Movie #366 - Can't Hardly Wait

Can't Hardly Wait
1998 - Rated PG-13 - 1 hr 40 min
Directors: Harry Elfont, Deborah Kaplan
Starring: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ethan Embry, Charlie Korsmo, Lauren Ambrose, Peter Facinelli, Seth Green, Freddy Rodriguez,  Sean Patrick Thomas, Donald Faison, Jaime Pressly, Selma Blair, Jason Segel, Chris Owen

Oh, high school. This movie came out the year before I graduate high school, so the whole party-before-college premise rung true for me at the time.  Jocks, nerds, cheerleaders, and X-filers alike can revel in this movie's accurate rendering of high school in the 90s.  And what a cast... so many great bit parts played by actors who have real careers now!

See if you can spot Selma Blair. Or how about Jason Segel?  Yep, that's him all right!  This was fun to revisit after so much time has passed.  Not only could I still remember my favorite lines, but finding all these "new" faces in the crowd became a game for me. 

Anyway, it's no Oscar winner, nor does it have the kind of original plot that keeps you riveted.  The characters are stereotypes, the acting's okay, but the real joy here is in what it represents for me.  If you didn't graduate high school in the late 90s, this might not strike the same chord for you.

Movie #124 - Clueless

Clueless
Paramount Pictures
1995 - Rated PG-13 - 1 hr 37 min
Director: Amy Heckerling
Starring: Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy, Paul Rudd, Donald Faison, Breckin Meyer

I had to skip Clue because it's out on loan, so I'll add that one back in when it's returned.  For now, onto a movie that defined a generation of teenaged girls... myself included.

As if!

I love love love this movie, especially since it's a (loose) adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma. How clever and relevant to the times, how touching to bring Austen into modern cinema under the radar.  For years, I didn't even know about that. Look at that - the subtle influence of classic literature on an unsuspecting generation of girls.  Brilliant.

Anyway, Alicia Silverstone's career was made on this film, as well as Brittany Murphy's (man, do I miss her!!) And Donald Faison (Turk from Scrubs) is in this too, which is weird for me now because I watch that show.  When I first started watching Scrubs, he was "that guy from Clueless" but now, watching the movie, he's become "that guy from Scrubs." Funny how that works.

As the most quotable movie ever - in my opinion - this one's hard to watch without reciting the lines.  Maybe guys don't love this as much as I do - okay, I know they don't - but I think this movie is completely awesome, probably because of how unobtrusive the wit is.  It's satire done well and even now, 15 years later, I can still appreciate that.

Man... 15 years? That's disgusting.