Aventureland

[A Boy Named Seo]

Getting lots of nice reviews from Sundance.

The story of a Dominican ballplayer trying to make in American pro baseball.

IMDB.

Review.

Might be hard to find, but might be worth the look.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Lovesick college kid takes amusement park job in summer of 1987. Hijiinx ensue.

Punched me in the face, it did. Then again I was a lovesick college kid in 1987, looking for hijinx.

[Edgy MD]

Here I was just coming to this forum to say, "I saw Adventureland a few days ago, and it's high time I put up a poll."

Thanks for doing the heavy lifting.

I'm caught between seven and eight.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Yeah, baseball season is ending for me and movie season is just starting. 2 a week through April if I'm lucky.

A lot of little moments in this flick were very real to me, some weren't. The SATIN LIVES graffiti had to have been "ripped from the headlines" of the Ricky Kasso (?) murder of '84: That was like a message to me. The whole "getting into a fight and winding up with the wrong girl on the same night" episode happened to me in a different setting that very summer. I saw half a dozen characters I thought I knew back then in this flick. On the other hand the pinball machines the chick played was impossibly dated even for 1987: I know it reflected the mom-and-pop nature of the setting, but those things were antiques even then. I wanted to see FUNHOUSE.

I have some of the same issues with this though as I had with 'Juno' in that there was an overblown effort to make the protagonists cool through t-shirt-y associations with popular culture (not to mention an awfully familiar frame romance between abnormally chivalrous guy with indycool chick -- one that happens to have a thing for a flawed married guy with vague rocknroll connections, at that. Not that an entire group of kids didn't or couldn't like Lou Reed in 1987, just that it was a little too thick to ring true. Many of the music choices rung true including a pitch for a deciding vote in the INXS poll that closes it.

And of course it ended pretty much as you knew it would. But other than that, lotta laughs, some whacks in the face, sweet fairytale at heart. Don't change for me.

Edited September 5, 2009 by Guest

[Guest sharpie]

I saw it in the theaters and liked it. Surprised that it didn't do very well.

[Edgy MD]

Just wrote a giant-assed review and had it deleted by that h-t-t-p thingie. Fuck me.

[TransMonk]

Rented it last week. Thought it would be funnier than it was. In my mind it turned out to be a long romantic flick with characters that I didn't really care about.

Nice soundtrack, though.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

I've liked the Eisenberg kid since "Squid and the Whale," the music-- as others have said-- is pretty much note-perfect, and a whole lot more of it works (Ryan Reynolds as cad, the chemistry between the leads, the Kristen Stewart) than doesn't (the SNL refugees' goofiness sits a little oddly amongst the ostensibly-natural vibe of everything else).

I didn't think this was NEARLY as t-shitty as "Juno," though. (I'm pretty sure that Diablo Cody doesn't see people when she sees the world... only billboard space for one-liners.)

The part of me that's eternally hoisting a boombox outside an ex's window gives this one 10 stars. I'll go 8ish.

[A Boy Named Seo]

I thought I created a thread for this flick a while back, too. Admins, we might need a new sub-forum.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I suck, sorry. As with the Sugar fukup, the search didn't return pre-revamp results.

[Frayed Knot]

I didn't really have a problem with the cool chick digs the shy dork plot line. I mean, yeah, like she'd ever give me the time of day but there was enough damage going on elsewhere in her life that wanting to hang with a "normal" guy made it at least a plausible device.

In all it started a bit slow but I got into it. Like Sharpie said, nice little flick. Probably wasn't more popular due to lack of the Apatow-ness now expected from teen romance flicks.



I looked up Margarita Levieva (the one who played 'Lisa P') on IMDB because ... well, because why not!?!
born: 1985 St Petersburg, Russia. A member of the Russian Olympic Rhythmic Gymnastic team - although attended HS in New Jersey.

[A Boy Named Seo]

I think two movies got mashed up in this thread.

[Vic Sage]

Finally caught up with this one and I liked it alot. And yes, it's part of that post-modern coming of age JUNO subgenre.
And for some, that's not a bad thing.

i try to define the subgenre's elements here:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=8008

also:

Probably wasn't more popular due to lack of the Apatow-ness now expected from teen romance flicks.

that's ironic, since one of my favorite characters is the bespectacled russian lit nerd pal, who i first saw in Apatow's classic cult sitcom FREAKS & GEEKS, which i'm now watching on IFC.

[Edgy MD]

How did these two films get mashed?