Movie Details
| Title: | Wet Hot American Summer | |
| Director: | David Wain | |
| Year: | 2001 | |
| Genre: | Comedy | |
| Times Seen: | 2 | |
| Last Seen: | 08.01.15 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (5)
- A Futile and Stupid Gesture
- Role Models
- The Ten
- They Came Together
- Wanderlust
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 08.01.15 | Netflix | With the prequel series out I wanted to revisit this. My lasting memory from previous viewings is that it's a great idea and wonderful cast but the comedy is just a little TOO crazy to hit the sweet spot. I think the main danger of stereotype-based comedy is that you play up the trope too much and that's certainly the case with some of the jokes here, but other, more random or bizarre jokes are pretty funny and a few performances (Paul Rudd, Chris Meloni) are really great. And for the most part I find the movie funny... certainly I like everyone in the cast, but sometimes it's just too much. Not enough real emotion perhaps. And I think that's just David Wain's humor. The more mainstream stuff that he's done. Stuff like They Came Together and The Ten are also prone to going too bizarre, too surreal. Certainly Wainy Days and Children's Hospital lives in that space. But the more restrained stuff he's done like Role Models (and to a lesser extent Wanderlust) ends up resonating more with me just because of that basis in reality. I'm a fan of all of it though... ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE STATE BECAUSE I WAS A COOL TEENAGER WHO KNEW WHAT WAS GOOD. |
| 05.31.08 | DVD | It was good to see this again after so long. I remember liking it the first time (being a huge fan of The State) but for whatever reason never revisited since it first came out. It's funny to see Elizabeth Banks and Paul Rudd here considering where they are now. Chris Meloni is also hilarious as the cook... I never really went to summer camp but so much of this movie not only matches the genre it's homagingating but my limited real life experiences as well (I went on several school camp trips for like 3-4 days at a time that approximated the summer camp experience) like the kid who wouldn't take a shower or the bug juice or whatever. And of course all the actors are really great at portraying early 80s youth. Rudd's im-so-put-out-i-can-barely-pick-up-the-tray-i-just-threw-on-the-ground routine is classic. Good times. |
