NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE
Directed by Joel Gallen
Starring Chris Evans, Chyler Leigh, Mia Kirshner and Jamie Pressly
This past holiday season, some went to the movie theatre in search of some sorcerer’s stone or a magic ring. Others went to laugh, and laugh they did if their movie choice was the wickedly raunchy and rude parody of teen movies Not Another Teen Movie.
From The Breakfast Club to American Pie, the film takes aim and fires away at the countless array of teen movies from the past twenty years. The parodies manage to be witty and smart, while at the same time providing a heavy dose of toilet humor (literally). The film takes the route of Scary Movie with its laugh-a-second strategy. Still, it doesn’t get out of control and feel like a bunch of R-rated SNL skits made into a film like Scary Movie 2. There is actually some semblance of ‘plot,’ one that parodies the Freddie Prinze Jr. flick She’s All That, in which the four-eyed laughing stock of the school, Janey Briggs (Chyler Leigh), is asked out by the ‘popular jock’ Jake Wilder (Chris Evans), to the prom. Miraculously, when she takes off her glasses, she becomes the hottest girl in school.
The laughs in Not Another Teen Movie come at such a rapid-fire rate that certain jokes become lost in the shuffle. Still, several jokes and characters manage to be memorable. ‘The Foreign Exchange Student’ (Cerina Vincent) titillates some big laughs as she chooses to take the nudist route for the entire film. ‘The Desperate Virgins’ (Cody McMains, Samm Levine and Sam Huntington) participate in the ultimate gross-out scene as the three of them sneak into a vent above the ladies bathroom to watch a young lady…well, you know. The scene is crosscut with a teacher preaching against the crude and vile humor of the young generation. Somehow ‘The Desperate Virgins’ crash through the vent onto the female, with the result being an exploding toilet (in mid-use) crashing through the floor onto the teacher ranting in the classroom below.
Several other scenes and characters stand out, particularly the Grease-inspired music number prior to the prom. ‘The Cruelest Girl,’ (Mia Kirshner) has her Sarah Michelle Geller impersonation down to a tee, and ‘The Football Coach’ has his Jon Voight, Varsity Blues impersonation down also…goddammit. Jamie Pressly is perfect as the snobby cheerleader. ‘The Token Black Guy’ (Deon Richmond) was a witty and funny element as well…bling bling. Randy Quaid as a shell-shocked Vietnam vet of a father was tasteless, but hilarious. Quaid tells his kids (Leigh and McMains) as he drops them off that “he’ll probably be too drunk to pick them up after school.” His daughter is pleased, as “at least you won’t be driving drunk daddy.” Quaid clarifies the situation by saying, “Oh, I’ll be driving, I’ll just be too shitfaced to remember to pick you guys up.” He later encourages his daughter to go out with popular Jake Wilder, “because she could use the popularity points.”
Not Another Teen Movie is also heavy on subtle jokes put into the background scenery or thrown in for nostalgia. For instance, the high school where the film takes place is aptly named John Hughes High School after the maker of Ferris Buellers Day Off and The Breakfast Club (watch out for a Breakfast Club cameo in the film) among other films. Read the sign on the hot dog stand in the cafeteria and you’ll see that the hot dogs are being sold “for practicing oral sex.” For the Pretty in Pink fans, Molly Ringwald makes a cameo appearance.
A film like Not Another Teen Movie will quite predictably be attacked by critics and high falutin’ moviegoers as “stupid” or “tasteless.” What these people don’t understand is that by its very nature the film has to be stupid and tasteless for it to work. After all, the film is parodying a bunch of movies that are either a) stupid b) tasteless, or c) both. Regardless of what the culture snobs have to say, Not Another Teen Movie succeeds as a hilarious parody of teen movies.
