10 Things I Hate About You

The teenage movie of the week is titled 10 Things I Hate About You. Shakespeare’s "The Taming of the Shrew" is the supposed inspiration. Yeah, right, and I’m Ernest Hemingway. This is not the only time classic literature has been hit on recently. There’s also been Cruel Intentions ("Les Liaisons Dangereuses"),She’s All That ("Pygmalion"), and several others that have purposely been erased from my memory.

Shakespeare or not, the plot is all-too-familiar. Set in suburban Seattle, high school senior Kat (Julia Stiles) is an uptight, snooty you-know-what who detests boys. Her sophomore sister Bianca wants to date boys, but their divorced obstetrician father (Larry Miller) has laid down the law: Bianca can’t date until her sister does.

On the guy front, Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has a thing for Bianca. He and his best friend Michael (David Krumholtz) hatch a plan for big-man-on-campus Joey (Andrew Keegan), who also likes Bianca, to pay the wildest guy at school, Patrick (Heath Ledger), to date Kat.

Everything predictably culminates at the senior prom, like all teen movies these days, but not before the audience is treated to some lively classroom banter and party scenes.

The performances by Stiles and Ledger stand out. I’ve never seen them before, not in the movies or on some lame television series from the WB or Fox networks. That’s good.

Still, the movie tends to overdo the extracurricular activity, like sexual humor and teenage binge drinking. Anyone who reads the newspaper knows the statistics these days. Too bad Hollywood can’t make a movie where teens play it straight, for a change.

If I can paraphrase Casey Stengel, can’t anyone write an original screenplay these days?