In August 2000, I began sixth grade. For some, this is the start of middle school; for others, the end of elementary school. For me, it was the end of an experience.
See, I went to a magnet school with only three grades, 4th-6th, and I was in a program that saw me with the same teacher all three years. Ms. Turner is still one of my favorite teachers, we're even friends on Facebook. She was a true personality, a queen - literally, instead of a pointer or a ruler to, uh, point out things on the whiteboard, she had a stuffed glove covered in glitter with a deep red velvet cufft, the handle of which read, "QUEENIE." So close were we, she even got me an audition with a local high school for a part in their production of Mame; I was offered the role of Young Patrick on the spot, but it was canceled before rehearsals even began (it was said the teenage main cast had behavioral issues).
Of my writing, she was a great encourager, editor, and critic. She streamlined my fiction but also tried to set me free from the confines of conventional storytelling. I remember once when I turned in a direct Star Wars parody for a creative writing exercise, she told me it was funny, clever even, but so structured, I had missed the point of the exercise, which was to let the pen roam and the mind run free, that is, stream of consciousness. Funnily enough, it was also her class that taught me the importance of outlining before writing, though that was the standard for the grade. Still, it was her personal touch, the notes in the margins, the praise for some aspects, the tsk-tsks for others...look, every teacher I've had encouraged my writing, but she was the most instrumental in shaping it.
August 2000, then, was the beginning of the end of an important chapter in my life. This would be my last year with her. Middle school brought more good teachers, and high school still more (including a drama teacher who showed me how to translate what I learned to playwriting, directing, and producing).
Funnily enough, my two rewatches are about the end of summer and the beginning of a new school year:
Psycho Beach Party
release: August 4
dir: Robert Lee King
pr: Virginia Biddle / Jon Gerrans / Marcus Hu / Victor Syrmis
scr: Charles Busch, from his play
cin: Arturo Smith
A teen wannabe surfer with multiple personalities may be behind a series of murders on Malibu Beach.
It was in Ms. Holland's Drama class that I first heard of Charles Busch, and I did so merely by perusing her collection of playscripts and coming upon the Four Plays hardcover.
The chartreuse was eye-catching, the four pictures of a man in drag intriguing, and the blurbs describing these as throwbacks to different genres of Old Hollywood cinema put them comfortably within My Interests. It was One of Those Things that made me realize that I was not alone as someone for whom the campiest, draggiest performances were the ones that rang most true, the grotesque the most beautiful, who never saw the ceiling because we were magnificently over-the-top.
And so, Psycho Beach Party, a curious mixture of Gidget and Strait-Jacket, co-starring Busch himself as a lady police officer. In the introduction to that play collection, Busch explains that the trick to making the plays work is to not play the joke, the dialogue and the situations will be hilarious if everyone plays straight. This is true, and in leading lady Lauren Ambrose, Busch finds a muse who could have led 100 such productions: she is just as convincing as peppy Chicklet as she is as her alter, the tough-talking Ann Bowman. It's a celebration of the films it's sending up, as evidence by one character's beautiful ode to the films and performances of newly-arrived incognito B-movie starlet Bettina Barnes (an inspired Kimberley Davies). Funny, sexy, celebratory!
Bring It On
release: August 25
dir: Peyton Reed
pr: Marc Abraham / Thomas A. Bliss
scr: Jessica Bendinger
cin: Shawn Maurer
Suburban champion cheerleader juggles mutinous cheerleaders, an awful boyfriend, a new best friend with a hot brother, and the revelation that all the cheers passed down to her were stolen from an inner-city Black squad.
I want to say I first saw this during a free period at summer theatre camp, maybe hours before our production of Sleepy Hollow, which would put it around, oh, 2003? Perhaps? I remember being shocked that you could make a joke of male cheerleaders using their thumbs creatively...
It feels like it's more than "just" a teen movie because it fully embraces being a teen movie, taking its characters and their conflicts (competitive cheerleading! stolen material from another high school! temptations outside the relationship! mutiny!) earnestly but not too seriously. So yes, there is fun, and dumb sex jokes and lines like, "You speak fag?" and cheers like "I'm wanted / I'm hot / I'm everything you're not", but we also learn to take more seriously a sport that is often dismissed - even within the film, from "This school has no gymnastics team / This is my last resort" to "Cheerleaders are dancers who've gone retarded" - despite the athleticism that combines those two disciplines while also stacking human beings into a pyramid form before flipping into the air and catching/being caught without a line out of place, all to the beat of a fresh and engaging music mix! It is meticulous, it is arduous, it is stunning to behold. The actual narrative is not short-changed either. Here's a high school film with a predominate white ensemble addressing issues of class and race without letting our protagonists off the hook for their own complicity or allowing them to become saviors that we can relievedly root for. And there are adult-targeted romantic dramas that do not carry the dimensions of sexual tension, layered characterization, and silent story progression seen in the toothbrushing scene between Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Bradford.
Tomorrow, the August releases I saw for the first time, including The Cell, Hollow Man, and Space Cowboys.
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