Happy Mean Girls Day!

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Yesterday was October 3rd. Every Mean Girl alumni knows what that means – it is the annual celebration of  the day Aaron Samuels asked Cady Heron what day it was. It reminded me that I recently watched Mean Girls again, and was as always super entertained by this highly quotable, relatable, hilarious comedy.

Most Mean Girls stars (Lacey Chabert, Amanda Seyfried, Jonathan Bennett and Daniel Franzese) reunited to ask for aid to the Las Vegas shooting victims in honor of their Mean Girls Day, and I thought that was a really nice gesture.

To celebrate this annual anniversary of one of my favorite films, here is some hilarious quotes:

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I feel exactly like you with regards to this film, girl who doesn’t even go here!

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Janis Ian gets my feelings about people using terrible grammar and being silly while at it!

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Karin, I get this question a lot!

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We know, Gretchen, we know.

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And lastly, some amazing and inspirational words from Kenny G.

What is your favorite Mean Girls quote?

Movie Review: Sisters (2016)

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Plot: Two sisters decide to throw one last house party before their parents sell their family home.

Rating: 4/10

It’s really hard for me to write out a review when I disliked a film but it didn’t inspire extreme anger in me. It’s hard to pull emotions then and put them into words. Anyone else have that problem?

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Sisters should have been good. With two of the best comedic actresses out there, Sisters should have been uproariously funny. It wasn’t – the humor was flat and ill-timed and badly paced. Amy Poehler and Tina Fey looked uncomfortable and it is astonishing but they didn’t have any connection on screen. I was bored most of the time and found the entire movie to be highly implausible and utterly ridiculous. A bunch of middle class Americans completely destroying a suburban house?A sink hole taking out an entire swimming pool?The owners of the house being okay with the complete wreckage? On top of all that a happy ending for everyone involved? I mean really – I can take an enormous amount of improbability in a movie but the quantity of nonsense that occurred in the Ellis house party exceeded even my high threshold of tolerance.

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Anyway, this is as much as you are getting from me. I’m really glad I didn’t travel out to go see this in cinema; it would have made it that much worse. The characters are all unlikeable, immature and just plain stupid. The forced romance is unnecessary and insincere. The charisma between the leads lacked and the entire plot was a bunch of shit.

PS: Me and my sisters are WAY cooler than this.

Watched, Read, Loved: January 2017

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I’m not going to bless you with that whole “how quick did this month go” crap, because let’s face it; January 2017 took its sweet time being done. At this stage I’m so deliberately avoiding bitching about politics on here, but please note that I do a whole lot of bitching in private about that man who is committing genocide.

I had my birthday on the 25th. I am now officially on the wrong side of 25. I’m 27, so I’ve already been on the wrong side for a whole year, but I was ignoring that at 26. Apart from suddenly stressing about retirement plans and the meaning of my entire existence, I’m not too stressed. I have decided that 27 good things WILL happen to me this year, so I will keep you in the loop.

Here is what I got up to this month, which is an impressive amount! #GoMe

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Movies watched:

10 Things I hate about you:

Confession time: if I had to go live on an island indefinitely with only ten movies to watch, I’d very likely pack 10 Things I Hate About You in.  I love everything about this film – how 90’s everything is: Julia Stiles’ hair, the clothes everyone wore, the music and the cars. I die every time Heath Ledger gifts us with that smile; it is equal parts pain and pleasure. The quick bantering and the ridiculous teenage humor make me laugh every single time. I actually wrote a post about how much I love this film, so I won’t turn it into a whole review here, but I’m sure you are getting the point here that I love this film.

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How to lose a guy in ten days: Kate Hudson used to be my ultimate girl crush as a teenager – she’s so pretty and preppy and blonde. I’m now at a point where I want actresses to be more than pretty, preppy and blonde, but I still find her a good romantic comedy lead. She wouldn’t hold up in more serious roles, but these? I’ll cast her any day. It also contains the delicious Matthew M.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962): I finally managed to finish up my Blindspots for 2016. To round the year of with To Kill A Mockingbird was a great idea – what an incredible film.

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Passengers (2017): These films with the strange release dates make it impossible to put them in the correct year. I watched in this year, hence this year will be referenced. I actually really liked it and think that the Oscar nod for set design is well deserved. I know it didn’t go down well with everybody, but I actually quite enjoyed it despite the numerous flaws.

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Fool’s Gold (2008): This falls in the time frame where Matthew McConaughey became the romantic comedy guy, something which still grates on a lot of people today. I do think that Fool’s Gold lacks certain important things like a proper plot, but I didn’t hate it at all.

Scream 4: I finished up my run on the Scream franchise this month. I am so sad! Because while I can definitely watch it again, I won’t ever be able to watch it for the first time again. I’m only posting this for Halloween, because I’d love to actually do a Halloween month this year, but please know that I did love this so much!

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Sicario (2015): Don’t you just love when a film is good enough to inspire you to read up on what you are watching? Shortly after the film ended I read up all about Juarez, Mexico, and the increasingly dodgy sounding CIA. Sicario is a great film that stays with you after you watched it and I will definitely be revisiting Denis Vileneuve’s film in the near future.

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The Princess Diaries:A Royal Engagement (2004): I remember this as a decent movie, which it was NOT. I adore the first Princess Diaries, but the sequel suffers from the sequelitis and it is rampant with bad acting, bad pacing and general badness. The years have been kind to Chris Pine – he is so much more attractive right now than he was in 2004.

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Love, Rosie (2014): I’m still trying to formulate some thoughts on Love, Rosie. Did I like it? Moderately so. I know for a fact that it contains some of the most awkward of scenes ever invented, and I was horrified and cringed so much. It gets a little drawn out and the story is never really strong. I do think that Sam Claflin is simply beautiful and that if just smiled all the time the world would be a better place.

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Vrou Soek Boer (2014): I got my fix of Afrikaans films with Vrou Soek Boer in January. It translates to “A woman is looking for a farmer” but it was a much cuter film than that translation suggested. I enjoyed it very much!

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Sisters (2016): This is surely the biggest waste of cash of 2016 for me. I bought this on DVD, sure I would at least like it okay. Nope. I hated it. What a stupid, unfunny film.

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The Accountant (2016): To embrace my mood of needing to watch people beat up things I picked up the Accountant. Ben Affleck’s hit of 2016, where he is an autistic superhero, fulfilled that need on some level but I was also left feeling vaguely unsatisfied with the ending.

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Series:

The X-Files Season 1: I am having so much fun with the X-files. There is nothing better when you discover a series and along with the discovery is the fact that there are so many seasons with a lot of episodes per season. SCORE! It took me a few episodes to get used to the layout of the show as well as the whole 1992 vibe the first season has going for it. It is pretty good and smart, as well as some funny conspiracy moments going on.

Alias Season 3: Alias has been great to me. I still need to finish Seasons four and five. I had some issues with the third season such as Sydney being a complete psycho, but overall still really great.

True Blood Season 1: I’ve been in the mood torewatch this for a while now. After watching a few episodes that need was cured because True Blood has some grating characters in that I somehow softened in my memory. I might still finish it, but right now there are other better shows that deserve attention.

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Books:

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The Collaborator (Margaret Leroy): Few books have stayed with me like this book has. I’ve had the worst book hangover since then and such troubles finding another book to seek my teeth into.

The Road to the Sea (Ciara Hegarthy): I’m going to go rampant on this book when I finally review it. Overly descriptive and insanely boring, this is one of the least favorite novels I’ve picked up in a while.

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The Power of Six (Pittacus Lore): I’m almost done with Book Two in the Lorien Legacies. Although I am still enjoying, the first read and progressed a whole lot better.

What have you been up to?

Movie Review: This is Where I Leave You (2014)

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Plot: When their father passes away, four grown siblings are forced to return to their childhood home and live under the same roof together for a week, along with their over-sharing mother and an assortment of spouses, exes and might-have-beens.

Rating: 6.5/10

This is Where I Leave You enters the family drama genre with very loose footing. I actually had some laughs and good fun but it is apparent that there are huge wholes un the story. There is a great cast on screen – Jason Bateman; Tina Fey and Rose Byrne provided good performances. I also enjoyed Adam Driver and Corey Stoll, and pretty much most of the cast. I thought adding Jane Fonda into the mix was unnecessary and icky – the woman does not look human with all that plastic surgery and desperate attempts to stay youthful.

The storyline had some desperate attempts at humour – sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. The sex over the baby monitor, Hillary Atman (Jane Fonda) loudly sharing her husband’s sexual prowess and the family’s way too open policy about Paul and Annie trying to get pregnant all felt like designated movie tricks to just get attention. I come from a family that never hesitates to say something out loud, and believe me, they were a bit much.

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Jason Bateman is the best thing of this movie. His character has much more on his plate than his other siblings who are just dealing with one problem each. He finds his wife banging his boss, his dad dies, his cheating wife gets pregnant, a cute girl from years before, his insane mother. It obviously represents one of those moments in life where everything happens at one time. I’ve often felt like it, and although it is an over dramatization it is fairly humorous to see his life just going up in flames. I also liked him because he’s the middle kid and has such a set plan in life – I am not all that different! Jason Bateman is an extremely likeable character in here – he is the less screwed up of his family and doesn’t seem prone to lash out in anger.

I didn’t enjoy Jane Fonda’s presence. She seems plastically modified and her character is horrible – who documents her children’s lives in a published novel, embarrassing them with everything they’ve ever done? I also found her final story arc just too forced, like an attention seeking finale to gather support for the film.

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The story tried to deal with family dynamics and relationships but I felt there wasn’t enough detail to really satisfy me. Tina Fey’s character, Wendy Altman, obviously has some major issues that are unresolved with her high school boyfriend having brain damage and her feeling guilty about leaving him and the town. Her relationship with her husband is completely underdeveloped and he just seems like some bit character to gather more sympathy for Wendy. Adam Driver is the typical baby in the family – he doesn’t need to account for his troubles, he lives a free flowing life because everyone will always catch him when he falls, typical youngest behavior. It is very evident that his relationship with a much older woman is really just to shock his family and gain financial benefits from the woman, one who delivers quite some decent screen time for a bit character.

The movie has some very funny moments, and Rose Byrne is very charming as Judd’s love interest. I enjoyed the relationship between Judd and Wendy, they had their grown-up sibling relationship well done.

TIWILY was not badly done and I had a good time with it. It isn’t as good as the other family dramas that clog the genre, but it is worth your time if it is your type of movie 🙂