film festival

I had a movie night last night, which included most of the films that defined my early teenage years. Some of them are best left appreciated as memories, some have lasted the test of time.

Some highlights:

10 Things I Hate About You, 1997

The acerbically tongued Kat (Julia Stiles) plays a 'tempestuous' high school loner obsessed with literature, feminism and not fitting in. Soft-hearted rebel Heath Ledger plays her love interest, well, she hates him at first, but it all works out in the end, of course. I love the scene where he serenades her on the bleachers. The film has a great soundtrack too, which kind of encapsulates all the music I fell in love with at that impressionable age - Spiderbait, Letters to Cleo, The Cardigans, Air...But best of all is the Notorious BIG track, 'Hypnotise', which is the track Kat dances to on the table at an out-of-control, every-American-teen-movie-has-one type house party. And Joan Jett's 'I Don't Give A Damn About My Bad Reputation'. It's ostensibly based on The Taming of the Shrew, but it's a pretty mangled version.

"Romantic? Hemingway? He was an abusive, alcoholic misogynist who squandered half of his life hanging around Picasso trying to nail his leftovers."


The Craft, 1996

This was like, really scary. The Babysitters Club goes wild with Wiccan, so to speak. It's tagline is "Carrie meets Clueless".A newcomer to a Catholic prep high school (Neve Campbell) falls in with a trio of outcast teenage girls who practice witchcraft and they all soon conjure up various spells and curses against those who even slightly anger them. I loved the way they customised their school uniforms. Plus, Fairuza Balk was soo badass, in my 13 year old mind. Eyeliner? Dyed hair? Woah.

"Driver: Watch out for the weirdos, girls. Nancy: We are the weirdos, mister."


Reality Bites, 1994

This is so nineties. Generation X college graduates, including Ethan Hawke, Winona Ryder and Janeane Garofalo try to make it in the city, and struggle. It's all very melodramatic and of it's time - AIDS scares, working at the Gap, general apathy, flannel shirts and floral dresses, DIY, lo-fi film-making, and the all important question - should Leilani choose Ben Stiller and his creepy MTV-ness or Troy's (Ethan Hawke) pseudo-philosophical musings and total babeness? You know she does the right thing.

"He's so cheesy, I can't watch him without crackers."