Adventureland!

I saw Adventureland this weekend. If you want to see it with a fully open mind, I might advise not reading this...



You've been warned.



I went in assuming the movie was going to be an out-and-out, mindless comedy, but I would go so far as to say it was a comedic drama. The characters were beautifully developed (with the exception of Bill Hader's character, which I didn't mind because he was out-of-control hilarious), and, while there are certainly laughs to be had, there was a tremendous poignancy to the story. In addition, the music was absolutely killer (probably top 5 favorite soundtrack ever).

Interestingly, like most of the recent comedies that I've enjoyed, I was not overly amped about the movie after seeing the preview, which made the movie seem rather puerile. Superbad and Knocked Up both looked kind of lame to me (especially the former, which I ended up loving), and while the previews didn't hinder my enjoyment of the movies, it peeves me that marketers are taking a lowest-common denominator approach to the movies. That is, the scenes in the previews tend to be the most sophomoric ones in the movie. I understand that the producers want to make sure that the movie gets seen by the largest audience possible, and in that sense it is a necessary evil, but at the same time it saddens me that they aren't confident enough that the public will want to see a comedic movie with nuanced characters and actual drama. At the same, when Paul Blart is #1 in box offices for a few weeks in a row, I can't really blame the producers for going for the lowest common denominator, I suppose.