This month we watched an American Romantic Comedy – 10 Things I hate About You. Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew served as the inspiration for the movie. The key characters in the play are:
It was generally thought that this did not really reflect much of the story in The Taming of the Shrew, except for the basic plot of the older sister needing to be dating before the younger sister is allowed to date. One area of discussion was around American movies based in secondary schools. They depict the schools as very different from the Australian approach. They show very little education, and that shown is not very educational, with either or both the students and teachers behaving rather strangely. Of course, this is probably due to the plot of the movies. The main difference though is the number of students who are driving to school, which I suspect is possibly close to what happens. From my experience, fewer Australian students have cars and drive to school.
In general, it was agreed that the movie was enjoyable, although quite light.
Next month we will be looking at another episode in Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads series. This time it will be Miss Fozard Finds Her Feet, a monologue by Patricia Routledge. We enjoyed the episode we watched in June and are expecting another great performance.
- Julia Stiles as Katarina "Kat" Stratford, the antisocial, shrewish elder Stratford sister.
- Heath Ledger as Patrick Verona, the "bad boy" who is hired to date Kat and falls for her in the process.
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cameron James, the new student at Padua High School who is smitten with Bianca and goes to great lengths to win her favour.
- Larisa Oleynik as Bianca Stratford, the younger of the two Stratford sisters, superficial and popular.
It was generally thought that this did not really reflect much of the story in The Taming of the Shrew, except for the basic plot of the older sister needing to be dating before the younger sister is allowed to date. One area of discussion was around American movies based in secondary schools. They depict the schools as very different from the Australian approach. They show very little education, and that shown is not very educational, with either or both the students and teachers behaving rather strangely. Of course, this is probably due to the plot of the movies. The main difference though is the number of students who are driving to school, which I suspect is possibly close to what happens. From my experience, fewer Australian students have cars and drive to school.
In general, it was agreed that the movie was enjoyable, although quite light.
Next month we will be looking at another episode in Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads series. This time it will be Miss Fozard Finds Her Feet, a monologue by Patricia Routledge. We enjoyed the episode we watched in June and are expecting another great performance.
