if you loved this movie... you're dumb

Rating: 5/10 (28 August 2000)

seriously, this film is bad. i think it's been praised so much because people have bought into the ad campaign. really the movie is an ad for itself. it never really became a movie for me except for the scene when annette bening has her little breakdown. that's the only "real" moment in the film! the rest of it is silly cliche. and... another reason it was so loved, i believe, is for it's pornographic content. the film teases us all the way through with a promise of "naked teen sex" in the form of spacey's fantasies. his fantasized version of the girl, though, is clothed in rose petals, covering her sexy bits. now i ask you, since when do men's fantasies cover up the sexy bits?! mendes is just teasing the audience, leading them by their genitals into the big payoff which is not just one, but TWO sets of teen boobies at the end of the film!