91 - Mean Girls

Connection To HOT TUB TIME MACHINE - Lizzy Caplan.

MEAN GIRLS IS A MODERN CLASSIC - Yes capitalized for emphasis - I bloody love this movie. It's also a movie I can feel sort of proud that I discovered the goodness of it first - I was loving it before other people had ever heard of it - at least in the circles I've traveled with.

And Lindsay Lohan... Lindsay, Lindsay Lohan I wish you could have stayed like this - so cute, not stick thing - and not become the tabloid car-wreck you have become, you might pull yourself out of it, I hope so - films like this proved you had IT, seems like a lot of the female cast have got healthier careers then you though at the moment.

Mean Girls was perhaps the best teen comedy to come along in a while when it was released in 2004, the best since 1995's Clueless certainly, I preferred it to American Pie and it's sequels or an whole rash of teen comedies or varying quality but Mean Girls, was well just SO FETCH (had too).

I remember Mean Girls being love at first sight for me - the film was clever, funny and I could just tell it was going to be instantly quotable - to the point I could annoy friends (you go Glen Coco...) and though my school was never like this (with queen bees and the like) but the characters where easy to get behind.

It's hard to know who shines brightest in this film - Amanda Seyfried's airhead Karen? Daniel Franzese too gay to function Damien? Lizzy Caplan as Janis? Amy Poehler as Regina's Mom (who is not that far off in age from Rachel McAdams in real ife)? Are just among those who shine, I would argue Jonathan Bennett as Aaron as the de-facto love interest make very little dent compared to many of the other characters.

Special props should go to Tina Fey who co-stars and who wrote, I didn't really know too much about before seeing this as I had not seen SNL for a few years at this point but she instantly made an impact on me and enjoyed seeing her work since.

Overall, a film that gets even more beloved with time, and a film I saw highly recommend, if you haven't watched it out of prejudice against teen movies give it a chance you won't be disappointed.

81 - Wet Hot American Summer

Connection To NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE - Samm Levine as an uncredited voice role here, confirmed by Levine himself if there was some doubt from IMDB.

It's been over 10 years since I first discovered Wet Hot American Summer, it was brought in a budget DVD pack with some other films, if I recall correctly it was one or two of the other comedies was my reason for buying as I had never heard of this film at all - I think that says a lot I can't remember what the other films where but this film as been brought multiple times and I even purchased the American DVD with extras (the British is bare-bones).

This is my 4th or 5th time watching WHAS and it's still as funny now as the first time I saw it, it has a weird tone to it which isn't a bad thing - it's not out and out parody but it's not in a world where everything is completely straight if that makes sense. This film is set in 1981 on the last day of a Jewish summer camp and is about the misadventures of the counselors, the romance of the camp director (Janeane Garofalo) and an astrophysics proffers (David Hyde Pierce) and we also spend some time with the kids.

The plot is basically just an excuse to string the funny moments together and the film features plenty of funny people, practically the entire cast of The State, Amy Poehler, Molly Shannon, Paul Rudd, early roles for Bradley Cooper and Elizabeth Banks.

I don't want to write about too many of the scenes because it gives away the direction but one of the funniest scenes for me was when the camp director goes into town with the counselors just how it spirals out of control is so hilarious, I also like Christopher Meloni and his subplot as the cook and is also a shell-shocked Vietnam vet.

Overall I'd prefer somebody to go into this film without any expectations then you can be surprised like I did as I found this incredibly funny.