MEAN GIRLS Review

Like so many movies these days, 2024's Mean Girls first had to prove its reasons for existing were valid. And like so many movies these days, I tend to appreciate them for where they succeed rather than condemning them for where they don't. In the broad scheme of things this new Mean Girls movie is perfectly fine, but when remaining within the stratosphere of this movie adaptation of a stage musical that itself was adapted from a twenty year-old feature film based on a 2002 non-fiction bestseller titled "Queen Bees & Wannabes" it becomes something bigger, something more; an investment in the material, the thought behind it, and how as much earned it the place it holds in our culture. 

"Like all history, this is emotionally layered and culturally dense." I was seventeen in 2004 when the original Tina Fey adaptation was released, I remember writing about it for my school newspaper, and realizing Fey had officially made the leap while simultaneously cementing Lindsay Lohan as a figurehead of my generation. Mean Girls never didn't feel like a big deal and so it wasn't surprising so many of the jokes and bits from that original film endured, but because of the endurance factor I couldn't help but wonder what the translation to the modern high school experience might have to say about our less PC and, as a result, more merciless environment. Additionally, I’d never seen the stage play and was thus unfamiliar with the production and music (written by Fey's husband, Jeff Richmond with lyrics by Nell Benjamin). While Mean Girls '24 then had to really justify itself what was maybe most surprising about the addition of the not exactly memorable music was how quickly it helped move me past the nostalgia factor and into appreciating what this retelling had to offer.

THE GIFT Review

In 2008 I was really beginning to dig into all kinds of films, exploring more of the independent material that was coming to light than ever before. I remember 2008 mainly for the remarkable summer at the theater that it was, but I also find it easy to recall a small film from a pair of brothers that was making waves. It was a little film called The Square that was co-written by a guy named Joel Edgerton and directed by his brother Nash. As far as I'd heard, it was a solid contemporary example of film noir and concerned itself with betrayal, revenge and cheating couples. It was a film that I felt somewhat more interesting for checking out simply because I was willing to go out on a limb and see what this buzzed about Australian production had to offer and indeed it was a well-executed thriller. I came to recognize Joel for his work over the next few years in Animal Kingdom and what could be considered his break-out American film in Warrior that led the way to him starring in more major Hollywood productions. It seems after building some solid ground beneath him in the industry though, Edgerton has returned to the thriller genre to write and direct for the first time. With The Gift, Edgerton has delivered a tense and slow-boiling psychological drama that stems from a thesis of how an idea can take hold of a person and tear them down. From the moment we meet Edgerton's Gordon Mosley we can sense that there is something slightly off about the guy, but having Edgerton play his own creation lends the perfect tone to what could have otherwise been an over-the-top showing that would lessen the effect of the final act in the film. That is all to say this product feels like the result of a singular vision, a focused and finely tuned story with specific characters and even more labored over depictions that come to show the audience how both credibly and expertly such genre pieces can be pulled off with the right amount of skill and vision. Edgerton feels at the top of his game here and with this technically being his feature directorial debut, I can't wait to see what he does next.