Back to School Part II #43: Degrassi Goes Hollywood (dir by Stefan Brogren)

Posted on September 17, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Before I get around to actually reviewing the 2009 made-for-Canadian-TV Degrassi Goes Hollywood, I should start out by admitting that if you’re not a Degrassi fanatic like I am, this review probably won’t make any sense. Then again, if you’re not a Degrassi fan, you probably wouldn’t be reading this review in the first place.

I should also address a rumor that is currently circulating around the TSL offices. Some of my fellow contributors seem to be under the impression that the only reason I announced that I would be reviewing 56 back to school films was so I would have an excuse to review the four Degrassi films. Nothing could be further from the truth! The reason I started this series of reviews was so that I’d have an excuse to review Andy Warhol’s Vinyl. The Degrassi films are just a nice side benefit.

Got it? Okay, let’s talk about Degrassi Goes Hollywood!

Degrassi Goes Hollywood premiered on August 14th, 2009 and it served as the finale of Degrassi‘s 8th season. As such, it also served as the conclusion for several long-running Degrassi plot lines, which I’ll get to in a minute. For the non-Degrassi fan, Degrassi Goes Hollywood is probably most interesting because it features Jason Mewes playing himself and coming across like a surprisingly normal human being.

To really understand Degrassi Goes Hollywood, you have to understand that Kevin Smith is a long-time and very outspoken fan of Degrassi. In fact, he even appeared, as himself, in seasons 4 and 5 of the show. In the world of Degrassi, Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes came to Canada so that they could film their latest film, Jay and Silent Bob Go Canadian, Eh? They filmed the majority of the film at Degrassi Community School and used several Degrassi students as extras. Kevin also served as the catalyst for the Joey/Caitlin break-up, which a lot of people have never forgiven him for. Myself, I would just point out that when Craig Manning stopped taking his medication and ended up living on the streets of Toronto, Kevin was the one who went on television and asked Craig to come home. So, Kevin wasn’t all bad!

(As I said, this review won’t make a damn bit of sense if you’ve never watched Degrassi.)

As Degrassi Goes Hollywood opens, we learn that Jason Mewes is about to make his directorial debut. His film, Mewesical High, is an autobiographical film about his youth in New Jersey and his love for a girl named Trixie. Jason wants to cast former Degrassi student Manny Santos (Cassie Steele) as his Trixie. However, the studio demands that Jason cast Paige Michalchuck (Lauren Collins) in the role. Believe it or not, Paige also went to Degrassi! She was in charge of the Spirit Squad and she and Manny once got into a memorable fight.

(Actually, Manny got into a lot of fights when she was a student at Degrassi. That was kind of her trademark.)

When she hears that Paige might be replaced in the film, Manny decides to go to California and fight for the role. Fortunately, her ex-boyfriend, Jay (Mike Lobel), just happens to have a school bus. So, he agrees to drive Manny to Hollywood. Accompanying them on the bus are the members of the Studz, one of Degrassi’s many bands. They want to convince Jason Mewes to use their music in the film.

Now, here’s where it is helpful to know your Degrassi history. The lead singer of Studz is Peter Stone (Jamie Johnston). When Peter first appeared on Degrassi, he was portrayed as being almost a sociopath. He even got Manny drunk and sent a topless video of her to everyone at the school. Manny spent two seasons hating on him but, oddly, in Degrassi Goes Hollywood, she has absolutely no trouble traveling from Canada to California with him. Degrassi is all about forgiveness.

Speaking of forgiveness, what about Jay!? In Degrassi Goes Hollywood, Jay is pretty much the hero of the film, the guy who convinces Manny to never give up on her dreams. That’s quite a change from how Jay was portrayed when he was first introduced in season 3. When Jay was first introduced, he was the local hoodlum who was always breaking into candy machines and who ordered his friends to steal everything from the school’s DVR to Mr. Simpson’s new laptop. Jay was subsequently kicked out of school after he pulled a prank that led to a school shooting. (If you’re wondering why Drake was in a wheelchair during his final few seasons on Degrassi, Jay was indirectly responsible.) Jay was then at the center of an outbreak of gonorrhea and subsequently helped to turn another character into a drug dealer. And, let’s not forget the time that he and Spinner nearly burned down the school…

Fortunately, Jay was played by Mike Lobel and he always played the role with an appealing sense of humor. You never got the feeling that Jay was truly evil. Instead, he was just a little hyperactive. Somehow, it seems appropriate that he would go from being the most evil character on the series to being one of its most memorable anti-heroes. He gets a lot of good scenes in Degrassi Goes Hollywood. He and Cassie Steele made for a fun couple.

Speaking of couples, the best thing about Degrassi Goes Hollywood is that, after four long seasons of heartbreak, it finally gives some closure to the Craig/Ellie storyline. Craig Manning (Jake Epstein) was the bipolar musical genius who left school to become a big star and who subsequently returned for two episodes, in which we discovered that he had developed a cocaine addiction. (The scene where he gets a nosebleed while performing is pure Degrassi nightmare fuel.) Ellie (Stacey Farber) was one of my favorite characters on Degrassi, mostly because we both have red hair and like to dress in black. Sadly, Ellie spent four seasons crushing on Craig, just to watch as he dated Manny, Ashley, and then Manny again.

In Degrassi Goes Hollywood, Ellie and Marco (Adamo Ruggero) are invited to Hollywood to hang out with Paige. And while Ellie tries to pretend that everything’s okay at home (despite the fact that her father is in the hospital, suffering from PTSD as a result of serving in Afghanistan), she just happens to go for a walk and randomly runs into Craig! And though they have their usual issues, the movie ends with Craig and Ellie finally kissing as something more than just friends.

AWWWWWWWWWWW!

Of course, it wouldn’t be Degrassi without drama. Paige and Marco fight over Paige’s diva attitude. Ellie gets drunk and walks out into the ocean. The school bus gets stolen while Jay, Manny, and Studz are visiting a redneck bar. It’s dangerous for Canadians in California!

But what’s important is that it all works out in the end and, even if it’s never specifically stated, I imagine that Mewesical High won all sorts of Oscars. Listen, if you’re a Degrassi fan, you’ll enjoy Degrassi Goes Hollywood. And, if you’re not into Degrassi, you probably stopped reading this review a while ago.

Back to School Part II #42: Keith (dir by Todd Kessler)

Posted on September 16, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, fuck this movie.

Keith tells the story of Natalie Anderson (Elisabeth Harnois), who is seventeen and has her entire life ahead of her. She’s smart. She’s popular. She’s talented. She’s going to be her school’s valedictorian and she’s going to go to a great college on a tennis scholarship! She even has a wonderful boyfriend, a South American exchange student named Rafael (Ignacio Serricchio). It’s all great, right? Except Natalie doesn’t ever have any fun!

But she’s got a new lab partner! His name is Keith (Jesse McCartney). Keith is sarcastic. Keith is rebellious. Keith doesn’t care if he’s popular. He doesn’t worry about the future. He lives in the moment! And he’s determined to make sure that Natalie lives in the moment too! Keith is also totally obnoxious but I think we’re supposed to find him charming.

It would help, of course, if Keith was actually an interesting iconoclast. Instead, he’s a movie iconoclast. He talks, acts, and looks like every single teenage iconoclast that we’ve ever seen in every teen film ever made. As a result, he comes across as being totally inauthentic. Jack Kerouac would have kicked him out of a moving car.

Now, it turns out that there’s a reason why Keith is so sarcastic. He has a tragic secret. But you know what? It doesn’t mater. Considering how serious his secret is, I hate to put it like that. But if Keith proves anything, it’s that tragic things occasionally happen to total assholes.

In the end, we’re supposed to believe that Keith has taught Natalie how to enjoy life but, really, it just seems like Natalie is just imitating Keith. And since Keith just came across like an imitation of every imitation of James Dean ever filmed, Natalie is a now an imitation of an imitation of an imitation.

Thanks a lot, Keith!

Anyway, Keith is on Netflix right now. Look for it listed under films about brainwashing.

Back to School Part II #41: She’s Too Young (dir by Tom McLoughlin)

Posted on September 15, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Guess what, guys! I’ve got syphilis!”

— Actual Line Of Dialogue From She’s Too Young (2004)

Yes, indeed, 14 year-old Dawn (Miriam McDonald) has syphilis. But she’s not the only one! It turns out that there’s a syphilis epidemic raging at Dawn’s Canadian high school. It all comes down to a 16 year-old aspiring man-whore named Nick (Mike Erwin) and Nick really isn’t that concerned about it. When the school’s counselor informs him that he’s patient zero in the syphilis epidemic, Nick holds out his arm and says, “Give me my magic bullet and I’ll be on my way.” Nick also jokingly refers to syphilis as being “the big S.”

Meanwhile, Nick’s girlfriend, Hannah (Alexis Dziena), is shocked to discover that she has a mouth sore, despite having never had intercourse with Nick. Uh-oh … it turns out that syphilis is a lot easier to contract than she originally believed! Luckily, her incredibly overprotective mom (Marcia Gay Harden) is doing her best to make sure that nobody in Canada ever gets syphilis again. If that means going from house to house and announcing, “My daughter has syphilis!,” that’s what she’s going to do!

One of Hannah’s best friends is Dawn. Her other best friend is Becca (Megan Park), who regularly sneaks off to a motel with her boyfriend. Seriously, every teenager in town is having sex, except for Hannah. That said, Hannah does try to convince her photographer friend, Tommy (Joe Dinicol), that it’s time that they both lose their respective virginities. Tommy, however, refuses and says, “We have ages to do that…”

(Really? A teenage boy turning down sex? Maybe he’s just worried about getting syphilis…)

Anyway, after Dawn reveals that she has syphilis, every student at the high school is forced to get a blood test. Becca gets pretty mad about being inconvenienced and decides that she doesn’t want to hang out with either Dawn or Hannah anymore. (Even worse, her ultra religious parents threaten to send her to private school!) While Dawn can at least hang out with her mother and her younger sister, Hannah now has no one to be friends with. After all, Nick’s has apparently succumbed to an internet pornography addiction, Tommy rejected her, and her mother is too busy telling everyone in the neighborhood that Hannah has syphilis. So, Hannah spends all of her time hanging out on a website and chatting with Dawn (whose user name is Dawn69 and I’m sure that’s just meant to be a coincidence).

The site, by the way, is called Teenplaya.com. I don’t know if Teenplaya.com is a real site and I’m not planning on finding out. Any site called Teenplaya.com is probably going to be crawling with all sorts of viruses, not to mention syphilis…

(“Lisa,” you’re saying, “you can’t catch syphilis from a website…” Whatever. That’s the same thing they told Napoleon before they sent him to Elba and we all know how that worked out.)

I have spent a lot of time on this site defending Lifetime films but occasionally, I do see a movie that pretty much lives up to every single pre-conceived notion that people have about Lifetime films in general. She’s Too Young is one such film. It’s so overwrought and earnest and it has so little understanding of the way that teenage girls actually talk that She’s Too Young actually is a classic of a certain kind. It’s like the Reefer Madness of Canadian STD films.

Speaking as a Degrassi fan, one of the things that made She’s Too Young especially memorable was that Dawn was played by Miriam McDonald. On Degrassi, McDonald played Emma Nelson and, in a two-part episode that was considered to be too controversial to air in the United States, she contracted gonorrhea. It’s interesting to compare the rather level-headed and always honest approach of Degrassi to the far more histrionic style of She’s Too Young.

(On Degrassi, when Emma finally told her stepfather that she was sick, he assured her that she would be okay and that the most important thing was that she learn from this experience. In She’s Too Young, when Hannah confesses that she’s sick, her mother responds by running around the neighborhood and telling everyone that her daughter has syphilis.)

For all the talk about how the original Mother, May I Sleep With Danger is the ultimate over-the-top and unintentionally funny made-for-TV film, I would argue that She’s Too Young is actually far more memorable. From the overwrought dialogue to the overwrought performances to the painful sincerity of the film’s intentions, She’s Too Young is a classic that deserves a James Franco-produced remake.

Back to School Part II #40: Crossroads (dir by Tamra Davis)

Posted on September 14, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last year, I started a new blog called Lisa Marie’s Song of the Day. It’s nothing big. It’s just a place where, on a daily basis, I share music that I happen to like. Ever since I started the site, certain people have been giving me a hard time over the fact that they have discovered that I am a total Britney Spears fangirl.

Well, I’m not ashamed to admit it. I love Britney Spears. I always have. Even when I was going through my whole “wearing black and writing dark poetry” phase, I still loved Britney. Her songs are great to dance to and they’re even more fun to sing off-key and at the top of your lungs when you’re taking a shower or driving to or from work. Even better is when you have a family member in the car and she has no choice but to listen as you sing Work Bitch in your thickest rural accent.

(Whenever I sing, I unleash my inner country girl.)

Of course, it’s never just been Britney’s music to which I’ve paid attention. I was jealous of her when she dated Justin Timberlake. I was worried for her when she married Kevin Federline. I was scared for her when she went through her period of public instability. When she shaved her head, lost custody of her children, and was placed under the conservatorship of her father and attorney, it angered me to watch as the media treated her pain as entertainment. When she was diagnosed as being bipolar, I related to her because I knew exactly what she was going through. I even still use the #FreeBritney hashtag on twitter.

So, in short, I’m definitely a fan. But I have to admit that I prefer Later Britney, the one who uses bitch as a term of empowerment, to Early Britney, the one who used to lie about being a virgin.

The 2002 film Crossroads is definitely all about Early Britney.

Crossroads was Britney’s feature film debut and it was also pretty much her exit. The film did well at the box office (and I’ll admit that I paid money to see it … well, actually, I got someone else to pay for me to see it but you get the point…) but the critics absolutely hated it and it still regularly appears on lists of the worst films ever made. For the record, I do not think that Crossroads is one of the worst films ever made. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not exactly a good film but it’s definitely something of a guilty pleasure. Whenever I watch it, I go on a nostalgia trip and that’s always a little bit fun.

In Crossroads, Britney plays Lucy. Lucy has just graduated from high school. Lucy is supersmart and, the film is quick to tell us, a super virgin as well. (There’s something rather icky about how much media emphasis was put on Britney’s claimed virginity. Especially since even her biggest fans suspected there was no way she was still a virgin if she was dating Justin Timerblake…) Lucy was her school’s valedictorian and now her father is looking forward to Lucy going to medical school and becoming a doctor. Lucy’s father is played by Dan Aykroyd. Though Aykroyd is playing a Georgia auto mechanic, he makes no attempt to hide his thick Canadian accent. Good for you, Dan!

Anyway, Lucy is preparing to do what her father wants but then she gets an opportunity to drive across the country with two childhood friends and a complete stranger. In high school, Lucy had little to do with snobby Kit (Zoe Saldana) and pregnant Mimi (Taryn Manning) but, when they were all 10 years-old, they were all BFFs. In fact, they were so close that they even buried a time capsule. Digging up the capsule inspires these three frenemies to hop into a car with Ben (Anson Mount) and hit the road!

Ben, it turns out, has just gotten out of prison but he’s hot and he’s musically talented. The girls are a little bit scared because they think Ben might have been in prison for murder but seriously, Ben is way too cute to be a murderer. Plus, when he reads Lucy’s poetry, he sets it to music.

AND SERIOUSLY, HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THAT!? I mean, c’mon — every girl who has ever written a poem has, at some point, fantasized about a boy who would put that poem to music and tell her that her words were almost as beautiful as she was.

I mean, there’s a lot of negative things that could be said about Crossroads. I’m not a fan of the way Mimi was portrayed and, towards the end of the film, it almost feels as if the movie is suggesting that she’s being karmically punished for getting pregnant without being married. The film’s emphasis on Lucy’s (and, by implication, Britney’s) chastity feels dangerously reactionary. And, while Britney doesn’t really give a bad performance, she’s still not quite believable as someone who was so busy studying that she didn’t even go to one single party during high school.

But ultimately, this will always be the film where a hot guy took a girl’s poem and spontaneously set it to music.

There’s something to be said for that!

#FreeBritney

Back to School Part II #39: The Glass House (dir by Daniel Sackheim)

Posted on September 14, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Originally, I was planning on using the 2001 thriller The Glass House as one of my guilty pleasure reviews. Because, seriously, this film truly is one of the guiltiest of all guilty pleasures. I mean, there’s so much that you can criticize about the movie but it’s so much fun that I always feel rather bad for doing so. However, after giving it some thought, I decided to use The Glass House as one of my Back to School reviews. Seeing as how I just totally trashed a Leelee Sobieski film called Here On Earth, it only seems fair to now recommend one of her films.

In The Glass House, Leelee plays Ruby Baker, a 16 year-old whose parents are killed in a car accident. Though their uncle (Chris Noth) wants to adopt them, the will states that Ruby and her nine year-old brother (Trevor Morgan) will instead be looked after by their parents’ best friends, Erin (Diane Lane) and Terry (Stellan Skarsgard).

Now, here’s the thing. This is going to blow your mind. Guess where Erin and Terry live? They live in a big mansion in Malibu and the entire house is made out of … GLASS! We have a title, right!? But wait, there’s more! Guess what Terry and Erin’s last name is? That’s right — GLASS! So, the house is not only literally a glass house but it’s also the Glass house as well! And beyond that, there’s that old saying that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones and … well, that really doesn’t apply to this film.

Anyway, I’m making such a big deal about the title because it pretty much tells you everything that you need to know about The Glass House. There is not a single subtle moment to be found in this entire film. And really, this is not a film that requires or rewards subtlety. We know that Terry Glass is up to no good from the minute we meet him, largely because he’s played by Stellan Skarsgard and when was the last time Stellan Skarsgard played a trustworthy character? Skarsgard pretty much gives the same performance here that he’s given in almost every thriller that he’s ever appeared in (including David Fincher’s rehash of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo — which I’m still ticked off about, by the way) but it works wonderfully because there’s not a hint of pretension to The Glass House. It just wants to entertain and it does just that. There’s little that can match the entertainment value of watching Stellan Skarsgard go totally over the top.

Sure, the film has all sorts of flaws. Ruby’s intelligence changes from scene to scene, depending on what the film’s story needs her to do. (For that matter, the same thing can be said about every character in the film.) But the film’s a lot of fun and Leelee Sobieski gives one of the best and most sympathetic performances of her career. Ruby may be an inconsistent character but she’s so well-played that you like her anyway. In a film that often threatens to go just a little bit too crazy, Leelee gives a performance of both believable grief and believable inner strength. She keeps the film grounded just enough that you’ll continue to watch even when the narrative hits a rough patch. As well, Bruce Dern is hilariously sleazy as a possibly duplicitous attorney. The only thing more entertaining than watching Stellan Skarsgard go over the top is watching Bruce Dern do the same thing in the same film.

The Glass House is one of those films that seems to show up on cable constantly. And, 9 times out of 10, I’ll at least watch at least a little bit of it. It’s just a fun movie.

Back to School Part II #38: Here On Earth (dir by Mark Piznarski)

Posted on September 14, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here on Earth is a wannabe melodrama from 2000. When I first started watching it on Netflix, I was convinced that I had never seen it before. Sure, the name sounded familiar but I figured that was just because Here On Earth is such a generic name that it could have been used for any number of different films. In fact, even as I sit here typing this, there’s a part of me that keeps wanting to call the film either Back On Earth or Heaven On Earth.

But then as I watched the film, I realized to my horror that I had seen Here On Earth before. I watched it on cable back when I was in high school and, as much as I may not want to admit it, I think I actually cried at the end of it.

I didn’t cry this time, though. In fact, I laughed. Here on Earth is such a stereotypically melodramatic romance that it actually feels like a parody. It didn’t help that the film starred Chris Klein, who goes through almost the entire film with this sort of steely look in his eyes. No matter what emotion he’s supposed to be showing, Chris Klein’s impassive face remains frozen. In fact, it’s tempting to wonder if his character was supposed to be a robot sent from the future. Maybe Here On Earth was originally meant to be a Terminator film.

Here On Earth takes place in one of those little towns in Massachusetts where all of the poor townies resent the rich kids who go to a nearby boarding school. (Judging from the movies I’ve seen, it appears that every small town in Massachusetts is also home to an exclusive boarding school. A part of me suspects that this might not actually be the case. Fortunately, several TSL writers are from Massachusetts so, the next time I get a chance, I’ll just ask Gary, Leon, or Pantsu if any of them grew up near a boarding school.)

Chris Klein plays Kelly Morse. He’s a student at that boarding school. He’s rich. He’s snobby. But he’s also really, really smart. In fact, he was originally meant to be the school’s valedictorian until he got in some legal trouble. See, Kelly was having a street race with a townie named Jasper Arnold (Josh Hartnett). The street race led to the local gas station blowing up. I have to admit that I started laughing as soon as that gas station went up in flames because … well, let’s just say that I imagine it’s a lot more difficult to blow up a gas station than this film makes it look. Judging from this film, the gas station down the street from the office should be blowing up right now.

Anyway, that exploding gas station also causes a local restaurant to burn down. Both Jasper and Kelly are sentenced to help rebuild Mable’s Table. (That’s right, the name of the restaurant was Mable’s Table. It’s a good thing that Mable rhymes with table. If the place had been started by someone named Gretchen, I guess they’d call it Gretchen’s Kitchen.) The judge literally says, “They’ll be building a restaurant but building character too!”

Okay, your honor, thanks for spelling that shit out for us! Yay abuse of the justice system!

Anyway, Jasper has a girlfriend. Her name is Sam Cavanaugh (Leelee Sobieski) and her father (Bruce Greenwood) is the town sheriff. And guess what? HER FAMILY ALSO OWNED MABLE’S TABLE! This may seem like a lot of coincidences but these things happen when there’s only a dozen or so people living in a town.

Sam’s mother always tells her, “As long as we’re all alive, it’s nothing worse than a bad day.” Because they’re poor but honest and that’s how poor but honest people talk, don’t you know? Her father also tells her, every morning: “Good to be your father.” “Good to be your daughter,” Sam replies.

BECAUSE THEY’RE POOR!

But honest…

In fact, they’re so poor but honest that they help Kelly come out of his snobby shell. Soon, he’s opening up to Sam. He’s telling her his secrets. He’s revealing his inner self and probably asking her, “What is this thing you humans call pleasure?” (Because he’s a robot from the future!) Suddenly, they’re in a love…

But guess what? Sam only has a few months to live…

Or I should say that she only has a few months to live here on Earth. She’s at peace with the idea because she’s a saint and she has a pretty a good idea that heaven is going to kick serious ass! Can she make Kelly into a better man before she dies?

Watch and find out! Or don’t. This is one of those extremely silly and misjudged melodramas that doesn’t really work. The adult roles are played by dependable character actors like Bruce Greenwood, Michael Rooker, and Annette O’Toole but Chris Klein and Josh Hartnett go through the entire film looking like they’d rather be anywhere but here on Earth. Leelee Sobieski gives the film’s best performance, bringing as much credibility as she can to an idealized role. (She’s beautiful, she’s sassy, she’s saintly, and she’s dying!) It’s a shame that she has since retired from acting but maybe she didn’t want to spend her entire career making movies like Here on Earth.

Anyway, Here on Earth made me laugh for all the wrong reasons. Maybe it will do the same for you!

Back to School Part II #37: Can’t Hardly Wait (dir by Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont)

Posted on September 14, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oddly enough, the late 90s and early 2000s saw a lot of movies about teenagers that all had strangely generic names. She’s All That, Down To You, Drive Me Crazy, Head Over Heels, Get Over It, Bring It On … the list is endless.

And then you have the 1998 graduation party-themed Can’t Hardly Wait. Can’t Hardly Wait has such a generic name that, when you first hear it, you could be forgiven for naturally assuming that it stars Freddie Prinze, Jr. Of course, if you’ve actually seen the film, you know that it features almost everyone but Freddie Prinze, Jr. This is one of those films where even the smallest roles are played by a recognizable face. In fact, there’s so many familiar actors in this film that a good deal of them go uncredited. Jenna Elfman, Breckin Meyer, Melissa Joan Hart, Jerry O’Connell, and Amber Benson may not show up in the credits but they’re all in the film. In fact, you could argue that Melissa John Hart, playing an impossibly excited girl who is obsessed with getting everyone to sign her yearbook, and Breckin Meyer, playing an overly sensitive lead singer, provide the film with some of its comedic highlights.

(That said, perhaps the most credible cameo comes from Jerry O’Connell. He plays a former high school jock who ruefully talks about how he can’t get laid in high school. He’s so convincingly sleazy and full of self-pity that you find yourself wondering if maybe O’Connell was just playing himself. Maybe he just stumbled drunkenly onto the set one day and started talking to anyone who would listen…)

Can’t Hardly Wait takes place at one huge high school graduation party, which is actually a pretty smart idea. The best part of every teen movie is the party scene so why not make just make the entire movie about the party? Almost every member of the graduating class is at this party and we get to see all of the usual types. There’s the stoners, the jocks, the nerds, and the sarcastic kids who go to parties specifically so they can tell everyone how much they hate going to parties. Eric Balfour shows up as a hippie. Jason Segel eats a watermelon in the corner. Sara Rue’s in the kitchen, complaining about how everyone’s a sheep. Jamie Pressly drinks and assures her best friend that she’s at least as pretty as Gwynneth Paltrow. (“And you’ve got way bigger boobs!” she adds, encouragingly.) Outside, Selma Blair frowns as someone hits on her with bad line.

Of course, Mike Dexter (Peter Facinelli) and Amanda Beckett (Jennifer Love Hewitt) are the main topic of conversation at the party. For four years, Mike and Amanda were the school’s power couple but Mike decides to dump Amanda right before they graduate. Mike feels that he’s going to have a great time in college and he doesn’t need any old high school commitments holding him down. His best friends all agree to dump their girlfriends too. Mike spends the party watching, in horror, as all of his friends go back on their promise. Amanda, meanwhile, wanders around and wonders who she is now that she’s no longer Mike Dexter’s girlfriend.

Preston Meyers (Ethan Embry) struggles to work up the courage to tell Amanda that he’s had a crush on her ever since the first day he saw her. Meanwhile, Preston’s best friend — the reliably sarcastic Denise (Lauren Ambrose) — finds herself locked in an upstairs bathroom with Kenny “Special K” Fisher (Seth Green). (Needless to say, Kenny is the only person who actually calls himself “Special K.”) Kenny is obsessed with losing his virginity. Denise, meanwhile, won’t stop talking about the sweet and dorky Kenny that she knew way back in elementary school.

And then there’s William Lichtner (Charlie Korsmo). He’s spent his entire life being tormented by Mike and he specifically goes to the party looking for revenge. However, he has a few beers and quickly becomes the most popular senior at the party. He even gets a chance to bond with Mike…

Can’t Hardly Wait is a favorite of mine. It’s one of those films that doesn’t add up too much but it’s so so damn likable that it doesn’t matter. It’s full of smart and funny scenes and all the actors are incredibly likable. If you’re not rooting for Preston and Amanda by the end of the movie then you have no heart. In fact, Can’t Hardly Wait is a lot like Empire Records. They may not be much depth to it but it’s so sincere and earnest that you can forgive it.

You can even forgive the generic name.

Back to School Part II #36: Dead Man On Campus (dir by Alan Cohn)

Posted on September 13, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh my God, it’s Zack Morris smoking pot and getting laid!

That, in a sentence, is the main appeal of the 1998 comedy Dead Man On Campus. This is the film that features Mark-Paul Gosselaar playing a character who does everything that most Saved By The Bell fans have always assumed that Zack Morris was doing whenever he wasn’t on-screen, fooling Belding, tormenting Screech, and gazing at Kelly.

(By the way, if you’re interested in the further college adventures of Zack Morris, check out Primetime Preppie, where Derek Morris and I are reviewing every single episode of Saved By The Bell: The College Years!)

In Dead Man On Campus, Gosselaar plays Cooper Frederickson. Cooper is a college student. He spends most of his time partying and consistently fails his classes but since he’s going to a college that apparently doesn’t believe in academic suspension, it doesn’t matter. Cooper’s father continues to pay for him to go to school. To be honest, Cooper is kind of a jerk but he’s also really hot. He wears glasses and there’s just something about a bad boy with bad eyesight.

(Seriously…)

Anyway, Cooper has two roommates. Kyle (Jason Segel) is … well, he’s Jason Segel, giving another one of the somewhat odd performances that typified his film career before he co-starred with The Muppets and played David Foster Wallace. His other roommate is Josh (Tom Everett Scott). Josh starts out as a responsible and hard-working student but then he falls under Cooper’s bad influence. He also gets a girlfriend (Poppy Montgomery) and ends up having so much fun that he blows off all of his classes.

Suddenly, Josh realizes that he’s about to lose his scholarship. At the same time, Cooper’s father comes to visit and announces that he will no longer be paying for his son’s lifestyle. If Cooper flunks out of school, he’s going to end up cleaning toilets for his father’s janitorial service.

Oh no! Zack Morris cleaning a toilet!? How the mighty have fallen! I guess they’re screwed, right!?

Nope! It turns out that there’s a clause in the university charter. If a student’s roommate commits suicide during the school year, that student gets perfect grades for the semester! (I was told the same thing during my first semester at the University of North Texas.) Unfortunately, Kyle has recently moved out of the dorm and neither Cooper nor Josh are willing to die for the other.

So, they decide to get a new roommate. After breaking into the school’s student files, they identify the three students who are most likely to commit suicide. One is an aspiring singer who Cooper and Josh come to suspect might be faking his depression as a way to hit on girls. (Okay, that’s kind of clever because I know that I’ve gone out with people who I thought were dark and profound, just to discover that they were actually rather boring and bourgeois.) Another is a nerdy computer guy who has paranoid delusions about Bill Gates.

And then there’s Cliff. Cliff is actually the first potential roommate that they investigate but he also makes the biggest impression. In fact, he makes such a big impression that he ends up overshadowing everyone else in the film. Cliff is played by Lochlyn Munro, who has subsequently become one of the patron saints of the Lifetime network. (Seriously, it seems like Munro shows up on Lifetime on a daily basis.) Ripping through the film like a cyclone, Munro is definitely the highlight of Dead Man On Campus. It turns out that Cliff isn’t so much suicidal as he’s just absolutely insane and Munro goes so wonderfully over the top in the film that he briefly brings some much-needed life to this comedy about death.

Anyway, Dead Man On Campus is a pretty forgettable movie and it’s never as clever as it thinks that it is. But it does feature Mark-Paul Gosselaar taking hits off a bong and that’ll definitely make it worth seeing for some viewers.

Back to School Part II #35: One Eight Seven (dir by Kevin Reynolds)

Posted on September 13, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’m writing this review from memory so you’re going to have to bear with me. 187 is one of those films that seems to show up on late night cable constantly, which is how I saw it. I probably should rewatch it for this review but … no. I don’t want to have to sit through it again.

See, here’s the thing with 187. It’s a film where Samuel L. Jackson plays a high school science teacher and, just by definition, that should make it the greatest film ever and yet it isn’t.

Originally, Jackson’s working in New York but then he ends up failing one of his students (played by Method Man). Method Man ends up giving Jackson a textbook on which he has written 187 on every single page. Jackson immediately realizes that 187 is the name of the movie that he’s in. “Always good to meet a fan,” he thinks but then suddenly, it dawns on him that 187 is also police code for homicide! Jackson asks the school administration for help. They ignore him (probably because everyone knows that Samuel L. Jackson is too much of a badass to be scared by some numbers in a textbook) and he ends up getting stabbed several times in the back.

Agck!

We jump forward 15 months. Jackson has recovered from nearly being killed and he’s still determined to teach. He wants to make a difference! But he’s decided that New York kids are too homicidal so he transfers to a school in Los Angeles. Surprise! It turns out that students in Los Angeles are just as dangerous as the ones in New York. During his first day as a substitute teacher, Jackson is writing his name on a chalk board. Someone throws a crumpled ball of paper at him. Jackson flinches as it hits his back.

FLASHBACK TIME!

Now, here’s the thing: the idea of Samuel L. Jackson teaching in an inner city high school and taking on a bunch of gang members sounds totally kickass. And you spend this entire two-hour movie waiting for Samuel L. Jackson to have one of those wonderful Samuel L. Jackson moments when he fixes someone with that powerful glare and suddenly speaks in the voice of angry and vengeful God. You keep waiting but, with the exception of a few moments, it never seems to happen.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t expecting Jackson to say, “I’m sick of these motherfucking gangstas in this motherfucking classroom!” It would have been great if he had said that but, after a few minutes of watching the movie, I realized that he probably wouldn’t. 187 is obviously meant to be a serious movie about America’s educational crisis. Watching it, you get the feeling that 187‘s director, Kevin “I know Kevin Costner” Reynolds, woke up every morning and said, “I am making the most important film ever today!”

But whatever good intentions that the filmmakers may have had, it’s no excuse for totally wasting Samuel L. Jackson. When you’ve got a powerful actor like Samuel L. Jackson, why do you waste him in such a thinly written role? When you finally do allow him to do something big and Samuel L. Jackson-like, why do you waste so much dramatic potential by having him do almost all of it off-screen? Jackson finally does get a great Samuel L. Jackson moment towards the end of the film but that’s just because there’s a big plot twist that doesn’t make any sense. The end of 187 reminds the viewer that an ironic ending has to be earned. It just can’t be slapped onto the film.

I mean, I don’t want to toss out any spoilers because, for all I know, 187 is going to be on Cinemax tonight. If you’re up at 3 in the morning, you might end up watching it and God knows, I don’t want to be accused of giving away the ending. But let me ask you this — if you’ve finally captured someone who you’ve spent an entire two-hour film trying to kill, would you then suddenly decide to play a game of Russian roulette?

Anyway, 187 should be avoided because it totally wastes Samuel L. Jackson and that’s kind of unforgivable.

Back to School Part II #34: The Ice Storm (dir by Ang Lee)

Posted on September 13, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1997 film The Ice Storm is kind of a schizophrenic film, which makes sense since it’s set in 1973 and, just from what I’ve seen in the movies, it appears that the early 70s were kind of a schizophrenic time.

It’s a film that deals with two sets of people who all live in an upper class Connecticut community. One part of the film deals with parents who are freaking out about suddenly being adults. The other part of the film deals with the children, most of whom seem destined to make the same mistakes as their parents. It’s a film that is occasionally bracingly realistic and relatable, one that reminds us that being directionless in the 70s isn’t necessarily that different from being directionless in 2016. At other times, the film feels a bit too studied for its own good. This is one of those films that features a Tobey Maguire voice-over and, as good an actor as Maguire has always been, he’s always at his worse when reciting a pseudo-profound voice over. And then there are other times when the film feels a bit too cartoonish for its own good. Elijah Wood’s a stoner. Sigourney Weaver walks around with a bullwhip. David Krumholtz shows up as a character named Francis Davenport.

Fortunately, the film is directed by Ang Lee and Ang Lee is probably one of the few filmmakers who can overcome tonal inconsistency. Lee is so good with actors and is such a good storyteller that even his lesser films are usually worth watching. The Ice Storm would just be another silly sin-in-the-suburbs film if it had been made by any director other than Ang Lee.

The main adult in the film is Ben Hood (Kevin Kline). Ben is married to Elena (Joan Allen) but he’s having an affair with his neighbor, Janey (Sigourney Weaver). Elena may be upset when she finds out about the affair but she’s still willing to accompany her husband to a key party. A key party was a 70s ritual in which husbands would throw their car keys into a big punch bowl and then the wives would randomly pick a key and have sex with the owner. Basically, anytime a TV show or a movie takes place in the suburbs during the 70s, there has to be at least one key party.

And The Ice Storm‘s key party is kind of fun to watch. Kevin Kline and Joan Allen both give really good performances and Ben is such a loser that it’s fun to watch him freak out when Janey gets a key other than this own. Elena, meanwhile, ends up going off with Janey’s husband (Jamey Sheridan, pretty much looking the same in this 1997 film as he did in Spotlight and Sully) and they share a really good scene together, one that reveals that none of the film’s adults are really as mature or liberated as they claim to be.

While the adults attempt to play, their children attempt to find some sort of meaning to their empty existence. Ben and Elena’s daughter, Wendy (Christina Ricci), wears a Richard Nixon mask and enjoys sexually teasing her classmates, especially Janey’s youngest son, Sandy (Adam Hann-Byrd). Ben and Elena’s oldest son, Paul (Tobey Maguire) is in New York, hoping to lose his virginity to Libbits (Katie Holmes) despite the fact that Libbets is far more interested in his boarding school roommate, Francis Davenport (David Krumholtz). Paul also compares his family to the Fantastic Four so, assuming Paul survived both the 70s and 80s, he’s probably still living in Connecticut and telling everyone who disappointed he was with last year’s film.

And, of course, there’s Mickey (Elijah Wood). Mickey is Janey’s oldest son and he’s permanently spaced out. When the ice storm of the title occurs, Mickey is the one who decides to wander around outside and appreciate the beauty of nature’s remorseless wrath.

Needless to say, the ice storm is also a really obvious metaphor for the way all of these very unhappy (but very prosperous) characters tend to view and treat each other. Despite all the attempts to pretend otherwise, everyone has a frozen soul. Nobody’s capable of maintaining any sort of real emotional connection. Of course, someone dies and everyone’s forced to take a look at the sad reality of their lives and the film ends with a sudden and spontaneous display of actual human emotion. It’s one of those ideas that probably works better as a literary conceit than a cinematic one.

That said, The Ice Storm is flawed but very watchable. I enjoyed it, even if it did occasionally seem to be trying way too hard. It’s well-acted and, if nothing else, I enjoyed getting to see all of the amazingly tacky clothes and the interiors of all those big houses. These people love their wide lapels and their shag carpeting. The Ice Storm is not Ang Lee’s best but it’s still good enough.