Those ‘Mean Girls’ Are Still At It Again 20 Years Later, and This Time, They’ve Brought Songs

January 11, 2024

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Was this photo taken on a Wednesday? (CREDIT: Jojo Whilden/Paramount © 2023 Paramount Pictures)

Starring: Angourie Rice, Reneé Rapp, Auli’i Cravalho, Christopher Briney, Jaquel Spivey, Bebe Wood, Avantika, Tina Fey, Tim Meadows, Jenna Fischer, Busy Phillips

Directors: Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr.

Running Time: 112 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Zingers That Go for the Jugular

Release Date: January 12, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: If you’ve been plugged into American pop culture at all in the past 20 years, then surely you know Mean Girls‘ whole deal. This new cinematic edition keeps the same basic narrative structure, so if you already wear pink on Wednesdays, you know what’s coming. In case you need to be initiated, though, here are the essential details: Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) has spent most of her childhood in Kenya, but now that she’s a teenager, her mom (Jenna Fischer) thinks it’s time to move back to America so that Cady can actually have a typical in-person high school experience. She soon attracts the attention of the notorious clique the Plastics: queen bee Regina (Reneé Rapp), desperate-to-please Gretchen (Bebe Wood), and airheaded Karen (Avantika). Cady also develops a more ostensibly genuine friendship with resident outcasts Janis (Auli’i Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey), who concoct a revenge scheme to kick Regina off her perch at the top of the social hierarchy. And this time around, there’s singing! That’s right, this Mean Girls is based on the Broadway musical that was based on the original 2004 movie (which was in turn inspired by the parental advice book Queen Bees and Wannabes).

What Made an Impression?: High School is Still a Jungle: A few times while watching nu-Mean Girls, I was plagued by the thought of whether or not we still need a story like this in 2024. After all, aren’t we as a society much more open-minded when it comes to gender and sexual orientation and most other forms of identity? While that may be generally true, it depends on your particular community. Even if you’re lucky enough to grow up in a fully enlightened area, that doesn’t make you emotionally bulletproof. What hasn’t changed in the past couple of decades is our fundamental desire to be accepted by the people who are important to us. So while calling someone gay, for example, might not carry the same sting that it used to (rightly so), we still all have our vulnerabilities, and the folks behind Mean Girls totally understand that the fight against ostracism is a never-ending struggle.
New & Updated (Loopy Edition): I’ve seen the original Mean Girls in its entirety probably only twice or thrice, but I’ve encountered its enduring memes and quotes thousands of times. Which is to say, when this new version diverges onto its own path, it feels like it’s making a point. And that point usually is: don’t you wish we could have phrased that a little bit differently? Tina Fey is the credited screenwriter for both films (as well as the scribe of the book for the stage musical), and that continuity works in the alterations’ favor. And thankfully, while these changes are driven by a moral backbone, they’re not moralizing. The characters are allowed to be messy in a way that teenagers typically are. During moments when it seems like someone is about to declare, “Here are simple instructions for how to be a good person,” they instead say something along the lines of, “I’m on a whole bunch of painkillers right now, so I don’t even know what the heck’s coming out of my mouth.”
Was It a Good Decision to Sing?: If all you know about this version of Mean Girls is what the commercials have shown you, you might not have any idea that this is actually a musical. Regardless of whether or not you’re surprised by this factoid, I’m sure you’d like to know if the songs deliver the goods or not. That of course depends a great deal on your own particular subjective aural tastes. But what’s more objective is how clearly each number and arrangement fits the character of the people performing them. For my money, technical proficiency is less important than personality in musicals, although Mean Girls has plenty of both. Everyone involved knows what they want to say, and they sing their heart’s messages out with abandon.

Mean Girls is Recommended If You Like: TikTok, Memes, Quips, Math, Self-Awareness

Grade: 4 out of 5 Kalteen Bars

‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Actually Presents Many Ways Home, What with the Multiverse and All

December 14, 2021

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Spider-Man: No Way Home (CREDIT: Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures)

Starring: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, Marisa Tomei, Alfred Molina, Benedict Wong, Jamie Foxx, Willem Dafoe, J.K. Simmons, Thomas Haden Church, Rhys Ifans, Tony Revolori, J.B. Smoove, Hannibal Burress, Martin Starr, Angourie Rice

Director: Jon Watts

Running Time: 148 Minutes

Rating: R for The Usual Punching and Stabbing, Perhaps a Little Darker Than Usual

Release Date: December 17, 2021 (Theaters)

Hey, it’s our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man back on the big screen! Or maybe, that should be our friendly neighborhood Spider … Men? (Hey, wasn’t there another recent movie that asked that same question? With so many years of comic book history to draw upon, you can be multi-universal in multiple ways.)

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Movie Review: ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ Offers Goofs Galore and Surprise Reveals Aplenty

June 27, 2019

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CREDIT: Sony Pictures/YouTube

Starring: Tom Holland, Jake Gyllenhaal, Zendaya, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, Angourie Rice, Martin Starr, J.B. Smoove, Marisa Tomei, Tony Revolori, Remy Hii

Director: Jon Watts

Running Time: 129 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Nicks and Bruises from Webslinging Around and Awkward Situations That Teenager Somehow Stumble Into

Release Date: July 2, 2019

The name of the game is the ol’ switcheroo, the bait-and-switch, the smoke-and-mirrors routine … yeah, that’s the ticket. It’s only been a couple of months since the release of Avengers: Endgame, but despite all that seeming finality, the MCU must continue. And the first arrival in this new status quo is Spider-Man: Far From Home, which means we’re going to kick things off with an in memoriam montage that features Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” Comic Sans lettering, and a Getty Images-watermarked photo. But there are also some baddies to defeat, although Peter Parker (Tom Holland) would much rather focus on his school’s European class trip and taking things to a more romantic realm with his friend MJ (Zendaya). You get the sense that this cinematic iteration of Spider-Man would also like to just focus on the high school ecosystem. But superhero movie requirements beckon, and Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers’ script does a fun enough job of incorporating Peter and his pals’ shenanigans into the CGI blowout.

The topsy-turvy hook begins with the fallout from the fact that the people who were snapped away in Infinity War and then returned in Endgame (referred to here as “the Blip”) have not aged the five years that everyone who remained did. Adding to all the pandemonium is the appearance of Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal), a caped-and-suited fellow who claims to be from a parallel Earth and is here to help fight some monsters that have escaped from his world. But not all is as it seems, as characters may not be who they say they are, relationships have sudden accelerations and decelerations, and it really isn’t what it looks like when a classmate discovers Peter taking his pants off next to a much older woman.

That sense of the wool being pulled over and off and back on everyone’s eyes lasts all the way through to the end of the credits, with the extra scenes turning out to be surprisingly essential in clarifying what just happened. Peter’s efforts to puncture his way into what’s really going on have a satisfying vibe of getting past the bullshit. However, that level of satisfaction is not met with any corresponding visual panache, as Far From Home plays it way too safe in the standard-issue Marvel CGI department. If this is the post-Endgame status quo, at least it won’t be so stressful.

Spider-Man: Far From Home is Recommended If You Like: Spider-Man: Homecoming, High Quality Character-Centric Jokewriting

Grade: I don’t know how to grade these Marvel movies anymore. I could give it a 4 out of 5 for Fun, but I also want to downgrade it to 3.5 out of 5 for (Lack of) Originality, and then I also want to downgrade it to Less Than 3.5 out of 5 for Frustration about this being yet another good-but-not great Marvel movie. So my overall grade is all of that somehow mixed together.

This Is a Movie Review: ‘The Beguiled’ Proves Sofia Coppola Still Knows How to Weave a Spell

June 22, 2017

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This review was originally published on News Cult in June 2017.

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Colin Farrell, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning

Director: Sofia Coppola

Running Time: 94 Minutes

Rating: R for Natural, Untamed Sexuality

Release Date: June 23, 2017 (Limited)

Comparing films unfavorably to sitcoms is a useful technique in the critic’s arsenal. It is typically applied to movies set in the present day that features characters just hanging out, with few, if any, aspirations beyond that. It is rarely, if ever, applied to films that take place 100 or more years ago. Part of that is because television did not exist then, so the comparison would not make much sense. But it is also perhaps because if a period piece were to achieve a sitcom-esque vibe, it would actually be praiseworthy instead of ill-advised. Weirdly enough, this is how I found myself thinking while watching Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled, which achieves that sitcom vibe in its quieter moments, which are plenty.

It is not just the characters who are beguiled, but also the audience, as the premise is not one obviously ripe for humor, at least not of the good-natured variety. Based on a novel by Thomas P. Cullinan (previously adapted into a 1971 film directed by Don Siegel and starring Clint Eastwood), The Beguiled tracks the volatility of human behavior in a small corner of a world that has fallen out of its natural order. Set during the Civil War, the film finds injured Union Corporal John McBurney (Colin Farrell) discovered by the residents of a Southern girls’ boarding school. They debate whether to give him up to passing Confederate soldiers or provide him shelter out of the kindness of their hearts. They choose to let him stay, though it is never fully clear why. The firm, but ultimately vague stance from headmistress Miss Martha (Nicole Kidman) sets the tone for the tension that permeates the rest of the film.

The sitcom vibes shine strongest in the middle stretch when the ladies and McBurney have brokered a peace, forming the premise for a show that would be titled something like The Southern Belles and the Yankee Soldier or Everybody Lusts Burnie. But like so many sitcoms, there is a layer of psychopathy or some other propensity for violence lurking just beneath the charm and just rearing to burst out. On TV, it usually never comes to that, at least not to the point of no return. But The Beguiled is all about exploring the scariest implications of a national house divided against itself crossed with burgeoning and repressed sexuality. It is as combustible as it sounds. The passionate ways of nature can be tamped down only so much by human control, and each cast member has their own beguiling and beguiled way of summoning their most passionate whims to demonstrate why that is.

The Beguiled is Recommended If You Like: Cold Mountain, Interpersonal gender dynamics, Double Indemnity

Grade: 4 out of 5 Mushrooms