Movie Review ~ Adventureland

After tossing around a few different ideas for this morning's blog post I thought I'd go with a quick movie review of Adventureland, a film DH and I watched on Friday evening as well as mention Good Hair, a movie that hasn't been released quite yet but that I'm just dying to see!

I wasn't all that surprised that I'd never even heard of Adventureland when DH suggested it, that is until he mentioned that "you know... that gal from Twilight is in it." Huh? How had I missed that? I'm not saying I visit any Kristen Stewart specific websites or anything but you'd think I'd picked up on that somewhere. Despite my Twilight obsession I hadn't. And just in case you aren't familiar with this actress, she is the co-star of Twilight, playing the character Bella Swan. My dreamy crush, Edward Cullen's life long love. *NOTE: I'm totally over my Friday crisis about being "too old for Edward." As a friend pointed out to me on Sunday, "Don't be ridiculous, he's 110 for goodness sake." Well despite my earlier protests that... well that and a few hours spent reading some compelling fan fiction this weekend was enough for me.

But again, I know I'm slightly off topic...

Adventureland is a cute and quirky independent style film about finding out who you really are, what you really want to be and more importantly who you want to be with. A bit like that "quarter-life crisis" email that was going around so long ago... gosh, well probably about 10 years ago now. I wonder if kids in their mid 20's are still reading it? I know that it ... like totally spoke to me. (snicker snicker)

The film takes place at a failing amusement park and mostly focuses on the young employees working there. The plot isn't too complicated and the characters are all-for the most part-likable and funny. I will point out two observations I made to DH. First, having only seen one other movie of Kristen Stewart's work (the aforementioned Twilight) I found it odd that her mannerism where almost identical in both. The characters are pretty different so I wonder if that's just a coincidence or if she is inserting more of herself into these roles than I would have thought common.

Second, and this is obviously more of a personal observation than a critique of the film. I think I'm getting old. For the first time I had as much empathy for the parents as I did for the kids who were clearly the main characters of the film. Not that the parents were perfect, far from it and in some ways as confused and lost as the kids were (I'm guessing that was one of the deeper points of the film). I just didn't seem to be able to justify some of the kids' behavior. I won't go into too much detail in case you plan on seeing the film, just an observation I made. Now I should probably go and find a copy of Pump up the Volume to see if Christian Slater can still inspire me to "Make Noise" and "Talk Hard" (the inner teenager in me is giggling).

So the long and short of it is that I don't think Adventureland is going to win an Oscar or anything but it's a fun date night movie with some hilarious one liners. Considering that my ideal Friday night with DH now consists of staying home to make pizza and enjoy a nice big glass of wine and a movie this was a perfect choice!

Here is the trailer for Adventureland, please enjoy. And if you like what you see, you too can watch for a mere $4.99 thanks to the brilliant folks at Comcast....




Okay, on to Good Hair. You may be wondering how in the world I heard about this movie since it's not even out yet. While I was enjoying the tasty popcorn in a very dark theater awaiting the start of The September Issue last month this was one of the previews for coming attractions. I was in tears I was laughing so hard. I mean who could have guessed in one preview you could feature Maya Angelou, Chris Rock and the Rev. Al Sharpton. The film is made in a documentary style with Chris Rock interviewing a myriad of famous and not so famous African Americans about what it means to have "good hair." I had absolutely no idea what goes into creating "good hair" nor did I realize how much money goes along with it. Apparently its a $9 BILLION industry. Wow! Well the business aspect aside, check out the preview and I hope you enjoy as much as I did. It's being released in New York this weekend (Friday, October 9th) and in locations across the country later this month (Friday, October 23rd).

Happy Viewing!

Cheers,

Ouiser