2 years ago and finds way more ways to bring it up than you’d think.
Boy band role: the one moms are OK with
Logan “thinks you look prettier without makeup,” but also thinks “no makeup” looks like concealer, light, well-blended foundation and bronzer, neutral eye shadow, lightly smudged dark brown liner, full mascara and lip gloss
Also “Tthinks you look prettier when you don’t do you hair;” hot rollers and highlights.
I understand this is supposed to be a country musician but I still kind of feel like on Myspace c. 2005 his favorite music would have been “anything but country lol.”
Always has to show you this hilarious video he found on YouTube.
If I’ve learned one thing from life, love and fiction it’s that most great relationships consist of one logical, methodical quick thinker, and then a nonsense person. Pa Ingalls was the nonsense person in the Little House universe, but not the benign kind. A benign nonsense person would, say, decide that it would be a great idea to open a used book store in small-town New England and then they let the logic person figure out how to do it. Pa’s more like “let’s cross rivers and woodlands to go build a house underneath the earth for whatever reason and not really take care of our dog while we’re doing it.” Every couple needs an idea person: the problem was, Pa Ingalls’ ideas were bad.
Good looking couple, though.
During the Big Woods years, Ma and Pa Ingalls more or less serve as the Goofus and Gallant of 1800s forest life. Caroline painstakingly dyes her butter with carrot juice so that it looks more appealing; Charles lets shiny hot lead bullets cool within reach of toddlers. (Granted, he did warn Laura, but that child was half Charles, after all.) They balance each other pretty well, except that it is the nineteenth century and every time Pa wants to get into a covered wagon and move onto an Indian reservation that the family has no legal right to occupy (a true thing!) Ma just had to pack up the calico and deal with it.
The Ingallses were poor. It’s fine to be poor, but I can’t help but think it’s because Pa can’t settle himself in one place and be normal. You can tell the family is poor because the inventory of their possessions is so small that I can recount it decades after reading the books. Ma had one (1) china shepherdess, Pa had one (1) fiddle, they clearly owned a thimble because Pa did that Jack Frost stuff on the windows which was admittedly pretty cool, and then one day a year they had a pig bladder to play with until it disintegrated because that is not a toy, it is a body part. Okay, so the family wasn’t doing terribly but wasn’t raking it in either, and they went off to find a “better life” or whatever. Problem was, Pa wasn’t good at finding it.
First the family lives in the Big Woods of Wisconsin. It’s pretty good; they have a garret full of dried vegetables in the winter and they run around in bonnets in the summer; Ma has the love and support of her family close by; sometimes Laura gets a piece of hard candy if they take the wagon into town. As I said above, they’re poor but in a comfy way. This is when Pa gets it into his head to, in the great words of T.L.C., “go chasing waterfalls” even though he quite literally would be better off sticking to the rivers and the lakes that he’s used to.
Bad Idea Beard
The family piles into a covered wagon and crosses a swollen creek, huddling in a rickety wooden cart that I don’t even think they caulked per Oregon Trail recommendations. Oh, did I say the whole family? Not their dog Jack, who was left to swim alongside the wagon and drown. Jack comes back later because he is a Very Good Boy but that was a bad position for Pa to put his kids and dog in. While I know dogs served more of a utilitarian function in those days, you can’t deny that Laura loved that pup and for good reason. Jack jealously guarded and protected his family from everything … except for Pa’s poor choices, which almost killed him.
The family gets to Kansas, but psych! They move onto Osage Indian land and they aren’t allowed to be there. You know all those times Pa says racist garbage like “the only good Indian is a dead Indian,” and you kind of try to put yourself in the head space of a white man from the 1800s, but it STILL seems awful? To make it even worse, Pa was acting like the Osage were dangerous intruders when he was on their land. It’s like a racist version of that movie The Others, where the characters think that their house is haunted because they don’t realize that they are the ghosts. Sorry if you haven’t seen The Others, but it came out 15 years ago and was good but not amazing.
You know the real threat in that part of Kansas? Of course you do. It was weird white people. More specifically, the “Bloody Benders,” a family – or possibly not a real family? – who ran a tavern of horrors where they murdered over twenty people. The Ingalls drove by the Bender tavern at one point, saw the murderess, looked her in the face, but didn’t have tavern money. This is one time when Pa’s inability to provide for his family actually saved them, so that’s nice. What’s not nice is pretending like the Osage were out for blood when the real killers were more like a 19th century homespun Manson family.
The Bloody Benders
The books kind of shift the timeline here, but after that the family moved back to The Big Woods. “Lesson learned! Better stay comfy-poor in these big woods!” That’s how a normal person would react. Not Pa! He decides maybe if it would be better to go move to a hole next to a creek in the coldest and snowiest state, and Ma says “Charles, that sounds irresponsible and also like a weird thing to do, even for people in the 1800s.” Just kidding! Societal conventions wouldn’t have allowed it. She just packed up the china shepherdess and they moved into a dirt hole.
the dugout, recreated
At this point the Ingallses kind of move to and fro within Minnesota for a while. Then they go to Iowa for a bit to manage a hotel, a weird kind of Wes Anderson-y chapter in the family’s existence. While that seems like a tough lifestyle to mess up, Charles finds a way. He wasn’t into the hotel so he works at a grist mill for a second, the family lives above a grocery store and then they live in a rented house… and THEN the family skips town under cover of darkness and they go back to Minnesota. Okay. Cool. Minnesota is a bit too warm and dry so then the Ingalls go to De Smet, North Dakota, where they experience the worst winter America has ever had, per my twenty-year-old memory of The Long Winter. Laura meets Almanzo, gets married, and no longer has to live under the rein of her father’s nonsense ideas. I mean, Manly’s favorite food is apples fried with onions, so I’m not saying he’s perfect; I’m just saying they get a bit more stable.
During her whole childhood, Charles (and Caroline, but we’re talking Pa here) was also painfully oblivious to Laura’s feelings of inadequacy, probably because he was too busy making plans to get lost in blizzards or move out of a perfectly good cabin into a way less-good cabin. Laura always thought Mary was so much better than her, probably because of things like Mary having a legit ragdoll, Nettie, while Laura just had a handkerchief that was trying to be a doll. Laura clearly had a hangup the size of the wide-open prairie about Mary having blonde hair, because she brings it up a LOT. You’d think Pa would have squashed that nonsense or, at the least, informed Laura that Mary was seriously not even all that blonde but Pa was cooking up a schemes and a once-annual pig tail so I guess he never got around to it.
Brown-haired Mary.
This is just the tip of the Bad Idea iceberg. Remember the time Pa dressed up in blackface for the minstrel show? Or almost got blizzarded to death that one Christmas? When I was a kid, I thought Pa seemed like the most fun dad ever, what with his singalongs and scruffy friends and all. Now that I’m older, I can see Pa through Ma’s eyes instead of Laura’s – and what I see is a whole lot of nonsense wrapped up in a legacy of terrible ideas.
In an attempt to get back into regularly scheduled programming – both on the blog and life-wise – I watched a Lifetime movie this week. It was a remake of Beaches, the classic 1988 Bette Midler/ Barbara Hershey friendship drama that I don’t remember ever seeing. This reboot takes the action to 2017 and stars Idina Menzel and Nia Long. It was exactly what I’d expect out of a Lifetime remake of a beloved movie with good actresses in it. Take that how you will.
Comment: I’m not coming at this with a lot of history with Beaches.
I thought “didn’t I do a monologue from that for auditions for a while as a kid?” but that was Brighton Beach Memoirs. I think I saw Beaches on TV as a child but I don’t really remember it. Guess what I’m saying is, I’m not expecting to have my memories of Beaches tarnished, I’m just expecting a better-than-usual Lifetime movie.
Comment: They did a really good job with the 80s flashback clothing!
Concern: The 80s being a flashback. I was alive then!
Part of the time anyway.
Concern: When you’re such a musical theater nerd that you know the child versions of CC and Hilary.
CC is Gabriella Pizzolo (Fun Home) and Hilary is Grace Capeless (The Lion King). Goes without saying, they’re adorable and talented in that classic older-than-their-years Musical Theater Child way.
Question: Did they just say this was supposed to be Vegas?
For some reason I thought it was meant to take place in Coney Island or something.
(Per Google, the flashback in the original was set in Atlantic City, which makes way more sense. Sorry. Must have misheard something)
Comment: I can see why people love Beaches.
The segment where the letters are going back and forth is really sweet.
Concern: I don’t love Idina in this role ??
OF COURSE I know Idina is talented. Obviously I loved Rent and Wicked. I don’t dispute that Idina Menzel knows what she’s doing. Just what she’s doing here isn’t working for me. I’m willing to admit the problem is probably me, I just wasn’t expecting to feel this way.
Comment: Love the throwback to Idina’s early lounge/wedding/bar mitzvah singer days though.
Comment: PEN PALS ARE LIKE INTERNET FRIENDS.
I don’t know why it took me this long to realize it, but I suddenly relate to this story more.
Question: Is CC’s apartment really messy or just really cluttered or somewhere in between?
(It’s messy, right?)
Concern: I shouldn’t have laughed so hard at “there’s only one dreidel song.”
Question: There’s gonna be singalongs??
They start singing Oh Come All Ye Faithful and my hopes for this movie skyrocket.
Question: Is the show CC’s in SUPPOSED to be bad?
I legitimately do not know.
(They go on to say that it’s supposed to be good. Huh.)
Comment: Nia’s acting at her father’s funeral.
Good work.
Concern: This friendship really isn’t bringing out anyone’s best selves
I just can’t imagine being this mean to one of my friends, ever?
Like I said, I don’t have any history with this movie but I was expecting a lot more warm fuzzies. Someone better give someone else a kidney soon.
Comment: I went from zero emotional investment to crying when Idina sang about “don’t let the last time I hurt you be the last time…”
This is either the magical power of Beaches, which I’ve known about for years but never witnessed, or the magical power of Idina Menzel, which I know very well.
I think my lack of investment may be because I never really have friend breakups on purpose, I just sometimes suck at keeping in touch with people on accident.
Comment: I miss the beginning of the part where they’re putting a crib together because it sounds and looks like a commercial.
Like, where one woman would start explaining to the other why she likes her new brand of tampons.
Question: When is something awful going to happen?
Because Hilary is adorably pregnant and happy and CC and Hilary love each other and there’s, like, an hour to go. I’ve started to emotionally invest. IS THIS WHAT EVERYONE WAS REFUSING TO TELL ME ABOUT BEACHES.
Comment: Hilary delivers the most gorgeous 2-month-old baby ever.
This can’t be good. Hilary now has a precious, beautiful 7-year-old. Oh, no.
Concern: “Mommy is tired.” “You’re always tired.”
Oh NO.
Comment: You know you watch a lot of Lifetime movies when you get to the last hour and fully realize that the commercials are gonna start coming every 5 minutes.
Comment: This movie is unexpectedly guilting me for being Type O and unable to donate.
SORRY.
Maybe I’ll work on it.
Comment: Now they’re back to the scene they opened with.
Which means Hilary’s gonna die. Come on, Beaches. This is NOT the week for this.
Comment: “Want to know the most magical thing about being a mommy? I’m always with you.”
Beaches can burn in hell.
Comment: “I want you to take Tory.”
What are you trying to do to me, Beaches.
Comment: “I put it in my will.”
You’re really still going, Beaches.
Concern: Is she going to really die right in the middle of Oh Come All Ye Faithful?
(She doesn’t.)
Comment: This movie has been brought to you by Guilt Over Not Donating Blood
Comment: OH WOW. I forgot that (a) Wind Beneath My Wings was from this movie and (b) for whatever reason, I always hated Wind Beneath My Wings.
Like, I’m half sad, half furious that this song is playing.
Comment: I take back what I said about not liking Idina in this role.
Slow burn, was all.
Concern: If little Tory comes on stage to sing I’m going to die.
She didn’t. I live.
But you know who doesn’t?
Hilary Whitney. RIP.
Comment: Going from this to Steel Magnolias feels like a very irresponsible programming choice, Lifetime.
Christmas movies, in general, are aesthetically dreamy. Those technicolor classics like White Christmas bring the Old Hollywood glamor, cozy houses in movies like The Family Stone make me dream of joyfully chaotic decor, and Christmas rom-coms are the sparkliest and dreamiest of all rom-coms. That’s why this month, our aesthetic goals come from 2007 Christmas classic (ahem… modern classic), The Holiday.
Kate and Cameron’s Hair
Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz’s hair look perfectly normal, but that’s the thing. In 2007, Kate’s loose, beachy waves were actually at the very start of the loose, beachy waves trend, and I think it says something that it still looks current 9 years later – in contrast, imagine trying to sport, say, 1994 hair in 2003. I’ve also always been envious of straight, fine hair like Cameron’s that can looks fun yet professional in a short, croppy ‘do, as opposed to … floofy. I think a lot of us would look floofy with that haircut.
Rosehill Cottage, Exterior
Forget the likelihood that Iris, a young columnist who’s not at the top of her publication, could afford this. Holiday films are about wish-fulfillment, after all. It makes me happy just to think that SOMEONE gets to live in a gorgeous, quaint stone cottage with wildflower gardens, a rustic fence and a winding road in front of it. (Note: As a real estate addict, I did look up some houses for sale in Surrey. It is as expensive as you’d expect a picturesque London-accessible area to be; I assume the less-expensive ones are also secretly falling down inside. Maybe Iris inherited it from a relative. Whatever, it’s a movie and I’d much prefer to look at this cottage than a tiny, cookie-cutter terraced house from the 1970s).
Rosehill Cottage, Interior
I know that saying “I like the cottage better than Cameron Diaz’s mansion” makes me sound like one of those guys who think it’s a revelation that they find, like, Emma Stone more attractive than Angelina Jolie. The cottage is doing pretty well for itself, thanks. That said, yeah, I would 1000% rather live in Iris’s cottage than Amanda’s SmartHouse. (I bought a cute little 1909 house a few years ago so it’s not just talk. Also I couldn’t afford anything even approaching Amanda’s SmartHouse even if I wanted it, let’s be clear.) Rosehill Cottage really holds up on rewatch. There are layers of cosy decor, lots of overstuffed chintz chairs and a great vintage iron bed, but if you look really closely nothing is sloppy or haphazard. Also: fireplaces everywhere! Stone and stucco walls! A stainless steel tub and a painted wood bathroom floor! Do yourself a favor and go gawk at the Hooked On Houses page for it.
PS, I think “it has a fireplace in the bedroom” is the house version of “and it has pockets!” in a cute dress.
Iris’s Nancy Meyers Kitchen
Ain’t no kitchen like a Nancy Meyers kitchen cause a Nancy Meyers kitchen is very, very charming. Echoing the old-country charm of one of my other favorite Nancy Meyers kitchens (the vastly underrated Baby Boom), this one comes complete with a stucco fireplace, open shelving with blue and white earthenware pottery, flush-mounted cabinet doors in a chalky robins egg blue, and a cosy vintage table. Yes, I did make note of all of those elements for reference when I remodel my kitchen.
Sweaters
Second to the late 90s WB show Felicity, Christmas movies are the best visual source of people in comfy sweaters. If people feeling warm and comfortable is your aesthetic, may I present Jude Law in a blue sweater?
Sophie and Olivia’s Fort
Why is it that you can be a full-grown adult with a home or apartment of your own, but you’d still move into a soft blanket fort with fairy lights any day? Sophie and Olivia, come decorate for me.
Arthur’s Old Hollywood Vibe
Modern Hollywood culture – not much aesthetic appeal. But anything that smacks of the old studio system? Now we’re talking. Arthur, a funny and sweet relic from the days when people only knew about celebrities’ personal lives through fake ‘dates’ they’d go to at the studio commissary, is the real romantic hero of this movie.
This New Year’s Party
Low key decorations, snacks, champagne, and only like 6 people, two of whom are small children. Now THAT’S what a call a no-fuss holiday gathering. But the best part is everyone dresses way the heck up anyway because it’s the holidays, and the best aesthetic of all is “fancier than is strictly necessary, just because it’s fun sometimes.”
This year, there are teenagers who were not even born when Love Actually was released. I hope you feel good about that, because I feel awful. Still, I cannot deny that 2003 was a really long time ago. The global economy and politics were different, technology was worlds apart, clothing has changed enough to look absurd now. I always expect this with 90s movies, but seeing a movie from the 2000s look dated – my high school years! senior year, in fact! I worked at a movie theater when it came out! – is a bit of a shock. There’s no denying it: now that Love Actually is a teenager old, it is a veritable 2003 time capsule.
Keira Knightly’s two pieces of hair
2003 was the year side bangs started to make their way back in after those 1990s curled-under round brush bangs were officially out. But it was a transitional time, and if you wanted a bit of interest you’d just part your hair in the middle and leave two little pieces out in front.
Natalie Had Those Side Bangs, By The Way
See also, my haircut c. 2004.
Keira Knightly herself
Keira Knightly 2003, Keira Knightly 2016. WHERE IS THE DIFFERENCE. She’s like a walking 2003 time capsule.
(I remember being floored that I was roughly the same age as Keira when this came out, because she looked like a beautiful, sophisticated leading lady and I looked like a Cabbage Patch Kid without makeup, or an American Girl doll with.)
This Ringtone
Thomas Sangster As A Child
You may remember that for what felt like a 10-year period in the early 2000s, all child roles were played by Thomas Sangster, Dakota Fanning and Freddie Highmore (that English boy with the brown bowl cut from Finding Neverland). It went on for so long that it seemed almost like they were being pumped with puberty-surpressing drugs. Nothing says 2003 like Child Thomas Sangster.
(Upon further Googling, Thomas Sangster is now a 26 year old man, lending further weight to my theory that he played little boy roles forever)
Maroon Five
Just, in general.
Keira Knightly’s newsboy cap
Or baker boy hat, I guess? These aren’t totally gone, but they were really having a moment in the early 2000s
A VHS tape as a plot device
Dido
as the soundtrack to an angsty scene, in particular.
Norah Jones
as the soundtrack to a slow dance, in particular.
The American girls’ ‘going out outfits’
As discussed in our analysis of mid 2000s fashion, the Going Out Top was a very real phenomenon. That blue sparkly one, in particular, is a prime example of a 2003 Going Out Top in the wild.
Natalie’s off-shoulder Christmas sweater
Way more subtle than the fun yet garish 80s/90s Christmas sweaters, but really throwing me back to the off-shoulder thing that was going on my last few years of high school.
Joanna’s 2003 Pop Star Ensemble
I present: sequin top, a handkerchief hemline, sparkly jeans (totally had a pair) and accent braids. All ready for an American Idol audition.
Lax Airport Security
Things tightened up after 9/11, but the rigid check in/ security protocol as we know it took a few years to develop, making dramatic airport confessions of love possible.
In all my Gilmore Girls hysteria I missed the television event I never knew I didn’t need: the 2016, YTV, Martin Sheen-ified remake of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, which aired on PBS Thanksgiving night. Ahem, American Thanksgiving night. While I first fell in love with the world of Avonlea through Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables books, I also have a real fondness for the One True Film Adaptation: the 1985 CBC Miniseries directed by Kevin Sullivan and starring Megan Follows, Richard Farnsworth and Colleen Dewhurst. We’ve written about Anne in our takedown of Marilla Cuthbert as a creepy church hag and in our mixed-feelings analysis of dream man Gilbert Blythe. Now it’s time to turn our attention to the newest adaptation of Anne of Green Gables, which I didn’t really need but which was perfectly fine, I suppose.
Concern: Megan Follows
Personally, I’d argue that any time Anne of Green Gables is made it should star Megan Follows. I understand that she is like 40 years old (EDIT: Forty-EIGHT years old?!?! Which isn’t old, except I see her as a perpetual teen). However, in the 1985 Anne of Green Gables she wasn’t exactly 11 anyway, so may as well keep going with it.
Question: Why is Matthew so bumbling?
Matthew was always quiet and a bit awkward, but I thought it was more in the painfully shy way instead of in a clumsy-lady-in-a-romcom way.
Comment: The casting of Matthew is almost aggressively American.
This time it’s Martin Sheen. Last time it was Richard Farnsworth. Both played the role with an aged cowboy vibe. Hmm. I mean there’s AMERICAN, and then there’s Martin Sheen/ Richard Farnsworth-level American.
Concern: That is the worst red hair I’ve ever seen.
Anne. “Nobody with hair that awful could ever be perfectly happy” because it is a horrendous dye job. I’ll pull out my redhead card (it’s actually an appointment reminder from my dermatologist because red hair is a curse indeed) and say that in the first place, only certain skin and eye tones work with red hair. This adorable actress (surely cast because she was the best for the role; she does a great job) just doesn’t have redhead-compatible undertones. Add to that a weird, improbable shade of red dye and the worst Halloween costume-level painted freckles I have seen in my life, and it just does not work at all.
Comment: All of the kids are the right age.
As an adult I can watch the One True Anne of Green Gables and pretend all those kids look 12-13 years old. But as a kid who was the same age as Anne I remember being so confused as to why they all looked 18. Note: it’s because they were all 18. It was especially jarring in the scenes where they’d mention Anne being scrawny and 11-year-old me was like “for real, she looks post-pubescent.” The casting made sense because the 1985 Anne of Green Gables combined Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea, and this one is Anne of Green Gables only. It’s very different seeing Anne look like an actual little girl. She comes across as more precocious for her age and less like a weirdo quirky teenager. All in all, not a bad move.
Question: Why is the new White Way of Delight so bad?
THIS is how it should be.
Comment: Puffed sleeves are proof that trends may change, but terrible tween fads are a constant.
Does anyone remember reading about Anne’s puffed sleeves and imagining something positively dreamy, only to see those big ugly ’80s-looking things? Proof that fads come and go, but they’re almost always stupid.
Comment: “Would you please STOP TALKING?”
Marilla speaking truth to how I’d feel about Anne as an adult who had to deal with her – even though I wouldn’t say it.
Comment: New Anne is different, but good.
I mean, the kid is adorable.
New Anne (Ella Ballentine) is a little less dreamy and out of it, a little more introspective and quick-witted, but in a way that is supported by the way Anne is written in the books. I’m so relieved they don’t have her trying to do a Megan Follows impression. Between the different take on Anne and the different ages of the actors, this is at least enough different from the old version to make it worth a watch.
Question: Why is Rachel Lynde so awful?
I’d think that Rachel was improbably bad, but then I remember that adults DID make comments about my red hair and freckles when I was a kid. However, I am still baffled as to why Rachel’s so terrible. Sure, she doesn’t have kids, but neither do I and I know enough not to call them ugly.
Comment: A+ Canadian pronunciation of “sorry” and “out.”
Comment: A++ Rachel Lynde apology scene
We see it from afar, with Anne gesticulating dramatically and Rachel looking bemused. Ha.
Comment: Marilla chuckling to herself over Anne closing her prayer with “et cetera, et cetera.”
I liked this moment showing why Marilla’s keeping this kid around – Anne drives her crazy, but Marilla gets a kick out of her. Who wouldn’t?
Comment: The hair is better out of natural light.
Same with the freckles.
Question: Did this film even HAVE a colorist, or…?
If you can give Anne bad red hair, surely you can give Diana bad black hair.
Diana has light brown hair with a slight tint of ginger, even though everyone knows Diana has black hair. In some cases a character’s description in a book isn’t important, but in Anne of Green Gables it mattered because (1) Anne’s hair was a major plot device and (2) Diana’s hair marked her as everything Anne wasn’t.
Comment: Diana is good and different, too.
I always imagined Diana being much more calm, cool and together than Anne, but this actress (Julia Lalonde) plays Diana as a slightly awkward tween. I can totally see her getting drunk on raspberry cordial by accident. This less-smooth take on Diana works since she and Anne are both so imaginative – kindred spirits! – and because Diana’s so sheltered by her mother. Not to mention, the “Diana’s so cool and pretty” stuff was mostly coming from how Anne saw her because she absolutely had one of those tween friend-crushes where you just want someone to be BFFs with you.
To make up for the lack of black hair dye, this Diana has expressive dark brown eyes, which feels very Diana.
Concern: I never realized how much my concept of Gilbert was tied up in having a crush on Gilbert.
Gilbert was played by college-age dreamboat Jonathan Crombie (RIP) in the 1985 version. which means both that he was one of the first leading men I remember having a crush on, and also that it didn’t feel weird to find him cute when I rewatched as an adult. New Gilbert is a baby. I mean, a small child. It drives home how jerk-era Gilbert from the books was a little kid, which is nice, but it still makes me feel like a filthy old lady to see Gilbert as a child.
Comment: Diana getting lit on raspberry cordial.
It’s still one of the best scenes in this or any version of Anne of Green Gables.
Props to Ella(/Anne) for her delivery of “what’s that?” when Diana says her mother has hives – both girls are talking in fake fancy accents and she totally drops it. Cute.
Woozy Diana and confused Anne – both so good!
Comment: We all get creep vibes from Mr. Phillips, right?
In the books, Mr. Phillips courts teen student Prissy Andrews, but even if he hadn’t he’s just creep vibes all around. I’m happy they had this actor portray Mr. Phillips as a sketchy mean teacher, too.
Comment: The scene where Anne saves Diana’s sister is so much more touching as an adult.
It was always clear Anne had a lot of child know-how because she was basically an indentured servant for giant families, but now it’s even more touching because you see how everyone thinks Anne’s silly because she’s so imaginative, but really that’s an escape – she’s an incredibly intelligent and competent girl who never got to be a kid before.
Also, Mrs. Barry is kind of a B for only forgiving Anne after she saves her kid.
Comment:
Anne: Why are you standing there?
Gilbert: For your safety.
Me:
Concern: Marilla would never try to return a kid she bought THAT LATE
Marilla did buy a kid for chores and then try to return her. We don’t let her off the hook for it. However, this adaptation sneaks in a moment of dramatic tension by having Marilla almost return Anne at the close of the film after she’s been established in Avonlea for, like, a year or something. Then Marilla decides to keep Anne thanks to VOICE OF REASON RACHEL LYNDE. Lots to unpack here. I understand why someone adapting Anne of Green Gables would feel that there needs to be a point of conflict at the conclusion. However, Anne of Green Gables, like many children’s classics – Little Women comes to mind – is a series of episodes rather than one large problem to be solved. The story develops over the course of several novels, and there is real conflict in whether Anne will get to stay, if she will remain friends with Diana, make peace with Gilbert, and later on in whether she will earn top marks, go away to school, fulfill her career goals and finally make up her mind about Gilbert. The Anne books, like childhood itself, aren’t a buildup to one stunning turning point. They are a series of events that inch a person closer and closer to the adult they will become.
New month, new aesthetic… same author? Last month we explained why the 1996 film Matilda is our aesthetic. This month, I have another Roald Dahl adaptation on the brain: the 1990 classic The Witches. It has all the best of Halloween spookiness, Scandinavian middle class life and early ’90s British coziness.
The cobblestone-y Norwegian streets
The first part of The Witches was filmed on location in beautiful Bergen, Norway, with quaint winding streets and Scandinavian houses that look like something out of a Jan Brett book or Colonial Williamsburg.
Helga’s hygge-ified kitchen
Helga has the perfect cozy grandmother’s kitchen to hear a story about witches in.
Flashback Erica’s knit woolens
Very Kirsten Larson, if you know what I mean (and I’m sure you do).
Helga’s tiny bed
It seems so simple and old-school European to sleep on a minimalist, space saving bed but also I’m a greedy American and I need a queen bed so I can sleep diagonally across it.
This hotel
Look. If I drove by this hotel in real life and I needed a place to stay, I wouldn’t even stop. I’d just assume that it was already fully booked for a witch convention and keep going.
This witch’s super conspicuously witchy outfit
Very motorcycle meets Audrey Hepburn meets mean rich lady.
Convalescing by the sea
Just in general, it is 100% my aesthetic to be sent to convalesce at the sea-side when you’re sick. I don’t want to be sick ever, it’s just that WHEN I am I wish the treatment plan involved “sea air” and not, you know, amoxicillin. I imagine I’d have a lap blanket and go on strolls that weren’t too strenuous. What I think I’m saying is that I’d only do a sitting-down type vacation if I had a disease.
This Married With Children-looking witch
On the right. Imagine her trying to act like a normal human at either a New Jersey deli or a Steel Magnolias-style southern beauty parlor.
This whole Mary Kay General Meeting-style convention
Don’t even try to tell me somebody isn’t about to get awarded a pink Cadillac.
PS, my favorite witch is mustard yellow, front left.
This nice pram
This scene is seared into my memory from childhood and that’s not great, but goodness, what a beautiful baby carriage.
Cute rat children
Riddle me this: I don’t find rats cute, but somehow I find children even cuter when they’re morphing into them.
Luke as a rat muppet
An actual rat would have lost me, but this Jim Henson’s Workshop version of a rat is my aesthetic.
The topsy turvy dinner scene
…because it fixed what otherwise was an incredibly boring dinner. It gets better after this but you’ll just have to watch the move.
Also my aesthetic: cress soup.
This grand high witch outfit
Feat. the BEST hat.
Luke’s room when he’s a rat
It’s probably rough being a rat-boy, but a Rube Goldberg-y setup with THIS FREAKING TRAIN and conveyer belt and toy Ghostbusters firehouse softens the blow and sort of makes a human want to get turned into a rodent by a witch.
Keeping the grand high witches’ names in a black filofax
Both for how early ’90s it is, and how ordinary and practical.
I know someone out there is thinking it – where was my childhood? – but here’s the thing. Somehow, between 1986 and 2004, I aged from 0 to 18 and never saw The Princess Bride. I even did high school theater, where it was decided – by secret ballot, I assume – that everyone on stage crew would love The Princess Bride. I knew the Inigo Montoya line and all, but believe it or not nobody ever produced the DVD during theater sleepovers (probably because if theater kids’ love for The Princess Bride was eclipsed by one thing in the early 2000s, it was Moulin Rouge). Like almost all of our pop culture blind spots, this wasn’t intentional, but it happened and I’m rectifying it today.
This is still how I default to imagining video games looking. I’m not saying that as someone who hates video games, I’m saying that as someone who has an OG NES in her living room.
This image links to a site directing Fred’s bedroom so there goes my afternoon.
I know I had seen Fred Savage’s awesome 80s bedroom set before, yet I still thought this took place entirely in … vaguely in the Middle Ages.
“When I was your age, television was called books.” – Fred Savage’s grandpa. I already love this.
I feel more uncomfortable during the eye sex between Wesley and Buttercup than I do during actual sex scenes, in the ‘I’m not meant to be watching this’ way.
Some of the more effective eye-acting I’ve seen.
Eye Sex Wesley died already? Even though he looks like a gentle English singer-songwriter?
Cary Elwes, whom I now have a belated crush on. WHERE WAS MY CHILDHOOD?
Johnny Flynn, whose songs I sometimes cry to.
When the guys on stage crew were obsessed with this, it was definitely the Andre the Giant/ Wallace Shawn / Mandy Patinkin sass humor I was thinking about.
Buttercup was basically gonna be kidnapped by that king or kidnapped by these guys then, huh? Also, I never noticed before how very pretty Robin Wright is.
I like how the sets with the cliffs and the ocean are super fake looking. I don’t mean that in the sense where people say “I like how” when they mean “I hate how.” It has a storybook quality and also reminds me of movies from the 30s-60s.
Just the right kind of fake.
Do high school stage crews still love The Princess Bride? Somebody find out. I can’t, as I’m 30.
Is the Shrek Puss In Boots modeled after this Zoro Guy? They have the exact same vibe:
If this doesn’t end in the princess winning her own freedom and outsmarting everybody I’ll be pretty disappointed.
[I really loved The Paper Bag Princess in my youth, ok.]
But surely it will end with her getting together with the Johnny Flynn-looking guy who isn’t dead after all?
A. DID NOT AT ALL see Zorro being Westley and I don’t even think it was supposed to be a surprise. The joys of watching a movie so old that nobody cares enough to spoil it.
B. DID NOT AT ALL see Westley being a sass-pants – I thought his main thing was being subservient.
C. His mustache and ponytail are bad.
D. The movie isn’t even half over, so I clearly called this one wrong.
Actually I am liking the ponytail within a few minutes.
But it IS that awkward length when you’re growing out a bob and it doesn’t all fit back easily.
I wonder how Buttercup feels about Westley now that he tells long stories instead of doing chores for her. (The story about getting the ship from some guy who was also not the Dread Pirate Roberts was funny.)
Sure, Buttercup is chilled out about her gown getting caught on fire, but the Jim Hensons Workshop-looking giant weasels give her the willies. Honestly, same.
Fred Savage says that Buttercup doesn’t marry Humperdinck. I agree. He says it wouldn’t be fair because of all that Westley did for her. I resist the urge to rage at baby-Fred-Savage-from-the-past because a human is not a reward.
(I agree that Humperdinck sucks and Buttercup and Westley are endgame, obviously.)
Are there gifs of the homeless lady saying Boo, Boo, Boo?
Not only are there gifs and videos, the character is named THE ANCIENT BOOER.
So Westley may get to marry Buttercup, if he gets the mail fast enough?
JK he never sent the ships. Buttercup’s gonna throw down. It’s all happening.
What is Fred Savage sick with? Why is he so sick that his elderly grandpa has to come read stories at him? Honestly a little distressed that Fred Savage has some serious chronic illness that they haven’t addressed.
I think it’s beautiful that the two people with the speech impediments have each other.
Ewww they had better get there before they “escort her to the honeymoon suite.” Gross.
[Obviously the mawiage part is funny but I knew it was coming. See comments above re: high school theater. Carol Kane is a dream. As is the makeup artist, because Kane was only 30-something.]
I want an interactive art installation that is Fred Savage’s bedroom and you can go in and touch everything. 10/10 best set decoration ever.
WHAT is this boy sick with. Seriously.
Wow, I truly didn’t know that Rob Reiner directed it.
Okay, this is the thing we hope for every time we do a Pop Culture Blind Spot: I LIKED this. We don’t do these to make fun of other people’s beloved favorite movies, we do them to catch up on some popular or cult classics that somehow got by us. Now I am wishing we had shelved Moulin Rouge during at least ONE of those sleepovers so I could have seen this sooner.
::SPOILER WARNING: If you have not watched the pilot of This Is Us yet, and you plan to do so, stop reading now and go to your nearest Hulu account or On Demand platform. We’ll still be here when you get back. ::
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Did anyone else watch the This Is Us pilot with no idea of the twist — or that there even would be a twist in the first place? It’s a show about different people who were born on the same day and are turning 36 years old during the pilot. The conceit: the people are twins Kevin and Kate, their brother Randall who was adopted after Kevin and Kate’s triplet brother was stillborn, and the siblings’ father Jack. You watch the whole pilot thinking the characters are all contemporaries until the camera pulls back and you realized that Jack and Rebecca’s story is taking place in 1979, and he is the father of Kevin, Kate and Randall. You wouldn’t think that it would work, but it does.
The reason? Hipsters. Jack and Rebecca’s story takes place in their new home and in a hospital maternity ward. Anyone who’s been to visit a new baby recently knows that hospital decor is frozen sometime around 1972. As for the home, if you follow decorating websites and magazines, you will recognize that the hottest trend for hip 20- and 30-something professionals is to decorate like they’re in Pittsburgh in 1979. There’s stark white mixed with dark wood, orangey and earthy accents, and a whole lot of DIY-looking crafts. Can you blame me for not realizing that Jack and Rebecca’s story took place 37 years ago?
For a little context, my parents got married in 1975 and their first child was born in 1978. Like most couples, they acquired a lot of their decor in the first years of their marriage. I’m child number 4, born in 1986. The burnt orange carpeting, dark plaid sofa and geese in flight that my mom was carting off to Goodwill in the ’90s were all the same features you’d see in Jack and Rebecca’s home. They’re also the same features you’d see on Apartment Therapy and Dwell today – so maybe my parents should have suffered through 20 years of being unfashionable and waited for it to all come back around again.
Usually we time travel during our Let’s All Decorate posts, exploring trends like geese in bonnets or sponge-painting. This time we’re doing something a little different: it’s 2016 and we’re decorating a hipster haven … in the spirit of the late ’70s, the most hipster era of them all.
Macrame
Then: The hippie DIY craze was going strong and people were looking for a fresh way, other than paintings and photographs, to add some interest and texture to their walls.
Now: Literally just replace hippie with hipster. There are ‘wall hangings’ that are basically macrame everywhere from West Elm to Target to Etsy.
Big Graphic Wallpaper
Then: The psychadelic late ’60s led into a more peace-and-love floral look in the ’70s, and the result was giant, bold patterns on walls.
Now: Although big, loud patterns are definitely in vogue – usually you’d call them “statement” now – they’re often paired with an otherwise calm color scheme so they really “pop.”
Plush Rugs
Then: The first big household project I remember, c. 1990, was my mom ripping out the orange shag wall-to-wall carpeting that basically sold my childhood home for my parents when they were 20-something househunters in 1979 (to reveal gleaming 1920s hardwoods, naturally).
Now: After years of low-pile, berber-style carpet, things have taken a turn. But don’t expect to see ’70s-style fitted carpets – now it’s more like a funky, comfy rug tossed across bare wood floors.
Dark Wood Cabinets
Then: If you’ve bought or renovated a 1960s – early 1980s house, there’s an excellent chance you’ve had to contend with the dull, dark-finish wood that ensconced cabinets during that time.
Now: After a late 80s through early 2000s flirtation with light oak and pine, darker woods are back. Unlike the ’70s, a glossier finish is in style.
Natural Elements
Then: We may associate the hippies with the late ’60s in popular culture, but a flip through a family photo album will tell you that the love for mother earth extended into the decorating styles of the ’70s and early ’80s. Natural stone, water features and big houseplants were especially groovy (NB: I’m told that hardly anyone actually said ‘groovy.’
Now: Look at any bespoke house in Dwell or Houzz and you’ll see that letting the outside in is a modern priority, too. Skylights and local stone are all things homeowners are wishing they hadn’t ripped out in the 90s.
Afghans
Then: The DIY craze hit the blanket industry hard and granny squares were too cool.
Now: They better be cool again because this is my living room (see sofa).
Upcycling
Then: Yep, this started as a ’70s fad. The economy wasn’t doing so hot, and homeowners were getting creative. Popular projects included turning things into lamps, incorporating old whiskey barrels and wagon wheels into outdoor decorating, and creating planters out of EVERYTHING.
Now: Maybe it’s the economy, maybe it’s just homeowners following the adages to “use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without” and “reduce, reuse, recycle” – either way, there are thousands of tutorials out there to create a garden bench from an old crib, a table from a suitcase or a bedside table from a TV case. Again, I HOPE this is cool, because this is my bed with a barn door from the 1800s as a headboard:
Color
Then: I think the 1970s are unfairly maligned as a decade with no taste. Sure, things got garish for a while, but after the sleek midcentury modernism and colonial revivals of the past decades, it’s nice that decorators were playing and having fun. Nowhere was that more evident in the uses of color. Lots of it. On things like appliances, even.
Now: We circled back to beige and taupe for a while, but unless you’re staging your house to sell it’s actually cool to have lots of bright color again. (Or… I hope so, because you saw those pictures of my house.)
Not so long ago, tabloids and entertainment news shows couldn’t get enough of the (probably very manufactured) rivalry between Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston. But now Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston have a lot in common – they’re both separated from Brad Pitt! – and we think it’s time to talk about them in the same breath once again.
To be clear: we don’t care a whole lot about the Brad/Angelina announcement, except that we feel sad for people who are going through a tough time. They both seem like okay people, but we’ve never really stanned for them as a couple or as individuals. However, we do care about any excuse to describe a situation through the words and actions of Rachel Karen Green, Greenwich Village’s hottest underqualified Ralph Lauren executive:
2004: Brad and Angelina meet and fall in love on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Brad is married to Jennifer Aniston.
(More relevant to our interests: this is the year that Friends ended.)
2004-2007: Despite Brad being the cheater, tabloids get a little too obsessed with Angelina and Jennifer’s supposed rivalry.
March 2005: Jennifer Aniston files for divorce: irreconcilable differences.
PS, at the time Aniston’s net worth is about $150 million dollars.
July 2005: Brad and Angelina won’t confirm relationship but will pose for a photo spread as parents of a brood of young children they don’t know.
January 2006: Angelina Jolie announces her pregnancy.
May 2006: Baby Shiloh is born. By this time, Brad has adopted Angelina’s older children, Maddox and Zahara.
March 2007: The Jolie-Pitts adopt Pax from Vietnam.
Guys, it was either this or Rachel and Ross singing Baby Got Back to Emma.
July 2008: Twins Knox and Vivienne are born.
2009: Brad announces that he and Angelina won’t get married until it’s legal for everyone to do so.
April 2012: The couple announces their engagement; Angelina begins wearing a wedding ring.
2013: Amid cheating rumors, a spate of magazines have cover stories about Brad declaring “I made a mistake”
August 2014: Brad and Angelina get married, roughly 7 years after I thought they were married.
2015: Rumors (possibly unfounded) of brad cheating begin to circulate.
2015: Brad and Angelina release a movie together. It’s called By The Sea. Chances are, you didn’t watch it.
April 2016: The Jolie-Pitts, who granted, have a ton of money, move into a house that costs $21,000 a month.
September 2016: Cheating rumors reach a high point (still unconfirmed).
September 20, 2016: Angelina Jolie files for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences.
Cookies + Sangria 