Movie 11: Mean Girls (2004)

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Yes, I’m incorrectly tagging this as “chicklit” and “teen angst,” but I don’t feel like making any new tagging categories and those two just might work.

Mean Girls is actually pretty funny. It’s not as cheesy and annoying as it could have been. I already hated “the plastics” as soon as I saw the cover and I didn’t think I could bear more than an hour of them. As it turns out, I could. That’s how good this movie was. Maybe it’s because I’m easily amused, but I really did enjoy the high school humor. I only wonder if the girl who plays Regina’s sister has been scarred for life after the filming.

Lindsay Lohan still looks decent here. Despite her increasing notoriety in the recent years, she’s actually a pretty good actress. I mean, she’s so believable I didn’t laugh at all when her character turns out to be a girl who’s smart enough to get into a calculus class. She should have learned to pronounce “zoologist” correctly, though. I think that’s going to haunt her for life. Not that it’s among her worst problems.

I do wish they had picked younger actresses to play the rest of the main characters. Being only about nineteen at the time, Lindsay can still pass as a high school junior (somewhat), but the others are obviously way too old to be in high school. In fact, I checked the girls’ birthdates and found out that they’re all older than I am, especially the girl who plays Regina. And I was already in college when this movie came out

They are more believable as “the plastics” as Sharpay and her clique are in High School Music 2, though. I don’t know if there’s something about the cameras that the Disney Channel uses that makes all of its shows annoying or if the girl who plays Sharpay is just a terrible actress, but she pissed me off so much every time she appeared on the screen. If I were a director I would pick Regina over Sharpay to be a mean girl any time, old-looking or not.

Another thing that bothers me is the sexual content of this movie. Was it really necessary for that calculus teacher to take off her shirt with her sweater? The way the girls dress bother me. Isn’t there some sort of dress code in high school? I highly doubt a real high school would allow the girls to perform Jingle Bell Rock like that every single year. Then again, this is a movie, not the real world. I get it.

Finally, I just want to point out that the question asked in the final round for the math competition is idiotic. I may not know about calculus as much as I should, but a question about limits can have only what, four possible answers? In the real world, that other girl couldn’t possibly miss a simple question like that. She is the one with the glasses and the unplucked eyebrows. She probably spends all her spare time studying.

Book 21: Concise History of the Catholic Church by Thomas Bokenkotter (2004)

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I’m sorry, I thought I knew what “concise” means. At 600+ pages including appendix and index, this is the thickest book I have to read this week. I only ended up skimming it though. Even though I’ve never been an especially good Catholic, I actually know the history of the Church. (See how it is capitalized? That makes all the difference.) Of course it helps that I also took a couple classes on Western civilization and read The Da Vinci Code. I am truly the enlightened one.

Although comprehensive, this book may be even better if it were more engaging. The author tries so hard to cover everything about the Church from A to Z that he barely brushes upon the more interesting parts. I mean, come on. All I wanted was some sensationalism and made-up anecdotes. Those would have kept me awake.

Book 20: My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult

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I just started another blog on another server and I really like the way I write there. It may be because LiveJournal offers an option to make private some of the entries and I don’t feel the need to be cryptic (I’m insanely paranoid), but the two entries I’ve written there are fairly coherent and readable. Melikes. So I’m going to try to sound more like that when I’m here on WordPress. After all, wasn’t one of my intentions in starting this blog is to develop my writing skills? I really used to be a decent writer, honest. All those years studying science has done something to my ability to write.

Now allow me to move on to the book at hand: My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult. I heard about this book a couple years ago, and when I accidentally came across it in the library three weeks ago, I immediately picked it up in spite of the stack of books I already had at home. I actually had to spend quite some time reading this book. Although the writing is simple and it reads smoothly, it is a 400+ book. Yes, I’m one of those people who can’t finish Harry Potter in less than a day. What a shame.

My first instinct was to be a literary snob and detest this book mainly because it is a bestseller. Obviously if something appeals to the popular mass it can’t possibly be good. However, I couldn’t help noticing that I was completely absorbed into the story that I even forgot to predict how the ending would be. In high school I learned once about a leukemia patient who happened to be a student there whose parents conceived another child just so she could have a bone marrow transplant. At the time I didn’t really think much about it, but this book reminds me of that student and her baby sister. Anna might as well be that baby; she was created with the purpose to aid her ill sister. How does it feel to be born not really because you’re wanted but because your parents want your sibling to live?

Anna is incredibly mature for a thirteen-year-old. Sheltered as I was, I was nothing compared to her when I was her age. I take comfort in knowing that she is a fictional character and Picoult may have overestimated the ability of a typical thirteen-year-old to think for herself. Trust me: I have read enough of The Baby-Sitters Club series and other books from an eighth-grader’s perspective to jump into such conclusion. Anna’s concerns feel strangely wrong to me; they shouldn’t  have belonged to her. When you’re thirteen you’re supposed to have petty worries about friends and school. Yet here she is, having to deal with the imminent death of her sister.

Although I did enjoy the story, I do miss the days when a writer sticks with one narrator and one type of font. Jesse’s parts in the novel don’t even seem to serve any purpose to the story; they merely exist to show the readers how human he is. Campbell isn’t likable at all and it’s a wonder how someone who supposedly has a strong heart like Julia would put up with him. Towards the end, the chapters are getting shorter and shorter to the point of being clunky. Additionally, the ending seems to be a manipulative way to send this book to the bestselling list. If you hate a book in which the main character dies, you obviously have no heart and there’s obviously something wrong with you.

Sorry, that was a spoiler right there.