Adventureland

I've never really been into the whole romantic-teen-comedy-life-transition genre mashup movies, bar a few that are genuinely funny and silly like American Pie and the first half of Superbad before it descends into chaos. But I've had adventureland sitting on my hard drive for a while, purely because it has Kristen Stewart in it, and decided to watch it after wrestling for over 3 hours with Windows last night in an attempt to make a DVD copy of it along with District 9 for people at work. I feel slightly bad not paying for a low-budget indie movie, as it's the main genre of cinema I really support, but frankly i've spent so much on dissapointing cinema this year I don't really feel like stumping up the cash anymore. Hollywood can go take one of those big Ls on the side of that famous hill and shove it so far up her ass that only the horizontal section is visible and she ends up looking like she has a tail, especially after the dismal fayre this year with the likes of Wolverine, Final Destination 4, Tranformers 2, and similar popcorn movies made on millions of dollars where the majority seems to have been spent on either overused CG whizz-bang effects or a mountain of crack and weed for the director and his producer chums. Or both, in the case of TF2. But that's enough of a rant against Holly Wood. I mean Hollywood. Apologies if anyone named Holly Wood reads this, please do not sodomise yourself with 50ft-tall letter.

I don't know what it is about Adventureland that appeals to me (other than the fact it has Kristen Stewart, who also happens to be the only reason twilight is good), maybe it's the slight innocence about it all, the way James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg) is so utterly hopeless with Em Lewin (Kristen Stewart), and the fact it's set in an 80's themepark.

Maybe it's because I see some of myself in James (mainly the innocence and hopeless bits)

Maybe I like the fact Adventureland shows Greg Mottola has grown up and on from Superbad. Thanks to a nice script, gone are the dick-jokes (Bar one, but it's actually vaguely relevant to the scene), gone are the purely joke-based characters, like Seth Rogen and Bill Hader's cops, and gone is the entire purpose of the plotline being about losing your virginity before college that dominated Superbad.
Instead the jokes are a bit wider, more mature, and generally reflect more of the actual scene and the character's feelings, as opposed to simply being the normal male adolescent classroom jokes. Characters feel like they have more depth, they simply aren't there to sprout jokes, all have an effect of the way James grows and changes over his time at Adventureland.

Admittedly Bill Hader is back and mainly there for joke reasons, but he does have some nice screen time and the jokes are less brutal and immature, and the plot is set in the run-up to college, but that's about where the similarities end.
But of course all of that is down to the scriptwriter, but Mottola's direction with it works wonders and takes something that could have been dull and boring and made it interesting, quirky and funny instead.

The focus of the latter half of the plot on attempting to cope with your emotions and teenage angst is great, somehow managing to make you really feel for the characters whilst making it funny, something I found Superbad failed to do (You just end up finding it all stupid or funny, and thinking "Haha. Tosser. You lose." or "Yeah. Whatever." with that film). Maybe I should stop drawing comparisons with Superbad.

So yeah. I don't really know what I like about Adventureland. It's a funny, quirky, and interesting take on life/relationships in general really, the characters are really likable and also, it has Kristen Stewart.

8/10 - I have no clue what to put here as I have no idea why this film appeals to me so much. Other than Kristen Stewart.