“There are just so many stupid, annoying, worthless people on the planet. They just like, get in the way of what you want.”

The first thing this movie reminded me of was my most shameless personal fave, Slap Her … She’s French (especially considering that movie’s alternate title “She Gets What She Wants”) ... but it’s a lot more subtle, extreme and subversive than that. It’s funny I found myself watching it during the BBC’s “White” week, in a way. The moment Evan Rachel Wood starts her speech about how wonderful it is to be white being as she wants to be an actress, all of this told to a Muslim student, listing Asian as her second choice, then Afro-American, and finally Arab … it certainly makes you gasp if anything more than I remembered “Slap Her” did – and where that race line goes in the end … I still don’t know quite what to think of it except to compare it to the other stereotypes in the movie, like, yes, the male and female ones, and say that it is one of those movies where the stereotypes really never bother me quite as much as they should, basically because the script just oozes smarts and Wood delivers those smarts in a way I really think nobody else could. It seems like she gets better with every film I see her in, and the final shot of her here is just phenomenal. James Woods, Jane Krakowski and Selma Blair are the icing on the cake.

I guess it was a little unwise of me to watch this one at this time as I kinda knew it wouldn’t be my type of movie. Even despite having meant to watch it ever since it came out thanks to the presence of Larisa Oleynik pretty fresh off “Alex Mack” (one of the best TV shows ever – whatever happened to her after “Third Rock”?!?), the generic high-school-comedy-ness of it didn’t excite me too much. I’m writing this a couple of days after watching it and honestly I’m struggling to remember any highlights. Julia Stiles is great as always and Alison Janney as “Ms. Perky” kind of does a Dolores Herbig from “Dead Like Me” a few years before that show aired. I watched it of course for Heath Ledger, and I’ve gotta say, it’s not exactly essential viewing in his catalogue.

As a sports movie, this was obviously gonna be a hard sell for me – its sole achievement threatening to be that it makes Friday Night Lights seem even more pointless. But when I love a movie as much as I love Uptown Girls, I don’t let the subject matter get in the way of catching up on the director’s other work.

The complete lack of any conflict or drama in the movie’s first half hour doesn’t help. This is a movie about a mixed race school football team, and the set-up is that they put this team together and everyone is pretty much fine about it. Luckily there’s an “ah-ha” moment around 35-40 minutes, though, where they enter “the real world” and things get tough – but it’s Disney, so, not that tough.

It’s watchable. But knowing me I’m probably only being nice ‘cos Hayden Panettiere (who it took me a while to recognise but I got there eventually – I guess I just always figured she was older than she is in Heroes lol) is cleverly planted in just about every other scene – her football crazy daughter of one of the coaches is about as funky as the rock ballerina girls in Uptown Girls and a little of a lot of cuteness like that (especially when it’s unexpected as it was to me here) goes a long way in a movie like this, lol. I’m sorry but I laughed my ass off at the “nanana, hey hey hey, goodbye” ending That tops Shrek the 3rd’s use of “Live and Let Die” for most inappropriate funeral scene ever, lol.

Move aside, Porky’s, lol. This deserves praise for doing pretty much exactly what it says on the tin, to a staggering degree, right from the opening credits. The uniforms, the lettering on the credits, the song, and then … skin … vast quantities of female flesh.

It’s porn cheese city, and there’s very little more to say about it. Like, it’s so much just a porn movie that I found myself considering whether I would even count it as a movie and write about it here. But it has to be said, it’s got something of a story (albeit it most of it rushed through in the last 15 minutes), it’s better shot than most porn I’ve seen, and it has a slight bit of tongue in cheek. Some of the exercise equipment stuff is just inspired.

I just really dug the simplicity and innocence (for want of a better word) of it all. Like Slumber Party Massacre without the massacre or something. It’s probably very exploitative and caters to highly prurient interests (at one point one of the girls dresses in the clothes of her teddy bear, clothes she got when she was 12) ... but I guess I just wanna say, “whatever” to that lol. I found it simple, sexy, and hilarious. Almost instantly a cheesy fave of mine.

The most tragically beautiful horror movie ever made? I think so. That said, I find the more I watch it, the less it even feels like a horror movie and more like the saddest, most painful high school movie that just happens to be punctuated by blood and the supernatural. The only part that always really chills me is Piper Laurie’s eerily joyous performance, and the piano theme that plays at the White house (currently on the playlist on my front page radio thing), most particularly when Carrie falls down the stairs. That music cue just feels completely like death – or rather, the draining of life.

Piper Laurie and Sissy Spacek were deservedly (if bizarrely – would it happen today, one wonders?) nominated for Oscars for their roles. I’m always just as taken by other performances, though: Amy Irving and Betty Buckley are particularly noteworthy. I love the way Buckley imbues Miss Collins with this real bug up her ass – I forget if her backstory is detailed in the novel, and I know she tells the story toward the end about taking the leader of the basketball team to her prom but I’m always torn between whether she was the Sue Snell of her time – a reluctant “popular girl” who sympathised with the Carrie Whites – or even worse the Carrie White of her time. There’s a real sense of triumph as she watches Carrie crowned as prom queen; of hope when she talks to Carrie about Tommy’s invitation; an instant confrontational attitude when she talks to the “popular” girls; instant doubt when asking Tommy and Sue about the illfated invitation. Intended or not, she does the all-grown-up bullied girl very well.

Then there’s the music. Pino Donaggio’s themes (far-too-obvious Psycho references notwithstanding, lol) – in addition to the two beautiful songs at the prom (“I Never Dreamed Someone Like You Could Love Someone Like Me” probably the best love song ever) are almost if not more than half the movie for me here. They carry you with Carrie to the depths with her mother at home and the horror of school to the tentative acceptance of the dream of having that final prom dance – and then the nightmare aftermath of even that seemingly impervious dream being shattered like all the rest.

BTW, the DVD of this is much better than I originally thought whenever it first came out. There are no commentaries or anything and the features list reads like just a bunch of promotional featurettes – but the “Acting Carrie” thing combined with “Visualising Carrie: From Words to Images” is really more like a decent behind-the-scenes documentary. Unfortunately it doesn’t actually contain the screentests they talk about … but it’s still really good hearing from most of the cast members years later.

“You can never go home again, Oatman. But I guess you can shop there.”

Too many quotes I could’ve begun with here – but that one’s as good as any. Check them out – just a great screenplay.

A slight diversion from the horror due to disk space being required on the Sky+ box, not to mention the last batch being frankly rubbish, lol. I recorded this last week and only just realised as it began … 10 YEARS, man! lol. Amazing how time flies, and amazing how good this movie still looks and feels.

Midway through the movie, I realised, sure I was enjoying it but it did feel like something was missing – call it a combination of the age of the thing and the fact that it’s one of those movies I watched way too much at the time and which brings back lots of confusing pesky me things, lol. But it’s amazing once we get to the reunion itself at the end, how the mood changes – anchored on that shot of John Cusack looking up at Minnie Driver from feeding the baby with a bottle. Yes, that whole scene is too cute for words – but that shot in particular, the look on his face, is just incredible. Likewise, the soundtrack – which is one of the best ever – is great throughout, but it’s in that last 30 minutes that it just soars. The “Live and Let Die” moment early in the movie is genius (Shrek the Third take note, this is where that song belongs) – but “99 Luftballons” at the end is up there with the absolute great soundtrack moments, floating in as it does over Minnie Driver’s wrecked expression.

This is just one of those perfect movies – if it weren’t for the fact my old DVD was a barebones release, I’d be kicking myself for getting rid of it because it is one to watch on a yearly basis if not even more frequently. It’s a real shame nobody had the mind to put together a 10th anniversary collector’s DVD. Roll on 2012? 17? lol.

“These are the jokes, people!”

Oh the warning bells. 2.35:1? Comic sans opening credits? Yes – Comic sans opening credits ROFL! No wait. I’m gonna say it again. Comic Sans opening credits. LOL!

I wanted this to be, like, the new Josie and the Pussycats or something. I’ve said it before, that I have no problem whatsoever with the Bratz brand – I love all those products and if I had the money I’d probably have a room full of them. There are far worse things going on in children’s lives and it angers me when people waste time whining about a toy as though each doll not only contains a mine of crack in its big bubble head but also somehow doubles as some kind of infant dildo. For the first time in this review: they’re not that bad.

At the same time, however, I also think it could’ve been incredible for them to use this movie to make a really scathing statement about the materialism, the beauty worship, y’know, stuff like that. That combined with Paula Abdul doing all the stuff she was originally meant to be doing on the movie could’ve resulted in a new masterpiece of bubblegum.

All that said, I also kind of dreaded it being such a wonderful thing – I love being honest, but I really didn’t want to be the person who followed a one-star review of one of the biggest, most popular movies of the year with a five star review of, erm, *Bratz*, lol. So I guess this movie made me happy by being … not quite that good? But, erm … I have to be honest, and it reached a point where I just started laughing and smiling and couldn’t stop … and I actually quite liked it. In fact the only part I’d agree is close to worthy of the IMDb bottom 100 is the point when they realise, “ooh, Bratz! good name” lol. But by then I was pretty much ready to forgive anything (even, incidentally, that the end credits are also in Comic Sans lol, and actually contain the words “Apple Computers” in that font :o).

Ultimately, it is basically the High School Musical movies (particularly number 2) without the diagetic songs (till the end, I guess, but even then they’re just concert numbers and music videos). As such, I really don’t think it’s deserving of the hate that’s been levelled at it, in same way I think the hate for the dolls is a little overcooked. There’s nary a nod to the existence of sex (though there’s one line that really jars when a jock suggests “We could do a lab experiment – without the bunsen burner, y’know what I’m saying?”) and the meanest putdown is “Delete my number from your cellphone!” (that’s the moment you can actually pinpoint where the movie becomes so bad it’s good, lol – my face creased up so bad I worried it might stay that way, lol).

It doesn’t surprise me that very young kids love it. The tiny sister of the “mean” girl is like their representative in this world and she comes out of the movie looking like she controls everything. In particular for non-American kids, I think it has that “ohmygosh, American highschool is so cool” thing about it that I remember being so taken with by shows like “Saved by the Bell” back in the yonder. It’s also very colourful – blindingly so, with barely a second passing without a cut or something new and shiny entering the frame. There’s even a food fight. It really does check all the boxes, I think. It’s certainly hard to get bored here, though you might get slightly annoyed.

For the second time … it’s really not so bad – I found it far less offensive than certain other recent movies and there’s definitely a tweenage girl in me somewhere that was really fooled by the colour and the pretty people etc – and I didn’t spend the whole movie thinking, “umm – these aren’t Bratz,” like I thought I would, lol. In actual fact, I’m kind of surprised it isn’t already a cult movie to some degree. I don’t know, maybe it is.

I say, definitely double bill with Josie and the Pussycats. Add Sleepover for good measure. As a teen movie it doesn’t touch Heathers and Mean Girls and the John Hughes classics – but I’ve gotta say, this is one of those cases where I just feel I have to say, for the third time: it’s not that bad. There’s none of the scathing satire that could’ve been – but there is some semblance of a message that will be good for kids and even teens to hear. I have to say, though, 2.35:1 was kinda asking for dissent in the viewership, lol.

Hey, nominate it for Razzies at my pleasure – it certainly deserves to win something lol. I’d personally put it up for costume and Jon Voight (who is as surprising as I found Michael Ironside last night in Guncrazy) in the real awards, though.

Altogether … B.F.F!

(btw, yes, I’ve still rated it higher than that other movie … I promise, it’s a low 3 …)

I noticed a funny parallel between this movie and Almost Famous today, and no it’s not ‘cos I just watched a Cameron Crowe movie, I’d kinda noticed it before … it features a couple of characters, and the same characters at that, that I would love to have in my own life. Every time I see Maggie Gyllenhaal these days I’m reminded of her big sister role in this movie and she is so the ultimate big sister; and Mary McDonnell makes a fantastic mother – I love how she looks at Miss Farmer with such pity after the scene in the principal’s office … you can see so much in her performance of how people, perhaps especially parents, play an awkward role in life while their feelings are just as real as the rest of us – even when she’s cheering her daughter on in the Sparkle Motion dance troupe, you can kinda tell she’s not that behind the whole idea.

The other thing that struck me was how simple the movie really is in the end – I wrote in my journal a while ago about how I bought the Director’s Cut DVD (having already sold my original copy of the Theatrical Cut) and was already ordering another copy of the Theatrical Version only an hour in. I mean, this movie is complex, yeh … but it’s not exactly on the Ingmar Bergman end of the concentration scale. And why did Richard Kelly feel the need to explain it anyway? I think he really took a lot away from the movie with that cut. To me, at least, it seemed like he was saying, “Yeh, I thought about this … a lot ...” And to me, it’s not him who should’ve been thinking about it that much, his job was to come up with the mystery. It’s the audience’s job to think it to death if they want to. It’s like Phantasm in a way, and the Director’s Cut was like one of that movie’s many explanatory sequels.

In its original form, I think this movie is a masterpiece. Every single performance, major to minor role, is absolutely perfect, and there’s love and pain all over the place. Donnie Darko is part plain whacko, part Dennis the Menace, part superhero, part Alex in A Clockwork Orange. And it ends with that unforgettable cover of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World”. It really does get better, and I see more, every time I see it. I’ve only touched the tip of a whole iceberg of thoughts I have in these few paragraphs.

Oh yeh I had intended to put something into this review about how I think it’s about the cycle of violence but I guess this sentence is all you’re gonna get now ‘cos I’ve forgotten anything but the gist of it lol.