‹ All movies

The Rewatchables ·

10 Things I Hate About You

year 1999decade 90sdirector Gil Jungergenre Drama
host Juliet Litmanhost Amanda Dobbinshost Andrew Gruttadaro
All 12 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 3:47

The Lowenstein party, pinned to Julia Stiles dancing on the table to Hypnotize

Andrew Gruttadaro: The first pick is the whole Lowenstein party (Bowie Lowenstein, as transcribed), starting with the flyers thrown down the stairwell; after an objection that this selects a whole portion of the movie, the pick narrows to Julia Stiles dancing on the table to Hypnotize.

Stiles has said in several interviews that the table dance got her the role in Save the Last Dance, which is called a backhanded compliment since she is thought to be a bad dancer there, a ballerina learning hip hop in Chicago; perhaps her dancing reflects the problems of that film's premise.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 35:48

"I like my Skechers, but I love my Prada backpacks"

The Prada backpack line, already raised earlier, is one pick and is called prescient; the overwhelmed, underwhelmed, whelmed exchange is another, and the lines between the two leads are praised; the poem remains the third pick as unassailable.

The film

10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

Directed by Gil Junger · Drama

97 minutes

IMDbLetterboxdJustWatch
Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Cast credits have not been imported yet.

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

3:47

Most Rewatchable Scene

The Lowenstein party, pinned to Julia Stiles dancing on the table to Hypnotize; Heath Ledger singing Can't Take My Ey...

The Lowenstein party, pinned to Julia Stiles dancing on the table to Hypnotize; Heath Ledger singing Can't Take My Eyes Off of You with the marching band in the stadium; Kat's poem at the end

In the discussion (11)
Approx. transcript time · 00:03:47Read transcript
  • The first pick is the whole Lowenstein party (Bowie Lowenstein, as transcribed), starting with the flyers thrown down the stairwell; after an objection that this selects a whole portion of the movie, the pick narrows to Julia Stiles dancing on the table to Hypnotize. — Andrew Gruttadaro
  • Stiles has said in several interviews that the table dance got her the role in Save the Last Dance, which is called a backhanded compliment since she is thought to be a bad dancer there, a ballerina learning hip hop in Chicago; perhaps her dancing reflects the problems of that film's premise.
  • The dance is remembered as the moment an older sister showed their mother as 'how teenagers dance'; it is a strong visual cue that would be a much-used gif today, memorable and awkward at once, with Kat drunk and hitting her head on the light fixture as a great coda.
  • The second pick is Heath Ledger dancing along to Can't Take My Eyes Off of You, played as a clip. — Amanda Dobbins
  • The song was learned either from this movie or from Lauryn Hill's cover released a year earlier, and only later recognized as a Frankie Valli song from the sixties; if someone says they were Heath Ledger'd, this strutting, bouncing-down-the-steps scene is the first one that comes to mind.
  • The hosts are asked how they would have reacted in high school to a suitor hiring the marching band for a Frankie Valli song and dancing around the stadium: one would have loved it, another would have asked for a private conversation but thinks it would have worked if they tried it.
  • At 33 the stadium serenade is a hard no and public confrontation is unwelcome, but the high school version of her would have been really charmed. — Amanda Dobbins
  • The soccer team is into the serenade and clapping, so there is little embarrassment, and Kat (Cat Stafford, as transcribed) is really moved by it, which is believable; still, no flash mobs now.
  • The third pick is Kat's poem at the end, which its picker often watches at a desk; the poem is played as a clip.
  • Asked in what circumstances the desk viewing happens, the answer is around 3:15, a little tired and vulnerable and wanting to watch someone else be vulnerable; it is a great poem that nails the rhyme at the end, took one take with natural, improvised tears, and is a movie grand gesture.
  • The Heath Ledger singing and the poem are both liked, along with Kat's antagonistic relationship with her teacher, who tells her to get out when she calls an assignment great.
Share this discussion More Most Rewatchable Scene answers
12:00

What’s Aged the Best?

The cast; Kat's ahead-of-its-time wokeness and coolness; Bianca's wardrobe and the Prada backpack line

The cast; Kat's ahead-of-its-time wokeness and coolness; Bianca's wardrobe and the Prada backpack line

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:12:00Read transcript
  • The cast is impressive: Stiles, Ledger, and Andrew Keegan, whose acting career has faded but who has fame as the leader of a Venice spiritual organization called Full Circle, covered by New York Magazine, busted by undercover agents for selling illegal kombucha and now pursuing sound healing according to a Keegan quote to Page Six.
  • Keegan was also in O, the Othello remake with Julia Stiles that marked the downturn of the teen Shakespeare trend; 10 Things is the highlight of a trend that started with Romeo and Juliet, and Hartnett is in O.
  • Kat's wokeness is ahead of its time: she slams Hemingway after someone calls him romantic, insists the Spanish Civil War matters, and delivers the line about being male and an asshole making you worthy of our time, while playing it lovable rather than as a shrill shrew. — Andrew Gruttadaro
  • Watching as an adult brings envy and respect for how Kat conducts her life at 17, going to weeknight shows at a bar; the film name-checks Bikini Kill and the Raincoats, bands one host only learned about recently via 20th Century Women; teenage characters rarely age this well, even if her coolness may have made her less relatable to teens.
  • Bianca's wardrobe, white jeans with a crop top, is back in even if the tailoring differs, and the line 'I like my Skechers, but I love my Prada backpacks' is both funny and prescient about a backpack renaissance.
Share this discussion More What’s Aged the Best? answers
15:52

What’s Aged the Worst?

Parts of the soundtrack, including the One Week remix and an unironic Smash Mouth cue; the school's lax discipline, f...

Parts of the soundtrack, including the One Week remix and an unironic Smash Mouth cue; the school's lax discipline, from the flashing to the sausage prank, the arrow and the golf balls; Kat's crop tops and platform flip-flops

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:15:52Read transcript
  • Some of the soundtrack has aged worst: the film opens with a remix of Barenaked Ladies' One Week, disputed as a remix, positioned as the popular girls' music that Kat drowns out with riot grrrl; a very unironic Smash Mouth cue feels corny, and Smash Mouth, who also covered Can't Get Enough of You Baby for Can't Hardly Wait, were a nineties soundtrack staple who no longer are.
  • Some soundtrack bands now read as jokes, such as Daz by Brick and Saturday Night by Tagana (as transcribed), though George Clinton and the Cardigans are also on it; one host realized they spent a lot of time with the CD as a teenager and saw Barenaked Ladies and the Cardigans at Atlanta's Jingle Ball.
  • Flashing a teacher to get someone out of detention would be received differently now, and the teacher would fear for his job; the school's discipline is lax overall, with Miss Perky merely telling Patrick Verona not to do it after his sausage prank on a lunch lady, Bianca shooting a teacher in the rear with an arrow, and a character firing golf balls into a crowd with no consequences.
  • The persistent trope of nerds getting away with things because they are smart, as in Stranger Things, appears here when Joseph Gordon-Levitt and David Krumholtz descend into a nerd lab like a parallel society.
  • Bianca's outfits are good but Julia Stiles' are poor: crop tops that are not coming back and platform flip-flops from Delia's that date it to a specific moment, though platforms are back on the market and slides were everywhere; the sisters have similar styles executed differently.
Share this discussion More What’s Aged the Worst? answers
25:01

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

Andrew Keegan

Andrew Keegan

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:25:01Read transcript
  • Nobody is sure what the award means, but all agree Andrew Keegan wins it: someone on fire and punching above their weight class; his lines are played as a clip.
  • Keegan is a prick in all the right ways, from showing off two modeling photos, this one or this one, to calling someone a cheese dick, a great nineties bully term; the modeling at the party is iconic.
  • It is clearly Keegan because nothing in his filmography comes close, though Camp Nowhere is defended as a good Keegan performance.
  • Keegan's heat check is also called his apex, a real Dion Waiters move; he burned hot and fast in this movie.
Share this discussion More The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance answers
31:05

Apex Mountain

Andrew Keegan; Julia Stiles (one host puts this over Save the Last Dance; two name Save the Last Dance)

Andrew Keegan; Julia Stiles (one host puts this over Save the Last Dance; two name Save the Last Dance)

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:31:05Read transcript
  • Asked whether this is anyone's apex, the first answer is a hedged 'I mean, I guess Andrew Keegan', which another turn firms up as both his heat check performance and his apex, congratulating him for going out on top.
  • For Julia Stiles, two hosts call Save the Last Dance her apex, despite one taking issue with her dancing, while a third puts this film over Save the Last Dance.
  • Stiles is outshined by Heath Ledger here, and Sean Patrick Harris (as transcribed) does not bring it the same way in Save the Last Dance; that film also features an unrecognizably different Kerry Washington, identifiable only by how she over-enunciates like Olivia Pope.
  • Her later career is surveyed: Dexter as Lumen, the Borne (as transcribed) films that Chris Ryan would push for, The Prince and Me, the rough patch of Mona Lisa Smile and O, then Columbia and a return with State and Maine (as transcribed) and Silver Linings Playbook; she is very good at being mean.
Share this discussion More Apex Mountain answers
38:00

Who Won the Movie?

Heath Ledger

Heath Ledger

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 00:38:00Read transcript
  • Heath Ledger is named immediately in three affirmative turns, and the consensus on the supremacy of both Andrew Keegan and Heath Ledger is noted, with no shots at the women in the movie; the two got to the mountaintop, Ledger's with a marching band.
Podcast choices
Speaker not identified
Heath Ledger
Share this discussion More Who Won the Movie? answers