Ten ways to make a fast buck in Hollywood

>> Yet another Clueless knockoff

by MATTHEW HAYS

Another week, another teensploitation movie. This one, titled 10 Things I Hate About You, stars a gaggle of hot, nubile, teen and twentysomething actors. It features a script based on a classic English literary text (Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew). In between the scenes of youth-oriented romance, there's plenty of hokey comedy.

True to the Shrew, the plot revolves around two diametrically opposed sisters: Larisa Oleynik plays an outgoing, popular lass who is eager to date various hotties in her high school. Holding her back is older sister Julia Stiles, a senior who prides herself on her acid tongue and outcast status.

The school stud (Andrew Keegan) and somewhat nerdier student (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are soon vying for the romantic attentions of Oleynik. But the sisters' overbearing father (played with spirit by Larry Miller) is worried about his elder daughter being left out of the coupled loop, and forbids Oleynik from dating--that is, until Stiles has her first date.

Keegan, being the kind of wealthy and pushy young lad everyone hated in high school, is soon paying a handsome young outcast to woo Stiles into her first date, freeing up Oleynik from her forced state of abstinence.

Though the press kit boasts that the film is somehow fresh and original, it's only too apparent where 10 Things' inspiration came from. With Clueless, filmmaker Amy Heckerling managed to take the Jane Austen novel Emma and convert it into a germane and highly witty take on contemporary teen culture. The fashions, the vernacular, the lifted, highly recognizable plot--all strokes of genius. The box office, taken together with that of Scream, inspired dollar signs in the eyeballs of Hollywood producers. Young casts are cheap, and classic literary texts mean no one has to be paid any royalties.

Of the recent spate of movies set to make a killing in their opening weekends with the teen audience, 10 Things I Hate About You is the best by far. Sadly, though, that really isn't saying much. There are wacky teachers, plenty of teen hijinx, ugly ducklings, sexy teens slipping each other the tongue (doesn't this violate Canada's kiddie porn bill?) and happy, puppy-love endings.

A winning formula--at the box office, anyway. Movie producers may have gotten dollar signs in their eyes; after about 18 of these movies so far this year, all I'm getting is stars in mine.

10 Things I Hate About You is now playing