We’ve all seen these “spoof” movies that basically poke fun at any given genre. It all started, as far as I know, with Airplane. Pretty much a direct take off of the film Airport. Airplane basically poked fun at every little cliché that the high thrills film genre had to offer. From the surly, unlikely, almost Hemingway-esque anti hero. The calm, cool and collected military man that has to concede that he has no control and has to put his faith in the skills of a man he deems inferior. And all the wacky side stories involved. Not only does the hero have to land a plane full of scared passengers…but he has to also mend his relationship with his ex-girlfriend, face his fears and get an ailing girl to a hospital. Airplane took all of this and cranked it up to Ludicrous Speed.

Ludicrous Speed… that takes us to another one of these “spoof” movies. Spaceballs. The film that spoofed Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and any other sci-fi concept… serial or otherwise.

Look around you… there are more spoof films around than you can shake a stick at. You got Scary Movie and Scary Movie 2… but both are just dog turds compared to the original teen thriller “spoof” Student Bodies. You’ve heard of Hot Shots and it’s sequel. All of these movies are decent at best. Spaceballs and Student Bodies rank up there with me but the others and even the one’s I haven’t mentioned just kinda rank at the mediocre level. Like they had a great idea but kinda lost the spirit of what they were trying to achieve. I found myself leaving the theater thinking “Well, hell, they coulda totally went off on this.” Or “They totally left this out.” My outlook on “spoof” flicks was jaded to say the least.

Enter : Not Another Teen Movie

To be completely honest, I went into this movie with some pretty low expectations. Even though, anyone who knows me has heard me rave about the preview. One part in particular, where the cast apparently redoes a key scene from The Breakfast Club. Being a huge fan of that movie, that part in the preview kicked my ass every time I saw it. Unfortunately, that translated to me as “all the funny parts are in the trailer”. So, needless to say… I figured I was going in there to be utterly bored for about an hour and a half.

NOT SO!

It’s a good thing I didn’t have anything to drink in the theater because it would have been spit out all over the guy in front of me over and over again. Unfortunately, I missed the very beginning because DarkWolf’s “I got no concept of time” ass needed me to meet him at the theater and get him a ticket and then wait for him to show up. Tell DarkWolf that a film starts at 3:20 and he shows up at freakin’ 3:40. I need to fashion a device that’ll rip at DarkWolf’s testicles every minute he’s running late to something. Honestly, if your name isn’t “Mom” or “Harley” you can basically rot in Hell as far as he’s concerned. But I love my Silent Bob so I forgive him. Well, goodness… I’m off the subject here. So, Jay shows up… roll out the fucking red carpet. We go into the theater and take our seats with our other friends that were there. Apparently, we had only missed the first few minutes of the film. No biggie……. this time.

Here’s where we meet our main players in the film. I can go on forever about these people. God knows I want to but I just tried and it took like 6 pages in itself…so I’m gonna stick to the jist of the story of the movie. It’s your usual teen movie premise. Popular guy gets dumped by popular girlfriend so his buddies dare him to make a not so popular girl into Prom Queen material. We seen it all before, right? Not like this!! Our popular guy has a sister played by Mia Kirshner who has some Cruel Intentions of her own. (Get it?)

Now, I just have to pause on the subject of Mia Kirshner for just a second. The first time you see her in this movie, she’s wearing a naughty little Catholic school girl number that just about made me burst. And is she a naughty naughty little tramp in this film….I THINK I LOVE HER!! She’s mine!! You hear me!? Mine!!

Back to the film. So…our main character makes a bet with both his buddies and his sister that he can nab this chick and make her popular. He also has personal demons to confront on the football field. While at the same time, we have a lovable triad of geeks that have just made a pact to get laid before Prom night. The trouble these three guys get into in the movie is reminiscent of films like Road Trip, Sixteen Candles and Weird Science. I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, these three were the best part of the movie. Which only makes sense that they are the one’s thrown into detention to act out a scene from The Breakfast Club with Paul Gleason who returns to the screen as Richard Vernon. I about pissed myself in this part of the movie. The crappy thing was that I was the only one laughing at this part in the theater…. which means, to me, that nobody else really got it. What a sad sad thing. Go rent The Breakfast Club NOW!! These three guys are the only thing that matters in this film…but for your benefit, I’ll give you the rest of the story synopsis.

Obviously, the guy tricks the girl into liking him and in the course of things, he ends up really falling for her. But, as the ol’ song and dance plays out, she finds out his true intentions and this causes much unrest. Add to that some touches of Can’t Hardly Wait (with the object of obsession being Lacey Chabert…yeah, the little girl from Party of Five. Question: WHEN DID SHE GET HOT!!?? She’s mine too!! Hands off!!) some Varsity Blues, Bring It On…they even have a quick jab at Any Given Sunday.

The film is guaranteed to crack you up. Whether you’re a child of the eighties, like me…or just sick of all these Freddie Prinze Jr./Matthew Lillard “I’m a cool guy that every woman falls all over and I suddenly have feelings” kinda films. You’ll dig it.

Oh yeah…GUYS!! Keep a look out for Areola, the Italian exchange student. You’ll know her when you see her.