Movie Review: 16-Love

Title: 16-Love
Genre: romance, teen, sports, chick flick, family
My Rating: **
Official Rating: PG (for mild thematic elements and brief innuendo)
Age Group: 14+
Summary: Ally is a tennis star in high school and looking at a few matches that will lead her to becoming pro. Her life is entirely tennis and she's good. But when she sprains her ankle and is forced to take a break from the one thing she's been doing for as long as she can remember, she finds something different. A life. A real, regular, teenage life.
So how does the guy she's coaching for his own tennis match fit into all of this?

Word of Warning

• Girls wear short skirts and tank-tops (some are revealing, others not), mostly for their tennis matches. Ally's friend is constantly wearing short shorts or skirts.
• A boy who is addicted to caffeine is nicknamed "Red Bull" but that's never explained as being related to an actual drink.
• A guy spends a good amount of time practicing without his shirt on. Girls are clearly attracted to this and one wants a picture with him. Later, we see a slow-mo of him getting out of a pool.
• The father is inconsiderate of his daughter's actual desires and pushes her to do tennis because he doesn't want her to fail like he did.
• The girl disobeys her father at her friend's urging. Later, she hides things from him, ultimately outright lying to him.
• There is significant taunting between rivals and it's not friendly taunting.
• A scene intended to be comical involves a ball-boy getting hit off scene by a ball. There is a sort of shriek/yell, and the emergency truck drives by. The announcer casually tells everyone to go back to their game, the ball-boy just got on the wrong end of a serve by a famous player. We hear nothing about him after the truck is gone, nor do we see anything.
• A girl badly sprains her ankle and can't walk.
• A girl and her love interest share ice cream.
• A guy remarks that a pro sells his own line of underwear and "they're extremely comfortable."
• A girl forcefully kisses a guy who looks very shocked and unhappy but doesn't put much effort into pulling away. He is also assumed to be more or less taken by a different girl when this happens.
• A girl neglects her friends and family, resulting in anger and friends abandoning her.
• The mother tells her daughter, "All you are is a sum of your choices."
• The daughter ignores her father's orders and does what she likes, hoping he'll eventually agree that she's right.
• A few passionate kisses, almost all of which are in the last five minutes of the movie.
• The cliche of the daughter being misunderstood by her parents, doing what she wants finally, and them realizing how wrong they were and then agreeing with her.

My Thoughts
Honestly, it wasn't too bad for a chick flick. The thing that was the most irritating was all the tennis scenes in which nothing but tennis happened. It might have been a lot more enjoyable if I knew tennis or was interested in it.
But all things considered, the story was a nice (albeit cliche) one and just unique enough not to make me feel like I was watching something I'd already seen. The comical characters were a great addition, there just often enough to make sure the audience didn't become annoyed.
My biggest problems with it were honestly the over-told story of a daughter being misunderstood and then doing what she wants and the parents realizing how wrong they were (what kind of message does that send?) and the long tennis scenes.
So my star count is based less on objectionable content this time and more on boredom.

Movie Review: Picture This

Title: Picture This
Genre: Romance, High School, Chick Flick
My Rating: -*
Official Rating: PG-13
Age Group: 18+ (or nobody)

Summary: Mandy has been in love with Drew for a full four years or so. Unfortunately, Drew is completely unaware of that. In addition, Mandy lives in a regular town, and Drew lives in a gated community. Not to mention Mandy's father is completely controlling. When she finally does get Drew's attention, her father triple grounds her. How in the world is she going to go to Drew's party?

Word of Warning:
First off, a disclaimer. This was a chick flick and lacking in almost every aspect that makes a good movie. Because of that, I am only going to list the more major problems.

• Mandy is completely infatuated with Drew and has been for some time. We get a slow-mo of him getting out of the pool wearing small tight swim "trunks" (he's on the swim team).
• Mandy hits her head, almost drowns, and Drew gives her CPR. She wakes up to his mouth on hers, his hands on her chest. It takes him a minute to realize he doesn't need to keep his hands there.
• Mandy's father is controlling. Mandy is completely disrespectful toward him.
• Mandy spends a good portion of the movie tricking her dad into thinking she's studying when she's actually going to a party.
• The dress Mandy wears to the party is short, has a low neck, and has slits that go high up the side.
• There's a legend/rumor that the Patterson boys take a girl up to the tower (in their house) at the yearly party. There, they "deflower her in the show." The rhyme of it all only makes this concept even more sick.
• Due to the rumor, when Drew does take Mandy up to the tower, and he leaves the room for a moment, she freaks out when she hears water and leaves. In the other room we see he's just washing his hands and trying hard to relax (apparently he's pretty nervous and his hands were sweaty).
• Mandy never finds out that Drew didn't have a "shower plan" for her, but she does get back together with him at the end of the movie.
• Mandy's father learns a lesson, Mandy is happy, and she never tells him the truth about the party night, though he does have a small inkling of it.
• Mandy and her two friends go to a bar to win some money in a competition.
• One girl throws up. This is recorded and shown to other party-goers, who think it's funny and make fun of her. Mandy's face puffs up in an allergic reaction and she chugs some sort of medication for allergies to get rid of it.
• The typical mean girls group is present and, as expected, ruthless.
• Drew kisses Mandy on the cheek, then later on the lips. The last one is long, but that's because the frame was frozen, music played, and then the credits rolled.

My Thoughts
This is the typical teenage daughter is misunderstood, parent learns a lesson, teenager gets a date, the end type of movie. These movies always try to trick the reader into thinking the teenager had a change of heart as well, especially toward the parent, but it just doesn't happen.
Aside from that, the whole rumor about the show thing was just plain disgusting. Mandy knew the rumor and went up into the tower anyway, trusting Drew was different. Sure, he was, but even if there wasn't a rumor she shouldn't have gone up to his bedroom alone with him.
Sometimes I find a movie like this that had something good to it. This one? Nothing. At all. That's why though it may be appropriate for someone 18+ (very few people at that age are going to enjoy something like this anyway), the movie is empty, kind of like a black hole: nothing to give, everything to take.