Adventureland (***1/2)

There’s seemingly so little to this that I almost have difficulty justifying my high rating. It’s basically boy meets girl while working at an aging amusement park (Pittsburgh’s Kennywood was both the real-life inspiration and where filming took place). If you’ve ever had a summer job that, for a time, provided much of the drama and friendships in your life, much of this mildly comic, altogether heartfelt story should seem familiar. About a third of the plot simply revolves around the various personalities surrounding young James (Jesse Eisenberg), who is hoping to head off to graduate school at Columbia in the fall of 1987.

The other two-thirds of the movie is about James’s relationship with Emily (Kristen Stewart), the cool (yet hot) girl who shares his taste for college rock favorites like the Replacements, Lou Reed, and Big Star (even as the park’s sound system blares Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus” ad nauseum). The romantic overtures include weed, the once-ubiquitous mix tape, and the semi-reluctant confession—he is a virgin. She’s not, but the details remain an undisclosed secret that hangs over their blossoming friendship.

There’s nothing remarkably perceptive or novel about the way writer-director Greg Mottola portrays their connection, but it seems so accurately to convey the palpable crush of James’s desire (less so Em’s, although Stewart’s and the other “hot chick” role are more than simply props for the male characters). With this and The Squid and the Whale, Eisenberg carves a niche as the awkward-but-not-nerdy college boy, in each case a younger version of the director (or so I imagine here).

IMDB link

viewed 4/21/09 at Riverview

Final Destination 3 (**1/4)

Bizarre and hideous fates follow yet another sorry lot of young people who only thought they’d cheated Death. For those who think that the idea of Death following people is pretty silly, note that the people in the movie thought so too, and they DIED!

A review of this movie is rather beside the point for those who’ve seen the first two in the series. The formula is, a group of young people embark on an ill-fated ride. Someone has a “vision” and succeeds in saving some but not others. But then, in a bizarre extrapolation of Calvinist theology, Death follows them like a jealous lover and hunts them down. Like a warped Rube Goldberg cartoon come to life, the deaths involve a series of outlandish coincidences involving ordinary objects that suddenly become dangerous. (Even more outlandishly, there are no trial lawyers in any of these movies.) Director James Wong, returning from FD1, provides helpful close-ups of the objects that will cause these workplace mishaps. If only OSHA inspectors had been doing their jobs. Since the series is up to number three, the character in the movie can helpfully explain the premise by saying, Hey, remember [that stuff that happened in the first movie]? This is just like that. I won’t describe the accident that forms the basis of FD3, but the movie opens in an amusement park. Later, the soundtrack ironically features the Ohio Players’ 1978 hit “Love Rollercoaster” as a prelude to perhaps the most hideous deaths in the R-rated movie. The park sequence is actually quite effective. I felt more nervous than when I actually rode a coaster. But the rest of the movie is just a game as we see the guilt-ridden heroine try to try save her friends from their fates, not realizing that if she succeeds, there’s no movie, and no more sequels.

IMDb link

posted 9/12/13