“Loser” – Writer-director Amy Heckerling’s (“Clueless”) latest effort is a romantic comedy that falls firmly into the category of “cute movie” rather than “dumb movie” by doing a lot of little things right. (Also, it doesn’t hurt to have the utterly adorable Mena Suvari in a lead role.) Jason Biggs stars as Paul, a small-town nice guy struggling to keep his grades up in his freshman year at NYU when he meets Dora (Suvari), who is sleeping with her scummy English professor (Greg Kinnear) and searching for a new job. Paul is so nice, Dora is so sweet and the prof is so sleazy that the ending is inevitable, yet the charms of these two characters just trying to survive college overrides any feelings of manipulation. “Loser” stands out with memorable dialogue (Paul: “Sometimes when someone is trying to tell you something they’re trying to tell you something”) and earthy cinematography that makes us forget we’re in a theater watching something scripted. A
– John Hansen, NDSU Spectrum, Sept. 8, 2000