Maggie Carey
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Filmography
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Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
Directed by Amy Heckerling
influenced The To Do List (2013)
Visuals Plot
The film's pool and fast food restaurant settings (Fiona and Wendy are Big Bun employees) recall "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and one of the film's best set pieces is when Carey crosses the two groups, young pool kids each sent to find out what the other sex is talking about like a game of telephone.
Let's just say Brandy's graphic awkward encounters with the opposite sex make the cafeteria carrot scene from 1982's " Fast Times at Ridgemont High ," which back then put the crude in crudité thanks to a game Phoebe Cates , seem rather tame.
While we're used to seeing movies about boys wanting to "get busy" -- be that in the likes of the "American Pie" or "Porky's" franchises and many others of their ilk -- it's far rarer to find ones about girls as the aggressive leads.
But what really sets this film apart from nearly every other teenage sex comedy ever made, from “Porky’s” to “American Pie” to “Superbad,” is that this isn’t about some dude trying to get laid.
Then again, she’s aiming more for a girls’ take on “The Last American Virgin” or “American Pie,” a low bar to straddle.
It doesn't matter if it's a classic film like "The Summer of '42" or a broad comedy like "American Pie," there's one key ingredient in a coming-of-age movie: You have to like the person who's facing the big moment.
Because so many boys have done it so boldly, reveling in their risky business and risqué language — a low bar set long ago by the likes of "American Pie" and "Porky's" — the girls were overdue for some score-settling.
Despite some occasional lip service (pun intended) to the female libido, American Pie was chiefly a boys’-eye view of sexual awakening; its interest in women’s pleasure came down to the mere mention of that one time at band camp.
It's part of the new, post-"Bridesmaids" comedy scene, in which women are allowed to act onscreen pretty much the way men have since "Animal House."
These sorts of antics are common to such dude-centric fare as "Animal House," " Porky's ," " Risky Business " and " American Pie " but not so much in female funny business—and that is the point.
She also leans hard on '90s nostalgia, a much more meager vein than the boomer r&b; mined in Animal House and The Blues Brothers.
Such cinematic rites of passage range from the cleverly inspired — Easy A — to the inane — Porky's.
The latter also applies to the dialogue, usually a strong point for such films ("Juno," "Easy A," etc.) that revolve around girls and social pressures.
"The To Do List" is a much raunchier distant cousin to 2010's irresistibly funny and wise Emma Stone-starrer " Easy A ," the two films pretty much the only teen sex comedies in memory told from a female's perspective.
The results are reminiscent of “Easy A,” another raunchy sex comedy that acted as a showcase for Emma Stone, but the fact that Plaza, who is in her mid-20s, can pull off playing a teen girl in all her confusion and neuroses is a testament to this really being her movie through and through.
No, i.e. when Brandy flatulates or bites into a turd, but the vast majority of them do work which is more than could be said for any American comedy since Easy A. It's also very quotable.
In premise alone, “The To Do List” contains some mild similarities to the 2010 Emma Stone vehicle “Easy A,” in which Stone’s character merely pretended to turn into the school’s village bicycle.
Brandy's home life is cut from standard-issue cloth previously used in all sorts of teen sexcoms, dating back to the days and the likes of "Secret Admirer" in the golden C. Thomas Howell era.
The Myth of the American Sleepover (2011)
Directed by David Robert Mitchell
influenced The To Do List (2013)
Themes
Editorial missteps notwithstanding, the film marries the tones of 2007's raucous " Superbad " and 2011's slice-of-life " The Myth of the American Sleepover " while lavishing upon the proceedings early-'90s references as varied as "Home Improvement," Tracey Gold and Kirk Cameron, pagers, skorts, "Beverly Hills, 90210," and songs from Mazzy Star, 2 Live Crew, House of Love, Gin Blossoms, Tears for Fears, and The Cranberries.
It's not quite Stockard Channing in Grease , but it's not too far off.
Back in 2008, in a time where “college movies” had become uninspired and juvenile, a little sexually perverted, raunchy comedy called Sex Drive surged forward out of nowhere.
Indeed, while “ The To Do List ” isn’t the first movie about a teen girl determined to become a woman, most of the prior examples that spring to mind (Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Stealing Beauty” and the 1980 French hit “La Boum” among them) were more serious in tone and (unsurprisingly) made by European directors.
This is far from Revenge of the Nerds , where a costumed geek saves the day by sneak-fucking a clueless cheerleader, or from Young Frankenstein , where, with a song cue, Madeline Kahn 's bride-to-be celebrates her own rape.
She also leans hard on '90s nostalgia, a much more meager vein than the boomer r&b; mined in Animal House and The Blues Brothers.
Though Carey tries to invest the outre merriment with some legitimate emotional stakes, the movie never really connects on that level in the way of the similar-themed “Superbad” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” or the best Farrelly brothers romps, because none of the secondary characters have been endowed with distinctive personalities of their own.
The extensive cast includes Alia Shawkat (“Arrested Development”) and Sarah Steele (“Spanglish”) as Brandy’s two best friends, Scott Porter (“Friday Night Lights”) as Rusty Waters, the cartoonishly masculine object of her affection, and Johnny Simmons (“Scott Pilgrim Vs.
With supporting parts for Alia Shawkat, Scott Porter and Connie Britton, the film stars alums of some of the best TV shows of the last decade (“Friday Night Lights,” “Arrested Development,” “Parks and Recreation”).
But the sight of studly dim-bulb college dude Rusty Waters (Friday Night Lights’ Scott Porter) sets something stirring below the belt.
Some of the sex acts I found a little puzzling (I had to look them up), but she sets to work, with the available male resources as enablers—her lab buddy, Cameron (Johnny Simmons), a sweetly romantic, unexciting fellow, and Rusty Waters (Scott Porter, from “Friday Night Lights”), a college boy working as a lifeguard for the summer, invariably shirtless, a golden fantasy figure.
Somewhere in TV land, Tami Taylor from Friday Night Lights is grinning.
In 1993 Boise, Idaho, high school valedictorian, math-lete and bossy nerd Brandy ( Aubrey Plaza ) is content being a virgin until she spots Rusty Waters (Scott Porter of “Friday Night Lights”) at a party.
Featuring a few gags that might make even Judd Apatow blush, this rare femme-centric addition to the loss-of-virginity canon (dominated by the likes of “ Porky ’s,” “Risky Business” and “ American Pie ”) hits its fair share of outrageously funny highs amid lots of so-so filler, but stays buoyant and likable throughout thanks to the winning presence of “Parks and Recreation” star Aubrey Plaza in the lead.
These sorts of antics are common to such dude-centric fare as "Animal House," " Porky's ," " Risky Business " and " American Pie " but not so much in female funny business—and that is the point.
If it seems too soon to start thinking about the '90s as a period piece, consider this: "Dazed and Confused" was set in 1976 and released in 1993 which means that we're now further from 1993 (when "The To Do List" is set) today than we were from the distance in Richard Linklater's stoner, coming-of-age classic.
Yes, the female point of view is refreshing, but when Carey — who’s likely to hit the sweet spot on her next film — attempts to give the film heart, it feels shallow, unlike the genuineness of, say, “Sixteen Candles.”
A certain sloppiness prevents "The To Do List" from entering the female coming-of-age pantheon of " Sixteen Candles ," " Clueless " and " Mean Girls ."
Relatively free of anachronisms—one too-soon Jerry Maguire reference excepted—the film gets the details right, from the videogames to the songs to the sexual frustrations of skorts.
Since we're so many years past There's Something About Mary --and Bill Murray getting slimed in Ghostbusters --the eruption of semen is smartly played as a goofy triumph rather than an affront to good taste: Ejaculation is not the gross-out movies have so often made it; instead, it's more like an achievement you might unlock in a video game.
Alia Shawkat (2012's " Ruby Sparks ") and Sarah Steele (2004's " Spanglish ") play enormously well off of Plaza as girlfriends Fiona and Wendy, though the former's nickname of Brandy, "Pancake," is uttered so many times the viewer may be tempted to tape her mouth shut.
Then there's her dad, Judge Clark (Clark Gregg, "Much Ado About Nothing"), who's already freaking out over the news that he wasn't his liberal wife's (Connie Britton, TV's 'Friday Night Lights') first and who's in the wrong place at the wrong time when Brandy finally reaches her goal.