Never Been Kissed

Had a couple bourbons and the women's station was playing Never Been Kissed. Obviously, this is the opportunity a blogger like myself can only dream about. (Grammar bitches: I ended my sentence with a preposition. Deal with it.)

I thoroughly enjoy how cliché Drew Barrymore and John Cusack... wait wait... David Arquette's characters are. The lame girl who grows up to be successful and the popular kid who ends up working in some shithole and living in his parents' basement. Please note: "grows up" is defined as being 23 and 25. "Josie, I can't go to College, I'm too old." That's a good lesson for youth today. If you're 23, it's too late to make something of yourself. Just give up.

I also love the fact that Drew Barrymore just fits right into a high school age-wise. I'll tell you why it works so well: it's not because she looks particularly young, but because everyone else is also in their mid- to late twenties; as is the custom for all adolescent movies. The 'sexy' teacher looks the same age (if not even slightly younger) than the students. I genuinely fear the day when kids in high school movies actually look as young as real life high school students to me. I feel this will be the day I will know I am truly old.

Whoa whoa whoa, hold the phone (I'm bringing that back). The nerdy, loser girl has glasses and baggy, unflattering clothing? This has certainly never happened in any film prior to this. Let's get her in a tight dress (or... perhaps... unitard?) and throw those glasses in a trash bin and surprise: she's pretty!

Tell me something: in high school, did you ever fall in love with someone who you knew nothing about other than the fact that they were dicks to everyone? Even if they were... like... the hottest person you've ever seen? I can tell you right fucking now that I did not. Who gives a shit if someone is good looking and popular if they're boring as hell? Please. Give me some insight on this. Besides, I bet these popular, boring assholes are shit in bed, too. Since they're boring and also incredibly selfish. "I banged the hottest guy last night!" "Oh my God, that's awesome. How was it?" "The worst."

Which brings us to this "Guy" individual. This asshole is the epitome is a lame high school movie boy. He looks like he's straight out of a bad goth band (there are good goth bands?). Seriously, no man should wear so many v-necks. This shithole is showing more cleavage than half the women. I suspect he has a vagina. "Popular male" in this film seems to be defined by styled hair and a necklace. Should they not have at least one redeeming quality? I do not see the appeal of these necklace-wearing, floppy-haired jerks.

Back to our protagonist. This dork finds herself "accidentally" eating a weed brownie. I'm pretty sure that getting stoned and making an ass of yourself is not the best means of making the cool kids like you. Also, weed doesn't make you want to jump on stage and do an Elaine-style dance. It makes you want to play Zelda in the dark while eating leftover meatloaf.

When I first started watching this movie, I thought to myself  "Even Drew Barrymore all uglied up can't be unattractive enough to never be kissed." Yeah, I'm beginning to think that's not totally true. Her problem is not her face/clothes/hair. It's her personality. She's a know-it-all who corrects peoples' grammar at every turn. Although, I do genuinely believe there was a chance she could've found someone just as douchey as herself in some university study group or some crap like that and they could've had wild, disgusting, nerdy sex. Likely involving both a Boba Fett and a Slave Leia costume. I will leave it up to you to decipher who is wearing which one.

I cannot, emotionally, deal with the clothing choices for this film. Please tell me what school would allow a girl to wear what is essentially a bikini top as a shirt to school, but also has a metal detector. Oooh, right, I know! A poorly written one.

Also, this whole malarkey with her and her teacher flirting. Yes, we know it's acceptable because they're both adults, but he doesn't know that. Please do not give me some crap about how he can sense her being older. As far as he is concerned, she's 17 and he's a creep. End of story.

I can't really bring myself to believe that there is any prom where people take the theme seriously enough to dress in ludicrous costumes. As a girl, I feel the need to say: this is prom, not fucking Halloween. These girls are going to want to wear over-the-top and gorgeous dresses, not a fucking pregnant Virgin Mary costume. No self-respecting girl would be seen at a prom with a date wearing a turtle costume. Even if he is in 2gether.

I will admit that some of the sap in this movie did work on me. Cynicism aside, one can't help but empathize with this poor bitch. Faking going to high school really can be tough until you get kissed by your pedo teacher in the middle of a baseball field.