Hey folks, Harry here... Ya know... once Capone was a proud man, a man smuggling Canadian Whiskey into Chicago, whacking the competition and ruling that town with an iron fist, but after Ness got through with him... well he's left reviewing the films of Lindsay Lohan, and being able to draw comparisons to the other drivel of the genre she is a part of. Where's Hallenbeck when ya need him? That being said - a film Capone recommended a few weeks back, TOUCHING THE VOID is brilliant! Check it out!
Hey, Harry. Capone in Chicago here. Other than seeing the occasional poster or two for this film, this movie completely slipped under my radar until I was invited to a very early screening of it recently (the film doesn’t actually open until April 30. I was excited about seeing it. Lindsay Lohan is certainly cute and actually did a terrific job in the FREAKY FRIDAY remake last year, but I didn’t even bother seeing her last movie, CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE DRAMA QUEEN. I noticed from a commercial that a few current and former “Saturday Night Live” cast members had supporting roles in MEAN GIRLS and that Lorne Michaels executive produced it. If anything, these are reason to stay the hell away from any film. But the girls in the poster looked hot, my evening was free, so I went to MEAN GIRLS to kill 90 minutes and fulfill my duty as the cautionary staffer at AICN. I sit through these crap heaps so you don’t have to.
Imagine my genuine shock and pleasant surprise when MEAN GIRLS, ended and my recently consumed lunch remained firmly lodged within my intestinal track. I love when that happens. “How is this possible?” you ask. Answer: Tina Fey. Fey’s intuitive, clever, and funny screenplay (adapted from Rosalind Wiseman’s book “Queen Bees and Wannabes”) carries this film passed the legion of god-awful films aimed at teens. Honestly, I’m not even sure former Second City player Fey is directing her work at kids. There’s a level of playful cruelty in MEAN GIRLS that seems aimed directly at 20- and 30-somethings. And the film isn’t always going for the big, broad laughs either. It’s more subtle than that. Although not as out-and-out brutal as HEATHERS (the reigning champion of the outcast-vs.-popular genre) and not nearly as naive, idealistic, or silly as John Hughes’ most famous works, MEAN GIRLS rests somewhere comfortably in the middle.
Lohan (reteaming with her FREAKY FRIDAY director Mark S. Waters) plays Cady (pronounced Kattie, often mispronounced Caddie), a new student at an unnamed high school in Evanston, Ill. (perhaps in a nod to John Hughes, who often set his films in the Chicago suburbs). Cady’s parents have been homeschooling her in Africa, where they were researchers working for Northwestern University. Cady is the classic fish out of water, having no clue concept of cliques or the unwritten rules of being popular. The first friends she makes are Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian (the extremely well-played Daniel Franzese, as an overweight gay student and twice as likely to be a target of much bullying). The two try to school Cady on the way the school works, but before long she is recruited by the “plastics,” the three most popular, most feared, and most stunning girls in the school. Gretchen (Lacey Chabert, looking hotter and darker than ever before) is the least secure of the three; Karen (newcomer Amanda Seyfried) is just dumb, but generally nice; and ringleader and queen bitch is Regina (Rachel McAdams from THE HOT CHICK), who manipulates even her closest friends for amusement and they crawl back for more. Also on hand is Fey herself as math teacher Ms. Norbury. Let’s just say she’s a better writer than actress. Tim Meadows plays principal Mr. Duvall, and without telling a single joke, he kept cracking me up with his dead-pan delivery and general frustration level with his losing battle against student-on-student cruelty.
Cady is brought into the inner circle of the “plastics” and schemes with Janis to act as sort of a spy. She observes the bitchy plotting of the populars and reports back to the outcasts with the eventual outcome being the fall of the clique system. But as we know, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and soon the level of popularity that hanging with the hotties gets Cady goes to her head. She starts to fail to get the attention of jock Aaron (Jonathan Bennett), who just happens to be Regina’s ex-boyfriend. What I liked about Aaron’s character was that Fey has written him as a lot smarter than most high school movie jocks. He knows that Regina can be cruel but he likes the attention from someone so pretty. Of course when Cady starts flirting with him, he likes that too. Tension between the Regina and Cady begin to mount. Cady starts to play the seeds of distrust among the three other “plastics,” and before long the Teenage Wars are on. The H-bomb of these wars is something called the Burn Book, a scrapbook of sorts, in which the plastics keep as a place to write their most honest and awful feelings and rumors about teachers and other student. When the book falls into the hands of Mr. Duvall, the school is sent into a tizzy. A tizzy, I say!
Fey’s observations on high school life are hit and miss, but when they hit, they’re dead on. Although her take on this type of behavior is meant to be funny, in a different film, these events might be the sorts of things that send some student with a gun over the edge. MEAN GIRLS isn’t trying to be serious (like last years ELEPHANT), but the way the students and teachers attempt to diffuse the escalating tensions is actually rather well thought out and not all that out of line with what some people might actually try. The film ends a little too shiny-happy for my tastes, but by that point, I was sold on MEAN GIRLS. Lohan may have officially graduated from her teen flicks with this one, and I for one am actually curious about where she goes from here. I’m hoping something a little more grown up; porn perhaps. If you need your fix of hot high school girls doing mean things to the unpopular kids (and JAWBREAKERS didn’t quite cut it for you), MEAN GIRLS might work for you.
Capone
I would like my legs shaved please.
