No Way to Beat the Heat
FILM: The In Crowd
DIRECTOR: Mary Lambert
STARRING: Lori Heuring, Susan Ward
GRADE: D+
FILM: Loser
DIRECTOR: Amy Heckerling
STARRING: Mena Suvari, Jason Biggs
GRADE: C+
|
|
THANKS TO ITS INOFFENSIVENESS, LOSER (FEATURING JASON BIGGS AND MENA SUVARI) IS THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS WHEN COMPARED WITH THE IN CROWD.
|
My mother likes to tell the story that back in the dark ages before the advent
of home air conditioning, her generation used to go to the "picture show" just
to find a place to be cool. On hot summer nights, they'd take the streetcar
down to Canal Street and go into the Saenger or the Loew's without even paying
attention to what was playing. Well, our movie palaces today have terrific air
conditioning, but because our homes do, too, I can't imagine any excuse for
stumbling into the likes of such summer dreck as Mary Lambert's The In Crowd
or Amy Heckerling's Loser.
The pictures have several things in common: Both concern
college-age outsiders trying to fit in with a hipper group of peers, both have
attractive young stars, and both don't work. The weaker of the two is easily
The In Crowd. Written by Mark Gibson and Philip Halprin, The
In Crowd is the story of Adrien Williams (Lori Heuring), a recently
released mental patient whose ostensibly kind doctor (Daniel Hugh Kelly) has
arranged for her to work at a posh country club where she can serve drinks and
hand out towels to the rich set, all of whom seem to be her own age.
Despite the fact that Adrien is good-looking, none of the other
young people pay her any attention, proving that liquor and drugs are God's way
of demonstrating that too much money can distract you from the good things in
life. An exception to the gang indifference to Adrien is provided in the person
of Brittany Foster (Susan Ward), who keeps inviting Adrien to parties and
enticing her to break all the rules by which she can keep her job and stay out
of the nut house. Adrien looks at Brittany and sees a pal. That's because she's
the heroine-as-victim. From the first moment we get a glance at Brittany giving
Adrien the once-over, we know exactly what she is: an evil bitch. Then,
shortly, people at the club begin to croak.
Eventually, of course, Adrien gets Brittany's number (666) and
begins to behave in the preposterous manner of all thriller victim/heroines.
She sneaks into Brittany's house and prowls through Brittany's belongings
looking for evidence to prove that Brittany is a nogudnik. Wouldn't it just be
easier to say, "Hey, ostensibly kind doctor, how about a job at McDonald's?"
Well, no, because then we wouldn't get to have all the blood that Hollywood
requires to keep makeup people in regular paychecks. The press materials for
this picture specifically requested critics' "cooperation in not revealing the
ending of this film," so, cooperative guy that I am, I won't. I will say,
though, that it's COMPLETELY PREPOSTEROUS.
Because it didn't make me want to scream, I have to rate
Loser the winner in this race of the ignominious. Written as well as
directed by Heckerling, it's the story of Paul Tannek (Jason Biggs), a rural
hick from the Midwest who gets a scholarship to a fancy school in New York City
(read: Columbia), where he fits in like the 11th guy to arrive for a game of
basketball.
Paul thinks that college is for getting an education, silly him,
whereas his totally hip dorm roomies know that college is for sex, drugs and
then some more sex and drugs. Of course, let's face it, Paul is a dweeb who
never seems to notice that he's the only guy around wearing a winter cap with
the earmuffs hanging down, when everyone knows the "basset hound look" is so
very not ever.
Still, Paul manages to strike up a friendship with Dora Diamond
(Mena Suvari), a local girl working her way through school. Normally, one can
only work her way through the astronomical tuition obligations at an Ivy League
college by practicing either medicine or law, but Dora works as a cocktail
waitress in a sleazy bar providing us some skin and jiggle the picture couldn't
otherwise work in. True to Suvari's American Beauty roots, she's
involved with an older man, in this case her English teacher Edward Alcott
(Greg Kinnear). He's a jerk, but as Joe E. Brown observes at the end of Some
Like it Hot, "Nobody's perfect."
The altogether obvious question, inevitably, is how long it will
take Dora to notice that Paul is a lot better catch than Edward. And, of
course, it takes the entire picture, which in his case is a relatively
merciful 98 minutes. In her earlier teen comedies, Fast Times at
Ridgemont High and Clueless, Heckerling exhibited the skill to make
us both laugh and care about her characters. This time out, she succeeds at
neither. You don't go home offended or otherwise annoyed by this picture,
but you don't go home entertained, either.
|
