math reviews of Adventureland

Say Anything + (Caddyshack - Meatballs) + Annie Hall / The Squid and the Whale

there really is an adventureland on long island, where this film takes place. it's about 10 minutes from where i grew up.

yes, but it was too modernized since Greg Mottola worked there, so they used Kennywood in Pittsburgh.

is there a thread for this movie?

Based on the trailers, I was surprised to read this was set in 1987. It looks more like 1981 to me.

is this movie good?

without having seen it, let me say yes

nytimes review made it seem like yr right

It's OK (spam), and this is the thread for it. Not heavily Apatovian, so cavemen who laugh at traffic lights beware.

Jesse Eisenberg's diction is so Alvy Singeresque in the bar scene I was rolling. He seems to have the young hyperverbal pale Jewish intellectual niche all to himself for now.

It's nice (and inevitable) to hear a soundtrack with The Other '80s represented on the soundtrack (tho a bit heavyhandedly -- it starts with "Bastards of Young").

Non-ILM type ppl around 30 really think we were all listening to Wang Chung in '85.

..and making out to Avalon.

yes, thank god someone is finally repping for independent 80s rock bands

I'm sure that's some album cuz making out to a Barry Levison film wd be weird

xp

Not heavily Apatovian, so cavemen who laugh at traffic lights beware.

hahahahahaha. . . wait what? fire truck?

me no understand doctor post

max SIGH

I'm sure that's some album cuz making out to a Barry Levison film wd be weird

Wait, hold on, you're not kidding are you?

no, i'm not, & wrong thread

"Bastards of Young" was on a major label

oh OK, right thread, Ned. I'm sure I'd recognize a Roxy Music hit if I heard one.

way to make soto cry xp

Caddyshack(-1)^(1/2) = Muriel's Wedding Muriel's Wedding^2+1=0 exp(Muriel's Wedding*Pi)+1=0 i = \sqrt{-1} Muriel's Wedding -1 1 2 i^2+1 = 0 2 1 0 e^{i\pi}+1 = 0 The Last American Virgin where Pi 1 0 e The base of the natural logarithms. Also called Euler's constant. Also called the base of the The Wild Life logarithms. Although e^x = exp(x), for mathematical purposes the functional form is preferred, while for displaying purposes, the exponential form is preferred. Constant e=exp(1) e^x = exp(x) e = limit( (1+1/n)^n, n, infinity ) e = 2.71828182845904523536028747135, "30-digit approximation" e^x = \lim_{n \rightarrow \infty} (1+x/n)^n x 1 1 n n n infinity + plus The addition operator of any group Binary, Freaks n Geeks Associative, Commutative, Error

yes velko, and Tim still means nothing to the 19-year-olds who will see this film.

way to make soto cry xp

I'm...speechless.

Say Anything + (Caddyshack - Meatballs) + Annie Hall / The Squid and the Whale

― Dr Morbius, Friday, April 3, 2009 10:10 AM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

so your review is that a movie set in the 1980s starring the kid from the squid in the whale is like 1980s movies and the squid and the whale

Tim still means nothing to the 19-year-olds who will see this film.

Repeated elements are discarded from a set. Many systems will use alternative notations to denote sets, for example {a,b,c,....}. The set may be homogeneous (all elements of the same type) or inhomogeneous (elements can be of different types).

stfu Morbs I knew about Tim when I was 19

lock thread plz

ps i checked out "pleased to meet me" from the public library when i was 16 (this was in 1995)

yeah i think i was either 15 or 16 when i found about those awesome dudes

pretty sure a lot of 19 yr olds know roxy music albums at least

Annie Hall came out in '77 n/a you fat shirtless slob

trolling getting rlly lame by yr standards, guys

i owned both those records when i was seventeen and listened to them approx. twice each

i was 19 when tim came out : (

first time i played airdrums was to Alex Chilton in the backseat of my friend's car. . . I wasn't driving because I was. . . 15 years old OMG!!!!!

good movie

at this point i think ONLY 19 year olds care about tim

you do the math

For the binary case, when the selector is 0, select has the value of the function or operator at the top of the expression tree. Nary (anything integer) -> anything (array integer integer) -> anything (array integer integer integer) -> anything select(a,k) = a[k] select(a,i,j) = a[i,j] select(a+b,1) = a length

n/a was wearing a shirt when i met him--FYI

Annie Hall came out in '77 n/a you fat shirtless slob

trolling getting rlly lame by yr standards, guys

― Dr Morbius, Friday, April 3, 2009 10:39 AM (47 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

pretty sure that any trolling that gets "you fat shirtless slob" in response is by definition not lame

why are dr morbius and i the only one posting math reviews itt??? cmon guys

greg mottola + jesse eisenberg = adventureland!!

i'm sure you know i was talking about AVERAGE kids born in 1990 who will go to the multiplex tonight expecting Superbad II, k thx post when you see the film or just kill me

fyi doc imo u shouldve just gone with f'(x) more pithy same content

shirtless by my bloody valn/atine was a great record

average kids (born in 1990) x multiplex = superbad II / kill morbius

trolling getting rlly lame by yr standards, Morbz

Tim - better production - Bob Stinson + better songs + Memphis + Jim Dickinson=Pleased to Meet Me

(ryan reynolds)(jessie eisenberg)^2 + (superbad)(jessie eisenberg) + meatballs = 0

what movies are you talking about al? where the characters get to be funnier or more goofy

tbf i thought these characters were pretty funny. esp when the dude talks about giving out 'double sack wacks'

so he basically should have been a proto-ilxer?

Portrait of the Young Proto-Ilxer as a Young Man

wait who is the vapid dork with no sense of humor at all?

i will say, to be fair, that there was a real clear case of low-expectations-setting going into this.

but even w/ that context aside, i think this is a pretty good film, about as good as these kinds of things can be w/out being 'dazed & confused'

That's how I feel.

the movies that this reminds me of that I like better, and that have more memorable and more endearingly funny characters, are mainly Barry Levinson's own "middle-aged director reminisces about his youth" movies like Diner and Liberty Heights

it is not as good as diner, i will give you that. crazy talk re: liberty heights, which i also like.

Liberty Heights is v flawed and probably shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as Diner except categorically, but i have a sentimental attachment to it, the kind that i thought Adventureland might inspire but didn't.

wish i read this thread before seeing it, so i might have been prepared for how mundane, unmemorable and predictable I'd find it.

haha the movie, i mean

ironically, despite feeling like superbad was x1000000 times better (please acknowledge this opinion, morbz), found hader and wiig really out of place in this. Fave performance was probably Ryan Reynolds, whom I'm not used to seeing suggest an internal life.

ah man, good to have another dissenter here, really felt like i was taking crazy pills after all the enthusiasm for this formless, charmless dishwater.

TS: Adventureland vs. Zombieland?
No one wins.

Zombieland was at least fun, although it would've been more fun with a lead less bland than Eisenberg

bland?? i know u must know dudes like that irl

is familiar the opposite of bland or something?

This gets worse in the memory.

haters are str8 tripping but choose ur own adventure man*

*dys, adventureland

is familiar the opposite of bland or something?

― da croupier, Sunday, May 2, 2010 4:06 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

i think it can be? and in this case, is? i think his character captures some v. real & generally un-captured comedic beats that i recognize from irl interactions with dudes like this, and that recognition is a big part of what makes this film effective -- he doesnt feel like a 1-dimensional character, and it treats him fairly & w/out condescension at the same time

Superbad is a cartoon, croup, why don't you compare it to Human Centipede?

both were greg mottola movies about a clueless dweeb dealing with fucked up situations, goofy friends and their inability to find romantic success. one just went for the jugular with louder, more memorable jokes and situations, while the other tried to get brownie points from people who think mundane, bullshit character details are more tasteful and poignant if presented on the periphery of the screen.

is the human centipede about an innocent, bud cort-ish romantic secretly in love with the quirky, dark-haired girl whose mouth is sown to his anus, though? i haven't seen it.

sewn

now you tell me

heard

i can only imagine what a roller coaster ride croup's life must be

this was nice. superbad wasn't nice, but it was funny. i think zombieland might have been more subtle in terms of character progression, tbh.

Pale Blue Eyes would never have been on a jukebox in an old man bar in 1987.

I watched this the other night for the first time and enjoyed a lot about it but K Stewart is plain and boring and was so annoying in this that I had a hard time finishing it because she made it difficult for me to watch.

had a real jones to watch this after listening to the Replacements last week.

Rob Sheffield just included this in a piece on great movie-music moments--the Rolling Stones when Lisa P. is first introduced--so I found a cheap copy on the way home tonight and gave it a look.

Thought some of it was really good. It got rather plotty and melodramatic towards the end, and I've seen more than enough Jesse Eisenberg by now, but mostly I liked the tone. There's a split on Ryan Reynolds in the comments above. I thought he was excellent. That character could have so easily been a blowhard, and Reynolds plays him as anything but. (Not endorsing his behaviour in saying that.) He seemed very familiar to me, but I checked his IMDB page, and (unless I retain vivid memories of his Chip in Dick) I haven't seen him in anything.

Lots of great music, although a lot of it had a checklist feel to me. My favourite was "Unsatisfied" as Eisenberg's on the bus. Agree that "Pale Blue Eyes" on an old-guy jukebox--any kind of jukebox, really--belongs to the world of science-fiction.

Rescreened this not too long ago. Held up well. The "Just Like Heaven" sequence is fantastic.

Bumper cars, right? I'm not a big Cure fan, but yeah, that scene was really good. Possibly the blueprint for a similar scene in Take This Waltz from last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Yu2Ea6YDk

Yeah, bumper cars, everybody being happy. Looking back over the soundtrack credits now, I'd also give high (if not as high) marks to the "Breaking The Law" chase, "Obsession" at the disco, and as Sheffield pointed out, "Tops" intro-ing Lisa P.

i didn't love this. maria liked it more than i did. i wished it were funnier. could have used a wee bit more dumb summer fun teen sex romp mixed in with the earnest indie rock stuff. but, you know, i kept watching.

stars reunite for new comedy (not a sequel or anything)

http://variety.com/2013/film/news/kristen-stewart-jesse-eisenberg-starring-in-american-ultra-comedy-1200795324/

the subway poster has JE lookin so girly i thought it was a period piece set at Lilith Fair ... but they've apparently dumped that one for a more demo-friendly appeal.

http://cinestar.hu/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/americanultra1.jpg

damn this film's amazing.

Pale Blue Eyes would never have been on a jukebox in an old man bar in 1987.
― thirdalternative,Friday, August 13, 2010 5:59 PM

I thought it was on this thread where somebody told me that, unlikely though it may be, it could have happened. I looked into it for something I'm working on, and it looks to be literally impossible. Prototypes for digital jukeboxes didn't come along until 1993, and, according to the Wikipedia discography, "Pale Blue Eyes" never appeared on a 45 (the Velvet Underground did release a few), not even as a B-side. "What Goes On"/"Jesus" was the single from the third album.

Not having the movie in front of me to check, it's a plain old jukebox we see, right? I was just remembering seeing my first CD jukebox as a kid at a Seafood Bar & Grill in like 1989 or so. Which then reminds me of seeing other CD jukes later that had to have been installed in that era because the newest music on them was from that time.

I'd have to look again--I'm not sure if you see the jukebox up close.

This is where I got the 1993 date:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/touchtunes-digital-jukebox/559784/

"TouchTunes began simply as a more convenient version of a pay-for-play jukebox. Launching its first prototype in 1993, by the late ’90s TouchTunes distinguished itself as a leader in digital jukeboxes, anticipating the MP3 as the next wave in music storage and playback."

That might be limited to just that company, though, so maybe your '89 date is more accurate. Which would still be two years later than the when the film's set.

I love trying to figure out things like this. There's a Godard film--Masculin Féminin, I think--where there's a close-up of a jukebox and you can see a two-sided Beatles single where I checked six ways to Sunday and could not confirm that that particular single existed. Someone (maybe here) told me that record companies sometimes pressed jukebox-only 45s that were specially configured.

Thanks for the article (didn't realize digital jukes went back that far), but I'm talking about actual CD jukeboxes that were packed with albums, which started getting phased in during the late '80s. Pretty sure that's not what's in the movie.

Also, re: 45s Not only were there special jukebox 45s (which frequently were reissues combining two hits as the a/b), but in a lot of foreign territories there would be exclusive releases featuring different songs, or release formats (for example, 45 EPs were huge in France in the '60s).

Elsewhere in the park, there's one of those recording booths where you can make your own one-off-acetate. Across several previous summers, a few kids who worked together year-after-year formed a band and would rehearse in the basement of one girl's house. In order to impress her, they learnt a note-perfect impersonation of the VU, and eventually put it down on a lunchbreak in the Your Voice On A Record stand. To avoid any squabbling over who kept the acetate, and to give their cover more legitimacy in the eyes of their friend & shared object of awe, they had the record installed in the park's jukebox.

Now, that just can't be, because the jukebox is in a local bar. I think you're making all that up.

But Everybody Who Went To That Bar Started Their Own Band

A former manager at the park took over the bar in 1982, and bought the jukebox off the park's management.

This movie could have been “basic,” but everything about it is a little better than you would expect (if that makes sense)... the performances, the dialogue, etc., are all on a slightly elevated level. Even the song choices are satisfying & effective, without being particularly “adventurous.” I saw & enjoyed it in the theater, and still enjoy watching it on tv.

It’s interesting that Greg Mottola has directed a lot of stuff (and is in the Apatow club)—but it looks like the only other feature he both wrote and directed was The Daytrippers (also good!). He’s clearly a talented guy; I wonder why he’s only gotten two of his own scripts made in 25 years. I guess that’s how it goes sometimes!