The Movie I Watched Last Night XIX
Saturday: Not Another Teen Movie
After arriving in San Diego and getting settled at the hotel, I had some open time, so I spent some time reading on the deck in the sun -- and then almost-napping while watching this extremely silly but well-done pastiche of teen-movie cliches on pay-per-view. The movie's original working title, Ten Things I Hate About Clueless Road Trips When I Can't Hardly Wait to Be Kissed, gives viewers some idea of the screenplay's source material, but there are some curveballs in there -- such as the "American Beauty" references (I wouldn't really peg it as a teen movie) and the Molly Ringwald cameo at the very end. There's also a wonderful Breakfast Club scene spoof -- almost verbatim. All in all, while I occasionally enjoy teen movies, I particularly enjoyed this extremely goofy self-conscious spoof. All of your favorite teen movie character archetypes are here. All of the run-of-the-mill plot elements are trucked out. And it's all done with a solid sense of harmless fun. Worth seeing solely for its meta-movie nature.