Funnily, Last Summer

Year: 2001

Director: David Wain

Cast: Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Michael Showalter

Run Time: 1 hour 37 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

It's a surprise I've managed to avoid seeing Wet Hot American Summer for so long, considering that I have a long-documented love affair with 80's summer camp movies and absurdist comedies. 

What's not a surprise, however, is how long it took me to write this review. Considering how a list of great jokes doesn't really count as legitimate film analysis and considering how there's precious little more than great jokes in the construction of WHAS, there's not a lot else to say.

But guess what! I'm gonna say it anyway. Suckers.

Wet Hot American Summer is essentially a series of interconnected sketches given context through the location and residents of Camp Firewood, a 1981 Jewish summer camp in the forests of Maine. Because he is shown first and has the most complete character arc, the de facto protagonist is nerdy counselor Coop Cooperberg (Michael Showalter), but the story is mostly composed of vignettes starring a clown car of contemporary and future stars.

We've got Romy and Michele's Janeane Garofalo as the head counselor, Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers' Paul Rudd as the resident bad boy, Elizabeth Banks as his bikini-clad companion, David Hyde Pierce as the astrophysicist next door, and Amy Freaking Poehler and Bradley Hulking Cooper as the officious siblings who run the talent show. The ensemble is fleshed out with Ken Marino (In A World...), Michael Ian Black (Ed), and Molly Shannon (SNL), among about a dozen others. Seriously, the wattage on this tiny 2001 comedy could short out every circuit breaker in a large city. Or one of Paris Hilton's smaller vacation homes.

My face every time a new character comes onscreen.

Think of all the Ant-Man/Pitch Perfect spin-offs this pairing could create.

Over the course of its 97 minutes, WHAS runs the gamut of just about every type of comedy under the sun (not to mention one or two lunar styles), but its biggest strength lies in absurdist subversion of the typical tropes of the teen sex comedy. Entire lung-busting scenes are built from the insertion of just one cliché line and the exploration of its implications. The screenwriters pick apart semiotics of the genre that the typical audience would never pick up on because they're so accustomed to the formula that they just don't think about it anymore.

Wet Hot American Summer is willing to do that thinking, and as a result, many of its parodic scenes are intelligently tilted into the absurd. In general, the absurdity of the film is its shining light, as the gods of comedy arbitrarily raise the stakes in low drama scenes, thwart any possible expectations, and spur laughter from even the stoniest of guts. Also, the denouement creates a surprisingly feminist thesis, and the films treatment of homosexuality as a running gag is similarly sensitive, surpassing even the genre titan Will & Grace in terms of its treatment of minority sexualities.

You might notice that I'm tip-toeing around the actual contents of these scenes, but that's because spoiling the jokes completely removes any reason to view the film. And therein lies the biggest flaw of Wet Hot American Summer. 

Besides this haircut, I mean.

Much of the comedy is genuinely enjoyable, but the film has no meat and potatoes. It's all sugar, and the rush wears off quickly. The sketches have no geographical or character continuity between them, and some of them are exceedingly pointless, tossing themselves like boulders in the path of the film's pacing. Two of the film's worst moments are given favored run times, and one recurring gag culminates in a sputtering finale that not only utterly fails to even attempt to be funny, but interrupts the film during a key third act moment.

But all in all, Wet Hot American Summer is necessary viewing for any fan of teen romps like American Pie or scatterbrained absurdity like Monty Python or National Lampoon. In spite of its flaws and its relative shallowness (as compared to true classics like Airplane! and other Leslie Nielsen vehicles, in both senses of the word), it has a lot of joy to give and I can't bring myself to deny anybody of its pleasures.

TL;DR: Wet Hot American Summer is an intelligent absurdist comedy that's genuinely funny, but perhaps too thin to be a truly unimpeachable classic.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 745

CinemaBeach: Raise Your Voice

In A World...

Year: 2013

Director: Lake Bell

Cast: Lake Bell, Demitri Martin, Fred Melamed

Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Modern women are still struggling to find a voice in a lot of male-dominated industries. In In A World…, Lake Bell’s Carol Solomon is struggling to sell her voice. The daughter of a famous movie trailer voiceover artist, she is having a hard time following his footsteps in the business, which has historically been a boys’ club.

However, after the death of number one voiceover artist (real person and coiner of the phrase “In a world…”) Don LaFontaine, a void must be filled. In honor of his passing, the trailer for the first film of The Amazon Games, a quadrilogy based on a bestselling young adult series, will resurrect his famous phrase for the first time under a different artist. Carol becomes embroiled in competition with young hotshot Gustav Warner (Ken Marino) and her father, Sam Soto (Fred Melamed), the industry veteran with a golden voice.

While the plot is just a variation on a story you’ve seen a thousand times before, In A World… offers a glimpse into a fascinating undiscovered realm – voiceover acting. This is an industry with its own celebrities, struggling interns, and even awards shows (The Golden Trailers, which I was fascinated to learn are actually a real thing) that the general public has almost certainly never heard of or even thought existed.

Lake Bell’s directorial (and writing and production) debut hits the jackpot with a world of fascinating characters and concepts that has been heretofore completely unmined territory. In addition to giving us a fresh look on an industry we often take for granted (as well as Lake Bell’s career, which up to this point hasn’t exactly been anything to write home about), the film is a wickedly sharp comedy with snappy dialogue, several actors and actresses turning in career best performances, and an unending sense of fun with a little bit of heart thrown in just for good measure.

Although Fred Melamed’s performance as Carol’s loquacious father is a little bit much for my tastes, Lake Bell and Demetri Martin (a stand-up comic who plays Louis, her coworker and love interest) are perfectly natural in their roles and run the show with their fabulous timing and interplay. Just what is it with comedians lately? First Louis C. K. shines in Blue Jasmine, then Demetri Martin blows us away. There must be something in the water at the Laugh Factory.

In A World… is a feminist comedy, but it won’t go down in history as the movie that changed everything. It is an iridescent soap bubble, absolutely beautiful and perfect for what it is, but likely to be fleeting in its overall influence. It is well-meaning and full of optimism for the way the tides are turning, but it is more content to play around than to deliver a hard-hitting message. However, that does not mean that it is not a superb film, and in fact it is the best comedy I have seen in years, definitely the best of 2013 so far. No movie in quite some time has been so continuously effervescent and laugh out loud funny with scene after scene packed with genuinely funny gags and lines.

Bell is a revelation, taking what could be a stock indie movie character and absolutely owning it, turning voiceover work into a fascinating tapestry of human experiences. The entire cast is clearly excited to be there, with a plethora of notable performances from main actors and bit parts alike. Nick Offerman turns in a hilarious performance as a crude recording studio owner and Eva Longoria proves she’s game in a role that’s essentially a parody of herself in possibly one of the funniest scenes of the film. I say “possibly” because the scenes tumble over one another in a tremendously lively script, each vying for position as the funniest thing you’ve ever seen. And they are, until you see the next scene. And the next.

Although the film sweeps one up in the comedy, it never forgets its heart. At its center, In A World… is a story of women stepping up and taking risks. They don’t always succeed, but that’s life. It breaks down traditional gender roles and boundaries and even a potentially cliché character, Sam Soto’s much younger second wife, comes into her own and takes charge in her own way. It’s truly heartwarming to see such a tender depiction of friendships, relationships, and women and men alike learning how to balance their independence, their love lives, and their families.

In A World… is the best comedy film available today, wide release, independent, or otherwise. But don’t take my word for it. See for yourself.

TL;DR: In A World... won't change the world, but it is a hilarious and heartwarming feminist comedy.

Rating: 8/10

Should I Spend Money On This? Yes, always. And then maybe it will get a wide release and the entire world can appreciate its glory.

Word Count: 845