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    		•

    FILMS

    Not Another Teen Movie (2001)
  • Starring Chyler Leigh, Chris Evans, Jaime Pressly, Eric Christian Olsen, Mia Kirshner, Deon Richmond, Eric Jungmann, Ron Lester, Cody McMains, Sam Huntington, Joanna Garcia, Lacey Chabert

  • Directed by Joel Gallen


    • Execution is 95% of filmmaking. (Granted, it could be said that execution is 95% of everything—but I'm not talking about everything here. Just films.) I point this out because Not Another Teen Movie could very, very easily have been a bad, stupid, unfunny, offensive movie.

    I'll give you that it's stupid, but it's stupid in a good way. The humor is stupid and if that's not your bag, well then, you're not going to like this movie. And sure, it's offensive—well, offensive if you have an aversion to full frontal female nudity by a character whose name is, get this, "Areola." But I don't think most people have a problem with that, so I think we can all agree that this movie isn't offensive. Nope. Not in the slightest.

    It is imperative to be familiar with teen movies to get even half the jokes in this film. Which is understandable, because it's a spoof of teen movies, both from the '80s and '90s. If you're not familiar with these movies, then you should probably have someone who is sitting with you, and having a hair-trigger pause button.

    This is the tack that worked for me, as my wife knows all the teen movies front-to-back. Every once in a while I had to pause the movie and ask her what film was just referenced. She'd explain the joke, I'd go "Ooooh, I get it," and then un-pause. Not an ideal movie-watching environment—but necessary to get all of the jokes for someone as unlearned as me in most teen movies.

    Just to prove my point, in order to get almost every joke in Not Another Teen Movie you're going to have to be familiar with most, if not all of the following films (note, they're not all teen flicks and this list is by no means complete): Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Karate Kid, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, She's All That, Jawbreaker, AntiTrust, Cruel Intentions, Grease, Porky's, Risky Business, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Better Off Dead, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Lucas, Clueless, Can't Hardly Wait, The Faculty, Never Been Kissed, American Pie, American Beauty, 10 Things I Hate About You, Varsity Blues, Road Trip, Bring It On, Almost Famous, Save the Last Dance, Sugar & Spice, and of course, Dude, Where's My Car?

    Reference and spoof comedy is pretty tricky to do. It has to be funnier than just, "Oh, because that's what they did in [insert movie title here]." To some degree it has to be funny on its own merits. And Not Another Teen Movie does this really, really well.

    (Fair spoiler warning: Believe it or not, I'm going to toss out some spoilers. So, consider yourself warned. It's not that I'm going to the ruin the movie, but I may ruin some jokes—and that's no fun if you haven't seen this flick yet. So, stop reading if you plan on watching NaTM.)

    This movie has a lot of eye candy (as can be seen from the lovely Chyler Leigh and Jaime Pressly images at right) and it has plenty of chump jocks. All in all: plenty for the guys, nada for las chicas. The main male character is pretty much making fun of Freddie Prinze Jr. who, in my opinion, deserves a whole franchise set aside to mock him. It could be a billion-dollar-a-year industry. Silly Prinze, acting is for actors.

    Aside from the eye-candy, parody humor, and Prinze mocking, Not Another Teen Movie has gross-out humor—sewage getting dumped on a classroom, an albino singing folks songs about how the sun is burning her retinas because she has no pigment, and conjoined twins attached at the head are just a meager sampling of what NaTM has to offer. And it's hysterical.

    Probably the most disgusting scene in this movie was a re-enactment of the "kiss-scene" from Cruel Intentions. (See image at right.) The girl on the right is playing the Sarah Michelle Gellar character, and the old woman on the left is supposed to be playing the mousy girl from the same flick. In the original film, Gellar teaches the mousy girl how to French-kiss. Same set-up here. Except here, after they kiss—I'm gagging just thinking about it—the saliva dripping off their mouths and lips is thick and nasty and, well, abundant. And then the worst part happens—ever so slightly, the old woman's dentures click. Ahh!!!

    Admittedly, this film isn't for everyone. There's a certain type of person that finds this sort of thing entertaining. You know who you are. You know if this movie appeals to you. If you think this stuff is funny, you'll enjoy it. If not—well, go watch The Piano or something artsy.