The Good:
Tina Fey and Tim Meadows in Mean Girls
Like Finding Forrester, Mean Girls really walked a fine line. On the one hand, it had Lindsay Lohan in it, but on the other hand, it didn’t suck.
The poster also implied that Lindsay Lohan’s character would be 8 feet tall.
This is mostly thanks to Tina Fey, who adapted a depressing expose on how bitchy teenage girls are into a genuinely funny and poignant screenplay that almost makes you forget that Lohan couldn’t out act a bag of potatoes.
Almost.
Fey also makes this movie work through her portrayal of Ms. Norbury, a math teacher who has lived a sad, sad life. Fey follows the Ricky Gervais method by writing the saddest, most cringe-inducing character and then playing that character herself.
Make no mistake, if this movie had been solely about Ms. Norbury, it would have made The Hours look like a feel good romantic comedy. But Ms. Norbury’s pathetic characteristics are exactly what make her such a great teacher. She wants to inspire you, and she does it by showing you what your life will be like if you fuck it up.
Taking her shirt off helps also.
Tina Fey gets a lot of credit for this movie and it is well deserved, but hands down my favorite example from this film is the school principal, Mr. Duvall, played by Tim Meadows.
I feel bad for Meadows. He was always funny on Saturday Night Live, but the only movie he got out of it was The Ladies Man. He was apparently on The Bill Engvall Show, but every time I tried to watch that show my television killed itself.
Really, when you look at it, Mean Girls has been the highlight of Meadows' career and if not for Tina Fey stealing all the thunder he would have gotten a lot more props for his role. This is because Mr. Duvall is the best principal I’ve ever seen, in real life, or film. He possesses the two most important skills for a principal. First, he knows when to delegate. He is not prepared to handle teenage girl drama and he knows it. So he gathers all girls into the gym with baseball bat in hand and makes someone else do it. Just as a good leader should.
Taking his shirt off helps also.
Second, he’s visible and active in the school. In the 9th grade I went to a school with 70 students. 70 students. The entire campus wasn’t more than four prefab structures, and I still didn’t see my principal more than three times a semester. From what I know of more advanced schools through friends and whispered tales of legend, principals are just as rarely seen everywhere. Besides school assemblies, fire drills, and getting in trouble, the school principal might as well be the goddamn Wizard of Oz.
When you go onto a battlefield, every soldier knows who their general is. This keeps the soldiers from forgetting who’s in charge and maintains some sense of order. Mr. Duvall knows this, and more importantly he also knows that high school is most definitely a battlefield.
This is on the top row of the second page when you Google image search “Tim Meadows Mean Girls.” Google knows what I’m talking about.
The Bad:
Paula Patton in Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
I have to admit, I haven’t seen Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire. Normally that would preclude me from criticizing it, but I did read the book for a gender studies class once and I still haven’t recovered. Also, since this movie is so recent, it’s not really widely hailed as part of the inspirational teaching genre. But worry not, it will be. It’s received tons of accolades from the pretentious art house sect, including multiple awards and nominations from Cannes, Sundance, the Screen Actors Guild, the Golden Globes, and the Oscars.
Including one nomination for “Poster Most Closely Resembling A Polish Expressionist Painting From The ‘50s.”
Another reason Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire will be applauded for decades to come? It was post-produced by both Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, and if anybody knows how to make depressing films about black people that people insist are inspirational, it’s Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry.
Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire had a pretty limited release, and its not yet out on dvd, so you probably haven’t seen it. Allow me to give you a quick rundown: Precious is a morbidly obese, borderline-retarded, inner city teenager. Her illegitimate father routinely raped her, giving her HIV in the process, and getting her pregnant twice. One of those pregnancies was born with Down’s syndrome. Her high school finds her too depressing so they put her in a special program where she learns to almost put together a coherent sentence. But not quite. The End. There, I just saved you four bucks.
I blame Sapphire for my long history of depression. Expect some big medical bills, lady.
Ok, so obviously this is not a pleasant movie, but that’s not what this list is about. The reason I’m including this film is because not only is it a pretentious collection of every Lifetime movie scenario, but it’s fed to you as though in the end it will be uplifting. Precious is taken under the wing of her English teacher, Ms. Rain, who really cares about her students, all of whom are in roughly equally hopeless circumstances as the title character. And this would be fantastic if anything came of it, but nothing does. At the end Precious’ accomplishments are that she’s managed to get her mother to stop molesting her and instead of writing at a 3rd grade level she writes at a 4th grade level. That’s not an inspirational message. That’s not even good teaching. That’s the kind of story a politician tells while campaigning for education reforms.
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The story would’ve been a lot more uplifting if Ms. Rain had taught a jazzercise class.
Oh, I did forget one more thing Ms. Rain did for Precious. At the beginning of the story Precious is vehemently homophobic, but through her friendship with Ms. Rain, who’s proud of her sexuality, Precious realizes that lesbianism isn’t evil. But given Precious' previous experience with men, this probably wasn’t a very tough sell.
Tina Fey and Tim Meadows in Mean Girls
Like Finding Forrester, Mean Girls really walked a fine line. On the one hand, it had Lindsay Lohan in it, but on the other hand, it didn’t suck.
The poster also implied that Lindsay Lohan’s character would be 8 feet tall.This is mostly thanks to Tina Fey, who adapted a depressing expose on how bitchy teenage girls are into a genuinely funny and poignant screenplay that almost makes you forget that Lohan couldn’t out act a bag of potatoes.
Almost.Fey also makes this movie work through her portrayal of Ms. Norbury, a math teacher who has lived a sad, sad life. Fey follows the Ricky Gervais method by writing the saddest, most cringe-inducing character and then playing that character herself.
Make no mistake, if this movie had been solely about Ms. Norbury, it would have made The Hours look like a feel good romantic comedy. But Ms. Norbury’s pathetic characteristics are exactly what make her such a great teacher. She wants to inspire you, and she does it by showing you what your life will be like if you fuck it up.
Taking her shirt off helps also.Tina Fey gets a lot of credit for this movie and it is well deserved, but hands down my favorite example from this film is the school principal, Mr. Duvall, played by Tim Meadows.
I feel bad for Meadows. He was always funny on Saturday Night Live, but the only movie he got out of it was The Ladies Man. He was apparently on The Bill Engvall Show, but every time I tried to watch that show my television killed itself.
Really, when you look at it, Mean Girls has been the highlight of Meadows' career and if not for Tina Fey stealing all the thunder he would have gotten a lot more props for his role. This is because Mr. Duvall is the best principal I’ve ever seen, in real life, or film. He possesses the two most important skills for a principal. First, he knows when to delegate. He is not prepared to handle teenage girl drama and he knows it. So he gathers all girls into the gym with baseball bat in hand and makes someone else do it. Just as a good leader should.
Taking his shirt off helps also.Second, he’s visible and active in the school. In the 9th grade I went to a school with 70 students. 70 students. The entire campus wasn’t more than four prefab structures, and I still didn’t see my principal more than three times a semester. From what I know of more advanced schools through friends and whispered tales of legend, principals are just as rarely seen everywhere. Besides school assemblies, fire drills, and getting in trouble, the school principal might as well be the goddamn Wizard of Oz.
When you go onto a battlefield, every soldier knows who their general is. This keeps the soldiers from forgetting who’s in charge and maintains some sense of order. Mr. Duvall knows this, and more importantly he also knows that high school is most definitely a battlefield.
This is on the top row of the second page when you Google image search “Tim Meadows Mean Girls.” Google knows what I’m talking about.The Bad:
Paula Patton in Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
I have to admit, I haven’t seen Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire. Normally that would preclude me from criticizing it, but I did read the book for a gender studies class once and I still haven’t recovered. Also, since this movie is so recent, it’s not really widely hailed as part of the inspirational teaching genre. But worry not, it will be. It’s received tons of accolades from the pretentious art house sect, including multiple awards and nominations from Cannes, Sundance, the Screen Actors Guild, the Golden Globes, and the Oscars.
Including one nomination for “Poster Most Closely Resembling A Polish Expressionist Painting From The ‘50s.”Another reason Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire will be applauded for decades to come? It was post-produced by both Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, and if anybody knows how to make depressing films about black people that people insist are inspirational, it’s Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry.
Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire had a pretty limited release, and its not yet out on dvd, so you probably haven’t seen it. Allow me to give you a quick rundown: Precious is a morbidly obese, borderline-retarded, inner city teenager. Her illegitimate father routinely raped her, giving her HIV in the process, and getting her pregnant twice. One of those pregnancies was born with Down’s syndrome. Her high school finds her too depressing so they put her in a special program where she learns to almost put together a coherent sentence. But not quite. The End. There, I just saved you four bucks.
I blame Sapphire for my long history of depression. Expect some big medical bills, lady.Ok, so obviously this is not a pleasant movie, but that’s not what this list is about. The reason I’m including this film is because not only is it a pretentious collection of every Lifetime movie scenario, but it’s fed to you as though in the end it will be uplifting. Precious is taken under the wing of her English teacher, Ms. Rain, who really cares about her students, all of whom are in roughly equally hopeless circumstances as the title character. And this would be fantastic if anything came of it, but nothing does. At the end Precious’ accomplishments are that she’s managed to get her mother to stop molesting her and instead of writing at a 3rd grade level she writes at a 4th grade level. That’s not an inspirational message. That’s not even good teaching. That’s the kind of story a politician tells while campaigning for education reforms.
.jpg)
The story would’ve been a lot more uplifting if Ms. Rain had taught a jazzercise class.Oh, I did forget one more thing Ms. Rain did for Precious. At the beginning of the story Precious is vehemently homophobic, but through her friendship with Ms. Rain, who’s proud of her sexuality, Precious realizes that lesbianism isn’t evil. But given Precious' previous experience with men, this probably wasn’t a very tough sell.
Be sure to come back next week when I'll be comparing American Histroy X and Stand and Deliver. If you think that's an odd pairing, then clearly you've never read my slash fiction.
I was really angry when my friend made me watch Mean Girls and I didn't hate it. I rank Precious up there with that Mel Gibson jesus movie...so depressing. Why would I want to spend money to feel that way? Usually if you spend money to feel that way it's preceeded by anywhere from 45 minutes to 8 hours of euphoria.
ReplyDeleteOh god, imagine spending a week reading something that depressing. That woman owes me a vast quantity of powerful narcotics to make up for what she put me through.
ReplyDelete