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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.
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+ Expand All
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Zeke was a character afraid to leave school where he knew his place in
the order of things, but... he was a smart character. He studied and
knew his science. He wasn't just going through life putting a rock on
the desk and saying "PLYMOUTH ROCK!", he'd go up to the microscope and
actually get into a scientific debate.
He was bored with school because they were moving to slow for him.
Cockboy is bored with life... he doesn't know where he is going, he
doesn't care about school, he doesn't want to do anything other than
sleep with the girls and drink beer.
Zeke never drinks in the film, he doesn't do his own drugs... instead he
preys upon the losers who do. He succeeds by exploiting others'
weaknesses.
And that's why I liked Zeke.... and hated Cockboy.
Harry
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I think Williamson should take a break so he can remember how to write likeable characters again. Or write period. Harry is dead on. When I saw the previews, I thought it was supposed to be like a teenage version of 'Suicide Kings' or something. Then I read it was a comedy. Then I saw the movie. Now I'm convinced it was just a pile of shit. Between this, the Faculty, Dawson, and Wasteland, I think anybody who still has any interest at all in Scream 3 should be hapy he isn't part of it.
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...you told us the end of the movie.Where was the SPOILER warning?
Falou! -
Nobody FORCES this stuff on you !
Nobody MAKES you go to the cinema.
If they're showing something you suspect you won't like, do what i do......either keep your hard earned bucks in your wallet, or go see/do something else ! -
Great review. I couldn't agree more.
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We've only just started seeing Dawson's Creek in NZ about 2 months ago. There was nothing else on, so I was watching it on Friday night, and it was the episode where the school football captain tells everyone that he slept with Katie Holmes. So Katie tells everyone that he got her pregnant. The interesting thing is that a school counsellor came up to Katie in one scene, and suggested that she join a Mothers And Me class, (you know, carry a sack of flour pretending it's a baby-type class). And what is so interesting about that? Mainly that the teachers name was Mrs Tingle. It's true.
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Right on, Harry! This is the best review you've written in a long time! Cockboy, heh-heh, fabulous.
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I too had a Mrs. Tingle in High School. Carlyn Lindely. The woman made it a habit to routinely break down and destroy the students on her stage (she was one of my acting teachers in an arts program). Telling students that their parents obviously didn't love them and that their behavior was a slap in her face. The worst was when she told a black student that "the only reason I don't hate all niggers right now is because of the student sitting next to me. You are an embarassment to your race." She was psychotic. She was also the person that forced me to excel in the program. I went from being the loser of the program to several starring roles in productions after that. When watching the commercials for Mrs. Tingle, I have to wonder if Williamson ever had Mrs. Lindely, because she looks and acts just like her.
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Even if it isn't the Real Harry (Why is the e-mail address different???) I still agree with Harry Knowles, and his analysis of the Zeke character is The Faculty. He was completely different to the type of (may I say stereotypical) character that Cockboy seems to be. For me that's why The Faculty was a success. It could have been like a million other teen Scream films, and at first it looked like it was, with the way it was set up. But for me anyway it turned out to be very original (when compared to other films of this genre today, I know it was a body snatcher film) if you exclude the 'I don't trust you, let's all take the alien test' scene lifted straight from The Thing by John Carpenter. Which was still impressive though unoriginal. But back to the point, ...Tingle seems to suffer from being Stereotypical, character-wise,and not being brave enough to go with the type of ending that Harry (the real one) suggested.
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Harry, when you put Summer Cold in capitals you had my attention. I, too, am suffering from the Summer Cold of '99. It is a hell-bitch of an infection that requires a prescription to kill it off. I'm taking something called Zythromil and I'm not sure it's working - still hacking up interesting colors of goo. It makes me wonder about a certain book that Stephen King wrote...Kevin Williamson sucks. Big-time. Read his own press and believed it, hook, line, and sucker. You sorta haveta kinda gotta admire the guy for still making the coin even though his scripts should be written on toilet paper. I don't see anything great coming from him anymore, and I think this is the last burp anyone will hear from him in movie land...he's got a good deal in TV where mediocrity belongs and maybe if we're lucky he'll stay there. I don't watch much TV anyway. Scream wasn't all that great anyway,(really, think about it - a cool ending and some reverential movie stuff and he had the fanboys cold, but he betrayed us all when he killed us - I mean Randy - in Scream 2) and The Faculty only worked for the acting and the directing. I haven't seen Teaching Mrs. Tingle, and I don't want to.
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After months of Dimension Films and Kevin Williamson himself bending over backwards to prevent Teaching Mrs. Tingle from being seen as a horror film, the new TV spots tell us that "this summer...terror won't be taking a vacation." I wouldn't have seen this movie anyhow but I'll make a special point of avoiding it now. Dimension Films and Williamson couldn't do enough to capitalize on Scream's success but as soon as it looked as though the horror trend had peaked (thanks largely to crappy Scream knock-offs, several of the worst coming directly from Dimension and Williamson) they couldn't distance themselves from the genre fast enough (save for the obvious Scream 3). I remember reading an interview with Williamson awhile back (in Movieline, I think) in which he said something to the effect of "the whole horror thing is so over." And I remember thinking "Yeah, only until someone else makes a good one." Of course now that those someone elses have done that (courtesy of Blair Witch and The Sixth Sense), it suddenly seems like a great idea to market Mrs. Tingle as a horror film. The fact that the film surely isn't horror at all just makes the new ad campaign all the more galling.
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...if you read any interviews with Our Boy Kev. He's admitted that the Mrs. Tingle character is based on the teacher who told him he'd never make it as a writer. Gee, wonder how she'll fare in the film? But this brings me to my latest theory, which is mine and was created by me: The Great Teen America theory (by A. Sirius.) You see, in 'country years', the U.S. is now solidly in its adolescence. And this is being reflected in every aspect of its public life and culture- music, films, etc. Teens are ruling because America itself is a teenager, with all the immaturity and confusion that implies. Had Williamson done as you suggested, Harry, and made Mrs. Tingle the 'lead' he would not just have been undercutting the film's box office potential he would have been swimming upstream against the most powerful cultural current imaginable. Hell, he owes his entire career to Teen America. Why should he change now?
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thank God in heaven it's finally over! Films like Scream, I Know Last Summer, and waste like Idle Hands will make us all say "Good Ridance to Bad Rubbish". THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT SAVED HORROR! It's too bad with all this teen talent that we didnt get a great film, something like the Breakfast Club.
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Okay, you put it THAT way, I guess you have a valid point.
Buuuuuuuut, if we stop going to see them......they'll stop making them !
The studios are only in it for the money, and if we stop giving them ours, they'll have to re-think the projects they're currently greenlighting !
Aw, hell.........let's call it a draw !!!!!!!! -
Concerning spike lee's comment's on the 90's teen film genre being over, I doubt it. I mean with the huge success of "American Pie," we're just going to see more and more teen movies that have less and less to offer well into the next decade. As for there being no "The Breakfast Club" in the 90's, I'd say that "Rushmore" and "Election" did one better; they were high school movies that had characters that went beyond stereotypes - both adult and teen.
Of course, nobody went to see those films. -
while i admire williamson for his obvious sincerity at making the big time, he needs to stop pandering to middle-class white kids who think that intelligence is measured by how much pop-culture you've sponged. i mean, 'dawson's creek' is just a soap opera. that's it. and when you see a true satire like 'election' or 'rushmore,' williamson's work rings with falsity. btw, 'the breakfast club' is not a classic. a bunch of 80's reaganite punks who whine about how much their parent's fucked them up. i mean, judd nelson. come on.
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What did this open in? 10th place? It barely made 3 million! Take that Kevin Williamson and all you TV show stars doing his movies. Ths is what you get for dropping out of Scream 3, the movies that made your ass.
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Scream was great, until you saw it the fourth time. Scream two was the same thing all over again but the killers were worst. One killer was the stupidiest character and the other was TOTALLY unguessable.
The Faculty was a bunch of dumb kids running around saying dumb things. It was an all rental movie. Where does Williamson get these good golly creative ideas, and was he popped out of the womb a grown man or something? Deal with some good adult actors! Not the MTV flavors of the month, and is Williamson going to make a DC star be the main character in every movie since he did it in this and Disturbing Behavior(He did write DB right?) In DB it was the spooky parents, now it's the spooky aliens teachers. Now with TMT it's back to the evil teacher who will rue the day! I side with Harry on this one, I haven't even seen the movie and I want the teacher to stomp on Katie, that 7th heaven guy, and what's her name girl(Hey she's an MTV flavor of the month, we probably won't even remember her name by next week, unless she pulls a Drew Barrymore or Wynona Rider somehow or gets cast in Episode 2)
The main thing that pisses me off is Teaching Ms Tiggle is going to make a killing at the MTV movie awards. See my point? These aren't good movies and yet some people out there(Probably 8 year old girls)are eating this stuff up. Give me a break, they say teen movies are on a high, but I think they're stupider than ever. I have no problem with the teen actor crowd, but gee golly wiz, no teen actor is going to make it if they keep making dumb movies with other teen actors! Next up for Katie Holmes is a movie with Micheal Douglas so lets hope she got the clue. And Williamson hopefully will wake up too, if he doesn't we can expect these titles soon.
1: That guy from DC stars in a movie about a bunch of friends who get sucked into their computer!
2. that girl from DC stars in a movie about a bunch of friends who suspect their gardener of poisoning them! Could he be.........gasp!.......an alien! -
Okay, I agree with you about the reporter who turned out ot be Billy's mother. To have her as the killer was so annoying. But I have to defend Mikey as a killer. Sure, he was on the periphany of the story, but he was certainly in there as a suspect. He was actually mentioned by Randy as one of the possible suspects. I thought it was probably him, if only because he was the one trying desperately to defend the idea of a sequel exceeding the original. That, to me, was one of the main indicators. So Mikey made sense. But Mrs Loomis? That was a big mistake.
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when i went to see BLAIR WITCH, this movie showed up in the previews. the pain watching the movie for 2 minutes was almost as bad as my root canal. the only thing i thought for the whole thing was "peice of shit, peice of shit, peice of shit" etc
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Just because there are a few intelligent people like you two doesn't mean the crappy movie trend will stop. You guys are forgetting that there is a whole world just full of moronic teens who love shitty movies. They're the trendy bastards who keep this crap alive and hollywood people very happy. As for Williamson, Scream will be a horror classic but the rest of his stuff has pretty much sucked. In my entire career as a teenager, I've never come across anyone who is as articulate as one of Williamson's stereotypes. He'll be done soon enough. Lastly, The Breakfast Club is a great movie because, even though they ARE 80's kids whining, it has great acting and everyone can relate to at least one of those characters. It also doesn't rely on pop culture references and pathetic humor to get by.
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I can just see this thing playing on the damn UT closed-circut movie channel all next semester. I think they're trying to scare us straight with bad high school movies...
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2 things... (1) I LIKED THE FACULTY! (2) I think the film "Can't Hardly Wait" is the Breakfast Club of the 90's. And It's funnier and more energetic in many ways.
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If you haven't learned by now that all Kevin Williamson movies and virtually all teen movies are the same...I can't really think of something to say here. In these movies, all teens are portrayed as know-it-all wisecrackers who can't seem to get beyond their stereotypes. You can argue that Rushmore was a good teen movie(can it even be classified as a teen movie?), but I didn't like Rushmore at all. Why didn't I like it? It seemed too pseudo-intellectual for my liking, it didn't really have a point except to show you a boring concept, and Billy Murray's character was easy to portray. Anyways, the point of this post is that if filmmakers want to make films teens actually want to see, try avoiding the stereotypes and show what High School is really like, not some hierarchy from jocks to geeks that has a happy ending. Thanks for your time.
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Emperor Kevin has always been one of Harry's favorites, and along with the other chosen ones, can do no wrong. Since Harry wrote something less of a rave review, it can mean only one thing--this movie sucks big time. Which, of course, it does. I've enjoyed reading the savage reviews far more than watching the auteur's "film." There is now a growing group of people who realize what too few of us have known all along. The teacher was right, the student will never become a writer. Scream sucked. It just happened to be on top of the pile when some brain-dead studio exec had the brilliant idea to revive teen horror movies at the exact moment the echo boomers became teenagers. Any of the other scripts on the pile would have served just as well. Unfortunately, Williamson was annointed the second-coming of John Hughes, and Miramax couldn't throw money at him fast enough. Need a teenagers and aliens movie? Buy a script, and pay the writers extra to not protest giving Williamson credit. And now as a further reward for the downward spiral of his "work" he gets to direct, not just direct, but gets possessory credit, "a film by" Emperor Kevin. What did people expect? Art? Intelligent dialog? Coherent plot? Interesting characters? He's never given us any of that before, why now? The good part, of course, is that now even the teenagers are wising up and staying away from his dreck.
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Aug 22, 1999 7:24:53 PM CDT
Kevin Williamson should not be allowed within 500 feet of a stud
by dark jester
It seems to me the last few years of the 90s has been a nonstop stream of stupid, stupid Kevin Williamson movies. They range from mediocre (Scream), to bad (Scream 2), to mind-numbingly horrible (I know what you did last summer). Don't even get me started on Dawson's Creek, I am a teen, and I have never met a group like the kids in that series. I wonder if Kevin has ever met anyone from today's generation. Hey Mr. Williamson, let me give you some movie-making pointers:
1. Please make lead characters who aren't bitchy ice-queen princesses. All through Scream and Scream 2 I was hoping Sidney would just die, the same goes for Jennifer Love Hewett in I know what you did last summer. How can you like someone who is always whining and complaining through the whole movie.
2. Stop killing off the most interesting characters! 95% of the people I know agree that when you killed Randy in Scream 2, you destroyed almost all chances of redeeming the Scream series, the only thing that could save it now is the timely death of Sidney in Scream 3.
3. No pop soundtracks, please! Having the latest one-hit-wonder bands singing a remake of an old song every other scene gets old real quick. Not to mention it destroys the tension. The Exorcist didn't resort to pop, neither did the Shining (although any Kevin Williamson movie couldn't be compared to those horror classics).
4. A good horror movie can not have a happy ending! The Blair Witch Project didn't, The Exorcist didn't, the Shining didn't either. A movie where everything wraps up nicely in the end has very little chance of giving you nightmares.
5. Please, no more killers who explain everything to the lead characters at the end. Leave us hanging, Blair Witch would not have been nearly as effective if the witch appeared at the end and explained her motives. Give the audience something to think about after they leave the theater, something to talk about with their friends.
6. Jump scenes lose their effectiveness when you put 500 of them in one movie. Blair Witch (I know, I am using this movie as an example too often) only had two or three jump scenes, and it is the scariest movie in decades.
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Jesus, I haven't seen this flick yet, and I don't plan on it, but for the love of CHRIST someone tell Williamson that there's no way in hell that this movie is going to Succeed. I don't watch a lot of TV, maybe an hour a day or so, but I still managed to catch the new Sega ads, a lot of film trailers, and some reviews and CNN stuff. But I have seen one, maybe two commercials for this flick. They don't show the plot, they don't make the movie look cool, they gave me ZERO desire to see this insepid piece of crap. Sure, if the commercials were the only thing, then I wouldn't blame Williamson, but I managed to talk to a few friends who actually paid money to see this insepid hunk of rat funk, and they assured me that there wasn't even a minute in this movie that made them wish they had paid good cash to see it. . Whew. sorry for the rant there, but sometimes, I get so emotional about things I hate...
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A friend who knows about my Molly obsession told me she was in KILLING MRS TINGLE. Is this true? If so, I gotta cough up the $$$ and go see it, don't care how bad it is. Gotta have my Molly fix, that babe is HOT. I've been drooling over naked pictures of her since the 80's. My God why did ABC cancel "Townies"? May they burn in everlasting torment!!!
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I speak on behalf of all intelligent talk backers when I say SHUT UP!
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You've gone and gotten me thinking about Molly. Now I can't sleep. I'm sitting here fantasizing. Remember than scene in SIXTEEN CANDLES, where we see her legs as she's putting on her pantyhose? **DROOL** OK gotta try to sleep now.
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I had a teacher like Tingle once...junior year...Honors English. She hated me. Everything I said or did, she ridiculed. I could do no right in her eyes. I wanted to take the national AP exam. Her Advice? "Save yourself the 55 bucks and go buy a new shirt." Even when I was in college, i came back one weekend for a Basketball game. She was selling tickets. She said, "why don't you go get a life..." Bitch. I wish these kids had really KILLED Mrs. Tingle. I love Helen Mirren, I think she'd probably aree....
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To everyone that uses THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT as a shining example of what a horror movie is, you're wrong. The Blair Witch Project is the worst movie I've ever seen in my life. It is worse than any cheap direct-to-movie that airs at dark-thirty in the morning on Skinemax. It is eighty-seven minutes of your life that you will never get back. It is the only film that made me physically ill over the amount of money it has brought in. There is nothing scary about The Blair Witch Project. It isn't Nightmare Inducing like the original HALLOWEEN was. It didn't have a single memorable character like A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET or SCREAM did. It is a movie that fails on every level. So, if you want to criticize a movie by saying "It isn't like BLAIR WITCH", that is actually a compliment.
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. . .and disagree with Harry and Critus. I had a couple of teachers like Ms. Tingle and Critus' Mrs. Lindely when I was in High School. They didn't motivate me in the least, though they *did* do a lot to destroy my confidence and help make school a living hell. By the time I was ready to graduate, all I wanted to do with them was cut loose with a sawed-off shotgun, a machinegun or a portable nuke. And I did--in the short stories I wrote all through my teenaged years. It never occurred to me, btw, to actually go out and *do* something like what I wrote of in real life, as the Columbine kids did--revenge ain't really revenge if you wind up in The Chair, or otherwise deceased. The teachers who *did* motivate me, OTOH, were the one's who treated me like a human being. Oh well, at least it all helped make me a better writer.
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Wow. I can't BELIEVE all the negativity posted about Kevin Williamson here. So...at the risk of sounding like an unoriginal bastard, here I go, jumping on the bandwagon: I absolutely LOATHE and DESPISE anything that bears that credit "Kevin Williamson," be it writing, creating, or directing. I'm sure you all heard by now that Williamson wrote TEACHING MRS. TINGLE as a tribute to an English teacher who supposedly had it out for him. She claimed he couldn't write, and he'd never be able to make a living at it. Well, at least she was partly right. Williamson couldn't write to save his ass. Think SCREAM is well-written? Take a look at the published script. It resembles a first draft, with too many rough edges. The fact that the movie was shot with this draft, almost scene for scene rests my case (there's even a sequence in the middle, when the two killers have some rather revealing, suspicious dialogue together). The script for SCREAM 2 is even worse: in some parts, rather than write a description of the events onscreen, Williamson writes "WES DOES SOMETHING SCARY HERE." The hell? The script doesn't even have an ending, just a few sentences, something like "THIS IS AS FAR AS I'VE GOT..." and finishes the script with a few sentences, describing what happens next (something about Sideny and Cotton falling from a high place, and while they fall, they continue to stab each other--O-kay...) Careless, careless writing. I don't know, nor did I EVER know teenagers who talk like the characters in this guy's films. He claims that this is the way teens talk. Um, no. I don't even know ADULTS who talk the way his so-called "hip" teens do in these movies.
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"Scream was great, until you saw it the fourth time." t great in the first place!
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The poor ending of this movie is
a reflection of the screwed up
values in society (and the
education system). If you look
at it through the lens of 'modern
values', you would see that
the teacher *is* the villian.
She didn't respect these kids "right" to have a great big
self-esteem building 'education'
or abide by all the touchy-feelly
rules that *good* teachers stick
to. She didn't hand out condoms,
or teach them how to hug trees and
important stuff like that. Instead
she demands that they reach some
arbitrary level of acheivement
and made those who couldn't do it
feel like dumb losers. How dare
she? She desered what she got.
This movie will afirm these
'truths' to teens everwhere who
will come to see these demanding
teachers for the self-worth sucking vampires that they are.
This country is soooo messed up. -
I sometimes want to shout, when I'm in a movie, "HEY, YOU DUMMIES! ROTATE EVERYTHING A HUNDRED EIGHTY DEGREES AND YOU'VE GOT A FILM!" The same could be said, it seems, of this mess. Why not make the teacher the hero, and the students into imbeciles? Why? Because then you run the risk of alienating your (wholly arbitrary) target market, that's why. Sheesh.
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Why is it that no one has mentioned the fact that Kevin Williamson ripped off the idea for Killing Mrs. Tingle (his first script) from the Lois Duncan (I Know What You Did Last Summer) young adult novel - Killing Mr. Griffin???
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I still like that title better and cant seem to stop calling it that for some reason.
I saw this movie because I was curious about it and there were things I really liked but it seems this movie went wrong somewhere and split into two somehow. You have your teen comedy and your Black- Heathers-like-Comedy. I would have liked it if it had stayed dark. I'm wondering if the studio made Williamson change the tone of the film half way through or made him reshoot some stuff. Anyone know? One minute you have this dark film and the next you have a rock music score blaring.What gives? The scenes with Hellen Mirren are Great and I sat there with a Big Grin on my face.She was "delicious" I only wish they had followed through with the tone and it had been consistant.
In the end I wondered what could have been and what should have been.
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I Have to agree with "Cineman"when I read recently that Kevin Williamson was not going to have much to do with Scream 3 I was alittle dissapointed.This did put him on the Map so to speak.All he did was deliver an outline? Sorry that doesnt seem good enough.
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Actually I applaud any teacher who hands out condoms (tree-hugging aside). Now if we could just get the little f**kers to use them.
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Let's see. Columbia Tristar and the WB seemed not to care that KW was leaving Dawson's Creek. Miramax took him off Scream 3. What does that tell us? KW is not important to either. He wrecked Dawson's Creek with his self serving ridiculous storylines. I think the WB was happy to see him go. If they wanted him to stay, they could have made it happen. Also, Tingle would definitely fall under the self serving category, but let's also add bitter. KW is a hack that is given entirely too much credit for Scream. Let's start giving the majority of the credit where it belongs and that is with Wes Craven. If KW was really that important, Miramax would have forced him to work on Scream 3. As Dawson's Creek and Tingle show, KW has absolutely no range. He's just a name and completely unimportant.
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I think the reason more people haven't heard more about SWORD AND THE SORCERER is that Pyun will make a great movie like S&S or CYBORG with Van Damme and then turn around and make a piece of crap like ARCADE.
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JOIN THE BOYCOTT! DO 'NOT' WATCH THE NEW MOVIE "BROKEDOWN PALACE'S" STARRING THE "PERSONA NON GRATA" herself, "CLAIRE DANES"
[Celebrities are saying they will 'not' go see the Claire Danes' new movie, Brokedown Palace's. Bruce Willis, Oprah, Denzel Washington, Rosie O'Donnel are just the few celebrities who publicly declared that they'll join the boycott. "I can only hope she chokes on it." said Oprah, talking about Ms.
Claire Danes' acerbic tongue] --People's Magazine
["Claire Danes might want to take a few public speaking classes next
semester at Yale." said Hollywood producer Glenn Klein. The 20-year-old actress turned freshman is being sharply criticized for comments she made
about Manila, Philippines where she filmed her current movie Brokedown Palace.]--CNN Showbiz
[The city council of Manila voted 3 weeks ago to ban all movies featuring Claire Danes because the actress dissed the Philippine city in the current issue of Premiere Magazine. "She is declared persona non grata," councilor Kim Atienza tells the Associated Press.
At Magazine issue is Danes' public recollection of the months she spent in Manila earlier this year while shooting scenes for Brokedown Palace in a dilapidated mental hospital. The city "just f--king smelled of cockroaches,"
she told Premiere Magazine. "There's no sewage system in Manila, and people have nothing there. People with, like, no arms, no legs, no eyes, no teeth.. Rats were everywhere."
This wasn't the first time Danes had spoken out against Manila; in the April issue of Vogue Magazine she described it as "a ghastly and weird city." But this time, Atienza and his colleagues had had enough.]--Newsweek Magazine
[Philippine President Joseph Estrada, a former movie star, said he believes Hollywood actress Claire Danes should be banned from entering the Philippines for having disparaged the country's capital. "She should not be
allowed to come here. She should not even be allowed to set foot here," Estrada said Thursday in reaction to a decision by Manila's city council Tuesday to declare Miss Danes "persona non-grata" and ban all her movies from being shown in the city.] --Manila Bulletin
["She deserved to be banned" said Tom Hanks "Those are irresponsible, bigoted and sweeping statements Claire Danes made."] on an interview in
Entertainment Tonight
[Claire Danes' reported comments have also been widely debated in newspaper columns and editorial pages, with some newspapers castigating the actress
including New York Times and the Washington Post.] on CNN Showbiz show by reporter Shiela Schultz
["Her remarks were uncalled for." Lisa Kudrow said] MTV 1515 News
[Claire Danes were known as an actress with a bad attitude. "She(Claire Danes) seems to be a very rude actress especially towards the movie set crew
staff and her make-up artist"] explained "Romeo & Juliet" Assistant Director Richard Meyers
In a statement released last week, the actress attempted to clarify her position. "Because of the subject matter of our film Brokedown Palace, the cast was exposed to the darker and more impoverished places of Manila. My
comments in Premiere Magazine only reflect those locations, not my attitude towards the Filipino people. They were nothing but warm, friendly, and supportive."
But nobody seems to be accepting Claire Danes' apology. Atienza dismissed the statement as an "excuse made by Danes' Hollywood agents and not a genuine apology."
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Aug 25, 1999 11:42:13 PM CDT
This movie sucked so much were going to talk about my urine inst
by big jim slade
Why does your piss smell like asparagus after you eat asparagus. It's really fucked up.
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I love movies, but this movie I sat through and couldn't wait to be over. This movie was boring and was so predictiable. Kevin Williamson brought to much " Dawsons Creek" to this flim then anything else. The first title, " Killing Mrs. Tingle" would've been better, would at least brought people to buy a ticket to the moive then kick themsleves after for watching such a bad movie.
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Why is someone talking about Claire Daines and Manilla on this posting board. Lets read the Title, ok? I dont care what Claire Says about Manilla. I would never want to go there anyway.Shes young. Give her a few years to smarten up.
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I'm glad that there are people out there that just plain freaking hate the teen film genre like me (and I'm a Freshman too dammit!), but are you sure your teacher is like a real life Ms. Tingle? I mean, we've all had those teachers that scare the crap out of you on the first day of school till the last day of school, but it's usually just an act so that kids will pay attention in their class. I never saw Teaching Ms. Tingle, but the commercials had her talking about how much of a bum cock-boy's dad was. It was Williamson that helped bring this whole damned genre back to life with Scream, and now he's getting what's coming to him.
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First the Backstreet Boys bring back that whole durn poppy New Kids on the Block electro music, then the highschool teen genre comes back to teach kids what the new standard of "cool" is even though all of the movies are written by a balding german with a bad case of hemeroids, then the New Kids on the Block and Cher are actually cool again, and now Molly Ringwald is actually starring in Teaching Miss Tinkle. God help us all!
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I thought the movie had a pretty good bulid-up and interaction thoughout the film,but the climax and ending left me just cold. Too clean and too simple,I think.
my two fav characters is Mrs. Tingle herself and Marisa Coughlan's character. -
Ok i admit it i did at one time think Williamson was the greatest and felt i was not worthy of his 'greatness'but now.. I loved Dawson's Creek when it first came out. I thought it was orginal, and emotive now it's too melodramatic and does the dialogue really irritate anyone else?
I thought Scream was a good movie not a brilliant one but good. The pop, self reverential style was original and the characters were pretty much sympathetic unlike his other movies and the other countless teen flicks out there but why kill Randy in Scream 2 why, why?? However i think Craven may have had more to do with the successs of Scream as is evident in comparison with IKWYDLS, which was pretty crap. The self reverential style seems to be more plagerism can the guy write anything original anymore? Was Scream a fluke? Did anyone else think The Faculty was a cross between a sci fi Breakfast Club and Invasion of the Body Snatchers??
Come to think of it we seem to have had no original, great movies this year apart from Blair Witch and possibly the Matrix, whats up with that Hollywood??
Anyway i fear/cheer Williamson's 15 mins of fame are up.... -
Sure, this movie failed on a lot of fronts and dissipated into almost pointless, raving nonsense. Things to remember: Mrs. Tingle does in fact make up for the movie's problems, and Katie Holmes is SOOOOO cute. How can you argue with that? Her performance is also quite good, which is of course secondary considering the audience this movie targets. Williamson seems to be reaching a little with this script, but you can't blame him, he's realized that all you need to do is get a lot of young attractive stars together and have them have sex. It's like the basis of almost every Paul Veerhoeven movie, except without the young stars dying violently at some point. At least Williamson is still giving his scripts some intelligence, although I weep for the future.
Ever since he came into the limelight he has become more and more of a script-a-day hack. -
Really, do we need any more Kevin Williamson movies? He was a flash-in-the-pan three years ago, and now he's just a grease spot. Go away, Kevin... - TCM
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I agree with Harry, it started out good and then just got stupid and weird at the end...Barry Watson is hot, but it wasnt really enough to save the movie...see it if ur in the mood for a kinda stupid movie and lots of eye candy!
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Well though I am late I have finally seen this movie. It was only released last Monday in British video stores. STV. How horrable. I enjoyed the film thoroughly. I thought it had a good ending and some good comedy. That girl doing the Exorcist impression was great stuff. The performences were good enough and the ending wasnt too dark. Unlike that dreadfull film Very Bad Things where everyone loses at the end. Kevin Williamson I feel did a good job on the film. I wonder what his next project is?
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Like the last poster, it took me a loooooooooooooong time to see this movie, but I wanted to because I read Harry's review and it intrigued me more than anything else. Let me say that I have met teachers that were poor awful people, they made up their minds about one or more of their students because they were just bad teachers and lacked the good sense to be fair or realistic. But that's not what Mrs. Tingle was about. As Harry said it best, all her observations were dead on. She wasn't thoroughly unreasonable with her logic, everything she said made sense, even if it was unwelcome news. The moment that got me most was when Katie Holmes forces Tingle to let her into her house. That look Tingle gives her is priceless. I could hear her thoughts "So, maybe there really is more to the little suck-up." And I imagined a year of little Katie Holmes acting under faux politeness, trying to brown nose her way to a good grade. Never mind that realistically any girl who has the number two standing in the school should know what the hell irony is(BTW, Tingle's example of irony was bad, if amusing). Anyway, I really felt more for Mrs. Tingle and the snotty Valadictorian girl than any of the leads. Which brings us to the problem of this movie. The people watching it, the people it was made for, they ARE selfish little teenaged ice queens. Look at Barry Watson. I'm not gonna argue, he is a babe of a man. He might end up going the same way as Johnny Depp one day if he cares about credibility or talent. But for right now, he's just a pretty face and that's why he's in this movie. They're showing him off, he's a big masturbatory dream date. That's all. Katie Holmes IS the little selfish teenaged girl that thinks everything she wants is justifiably hers because, well, she thinks so and because she hesitates she feels guilt before she does anything wrong. You see, it's okay to change her grades and those of her rival because afterall the world does revolve around her, and the fact that she even bothers to doubt that proves what an honest and pure person she is. I was wondering: where are the consequences? This little shit changed someone else's grade, and you KNOW if Tingle gave her an A then she earned it. Katie is completely in the wrong, yet she never answers for these mistakes. In the end she doesn't believe she was EVER in the wrong. Little Katie Holmes feels she was owed one. And because the audience wants to be Katie Holmes, who gets to have wild shirt-ripping sex with Barry Watson AND keep the most forgiving friend/side-kick in history AND beat that bitchy shrew who wants her to fail, the movie does itself an injustice. It betrays Tingle in favor of the little brat. They make Tingle into that fantasy spinster who's out to fail our plucky little heroine. The movie decided to make into a Ms. Havisham cliche. Why? Because that's what all the selfish Katie Holmes's wanted to see. It's sick and irresponsible, and I agree with you Harry that Tingle was too great a character to do this to in the first place. The movie COULD have been a good character drama where we learn Tingle isn't at all what she appears to be--gee, ironic, no? Instead, she is exactly the monster teenagers think of when their teachers don't cut them any slack. Pathetic. I liked The Faculty, but mostly because I liked the actors in it, particularly Elijah Wood and Clea Duvall. The writing had problems, and the fate of Bebe Neuwirth's principal character was, in my opinion, as misguided and jeuvenile as what's happened to Mrs. Tingle. Kevin Williamson's greatest success, pandering to teens, has also become his greatest flaw as a writer and as a filmmaker. I know why he really made Mrs. Tingle lose. She would have told him he can't write. And, if the talkbacks above are right, then she already did. Too bad his movie about her had to be so predictable a response.
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