Daily Archives: February 4, 2019

Story Pile: 10 Things I Hate About You

Okay.

Okay.

Before we get started, this movie is basically a book report for my generation. Like, this is a movie that a lot of English teachers (not mine, mine weren’t cool) let the students watch so they could do a comparison between the texts and maybe just once, just once get the students to give a damn about Shakespeare. That means that to me, I feel like 10 Things I Hate About You is probably almost boringly well-known.

Right?

I’m not about to tell you anything about this movie you don’t already know, except that I like it and also the soundtrack is really good. Still, let’s hit the basic beats:

  • It’s a teen romance movie from the 90s
  • It’s almost the most teen romance movie from the 90s
  • The story is a re-framing of The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare
    • The Taming of the Shrew is super gross
      • But 10 Things fixes a lot of things?
        • And includes a passage about updating Shakespeare?
  • 10 Things I Hate About You was a breakout movie that introduced the world to:
    • Heath Ledger, aka the Joker, tragically gone
    • Julia Stiles, aka … Julia Stiles in this
    • Joseph Gordon Levitt, aka everything
    • Larisa Oleynik, who every Alex Mack fan already knew
  • It’s super dated!
    • Like, painfully so!
  • The Shakespearean behaviour of the Dad is really weird in a modern concept
  • There’s a dance number, for no good reason!
  • The soundtrack is really good

Okay, I think that’s everything Lindsay Ellis covered when she talked about it, and that’s the critical background I have to work with, after all. We good? Okay, let’s go.

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