TEACHING MRS TINGLE review

Hey folks, Harry here. Still suffering from the Summer Time Cold. I took a cup of NyQuil last night and didn’t wake till 7pm this evening.

A pounding headache and a complete case of ‘too-much sleepitis’, not to mention this continual sniffing and hacking up of phlegm of a different color.

I swear, how on earth does the human body produce this much yech?

Anyway, I needed to see a film so I grabbed the schedule... glanced through. Hmmmm... I hadn’t seen UNIVERSAL SOLDIER 2: THE RETURN or TEACHING MRS TINGLE... Well.... shit.

I popped 4 Advils, hopped in Kirby (our silver surfing geekmobile) and flew out to the local Great Hills 8.

The headache began dimming thanks to the pharmaceuticals, my big drink soothed my sore throat and I was ready to be entertained.

Saw trailers for THE INSIDER, LOST SOULS, OUTSIDE PROVIDENCE and some other forgettable titles.

Nothing really grabbed me.

TEACHING MRS TINGLE...

I hate films like this one. For me, the first 2/3rds of the film is pretty damn strong... then.... the movie descends into mediocrity. The result left me with that... wavy hand feeling... It doesn’t really suck suck, but it’s far away from rocking.

It’s one of them middle of the road films that coulda been a contender.

Now if need be one could pick about a billion holes in this movie. The concept isn’t real full proof, but then... it is a plan created by high school students, so... the holes in their logic seem perfectly apt to me.

The three lead teens in the movie have a pretty interesting dynamic.

Katie Holmes does radiate that, ‘oh I’m too innocent for sex, I have to study now’ feeling, while at the same time giving off that secondary presence of, ‘I really need to get laid some day’ look.

Her best friend, played by Marisa Coughlan, is my favorite teen character in the film. She’s alive, vibrant and cute as hell. She is the only teen I care about at all in this movie. I believe that she wants to be an actress, that she watches movies obsessively in the hopes of finding the key to her dream buried in amongst THE EXORCIST or CASABLANCA. She dreams big and all she needs is a few life lessons and tragedies to temper the excitement and she’ll have range to be the actress she wants to be.

The cock. I mean the male teenager in the group, Barry Watson... I just wanted him dead. There is nothing I hate more that the brain dead, I’m too cool for school ‘stud’ that walks like every girl is supposed to lick his loins and not smell any pungency. He is... a loser.

And then we have my hero of the movie. Mrs Tingle.

What?

Well, you see... For the first 2/3rds of this movie, Mrs Tingle is just the coolest wicked ol witch I have ever seen... BUT... every single one of her observations are dead on true. She isn’t lying. She is simply stating the obvious truth that these idiot teens just can’t see for themselves.

Helen Mirren is wonderful as this character. Becoming everything to everyone. Planting seeds of betrayal. If you have ever seen the old Gene Kelly THE THREE MUSKETEERS... the Lade De Winter played by Lana Turner oozes this same sense of venom.

This character is genius. And Kevin Williamson really must pat himself on the back for giving her initial life, but it really is Helen Mirren that makes the character leap off the page.

That being said... Williamson then completely betrays his character. It’s so completely obvious to me that these three teens are losers. They are in the wrong, not Tingle. They should be punished... not Tingle.

I wanted Mrs Tingle to crush their spirit. At the end of this film, I wanted Katie Holmes knocked up with loser boy’s bastard child whilst working next to her mom with a tag upon her chest.

Loser boy should’ve been thrown in prison and destroyed by Big Burt and his gang of sodomites.

And the one teen I cared for... Well her heart needed to be broken, giving her the needed pathos required to become the great actress she aspired to be. She would be the success that Tingle created.

And Mrs Tingle... she would continue her life as this all knowing all telling monstrosity of an honest teacher. Unmotivated by the heart, but merely dispensing the justice and grades her students deserve.

You see... My Mrs Tingle was a lady named Ms Foy in Seymour High School. I thought she was a monster. Always belittling me, pushing me. Like Mrs Tingle she was my history teacher.

I remember her one day forcing me to take her to my locker where she stood over me as I put the crumbled up old history papers together in order. She would have me, and my entire group of friends come after class and write stupid sentences 500 times. The indentation of the pen callusing my index finger. I hated her. She had hair like Elsa Lancaster in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and a shrill high pitched southern-accented whine of a voice. I can still hear her cry out, “Haa WAY!” That’s my name. That’s how she’d pronounce it.

I escaped her class with a B average. It was hard work. But... as soon as I was out of her class, she became the sweetest teacher I knew. Getting through her class with a good average earned her respect. She’d seen slacker types coming in and out of her class, but she whipped my ass into shape, and I became an A & B student forever more after that class.

To me... Mrs Tingle is simply dissatisfied with mediocrity. She will expose the true nature of what works at the heart of her students. She learns about each of them. Finds their weaknesses and presses their buttons... hoping that they learn the error of their ways.

She’s not a bad guy... She’s a teacher that wants more from her students. And SHE SHOULD WIN! The fact she doesn’t just proves what a piece of shit this movie turns into after creating such a great character.

Teaching Mrs Tingle? NEVER. Surviving Mrs Tingle would be a better title. These three aspiring delinquents couldn’t teach a dog to shit, much less inspire so much as a cackle from this great character.

The movie is a rental... or at the very least a matinee. Helen Mirren is a wonder to behold here. If only Williamson had not pandered to his teen audience and merely followed through. Teens don’t always win... but teachers like Mrs Tingle do.

As usual with Kevin Williamson movies, I prefer the non-lead. To me Katie Holmes and ‘cockboy’ are boring and deserve to be lashed to whatever blasé future life would see fit for them. They are bad people with shallow motivations.

Katie Holmes’ character is just a selfish bad loser. So what if the girl who is the school snob beats her and becomes the head of the class.... Clue one you faux Cleopatra... SHE EARNED IT! Just because you don’t have all the breaks in the world doesn’t mean you take a teacher hostage, gag her and try to coerce her into dispensing your selfish sense of accomplishment. Meanwhile... The fact that she sleeps with the object of her best friend’s desire just shows her as being the piece of shit she really is.

Like Sidney in the SCREAM films, this virginal self important ice queen bores me. I prefer the more alive characters. The geeks that don’t need a scholarship, but are simply heading off to live their lives and succeed on their own right.

And Mrs Tingle.... Wherever you are.... I salute you. Push your students, force them to work harder, to dream higher and knock down the deluded. I tell ya folks... If Tingle would have won... I would be praising the hell out of this movie... but the bullshit ending on this movie just made me lose all respect for the film. And that’s where I am on this one.