October 8, 2022 by L.

The Crimes of Juliet O’Hara and a Blast from the Past: Psych the Movie (2017)

Psych I was such a fan of this TV show and so sad when they ended it.

I remember the first time I ever saw the previews for this film and was super excited, my friend and I our anticipation was sky high. And I decided that this year I would review the three films of the Psych film series. They plan to write two more movies, but after the third one I’m not so sure they will be continuing them. But fingers crossed they do.

So this is a “holiday movie”, but not one as James Roday Rodriguez likes and wanted to make it like Gremlins, in more ways than one. Initially the plot was going to be different, but then Timothy Omundson had a stroke. While he was recuperating the team rewrote the script and had to create a slightly different film.

I’m really glad they care about the fans and decided to make this.

So in the last episode of Psych, they moved from Santa Barbara to Sam Francisco and it was weird to see it in this other location. I personally did not care for it.

We start the first film with Shawn Spencer (James Roday Rodriguez) disguised as Soupcan Sam, I love that he gets a callback.

Shawn meets with the premier fence on the west coast El Proveedor, as he is searching for his grandmother’s ring; stolen in the season finale.

Why steal my ring it took my forever to find?

In classic Shawn fashion he waits until the prey is distracted and then takes off running, using his fake beard to zip line across the water. And then running down the street with chaos ensuing. Shawn runs into an office building and we see that guy from the morning show, Monty, working there. And we all know why Shawn went to that office, the it just has to be Gus‘ office: Badump there he is.

Gus is the best of friends and gets rid of the gang members, and we get that classic intro.

Juliet’s partner at the SFPD is the brother from Sleepover, Sam Huntington. Whenever I see him in law enforcement I always feel it is a continuation of his character in Sleepover. He and Juliet are working on a teenagers turned thieves ring case and grab one of the thieves who turns out to be Chief Vick’s daughter, Iris. Will we get to see her husband? All those seasons and we still don’t know what he looks like.

Juliet is a pushover and let’s here go free, but of course she’ll be sure to pop up in the film later.

Meanwhile Juliet’s partner, Sammy, is back at his home and discovers that a “Billy” a guy going by “The Duke” (Zachary Levi) has been waiting for him. Sammy gets the jump on the Duke, but it turns out he came with backup. I can’t remember their nicknames. But Gus and Shawn come up with some good ones for the minions.

Juliet goes to talk the chief and instead of letting her know the danger her daughter is in with this thievery ring, Juliet folds and withholds it from Chief Vick. Seriously Juliet, her mom should definitely know.

Chief Vick talks to Juliet about her relationship and all I can think what I always think, I wish Maggie Lawson and James Roday Rodeiguez stayed together. They were so cute.

In Chinatown we find Shawn’s Gremlins inspired shop. It’s cute, but it also looks too much like a set than a real office. It’s okay but I miss their old office.

One thing I feel this film really missed out on was a cameo of Tony Shalhoub as Monk from Monk. I think it would have been super cute like those all commercials they had when they first aired Psych. Especially as they had a mention of it in the series finale episode.

Shawn and Gus try to get on the case when they head to the hospital to see Sammy as he is in the ICU, but Vick seems angry to see him. I wonder what happens to make her anti-psychic?

As they leave the hospital the two run into Nick Conforth (Ralph Macchio). Nick tells them that Sam called him yesterday and said that no one he knew could be trusted, that he was looking into “The Crimes of Juliet”, he also knows where Sam was planning to investigate next.

They head toward the signal was but it looks like just a wooded area. Instead they discover that there is an asylum out there. But when they reach it, it turns out to be a condemned building. Eee! Another condemned asylum?!

They go into the asylum and find a bank of monitors that are getting into the SFPD. They call Chief Vick but when she gets there, everything is gone and they see Juliet there. Juliet gets angry and kicks them off the case and the two head to a planetarium party instead. There Gus meets a girl, of course. He’s not quite into the girl as she goes after him.

Back at the asylum Juliet had a lot of secrets and she’s not spilling them. It seems odd as she is always the straight arrow.

Back at the hospital, Sam is dead-an assassin got him the blonde minion. We get a callback to the series as Woody is the coroner. Fun fact the same actor played an odd and murderous coroner in Diagnosis Murder.

As they are getting the coroners report, Selene has tracked Gus down and wants to be with him. Man this girl is weird and I don’t care for the character but whatever. Selene researched Gus and did a deep dive and found out info from back when he was a child. She’s crazy, but we all know what Gus is into:

Back at the coroner’s office they so over Sam’s dongle in his stomach. They just take it out and plug it in and it works without even needing a serious cleaning to try and get it to work after it has been in blood and stomach acid and the like. Like they don’t even pause to wipe, just pop it in.

Shawn is freaking out over this Crimes of Juliet, but that has to go to the back burner as they head to the San Francisco office they get jumped by El Proveedo. Shawn gives him a psychic reading and does all the silly psychic hand movements and the rest that we have all missed seeing.

After successfully getting out of that situation. The boys head home where Juliet is trying to figure out who is after her. She asks Shawn for help and admits that she didn’t follow the law in order to put certain people away. It’s interesting as she was so law and order in the series; and honesty was the most important thing to her. With such a huge stray from her character I wish we had background as to why.

Shawn doesn’t care as his psychic ability is a lie and searches the board figuring out the one behind it is the snitch, Billy. They look across the window and see Billy staring back. Originally Zachary Levi was supposed to play Z in Psych the Musical but there was a scheduling issue, so when they were making this film they reached out to Levi again and he was very interested.

We have a shoot out with Billy AKA the Thin White Duke, but he has an exit plan and associates, The Gentleman Dandy and Heather Rocklear.

The most interesting thing that was brought up in the conversation is that he isn’t in charge, someone else is. Who? My friends and I were trying to figure out which person from their past. I wa s thinking maybe someone from season one? Like the girl who murdered to get her grandma’s ring. Or maybe Shannon Woodward’s character from Scary Sherry Bianca’s Toast.

Henry decides to come to SF for Christmas and is a hipster. I think it was a random decision and he looks so weird.

That night Mary shows up in Shawn’s vision which is off as he usually only saw him when he was on the Yin Yang case, but both of them are dead. Is that a clue?

They start singing Allison Road and then he sees Juliet as Princess Leia and Gus as Prince. Wait Allison, wasn’t that the name of the girl Yin chose as his new apprentice?

Meanwhile Vick’s daughter is kidnapped by the Thin White Duke and calls all the players to join him at Alcatraz. Even Woody and Henry.

They are on the ferry and Gus thinks about making a jump for it, and I’m like are you crazy? You’ll die before you make it to shore, the water is freezing, the currents deadly.

I have to say I really like that we are doing this thing at Alcatraz at night, not only have I been there I did the night tour and it is very scary, Uber creepy. I know a lot about it and feel like I’d totally be Gus in this situation.

And our behind the scenes headliner is, Allison! Yes, Allison from the Yin episode: Allison kills The Thin White Duke and shares her plan on how she wants to take down Juliet: 20 minutes, no lights, fights. Ready, set, go.

Vick goes searching for her daughter, Juliet goes searching for Allison, Gus tries to get to the lighthouse; and they are approached by the Black Gentleman Dandy/Ninja.

Allison goes after Juliet, and Heather Rocklear goes after Woody and Henry.

Meanwhile Shawn and Gus are too entertained by the Black Gentlemen Dandy swordplay they kind of forget about the trouble they are in. They have a heart to heart about the women in their lives and then run from the Black Gentlemen Dandy.

The men try to fight Heather but are only doing okay, until Vick comes in and knocks her out.

Allison has round two with Juliet coming up on top again. Gus and Shawn have been running but stop when they find that the Black Gentlemen Dandy has his father. They try to disarm the Black Gentlemen Dandy but he is able to outsmart him, although Woody saves the day when he comes with a shotgun. They save Iris and all reunite.

Back on the dock Henry goes his way fishing, Selene follows Gus to the dock and brings him flowers, and when Proveedor comes to find Shawn and bring him the ring he found as all of Shawn’s premonitions came true. It turns out that Shawn had a little help from MCNab! Yay! I was hoping he’d have a cameo!

They end up getting married right there on the dock with Vick as the maid of honor, Gus the best man, and El Proveedor does the wedding. Even the Black Gentlemen Dandy wishes them a happy wedding. And we get our pineapple in the last scene and Ewan O’Hara (John Cena) stops by on a case.

Shawn grabs thewedding gift that Ewan gave him and they all go out in a blaze of bullets.

I thought it was cute! I wish it had taken place in Santa Barbara but otherwise I really enjoyed it. It had a lot of inside jokes for the fans, it gave you exactly what you wanted and I loved that all the cast came back for it. Definitely a win for the fans!

For more Psych, go to Tuesday the 17th: Psych (2009)

For more psychos, go to Father Knows Best: The Stepfather (1987)

July 24, 2019 by L.

I Only Read Pride and Prejudice Because I Hated the Keira Knightley Adaptation

Yes, it’s the bomb that wrecked the Internet. The hate mail and unhappy comments will be abounding. Oh well. All I ask is that you finish the review before writing them.

So this marks the seventh year of my blogging JaneAustenRunsMyLife and I’ve been thinking, it is about time I share how I got into Jane Austen.

So the first Austen-related thing I was involved in, was watching Sense and Sensibility (1995). I think I was 7 or 8 at the time, and I came into the living room and my mom was watching it. It was at the part when Marianne and Willoughby are going off in the carriage together. I watched a bit but then went off to do whatever it was I was doing before.

My sister read Pride and Prejudice in school and when I asked her what it was about, all I heard was “mother trying to marry five daughters…” and stopped listening. Romance?! Ugh. I was not about that and books that were only about people getting married. Ew! (Which P&P is not)

You see I was into mysteries-Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie, etc-and “important” classics like Charles Dickens, Jules Verne, Wilkie Collins, etc. Pride and Prejudice, no way.

Me, read Pride and Prejudice?

I know I was a snob.

No.

And of course-gothic fiction. I had read Wuthering Heights, The Phantom of the Opera, Edgar Allan Poe, etc.

So time passed and nothing could tempt me into reading Jane Austen. We even had a lady in our church who “adopted” us as her grandchildren and bought a beautiful copy of Little Women and Pride and Prejudice for my sister and I. I already had my beloved copy of Little Women (I know I owned and repeatedly read it and didn’t consider it girly. Why? I don’t know. I was working off teen logic which doesn’t always make sense), and decided to take the Pride and Prejudice as my goal was to read all the classics. But did I read it? NO. I put it on my stacks of to-read books and forgot all about it.

So what finally got this stubborn, obstinate girl to change her mind? A sleepover.

When I was 15 going on sixteen (circa 2007) we had a church girl’s sleepover. Now granted, I was not in a good mood that day. I was bummed that the boys were doing their own sleepover and making potato guns while we did something I found really boring. I can’t remember what it was we did, I just remember wanting to make a potato gun.

It came for the time of the movie and I was not jazzed as the last time the assistant youth leader, Allie, picked-she chose Master of Disguise.

Or saw. Just a stupid movie altogether.

There were two choices of films and I can’t remember the one I really wanted to watch and argued long and hard for-but I lost to Pride and Prejudice (2005).

I’m angry with you.

I was totally bummed and we started watching it. From the very start I was not happy.

WHAT!!!!

First of all I do not like Keira Knightley as an actress. I don’t think she’s that good as I feel she is the same in every film. To me a talented actor should make you forget who they are, but think they are the character they are portraying. So of course being an emotional teenager I couldn’t stand her.

As an actress not a person.

I didn’t care for anything else in it and to top it all off I could not understand anything they were saying or follow the film.

Now I have hearing loss in one of my ears, but I didn’t know that at the time. When I was a baby I had constant ear infections, so bad they wanted to put tubes in my ears but my doctor gave me a shot and I was good until 2015, when I got an ear infection but still saw Avengers 2: Age of Ultron. I had to go in that same year and do a hearing test and discovered that one of my ears is damaged from all those ear infections. So when I’m in an environment where there is a lot going on, such as a lot of people talking, it is really hard for me to hear. And when I watch TV or movies something about the volume always bothers me. Either it isn’t loud eough or it is too loud. So I was already upset and then it was probably my hearing problems.

Whatever it was, I was angry, upset, and I hated this film-with the frigid storm of hate that no one but a teen can give.

Anyways, I kept asking what was happening and just completely hating on this film when Allie said to me, “You just aren’t used to the accents. If you watch British dramas you would understand it.”

Oh no. Heck no, those are fighting words. I was deeply offended at that! You see I’ve been watching Masterpiece Mystery, BBC, and others on PBS since before I was born. English accents don’t bother me none.

Don’t mess with me!

She offended me so much I stopped watching the dreaded movie and spent the rest of the night reading in a corner. The next day I resolved to read Pride and Prejudice.

So of course, the first step I had to root through my pile of to-read and began.

As soon as I started reading it, I was hooked! I felt like Isola Pribby in The Guersney Potato Peel and Literary Society. How come no one told me that there were other men to go ape for besides the brooding Heathcliff and romance that is better than the way Cathy treats him.

Why?

To be honest, my sister did try. I just didn’t listen.

After that little taste it was over for me.

I was hooked on Austen.

I then had to watch every version of Pride and Prejudice-discovering that I had seen the Laurence Olivier version earlier when I was watching anything Olivier-related. He’s such a beautiful man.

So most people want to be Elizabeth, and friends said I was like her in some ways-however, I connected much more with Mr. Darcy, you know except the rich part.

When I finished P&P I then moved on to Sense and Sensibility. I took it along with me for my friend’s Sixteenth Birthday sleepover getaway and we ended up having Jane Austen pop up in more than one conversation.

I then watched all the Sense and Sensibility adaptations as well.

Mansfield Park was next and a little harder to get through. I liked Fanny but I really wanted her to punch Mrs. Norris in the face and was disappointed she didn’t. I mean I knew she wouldn’t do a physical punch, but was hoping for a verbal one.

I watched all the film versions of it that I could get my hands on, which wasn’t many as it is a hard one to get.

Then I tried to read Emma, but she kind of annoyed me and I skipped, planning to come back to it later, for Northanger Abbey, which I just adored. I loved, loved, LOVED, this book. I adored Catherine as that was me!! I was such a tomboy growing up! I loved Gothic fiction! I had an overactive imagination! I loved that no one expected her to be heroine, but she became one. I loved the whole girl reads books and then has an adventure right out of a story. AMAZING! And I loved Mr. Tilney.

I did the same with the films-although I prefer the Felicity Jones and JJ Feild one to all others!

Then Persuasion, so romantic and sweet. I’m really bummed that Persuasion and Northanger Abbey get passed over so much. Persuasion is slowly climbing it’s way out of obscurity, but doesn’t get the love it deserves.

I then watched all these adaptions as well.

I think this was from theotherausten.tumblr

I began to talk different, act different, dress different. You know how it goes. Watching all those films and reading those books your speech is extremely affected.

My first Jane Austen meme!

You’re view of the world changes:

My second Austen meme!

Your idea of the perfect man changes:

My sister used to poke fun at me, but I didn’t care.

Your life is consumed:

So I know, you are thinking-what about Emma. I decided to watch it, since I was struggling with the main character, and in the middle of watching it-I realized…Emma is Clueless.

After that-no problem at all. I LOVED Emma and how unique she was to the other Austen characters and women of her time.

Read it, loved it (some of my earliest posts were on it), and watched every adaptation I could.

So there we go, my Austen addiction all started because I couldn’t stand a certain adaptation and I was offended that someone thought I couldn’t follow British films. Looking back on it, it all seems so petty. But hey, that’s what teens are right?

I then started a blog back in 2011-12 and then couldn’t find it as the title was too generic. I decided to create a new one and that’s how JaneAustenRunsMyLife was born. I mean it’s not that my friends or family don’t like listening to me, but if you have been following you know that when I like something, I really like it and love to talk about it. Sometimes making it annoying for those who don’t care about it as much as me, or who really don’t care about it at all.

And I know, you are all wondering-do I still hate Pride and Prejudice (2005)?

Do you?

I wouldn’t say I hate it, but I don’t like it. It is my least favorite adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Pigs in the house? What? And why did they try and make them look dirty all the time? They were ladies!! And discount-Orlando Bloom who plays Wickham has no charm. However, I do think that their Mr. Collins was good, I liked how Matthew Macfayden and Simon Woods interacted with each other…and that will all have to wait for a review on another day.

So this marks seven years, and the seventh anniversary is wool. Hmm…what should I give myself? I always try to choose pictures from through the years. How about a Mr. Darcy in a wool coat?