Adventureland

Alright, now I'm more up to date and almost caught up with everything I've seen in the theater recently.  Now I get to write about Adventureland, which I saw last week and is another great addition to a great year so far in movies.  First and foremost, the trailers totally misrepresented the movie as some kind of teen comedy, just like Superbad.  Instead, Jesse Eisenberg's character, James, is in a very similar position i will be in a couple of months - a college graduate with a not-so-lucrative liberal arts degree.  When he has to get a summer job, his degree does not even help for entry-level positions.  While my nervousness ambiguous position about graduate school and my future is more of a self-inflicted problem than Jesse's, which is more a product of circumstance, I definitely related to this movie in that sense.  How often do you see a movie about the exact same brief moment in life that you are experiencing.  It definitely feels like my Graduate.  Maybe that's a bit hyperbolic, but that's how I feel. Mottola, based this mostly on his own experiences, and shot and captured it well.

   Adventureland is very moody and awkward at times.  There is definitely a lot of comedy as well as romance, which are both executed well, but there is always a darker, more moody feel to it.  While that was all great, notably Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig's hilarious performance as well as the always awesome Martin Starr, I was most interested in Jesse's development and his experience in this weird moment in life.  I don't know, it was just very personal to me and just got the feelings of both fear and anticipation and the awkwardness in between.  Jesse Brennan is definitely more ambitious a character with his shit together than myself, but the themes and mood of the movie struck a chord with me.  All in all, it has a very John Hughes meets the Graduate feel, with a style and heart all Mottola's own.  

There's so many different things to enjoy and get out of this movie.  It's a personal, interesting take on the "coming of age" genre.  It's as funny as any comedy out without losing its seriousness.  It challenges American masculine ideals.  It takes an interesting look at relationships, family and friendships.  Hell, it does a great job of exploring the dynamic of an attachment to a shitty job, because of the people you meet and interact with and the possibilities of being thrust from college into a new and different social setting.  I hope I've sold you because movies like this need to keep getting made and unfortunately, Adventureland is not doing great at the box office.  So my hat's off to Greg Motttola and go see it!