superbad Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The greatest thing about last night's premiere episode of The Simpsons was just how current and fanboy-ish it was, and that's because it was written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (Superbad), the former of which also voiced the character of Homer's Hollywood trainer. But perhaps the best part of the episode came when Rogen -- who's had a long-standing feud with the gang from Entourage -- used his character to take another jab at the HBO show after they used him as the punching bag for a storyline earlier this season.

Simpsons Spoiler Warning

The joke came right at the end of the episode when Homer is yelling at his Hollywood trainer (voiced by Rogen) for ditching him, thus nudging Homer off his diet and back on the chubby wagon -- a move that ultimately ruined the superhero movie he was starring in. So when Homer demands to know who his trainer left him for, Rogen's character admits it was Turtle from Entourage. He then apologizes to Homer and offers him to train with Turtle too so they can both lose the weight. Turtle, for those who remember the episode, was the one who helped instigate the "Why would anyone sleep with Seth Rogen?" argument that caused quite the stir back in July.

After the episode, Rogen told E! that the Entourage guys are "a**holes" and that Entourage creator Doug Ellin was a "moron". But the feud goes back even further because Rogen pitched an Entourage-type show long ago, and HBO turned it down only to then bring on Entourage. So, yeah, Rogen -- the clever bastard that he is -- decided to do what every true fanboy wished they could do: He used The Simpsons to get back at his Entourage bully. And I thought it was pretty awesome ...

I've had my share of all-nighters, and sure, some of them were for a perfectly legitimate reason like studying, but I'll be honest with you: most of them were for reasons that for the sake of propriety, I shouldn't go into here -- and I know I'm not the only one. Who doesn't have a story about that one great night? Or that one party that couldn't be missed? Exactly, we all do, and maybe that's why we all love a good story about some wild and crazy all-nighter.

This Friday, audiences will be treated to another tale full of all-night shenanigans with I Love You, Beth Cooper, which follows a high school nobody who changes everything when he utters those five words during his graduation speech. So just like every 'all-nighter' film to go before it, Cooper is about breaking out of your comfort zone and watching the best laid plans go to waste -- and usually our hero or heroine gets to fall in love along the way. So with that in mind, let's take a look back at seven other films that are about our search for a good time.

1. The Allnighter
Well, you can't have a list about all-nighters without including this 80's turkey starring The Bangles' lead singer, Susanna Hoffs. Even Joan Cusack (the patron saint of 80's comedy) couldn't save this story about a group of girls looking for a good time on their last night before graduation. The Allnighter was written and directed by Hoff's mom, and was meant to be the singer's big break into acting. Unfortunately for her, the film was so bad that not only did it fail at the box office, it managed to turn the gal off from ever pursuing a film career at all.

After the jump: find out which other all-nighter flicks made the list...

The first poster for Adventureland gives "from the director of Superbad" the lowest, smallest billing. The most recent poster puts it first and foremost, even making it more colorful than the title and, one could argue, the cast itself.

In the weeks leading up to its release this Friday, the marketing campaign for Adventureland has been slowly, steadily, understandably tweaking itself to play up director Greg Mottola's last hit teen comedy, Superbad, but ever since seeing the film, I've been convinced that those expecting something so raucous this weekend will soon find themselves shifting in their seats as they watch something that's a bit more concerned about the 'age' in 'coming-of-age' than the 'coming.' It's not a tremendously misleading sell, but rather a matter of tone, and as such, here's seven reasons why you should look forward to the film beyond thinking it's the Next Big Quotable Comedy.

In interviews, Michael Cera has been ambivalent about his newfound fame. He's even expressed gentle skepticism regarding the Arrested Development movie everyone's buzzing about. I'm sure he has legitimate personal reasons to be concerned about his celebrity – it can't be easy for someone who doesn't have a huge personality, and who isn't a natural attention hog. But we fans and viewers also have reasons to worry. Foremost among them is the concern that Cera's popularity could drive him to roles where his talents are wasted. Indeed, as this fall's Nick & Norah's Inifinite Playlist demonstrated, it's already begun to happen. For the first time in the comic's career, his presence hurt the project instead of helping it.

In my first go-round with Nick & Norah, after reading the book and before seeing the film, I was optimistic that the role of Nick was just the opportunity for Cera to expand his range – play a character who is a little more confident, a little less tentative and hesitant. Sadly, that's not what happened. Instead, some subtle differences aside, Cera transplanted his (very funny) stock character from Arrested Development, Superbad and Juno into a story where that character wasn't needed, or welcome. In the process, he turned what could have been a sweet, moving romance into a tepid, if still amusing, teen comedy.

I bet you were sitting around today wondering what the director of Superbad was up to, right? That was you, right? Well, good news is Greg Mottola has been finishing up a new film called Adventureland, and based on this hilarious new trailer (which just premiered over at Rotten Tomatoes), it's got an '80s Dazed and Confused vibe written all over it ... and me likey Dazed and Confused very much.

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig (the new comedic love of my life), Ryan Reynolds and Kristen Stewart (OMG, what's Bella doing in another film?!), Adventureland takes place in 1987and follows an awkward kid straight out of school who takes a gig at an amusement park, falls in love, meets a bunch of maniacs and walks away with some pretty valuable life lessons. I had the pleasure of conversing with Jesse Eisenberg earlier this week during the NY premiere of The Living Wake (one of the funniest films of this year, no doubt) at the Big Apple Film Festival, and he's a very cool dude ... AND a big fan of Cinematical, no less. Check out the trailer below; I'm really looking forward to this one. You?

Adventureland hits theaters on March 27th.

Hey, everybody, it's a Labor Day clearance sale! We gotta get rid of these leftover summer movies before the fall models come in! Quick, anybody in the market for a rip-off of Superbad? All it's missing are the likable characters and the good performances! Oh, and the comedy. The comedy fell off in the warehouse. But hey, it's got boobs! That's worth something, right? Anyone? Hello?

You might guess that a film with the uninspired title of College would be lame and derivative, and you'd be right. This laugh-free debacle is the story of three high school seniors who visit a university for a "preview" weekend in the hopes of learning more about the campus, but mostly in the hopes of participating in the legendary college parties. The normal kid is Kevin (Drake Bell), whose girlfriend has just broken up with him. He has a fat, vulgar, slobby best friend named Carter (Andrew Caldwell), and the trio is completed by McLovin -- I'm sorry, Morris (Kevin Covais), a nerdy, bespectacled wimp who looks about 14.

These three arrive at Fieldmont University (FU, get it?) to find that the dorm room they'd been scheduled to stay in is unavailable due to its occupant being a chronic masturbator. (The film makes this even less funny than it sounds.) So instead they try their chances at Beta Phi Tau, where the bastard frat president (pardon the redundancy), Teague (Nick Zano), agrees to let them stay in the basement for the weekend. His motivation for this is that he and his buddies want to torment them. The kids are willing to endure it because it means they can go to frat parties and scam on hot college chicks.

Cross-overs, an old television standard, have been slowly making their way through the world of cinema. But forget the geek crossovers that popped up this summer because there might be a more comedic twist on the way. While talking with MTV, James Franco says there has been discussion about a crossover sequel for Superbad and The Pineapple Express. But it wouldn't be a normal intermingling of characters.

Franco noted that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg weren't very interested in the idea of a Superbad sequel, "And so, an answer to that was to do a Superbad/Pineapple Express crossover, an unprecedented crossover movie with two directors, Greg Motolla and David Gordon Green, each directing half of the movie and somehow these characters get together, which doesn't make sense at all, but could work."

I could see a scenario where Seth gets too into Saul's weed after feeling shunned at the burgeoning friendship between McLovin and Evan, gets into trouble, and Evan has to save him ... maybe with help from the flying-through-the-air Dale and information from Saul. What I don't see is how it would work to do a half-and-half movie.

But what do you think? Should all the kids meet? If so, how should it be done?

Although I'd seen it twice already, I went ahead and accompanied my father to a showing of Pineapple Express last night, only to be greeted with a surprisingly packed 8:10 showing in the theater's largest auditorium. When we exited, the immediate lobby was fairly lined up with those waiting to catch the next showtime, and when I dashed across the hall to peek in on the 9:30 showing that some of my friends had caught, it was in an auditorium half the size and equally packed, down to people actually sitting on the floor space typically reserved for those in wheelchairs (fire hazard, schmire hazard).

I only say this because, if I hadn't gone last night, I would've been truly taken aback with the film's record-breaking $12.5 million opening yesterday. (In comparison, Superbad opened to $12.3 million last year, but on a Friday.) This bodes better for Pineapple than I had expected in general, what with it only having a week to itself before Tropic Thunder does its best to snatch away its overlapping audience.

Oh, and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 also raked in almost $6 million itself, so, um, yay for that.

At least once every month -- and especially during the recent Apatow craze -- my friend and I briefly discuss the heartbreaking awesomeness that is The Last American Virgin (1982). Not only does this film feature one of the greatest soundtracks in movie history, but also included is this vicious tonal shift that sticks with you (in my case, for years and years ...). The flick came up once again in a conversation the other day, and only two hours later we received an email from a dude who wrote up a solid piece on the history of the Israeli teen sex comedy series Last American Virgin is based on, beginning with the one and only Lemon Popsicle (or Eskimo Limon) as it celebrates its 30th anniversary.

Consisting of nine different films, the Lemon Popsicle series is kinda like the American Pie series here in the states, except the former always focused on the same three guys and whatever horny misadventure they found themselves in at the time. Some suggest Lemon Popsicle inspired Porky's (released the same year as LP's American remake, Last American Virgin) -- which, of course, helped inspire the teen sex comedy genre going forward -- and there's no denying its influence on the future of the teen sex comedy; the pop-centric soundtrack, the awkward set of friends (fat guy, cool guy, nerd formula), the story beats (losing of virginity) and so on.

If you're a fan of the genre (and a lot of us are), definitely check out Oren's article, How To Stuff A Lemon Popsicle, over at Films in Review. What do you think? Without Lemon Popsicle, do you think we'd have films like Superbad?

I think that everyone who loves Michael Cera's comedy – and that should be practically everyone – is a little worried about Michael Cera. Because even as Arrested Development becomes legend, Superbad wins over every twentysomething in sight, and Juno charms the pants off the entire nation, the hushed, often unspoken question is: how long can he milk this? Cera's shtick is killer, but it's also ultra-specific – he's the shy, unprepossessing, painfully awkward adolescent, a nice guy who's self-aware enough to get embarrassed but not confident enough to avoid it.

Cera is so good at playing this part in a way that's both touching and hysterical that it's propelled him to stardom. For me to say that I haven't enjoyed any of the incarnations of George Michael Bluth that he's given us over the past couple years would be a bald-faced lie. Indeed, I think the character he's crafted is one of the most impressive comic achievements of my adult lifetime. But even as I relish it, I start to fidget, because I can sense exasperation and annoyance threatening from just around the bend. Oh, maybe not mine – I could watch Cera do this forever, I tell myself – but certainly other people will soon lose patience and turn on the guy. One-trick pony, they'll yell. Do something else.