Adventureland

Greg Mottola director of Adventureland, was the director responsible for the comedy high jinks of Superbad. It’s hard not to love any movie that basically opens and closes with Replacement songs-he had me at “Bastards of the Young” and “Unsatisfied.” There are plenty of other great songs that I listened to in the summer of 1987-where the film is set-like The Velvet Underground, Husker Du (“Don’t Want To Know If You’re Lonely”), New York Dolls (“Lookin For A Kiss”), Big Star (“I’m In Love With A Girl”), The Jesus and Mary Chain (“Taste of Cindy”), The Cure (“Just Like Heaven”), Crowded House (“Don’t Dream It’s Over”), and INXS (“Don’t Change”). Yo La Tengo, the band did the soundtrack, also nailed the non cool period songs by the likes of Poison, Rush, Outfield, Falco, Whitesnake, Judas Priest, Wang Chung, etc. Mottola seems to be about 4 years older than me-it was the year I graduated from high school, but I had a crappy/wonderful job much like the Jesse Esienberg character at Chuck E. Cheese. It sucked but it was also fun working with all the young people. We had our after hours wind downs, cute girls, and practical jokes. This story is more poignant than Superbad, but also seems somewhat real to life with some of the social interactions that take place through out the film. Not a masterpiece, but extremely enjoyable in the positive nostalgia it created for me.