I didn’t really get into this during its wide release a couple weeks back, because it was readily apparent from the outset that You Again was an inconsequential thing that was going to sink like a stone (especially once people figured out that Betty White’s screen time was minimal), but the movie exhibited one of those big, stupid, boneheaded lapses happens every once in a while in a Hollywood film, and makes you realize that even when (maybe especially because) unions put a couple hundred people on a set, no one wants to take ownership of what they sense is a turd.
Passably bad movies — those that elicit sighs of exasperation at their mediocrity and lack of imagination — chart into choppier waters when they start getting even little details wrong. Because those are actually a big deal. It’s a sign that the creative team quit on the project, really — the cinematic equivalent of loafing it up the first baseline on a grounder to third. You Again notably fails in this regard when it has Kristen Bell’s character dig up an unearthed high school time capsule with interviews from 2002 — crucial to the plot, in that it helps her humiliate her rival — and reveals it to be stored on… a VHS tape. In 2002? No. Wrong. Idiots!
Funny, this is so true! I especially hate movies that attach themself to some sort of specific toy fad, too, like Cabbage Patch Dolls or whatever. Or if there’s a movie set in 1988 where the Rubik’s Cube is the ‘hot new rage.’ It’s okay to be general about some production design details, really. Otherwise, do your common-sense research, set decorators and art designers!