esterday, I saw 13 Going on 30. No really, I did. It’s not a dreadful movie; in fact, I even laughed out loud a few times, and Jennifer Garner’s darling big-city ensembles prompted a minor buying binge at Target after the show. But here’s what pisses me off: The music is all wrong. WRONG. In 1987, this poor square worships Rick Springfield. Whoa. “Jessie’s Girl,” the video shown in the film’s opening sequence, came out in 1981, and she would no sooner be watching that than she’d be listening to Thriller. Oh, but she does that, too. In 1986, I was practically stuffed in a trashcan for admitting an affinity for the Gloved One; in fact, 1987 was Jackson’s comeback year, the year he roughed up his image with Bad, and maybe—maybe—she’d be listening to that. Or INXS. Or Madonna, or the Cure. Instead, she’s learning dance moves to the video for “Thriller,” which is later used as a plot point when she lures the stuffy, chi-chi audience onto the dance floor to re-enact the zombie sequence as a line dance, a la the Electric Slide. Good christ, pass the Milk Duds. Obviously, the film was written years ago by someone whose cultural reference points have since expired. As inhumanities go, it is exceedingly minor. On par with my father griping that a film set in 1959 features a 1962 Ford. (And how did he KNOW that, anyway?) And yet, this trifle of a movie assaults and jumbles a period of time I hold quite dear, bless my heart. Throughout the ‘80s, the radio was the center of my world, something that endured longer than crushes, friendships, and fads. I may know more about ‘80s Top 40 radio than I do about any other genre of music—how sad is that?—which speaks to a time when music captivated almost every ounce of my attention. Later, there were movies, and boys, and books, and boys. Back then, it was just me and Kasey Kasem, reaching for the stars. This must be a sliver of the indignity felt by historians watching The Alamo, or Shakespeare in Love, or something as factually irreverent as Bill and Ted’s (which 13 Going on 30 steals jokes from). All I know is that as the audience laughed in collective nostalgia, I bristled in my seat. Somehow, I’m fully willing to believe a 13-year-old can magically wake up in Jennifer Garner’s body, but play “Crazy for You” in the wrong time frame and I call foul play! What can I say? It’s a limited, quite specific, suspension of disbelief.