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"Election" is a story of a middle-aged man frustrated with his job, which happens to be at a high school. It is a work story, not a high school story.
"Clueless" is the story of Cher, the coolest high school girl of the 90s. This is the only true high school film of the pair, plus it imprinted Paul Rudd on every female 15-22 year-old in 1995, thus cementing Rudd's career.
Both of these movies should already be in madness.
I saw Clueless for the first time a couple years ago and was pleasantly surprised by its charm and quotability, but give me early Payne's acid wit and black comedy any day of the week.
So many great lines from Clueless that I still use today. "As if I would shop at Judy's", and "the challenging world of bare midriffs". Casting and acting was spot on. If I am channel surfing and Clueless comes on, I cannot be disturbed until it is over.
Election - because bee stings hurt. Save Ferris.
Oh, boy. Again, I constantly feel like I'm on an island here, but I absolutely hated Election. I was not on board with its pitch black bleakness. I never wanted Reese Witherspoon's character to win and I never ever understood any action of Matthew Broderick's character. I'm a huge fan of Alexander Payne: Sideways, About Schmidt, and Nebraska are very high in my personal pantheon, so it's not his style or his subject matter here. But man, I just cannot stand Election, not even a single minute of this film felt like a pleasure to watch.
Clueless, on the other hand, is one of my top 5 literary film re-inventions (along with the 1990's masterpiece 10 Things I Hate About You, the best and most generous adaptation of Taming of the Shrew I have ever seen). Amy Heckerling takes her source material, Jane Austen's Emma, identifies the essence of her comedy of manners and completely successfully transmutes into an LA story, an American story. It is absolutely true to the spirit of Austen's Regency era comedy and it is absolutely true to the moment that it was made. Clueless and Emma are both so suffused with an understanding of human beings that even outside of the time they were made, they feel valuable and fun and full of incisive observations of human nature. Clueless all the way.
Voting Clueless, because its celebration of kindness and sisterhood is powerful and needed, because I want at least one female filmmaker in the bracket, because Paul Rudd's lovestruck revelation face is one for the ages, and all kinds of other logical reasons, but mostly because I LOVE IT and am completely unashamed.
Election, and it’s not even remotely close in any facet (writing, direction, or performance)
I think we can agree that Election is a complex, well-written film, that may not be best defined as a high school/ teenage comedy (no disrespect to the contest creators).
Payne gives us a dryly funny, very specific account of a man who sees everything important in his life (his role as an appreciated teacher, his place in his marriage, etc.), unexpectedly curdle into a burden to be endured and escaped. This is a film with bite that definitely improves with repeated viewings. It can definitely be a contender if it makes the field of 64. Thanks.
This was tough. I love both these films, and "Election" was Alexander Payne's first near masterpiece, but "Clueless", love it so much, brilliant script, perfect direction from Amy Heckerling and Alicia Silverstone, one of the all time great performances. It's wonderfully funny, one of, if not the best teen film.
I must have been 12 growing up in Yorkshire when I saw Clueless and felt like the cruel and weird nature of being a teenage girl was captured in this film (and wasn't I glad not to be in America doing it). That's probably why it has my vote. But more than that, on rewatching we can see how Clueless still informs what being a teenager is today- it's a messed up handbook into the "totally heinous" chaos of hormones and drama. It's so self-referential and silly! Maybe it's due to the 90's throwback we seem to be experiencing in fashion and culture today but being a teenager in 2018 is still informed by the film today (for better or worse). How on earth are our teenagers of the future meant to learn - It’s like that book I read in the 9th grade that said, “‘Tis a far, far better thing doing stuff for other people" without Cher?!?
The appreciation for Clueless is just that. Would put it among the most overrated films of the 90s for sure. Or did it just age terribly? I’ve rarely been more annoyed by a film.
Election is still relevant and obviously the better movie. In fact, whenever I think of Clueless, I think about my girlfriend in 1997 putting it on without much fanfare. She said she didn't wanna spoil it for me. So, the movie is on for 15-20 minutes and she asks me, "Why aren't you laughing?" My reply was simply, "This is supposed to be a comedy?!?!" Awful, ham-fisted, cardboard cutout performances, and that might be an insult to both ham and cardboard.
ELECTION has some notoriety in my family. I think I was 14 years old when I convinced Mom and Dad to rent it from Blockbuster, assuming the R-rating was because of an excess of f***'s and s***s. But not 10 minutes into the movie, I'm sitting on the couch, between my parents, and Matthew Broderick's friend says that line about Reese Witherspoon's character's genitals. Now, I was raised Catholic, and at the time, I still wasn't allowed to watch movies rated R for "sensual content." So, this was embarrassing, to put it mildly.
But surely, this movie was just a bunch of locker room talk, right? Oh wait, here's Chris Klein's character is getting a blowjob. "I can't do this," I said, and went to my bedroom, mortified.
So yeah, I've always liked CLUELESS more.
PS - 10 years later, my Dad and I would take fun bets on how many boobs we'd see in whatever episode of "Game of Thrones" we watched.
Election is the sequel to Ferris Bueller after he faked his death to hide from Ed Rooney. Pick Flick!
Election going toe to toe with Clueless? AS IF....
Hadn't seen either of those two before, then watched them more or less back to back this week, and what can I say: this one's not even close! If ELECTION doesn't win this by at least a 30 point margin,... well, I don't know what's gonna happen then, really, except that I will certainly have lost all faith in Filmspotting Nation's voting public.
Sure, CLUELESS has its moments, and its pretty fascinating as a 1995-teen-culture time capsule (which I'm not sure is necessarily such a good thing), but on the whole it's really nothing more than a mildly entertaining 90s high shool romcom without much of an emotional core or any truly memorable characters (Brittany Murphy's Tai being the possible exception).
I'd also love for you guys to explain what you think qualifies this movie as being "smart" (as the billing of this match-up explicitly suggests). ... Amy Heckerling had at this point already made the definitive high school comedy 13 years prior to this one, with 1982's fantastic and genre-defining(-and-arguably-ending) FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH. CLUELESS really seems like little more than an afterthought in comparison.
ELECTION on the other hand: Wow!
I'd been meaning to watch this one after hearing it mentioned in various Filmspotting Top 5s (Ambition, Politics, ...), and what can I say - this is hands down one of the best comedies I've ever seen - high school or no high school. What an impressive piece of filmmaking! Every little piece of this movie - every scene, every editing choice, every character motivation, every camera angle, every musical cue ("Navajo Joe" anyone?) every line of dialogue (and voice over), every visual gag, and probably even every last little prop - is right where it belongs and it all works perfectly together to form one truly smart (and daring, and thought-provoking, and moving, and timeless, and perfectly paced, and also just simply beginning-to-end straight-up FUNNY) comedy. ... Seriously guys: This is Pantheon material!
Come to think of it, as different as those films are at first glance, ELECTION might actually in many ways be the true 1990s heir apparent to Heckerling's 1982 classic...
And I will almost certainly keep on voting and campaigning for this movie throughout the tournament, unless - God forbid! - it ends up having to compete against Groundhog Day at some point. But let's hope it never comes to that. And until then: Election? ... You Betzler!
Oh, and PS: How on earth did they ever get that horrible bee sting to look that painfully real?