Strike! (1998)

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Strike (1998): Dir: Sarah Kemochan / Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Gaby Hoffmann, Rachel Leigh Cook, Lynn Redgrave, Vincent Kartheiser: Combination of National Lampoon's Animal House and Rock N' Roll High School but lacking the comic wit of both. Title refers to Kirsten Dunst's refusal to change. Hopefully after being part of this film she will require a major change. An all girl school is threatened with the possibility of going co-ed. This threatens misfit Dunst who is often late for classes and sabotages anything she considers a threat. Gaby Hoffmann is the new student who believes that the school should speak out. Vulgar and somewhat sexist with Dunst stashing liquor bottles about a bus and the boys who arrive innocent end up puking on everything. Directed by Sarah Kernochan with some fine location areas. This film is also saddled with several names, which can be a bitch when locating it. Dunst and Hoffmann play opposites but neither character obtains a personality. Dreary supporting work by Rachel Leigh Cook as the standard rival who will stop at nothing to expose Dunst. Lynn Reggrave plays the headmistress who cannot think for herself. She is suppose to be in charge but too often she is taking advice from people who are seen as total morons. Everything seems recycled and terribly dull but its message at least rings true. Strong co-ed theme elevates but the crude humour poise a strike against it. Score: 3 / 10

There's much more to this movie than such sitcom catchphrases as "Up your ziggy with a wa-wa brush," and "Masterly." As I said in my comment on "Can't Hardly Wait"(1998) this is the kind of movies that teenagers need, and I didn't just mean teenage boys. Unfortunately, this was in and out of the theaters much too quickly. The only reason I saw it was because it was on Encore as part of a block of movies that were introduced by Alison Sie, who I'd like to thank for letting us know about it. To make matters worse, in order to see the more suggestive and erotic aspects of this movie, you'd have to go to Canada. We Americans are being ripped off.Our story begins in early 1963, where a Motor-City Maiden named Odette Sinclair(Gabby Hoffman) is determined to lose her virginity, until her mother catches her with a birth-control device and ships her and her horse off to Miss Goddard's School for Girls, an all-girls boarding school, supposedly in Connecticut which she think is "surrounded by high walls and lesbians." The high walls part is right, but the "lesbians,..." you'll find that out later.While at first she and they want nothing to do with each other, eventually they warm up to her and decide to help her out, by getting her to join an organization called "the Daughters of the American Ravioli." Miss Godard's Girls aren't just "talented and organized," they're the wildest boarding school girls since The Belles of St. Trinian's, and believe it or not, kind of cute too. This is helpful, because they're not afraid of their sexuality and know how to use it to get what the want at a time when girls(especially upper crust ones) were expected to be "prim and proper." The Flat Critters are the geekiest greaser gang ever to grace a period piece movie from the 1950's or early-'60's. And they also become a suprising relief in the face of a potential merger with the St. Ambrose Boys' Academy. St. Ambrose Headmaster Armstrong(Michael J. Reynolds) sounds like the narrator on "Underdog"(1964), and if I had been a kid in that period, I would've sworn he did that on the side. Nevertheless, it's the arrival of the St. Ambrose school for a school dance/test merger that leads to a prank rivaling some of the teen movies of the late-1970's and early-1980's. And when that doesn't work, Odie leads them all on a major student strike! In defense of us guys, I'd like to point out that when we lust for you women, it's not a conspiracy to drag you down to the bottom of the economic totem pole. It's just a conspiracy to get you into our beds, or get into yours. Perhaps over 20 years ago when I was a teenager I might not have understood the desire to keep such schools separate, but I can see the reasons now. Not that I'm endorsing sexual segregation, mind you. I'm just endorsing this movie.

Without saying this is a great girlie flick, "All I Wanna Do!" (or Strike! in Canada) is good in many parts, as it shows girls wanted to keep their school "as is" instead of turning as "co-ed". In 1964, the World was changing, so's the habits. Even if girls are crazy about boys, they have a secret place to blossom themselves. The Goddard School for Girls is the place, but economical reasons want to turn it into a co-ed school to make ends meet. To keep parents and directors for taking that decisions, the Daughters of the American Ravioli will do everything so their school remains an "all girl" only institution.At least you can have a good time here, Mostly if you are fan of Kirsten Dunst or Rachael Leigh Cook. For the rest, it's colorful, plain light, you don't get bored...*spoiler* Spot Hayden Christensen in a rather embarrassing situation !

I love this movie. I have seen it over and over and never get tired of it! I love the club they made: The D.A.R (Daughters of the American Ravioli) I just wonder about the girls and the boys sometimes....sometimes they want the boys and sometimes they want nothing at all to do with them!