Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.

Mean Girls

A comedy staple! My generation's Clueless! Mean Girls is a slightly exaggerated, though mostly spot on account of high school and all the gossip and social climbing students encounter through that four year minefield of high school.

What an amazing performance from Lindsay Lohan. This role firmly established her as a talented young actress and I'm sure opened up a world of professional opportunities. But we all know what happened, and it's a shame. She really is talented. She's believable as the likable and naive girl next door from Africa and the "regulation hottie" who has been influenced by the Plastics, the cool/mean girl clique at her high school. With more of the right roles, Lohan could've (and maybe still could) had a bright career. Her comedy skills are definitely on point.

Mean Girls gives me reason number 537873 to love Rachel McAdams. The girl is amazing, talented, flawless and so on. She shines as the glamorous mean girl Regina George. She has a knack for comedy. Even though Regina George is so awful, I can't help but like her because Rachel McAdams is just so good. Rachel McAdams can do anything.

The rest of the cast are as exceptional as the leads. Lacey Chabert gains audience sympathy as the desperate Gretchen Wieners, whose hair is full of secrets. Great debut from Amanda Seyfried, an actress who's creating a great career for herself. Her dead pan humor brings the laughs. Amy Poehler is a goddess and is not used enough. Her spot on portrayal as a (wannabe) "cool mom" is kind of horrifying but simultaneously hilarious. Finally, we have the current queen bee of comedy, Tina Fey. I just have no words. Fey is practically perfect in every way.

Tina Fey's script is genius. There are so many great lines that my friends and I recite to this day; my roommate is always looking for an excuse to say, "You can go shave your back now," while I take pleasure in saying "And none for (insert name), BYE!" And I don't know any girl who doesn't laugh at "I can't go to Taco Bell, I'm on an all carb diet. God Karen, you're so stupid!" Rachel McAdams says stupid in a very weird way and that makes the joke funnier. Even after viewing this classic countless times, the jokes are still hilarious.

Not only do the jokes continue to be funny, but the depiction of high school always amazes me. Mean Girls IS high school, exaggerated of course. The overt and subtle bullying, the ridiculousness of people's behavior, the desire to find yourself and fit in along the way...all true. There's a darkness to high school that Tina Fey shows but accompanies with comedy, but we get the point. This movie spoke to my generation. It might not define it, but Mean Girls definitely rings true.

The serious line that always stuck with me is at the end, after all the chaos with the Burn Book and the "girls going wild." In a voiceover, the Lindsay Lohan character says, "Calling somebody else fat won't make you any skinnier. Calling someone stupid doesn't make you any smarter. And ruining Regina George's life definitely didn't make me any happier. All you can do in life is try to solve the problem in front of you." Why do we call each other fat then? Does it really make us feel better about our weight? There's this competition between girls that is just alarming. We put each other down to feel better about ourselves but the feeling goes away. We have to be better and we can only be better by making other people lower. This competition is at its worse in high school, but it doesn't always end there. One just needs to be comfortable with oneself, not comparing them self to others or putting others down, and just solve the problem in front of you.

Mean Girls joins Clueless and Heathers as some of the finest comedy and teen cinema. They help the genre get taken seriously. Mean Girls is intelligent, funny, and eye-opening.

Claire Danes in Temple Grandin
I've never been a Claire Danes fan. I've ripped her apart when I've had the chance. But she is in fine form in Temple Grandin. Playing a real person is a challenge, but a real person with autism, that a whole other level of challenging. Claire Danes truly shows her acting chops in this HBO original movie. Throughout most of the movie I forgot I was watching Claire Danes. If you see any interviews or footage of the real Temple Grandin, you see how amazing Danes' performance is. She needs to turn out more work like this.

Netflix

Winter's Bone-Jennifer Lawrence is getting Oscar buzz.
Robin Hood-Missed this in theaters.
Some Kind of Wonderful-Netflix Instant. A John Hughes film not mentioned as much as his Molly Ringwald projects.