The Mighty Ducks

I remember one time lining up in elementary school to wait for the busses and the topic of what we were gonna do after school came up among us little dudes. The consensus was that a few of them were getting together over so-and-so's house to watch The Mighty Ducks, and yes, I was actually invited. Twas a different time. So different in fact, that now the kid who played the Young Gordan in the movie (Brock Pierce) is not only a Bitcoin billionaire, but also running for president this year. What's his political experience you ask? Well, he did star in First Kid, with Sinbad (and I'm telling you, if he made Sinbad his running mate... I'd vote). Not to mention other cast members who went on to futures maybe not as wealthy but still noteworthy, and with talk of a Mighty Ducks show in the works... all of this reminded me. Oh yeah. Mighty Ducks was a thing.

Let's talk about a movie that you never hear talked about despite the fact that it was actually quite big when I was a kid, because what the hell else can we do this year? The Mighty Ducks... or as us 90s kids referred to it, "Mighty Dicks" or "Mighty Fucks" or "Mighty Sucks"... (It's not that "hard" of a joke... I mean, they do call it "peewee" hockey, so what do they expect?). Unclever 90s kid humor aside, you really can’t get a more by-the-numbers sports movie than this. They literally spoofed it in South Park a number of times, especially with the "...but he's about to fund out...!" trailer voice. Famously enjoyed by internet meme Tourette's Guy between taking a leak, it's basically Bad News Bears with far more hockey and far less raunch. So nothing huge. If anything, what is amazing is just how many sports movie clichés this thing squeezes in!

Now I had my own experience with hockey in my day. Yep. You see, as I'm sure I've told the story before... one time in gym class, eh... about the 4-5th grade... we were playing floor hockey and I happened to be the goalie, because they certainly didn't want scrawny me out there on the floor! All was going good, I was doing pretty good. Then just as the game was counting down, the last seconds on the clock... they slammed a puck at me so fast, I just put my thighs together like a bolt cutter. Oh I blocked the goal alright... with my CROTCH! No cup. Everyone froze. The other kids said they saw the puck freeze in that spot and then drop to the floor. They burst into laughter. And amazingly, I... didn't get hurt... To this day I don't know why it didn't destroy me, but I became a legend that day. The other guys were like "wow dude. That hung there for like a half second and dropped!" It's true too. I had the groin of steel. (Unfortunately for me, and my groin, it was a one time thing...) Don't try that at home kids... (unless your brother deserves it.)

So I learned a thing or two about hockey in my day, and the importance of wearing cups, but this movie teaches an even more obvious lesson in the importance of picking the right team, a team that supports you over a team that tears you down. And since everyone these days loves to divide up into teams and go to war, well hey, it's probably time we take a lesson from a sports movie... a sports movie that opens with music right out of a softcore porno, with smooth jazz interludes throughout. Despite being a narrative beat of every feel good sports movie in existence, this movie's also got some smooth-ass cool jivin' B E A T S. And Danny Tamberelli. Hell yeah, they got Young Pete. 

Brock Pierce 2020

We open on our would-be president, young Gordon Bombay (Brock Pierce 2020), missing the final penalty shot of his local playoffs sometime back in the 70s or 80s, costing the game, the season, and becoming the forever disappointment of the town and his evil coach who only cares about winning. And all because he failed that one time, he grows up to become a pretty good lawyer. It's Everylawyer's story really. As a boy, if you failed at sports, you probably beome a lawyer... or an accountant. Your life was over. Trust me. So then we join older Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez). He's a hotshot lawyer who wins at everything except life... kind of like a reverse Tom Cruise from A Few Good Men. He gets caught drunk driving one night and shows up in court... the judge (who knows him from being a lawyer) is like "I assume you're representing yourself." (8-year-old me's mind *blown*. Wow, just like doctors must be their own doctors... lawyers must be their own lawyers!)

For reasons no kid will understand though, he gets "released on his own recognizance" (I still don’t know what it means). But being a lawyer, he's like, “they have no case!” (against him driving under the influence with an open container). But instead of fighting it, he takes a plea bargain(?) I guess(??) and is sentenced to community service and revocation of his drivers license. Suddenly he's forced to coach youth hockey because somehow community service means coaching jobs, and apparently they’ll give coaching jobs to just any guy with a DUI in the 90s… (oh how times haven't changed). His boss Mr. "Ducksworth" (Josef Somer, who played the scientist in D.A.R.Y.L.) doesn't fire him, and he gets a driver provided by the court. Man this guy gets off easy! But then… I guess the team he’ll be coaching is the "real punishment," amiright? 

They're called “District 5.” They’re your typical snot-nosed little shit 90s goon squad, backwards-hat brigade, obsessed with Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, and “your mom” jokes. There's of course Fat Kid ("Goldburg"), who is afraid of getting hit with pucks (so of course he's the goalie)... Dork Kid (Les Averman), who spouts what are supposed to be hil-laaarious one-liners but are usually just garbled cringey nonsense... Perv Kid (Peter), who is the "Mouth" of the group... Girl Kid ("Connie," I think?), who is a girl... Shy Kid who they call "Spaz" ("Charlie") (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), who is too pure for this world... Misunderstood Punk Kid ("Fulton"), who is exactly what it says on the label... Other Fat Kid ("Dave "Karpster" Karp"), who falls down a lot... Nice Kid ("Terry") (played by Jussie Smollett), brother to Streetwise Kid ("Jesse"), who says "cake-eater" a lot... and Ginger Kid ("Danny Tamberelli"... no wait, ah screw it, it's him), who has a sister who also plays for the team and is a figure skater (uh... not guessing on her name). We meet some of them in the act of doing the good old “dog poop in a abandoned purse” prank on the sidewalk. And we see every part of the plan from them feeding the dog, to following it around waiting for it to give them a good one, to scooping it, to setting the trap with the bait (a dollar bill sticking out)… to the mark finding it and then chasing them down the street all sped up ala something out of A Christmas Story. One nutshot later and Victory is achieved. Profit!!

So basically they're little shits. It's set up like they're bored and directionless, but then we learn that these kids also already play hockey together on a team, but are so lousy they're still just called "District 5" (which is not a 90s boy band but the hockey district they all live in). It seems they just lost their old coach to a heart attack from shouting at them too much. (Not a joke, it's in the movie.) Gordon Bombay meets the kids by having his driver drive his limo(?) out onto the ice they're playing on, just to be badass, and he shows them just how much he cares about his forced community service: “I’m sure this will be a real bonding experience… and maybe one day one of you will even write a book about it in jail!"  (And thus, the movie.)

“Hey, just so you know, you really suck.”  (Ouch! 90s kid smack down). But no, it is the boys who suck. But then, saywahhhht? There’s a girl??  But then Coach Gordon: “if you need anything, fax me.” He gets back in his limo. And there you go. So of course they want a ride in the limo, and all go jump on the roof and climb in, eat donuts off the dash, mess around with the phone, and rip a really ripe SBD in the backseat… immediately... and it's all fun and games until psycho-mom ruins it by overacting... I meant overreacting to the car being on the ice. Party's over. Parents mad. But the really sad thing about it was... now we'll never know who's fart it was.

So okay, that's the Mighties for ya. But what about their inevitable rival team? Well, of course they're a little Cobra Kai military unit. “The Hawks." Evil incarnate, wearing all black, your typical jerks who drop “wuss breath!” and “girls!” (while talking to boys) every other word and of course sport some pretty rockin’ roller blades when they’re not on the ice. And you guessed it, they're the very same team that Coach Gordon once played for as a kid, and you guessed it, they're still coached by none other than Evil Coach himself, the same guy who ruined Gordon's love of hockey! Oh and guess what, Evil Coach "has never forgiven him" for making the peewee team have second place for the only time in its history that year. Woo doggy! That's some baggage to be carrying around for decades! So now it's not just about community service... now it's personal for Coach Gordon. 

But to say they get their asses handed to them in their first tryout game against the Hawks... is to assume they're anything but a bunch of asses. They suck!! Sticks flying... body checks... body slams... face plants into walls, into floors, into each other... exasperated refrains of “They’re killing us out there!” and “You guys stink!” (Well, they’re sweaty hockey players.)  Not to mention some really cringy humor by yours truly, dorkatron dorkus maximus "Averman" (“huummm goaliegoaliegoalie... saa-wing-goalie!”). So, seeing as the team he's coaching is really that bad and is playing up against a team headed by a Coach Evil, Gordon starts teaching them the old lawyer-speak whiplash tactic... to fall down on purpose to cheat. “What do we do?" "Take the fall! Act hurt! Get indignant!”  "Good. You guys are ready." But Shy Kid Charlie’s not having it, and neither are the parents. Now it’s not just personal, but parents’ money for hockey practices is on the line. And oh yeah, German old guy says it’s “not all about winning, it’s about fun.” “Teach them to fly.”

Now Charlie doesn’t want to be on the team if he's just being taught to cheat because he's too pure for this world (despite the dog poop pranks), but apologies are offered when Coach Gordon shows up at Charlie's house. At first the kid eye rolls, probably ready to just crop dust the room and leave... until, that is, he realizes that maybe coach can be New Dad to him and New D to his single mom... setting up an obvious romance plot with Charlie’s mom... and... setting up Coach Gordon for a lifetime of factual and guilt-free "your mom" jokes at Charlie's expense. (Gee, Charlie did you think this through?) In the end, Charlie decides he wants to be on the team and will go to any lengths to get his mom and his coach together. Sweet or weird, you be the judge.

So while Coach Gordan is getting tight with Charlie's whole world, he also gets back tight with the team by utilizing his legal firm to give money to the hockey team to buy them new gear (SWEET!) and enlisting the local figure skating kids to come play hockey with them. It's here they get their "Ducks" name from their sponsor (Gordon's boss, Mr. "Ducksworth"), and it’s also where the kids learn from an old newspaper clipping in the sports store that their coach was a former “Hawk!” Oooh now it’s getting interesting! At practice, Dorkus Dorkatron Averman says “wax on wax off” in a racist accent and gets a stick to the stomach, and Scaredy-Goalie Goldburg gets over his fear of pucks by being subjected to a firing squad of pucks while tied down in a scene that has a least 15 things wrong with it…  it’s funny because it’s child abuse? Actually, it’s probably 10 times worse than what Coach Gordon experienced!

But now there’s also “Misunderstood Punk Kid” (Fulton) who keeps following them around but doesn't join the team. He's out breaking windows with his puck shots. What good will ever come of him? Wait a minute…  he shoots pucks like bullets… and we have a hockey team… 1+1= 2! But he can’t skate. Well… shenanigans ensue when they start teaching him how to skate by having the whole team go joyriding through the mall on roller blades in a montage cut from every single 90’s kid’s fever dream! Splash! Old lady in the mall fountain! 

Now they get their new uniforms. “Ducks? What braindead jerk came up with that name?” To which Gordon inexplicably replies: "I’ll have you know that the duck is the most noble, agile, and intelligent animal of the animal kingdom.” “But they don’t even have teeth!”  “Niether do hockey players.” “Ducks never say die” …etc. (Really, Gordon says that). In reality, it's "Ducks" because Disney’s making this movie and Disney can only draw mice and ducks for cartoons, so they decide on the name “Mighty Ducks” and this wins them over. (A similar thing happened when we got the “bat” badge in my cub scout den.) This gives them a new glut of confidence because sure, District 5 sucked, “but the DUCKS are UNDEFEATED!” (Technically true...)

And so, getting cool equipment and being called “Mighty Ducks” also suddenly makes them much better at hockey, scoring their first goal even, until Other Fat Kid ("David "Karpster" Karp") “takes one for the team” in either his head or his family jewels, it's hard to tell (complete with bird tweeting sounds)… to which Dorkatron Averman does his schtick “Eh Karpster! You-just-hadta-stopda-puck! Eh Mr. Karpelaney!...” (showing just why it should've been him). But  Fulton (“Misunderstood Punk”) turns out to be the ace in the hole, the secret weapon, the real silent but deadly amongst them, for he gets out there and ties the game! Wow! We TIED! 

We also learn that Coach Gordon would not have been a Hawk if he was playing today, since he lived in what is now "Duck territory." But as a result of his legal precision as a lawyer, he also ends up snagging one of the "evil" Hawks kids (a kid named Adam Banks) because technically he too lives within the district boundaries for the Ducks, not the Hawks. The parents and the Evil Coach protest, as do the Ducks themselves, since "evil kids" should stay on "evil hockey teams," and the other kids of the Ducks even overhear Coach Gordon calling his team “losers” out of context in front of the Hawks parents, and NOW it means something to them. They feel like it's because they're not good enough, so that's why Coach Gordon is putting a Hawk on their team. Ducks forfeit a game as a result, and everyone on the team's mad at each other. 

So now they’re in need of a pep-talk, and Charlie’s playing scab. He’s meeting Coach Gordon in a neutral location (a diner where his mom works), and crossing the picket line. Coach is a “Hawk” after all, it’s in his blood. Once a Hawk, always a Hawk! But Charlie thinks otherwise because coach is also New Dad. So Charlie of course says the line most 10-year-old boys say about their own mothers serving them coffee: “You know, she has many fine qualities that most men find attractive.”  Gordon replies, “I know that Charlie, it has not escaped me.” But coach has more on his mind than a forced romantic subplot. He wants to quit being coach because the Ducks don’t respect him, so Charlie runs out in tears because New Dad is walking out of his life... just like Old Dad. Aw.

Cut to science class. Teacher: “Now if the red balls are oxygen, what are the blue balls?” (“hehehe” -Beavis and Butthead in the back of the room.) “Hydrogen!” says Danny Tamberelli. Teacher: “Right, now put them together and you have a molecule that makes up 96% of your body.”  Danny Tamberelli: “Pizza?” (Fact.)

Teacher is called away and the team begins having a fist fight due to all the drama with their coach, and the fact that they're all in the same science class together for some reason. Different factions are forming for and against Coach Gordon... but one thing they all can agree on is that they are "Ducks! Ducks! Ducks!...!" all the way to detention, where they are all forced to write "I will not quack at the principal" Bart Simpson style. 

Cake-eater!

Long story short, "evil" former-Hawk kid ends up having to play for the Ducks anyways, and Evil Coach gets Gordon fired from his law firm job because yeah, apparently his boss WAS going to "fire him over a bunch of ... kids?? And a game??" He doesn’t back down, and he quits by “quacking” his way out of the building. So because he stuck up for them (and gets them out of detention), they decide to all love him again as their coach. And at least one “your mother!” joke later, the team meets evil kid (Adam Banks), the kid from the Hawks, and while Charlie tries to welcome him, he's quickly called a “cake-eater” and Dorkus goes “ooh, the jestman, eh thenewguy, thejester...!” (“Shut up Averman!”) In short, the team rejects evil kid… except Charlie of course, because he’s too pure for this world. 

Now the Ducks are getting arrogant about tying games like true champions. The gameplan? Give the puck to Fulton, with the sage advice: “soft hands, concentration... not strength!” (Because he can slap it but he can’t aim... he only gets "1 out of 5" shots in). So because of Fulton, they win one game, and make the playoffs. (That’s when you KNOW this is Peewee hockey!) Coach Gordon celebrates with the team by taking them to a profesh hockey game where the hockey players (who say "oot" and "aboot" a lot) impress the Ducks by remembering their coach "from peewees," and suddenly Gordon's looking pretty good if he's getting compliments from pros, so who’s the daddy now?  Good times are had to a Randy Newman-ish song.

Speaking of daddy issues… Charlie and New Dad are sitting down to a romantic dinner, to which the boy says: “Did you know, the Northstars last year wore the same underwear all through the playoffs, for luck. I’m doing the same thing.” (...uh... rock on dude.) Somehow this leads to Coach Gordon and Charlie’s mom having a date at the obligatory skating rink in the snowy Christmas park at night ala Groundhog Day, until she’s realizing that her son may be more in love with him than she is. Oh but they kiss. Nevermind. 

So the team goes into the playoffs in a rousing montage of winning streaks (and of course it makes front page news every week). And so of course it’s the final game, and they get down to good Coach Gordon and Mighty Ducks vs. Evil Coach and Evil Hockey Team, the Hawks. In this corner… “Win! Win! Win!” (because winning is everything) and in that corner, “Quack! Quack! Quack!” (because ducks) … but will evil kid Banks sabotage the game?? Does he bleed Hawk? Well, the Hawks score their first goal. Then second. Then third. Then the Hawks conspire to take down their fellow Former-Evil-Kid Banks just because he's playing against them now. They push him just as he scores for the Ducks, and he’s down, injured, out cold. Evil kid #2 even goes “what did you do?” To which Eviler Kid says, in the coldest, shrewdest, most sociopathic voice imaginable for a 10-year-old… “My job.” Oh it still sends shivers down my spine! 

He does get sidelined for the body check, but Evil Coach gives him a "good job." Meanwhile, the Ducks gather around their injured comrade and suddenly decide that, though he be a a Former Hawk and a "cake-eater," he did help them score, so maybe he’s not so bad after all. And now the kid lifts up his arm in a dying final request as the medics are wheeling him out in a stretcher: “Do me a favor… kick some Hawk butt..." He has turned on his old team because they treated him like... well... like a hawk. He will probably die. (No wait, he shows up at the end).

So Misunderstood Kid Fulton scores with his bullet shot. The score's 3-2. Now the plan amongst the Hawks is to take out Fulton. Hawks then score 4-2. Danny Tamberelli's figure skating sister somehow scores a goal with a pirouette. 4-3! A fight breaks out amongst the teams. Misunderstood Fulton gets taken out for fighting, even though it wasn't his fault (it was a misunderstanding!). It’s all over. No secret weapon anymore. But the Ducks hit back with the “Flying V” formation as Old German Dude looks on… and… SCORE! 4-4!! WOOOT! TIE GAME!  23 seconds to go. Just enough time for the Ducks to win… Charlie’s got it…  oh the Hawks take him down with a stick beating… times up! But because of the Hawk's bad play, it'll all come down to a single penalty shot for the game, and Coach Gordon somehow knows Charlie’s the one to do it... because he wants to bang his mom. So will Charlie do what Gordon couldn’t as a kid?? Will history repeat?? … Will Evil Coach finally get egg on his face after all these years?? Slowmo... annnnnnnnnnd... .... YES! ALL NET!!! Last second!! DUCKS WIN!!!  5-4!!!  Music swells! 

Evil Coach egg on face! Gordon redeemed! “Ducks! Ducks! Ducks!...”

And maybe Gordon gets the the girl (but was he even looking for one?) and more importantly, Charlie gets New Dad.

See world, it's not all about winning, it’s about having fun. Because when you are all about having fun, you always seem to win in these movies. But the real winning is the friends we made along the way. Inter-team competition is good, but hatred of the "other team" is something always taught. 

"A team isn't a bunch of kids out to win. A team is something you belong to, something you feel, something you have to earn." 

Just as long as you don't join Team I Don't Like I mean, Team Evil.

And hey Ducks, see you next sequel season!

Milk Money

The biggest part of growing up is learning how not to be a perv. Now I can't speak for women, but I can speak for all males of the species (because none would disagree with me), and say that without a basic lesson in not being a perv, we'd all totally become pervs (and heck, some of us even do regardless). Sure, we may have the higher national averages when it comes to doing pull ups for gym class (although I certainly didn't make 'em), but we are all straight-up pipsqueaks when it comes to... certain other physical feats. But whether or not boys of the 90s ever did learn not to be pervs (or me for that matter), this movie certainly had nothing to do with it either way... (Spoiler warning!).

Too saucy to teach a lesson on pervertry and too cringey to say "the hell with it" and just confirm us in our path down the dark side like we wanted, Milk Money was a 1994 (kids?) movie, hyped up as this "past yer bedtime" risque comedy, but actually a head-scratching oddball of a movie that defies any attempt to market it. As a kid, it's a "whoa, how do the grups know about boners?" revelation, and as an adult, it's a straight-up cringefest, both in its accuracy (if you, like me, had the privilege of growing up male) and in its grossness (if you didn't). Either way, I bet it was an uncomfortable time at the movies for kids and parents alike (I don't know, my parents certainly didn't take me to see it!). This is like, if Good Boys was meant for kids, without the subtlety or gags, but with a heaping pile of 90s schmaltz.

What's not controversial about a group of boys going to solicit a prostitute only to wind up keeping her in their treehouse? Well, mainly, the three boys in question. We open up on one of their late night slumber party treehouse meetings, where in rapid secession beneath the covers they go from the opening line of the movie, "You ever fart and sneeze at the same time?" to "You ever barf up something you know you didn't eat?" to describing their best barf stories, and then to the finer qualities of spitting loogies for distance, including an anecdote about a life-ending collision of a loogie off the Empire State Building! (We 90s boys were true philosophers.) They also have some kind of "sacred" box where they put things they don't understand, which for them this night includes an object they either describe as a rubber bathtub drain plug, a drinking cup, or a device that, in their words, "prevents the passage of sperm into the uterus in girls." (One of them was right.) Another one, our main protag Frankie, puts in a photo of his dead mother, saying he'd like to know what having a mom is like. Whoa! Okaaaay... so... yeah... um....  ... ...  Anyways, "Have you ever noticed that girls don't fart??" (FACT) and, hey! The flashlight's glow circle on the ceiling "totally looks like a boob!" (Also FACT)

So yeah, pretty accurate to guys, I'd say.

Oh and by the way, these kids are like, 11 years old, at least, so we're in "charming" Goonies territory, not in raunchy "Bill and Ted" territory, but even more amped up, because while those movies were about other things with a sprinkling of wink-wink-nudge-nudge naughty sex for laughs, this movie's whole plot is the naughty bits! So get ready, because you're in for a ride down the hormone roller coaster for this one, but it's everydude's hormone roller coaster, so it's gonna make you laugh, not cry, because boners are funny. It's like a bowl of Lucky Charms that's just the Lucky Charms... all sex all the time.

The movie mainly follows this kid Frank, who suffers from "90s dead mom" disease and reads Cosmo at the breakfast table to get info on women for his Sex Ed class, and his aloof dad who suffers from "needs to get laid because he's interested in swamps" (because "Hey Butthead, wetlands!" "Heheh you said "wet."). He asks his dad if his mom was a virgin when he married her, to which his dad replies, "what, are you studying religion?" (Genuine lol!) So yeah, we get the idea here that this kid is reeeeeeeeeally missing his mom. Not even Littlefoot was getting into gynecology to assuage his dead mom bereavement (just crawling into her womb-like footprints). This kid is all kindsa messed up to say the least, since he conflates "knowing more about his mom" with studying the mysteries of the fabled G-spot in girls (not even joking, this is in the movie). Freud would have a field day on this kid. But his dad is also kinda messed up, because the man retorts with, "in my experience, there is no such spot."

(Well, okay, maybe dad here and I agree on something...)

Anyways, after that totally normal father and son breakfast, the movie then follows the quest of our three "charming" young would-be johns watching porn on their Zenith TV-set and hatching a plan to make some quick cash so they can go to "a place where the girls are naked all the time, where guys can see naked girls all they want, all hours of the day, for anyone with guts and a hundred bucks." You guessed it... "the city!" They do this via a "milk money" scheme at their school, and thus the movie's namesake is revealed. It's also revealed that our little goon squad here is not so smooth with girls their own age at their school for being dorkii maximii to the extreme (like we didn't already figure that). (See, Frankie wants the stereotypical blonde "bitchy" girl at school, and so ignores the advances of the more dorky girl who may actually like him but clings to the bitchy blonde girl out of instinct). In any case, before I could even figure out what they were actually doing to make their "milk money," they're off to "the city" on their two-speed bikes (flags and cards in the spokes 'n all) with a bag of nickels to go find the hallowed thing known as "the hooker." They get there and discover that just waltzing up to random women on the street and soliciting for prostitution gets them only a slap in the face (in a scene I WISH I had a GIF for!). This normally would've been the end of most young boys' journeys into true manhood at that time, but it turns out these three are in luck!

While all this was going on, wouldnchaknowit, a smokin' hot prostitute who only goes by the name V ("heart of gold" included) is getting screwed over by her latest john in a mafia shootout that lands her in trouble with both her pimp and this cartel being run by Malcolm McDowell. Long story short, she crosses paths with our young champions of masculinity in training, and decides to take them under her wing (after all, they WERE paying her a bag of nickels). She decides to give them a little "peepshow" for their money's worth and takes them up to her flat. And after some haggling around, she actually does end up lying down on the bed and showing off "the goods" to our three intrepid little goons. Well, unfortunately for him, our hero Frankie suddenly decides he wants to be a "gentleman" and covers his eyes at the moment of truth (no Frankie, whaddayadoin!). She takes their bag of nickels and runs back to her pimp with it right afterwards to try to pay him, to which he replies, "What am I, a Laundromat?" and throws it against the wall. (Once again, genuine lol!)

Long story short, she ends up running into the goon squad again after she steals the car of her pimp. She realizes she has to take these kids back to their own neighborhood to presumably masturbate the rest of the day away, not knowing that there is a large sum of money hidden in the gas tank (of all places!), which was going to be used to pay off Malcolm McDowell. He then becomes obsessed with finding her and retrieving his money from the car (so much so he murders her pimp). The car promptly poops the bed outside the house for reasons our heroes don't know yet (money in the gas tank will do that) and now she needs a place to stay. So the plot of the movie sets in. V is on the run and hiding in this kid's treehouse as his dimwit dad mistakes her to be his son's math tutor (she can multiply my hypotenuse... crap, never mind). His dad tries for a few days to fix the car and offers her a place to stay as they engage in a slew of double-entendres that he fails to get. Heck, the audience of 10-year-olds watching this could get that she's not talking about "starting his engines" literally, or whatever, but wow... how did this guy ever reproduce? (The role of the dad probably should've been played by Robin Williams, or someone who has a little more natural charm than the dry board that this guy was here, but Williams obviously didn't need this at the time.)

Okay... now in most movies of this type, this would set the stage for a typical hijinks-filled romp plot about thirsty teen guys willing to do anything for roll in the sheets, but this movie for some reason had to be a kids movie, so it had to ruin all this "sexy" setup by getting schmaltzy around this point. What ensues is mostly a more by-the-numbers series of "bonding" moments where she becomes more like a mom to this kid and more like a girlfriend to his dad, and also more and more enamored with this slice of domestic bliss she's never been able to experience... yadda yadda. If anything, the movie starts to serve the purpose of taking the boyhood joy of "bringin' yer old man a cold one!" to its furthest extent, as in, "bringin' yer old man a HOT one!" The moral being, kids... get your dad laid. Your life will be so much better for it! (It's a sentiment that probably landed very well with the test audiences.)

It's amazing what a hooker will do for your life in middle school. The confidence boost that Frankie gets from having a "mom" figure in his life seems to do the trick, especially when he starts telling the girls at his school that she's his "aunt" (making her his dad's "sister"... and then leading to that girl's utter confusion at a restaurant when she sees his dad and V making out on a date!) (Mom to brother and sister: "You kids should be more affectionate with each other, like them!" *Kissing* Brother: "I am NOT doing that!"). This leads to the funniest line of the movie where dorky girl realizes the obvious: "Mom she's not his aunt... she's a hooker." (LOL!) The rest of the film plays out much as you'd expect, except for one gut-bustingly hijinky scene where little Frankie boy brings his "aunt" into his Sex Ed class to use as a living demonstration of the female anatomy in front of the whole class... giving him instant LEGENDARY status with everyone and probably an expulsion in the mail. But it does help his chances with the girls he was trying to get with at the beginning, and suddenly he's turning down the advances of the stuck up bitchy blonde girl to get with the dorky girl at the school dance, right in front of her face! Ohhhhh snap! Maybe Frankie's actually doing something right for a change and getting with girls who are more in his league, (or at least in his age group), or at least who maybe have a soul.

In any case, dad finally fixes the car and... you know where this is going. The mobster guy Malcolm McDowell tracks them down and they're off in a high speed chase that ends with all the money going up in flames and Malcolm McDowell certain she went up in the blaze with it, or just not caring either way. But he actually gets away in the end, which is... pretty bold for a movie like this. Now free from being hunted, V is also free to settle down into what we would assume would be that "domestic bliss" happy schmaltzy ending... but not so fast! We learn that V had confiscated at least some large portion of the mobster's money before the car wreck, AND that she's bought the wetlands from being turned into parking lots (making dad really aroused!), AND we learn that she's also bought the ice cream parlor in town... so now she's an independent business woman who donneed-no-man! Whhhhhaaat? But... why don't you guys come down for a scoop some time? Aw shucks! And so in the end, we learn that the only thing better than not being a prostitute is being free to have your ice cream and eat it too.

So all's well that ends well. Frankie gets a girl his own age and a "mom" figure in his life. Dad gets his wetlands (and maybe a friend with benefits). V get's a million smackers rather than a million smacks and operates her own small business. And Frankie's friends... well, at least they don't turn out to be pervert pimps (we assume). Oh yeah, and we all learn that there IS a spot on a girl you can touch that will drive her crazy... (A: "it's her heart.") It was her "heart" all along! Go figure!

Oh the feels... (in the heart that is.)

Actually, trying to figure out how Milk Money even got made is half the fun of watching the movie. As you're sitting there as a kid watching it with your parents, you get the sneaking suspicion that they're in on your secret, porn-mag-under-the-mattress world. As a parent, you're wondering why they didn't just make this either some heartfelt kids' movie or some American Pie raunchy adult comedy. It's a weird one... (if that wasn't obvious to you), but one thing is certain. All's well that ends well, and for once it was all because "boys will be boys!"

For once!

Harriet the Spy

In all the hullabaloo about female heroines these days, it's refreshing to pull from the past and find examples that actually get it right. Ellen Ripley in the Alien movies. Sarah Conner from the Terminator movies. Dr. Ellie Satler from Jurassic Park. Jodie Foster in Contact...etc. And that's crazy because it's not something that should be so hard to begin with, especially these days, this whole idea of a "strong female character" who is also human, maybe even flawed, but still gets the job done. That's like, an everyday thing. If anything, it should be harder to write emotionally deep and complex male characters who are also "heroic" (indeed, 'tis much more rare). Harriet the Spy though accomplishes both feats, and for that and many other reasons, it may not only be a defining movie of any 90s childhood, but an important movie for our current times of Twitter take-downs, "savage" hot takes, and "call out culture." Harriet knows why none of this is good. She blazed that trail, and we would do well to learn the easy way what she learned the hard way. And no, it's not just that "a good spy never gets caught."

I may be biased because when I was growing up and first saw this movie, I had a childhood crush on Michelle Trachtenberg, who plays our titular heroine Harriet. I was familiar with her as Younger Pete's tit-for-tat girlfriend on The Adventures of Pete and Pete, one of my favorite shows back then. Her antics were what made the later season of Pete and Pete worthwhile, and it was downright awesome that they saw her potential and gave her her own movie to boot. And as an avid Nickelodeon watcher, I was well aware of the fact that Nickelodeon was pumping their "first ever movie!" all over the airwaves, starring none other than "Pete and Pete" star Trachtenberg. Since then we've gotten used to Nickelodeon movies being sure bets of trad Nick properties (Rugrats, Good Burger, Jimmy Neutron, Hey Arnold, Spongebob, Wild Thornberries, Spongebob, Last Airbender, Spongebob...etc), or big dumb "boy movies" like TMNT, TMNT: Out of the Shadows, TMNT: Return to Ooze ... and 2017's Monster Trucks. Eek. With that track record, it's surprising to think that Nickelodeon once took a risk on their first movie and decided to do both a coming of age dramady, an adaptation of an old children's book... and one starring... a GIRL!? That just goes to show you how... far?... we've come since 1996? *shrugs*

(Okay... Snow Day was a hoot, I'll give them that. Not a good movie, but still a hoot.)

Which brings me back to Harriet. "Hoot" is not how I would describe this movie. Matilda was a "hoot." Harriet is what we would describe these days as "deep," or at least "woke AF," but that could just be because we're dealing with a girl for a change, and a particularly precocious one at that. She dreams of being a writer. She keeps tabs on people in her life, her school friends and enemies, and everyone she runs into in her neighborhood, including the family who owns the Chinese food restaurant in town, and she writes everything down in her "private" notebook. She's kinda spoiled, but headstrong. She's got rich parents who don't spend much time with her, so she bonds mostly with her nanny, Rosie O'Donnell, a wisdom-spouting Obi Wan Kenobi. Yeah. Speaking of Twitter gods, Rosie O'Donnell plays Rosie O'Donnell in this movie. It's amazing. Anyways, Harriet's other best friends include this boy named "Sport" who is a kind of "domestic goddess" in his own house because he's poor and his dad's a drunk, and a girl named Janie who performs dangerous chemistry experiments in her bedroom. See what I mean? Not only can girls do science, but boys can cook and clean house with the best of 'em! *mind blown*  1996 ftw!

Harriet's life changes one night when her nanny Golly brings a date over for an evening meal at the house, leading to the absolute funniest and most inexplicable "stare off" between any two characters in any movie ever. (If you're reading this, you know the scene!) Anyways, Golly burns the meal and three of them decide to go out to the movies instead. They have a great time and come back late. Too late. Harriet's mom and dad are home from their high class business lifestyle or whatever, and FLIP the F@%K OUT for no other reason than they're two snobby buttholes who object to Harriet bringing tomato+mayo sandwiches to school every day (and other stuff, but that was always the take away for me). They fire Golly on the spot, and then immediately beg her to stay. But Golly's got some pride and decides to leave anyway. And right there. That's some real shit. Golly could return and stay a part of Harriet's life, but she decides that it's better to be a good role model for Harriet and leave on her own terms and allow Harriet room to grow on her own terms as well. Right there ladies and gents, is a strong female character. Anyways, Golly tells Harriet to never give up writing and to channel all of her observations about people into a novel... so that she can one day buy an autographed copy. Then Golly rides off in a yellow taxi, in a scene that is WAY more heartbreaking than that little dickcheese Simba losing his dear ol' buttfart dad.

And so, in the absence of her mentor, Harriet goes full-tilt into the "spy" role she loves so much, which means suiting up in boots and taking along spy gear such as cameras and scopes, and for some unexplained reason a bright yellow trench coat (conspicuous much?). She even sneaks into a mansion at one point and spies on some old lady from the inside of the house's dumbwaiter in a scene as tense as anything you'll see in a Mission Impossible movie (and much more funnier when she's discovered). In all her travels, she records detailed notes on what everyone she's interested in is up to... and you can kinda see where it's going...

Harriet the Spy branded "spy" merch! Hell yeah! Back in the day there was a call in sweepstakes on Nickelodeon where kids could call an 800 number for a chance to get an exclusive "Harriet the Spy Kit" ... presumably a belt with a binoculars, a magnifier, a flashlight, and one of those black-and-white school notebooks with the word "PRIVATE" written on it. Awwww yeah. Needless to say, I was not one of the lucky few. Not like I couldn't make my own kit... which apparently many kids did... and I'm sure none of them got busted for "super sleuthing." Nope. I sure didn't. "A good spy doesn't get caught!"

So Harriet gets caught. As is the case with most coming of age girl movies, the main villain of the movie is a stuck up bitch ... I mean rich girl in their class, Marion Hawthorne, who seemingly spends every night and day plotting ways to torment our main cast. In doing so, the movie really sheds a light on just how mean and vindictive girl bullying can be, and also how accurate. There are scenes between Harriet and Marion as this thing progresses that get so real that you almost wonder how these characters are going to survive the movie without throwing a toaster in the bathtub (and this was before Mean Girls!)! Well, one day in the park, Harriet is playing with her friends and gets a little careless with her private notebook where she's been talking trash about everyone behind their backs. The notebook goes missing, only to be found in the hands of one, Marion Hawthorne, who proceeds to read Harriet's "observations" about everyone in attendance right from the page. Suddenly, everyone knows Sport is poor and his dad's a drunk, that Janie's science ambitions are strange, and that Marion Hawthorne's parents are never around or something. Indeed, no one is safe from Harriet and her pen! Immediately shocked, they all turn on her in probably the most played scene in the movie.

But this reveal is only the beginning. What really makes this movie interesting now is that Harriet knows she done goofed, and yeah, she sulks and apologizes and tries to do the right thing and move on. She even tries to give people space and give them time to get over it, but no one lets her live it down. She's pariahed. She's ignored. And just when she accepts her fate, they all start conspiring against her to make her life a living hell at the school and abroad, even starting a "Spy-Catchers" Club and dousing her with blue paint during class in the basic "tar and feather" routine of every angry mob in history. She slaps Marion in the face, and is immediately under the Gestapo as her desk is now checked daily for "notebooks."

This kid is so 90s it's funny...

The emotions get so raw here that Harriet then begins lashing out at everyone else in retaliation for their attacks on her, and the movie actually starts taking a dark turn. She spreads the fact that Marion's father doesn't love her to everyone in attendance in that most sacred of gossip areas... "the girls room." She sabotages Janie's science experiments to disillusion her friend. And then the worst: she spreads leaflets all over school to emasculate Sport, picturing him in a dress and a duster under the moniker "Man of the House!" Yikes. She is sent to one of those new-agey sycophant child psychologists who get paid 100 bucks an hour to play board games with kids, so nothing comes of it.

And that's it. It's over. And she spirals into a deep depression and probably contemplates suicide in the bathtub... But then, just as every bridge is burned... she gets her notebook back and Golly comes back into her life (now on good terms with her parents) and gives her some sage advice: "Beauty is truth, and truth, beauty." Basically, maybe the truth about people doesn't have to hurt them. Words can destroy, but they can also build, and Harriet has to learn to use her powers of observation for good. "I want to know everything" she says, but for what purpose if not to make the world better?

So despite the fact that her relationship with her friends seems shattered beyond repair, the only thing more factual is that Marion Hawthorne turns out to be an even worse star for all of Harriet's friends to have hitched their wagons to, suddenly realizing that they've all been turned into her little pets. They decide enough is enough one by one and sever their loyalties to the rich girl, but back to Harriet they still dare not tread, not until Harriet gets her opportunity to use her observation skills for good. She recounts to all of them in the class paper all the good things she likes about them, and that certainly chalks one up for her side. But she really gets her chance to shine when a series of fortunate events leads to a performance of the typical "healthy eating" school play becoming ground zero for a good ole' biohazard stink bomb blowout that her and her friends wage, all while Marion Hawthorne is playing the signature role! Woobah! I guess you could say, it's "curtains" for her!

So all is well that ends well. Harriet learns her lesson, her friends are back in her column, and we are all the better for it. So yeah, pretty important stuff for the "call-out" culture we are living under. Learn the lesson that Harriet  M. Welsch has to teach us, that if you can't say something nice about someone, don't... er... well, see, gossip spreads like a proverbial stink bomb in the wind. Let him who hath not been a douchebag cast the first blue paint... m'kay? Someone please get the message to Twitter users. Oooh snap!