10 Things I Hate About You

Movie Grade: B

DVD Features Grade: C+

Overall Grade: B-

Shakespeare never seemed quite as melodramatic until a little movie called 10 Things I Hate About You came into the world in 2000. This modernized version of The Taming of the Shrew stars Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Larisa Oleynik. Least importantly being Oleynik, who is the only one out of the four to not retain much of an acting career after this film. Gordon-Levitt has gone on to star in films like (500) Days of Summer; Stiles has been taking up time by getting small parts in all the Bourne movies, as well as staring in The Omen and Save the Last Dance; and Ledger – well if you don’t know than you must have been living under a rock for the past six years or so.

If you aren’t familiar with The Taming of the Shrew, here’s what you’ve been missing for the past four hundred years. Gordon-Levitt plays Cameron, the new kid in school who immediately decides that Oleynik, playing Bianca, is the girl for him. What he doesn’t know is that Bianca and her sister aren’t allowed to date because of their overbearing father. Stiles plays Kat, Bianca’s sister who doesn’t share the same feelings towards not being able to date as her sister. Bianca wants to be able to date because she is a caricature of the high school popular girl, while Kat is more of the angst angry 90′s chick who thinks the boys around her aren’t worth her time.

Out of desperation to get with the vain and emotionally shallow Bianca, Cameron decides to pay Patrick, played by Ledger, to date Kat because he is the only guy who seems crazy enough to date her. In the same style of She’s All That – which is in many ways the same film – the film focuses on the paid relationship between Patrick and Kat: the two fall for each other over time, but Kat finds out and they break up for a short period of time before Patrick can prove his true love for he when a cheesy song plays as the two kiss. Sadly this one went with a cover of “I Want You To Want Me,” most likely because they couldn’t get their hands on “Dream Police.”

10 Things I Love About 10 Things I Hate About You is a feature dedicated to praising the ten top qualities of this over-rated teen drama. Only putting in half an effort and getting the director and writers in for interviews, while just using archive footage from while the film was in production for the cast, this feature doesn’t have all that much to say. The only “thing” that was actually new, as opposed to the incredibly obvious others that told us it was Shakespeare and that

the cast was professional young actors, is the deleted scenes. The only reason this was new is because before now there was no means of seeing these scenes. They aren’t even notable; especially the scenes that the director made just to give himself characters – awfully narcissistic of him. Even worse is that those seems aren’t even close to funny.

No matter how poorly the characters address conflict in this movie, it is undeniable that it has its comic moments. The father of Kat and Bianca, played by Larry Miller, is probably the funniest character; being both overbearing and somewhat insane. The things he says and how out of touch with then modern youth is the perfect formula for a great teen movie father. It is a shame that the dialog of both Bianca and Kat is nothing short of dreadful in both content and execution. If you are looking for a nostalgic look into the movie you loved when you were a pre-teen, by all means pick up this DVD. IF you are looking for a teen movie that will accurately portray your high school experience, this DVD will be a big disappointment.

Movie Grade: B

DVD Features Grade: C+

Overall Grade: B-