Nice and polite if not exactly bright, in writer/director Zach Golden's dry 1960s set comedy The Escape of Prisoner 614, the two deputies of the Shandaken Sheriff's Department (played by Martin Starr and Jake McDorman) spend their days acting out fake surrenders in the woods and eating for free in the local diner.
After they're fired by their intimidating superior (Ron Perlman) for their total lack of arrests and discover that life without a badge means they actually have to pay for their meals, the two vow to impress the sheriff enough to get their old jobs back by tracking down a recent prison escapee (George Sample III).
A stellar short film masquerading as a disappointing feature-length endeavor, while the idiotic Three Stooges by way of O Brother, Where Art Thou? style escapades of Prisoner's main characters prove amusing enough for the film's first act, Golden's tonally awkward work starts to run out of ideas before we've even reached the halfway point.
But just when you've begun to write the film off (like the friend I was watching it with who bowed out during its meandering second act), Prisoner finds a way to rebound thanks to a thrillingly original O. Henryesque conclusion.
Undeniably talented as a writer, although Golden still needs to work on pacing and tone, his inventive banter is bolstered by Prisoner's terrific cast of character actors.
Never once giving into the ridiculousness of the goings-on by hamming it up for the camera, the crackerjack chemistry of scene-stealers Starr and McDorman helps sell the nonsense right from the start. Unfortunately for Prisoner however, acting can only go so far and Golden's work is in need of both a stronger plot and character arc to successfully carry the film from start to finish.
And while it's hard to recommend as a mainstream comedy overall, film students interested in writing and editing (and particularly those with an interest in short filmmaking) might want to give Prisoner a look to weigh its pros, cons, as well as evaluate what the feature-length film got right, and what – as a short – it didn't need to get wrong.
In the race to make our lives easier with their own tech, start-ups, apps, and lines of code, a group of young men make their own lives ridiculously complex while navigating the tricky terrain of the titular Silicon Valley in HBO's ingenious Emmy nominated hit.
Yet rather than focus a majority of its energies on laughter with a more immediate punchline payoff on par with the "us vs. them" approach taken by network television’s smash sitcom The Big Bang Theory, Silicon Valley makes us feel like a fellow conspiratorial member of underdog compression start-up Pied Piper's team throughout.
Operating like well-oiled comedic machines, while each technique serves their respective series well, it nonetheless provides an important distinction between two frequently compared programs. And when it comes to the HBO show, it's one that makes us feel far more invested in the in the goings-on of the stressful environment where with each laugh, we stumble a little further down the path of our slow uphill climb to the top of Silicon Valley.
Fueled by conflict and chaos, the second season of Silicon Valley burns through as much plot in one half hour episode than ABC's sudsy watercooler drama Scandal does in double the running time and twice as many episodes.
And while it's all played for fast-talking, fast-walking thrills in the arena of politics on ABC, the high stakes threats of lawsuits, bidding wars, and reverse engineering woes are no less compelling, despite Valley's laid back demeanor and witty presentation.
But similar to the way that the average consumer isn't going to understand what it takes to make a computer run besides simply relishing in the end result, casual viewers aren't going to give Valley a deeper thought the first time around other than just kicking back for some much-needed Sunday night laughs.
And that's precisely what makes taking a second and closer look at the stellar second season all the more exciting as within the first few minutes of the Emmy nominated season opener, patterns begin to emerge as you realize just how frequently throughout Valley, flickers of what will become some of its strongest subplots are woven into seemingly throwaway exchanges several episodes in advance.
Namely, just like a stand up comedian will often close out their act with a punchline that harks back to one of the first jokes they made in the set, one of the most impressive feats of Silicon Valley's most recent
season is in the way that the final cliffhanger in the season finale alludes to a warning given to our main character in the opening sequence of the season premiere.
Obviously, of course, the layering in or foreshadowing of a plot twist that will pay off later on is hardly a new tactic in comedy or drama alike. But when you also consider the countless ways that Valley moves beyond the traditional juggling of an A, B, and C storyline each week without letting you forget the half dozen other characters potentially working against Pied Piper that could come out of the woodwork at any time, you begin to realize just how structurally sophisticated it is all around.
In addition to bringing in some terrific new supporting players to challenge the Pied Piper team in the ten episode second season, Silicon Valley's talented writers built upon the foundation they'd crafted in the first season to likewise enrich each individual preexisting character.
As such, season two is at its best when it pins its ensemble cast into a corner and the forces the guys to rely both on their own intellectual creativity as well as each other to turn things around.
Moving past the limitations of watching antagonists Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani) and Gilfoyle (Martin Starr) simply try to one-up each other, the series soon realizes how staggeringly funny the two are as (albeit combative) allies, particularly in scripter Carrie Kemper's season highlight episode, "Homicide.”
While Zach Woods remains one of my favorite bright spots as Jared, the selfless teddy bear often overlooked by the rest of the group, one of the smartest things the writing staff did was to expand upon the persona of Freaks and Geeks and Party Down sitcom veteran (and frequent series scene-stealer) Martin Starr's sardonically deadpan Gilfoyle.
Knowing that they have an ace in the hole with Starr, Silicon makes him Pied Piper's secret weapon in season two as he instigates some ethically shady outside-the-box thinking that pushes the troubled start-up in some surprising directions for better and worse.
In addition to giving T.J. Miller’s larger-than-life Erlich Bachman a foil in the sleazy entrepreneur Ross Hanneman (Chris Diamantopoulos) – a rumored extreme composite of Donald Trump and Mark Cuban – which by extension helps soften some of Erlich's often tasteless edges, the series offers Amanda Crew’s delightful Monica a few more great female personalities to play off of as a straight (wo)man and potential romantic interest for Richard (Thomas Middleditch).
Although attempting to fill the shoes left behind by the death of first rate character actor Christopher Evan Welch who played oddball visionary Peter Gregory is an impossibly thankless task, casting Suzanne Cryer as Laurie Bream, another (yet decidedly different) oddball was one of the best behind-the-scenes decisions made by the comedy so far.
Going from over-the-top crass to conceptual to cultural, the series (created by Mike Judge, John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky) culls comedy and conflict from any number of sources, which makes it compulsively watchable for its sheer unpredictability alone.
Deriving some of its most relatable laughs from the stresses of work and everyday life from a precarious phone battery to income rivalry, in addition to skewering the tech industry, Silicon Valley makes a worthy successor to co-creator Mike Judge's word-of-mouth breakthrough hit, Office Space.
Yet while it plays extremely well on its own as a highly entertaining sitcom, HBO's most consistently inventive, topical series is even better when you break down the method behind the madly funny code – reverse engineering the laughs to better appreciate what makes this tech comedy tick.
Filmmaking as an act of creative rebellion – first time feature writer/director Sean Mullin's Amira & Sam is as sweetly earnest as it is achingly wise.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, "character is plot" and "plot is character," and Amira & Sam adheres to that adage from the very beginning, building off of its two gorgeously acted (particularly by Silicon Valley scene-stealer Martin Starr in a beautiful turn that's totally against his often comedic type) and richly written characters without wasting a single scene.
An existential coming-of-age movie disguised as a romance, the film is centered around Martin Starr's titular Sam, a hardworking, prideful, and quick-witted Green Beret who is stunned to discover that life during wartime makes even less sense in the states than it did overseas, upon returning to his New York home.
Set seven years in the past, back in 2008 at the start of the Kardashian craze, when Facebook was still friending, the economy was on the brink of collapse and Twilight infected teens with vampire fever, Amira & Sam is a far cry from typical tales of postwar woe.
More humanistic than melodramatic, Mullin's movie emphasizes emotional authenticity over Hollywoodized tragedy, steering clear of the stereotypes and contrived plot points that have saturated post-war PTSD narratives of soldier coming home stories since the 1940s without sugarcoating a damn thing.
And this approach is evident right from the start in a brilliantly written introduction to our male lead which finds him being treated like a second class citizen by the crass party boys of Wall Street.
Fired by an overly apologetic boss after giving his bullies a brief lesson in humility, the film makes it repeatedly clear that Sam is challenged less by what he's been through during multiple tours of duty in the past than by his need to decide just what he'd like to do in the future.
More specifically, Sam struggles to figure out both his own identity as well as where he belongs in a post 9/11 society that's struggling to do the same in a subplot that gradually usurps everything else when he encounters a fellow outsider from the Middle East in the form of actress Dina Shihabi's Amira.
The beautiful, headstrong niece of an army translator that the now fluent in Arabic Sam had befriended in Iraq (played by Laith Nakli), Amira is initially wary of his military background.
After she gets into trouble with the authorities and is threatened with deportation, Sam makes a promise to her uncle to keep Amira safe and hidden until he can drive her to stay with another relative in the Midwest.
A critically acclaimed hit on the festival circuit – given the central theme of two outsiders who find a kindred spirit in one another, the film has been frequently compared to Richard Linklater's likeminded strangers turned would-be lovers by chance contemporary Gen X classic Before Sunrise (which also spawned two sequels in Before Sunset and Before Midnight).
And while it is easily reminiscent of that picture as well as the 2011 indie sleeper Stuck Between Stations (which revolves around a soldier on leave who crosses paths with the girl he’s had a crush on for years), Sam's roots go back even further.
Of course, it harks back to the freewheeling walk-and-talk French New Wave films made by Éric Rohmer (whose work obviously influenced Linklater). But at its heart, Amira & Sam feels like a direct descendant of Vincente Minnelli's bittersweet WWII love story The Clock to such an extent that I feel it would be intriguing to watch them back-to-back as a double feature given their comparisons and contrasts about love and war.
Visually it pays tribute to Manhattan and other New York stories. However, it’s weightier than Linklater's film and Woody Allen's romances given both its illegal immigration/deportation plotline focusing on Amira as well as an intelligently handled crisis of conscience after Sam finds himself caught in between ethics and family duty when his closest cousin (Paul Wesley) enlists him in a hedge fund scheme that may not be as clear cut as it seems.
Needless to say, Amira & Sam has an awful lot on its mind for what one may be tempted to classify solely as a romance.
And while the penultimate act seems a bit rushed, the sensitive portrayals, thoughtful writing, and character dominant plotlines ensure that when the conflicts arise, they feel organic rather than melodramatic or too conveniently manufactured.
Admirably and rather remarkably for a feature filmmaking debut, it avoids caricature or easy outs particularly when it comes to the evolution of Sam's dealings with his cousin or a Vietnam veteran he encounters of whom he fears he may have inadvertently taken advantage.
Amira & Sam might end on an upbeat note right out of its heroine's favorite romantic comedies but the world and the individuals who reside within Mullin's impressively crafted landscape never strike us as anything less than genuine, three dimensional, and relatably complex.
Lovingly transferred to Blu-ray high definition from Drafthouse Films and Cinedigm, complete with a bevy of bonus features as well as a digital copy to download or stream, Mullin's independent crowd-pleaser is also available on DVD and digital download.
A refreshing spin on the solider’s story subgenre that avoids easy classification (in the spirit of its winning leads), Mullin’s character driven effort crosses borders and boundaries, taking us on an unexpected journey that I’m sure more viewers will love to explore.
Hindered by a poor marketing campaign-- not to mention the fact that Kristen Stewart's target Twilight demographic most likely hadn't been born when this 1980s set film takes place-- I for one am hoping that Adventureland will reach a wider audience with its recent debut on Miramax DVD and Blu-ray.
Released under the banner of Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment that consistently delivers quality in their multipack more bang for your buck Blu-ray releases, the image quality is amazingly clear. And perhaps in the case of Adventureland, it may actually be guilty of being a little too clear for some of the young "in need of Clearasil" cast-mates-- as every individual hair to every individual wrinkle in the dull t-shirts sported by the amusement park employees fills your widescreen enhanced television in 1080 pixels.
While initially I wasn't sure this was a film that would necessarily require the Blu-ray release since it was designed with such a retro feel and purposely cheesy setting of the rigged amusement park, I was pleasantly proven wrong. In my recent viewing of the work in Blu, some of the sequences featuring fireworks over the water, leaves, and the park at night simply dazzle.
Furthermore, since the film was meant to be sort of like a pop song given its intriguing musical choices such as "Pale Blue Eyes" which plays at a key moment in a bummer mix tape that a character makes for another, I'm pleased to say that the sound balance was completed to a dynamic effect of not overpowering the dialogue with the music yet ensuring that we get the impact of the songs selected.
Chronicling the semi-autobiographical tale and its journey to the screen, writer/director Greg Mottola discusses how he found the cast as well as precisely the right vintage park they needed in the main making-of-featurette. And one of the most intriguing things the filmmaker addresses overall were the challenges of making a naturalistic movie set in the '80s that would give off a distinctly "you are here vibe" instead of turning it into a joke or satire.
To this end and to my line of thinking, he tunes the movie's screenplay like a guitar in order to ensure the arc of the characters (some of whom are composites of real people etc.) maximize the sense of losing their idealism and the idea of "selling out" in the decade of the yuppie even though the group of employees aren't necessarily yuppies.
And sure enough, Mottola has created a movies which on closer inspection reminds me of that decade's master John Hughes in ensuring that it blends humor with melancholy and makes every single person in the cast three-dimensional. For example, it would've been far too easy to create a sultry character like the park's coveted Lisa P. and just turn her into "the easy girl" or the movie's equivalent of a spoiled princess similar to the way that Ryan Reynolds' character who reveals unlikable levels soon into the film may have been just a manipulative jerk if handled by anyone else.
While I won't bore you with cinematic analysis since the film has already been reviewed on Film Intuition (which I've included below for your convenience), the Blu-ray continues to impress with extra material. Giving viewers the opportunity to take advantage of the Mac and PC compatible Digital Copy feature, the disc also includes audio commentary with Mottola and Jesse Eisenberg, picture music selection control to play select songs, and three Blu-ray exclusive extras such as character based bonuses like "Lisa P.'s Guide to Style," "Frigo's Ball Tap," and faux employee orientation videos and commercials in the "Welcome to Adventureland" section of the disc.
However, while usually deleted scenes feel like an unwanted addition since they either repeat material or contain jokes that fell flat, aside from one that fits the first reason with Ryan Reynolds and Jesse Eisenberg, the other two relish in the humor of Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader. Therefore, these extras can't be missed and of the three "Angry Grandfather" is not only a standout but it's also one of the funniest scenes in or out of the film, not to mention one that thanks to Miramax, you're able to briefly explore in our Video Screening Room by clicking here.
Overall, it's an impressive Blu-ray with an excellent transfer that only solidifies Mottola's goal to have you feel like you're part of the experience. The film is enhanced by the transfer's sharpness and emphasis on close-ups that make us feel at times that we're tiptoeing on some very private and real moments. Moreover,Adventureland is one of the most impressive films about that transitional period between college and adulthood released so far in 2009 and it would additionally make a solid double feature alongside Fox Searchlight's (500) Days of Summer. While many missed it on the big screen, it's worth tracking down now that the theme park can be experienced in the comfort of your own home.
I spent this past weekend striving for fun diversions to entertain my visiting pre-kindergarten age niece and nephew. And after the obligatory trips to parks, McDonald's, children's museums, and Chuck E. Cheese-- we hit a local small-scale amusement park geared for youngsters who haven’t quite reached the age of the wild roller coasters and tilt-a-whirls.
Of course, the first order of business was to guarantee that the kids were the requisite height to relish in their three minutes of fun at two tickets a piece. But after the process of ensuring that all hands and feet were strapped inside each individual ride at the best angles for photos as they whisked by in toy planes and cars, I found myself equally fascinated by the employees of the local park as I was by its young attendees.
As a writer, I've always been overly observant and in fact annoyingly so as seldom a day goes by that my brain isn't working over time imagining what’s occurring just opposite me as I watch a couple at a restaurant or a man at a bus stop. Yet this particular interest in the diligent yet admittedly less than thrilled and some downright apathetic but on-task staff members running everything from the cheesy ring toss games to the carousel was most likely inspired by a recent press screening of writer/director Greg Mottola’s Adventureland.
Coming off the heels of his wildly popular Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen collaboration Superbad starring Michael Cera, on the surface it can be very easy to mistake Adventureland with Superbad. And this is especially true given not only its advertising and youthful appeal but also the fact that its lead actor Jesse Eisenberg (Rodger Dodger, The Hunting Party, The Squid and the Whale) could essentially serve as a mile-a-minute, sensitive and self-deprecating, charmingly awkward brother from another mother version of Superbad’s Michael Cera (Arrested Development, Juno, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist).
Yet, the recurring comment voiced by those exiting the theatre of Adventureland was precisely that it was not what a majority of the Arizona press expected going in. Basically, they assumed it would have much more in common with Superbad and the Apatow and Mottola television series Undeclared than it did with the film that first acquainted me with the writer/director—the Slamdance award winning Hope Davis and Stanley Tucci indie relationship ensemble piece, The Daytrippers which as Jason Geurrasio reported in indieWire is sadly “unavailable on DVD due to legal issues.”
Although it's been advertised and billed as though it were a 1980s era cousin to Superbad, Adventureland manages to put human comedy, pathos, melancholy, the double-edged sword of moving from post-graduate life to adulthood (with its combination of freedom mixed together with the terror of “what next?”) front and center. Impressively it does this by taking a bittersweet approach to the material that is wonderfully astute, surprising, and instantly relatable especially to those who remember the year of “Rock Me Amadeus” a.k.a. 1987 all too well.
Download the Soundtrack on iTunes
Fighting the urge of producers and studios whose inclination to move Adventureland to a contemporary setting since as Mottola told Guerrasio, “they didn't think young people would want to see a movie referencing another generation”—while the critical and box office success of Superbad helped ensure that “the money came fairly quickly,” the real fight came in Mottola’s conviction “to convince people to make the film as it was written.”
The semi-autobiographical and fast-paced quirky period piece, which Mottola penned “in the spirit of the short story,” started after a creative light bulb went off on the set of Undeclared as he and others tossed around tales about their lackluster first jobs. In addition to a great conversational topic, Mottola realized that he had a lot to go on from his own experience employed “in a Long Island amusement park while going to Columbia University in the late 1980s,” as the Miramax press release reveals.
Welcoming,what Mottola viewed as essentially a “therapeutic” opportunity to include “some of his influences, like his favorite boyhood bands the Velvet Underground, Violent Femmes and Talking Heads and films like Fellini’s ‘I, Vitelloni,’” he crafted this tale about Eisenberg’s recent, extremely bright college graduate who gets the shock of a lifetime following life in the suburban bubble. Fitting not only for the past but the present, his bubble bursts when he realizes his father has lost his a good deal of his salary during the economic hardship evidenced during the Reagan administration.
Unable to venture through what he hoped would be the ultimate coming-of-age abroad experience of backpacking through European hostels--he realizes instead that his liberal arts degree hasn’t prepared him with much “on-the-job” experience in the real world. Needing to find a job -- any job -- to cover the tuition for Columbia graduate school, Eisenberg’s James Brennan finds he’s just the right man for the gig at the local self-dubbed “funtastic” Pennsylvania amusement park, Adventureland. However, his new, overly eager employers Kristin Wiig (Ghost Town) and Bill Hader (Tropic Thunder, Pineapple Express) only seem interested in the fact that he’s an applicant with a pulse.
Despite this, he isn’t given the much coveted assignment being in charge of rides like the legendary amusement park hottie Lisa P. Yet once he is pushed in the right direction to use a ridiculous amount of enthusiasm while operating games that are consistently rigged so that nobody will ever win the highly desired and expensive “giant ass panda” prize, things for James begin looking up when he finds a kindred spirit in the worldly, intelligent, and adorable Em (What Just Happened, In the Land of Women, and Twilight’s Kristen Stewart).
Stewart-- who just keeps getting better with each successive role following her breakthrough performance opposite Jodie Foster in David Fincher's Panic Room—is far more alive here playing a much older character than she was in the uninviting Twilight. Likewise, in her sweet, unassuming, casual way she manages to navigate the rocky terrain of heartache balancing the possibility of a new relationship with James while reconciling a beyond-just-friends complication with the married, older, musician janitor Ryan Reynolds (perfectly playing against that gentle Boy Scout-like role we fell in love with in Definitely, Maybe).
It’s this interpretation that seemed to have its roots in both Kate Hudson’s supporting role in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous and most likely the film that had inspired that one via Shirley MacLaine's impressive turn in Billy Wilder's Oscar winner The Apartment. Moreover, it's Stewart’s ability to add another layer to what could easily have been an underwritten role that gives Adventureland an unexpected heart that sneaks up on you as the film which begins with the promise of a gag-a-minute suddenly evolves into an exploration of as Mottola notes to Miramax, the type of film that “fits into this very small genre of stories that are about the worst summer ever turning into one of the most transformative experiences of your life.”
Filled with a tremendous ‘80s soundtrack (and way too many opportunities for “Rock Me Amadeus” which is nicely balanced out by an atypical musical decision to instead emphasize ‘70s era Lou Reed and Violent Femmes), Adventureland is Mottola’s cinematic attempt to craft a work that would feel like a pop song in the way that makes you think twice about “the emotions the characters are going through [which] might seem incredibly commonplace, almost superficial.”
While, to some the movie seemed like a harmless trifle or a forgetful piece of cinematic cotton candy, upon closer inspection, I was deeply impressed by his complete respect and understanding of the characters depicted as—much like a pop song, Mottola argued that, “at the same time, these things are enormously powerful when you're going through them. Finding your first love, losing that person, being disappointed, being deeply disillusioned by love, gaining an understanding of what intimacy actually requires -- these things have this huge effect of your life.”
Although it won’t strike the same Superbad chord with the core demographic the advertisers are shooting for in its campaign, much like last year’s overlooked intelligent charmer Charlie Bartlett, Adventureland is one that manages—despite its more than twenty year old setting—to tap right into the same ageless emotions we all experience in a way we don’t normally see being addressed with this level of articulation, introspection, humor, and respect for the age group it’s representing.
Or in other words, next time you’re at a cheap amusement park, look a little closer at the kid trying desperately to avoid handing out those “giant ass pandas." In doing so, perhaps you'll see the ambition, frustration, and yearning in their eyes as they tear our tickets and remind us to keep our children’s hands and feet inside the car at all times to sit back and enjoy the ride as hopefully they will once they venture out of the park and into the real world.
I spent this past weekend striving for fun diversions to entertain my visiting pre-kindergarten age niece and nephew. And after the obligatory trips to parks, McDonald's, children's museums, and Chuck E. Cheese-- we hit a local small-scale amusement park geared for youngsters who haven’t quite reached the age of the wild roller coasters and tilt-a-whirls.
Of course, the first order of business was to guarantee that the kids were the requisite height to relish in their three minutes of fun at two tickets a piece. But after the process of ensuring that all hands and feet were strapped inside each individual ride at the best angles for photos as they whisked by in toy planes and cars, I found myself equally fascinated by the employees of the local park as I was by its young attendees.
As a writer, I've always been overly observant and in fact annoyingly so as seldom a day goes by that my brain isn't working over time imagining what’s occurring just opposite me as I watch a couple at a restaurant or a man at a bus stop. Yet this particular interest in the diligent yet admittedly less than thrilled and some downright apathetic but on-task staff members running everything from the cheesy ring toss games to the carousel was most likely inspired by a recent press screening of writer/director Greg Mottola’s Adventureland.
Coming off the heels of his wildly popular Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen collaboration Superbad starring Michael Cera, on the surface it can be very easy to mistake Adventureland with Superbad. And this is especially true given not only its advertising and youthful appeal but also the fact that its lead actor Jesse Eisenberg (Rodger Dodger, The Hunting Party, The Squid and the Whale) could essentially serve as a mile-a-minute, sensitive and self-deprecating, charmingly awkward brother from another mother version of Superbad’s Michael Cera (Arrested Development, Juno, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist).
Yet, the recurring comment voiced by those exiting the theatre of Adventureland was precisely that it was not what a majority of the Arizona press expected going in. Basically, they assumed it would have much more in common with Superbad and the Apatow and Mottola television series Undeclared than it did with the film that first acquainted me with the writer/director—the Slamdance award winning Hope Davis and Stanley Tucci indie relationship ensemble piece, The Daytrippers which as Jason Geurrasio reported in indieWire is sadly “unavailable on DVD due to legal issues.”
Although it's been advertised and billed as though it were a 1980s era cousin to Superbad, Adventureland manages to put human comedy, pathos, melancholy, the double-edged sword of moving from post-graduate life to adulthood (with its combination of freedom mixed together with the terror of “what next?”) front and center. Impressively it does this by taking a bittersweet approach to the material that is wonderfully astute, surprising, and instantly relatable especially to those who remember the year of “Rock Me Amadeus” a.k.a. 1987 all too well.
Download the Soundtrack on iTunes
Fighting the urge of producers and studios whose inclination to move Adventureland to a contemporary setting since as Mottola told Guerrasio, “they didn't think young people would want to see a movie referencing another generation”—while the critical and box office success of Superbad helped ensure that “the money came fairly quickly,” the real fight came in Mottola’s conviction “to convince people to make the film as it was written.”
The semi-autobiographical and fast-paced quirky period piece, which Mottola penned “in the spirit of the short story,” started after a creative light bulb went off on the set of Undeclared as he and others tossed around tales about their lackluster first jobs. In addition to a great conversational topic, Mottola realized that he had a lot to go on from his own experience employed “in a Long Island amusement park while going to Columbia University in the late 1980s,” as the Miramax press release reveals.
Welcoming,what Mottola viewed as essentially a “therapeutic” opportunity to include “some of his influences, like his favorite boyhood bands the Velvet Underground, Violent Femmes and Talking Heads and films like Fellini’s ‘I, Vitelloni,’” he crafted this tale about Eisenberg’s recent, extremely bright college graduate who gets the shock of a lifetime following life in the suburban bubble. Fitting not only for the past but the present, his bubble bursts when he realizes his father has lost his a good deal of his salary during the economic hardship evidenced during the Reagan administration.
Unable to venture through what he hoped would be the ultimate coming-of-age abroad experience of backpacking through European hostels--he realizes instead that his liberal arts degree hasn’t prepared him with much “on-the-job” experience in the real world. Needing to find a job -- any job -- to cover the tuition for Columbia graduate school, Eisenberg’s James Brennan finds he’s just the right man for the gig at the local self-dubbed “funtastic” Pennsylvania amusement park, Adventureland. However, his new, overly eager employers Kristin Wiig (Ghost Town) and Bill Hader (Tropic Thunder, Pineapple Express) only seem interested in the fact that he’s an applicant with a pulse.
Despite this, he isn’t given the much coveted assignment being in charge of rides like the legendary amusement park hottie Lisa P. Yet once he is pushed in the right direction to use a ridiculous amount of enthusiasm while operating games that are consistently rigged so that nobody will ever win the highly desired and expensive “giant ass panda” prize, things for James begin looking up when he finds a kindred spirit in the worldly, intelligent, and adorable Em (What Just Happened, In the Land of Women, and Twilight’s Kristen Stewart).
Stewart-- who just keeps getting better with each successive role following her breakthrough performance opposite Jodie Foster in David Fincher's Panic Room—is far more alive here playing a much older character than she was in the uninviting Twilight. Likewise, in her sweet, unassuming, casual way she manages to navigate the rocky terrain of heartache balancing the possibility of a new relationship with James while reconciling a beyond-just-friends complication with the married, older, musician janitor Ryan Reynolds (perfectly playing against that gentle Boy Scout-like role we fell in love with in Definitely, Maybe).
It’s this interpretation that seemed to have its roots in both Kate Hudson’s supporting role in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous and most likely the film that had inspired that one via Shirley MacLaine's impressive turn in Billy Wilder's Oscar winner The Apartment. Moreover, it's Stewart’s ability to add another layer to what could easily have been an underwritten role that gives Adventureland an unexpected heart that sneaks up on you as the film which begins with the promise of a gag-a-minute suddenly evolves into an exploration of as Mottola notes to Miramax, the type of film that “fits into this very small genre of stories that are about the worst summer ever turning into one of the most transformative experiences of your life.”
Filled with a tremendous ‘80s soundtrack (and way too many opportunities for “Rock Me Amadeus” which is nicely balanced out by an atypical musical decision to instead emphasize ‘70s era Lou Reed and Violent Femmes), Adventureland is Mottola’s cinematic attempt to craft a work that would feel like a pop song in the way that makes you think twice about “the emotions the characters are going through [which] might seem incredibly commonplace, almost superficial.”
While, to some the movie seemed like a harmless trifle or a forgetful piece of cinematic cotton candy, upon closer inspection, I was deeply impressed by his complete respect and understanding of the characters depicted as—much like a pop song, Mottola argued that, “at the same time, these things are enormously powerful when you're going through them. Finding your first love, losing that person, being disappointed, being deeply disillusioned by love, gaining an understanding of what intimacy actually requires -- these things have this huge effect of your life.”
Although it won’t strike the same Superbad chord with the core demographic the advertisers are shooting for in its campaign, much like last year’s overlooked intelligent charmer Charlie Bartlett, Adventureland is one that manages—despite its more than twenty year old setting—to tap right into the same ageless emotions we all experience in a way we don’t normally see being addressed with this level of articulation, introspection, humor, and respect for the age group it’s representing.
Or in other words, next time you’re at a cheap amusement park, look a little closer at the kid trying desperately to avoid handing out those “giant ass pandas." In doing so, perhaps you'll see the ambition, frustration, and yearning in their eyes as they tear our tickets and remind us to keep our children’s hands and feet inside the car at all times to sit back and enjoy the ride as hopefully they will once they venture out of the park and into the real world.
Walking Movie Encyclopedia at Film Intuition; 3-Time National Award Winning Scribe; Film Reviewer; "Watch With Jen" Podcast Host; Screenwriter; Movie Discussion Host; BA in Film Studies & Communication.
