A taboo-breaking comedy

One of the more fun movies this week is Not Another Teen Movie, which – like American Pie I & II – thrives on the grossness of its comedy.

The story of Not Another Teen Movie can be told in one sentence: The school jock (Chris Evans) makes a bet among pals that he can transform the school nerd (Chyler Leigh) into a prom queen. Now, I’m sure you already know how this will end: Nerdy girl finds out about the bet, is broken hearted, but still ends up with the school jock. Right! How brilliant!

The strength of this movie obviously doesn’t lie in its plot. Rather than fill up this film with dizzying twists and turns to the story, its director and writers wisely bombard it with hilarious scenes – most of which are downright gross.

For starters, we see a whole toilet- john and its female occupant – collap-sing into a classroom underneath and showering everyone with human feces. Next scene: The cafeteria with a close-up shot of what looks like sticky baked beans and browned ground meat – with the color and consistency of ... never mind!

Then, there’s also this scene where we see two females kissing – tongues, saliva and all. Of course, guys generally find sexual pleasure in watching two women making it out with each other. But I don’t know if your prurient interests would still be aroused in this one. You see, one of the females is brunette, sexy and divine. Her kissing partner? Well, she’s not exactly at the prime of her youth. In fact, she’s not even way over-the-hill. Way over-the-mountain – or even way over-the-Himalayas is more like it. Actually, she’s already a septuagenarian – or perhaps even an octogenarian. And she exchanges tongue and saliva (lots and lots of it) with this young woman in this scene. Kinky, huh! Gross is more like it.

I’m telling you, this film breaks practically every taboo in the book. Why, there are even scenes of attempted incest in some parts.

But no matter how sick the jokes are in this film, you’ll still find yourself laughing your head off. And you don’t have to be sick in the head to enjoy the all-sick humor of Not Another Teen Movie. Actually, if you take the humor in this movie seriously, then something is seriously wrong with you.

Of course, there are also jokes that fall flat in the film. But the cleverly thought out sketches are really a hit with the audience.

As an added attraction, the movie also features cameo appearances by Mr. T and Molly Ringwald who in the film plays the part of a ground stewardess who – ironically enough – is so critical of teens today. Don’t you think that was such a great idea – putting the former queen of teen movies there and making her lash out at present-day teenagers?

Not Another Teen Movie actually still pales in comparison to American Pie I as a comedy film. (But it definitely is a lot funnier than American Pie II). However, in terms of grossness, it’s at par with American Pie I. It’s sick, but delightfully sickening if there’s such a thing.

An interesting dance movie

Still showing at Glorietta 4 is Salsa, a film by French director Joyce Sherman Bumuel.

The film traces the life of Frenchman Remi Bonnet (Vincent Lecoeur), a gifted classical pianist who has mastered Chopin, but whose heart bleeds for salsa – particularly Cuban – music. Auditioning for a music scholarship that would bring him to New York, he screws up his chances by playing salsa music on the piano instead.

Instead of going to New York, he heads off to the capital city of Paris and joins a group of black Cuban musicians who also teaches him how to dance the salsa so he could make a living as a dance instructor. However, before he could be accepted as an authentic salsa dance teacher, he has to first change his complexion. And so, while Michael Jackson is trying all the scientific methods in the world to turn his skin color to white, we see our movie hero here frantically changing his color to black. But as soon as he gets the desired skin pigmentation (through mechanical suntan), his life takes on a different color when he meets and falls in love with one of his white dance students.

Salsa is really no great movie. (The plot eventually gets predictable.) Its dance sequences aren’t all that spectacular either. (I’ve seen several other dance movies with brilliantly-choreographed dance numbers.)

However, the film is still very interesting and quite entertaining. Actually, the flow of its story even unfold like a Tagalog komiks movie (there is a surprise twist toward the end that is reminiscent of our local soap operas). And with its dance sequences, there was a point when I thought it had shades of Hataw Na, the 1995 movie of Gary Valenciano and Dayanara Torres.

Again, I have to say that Salsa isn’t really such a bad film. But let me add that I’ve seen better movies featured at the Ayala Cinemas’ Art Films outlets.