| Small Cruel Intentions Items |
| Steal This Look, Reese Witherspoon - Instyle Magazine While Continuing the Clueless tradition of turning classics into high school soap operas, this update of Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a war between vice and virtue rather than Clueless's cool and uncool. Privileged Manhatten step-sibs Sebastian (Ryan Phillippe) and Kathryn (Sarah Michelle Gellar) find destroying others a fun way to get kicks. Their new victim is virginal Annette (Witherspoon), who has declared-in Seventeen- her intention to save herself for marriage. Sebastian, a bored Casanova, aims to seduce her. If he wins, twisted step sister Kathryn has to sleep with him, something he has lusted for since their parents married. But Annette is no pushover, and the mind games get less and less playful in this blackly comic Machiavelli-meets-Melrose Place psychodrama. - Lisa Simpson |
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| Entertainment Weekly Spring Movie Preview (1999) Cruel Intentions Staring: Ryan Phillippe, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Reese Witherspoon, Selma Blair, Joshua Jackson. Directed by: Roger Kumble What's the big deal? 'Dangerous Liaisons'...set in high school. If you're going to take a crack at adapting a classic novel, particularly one like the Choderlos de Laclos 1782 favorite Les Liaisons Dangereuses-which won three oscars when it showed up on the big screen in 1988-you had better find what folks in Hollywood call a "new in." For first-time feature director Kumble, that was no problem. "I was working from the book," he remembers, "and all of a sudden I realized: Making bets? De-virginizing people? Torturing the clueless? Oh my god! This is high school." So he set about casting the story of relationship treachery through the lens of spoiled, ultrarich Upper East Side New York teens. "The characters are even more vicious because ther're young," says Blair, who plays dim-witted victim Cecile Caldwell. "Older people have gone through something, they've earned hatred. But these kids are born with it." Of course, there's the question of who will actually see a movie this nasty. "It's all very lush and fun," says Phillippe, who plays Sebastian, the on-screen love interest of his offscreen girlfriend Witherspoon. "But if you look at the typical teen movie, this one is a lot more mean." (March 5) |
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| Movieline - Sex In Films (1999) Sex Objects: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Selma Blair, Reese Witherspoon, Joshua Jackson, Eric Mabius Type Of Sex: Black-comic Sex Play: If you were doing a contemporary teen version of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the 18th-century tale of vicious sexual intrigue that was made by Stephen Frears into Dangerous Liaisons and by Milos Forman into Valmont, you probably wouldn't think to cast actors who could have just as easily been rounded up for the latest Scream rip-off. But the lineup of comfortably appealing young stars in Cruel Intentions is clearly part of the film's black humor. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" fans beware: one early insider commented about the film early on, "Everone fucks Everyone," and that turns out to be an understatement. Rich, spoiled, and aggressively immoral step-siblings Ryan Phillippe and Sarah Michelle Gellar make a bet over whether he can pop blond, Midwestern virtue queen Reese Witherspoon's cheery before the year begins at their Manhattan prep school, where Witherspoon's dad is the new headmaster. Phillippe puts his zillion-dollar roadster on the line; Gellar offers him sex with the orifice of his choice. Meanwhile Gellar has her own agenda, a revenge scheme that involves corrupting her naive rival, Selma Blair, which requires Gellar to teach Blair how to French kiss. Phillippe does his part to season the innocent girl by performing oral sex on her. Joshua Jackson, meanwhile, helps Phillippe get to Witherspoon by luring Eric Mabius into bed and setting him up for blackmail. And those are just a few highlights from this genuinely decadent, sex-drenched, mean-spirited hoot. Isn't this an encouraging beginning to the last year of this century and millennium? |
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| Movieline - Clothes In Film Cruel Inventions (previous name) When the sexual schemers of the 18th-century French classic Les Liaisons Dangereuses were portrayed in films (in 1988's Dangerous Liaisons and 1989's Valmont), they wore yards and yards of silk and satin. With the tale transplanted to the land of nubile, contemporary twentysomethings, much less fabric is required. The few times schemer par excellence Sarah Michelle Gellar does cover up, it's with a BCBG Max Azria leather coat. Rogue Ryan Phillippe relies on suits by Prada-when he's not baring his chest, that is. |
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| Premiere - Coming This Month Cruel Intentions Black comedy; staring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillipped, and Reese Witherspoon; Directed by Roger Kumble. It might as well be a return to All My Children for Gellar, who shines here as a ruthless, privileged Manhattan teenager who makes bets with her womanizing stepbrother (Phillippe) about his sexual exploits. Stakes run high when he sets his eyes on deflowering the new squeaky-clean kid (Witherspoon) on the block. Anything but subtle, this fourth cinematic interpretation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses (the most famous being Dangerous Liaisons) looks to be a fun guily plasure. Release Date: March 5 (Columbia) |
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| "It's an update of Dangerous Liaisons, two wealthy kids bored out of their minds who are going to cause trouble." - Sarah Michelle Gellar (Kathryn), Rolling Stone |