Sugar & Spice (2001)

A popular high-school cheerleader becomes pregnant by the star quarterback and turns to crime to support her desired lifestyle.

Director:

Francine McDougall

Writer:

Mandy Nelson

Stars:

Marla Sokoloff, Marley Shelton, Melissa George

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Marla Sokoloff	...	Lisa Janusch
Marley Shelton	...	Diane Weston
Melissa George	...	Cleo Miller
Mena Suvari	...	Kansas Hill
Rachel Blanchard	...	Hannah Wald
Alexandra Holden	...	Fern Rogers
Sara Marsh	...	Lucy Whitman
James Marsden	...	Jack Bartlett
Sean Young	...	Mrs. Hill
W. Earl Brown	...	Hank 'Terminator' Rogers
Adam Busch	...	Geeky Guy
Jake Hoffman	...	Ted
Nate Maher	...	Chris
David Belenky	...	Bruce
Kevin Kling	...	Factory Worker

Storyline

Jack and Diane were lovers, two crazy kids living in the heartlands. Airheaded Diane captains the cheerleading squad, who follow her through whatever she does. Jack is, of course, the football team's star quarterback. When Diane becomes pregnant, the two are thrown out of their homes and move into an apartment where they try to live on Jack's part-time salary from clerking at a video store. Meanwhile both continue in school - cheerleading and quarterbacking. When Diane realizes that they're not making it financially, she recruits the other cheerleaders to help her rob a bank. Their cheerleader oath of all for one commits them to helping her. A local hood gives them guns in exchange for their promise to put his homely daughter on the cheerleading squad.

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Plot Keywords:

generation y | seductive behavior | attempted seduction | title directed by female | teensploitation | 

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Taglines:

Get ready to cheer for the _bad_ girls.

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Genres:

Comedy | Crime

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for language, sex-related humor and some thematic elements

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

26 January 2001 (USA)

Also Known As:

Sugar and Spice and Semiautomatics

Filming Locations:

Webster Street & Randolph Avenue, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$27,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$5,891,176, 28 January 2001

Gross USA:

$13,305,101

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$16,923,761

Company Credits

Production Co:

New Line Cinema

Technical Specs

Runtime:

81 min 84 min (extended)

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.39 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Uncredited writer Lona Williams based Cleo's obsession with Conan O'Brien on herself. Williams admits to admiring O'Brien while he was a writer on The Simpsons (1989) and she was an assistant to the producers.

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Goofs

When Jack is racing for the end zone during the football game, the camera cuts to the clock counting down as if he is "racing" to get to the goal line before the clock hits zero. In a movie that was supposed to have so much to do with football/cheerleading, it's amazing that the writer/director didn't realize that since the play started during regulation, it wouldn't matter if Jack crossed the goal line with 0:00 on the clock; however, the scene is shot as if when the clock hits 0:00 and Jack was short of the end zone, the play would end.

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Quotes

Lisa Janusch: Then, there's Hannah Wald. She's this uber-Christian, doesn't really say much. In fact, if she wasn't kinda pretty, you'd say ''Hey, who's the 'tard?''

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Connections

Features Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1993)

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Soundtracks

Blitzkrieg Bop
Written by Dee Dee Ramone (as Douglas Colvin) and Tommy Ramone (as Thomas Erdelyi); also credited Joey Ramone (as Jeffrey Hyman) and Johnny Ramone (as John Cummings)
Performed by The Nutley Brass
Courtesy of The Medicine Label, Inc.

User Reviews

Heh! Heh! Heh! Yea!Cheerleaders! Heh! Heh! Heh!

It's been only five months since we've last seen a cheerleader shake fest with the successful BRING IT ON. Girls went to see the film since it was a girls story, guys went to go see it since it showed girls shakin' their charms. Now imagine BRING IT ON, just more darker and a bit more humorous, and it's called SUGAR & SPICE. And quoting one of the other user comments, it's not bad for a January release. SUGAR & SPICE's story is told by the very jealous Lisa (Marla Sokoloff) as she is speaking to federal agents. Lisa is on the second squad of the cheerleaders, and has been overlooked for so many years. Her peers known as the 'A' squad are popular, smart, and pretty. Then when a new quarterback moves into town, Jack Bartlett (James Marsden), Lisa and the rest of the female students have a crush on him, even the cafeteria lunch ladies! But Jack has his eye on Diane Weston (Marley Shelton) who made a strong impression when meeting Jack, by doing flips and accidently kicking Jack in the face. When they see eye to eye, it's love at first sight, which leds to dating for homecoming, and Diane announcing that she is pregnant with Jack's baby, and they are getting married. But in order to get married, Jack and Diane need to live on their own. They can't get any bank loans, and not being a high school graduate yet, Jack can only get evening jobs at either fast food restraunts or Video Update with geeky clerks. Diane takes a job as a bank teller at the brach adjacent to a grocery store. And it's one evening when Diane along with her cheerleader friends are watching POINT BREAK, that Diane gets an idea that her squad should rob the bank and get the money. There's Kansas (Mena Suvari) who is the rebellious cheerleader, she speaks her mind and is sort of the leader of the squad. Kansas goes to the state prison and gets bank robbing advice from her mom, Mrs. Hill (Sean Young, with no make-up). Then Cleo (a very hot and beautiful Melissa George) who is the glamorous member, who is the only girl who doesn't have a crush on Jack, because she has a crush on Conan O' Brien! Lucy (Sara Marsh) is the brains behind the group who gives second thoughts to this robbery fearing that it will cost her the Harvard scholarship that she's working on. And Hannah (Rachel Blanchard) is the religous zealot who is very worried about doing the heist for both parental and religious reasons. The girls watch classic heist movies to learn the film character's mistakes, that way they won't make the same mistakes. Classic crime movies like RESIVOR DOGS, HEAT (1995), and APPLE DUMPLING GANG are the films watched for homework. Can the girls pull off the heist and not get caught, or will Lisa, who witnessed the heist will give the girls identification away to get on the 'A' squad? I found SUGAR & SPICE to be a surprise! It was very funny and enjoyable. It's the kind of movie that doesn't praise or show the excitement of the teenage life like CAN'T HARDLY WAIT, CRUEL INTENTIONS, or SHE'S ALL THAT. Na, instead it makes fun of it, the dopey personality of Jack. The crush on a major celebrity of Cleo, the loud mouth and vulgar Kansas, the religious worried Hannah, and the constantly studying Lucy. These are the characteristics of modern teens, not "who's going to take me to homecoming?" or "will I win that boy's affection?" I knew more cheerleaders in high schoollike the ones featured in SUGAR & SPICE, than BRING IT ON, or other teen flicks. The humor in it is quite clever. A example would be Jack's job at Video Update, where he works with two teenage geeky clerks. They hire Jack because of his popularity at school, and they also want to hear his sex stories with Diane. It's like a twisted version of SHE'S ALL THAT when you think about it, but it's more realistic. And the robbery scene at the bank is without a doubt the funniest bank robbery since George Clooney did his in OUT OF SIGHT. And the acting is also done very well, all of the girls do a good job playing teenage cheerleaders, when all of them are old enough to legally drink! I personaly enjoyed Melissa George, her character crush on Conan was quite funny, and did I mention how beautiful she was? I also enjoy the dim-witted performance of James Marsden who proves that he's a good actor, after being Cyclops in X-MEN, he can show his acting talent even further. SUGAR & SPICE is a enjoyable dark comedy, it's the kind of movie that people who already graduated high school would enjoy. That's because teens in high school now won't get the jokes since they either act like that, know people like that, or it's too witty for them. But for those who remember the wanna be's, the pretty girls, and the idiots in school, SUGAR & SPICE is a treat! And not to forget the heist is also funny itself. **** (out of five)