For the most part, I attribute my love for The New Guy to Eliza Dushku and her parade of swimsuit fashions in the middle of the film. She definitely fits my Bad Girl crush motif in its entirety, whether she's the Uber-bad girl, Faith, or the redeeming herself not-so-bad girl, Later-Faith... well, let's just say that every way she played Faith worked for me. Just like her whichever girl, Echo, or Tru... or... or... her take here in TNG as Danielle.Eliza... just... DOES IT for me.
The rest of TNG's appeal falls around it's "pathetic loser turned high school hero" storyline. It's always fun to see the little guy triumph against all odds and become the kid all the girls want and all the guys want to be like.
Set in Texas... and I really just can't imagine the hell that high school in Texas is like for dweebs like me... TNG follows young Dizzy Gillespie Harrison (DJ Qualls) who is a complete dork, and suffers for that fact. Along for the ride are his fellow dork friends (including a Zooey Deschanel who hadn't hit her indie-goddess prime yet) as he finds he just can't take it anymore and, with the help of jailbird kingpin Luther (Eddie Griffin), gives himself a badass makeover so he can startoff fresh at a new school.At said new school, he supplants the jerkoff cool kids at the top of the pile and manages to impress cheerleader hottie Danielle (Dusku) in the process. After a few trope hurdles like avoiding his old bully and almost losing his old friends for his new life, Dizzy manages to win over the entire school and witness the comeuppance dealt to his tormentors.
With weird as heck guest spots (including Gene Simmons, Tommy Lee, and Henry Rollins to name a few), lackluster acting from pretty much everyone BUT Eliza, and a silly, plothole heavy script, TNG should be relegated to the bottom of the discount bin, never to be bought, let alone watched... but there's just enough goofy charm and Dushku sex appeal to overcome the film's rampant cheese.It's shallow of me, I know... but what can I say? I told you it was the guiltiest of guilty pleasure movies, didn't I?
Eliza is so devastatingly gorgeous in my book that I can even forgive the horrible cameos by Tony Hawk and the O'Connell brothers.
If you're looking for deep fare or even a passable coming of age comedy, you done goofed by relying on The New Guy... but I still pull it off the shelf or, in the case of today, find it in my Netflix queue at least once a year.Usually when I'm lonely and in need of some home grown American Moe.
Plus it has one of my favorite lines by David Hasselhoff in any format, ever. Just, uh, make sure you wait till the end of the movie to catch it.
Also, I've just noticed that every single image capture I made from the film has Eliza in it in some form or another. I've got it bad, I think... and it gives me the deep down blues, even as I look at her and feel warm/giddy and smile.
Until tomorrow, Potatoes~
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