Wet Hot American Summer (2001)

Wet Hot American Summer: Directed by David Wain. With Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Michael Showalter, Marguerite Moreau. Set on the last day of camp, in the hot summer of 1981, a group of counselors try to complete their unfinished business before the day ends.

“I was dying to see this once I saw the ridiculous MEATBALLS poster and divined that it had to be the best satire ever. What a brilliant idea for a satire–the genre is rife. Unfortunately, the finished product (as I think all involved probably realize) is a catalogue of missed opportunities, not-quite-there performances and (thankfully!) a few extremely hilarious, inspired bits. Janeane Garafolo, who is very striking, looks really bad here, probably because she is uncomfortably struggling to make her flat role funny. David Hyde Pierce is just sad to watch, trying to hard to be funny and looking like a Castro nerd. Molly Shannon is so funny just SEEING her makes you laugh, but somehow her segment fails to snowball into something hysterical. Paul Rudd had great teen mannerisms and was sexy as hell, the other guys are also really funny (the nerdier ones). I think the problem is the director just doesnu0026#39;t move things along at the right pace. He starts out very deadpan, and that sets the monotone. But when he lets things get really outrageous (the drug sequence is the second funniest moment Iu0026#39;ve had all year in movies, the first also coming in a lame movie: Andrea Martin in ALL OVER THE GUY complaining about the movie IN u0026amp; OUT), itu0026#39;s just plain funny. I wanted this movie to work so badly, but it just didnu0026#39;t. The clothes and styling for 1981 are 99.9% PERFECT, and the very few songs used are also perfect. This ends up as a medium-bad MAD TV episode, complete with frustratingly overlong sketches.”