Easy A is a modern twist  on the classic novel The Scarlet Letter, and it’s a nice throwback to all the 80′s teen comedies like Can’t Buy Me Love and The Breakfast Club. A standout performance by up and coming actress Emma Stone elevates this comedy above most in the genre.

Olive is a beautiful, smart and self-assured high school student who suffers the same fate of all gorgeous ladies in romantic comedies-she can’t get a date.  Yeah, right.  Olive spends her Saturday nights at home singing to her dog. Rather than fess up to that fact, she tells her best friend that she was out with a college boy, and implies that she lost her virginity.

Word of the (pretend) coupling travels quickly via texting and such, and Olive is soon rebuked by the females at the school for being  the school slut.  At the same time, she has a new found popularity with the men, who believe they might have a shot at her.

When her best male friend (who is gay) waffles on whether to come out of the closet or not, she urges him to wait until after high school. They concoct a plan to silence his tormentors; she’ll pretend to sleep with him and everyone will think he is straight.

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The Stepfather is a remake of a 1987 movie that starred Terry O’Quinn (Lost) as a deranged man looking for the perfect family. Of course, no such thing exists, and when a family doesn’t live up to his impossibly high standards, they meet a most unfortunate demise. He then disguises himself, moves to a new city, and sets up the cycle once again.

In this updated version, director Nelson McCormick (Prom Night 2008) tries to coax scares from the premise once again, but the movie too often wanders into camp (unintentionally, I’m sure).

Dylan Walsh (Nip/Tuck) steps into the stepfather shoes as David, and unfortunately, he is about as menacing as a teddy bear. I like Walsh, but I have the same problem when they try to make him do something deviant on Nip/Tuck, I just don’t buy it. That is not to say he is a bad actor, I just think they should have cast someone a little creepier. When Walsh tries to flick back and forth between normal and psycho during the movie,  it elicited more giggles than scares.

Sela Ward (stunning at 53, we should all be so lucky) plays Susan, the most clueless, desperate woman in recent memory. Freshly divorced, she meets David in a grocery store and promptly asks him out. They have a whirl-wind romance, and within six months are engaged, much to displeasure of Susan’s teen-aged son Michael (Gossip Girl’s Penn Badgely) who is home from military school.

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