BY MIKEY MIGO
The first two things I thought of when I saw these trailers a few months back was 1.) That it looks like a fun movie and 2.) It looked like a spawn of Juno. I guess I was pretty much right on the money. I've always had a soft spot for high school or coming of age comedies. I'm not talking "High School Musical", but rather the classics from "Fast Times" to "Dazed and Confused" all the way to "Can't Hardy Wait". I know the last one is more of a guilty pleasure, but it's still a good time capsule of things in a post grunge 90s. I am not completely out of touch on what's popular now a day, but I did not like this movie much at all. I'm a huge fan of Michael Cera AND Kat Dennings. I've been a fan of their past work and was looking forward to this despite the "scene kid" promo they did for it. But I could have ignored that. What I couldn't ignore was the story being lame. The plot was almost exactly like "Adventures in Babysitting" from the 80s except instead of babysitting the kids, Kat's character had to babysit a "queercore emo band"(seriously). Then there's the side story of a friend who is stranded and lost. In "Adventures" it was a girl who lost her glasses and wasn't sure where she was. In "Playlist", it's a drunk high school girl. I thought it was cool the gay kids weren't stereotypes, but that was about it when it came to the supporting cast. The biggest and worst misuse of talent was Seth Myers, Andy Sandberg, and Kevin Corrigan. Seth and Andy seemed to of adlibbed a few of the only funny lines in the movie, but they're only on screen for like a minute each. Corrigan, married villain of "Pineapple Express" and horribly underrated actor, doesn't have one line at all but makes the best with his one minute of "what the fuck" reactions. Since "Slums of Beverly Hills" and then "Grounded for Life" I've been saying he needs to star in more movies. I'm going to assume it was one of those "hey, call those guys and we'll stick them in if we can get them" situations. They looked like they had fun with it, so that's cool I suppose. A friend and I talked right after I watched it. I told him that it was like a fan of John Hughs and a fan of Diablo Cody made a movie. Well, to be honest I used a much harsher metaphor that I care not to repeat. I didn't have huge expectations for this movie and I was still let down. I don't know where the blame lies. The cast was fine, the direction was okay, and the movie had a little bit of charm to it, but it just didn't click. Maybe it's my fault for being 25 and expecting to enjoy a high school "scene" movie. If you're going to compare this to "Juno" then know it's like comparing "College" to "Superbad". If asked if I'd recommend this movie, I'd honestly say no.
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