Tag Archives: Superbad

The New Movie Stereotypes

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When there are hundreds of movies made every year, patterns start to show up.  Whether it’s the characters or the ending, there isn’t much in the way of originality in the movies.  This is especially true with characters, whose archetypes have been mixed and matched since Hollywood’s inception.  As time progressed, new characters have emerged, and been implemented and overused just like the old stereotypes before them.  Here is a list of movie characters we’ve seen time and again the past few years, and that we’ll probably continue to see for many more to come.

Manic Pixie Dream Girl- Realizing your dreams and fulfilling your potential is one of the most common goals of movie protagonists.  Young male independent writers/directors like to do this with the help of a leading lady.  At first, these characters almost demand to be recognized as free spirits, but as soon as love and narrative momentum chains them down, they become muses whose only purpose is to help the main character fulfill their own potential while they are left unfulfilled.  The phrase was first coined by critic Nathan Rabin, who used the term in his review of Elizabethtown. Find them in: Garden State (Natalie Portman), (500) Days of Summer (Zooey Deschanel), Almost Famous (Kate Hudson) and Elizabethtown (Kirsten Dunst)

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ARCHIVE REVIEW: Superbad

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Superbad
Directed by: Greg Mottola
Written by: Evan Goldberg
Starring: Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Emma Stone, Seth Rogen

For the sake of our generation and the half-baked high school sex comedies that work (or won’t) to define it, there is an artist who is making sure that our comedies won’t be remembered by sex with pie, hangovers, ogres or those Sex and the City girls.

In Superbad he is only credited as a producer, but the film is loaded with a posse of writing partners, actors and talent who’ve all hitched their wagons to his success. It also resonates the style of the writer/director/producer in terms of narrative aesthetics, vulgar content, sentiment, male ego and penis jokes which he has vowed in every one his projects.

Judd Apatow, soon after finding endless success as a producer for Will Ferrell filth and once-roommate Adam Sandler, began rewriting Hollywood’s biggest scripts and becoming a critically adored creator of The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, started a brand for himself in comedy which now rivals John Hughes or Ben Stiller. Up until Superbad it’s all been for grown-ups (thankfully not with that latest Sandler hit, Grown Ups).

With Superbad, the Apatow market finally starting serving minors. Continue reading →

Random pauses and leg deodorant: the resurrection of the awkward movie character

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Over the past few years, the awkward male side character has made a comeback in the movies.  What started as an obscure indie thing, most prominently in Juno, has since infiltrated mainstream cinema and in fact become mainstream cinema.

It was a hopeless novelty, off-beat and charming at first, now bothersome and annoying.  It seems as though every movie needs to have that character that walks into the room and makes an awkward grunt or a side-splitting out of place comment that’s supposed to be hilarious.  The trouble is, it isn’t.

What seems to be happening is that writers now think just because a character is awkward and says random things, this makes them funny.  Lines like “Hold on a second, I’m on my hamburger phone,” have replaced actual punch-lines.  The very notion that the phone is a hamburger is supposed to be funny, so it’s not necessary to include a joke about it.

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Five movies to watch with a group

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As the summer months begin for college students across the country, one of the movies’ prime profit seasons is upon us.  People go out in droves to see the latest Hollywood blockbusters with their friends.  Those art-house films of the fall stay on the shelves, as people enjoy big-budget entertainments with their friends and family.  Here then are my five picks for 5 movies that are enhanced with entertainment when you watch them with other people. Whether they make you laugh, cry or drop your jaw in amazement, you will either enjoy these movies better with a group or be able to endure them better because you are with other people.

1.  Superbad- Perhaps the most defining comedy of this generation, the outrageously explicit comedy from director Greg Montolla stars a teen comedy ensemble on rank with that of The Breakfast Club.  The laughs are constant as three friends try to score booze for a party in order to get laid.  That may turn off many sophisticated, stuffy types, but more honesty is fleshed out over the course of these two hours about the modern teen condition than almost any other movie made for that audience.  Add in the iconic McLovin’, and you have a non-stop laugh riot that will endure for years to come.

2. Kill Bill Vol. 1- Though it’s hard to put this movie on a list without its equally excellent Vol. 2, you cannot deny the crowd-pleasing intensity of Quentin Tarantino’s genre-blended bloodbath.  From the beginning, you get one of the most well constructed action films of the past 20 years as well as a story simple enough to keep track of while still chatting with those around you.  If the gory showdown at the House of Blue Leaves doesn’t have everyone’s jaw dropped by the end of it, you’re probably hanging with the wrong crowd.

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