Not Another Teen Movie

While it fails almost as often as it succeeds, there's so much going on here I couldn't help but like it. You REALLY have to be familiar with the material being spoofed, though. And part of the fun is ticking them all off in your mind if you're a movie geek like me.

NATM has two levels and target audiences. For teens who have seen all the recent flicks, it's a direct, Mad magazine style parody. For 30 somethings like me, it's an homage to the 80's flicks. The opening scene is an obvious "American Pie" spoof, but in a much more subtle way, it's drawing on "Sixteen Candles". To top it off, the scene is still funny even if you haven't seen either targets. Bruce (Sam Levine from Freaks & Geeks) is a parody of Seth Green's character in "Can't Hardly Wait", but he's also an homage to Long Duk Dong.

Several people have mentioned that kids probably haven't seen the old flicks and older people haven't seen the new ones. Well, if you're a kid, you don't need to have seen the old flicks to appreciate it as a broad parody. The 80's jokes tend to sit in the background- like the signs on the walls and the musical cues in the Molly Ringwald scene (which actually was a weak point IMO). And I've found that most people my age HAVE seen most of the newer teen movies. They came out just about the time we were starting to get married, buy houses, have real jobs. And they were a nice bit of nostalgia for our youth. Even if we didn't go pay $7.50 to see them, we've seen them on USA on saturday afternoon.

It's no accident the that soundtrack is almost entirely new, young bands doing covers of 80's songs.

As far as the gross-out factor goes, it's really not that bad. The filthy opening scene is forgivable because it's so dang funny. There is one gory joke on the football field. (A "Lucas" homage inside a "Varsity Blues" parody.) A sick unfunny scatalogical joke at the beginning of the movie pays off with a big laugh when it's turned around at the end. And the mother of all "poo" jokes is tempered by the fact that the victim is a delivering a tirade against "poo" jokes. And then there's granny's kiss- unfunny and nasty. But it's nowhere near the level of "Scary Movie". It's also nice to see a movie like this without any gay jokes or fat jokes. (There is a fat guy, but being fat isn't the joke.) Under the filth, this is a pretty gentle movie.

I avoided this when it came out, but another 30-something friend recommended it to me recently. I'd recommend it to anyone who old enough to have seen "Sixteen Candles" in a theatre...as long as you've seen most of the newer flicks as well.

Oh...LOVED the slow clap guy!

It's gross, stupid, and raunchy and I love it! And you can tell that everyone involved had a great time, and that just adds to the experience. It also helps that I am a fan of a few of the movies that they make fun of like Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club. And even the stuff that isn't exactly funny gets a laugh out of me because it's all over-the-top in the best way.

The days of Airplane and Naked Gun are over. Nowadays, we have the Scary Movies, Spy Hard, Date Movie, Not Another Teen Movie, etc....of all of these, Teen Movie is quite easily the best one. The point of spoofs and satires, to me, are not just to take familiar scenes and do something retarded and gross with them, but instead to actually make fun of all the things in the original movies that, while watching them, we all turned to our friends and said "wait a minute, thats kind of stupid". Teen Movie does this extremely well. How many of us lucky movie fans who saw She's All That had trouble seeing why everyone in the movie thought the lead actress was ugly just because she had glasses and a ponytail? She was still a babe! How many of these teen movies give the main lead actress a friend who is clearly into her, but she always seems to ignore any possibility of romance between them, instead pursuing another character and asking for her friend's help/advice? How many people thought the characters in Cruel Intentions were just sexually over the top to the point of being absurd? Teen Movie pokes great fun at all of these flaws. It is, unlike many other movies that attempt to be like it, a true satire, taking characters and not just doing stupid things with them, but exaggerating the traits of their serious counterparts and, when it comes down to it, just making fun of them. It has surprisingly good plot cohesion while still making fun of a variety of teen movies. I suppose the best way to distinguish this movie from all other modern spoofs is that this one is truly intelligent. Sure it has some stupid jokes, and toilet humor (that I admit I chuckled at in disgust like the diarrhea scene and the lesbian kiss with the old woman), but it also has some very clever jokes, like when is it appropriate to start a slow clap, why do these teen movies seem to only have one black character, and how silly is it that things slow down for emphasis when the beautiful female lead enters the room. Please, give this one a chance. If you've seen the other modern spoofs, I'm confident you will appreciate the noticeable and subtle differences between them and Teen Movie that make the latter much more enjoyable and palatable to watch.

The IMDb ranking for this film is quite harsh in my opinion. OK, this film was never going to win an Oscar, but it's enjoyable throughout and has some very good laughs in it. I'm not a big fan of teen movies but I saw this and was impressed. It's light-hearted and not afraid to appear ridiculous (infact most of the time it does this deliberately) and it doesn't pretend to be "Just another teen movie", indeed it IS "Not another teen movie", it's a very enjoyable laugh at the expense of those films.

Don't expect your life to be changed by this film, but if you want simply a fun film to watch then you won't go far wrong seeing this one.

I hate it when people make comments about these sorts of films saying that the story line is loose or vague or it has no real plot. The only reason for these films to have any sort of plot is to direct the jokes. I believe this films primary purpose is to make the viewer laugh and it does so in abundance. I went to see the film with an open mind not expecting to be blown away with a fantastic performance from the lead character or be intrigued by its deep and complex story line - its a light hearted no-brainer that does its job.

I think the problem most people have with this film is they haven't seen many of the films it spoofs which in turn would make it very unfunny. However it captures the essence of all teen movies and all the characters (although supposed to be from one movie or another) can be recognised in any of the teen movies.

It was always going to be a difficult task to include a good array of characters and movies to spoof but I believe director Joel Gallen has done a pretty decent job. Watch it with your mates and few beers!