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American literature. (Alhens-Clarke
Library)
VIRGIN SUICIDES (R) Director Sofia
Coppola's letaure debut is a drama with
comedic elements set in mid-70s
Michigan. Five luminous teens (Leslie
Hayman, AJ. Cook, Chelse Swain.
Hanna Hall and Kirsten Dunst) confront
their sexuality and mortality. The blond
girls are objects of masculine desire,
but thar ultra-strict parents (James
Wood, and Kathleen Turner) won!
allow any'* Based on the novel by
Jeffrey Eugenide. With Giovanni Ribisi
and the music of Styx and the Electric
Light Orchestra. Showing Friday, 8/1
through Sunday. 8/3. (Tate)
WHAT LIES BENEATH (R) Is it a
ghost story or a murder caper? Who
knows? This weak thriller starts out like
a creepy love letter to Hitchcock but
suffers from too many preposterous
contrivances and eventually ends up
like a Friday The 13th sequel. Michelle
Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford are appar
ently a wealthy, happily married
Vermont couple, but trouble comes
after their daughter* exit to college.
The film effectively builds up to some
very frightening moments but unfortu
nately relies too heavily on the new
trick of startling the audience with a
loud, sudden blast of orchestral arrent.
Directed by Robert Zemekis.
(Beechwood, Carr, like)
WHIPPED (R) A comedy about the
dating game written, directed and pro
duced by newcomei Peter M. Cohen A
group of buddies from college meet
every Sunday at the local diner to dis
cuss chicks. Their conversations
revolve around the weekend past and
the girts they were able or unable to
“scam." However, when all three single
guys unknowingly go after the same
“peflect" woman (Amanda Peel), things
get interesting. Opens Friday.
(Beechwood. Carmike)
BELLY LAUGHS
BRING IT ON (PG-13) This giddy, spotty teen
comedy about two rival cheerleadirg squads,
genuinely attempts to break away from some of
the tiresome cliches, formulas and typical
exploitation of many dumb and predictable high
school flick*. But it comes up short. This is a
deeply conventional movie sloppily mixing two
genres—the "sports movie" and the teenage
romantic comedy."
Directed hurriedly by first-time director
Peyton Reed from a script by Jessica Bendinger
(who must have researched the dialogue from
Valley Girl and Fast Times At Ridgemont High),
Bring It On zig-zags between stories, leaves its
characters underdeveloped and never makes up
its mind. 1s it a garden variety, sexually-charged
teen romance? A sports flick fueled by snobbery
and rivalry? An examination of racism or class
differences? After the first act—which includes
a series of startlingly naughty cheer songs, a
steamy visit to the girls' locker room, endless
camera shots of midriffs and short skirts, and a
scene in which the bouncy cheerleaders wash
cars dressed in wet T-shirts and bikinis (didn't
Wild Things cover that two years ago?)—it
becomes dear that's it's just a little bit of all-of-
the-above.
Kirsten Dunst, the thin, blonde actress who
was so magnetic and watchable in The Virgin
Suicides, Dick and Drop Dead Gorgeous recently,
leads the cast as Torrance Shipman, the ener
getic, newly-elected captain of a San Diego
cheerleading squad called The Toros. Torrance *-
and her female teammates make sure to show as
much skin as possible, even when they're not
cheering, while her male teammates ward off
"fag" jokes from the football players.
In a better movie, the viewer might get to 'I
know and understand Torrance. It's never dear
why Torrance is so gung-ho about her hobby;
she's smart, witty, optimistic and kind—basi
cally the opposite of most of her teammates. As
the story follows her through the anxieties and
hardships of a season aimed toward the cli
mactic national championships in Daytona, she
slides between being a typical "dumb blonde"
and a truly compassionate, self-aware character
willing to "do the right thing."
The Toros' main competition comes from the
East Compton Clovers, a mostly black inner-rity
squad led by the cool-headed Isis (Gabrielle
Union of She’s All That). It turns out that all
those crowd-pleasing routines The Toros have
been using were actually plagiarized by
Torrance's bitchy predecessor (Lindsay Sloane).
Whoops.
In desperation, Dunst breaks the rules and
hires a professional choreographer (Ian Roberts),
who shouts at them like a demented drill
sergeant ("Cheerleaders are dancers gone
retarded!") and trains the team to perform a dis
astrous routine involving something called
"cheer fingers" at the regional competitions.
Bring It On lumbers ahead through a pile of
predictable plot devices—the romance between
the "cool" girl and the "geek" (in this case,
newcomer Jesse Bradford as the guy with the
"punk" T-shirt), the condescending behavior of
rich white kids towards the not-so-rich white
and black kids, and the backstabbing between
teammates—all the way up to the big climax at
the cheerleading competition (interchangeable
with the "big game" in all sports movies). The
volume stays "pumped up" through it all (is a
double-shot of the pounding "Get Ready For
This" by 2 Unlimited necessary?) and the dia
logue gets raunchier and raunchier.
It's a shame that Reed and his crew didn't
focus of one particular aspect of high school
life. As a satire aimed at power and peer pres
sure, Bring It On could potentially have been as
sharp as Flection or Valley Girl. As an examina
tion of racism in the American youth culture,
the movie could have stretched out as a fasci
nating moraUty play. As it stands, it's little more
than a jumpy jumble of one-liners, dance rou
tines and unconvincing teen interaction that
shamelessly flaunts its sex appeal. Nice uni
forms, though.
Ballard Lesemann
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