SUGAR AND SPICE review

Hey folks Harry here. In two days, it’ll be January 25th, 2001. And exactly one year ago on that date: January 25th, 2000… Professor Moriarty grabbed a look at SUGAR AND SPICE, the New Line Cheerleader Heist flick that is opening this Friday.

He said it was good… just not VERY GOOD.

Now, I’m not sure what changes have taken place, I’m willing to bet very few. The reason I loved this movie is not because it is a different film now… It is because I am an absolute nut for the CHEERLEADER GENRE.

Last year, I attended CHEERLEADER Weekend at the Alamo Drafthouse, where Satan’s Cheerleaders ripped off their panties and bras and threw them to the audience… Did satanic chants and all for the cause of Battered Women, to raise money to help. The films were REVENGE OF THE CHEERLEADERS, SATAN’S CHEERLEADERS and THE SWINGING CHEERLEADERS. Trixi Stix, Vixin Nixin, Lucky Dukes, Priss E. Bitch and Luci Furz were all there to help cheer the films and the audience up! There they were in their glorious patent leather cheerleader uniforms with 666 emblazoned across their chests… low cut backs revealing their ‘bad girl’ tattoos…. Ahhhh, 3 nights in a row of glorious Cheerleader exploitation.

But as I went back and looked at the past reviews of SUGAR AND SPICE, and even the one that came in tonight… I can’t help, but feel that the black humor and satire was misinterpreted. It seems that some are trying to fit this into the same genre of film that ELECTION came in… and while it shares aspects of that… well…

Take the devoted loyalty of the team that you find in THE SWINGING CHEERLEADERS… combine it with the ‘we rule the school’ attitude of REVENGE OF THE CHEERLEADERS… add a part or two of the satire and self-awareness of ELECTION and then add the mildest possible dose of RESERVOIR DOGS and you have a film that I dig quite a bit called SUGAR AND SPICE.

Almost all of the reviews and comments I’ve seen so far diss the ending for being ‘soft’.

Well, this isn’t a morality tale for folks like you and me, this is a BIMBO MORIALITY TALE!

Remember CHARLIE’S ANGELS? (No, I’m not about to recall Cameron Diaz’s magical swirling ass… oh man, that swirling ass was something wasn’t it?) Remember the simple joy the women had in that film?

This film has an air-head giggly Barbie-idealized robber-baron attitude that I just found irresistible. Maybe it is the fact that my own high school cheerleaders were untouchable goddesses that moved in John Woo-motion in the backwoods rustic hell that was Seymour, Texas… but I remember what happened when one of the girls on that team got pregnant. As well as what happened with Rainbeaux Smith in REVENGE OF THE CHEERLEADERS when she was pregnant.

A pregnant cheerleader is very much a holy personage in High School. One, it means that she isn’t quite the Virgin Queen that the whole Cheerleader Ethos projects, but rather a woman with sexual demands and limberness that boggles the very fabric of the human mind.

But when Seymour’s very own Cheerleader Captain started baking bread in the oven, the entire town seemed to react. NOT SO here.

Therefore, this movie does not exist in the real world. This is a fable, the story that cheerleader captains tell the other cheerleaders about a legendary team that got together, practiced and made off with not only the best boys, the grades and the best looks… but a pile of dough to finance their perfect lives.

This is a FAIRY TALE set today and now. It has the princess and a prince, that become Prom Queen and King. They are reduced to poverty and hopeless passionless abandon and exhaustion, before a perfect pure clarity of life, brought down by the bimbo deity of the hour… KEANU REEVES… and leads the Queen and her merry band of ladies in waiting into an adventure to steal the treasure, slay the dragons of uncoolness and live happily ever after.

Now as is typical of ALL cheerleader flicks that I love, each cheerleader is different in allure, personality and aspiration and dreams. They each are perfect with flaws that you love. Let me illuminate you upon these thigh splitting exposed demons of late-night blueball sessions:

First we have the leader of the pack, played by Marley Shelton, known as Diane Weston. She’s that perfect All American Girl with those gorgeous Heather Graham-esque High School aged eyes and perky cheeks, that sends hearts aflutter. She is… literally BARBIE! Color coordinated to an extreme… when she wears pink, her notepads and pens are pink. Now, I’m not that into pink, but she definitely makes me want to wallow in the whole pink thing. Well… She becomes the Preg-O-Cheerleader/wife of James Marsden’s clueless Football captain. Now, all through the film, I was haunted by a déjà vu sense of pitter patter love beats, till it hit me. Marley Shelton was the goddess that Tobey Maguire turned to color in PLEASANTVILLE - thump thump (cue John Carpenter music)…

Next we have, Mena Suvari playing Kansas Hill the hard-nosed trampy cheerleader. She has dirty rusty blonde look going, and just has a sassy don’t touch me, let me touch you attitude that is reminiscent of the AMERICAN BEAUTY character, without the shattered sense of ego wrapped up around her status as being beautiful. Instead, she’s a hard knocks life child… Quite fun.

Now, while not one of the cheerleaders at first, Alexandra Holden’s Fern character aka Swamp Water Monkey Face Trash girl…. Well of all the girls, in this film, she feels the most real. That awkwardly not-quite beautiful, but will definitely grow into a beauty girl look… mmmmmmm... You might remember her from Tim McCanlies’ DANCER TEXAS POP 81… But here… as the possibly inbred daughter of a coon-eating piece of bug exterminating white-trash arms dealer dude… Well, she’s definitely the most approachable of the crew.

Depending on your particular fetishphilia, Rachel Blanchard’s Hannah, may very well be the barn-raiser of the bunch. She’s the VIRGIN CHEERLEADER. The unspoiled, religious naïve G-movie watching gal. COMPLETELY UNAWARE that she is completely ready for that club out on the interstate, but so much better for just walking the Earth.

My particularly favorite pom-pom wielding minx was Melissa George’s Cleo Miller. One she has that whole kinda retro make-up and hair thing going. Two, she’s smart and cool and inquisitive… as well as being obsessed with the truly silly (important in any relationship for me)!!! She aspires to be Conan O’Brien’s love obsessed stalker. She fantasizes about what his bedroom must smell and feel and look like. She spills cuteness about like a two year old with a plate of scrambled eggs and orange juice. Now, Melissa has a really cool history about her… she was the dead prostitute that we fall in love with in DARK CITY… and most cool… She was Terrence Stamp’s Daughter in the Magnificent THE LIMEY "tell me about Jenny" Oh yeah baby.. tell me.

The most under-written character of the bunch was Sara Marsh’s Lucy Whitman, the brainy girl cheerleader headed to Harvard. Maybe it is because she’s the one that seems to least fit in the group, but well… you’ll see.

Then the girl with the most thankless task in the entire film is Marla Sokoloff, who plays Lisa Janusch, the 2nd string Cheerleader squad girl aspiring and plotting to join 1st string. Plastic surgery and mental scarring have left her a bitter obsessed girl. And her job is to be the prissy bitch. The self-proclaimed rose-smelling poo layer of the bunch. Jealousy and neurosis plague her every waking moment. She narrates nearly the entire film in a sassy, aren’t these whores shameless sort of way.

Basically when all is said and done, this is FANTASY, for both the girls and the boys… A nightmare to some perhaps, but for me… This is a story that a million high school cheerleaders will use as a mantra for why they rule. Is it a good thing to feed the delusion? Sure… that way we can all take advantage of the illusion later on down the road when they hit bottom from their years following the trail of Colombian crumbs in one bathroom too many.

Oh, I almost forgot James Marsden, who channels his inner male bimbo, much like Chris Klein did in ELECTION, though he’s quite good… He just doesn’t have that quality of dialogue at the end of the day… He’s just a perfectly sated empty of dramatic weight character that needs Marley Shelton’s every bit of caring and loving… because he ain’t making it on his own. You see… this is that movie. The males are basically airheads with one thing of use… and if the superior women use it too often, it only brings an extra thing for them to deal with… or two.

NOW this is not perfect. First off, Roger Corman’s name is nowhere on the poster. Second, this is not rated R with tons of gratuitous nudity and lesbo-locker room shenanigans. Third, Mena Suvari’s mom should have been played by the all time greatest cheerleader, Rainbeaux Smith. And fourth… as cool as the robbery and music are… It would’ve been cool to turn the corner into HEAT territory and shatter the dream… but ok… fine… this isn’t that movie. They were not prepared to go into SWAT caused womb death, or teenage bloody cheerleaders clutching onto the money whispering one last bit about getting that perfect nose.

This is a fairy tale, not Peckinpah. This is a uplifting fable, not a Virgin Suicide. This is not Bourbon and Coke, this is a root beer float with a cherry atop.

If it sounds like hell to you, then flutter away, but if you dig what ya hear, then pollinate with this sweet flower of a flick. I did.