Five things you won't see in 'She's The Man'
Palm Beach Post
Amanda Bynes' new cross-dressing teen comedy She's The Man is, on its surface, a modern millennial spin on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night: Brainy Viola (Bynes) goes undercover as her twin brother Sebastian (James Kirk) at his chi-chi boarding school, where, disguised as a dude, she falls for her roommate Duke (Channing Tatum). But Duke has the hots for Oliva (Laura Ramsey), who, in turn, has the similar hots for Sebastian... who is really Viola.
DreamWorks SKG
The verdict: She might be The Man, but she'll never be Just One of The Guys! Director: Andy Fickman On the web |
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But something about the sports team hijinks, and Bynes' completely unconvincing manscaping, suggests a much more recent inspiration the 1985 gender-bending teen hijinks classic Just One of the Guys.
Amanda's movie is cool, but here are five key Guys ingredients it'll be lacking:
1. Overt cartoony movie sexism: In 2006 (thank God) it doesn't seem necessary for wannabe crusading journalist Terry (Joyce Hyser) to go all 21 Jump Street so that she'll be taken more seriously in a journalism contest. But a decade after NOW and Woodward and Bernstein, it made sense to us... at least as much sense as a movie for 15-year-olds had to make.
2. The head Cobra Kai! Back in the mid-1980s, if you needed a blond, elitist jock type to make life painful for some nerd who would eventually kick the jock's butt and take his girl, you called the master, Mr. William Zabka, evil Johnny in The Karate Kid. He's playing pretty much the same person here. But it worked for him.
3. Mullets on guys who are supposed to be hot: Really! It's true!
4. '80s high fashion: Die, skinny tie. Die. And take your cursed friend Mr. Leg Warmer to Hell with you.
5. Laura Palmer, as she lives and breathes! Before she was a corpse on Twin Peaks, she was a girl who hits on Terry because she thinks she's a man.
