I guess you could say that "Not Another Teen Movie" is
to "She's All That" as "Scary Movie" is to "Scream".
-
Scary Movie started with the general structure of
Scream and layered in references to many other recent films in an
attempt to parody the Teen Horror genre.
-
Not Another Teen Movie starts with the general
structure of She's All That (with a heavy dose of Varsity Blues) and
layers in references to many other recent films in an attempt to
parody the Teen Coming of Age Comedy genre.
Original Title: "Ten Things I
Hate About Clueless Road Trips When I Can't Hardly Wait to Be Kissed".
Except for Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly,
the major critics absolutely raped this movie.
Then again the critics hate almost every lowbrow genre
parody. It has always been so. You should have seen the original reviews
for Blazing Saddles, or for that matter for Duck Soup. There is a kind
of more-cultured-than-thou mind-set
among critics that begins with this premise: the very best lowbrow genre
parody, no matter how brilliant and funny, is not as good as the very
worst serious drama with highbrow sensibilities and artistic
pretensions. Once you accept that wisdom, little grasshoppers, you too
will be able to write good reviews for bad films like Eyes Wide Shut,
while insisting that good movies like Airplane are beneath your dignity.
At any rate, I got a lot of good laughs out of this
movie. They did a good job at making fun of American Pie,
Varsity Blues, She's All That, 16 Candles, Bring it On, The Breakfast
Club, American Beauty (Wasn't that Wes Bentley character just asking for
parody? It's about damned time!), Ferris Bueller, Cruel Intentions, and
a bunch of other films. The filmmakers had a good instinct for what was
false in those other movies, and they exposed those artificial moments
quite effectively. Not every one of the parodies worked, but some
moments were positively inspired, especially the big musical number!
Some of the humor was juvenile or heavy-handed, as the critics said, but
I expect that in a spoof of a genre with the same characteristics.
Sometimes I laughed at the lowbrow stuff and sometimes I thought it was
dumb, but that's comedy for ya'. Most lowbrow movie comedies take the
shotgun approach rather than precision rifle aim, and I think I like the
scattershot style better. If they throw 50 gags at me, maybe five will make
me laugh, and a day with five good laughs is not a bad day.
Although the joke was obvious, I laughed at the
concept of a cheerleader with Tourette's:
Cheerleader; Give me a y.
Crowd: y
Cheerleader: give me a shit lick my pussy ass
motherfucker
Crowd: shit lick my pussy ass motherfucker.
And my main man, Randy Quaid, was also on hand to play
- well, basically to play Cousin Eddie, a character which
I find very amusing. In a parody of a well-known movie scene, he decided to
have three-way sex between him and two pies.
The movie even had a serious point, which is that all
of the teen movies churned out by the studios are in fact just the
same movie recycled, following the official John Hughes formula from
the 80's.
But mostly, I have to love any filmmaker willing to
spend $16 million dollars just to make fun of Freddie Prinze, Jr. That
director is my kind of guy.
Notes on the Unrated Extended Director's Cut:
There are only two changes from the earlier DVD to this
one:
1. They moved the deleted scenes back into the film
proper.
2. They deleted the commentary tracks.
Therefore, the only reason to watch the re-issued "director's
cut" DVD is if you want to watch the entire movie straight through rather than
seeing the deleted scenes separately. This is basically a rip-off. If you own
the earlier DVD, there is no good reason to own this one. In fact, it
has less material (no commentary tracks), so if you don't own either one and
want one, get the earlier one.
|
The
Critics Vote
British consensus: one
star. Telegraph 2/10, Guardian 2/10, Standard 1/10, Mirror
6/10, BBC 1/5
|
The People
Vote ...
- with their dollars: A moderate success.
Domestic gross $37 million, budget $16 million
|
| IMDb
guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of
excellence, about like three and a half stars
from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm
watchability, about like two and a half stars
from the critics. The fives are generally not
worthwhile unless they are really your kind of
material, about like two stars from the critics.
Films under five are generally awful even if you
like that kind of film, equivalent to about one
and a half stars from the critics or less,
depending on just how far below five the rating
is. My own
guideline:
A means the movie is so good it
will appeal to you even if you hate the genre.
B means the movie is not
good enough to win you over if you hate the
genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an
open mind about this type of film.
C means it will only
appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover
appeal.
D means you'll hate it even if you
like the genre.
E
means that you'll hate it even if
you love the genre.
F
means that the film is not only
unappealing across-the-board, but technically
inept as well.
Based on this description, this
film is a C. Forget what the critics said. As a genre parody, it is not Airplane, but it's not
so bad either. Not so bad at all. I laughed a lot.
|
|
