Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-03-08 (Friday)

On 3/10/24 12:02 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

In article <usi624$2e711$1@dont-email.me>,
  "Ian J. Ball" <ijball@mac.invalid> wrote:
 

On 3/9/24 8:38 AM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>

What Did You Watch?

 

Mean Girls (2024) (Pee+) - In (glorious?) 4k - another movie that
benefited not at all from being 4k (because of the way it was filmed
(hell, the movie I watched after, which wasn't even 4k, was a better
looking image!).
     Luckily, I have seen the original (on Showtime?...) in the past few
months, so it is still pretty fresh in my mind.
     Anyway, you're probably thinking - "What is the point of remaking a
movie that already hit it out of the park 20 years ago?!" Well, this one
is the musical version.
     As such, I definitely found it inferior to the original (which Pee+
also has in 4k, though I have not checked that out yet...) in about
every way possible.
     There were a few good bits - John Hamm turns up as Coach Carr
(Dwayne Hill played him in the original). And I thought Christopher
Briney was a more appealing Aaron Samuels than Jonathan Bennett was.
Finally, Angourie Rice is probably a better actress than Lindsay Lohan.
     Cady's mom is played by Jenna Fischer, who looks so old now...
     Bebe Wood and Avantika are fine as the other plastics, Gretchen and
Karen - not much worse than the originals, but no better.
     The scene where Regina finds out that Cady has been feeding her carb
bars to make her fat, and screams, is incredibly well lit - Rapp looks
downright demonic! That's the best-shot scene in the whole film, but it
belongs in an entirely different (better! horror!) movie.
     Other changes I didn't understand at all - the character of Cady
Heron's dad is totally eliminated from the proceedings! And they replace
Amy Poehler with Busy Philipps as Regina's Mom (why?!!).
     They also sneak in a cameo from Lindsay Lohan (who also looks old
now - and she's not even 40!!) to play the Mathletes Moderator, but I
thought Bruce Hunter excelled at this bit in the original.
     Tim Meadows and Tina Fey are still in this, but it felt like both
roles, especially Meadow's, are downgraded in this version, which I also
find inexplicable, as Meadows (and to a lesser extent Fey) are the best
things about the original film.
     They also excise some key bits from the original, like Cady
daydreaming that she attacks Regina, and more crucially the end of the
original film where we learn that the "reformed" Regina channeled all of
her rage into lacrosse and became a jock - Why would you drop probably
the best bit from the original film?!
     On the singing and music end:
     The music was OK - some of the songs were better than average,
others were unmemorable.
     Of the singers, I thought Auli'i Cravalho was by far the best (well
backed up by Jaquel Spivey) - I didn't like Cravalho's take on Janis
nearly as much as Lizzy Caplan's, but Cravalho's (and Spivey) provide
probably the best musical bits. Reneé Rapp as Regina can really sing...
well, sort of - she can really belt it out, but I thought Rapp's
enunciation was poor (very!) so as a result I couldn't make out half of
what she was singing! Angourie Rice is an OK singer - she's not bad, but
she's nothing special either.
     This was an OK watch, but I have no desire to rewatch this version
now, and the original is a much better watch.

 I'd never seen either movie so after reading this, I settled in last
night for a MEAN GIRLS marathon. I ended up watching them in reverse
order, though, so I got the musical version first.
 I was amused that Fey and Meadows were married (or at least living
together) in the musical, which suggested some kind of timeline from the
first movie, where they first started getting together.

Yes - there are implications that this is a "sequel", when Lindsay Lohan said that a Mathletes tie had happened only one time before (e.g. in the first movie).
Of course, that makes no sense - How is it that the "new" characters nearly all have exactly the same names as the 2004 characters?!

I found it frustrating that in both films the two lesser Plastics were
more attractive than Queen Regina herself. Lacey Chabert was in her
prime and never looked better. She was gorgeous, easily outshining
Rachel McAdams.

Meh - McAdams was one of the most beautiful women in the world when she guested on "Earth: Final Conflict" in 2002. They did something in MG to make her, like, *less attractive* than she actually is.
Aside from that, this isn't necessarily unrealistic - the "Queen Bee" is often not the most very attractive girl.

(That midriff when she was up on the platform reading
her apology... dear lord.) Amanda Seyfried, too, although to a lesser
extent. This holds true for the musical, as well. Both minion girls were
prettier than the girl playing Regina, who I found to be just downright
unattractive.

Renee Rapp is not in "fighting shape". She's voluptuous, which I like, but she was likely wrong for *this part*.

I thought it was hilarious that we, the audience, were just supposed to
pretend we saw McAdams getting fat throughout the movie when she looked
exactly the same the whole time. She's like a size negative zero and
complaining about how she can't fit into anything except sweatpants.
Sure.
 The musical Regina, on the other hand, had a big ol' ass. I don't know
if that trunk junk was real or if that was costume padding, but I
suspect the former because they were noticeably only shooting her from
the waist up in the pre-weight gain scenes.
 I agree that the musical Janis easily had the best singing voice in the
cast but I'll go with Lizzy Caplan in anything any day of the week.

Yes. I didn't care for Auli'i Cravalho's take, but she was by far the best singer.

And both schools in both movies never addressed the biggest problem on
campus: who is the homicidal bus driver that's constantly driving
through a school parking lot at 50+ miles per hour and why hasn't he
been arrested yet?!?

Yeah, best not think too deeply about that. (Or about the fact that Regina would almost certainly have not survived!)
But the original is much better in nearly every way than the musical. About the only thing the musical has a solid edge with is Christopher Briney as Aaron Samuels.