I have been watching

A quick double header to cover yesterday and Monday;

Nurse Betty (2000)

A decent little film about a unhappy housewife who witnesses a horrendous murder, goes a bit crazy and heads across country to with the intention of marrying the fictional super surgeon from her favourite soap opera.
In the central role Renee Zellweger puts in a winning performance as Betty in the year before she really exploded into the big hitters in Bridget Jones. There is able support from Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock as a team of hitmen on her trail and Greg Kinnear as the object of Betty's affections.
The script holds one or two nice surprises that you don't see coming and overall the film is a sweet feel good tale albeit one that includes scalping and drug dealers.



Mean Girls (2004)

Yes, it's a film aimed mainly at teenage girls, but that it doesn't stop it from being a wicked sharp comedy that lays into many aspects of today's image obsessed culture whilst stopping to say something about how alienated people (especially kids) can feel.

Raised in the African bush country by her zoologist parents, Cady Heron thinks she knows all about the "survival of the fittest". But the law of the jungle takes on a whole new meaning when the home-schooled 16-year old enters public high school for the first time. Trying to find her place between jocks, mathletes, and other subcultures, Cady crosses paths with the meanest species of all - the Queen Bee, aka the cool and calculating Regina George, leader of the school's most fashionable clique, the Plastics. When Cady falls for Regina's ex-boyfriend Aaron Samuels, though, the Queen Bee is stung - and she schemes to destroy Cady's social future. Cady's own claws soon come out as she leaps into a hilarious "Girl World" war that has the whole school running for cover (thanks to IMDB for that summary)

Built around Tina Fey's (Saturday Night Live alumnus and driving force behind the excellent 30 Rock on TV) sharp script the film is a lively and engaging 90 odd minutes and is pretty much a spin on Heathers for a new generation.

It also shows that Lindsay Lohan does indeed have talent and screen presence to burn in the central role and maybe one day if she gets herself together she'll still go one to be the film star that Mean Girls seemed to suggest she was destined to become. Rachel McAdmans also makes a strong impression as the Queen Bee of the piece.

Only a suspiciously positive and upbeat ending (it just feels like the film's claws are blunted just as it goes for the throat) prevents it from being an outright classic in it's genre.