Today, Hillary and I went to see Not Another Teen Movie. We were bored. And we are bimbos, deep down inside.

My advice to y'all is: Don't. At least, don't see it if you have to pay for it. I went on discount day and still sat there wondering at the money I'd lost (and that goes beyond being unemployed). My grandma would be ashamed I spent her Christmas money on that.

In all honesty, it ain't the worst flick I've ever seen. (Nothing beats Nothing But Trouble.) I love teen movies, I am John Hughes's bitch, and I loved the idea they were spoofing it all. And I won't say they didn't try hard when making the pic, but it just ain't very funny. However, I think it'll be much more funny to recap it instead here! Whee!

My first clue that this was going to be baaaaad was during the previews. Now we all know that they try to pick out movies that are similar to the one being shown for the previews. But never before have I seen such utter dreckola being previewed. I knew for THAT it was going to be bad. First off was "Sorority Boys." It's Bosom Buddies, only decades later and with one extra guy. There's some kinda pain watching that one. The next one, which was even worse, was some karate flick, "Kung Pow" (or something), which had (a) a baby kicking ass, (b) the baby turns out to be a white guy pretending to be Asian (little did we know that would be a recurring theme in the actual movie we were there to see), (c) said white guy has a talking face on the end of his tongue. EW! The rest of the promos weren't quite as bad, though I think I give a few small bonus points to anything labeled "National Lampoon," so I may be biased on that.

Actually, what this reminds me of is when I saw the Reduced Shakepeare Company's Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged. There's one part where they just condense all the plots of the comedies into one very long plot, because it's all kinda similar anyway. That's about what they did with this one as well. It could really use one of those "Don't Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood" titles. How about, "She's All Never Been Kissed, is Pretty In Pink and Can't Hardly Wait for his Cruel Intentions to join the Breakfast Club and get some American Pie."

Okay, that was just too funny, I was looking around for links on this stuff and found out the working title was "Ten Things I Hate About Clueless Road Trips When I Can't Hardly Wait to Be Kissed."

Anyway... It's set at John Hughes High, team mascot "The Wasps", and the wasp holds a martini glass. At the start, the tour guide goes on about how the school is free of cliques, then divides everyone up into jocks, nerds and hos, and says "These are your friends for the next four years." Uh-huh.

Did you know there's an undercover reporter at this school who's never been kissed? You'd never guess who it is- Sadie the 90-year-old redhead!

And did you know there's a foreign exchange student girl here that doesn't need a class schedule because all she's supposed to do is make boys drool? You'll recognize her Areolas (that's her name, don't wear 'em out), as well as the rest of her, because she's stark nekkid.

So we romp into She's All That territory with the poor stick figure artist child of a redneck drunk pie-humpin' daddy, Janie, who has the requisite glasses, ponytail and paint-splattered overalls that doom her to "more disgusting than the hunchback and the Siamese twins" status. Uh-huh. Speaking as that girl in real life, I am not amused. She's stalked by Duckie (okay, his character has a name, and it's played by a different guy, but THIS IS DUCKIE), who makes her many mix tapes, writes her poems and gets all weepy about her in class, which she ignores. This reminded me of just how much I didn't like Duckie and his freaky clothes in Pretty in Pink. I know that's evil of me (especially since I used to dress about that bad in middle school, so should I be talkin'?), but GEEZ, he just got on my nerves.

We have Most Popular Boy In School Jake just getting dumped by his ho-bag scary-eyed cheerleader girlfriend (who I will refer to as Scary-Eyes. Why give most of them names?), who dumped him for Random Weird Camera Artiste With A Plastic Bag Floating Around His Head. I gotta give 'em points for not ripping off of the Real World guy from the original here, but why the bag? Jake and his football buddies, Jerkass Blonde Best Friend, Fat Football Player With Too Many Concussions Already and Token Black Guy (who is actually pretty funny about his tokenness-"excuse me, I'm supposed to be the only black guy at this party."), decide to make the prom queen bet, yada yada.

Little did we know that the Wyler (Jake's last name) house is full of incest! (Oh god, my search engine hits are gonna skyrocket.) Dad offers Jake a woman to take his mind off Scary Eye, and it's Mom. Later, Skanky Anorexic Ho-Bag SMG Cruel Intentions Ripoff Sister (whose idea of starting a conversation involves discussing anal sex and who to poop on afterward. Thanks for sharing!) offers Jake her aid in winning Janie's heart, but if he wins, he has to fuck her. Nice. Her advice, alas, doesn't exactly work well when Jake initiates it. He wins Janie's heart by (a) beating up her brother, (b) singing "Janie's Got A Gun" to her art class, causing them to run and Janie to get tasered by the cops. Yeah, all us loner geek girls have guns. You know it., (c) inviting her over for a "snack" and then coming out wearing nothing but whipped cream and some strategic fruit. Ugh. Yeah, that makes me want to date you real bad. Of course, this being a movie, despite her disgust, she agrees to go out with him to the big Ferris Bueller-esque character's party. The party goes about like She's All That went- Scary Eyes disses Non-Glasses, Non-Ponytail, Non-Overalled Janie, Janie cries and runs around the pool, whatever.

In the meantime, her brother (i.e. Little Judd) and his friends, Indistinguishable Guy and Wannabe Asian Dude, see something truly disgusting in the girl's locker room and drool all over Amanda Whatsherface, the Jennifer Love Hewitt character from Can't Hardly Wait, who forces everyone to pause and gape at her until she moves again. Lacey Chabert is playing her, and must have been deeply amused at imitating her ex-costar all over the place. They also get sent to Breakfast Club detention with that teacher, who's as cranky as ever. (If you saw the preview, you got the gist of it.) Oh yeah, and of course, the boys want to vow to get laid.

I forgot to mention that Jake has some massive football trauma from throwing the Little Nerd Boy Who Should NOT Be Playing Football the ball to better his self-esteem, and the guy got ripped in two by the opposing team. Since then he's been benched in favor of Concussion Boy, and doesn't get into a game again until Concussion Boy is REALLY wiped out. Jake tries it again � and once again, blows it. Jerkass Blonde Best Friend decides that Janie's hot and that he'll get her to the prom if he can make Jake tell Janie what he did, and he succeeds.

Everyone thinks all their problems will be solved at the prom, Janie has to make her own pink dress for it, and they do a big Les Mis number anticipating the big night. Best part of the movie, folks.

Again like She's All That (only with some 80's music thrown in), "did you know our entire school was professional dancers?" Jake is crowned prom king, and the Siamese twins are crowned prom queens. Janie and Jerkass take off for a motel room, and Jake and Duckie follow. Jake gets through the traffic (passing Spicoli's TV repair) with minimal effort, Duckie's nearly hit by like seven cars, all yelling at him that she's not interested.

Jake makes it to the hotel room and finds Jerkass and Scary-Eyes simulating sex while Camera Artiste films on. After discerning that Janie left, Jake punches out everyone in the room, including the bag, then hightails it to Redneck House, where he finds Dad hiding out from the Commies and saying Janie couldn't take it any more and has hightailed it off to Paris.

Jake goes to the airport and makes a romantic plea to everyone so they'll let him ahead through the metal detector, and they let him. Duckie (cut to ribbons) does the same, but by then it's been there, heard that, screw you. Jake catches Janie and can't think of anything to stop her from getting on the plane, so he rips off She's All That's speech, which of course she recognizes because she masturbates to that movie all the time. He also rips off a few other flicks, including Pretty In Pink, which Molly Ringwald the ever-helpful sourpuss flight attendant points out (Janie: "You're sure?" Molly: "Trust me."). Finally, Jake says it in his own words, which approximate to "You know, maybe you should get on that plane, because basically, we have the summer and then I'll go off to school and one night I'll get drunk and screw somebody and you'll call me a slut and I'll call you a cocktease and we'll break up. You might as well go." Fortunately for him, she misidentifies this as a speech from the Karate Kid and kisses him.

That's all, folks!

Back onto the less amusing subject of my personal life � I was kinda wiggy all day today. I am not at all sure I'm ready for the dating life again, but I think I've done run out of ways to avoid it, if you know what I mean. Suddenly, I'm beswarmed and stuff. Hell, Shawn wants to go out every day. He called a few hours after I got home from that asking me if I wanted to see it. (I told him it was really bad, he wants to see it anyway. Oh well.) Now he wants to go to something else tomorrow night. I wonder if I'm doing the right thing, as basketcasy/scattergory as I am these days. I feel like one way or another things are gonna get screwed up by yours truly, and lord knows I'm not the best judge of things in the dating realm. I could go on about my wigging forever, but I shall restrain myself tonight. After all, it generally boils down to "I dunno!", said in a very whiny and anxiety-prone tone of voice.

In other news, Mom has now gotten attbi (whatever that is, I already forgot) Internet service. Alas, her e-mail isn't working already. Sheesh. But hey, good news for when I move home.

I still haven't gotten up the nerve to tell Hillary yet about the rent issue. I fear that.

And I just applied for this online internship. Yes, I'm aware that I don't get paid and I may be a bit beyond the intern point by now since I graduated and all, but (a) it's not like I got anything better to do with my time for the next three months, (b) writing/journalism/netwise, I'd be keeping my hand in, and could add it to the old resume, (c) I'm actually qualified for it (faint! I'm actually qualified for something!), and (d) I like this site. I sent the editor an e-mail, and we'll see, I guess.

previous entry - next entry
archives - current entry