Chaos Attraction

Easy A and Spelling

2010-09-19, 10:29 a.m.

So the rest of the weekend, other than no Internet, went pretty well.

I went to see the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee play on Friday, which is fun good times, especially when I used to be a spelling bee person. I was, however, bitterly disappointed that I did not get selected to be one of the audience members on stage. (Especially since it was a small crowd and my odds couldn't be better... but no.) Clearly NOBODY wants me on a stage, dammit. Sigh.

It is a fun show, though, and they manage to make a plot work on a semi-sketchy plot idea. They had a lot of extra cast members in it (playing the kids's family members, an improv-d cheerleader, etc), and they mingled in the audience before the show. And had a dance number whenever people got wrong answers. Good times.

I also went to the gym both weekend days, something that almost never happens. I went to the gym on a Sunday for oh, the 4th time this year...

I also went to go see the movie Easy A, which I highly recommend for chick sorts, semi-literary sorts, teen movie lovers, and just anyone who finds this stuff utterly entertaining. I kind of feel like it's a cross between Clueless and Saved!, and someday I shall force a bunch of girls to sit through 6 hours of all of those movies played together in a row. Oh yes, I Will Do This.

The plot: Gorgeous-yet-nerdy (though the fact that she starts out unpopular is nigh unbelievable) Olive has this irritating best friend Rhiannon who calls her "bitch" even when Olive doesn't want her to and kind of browbeats her into things. To avoid going on a camping trip with R over the weekend, Olive makes up a date that she's going on with a college boy. (She spends the weekend constantly singing "Pocketful of Sunshine" and painting her dog's toenails instead.) And then Monday morning, Rhiannon gets the idea that Olive boinked her date... and Olive is all finally, "Okay, fine, I did."

Naturally this is overheard by Marianne The Uber-Christian Girl (if you saw Saved, SHE IS SO HILLARY FAYE), who blabs it to everyone and Olive gets an insta-slut reputation just as they are reading The Scarlet Letter in school. And Olive... kinda enjoys it. And when a gay guy of her acquaintance begs her to fake a sexual encounter between them so he can get people off his back until graduation, she agrees to it. (Olive is a major soft touch for people crying in front of her, even people she doesn't like.) Soon, she's got a psuedo-slut reputation that she lends to all of the dorky guys in school, in exchange for ah, gift certificates.

Whether or not one agrees with this sort of morality (well, uh, no), I found myself enjoying it, for the most part. If Olive doesn't mind the rep-- and hell, she embraces it so much that she buys a bunch of bustiers and puts scarlet A's on all of her outfits to wear to school-- who's it hurting?

And then... well, that probably falls into the category of spoilers, but let's just say some others take advantage of Olive's reputation without her consent, and things start to go kaboom.

Words cannot express how awesome I find Olive, despite the plot. Yeah, she gets involved in stupid shit, but she also owns up to her stupid shit. Any girl wandering around with a scarlet A on her in school is my kind of girl. I love it when people throw that stuff back in other people's faces. And Olive is clearly a smart, sharp girl who isn't ashamed of using big words around boys and stuff like that.

I suppose there's a few weaknesses here and there-- mostly that Rhiannon is so annoying that one is happy when Olive friend-dumps her ass instead of "oh, poor best friend!", but this isn't quite Mean Girls. And while I liked the love interest, Todd, he doesn't have much to him beyond (a) likes animal costumes, (b) was Olive's first faking-it guy in the 8th grade, and (c) starts liking her out of the blue. (She actually asks him why now and he's all, "I dunno, but I'm not gonna overanalyze it the way that you are when you go inside.") It's kind of weird to have a love interest in a movie like this, but the ending was so enjoyable I didn't care.

Go see it, folks.


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