Kidzworld reviews the Blu-ray of Clueless, the hip, pop culture classic that changed the way we talk forever!
By: Lynn Barker
Did you and besties ever say “whatever!”, “go ballistic”, “totally”, “that’s so five minutes ago” or call something “the bomb”? All of those slang terms and many more were first introduced in the clever, good-hearted, 1995 high school movie Clueless.
Story Goes
Super popular, Beverly Hills fashionista teen Cher (Alicia Silverstone) loves to do make-overs on everyone around her and play cupid for single teens needing a love connection. Problem is, she doesn’t have one of her own.
15-year-old Cher and BFF Dionne (Stacey Dash) worry about parties, getting a driver’s license and ruling their school until new student Tai (Brittany Murphy) becomes Cher’s new “project”. Cher’s match-ups for Tai don’t work and neither does her own crush on a new hottie who turns out to be more into dudes.
Cher has always dissed and pushed her cute, 19-year-old college student stepbro (Paul Rudd) away but when Tai starts crushin’ on him and he seems to respond to her, Cher finally realizes she loves him! Can the tables turn so Tai and the ex-stoner/skateboarder Cher once made her reject can becomes a couple? Can Cher find a match with her cute stepbro? Hey, this is high school. Anything can happen.
Special Features:
- “Clue or False Trivia Game” – viewers can test their knowledge of the film by answering questions that pop up while you watch the film. When the movie is over, you are assigned to a school clique based on your answers. Fun, but watch the movie without it first.
- “The Class of 1995” – features interviews with the cast and crew back in 1995. Then many of the actors and director Amy Heckerling are interviewed in 2005 when they are almost all way more famous. A cool “then and now” featurette.
- “Creative Writing” – is the history of how the film got made from Amy’s original idea (it was gonna be a TV show for a while) to the finished film. Amy admits that she based the whole thing on Jane Austen’s classic novel “Emma” and just updated the story! Very cool to know.
- “Fashion 101” – the cast and costume designer talk about their very hip and unusual clothes in the film. Plaid was evidently “the bomb” in Beverly Hills in 1995. Alicia had 56 costume changes in the movie as Cher! Very fun especially for fashion buffs.
- “Language Arts” – All the new and hip slang words created for the movie. The cast and crew all got a slang dictionary from Amy that explained what they would be saying when all the terms were new! Very interesting.
- “Suck and Blow: A Tutorial” – Silly but fun is the cast trying to play suck and blow (you pass a card or piece of paper to the next party-goer in line by sucking, then blowing. The first person to drop it, loses. The actors had a hard time with this and the results are pretty funny.
- “Driver’s Ed” – features the scene in which Dionne accidentally ends up on the freeway while learning to drive. It was shot on a real L.A. freeway and the cast was pretty freaked.
- “We’re History” – The director and cast talk now about how the movie changed not only vocabulary but their careers and how Hollywood thought about Teen movies in general.
Wrapping Up:
If you can get past the cellphones with antennas (yes, antennas) and the fact that kids and teens in 1995 paged each other rather than texting, you can relate to some or at least one of the characters. Unlike a lot of gross teen comedies in the ‘90’s, this one is tame and witty and great to watch with your best buds.
I recommend a rental at least or a buy for retro movie fans. You’ll probably watch this pioneering pop culture movie over and over.
Clueless Blu-ray Rating: 
