First things first... I wish to apologise for the crappy picture quality. My Channel 4 reception
ranges from abysmal to terrible, with occaisional peaks of viewability.
This broadcast is being received from the Hannington transmitter - the London transmitter is no
better as I'm in between the two (and besides, I have issues with watching Carlton, mainly over
their dumbing down of what is already mostly viewing for morons (in my opinion!)).
If you are interested in what the original images looked like, and the software I made to get something useful from them, then please look at this (warning: geek zone!).
Right then, on with the show!
Vague storyline that bears little in common with the actual storyline... :-)
A quick note for those who have asked in the past - this site is obsessed with
Alyson Hannigan (as you very well might have noticed). So the bits of this movie with Alyson in
will get a mention. The rest probably won't. If you don't like this, go see if a transcript is
downloadable someplace, or go rent the movie...
The general synopsis at oh two hundred hours forty five: I guess one day I might buy
the DVD release of this movie. Thing is, it is a pretty silly movie really. Ranging from
supposed-babe being an alien, to omnipotent god-likes using SoCal 'slang', to Jimmy Durante
being used as a reason to save the earth...
Out of the movie, I think Alyson Hannigan plays it the best (and I don't say that simply because
of what I think of her!). Thing is, this is a movie for youngsters, and she probably had a fun
time making it. Certainly, when I watched it when it was first released [historic note - that
was when I first fell in love with Alyson!] I don't remember it being as daft as it seems
now. I figure Dan Aykroyd and Kim Basinger didn't quite know how to play this one. And all that
nonsense with Jimmy Durante. The whole bit with Kim (the alien) watching Jimmy on video, that's
fine. That's actually amusing. But the bit at the end. Should have been left on the cutting room
floor. In fact, the whole ending was pretty stupid. It's a shame, this movie had a lot of
potential, ranging from a good cast to a good basic premise. It was let down by huge amounts of
cheese. We aren't talking Cheddar either - we're talking the whole Brie mouldy stinky stuff in
huge quantities...
Ehrrrrr! Jessie (Alyson, obviously!) misses the shot. Flinging an arm out, she makes a noise like the "missed" horn.
Why can't I dunk? Why can't I dunk?
Jessie has a word with the hoop.
Daddy (Steven) comes home. His life isn't so good. He got fired. For blowing up the lab. And some
other stuff. And all the monitors fused, so there was no proof that his laser whatsit went all
the way to this far-off-place (faster than the speed of light).
Personally, I'd fire them all for a blatant inability to dump results to hardcopy...
He sits down with Jessie. Here we learn that they whole family were a bit nerdy, well, mom died or something. But she'd have liked knowing that Steven got a signal out of the galaxy...
A nice father daughter shot. Appreciate it, it took me several attempts before I got one that looked anything like a TV image. :-)
Next day...
Dad, do you notice anything different about me?
Turns out Jessie is ... wearing a bra.
Yup, she's thirteen and growing up.
Then follow some shots of Steven trying hard not to stare at his daughter's breasts.
He asks some inane question like "did you get the right size?" (no pop, I borrowed grandmas, duh!), so Jessie replies something like 28-A, and gives this expression...
That night, Jessie and Steven go to a party hosted by Steven's brother. That's when the alien
shows up acting weird. She does stuff like eat a used cigarette (she thinks it is an hors
d'oeurve - only she probably knows how to spell that phrase), sings the popeye song (!), then
backflips across the room.
Steven feels sorry for this total weirdo, and goes to try to make her feel less of an outsider.
Soon enough, things warm up. Jessie is like, Oh my god! They're gonna kiss!
The alien, Celeste (Kim Basinger), suddenly dashes inside and asks Jessie what she should be
wearing. At a bit of a loss for a reply, Jessie hands Celeste a bunch of magazines (how eighties)
which, when back outside, Celeste feeds into her handbag and a dress pops out. This is Jessie's
first encounter with alien weirdness.
(I think a classic touch would have been for the dress to have been made out of paper, i.e.
from the magazines, but I digress...)
Next morning, Jessie is up bright and early sharing breakfast with the dog...
...when Steven dances in...
It gets worse. Celeste is there too. She stayed the night. And, by the way honey, we're gonna get married...
Preparations for the marriage... (how did so many people turn up for the next day - don't these people have jobs?)
Jessie goes to call Celeste, and being a nice quiet girl, she doesn't like to disturb the peace by doing anything noisy, like knocking on the door... And stepmom-to-be? Well, she's munching down on a pack of D cells.
Jessie, upset and freaked, runs back to dad, but he thinks it is an attention seeking ploy because she's supposed to be jealous about dad being with this new person.
The wedding goes ahead. And, Alyson being a fine actress, she does this lovely expression as she walks down the aisle behind Celeste. I hope you can see it in this picture - it's an "it's all going to end in disaster and you never listen to me" expression.
Later (that night?) Jessie gets ready to go out to a dance. Jessie seems to have a fine wardrobe of whitish coloured dresses...
...points for guessing who the brat is.
Oh, I'll give it to you anyway. It is Seth Green. Who, years later, would be taking Alyson out
again in the guise of 'Oz' (in Buffy). He might have tried to be cool being in the Dingoes, but
here he looks like a young Richie (from Happy Days).
See what I mean? :-)
He hands Jessie a corsage, looks at her shoes and remarks "you wore flats, good" then
says some nice things to dad and stepmom in a way that makes you want to hide Jessie and kick him
out of the house...violently.
Jessie wore flats, but she never got to dance. I think her date with creep didn't go as well as planned. Back at home, and able to let herself it (trusting parent), she notices Celeste glugging down the juice from a car battery. Then, at the kitchen window, she sees Celeste plucking eggs out of boiling water with her bare hands, and taking something from the oven, again with her bare hands. On can only guess Jessie didn't sleep that night...
Next day.
Celeste went shopping in the early morning hours. Which is why this breakfast, the table is
covered. Celeste stole a menu from a diner, and has made everything on it, most of which is now
on the table in front of a bemused Steven and a nonplussed Jessie.
Jessie tries to explain, but again dad'll have none of it.
Jessie came home, and saw Celeste cleaning up in record time, talking to her handbag, who was
talking back...
Jessie phoned dad at work and said "the house is on fire".
This annoyed the eyeball-in-the-hangbag thing greatly.
Celeste might have been willing to swap interplanetary tips on makeup, but bag had other ideas,
slamming the shutters, locking the doors...
...and sticking Jessie to the ceiling for an impromptu interrogation.
As dad drove up front, bag finally 'let go' of Jessie, literally. She dropped heavily to the floor.
Now, crying and extremely upset, Jessie tries to explain to her father that his new wife is an alien, and she's leaving - for good - in twelve hours...
Steven is having none of it. So Jessie runs out of the house, hops on her bike, and cycles off down the middle of the road in quiet suburbia. She's so upset that she doesn't see the car, and the car doesn't see her until way too late...
...luckily, Celeste saw, and she had control over the bag's powers so was able to make Jessie float through the car, to avoid being killed.
Jessie walks over to Celeste - You gave yourself away to save my life!
Jessie is put into bed (that night), and she has some deep and meaningful words with Celeste.
The adults, now? They gotta talk...
A strom brews in the middle of the night. Basically, the first laser penetration of this far-off
planet has affected their gravity. So another penetration must happen that
night, else the planet will be doomed. What a load of hokum.
Anyway, they all go to the lab in the middle of the night, with Steven working again thanks to
Bag calling up the guy in charge (grey haired bloke on the right) and pretending to be Carl
Sagan. Fizz, whammo. Lightning blast, new zappy stuff on the monitors. Steven figured out how to
make it go all the way, and everything is good.
Well, not quite. The Bag has strict orders to blow up Earth once the 'mission' is complete. The only non-Alyson image here is one of the better special effects. The destruction of the eyeball-in-the-handbag. It sorta grew and grew, flashing into negative (like it is now) every so#often, until it filled the doorway.
The eyeball fades out and is replaced with the face of one of the omnipotent beings. Who makes a gesture and they all end up outside in the carpark. (so you're telling me they can do that, and they have the "Monshine 40" which is like this huge reference work describing everything, correctly, yet they can't fix a little gravity problem?)
After a really poor Jimmy Durante impression, and some other cheese, the omnipotents decide to
spare Earth - it is too weird to destroy - and since Celeste doesn't really want to go home,
Steven's brother notices all the flight crew of the spaceship look like Princess Stephanie (as in
'of Monaco'), so he's plenty happy to volunteer to go back to Celeste's planet (where they don't
have sex (does he know that?) and they eat batteries (does he know that?) because he's
secretly got the hots for Princess Stephanie (did she know that?).
So Celeste and Jessie wave goodbye.
That night they all go home, like you do after you've been visited by aliens and your stepmother is one... And Jessie, with a little hidden help from Celeste, finally dunks - nicely trying up the movie.
And so the credits come...
Thank you Alyson.
And thank you for reading.
First saved : 04:07h 2002/03/15
Last revised: -