The Scarlet Poffernickel

One of them spending the night in jail for robbery (and his subsequent sentence and criminal record) should have sent these twenty-something teens into a recidivist funk against The System - instead, the one who gets nailed (Greenberg) comes out a happy man because Scarlett suddenly wants to nail him for no apparent reason (guess she digs the tall, spineless type); the Smart Girl (christensen) goes Ho (having realized, I suppose, that it's easier to use your ta-tas than your brain); the Ball Player (Miles) goes Oedipal under his mother's iron hand, and the Bong-Stalker (Nam) feels that cheating would skew the results of the SATs unrealistically, so hands out the answers to other deadheads like himself (which would result in skewing the results ANYWAY, right?).

And the leader of the gang, All-Amurrican Whitebread with the metric pound of gel in his hair (Evans), gets a mother-to-son talk from his older brother, played by Matthew Lillard aka Shaggy (Yoiks! Who knew Scooby Doo's master could be so lucid?), which makes him Go Jesus and forgo his cheat-sheets. Peer pressure - even from a guy whose only friend is a talking dog - is a powerful thing…

How did the movie derail so nastily? It's called Pandering to the Whims of Focus Groups: Society's perception, channeled through the lowest common denominator, decreeing immature resolutions to shallow, inoffensive movies. It's the Focus Group ruling that No Teen Model Shall Be Seen Cheating, so everyone with a hot butt comes to some inane reconciliation with their inadequacies - and still pass. And if they chose not to sit for the test, well, they still make good in the Real World; shiftless or otherwise, they all acheive social and financial success. Cos they're Teen Models. And a hottie butt will always trump a smarty pants.

But notice how the film has no qualms in portraying disheveled drug-mongers getting away with cheating? Because that's what the WASP MILFs and whitebread nanas WANT you to see. Because Focus Groups decree that All Unkempt, Unshaven College Males Are Immoral Junkies: dem Debbil-Chillun wid dem long hair and dem stanky teeth. While Falwell's specter cackles in glee…

Was the film trying to tell us that SATs really don't count for what you make of your life (after establishing in the opening titles that "all those other tests are what you were - the SATs are what you will be.")? Did the heist lead these kids to a better place in their psyches, allowing them to attain that "perfect score" with their careers? Bodacious, dude!...

I should have quit while I was ahead, as the film lived up to its title in its first ten minutes, when Scarlett's knickers were so close to my face I could touch myself - perfect!

Score!


END