Can't Hardly Wait

While the past weekend was fairly uneventful,there were few small incidents that still linger in my mind.But we'll skip that shit.Watched the 1998 romantic-comedy,high-school flick Can't Hardly Wait for the second time yesterday-and the second viewing just reaffirms the film as being my all time favourite teen-flick (I'm not sure what i really mean by this,but I'm confident there's a specific genre with distinctive attributes concerned:while they don't necessarily revolve around schoolife,most of the characters are the normal high-school/teenage archetypes,and a large number of these films come with a kickass soundtrack-one obvious example is Empire Records).While Jennifer Love Hewitt's infamously massive knockers certainly do attract the targeted demographic-the film has a quirky personality that goes far beyond it's sharp stereotyping of high-school cliques (the pea-brained jocks,the sex-crazed bimbo's,the UFO-fanatic nerds) or impressive cast (there's a freaking explosion of cameo's here:Turk from Scrubs,Dharma from Dharma & Greg,Sofie from Carnivale,Gabe & Federico from Six Feet Under,to mention a few-all appearing before the height of their popularity) and there's an understated beauty in how the film smartly covers everything you already know about high school within the short time period of a graduation party.While some of the scenario's are familiar and heartfelt (e.g:two childhood buddies with social paths coverged,reunited),and the characters slightly beyond one-dimensional (e.g:the hopeless romantic does just that-hopelessly romanticizing from start to end) there is so much variety,liveliness and enthusiasm in the film for anyone to complain.It doesn't strive to be some artsy teen flick with heavy,melodramatic themes (e.g:The Virgin Suicides-an excellent film in it's own right),and doesn't take itself too seriously-in the end the nerds get their revenge,the anti-social cynic (played by the dreamy,babyfaced Lauren Ambrose) discovers love,and the wide-eyed,wishful romanticizer manages to pocket his prom-queen crush.The only possible weak element is Melissa Joan Hart's (otherwise known as Sabrina The Teenage Witch) overeager,screaming and shouting Polly (her name's not credited so I don't know what her character's name is-suffice to say a distasteful name like Polly would be suitable) is played without a single ounce of humour or charm (a role so simple and small could possibly do no damage,but the actress still pulls off a mini-disaster), I would've chosen to cut out any scene in which she appears if I could.But the movie overall succeeds as a teen flick,with each character using their small portion of screen-time to accentuate their presence,and the story having plenty of light,funny moments to keep our interest afloat-while it lacks the liberal crudeness of American Pie (not too different to 1982's Porky's),the sharp,crossover wit of Mean Girls,the mindless pastiche of early Scary Movie films,the adorable idiocy of Napoleon Dynamite,the disturbing eerieness of Donnie Darko (arguably a muder/slasher flick,but it deals with teen-life in many ways and levels,most of them metaphorical) or the Drew-Barrymore-factor of Never Been Kissed,it doesn't necessarily shine profusely in one area and fail in others-plus,the film sends out an underlying message that is profoundly clear and simple-don't let fate pass you by.