The To Do List (2013)
Directed by Maggie Carey
Feeling pressured to become more sexually experienced before she goes to college, Brandy Klark makes a list of things to accomplish before hitting campus in the fall.
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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.
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.
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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.
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.
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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.