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Adventureland: Blu-ray
Greg Mottola
Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds, Martin Starr, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig
(Sidney Kimmel Entertainment; US DVD: 25 Aug 2009; UK DVD: 25 Aug 2009)
Adventureland is a classic, a great film fashioned out of truths, consequences, and half-remembered conclusions. It’s a love letter to independence discovered and emotions stripped bare. It’s funny but not farcical, natural and organic without a hint of the whack job perversion that colored writer/director Greg Mottola’s previous film, Superbad. Indeed, audience failed to respond to the film when it was released in theaters because the geniuses behind the movie’s marketing kept repeating the Apatow angle over and over again. But unlike that updated teen sex romp, Adventureland is more like Mottola’s first film, the critically acclaimed effort from 1996, The Daytrippers. The humor here is not outrageous, peppered with every curse word and innuendo possible. Instead, this is the standard slice of life, carved with precision and purpose. The results surpass anything his previous canon could have suggested.
