Bummer #2: Angels in the Outfield

With complete, innocent, and sort of enviable Christian sincerity, a friend of mine once told me that she'd be thrilled to finally be face-to-face with her guardian angel. As far as I'm concerned, there's no scenario where an angel just appearing out of nowhere could be anything less than 100% horrifying.

Despite the foreboding title, Angels in the Outfield is not a horror film; it's one of those heart-tugging, inspirational jobs. 


But it's also kind of a drag. 


Perhaps, not an overt or overwhelming drag like My Girl, but it definitely has it's moments. One scene specifically sticks out in my mind and, next to the phrase "it could happen," is what I associate most with this movie...


Al and his seraphim horde have "helped" the last-place California Angels advance to the division championship. When the final game starts, Al materializes in the dugout and tells Roger that the team must win this one on their own--angels apparently have a real arbitrary sense of morality. Al then serves up a delicious piece of gossip about grizzled pitcher Mel Clark--who'd been taken off the disabled list during the initial stages of the angel infestation.

Mel only has six months to live and Al delivers the news with such nonchalance, sort of sugar-coating the tragedy of it by saying that after Mel eventually succumbs to lung cancer or emphysema or whatever (Al mentions that Mel has been a smoker for years), he's going to become an angel. 


Wings are cool; not being dead is slightly cooler. 


This scene probably isn't going to make anyone cry, but still, it's a total bummer. It's also incredibly calculated, obviously meant to heighten the emotional drama and give the outcome of this championship game more weight. Al says he's dropped by to "check up on Mel." Seriously, what's he checking? I'm no expert on the subject but I'm pretty sure that angels can "check up" on people from Heaven or the 8th dimension or wherever they're from. So, why is he really there? The whole thing feels kind of contrived and plot device-y. Somehow, though, that fails to diminish my enjoyment of  Mel slow-mo catching that game-winning ball.

In spite of my usual anti-angel stance, I'm definitely pro-Angels in the Outfield. Sometimes, I suppose, it's all right to have your heart manipulated a bit by conveniently tragic plot points, if that manipulation is (a) in service of a really good finale and (b) thorough enough to spawn two direct-to-video sequels. 

Bummer #1: My Girl

(I'm introducing a new feature about Hollywood's sick fascination with traumatizing youngsters and the toll that this personally took on me throughout my adolescence and now as an adult. I'm looking to post something new every Monday. What better way to kick things off than with the Godzilla of soul-crushing family films: My Girl.)

Heartwrenching films usually move toward a single grim climax. At which point, we, the audience, tear up, feeling either genuinely moved or emotionally manipulated. The structure of these movies and our reactions to them really just follow that basic plot chart from high school English.

My Girl's structure, however, looks like something you might see on a seismograph.

(click to make bigguh)
My Girl is relentless and it's that lack of emotional respite that makes it so heart-shattering. You watch this movie and you feel like you really went through some shiz.

It's brutal! Every time I sit through My Girl, I spend the last fifteen minutes of the movie crying. 

When I was younger, that crying was just straightforward sobbing. These days, though, it's more about me trying and failing to rage against the inevitable tears--the end result being a lot of gulping, hiccuping, and an overwhelming feeling of lunacy. My Girl just hits me on this incredibly visceral level; the government should seriously look into somehow weaponizing it.

Thomas J.'s death is disturbing. Clearly. And when you're ten years old, even if you have a firm grasp on the concept of death, the last person that you expect to see die in a movie is a kid. Especially, a kid with glasses.

Like going to prom or accidentally calling your teacher "mom," crying at the end of My Girl is a rite of passage. I honestly love this movie but I've gotten to the point where I don't need to watch it anymore because (a) life is already depressing enough, I don't need to deliberately inject any tragedy into it and (b) I can't believe or accept how easily Vada gets over her BFF's death. I mean, it was kind of her fault that he died, right?

He was looking for her mood ring when those bees stung him.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------