Scoring the best of the teen screen
I just spent a few days on a vacation with some friends from
high school. With most of my high school friends, we’ve gone our
separate ways and we have little in common now, but there is
something to be said for spending time with people who knew you
before you had your heart broken or had any major failures in
life.
Scoring the best of the teen screen
I just spent a few days on a vacation with some friends from high school. With most of my high school friends, we’ve gone our separate ways and we have little in common now, but there is something to be said for spending time with people who knew you before you had your heart broken or had any major failures in life.
My friends were there for the year-long crush on a senior when I was a freshman, and for dancing around singing Monkees songs at Yosemite and laughing at the boy who hung neon green socks from the rafters in his room. Sometimes it’s great to be around people who know you so well – and still love you anyway.
So this week’s column is dedicated to the high school movie. Sure, they basically all have the same plot in which a boy or girl must make their true love fall for them before the end of the school year – and in real life teenagers are damn obnoxious – but they are a reminder that great things can come out of high school, including some of the best friends I’ve ever had.
Reality Bites
Now this one is technically not a high school movie, but I first saw it when I was in high school with my best friend. It was our first trip to the movies on our own, days after she got her driver’s license and we’ve watched it about a million times since then. We all sort of pictured ourselves as some character in the movie, which is about a group of college graduates trying to find their niche in life.
I fancied myself as Lelaina (Winona Ryder), the artistic documentary filmmaker who would never sell out for a steady paycheck; my best friend saw herself as Vickie (Janeane Garofalo), the crazy unpredictable one; there turned out to be more than one Sammy Gray (Steve Zahn) among us, the gay guy who struggles to come out of the closet; and I am still waiting for my own Troy (Ethan Hawke) to realize that he is madly in love with me and was all along. Although, I would certainly settle for Ethan Hawke.
The film is full of great lines as the group works out job problems, relationship qualms and gets a little closer to what they want in life.
My favorite line – and it’s hard to choose just one: “See Lainy, this is all we need. A couple of smokes, a cup of coffee, and a little bit of conversation. You and me and five bucks.”
I still feel this way about my best friends – minus the smokes, of course.
Clueless
This film stars Alicia Silverstone and Stacey Dash as two Beverly Hills high school girls named after ’70s singers – Cher and Dionne. They are the height of popularity in this drop dead funny story, with their carefully accessorized outfits and penchant for talking on the then-huge cell phones of the era.
Cher and Dionne take on a new transfer student, Tai (Brittany Murphy), as a project when they decide she desperately needs a makeover and Cher finally realizes she wants to find a love of her own – though she takes a few wrong turns along the way. My favorite line is when Cher resists learning to parallel park. Her reason?
“Everywhere you go has valet.”
I’ve lived in Los Angeles – it’s true.
Say Anything
Most women I know are just trying to find their own version of Lloyd Dobler because of this movie. Lloyd (John Cusack) asks the beautiful, but elusive Diane Court (Ione Skye) to a graduation party at the end of their senior year. While Lloyd falls head over heels for her, she stays focused on moving overseas for school at the end of the summer. Unlike Diane, Lloyd has a less focused plan for his life, and teaches kickboxing at a local gym.
When Diane feels Lloyd is getting too attached, she breaks it off – and he responds by standing outside her window and playing Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes,” for her. What girl could resist that?
10 Things I Hate About You
This one makes the list just for being a remake of the Shakespeare tale, “The Taming of the Shrew.” Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles) hates all men and her father will not allow her younger sister, Bianca (Larisa Oleynik), to date until Kat finds a man of her own. Enter Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger), the smooth-talking bad boy who is hired by the boy who wants to date Bianca to woo Kat with paintballing and song. The movie is worth it to see Julia Stiles get drunk and dance on a table, oh, and Heath Ledger is damn good looking.
Drive me crazy
There is nothing that really stands out about this movie, but I have a thing for Adrian Grenier. He landed the role as Chase Hammond long before anyone had dreamed up his HBO hit “Entourage.” In this film, Nicole (Melissa Joan Hart) uses Chase after the guy of her dreams falls for someone else right before the senior prom. She turns to her neighbor, Chase, who has just had his heart crushed when his girlfriend broke up with him.
Nicole convinces him his girlfriend will be so jealous she will come back to him, but the one catch is that Nicole wants her friends convinced that Chase is her steady boyfriend so that requires spending a lot of time together in public.
And I think we can all guess how it turns out in the end.
