Teenage Movie Smackdown

Okay. I admit it. I have a soft spot for really cheesy teen movies. Ever since The Breakfast Club there's been a dark place in my heart for them. As Fry astutely put it, "I can't wait until I'm old enough to feel ways about stuff."

So on a stormy Friday night I went out to see Mean Girls and liked it. Okay, you can stop laughing now. I'm not talking Late String Quartets great or anything but much better than some of the dribble that has been pumped out lately.

Overall, it suffered from a slow middle act and a little excessive cheese near the end because of its source material, Queen Bees and Wannabes, but even as it was being cheesy, it didn't take itself too seriously. Take the scene where the Tina Fey character must lecture the students on excessive gossiping. My heart sunk when our narrator began quoting facts from the book while trying to work it into the story. This could have turned into the Saturday morning ABC movie but it didn't. It even ended with one of the most hilarious sequences in a teen movie.

Then there is the prerequisite soapbox speech at the end of the movie. Again, in anticipation, I began to grown. But then we get this (I'm paraphrasing here): "Half of you hate me and the other half voted for me because they think I shoved a girl in front of a bus. That's not good ..." Nice! Taken with the sarcastic and deadpan delivery of a few well placed lines by Tim Meadows and you've turned a potentially horrible scene into pure gold.

But was it as good as Clueless, the teen movie to which all others must be measured? Not quite. But very close.

Phooeyhoo's Grade: A-

And now for the list that you thought you'd never see: Phooeyhoo's list of the top 5 teen movies. These are also irrelevant popcorn teen movies, by the by, which is why you don't see The Ice Storm, Pleasantville, Election, and Ghost World.

1. Clueless


2. Mean Girls


3. The Breakfast Club


4. Bring it On


5. Ferris Bueller's Day Off