3. Teen Fare, Kinda My Thing.

I like teen movies, in fact, I love them with every fibre of my tiny beating heart. I love John Hughes, and I love Bill and Ted, I love Clueless, and Save the Last Dance, and Mean Girls, and Step Up, and everything in between. no shame. just love. I wrote my dissertation on teen movies so I can claim some academic legitimacy if I want to, but i don't really want to. I'd rather just revel in the awesome sunny american gorgeousness and the hugely inflated issues, and the frocks and the drama and the dance sequences, and the vampires, and the undying love and the bad parents and the cars at sixteen, and the annoying younger siblings, and the kooky best friends, and the zeitgiesty soundtrack. So here's a few coming up that I'm pretty excited about.


Twilight: New Moon is clearly going to be the greatest film this year. And I honestly think that the franchise is of serious artistic and cultural merit. I blame most of the films faults on the shoddy dialogue skills of Stephany Meyers, not the narrative and characterisation that she crafted. Twilight taps into so many female fantasies, of being perceived as extraordinary despite our ordinariness, as being totally central to someone's life (or un-life.. whatever), so much so that they exist only to for us, without expecting to be cleaned, bathed, ego massaged or fed. Or just that somebody finds us SO desirable that he can't bear to be away from use even though he might kill us by being around. sigh. Also, Edward Cullen is just SO HOT (no, not Robert Pattinson, just the character).


I have an article I'll get round to writing one day, a comparison between Let the Right One In and Twilight. They're pretty much the same film.







Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant is a suit's idea of making money off the back of the afore mentioned Cullen boy. It looks shit though. and John C Reilly will not be enough to save it (for shame John, although your knowing brows do lend an air of irony that might buoy the film for a few moments). A Carnival of freaks, midgets, and Vampires who don't actually kill people. It's like Todd Browning Meets The Fast Show.


But, like Whip It, I'll still watch it.







Fame was awesome first time round. Not precisely a teen movie per se but i'm pretty sure more teenagers watched it than any other demographic. The new one looks awesome, all the pieces are in place, dancing, legwarmers, angst. Not a whole lot to analyse, I just wonder if they'll include the social commentary of the original.