A fun sex comedy that has survived better than most others. Denis is a brainiac, who tells the entire school, that he loves Beth Cooper, local hottie and dream girl to whom he has never spoken. Beth and her fellow hot-girl friends decide to follow up on this and take Denis out to a party. Thus begins a crazy graduation night, that involves parties, nudity, bullies and beer aka all the requisite ingredients for a teen sex comedy. With Beth dragging Denis along to all the stops, while driving like a maniac, she has the perfect mixture of ingredients to be a manic pixie dream girl. I actually will not fight anyone, who thinks she _is_ just another MPDG. That's perfectly fair. I think, however, she subverts in some interesting ways even if others might argue that maybe it is not enough. The whole point of this movie is that Beth isn't a dream girl. She's a real person. She drives like a maniac, not because she's quirky but because she's a bad driver. She makes bad decisions (that ostensibly she might need to be rescued from), but she feels trapped in her role as the hot girl everyone wants. She's even got personal family life issues that affect her outlook and perspective. The opening of the movie is about Denis coming out of his shell but the rest of the movie is about him learning that Beth Cooper is more than the girl on his ceiling poster. There's a side-plot that I hate. One that showed up in 1997's **In and Out** that I, again, absolutely despise. It was nearly subverted here, but the plot point is if [spoiler]someone calls you gay, it's because you're gay[/spoiler]. No matter how you act or what you say or how you feel or what your life has been. They are never wrong. If someone [spoiler]calls you gay in act one by the end of the movie you will be gay[/spoiler]. Rich, aside from [spoiler]the "Let's sword-fight with our boners" flashback isn't really that gay. Yet for some reason people look at everything he says as if it's really gay[/spoiler] but most of it wouldn't be looked at twice if not for the speech [spoiler]and the non-digetic history[/spoiler]. It would have been a better movie [spoiler]if Denis had been wrong on all of his speech subjects[/spoiler]. The graduation speech would have needed to be a little bit different. But it would have given the movie a stronger point rather than just fleshing out Beth it would have shown that Denis was the one with blinders on. But hey maybe next time. Guess in 2009 we weren't there yet. Or at least that's what I might say if 2006's _John Tucker Must Die_ didn't exist. There's an aspect of this movie that like it's main character puts Beth Cooper on a pedestal and now I suppose it serves as an archival representation of a collective way of thinking that isn't as mainstream anymore. Hayden and Paul have solid _Beauty and the Beast_ chemistry. I think there's a lot of stylistic choices the movie makes that I like. Unfortunately while it's certainly not as bad as some sex comedies I've rewatched from my younger days this one isn't nearly as great as i remembered it and this wasn't top tier in my rose tinted perspective to begin with.

- It's not stalking if you love the person. - ✍ If I'm ugly and creepy, Hayden Panettiere will fall in love with me - So much more violence than I was expecting - Hap! Hap! Hap! Hap! Hap! Hap! Hap! Hap! Ha.... Sorry, I was unaware I was emitting that.

For a movie that started out so painful to watch, it sure got really heartfelt and hopeful :) I like the idea of deconstructing idealized crushes, and Beth sure was a pretty awesome girl, cooler than the poster girl on the ceiling. Overall, the movie managed to keep me hooked, which at first I was doubting could happen haha. And the plot reminded me of one time someone I had only known online for a while told me she had a crush on me and my answer was "you don't really know me". Which may sound harsh but I felt it was an earnest answer... she didn't know me on a day to day basis, I think she was just crushing on the idea of me lol Anyway, it was a nice movie. Also I gotta mention Alan Ruck was looking pretty attractive here oops 😳 p.s: at first I couldn't ignore at all that Denis' actor looked too old for the role... yeah I know that's standard practice for teen roles but c'mon with him it was too glaring lol also yes it's ALWAYS the gym teachers!!!

And she will never forget.