Who's In It: Jesse Eisenberg, Ryan Reynolds, Kristen Stewart, Martin Starr, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig
The Basics: A virginal college graduate anticipating a European summer trip gets a reality check when his parents experience a financial downturn (it's set in 1987 but it might as well be now). His only choice is to stay home and work at the local crappy amusement park, where he meets the cool, beautiful indie-rock girl he wants as well as a bunch of misfits-as-cautionary-tales. To get all the smarty-pants jokes you're going to have to know about books and stuff about old dead writers like Virgil and Gogol. But if you don't, it's not like you won't have a good time.
What's The Deal: Remember how Superbad was nonstop screaming raunchiness until the last two minutes? And then you were suddenly forced to understand that everything you'd just seen was really the elaborate defense mechanism of these two best friends who couldn't stand the thought of saying goodbye to one another? Okay, then take that last two minutes, keep it funny, and that's what you've got going on here. A smarter, sharper, quieter but just as hilarious movie about saying goodbye to your knuckleheaded ideas about yourself, your family, friendship, love and what the world owes you. It's really that good. Just ignore the wacky-looking teen-movie poster.
MVP(s): Kristen Wiig, as co-manager of the park, has the ability to make these little perfectly timed peeps in the middle of a conversation that she's not even really a part of. She never bulldozes through the bit or takes over, she just pulls focus with her odd facial expressions and three-word pins in the over-inflated balloon. But the real badass of this movie is Martin Starr as the doomed park employee with no future. He was the best, most loveable of all the Freaks and Geeks and here he seethes with intellectual angst and life-is-unfair rage. More movies with him in them, please.
Adventures In Marketing: If all you know of this movie is the trailer and the poster then you're being led astray into possibly thinking it's a typical teen sex comedy. it's not that at all. The vintage 1987 details will snag the grown-up audiences nostalgic for their youth and the universality of being horny, stupid and depressed will make sure its actual target audience gets it in an immediate way. No matter what your age you're going to love this one.
One Little Tiny Thing That's Kind Of Already Annoying Me: Could you stop stammering, Jesse Eisenberg? Man up!