Following the battle between a mostly white San Diego cheerleading squad led by Torrance ( Kirsten Dunst), and a mostly black L.A. But Peyton Reed’s “Bring It On” is a delight.
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If teen movies are time capsules of their eras, perhaps the lasting value of “Dope” will be as a glimpse of the always-mythic but now dead-and-buried dream of a post-racial America.Ī given movie about cheerleaders could be a “ Step Up”-style dance movie at best, or some kind of softcore exploitation picture at worst. But Shameik Moore’s lovely hangdog central performance, the catchy Pharrell Williams soundtrack and the earnest, if blinkered, good intentions somehow make it fly. Most egregious are the paper-thin supporting characters, like Tony Revolori‘s underdeveloped sidekick, and especially the females: Kiersey Clemons‘ lesbian friend Zoe Kravitz‘s cool girl Chanel Iman‘s disaster-prone dim-bulb. Co-opting the formula of the (usually white-coded) teen movie and incorporating stereotypical markers of urban blackness - drug deals, shoot-outs, excessive use of the n-word - makes for a mixed bag. Rick Famuyiwa‘s bright, ingratiating tale of a geeky teenager’s coming of age is a refreshingly counterintuitive take on black masculinity, though far from flawless. It’s aided by a wonderfully fresh and affecting Claire Danes, a major heartthrob turn from a pre-“ Titanic” Leonardo DiCaprio, an era-defining soundtrack and that all-time-great fish-tank meet-cute.
The frenetic cutting, odd angles and swooping camera moves of Lurhmann’s inventive music-video style can feel juvenile, but this is a film about juveniles, and if you’re willing to be a little iconoclastic with the text, it works. But in many ways, it captures the spirit of the play - the swoony extremism of first love as felt by two people at literally the most dramatic, hormonal moment of their lives ever - better than many more staid, respectful adaptations. “William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet” (1996)Ī film that made “lovefools” of every ’90s teenager, Baz Luhrmann‘s excessive, overblown-yet-gauzy take on Shakespeare‘s star-cross’d lovers is loathed by the Bard’s purists. We tried to avoid films that fall more squarely into other genres, like horror (a category largely populated with imperiled teenagers), sci-fi and others, but as ever, our selections mostly came down to our subjective taste. Of course, this being us, our picks are not all sweet confections - while many are lighthearted comedies, quite a few are dramas and melodramas that portray the darker side of teenage life as well as its romantic mix-ups and fashion faux pas. READ MORE: 12 Of The Best, Most Unforgettable Movie MothersĬertainly, it dispelled the gloom for us for a little while, and so we thought we’d take this opportunity to bring you our 50 favorite teen movies of all time. If you’re looking for an escape this weekend, this film is pretty much the breezy antithesis to the sorry state the world’s currently in, and may even prove to be an antidote… for a couple of hours, anyway. A sadly low percentage, however, are any good, which is why this week brings us significant reason to rejoice: First-time filmmaker Kelly Fremon Craig brings us the adorable, sprightly “ The Edge Of Seventeen.” In many ways this year’s “ The Diary Of A Teenage Girl” in being both the debut of an exciting new female filmmaker and a funny, fresh, newly insightful take on the teen-movie genre, ‘Seventeen’ perhaps does not reinvent the wheel in the way that Marielle Heller‘s film did, but it’s such a bouncy picture, centered around such a tremendously relatable turn from Hailee Steinfeld, that to disparage it as a result would be a little like critiquing a puppy.
It seems that every year another fresh crop of filmmakers make their debut movies, and a high proportion are coming-of-age stories.