Super Pop!

The excitement over the European Union may have waned somewhat, but the interest in what attractive and intelligent young people will do when they share the same space and pursue the same goals remains just about exactly as interesting and engaging as it ever was. French superstar Romain Duris plays Xavier, a French college student who leaves his girlfriend (Audrey Tautou) and postpones his future in order to spend a year studying in Barcelona. The stakes are high in the sense that he needs to figure out what kind of a life he wants to lead, but they’re also low in the sense that he doesn’t really need to make his mind up quite yet. Everyone else that he winds up living with (in the titular auberge) is in the same situation. The movie never oversells its importance, and that’s they key to its charm: It matters because we care about the characters—not because their year in Barcelona is going to change very much.

Most teams in the movies—whether they play basketball or lead cheers or sing songs—adhere to the same basic formula. There’s the talented group leader who’s hard to get along with, the gifted but injured one, the charming but mediocre one, the emotional wildcard, and so on. The college a cappella team in Pitch Perfect doesn’t stray too far from these basic types, but they make these types come alive again. Rebel Wilson, for instance, plays the character “Fat Amy.” That is not her real name, though; she just uses it so “twig bitches like [group leader Aubrey] don’t do it behind my back.” In a moment of honesty later on, she reveals her name is really “Fat Patricia.” That’s Pitch Perfect. The old formula with great music and better jokes.

In the last scene of Stand by Me, the narrator (played as an adult by Richard Dreyfuss) types, “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?” The movie is based on the semiautobiographical story “The Body,” by Stephen King, but this concluding thought is more than just semitrue. Childhood friendships are a serious business, but in looking back on them, it’s hard to say quite why they meant so much. That Stephen King and Rob Reiner were able to capture this poignancy without insisting on it is what makes the movie so special. The four young actors in the film (Wil Wheaton, Jerry O’Connell, Corey

Feldman, and River Phoenix) were hired to play kids out on a childish adventure, but they were also given a script that didn’t demand that they remain children. Their characters have moments of innocence, flashes of insight, and reversions to utter immaturity. They act like humans on their way to something, which is what they are. And, of course, what we are as well. The moral? “That’s life.”

Captain America goes for glory while Hulk goes for smash. Hawkeye and Black Widow both have some growing up to do. And Iron Man wants to be number one (and Thor does, too). This is the stuff that great dysfunctional families are made of, and great superhero superteams, too. This is The Avengers. What are they avenging? Profits unearned? Perhaps. But I prefer to think that what the Avengers are avenging is stupidity in summer blockbuster films. And they achieve their vengeance by simply speaking well, fighting hard, and enjoying themselves, no matter what. Under Joss Whedon’s steady hand, no fight can keep them from joking, no joke can keep them from fighting, and despite the now traditional two-hour plus running time, nothing really ever gets in the way of anything—except, of course, for the main characters, who trip each other up with an equal degree of stubbornness and relish. In the end they save the world, but in this unique blockbuster, it’s the journey that matters, not the destination.

Shaun of the Dead is what happens when really smart nerds are entrusted with time, resources, and a really good metaphor. The nerds in question are writer/director Edgar Wright, writer/ actor Simon Pegg, and actor/actor Nick Frost. The time and resources in question were provided by the studio. And the metaphor in question is zombies. Admittedly, zombies have been done before, and they have been done “like this” before as well, but they have never been done like this before for comedy; this is something new. (And if that sounds like faint praise, go eat a brain and see how far that gets you. Not so nutritious, dum-dum!)

Here, the fundamental metaphor of “we are all zombies” is put into the foreground, which has the double benefit of turning a hungover commute into something truly poetic and also putting the developing relationships among the main characters into the background. And as anyone who has ever wondered why so many terrible horror movies have such great opening scenes can attest, the answer is because when the threat is palpable, there’s hardly any pressure to entertain. Which makes the humans on the screen seem all the more real. So in summary, trust in this: If you’ve ever been intrigued by the idea of “running for your life,” this is the best place for a trial run.

Goonies is like Stand by Me in that it puts children onscreen and lets them behave like actual adolescents rather than Hollywood kids, but instead of using that realistic sensibility for poignancy, here it’s used to maximize the overall effects of its comedy and action. To say that another way, it’s a Spielberg picture. It’s Baby Raider of the Lost Ark, plus pirates, a hunchback, and music by Cyndi Lauper. It was made by hit-makers (including Home Alone director Chris Columbus, who wrote the script, and Superman director Richard Donner), so it was born to be a hit, but its endurance as a family favorite is a testament to both their abilities and to the appeal of the kids who were cast as the Goonies—including Sean Astin (who would later play Samwise Gamgee), Josh Brolin (who would later play Llewelyn Moss in No Country for Old Men), and Corey Feldman (who would only ever play Corey Feldman).

A lot of books would wilt (wallflower pun alert!) under the pressure of all the sex abuse, verbal abuse, drug abuse, and insecurities that occur in Stephen Chbosky’s classic high school novel. But Perks of Being a Wallflower has Charlie, and Charlie has friends, and together this ad hoc circle of rebels and misfits offer an open, honest, and unpretentious look at both the thrills that make teenage life so exciting (and the threats and embarrassments that make it so unbearable). MTV published this book two years before the first season of The Real World premiered and, although this is fiction, it still offers a blend of entertainment and interest that reality shows struggle to achieve. (Plus, no reality show has ever been better cast.) The movie version, also directed by Chbosky, isn’t too shabby either.

It’s hard to find a sitcom that isn’t also a domestic drama. Whether we’re talking about All in the Family or The Cosby Show or Friends, there’s always a coherent kind of family structure at work. There’s the character who sets things on fire, the character who puts out those fires, and then the character who pops up after the fact with a grocery bag full of left shoes and wonders why everyone’s standing outside. Or you know, whatever. Anyway, the point is that in order to make this formula work, the characters need to maintain a natural balance while also continually pushing each other’s buttons and providing the fodder for future jokes and fires.

It took New Girl a while to come to that point of entropic equilibrium, but it is definitely there now. The absurdity of Zooey Deschanel’s childish outlook provides the necessary counterweight (and spur) to Schmidt’s consumerist koans (“Damn it! I can’t find my driving moccasins anywhere!”); Nick’s howls of frustration give Winston the space he needs to mock his roommates while also opening himself up to their return-thrusts. It’s fun, hilarious, absurd, and even though they’re all just friends (except when they’re more than that), it’s also very family.

Back in the nineteenth century, all the best quasi-family stories were set in orphanages. But that became depressing after people realized that gruel was not just a word that people sometimes said—it was also a thing that neglected children sometimes ate. So that fad eventually passed and now all of our best fake families either come from, or take their inspiration from, John Hughes’s classic film, set in detention (aka, the secular, high school version of purgatory). To put that another way: We are all born of detention. That’s where we rebel, that’s where we reflect, that’s where we give up, and that’s the place where we all find each other. We’re all a hopeless mess, and the sooner we admit it the better off we’ll be. Fist pump.

The family that gaffes together, laughs together. Right? I think that’s the line. Well, no one gaffes harder than the cast of SNL—because no one else really has the same opportunity. Live television with live microphones is just a tough proposition. Thirty-seven years on, they’re still doing it, and they still appear to be mostly having a good time. And despite the intense pressure of working on the show and competing for airtime and preeminence, the people on the show seem to really like each other. You can sort of see it in the Stefon skits, for example, where there’s a standing challenge to Bill Hader not to laugh when he reads out his advice for NYC tourists (“If you’re ordinary and love salt, New York’s hottest holiday club is [bellows like a goat]”), and you can definitely see it when someone like Kristen Wiig leaves the show. Her final slow dance with Mick Jagger, fellow cast members, and Lorne Michaels is a beautiful, beautiful thing. [Chills.]

THANKSGIVINGAD HOC FAMILIES THAT WILL DOIN A PINCH

THANKSGIVING
AD HOC FAMILIES THAT WILL DO
IN A PINCH