RSS 2.0Not Another Teen Movie (2001)
The last good spoof movie I’d seen before this one must have been “The Naked Gun”, starring Leslie Nielsen. He’s made so many really bad movies since then that he kind of gave the whole genre a bad name. If this movie hadn’t played as Sneak Preview at my local cinema last year I probably wouldn’t have seen it. When I did I liked it so much that I rented the DVD last night.
At John Hughes 
Highschool, Popular jock Jake Wyler (Chris Evans) bets his even jockier friend Austin that he can make poor alternative girl Janey Briggs (Chyler Leigh) into a prom queen. Meanwhile, her little brother and his friends have a pact to lose their virginity before going to college. Add a football team, cheerleaders, make-overs and a prom and you ‘ve got just about every ingredient of a teen movie ever.
Of course, like with all spoofs, “Not Another Teen Movie” is full of silly jokes, but it does have a few other things going for it. For one, it spoofs a genre that many people really like. Who doesn’t have fond memories of “The Breakfast Club” and “Ferris Bueller”? Secondly, this was Joel Gallen’s first feature film. His credit list includes those really hilarious short films used to introduce categries at the MTV movie awards. I loved those, and this movie has the same energy and the same strange sense of humour. A cheerleader with Tourette Syndrome is funny. Really!
Furthermore, this movie is very complete. Not only does it make fun of late 90′s teen movies, it’s also meant to be a tribute to 80′s teen movies. It makes fun of “The Breakfast Club”, “Pretty in Pink”, “American Pie”, “American Beauty”, “She’s all that”, “10 things I hate about You”, “Grease”, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, “Road Trip”, Varsity Blues”, “Cruel Intentions”, “Almost Famous”, “Clueless”, “Sixteen Candles”, “She’s Out of Control”, “Porky’s”, “Can’t Hardly Wait”, “Never Been Kissed”, “Bring It On”, “The A-team”, “Better Off Dead”. “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”, “Disturbing Behaviour”, “Dad’s Rule”, “Somekind of Wonderful”, “Losing It”, “The Karate Kid”, “Valley Girl”, “Jawbreaker”, “Dude, Where’s My Car?”, “Beverly Hills 90210″, “Can’t Buy me Love”, “Revenge of the Nerds”, “Wierd Science”, “Lucas”, “Rudy”, “Risky Business”, “Say Anything”, “Get Over It”, “Freaks & Geeks”, “Drive Me Crazy”, “Footloose” and if you watch the deleted scenes on the DVD, “Save The Last Dance” and “Jerry Maguire”. Very hard to spot them all…
To round things off, it features cameos by Molly Ringwald, Mr T. and Paul Gleason (the teacher from “The Breakfast Club”). All in all this is a great celebration of teen movies. It helps if you’ve seen at least a few of these movies though, because the storyline is really only there to connect the jokes.
I’ll rate it ***1/2 (out of 5) because I was totally in the mood for silly.
Roy (117 posts)Web designer and programmer, movie fanatic and devoted dad from Huizen, The Netherlands.
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As you can tell by my mini-bio, I am an 80′s teen movies lover, so perhaps I’ll rent this one to see if I get the jokes.
Whatever did happen to Molly Ringwald?
Comment by suzero — Sun July 27, 2003 @ 10:58I know Anthony Michael Hall became a BIG man, barely recognizable in Edward Scissorhands. [It just took me 8 tries to spell "scissor" correctly... argh... Sunday morning!]
Well, Molly got old. She looks nowhere near a peachy as she did back then. She must’ve suffered from typecasting I guess…
I forgot to mention that the DVD has some fun extras. There a “Teen IQ” quiz (clever use of DVD’s limited technical possibilities), and a ‘subtitles’ setting that reveals from what movie certain scenes have been ‘borrowed’.
Comment by weefselkweekje — Mon July 28, 2003 @ 8:51Molly had a sad stint on TV a couple of years back. The show was quickly cancelled.
Comment by marisa — Mon July 28, 2003 @ 14:32Wasn’t the black-haired punky girl of the Breakfast Club also in that girl-version-of-a-brat-pack-vehicle ‘the Craft’, a few years later. Or am I just mixing stereotypes now.
Comment by reisneus — Tue July 29, 2003 @ 1:24Nooooooo….. that was Ally Sheedy. Also to be admired alongside Matthew Broderick in War Games in 1983 and as a junkie lesbian in High Art in 1998.
A friend of mine in New York, Annet, went to the premiere of High Art with a bunch of lesbian friends. They were admiring Ally Sheedy from a distance when Annet suddenly suggested she introduce them to Ms. Sheedy. So she approached Ally and simply said, “Hi Ally, I’d like you to meet: Jane and Lisa… etc.”. Ally politely shook hands with everyone and Annet’s friends were most impressed with her celebrity contacts, until Ally eventually turned to Annet and asked who the hell SHE was.
Anyone who has ever met charmingly cocky Annet will know that she is more than capable of pulling off such a stunt.
Comment by suzero — Tue July 29, 2003 @ 8:08Molly got old? Hmmm I seem to remember her starring in Stephen Kings Last Stand and she was looking mighty fine! (true I had a crush on her… still have I guess
Comment by punkmachine — Tue July 29, 2003 @ 10:55Well who didn’t back then… but this movie will probably cure that…
Comment by weefselkweekje — Tue July 29, 2003 @ 11:21Is it that bad? Hmmm see if I can google up some recent pictures of La Ringwald
Comment by punkmachine — Tue July 29, 2003 @ 15:56Had to prove my point I guess:
http://www.sitcomsonline.com/photos/mollyringwaldtoday.jpg
I rest my case!
Comment by punkmachine — Tue July 29, 2003 @ 16:04oh come on Punk! She doesn’t look THAT bad. Redheads never age well anyway. All those freckles.
Comment by marisa — Tue July 29, 2003 @ 17:23She looks like Kate Beckinsale gone through a photoshop red filter.
Comment by suzero — Tue July 29, 2003 @ 17:31I’ll explain. I wanted to prove that she’s still a beauty! Which I think is still the case (just look at the picture and you’ll have to agree). BTW what’s with freckles and aging? Mind you I have A LOT of freckles… (well quite a few anyway
Comment by punkmachine — Wed July 30, 2003 @ 9:20That picture is clearly the result of some serious image processing, as she looks nowhere near as peachy in this movie. I couldn’t find any stills on google, so you’ll just have to rent this movie
Comment by weefselkweekje — Wed July 30, 2003 @ 10:58I can’t hear you!
And who made you the expert on image processing? 
Comment by punkmachine — Wed July 30, 2003 @ 15:02hehe, I’m not an expert by far, but I could make even you look great in a picture
(I’ll need my 5 years of art school to do it though…)
Sorry, but you had that coming
(for those of you who’ve lost track by now, Punkmachine and I know eachother IRL as well)
Comment by weefselkweekje — Wed July 30, 2003 @ 15:20I agree. The image is retouched for sure. (Another not-quite-expert-but-up-there-nonetheless opinion)
We don’t mind, I’d rather see a slightly-tweaked image than a shouldn’t have gotten up in the morning one.
Comment by reisneus — Wed July 30, 2003 @ 21:10i love this film i think the person who plays jake he is really fit!
Comment by charlie — Sun May 9, 2004 @ 22:22Me and my friend had an arguement about Kate Beckinsale last night, he says she is at least 39 and I think she is in her early 30s. We have been looking for the correct answer and found your blog in the search engine results, could you please tell us her exact age?
Great blog.
Steve & Chris.
Comment by spin palace — Wed February 1, 2006 @ 17:05Click here…
She’s almost exactly my age…
Comment by weefselkweekje — Wed February 1, 2006 @ 20:34