Review: Everybody Wants Some!!!


Blake Jenner stars as a college freshman baseball pitcher, and the film charts the 72 hours in his life before the first day of the first college semester. Zoey Deutch plays the artsy cutie Jenner has a thing for, Tyler Hoechlin and Juston Street play a couple of jerk ball players, and Glen Powell is essentially Jenner’s cocky McConaughey-esque mentor-of-sorts on campus.


Likeable 2016 slice-of-life from Richard Linklater (“Dazed and Confused”, “Boyhood”) is a very easy watch, so long as you’re not expecting much in the way of plot or character depth. That’s not Linklater’s strength really, and it’s definitely not what the writer-director is really concerned with here. Set in 1980 over a 72 hour period before the first day of the college year for a bunch of college baseball players, I’m glad that at least these characters, if not entirely popping out as individuals, are pretty likeable. Hell, even the least likeable ones at least tended to be funny (Juston Street’s arrogant head-case Niles in particular is hilarious). Early on you feel like you’ve stepped into the sorriest excuse for a frat house since “Revenge of the Nerds”, only these guys are jocks and…well, they’re kinda idiots really. I’m talking knuckle-flicking contests until you bleed, idiots. They’re nice idiots, but real stoner/slacker-types (despite being jocks) and not nearly as cool as they think they are. The film’s most joyous moment is a car sing-along to ‘Rapper’s Delight’ of all things, in a film with a title taken from one of two kick-arse Van Halen songs on the soundtrack (The other is the face-melting ‘Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love’, whilst P-Funk and ZZ Top are other artists heard).


Although I’m not sporty and certainly not terribly well-versed in American college sports, it’s interesting to me that sport of choice here is baseball and not the usual football or basketball. It’s fairly interesting and realistically presented by Linklater. Aside from the aforementioned Juston Street, Wyatt Russell (and boy does he look like his dad) probably leaves the most lasting impression among the ball players, as the resident stoner and Deadhead, but the best overall performance comes from Glen Powell, who has a lot of charm and charisma. I also felt that J. Quinton Johnson, and especially Zoey Deutch have a certain charisma/screen presence to them too. I really hope to see Deutch (daughter of 80s hottie Lea Thompson, and you can definitely tell) in more in the future. Whatever ‘it’ is, she has it. Lots of it. In what is essentially the lead role, Blake Jenner is just OK, and a lot of the others are pretty interchangeable for me.


The film works for what it is: A snapshot/slice-of-life picture. If not terribly well-defined, the characters are at least likeable and I was never bored. If you enjoy slice-of-life films, you’ll probably like this one even more than I did.


Rating: B-

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chilly t
Read more

Review: Boyka: Undisputed

Yuri Boyka (Scott Adkins) is out of prison and fighting for a living, with ambitions for the ‘Most Complete Fighter’ to make a real name for himself. However, after an opponent dies during a fight, the deeply religious Boyka starts to have a crisis of conscience. He tries to make amends with the man’s widow, which eventually pits him against a local gangster (Alon Moni Aboutboul, quite good). Anything with Scott Adkins will generally get me interested, and although this series peaked with the superlative “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , this 2017 film from director Todor Chapkanov (director of the SyFy movies “Copperhead” and “Ghost Town” ) is no slouch in a series yet to deliver anything less than solid entertainment. Producer Isaac Florentine is missed in the director’s chair, but Chapkanov gives us at the very least the series’ most dramatically ambitious entry, as Adkins’ ‘most complete fighter’ Yuri Boyka continues on his journey to redemption here. In this one, the
Read more

Review: Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear

Scott Adkins is once again Casey, an American proponent of the martial art of Ninjutsu. When Casey’s pregnant Japanese wife (Mika Hijii) is rubbed out, he’s on a vengeance mission to find her killers. A friendly face, Nakabara (Kane Kosugi) turns up at the funeral, and suggests Casey come to Thailand to deal with his grief in another country. Casey initially declines, but eventually takes Nakabara up on his offer. However, his wife’s murder still haunts Casey, and with intel supplied by Nakabara, the trail eventually leads Casey to a brutal drug baron named Goro (Shun Sugata).   I was extremely disappointed with the first “Ninja” , but had heard that this 2013 sequel from director Isaac Florentine ( “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , “Undisputed III: Redemption” , “Ninja” ) was a damn near masterpiece of the martial-arts action movie genre. Having now finally gotten my hot little hands on it, I’d say the hype is a bit much, but this is unquestionably a much better film than the f
Read more