Sugar & Spice

March 20, 2002

Ahhhh…this film reminded me of my experiences in High School.

Well, not me personally, of course. I never had a “womb with a view” in High School…but many of the girls at my High School did. In addition to Waller High School being full of mothers, there were the infamous pregnant Hempstead Cheerleaders, one town over. Four pregnant cheerleaders…kicked off the squad. But one has an abortion and gets right back on the squad! Scandalous! They even made it into People! Of course, I took this as an opportunity for artistic expression – that Halloween, I dressed up as a pregnant cheerleader. It was inevitable that I was in the Principal’s Office by second period – he ordered me to change. I happily changed and when everyone asked what happened to my costume, I said that the Principal forced me to have an abortion to get back on the squad…

But enough about me, back to the film. It was humorous enough. I noticed a lot of similarity in tone to Drop Dead Gorgeous – and sure enough, it was written by the same guy. There were some outrageously funny parts, like the scene in the doctor’s office, the tampon passing and the whole bit about the cheerleader in love with Conan O’Brien. But there also were some really lame parts, especially the ending.

Is it me, or has Columbine ruined the film industry as we know it? The original title was to have been Sugar and Spice and Semiautomatics – what’s wrong with that? The film was originally intended to have been a true black comedy – Rated R and all. But of course, Columbine happened mid-shooting and the whole thing was turned into a slapstick teen comedy on the order of Dude, Where’s My Car? It seems that so many promising, yet violent films have been disney-fied in the wake of that horrible day three years ago. Films don’t kill kids, psychopathic kids with poor self-esteem kill kids.

Funny that the whole film seemed to be inspired by a John Cougar Mellencamp song – “Little ditty, ’bout Jack and Diane, two American kids growing up fast as they can…”

Don’t rent it, borrow it from a friend or wait a couple of hours from now and it will be on STARZ again.