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RIP Johnbobb

21. Not Another Teen Movie (2001)
Directed by Joel Gallen
Score: 172 (Tie)

Poke: 4
Plasma: 5
Forty: 9
Karo: 14
Tangy: 15
Vis: 20
John: 22
Gavs: 24
Suprak: 29
Mythiot: 30

5. Plasma
The best football movie Ive ever seen aside from The Room.

Not Another Teen Movie was a joy to watch because it constantly subverts expectations and does so in brutally ridiculous ways. Much like Airplane!, NATM takes place in an alternative universe where all absurdity is taken in stride. Whether its projectile-vomiting toilets, concussion countdowns, or Captain America in a whipped cream bikini, the cast just rolls with it, and thats what makes this one so mesmerizingly meta.

While there are a few jokes that fall flat (the Lacey Chabert handjob joke being one), most of this is comedic gold. I even love the throwaway observations, like when the guy from How I Met Your Mother points out that all the kids at the prom are dancing experts. This movie is loaded with truth.

Only thing I didnt like about NATM was the ending. After the movie subverted expectations for its entire runtime, I was bummed that it ended with Captain America and Janie getting together. That betrayed the movies spirit, and pretty much anything wouldve been a better alternativea plane crash, Vietnam Dad murdering Captain America, someone taking a dump on Mia Kirshners chest, anything. A-

9. Forty
No, not Janey Briggs. She's got glasses. And a ponytail. Ugh, she's got paint on her overalls. What is that? There were a whole lot of crappy parody movies in the 2000s but this one is one of the gems. It will always have a special place in my heart because it came out the year I graduated high school. I probably give it more credit than it deserves because of that, but its been a comedy classic to me ever since I saw it. It pays tribute to all of the classic movies of my youth and teen years, from the John Hughes movies to American Pie, Varsity Blues, and Shes All That. You name it, they probably poke fun of it in NATM. Its silly and stupid, and it doesnt have any kind of smart subtlety but I think it still holds up pretty well today and it will always have that ingredient of nostalgia for me.

14. Karo
In a school where half the students look too old to be in high school, some of the jocks decide to rip off My Fair Lady with a bet the they can turn any girl into prom queen. Thus he ends up dating Janey, a girl that everyone pretends is not attractive for some reason.
It could benefit from having some concept of subtlety rather than just whipping out the ol' humor sledgehammer and caving in some skulls. Like they sometimes literally up and explain the joke they are making word for word when they are right in the process of making it.
But when the jokes hit, boy do they ever hit. The High School Musical parody was glorious, and the gag where they have a counter on the scoreboard listing how many hits remaining before that one football player dies from concussive brain injury was like a top 5 joke in this whole project.

15. Tangy
Going into the project I was fully expecting this to be the cringiest movie here and I was right, but thats actually a big reason as to why I enjoy it! Every high school movie in existence is cringy and NaTM comes after all of them. Every character, trope and plot point is a reference to some other movie and I have to give them credit on that. So in a way its a perfect satire.

That said, the movie is still hit or miss when it comes to the comedy itself and naturally something like that is going to hurt my overall experience with it. Plus, its not like the commentary is particularly deep or engaging. So yeah thats going to hurt it quite a bit too.

Biggest Laugh: I seriously dont know, theres too many good ones. Evans with the banana, the entirety of the pool scene and like all of Kirshners bits are freaking hysterical.

20. Vis
Im honestly surprised at how low Ive ranked this movie, as of the 2/3 point in my watchthrough, because I didnt hate it. Yes, the poop jokeswhich appear a bizarre number of times in the moviedont really contribute to the movie in a positive way, but other than those, I feel like the comedy lands just right for what this movie is going for. Teen romance or teen romantic comedy or teen sex comedies are always absurd, because the teens in those movies have no proper understanding of the real world. Its a film genre ripe for parody, and I feel like, having seen a decent number of the Scary Movie franchise, along with several others from the creative mindsNot Another Teen Movie is the best of that genre of parody film. It goes for low-hanging fruit, sure, but at least it GOES for those fruit, and doesnt spend large portions of the movie on dated references that dont connect with the genre. Its funny enough, and if youre aware of the movies being parodied, its funny. It certainly works as a standalone, but its definitely better supplemented by other films.

22. John
Some of this movie really didn't age well, and other parts (particularly the gross-out humor) are just unpleasant. But as dumb as this movie is, and it's DUUUUMB, it's at least fully aware of how dumb it is, and I fully admit it made me laugh a good bit. The Jamie's Got A Gun scene is hilarious, the cameos by a vast array of 80s romcom stars was great, and some of the parodies just really worked. The American Beauty reference cracked me up and for every terrible unaware stereotype there's another stereotype being played with (like the token black character telling another token black character he needs to leave). I can't rate the movie particularly highly but it did make me laugh.

24. Gavs
Unsurprisingly, this film was critically slaughtered on release. Compared to the Seltzer and Friedberg movies that came to define parodies later in the decade and ultimately become a factor in killing the genre, this one has a bit more effort put into it, but theres still a ton of the toilet humour and sex jokes youd expect from the genre especially the latter, given the genre being parodied here.

Every character is based on some sort of character archetype from teen movies, like the jock who changes for the better after character development (played by a pre-fame Chris Evans in his acting debut), the bitchy cheerleader, or the token black best friend who mostly says things like Damn! Shit! Thats wack! There are some clever jokes and lines of dialogue, so it is disappointing that the more lowbrow jokes keep undermining them, which can make this a tiresome watch at times. This is one of the more inconsistent films on the list, switching several times between pretty funny at best and some of the worst moments on the list at its worst.

One more thing: yes, that is a banana in Americas ass. This must be Ant Mans favourite movie!

30. Mythiot
I have a feeling you have to have grown up when raunchy teen movies were popular in order to appreciate Not Another Teen Movie, but on the other hand, I cant imagine finding most of these jokes funny even if I did get most of the references. Not Another Teen Movie is one of the early death-throes of the spoof genre before Friedberg and Seltzer gave it an undignified death later in the decade. The gags go for broke being as loud, broad, gross and in your face with their metaness as possible and almost none of them landed for me. I do admit I found the Mr. T and Molly Ringwald cameos funny.