10 Things I Hate About You

10 Things I Love About 10 Things

1. In the true spirit of movie magic, 10 Things I Hate About You is filmed in Tacoma, but the weather is consistently beautiful! There isn't a drop of rain the whole time, even when a cheesier movie would've needed it to reflect a character's depression.
2. David Krumholtz, the older brother from Slums of Beverly Hills, gets to play almost exactly the same role, and it suits him so well that it doesn't bother me to see it again.
3. Larisa Oleynik and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are cuter than a button. For Gordon-Levitt, that's a pleasant change from his work on "3rd Rock from the Sun".
4. That school building is amazing! I'm amazed that a place with a name as innocuous as Stadium High School could be so stunning.
5. It has the most creative use of a marching band I've seen since Animal House.
6. The Isuzu Guy plays a teacher. Now do you remember where you'd seen David Leisure? You might also recognize him as a religious zealot in Airplane and Airplane II.
7. Allison Janney gets to play some comedy in the form of Ms. Perky. I didn't even recognize her from her role in American Beauty.
8. It's not nearly as hung up on sex as some recent teen- featuring fare like American Pie.
9. I get to add another entry to the doesn't-start-with-a-letter section of my movie pages.
10. Credit cookies! It's always funny to see raw footage of a crowd scene like a party because nobody in the background is actually saying anything until the loopers and foley artists come in later.

Bubbly

While this may be something of a bubble-gum movie on the surface, I really enjoyed it. It's infectiously ebullient for a hefty portion of the time, and at least reasonably inventive in the way the characters grind through the recycled elements of the plot.

Attractive Intelligence?

I found myself surprisingly attracted to Kat, played by Julia Stiles. I couldn't put my finger on why for the longest time, though. I think it boils down to brains. It's almost astonishing to see a teenager with any significant degree of intelligence in a movie like this, and it's a nice change from the usual characteristics to which movies quickly resort.