Dear Bloggie,
I’ve been running low on blogging material recently. I mean, I have this 30 day challenge thing I’m going to start come February (I was inspiration by Cat’s new-new blog) but until then (and basically until I run out of things) I’m going to start doing Guilty Pleasure Wednesday. Wednesday is already called Hump Day, so why not just add the words “Guilty Pleasure” to it?
My first guilty pleasure has to be teen movie. All of them. From 80’s classics like Pretty in Pink, Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and St. Elmo’s Fire, to 21st century gems like Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging, Bring it On, Juno, and Almost Famous. And of course we can’t forget the 90’s. Teen movies were coming out by the dozens then. But are all teen movies the same? No; some are good, some are bad, and some are so bad that they’re good. Though, since I love almost all movies, I have never truly come across movies that fit into the “bad” and “so bad that they’re good” categories.
While I may have never come across ones that I thought was bad, I came across plenty that I thought were great. The following list is some of my favorites (they aren’t in order, I can’t decided which one I like best so I’m just writing them down as I remember them).
Favorite Teen Movies
- 10 Things I Hate About You: I positively love this movie! I know they have a TV
show based off it, but I refuse to watch it. It won’t be the same and all it can do is ruin the movie for me. This movie is so funny and great. It’s all about these two sister. The older one, Kat, is an outcast and an all around smart-ass/bad-ass, while the younger, Bianca, is the pretty, valley girl blonde who is popular. The only way their over protective father will let the Bianca date (she has her goals set on male model and popular boy at school Joe) is if Kat is dating too. New kid and geek, Cameron, has his eyes set on Bianca. After finding out about Bianca’s dad’s rule, he hatches up a plan to ask Patrick, another outcast who is much like Kat (and who is played by a very hot looking Heath Ledger) to ask Kat out. But nothing can go as planned. I totally recommend this movie.
- Sugar & Spice: Another one of my favorite teen movie. Definitely in my top five.
When popular head cheerleader Diane Weston becomes pregnant by her star quarterback boyfriend Jack, their parents financially cut them off. In need of money, Diane and her friends Cloe, Lucy, Hannah, and Fern decided to rob a bank using their kickass cheerleading moves. But with their rival, Lisa, having figured out their secret, will they get away with it? I know the story line doesn’t sound like something magnificent, but I personally really enjoyed it. It’s funny and a bit raunchy, and the ending is a bit unexpected (I know; I say “a bit” too much in my writing").
- Mean Girls: The best teen movie ever. heck, best movie ever – teen or not. Everyone knows this movie (if YOU don’t, go now;
look it up, watch it, enjoy) and of course love it. I could try to describe it, but I found this summer online that I like better then what I would say. “Raised in African bush country by her zoologist parents, Cady Heron thinks she knows about survival of the fittest. But the law of the jungle takes on a whole new meaning when the home-schooled 16-year-old enters public high school for the first time and encounters psychological warfare and unwritten social rules that teenage girls face today.” Yeah, that about covers it. Love this movie.
- All I Wanna Do (Strike!): This is not only a teen film, but also a girl power one. When Odie is forced to transfer to Miss Godard's Preparatory School for Girls
(though not real, in the movie it’s located in Connecticut – just like every other boarding school in movies) by her parents after she is caught planning to lose her virginity to her boyfriend, she is sure she is going to hate it there. Upon arrival, she meets her two new roommates: the ever-scheming Verena von Stefan, and the sexually mature Tinka Parker. They soon introduce her to their friends Tweety (real name Theresa) Goldberg and Momo (real name Maureen) Haines. These girls are the school trouble makers/ rebels and the founding members of a secret club called Daughters of the American Ravioli (DAR). During their meetings, they sit around eating cold cans of ravioli (which they steal from the kitchen) while discussing their lives, goals, and overall ambitions. In a time period ( the movie is set in 1963) where women were taken as second class citizens to men, the girls at Miss Godard’s are treated as if they are equal – if not better – in every way to males. But when the school hits financial trouble, the Board of Trustees decided that they should merge with the neighboring all boy school, St. Ambrose Boys Academy. Upon hearing this, the girls of DAR decided to take matters into their own hands and hatch up a scheme to stop the merge from happening and keeping the girls first, something that would would sure not happen once the boys are their. The movie has an overall happy, light, teen feeling about it, but underneath lies a strong feminist message. Placing it in a time when feminism was just starting to regain momentum, we see these girls take pride in who they are and what they want to be – and it’s not a house wife!
- Teenage Dirtbag: Popular high school senior Amber Lane has been harassed by Thayer Mangeris, a white trash delinquent who she is placed both in creative writing and next to in study hall, for a while. Though they can’t stand each other in
the beginning, as the year progresses they start to open up and learn about to other through a notebook. He has a brutal home life (as seen in his father who beats him and his older brother who rapes their sister) and her parents basically don’t give a damn about her (as in seen when her father yells at her for not tying up the boat right, even though she is in massive pain from an injury she received just a couple hours earlier during cheerleading practice – which he doesn’t even comment about, never mind worry) while she feels social pressure because of her popular status. The movie is touching and realistic – most likely because it’s supposedly based on the writer/director’s life. It’s not one of those “love prevails all” movies so don’t expect a Disney ending, but the ending does have some happiness in it. More in a bittersweet way. It keep you wondering for days after the last scene. The performances varied. Her friends were flat characters who only seemed to be interested in partying and being popular; his friends just seemed like they wanted to party and get high. Overly typical. On the other hand, the actors who played Amber and Thayer put on wonderful performances. They came off like most people – neither all good or all bad. They’re complicated and make dictions that you wish you could jump into the screen and sock them in the head for. His family (brother, sister, father) were also great. The film quality was good most of the time, but during the dream-like sequences and the flash forwards to the present (the movie is told as if Amber was looking back) are not the best. The gray-blue they put over them subtracts, not adds to the movie. Overall, I love this it, a must see for sure.
That’s all the time I have for today. Next Wednesday I will have more guilty pleasures up.
~XOXO,
Ariana
P.S. Tune in Monday. I will be both celebrating my one year of blogging (Wow, what a year it has been!) and my schools big move. They(the people who the school’s high ups paid) have been renovating an old weapons factory (the Colt factory in Hartford, CT) or over a year and Monday (if all goes to plan) everything will be ready and we’ll be moving in! I would post pictures, but to be truthful, the building looks really messy from the outside if you Google it, so instead here’s the link to my schools Facebook page. There are better pictures and even a video of the inside (though it’s over a month old and the building is sure not to look like that anymore). Can’t wait to move!
P.P.S. I also have a sort surprise/broadening my horizon thing to unveil on Monday. I’m going to make sure everything is set this weekend.
