Director: Joel Gallen
Cast: Chyler Leigh, Chris Evans, Jaime Pressley, Eric Christian Olsen
Have I Seen It Before: Yes. I have the clearest memory of sitting patiently through this in a dorm room somewhere, somewhen, and thinking at the end that it felt like Molly Ringwald probably had been wanting to get that off her chest for a while.
Did I Like It: The condition of spoof movies in the twenty-first century is pretty damned pathetic. For the occasional stray Scary Movie that might have been made with something resembling some intention, there’s the endless stream of (Blank) Movies that are just a library of some tepid references. It doesn’t matter if the film isn’t funny: it’s so cheaply made that it has already made its money back. The less said about something like An American Carol (2008), the better.
As we proceed with making Say Something Nice, it felt like this much neglected genre needed some attention, but couldn’t bring myself to schedule anything from Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, because even I have my limits. So I added this film. The reaction from my fellow podcasters, was a little bewilderment, as they had positive memories of the film.
And they’re probably pretty close to right. Chris Evans is charming and showing us a little bit of what he’ll be able to do in later films. There’s even a gag where he sings “Janie’s Got a Gun” and the school appropriately freaks out in a way that teen movies wouldn’t have been able to acknowledge in years past*. But for the rest of the film, I’m a little uncomfortable with a character like Areola (Cerina Vincent) and you should be, too. The references come with the cadence of a machine gun. American Beauty (1999) is by far the most groan-worthy, as long as the scene doesn’t feature Randy Quaid. Worse yet: I didn’t laugh. This may have only been the beginning of the end of the genre, but I’m not prepared to give partial credits for only being the beginning of a problem.
*There’s a scene in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) where Billy the Kid (Dan Shor) opens fire on a San Dimas High assembly. That’d be pretty much the end of the proceedings today, wouldn’t it?