Never Been Kissed

Never Been Kissed
April 9, 1999
Fox
Comedy, Romance
VHS
D

I liked this movie at the time.  Otherwise I wouldn't have bought it, admittedly for under $1.  But when I last watched it, I was very disappointed.  And this time it seemed even worse.  On the surface, it seems like my kind of movie: it's the '90s but with '80s nostalgia, it's got Drew Barrymore, and it's a rom-com mixed with a teen comedy.  But it is in fact the worst movie in my collection in almost 30 years (since George Hamilton's Togetherness from 1970).

It's hard to know where to start, but let's talk about Barrymore and her character of Josie Geller, and the glaring anachronisms.  Barrymore was 24 at this point, so watching the movie again (I'd blocked out a lot) I was surprised that Josie had flashbacks with an '83ish soundtrack (e.g. Lauper's "She Bop").  This would make her my generation or maybe a bit older.  But then late in the film we find out that Josie is supposed to be 25, in 1999.  This means she graduated in '91 or '92.  I can see fudging things a bit in The Wedding Singer and Romy & Michele, because, let's face it, pop music was better in '83 than in '85 or '87.  (I've maintained, since the time, that "Say Say Say" was the last great pop song until the B-52s made their comeback with "Love Shack" et al.)  But come on!  If the script had made Josie older, or if they had wanted to contrast the early '90s with the late '90s, that would've been interesting.  But it's just one among many signs that the writers have no clue about teens of any generation.

Now, I'm not going to argue that Romy & Michele or 10 Things I Hate have a documentary-like realism about them.  They are pop fluff, but they're intelligent pop fluff that gets at some level of relatable truth.  This film in contrast does not have a moment in it that is believable even within its own poorly constructed world.  This might be OK if there was a surreal campiness about it, like in Grease 2, but the movie just isn't fun.  It's not even occasionally enjoyably unfun, like Different Strokes sometimes was.  I can't even hate it because I feel too sorry for it.

10 Things I Dislike About This Movie

1. Garry Marshall, as the publisher who sends Josie on the assignment to pretend to be a high school student, shows he hasn't exactly grown as an actor in the three decades since How Sweet It Is!
2. There are a lot of other unfunny and unappealing staff at the Chicago Sun-Times.  (Roger Ebert gave the movie three stars, because he thought Barrymore was great.  Well, I guess I did, too, at the time.)
3. Josie is supposed to be a highly intelligent person but she does remarkably stupid things throughout.
4. Her "romance" with the teacher is generic and annoying, especially the big countdown to a public kiss.
5. The only other teacher featured is the subject of an unfunny menopause joke.
6. The popular kids are either forgettable or miscast, especially the interchangeable popular girls and the emo boy pretending to be the BMOC.
7. As in Zapped Again, there is a beautiful "plain" nerd-girl, but instead of getting her soulmate nerd-boy, she pines for the utterly unappealing B-emo-C.  (Lucy wouldn't put up with this shit!)
8. Josie's brother Rob (David Arquette in an almost likable performance) decides mid-movie to attend the same high school, even though he's 23, in order to help make her popular and win himself a baseball scholarship.  (The school has security check-in but anyone can enroll at any age.)
9. Everyone gets mad at Rob for lying to them, but they all forgive Josie when she writes a fawning, un-bitter article about how wonderful high school was this time around.  They even root for her to get with the teacher!
10. The soundtrack, whether oldies or then newbies, is tired and blah.

Molly Shannon as Josie's friend Anita would have better material to work with in Wet Hot American Summer.   Carmen Llywelyn plays Rob's Girlfriend and was Kim (the girl Alyssa kisses at the club) in Chasing Amy.  Pretty Brunette High School Student Priscilla Cory was Pretty Brunette Hostess in The Wedding Singer, although she was in fact 38 by this point.  Allen Covert, Roger in Op-Ed here, was Sammy there.  Derek Morgan was a CIA Agent in Wag the Dog and is Armcast Henson here.  Lucas MacFadden (of the band Ozomatli) plays himself here but would be Chemistry Teacher in the far superior teen comedy Juno.


(Any resemblance to high school is purely imaginary.)

The Wedding Singer

The Wedding Singer
February 13, 1998
New Line Cinema
Comedy, Romance, Historical
VHS
B

I'm not an Adam Sandler fan and I don't think this movie particularly captures the '80s, especially 1985.  (It's like they threw the decade into a blender, with JR's shooting here and Miami Vice there, and a soundtrack that sounds mostly like '83, admittedly not unlike Romy & Michele.)  And yet, this is one of the better rom-coms of its era, still holding up well, although more time has passed since '98 than there had between '98 and '85.

While not all the credit is due to 22-year-old but already very experienced Drew Barrymore (John's granddaughter), I do think the teaming of her and Sandler brings out his sweetness, which affects the whole movie.  By the time an entire planeload of strangers (including Billy Idol as himself) is rooting for Sandler's Robbie to win Barrymore's Julia away from her scummy fiance, you have to have a heart of stone (or at least an aversion to rom-coms) to not yourself tear up at the "Grow Old with You" song.

This is not to say that the movie doesn't have the usual tasteless Sandler humor.  (I could've done without the ass-grabbing slow-dance, especially since it includes pubescent-adult pairings.)  There are children (the youngest about four) and old people saying allegedly hilarious and outrageous things.  Many of the '80s jokes fall flat.  Still, there is enough to enjoy here that it's worth viewing, and re-viewing.

I want to give shout-outs to three supporting cast members.  Former Marcia Brady imitator Christine Taylor is almost unrecognizable but equally good as Julia's slutty but kind cousin Holly.  Alexis Arquette is fun as Robbie's friend and bandmate George (who idolizes Boy George).  Arquette was Dick in Threesome and in a way these films show part of the the queer timeline of his/her life, since the performer would transition to female around 2006.  The absolute best cameo in the movie is Steve Buscemi's  David Veltri, two scenes (one at the beginning and one at the end) that he absolutely steals.

Incredibly, 78-year-old Sid Newman, who plays Frank, was Boy on Trolley in 1944's Meet Me in St. Louis, so I guess he beats George Burns, Groucho Marx, and Debbie Reynolds for longevity, although he's nowhere near their level of fame.  Marc Lonow, who's the Father of the Bride (I think the one who beats up Robbie), was Dave (the uptight married guy) twenty years earlier, in Thank God It's Friday.   Carmen Filpi, who's Old Man at Bar, had a small but pivotal role as Old Man Withers in Wayne's World.  Angela Paton was much more memorable as Mrs. Lancaster in Groundhog Day than she is as Faye here. Jason Cottle and Jenna Byrne, who play Scott and Cindy Castellucucci here, were in Wag the Dog as A.D. and Sharon respectively.

Nearly all of Priscilla Cory's credits read "Pretty Brunette" something, so she's Pretty Brunette Hostess here and would be Pretty Brunette High School Student in Barrymore's Never Been Kissed.  Allen Covert, who plays Sammy (Robbie's friend who idolizes Fonzie and Michael Jackson), would appear there as Roger in Op-Ed.

I don't have any other credits for rapper Ellen Albertini Dow, but she just passed away, at 101!

Nice day for a white wedding.