guringo

Relentlessly funny, with scenes that I know I'll never forget, I just can't fault this movie, you tune in not expecting much and it just pummels you from start to end. This is one cult-classic sleeper hit and a whole new xmas movie tradition.

And I just have to rave over the 'piney-puke' scene, and you will too, but that had to be some story gag that never found a good home till now, because it's simply priceless...

And to Jason Jones and Mike Beaver, please, please, please, walk away, never even think 'sequel', it can't be done, and on the other hand, I so hope to see more from you guys... bravo to cast and crew,

It's the coming-of-age of a gum-chewing gumshoe, from geek to sleek, in the 'meanhalls' of the school that never sleeps. And as such, it's one hilarious genre-spoof that actually works on all levels, the kind that when you're not laughing out right you're grinning from ear to ear. I'd even say it drives a stake thru Twi'blight, especially in regards to the hyper-true-love-of-the-super-mature-movie-teens.

I loved the 'school as prison' backdrop- Shawshank meets Hamlet 2 sort of thing, but neither over-the-top nor under-fed. The bad guys are neither psychotic nor one-dimensional while the good guys (and gal), well, they're not angels and this, again, is pitch-perfect and so refreshing compared to the usual Hollywood polarization.. and kudos on the editing, the dialogue, the pace - everything really.

One questionable casting choice however is Mischa Barton. I can't seem to come up with a better alternative and she is OK but nothing more -as opposed to the rest of the cast. She seems to have some kind of acting-facial-paralysis, very noticeable in her last scene, and for her sake, I hope she learns to transcend this botox-haze she shares with Kirsten Dunst among others. But this is truly a minor (possible) blemish in an otherwise awesome little movie where the whodunnit is somewhat gratuitous but then, you wouldn't want it any other way.

Cox will regret signing up for this show, and maybe the 'steve taylor' facelift as well... I thought she had the grounding and smarts to realize this show is abysmally uninspired and condescending to a fault, even by network standards.

Let's start with how perverse the backstory is, she drops out of college to marry and financially support her two-timing 'touring' loser of a manboy who knocked her up. Yet somehow along with raising a baby and enabling another one, she also pulls the 'never-worked-a-day-in-my-life' lifestyle of a soap-opera flippant with baroness in front, along with an invisible housestaff in some super-affluent smalltown USA, just like in real-life.

Took her only 16 years to dump her manboy over to the alimony plan, but being wonder-bread-winning-woman-with-Hollywood-body, it's all amicably resolved and besides, she just realized her libido is stretchmarked to network guidelines, as we're privy to a raunchy declaration of unabashed sexual yearnings.

Best friend next door -check, confidant sidekick -check, hunk across the street (& true (sic) love) -check, driest mama-boy on TV -check.

Predictable, creatively famished and unfunny in the deja-ad-nausea sort of way. But it will limp thru the first season and they'll pretend it's a hit and sometime before season 3 it will quietly go into the night, or screaming in agony if I had it my way.