10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
Written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith
Directed by Gil Junger
“You can’t just buy me a guitar every time you screw up, you know?” ~ Kat Stratford
“Yeah, I know. But then, you know, there’s always drums, and bass, and maybe even one day a tambourine.” ~ Patrick
10 Things I Hate About You is a 1999 American teen romantic comedy-drama film. It is directed by Gil Junger and stars Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The romantic comedy screenplay was written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith.
The film, a modernization of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, is titled after a poem written by the film’s female lead (played by Stiles) to describe her bittersweet romance with the male lead (played by Ledger).
The film was released March 31, 1999, and it was a breakout success for stars Stiles, Ledger and Gordon-Levitt. The film marks the motion picture directing debut of Junger.
Many of the scenes were filmed on location at Stadium High School and at a house in the Proctor District of Tacoma, Washington. The prom sequence was shot over three days in Seattle.
The primary tagline is an allusion to a poem written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from her Sonnets from the Portuguese collection. (“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”) Another tagline is a spoof from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (“Romeo, Oh Romeo, Get Out Of My Face.”) and another is a line from The Taming of the Shrewthat is spoken in the film by Cameron (“I burn, I pine, I perish!”). The original script was finalized on November 12, 1997.
“I can’t take my eyes off of you.”
I expected to hate this film. I only saw it on DVD a few weeks ago. My daughters insistence. I really enjoyed it.
There is more to it then one might expect. Nice that they insisted. 🙂
A missing ‘. I have only one daughter. Smiles
Noted. 🙂
There were SOOOOOOOOO many “teen movies” that same year that 10 Things came out. I’ve grown to love & appreciate it more over time but even then it stuck out as something more special & solid and not just another random movie riding the teen movie wave. There were some mediocre movies that year and some I happily watched and later realized sucked but this one is still a gem. I was a junior in high school and I can distinctly remember going to the movies and having talks with friends about how we wanted our own version of the “80s high school movies” and were finally getting them and looking back this is one of the few that at all measures up to all those spectacular 1980s movies we wanted for ourselves as 90s kids.
I agree. I came out of adolescents in the “80s High School” movies, and this one definitely has that “thing” that some of its predecessors had. I think 10 Things holds up still, and does not feel overly dated. The retelling works, too…of Taming of the Shrew…it leant itself so well to teen years/High School dramas. Seeing Heath makes me sad though, I have to admit.
That is right & I’m so jealous of that (see: coming out of adolescents in the “80s High School” movies.)
I remember my Mom sort of “approved” of 10 Things, not that she monitored my viewing habits at all but that she liked it because she didn’t think it was an empty or shallow movie.
Heath</3. I feel sad thinking back for his baby daughter at the time, that death was shocking as hell. And on the selfish end as a fan & movie fan I can't help but wonder, as I'm sure you have, what incredible work & performances he would've had that we'll never get to see. So awful.