BSC the movie part two!
Here we go with part two!
Mary Anne asks Cokie/Marguerite if she has something else to do. Cokie cocks her head, squints up her eyes and snots, "don't waste my time. Logan-- call me," and stalks off. Then Mary Anne walks off with Kristy's arm around one of her shoulders and Jackie's arm rather low around her back, leaving Logan to hold his helmet and shake his head like a dufus. A horse neighs derisively at him, and scene.
Montage time! And another extremely catchy song, though it's short this time: Summertime! Blows me away! And Summertime! I can't stay! It's my sense of focus! And I'm desperate! But I'm a part of it! What a find! Takes me away, and what a find! I can't stay, and inevitable, though I can't let go, I can never know! Oh baby, why does all things get the best of me? September comes. It reminds me of Engrish. Kristy puts a camp flier up on the city bulletin board. Dawn hands out fliers in the park. Claudia walks out of a radio station, conspiratorially shakes hands with a DJ, and hands him an index card that says "Good for FREE HOURS of babysitting." Apparently this was a bribe. Then Cokie and the Graces rollerblade past a diner and rip a flier off the bulletin board, which is why the song stops suddenly. Artsy!
Inside the diner, the sitters are all crammed together on one side of a table. Dawn is eating an enormous bowl of seeds while Kristy swoons over her hamburger, rejoicing that they taste the same every time. Jessi asks Dawn if she's watered herself lately, which would have been funny if she were capable of acting. Mary Anne asks Kristy what they should do for her birthday. "I don't know," says Kristy. "Just as long as it's the best day of my life-- but no pressure!"
Then Stacey the Math Whiz exposits that if 30 campers sign up for their camp, that's 7500 dollars in the treasury! They can get their own office! A FAX MACHINE! "Go international!" Claud mopes that that will solve her problems if she flunks science and Kristy assures her that she'll help. I wonder if anyone has factored out what they're paying for port-a-potties and a a first aid tent for July 5th through labor day. Not to mention, apparently this is slave labor for the sitters themselves-- they get no salary, and everything goes directly into the treasury? I don't think they understand how money works.
Then Stacey reveals that they've only had twelve children sign up so far. As they wonder why, Cokie rollerblades into the diner and throws a bunch of stolen fliers onto the table. Then she leans in and tells Mary Anne that she "got the most outrageous outfit for the concert." Girls, she's on rollerblades indoors. She's practically helpless. Pour ketchup on her, give her a push, and watch her roll away. Instead, Mary Anne's eyes go wide with paranoia and she resolves aloud not to cry.
Cokie, satisfied with her taunting, pushes aside the Graces and rolls away.
Kristy, however, gets a great (brilliant?) idea, and saunters over to the counter to talk to Cokie. She offers a truce between them and, as a show of goodwill, invites her to a party in the park at 8 PM Friday. Jessi and Mal nearly ruin this by whispering "what party?" but Kristy shoves them away. Cokie then turns and informs the Graces that they can't go because "It's Friday night! We're going to be hanging out at Pizza Express." The light-haired Grace says they should go, because the BSC are "kinda cool." Cokie snots that "They're not cool! We're cool! And don't you ever forget that!"
I hope no one is surprised that the next scene shows Cokie and the Graces all dressed up for a party, in the park, at 8 PM. Cokie exposits that she's only going because Logan will be there. Then-- REVENGE!!!! Three sprinklers turn on, getting Cokie and the Graces a little wet. They basically do the whole "I'm MeLTinG..." sequence from the Wizard of Oz, and scene.
Next scene: the day camp opens! Kristy is shouting WELCOOOOOME through a bullhorn, which causes the frumpy neighbor lady to gasp and jump out of her lounge chair, nearly upsetting her silk flowers. Kristy voiceovers that "every day had a plan, every plan had a backup, and every backup had a fallback." How could this possibly go wrong?
The first step in the plan is to give each of the children an enormous color-coded pot holder, which will tell them which group they belong to. The poor things have to wear the potholder attached to their clothes at all times.
The neighbor lady looks over the fence and clutches her forehead in disbelief.
Heaven help us, it's time for the kids. One little girl asks for a potholder for her imaginary friend Jimmy Tony, and gets one. Then Jackie is excited that he gets to be in Kristy's group. Then a shy child whispers that she wants a potholder and a less-shy child has to translate for Dawn. Then an older boy in a cowboy hat asks if his sister can get in free, since she's so small and since his mother is only willing to pay for one. His sister helpfully says that she's been to the moon. Kristy stamps both their receipts-- they are, according to the names on the receipt, supposed to be Buddy and Suzi Barrett. Then some children play with a giant slingshot that just happens to be lying around, and send a rock into the frumpy neighbor's yard. It nearly misses shearing off her fingers as it lands in the bird feeder. The children laugh, because persecuting old people is so wholesome and fun. I don't know about you guys, but that's why I never babysit without my giant slingshot. Then there's a three-legged race, and then several children have to go to the bathroom... but the port-a-potties haven't arrived yet! Do port-a-potties really just... arrive? Don't you have to dig a hole for them or something? Anyway, Dawn ends up letting the children use her family's bathroom expressly against her father's wishes. She knocks on the door. "What are you doing in there, Suzi?"
We cut to a shot of Suzi, looking in the mirror with shaving cream all over her face, and attempting to wipe it off with what could be a comb or a switchblade. "Shaving," she says.
Outside again, Alan Gray walks up in a straw hat with a large yellow flower in his lapel. I wonder what Alan Gray looks like today-- he's much better looking than Logan and I really like guys in hats. Dawn asks to be hidden and flees. He attempts to pursue her, and trips over a bush. The sitters quickly set up an office in what looks like a shed. Alan pleads to be allowed to help them out for free, while Logan also pleads his case. Against Dawn's protestations, Kristy agrees, and Alan squirts Dawn in the face with his flower.
"I said get her a flower," says Logan, "Not squirt her with one."
I'm going to assume the director was going for a poignant sexual metaphor here.
Scene! Kristy and Mary Anne ride their bikes up to the Brewer mansion. Kristy is berating Mary Anne for not being more assertive with Logan. Mary Anne protests that Logan didn't say he'd go to the concert with Cokie. "What if he had?" Kristy asks. "If he wants to do something," Mary Anne answers, "I can't stop him." Kristy says in her horrible braying voice that she can; "you can tell someone when you're ticked off! I mean, you can't let a man get away with everything."
Just then they see an unsavory man in a suit with about two days' worth of stubble on his chin staring nervously at the curb. He turns to the girls and approaches them with a wondering face. "Kristy?" he says. "Hi."
"Dad?" asks Kristy.
"Yeah," says the unsavory man with a sheepish little smile.
"You grew a beard," says Kristy.
Mary Anne introduces herself to Unsavory Dad, and then bikes away as fast as she can.
Unsavory Dad says his name is Patrick.
Unsavory Patrick and Kristy have the ensuing conversation in front of Unsavory Patrick's totally unsavory van, a musard-colored hippiemobile with curtains in the windows. I think if that thing came with in a mile of Watson's actual neighborhood, Shannon's mom would be calling the police to report a would-be child abductor in no time flat.
Unsavory Dad is surprised that Kristy didn't believe him when his postcard said he'd be coming for a visit... but then again, as Kristy says, he always says he'll be visiting. Did this happen in the books at all? I thought Kristy's dad just ran off in the middle of the week without a word and that was the end of him. The movie seems to assume there's been communication all this time.
Unsavory Dad keeps stammering that Kristy looks great, which she doesn't; she's in a plaid baseball cap, her dingiest jeans and sneakers, and a striped shirt with sleeves so spacious Claudia could probably make legwarmers out of them.
Unsavory Dad asks her about school while she climbs around on the fence like a six-year-old. Then he asks her to go get a pizza. If I didn't know this man was her father... no, scratch that, this scene is creepy even though I know he's her father. And that's not helped at all by the fact that Unsavory Dad sits on the fence next to her while apologizing for the awkwardness of the situation.
As romantic piano music plays in the background, Dad explains that he's back in Kristy's life now because he's moving to Stonybrook to be a sports reporter. I didn't know a small Connecticut town was the place to be for that kind of work, but then again I know nothing about sports, so I'll let it slide. Unsavory Dad also exposits that he hasn't talk to Kristy's mother yet, and won't be telling her he's even in town. He asks Kristy to keep his presence a secret for a couple of days, and she agrees. Then he tells her he likes her hair, gives the name of his hotel, and says "Don't forget-- I owe you a pizza! Do you still like anchovies best?"
Kristy nods sadly.
As the romantic piano plays on, Unsavory Patrick makes some kind of sign language gesture, slashing across one cheek with his finger. This is probably a baseball hand signal but I like to think he's telling her to beware the pirate known as Black Dog. Kristy smiles knowingly. Then Unsavory Patrick gets into his molester van, puts it in the wrong gear and starts backing up by accident. A crew member yells audibly at him. He smiles sheepishly at Kristy again, puts the van in a different gear, and manages to drive away.
More montaging! The babysitters drive by an old house, singing "Oboe she watten dotten." Kristy screams into a megaphone that today's camp day is "cowboy day! I mean cowgirl... it's cow people day!" Dawn starts an environmental lecture with "The earth can do just about anything if you treat it right," and then Alan Gray turns a cartwheel in front of her and smashes her egg carton craft project. Dawn asks why Alan acts like such a bonehead. "No good reason," says Alan, whose eyes are completely obscured by his 90s split-top bun haircut. Jackie Rodowski tries to hit a baseball and ends up batting himself in the foot. Mallory the detention teacher puts a redheaded moppet named Margie in the time-out box for putting gum in Suzi's hair.
In the next scene, Kristy and Mary Anne lead several children, all carrying weird banners and lifesized puppets, into the woods for a pagan ritual. At least, that's what it looks like they're doing and I don't know where else they're going or what else it could possibly be. Kristy is begging Mary Anne to come with her when she visits her father. Mary Anne tries to back out but, being Mary Anne, she ends up going along with it.
Next, we get Mary Anne and Kristy sitting at a table outside Unsavory Patrick's molester van in the middle of the night. It turns out the molester van is more of a camper, with a kitchenette visible inside. Unsavory Patrick explains that they're not at the hotel because there's no kitchen there, and he wants to make them something "really, really special." He takes a tray out of the oven and serves them each three unidentifiable brown patties that are shaped exactly like sperm.
"Mouse pancakes!" says Kristy with a smile.
Unsavory Patrick says that he used to make mouse-shaped pancakes for Kristy every Sunday.
Mary Anne goes to find a bathroom, which Patrick assures her is clean. Then Patrick tells Kristy that he needs to have a job before he walks into that mansion and tells her mother he's back in town. Kristy agrees to keep his secret a little longer.
Another fifteen minutes down! More later.