(RESIT JANUARY 2012) Similarities between our film and that of other comedy films

Our comedy film is based around geeks trying to get with a girl. There is a long history of other comedy films of geeks trying to get with girls such as ‘Superbad’ (2007) and ‘American Pie’ (1999). The only difference is our geeks are all after the same girl instead of several girls and also our girl turns out to be as geeky as all three combined. In the two other films they go for the popular girls, not the geek, however, things change for ‘American Pie 2’ (2001) and ‘American Pie 3’ (2003) as the main character ‘Jim’ falls in love with the music geek. This is closely linked to our film. However, in our film the girl turns out to be geeky and not that the boys fall in love with the geeks.

The idea of our film is closely linked to the song ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ released in 2000, sung by the band ‘Wheatus’. The song was created for the film ‘Loser’ (2000) what was about a geek who loved the popular girl and eventually won her heart. IMDB has shortly described it as ‘A college student, branded a loser by his roommates and booted from the dorm, falls in love with a coed who has eyes for their professor.’ And similar to our movie the popular girl turns out to be secretly nerdy herself.

Even BBC’s film reviewer Anwar Brett can confirm the narrative of our films is nearly identical.

‘ If school years are the best of your life, how come so many movies about them dwell upon the miserable times to be had there? From Tom Brown's gloomy schooldays, to what seems like every American high school teen comedy/drama/horror tale, school seems the kind of thing you would like to put behind you as soon as humanly possible.’

‘Much like this film, in a way, which is so slight that a sudden gust of wind might pick it up and carry it where no other critic could do it harm. Jason Biggs, so appealing in "American Pie" is pretty charmless here, as much because his role is so one dimensional as for any real fault on his part. He plays Paul, the small town nice guy who is trying to get on at college but finds himself unable to fit in with his cooler, wealthier peers.’ Following the conventions of the geeky lover boy we have created all three geeks to follow suit of Paul in the way he cannot fit in with his cooler piers.

‘Circumstance throws him together with hip and feisty fellow student Dora Diamond (Suvari), and as he instantly falls in love with her, he also realises he has no chance of winning over someone so unattainable.’ Like our girl Dora seems unattainable and all three of our geeks, like Paul, love her from first sight. 

 The lyrics from the movies song shows the narrative of a boy liking a popular girl….

Her name is Noelle
I have a dream about her
she rings my bell
I got gym class in half an hour

Oh how she rocks
In Keds and tube socks
But she doesn't know who I am
And she doesn't give a damn about me

These lyrics tell us the boy is in collage (like our geeks) and that he like the same girl that doesn’t notice him (like our geeks).

Cause I'm just a teenage dirtbag baby
Yeah I'm just a teenage dirtbag baby
Listen to Iron Maiden baby... with me
Ooohoooooo

These lines also show that he’s a ‘metal head’ shown by him liking ‘Iron Maiden’ - a heavy metal band. These ‘metal heads’ would be classed as the outcast at colleges and this can relate to our geeks being outcasts also.

Man I feel like mold
It's prom night and I am lonely.
Lo and behold
she's walking over to me.

This must be fake
My lip starts to shake
How does she know who I am?
And why does she give a damn about me?


I've got two tickets to Iron Maiden baby
Come with me Friday - don't say maybe.
I'm just a teenage dirtbag baby
like you
Ooohoo Hoo Hooooooo

The pink section is what the popular girl sings to the boy. It turns out she is also an outcast ‘metal head’ putting on a disguise similar to the popular girl in our film. And just like our film, she also has a confession and admits she is an outcast.  

If there weren’t copyright issues I feel this song would have gone perfectly with our film opening; feeding the audience a secretive enigma code. However, it could also close the narrative of the film with the girls section in the song. To prevent this we could possibly remove the girls section of the song until the end credits of the film.

We adopted an idea from ‘Step Brothers’ (2008) for our film opening. During the Step Brothers opening there is no music until you see the timer start on the microwave starting a non-diegetic rocky soundtrack. We’re doing the exact same thing except our non-diegetic music starts when Stacey’s turns off her alarm clock. Also, during the dialogue sections during the opening the music dims right down so the audience can hear what’s being said.  We’ve adopted this idea for our one dialogue line throughout the opening so the audience can hear what’s being said.

Though ‘Loser’ scored only a moderate 5 out of 10 stars it has a strong narrative foundation which our group will adapt on making it ruder and aimed for a more mature audience; the minimum age being 15 rather than 12. You could consider our film to be the in-between of ‘Superbad’ inappropriate humour and ‘Losers’ love plot.