Get Over It

 Movies
Mar 152022
 

Movies IMDb


Get Over It

Director – Tommy O’Haver

Year – 2001

Trailer

[Synopsis]

Berke Landers and his girlfriend, Allison, were the quintessential high-school couple who grew up together and eventually fell in love, but she breaks up with him immediately after the film begins. This leads to an opening musical number of “Love Will Keep Us Together” lip-synced by Vitamin C, imagined by Berke. He seeks advice from his embarrassing parents Frank and Beverly Landers, who are hosts of a relationship advice show called Love Matters, but they don’t help with the situation by instead focusing on his sex life. Allison then starts a relationship with Striker, a “foreign” student who was once the lead singer of a boy band called the Swingtown Lads. When Allison and Striker audition for the school’s upcoming musical, Berke desperately tries to win Allison back by also auditioning for the play, despite having no theatrical talent and having a busy schedule as a member of the basketball team. Meanwhile, Berke’s friends Felix and Dennis try to find a new girlfriend for him.

With the help of Felix’s younger sister, Kelly, a talented songwriter and singer who’s is in love with him, Berke wins a minor role in the play, a modern musical version of Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream called A Midsummer Night’s Rockin’ Eve, written and directed by the school’s domineering drama teacher, Dr. Desmond Oates (Martin Short). Striker plays Demetrius, Allison plays Hermia, Kelly plays Helena, and Lysander is to be played by the school’s star actor, Peter Wong. But after Peter is injured in a freak accident, Striker nominates Berke to take over the role of Lysander, and, still intent on winning Allison back, Berke accepts. He gradually improves with continuing assistance from Kelly, but remains unaware of the growing attraction between the two of them. While searching through props backstage, Kelly accidentally shoots Berke in the arm with an arrow gun, thinking it’s a prop. Meanwhile, Oates blames Kelly’s singing for his own poorly written song and rejects her suggestions to improve it.

Felix and Dennis set Berke up on a date with Dora, a very attractive but accident-prone woman. The date ends horribly when Dora inadvertently causes a fire in the restaurant. Later, the boys try again to get Berke’s mind off things by taking him to an underground sex club. However, their attempts fail when Berke is locked into a harness and whipped by a dominatrix. The night ends with Felix and Dennis abandoning Berke after the police raid the club, who is then picked up by his parents. Much to Berke’s chagrin, his parents congratulate him on his seemingly kinky sexual tastes.

At a party thrown by Felix at Berke’s house, Kelly kisses Berke, but he insists that a relationship between them could not work because she is Felix’s sister. She leaves him, annoyed at his unwillingness to move on with his life, and Felix, coming across the two, punches Berke. At the same party, Berke and Allison catch Striker cheating on Allison with her best friend Maggie, and so Allison breaks up with Striker. Meanwhile, Frank and Beverly return home to find the party and once again congratulate Berke. Berke lambastes them for constantly embarrassing him and not acting like normal parents would in these types of situations.

On the play’s opening night, the first half of the performance goes smoothly except for some onstage scuffling between Berke and Striker. During the intermission, Allison confides to Berke that she wants to get back together with him, leaving him with a difficult choice between her and Kelly. Meanwhile, Striker bribes two of the theater technicians to try and blow Berke off the stage using stage pyrotechnics. Before the play resumes, Felix gives the orchestra sheet music for a love ballad written by Kelly to replace Oates’ unpopular tune.

After the curtain rises, Kelly sings her song so beautifully that Berke is reminded of their time together and finally realizes he loves her. As the fourth act begins, he abandons his lines from the script and makes up his own verse professing his character’s love for Kelly’s character Helena. The audience applauds as Berke and Kelly kiss. Striker protests this change, but unwittingly signals the technicians to set off the explosion, blowing him offstage and into the orchestral section, sending Dora flying into the air. Felix catches her and they become a couple. Dennis kisses Kelly’s friend and his dancing partner Basin, who kisses him back, suggesting that they also begin a relationship. Kelly and Berke leave the theatre after the show that was directed by Allison Wruk & Matt Doss, looking forward to their future together as they discuss the next night’s performance. The film ends with Sisqó and Vitamin C singing and dancing along with the cast to the song “September” as the credits roll.

Mona Lisa Smile

 Movies
May 262018
 

The Movie Review

BLUE FRONT RATED


In 1953, Katherine Ann Watson (Julia Roberts), a 30-year-old graduate student in the department of Art History at UCLA and Oakland State, takes a position teaching “History of Art” at Wellesley College, a women’s private liberal arts college in Massachusetts. At her first class, Katherine discovers that her students have already memorized the entire textbook and syllabus, so she uses the classes to introduce them to modern art and encourages discussion about topics such as what makes good art. Katherine comes to know her students and seeks to inspire them to achieve more than marriage to eligible young men.

Elizabeth “Betty” Warren (Kirsten Dunst) is highly opinionated and outspokenly conservative. Betty does not understand why Katherine is not married and insists that a universal standard exists for good art. She writes editorials for the college paper, exposing campus nurse Amanda Armstrong (Juliet Stevenson) as a supplier of contraception, which results in Amanda being fired; other editorials attack Katherine for advocating that women should seek a career instead of being wives and mothers as intended. Betty cannot wait to marry Spencer (Jordan Bridges), as their parents have arranged and expect the traditional exemptions from attending class as a married woman: Katherine insists she will be marked on merit and attendance, resulting in more conflict.

Constance “Connie” Baker (Ginnifer Goodwin) begins dating Betty’s cousin, Charlie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), but Betty persuades her that he is only using her as his parents have arranged for him to marry Deb MacIntyre. Connie ends the relationship, believing Betty’s story to be true. However, some weeks later, Connie and Charlie reconnect, with Charlie saying he has already decided for himself that he is not going to marry Deb, so Connie and he get back together.

Joan Brandwyn (Julia Stiles) dreams of being a lawyer and has enrolled as prelaw, so Katherine encourages her to apply to Yale Law School. She is accepted, but decides not to go because she wants to start a life with her new husband Tommy (Topher Grace). She tells Katherine that choosing to be a wife and mother does not make her any less intelligent.

Giselle Levy (Maggie Gyllenhaal) has several lovers and liberal views about sex. She admires Katherine for encouraging the students to be independent. Giselle earned the enmity of Betty, whose conservative views conflict with her liberal ones.

Katherine declines a proposal from her California boyfriend (John Slattery) because she does not love him enough and begins seeing the Wellesley Italian professor, Bill Dunbar (Dominic West). Bill is charming and full of stories about Europe and his heroic actions in Italy during the war. He has also had affairs with students (including Giselle), and Katherine makes him promise that it will never happen again. The relationship progresses, but when Katherine learns that Bill spent the entire war at the Army Languages Center on Long Island, she decides to break up with him because he is not trustworthy. Bill responds that Katherine did not come to Wellesley to help the students find their way, but to help them find her way.

Within six months of the wedding, Betty’s marriage falls apart, as Spencer has an affair, and fails to find solace with her mother who orders her to return to her husband. She visits Katherine in her apartment and whom gives her solace. In turn, Betty regrets how she’s treated Katherine with her poor behavior. Eventually, influenced by her, Betty files for divorce and looks for an apartment in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. When Mrs. Warren confronts Betty for what she has done, she reveals her frustration with her mother for not supporting her when she went to her for help when she found out about Spencer’s affair and kicking her out of the house. She mentions that the only person who cared about her enough to help her out was Katherine. Therefore, Betty reveals she is going to have a life of her own, has applied to Yale Law School and will room with Giselle. As the two girls walk away, Mrs. Warren begins to regret her mistreatment towards Betty.

Katherine’s course is highly popular, so the college invites her to return, but with certain conditions; she must follow the syllabus, submit lesson plans for approval, keep a strictly professional relationship with all faculty members, and not talk to the girls about anything other than classes. Katherine decides to leave to explore Europe. In the final scene, Betty dedicates her last editorial to Katherine, claiming that her teacher is “an extraordinary woman who lived by example and compelled us all to see the world through new eyes.” As Katherine’s taxi speeds up, all her students follow on their bicycles and Betty is seen struggling to keep up with the taxi as a last effort to thank Katherine for changing her life.
Overall Rating
Trailer
Year
Blue Front
IMDb
Rotten Tomatoes
Metacritic

Movies IMDb