Setting: Lindsay's living room mattress floor. Late afternoon. In our pajamas. Eating X. We are joined by our BFF Mike who's visiting for a few days. We didn't succeed in kidnapping him but we did succeed in braiding his hair!
This week's movie is Smart House, one of the most memorable of all the Disney Channel Originals. It's also an actual real horror film with a plot and moral (kind of) and everything! Plus, Katy Segal, who is cool. Plus, it's directed by LeVar Burton. What? Yes.
But let's start at the beginning. The first time we see the smart house, it's scolding a paper boy for delivering the paper incorrectly, so right off the bat this thing's got an evil spirit.
Young Ben is doing double duty as a middle schooler and a parent, since is actual mom is dead and his dad needs help caring for him and his sister. But he also doesn't want a new mom or for his dad to find a girlfriend and fights against his family expanding in any way. He's a bit of a cult leader, honestly. Like Dr. Oz.
Lindsay: The young boy is a dad because he doesn't have a mom and doesn't want a new mom.
Hannah: So this movie is pro two dads? No, anti two dads because they want there to be a mom.
Mike: Yea, this movie is very like pro nuclear family. Which ties into nuclear themes in the Bradbury story!
Hannah: Wow! That could be a real theory!
Lindsay: That would be a good paper.
Mike: Where does the term nuclear family come from?
The woman who created this smart house doesn't seem to be sponsored by any tech company or NASA or anything. She's just a rogue genius giving away her life's work for free via an internet contest. When Ben's dad notices him doing this, he says with exasperation "Another contest?!" as if Ben is some sort of contest addict and keeps entering them to fill the void left by his mother. But it can't be filled, Ben! But of course Ben won and his family is on the move! But this was olden times so when they called Ben's house to tell him the good news, they couldn't get through on the phone because he fell asleep while using the internet. R.I.P, dial-up. Ben doesn't find out he wins until school the next day when everyone congratulates him, except for two bullies.
Mike: Another fun aspect is that the bullies were like fat and wearing bowling shirts.
Lindsay: They look like they could've been in Smashmouth. Or Good Charlotte.
Ben is ecstatic because he can now try out for the basketball team since he no longer has to do mom tasks! He can accomplish anything because he doesn’t have to feed the dog or feed his sister crappy pasta for dinner. (side note: can you guess what kind of dog this suburban Disney family owns? You’re right! A Golden Retriever!)
Sidebar time. 12 hours prior to Smart House, we had watched Aristocats and spent all night trying to figure out which human celebrity would play Thomas O'Malley (the alley cat). We couldn't pin it down exactly and it began to drive us literally insane. Possibilities we threw out include: John Goodman, Oscar Isaac, Harrison Ford, Anthony Bourdain, Jeff Bridges, Idris Elba, Barack Obama, John Stamos, Bill Murray, Heath Ledger, and so so many more. Eventually we just started naming literally any man that popped into our minds. None of them were wrong. None of them were right.
Anyway, while watching Smart House we had another Thomas O'Malley Meltown™ because Hannah suggested the protagonist Ben could be Thomas O'Malley the Alley Cat.
Hannah: One of my first notes I wrote while watching was "Ben seems sweet and caring. Dateable. Thomas O'Malley?"
Mike: IT'S NOT THOMAS O'MALLEY. Not every adult man--or not even adult…
Lindsay: We have gone from SO MANY AGES.
Hannah: Ryan Reynolds, Ryan Gosling, Gerard Butler…
Lindsay: And now a 13 year old boy.
Mike: Soon you're gonna be suggesting Ellen Page and like going into women.
Lindsay: We're gonna be like "The whale in SeaWorld...is Thomas O'Malley."
Mike: Is Shamu Thomas O'Malley?
Lindsay: Maybe Thomas O'Malley is every man ever. So many men qualify as being almost Thomas O'Malley.
Mike: Okay we need to talk about Smart House.
Hannah: Yea we're having a Thomas O'Malley Meltdown.
Lindsay: I truly don't know about existence anymore because of Thomas O'Malley. It's truly insane.
Please, if you have any suggestions for what human celebrity should play Thomas O'Malley the Alley Cat, please let us know. Please. It still haunts us daily.
Now, back to the actual movie at hand.
The dad calls Sarah, Smart House creator, to come examine Pat for any repairs or malfunctions, which Ben doesn't want because he can sense a spark between his dad and Sarah. The whole point of the smart house was to fill the void of a mom so his dad doesn't have to find a new wife! But you can't fight love, Ben! Stop cock-blocking your own father.
One day, Pat hears Ben's dad talking about how he wishes his son would have more fun in his life, so naturally she hacks Ben's e-mail and invites all of his contacts to a house party she's planned. Things get a little out of control when the Smashmouth bully wants to fight Ben, but Pat jumps to his defense and whips out a terrifying skull hologram to taunt the bully before chasing him out of the house. Smashmouth may have soiled his pants.
Despite aggressive Pat, the party is a hit with many pre-teen dance moves and and a young Megan Fox lookalike taking off her cardigan and throwing it onto a house plant. Ever think about how unsettling it is to put out a casting call for "hot pre-teen with sultry eyes?" Horrible. But uh-oh! Dad is on his way home and all the guests MUST LEAVE NOW! The pre-teens may be gone, but their mess is not. Luckily Pat is a magician and as long as the kids get all the trash on the floor, she can dissolve it into the ground never to be seen again, causing a weird shift in space and time? I vote yes. Mike thinks the floor will absorb your cold dead body and serve your sister your meat in a serving of Hamburger Helper. He is not wrong.
Ben and little sister make it onto the couch before dad walks in but they aren’t safe yet because dad spots the cardigan on the house plant! Nothing more salacious than a cardigan on the loose! This prompts dad to scold Pat, yelling, “I need you to knuckle down and get back to business!”
Pat sure does knuckle down and electrocutes Ben for wearing his pants too low. She also blocks the dad’s phone calls to Sarah because he hasn’t gotten enough work done that day. Dad can’t stand possessive Pat so Sarah comes over to shut the system down and stays to make dinner and flirt up a storm on dad. When Dad jokes “Who needs Pat anyhow?” Pat somehow hears it and overrides Sarah Turning her off!!
After a father-son talk about how Sarah is not half bad and Ben should stop cock-blocking his own father so he can find love again, Ben discusses with Pat about how he might be coming around to Sarah. This prompts her to materialize in hologram form, looking like a damn Stepford wife. She claims she won’t let anyone take her place because she is a “mother like no other!!!” Imagine if your house because sentient enough to think it was your mother and sabotage your whole life. Take a chill pill, Pat.
Ben alerts his peach-cobbler eating family but Pat expels Sarah from the house and everyone is in a frenzy! Sarah is able to make it back in by diving into the house's weird butthole but Pat has already cloned her hologram self and made an indoor tornado. This was actually terrifying as a child and it's actually terrifying as an adult. Eventually they convince her “you can’t be our mother Pat, you’re not real” and is in fact a terrifying monster. She's sad but chills out a little bit and goes back to being a normal computer.
The family goes back to normal life in the artificial intelligence house instead of destroying it with an atomic bomb like they should have. This house really tried to murder them and they're fine with living inside her! Stockholm syndrome maybe. Additionally, the movie ends with Pat giving Ben tips on how to play basketball, foreshadowing his lead-role in the later DCOM The Luck of the Irish. Can’t wait for that weird leprechaun flick!
Lindsay: Crazy robot mom! Insane. I'm scared of future.
Hannah: It is scary!
Mike: Yea I think that was like the point of the short story. How much trust can we put in technology if we can't control it?
Hannah: I feel like the moral of every Ray Bradbury story is just like "Watch out!"
Lindsay: "Watch out for tech! Love, Ray."
Other possible morals:
Other possible morals:
-Don't trust a technologically advanced house
-Build better technology
-Be wary
-Figure out why you want the things you want. Ben initially wanted the house to replace his mom but now he just wants it to make him milkshakes.
-Teaching young kids how accept their divorced/widowed parents dating again. Don't be rude to your mom's boyfriend, he's better than a robot! Because a robot will eventually try to kill you.
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