10 Things I Hate About You

David Krumholtz dresses up as his favourite food.

I could totally cop out and make this a list, and if I were any less of a consummate professional I probably would have. But I take my job seriously - or as seriously as one can take a make believe job where I don't get paid, or recognition, or anything really. So it's very much like being a stay at home mum. I think I'm doing something people will be proud of, but the truth is no one gives a fuck, and also you're getting fat, Janet.

But that's probably enough about my pretend black wife (who is black not because I'm suddenly not a racist, but because in this delusion she is actually made of delicious chocolate), and time to talk about the movie.

10 Things I Hate About You was one of those late nineties teenage movies about how hard high school is and "Oh my god did you see what Suzie wore to prom?!", and all that bullshit and we try to pretend that we aren't actually watching 30 year olds act like privileged cunts for an hour and a half. By the way - you teens of the late 90s - how hard did high school seem now? Pretty fucking breezy, am I right? Jesus Christ, what a waste of time. I didn't learn a goddamn thing, didn't have to wash my clothes or pack my own lunch. It was magical. And the best thing was that ALL THE GIRLS WERE HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS. If I went back there and talked to those girls today I'd be asked to leave and the police would have me on some kind of paedophile watch list. I know this because I'm now on the Sex Offender Registry - and am legally required to inform you of that fact, and also that I'm available to do kid's birthday parties.

So, this is a movie about a moderately young Joseph-Gordon Levitt, a very bone-able Julia Stiles, a very 'holy shit it's Alex Mack' Larissa Oleynik and a very alive Heath Ledger. There are actually a heap of people in this movie that you'll think "Hey, it's X from Y! Ouch, didn't time treat you badly, David Krumholtz." But this isn't a movie about how David Krumholtz came to look like a badly stitched together bag of carrion, and more a movie about Shakespeare.

For those of you who never passed 10th grade English, The Taming of the Shrew was one of Shakespeare's lesser known works, but probably just as shit. I don't know, I failed English. But nonetheless, this movie borrows it's plot heavily from that play - and by borrow heavily I mean blatantly plagiarise.  There is a beautiful, blossoming, ripening, soft, moist, oh-god-I'd-eat-things-out-of-her young girl - Bianca (Oleynik) - and she wants to date this little Guido kind of runny-wank-stain with his slicked hair and his tanned chest and cabriolet - you know, the kind of guy that will realise he's gay in about 12 years and just power-bottom his way to AIDS within a single trip to Europe. But, there's a problem; her dad's an absolute mental cunt. Why you ask. What does he do? He decides to impose a rule where she can date... when her nazi-lesbo sister does. Ha, genius. The problem is that Cameron (Gordon-Levitt) wants to get her sticky, so he comes up with the brilliant idea to get Patrick (Ledger) to start wooing the older sister (Stiles).

Now, to his credit, Ledger is pretty good at this. In between ciggies he finds time to do a song and dance routine in-front of half the school, go to a 'female bar' to see her favourite band play, and also some other stuff I can't remember because I don't care. So Kat begins to fall for Patrick, who is secretly falling for her back - even though she looks like the kind of girl who listens to shitty girl rock groups no one has heard of, and eats vegan and smells of old piss. She's pretty much a hipster precursor. So now Cameron is free to move in and take Bianca out on a date for some roofie-coladas.

Of course - being a 90s teen movie - something goes wrong, and Kat finds out that Patrick was being payed to diddle her and she gets all mad and feminist and refuses to shave her armpits or some shit, and then Heath Ledger gets really upset and ODs on prescription meds. Kat doesn't attend his funeral, and feels guilty about it for the rest of her sad, lonely, cat-filled days.

Actually, no. She reads aloud a poem to her class she titles "10 things I hate about you", which is a thinly veiled jab at Patrick that pretty much says "I hate you, you mistreat me, but you're also, like, totes hot and all ripped and you still make my fanny tingle. But I hate you. But I love you too, because I'm a hormonal teenager with absolutely no understanding of the world", and then cries and runs off. Then Patrick says he's sorry, and that he bought her a guitar and she forgives him and Cameron wins Bianca's affection and it's all very wonderful. But I bet it only lasted like one semester, and then Patrick looked at another girl 'inappropriately' or Cameron 'forgot our anniversary' or some bullshit, and it all ended in tears and awful teenage poetry and a lot of listening to Linkin Park albums, because teenagers are shit people and I cannot stress that enough.

There's a lot of other little subplots going on throughout the movie, and a heap of characters to hate or throw stuff at your TV hoping to maim, but that's the gist of it. It's not a bad movie, but it's not exactly a classic either, It's fun to re-watch every 10 years or so, like every terrible 90s teen drama - which is more than I can say for the rest of the writers works. She's the Man was just Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. What, stealing one of his works wasn't enough? What else have you got on your resume? Legally Blonde screen adaptation? The House Bunny? Fuck you Karen McCullah-Lutz, and your ability to make money stealing from a dead Englishman.