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.

Michael Hayes (1997) s01e18 – Gotterdammerung

It’s recognizable guest star week on “Michael Hayes.” Lots of guest stars. Sadly former “Facts of Life” co-stars Meredith Scott Lynn and Charlotte Rae don’t share any scenes. But there’s also the return of Larry Miller—he gets a “special appearance” credit—and does his best Gene Hackman in “The Conversation” (or Gene Hackman in Enemy of the State trailers) as a CIA agent who gives David Caruso the dirt on the CIA hiring on a bunch of Nazis after World War II, which is true but the show’s so silly at the conspiracy stuff it doesn’t come off truthy. The main guest star is Lawrence Dobkin, playing an elderly German immigrant who changes his testimony on the stand. He’s testifying against other guest star Vyto Ruginis.

Dobkin changes his story right after Holocaust survivor Rae spots him in the court house, in such an obvious sequence (even without the show’s “cut in a Nazi uniform” montage technique, even worse than the show’s flashback devices) you have to wonder if Hillary Danner’s character is supposed to have never seen or heard of Marathon Man.

Last recognizable guest star is Lawrence Pressman as the government Nazi hunter who tries to find out the story on Dobkin.

Meanwhile, Caruso, Danner, Peter Outerbridge, and Ruben Santiago-Hudson are all scrambling to save the case against Ruginis (for murdering a federal agent) while wondering if they fell for an old Nazi’s lies or if Rae’s just mistaken.

Once the CIA gets involved, Miller comes back for a scene—which just leads Caruso off to another visit with jailed CIA whistleblower now conspiracy crank Thomas Kopache (who isn’t a recognizable guest star so much as what I assume is a desperate attempt at appealing to “X-Files” viewers)—and then Caruso’s got to figure out how to uncover all the secrets.

There’s some good acting. Rae’s really good, Pressman’s good, Dobkin’s pretty good—the problem for Dobkin is he’s in it too much, doing too little, and the script (credited to show runner Michael S. Chernuchin and Barry Schkolnick) doesn’t really know how to do the story. The script shoehorns in conspiracy when it’d have been more affecting and effective without it. The regular cast just gets to be angry about Dobkin hoodwinking them—or is he—and all of a sudden you’ve got a roomful of righteous rage and not just the seething righteous rage of Caruso. Caruso’s righteous fury a lot more effective when the bad guys aren’t potentially actual Nazis. It’s over kill, lighting a burner with a flamethrower; though it does give Caruso endless one-liner deliveries to try out, just not a lot of acting.

It’s well-acted enough, just really thinly written—the episode disappoints in an all new way; even towards the end of the season, “Michael Hayes” can always find a new fail vector.

Also, one final complaint—no Rebecca Rigg (but Danner, who’s been sitting out Rigg episodes). Not sure why they can’t be on the same episodes anymore, possibly because all the characters are purely functional at this point.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005, Shane Black)

It’s nice to have Robert Downey Jr. back. Val Kilmer is hardly doing anything, so I always looked at Kiss Kiss Bang Bang as a Kilmer film, but then, watching, I realized that I hadn’t seen Downey in anything since… Wonder Boys? Probably Wonder Boys. But he’s the lead in Kiss Kiss and it reminds you just how great he is an actor. Didn’t want to end with an “it” there.

Kilmer’s great too, but the show’s all Downey’s. Downey’s and Shane Black’s. Kiss Kiss isn’t perfect–it gets way too serious when it doesn’t have to–but it’s an impressively constructed film. It’s like if Adaptation had worked. Black “reinvents the buddy film again!” No, I’m just kidding–lots of people are bringing up that Shane Black wrote Lethal Weapon. But there’s a difference between the two films… Kiss Kiss takes some responsibility for itself. It might actually take too much responsibility, but there’s actual weight to the characters’ violent acts. That’s something new.

Either some or a lot of notice has been given to Kilmer playing an openly gay character. This notice falls under my observation a few years ago: GLAAD has an award for best portrayal–in an amusement–of gay characters as… human beings. When I first read that, I checked the calendar and, yes, I was living in 2004, so I decided that the human species just needed to be firebombed. Or something. The character’s gayness probably started–for Black–as a way to comment on the genre and the character relationships, but Kilmer and Downey just made it part of the film. And their relationship is great. So good I used an “and” to start a sentence.

I guess I should pay some attention to the female lead, Michelle Monaghan. She’s really good in the film–playing Downey’s high school dream girl no less–one of the further ways Black plays with the medium–and she needs to be in other films I want to see.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is probably the best time I’ve had in the theater in a long time. I’m glad I went (instead of just waiting three months for the DVD).