Combine Snow White, Animal House and Revenge of The Nerds and you have Syndey White.

This modern retelling fairytale of Snow White. It follows a beautiful college freshman Syndey White (played by Amanda Bynes) as she pledges her late mother's sorority. But after discovering that today's sisterhood is not what it used to be, Sydney makes new home away from home with seven nerdy outcasts. With the help of her new friends, Sydney will take on Rachel, the reigning campus queen (Sara Paxton) to attempt to transform the school's misguided social hierarchy

Bynes is great with her cheerleading style. The film is a cute send up with a Revenge of the Nerds twist.

It is cute for an evening entertainment

Bennet Pomerantz Audioworld

Soccer-playing Viola (Bynes) is really upset when the girls' soccer team is cut. The boys' team does not want any girls on it, so Viola decides to impersonate her brother Sebastian (Kirk), who conveniently is starting a new school where he is unknown. He is also skipping out of the first weeks of school in order to pursue a musical career in Europe. Being Sebastian, she can play soccer, and maybe even get some revenge on her own school's team.

Everything is going well for Viola until she falls in love with her roommate (Tatum). Of course, he is interested in Olivia (Ramsey), and Olivia has got her eye on Viola. The only thing that could make things more complicated for Viola is if her brother were to come home early. And he does.

"She's the Man" is loosly based on William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", and works pretty well. The majority of this film's success is due to Amanda Bynes as Viola. While never really looking like a guy, she has the enthusiasm and screen presence to make this an enjoyable film. Although aimed primarily at the teen audience, others will find enjoyment in it too.

`Hairspray' is a non-stop, exhilarating song and dance extravaganza. This exuberant remake of the John Waters' musical is funny, fast, and fabulous. Adam Shankman's direction is appropriately lilting in the right measure, but balanced with social commentary highlights. Unlike 'Dreamgirls,' there are no Oscar worthy performances, but the production is so fun there doesn't have to be. The entertainment is winning on every level, and, as for the songs, it never goes limp.

Once again we are transported to the early sixties in Baltimore, where flannel is uniform, Blacks and Whites are segregated, and beehives are in fashion. The plot is fairly simple: Overweight teen Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) wants to break the mold on her favorite TV program "The Corny Collins Show" (an "American Bandstand"-like feature) while discovering a more urgent need to end segregation on a show that only sometimes features "Negro Night". She gets her big break when teen singing sensation, Link Larkin (Zac Efron) makes advances that bring her to the stage floor. In the meantime, her success is challenged by the show's program manager, (played with overbearing skill by Michelle Pfeiffer) and her daughter, Amber, the show's reigning "Miss Teenage Hairspray," a nasty nemesis . Joining forces with her Afro-American friends, especially Motormouth Maybelle (Queen Latifah) and dancer Seaweed (Elijah Kelly), she works for equal time on the dance floor.

`Hairspray' is set as perfect entertainment. John Travolta provides likable loopiness as Nikki's mother while he dances and cross-dresses his way into our hearts. The villains are nasty enough, and the sweetness pervades even amongst important demonstrations on key social issues. When it all comes down to balance, 'Hairspray' fills the bill.

`Hairspray' is a non-stop, exhilarating song and dance extravaganza. This exuberant remake of the John Waters' musical is funny, fast, and fabulous. Adam Shankman's direction is appropriately lilting in the right measure, but balanced with social commentary highlights. Unlike 'Dreamgirls,' there are no Oscar worthy performances, but the production is so fun there doesn't have to be. The entertainment is winning on every level, and, as for the songs, it never goes limp.

Once again we are transported to the early sixties in Baltimore, where flannel is uniform, Blacks and Whites are segregated, and beehives are in fashion. The plot is fairly simple: Overweight teen Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) wants to break the mold on her favorite TV program "The Corny Collins Show" (an "American Bandstand"-like feature) while discovering a more urgent need to end segregation on a show that only sometimes features "Negro Night". She gets her big break when teen singing sensation, Link Larkin (Zac Efron) makes advances that bring her to the stage floor. In the meantime, her success is challenged by the show's program manager, (played with overbearing skill by Michelle Pfeiffer) and her daughter, Amber, the show's reigning "Miss Teenage Hairspray," a nasty nemesis . Joining forces with her Afro-American friends, especially Motormouth Maybelle (Queen Latifah) and dancer Seaweed (Elijah Kelly), she works for equal time on the dance floor.

`Hairspray' is set as perfect entertainment. John Travolta provides likable loopiness as Nikki's mother while he dances and cross-dresses his way into our hearts. The villains are nasty enough, and the sweetness pervades even amongst important demonstrations on key social issues. When it all comes down to balance, 'Hairspray' fills the bill.

After working on the Amanda Show on the First Season as Lobster #2, the show is HOT!!!! I still love tuning into the NICKELODEON channel and watching.

Amanda Bynes is nothing less than Super and all of the cast was so great. That is why this show deserves a ***** rating.

Love it,

Tom Huben

Among the current crop of female child actresses already or about to turn into hot properties for their impressive talent and major sex symbols for their knock-out looks is Amanda Bynes. Its an impressive class that includes the names Keira Knightley, Lindsay Lohan, Hilary Duff and Kristen Bell. But Bynes is one actress who has already reached television stardom through her shows "The Amanda Show" and "What I Like About You" and at the age of 16 she traveled to Europe to appear in a movie appropriately titled "American Girl."

Before it was released (in early 2003) its title had been changed to "What a Girl Wants" and I sat there in a movie theater knowing little about it. I knew it had been filmed in my home country and starred Colin Firth who had been so good in "Bridget Jones' Diary," I came away impressed by the comic timing and the looks of an actress that would obviously in years-to-come set movie screens on fire.

"What a Girl Wants" is at its heart a story about a girl searching to find herself. Bynes plays Daphne Reynolds and her mother Libby is played by Mrs. John Travolta (Kelly Preston). The two live in New York City and Daphne spends her time helping out at weddings where her mother is a singer and longing to know a father she has never met. It is observing the father-daughter dance at one of these weddings (where the filmakers used real fathers and daughters) that our hearts go out to Daphne and she determines a drastic plan of action - traveling to London and confronting her absent father.

The movie has it all - heart, laughter, suspense, romance. Its culture clash theme has been done before and better (Crocodile Dundee for example) but we have so much emotion invested in Daphne's plight that we cannot help but become engrossed in this movie.

Jonathon Pryce proves that his villainous turn in "Tomorrow Never Dies" was no fluke by pulling out a great performance here as the political advisor of Daphne's father (Firth). Thing is, Firth's character -Henry - is running for political office and Pryce sees Daphne as a liability to his boss' career and her presence an obstacle to his becoming father-in-law to the wealthy and politically powerful Henry.

This DVD has an impressive number of special features, the crown jewels of which are the two scene specific audio commentaries, one by Bynes and the second by the director and two writers.

I Liked how the subtitles automatically come up when commentaries are playing. If you have only seen it once it helps keep track of where you are in movie.

Light, fluffy, exuberant Amanda Bynes chats about working with the other actors, and how intimidated she was by some of the people she worked with. In her commentary she mentions how the weather was when a scene was shot - it was hot, hunid, raining etc

Obviously Bynes has a great deal of respect for Firth and Preston and almost inevitably Bynes spends a lot of time talking about clothes - big boots when hopping over the wall, commenting on how ugly the dress to a ball is etc. Bynes literally coos over emotional moments.

Hers is a fun commentary, but there are some gaps. I liked the recounting of anecdotal moments such as her account of being mobbed by fans on bridge that crew could not get permission to close for shooting.

On the second commentary director Dennie Gordon joined by the two writers Jenny Bicks and Elizabeth Chandler (the Amazon listing is incorrect in identifying them as actors). As one might expect this is more technical in details and as such serves as a nice contrast to Bynes solo track. The writers discuss such matters as how long they worked on it, the original inspiration and discuss different titles (the original title "American Girl" is mentioned on both tracks). The director talks about how wonderful the actors are and seems particularly pleased with Bynes performance.

Overall this is a very enjoyable family film and a great DVD package.

Soccer-playing Viola (Bynes) is really upset when the girls' soccer team is cut. The boys' team does not want any girls on it, so Viola decides to impersonate her brother Sebastian (Kirk), who conveniently is starting a new school where he is unknown. He is also skipping out of the first weeks of school in order to pursue a musical career in Europe. Being Sebastian, she can play soccer, and maybe even get some revenge on her own school's team.

Everything is going well for Viola until she falls in love with her roommate (Tatum). Of course, he is interested in Olivia (Ramsey), and Olivia has got her eye on Viola. The only thing that could make things more complicated for Viola is if her brother were to come home early. And he does.

"She's the Man" is loosly based on William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", and works pretty well. The majority of this film's success is due to Amanda Bynes as Viola. While never really looking like a guy, she has the enthusiasm and screen presence to make this an enjoyable film. Although aimed primarily at the teen audience, others will find enjoyment in it too.