Wall-to-wall soundtrack tunes likewise have an era-confusing effect. At times the pic doesn’t even seem certain which decade it’s set in the squeaky-clean high school environs often feel more ’80s than ’90s. Sitcom vet Gil Junger’s feature bow is high on energy, low on cohesion. There’s also middling slapstick, rampant product placement and awkward bits of earnest drama. This clears the field for Cameron, whose second banana, Michael ( David Krumholtz), also finds his suitable sweetie.Īt its most promising (as in a seg where Patrick serenades Kat with help from the marching band and football field sound system), “10 Things” aims for an anything-goes silliness reminiscent of teen-pic classics like “Sixteen Candles.”īut it lurches all over the map, encompassing dialogue both inspired and juvenile-tasteless. Meanwhile, Bianca wakes up and smells the toxins radiating from Joey. She returns the favor after a fashion, and, natch, it turns out Patrick is in fact a gentleman and a scholar after all. Bribed, he finds himself taking a shine to independent-minded Kat. This search turns up only mysterious new kid in town Patrick (Heath Ledger), reputedly a very bad boy. Ergo the latter’s two would-be boyfriends - noxiously vain Joey (Andrew Keegan) and dweebish nice guy Cameron (Joseph-Gordon Levitt) each plot to fix up the standoffish sis with whoever’s willing. Kat has no suitors, however, and no interest in them yet - she’s into grrl rock, feminist theory and other interests that, in the pic’s strained reasoning, somehow preclude the hormonal urge.īut so long as she’s dateless in Seattle (the story’s setting), so is hot-to-trot Bianca. Way to teach sexual responsibility, Dad.Įverybody wants to date Padua sophomore Bianca, because she’s pretty and popular and bubble-headed. Hence it’s less funny-ha-ha than funny-queasy when divorced dad Walter Stratford ( Larry Miller) won’t let his younger daughter, Bianca (Larisa Oleynik), date until his eldest, Kat (Julia Stiles), finds a beau as well, ostensibly because, as a doctor, he’s seen too many unwanted teen pregnancies. parts of “Taming,” but can’t quite get around the equally outmoded plot trigger. Tyro co-writers Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith simply ignore the no-longer-p.c. The 20th century hasn’t been kind to “Shrew,” even if it remains one of the Bard’s more popular comedies recent decades have found theater directors developing pretzel logic to soften the play’s hearty shut-up-wench-and-get-me-a-beer view of gender equity.
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