10 Things I Hate About You (1999, Gil Junger)

10 Things I Hate About You is from that strange period in American mainstream filmmaking when they knew you couldn’t make too many jokes about high school girls anymore, unless you establish at least twice they’re eighteen so it’s not technically illegal.

There’s also the issue of Andrew Keegan’s sexual predator, who the film treats as something of a joke throughout. Things takes place in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, with lots of white faces, big houses, and big lawns. It’s the perfect location for a Disney teen comedy, except Things is Touchstone and, therefore, tougher. But there’s never significant bullying; nerdy Joseph Gordon-Levitt and David Krumholtz are teased but never assaulted. And Krumholtz invites a lot of the teasing (for a while, anyway).

The film’s based on Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, which I’ve never read or seen, so I’m not sure if Keegan’s character in the original is quite as repugnant. Since the film’s from the late nineties, it doesn’t even think Keegan’s too bad, like it can’t hear him talk, and it doesn’t acknowledge what his character motivation must be after we find out his backstory.

With those asterisks aside, the film’s a charm offensive from leads Julia Stiles and, especially, Heath Ledger. Director Junger often just stares at Ledger, waiting for him to do something charming or perfectly timed. Sometimes Stiles will be staring at him too long, too, because he’s just so damn charming. They’re both delightful, even as the film gets more serious and director Junger (thanks to Mark Irwin’s bland photography) doesn’t really know how to adjust for it.

The film’s also desperate for soundtrack album sales to the point Stiles’s favorite band, (the real-life) Letters to Cleo, figures into the story a couple times and then is back again for a vertigo-inducing live performance. Whether you’re a fan of the band or not, Things doesn’t use them (or much of the music) very well. Especially not once it just does one montage after another. The movie doesn’t even remember its title until the third act.

Though the montages probably help move through without unraveling the plot, which has high school senior Keegan lusting after sophomore Larisa Oleynik, who can’t date until her older sister, Stiles, also dates. Larry Miller plays their single-parent dad; he’s hilarious if just a textured caricature. Gordon-Levitt likes Oleynik too, so Krumholtz convinces him they’re going to get Keegan to hire Ledger to date Stiles, freeing up Oleynik to date….

Well, Gordon-Levitt thinks she’ll be dating him, even though all of her scenes are about her wanting to date Keegan. Throw in Ledger and Stiles falling for each other, and you’ve got yourself a teen movie.

The film obviously had a much different original cut—the end credits have the blooper reel, many of which are from scenes the film didn’t use; the bloopers are funny, and the scenes usually aren’t. Or they’re super problematic even for Things.

Outside Keegan, who’s fine but just a superficial jerk, the performances are uniformly good or better. Ledger and Stiles are obviously the better, but Oleynik’s good, ditto Gordon-Levitt. Allison Janney has a great cameo (cut down) as the school guidance counselor, while Daryl Mitchell’s the teacher who knows Keegan shouldn’t be sexually harassing Stiles, but it’s the late nineties, and he’s not going to actually do anything about it.

Decent editing from O. Nicholas Brown helps, especially during the montages, and if Irwin’s photography weren’t so flat, Junger’s direction would be downright good.

10 Things I Hate About You has its collection of caveats, but its successes—Ledger and Stiles’s successes—are considerable.

A Knight's Tale (2001, Brian Helgeland), the extended cut

I’ve always found A Knight’s Tale’s lack of popular (or critical) success surprising. Besides the obvious–Heath Ledger when he was still doing the young Mel Gibson thing, only mixed with a more mature Gibson’s consciousness of his charm–it’s absolutely hilarious. Helgeland had a problematic relationship with Gibson, but certainly knew how to write for him (Conspiracy Theory) and he knows how to write for Ledger here.

Helgeland’s script is also impressive in how it portrays its villain. Rufus Sewell is as evil as any big film villain, but Helgeland and Sewell discreetly humanize him just enough he’s not intolerable to be around. The audience knows, watching the film, Ledger will best him… it’s just how he’s going to do it.

Unfortunately, the romance between Ledger and Shannyn Sossamon weakens the film. Helgeland just can’t figure a way to make it work and he just pretends it does. The film doesn’t lose its charm, but it does wobble.

The best thing in the film is Paul Bettany, whose performance as Geoffrey Chaucer is a constant delight. The entire supporting cast is solid–Mark Addy and Alan Tudyk are Ledger’s sidekicks, who take demotion in screen time once Sossamon shows up, but remain excellent. Laura Fraser is their girl Friday (who gets shortchanged in terms of character development). James Purefoy is good in a small part.

Helgeland’s direction is good without being extraordinary, but there’s not a bad shot in the film.

Oh, and the Olivia Williams cameo is wonderful.

2.5/4 ★★½

CREDITS

Written and directed by Brian Helgeland; director of photography, Richard Greatrex; edited by Kevin Stitt; music by Carter Burwell; production designer, Tony Burrough; produced by Todd Black, Helgeland and Tim Van Rellim; released by Columbia Pictures.

Starring Heath Ledger (William Thatcher), Rufus Sewell (Count Adhemar), Shannyn Sossamon (Jocelyn), Paul Bettany (Geoffrey Chaucer), Laura Fraser (Kate), Mark Addy (Roland), Alan Tudyk (Wat) and James Purefoy (Colville).


RELATED

OTHER FILMS DIRECTED BY BRIAN HELGELAND
OTHER 2001 RELEASES

The Dark Knight (2008, Christopher Nolan)

Before I get into the meat of this response, there are a few things I want to get out of the way. First, I was really glad when I heard some guy talking about how he didn’t like the movie as everyone filed out. Second, I have a problem with showing movies like this one (which feature inventive psychopaths) to morons like the one sitting next to me. This guy thought the Joker was just so cool for the ways he killed people. It made me a little sick (sort of like seeing a five year-old in line for the movie did as well). The last bit… The Dark Knight is leagues better than Batman Begins and a wholly watchable–albeit exceptionally boring in parts–movie. It’s not a worthless narrative. It’s not worth much, but it’s not worthless.

I also need to mention, once again, Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer steal part and parcel from Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One without crediting Miller. Here it’s a Bruce Wayne, motorcycle-man, a SWAT team fight and Gordon’s family in danger. But Nolan also lifts–and updates for modernity–quite a bit from Batman Forever.

One thing keeps The Dark Knight going and it’s Heath Ledger. He’s unbelievably good. Nothing you can read in a review can prepare you for his performance. It’s singular and exceptional. Simply, Ledger makes The Dark Knight–as absurd a prospect as Alice in Wonderland–pass for legitimate. Seeing what he’s going to do, how he’s going to deliver a line, move his eyes, makes the movie worth the rest of it.

Let’s just go through the performances, actually. It’s probably the easiest thing… first the actors, then the production.

Christian Bale is, once again, perfectly fine. He’s not so much the protagonist in The Dark Knight as a supporting player. At times he even comes behind Gary Oldman in narrative importance. There are some real problems, however, mostly with his voice. Bale’s Batman voice is awful (had they brought in Michael Keaton to dub over it, the movie would have been significantly better). He’s also not visibly fit enough to be Batman. Nolan makes a point of showing off Bale’s physique and it’s not one of a guy who drops fifty stories without twisting his ankle. But Bale’s kind of perfect for Nolan’s Batman movies. I wouldn’t want anyone particularly good to embarrass himself in them.

I’m trying to stay moderately positive (hey, it’s the biggest hit of all-time or something, right? That means it must be good… not just a side-effect of American high school graduates getting progressively less educated every year), so I’ll mention Morgan Freeman. Freeman’s shameless with what he’ll add to his filmography these days and The Dark Knight is no different. He turns in his standard, wise but still sharp old guy performance and it’s fine.

Michael Caine’s character is still poorly written, but he’s in this one less and is, therefore, better than he was in the first.

Cillian Murphy’s funny in his cameo. If Nolan had given his scene more weight, the movie would have been better. But given what Nolan thinks he does well, it’s no surprise he doesn’t actually recognize when he has a good scene going.

Maggie Gyllenhaal isn’t awful. She’s not any good, but a lot of it has to do with her scenes. The Dark Knight‘s approach to the American legal system is sillier than the Adam West television program would have portrayed. Gyllenhaal’s in the middle of that setting for the first act, when she’s not trying to do the love triangle stuff (with Bale and Aaron Eckhart). Gyllenhaal has zero chemistry with either. The only time she’s believable is when she’s talking to them on the phone. All gossip aside, it’s no wonder Katie Holmes didn’t come back for this one. The character isn’t just the worst written in the movie, it’s one of the worst written female characters in a long time. After–in the first movie–being a strong female character, here Gyllenhaal plays second fiddle to Eckhart. It reminds me of a professor telling women to become lawyers instead of paralegals… Nolan takes the character from being a lawyer and demotes her.

Now to Eckhart. I haven’t seen a worse performance out of someone since Nicole Kidman in Malice. Similar to her performance, here Eckhart’s hair does most of the acting. He’s exceptionally bad. In fact, he’s silly. If it weren’t for the overbearing music and the constant, weighty pretension, I would have laughed through every one of his line deliveries. Luke Perry would have been better….

Gary Oldman, on the other hand, actually ruins the movie. It’s not all him–Christopher Nolan’s (hang on, I need to check a thesaurus) putrid dialogue helps. I can’t figure out why the Joker writing is so much better than the rest of the material. Maybe someone good did a rewrite. But seriously, Oldman does ruin the movie in the end. He’s never for one moment convincing. Not just as a police officer or police lieutenant–Oldman’s cop wouldn’t be taken seriously on “Barney Miller”–but as an American. Oldman affects a strange, semi-Southern accent and it’s clear he’s just cheaply covering his own. He’s also revealed to be, at best, a drooling idiot (thanks to Nolan’s cavernous plot holes).

Suffering through Oldman and Eckhart for Ledger basically sums up the experience of The Dark Knight. Nolan’s choice in cameos is bad–Eric Roberts is particularly bad, but Anthony Michael Hall isn’t much better. The Tiny Lister cameo at the end is just funny. It sort of shows off The Dark Knight for what it really is… a movie with Tiny Lister as a big mean black guy in it.

Nolan’s a lousy director, incapable of filling a Panavision frame with any content. Oddly enough, there are some great action scenes in the movie. I don’t know how Nolan managed to conceive of such great set pieces–probably from reading Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One–but there are a number of them. Those excellent action scenes make the movie a lot more watchable, even though Ledger’s present in most of them so they’re covered. There’s one particularly good car sequence he isn’t in though. Most of the credit belongs to Lee Smith, who does a great job (a look at his filmography reveals he’s worked with good directors on occasion).

The much lauded opening bank robbery scene is moronic, however. And that idiocy is the real problem with Nolan and his Dark Knight. It’s not realistic. Trying to make it realistic just makes it seem stupid. The court room scenes play less realistic than “Night Court.” The mayor’s wearing eye shadow for some reason. The city is completely overrun with crime, on an inconceivable scale. It’s ludicrous, made far worse by Nolan’s pretentiousness. My wife’s only seen this one so I had to tell her it was actually less pretentious than Batman Begins and The Dark Knight is probably the most pretentious movie I’ve seen since I saw Begins. Nolan’s totally and utterly full of shit.

Luckily, he’s got Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard back scoring the movie and, wow, is their collaboration terrible. One of the worst side-effects of 28 Days Later is everyone mimicking the way that film used its score. Zimmer and Howard’s score seems like it’s for the video game version of 28 Days Later. Calling it derivative doesn’t begin to cover it–The Dark Knight uses the music to drown the viewer in its self-importance. There isn’t a single subtle note in the duo’s score.

When I got done with Batman Begins, I figured that film would result in a better sequel. And it has. The Dark Knight is idiotic, but it’s still not as dumb as the first one. Ledger’s performance will likely get me back to the theater see it again; probably get me to buy this dumb movie on disc. But–again stealing from Frank Miller, I think from Dark Knight Returns–the film’s conclusion is a bit of a pickle for a sequel. Can the next one be even better–maybe even approach being good? It might… there’s still some of Batman: Year One to plagiarize. But will Nolan recognize the good material and curate it?

No, he won’t.