Not Another Teen Movie

Call it evidence of adolescence either delayed or hopelessly extended, but Stephanie and I remain aficionados of the totally awesome high school movie of the '80s and '90s. The market was flooded by the teen genre for more than two decades, yet only every few years did a really great one come along. This is our canon:

1979: Rock 'n' Roll High School

1982: Fast Times at Ridgemont High

1986: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

1989: Heathers

1993: Dazed and Confused

1995: Clueless

1999: Election

Those are seven titles that float above it all. Their brilliance is incandescent. Even TBS's hamhanded censors — you dick! jerk! — can't squelch Spicoli, y'know? Though I can watch the occasional Sixteen Candles or Can't Hardly Wait (or the underrated until it gets too gross for my fortysomething sensibilities Not Another Teen Movie), I can't in good conscience add anything else to the canon. Nothing else transcends teensploitation enough to make us want to buy the DVD or, in the case of Dazed and Confused, keep buying the DVD every time they lard up a new deluxe edition. Whether they were ultimately intended to or not, each movie here appeals to our generally adult way of thinking every bit as much as they reach our inner eleventh-graders.

There is one title that has always come close to making the list. I like it a great deal, but it's not totally awesome. It's just kind of awesome. And kind of awesome won't cut it.

Three O'Clock High came out in 1987. It has a universally appealing premise: The kid who's challenged to an afterschool fight by the legendary school thug tries to avoid getting his ass kicked. The kid, played ably by Casey Siemaszko, is a Regular Joe — neither a Matthew Broderick or a Winona Ryder, to be sure — who's put upon by unsympathetic external sources. And of course his parents are away. Parents are always away in these things.

Early in my professional writing career, I was enlisted to write nutshell descriptions by an advertising agency for the back of videocassette boxes, so without looking, I'll guess Three O'Clock High's reads something like this.

Jerry Mitchell is having a bad morning and it only gets worse when he accidentally incurs the wrath of the newly transferred school bully! Will Buddy Revell get the best of Jerry or will our hero calculate a way to make it through the school day safe and sound? Jerry relies on the help of understanding friends while negotiating a phalanx of uncaring students, teachers and administrators only to face the inevitable…a 3 P.M. showdown in the school parking lot! Will the final bell toll for Jerry? Also stars Jeffrey Tambor (The Ropers).

Actually, the guy I wrote these for would have thrown this back at me for using the word “phalanx,” but you get the idea. Three O'Clock High does a surprisingly good job of capturing the angst of encountering daily state-sponsored terrorism, a.k.a. walking the hallways of your local secondary school between the ages of 12 and 18. It's certainly engaging but it's not at the level of the aforementioned canon.

Why not? Jerry Mitchell's just a little too pathetic to turn to his Ferris-like wits when he needs them. Also, his tormentor comes off as a little too multifaceted to be believed when irony strikes (he's real juvie material, see, but he's also a trig whiz). In its effort not to be a John Hughes manipufest, it tries a little too hard. But it's a good try.

There's one scene that telegraphs too much how much Jerry is in for an all-day screwing, but the scene has to be in there to move things along. Our troubled protagonist tracks down a less threatening school bully and pays him off to be his muscle for the day (think Risky Business minus Tom Cruise meets My Bodyguard minus Matt Dillon). Since it happens midway through the movie, we know it's going to backfire; since it's made in the 1980s, we know it will contribute to a happy ending. The real bully beats up the hired bully. We understand this must happen but, as movie viewers who identify with Jerry Mitchell and not Buddy Revell, we're disappointed…it seemed like such a practical solution.

Since ESPN is holding the long overdue sequel to Mets-Cubs II hostage until six this evening (as an ESPYs appetizer, for cryin' out loud), I turned on the Yankees and White Sox hoping for some good news. I had been looking forward to the World Champions coming to the Bronx and beating the crap out of the Yankees, thereby saving us all. Finally, someone bigger and tougher was going to come to town and kick in the collective ass of the school bully who refuses to graduate to pennant race (and marketplace) irrelevance.

Instead the Yankees beat the crap out of the White Sox just like they would the Devil Rays. They completed a sweep them a few minutes ago. The halls of American League High simply aren't safe. Watch out Tigers, duck into your lockers Athletics, think twice before using the boys room Red Sox. If the the Guillen Gang can't take these dicks jerks out once and for all, can any of you?