Review: Easy A

Okay you guys, I have news for you. For a long time now people have been asking me to find a "chick flick" that I don't despise. That day has come, and the title of that breakthrough movie would be "Easy A." This is a girly movie, that I managed to sit all the way through, I laughed with, I would recommend, AND would be willing to watch again.

Featuring Emma Stone (who I know and Love from Zombieland) this movie is a cliche. As Shawn Spencer would put it "It's a rip off of a rip off." It was girly, the jokes often bad, it had the worst soundtrack ever (okay.... Twilight soundtrack as worse, seriously, who puts Muse and Paramore together? Anyway... not the point....) The plot was predictable, the characters pretty 2 dimensional and the acting in many places was just ok. So what made "Easy A." better than any other one of those movies that I hate with a fiery passion? Well.....

Part 1
(Admitting a cliche is cliche is also a cliche but nevertheless effective.)

It admits that it's bad. One of the first lines of the movie is about how the story has been told over and over and over again. This is nothing new. It tells you what it is right off the bat, and it's easier to like a movie when you know exactly what to expect. It's narrated by the main character Olive (Emma Stone) from her webcam and the whole tale is told in flashbacks. (I do have a thing for webcams, and quite frankly, flashbacks, so it starts off good.) She breaks her tale down into sections and reminds the viewer frequently that every technique used in the movie has been done before. There's one point where they're sitting in the class and they're talking about "The Scarlet Letter" and Olive mentions that in bad teenage movies such as this, the books they're reading in class always seem to relate to whatever's going in the main characters life. Still, a total cliche but it's much more effective to admit the device the writer's were using up front.

Part 2
(Character Depth past what we've all expected to see in movies that appeal to tennagers this days. E.I: Twilight saga, 27 dresses and Bridgette Jone's nonsense.)

Okay, so, I've already admitted that a lot of the characters were 2 dimensional, and it's true. But at least they have some personality. One of my biggest problems with Twilight is what a total Mary Sue Bella is. Seriously, it drives me crazy. She's smart enough to be in the advanced classes, and then she's like a total idiot for everything else. She's only smart enough for it to be convenient to Stephanie Meyer. In this Olive is smart, but she's actually intelligent. You can tell that she's smart by the way she talks, and it's subtle. They don't make a big deal out of it, they don't have her be such a brainiac that that's her whole personality, but you can tell she's smart, and that makes her seem a little more like a real person. Also she has quirks. (One of my favorite parts of Juno was how Bleaker liked orange tictacs, it's just so random, but it's a little insight into the character.) She takes payment throughout the movie in the form of giftcards, which I just found amazing.

Part 3
(This should have been part 1, but I didn't feel like it. So ha. aka, The Plot.)

I really should have started with the plot, because it would have made the first 2 sections make more sense, but I'm ordering these according to how big of a difference they make to the movie, and while the plot wasn't terrible, it was kind of generic. I put it on the list however because it wasn't so generic that it got lost in a tangle of other generic plots, so, here we go.

Pretty much what's going on is Olive Penderghast (I think.....) accidentally starts a false rumor that she slept with a boy from college. The rumor actually makes her more popular and she decides that being the campus slut isn't all that bad, (keeping in mind she's still a virgin.) So when a gay friend needs advice about not getting beat up, she tells him just to lie about being straight, because you can be whoever you want if you get through highschool he can be whoever he wants. So they spread the rumor that the two of them slept together. Then things get out of control when other boys on the campus start paying her to fake sleep with them as well. Predictably, she doesn't care until things go terribly wrong for everybody.

Part 4
(The allusions to old 80's movies.)

Yeah, all the way from 16 Candles to Judd Nelson, Olive is a sucker for old 80's movies. I'll admit, I wasn't a fan of a lot of things from the 80's but this sort of struck a cord. It was all very Shawn Spencerish, and you know how I feel about Shawn Spencer.

Part 5
(Overly Religious Antagonist)

Now, you all probably are aware that I don't buy into Christianity. I have nothing against most Christians, but sometimes they are really irritating. Sometimes they do try to shove their beliefs down other peoples throats, and isn't is great to see that played up in a movie with and overly religious antagonist? Seriously, the religion jokes were at times the highlights of them film.



In conclusion, I enjoyed it. I would watch it again, it was enjoyable. (Even though I still have pocket full of sunshine in my head.) SO if you ever feel like watching a chick flick with me, without me walking out, I recommend you try this one. Seriously, it was pretty good.