2K Replay: FREAKY FRIDAY

 by Adam Riske

Winner for “Breakthrough Female Performance” (Lindsay Lohan) at the MTV Movie Awards.

• Best Scene/Moment (tie): Any scene where Lohan’s band plays (they’re really good!) or the running gag about Chad Michael Murray having a monster crush on Lohan in Jamie Lee Curtis’s body.

• Best Song: Freaky Friday has a surprisingly great soundtrack. My favorite is “Ultimate” by Lindsay Lohan, but I also really like “Happy Together” by Simple Plan, “What I Like About You” by Lillix, “The Art of Losing” by American Hi-Fi and “Take Me Away” by Christina Vidal.

• Best Merch: A “2003 Scholastic Freaky Friday Movie Scrapbook…” for $15.00. Remember Scholastic book fairs at school? You felt like a king (or queen) the day the books arrived and were waiting for you on your desk after recess. If you’re on the fence about buying this, the seller says it’s from a pet-free/bug-free/smoke-free home.

• Director Check: Freaky Friday was directed by Mark Waters. Waters made his directorial debut with the indie Parker Posey dark comedy The House of Yes in 1997 which won awards at the Sundance Film Festival. His follow-up was the mostly forgotten Monica Potter vehicle Head Over Heels in 2001, which is one of the few remaining Freddie Prinze Jr. romantic comedies I’ve yet to see. Freaky Friday came next and was a hit in late summer 2003 with both audiences and critics. The film also launched Lindsay Lohan as a star who could headline her own movies. The pair collaborated again a year later with the modern comedy classic Mean Girls in 2004. After that film’s success, Waters has spent the ensuing years as a journeyman director on movies such as Just Like Heaven, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Vampire Academy, and Bad Santa 2. I somehow haven’t seen any of them. Waters recent work includes a couple of streaming releases, Disney’s Magic Camp in 2020 and the gender reversed Netflix remake to She’s All That, appropriately called He’s All That. According to IMDb, Waters' next movie is in post-production - a comedy/drama called Harvest Moon starring Carmen Ejogo, Candice Bergen, and Paul Bettany.

• Double It with This 2003 Movie: Cheaper by the Dozen

• Year 2003 Movies to Trailer Before It: Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde, Uptown Girls, What a Girl Wants

• Draft Day or Freaky Friday? Tie

• Mall Movie? Disney live-action movies aren’t usually mall movies but this one was “hip” and targeted to teens and tweens, so I’ll say it qualifies.

• Only in 2003: All the music references like casually name dropping The Hives, The White Stripes, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. There’s a scene where Chad Michael Murray and Lindsay Lohan talk about how they can’t stand The White Stripes (Lohan says, “Get a bass player!”) and I’ve always thought that was harsh and random. What did Jack White ever do to the talent behind Freaky Friday? There must be more to this story.

• Scene Stealer: Chad Michael Murray.

• I Miss: The Lindsay Lohan performances we probably missed when she was going through her troubles off-screen in the 2000s and 2010s. I’m happy she seems to be doing well now.

• I Don’t Miss (3-way tie): The Mark Harmon character’s neediness, the Asian stereotypes have dated badly and the little brother character. The actor is doing what he’s supposed to but that kid’s a chore.

• 2003 Crush: Christina Vidal.

• 2023 Crush: Julie Gonzalo. I didn’t know in 2003 that she was soon to be the one and only Blair Krank.

• What I Thought in 2003: I remember being very surprised how good Freaky Friday was when I saw it in 2003. I even went back to see the movie a second time. It was a great time at the movies.

• What I Think in 2023: Freaky Friday is even better than I remember it being. The cast is great (especially Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, and Chad Michael Murray), the music rules and the movie’s just flat-out fun. I miss this era (era) of Disney live-action features so much.