RomComs - "Who needs affection when I have blind hatred?"
As I said before, I think Shakespeare should get the prize for inventing romantic comedy as we know it. And as such, the last three days are going to belong to him.
Today's movie came during a surge in "let's take classic works of literature and set them in a modern high school" trend. However, it's a good deal more successful than most of its contemporaries that were trying to do the same thing.
I give you ... The Taming of the Shrew. Sort of. :P
10 Things I Hate About You
Several of the play references are rather obvious and almost painful. The sisters are, of course, Kat and Bianca. And their last name is Stratford (like "upon Avon," get it?) They go to Padua High School. Petruchio from Verona becomes Patrick Verona. And the romantic setup is quite similar to the play.
Now, all this could have added up to major megacheese. The setup in particular could have been really absurd for a contemporary set of characters. But the film manages to pull it off, because for all it's references, it's pretty firmly grounded in its setting. We not only have the obligatory Shakespearean stuff, but we also have the obligatory "high school movie" trappings. There's the quirky and slightly too cool administrative employee (Ms. Perky and her smut novel-writing). There's the Standard High School Movie Playbook scene where one character introduces a new student to the various social groupings (I thought Clueless did a much better job of this, by the way). And there's the Party Scene, which has to be included in any teen movie or the world will come to an end.
This is the film that introduced most of the world to a young hunk named Heath Ledger - I mean, he's not *my* cup of tea, but I'll acknowledge that he's fairly pretteh. And it's also the film that made Julia Stiles a star - she had made a fairly big splash in the TV miniseries The 60s, but this was a whole new level for her. Child semi-star Joseph Gordon-Levitt took a break from "3rd Rock from the Sun" to be our Lucentio. And his then-girlfriend Larisa Oleynik played Bianca with an impossible cuteness. My favorite characters, though, are probably the non-Shakespearean "best friend" characters of Michael and Mandella. I love the little intrigue between them and the fact that Mandella was a Shakespeare fangirl, and I thought it was a great shout-out to the roots of the play.
But maybe those two aren't my faves, because I have a LOT of affection for Walter, Kat's and Bianca's father. Larry Miller almost ALWAYS plays a sleazebag secondary character, so it was really something to see him play this caring father who was so worried about his daughters falling into the hands of some dishonorable cad. A far cry from Baptista in the play, in my opinion. There's also a nice kind of affection between the sisters in this modernized version.
This isn't an earthshakingly brilliant movie, but it's a cut above most teen movies, and quite a few "great lit-ra-choor" makeovers, in all honesty. I think Shakespeare might have been pleased.
Great Moments in Dialogue:
Patrick: Hey there girly... how you doin'?
Kat Stratford: Sweating like a pig actually and yourself?
Patrick: Now there's a way to get a guy's attention huh?
Kat Stratford: My mission in life but obviously I struck your fancy so you see it worked... the world makes sense again.
"Awwww!" Moment: The look on Mr. Stratford's face when his daughters leave for the prom. I'd love to say the scene where Kat reads the poem, but I'm afraid I was too horrified by Julia Stiles' "crying face" to be properly moved there. :P
Today's movie came during a surge in "let's take classic works of literature and set them in a modern high school" trend. However, it's a good deal more successful than most of its contemporaries that were trying to do the same thing.
I give you ... The Taming of the Shrew. Sort of. :P
10 Things I Hate About You
Several of the play references are rather obvious and almost painful. The sisters are, of course, Kat and Bianca. And their last name is Stratford (like "upon Avon," get it?) They go to Padua High School. Petruchio from Verona becomes Patrick Verona. And the romantic setup is quite similar to the play.
Now, all this could have added up to major megacheese. The setup in particular could have been really absurd for a contemporary set of characters. But the film manages to pull it off, because for all it's references, it's pretty firmly grounded in its setting. We not only have the obligatory Shakespearean stuff, but we also have the obligatory "high school movie" trappings. There's the quirky and slightly too cool administrative employee (Ms. Perky and her smut novel-writing). There's the Standard High School Movie Playbook scene where one character introduces a new student to the various social groupings (I thought Clueless did a much better job of this, by the way). And there's the Party Scene, which has to be included in any teen movie or the world will come to an end.
This is the film that introduced most of the world to a young hunk named Heath Ledger - I mean, he's not *my* cup of tea, but I'll acknowledge that he's fairly pretteh. And it's also the film that made Julia Stiles a star - she had made a fairly big splash in the TV miniseries The 60s, but this was a whole new level for her. Child semi-star Joseph Gordon-Levitt took a break from "3rd Rock from the Sun" to be our Lucentio. And his then-girlfriend Larisa Oleynik played Bianca with an impossible cuteness. My favorite characters, though, are probably the non-Shakespearean "best friend" characters of Michael and Mandella. I love the little intrigue between them and the fact that Mandella was a Shakespeare fangirl, and I thought it was a great shout-out to the roots of the play.
But maybe those two aren't my faves, because I have a LOT of affection for Walter, Kat's and Bianca's father. Larry Miller almost ALWAYS plays a sleazebag secondary character, so it was really something to see him play this caring father who was so worried about his daughters falling into the hands of some dishonorable cad. A far cry from Baptista in the play, in my opinion. There's also a nice kind of affection between the sisters in this modernized version.
This isn't an earthshakingly brilliant movie, but it's a cut above most teen movies, and quite a few "great lit-ra-choor" makeovers, in all honesty. I think Shakespeare might have been pleased.
Great Moments in Dialogue:
Patrick: Hey there girly... how you doin'?
Kat Stratford: Sweating like a pig actually and yourself?
Patrick: Now there's a way to get a guy's attention huh?
Kat Stratford: My mission in life but obviously I struck your fancy so you see it worked... the world makes sense again.
"Awwww!" Moment: The look on Mr. Stratford's face when his daughters leave for the prom. I'd love to say the scene where Kat reads the poem, but I'm afraid I was too horrified by Julia Stiles' "crying face" to be properly moved there. :P