"100 Girls" (2000)

"100 Girls" Movie Poster

This movie recommendation came from my friend Amber. We were browsing the entertainment section at our local Wal-Mart just after New Year's. We walked along the movies aisle, and Amber stopped suddenly. She gasped and pointed to a DVD that was selling for $5. "OMG, I love this movie, and I didn't even realize Wal-Mart was selling it!" she exclaimed in the empty aisle at 10:30 p.m. I gave her $5 to buy it, and she continued to talk about how good it was.

"This guy, he's kinda dumb, but you know, that's how most college guys are...haha," she said. "But anyway, he gets stuck in an elevator with this mystery girl during a blackout, and then he has no idea what happened to her. He goes in search of her, meeting 100 women along the way. I love it!"

So almost four months have gone by, and I haven't seen it yet. Well, until now, anyway.

I found both the trailer and the full movie available FOR FREE on YouTube, since it wasn't available at the Longwood library.

The trailer begins with the side of a college dorm, with young women, some very scantily-clad, hanging out of the windows, as a male voice reads, "I love women. 100 girls, and one of them is my true love," as the scene shifts from woman to woman to woman. The male voice continues: "My forever soul mate, my kinesthetic destiny. The problem is, I don't know who she is," as a young college student is standing outside.

Then someone walks into an elevator with a laundry basket with the same guy standing idly. "My back was to her when the blackout hit." The scene changes to all the lights shorting out. "We never knew each others' names," he says as the young students kiss in the dark elevator.

"In the morning, she was gone." As the elevator door opens into sunshine, the young guy wakes up and is stunned to see that he is still in the elevator.

"You lose your virginity and you don't even know who it was with?" The guy's dumbfounded roommate asks him, as the main student has a stupid grin on his face, wondering who the mystery girl could be.

"Stop trying to find me," one silhouetted girl says.

"What?" The college guy says as his face turns to complete shock and confusion.

The guy's voice over reads, "I had one last chance. She was out there somewhere, watching me. I had to find her."

"100 Girls" was rated R and released on September 22, 2000, with a running time of 94 minutes.

As Amber described, Matthew (Jonathan Tucker) gets trapped in a elevator with a mystery girl when the power goes out in a women's dormitory, a.k.a. the "virgin vault." They have sex in the dark. In the morning, when Matthew wakes up, the woman is gone, leaving him with a just a pair of panties.

Determined to find the matching bra to those panties, Matthew embarks on a quest to find it, and the girl they belong to.

Along the way, Matthew becomes the dorm's work-study maintenance man, has various encounters with his roommate Rod (James DeBello), and tries to help as many of the women as he can, in search of the mystery girl. Emmanuelle Chriqui stars as Patty, who Matthew helps out in dealing with her abusive boyfriend, Crick (Johnny Green).

There are several notable names in "100 Girls." Katherine Heigl of "Grey's Anatomy" and "27 Dresses" fame plays Arlene. Larissa Oleynik from Nickelodeon's "The Secret World of Alex Mack" plays Wendy, a closeted lesbian who Matthew tries to help out in finding a mate. Jamie Pressly plays Cynthia. And, as a minor character, Eric Szmanda from "CSI:Crime Scene Investigation" plays Sam.

Overall, the acting was decent. The strongest actors in this movie were Johnathan Tucker, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Larisa Oleynik, and Jamie Pressly. Katherine Heigl and Eric Szmanda were decent, but not great.

Given the trailer, Tucker came off to me initially as being flighty and very aloof, since he is embarking on this quest to find one mystery woman out of 100 girls. However, Tucker plays Matthew very well and shows his true character throughout the movie as being kind, sincere and not all about finding the one girl, but helping all of them in some way.

James DeBello, who plays Rod, is very similar to Stephen Baldwin in many ways, especially with his dumb, stoner-like lines that are supposed to add humor, but really don't. It just makes him, both the actor and the character he plays, look stupid. The same goes for Johnny Green, who plays Crick, but Green's acting is less stupid and witless.

I would recommend watching this movie if you need a good laugh on a depressing day or night. I would watch it with a group of girls and guys alike; it is not strictly a chick flick or a man's movie. It is enjoyable for mostly everyone, the girls see the cute and funny guys, while the guys get to see and revel in lots of skin and fun activities involving women's bodies. But if you're squeamish around lots of nudity and sex, then I don't recommend it.

As always, I'll take any comments: feedback (positive or negative), and suggestions for movies!

Thanks for reading!

-Laura Beth :)