Feeling Fourteen Again

Contributing author A.

Just saying “fourteen again” reminds me of that movie “17 Again,” and it begs some clarification: my Friday night did not involve any familial flirting from my offspring who did not know I was their parent. I just really need you all to know that. 

No, my sensation of cracking back in time was a lot more innocent. And it all started with a 7:00pm showing of Mean Girls (2024). 

I’m gonna say something controversial: I don’t belong to the Mean Girls (2004) cult following. Don’t get me wrong, I ascribe to plenty of other cults, but I never bought into the Mean Girls (2004) craze. That being said, if a movie comes out by Lorne Michaels and Tina Fey, I’m gonna see it. Edit: this is extremely embarrassing but a fellow editor just made it clear to me that the original Mean Girls (2004) was, in fact, written by Tina Fey. I will not be expounding on this.

I have to admit though that I was excited to see this movie because last month I got to see the local middle school’s performance of Mean Girls. They seriously killed it, by the way! (And I also seriously hope that none of you read this newsletter.) It’s so fun to see kids put themselves out there and just have fun on stage. I couldn’t dream of doing that myself, so major props to them for having that kind of courage in a very weird stage of life.

Anyways, after seeing the movie, all I could think was “I definitely do not remember hearing THAT song in the middle school production.” Like the sexy bunny song. Lol. Can you imagine the sheer outrage that would reign during that PTA meeting? What I would give.

Overall, I had a lot of fun in the movie. I feel like I was laughing at all the parts that nobody else did (like when Cady said her shirt smelled like sausage. I think it’s because it reminded me of “you smell like beef and cheese, you don’t smell like Santa” and that really got me (Note from the editor: this reminded me of when this author and I went to homecoming after eating KBBQ and everybody told us we smelled like meat)), but that’s pretty par for the course for my life. No complaints here.

Now I’ll tell you some of my random musings about the movie. For starters, Angourie Rice has the most symmetrical face I’ve ever seen, and I’m not exaggerating. Look at this!

Fig. 1 Angourie Rice and her cohorts in Mean Girls (2024)

I don’t even really know what else to add to this. I was just entranced by how incredibly symmetrical her face is. That is a compliment! Also, this picture doesn’t feature the inimitable Regina George, but I thought her voice was great (that being said, I do NOT condone the actor Renee Rapp’s support of Crystal Palace). The lip syncing, on the other hand, weirded me out a bit, but didn’t detract from the movie. And those are pretty much all my thoughts. It was fun! 

But now for the real fun.

For some context, a lot of thought went into picking the 7:00pm showing of Mean Girls (2024). 4:00pm was too early and 10:00pm was too late. So, just like Goldilocks finding the porridge and the bed and the chair, the 7:00pm showing was juuuust right. 

A big part of the reason why I said I felt like I was 14 again was because I stayed up past my bedtime! I successfully chased that rebellious high, and then promptly paid for it the next morning. But that’s what you do when you’re a teenager, right?

I’m going to be honest with you, dear reader (and Dad, I know you’re reading this and you won;t believe it, but it’s all true!), and tell you about how I know next to nothing about being a rebellious teenager. I can’t even think of the craziest thing I ever did. I never partied (unless you count Mario Party 😎), I never went on any psycho trips or did anything remotely illegal. I never even sped in my car!! But, I’m proud to say that what I did last night made up for my vanilla teen years.

I movie hopped.

GASP. I know! I can’t even tell you the rush of adrenaline I got as we went from Mean Girls (2024) into the doors of Anyone But You (2023). Absolute insanity. Mean Girls (2024) ended around 9:00pm (getting close to bedtime here!), and as we passed the theater with Anyone But You (2023) one of my friends commented on how she wanted to see it. Well, as destiny would have it, the movie was only a few minutes away from starting, so we jumped in. Now that I look back on it, I really do think it was fate.

Now, I have a LOT to say about this movie. Another R&F editor and I made a lot of fun of this movie after watching the trailer. We thought it looked so weird and random, and if you’ve seen the trailer, then you know what I mean when we get a glimpse of how the hike went down (and, upon further discussion, no, I do not think a butt double was used).

I am a huge fan of enemies-to-lovers. Or just haters-to-lovers. Someday I’ll write another R&F about how much I love toxic love interests in books, but would do everything in my power to keep these fools away from my friends if it were real life. Why is this? I don’t know, but I’m preparing to do my deep dive into the human psyche to find out.

Anyways, hate to love is the best. Fake dating, on the other hand, is a very slippery slope in my opinion. It’s either done very well or very horribly; there is no middle ground on this battlefield. So I’m always a bit skeptical when I know the fake dating trope will play a pivotal role in a movie. Also, I don’t even really care about the actors! The jerk from Top Gun? Sydney Sweeney– I’m sorry but who is that??? I don’t even remotely pretend to be “in the know” these days, but I swear these movies have the most random people sometimes. 

Nevertheless, adrenaline fueled me past my bedtime as we ran into the theater.

And I’m not mad about it.

Funnily enough, I ended up enjoying Anyone But You (2023) more than I did Mean Girls (2024)! I honestly feel like the trailer for Anyone But You (2023) did the movie dirty. A trailer should make you want to watch the movie! But this one just weirded me out! I’m so glad that the rebellious spirit of teenagers took over my friend who convinced us to see it. I had the time of my life in the theater and once again found myself laughing at parts where it was only silent. I’m not going to give any spoilers, but there’s a scene where the two main characters look like they’re getting abducted by aliens and I could not stop snorting. You’ll know it when you see it, trust me.

I also think the fake dating trope worked really well. It reminded me of “The Romantic Agenda” which is a rom com book that I adore! Like I said, very few times have I seen such sublime execution of the fake dating plot. I was pleasantly surprised to see how smoothly this movie pulled it off.

I’m not going to go into plot details too much, but I will say that this movie has everything that is essential in a rom com, at least according to R&F editor R. Two people, who, by all accounts, should not be together, love triangles (I think this one is a little controversial but I won’t hide it any longer: I love a good love triangle), dramatic professions of love (swoon), hare-brained adventures, and Paxton Hall-Yoshida.

Fig. 2 Paxton Hall-Yoshida

Wait, PAXTON HALL-YOSHIDA???

Yes, and I literally could not take this guy seriously! He is the EXACT SAME character from Never Have I Ever (2020) as he is in Anyone But You (2023)! He looks the exact same, acts the exact same…I couldn’t help but think, dude, aren’t you supposed to be failing high school right now or something?? What are you doing in this movie acting like an adult??

Fig. 3 This picture scares me in a way that I can’t put into words. I also get scared thinking that these two exist in the same dimension.

Anyways, it was seriously cute. I was surprised that Glen Powell had so much chemistry with Sydney Sweeney. She just gave me watered-down vibes, but I was judging prematurely because I’ve never seen anything with her in it. And Glen Powell, well… I’ll include that later. 

Fig. 4 A picture of me taken in the movie theater yesterday

In other news, you better believe that I blasted “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield (who I don’t think I’ve listened to since I was in elementary school, but I added her to my Elementary School Days Spotify:

) so loud on my way back home (which was after 11:00pm! Seriously past my bedtime!) And as this song rolled during the credits I laughed so hard because it reminded me of Austenland (2013). 

After hyper fixating on this movie as I read about it on IMDb, I learned that it is based on none other than “Much Ado About Nothing” by none other than William Shakespeare himself! I just ADORE modern adaptations of the classics! Clueless (1995), Ten Things I Hate About You (1999) (but do NOT talk to me about “The Taming of the Shrew” because I still haven’t fully processed my thoughts on it), West Side Story, etc. So I’m definitely going to be rereading “Much Ado About Nothing” this weekend.

Now time to tell you many of the random reasons why I liked this movie, despite the fact that it had everything any rom com worth its salt should have. 

First of all, one of the side characters is this absolute beef head named Beau, who looked so much like Erling Haaland that I could not stop laughing every time he came on screen.

Fig. 5 Comedic relief “Beau” in Anyone But You (2023)

Fig. 6 Manchester City’s star scorer Erling Haaland

Second, Glen Powell’s face looks like it was shrunk by like 10%. Maybe even 5%. His face just looks so small and I can’t really describe it. My friend said she thinks it’s because he is always looking in the sun. I’m willing to start a fight discussion in the comments. But it seriously reminds me of that one picture of Noah Cyrus where someone edited her face just barely and it looks so funny. It lives rent free in my head. It was also MUCH harder to find than I would’ve expected, so you’re welcome for the time I put in trying to find this. Unfortunately I only found one with that scary ladybug meme from back in the 2010s, but anyways, here you go:

Fig. 7 The nightmare fuel that I mentioned earlier. And I actually think that might be a spider and not a ladybug, but I’m not about to find out

For comparison, here is what Noah Cyrus actually looks like:

Fig. 8 The real picture of Noah Cyrus

See how it’s off by JUST enough for you to go, woah, what the heck? And do a double take or something? This is how I feel about Glen Powell!! I mean, you cannot look at this picture and tell me his mouth doesn’t look like somebody shrunk it:

Fig. 9 One of the shrunken head props from The Knight Bus in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

I actually feel so bad for the guy, because look at the two pictures of him that are featured on his Wikipedia page:

Fig. 10 Glen Powell looking like a teenage mutant ninja turtle

Fig. 11 And THIS ONE.

This picture alone led me on one of the most wild rides of my internet career. I cannot tell you how badly my stomach hurt as I was bent over laughing at this picture alone. How could they do the man so dirty like this? Like, are you kidding me? THESE were the two pictures these Wiki editors chose? Seriously??

Let’s take a look at how people describe this picture. I asked fellow R&F editor V. to ask their roommates to describe this picture of Glen Powell but I never heard their opinions. Editor V. did reply with their own comment on Glen Powell, saying “i just remember seeing a tweet about him that was like ‘he looks like a capybara’ and i’ve never been able to think of anything else.” If you know Editor V., then you’ll know they have a unique talent of defining people in a way that just makes sense (i.e. saying some dude from The Bachelor looked like a Puma sock with a hole in the big toe).

And now for my piece(s) de resistance:

Fig. 12 The first documented memetic post using this picture

Fig. 13 I don’t actually know what magnesium glycinate is so please don’t come after me if it’s something bad

Fig. 14 Don’t jump to judgment with @BeeBabs, with the onslaught of AI produced images these days you can never be too sure

I hope you all enjoyed that spread as much as I did. I have tears running down my face as I type this.

I think it goes without saying (though not really, because I just spent so much time typing this all up) that I had one of the best Fridays of my life yesterday. I felt like a teen again as I jumped from movie to movie. I drove home and sang to Natasha Bedingfield. I’m glad these are the inimitable teen moments that I decided to relive, and not ones where I listened to Enrique Iglesias or sent texts replete with less than three hearts trying to comfort my friend who was heartbroken over a 5’2” boy with a 2.2 GPA. Those really were the days…but were they?

Yesterday filled me with buzzing energy and fresh breath in my lungs. It might seem silly that all it took was a double feature of two funny movies with two funny friends, but sometimes the simplest things have the most profound effect on us. It was rejuvenating, and I left with that peculiar feeling of matchless wonder towards what the rest of my life will hold.

Feel the rain on your skin

No one else can feel it for you

Only you can let it in

No one else, no one else

Can speak the words on your lips

Drench yourself in words unspoken

Live your life with arms wide open

Today is where your book begins

The rest is still unwritten

The rest is still unwritten

The rest is still unwritten

Oh, yeah, yeah.