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Pretty Woman - 4 Stars (Excellent)
"Pretty Woman" was originally scripted as a dark drama about prostitution in Los Angeles, but thankfully movie producer Laura Ziskin said "No" and what started out as a very brooding, negative film turned into one of the most popular and financially successful romantic comedies of all time. Find out why.
With a production cost of $14 million and a worldwide gross of $464 million, Laura Ziskin had to be smiling all of the way to the bank.
Pretty Woman's title character, Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts), is a down-on-her-luck prostitute who is hired by Edward Lewis (Richard Gere), a wealthy businessman and corporate raider, as arm candy for several business functions.
The arrangement works well but begins to get complicated when Edward discovers Vivian is not just a hooker from Hollywood Boulevard but also a woman of substance, and Vivian finds herself falling in love in a situation that essentially has no future.
There is nothing positive about the common perception of a hooker, but Vivian smashes through the normal perceptions by quickly getting viewers past her obvious good looks and revealing her inner beauty, transparent feelings and uncompromising commitment by not settling for a comfortable, Edward-financed lifestyle as arm candy and companion.
Her willingness to walk away from the fee arrangement for her gig ultimately gets Edward's attention, and a Hollywood story line takes over. Vivian becomes so likeable we want to cheer for her as she stands her ground and forces Edward to make a decision. Both Vivian and Edward experience some serious personal growth that moviegoers can relate to and appreciate.
The story line reminds me of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, which became the basis for the Broadway musical "My Fair Lady" with Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle, a poor flower girl who morphs into a beautiful princess. The character of Vivian also reminds me of Audrey Hepburn's role as Holly Golightly, another lady of the night in "Breakfast at Tiffany's".
Director Garry Marshall completely avoids negatives in this film by wisely handling Vivian's role, and playing the characters around her like a concert master fine tuning an orchestra. His work went a long way in helping Pretty Woman win a Golden Globe for Best Picture. Richard Gere picked up a Golden Globe for Best Actor, and Hector Elizondo won a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe as the hotel manager Barney Thompson.
The shining star in Pretty Woman was Julia Roberts. She was a relative unknown at the time, and walked away with a Golden Globe as Best Actress and an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress.
Pretty Woman, released in 1990, was notable for the number of leading ladies who turned down the role of Vivian, including Molly Ringwald, Meg Ryan, Michelle Pfeiffer and Daryl Hannah. Julia Roberts really won the role by default, but she made the most of her opportunity and the movie quickly made her Hollywood's newest sweetheart, a role she held for nearly 15 years.
Al Pacino also turned down the role of Edward Lewis, leaving the door open for Richard Gere.
Here is some key trivia in the movie:
1) The opera in San Francisco that Edward flies Vivian to in a private jet is "La Traviata", the tale of a Parisian courtesan who falls in love with a wealthy young man.
2) Richard Gere actually plays the piano himself in a late night scene, he even composed the music that he plays.
3) The sports car Edward borrows at the beginning of the movie is a Lotus Esprit. Ferrari and Porsche turned down the advertising opportunity because they did not want to be associated with soliciting prostitutes. Lotus won big time as its Esprit sales tripled during the next year.
The film also benefited from its title and association to "Oh, Pretty Woman", Roy Orbison's worldwide hit recorded 26 years earlier.
I really liked Pretty Woman and not just because of Julia Roberts' jump-off-the-screen attractiveness, especially after Edward escorts Vivian to Rodeo Drive for a shopping spree, proving that clothes can complete even a very attractive woman. Even more important is her courage, determination, substance and dignity under stress.
If you like relationship movies and romantic comedies, Pretty Woman is a must see.
Copyright © 2008 Ed Bagley
Ed Bagley's Blog Publishes Original Articles with Analysis and Commentary on 5 Subjects: Sports, Movie Reviews, Lessons in Life, Jobs and Careers, and Internet Marketing. My intention is to inform, educate, delight and motivate you the reader.
Read more of my other reviews on romantic comedies, including "Four Romantic Comedies That Will Not Stress Your Emotions", "Mystic Pizza", "Something's Gotta Give", "The Holiday", "What Women Want", "Failure to Launch" and "For Love or Money".
Find my Blog at:
http://www.edbagleyblog.com
http://www.edbagleyblog.com/MovieReviews.html
Hear Barney and his friends sing and speak to Malcolm over 80 times throughout this one of a kind CD! It will be an instant hit that they will listen to over and over. Watch their face light up as they hear their name sung and spoken by Barney, BJ, and Baby Bop in a CD full of fun songs perfect for ages 5 and under. It will be an experience to remember!
Wilma reviews the basic types of the extra fuel version of the debt destruction engine. She and Ted will run a type I extra fuel version of the debt destruction engine to destroy 8 accounts: 4 credit cards, 2 store revolving accounts, and 2 finance company accounts. (See my previous articles to see how to set this up and get it running.) She fires up the boiler on her debt-annihilating locomotive. It is slow at first and takes a while to destroy Bill 1, but keeps building momentum and eventually obliterates Bill 2 and then Bill 3. As it starts tearing into Bill 4, everything, at first, is chugging along smoothly.
Then right about here, when Wilma is in the middle of destroying Bill 4, something goes wrong. Yes, things can go wrong with this strategy, just as things can go wrong with anything else. So many financial disasters hit all at once, that the emergency fund is overwhelmed. If they had been operating the way they do now for the last 10 years, they would have a large enough emergency fund to deal with any contingency. For 4 out of 5 people who operate a debt destruction engine, the new emergency fund will not be overwhelmed.
Wilma is one of the "lucky" 1 out of 5 for whom this is not true. She has a pretty good idea of what to do, but has another problem. Ted, her "Clyde," wants to quit. He wants to chuck the whole thing and go back to the prairie chicken life of credit cards and mere survival. "I told you this wouldn't work!" yells Ted. Wilma wonders if she should have put the whole $480 a month into the emergency fund at the beginning. Wilma realizes, though, that it is too late now to cry over spilt locomotive fuel.
(Back when Wilma started this process, she found $505 a month "hiding" in her everyday life. She applied $25 per month as extra fuel to the debt destruction engine. This left $480 a month. She put part of it each month in her 401(k), part in Ted's 401(k), and part in the new emergency fund. Many financial planners recommend that you build up the emergency fund first before doing anything else. The emergency fund should, according to conventional financial planning wisdom, equal at least the amount of your salary for 6 months or even as much as 8 months. This could take a long time, a year or 2 years or more, but it is something to think about and is, of course, a strategy decision that is entirely up to you.)
Wilma calls me and tells me about the crisis. "I believe I can get through this if my 'Clyde' doesn't throw in the towel." I tell her that I have an idea about something that might help, but I can't tell her what it is. After I hang up the phone, I call the 'Em Brothers. I have heard that the 'Em Brothers have started a new company called CAC Inc. The letters "C - A - C" stand for Clyde Attitude Correction. They would normally charge $2,000 for this service, but agree to help Wilma for free as a way of advertising their new business.
The 'Em Brothers capture Ted, blindfold him, and bring him back to their office. Ted is handcuffed to a chair in a dark room. The blindfold is removed and Ted is left alone.
Then the lights come on and suddenly, the first brother, Rock 'Em, bursts into the room. "Thank you, thank very much! Thank you, thank you, thank you very much!"
Ted screams, "An Elvis impersonator? Oh, God, save me! Sweet Jesus, help me!"
To say that Rock 'Em filled out his Elvis costume would be an understatement. Rock 'Em had once dove into a swimming pool and the concrete splashed out.
After 3 hours of Rock 'Em's rock and roll "singing" of 86 renditions of "Don't Be Cruel," Ted is sobbing uncontrollably.
Then when "Elvis" has left the building, the second brother, Sock 'Em, waddles into the room wearing a purple Barney suit. Sock 'Em loads a video in the DVD player, a Sesame Street collage, that extols the virtue of cooperation for 3 hours as "Barney" goes round and round Ted whacking him in the head with a giant dirty sock once worn by Mr. Snuffelufagus.
"Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" cries Ted, shaking hysterically.
"Barney" leaves and then the third brother, Shock 'Em, charges into the room wearing a giant Energizer Bunny costume. A long arc of electricity crackles from him extending to the head of Ted every time the Energizer Bunny says the words "not going." Shock 'Em says, "So, your wife asked you to continue with her in this new path, but you said your not going not going not going not going not going not going not going not going not going not going not going not going not going not going not going not going not going not going not going................................"
For 3 hours, the words "not going" are repeated 27,000 times and Ted is jolted with a shot of stun gun electricity 27,000 times until he looks like Kramer from Seinfeld with his big toe in a light socket!
Ted, formerly Wilma's "Clyde" the rebellious, is now a crispy critter of compliance. After being returned home, he sits staring into space saying, "Yes, dear" in answer to every question and sometimes when no question has been asked.
Now that the problem of Ted's resistance has mysteriously disappeared, Wilma is free to once again contemplate her problem. In the midst of attacking Bill 4, the emergency fund has been overwhelmed and they do not have the money to deal with everything that has gone wrong.
Wilma tries to get a bank loan. She intends to just plug it into the debt destruction engine. She knows this will increase the length of time required to destroy the debt, but is patient and determined to not give up on her dream of debt freedom. She finds that she, however, cannot get a bank loan. It has not been long enough since the bad credit record days of their past. The bad credit history of the past will haunt them a little longer before they are free of it.
She can, though, use a credit card to get the resources to survive the present crisis. (Yes, she can get another credit card, even though she cannot get a bank loan.) She hates doing it, but does. She continues putting money in the emergency fund in the same way she has since she started out and she continues the debt destruction engine. She plugs the new debt into the debt destruction engine. It now takes 6 years and 1 month to kill the Type I debt instead of the 4 years and 10 months that it would have taken if the overload of the emergency fund had not occurred.
When you operate your debt destruction engine, it may take longer to annihilate your debt than you originally planned. Things may go wrong that require more than the emergency cash you have on hand. These things might occur before you have had a chance to build up the cash to deal with them in your emergency fund. You may have to go back into the prairie chicken world and use credit to deal with these problems. If this happens, just plug this new debt into your debt destruction engine. It may add an extra year or so to the process.
And there is no guarantee of success. The first time I ran a debt destruction engine, the locomotive jumped off the track after 21/2 years. I had made the mistake of driving 2 cars that were too old, 14 and 15 years old. These machines kept breaking down, which depleted our emergency fund down to nothing. Then, at the exact same moment, they both broke down again and both required new engines. We could not get a bank loan or a credit union loan because, like Wilma and Ted, our credit was not yet good enough.
I could have and probably should have gotten a credit card like Wilma did and had an engine installed in one of the cars. (Yes, we could have gotten a credit card. They hand out these things like Halloween candy to people with marginal credit.) We had never used credit cards up to that point. Our debt consisted of store revolving accounts, finance company accounts, credit union loans for cash and for a car, and the mortgage. At the time, I was adverse to the idea of using credit cards and I thought we could not qualify for one. The point here is simply that you do whatever you have to do, even if it is a "prairie chicken thing" like using credit cards. If you have to break the usual rules in order to win, you do it.
We had to borrow the money from a high-risk lender to buy a car. I detest buying a car the conventional way from a dealership. If you calculate the lifelong impact of the payments you make in terms of what these payments would grow into if put into an investment stream, you will see that an amazing amount of wealth is destroyed while you drive your new car.
In your 20's, over 5 million dollars disappears from your wealth at age 70 when you pay car payments instead of investing the car payment money.
In your 30's, over 1 1/2 million dollars is vaporized from the elder version of you at age 70.
In your 40's, at least 1/2 million dollars is kept from the grandma or grandpa version of yourself at age 70.
In your 50's, you deprive your 70 year-old self of "only" $100,000. You do not want the elder You to hate the younger You, do you? Have you been robbing a senior citizen, yourself?
We do a U-turn now on Digression Lane and drive back to the story of Wilma and Ted. So, they have done it! They have destroyed their Type 1 debt. They still have the car loans: one with a finance company and one with a bank. They still have the mortgage, but they are free of the credit cards, the smaller finance company accounts, and the store revolving accounts.
After 6 years of raises, their pre-tax deposits into 401(k)'s and IRA's are at the maximum level now. (See page 111 of "The Debt Destruction Engine", available for free by request at website indicated below, for a discussion of the "Walk Up" strategy for increasing contributions to the 401(k) and to the IRA.) Now they look into self-directed retirement accounts. When you have maxed your contributions to the 401(k) and to the IRA, you are permitted to contribute to self-directed retirement accounts and enjoy tax-free growth. The rules and limits change on this from time to time. You can go to the library or search the Internet to find out about this when you are ready to look into it.
After Wilma sets up their contributions into self-directed retirement accounts, she arranges for the remainder of the money that was going to bills to be automatically deposited into mutual funds. These funds are not pre-tax accounts, but are for saving for long-range purposes, vacations, and big-ticket purchases. To recap then, part of the previous bill money is used for self-directed retirement accounts and part is invested by automatic deposit into after-tax mutual funds. Of course, the amount of money fed each month into the emergency fund is adjusted up and down as circumstances change through the years.
Then Wilma and the now compliant Ted (thanks to Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em, and Shock 'Em) go to see a Certified Financial Planner. They should have gone years ago, but there was the matter of Ted's former resistance and just general procrastination. The CFP helps them fine-tune their financial plan. They and the CFP staff create a plan which helps them prepare for the children's college expenses; save for vacations and other major expenses; prepare for all possible contingencies such as disability, possible nursing home care, possible long hospital care, and death; and prepare for retirement.
The CFP advises them on the importance of having a will and refers them to an attorney who will help them write this document. She advises them as to whether or not they should set up a living trust. The CFP helps them set up their financial affairs so as to reduce taxes: income taxes in this life and the taxes that need to be avoided after death. She helps them arrange to have their assets conveyed to their heirs after their deaths, without being reduced by probate and other taxes. The CFP and her staff advise them on asset protection strategies and liability issues. There are a great many people who lose a large part of their assets through lawsuits. She helps them protect themselves from these liability dangers.
As Wilma and Ted head home after seeing the CFP and the attorney, they can hardly believe the way their lives have changed. As they drive home, Wilma says, "I started paying in extra amounts on the car payments to pay these loans off early. With the money we are saving now, we will soon be able to pay cash for our cars, if we want to. All that money going to car payments can be invested and grow and we can just pay cash for what we want to do or buy. And then we could pay an extra amount every month on the house and wipe out the mortgage in, oh, 5 to 10 years, if we want to just kind of take it easy. Imagine the thrill of then having all that house payment money each month to invest. We will really get ahead of the game then!" And to think, they owe it all to Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em, Shock 'Em, and the Debt Destruction Engine.
"Yes, dear" says Ted.
http://www.HushDoNotTell.com Request free copy of "The Debt Destruction Engine" or "Your Wealth is Hidden in the Fragments of your Life" or both.
start - What can MT's NLP Course do for you? 0:37 - Barney Wee & Mind Transformations 1:09 - What is NLP? A segment from our DVD. The full DVD contains information on who we are, our training, and even some NLP tools to get you going. To see the full DVD, sign up for our free Introductory Kit at our website.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43acenwtUcI&hl=en
STORY IN DESCRIPTION! So there is a big suprise comin your way (Edit: ok i dunno y but episode 4 got deleated so lets just say they went to a mall..nemi kissed and umm yeah!) Episode 4: Selena- Hey isn't that Miley over there? Episode 5: Joe- Nick, why is Miley here? Nick- i dunno Demi- (has a concerned look on her face) Nick- *sees her* Demi don't worry cuz i love you Demi- *smiles* Kevin- Come on guys walk away and hope she doesn't follow us. David- Can we get some clothes that we can wear...in public? Jake- yeah Selena- Fine guys but our main objective.. Joe- OGAFM Demi- What? Joe- Operation Get Away From Miley! DUH! Kevin- then can we do it *turns around and walks away* (Miley sees them and runs to them) Miley- Hey Nickabear Nick- Miley Miley- Lovato Gomez Joe Kevin and who ever you two are Demi sel joe kev- Cyrus Jake&David- Were jake and david.. Miley- Like it matters Nick- Whats wrong with you? Miley- Don't you know? Nick- no Miley- Well i need you back Nick- I have a girlfriend. Miley- Well that Lovato kid won't last forever btu I WILL Selena- Sorry but didn't really look like 'Niley' lasted 4ever. Miley- YOU WILL BE SORRY!*walks away* Demi- Wow..you guys told her off Nick- Well no one messes with us David- Its getting late i gotta go Jake- Yea me too Sel- bye guys Rest of them- Bye Jake&David- Later -with miley- *walks into a store* ???- That was mean Miley- Mandy, we need a plan Mandy- Well it better get me Joe too. Miley- first, me and nick then whatever you ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mlwLWEg2PU&hl=en
