Back to School #59: The Virgin Suicides (dir by Sofia Coppola)

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the past three and a half weeks, I’ve been taking a chronological look at some of the best, worst, most memorable, and most forgettable teen and high school films ever made. We started with two films from 1946, I Accuse My Parents and Delinquent Daughters. Therefore, it seems somewhat appropriate that we close out both the 90s and the 20th Century by taking a look at a film about both delinquent daughters and accusatory parents. That film is Sofia Coppola’s 1999 directorial debut, The Virgin Suicides.

Much like Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola seems to divide viewers and, in many ways, for the exact same reasons. You either get her films about upper class ennui or you don’t. Everyone seems to love Lost in Translation but viewers and critics seem to be far more polarized when it comes to rest of her films. It seems the people either love them or hate them. Well, you can count me among those who love her films. (Yes, even Somewhere.) To me, Sofia Coppola is one of the most consistently interesting filmmakers working today and the dismissive reaction that many (mostly male) critics have towards her films has little do with her talent and much more to do with her gender and her last name.

So there.

In The Virgin Suicides, Coppola tells the story of the five Lisbon sisters. They live in an upper middle class suburbs in the 1970s. Their parents — math teacher Ronald (James Woods) and his wife (Kathleen Turner) — are devoutly Catholic and very protective. The Lisbon sisters are rarely allowed to leave the house and, as a result, the neighborhood boys are obsessed with them. (Though the film centers on four unnamed boys, there’s only one narrator, voiced by Giovanni Ribisi, who continually refers to himself as being “we,” as if all four boys are telling the story in the same voice.) When the youngest Lisbon daughter commits suicide, Ronald and his wife become even more protective.

At the start of the school year, the oldest daughter, Lux (Kirsten Dunst), meets and starts to secretly date the wonderfully named Trip Fontaine (Josh Hartnett). Lux is even allowed to attend the homecoming dance with Trip but, after she breaks curfew, Mrs. Lisbon reacts by pulling Lux and her sisters out of school and basically making them prisoners in their own home.

(In one of the film’s best moments, we flash forward to see present day Trip talking about his date with Lux. Needless to say, Trip did not age well.)

With the Lisbon sisters even more isolated, the neighborhood boys become even more obsessed with them. One day, the boys get a note from the girls, asking for their help in escaping. The boys go to meet the girls, leading the film to its haunting conclusion…

Full of themes of sin, sexuality, repression guilt, redemption, and martyrdom, The Virgin Suicides is one of those films that you don’t have to be Catholic to appreciate but it probably helps. James Woods, Josh Hartnett, and Kirsten Dunst all give good performances while Sofia Coppola fills the movie with dream-like and sensual images, all designed to challenge the viewer’s perception of whether or not we’re watching reality or just the idealized memories of someone still struggling to comprehend a mystery from the past.

The Virgin Suicides is the perfect movie to end with the 90s on.

Back to School #58: She’s All That (dir by Robert Iscove)

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

She’s All That, a 1999 high school-set adaptation of My Fair Lady, has a lot to answer for.

When I, as an impressionable 13 year-old first saw this film, I left the theater believing that high school would be full of random, fully choreographed dance-offs. That, after all, is what happened towards the end of She’s All That. After watching as handsome jock Zack (Freddie Prinze, Jr.) spent almost the entire movie changing Laney (Rachael Leigh Cook) from an artist into a Prom Queen, the great prom dance-off made for the perfect climax.

I mean, just check it out:

Imagine how disappointed I was, once I finally did reach high school, to discover that it was actually nothing like She’s All That. There were no big dance numbers for no particular reason. I went to five different proms and none of them were ever as much fun as the prom at the end of She’s All That.

So thank you, She’s All That, for getting my hopes up.

As for the rest of the film, it’s a guilty pleasure in much the same way as Never Been Kissed. I was recently doing some research over at the imdb and I was surprised to discover just how many films Freddie Prinze,Jr. made between 1999 and 2002. For the most part, they’ve all got rather generic names. What’s funny is that I probably saw most of them because, back then, I would get excited over almost any PG-rated movie that featured a cute guy and had a hint of romance about it. But, with the exception of She’s All That, I can’t really remember a single one of them. But you know what? Freddie Prinze, Jr. may not be a great actor and his films may have basically all been the same but he had a certain something that, when you were 13 or 14, made him the perfect crush. There was a hot blandness to Freddie Prinze, Jr. that prevented him from being compelling but did make him the perfect star for a film like She’s All That.

Along with featuring that prom dance-off and being the epitome of a Fredde Prinze, Jr. movie, She’s All That is also remembered for featuring Rachael Leigh Cook as one of the most unlikely ugly ducklings in the history of the movies. Rachael plays Laney and the entire film’s starting off point is that Zack has made a bet with Dean (Paul Walker, as handsome here as he was in Varsity Blues) that he can turn Laney into a prom queen. However, it should be a pretty easy bet to win because all Laney has to do is let her hair down, start wearing makeup, and stop wearing her glasses.

Myself, I’m severely myopic. Usually, I wear contact lenses but occasionally, I may be running late or may not feel like putting my contacts in or maybe I just want to try a different look. So, occasionally, I’ll wear my glasses and I have to say that, other than a few guys who always make “hot librarian” jokes, everyone pretty much treats me the same regardless of whether I’m wearing my glasses or not. I do have to admit though that, when I take off my glasses and dramatically let my hair down, I always say that I’m having a She’s All That moment.

Anyway, She’s All That is okay. I like it but I don’t love it and, to be honest, the film’s main appeal is a nostalgic one. Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Paul Walker both look good, Rachael Leigh Cook and Jodi Lynn O’Keefe will keep the boys happy, and Matthew Lillard has a few good scenes where he plays an obnoxious reality tv celeb.

And there’s always that dance number!

Back to School #57: Never Been Kissed (dir by Raja Gosnell)

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1999 romantic comedy Never Been Kissed is a definite guilty pleasure of mine, and that’s not just because of the fact that James Franco has a small role in it. Never Been Kissed is a genuinely sweet movie that might not be extremely realistic but is still enjoyable.

Never Been Kissed requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief, largely because Josie Gellar, the character who has” never been kissed,” is played Drew Barrymore. Oh, it’s not that Josie hasn’t ever been kissed. Instead, it’s that she’s never gotten the type of kiss that every girl dreams of getting. She’s never been kissed by someone who she was truly in love with. She’s never had the type of romance that everyone dreams of having (especially when they’re in high school).

However, Josie is about to get a chance to find that kiss. Josie works for a newspaper and her editor (John C. Reilly) has just assigned her to go undercover at a local high school. Unfortunately, Josie was traumatized by her experiences the first time that she went to high school. (She wrote a poem for a boy, he responded by asking her to prom and then throwing eggs at her.) On her first day as a “student,” Josie finds that she is just as unpopular as the last time but now she’s also absolutely out-of-touch with her classmates. Fortunately, she’s befriended by Aldys (Leelee Sobieski) and, soon, Josie has finally managed to find a place with the Denominators, a group of intelligent students.

Unfortunately, hanging out with the good kids isn’t producing the type of stories that Josie’s editor wants. He orders Josie to reject Aldys and to befriend the school’s mean girls. After her brother, Rob (David Arquette), also enrolls in high school, he helps Josie to become the most popular girl in the school. Soon, Josie is no longer hanging out with Aldys and has been asked to go to the prom by the loathsome Guy Perkins (Jeremy Jordan).

However, Josie has fallen in love with her English teacher, Sam (Michael Vartan). Sam likes Josie too but, of course, he thinks that she’s a student. Will Josie tell the truth and risk losing Sam? Will she be able to maintain her cover even when she discovers that her new friends are planning to humiliate Aldys? Will Josie ever truly be kissed?

Well, you can probably guess all the answers. Nothing really surprising happens in Never Been Kissed but it’s still a likable film. For the most part, the actors all do a good job with their stock roles and David Arquette, especially, is hilarious as a professional slacker who thrives in high school precisely because he’s never bothered to grow up. (Of course, by the end of the film, his new high school girlfriend is wanting to know what he’s planning on doing with his life after he graduates….) At no point is the film in any way realistic but it’s still an enjoyable way to spend 110 minutes of your life.

Back to School #56: 10 Things I Hate About You (dir by Gil Junger)

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

A few nights ago, my sister Erin and I watched the 1999 high school-set romantic comedy 10 Things I Hate About You for like the hundredth time. Seriously, we love this movie so much and, in fact, just about everyone that we know seems to love it as well. 10 Things I Hate About You is one of those films that brings people together. If you like this movie, I’ll probably like you.

(Want to see true displays of spontaneous sisterhood? Go to Girlie Night at the Alamo Drafthouse when they’re showing 10 Things I Hate About You. You will walk out of the movie with a hundred new best friends.)

Why do people love 10 Things I Hate About You? There’s a lot of reasons. I love Heath Ledger singing Can’t Take My Eyes Out Of You. I love watching Joseph Gordon Levitt at his most adorable. I love that it’s a film about two sisters, largely because I have three older sisters and there is so much about the scenes between Kat (Julia Stiles) and Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) to which I could relate. I love the film’s quirky sense of humor and its unapologetically big heart. I love the way the film’s script expertly balances cynicism with sentimentality and humor with warmth. I love the fact that movie takes in place in beautiful houses and features beautiful people wearing beautiful clothes. What Erin and I especially love about this film is that, as played by Julia Stiles, Kat is just a kickass chick.

Of course, there’s a reason for that. Much as how the superficially similar Clueless was adapted from Jane Austen’s Emma, 10 Things I Hate About You is adapted from Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew. Oddly enough, Shakespeare’s plays seem to translate well into stories about high school. Maybe it’s because his characters are so often motivated by jealousy, romance, and — it must be said about some — by pure stupidity. 10 Things I Hate About You is definitely one of the best of the teen Shakespeare films.

Taking place at an upper class high school, 10 Things I Hate About You opens with Cameron James (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) arriving for his first day at Padau High School and quickly befriending the only slightly less adorable Michael Eckman (David Krumholtz). Cameron wants to ask out the beautiful and innocent Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) but Bianca’s overprotective father (played by Larry Miller) has decreed that Bianca can only date if her older sister Kat (Julie Stiles) is also dating. The problem is that all of the boys at school are scared of the outspoken Kat.

So, Cameron convinces the hilariously vapid male model Joey Donner (Andrew Keegan) to pay the school rebel, Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger, so handsome and charismatic and sexy), to ask Kat out on a date. Joey, you see, wants to date Bianca as well but Cameron is sure that he can win Bianca away from Joey…

Yes, it’s all a little bit complicated but then again, Shakespeare often is. For that matter, so is high school.

What matters is that all of this leads to a collection of classic scenes and classic dialogue. What’s my favorite scene from 10 Things I Hate About You? There’s so many that it’s difficult to narrow it down to just one. There’s the huge party where Joey continually strikes a pose and a drunk Kat ends up dancing on a table. There’s the wonderful scene where Patrick serenades Kat. Or how about when Kat reads the poem that gives the film its title. But for me, my favorite scene is that one where, after spending nearly the entire film as rivals, Kat and Bianca finally talk to each other as sisters. Bianca demands to know why Kat won’t go to the prom. Kat tells Bianaca about her own previous history with Joey. It’s a low-key and heartfelt scene, wonderfully played by both Larisa Oleynik and Julia Stiles, and I love it just because I’ve had similar conversations with all of my sisters.

I suppose this is where I should make some clever comment about having “10 things I love about 10 Things I Hate About You” but actually, there’s more like a 100 things I love about 10 Things I Hate About You.

This movie makes me happy every time I see it.

And, really, what else can you ask a film to do?

Back to School #55: Varsity Blues (dir by Brian Robbins)

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

james-van-der-beek-varsity-blues-e1358953220340

“I don’t want your finger.”

Bleh!

The 1999 high school football film Varsity Blues has been showing up on cable fairly regularly lately and, seeing as how I’m currently in the process of reviewing 80 of the best, worst, most memorable, and most forgettable high school films of all time, I decided that I might as well watch the whole thing.

Don’t get me wrong. I had seen bits and pieces of it over the years. I knew that it was set in Texas. I knew Jon Voight played a fanatical football coach. I knew that James Van Der Beek played an idealistic quarterback who clashed with the coach. I knew that there was a fat guy named Billy Bob, mostly because every time an out-of-state director makes a film about Texas, there’s a fat guy named Billy Bob. I knew about as much as one could learn from that episode of The Office where Michael Scott shows the film during “Movie Monday.”

“I don’t want your truck.”

But I had never seen the whole film so I decided, why not? After all, I had already decided to review several other Texas-set high school films — The Last Picture Show, Dazed and Confused, Dancer, Texas, and Rushmore. And hey those films were all good so maybe Varsity Blues would be good too!

Bleh.

One of the big clichés about Texas is that the entire state is obsessed with football. (The other big cliché, of course, is saying that “everything is bigger in Texas.” As if being a tiny state like Vermont is somehow preferable…) I’ve always found the whole “Texas worships football” thing to be amusing because I’m a Texas girl and I don’t know a thing about football. People tend to talk about Texas and football as if there aren’t any fanatical football fans in New York or California. Ultimately, of course, it has little do with football and everything to do with the fact that the rest of the country loves to hate my home state. If Vermont was known for being obsessed with football, there’d probably be thousands of articles about the “proud history of Vermont football.” But since it’s Texas, we end up with movies like Varsity Blues.

"I don't want your painfully obvious at social commentary."

“I don’t want your painfully obvious attempt at social commentary.”

Anyway, Varsity Blues tells the story of Mox (James Van Der Beek), who is a backup quarterback for the championship-winning West Caanan High School football team. However, Mox isn’t just your average jock. For one thing, he’s seen reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. (It’s indicative of this film’s approach to characterization that we never learn whether Mox actually understands or even likes Slaughterhouse Five. We’re just supposed to be impressed by the fact that he owns a copy of the book.) Mox wants to leave Texas to go to an Ivy League school. He doesn’t want to play under the legendarily abusive Coach Kilmer (Jon Voight). (How evil is Kilmer? So evil that he poses for pictures like the one above.) And Mox resents the pressure put on him by his football-crazed father. (“You throw that fucking pigskin!” his dad shouts at one point.) As Mox puts it, “I don’t want your life!” and the line is just hilarious because Van Der Beek’s attempt to sound like a Texan is hilarious.

(Tip for actors: If you can’t do the accent, don’t try. Because I guarantee, if I ever meet James Van Der Beek, I’m going to tell him that his accent sucked and then I’m going to laugh and laugh. It probably won’t do much for his self-image. Sorry, James.)

“Get me on Hawaii 5-0 because I don’t want James Van Der Beek’s career.”

Anyway, when star quarterback Lance (Paul Walker) is injured, Mox is suddenly the team’s starting quarterback. And you know what? Mox is going to play the game his way! Soon, he is standing up the cartoonishly evil Coach Kilmer and challenging small town Texas’s obsession with high school football.

And here’s the thing: this is a film that wants to have it both ways. It wants to challenge the philosophy of winning at all costs and it also pretends to be about the unfair pressure that high school athletes are put under. But you better believe that the film ends with Mox leading his team to victory. And it’s not so much that Mox wins as much as it’s the fact that you know the film would never have the courage to actually have Mox lose. The film wants to be celebration of rebellion but, ultimately, it’s just a standard sports film.

And, even beyond that, it’s just not a very good film. I was shocked, when I checked with the imdb, to discover that Varsity Blues was actually filmed in Texas because the film feels like it was made in California. It has no authentic Texas flavor to it. What it does have is some of the worst fake accents that I’ve ever heard in my life.

Mox may not want his father’s life but I don’t want this stupid film.

“Well, we don’t want your review!”

Back to School #54: Rushmore (dir by Wes Anderson)

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s an understatement to say that Wes Anderson’s films tend to divide viewers. It seems like critics either love his excessively stylized and quirky vision or else they dismiss him as being a pretentious, overrated, and overly concerned with the problems of the rich and the suburban. Even among the writers here at the Shattered Lens, there are conflicting opinions. Leon the Duke gave Moonrise Kingdom a rave review. On the other hand, I know that Ryan The Trashfilm Guru is not particularly a fan of Anderson’s films.

Myself, I always find it usually takes me a while to warm up to an Anderson film. With the exception of The Fantastic Mr. Fox, I always seem to find myself somehow both impressed and slightly disappointed after seeing an Anderson film for the first time. Perhaps it’s because Anderson is such a highly praised director with such a recognizable style that I always tend to go into his film with my expectations set way too high. And so, I often times end up watching the latest Anderson film and thinking about how much I loved the film’s production design and some of the performances but often times feeling that, narratively, there was something missing. On first viewing, Anderson’s trademark quirkiness can be overwhelming. Usually it’s not until a second or third viewing that I really start to appreciate an Anderson film for something more than just the way it looks. Eventually, I came to love Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel but it took me a while.

However, there is an exception to every rule. And, as far as my reaction to Wes Anderson’s films are concerned, 1998’s Rushmore is that exception. Rushmore is a film that I have unquestionably loved since the very first time I saw it. Maybe it’s because, while Rushmore is undeniably quirky, that quirkiness doesn’t overwhelm the human aspect of the film’s story. Maybe it’s because Rushmore — along with Bottle Rocket — is the most identifiably Texan of all of Anderson’s films. Or maybe it’s just because Bill Murray gives such a great performance.

Seriously, Bill Murray makes any movie better.

Rushmore is named after Rushmore Academy, a private school in Houston. (Rushmore is quite obviously based on St. Mark’s, which is perhaps the most exclusive private school down here in Dallas. Owen Wilson, who collaborated on Rushmore‘s script with Anderson, was expelled from St. Mark’s in the 10th Grade.) 15 year-old Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman, who gives a sympathetic performance as a potentially off-putting character) loves attending Rushmore. He’s involved in a countless number of extracurricular activities and has written and directed several plays, the majority of which are based on films from the 70s. (We see his stage version of Serpico and it’s hilarious.)

Unfortunately, Max has a few problems. For one thing, unlike most of his peers, he’s not rich. He tells everyone that his father (Seymour Cassel) is a neurosurgeon but actually, he’s a barber. Even more seriously, Max spends so much of his time starting clubs and writing plays that he doesn’t ever bother to study. Max is on the verge of flunking out and, despite numerous warnings from Dr. Guggenheim (Brian Cox), he refuses to do anything to improve his grades.

Instead, Max is more interested in pursuing a crush he has on an older teacher, the widowed Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams). What Max doesn’t realize is that his mentor, industrialist Herman Blume (Bill Murray), also has a crush on Ms. Cross.

While Max may be the film’s main character, Herman Blume is, without a doubt, the film’s heart. Blume is a Viet Nam vet (“You were in the shit?” Max asks. “Yes, I was in the shit,” Blume replies) who has literally gone from rags to riches. And now that he is rich, he finds himself living an empty life with a wife who doesn’t respect him and two sons who are total idiots. When Blume starts to mentor Max and pursue Ms. Cross, he starts to care about living once again.

Meanwhile, Max attempts to impress Ms. Cross by building an aquarium on the school’s baseball field. This leads to Max getting expelled and having to enroll in a public school. (Max continues to wear a suit and tie, even after being expelled.) However, Max then discovers that Blume has been seeing Ms. Cross and soon, the mentor and the student become rivals…

And a lot of other stuff happens but you know what? I’m not going to tell you what because if you haven’t seen Rushmore, you need to see it and discover all of this for yourself. You won’t be sorry!

It may be named after the school but Rushmore is ultimately about how love and our dreams make life worth living. For Max, Rushmore is his fantasy ideal, a world that he loves because it provides him a sanctuary from the harshness of the real world. When Mr. Blume says, about Ms. Cross, “She’s my Rushmore,” we understand exactly what he means. But, and this is what distinguishes Rushmore from so many other films about quirky love triangles, is that Ms. Cross is just as independent and important a character as Max and Mr. Blume. Blessed with excellent performances from Seymour Cassel, Brian Cox, Jason Schwartzman, Olivia Williams, and especially Bill Murray, Rushmore is one of Wes Anderson’s best films.

Back to School #53: Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 (dir by Tim McCanlies)

Posted on September 14, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 is a 1998 film about a small town in West Texas that only has a population of 81 citizens. Just from my own experience of telling people about how much I happen to like this movie, I get the feeling that only 81 people may have actually seen it. But no matter! Regardless of how many people have actually seen it, Dancer, Texas is one of my favorite films about my home state.

Dancer starts out with a scene that is so quintessentially Texan that it might as well appear next to Texas in the dictionary. Four teenagers — all of whom are scheduled to soon graduate from high school — sit out in the middle of the highway. The road seems to stretch on forever. The land around them is empty. If you’ve ever been to West Texas, you know what type of land I’m talking about. It’s the type of land where you feel like you can see forever. In the far distance, we see a pair of headlights.

“Car’s comin'” one of them drawls, knowing that they’ve got at least another 15 minutes before that car ever gets anywhere near the tiny town of Dancer, Texas.

These four teenage boys make up 80% of the graduating class of Dancer’s high school and all four of them are planning on leaving town and heading for Los Angeles. Keller (Breckin Meyer) is their leader, the big dreamer who can’t wait to get out of the state. Terrell Lee (Peter Facinelli) is the son of the only rich man in town and he’s being pressured by his mother to stay in Dancer and to learn the oil business. John (Eddie Mills) is the simplest of the four and also the most reluctant about leaving. He simply wants to be a farmer and he can’t understand why his taciturn father refuses to say anything to keep him from leaving town. And finally, there’s Squirrel (Ethan Embry), who is the weird one. Every group needs a weird one and Squirrel is weird even by the usual standards of small town oddness.

Not much happens in Dancer, Texas. That goes for both the film and the town. Over the course of two days, all four of the boys are forced to decide whether they really want to leave or if they actually want to stay. Adding an extra poignancy to their decision is the fact that there literally is no chance that life in Dancer is ever going to change. Dancer is as it has always been and always will be. Deciding to stay means staying forever. And, as the film shows, that’s okay for some people and terrible for others.

I really like Dancer, Texas. Yes, it does move at its own deliberate pace and yes, a few scenes do tend to get a bit too obvious in their sentimentality (just to name two of the complaints that I saw from some commenters over at the imdb). Meyer, Facinelli, and Mills all give such wonderfully natural performances that it makes you all the more aware that Embry seems a bit out-of-place. But, ultimately, none of that matters. Dancer, Texas is one of the most honest and sincere films that I’ve ever seen and it’s a film that does my home state proud.

Lisa’s Rating: 8 out of 10

Back to School #52: The Faculty (dir by Robert Rodriguez)

Posted on September 14, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Have you ever wanted to see Jon Stewart get stabbed in the eye with a hypodermic needle?

If you answered yes, then 1998’s The Faculty might be the film for you!

The Faculty takes a look at what happens when a new alien species happens to turn up outside of a painfully normal high school in Ohio. By painfully normal, I mean that Herrington High School is just as messed up as you would expect a suburban high school to be. The teachers are all underpaid and resentful of their principal (Bebe Neuwrith). Prof. Furlong (Jon Stewart) is the overqualified science teacher who will perhaps be a little too excited about the chance to examine a new alien species. Coach Willis (Robert Patrick) is the emotionally shut off coach of the school’s losing football team. Mrs. Olson (Piper Laurie) is the drama teacher who struggles to promote creativity in a school that’s more interested in blind conformity. Miss Burke (Famke Janssen) is the teacher who cares too much. And, finally, there’s Nurse Harper (Salma Hayek), who looks a lot like Salma Hayek.

And, as typical as the teachers may be, the students are even more so. We get to know a few and they all neatly fit into the expected stereotypes. Casey (Elijah Wood) is the nerdy outcast who is regularly picked on by … well, by everyone. Deliliah (Jordana Brewster) is the status-obsessed head cheerleader who has just broken up with her boyfriend, Stan (Shawn Hatosy), because he quit the football team. Zeke (Josh Hartnett) is the school rebel, the kid who is repeating his senior year and who sells synthetic drugs out of the trunk of his car. Stokes (Clea DuVall) is an intentional outcast who pretends to be a lesbian and has a crush on Stan. And finally, there’s Marybeth (Laura Harris), a new transfer student who speaks with a Southern accent.

These students would seem to have nothing in common but they’re going to have to work together because the entire faculty of Herrington High has been taken over by aliens! Fortunately, the aliens are vulnerable to Zeke’s drugs, which is something that is learned after Jon Stewart takes a hypodermic to the eye…

When one looks over the top Texas filmmakers (director like Terrence Malick, Richard Linklater, Mike Judge, and David Gorden Green), Robert Rodriguez often comes across as being both the most likable and the least interesting. Like his frequent collaborator Quentin Tarantino, Rodriguez fills his movies with references and homages to other films but, unlike Tarantino, there rarely seems to be much going on behind all of those references. However, Rodriguez’s referential style works well in The Faculty because, along with acting as an homage to both Invasion of the Body Snatchers and John Carpenter’s The Thing, The Faculty also manages to tap into a universal truth.

Teachers are weird!

Or, at least, they seem weird when you’re a student. Now that I’m out of high school, I can look back and see that my teachers were actually pretty normal. They were people who did their jobs and, as much as I like to think that I was everyone’s all-time favorite, I’m sure that there have been other brilliant, asthmatic, redheaded, aspiring ballerinas who have sat in their class. My teachers spent a lot of time talking about things that I may not have been interested in but that wasn’t because they were obsessed with talking to me about algebra or chemistry or anything like that. They were just doing their job, just like everyone else does.

But, seriously, when you’re a student, it’s easy to believe that your teachers have been possessed by an alien life form.

Probably the best thing about The Faculty is the fact that the aliens cause the teachers to act in ways that are the exact opposite of their usual personalities. For most of the teachers, this means that they turn into homicidal lunatics. But, in the case of Coach Willis, this actually leads to him not only becoming a happy, well-adjusted human being but it also turns him into a good coach. Suddenly, Willis is getting emotional about the games, his team loves him, and he even gets a win!

Go Coach Willis!

As for the film itself, it’s not bad at all.

Lisa’s rating: 7 out of 10.

Back to School #51: Trojan War (dir by George Huang)

Posted on September 14, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1997 film Trojan War may be a bit obscure (and, in fact, I had never heard of it until I came across it On Demand two weeks ago) but it has earned a place in the Hollywood record books as one of the biggest box office bombs of all time. Made on a $15,000,000 budget, Trojan War was released into one theater, played for one week, and made a total of $309.

But, as far as simple-minded teen sex comedies, are concerned, it’s not that bad.

Brad Kimble (Will Friedle) is a nice but dorky high school student who, for years, has had a crush on an unattainable cheerleader, Brooke (Marley Shelton). When Brad is invited over to Brooke’s house to tutor her in biology, he arrives just after Brooke has had a fight with her jock boyfriend, Kyle (Eric Balfour sans facial hair). Soon, Brooke and Brad are making out. Brooke asks Brad if he has a condom. Of course, if Brad did have a condom, there wouldn’t be a movie. The rest of the movie deals with Brad’s attempt to not only find a condom in California and but to also get back to Brooke.

(Apparently, in the 1990s, there was some sort of sudden condom shortage in California. That’s all that I can guess after having seen Trojan War.)

Of course, that’s not as easy as it sounds. Brad’s car (actually, it’s his dad’s car) gets stolen. Brad ends up having a run in with a crazy homeless man (David Patrick Kelly) who — in a rather obvious shout out to Better Off Dead — wants two dollars. Brad gets chased by a crazy dog. Brad has to deal with a cameo appearance by a crazy Kathy Griffin. Brad runs into a crazy bus driver (played by Anthony Michael Hall). Brad ends up being pursued by a crazy police officer (Lee Majors). And since the film itself is a bit of an unacknowledged remake of Some Kind of Wonderful, Brad is also pursued by his not crazy best friend, Leah (Jennifer Love Hewitt, who I’ve always liked because we’re both Texas girls and I share her struggle). Leah is in love with Brad and Brad is in love with Leah. He’s just not smart enough to realize it.

And indeed, that’s the key to understanding the plot of Trojan War. Brad is just not that smart. This is one of those films where the great majority of Brad’s problems could have been avoided if Brad just wasn’t a moron. Fortunately, Brad is played by Will Friedle who was always the best part of Boy Meets World and who displays the unique ability to make stupidity cute. Friedle is so likable as Brad that you’re willing to forgive the film for a lot.

That doesn’t mean that Trojan War is necessarily a good movie. It’s likable but it’s never really good. For every joke that works, there’s one that doesn’t. I could have really done without the extended sequence where Brad gets lost over on the bad side of town and the movie suddenly trots out every negative Latino stereotype imaginable. But, when the movie just concentrates on Will Friedle and Jennifer Love Hewitt, it’s likable enough to waste 90 minutes on.

If nothing else, it’s certainly more entertaining than most movies that made less than 400 dollars at the box office.

Back to School #50: Clueless (dir by Amy Heckerling)

Posted on September 13, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

By their very nature, teen films tend to get dated very quickly. Fashions, music, and cultural references — all of these serve to make a film popular when it’s first released and occasionally laughable just a few years later. Take 1995’s Clueless for instance. Watching it now, it’s impossible not to get a little snarky when Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) refers to a hot guy as being a “Baldwin.” When heard today, it’s hard not to wonder if Cher is thinking of beefy rageaholic Alec or ultra-religious realty TV mainstay Stephen. (Personally, I prefer to think that she was thinking of Adam Baldwin.)

Clueless is one of those films that I always remember watching on TV and loving when I was little but, whenever I watch it now, I always find myself feeling slightly disappointed in it. It’s never quite as good as I remember and, with each viewing, I’m just a little bit more aware that, while both were very well-cast in their respect roles, Alicia Silverstone and Stacey Dash weren’t exactly the most versatile actresses of their generation. There’s a reason why Dash is now a political commentator and Silverstone is best known for that video of her spitting food into her baby’s mouth. As well, watching the film now, it’s hard not to think about how the talented Brittany Murphy would tragically pass away 14 years after its initial release.

And yet, I can’t help it. I still enjoy Clueless. I could spend hours nitpicking it apart and pointing out what parts of it don’t quite work as well as they should but ultimately, Clueless is a fun movie that features and celebrates three strong female characters, which is more than you can say for most teen films.

Directed and written by Amy Heckerling (who earlier directed the classic Fast Times At Ridgemont High), Clueless is based (quite directly) on Jane Austen’s Emma. In this version, Emma is Cher, the spoiled 16 year-old daughter of a lawyer (played, very well, by Dan Hedaya), who lives in Beverly Hills and who is happy being superficial, vain, and popular. In fact, the only person who ever criticizes Cher is her stepbrother, Josh (Paul Rudd), who is studying to be an environmental lawyer and is visiting during a break from college.

When Cher plays matchmaker and deftly manages to pair up two of her teachers (played by Wallace Shawn and Twink Caplan), she realizes that she enjoys helping people. (Though, it must be said, the only reason she helped her two teachers wass because they were both taking out the misery of being single on her…) So, Cher and her best friend Dionne (Stacey Dash) decide to help another student, new girl Tai (Brittany Murphy), become popular. After giving Tai a makeover, forbidding her to date skater Travis (Breckin Meyer, who is adorable), and trying to set Tai up with rich snob Elton (Jeremy Sisto), Cher is shocked to discover that Tai has become so popular that she is now challenging Cher’s social status. Even worse, Tai decides that she has a crush on Josh right around the same time that Cher realizes the same thing.

Plus, Cher still has to pass her driving test…

As I said before, Clueless is hardly a perfect film but it is a very likable movie. Director Amy Heckerling creates such a vivid and colorful alternate teenage universe and the script is full of so many quotable lines that you can forgive the fact that the story sometimes runs the risk of getting almost as superficial of Cher. It may never be quite as good as I remembered it being but Clueless is still an entertaining and fun movie.