American Girls

Such a heartwarming and engaging movie! Colorful characters, and that vibe that just takes you back to the 2000s wow. I love the dynamics between the characters. Especially the two cheerleading captains, they make you cheer for both teams in the end, they make you invested in both their growth and conflicts. The soundtrack is so good too, Blaque is just my jam and honestly it's going straight to my playlist. I recommend this movie if you want to have a fun, it's such a comfort coded movie, I also watch this after seeing Ariana Grande's music videos, it's nice to see all the cool references she added, I totally understand why she loves this movie.

Interestingly enough, one of the most tired and boring cliches in both film and high school has been the subject of two genuinely enjoyable, if fluffy, movies in less than a year. I speak of course, about cheerleaders and both 'Bring It On' and 'Sugar and Spice'. But while 'Sugar and Spice' was campy and surreal, 'Bring It On' is a self-consciously serious movie advancing the idea of the cheerleader as athlete. While this idea is an honest and accurate one, it's one that audiences will only take so far. Cheerleaders may indeed be finer athletes than those on the sports teams they cheer for- I'd believe it, although I've never been a cheerleader and only rarely watch them on ESPN. I do know, though, that 'sissy, girly' activities are very frequently more difficult than 'tough, manly' activities, but try telling the boys that- or a movie audience. No matter how many big-budget and/or 'true story' movies are made wherein football is a metaphor for life or boxing is an affirmation of the greatness of the human spirit, even the most fascinating stories about sports like gymnastics or figure skating are strictly television movie-of-the-week fodder. In this atmosphere, you cannot make a cheerleading movie serious. You have to make it a joke. The smart folks behind Bring It On, though, realized that if they could strike a certain balance they could fulfill expectations but also get their point across. So they filled their flick with cute, peppy girls like Kirsten Dunst- always a delight, and well-cast here as a golden girl with a conscience- and snappy, irreverent jokes. They have a PG-13 locker room scene and a bikini carwash. They also have broken bones and high stress- very real factors in the lives of competitive cheerleaders. The squad is co-ed, and we get to know two of these curious, maligned creatures commonly known as male cheerleaders. One of them *is* gay- and an extremely well-adjusted, likable and "non-faggy" one, at that. The other is straight, and as horny as any frat boy in Animal House. We also have a tough girl named Missy transferring from L.A., along with her cute brother Cliff and the news that the Toro squad's cheers are not "100% original", as they had believed. Unfortunately for Kirsten's character Torrance and her Rancho Carne Toros, their ex-captain stole all their prize-winning routines from an East Compton squad (which are perhaps overly rude, even given the circumstances), that will be going to Nationals for the first time. So what's a cheerleading squad to do, except experience various pratfalls on the way to coming up with their own routine and competing and learning something about valuing your own strengths? It's better than it sounds, surprisingly- and refreshingly- enough. As for macho posturing at sports movies, the fact that this was a sueprise hit and 'Sugar and Spice' was not might just be a sign that there are audiences too smart to believe that any movie about female athletes must automatically be completely silly. What a surprising- and refreshing- change.

This movie was extremely enjoyable and I recommend it. The characters are not annoying for the most part, and I especially enjoyed seeing new faces Elisa Dushku (Missy) and Jesse Bradford (Cliff). They have screen presence and should be in front of the camera for many years to come, especially Elisa, who is really very beautiful. When you look at her, there's so much there, unlike most actresses whose faces do not say anything. You can tell there is alot going on in her mind just by her face.

The screenplay is intelligent and very funny and aside from a slow stretch or two, I really liked the movie. It is not like "Clueless" or anything else, which of course is a good thing.

One of my favorite scenes is when Cliff and Torrance (Kirsten Dunst) are brushing their teeth. Its probably a throw-away scene and there is no dialogue, but it was really great, for me at least.

This delightful comedy uses its ostensible theme of cheerleading rivalry to comment on its own genre, the teen movie. Given a genuinely exciting reinvention by 'Clueless', and reaching a peak with the likes of 'American Pie' and '10 Things I hate about you', the genre is in danger, as all successful genres are, of exchanging its wit, visual exuberance, engaging playing and agreeable sentiment for cash-hungry formulae and all-round laziness.

'Bring it on' falls into neither of these traps, but is aware that its genre is exhausting itself, and raises a number of pertinent issues. do filmmakers, like the Toro cheerleaders, continue their success by ripping off others' tricks? Is it possible to be original any more, or is the best we can hope for a clever spin on older, wider sources (this, of course, applies to cinema and all art in general)? Most pertinent, and 'Road Block' had already touched on this, is it time we jettisoned the toothy, white, middle-class young, and their oh-so-harrowing traumas, and allow a more representative teen demographic into the tacitly racist genre?

'Bring it on' may not entirely escape this last accusation - the black cheerleaders have no real humanity of their own, we are not given the same insight into their backgrounds and personalities as the white girls, beyond catch-all under-privilege. They are a mirror in which the whites can examine their complacency or flaws and correct them - literally so in many scenes, where the whites 'reflect' the blacks' movements, and the latter distort them in return, thereby commenting on them.

However, this touchy racial subject matter has a major benefit on the narrative arc. The plot is the old stand-by: a team of underdogs against the odds, triumph against circumstances and expectations. This would be tiresomely formulaic, except there are two teams in the film with equal claims on our attention and sympathies - it would be unthinkable for a Hollywood film today to have poor black people lose against pampered whites, but every stylistic decision - the humanising of characters; the rites of passage and socialising-of-misfits narrative; screen-time etc. - favours these whites. This creates a genuine tension, added to little asides (such as Torrence's brother's T-shirt, 'Cheerleading = Death') that make a familiar narrative interesting, problematic and unpredictable.

This is not to deny the familiar pleasures of the genre - the beautiful, clothes-shy young stars (the film gets to leer and satirise such leering!); the witty dialogue and bitchiness; the screenplay sharp about traditional issues of power and community; revelatory, stylised dreams and memories; the unforced energy. 'Bring it on' is a rare instance in the last few decades of a musical, and the various cheerleading routines are exhilerating and inventive, revealing to many a hitherto hidden purpose of a much maligned group, while still retaining the right to tongue-hollow that cheek. (AND a Shakespearean finale, where the actors come back after the curtain, and show us it was all play).

Torrance Shipman(Kirsten Dunst)becomes the new captain of the high school cheer leading team that takes pride in winning competition championships year after year. She discovers that the cheers and routines for the last several years have been stolen from another school's squad. Torrance relies on a reluctant gymnast named Missy(Eliza Dushku)to convince the cheer team to learn new material to take to the next state competition. What a shame it is that the football team is so awful that the schools pride is in the cheerleaders. This is an interesting eyeful, but actually just another vehicle for the enticing Miss Dunst.

Fine support from:Pua Kapiolani, Tsianina Joelson, Clare Kramer and Nicole Bilderback. If you have a cheerleader fetish, you will think this romp deserves an Oscar. Nonetheless enjoyable.