Cars're bad, m'kay?

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If you're a villain in a movie made for teenage girls, there's no deader giveaway that you're a bitch than the fact that you drive.

Oh, there are plenty of other indicators. You'll make snide comments about the appearance and/or popularity level of the good teenage girls, our heroes. You'll sneer a lot. You'll do mean, back-stabby things. And you'll have two slightly less mean sidekicks, cruelly tittering alongside you, though don't be surprised if at least one of them turns on you by the end of the movie, overcome by the inherent goodness of the heroes.

But there's a better than average chance you'll be doing some, if not all, of these things while in your car, preferably a convertible.

I've seen two movies in the last week -- both to review them -- that featured mean teenage girls who drive cars, while the heroes either ride bikes or get rides from their parents. I saw Sleepover last Saturday night, and Aquamarine this morning with my fruit & yogurt-flavored Special K. Coincidentally, both films feature the actress Sara Paxton, though she's the bitchy villain in the former, the delightful mermaid in the latter.

Both films feature a trio of evil jerks who ride around in cars, while the disadvantaged heroes -- "underdogs" is a better word -- are, by notable contrast, on foot. And fairly humiliated about that fact.

It's one of the only times in film we see the person in a position of power featured lower in the frame than the person in a position of weakness. Anyone who's taken a Film 101 class knows one of the oldest tricks in the book: to position the weak character lower in the frame, and the powerful character higher in the frame. If an actual, physical height difference isn't possible, given the landscape restrictions, then you shoot the powerful person from a low angle, looking up, and the weaker person from a high angle, looking down.

Except convertibles are a game changer in this respect. They're like moving thrones, meant to indicate the regality of the people sitting in them. And they always do that quite well. If there were any doubt about this, Aquamarine's villain, Cecilia (Arielle Kebbel), has a vanity license plate that reads PRINCESS. The logic of these movies is, even though all the characters (and everyone in the audience) wishes they had a car, only rich, absentee parents who confuse spoiling their children with loving them would actually buy their teenage daughter a convertible.

It's also part of the age-old philosophy that the hero must have fewer resources than the villain -- in other words, must prevail despite his/her underdog status. This is actually one of the single most important governing principles in all of cinema. You see it in everything from sports movies (small team of misfits must defeat big, well-oiled machine) to fantasy movies (tiny Hobbit must defeat giant, all-seeing eye) to superhero movies (Iron Man must defeat even bigger, evil Iron Man). Why not girls on bikes defeating girls in cars?

Of course, this is nothing new, nor is it limited to girl-on-girl action. Just think about the epic struggle between Marty McFly on his skateboard and Biff in his convertible full of goons. There, the convertible ended up filled with horse manure -- the ultimate repudiation of both Biff and his goons, and the car itself.

One other quick note about Aquamarine, which I actually found pretty delightful: It was the second movie featuring mermaids that I saw in 24 hours. That's got to be some kind of record. My wife and I watched a terrible indie called Full Grown Men last night, featuring 30 Rock's Judah Friedlander (who was by far its best part), and mermaids made a brief appearance in that film as well, albeit that they were women dressed in mermaid costumes. We seemed to have been destined to watch a mermaid movie last night, as my wife rejected Aquamarine as too teenyboppery -- I would have agreed, having just seen the very teenyboppery Sleepover, but ultimately found it quite sweet. Then the mermaids showed up in Full Grown Men anyway.

Enjoy your Saturday -- whether it involves driving a car or not. And if it does involve driving a car, watch out for people on bikes or on foot. They'll get you in the end, especially if you condescend to them or insult their popularity.

Limits of the bird-in-the-hand theory

Some movies are just destined never to be watched.

I usually subscribe to the "bird in the hand beats two in the bush" theory when it comes to movies. Or, "possession is nine points of the law." (That phrase is alternately misunderstood as "possession is nine-tenths of the law.") In other words, when I have a movie in my possession, that is reason alone to watch it, even if it came into my possession by accident.

Take, for example, the 2000 movie Sleepover, directed by John Sullivan. I never meant to have this movie. I meant to put the 2004 movie Sleepover, directed by Joe Nussbaum, on my Blockbuster queue, in order to review it. The first is a low-budget coming of age story, the second is a pastel-colored tween movie that (I just noticed) happens to feature Steve Carell and Jane Lynch among a cast of mostly 14-year-old girls. And it's really too bad there was this mixup, because a movie my wife might not ordinarily want to watch seemed just the ticket when she was feeling sick one of the nights last week. When I removed it from the mailing sleeve, however, I saw my mistake. This other Sleepover did not seem like cinematic comfort food for the sick -- just look at that washed out poster.

But it wasn't reviewed on my website either, so the thing that made the most sense to me was to watch it anyway, some other night. Then I would put in to review it later on. You know, a bird in the hand beats two in the bush. Or something like that. All part of a stupid philosophy that if you rent something from Blockbuster as part of a monthly unlimited package, which means the cost of any one rental is quite intangible, you are losing some intangible quantity of value if you return a movie unwatched. A stupid philosophy that I, in fact, already picked apart in this post.

So I tried to start watching the movie last Monday night. You know, the same night I missed work because I'd scratched my cornea the day before. I wanted to rest my eyes, but I'd already slept a ton that day, so I thought I'd have a better bet of sleeping through the night if I extended my evening's activities past, say, 9 o'clock. I turned off all the lights in my bedroom and put Sleepover on my portable DVD player. I watched about 20 minutes of the movie this way -- with my sunglasses on -- before finally deciding it was too much. The subpar quality of the movie couldn't have helped.

I tried to do the same thing going to bed on Tuesday, figuring I'd make it a little further into the movie, and might eventually watch the whole thing this way. But I guess I was more tired than I thought, having strained my eyes throughout a full workday, so I literally watched about one more minute of the movie before shutting it off.

I figured for sure I'd watch the remaining 70-80 minutes on Thursday when we went to see our tax guy. Our tax guy is notorious for making us wait sometimes as long as 90 minutes from our scheduled appointment time -- good thing he gets us such a good return. Last year, in fact, I watched almost a whole movie (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, for the second time) in his waiting room. That was a quality way to pass the time -- Sleepover, however, seemed to be quite the opposite. Instead of even powering on my DVD player, I entertained myself with Entertainment Weekly, and checking emails and facebook on my phone.

When yesterday afternoon rolled around, meaning it was almost six days since I'd started watching the movie, I decided it was time to give up on it and at least use it as a trade-in for another movie at Blockbuster. My wife and I were in need of something to watch on Valentine's Day, having failed to plan for that like we did last year. So I brought Sleepover with me to the Kia dealership, where we bought her a new car -- the first new car she's ever owned. Quite ridiculously, I stuffed the DVD in my shorts pocket while we were working out the whole transaction. (Couldn't leave it in the car, because my wife was trading it in.) Naturally, we ended up being so tired from an afternoon of nerves, second-guessing, self-loathing, and ultimately glee, followed several hours later by more self-loathing and the inevitable remorse at having spent too much money, that we didn't even stop at the Blockbuster on the way home.

So today, I just dropped Sleepover in the mail, its envelope all effed up from spending the afternoon in my pocket.

Sorry, Mr. Sullivan. Someone else will have to review your movie, in some other lifetime.