This song is from A Walk To Remember, which was Mandy Moore’s biggest starring role until she got cast on This Is Us. If you haven’t seen A Walk To Remember, Mandy Moore plays a girl who marries Shane West but then dies a year later.
I guess this video is a sequel because now Mandy Moore is singing to Shane West from Heaven while Shane watches old home movies of him and Mandy goofing off between filming their scenes. Shane uses a telescope and discovers that he can see Mandy in Heaven and Mandy looks really happy. Then Shane goes into the city and is reminded that his romance with Mandy was just a part of a movie. I don’t know if that’s a happy ending or not.
“I wouldn’t play with that, Kelly,” Berke Landers (Ben Foster) says as Kelly Woods (Kirsten Dunst) playfully aims a crossbow at him.
Kelly laughs and tells him that it’s just a prop.
Berke suggests again that she should probably stop aiming it at him.
Kelly laughs and proceeds to fire an arrow straight into Berke’s arm.
The next scene, of course, is Berke in the back of an ambulance, groaning in terrible pain while Kelly apologizes and a paramedic repeatedly warns Berke not to look at his arm. In most movies, that would seem like a pretty dramatic plot development and, at the very least, you would expect that Berke would try to avoid Kelly and perhaps have his arm in a sling for the rest of the film. In the 2001 film, Get Over it, Berke recovers rather quickly, he and Kelly fall in love, and the film ends with Kelly making a joke about how she thought the crossbow was a prop.
That’s just the type of film that Get Over It is. This is a film from the age when all teen comedies were very loosely based on Shakespeare and they usually had a three word name like She’s All That or Drive Me Crazy or …. well, Get Over It. Ben Foster has the type of role that would usually go to Freddie Prinze, Jr. Sisqo has the Usher rule of the supercool sidekick who raps over the end credits. Shane West speaks with a British accent and steps into the Matthew Lillard role of the obnoxious teen celebrity. Melissa Sagemiller is the girl who the main guy thinks he’s in love with while Martin Short plays the eccentric and overdramatic theater teacher. And finally, Kirsten Dunst gets to play another version of her Bring It On role as the quirky and perky girl who wants to do the right thing. Meanwhile, Zoe Saldana, Mila Kunis, Colin Hanks, Swoosie Kurtz, and Ed Begley, Jr. all have small parts. It’s a good cast, if nothing else.
Get Over It centers around a high school production of a musical version of A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Basketball star Berke auditions for the play because he thinks that it will convince his ex-girlfriend, Alison (Sagemiller) to take him back. Instead, Alison ends up falling for the duplicitous Striker Scrumfeld (West), who has the exact type of personality that you would expect someone named Striker Scrumfeld to have. Meanwhile, Berke is falling in love with Kelly, who is the sister of his friend, Felix (Colin Hanks).
It’s all very predictable but, at the same time, the cast is absolutely charming and there’s enough quirky humor to make it memorable. I’ve watched Get Over It several times and, every time that I rewatch it, I’m always a little bit surprised to rediscover just how funny it actually is. For instance, as Berke leaves Alison’s house after being dumped by her, Vitamin C and a marching band suddenly appear behind him and start to perform Love Will Keep Us Together until Berke finally loses it and starts screaming. The musical production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream is the perfect parody of every pretentious high school play ever produced and Martin Short cheerfully throws himself into being the director for Hell. Ben Foster is a bit too intense to be a romantic or, for that matter, comedic leading man but the rest of the cast is enjoyably laid back and fully embrace their quirky roles.
Get Over It may not be a classic but it is a fun 90 minutes.
The Presence opens with nearly 20 minutes of near-silence. We watch as an unnamed and emotionally unstable woman (Mira Sorvino, who is literally listed in the credits as having played The Woman) arrives at an isolated cabin. As she settles in for what is obviously a very needed vacation, she goes about her business without saying a word. This is because she believes herself to be alone. However, those of us watching know that this isn’t true. She is sharing her cabin with a silent and initially passive ghost (Shane West) and, though she can’t see him, those of us in the audience can.
Eventually, the silence is broken as other visitors come to the cabin. There’s the boatman, Mr. Browman (Muse Watson). There’s the woman’s boyfriend (Justin Kirk) who unexpectedly shows up to ask the woman to marry him, a proposal which visibly upsets the ghost. Finally, there’s the Man In Black (played by Tony Curran). Though the woman cannot see the Man In The Black, she can hear him when he whispers dark thoughts into her ear.
The ghost, however, can see the Man in Black. The Man In Black offers the ghost a proposition. If the ghost kills the woman’s boyfriend, the Man In Black will allow the ghost to leave the cabin.
First released back in 2010, The Presence is a film that got (and gets) next to no love from the critics and from the type of people who specialize in leaving snarky comments over at the imdb. However, I rather like it. Director Tom Provost makes the risky choice to emphasize atmosphere over easy scares. The end result is a film that is full of striking images but which requires a bit more patience than most audiences are probably willing to give. When I think about The Presence, I think about the sight of Shane West passively watching Mira Sorvino, obviously wishing he could reach out but knowing that he cannot. It’s a haunting image, one that perfectly captures both the fear and the pathos of a good ghost story.
And that, ultimately, is what The Presence is. It’s a good ghost story and what better time for a good ghost story but Halloween?
Through the Shattered Lens 