10 Things why I hate this movie & 10 things why I like this movie.

Rating: 6/10 (30 May 2013)

'10 Things I hate about you' is a very interesting movie in the late 90's. High school. Some of us remember it with fond memories, but the rest look on it as some of the worst years of our lives. I watch it when I was indeed at the age where it was fun to watch, but after 10 years of maturity out of my teenager stage and into adulthood, this movie became harder and harder to watch for me. It's still watchable, but the story isn't that fresh to me anymore. '10 Things I hate about you' is loosely a modern retelling of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew about a surly wench and the man who tries to win her and in here, its transfers to a modern-day high school comedy. Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles) is the shrew, who isn't very kind to anybody. Her younger sister Bianca (Laris Oleynik) is more poised for high school wanting to date people. Don't know why they couldn't have kept the original last name of Minola, but Stratford works alright, since in this 'world', William Shakespeare's works do exist here. What I hate about the film version of Bianca, is that she isn't ingénue at all. She isn't that sweet, and not virginal at all. She doing this to get more and more popular in the school. Anyways, their overprotective father (Larry Miller) won't let Bianca date until men-hating Kat does, which is to say never. Larry Millers gives a lot of good humor as the paranoid father who scare of his girls becoming pregnant teenagers. Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who wants to date Bianca, heard about this, he hires the boastful, selfish, mercurial Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger) to go on dates with Kate. Of course, like any other high school drama what starts out as a paying gig turns to true love as both Kate and Patrick might love each other. Here is the 10 Things what I love about the movie. 1: it's sitcom-funny with peppy one-liners and lots of smart teen humor. 2. Great adult characters such as the English teacher (Daryl Mitchell) could have stolen this movie out from under all the other stars if he'd had just one more scene. Or just a few more minutes of screen time than he already had. Like really, he had some of the best lines, the funniest zingers and the funniest things to say. Also the guidance counselor (Allison Janney) had some interesting humor like secretly writing a trashy romantic sex novel. In real life, I doubt these two characters would ever become teacher, and yet again probably not allow to step on the high school grounds at all. 3. Heath Ledger was just a promising actor at the time. He will be miss. 4. I love all the Shakespeare references. 5. The main characters aren't sugar-coated; there's something charming yet detestable about all of them. 6. Great soundtrack with awesome 1990's songs. 7. The ending works. 8. There are key scenes that I love such as the paint-ball scene, the 10 Things I hate about you speech and Heath Ledger singing. 8. Not really a chick flick, as there are things about even the guys to love. 9. Amazing cast of worth good actors. 10. In my opinion, the best high school comedy of the 1990s. 10 Things I don't like about the movie are 1. The over use of high school clichés as a grouping or labels. 2. The party scene with underage drinking 3. The cheesy rich character Andrew Keegan plays. It's a 1980's, early 1990's bad teenager stereotype. 4. The characters could be a little bit too mean 5. The washing down of Shakespearean characters and dialogue or mistakes. The cleverness and imagination doesn't really extend beyond its characters' Renaissance names and occasional snippets of real Shakespearean dialogue. In the Shakespeare version, the younger sister could not marry until her shrewish sister did. This was a custom of the time. Here it's seems weird to have that in a modern day settling. 6. Lacks of the deep social themes that made Taming to the Shrew famous such as the economic aspects of marriage and the Effect of Social Roles on Individual Happiness. 7. The plot was completely predictable 8. Annoying teenager drama that doesn't really matter in the long run of life. The people who were dating kept on getting mad at each other and made up about three times. I don't want to hear people complain about their teenager's life when adulthood is a lot harder. 9. Some parts were unrealistic, it's a bit annoying. 10. The original story wasn't supposed to be romantic comedy. In the original play, Petruchio sees Katharine as a challenge for his manhood, and rather than using romantics, he abuses her into submission through starvation and intimidation. Petruchio wins the bet because he has essentially bullied Katherine into an obedient, submissive wife. Not a really romantic story indeed. Anyways, overall: the film is pretty good at the time. I was a bit surprised that it was PG-13 than R, but for parents do warning, even if its PG-13 doesn't mean it for all teenagers. There is quite a lot of sex-related dialogue, some nude artwork, and teen drinking that need a more mature audience to watch. Disappointed that there is little alleged connections to the 16th century play, but its OK because it works out for a teenager popcorn flick. So check it out if you want to.