Saturday Six – Second Wave Millennial Teen Comedies

Welcome to the Saturday Six, where each week I let you get to know me a bit better with the help of a list. Any idiot can do a Top 5 list, which is why I kicked it up a notch to a Top 6. This week’s topic: Second Wave Millennial Teen Comedies.

The other day I caught Not Another Teen Movie on cable. It reminded me of the awesomeness of the teen comedy renaissance of the late 90’/early 00’s. While it was ushered in by such great movies like She’s All That, Clueless, and Can’t Hardly Wait, I would actually contend that those movies that came out after the groundbreakers of the reemergence of the genre were actually much better.

1. American Pie 2 – I think everyone can agree that American Pie was the watershed teen comedy of the 90’s. As awesome as that movie was, I think American Pie 2, while pretty similar story wise, manages to take all the same beats as the original, turn them up to 11, and comes out the superior effort for it.

 

2. 10 Things I Hate About You – Even though I count 14 things, I still love this movie. I get what they were going for, with the name sounding similar to the source material, Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. Since this is technically a “reimagining”, it’s not all that original, but the way they twisted everything to fit the teen comedy mold just works. It was also great to see such 90’s TV stars as Larisa Oleynik and Joseph Gordon-Levitt on the big screen. And who didn’t love that appearance by Save Ferris?

 

3. Never Been Kissed – Man, Drew Barrymore was everywhere back then, was’t she? The sheer absurdity of the premise is what gets me. While the whole thing is incredibly sweet, in the real world, it would never work, and would end with most everyone involved in jail.

 

4. Loser – This was like some weird Twilight Zone take on American Pie, in that it starred both Jason Biggs and Mena Suvari playing very against type. It’s certainly not the best, but I like it anyway for just how quirky it is. And they got Dan Aykroyd to be in it, so that’s a definite plus. And since 10 Things had an appearance by Save Ferris, Loser felt compelled to make a concert by Everclear a focal point of the plot.

 

5. Boys and Girls – If Loser is a Twilight Zone episode, this movie is Frankenstein’s monster. It’s like they took the best parts of every other teen comedy, and tried to stitch them all together to make some some of grand masterpiece of teendom. And they failed miserably. But this is the type of movie that is so bad, at least for me, it cycles back around to almost being good. Maybe it’s just because I like seeing Clare Forlani in something besides Mallrats, but I can’t help myself when it comes to liking this polished turd of a film.

 

6. Wet Hot American Summer – Having been on both sides of the camp experience, as a camper of many years and as a counselor, I can tell you that pretty much everything about this movie is spot on. OK, so no one is humping fridges or talking to cans of vegetables, but other than that, just about everything else is just right. Plus the entire cast is a literal who’s who of the greatest comedians of our time all before they hit it big.

 

JohnScott is the proud owner of a life size replica Captain Kirk Chair. He is a hoarder of Comic Books, Transformers, and Star Trek action figures. He attended Space Camp as an adult. He has taken vacations to the closing of the Star Trek Experience and the final night Shuttle launch. He has been known to yell at his television when the kids can't put together the damn statue in the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. When not writing for InsufficientScotty, he is a Software Engineer for a major healthcare communications company. You can Email or follow on Twitter @NotEnoughScotty or Facebook