I’m gonna go ahead and say that the only reason people remember Mermaids, if in fact they remember it at all, is because Cher’s cover of “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)” was featured on that film’s soundtrack. Maybe it only hit #33 on the Billboard Hot 100 (It spent 5 weeks at #1 in the U.K....where people have taste?) but I’m here to tell some of y’all younger readers that this song was omnipresent during the 1990 holiday season. We couldn’t make it through Thanksgiving dinner without, like, 5 Shoops and 3 Cherry Pie’s (The Warrant song...not the dessert). Did you know that the original version of “The Shoop Shoop Song” was sung by Merry Clayton, aka the “rape...murder!” lady from The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter??” Neither did I! I mean...I know it now because I just googled it. Anyway--production on Mermaids began in late 1989...and by that point in her career Cher was CHER, know what I’m sayin’? I mean, she had already been famous for like 50 years at that point because of some cheesy variety shows she hosted with her good-at-politics-but-bad-at-skiing ex-husband back into the 1920’s or whenever. By the late 80’s, though, the Cheraissance was in full swing: She won an Oscar for Moonstruck, sucked face with Dennis Quaid in Suspect, and danced around the USS Missouri with her butterfly ass tat a-blazin’ in the “If I Could Turn Back Time” video. She arrived on the set of Mermaids as arguably the biggest star on the planet and proceeded to act as such. She promptly fired the actress they’d cast as her eldest daughter (Emily Lloyd) because she didn’t like her FACE! The first director Lasse Hallstrom? She fired his ass. Then they hired Frank Oz and she fired his ass too...which is no way to treat the man who directed Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and who voiced Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear. Man, you mess with Miss Piggy then you mess with ME! They finally settled on “Saturday the 14th” star and man who promised to sign my copy of “My Stepmother is an Alien” (but did not do so) Richard Benjamin. Despite all of this behind the scenes turmoil they somehow managed to get a movie made...and it goes something like this: Cher plays Mrs. Flax, a lady of ill repute raising two daughters born out of wedlock in the fall of 1963. Right from the jump I’m thinking the movie is taking place in the fall of 1963 so they can squeeze in a scene where a bunch of people learn about the Kennedy assassination by gathering in front of a television in the window of a department store note: i am correct). Mrs Flax’s M.O. is to a roll town to town with her 15 year-old daughter Charlotte (Winona Ryder) and her 9 year-old daughter Kate (Christina Ricci) in tow and hunting for man. When her latest relationship goes bust (and they always do, y’all) she simply uproots her daughters and moves to a different town. At the opening of the flick the Flax family decides to head to the notoriously puritanical North Shore of the state of Massachusetts (Salem...witches...the Salem Witch Trials, etc) to see what they have going on up there stud-wise. It’s almost identical to the plot of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark but with less cleavage and zero special effects. They arrive in Ipswich and the locals are all like “Yo Cher--weren’t you just here filming Witches of Eastwick?? Oh and please...don’t let anyone barf up any cherries this time!” Even though Mrs Flax appears to be scarcely employed at best the family immediately settles into a handsome Victorian right...near...da beach! Shit, I can barely afford my annual summer clam roll up in Ipswich...never mind an oceanfront rental! The house is also next to a nunnery, which is appealing to Charlotte, as she wants to become a nun. We know this because Charlotte is narrating the movie and tells us so herself (which is helpful). Within two movie minutes of moving to town they meet Joe Paretti, the local heartthrob who does double duty as the nunnery groundskeeper and town school bus driver. He also lives in the belfry of the local church...which is not something that anyone actually does (unless your name is Quasimodo or whatever). Joe is only 26 but Mom Flax immediately wants to ball him anyway. Charlotte also starts to have impure thoughts about Joe...even though she JUST told us she wanted to be a nun like 5 seconds ago. Joe is played by the actor who stars in Sixteen Candles and looks exactly like Matt Dillon but who is not Matt Dillon...Michael Schoeffling. I mean...maybe I’m the only one...but I was on my 10th viewing of Sixteen Candles before I realized that Matt Dillon was not in the film. I was also like 8 years-old so maybe cut dude some slack. Charlotte goes to school where her fellow classmates rip a ton of cigarettes and talk of performing oral sex by railroad trestles. Mrs Flax heads into town where she gets chatty with a local shoe store owner played by Who Framed Roger Rabbit star Bobby Hoskins. I mean...he’s not an unhandsome man or anything....but Mrs Flax would clearly prefer a more devilish man with a crooked penis and a name like Daryl Van Horn (I just love Witches of Eastwick...what of it??). Even though Charlotte is only 15 Mrs Flax offers her full-throated support of her burgeoning crush on the 26 year-old Joe. Charlotte and Joe make plans to go fishing together and Mrs Flax says “don’t do anything I wouldn’t do...or anything that I would!” Bah hah hah statutory rape. There’s also this razor-thin subplot about how the youngest daughter wants to be an Olympic swimmer. That daughter, again, is Christina Ricci and this is her first movie...which means that she has officially been famous longer than she has been alive. At one point she runs around with a pumpkin on her head. At a later point in the year 2002 she stars in a movie called Pumpkin. What these two things have to do with each other I do not know. Anyway...even though Cher and Bob Hoskins have no chemistry to speak of she balls him anyway. Afterwards she’s all “you’re pretty good at that for an older fella!” I immediately barf cherries all over myself. Hoskins starts hanging out at the Flax house on the regular and the kids dig him all that happy horseshit. October turns into November and JFK is assassinated in Dallas and everyone gathers outside of the local department store to watch the news on the town’s only television set (fuckin’ TOLD YOU!!). Charlotte keeps hanging around with Joe...who seems to have little interest in, well, anything at all. Did they just forget to write dialogue for this dude?? Charlotte asks him if the nuns shower in their underwear and he just stares off into the distance (note: truth be told...if someone asked me this question I probably wouldn’t answer either...especially if I was in a position to actually know the answer). Charlotte goes to visit him in his belfry/apartment and they suck face for like 3 seconds, after which Charlotte becomes convinced that she is pregnant because her sex-obsessed mother never told her how sex works. She makes an appointment at the local OBGYN under the name Joan Arc (ha?). Since it’s the 1960’s the doctor is a super old groady white man who can tell she’s a virgin just by touching her. I immediately grab the nearest pillow I can find and primal scream into it. Don’t worry...it gets worse! One afternoon Cher heads to Boston to do whatever it is someone like Cher does in Boston. She arrives back home to find that Bob Hoskins has painted Kate’s room to resemble the bottom of the sea and made an entire turkey dinner from scratch...sides and all! This pisses her off something fierce. She’s all “you don’t own me! You don’t own my kids!” Hoskins says he wants to punch her in the face (but he doesn’t actually do it...so I guess it’s ok? I don’t know about this flick, folks). They patch things up in time to head to a New Year’s Eve costume party where Mrs Flax arrives dressed as a mermaid...which I guess is reason enough to name the entire movie we are watching Mermaids. At the stroke of midnight (natch) Hoskins proposes and Cher is all “look at my ex-husband Gregg Allman and look at yourself and there’s your answer.” I mean...this movie is only three months long so far...what’s the hurry?? It’s ’64 and you know that means The Beatles are coming! But yeah...no...she does not want to marry Bob Hoskins. Instead she gets a ride home from Joe and they totally make out in front of Charlotte. Charlotte is rip shit...as any gal would be when the dude you are Netflix and chilling with hooks up with your MOM! According to my notes Charlotte calls her mother “poopy face” but I have no idea if that actually happened or it’s just my wine buzz talking. I’m certainly not gonna rewind the tape to find out! Charlotte vows revenge. Her little sister tells her “act your age not your shoe size!” (I take out my wallet...remove a photo of Prince...stare at it longingly...kiss it...place it back in my wallet...and sigh deeply). Instead of following this sage advice Charlotte gets tarted up like her Ma and forces her 9 year-old sister to join her in the chugging of jug wine. Then she takes her shitfaced 9 year-old sister out looking for Joe at his belfry/apartment...but leaves her next to a pond that she most definitely will not fall into and drown. Charlotte finds Joe minding his own...thinking about ringing the bell of whatever. She pulls him to the ground and they have SEX!!! And it’s...like...graphic! And this movie is rated PG-13...while Planes Trains and Automobiles is rated R because of that once scene. Steve Martin cusses a blue streak at the assistant principal from Ferris Bueller. Also--SHE IS 15 AND HE IS 26!! (Note: Not Matt Dillon was actually 30 when they shot this and Winona Ryder was 18...soooo....yeah...still...GAHHH!!!). Remember a second ago when I said the little sister wouldn’t fall into the pond and drown? I was just joshin’ ya...she totally does! The nuns pull her out and she’s all dead and whatnot but they save her. Needless to say this whole drowning sitch totally harshes Charlotte’s post-coital vibe. She rushes to the hospital to find Kate in the NICU all hooked up to machines. Bob Hoskins rushes in all “what can I do to help!?” Man, I’d be like “fuuuck you and your janky daughters, lady: I’m out like trout.” But that Bobby Hoskins...he’s a good guy. Mrs Flax is less than pleased about any of these developments...what with one daughter deflowered and the other one living in a plastic hospital tent. She says they are moving to a new town post haste. Charlotte says she doesn’t want to go. Mrs. Flax tunes her UP! Open palm slap right in the kisser! The scream it out and somehow decide to stay in town for one more year because WHAT!? How is that a reasonable solution to anything?? In the outro we learn that Cher and Hoskins are still hanging out but it’s totally open ended. Like...he still loves her but she is Cher and he’s Bob Hoskins and Cher gonna be Cher. The little girl survives but with serious inner ear problems that will most likely/definitely derail her swimming career. Charlotte returns to school where she enjoys an elevated social status for having had relations with a man 10 years her senior. In her narration she explains that she has put dating (and nunnery) on the back burner and is now only interested in Greek Mythology. She mentions that Joe fucked off to California in the middle of the night but that he still sends her postcards. Is the return address for those postcards Folsom Prison? Cuz that motherfucker is a KaaaaReeep!!! Mrs Flax and her daughters dance around the dinner table...signifying that everything is fine and it’s time for the movie to end and WHAT KIND OF MESSAGE IS THIS MOVIE TRYING TO SEND??? That teenagers should seek out and fornicate with much, much older belfry dwellers?? It’s ok though...everyone lives happily ever after. Well...I mean...not Bob Hoskins. He’s dead. But Winona Ryder starts dating the singer of the band Soul Asylum and I get to watch her watch their entire set from the side of the stage in the summer of 1995. Cher invents autotune in the late 1990’s and becomes super MechaCher. The Beatles, alas, never come. The end.