You can definitely watch Clueless today as a perfect time capsule of 1990s culture, or as a satire of Hollywood rich kids like Paris Hilton et al., but I think it stands to gain a lot from combining and comparing it with its source material, Jane Austen's Emma. First, it helps explain some of the more iffy elements in Clueless (a 15-year-old's potential romance with her college-age former stepbrother), and second, the parallels are just so damn fun to draw! Watching Clueless in isolation, you wouldn't think it would have THAT much in common with Emma, but plot, style, characters are poached wholesale and translated into the '90s high school environment (class warfare? that's where it starts!), but through rewrites (presumably), it becomes its own (still surprisingly literate) animal and isn't slavish to the book either. And man, Alicia Silverstone is resplendent in this. If you were there in the mid-90s, she was one of the biggest upcoming stars. Looking at this, it seems incredible that though she was in a number of movies around this time, she didn't end up with more sustained stardom.

This movie is just so quotable. :)

Surprisingly great teen chick flick, with enough wit, venom and intellegnce for guys to enjoy. See also; Heathers Mean Girls and Easy A.