Mean Girls (2004)

"Ashton Kutcher?  Is that a band?" (Cady -Lindsey Lohan)

Have you ever gotten peer pressure about something that you just didn't ever assume people would disagree with you about, care enough to disagree with you about, or know enough about to go all "herd mentality" on you?  This is what has happened to me with Mean Girls.  (Lots of people LOVED Mean Girls...but not me.)

-One of us. One of us. One of us. One of us. Mean Girls is good.  Mean Girls is good.  Mean Girls is good.  Mean Girls is funny.  Mean Girls is funny.  Mean Girls is funny. ....

I guess I should keep my movie opinions to myself.  (Oh wait, I have a blog.)  I'm going to admit that for people slightly younger than me or even my age may hold Mean Girls in great esteem as a high school cultural touchstone that I can just never understand, as I didn't see it at the time of its release. (When I assume it had cultural relevance.)

So I think it should be pretty clear that I didn't think much of Mean Girls.  However, that doesn't mean I found nothing redeemable about it, that it was unwatchable or that it was not worth its Netflix bandwidth.

I'm just going to list off the things that were completely acceptable and even pretty good about Mean Girls

-Actresses Lacey Chabert and Amanda Seyfried were perfect in their roles.  They should be in more things.  They took what I considered to be B roles to our main characters and made them in to memorable A performances.

-Writer Tina Fey wrote a killer screenplay full of quickish funny funny one liners.  But, I had hoped for all the hype I got pre and rancor I incurred post would have meant the screenplay would have been a ground breaking new standard in teen comedy story telling or a rejection of high school stereotypes or just something else.   Great jokes Tina!!

-Neil Flynn.  You are awesome.  Be in everything from now on.

Ratings:

Plastics:  See it

High Schoolers in 2003-4:  See it

High Schoolers in 2003-2004 who didn't see it then:  Skip it?

John Hughes:  See it

Matthew McConaughey from Dazed & Confused:  See it (Of course)

On a scale from toaster stroodle to belgian waffles, I give Mean Girls 3.1 out of 5 stars.