“When I wrote up Death Proof the other day, I was thinking of it just in terms of Eli Roth, which means I wasn’t thinking of it in terms of Quentin Tarantino, which means it totally slipped my mind that this was part of Grindhouse. Roth is responsible for one of the fake trailers that played at the double feature, Thanksgiving. He claims to have finally solved the problem that was blocking the screenplay from getting written, so maybe Thanksgiving will soon go the way of Machete, the way where the fake trailers turns out to no longer be fake. Here’s hoping.
On this day of Rothtober, we’re going back to Five Favorite Films with Eli Roth. Current feature: The Last American Virgin. Roth says that he loves this movie partly because of the fat guy/nerd/cool guy combo, which he claims is more effective than any John Hughes click. He also says that he loves how dark and subversive the film really is, even though on the surface it’s a teen sex comedy. I definitely agree with the dark.
For me, when I think of teen sex comedy, American Pie is the ultimate example. At first they did kinda seem like very similar movies, but Roth is right. Virgin takes some much darker turns. Pie’s humor comes mostly from sex jokes, but the film is fun and has a lot of heart. I once saw it edited for tv, and when you took out all of the obscenity you were left with a cutsey teen rom com. Virgin has some situational humor, but the sexual situations are what drive the plot not the funny. I feel like some of the events are things that the Pie franchise would never dare touch, but yet here it is 15 years prior.
The film is also so deliciously 80s in every way possible. My favorite part about it was the absolutely cheesey soundtrack. Yes, I’d kinda roll my eyes at certain songs (Journey again? really) but each selection fit the story at that point perfectly. A rather overlooked bit of brilliance.
I certainly appreciate dark, but something was just a bit too boring. Maybe I was expecting funnier or more clever. Still, interesting how many boundaries this was willing to push 30 years ago.”