Samantha Cohen Staff Writer Easy A, released Friday, September, 17,  has all the elements of a teen high school classic. Loaded with comedy and teen angst about sexuality, popularity, acceptance, and self-consciousness, Easy A explores some of the issues that have followed high schoolers forever. This, combined with a dynamic performance by a stellar cast, makes this movie a winner. While it has a bit of a “chick-flick” about it, this film appeals to all kinds. Easy A is in the true John Hughes tradition, the late famous director of such classics as The Breakfast Club, Home Alone, and Sixteen Candles. It takes the emotional struggles and turmoil of adolescence and turns them into good humor without dismissing their gravity. In fact, the protagonist even references Hughes, the master of the teen romantic comedy genre. Emma Stone plays Olive, who is cute, but is not part of the mainstream social scene at her high school. But Olive is no longer under the radar screen, once a rumor that she created (false, by the way) emerges that she has lost her virginity. At first, Olive leverages the rumor into a means to getting attention. However, the chain reaction of events that it triggers turns out to be a little more than she bargained for. Olive’s fabricated story leads to a rumor that spreads like wildfire. Before you know it, every guy on the bottom of the social food chain claims to have been with Olive.  But how Olive gets herself out of this mess is as important and amusing as how she got into it. Emma Stone’s breakout performance in this movie is complemented by excellent performances by Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson as Olive’s supportive and amusing parents, and Penn Badgley as her love interest. The title of the film is sort of a play on words relating to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”, one of Olive’s English assignments. Olive sews an “A” onto her clothing as an act of defiance, much like the scandalized adultress in the novel. The story is original and amusing, but it is Emma Stone’s powerful performance that should put Easy A onto your A list.]]>