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Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew is the inspiration for 10 Things
I Hate About You, one of countless "teens going to the prom"
movies released this year. What sets this film apart from the
others, however, is that it avoids taking itself seriously at
all. With whacked out teachers and parents providing crazy window
dressing, lunacy reigns supreme here, and I liked it.
As the most
popular girl in school, Bianca, starts attracting all sorts
of guys, she's held up by one small detail. Her crazed father
has made a rule that Bianca can't date until her sister, Kat,
does the same. Problem is, Kat is bit of an anti-socialite
and no one in school wants to date her. She's repelled by
all the guys at her school and doesn't want anything to do
with them. Sound a bit lesbonic? I thought so too.
When a new
kid at school sets his sights on Bianca, he and his friend
design a plan to find a guy to tame the shrew. What they find
is the school bad boy, a guy so scary he's the only one that
could possibly stand toe-to-toe with Kat. Do you think that
they might actually hook up for real? I think they could.
If there's a downside to this movie, it does have an incredibly
predictable side to it. But the laughs were frequent enough
that I could overlook that a bit.
I was fully
prepared to despise 10 Things I Hate About You, but within
the first 10 minutes I was won over. What the film ultimately
reminded me of was one of those totally goofy 80's teen comedies
and I haven't seen one of those in a while. I found quite
a bit to laugh at in this movie and its totally over-the-top
nature is a unique attribute. Watch this one with an open
mind and you may be surprised.
Video: How Does The Disc Look?
How do I
loathe the video? Let me count the ways. 1. It's a non-anamorphic
widescreen transfer. 2. Colors are sometimes oversaturated
with some bleeding. 3. Digital enhancement gives the picture
an ugly digitally look 4. Detail is lacking overall in the
picture. 5. Poor shadow detail.
So you may
ask, "what's good in the transfer?" It's not that any of the
above elements make this an unwatchable disc, but all of them
put together make for one that I think is below par for a
movie that's only six-months old. I don't know what Buena
Vista thinks they are doing with these discs, but it's not
working and they really should be reevaluating their practices.
Audio: How Does the Disc Sound?
While the Dolby Digital 5.1 isn't nearly as poor as the video,
it's still nothing to get all excited over. Dynamics are as good
as music driven comedies can be and serve the story well. Dialog
is clear and clean, with all the jokes coming across without distortion.
The surround use is limited to subtle music reverb with only one
discrete effect that I heard. Bass is reserved strictly for the
phat beats in the music. You'll find nothing here with any distinguishing
factors. Nothing necessarily bad, nothing necessarily good though.
A French 5.1 track is also included with only English subtitles
and Closed Captions.
Supplements: What Goodies Are There? The film's original trailer is presented full frame with 2.0
stereo sound. Interestingly, this is one of those trailers where
many of the trailer's shot's are either missing or altered in
the final version.
Parting Thoughts
For the film itself, I have to say that I thought it was rather
funny and entertaining. As to the qualities of the disc, I wish
that Buena Vista's indifference to quality would resolve itself
soon. I don't think the attention paid to this release warrants
anyone having to actually shell out money to buy this.
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