DVD Quote of the Day: Mean Girls

Okay, okay. So a regular reader is on my ass about getting posts up more frequently, so I'm attempting to keep up to demand. What's up with school wanting you to do all this reading and shit? Anyhoo, I just fell in love with Tina Fey. I saw Mean Girls once before shortly after it came out, and thought it was funny. I was out last night prowling for a DVD fix and picked it up because I hadn't seen it in awhile.

Tina Fey wrote this based on Rosalind Wiseman's book "Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence", which is cool considering it's a parental self help guide book with no narrative story. I said I fell in love with Tina Fey because this is one smart, well-written comedy. Directed by Mark Waters, who also directed Freaky Friday and Just Like Heaven. Someone once pointed out that the sign of great casting is when you can't imagine anyone else in the roles. Starring Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert, Amanda Seyfried, Lizzie Caplan, Daniel Franzese, Jonathan Bennett, Tina Fey, Tim Meadows, Amy Poehler and Ana Gasteyer. I'm not very big on Lohan because her personal life often eclipses her professional life, but she has a very likable screen presence and is perfect as Cady. I love that they cast some of the funny, talented SNL people that need to get work more often (Meadows, Poehler, Gasteyer).


Cady (Lohan) just moved from Africa and is attending public school for the first time. Janis (Caplan) and Damien (Franzese), the artsy outcasts, take Cady under their wing to guide her through high school social politics. When the highest clique in the school's social hierarchy, "the Plastics" (McAdams, Chabert and Seyfried) offer to take her in, Janis sees this as an opportunity to get revenge on the Plastics queen bee, Regina George (McAdams), for being horrible to her in the past. Cady reluctantly goes along with her plan to infiltrate the Plastics. The situation is further complicated when Cady gets a crush on Regina's ex boyfriend, Aaron Samuels (Bennett). Cady learns about the intricacies of "girl world". Such as when girls fight, it has to be sneaky, never date a friend's ex boyfriend, and when it's Halloween, wear the sluttiest outfit you can find, and add animal ears. Cady also learns about the "burn book", a book where the girls put pictures of everybody in school, and then write nasty things about them. There is plenty of conflict, and the tension and backstabbing between the girls gets worse and worse.


I would have liked to have seen more of the subplot of the newly divorced Ms. Norbury (Fey), the calculus teacher, and Mr. Duvall (Meadow), the principal, with their budding romance. I was iffy about this movie at first because it seemed like Heathers meets Clueless, and frankly, they're both so good they really don't need to be redone. This is different, though. I love the little jungle-themed vignettes (hard to describe), when Cady makes comparisons between high school and the way animals act with each other. The special features on the DVD are awesome with feature commentary by director Waters, producer Lorne Michaels and writer Tina Fey, bloopers, deleted scenes, and some behind the scenes stuff. In the special features, Rachel McAdams says something interesting. She says that Chris Rock once pointed out that women would run the world....if we didn't hate each other so much. So true! We can be horrible to each other. Ms. Norbury (Fey) says to the girls during the aftermath, that they have to stop calling each other sluts and whores, because when they do it, it makes it okay for guys to do it ("It's just bad for business"). There is so much humour in this film and I usually go with one of the funniest lines, but I'm going with one of the most profound. Here it is, from Cady's voice over narration on what she's learned about Girl World.....

Cady: Calling somebody else fat won't make you any skinnier. Calling someone stupid doesn't make you any smarter. And ruining Regina George's life definitely didn't make me any happier. All you can do in life is try to solve the problem in front of you.

More ramblings to come.....