Make a Narrative About Falling in Love in Pittsburg the Summer After You Graduate College and Everyone Will Love It

This past Sunday night I saw Adventureland(this post may act as a pseudo-spoiler, you’ve been warned). The movie was relatively enjoyable (especially the fact that the discoteque the characters go to called Razzmatazz had a marquee that read: “A Sophisticated Meeting Place”. For some reason this absolutely killed me) and I left the theatre thinking the film was ok but nothing special. I also felt like the movie should have been better, but I often feel that with these types of films. And by these types of films I mean the slow moving, indie, coming-of-age-and-falling-in-love flicks that allow their soundtracks to do the heavy lifting for the plot and characters (See: Juno, Garden State, Igby Goes Down, etc.*)

When I got home I couldn’t sleep so I started reading some reviews of the film. I always read reviews in hindsight, whether it’s a music, book, film or any other sort of review. Before I see, read or listen to something all I need is a nice, concise rating to let me judge whether or not it might be worth my time. Reviews should always be read after the fact, I feel pretty strongly about this. Anyways, as I read multiple reviews, everyone seemed to really like this movie. This didn’t surprise, but the reasons everyone really liked it did. Countless reviews I read from several credible writers talked about how the film was extraordinarily ‘deep’ for a teen comedy, and how great it was that even the side characters all had their own heartache and trauma outside the main storyline. Now I’m not a film critic, but it seems that the nation’s critics unanimously decided that this film was layered with subtext that quite frankly didn’t exist.

I think the main reason for the critical praise this film is receiving is because the vast majority of American film critics graduated from or were in college around the time this film was made. Or at the very least they remember this time period enough to properly empathize with the characters. The characters in this film are the types of people that film critics want to be, i.e. hip kids who live their lives with a sort of confined wreckless abandon, smoke lots of pot and listen to Lou Reed and the Replacements. And in fairness, this type of carefree lifestyle, at least ideologically, does sound pretty great. So there’s that, but this film is also cleverly shallow.

Just about every review I read went out of its way to mention the complexity of the supporting characters and how they all had their own little story. On the surface, this is true. In most teen comedies the characters are just archetypes with no real depth. In Adeventureland these characters are still archetypes, but they also have effed up home lives! Literally every character in this film, including the main protagonists, have some sort of travesty going on in their family lives. However, none of this personal drama is ever really expounded upon, it’s just casually mentioned or hinted at, even in the main characters case. So really all these supposed subplots are little more than a cheap way to give your characters some perceived depth. When looked at analytically, this film is little more than some shallow, self-serving nostalgia for its writer/director Greg Mottola (also known as the guy who directed Superbad). And yet, just about every critic failed to see that, which in my mind, seems kind of obvious. I think this actually the first film I’ve ever seen that I actually liked less after I saw it because of the positive reviews I l read about it post-viewing.

In some ways, this film reminded me of Michael Chabon’s first novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. Now this novel is different from Adventureland, but they have several similarities. Both are set in Pittsburgh and follow the misadventures of a male hero in his first summer after graduating college in which he does nothing but party, fall in love and learn a little bit about himself along the way. Like Adventureland, I thought this book was marginally ok, yet it also received tons of critical acclaim. Perhaps American critics just have a soft spot for narratives that take place in Pennsylvania steel towns. Or maybe they’re just suckers for decently written coming of age stories. And maybe I’m just bitter because I’ve clearly never experienced this type of summer. Who really knows?

Until We Meet Again
* I’ve seen and enjoyed all the movies I just mentioned. F*ck

On the Radio

My oldest brother recently moved to Washington D.C. and I inherited what was left of his car. Not that I really care, mainly since I got the car for free, but this thing is an absolute sh*t pile. If it actually does start it shakes so violently it's basically doing the automobile equivalence of a full body sneeze. Pretty much all the tread on the tires has worn off and neither of the driver side windows roll up (or down for that matter). This doesn't really bother me, since I've been driving old p.o.s. cars for the better part of my driving existence. The thing about this particular car that absolutely kills me is that my only audio option is to listen to the radio.

Now I don't mean to sound snobbish, but just about everything that's played on regular radio is absolutely terrible. Most of the time I just listen to talk radio on the AM stations, not that that's much better. What's really killer though is the commercials that are played on the radio. Obviously people's budget is gonna be the lowest for radio advertisement, yet the quality of these ads is still breathtakingly bad. There's one ad in particular that gets a reaction from me no matter how many times I hear it. The commercial is for a windshield replacement business called Safelight. Here's a brief paraphrasing of their ad:

(Man talking): "When something seems to good to be true, it probably is. Take my customer the other day who was at a carwash when this pushy guy came out of nowhere and told her she had to get her windshield replaced. He was really aggressive and even stooped to offering her free stuff to get her business.

Well that just didn't feel right to her. Chances are this guy wanted to make a quick buck and get out of town."

The ad then goes on to talk about how Safelight is the best and you should always get your windshield replaced by them or THE CONSEQUENCES COULD BE DIRE!!! Now the reason this commercial bugs me is not because it’s poorly done and highly unethical. It bugs me because of how improbable it is. The “Chances are this guy wanted to make a quick buck and get out of town” line wrecks me every time. Even though I’m driving alone every time I hear that line I look around puzzled and sometimes say “What?” aloud. I mean really? Make a quick buck and get out of town? What is this guy The Music Man of windshield repairs? Honestly, aren’t the days of rolling into town, sexing up librarians and bolting with a bag of cash long gone? And were those days ever even around for the windshield replacement industry?

I’m really not sure what the answers to any of these questions are. But what I really want to know is who is this commercial swaying? Are there really people out there listening to the radio in the middle of the afternoon with a broken windshield who’ve gotten burned by windshield replacement con men in the past who are just jumping for joy when they hear this ad, thinking “finally someone has realized my plight. I’m going to Safelight for all my windshield replacement needs from now on. I won’t be fooled again.” I mean this ad can’t possibly be effective right?

These, and several other questions like them*, are the ones I want answered.

Until We Meet Again
* Such as “What’s the success rate of ‘Missed Connections’ postings on Craigslist?”