(Yes, I sadly missed Day 23, but I didn’t want to skip another day. For Day 24 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to describe an animal but replace its name with something else, which I thought worked well with this movie.)

The teenage girl in her habitat
Is not unlike any other big cat.
Observe how some convene to brood
While others prize their solitude.
Observe how weaker species cringe
And keep their distance at the fringe.

Observe how, at their queen’s behest,
Girls choose a target from the rest
And so proceed to bite and claw,
Exploiting every errant flaw.
They show no mercy to their prey
And, satisfied, sashay away.
___________________________

MPA rating:  PG

Perhaps because I thought I would not enjoy a movie about, well, mean girls, I never watched Mean Girls when I was actually in high school, and being home-schooled, perhaps I wouldn’t have related to it much back then. But with every mention of “Fetch” and the Plastics in the years since, I began to feel that there was a hole in my pop culture knowledge that had to be rectified. Furthermore, I began listening to the soundtrack of Mean Girls the Broadway musical, confirming that I had to see the original movie, which is pretty much exactly what happened with Heathers too.

Written by and co-starring Tina Fey, the story follows Cady Heron (teenage Lindsay Lohan) as her zoologist parents move her from Africa back to the U.S., where she must contend with the new reality of high school cliques. The most powerful group is the Plastics, made up of dumb Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried), gossipy Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert), and ruthless Regina George (Rachel McAdams), and the trio takes a liking to Cady. After bringing her into the fold, Cady’s misfit friends (Lizzy Caplan, Daniel Franzese) urge her to bring George down from within, and the transfer student struggles with who she wants to be.

As I watched Mean Girls, I chuckled at the jokes and nodded at the many lines borrowed by the musical, but I sort of held it at arm’s length. I don’t exactly enjoy watching girls acting mean to each other, so I wasn’t sure where the film would end up in my appraisal. Yet by the end, as empathy is extolled and everyone gets their resolution and Orbital’s soothing “Halcyon + On + On” plays over the credits, I had to admit that I liked it. The more I listened to the musical and explored how popular and quotable the film has become, I liked it even more, until it finally ended up on my end-of-2020 Top Twelve list. My VC was not as positive, feeling the high school cruelty hit a bit too close to home in her memories, so perhaps my being home-schooled helped me enjoy it more than I would have otherwise.

Despite its outstanding script, the plot of Mean Girls feels derivative, with its trio of wannabe Heathers and the theme of high school cliques that has been used from Grease to High School Musical, yet there’s something fun and definitive about it, embracing the clichés to the point of epitomizing them. It also has had its own influence, like how Dora and the Lost City of Gold basically has the exact same plot set-up, and Lost imitated a certain bus scene just a couple years later. Regardless of why it has had such staying power, it was great fun seeing early roles for actresses that have gone on to much bigger success, as well as several SNL alumni, and I couldn’t help but notice the absence of now-ubiquitous smartphones, marking the film as a distinct product of the early 2000s. With the news that a film adaptation of the musical is in the works, I’m actually excited for more Mean Girls, surprisingly enough. It’s downright fetch.

Best line: (Cady, having an epiphany) “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.”

Rank:  List-Worthy

© 2021 S.G. Liput
728 Followers and Counting

(For Day 16 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for some Skeltonic, or tumbling, verse, consisting of short, rhyming lines, which is right up my alley.)

I love the sight
Of birds in flight
Or perched amid
The leaves, half-hid.
At rest, in flight,
They’re my delight.

I’m lost for words
With hummingbirds.
I often fawn
On goose and swan.
I cherish gulls
And cardinals,
From tiny wren
To pelican.
I feel at ease
With chickadees,
And one must love
A mourning dove.
To come across
An albatross
Or sight an owl
Or water fowl,
Would thrill me like
I saw a shrike
Or had the luck
To sight a duck.

I’m not alone,
So avian-prone.
We have a crush
On lark and thrush
And never flinch
To chase a finch.
We’re connoisseurs
Of tanagers
And followers
Of kingfishers.
We twitchers seek
Each wing and beak,
And, of a feather,
Flock together.
___________________________

MPA rating:  PG

It was only a matter of time before I reviewed this 2011 charmer since I included it on my end-of-year Top Twelve list of films seen in 2020. I’ll be honest:  while I love wildlife, I have no particular fascination with birds, so a movie about obsessive bird watchers didn’t seem like an instant favorite-to-be. Yet The Big Year is so consistently endearing that I couldn’t help but enjoy it.

For those who don’t know what a “big year” is, as I didn’t before seeing this, it is an annual competition among bird watchers to sight as many bird species as possible in a single year, with the current U.S. record being 836. (I discovered that there is an informal British term for those with such an obsession, “twitchers,” though it’s never used in the film.) Based on a nonfiction book, the film follows three birders on their year-long odyssey – Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson), the compulsive champion intent on keeping his title; Stu Preissler (Steve Martin), the business executive wishing to focus more on his bird passion; and Brad Harris (Jack Black), the newcomer eager to prove himself. It’s both amusing and worrying to see how the men try to balance their work and home lives with a hobby that involves flying across the country at the first sign of a rare goose or hummingbird. Even with some light scheming and terrible decisions, every character comes off as supremely likable, and the film’s sense of humor just clicked with me, gentle but with a self-aware streak that doesn’t let it become too goofy.

One of The Big Year’s greatest strengths is its cast, not just Wilson, Martin, and Black (once again proving his acting talent when subduing his bombast), but also the likes of Rosamund Pike, Jim Parsons, Rashida Jones, Brian Dennehy, Joel McHale, Anjelica Huston, and Anthony Anderson, among other recognizable faces. Its other major asset is an outstanding soundtrack, ranging from Coldplay to The Beatles, that sets the mood for the U.S.-hopping adventure.

Ultimately, I once more return to my favorite line from La La Land, that “people love what other people are passionate about.” So even if I have little interest in ornithological collecting, it was a joy to watch these comedy greats make it look like the most important thing in the world for 102 minutes. What starts out as a funny bird movie morphs into a reflection on obsession and the priorities that really matter along the way. It may not be the kind of film to show up on others’ favorite lists, but it makes mine.

Best line: (the text at the very beginning) “This is a true story. Only the facts have been changed.”

Rank:  List-Worthy

© 2021 S.G. Liput
728 Followers and Counting