Top 10: Actresses That Need Better Parts

Don't you hate it when an actor or actress that you truly admire starts throwing their career away? There always seems to be a plethora of talented entertainers who pick project after project that does them no favors and has no artistic merit whatsoever. Here are a few actresses I happen to love and see enormous potential in, that rarely seem to land in the roles as great as their talents.

10. Mena Suvari
Most promising film: American Beauty

Remember this? Stellar lead performances from Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening hogged all of the attention back in 1999, but there was some phenomenal supporting work in the film. One that still stands out to me is Mena Suvari as Angela, Janie Burnham's friend who uses ambition and sex appeal to mask a seething center of insecurity. Her delivery is perfect throughout the entire film, and she manages to turn a bitchy character with a serious attitude problem into someone sympathetic and likable in the film's final act. Her performance is funny, infuriating and ultimately sad.


9. Rachel McAdams
Most promising film: Mean Girls

In one of the best high school movies ever, Rachel McAdams played the now legendary Regina George, the queen bee and most popular girl in school desperately trying to hang on to her social status. The voice of writer Tina Fey made this movie an instant comedy classic, and its strongest player was undoubtedly McAdams. Her timing and delivery were genius, and made her character a quotable and memorable screen villain for the ages. If she could shy away from romantic leads for a while, and maybe take on a gritty role where she's not required to look drop dead gorgeous, she has a shot.


8. Emmy Rossum
Most promising films: Mystic River, The Phantom of the Opera

The National Board of Review named Emmy Rossum their breakthrough actress of the year back in 2004, and I think they were on to something. She has some quality that makes her instantly likable. In Clint Eastwood's Mystic River she played Katie Markum, the ill-fated daughter of Sean Penn's Jimmy, and didn't need a lot of screen time to show us that Jimmy's loss was profound and unfair. In the coveted role of Christine Daae in The Phantom of the Opera, she was wonderful, even if you couldn't say the same for the film itself.


7. Keri Russell
Most promising film: Waitress

Keri Russell first started stealing hearts and impressing critics as the iconic title character in the WB's college drama, Felicity. But it was her role as an unhappily pregnant waitress with a talent for making pies and eyes for a new doctor in town that really made the world take notice. She gives a witty and endearing performance, and carries the quirky little indie with charm and grace. It's a tragedy that this film marks the end of writer-director Adrienne Shelley's career, but at least there is the joy in what will hopefully be a long and colorful filmography for Russell.

6. Kristen Stewart
Most promising films: Into the Wild, Adventureland

I know that Stewart has made loads of money and picked up quite a fan base with her involvement in the Twilight franchise, but I have to say it may be one of the worst decisions she could have possibly made if she wants to be taken seriously as an actress. She was one of the strongest supporting elements in Sean Penn's beautiful Into the Wild, and gave a perfect performance in this year's college comedy Adventureland. She was smart, funny, and desperately lonely and lost. Here's hoping she lands more important roles in the future.



5. Scarlett Johansson
Most promising films: Lost in Translation, Girl With a Pearl Earring

I can't quite figure out why things aren't going right for ScarJo. She obviously has talent (3 Golden Globe nominations) and good taste (frequent collaborations with Woody Allen), but yet her name just doesn't excite the kind of praise that one would expect by now. Personally I think Woody puts too much emphasis on her sexuality, because I know she has more to offer than a pretty face and killer curves. Her lonely, neglected new wife in Lost in Translation was a captivating character and I'm sure she has a few more in her.


4. Sarah Michelle Gellar
Most promising film: Okay, her strongest role was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and that success so far hasn't translated to films, but it could!

Call me crazy, but I think Sarah Michelle Gellar could be great. No, she hasn't made good choices where her film career is concerned, but she killed - no pun intended - on Buffy and has all the talent and beauty needed to be a major star. I'll probably take crap for this, but I actually thought she did an awesome job in the teen slasher movie I Know What You Did Last Summer (a guilty pleasure for me). She was the only convincing member of the cast and in the right part she could carry a film.


3. Katherine Heigl
Most promising film: Knocked Up

Katherine Heigl brought the funny in Judd Apatow's Knocked Up, in which she plays a career-minded woman who has to put her plans on hold after a drunken one-night stand leads to an unwanted pregnancy. Heigl is hilarious and holds her own among Apatow's close-knit comedy troupe. She's also a slam-dunk dramatic actress, and she has the Emmy to prove it. She's already landing lead roles left and right (27 Dresses, The Ugly Truth) but a part in a film from a director like Kimberly Peirce or Jane Campion would be a better fit for her range.



2. Kerry Washington
Most promising films: Save the Last Dance, Ray, The Last King of Scotland

Kerry Washington is one of those actresses who commands your attention and demands that you remember her. I saw Save the Last Dance as a teenager (in one of my less discerning moments) and quickly forgot about it, but I thought about Washington for a long time, and kept reminding myself to keep an eye out for her. She gets small roles in a number of great films (she's supported two of her leading men to Best Actor wins), but for some reason no one trusts her to headline a movie. It's a shame, because I'm positive she'll knock a lead performance out of the park as soon as she gets the chance.

1. Kate Hudson
Most promising film: Almost Famous

Kate Hudson is the most tragic example of a talented actress squandering her gifts in films that don't deserve her. Her breakthrough performance in Almost Famous as Penny Lane, the Stillwater groupie in love with the one man who doesn't want her, was phenomenal, and should have ensured a long career in respectable films. As Penny, she has wonderful moments that take the audience from laughter to tears and back again. A part in Rob Marshall's upcoming musical Nine seems like a step in the right direction.



These women all have something great to offer. If their agents would get to work and find them roles in important films, they could be incredible. Who would you like to see challenge themselves a bit more often?

TOP 10: Foreign Horror

Happy Halloween! I knew with the dark holiday coming up that I wanted to do a top 10 of horror movies, but it seems like every film site everywhere does the same thing around this time of year. A person only cares to debate whether The Exorcist or Psycho is creepier so many times, so I decided to tweak the criteria a bit.

These are my 10 favorite foreign horror films. No matter what language you speak or what country you call home, these movies are guaranteed to inspire a few nightmares.

10. A Tale of Two Sisters

If you're planning on watching this one, be sure to make time to see it twice. This intriguing Korean ghost story has a shocker ending that'll have you rethinking everything you've just seen. When two sisters come home from the hospital after the death of their mother, they contend with two evils in their home - their bitter new stepmother and a vengeful spirit. It's a wonderful, somber movie about adolescence and mourning.

9. Nosferatu

This German silent film from F.W. Murnau is the original Dracula adaptation. The 1922 classic concerns a man named Thomas Hutter, who travels to Count Orlok's castle to sell him a house. But the monstrous man soon sets his sights (and his fangs) on Hutter and his loving wife. It may be mild by today's shocking standards, but an eerie, evil performance from Max Schrek as Orlok is still an unsettling and lasting image. It's a menacing tale that's still the definitive film version of Bram Stoker's classic story of death and decay.

8. Suspiria

Italian director Dario Argento was the undisputed master of horror when he made this classic in 1977. Suspiria tells the story of Susan, an American girl attending a famous school of dance in Europe. She's not there long before strange and unnatural occurances have her frightened and ill, and soon she discovers the school has long been a gathering place for a witches coven. Argento creates a surreal and chilling atmosphere and makes stomach-turning material more interesting than it has any right to be. And special kudos to Goblin's spine-tingling and relentless musical score.

7. Ringu

By now I'm sure you all know the story of Ringu. A cursed videotape seems to kill everyone who watches it after seven days. Reiko, a journalist, hears the urban myth of the tape and is drawn into the mystery of an otherworldly girl's death. Once she views the tape, she has one week to uncover the secrets surroundinng it in order to save her own life. One of the creepiest moments ever conceived and put on film is a girl's crawl from a well in the video and out of the television toward one of her victims. Thank goodness videotapes are pretty obsolete in this digital age, or I'd still be terrified every time I touched a VHS.

6. [REC]

Far and away one of the best zombie movies I've ever seen, [REC] takes the hand-held scare tactic - a tired device in horror films, if you ask me - and makes it into something new and thrilling. A Barcelona news reporter and her cameraman are on assignment filming a group of firemen, but suddenly find themselves quarantined in an apartment building where an unknown virus has turned residents into violent killers. Exceptional performances and an astonishing and unnerving ending turn this zombie flick into a must-watch horror gem.

5. The Devil's Backbone

There are some glaring similarities between Guillermo del Toro's 2001 gothic horror film and his sensational hit Pan's Labyrinth. His lead characters in both are children coping during the Spanish Civil War, with adversaries both real and supernatural. In The Devil's Backbone, Carlos is a young boy whose father has recently died in the war. He's taken in at the Santa Lucia School and soon meets the restless ghost of a murdered student. It's a compelling and convincing tale made with intelligence and ambition. A visually arresting and emotionally poignant ghost story that fits right in with del Toro's most beautiful and effective works.

4. Let the Right One In

Tomas Alfredson's brilliant vampire movie is more than a genre flick. It's a beautiful study of young friendship and the horrors of adolescence. A 12-year-old boy named Oskar is regularly bullied and friendless until Eli, also 12 and alone, moves is nextdoor. Her arrival coincides with a series of gruesome attacks, and though Oskar realizes there is something different about her, he befriends her. The loneliness they both feel is the only thing strong enough to unite them despite the vastly different worlds they inhabit. The film is a wonder to make a vampire movie and a tale of innocent childhood friendship fit together so beautifully.

3. Diabolique

As far as scares are concerned, Diabolique is relatively tame. But it's inarguable that French director Henri-Georges Clouzot was masterful with suspenseful thrillers. The film tells the story of two women - one the wife of a boarding school's brutish headmaster, the other his mistress - who bond over their apparent mutual hatred of the man and decide to do him in. The film is a masterpiece of deceit and double-crossings with a Hitchcockian flair that convinces you that you know where it's headed, only to yank the rug from under you time and time again.

2. Eyes Without a Face

Eyes Without a Face is a 1959 French film directed by Georges Franju. Its an elegant and subdued film with stunning and creepy visuals. A plastic surgeon becomes obsessed with fixing his daughter Christiane's horribly disfigured face. He and his nurse conspire to fix her by kidnapping other young women and removing their faces. It's wonderfully controlled filmmaking that places mood over scares, and the lead performance from Edith Scob - wearing a bizarrely blank mask - is jarringly serene. Plus, there's a killer bit with a dog (I'm a sucker for any scene with a German Shepherd).

1. The Orphanage

The best ghost story I've ever seen is J.A. Bayona's The Orphanage. Laura and her husband move in to the seaside orphanage in which she grew up and turn it into a facility for disabled children. But when their son goes missing, Laura discovers terrifying secrets about the house and the children who lived there. A modern horror film that understands and smartly uses suspense is rare, but this is one of those films. The Orphanage doesn't rely on cheap and frequent scares, it instead chills you from moment one with dread and anticipation of what might happen. Belen Rueda gives a knockout performance and the final act's startling revelation is more horrifying than any ending you've ever seen before.

There you have it, the best of foreign horror. Three of these titles have spawned inferior U.S. remakes, with two more on the way, but do yourself a favor and catch the originals next time you're in the mood for a good scare.

What are your favorite horror films? Do any of these foreign gems make your list?

TOP 10: Children's Book Adaptations

Spike Jonze's hotly anticipated Where the Wild Things Are is out this Friday. To celebrate the amazing feat of adapting a ten-sentence book into an inspired feature length film, I've decided to look at the best films adapted from children's books.
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10. Coraline

One of the most impressive animated films of the decade is Coraline, Henry Selick's delightful stop-motion feature based on the creepy bestseller by Neil Gaiman. Gaiman wrote the book, about a girl who finds an unsettling world in her family's new house, for his young daughter, who liked to have scary stories read aloud to her. After searching for books that fit the bill in libraries and bookstores, Gaiman decided there weren't many scary books that were appropriate for kids. So he came up with Coraline, and read her chapters as he wrote them. Henry Selick's splendidly eerie version captures the tone of the book and adds visual wonder to a solid story. Coraline, the first animated movie to be originally filmed in 3D, is a frightening fairy tale guaranteed to become a classic.
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9. Bambi

There are plenty of films in the Disney cannon to choose from for a post like this. Most of them are based on classic stories and fairy tales, but Bambi stands out, I think, as one of the studio's most emotionally effective works. Bambi was based on a 1923 Austrian novel by Felix Salten entitled Bambi, A Life In the Woods. The book was considered one of the first environmental novels published, and was banned in Nazi Germany in 1936 when officials declared it a "political allegory on the treatment of Jews in Europe". The film version created some of the most memorable cartoon critters ever, and the shooting of Bambi's mother is one of the saddest moments in film history. Walt Disney was brave to stay true to the source and make Man the bad guy. It's a beautiful, heartfelt, and courageous adaptation that still inspires laughter and tears all over the world.
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8. A Little Princess

A Little Princess is a beautiful film from Alfonso Cuaron, based on the book of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Published in 1904, A Little Princess follows young Sara Crewe, a kind and intelligent girl who is sent to live in a boarding school when her doting father goes off to war. After news comes of his death, Sara is forced by the school's headmistress to become a servant, and escapes into her imagination when her trials seem unbearable. In the movie, Sara is played with a calm wonder by Liesel Andrews, who gives a wonderfully solemn performance. The film is a magical experience about the uncertain place of a child in the mysterious and often frightening world of adults.
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7. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Roald Dahl's classic children's novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory inspired a 2005 adaptation from Tim Burton, but the 1971 original, retitled Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, is the more popular version. The novel, published in 1964, introduced us to the endearingly eccentric candymaker Willy Wonka, who invites the finders of five golden tickets hidden in his chocolate bars on a tour of his factory. Wonka is played in the film by the always amazingly funny Gene Wilder, and the children - apart from poor but kind Charlie Buckett - are hysterical brats. It's a sweet and funny journey that lives in your heart as long as an Everlasting Gobstopper stays in your mouth (forever).
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6. Little Women

Little Women is a classic novel for people of all ages, but Louisa May Alcott intended it for the young women of her time. The March sisters - Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy - grapple with heartache and disillusionment on the way to finding love and happiness during the Civil War. Alcott largely based her novel on her own life, and in it she explored the overcoming of one's character flaws. The sisters deal with vanity, a hot temper, shyness and selfishness, respectively. Several film adaptations have been made, most recently in 1994, but George Cukor's 1933 release starring Katharine Hepburn is an elegant masterpiece. Little Women is a simple but moving story about the struggles and adventures of a family and the people they love.
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5. Babe

Babe is a brilliant marvel of a movie based on The Sheep-Pig by Dick King-Smith. Babe is a clever little pig who is miraculously saved from the slaughterhouse by a farmer who takes a liking to him. Raised by a caring border collie as one of her own, Babe becomes a valued member of the farm's family when he proves adept at herding Farmer Hoggett's sheep. Babe is a surprisingly endearing film with an inventive premise, clever writing, and top-notch performances (especially James Cromwell's Oscar-nominated turn as Farmer Hoggett). It's a wonderfully entertaining lesson about accepting even the porkiest of outsiders. That'll do, pig.
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4. The Iron Giant

Easily one of the greatest animated films in history, The Iron Giant is based on the 1968 novel The Iron Man by Ted Hughes. Brad Bird's tragically underseen film debut is a stunning example of how great hand-drawn animation can be. At the height of America's space paranoia, young Hogarth Hughes makes an enormous discovery in the form of a friendly robot from outer space who just happens to be the ultimate weapon. It's a story of impossible friendship and teaches a very valuable lesson: You are who you choose to be.
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3. Mary Poppins

This 1964 musical was based on a series of books by P.L. Travers about a magical English nanny, Mary Poppins, who arrives at Number Seventeen Cherry Lane to look after the Banks children, Jane and Michael. Their father, George Banks, is a workaholic, but soon the prim, proper, and practically perfect Mary Poppins teaches him to spend more time with the children who desperately need him. Julie Andrews plays the singing, self-admiring nanny with her trademark poise, and the original songs are fun and recognizable. The movie that put "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" in every man's vocabulary is a whimsical musical adventure for kids of all ages.
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2. The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden, another brilliant children's story from Frances Hodgson Burnett, was my favorite book growing up. It's the story of an orphan girl, Mary Lennox, who goes to live at the home of a reclusive uncle in England. Misselthwaite Manor, the uncle's estate, is a gloomy and forboding home in which there is little for Mary to do but explore. She makes a few new friends, and in her touring of the house she comes across a key to an overgrown garden on the grounds, and discovers that this garden is in turn the key to happiness for several others. The Secret Garden was assuredly directed by Anieszka Holland in 1993, and it's an entrancing, lovely piece of filmmaking. Roger Deakins' hypnotically beautiful photography matches the intelligent story in each individual moment. The result is a family feature so pristine and alluring that you'll wish it never had to end.
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1. The Wizard of Oz

There's something to be said for a movie made over 70 years ago that's still a hit with each new generation. Dorothy Gale's trip over the rainbow isn't the only story. L. Frank Baum created an entire series of books exploring his wonderful world of Oz, but The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the most famous and beloved of them all, and the 1939 film introduced the world to Judy Garland and remains one of the most quotable movies ever made. The Wizard of Oz is a great American fairy tale with universal appeal and influence, and it warmly invites new audiences to follow Dorothy down the Yellow Brick Road year after year.
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There you have it. Are you planning to see Where the Wild Things Are this weekend? What were your favorite children's books growing up, and how do you fell about their film versions, if they have them?

TOP 10: Coen Brothers

The Coen brothers' new film, A Serious Man, opens today. The Coens have made a career out of quirky, but beneath every odd story is (usually) a strong message and (always) an impeccably-made film. Here are their ten best, in my opinion.

10. The Big Lebowski

I personally tend to gravitate to the Coens' more serious work, but I can still appreciate their uniqueness of vision and their wicked sense of humor. Jeff Bridges as The Dude is easily the brothers' most iconic character to date. The Big Lebowski mixes elements of Leninist philosophy with mistaken identity, a kidnapping plot, a love of bowling, and a stained rug. Only in a Coen film could all those pieces come together to form one of the most beloved films in the Coen cannon.

9. Burn After Reading

A screwball comedy with zany characters, a dizzying plot, and of course, perfect dialogue and great acting. It's funny, sometimes delightful, sometimes a little sad, with dialogue that sounds perfectly logical until you listen a little more carefully and realize all of these people are crazy. A classified CD lost by a disgraced CIA spook and found by two simple gym employees sets off an outlandish series of events that could only be at home in a Coen feature. It's simply - amazingly - a collection of brilliant caricature studies interwoven by veracious, Coenesque, social interactions.

8. Raising Arizona

This is Nicolas Cage at his finest and a Coen comedy classic. Raising Arizona is the hilarious tale of ex-con H.I. and his straight shooting ex-cop wife Ed - their infertility issues lead them to kidnap one of the Arizona Quints. What follows is a strangely dark and comic series of events. This film did not initially do well in the theatres, dealing with a lot of dark humor and general strangeness that may have been ahead of its time. Yet this film has become a huge cult classic, and has gained a strong following.

7. Miller's Crossing

Miller's Crossing is a crime drama set in the prohibition era, with more double and triple crossings than a season of Survivor. The Coens display a love of classic gangster movies with their snappy dialogue, corrupt cops, shifting loyalties, and smoking Tommy guns. Gabriel Byrne plays Tom Regan, the right-hand man of Leo, an Irish gangster. An Italian crime lord calls for the life of a dirty bookie, but Leo is involved with the bookie's sister, Verne, who wants him protected. Sound complicated? That's only the beginning. The Coens weave a complex but hugely entertaining tribute to mob movies, with some classic characters, scenes, and as usual, a gruesome death or two.

6. Barton Fink

This 1991 genre-defying movie won so many awards at the Cannes Film Festival that officials changed the rules. Now each film screened at Cannes can only walk away with two. Barton Fink took the Palme d'Or, Best Director, and Best Actor for John Turturro, who plays an acclaimed playwright who moves to Hollywood and gets a severe case of writer's block. He claims to be a poet of the common man, but when his neighbor, Charlie, says he has some stories to tell, Barton proves uninterested, and thus is oblivious to Charlie's monstrous secrets. It's an assured and political piece of comic filmmaking about Hollywood and hell. Sometimes they're one and the same.

5. O Brother Where Art Thou?

O Brother Where Art Thou? is one of those movies that people either love or hate. I happen to love it. Three prisoners on a 1930s Mississippi chain gang (George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson) escape and attempt to find a buried fortune with a relentless lawman on their trail. The journey is amazing and hilarious. This is a clever movie with sharp witty dialogue, the perfect three personalities among the convicts to clash with one another, and one of Clooney's greatest performances. The film has an outstanding, Grammy-winning soundtrack and was instantly popular among the mainstream. With a little help from the Soggy Bottom Boys, the Coen brothers finally proved that they could translate to a large audience.

4. No Country For Old Men

The Coens finally nabbed the golden boys for Best Director in 2007 with this grab bag of their favorites: grim humor, botched crimes, bizarre and bloody deaths, and the use of landscape as character. No Country For Old Men is the story of a mad killer on the trail of a Texas resident who happens across 2 million dollars and decides to keep it for himself. Brilliant performances from all involved - especially Javier Bardem as evil personified and sporting a bowlcut - and primal, unsettling storytelling upended the thriller genre and earned the Coens a slew of well-deserved kudos.

3. Blood Simple

Blood Simple was our first introduction to the Coen brothers - and they didn’t disappoint. This thriller set the stage for many amazing Coen collaborations to come. A rich saloon owner hires a shifty private detective (perfectly portrayed by M. Emmet Walsh) to kill his cheating wife and her lover, but the detective has ideas of his own. The Coens' film debut is considered one of the finest first films in cinema history - and oh how deliciously the double-crossings go down. As TIME's Richard Corliss said: "Who could tell from this debut feature that Joel and brother Ethan would become the most distinctive and unpredictable American filmmakers of their time?Everybody who saw it."

2. A Serious Man

Cited as the Coens' most personal film to date, A Serious Man is set in 1967, and centers on Larry Gopnick, a midwestern professor who is faced with divorce, and all the consequences it may bring to his Jewish family. The Coens' latest film has virtually no movie stars, but it doesn't need them. It's a compelling drama (with a lot of funny moments) that explores an everyman's faith and family. It's one of the best films of the year.

1. Fargo

Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert attended the same screening of Fargo when it premiered back in 1996. Siskel couldn't contain his enthusiasm for the duration of the film. He famously left his seat in the middle of the screening, found Ebert, and said, "This is why I go to the movies." I don't believe there's a better way to put it. Fargo is, without a doubt, the Coen brothers' best film to date. The Coens lovingly poke fun at their homestate of Minnesota and its residents with a darkly humorous tale of a kidnapping plot gone awry. The desperate, pathetic schemer, Jerry Lundegaard, is played by William H. Macy, and the hilariously inept kidnappers are Steve Buscemi (a weasly neurotic) and Peter Stormare (a brooding sociopath). But the movie really belongs to Coens regular Frances McDormand, who plays the thick-accented and very pregnant policewoman Marge Gunderson. The characters, comedy, and violence come together to form the quintessential Coens masterpiece.

What do you think, folks? The Coens' mother must be an awfully proud woman, right? What are your favorite Coen films? And what did you think of A Serious Man?

TOP 10: High School Movies

September is here everyone. Another school year is starting up, and with Jennifer's Body hitting theaters on the 18th, I thought it would be a fitting time to go through my ten favorite movies about high school. I could give you an honorable mention list of a few that almost made it, but that would be cheating, wouldn't it? These are the best, in my opinion. On with the list!

10. Grease

The highest-grossing movie musical of all time is still a hit with every generation. Not only is it full of fun song and dance numbers that are still classics today, but the movie takes on what it's like to be the new kid in school, cliques and gangs, peer pressure, teen pregnancy, and the all-important high school dance. Grease launched the careers of some of the era's brightest stars, most notably John Travolta.

9. Mean Girls

What seemed like just another obnoxious teen comedy turned out to be a smartly-written and insightful look at the world of teenage girls. Elevated by the powerful comedy of Tina Fey and great performances from Lindsey Lohan and Rachel McAdams, Mean Girls showed how brutal girls in high school - even those that say they're your friends - can be. That four-way phone call is an all-too-familiar blast from every girl's past.

8. American Graffiti

This post-graduation tale of teens facing their first adult decisions made stars out of Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfus, and Harrison Ford. The teens in American Graffiti are out for one last joyride of a night before they officially grow up. Tomorrow they decide whether or not to stay with their girlfriends, where to go to college, and just what they want to do with the rest of their lives. Before the night ends, they squeeze in every adventure possible, and we share the joys of their last-ditch adolescence.

7. Carrie

High school can indeed be horrific, but nothing that happened in my high school years was quite as terrifying as Carrie White's blood-soaked takeover of prom. After her classmates pull a mean-spirited prank on her when she gets her first period, Carrie's humiliation turns into a supernatural, terror-inducing hostage situation. Even scarier than her transformation into a demonic torturess is her crazy, Bible-thumping mother.

6. Election

One of the funniest takes on high school ever is this gem from director Alexander Payne. Adapted from the book by Tom Perrotta, Election is the story of a history teacher (Matthew Broderick) trying to thwart the ambitions of over-achiever Tracy Flick (played perfectly by Reese Witherspoon). The film is shown from the perspectives of four different characters, each one hilariously original and free from stereotypes. The smartest girl in school is a homewrecker, the teacher is a bad guy, and the biggest heart in the high school belongs to the football star.

5. Fast Times at Ridgemont High

To this day, no one beats Sean Penn at portraying the stoned slacker. Penn's Jeff Spicoli is one of the funniest screen characters in memory, but the greatest thing about Amy Heckerling's high school film is the truth behind even the zaniest characters. First-time screenwriter Cameron Crowe went undercover as a high school senior while in his 20s and was inspired to write Fast Times, which could explain why I recognize every character here. What seems like a film about a bunch of kids just out to have fun is actually a testimony to how fast kids are forced to grow up, and the heartbreaks they experience even at such a young age.

4. Rebel Without a Cause

James Dean portrays the new kid in school, Jim Stark, a troubled, bullied loner who can't seem to catch a break in Rebel Without a Cause. His first day at his new school brings a gang confrontation and a knife fight. Natalie Wood plays Judy, a girl who takes an interest in him, and Sam Mineo plays his depressed friend. Stark was not the neat and tidy kids of Leave It to Beaver; he was a real teen with real problems that kids at home could finally relate to.

3. Clueless

This smart and funny film about a rich Beverly Hills student who tried to help those around her is loosely based on Jane Austen's Emma. Alicia Silverstone shines as Cher, who spends her time playing matchmaker for lonely teachers, showing an awkward new girl the ropes at their hip high school, and monitering her dad's cholesterol. And who doesn't love Cher's fountain revelation? "I love Josh!" So classic.

2. Say Anything...

This passionate teen romance between sheltered high school valedictorian Diane Court and earnest but nerdy kickboxer Lloyd Dobler is sure to inspire a few fond memories of young love. John Cusack and Ione Skye have real, tangible chemistry and create an iconic love story with some iconic moments. Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" playing out of Lloyd Dober's boombox is as memorable as it gets. Say Anything... also introduced us to the Cameron Crowe special - the in-the-car-radio-singalong - with John Mahoney warbling "Ricky Don't Lose That Number".

1. The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club is the undisputed champ, and has been since its release in 1985. The recent passing of writer-director John Hughes has led a lot of people to reflect on his contributions to cinema, and first and foremost in everyone's heart and mind is this classic about five teens stuck in Saturday detention, struggling to prove they're more than a brain, an athlete, a princess, a basket case, and a criminal. It's the most honest take on the hell that is high school, and the teens' blatant definance of Principal "Dick" Vernon ("You mess with the bull, you get the horns!") is still a vicarious thrill all these years later. Don't you forget about this one.

What are your favorite high school movies? How many of my faves would make your top 10? Are you looking forward to Jennifer's Body? Leave some love in the comments.