BEFORE: Well, it's September and I wanted to work in some back-to-school stuff. Now, did I KNOW that today would be the first day of school in the NYC metropolitan area? I did NOT, because I don't have a child in the system. But that's the kind of thing that the CHAIN knows, even if I don't. What's that, you say? The chain is a mindless entity that is just comprised of random links and no consciousness of its own? Yeah, I'm not buying that, I've seen too many coincidences for me to believe that, this is just one more in a long line. The chain sees all, knows all and reveals its truth one movie at a time. This is the way...chain, take the wheel.
Jon Hamm AND Tina Fey carry over from "Maggie Moore(s)". What's it like when your gym teacher marries your calculus teacher? I guess we'll never know, because though these two have chemistry on screen, they are not married - to each other, anyway. Tina Fey is married to a composer and producer named Jeff Richmond and Jon Hamm was in a long-term with an actress but swapped out a few years ago for his younger actress who is now his producing partner. Untangling the personal lives of Hollywood types can be quite complicated, if only we had eight gossip shows and all of social media to help us with that...
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Mean Girls" (Movie #1,524)
THE PLOT: Cady Heron is a hit with the Plastics, an A-list girl clique at her new school. But everything changes when she makes the mistake of falling for Aaron Samuels, the ex-boyfriend of alpha Plastic Regina George.
AFTER: This is the way things work these days - you can take a movie that people love or enjoy and turn it into a streaming series or a book or a Broadway play, anything can be franchised if you can prove it's got a following. Why stop there when there are trading cards and lunchboxes and school supplies that can be licensed with the characters on it - hey were there "Mean Girls" Barbies at any point? If not, you're leaving money on the table, just saying. Sometimes things go so far that they loop all the way around and another movie gets made with songs from the Broadway musical, and I bet this isn't the only instance, "Matilda" did it, for example, same with "The Producers" and "Hairspray". I'm honestly shocked that we haven't seen updated movie versions of "Death Becomes Her", "Young Frankenstein" and "Sunset Boulevard" yet. Come on, time's a wasting and we're not getting any younger. I suppose the trick is knowing when to pull that trigger, really there's no way of knowing, just people who are in control of franchises that are all just squirrels looking for a nut.
This was kind of why I got quit-fired from my job a few months ago, because my boss was deep in debt and he just couldn't quite figure out how to make money from his library of 9 features and almost 50 shorts. Really, it's simple, you hire an agent - preferably a good one - to license your library to the streaming services. Somebody does all the work for you, so you don't have to spend all day on the phone contacting Netflix and Amazon yourself, they won't take your call anyway because they might want you to go through an aggregator or jump through some other hoops, which an agent could help you do. Nope, he wouldn't go for it, mainly because an agent would take 10% of any deal, and he thought that was too much. Well, if you don't pay an agent, you DON'T GET A DEAL, and you'll be out of business in a few months. I told him that 90% of a watermelon was better than 10% of a grape, or 10% of NO DEAL, which is zero. Somehow he got it in his head that he can have these tiny little screenings at colleges and indie theaters around the country, like once a month, and that would get him out of dept. Sorry, but your math isn't mathing, you can't sell like $100 of DVDs after a screening and take in maybe $300 from the door and climb out of five figures of debt, not while there are new expenses EVERY MONTH that the company owes, and the debt is still accumulating. At least hire a booker, so you can get your new feature in more theaters around the country - nope, he didn't want to do that either.
The only other possible solution would be for him to reduce expenses while raising income, and hope that you can pay down the bills left from the last feature before you die, and I didn't see that happening either, so I got out of there before he figured out a way to make his debt my fault. Really, I spent the last three years waiting for him to get his shit together before realizing he was never going to do that. Bye-yee. Now, of course, if his company folds that will be MY fault because I left and stopped invoicing for all the jobs he wasn't getting as a result of NOT having an agent. Now I'm just waiting to hear news about him being kicked out of his studio for overdue rent - well, I was tired of moving that office from building to building, I probably did that five times over the years.
Anyway, the "Mean Girls" remake, which I found mostly unnecessary. Yes, I know, there were songs written for the Broadway musical which was based on the first film, and now supposedly we all want to see the movie AGAIN, but with those songs worked in. And people blamed George Lucas for making the "special editions", at least he didn't re-make Episode IV over with new actors just to get some better special FX in there. (Don't give him any ideas...). Really, I don't have time to pick apart the 2024 "Mean Girls" and try to figure out what else has changed from the original film, 20 years later. Isn't the whole world, like, different now? Do we still need to have the "burn book" when we have Instagram and TikTok now? Why would anyone still be making a paper-based scrapbook in 2024? That makes no sense, why not just put the whole burn book on a web-site that all the students can access once somebody shares the link?
Oh, right, because movies are still produced by old people like Lorne Michaels, who don't understand social media at all, and went to high school like a zillion years ago, so that's why some movies don't represent where we are tech-wise. Or they wanted to stick closely to the 20-year old script of the original because they just wanted people to be able to recognize it? Still, it's a questionable thing, teens today are on their phones 24/7, and sure, there's a bit about that here in "Mean Girls 2", like the disaster of the Christmas dance routine goes viral or something like it, but it's just not enough. This remake should have been all zoom calls and texts and SnapChats and TikToks. Teens don't go to parties at houses while parents are out of town, they probably just FaceTime each other or follow the school's slutty girls on OnlyFans.
Regina won't let anyone date her ex-boyfriends, is that even realistic? Today's teens are all poly and bi and gender-fluid, and I think that all means that nobody can be exclusive or even jealous any more, so this remake is hopelessly out of date, it doesn't represent what's going on in U.S. high schools RIGHT NOW, because it's all about boys wearing skirts and people being able to use whatever restroom they identify with, and people changing their gender so they can win more sports, right? It's all about not being told who to love or how to love them or how to dress when they do that. Burn books are like SO 2004, because it's all about accepting other people the way they are and more importantly, accepting YOURSELF for how you identify. Being sexy at a Halloween party? Also very outdated, unless you're cross-dressing (cross-tume? cross-play?). Ugh, and pretending to be bad at math JUST to get the attention of some guy - really? That went out with slide rules and non-vegan lunches.
The Plastics are also about being thin and beautiful, and that doesn't ring true either, not with pop stars like Lizzo reinforcing that it's OK to be plus-sized and body-positive. (I know, I know, Lizzo went on Ozempic and lost a bunch of weight, but this film came out in 2024 and that hadn't happened yet.). So here the biggest revenge that Cady can enact for stealing her ex-boyfriend back is to give her weight-GAIN bars and tell her they are weight-LOSS bars. OK, that's not cool and also can only lead to fat-shaming, which is also a no-no now. Cady's supposed to be the heroic main character here, but now I'm feeling sympathetic for Regina, which I know was not supposed to be the intent.
Cady also ends up missing her friend Janis's art show because she wants to throw that party, impress the Plastics and re-connect with Aaron at last. Honestly I don't know why Cady couldn't just sit with Janis and Damian at lunch in the FIRST place, instead of getting caught up in all the B.S. with Regina and Gretchen and Karen. But then I guess if she'd done that, we wouldn't have a movie. Still, it makes no sense, sorry. Cady should have just chosen better friends at the start, the movie would be five minutes long, she and Janis and Damian are friends for life, roll end credits.
Next thing you know, they'll be looking to re-make "Heathers".
Directed by Samantha Jayne & Arturo Perez Jr.
Also starring Angourie Rice (last seen in "Senior Year"), Avantika (ditto), Reneé Rapp, Auli'i Cravalho (last heard in "Moana 2"), Jaquel Spivey, Bebe Wood (last seen in "A Merry Friggin' Christmas"), Christopher Briney, Jenna Fischer (last seen in "Hall Pass"), Busy Philipps (last seen in "I Don't Know How She Does It"), Tim Meadows (last seen in "Will & Harper"), Lindsay Lohan (last seen in "Georgia Rule"), Ashley Park (last seen in "Mr. Malcolm's List"), Connor Ratliff (last seen in "Don't Think Twice"), Mahi Alam, John El-Jor, Brian Altemus, Megan Thee Stallion (last seen in "Nothing Compares"), Ben Wang, Alexis Frias, Isabella Bria Lopez, Morgen McKynzie, Veronica S. Taylor, Stephanie Mincone, Gabriella Cila (last seen in "The Leisure Seeker"), Jordan Gallimore, Ari Notartomaso, Camille Umoff, Kaylee Kaleinani, Allison Winn (last seen in "Vox Lux"), Ben Heineman, Fernell Hogan, Calidore Robinson (last seen in "Joy"), Sofia Dobrushin, Grant Harrison Mateo, Amann Iqbal, Gage Roark, with a cameo from Jazz Jennings.
RATING: 4 out of 10 French nicknames
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