10 Things I Hate About You

Call it "Shakespeare in Convulsions," this latest film in Hollywood's current trend of teenager-izing the classics for the big screen. What's the studios' motive in all this -- to educate, slyly, our nation's youth, or to stop critics from savaging the storylines? Loosely based on The Taming of the Shrew, 10 Things I Hate About You is a good-hearted movie filled with cute actors, a superficial love for Shakespeare, and a Saved by the Bell-type high school. Vapid pretty girl Bianca can't date until older sister Kat, the independent-thinking "shrew," goes out, something it turns out only the school's biggest scumbag (on the outside) can get her to do. Okay, I won't complain about the plot, but the dialogue is painfully witless, and there are more supposedly dramatic moments when a girl slams a door than should be legal in a 90-minute film. Then there's all the "risky" crass moments -- oooh, did that teacher really say a bad word? -- that have become mandatory in stupid comedies. I'd have been hard-pressed to stay in my seat for this one had it not been for the Letters from Cleo tunes. God, that Kay Hanley is hot; I bet she was in the popular crowd.

-- Mark Bazer