8. Angus (1995)
An overweight science geek. A beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed cheerleader. A beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed Quarterback. Patrick Read Johnson's Angus just about has it all from the quirky best friend (think Ducky in Sixteen-Candles) up to and including a make-over montage. Angus is a 14-year-old high school student who is applying to a magnet school to avoid the constant humiliation he suffers. Football and Science come pretty easy to him, but Quarterback Rick Sanford (James Van Der Beek) has two things he doesn't: Looks and Melissa LeFevre. At him, he receives a great deal of love and support from his mother and grandfather but still spends most of his time fixated on those two things that seem forever out of his reach. And that makes a lot of sense. True to the high-school outsider canon, Rick seems to live to make Angus' life miserable through the following cliches: Rick engages in classic bully-behavior from stuffing kids in lockers to running Angus' underwear up the flagpole. He must have just seen Carrie because the plot moves forward as he ensures Angus is voted Winter Ball King by rigging the election in hopes to embarrass him in front of the whole school. The film is as cheesy as any that explores the dichotomous relationship between the nerds and the popular kids and hits all the "right" notes with it's time-stamp of a soundtrack (Green Day, Weezer, Goo Goo Dolls...). And you almost can't see the cliche twist where Melissa, during their first real conversation just prior to their dance as King and Queen, confesses her fear of having everyone watching as they dance. Hey. Beautiful, popular people can be insecure, too. Why else would Rick act out and torment others like he does? It's this realization that prompts Angus to give the ever cliche third-act redemption speech on the topic of "What is normal?" after suffering what seems like certain humiliation from Rick. Oddly enough, the moral of the film hits "hero and villain as facets of the same person" mark closer than one would be inclined to think.