There are capital-G Guys, and then there is Greg Mottola, whose semi-autobiographical “how I spent my summer vacation” comedy Adventureland insists that back in his college days, the young director was more sensitive than all those other dudes who just wanted to get laid. That would be fine and all if the big payoff the movie works toward was something other than a scene in which Mottola’s fictional stand-in (played by The Squid and the Whale’s Jesse Eisenberg) gets to ball the girl of his dreams (Kristen Stewart, operating on the other end of the chastity spectrum from her Twilight character). I mean, he’s not that special: The world is full of late-blooming virgins with the romantic notion that two people should really love each other before they have sex (Mottola already dealt with that idea quite nicely when Michael Cera’s character passes up his first time in Superbad).
More interesting than the movie’s paint-by-numbers relationship plot is the environment in which it all goes down. Coming home from his senior year in college, James Brennan learns that his dad has been demoted at work, meaning his family can’t afford to send him to Europe for the summer as planned. Instead, he’s stuck in Pittsburgh with a plastic bag full of joints and the terrifying realization that his college degree is good for nothing more than a shit job at the local amusement park.
A place like Adventureland would make the perfect stage for a Larry Clark-style look at adolescence: In theory, such venues offer a delicious contrast between the fun, clean-scrubbed surface they represent to kids and all the transgressive behavior that goes on between the hormone-addled employees, as they get high on their cigarette breaks, land their first VD from the girl who runs the Ferris wheel or what have you. But Mottola has a far tamer view of the park. Considering that he really held such a job, you’d hope for more insider insights than the fact that the concessions have sometimes passed their expiration date and the games are rigged so no one can win a “giant-ass panda bear” (among comedies, only Waiting has really nailed the borderline-depraved atmosphere of minimum-wage ennui).
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Director Greg Mottola has had a Sundance-in-reverse journey since his 1996 film The Daytrippers premiered at Slamdance that year, and he then moved into the world of television directing, worked on Judd Apatow’s Freaks and Geeks followup series Undeclared, directed Superbad, one of the biggest comedies in recent years, and now is finally at Sundance with his movie Adventureland.
Adventureland was inspired by Mottola’s own experience working at a theme park in the 1980s after college, and it’s a bittersweet look at young romance. Check out our interview with Mottola after the break.
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Sundance announced the lineups for their four non-competitive programs (Premieres, Spectrum, Frontiers and Midnight) this afternoon. Full lineups can be found after the jump; here are my first-skim picks for highlights:
- Adventureland, Greg Mottola’s follow-up to Superbad (and first Sundance trip — The Daytrippers won Slamdance in 1996).
- Brooklyn’s Finest, the Antoine Fuqua film which Steven Boone stumbled upon in Brooklyn.
- The Informers, directed by Gregor Jordan and based on the Bret Easton Ellis book. God, I hope BEE is in Park City so I can ask him about his alleged Theresa Duncan/Jeremy Blake movie.
- Cannes and Toronto leftovers, including James Toback’s Tyson, Davis Guggenheim’s It Might Get Loud, and the Alec Baldwin drama Lymelife.
- Films by Spike Lee, Stanley Nelson and Robert Townsend in a (as far as I know) knew Spectrum Documentary sidebar.
- You Won’t Miss Me, directed by Ry Russo-Young (Orphans, Hannah Takes the Stairs), starring Stella Schnabel.
- The Carter, described as “An in-depth, intimate look at the artist Dwayne ‘Lil’ Wayne’ Carter Jr, proclaimed by many as the ‘greatest rapper alive.’”
- Moon, AKA Sundance Goes to Space, with Sam Rockwell.
- Rudo y Cursi, the soccer-themed re-team of Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal.
- World’s Greatest Dad, Bobcat Goldthwaite’s triumphant return to Sundance after the unjustly ignored post-bestiality rom-com Sleeping Dogs Lie. Starring Robin Williams (!)
- Dead Snow, in which Norweigan teens meet Nazi zombies.
- Spring Breakdown, a MILFs out of water comedy starring Rachel Dratch, Amy Poehler and Parker Posey and co-written by Dratch.
- White Lightnin’, the first scripted feature from the VICE Magazine crew.
- O’er the Land, described as “a meditation on our national psyche and the milieu of elevated threat,” directed Deborah Stratman (cinematographer of Los Angeles Plays Itself)
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