Movie – 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

I’m going to do something a little different with this review.  Instead of the usual format I’m going to use a list format.  Without further ado, here are 10 Things I Love About 10 Things I Hate About You.

1.  The story – The movie is based on the Shakespeare comedy The Taming of the Shrew, but with a modern twist.  If you say both titles out loud they even sound a little like each other.  If you’ve never seen the original play the basic premise is that a younger woman cannot marry until her older sister marries first.  The catch is that the older sister is a “shrew” and no man wants anything to do with her.  A suitor for the younger sister convinces a rogue to try to court the older sister, so that both can eventually be married.  In the movie it’s a father who’s paranoid about his daughters getting pregnant who forbids his younger daughter from dating until her older sister does.  Most of the characters have names relating to Shakespeare (i.e. Kat and Bianca Stratford, Patrick Verona, Padua High, etc.)  There are also a few lines from various works by Shakespeare in the film.

Movie – (500) Days of Summer (2009)

This is not a love story.  That’s what the movie tells you right from the beginning.  Despite those words it has many of the elements of a love story, but not with all the clichés that come with those.  What the movie is is a refreshing, sometimes humorous, sometimes touching, more realistic, and possibly even original, look at the relationship of a man and a woman.

Movie – My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997)

Julia Roberts in a romantic comedy; (yawn) it’s been done.  Julia Roberts realizing she has feelings for someone close to her; (yawn) it’s been done.  Julia Roberts playing a potential home wrecker and a “bad guy” even though she’s the star of the movie; wait a minute, what did you just say?

Movie – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

Let’s take a trip back to a time when even adults recognized righteous dudes, principals went on one man missions to ruin students, you could convince your friend to borrow his dad’s prize Ferrari for a road trip, and Jennifer Grey, Charlie Sheen, Ben Stein, Alan Ruck, and Kristy Swanson were unknowns.  Let’s all take our own day off and watch this movie.

Movie – Easy A (2010)

Even though this is a recent movie you may not have heard of it.  It didn’t get much advertising support and it was released in the latter part of September, where movies go to die.  If you did hear of it you might have dismissed it as a chick flick.  I'm here to say that it is an all around enjoyable movie; a delight to watch.

Movies with Musical Numbers for No Reason

“Just once I want my life to be like an 80s movie, preferably one with a really awesome musical number for no apparent reason.” – Olive Penderghast, Easy A

You might be saying, “Aren’t all musical numbers in movies there for no apparent reason?”  Well, in the world of a movie musical the performances are logical, just like in the world of an action movie all the crashes and explosions that don’t harm the hero are logical.  For most genres, the movie world does not follow the logic of the real world.

For this category I’ve chosen movies that are not movie musicals, but for whatever reason they have a musical number performed by the characters.  The movies I have selected for this category are Easy A, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, My Best Friend’s Wedding, and (500) Days of Summer.  I thought about including O Brother Where Art Thou, but the characters in that movie are actually recording a song in a studio, so within the world of the movie there is a reason for it.

When the character in Easy A is saying the words above they actually flash on screen the parade sequence from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which is a fun reference.  You may note that this is the only 80s movie I have chosen.  I may revisit this category at a later point to review some additional movies.  Let me know if you have some favorites I did not include.

In case you are wondering what happened to the “Gwyneth Paltrow is British” category that I mentioned in the original three choices – since all four movies in this category have romantic elements in them I will post them when we get closer to Valentine’s Day.

Before I get to the reviews, I just have one question:

You can find my posts for these movies here:

Easy A

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

My Best Friend's Wedding

(500) Days of Summer

10 Things I Hate About You added October 16, 2011.

On to the reviews: