Movie That's So Groovy With Alex blog
https://moviethatssogroovey.blogspot.com/
Movie That's So Groovy on http://twitter.com/alextmsl
If you'd like to see more content like this,
donate at http://Patreon.com/AlexTamsula
Mean Girls in Blu Ray:
https://www.amazon.com/Mean-Girls-Blu-ray-Lindsay-Lohan/dp/B001QU9RTS
Mean Girls 3 Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezf5vJgTTz0
Now I’m not the world’s biggest fan of teenage high school movie comedies. Not my first choice in movie viewing while
sucking down tumblers full of tequila and lime aid over ice on a Saturday
night.
I think movies like that have a certain nostalgia component to
them, and I’m not someone necessarily nostalgic for my old high school
days. Now don’t get me wrong. I had a great time in high school, but I
remember myself back then as an … unformed lump of clay.Not the man I am … now.
So, if you’re going to get me to watch some high school movie
comedy … it better be something that transcends the genre because generally speaking
on a Saturday night, I want to watch a movie where the actors and writers and
directors show me something I’ve never seen before.
And you know what? I found myself
a high school movie comedy that does exactly that.
16 year old Cady Haron has been living in Africa with her zooalogist
parents for the last 12 years. Now that
mom has accepted a teaching position stateside in Evanston Illinois, homeschooled
Cady is entering the public-school system for the first time. And it isn’t long before she stumbles into
the middle of a simmering feud between Goth Girl Janis and Regina, Queen Bee of
The Most Popular Girls in The School clique, The Plastics.
On the first day of school, Janis and her friend Damien give Cady
a tour of the place. But on the second
day The Plastics invite Cady to sit with them at lunch, a rare honor only these
vapid little social climbers can bestow.
Janis sees this and later convinces Cady to go undercover into The
Plastics so that after school Janis can hear all the stupid things Regina had
to say.
Complications ensue when Cady falls for Regina’s ex-boyfriend
Aaron, only to be invited to a Halloween party by Aaron and get her heartbroken
when she sees Regina kissing Aaron over by the punch bowl.
Janis hears about it and convinces Cady to join her on the
vengeance trail. Now it’s all-out war on
The Plastics. Suddenly it’s like Janis is
some old cold war KGB General with a master plan have all agents of Her Majesty’s
Secret Service lined-up against the wall and shot, and she wants Cady to be her
mole. High school girls meet Tinker,
Tailor, Soldier, Spy. On top of
everything else, it’s an espionage thriller.
After Regina figures out that the weight loss bars Cady has been
giving her were actually for wrestlers who want to go up another weight class,
She shows these two the Master of Trade Craft really is. MI-6, bitches.
Regina forges a key document … then spreads disinformation.
Next, with copies made of all the pages in the Burn Book, she does
a document dump in the high school’s hall way.
When the students find the papers and start reading them, everybody now
knows who has been talking crap on whom, and fights break out all over the
school while Regina stands at the top of the steps taking it all in.
Hats off to Tina Fey for writing an amazing screenplay. The verbal jokes always hit, the prat falls
are funny, and Ms. Fey gives us a hilariously jaundiced take on modern American
life. In my mind this movie is more than
a teen comedy. It’s a send up … of youth
culture in general.
And in that respect, it’s great satire.
Cady not getting the memo that all the girls in this town on
Halloween dress up like the employees of The Mustang Ranch is my idea of big
laughs.
Director Mark Waters has a hip, breezy style that serves the
material well. But a lot of the comic-vision
belongs to producer and Saturday Night Live chief Loren Michaels. Mr. Michaels knows funny, and he also knows
when a comic actor is really bringing a character to life.
And Lindsay. I thought she
was very good in this movie. An
amazingly bright-eye actor, she’s got great comic timing, pulls off playing a
character somewhat younger than herself and can bring some real heat to the
screen.
Let me just say my favorite part of the entire movie is Cady and Regina
and Gretchen and Karen at the Winter Talent show, where they do a Jingle Bell
Rock routine on stage as Santa’s Little Helpers. The first time I saw it I couldn’t take my
eyes off Lindsay. She has stage presence. She puts a well-practiced shimmy into her dance. And then in the middle of the routine when
the boom box playing the accompaniment goes on the fritz, Cady steps up and
starts singing the song, and you get to hear Lindsay’s wonderful singing voice. Then everybody in the audience at the show starts
singing along … that scene gives Mean Girls it’s real charm. You got to hand it to Lindsay, she made the
moment magical.
