"No, not Janey Briggs! She's got glasses! And a ponytail!
And she's wearing paint-covered overalls! Ugh! "
- jock Jake, on the "ugly pretty girl".
"Not Another Teen Movie" is a deeply split film. And that is reflected by the reviews. Some hate it, some love it. Me, I quite like it, oddly.I actually found it interesting enough to listen to both of two commentary tracks, one from producer/director, and one from the cast. And this revealed what causes the twin personality of the film. Apparently when the director got offered the original script, he did not like it at all, because it was all one big gross-out joke with no story. So he turned it down. But they really wanted him, and so he asked them that a writer he knows could work over the script.
And it got worked over so thoroughly that the finished film apparently basically only has one scene that was in the original script. And it happens that this scene is also the one that clearly is the big gratuitous gross-out scene in the film. It is doubtlessly a scene that many modern teens will find hilarious. And very tellingly, it is also a scene that neither director/producor or the cast like at all! They would clearly rather have been without it at all, but kept it for box-office reasons. (What scene it is? Let us just say that it involves a toilet and hundreds of liters of chocolate sirup!)
Also interestingly, the original script only had parody of films from the nineties. But the producers wanted to give it more breadth and more heart, and to include lots of story from famous eighties teen movies, like Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, etc. (They even have Molly Ringwald appear in the end.)
One of the best things it has is female lead Chyler Leigh. Here is a prediction: she is going to be big, you read it here first. Chyler is very pretty indeed, and she is an excellent actor, and even an excellent dancer, as can be seen on the DVD extras. She has a gorgeous smile, and she can also be very funny, as is seen for instance in the opening scene where she is caught by her family with a vibrator in her bed. The faces she pull trying to tone down her ecstasy are priceless.
Another good thing is of course the "object of lust" as she herself puts it, the "generic foreign exchange student", Areola, who is never dressed. She is unfortunately only in the film a couple of times, and briefly. I guess because the nudity is "gratuitous". Can somebody tell me why, when you put nice landscapes in a film (example: the beautiful Straight Story by David Lynch) it is not gratuitous, but if you put a beautiful nude person in, it is?
They all clearly worked very hard on this film, and I think it does show. It is often crude, but it is also sometimes very funny indeed. And it has some very nice girls. I would quite like to have seen the film as it would have been if they had not needed the contemporary teen audience for box office. But even so, if you are not adverse to a teen comedy, I recommend it.
Eolake Stobblehouse
Favorite quote:
"Do you think I sleep with every guy who writes me a letter? No! I give them hand jobs." - Amanda Becker, the Unattainable Dream Girl
The "generic foreign exchange student". Her accent changes all the time, and she never wears anything. Notice that the (unnecessary) subtitles are split in order not to block the view. |
Here she meets the lead "ugly pretty girl" Janey, played by excellent Chyler Leigh. |
A quick glimpse through a school window after somebody says "the girls here don't want sex, they want love". The girl outside says "Love me harder!" |
The "cruelest girl in school", a take on "Cruel Intentions" with Sarah Michelle Gellar. |
The Jennifer Love Hewitt spoof, the "unattainable dream girl". |
