JDFilmsBlog

It’s the end of high school for Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera), and before they depart to different colleges, they want to get girls drunk and get laid. Their quest for sexual and inebriated gratification is given a new lease of life, when Seth’s new fling Jules has organized a house party-so it’s up to Seth and Evan to acquire alcohol so the party goes to plan for these swingers.

Seeing as Seth and Evan are under 21, they are not allowed to buy alcohol. Luckily for them though, their buddy Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) has managed to attain fake I.D, so he can be used to purchase the booze with the hopes of the I.D not being seen as fake. Fogell’s uses his license as a chance to change his name to McLovin, a name which Seth is highly dubious of, because in his words it’s a “dumb fairytale name”, and worse still it’s only a forename, making the I.D look even more suspicious. Thankfully the I.D was accepted, but that is far from the end of the adventure.

What commences is a wild comedy, with unplanned misadventures that make for quite an immature yet pleasing time. The bulk of the humour derives from awkward moments and the juvenile sex-pest like behaviour of Seth, which both hits and misses the mark throughout, but the strained friendship of Seth and Evan give something of substance to the whole shebang.

Seth isn’t happy that Evan is moving away to another college, a fact that channels a divide between the two throughout the film. Seth’s hot-headed temperament and Evan’s calm and friendly demeanour makes it more apparent that there’s a riff afoot.

One way this divide is expressed is through way Seth treats Jules and Evan treats Becca. While Seth is full of beans about having sex with Jules, when the two meet it appears Seth is a bit more insecure, as he thinks he’s actually not good enough for her. Evan meanwhile, maintains his kind and selfless personality, but he doesn’t seem as keen to be as adventurous in the bedroom as Becca. This insecurity mirrors an earlier part of the film where Evan is forced to sing a song to a bunch of coke-heads, who mistaken him for someone they know who can sing well.

What the relationships with these girls exposes within Seth and Evan is that they are insecure and wanting to please the opposite sex, which contradicts the crudeness shown behind the girls’ backs. This demonstrates that the reality of being in the presence of the girls reveals innermost feelings and character, whereas when they aren’t around they act like desperate moron nerd virgins.

Towards the end of the film after the hellacious party the night before, Jules and Becca are shopping for coverup thanks to Seth’s accidental headbutt on the way to passing out momentarily on the floor in a drunk state. Seth apologizes for the incident, then makes a joke about Jules look cool with a black eye, then feels bad again when Jules states that her and Becca are shopping for coverup.

This scene is quite pleasant, as it shows a caring side to Seth, but it is scattershot and rather momentary-because as soon as Jules and Seth walk off to go shopping, the credits roll. Seth is shown to care more towards the end of the film than he does for over three-quarters of it, making Seth’s character development seem rushed.

Throughout most of Superbad, Seth’s obsession with money, alcohol and sex throughout Superbad is gratuitous and distracting. Seth is of course a young man with raging hormones, but his vices create more unnecessary headaches for himself and Evan. For instance, Seth happens upon a blonde called Mary Hutchins off in the distance, who’s had breast reduction surgery, and he wants to race over to her and “catch a glimpse at those warlocks”.

This distraction means they missed the robber who came into the convenience store, smashed Fogell in the face with his fist, and made off with the registry cash, so they now think Fogell has been busted because of his fake I.D. This not only shows how Seth and Evan get easily distracted, but shows how little of a shit they give about Fogell. Furthermore, this confusion sends Seth into a madness because he thinks now that he can’t obtain the alcohol and can’t buy it either because they don’t have the money.

Your liking of Superbad may hinge on whether you can tolerate the repetitive sex-based jokes and Seth’s juvenile mentality. There are plenty of sexual innuendos and talk about what Seth wants to do with his lady fling, much of it is grotesque. It’s fatiguing to hear and see a barrage of puerile penis and ejaculation jokes with no filter and no accounting for limits. Then again, all Superbad devolves into is dick jokes and adolescent behaviour, especially from the cops played by Seth Rogen and Bill Hader-turns out law and order can’t adjust this film’s attitude none.

On the flipside some of it rather amusing too. Seth telling Evan of his childhood obsession drawing male genitalia is something unexpected and quite artfully inspired. Turns out there are many drawings you can make out of a phallus and a pair of testicles, including an unpeeled banana, a bar chart with penises and cock bombs among others.

Two well-timed jokes in particular make a good splash. At the beginning when Seth is ogling at Evan’s mother’s tits, Seth states that Evan was “so lucky he got to suck on those tits when he was a baby.” Then, out of the blue Evan retorts with “yeah, well at least you got to suck on your dad’s dick.”

The second great comedic moment comes during Seth’s daydream. Seth imagines he’s shopping for alcohol to take to the party. Whilst perusing the drinks isle, he witnesses an old lady drop her purse, quickly scooping it off the floor and giving it back to her. Seth then offers to help the lady with the groceries, and then she exchanges by offering to buy Seth alcohol. Once they completed shopping together, Seth remarks “enjoy your remaining years,” with the old lady exclaiming “enjoy fucking Jules.”

It’s often the jokes with spontaneous suddenness that hit resoundingly in Superbad, but too often the film tangles itself up with these kinds of jokes that a lot of them don’t connect. If Superbad wasn’t so fixated on dirty jokes and brought about more subtle and understated humour, then it wouldn’t feel dried and hackneyed by the end of the film.

The supporting cast isn’t fleshed out much either. The cops want to turn their joyless job into a funny and memorable one we know that, but their ability to relate to the youth is underdeveloped. We don’t know how their antics went down with the police department, we never see any other officer, we just see both of them befriending Fogell and wrestling with the old hobo man.

Another side character, the goofy idiot Francis, who takes Seth and Evan to a party to get booze-is underutilized and unexplained. Francis comes onto the scene when he accidentally runs down Seth, claiming he didn’t see Seth at all. To prevent Seth from calling the cops, Francis offers to take Seth and Evan to an unrelated party, where they can grab the alcohol they need for the party they want to attend with Jules and Becca.

Francis might appear like a friendly guy, but he rubs everyone up the wrong way, and he’s a missed opportunity. Seth and Evan don’t like him because of his strange remarks like saying that Seth looks like Jimmy’s brother-a Jimmy we don’t know at all. In the car, Francis gets nosey by asking Seth who’s on the phone, then wanting a high-five when Seth talks about getting laid.

Francis’ annoying personality is to the film’s credit, as he’s got an air of mystery about him, but Superbad doesn’t capitalize on this. The fact we don’t get to know why he’s on the run from the law or why he has issues with Mark at the party, further shows why we should’ve got to know more of what was going on as a possible sub-story within the film. All we get is a fight between Francis and Mark and that’s it for Francis-he punches Mark in the face and as a consequence gets kicked in the balls-that’s all we get out of Francis for the rest of Superbad.

Superbad has many hit and miss moments it can be difficult to know exactly whether to like it or not. Seth and Evan’s misadventures are entertaining to see pan out, but the gratuitous sexual humour is too numerous and gross to watch. Superbad is like an even more juvenile American Pie-and that’s really saying something. However, if the misadventures and sophomore jokes are your thing it’s certainly a funny and memorable ride with many noteworthy quotes and moments. This doesn’t detract from the sense Superbad is a dirty comedy for mindless yucks, but sometimes you’ve gotta leave your brain at the concessions stand and have a good time.

A basketball coach with the unenviable task of turning failing young men into successful basketball players, Ken Carter is a man who commands respect, but one who offer to show respect to these struggling sportsmen. Coach Carter’s goal is not only to turn these boys into men, but to make them working together as a functioning unit to win basketball games. The journey is what makes Coach Carter the film, a drama of hope and strength that shows the formidable power of never giving up and always pushing forward against any odds in the quest for the ultimate respect.

The Richmond High School basketball team start as a group of failures. They lose their basketball games, they fail at school, they disrespect each other, and they start fights between each other as well. The team’s original coach couldn’t control them, so Coach Carter is sworn in to change their fortunes and improve their reputation tenfold.

As is the case in reality, taking on a new responsibility comes with growing pains. Coach Carter enters the gym, introduces himself to his players, but finds out he has to speak louder so they can hear him, they also couldn’t see him either. After these instances of disrespect, Carter puts his foot down by getting serious and turning the tables on one of the young bucks Timo Cruz, after he goes in for a sucker punch.

From here on out, Coach Carter pushes his team harder than they’ve ever been pushed before. He forces them to perform hundreds of press ups and thousands of suicides if they turn up late or shows him disrespect; he makes the players sign a contract to turn up to all their classes, sit in the front row of those classes and maintain a 2.3 grade-point average, and tries his darndest to prevent them from ending up in prison.

The methods Coach Carter adopts to socialize the team is what’s particularly noteworthy. He sees the team, himself and the entirety of Richmond High School as one. If one student fails, they all fail, meaning they are all in this together. This mirrors the state of play on the Basketball court, and is a way to ensure that the players stick together both in life and during a game.

The extremity of Coach Carter’s rules raises the ire of the Richmond community. After the disappointment and upset with the students failing their exams, Coach Carter locks the gym until such times as their collective grades improve. The community become irate at this, because they believe basketball is all these men have in their lives, and that it’s all they love and live for.

It’s easy to assess Coach Carter as a figure of schooling conformity, who enters the fray to bend the students to the whims of their new corporate master. Afterall, Coach Carter watches them like a hawk, scolds them for wrongdoings both inside and outside of the gym, not relenting or changing his own style throughout; he’s a rigid man on a mission and never stopped to think his tactics were too extreme on the boys.

However, to take the view that Coach Carter is a stubborn control freak who has no fun, reduces the importance in turning young men away from crime and a squalid lifestyle.

The criticisms echoed towards Coach Carter’s coaching style are abundant to those who don’t see the underlying value in them. He wants to turn the reputation of college students around and the criminality associated with black people in America. Coach Carter’s ability to keep an eye the team and treat everybody as a unified part of the community is what makes Coach Carter the best kind of coach there is in life, one who will keep on going through thick and thin and challenges his pupils to be their best at all times. We all need a Coach Carter in our lives.

2003’s rock comedy hit School of Rock, is one of the coolest comedies of the early noughties. Starring Tenacious D’s ebullient and musically talented lead singer Jack Black, School of Rock tells the story of a jettisoned rock star, down on his luck after the band he created kicked him out of it, and his remarkable resurgence to superstardom courtesy of a class of school children he surreptitiously teaches, in order to conquer the yearly Battle of the Bands competition.

Jack Black plays an overweight, showboating wannabe rock icon Dewey Finn, a shredding guitar musician, who fronted a band called No Vacancy. After a gig where Dewey performs a 20-minute solo, whilst engaging in buffoonish show-off behaviour, which included an ill-fated stage dive that knocked him out; No Vancancy vote unanimously to kick him out of the band, due to being tired of his flashy antics, as well as wanting to be more serious so they can land record deals.

Finn, irritated that he had been kicked out of the band he had built, gives one of the band members the rebellious instruction to read between the lines, promising to gather together a huge band of his own, that’ll leave No Vacancy wallowing as a foot note on Dewey’s epic ass-as he so eloquently put it.

So Dewey goes on to forge his huge epic band…….by faking to be his best friend by committing identity theft, calling himself Ned Schneebly, so he could become a teacher at a local school and use the children to enact his revenge on his former bandmates.

The behaviour exhibited by Mr Finn in the last paragraph and throughout School of Rock was highly illegal in any normal circumstance, and all of it demonstrates why School of Rock didn’t deserve to win Battle of Bands-because there is plenty of wide-open examples of deceit at play here.

Dewey’s mission to start this amazing rock band goes off without a hitch for the most part. He realizes the children’s musical talents by spying on them playing classical music in their proper music class, then he proceeds to grab instruments from the back of his van, setting it all up in the classroom ready for their return to his classroom.

Despite the insanity of not getting caught moving instruments into the school, spying on children is freakishly unbecoming of an adult let-alone a spurious teacher.

When the children returned to Mr Finn’s classroom, Dewey puts the children’s musical skills to the test before assigning them positions in the band. All this goes on without many problems, though one of the faculty reported to the headteacher Ms Mullins, saying she heard music coming from his classroom-which was quickly dealt with, as the children rapidly put away the instruments and returned to their seating positions; so when Ms Mullins inspected the classroom, there was not the slightest concern, and Dewey deflected any suspicion by simply saying that he hasn’t heard any music emanating from the classroom at all.

Another example of a close call which would later seem not to carry through in any way, is when School of Rock go and audition for Battle of the bands. The crew was late, and the guy in charge refused to hear their music, so Dewey gets the band to pretend they’re all seriously sick, so they can gain sympathy to participate in the audition. The plan actually worked-and then it wasn’t carried through or spoken of again afterwards.

This lie shows the headaches that come with trying to cover your tracks in a highly risky and perilous situation. You can tell from this scene that the charade is already in a spot of jeopardy, but Dewey is dead-set to ride this fakery as far as he can.

Sooner or later though the real you comes out and what a better way to unravel and expose your true self than in front of the kids and their parents at a parents’ evening. Here, Dewey weakly mentions all the subjects he didn’t teach the children and responds to disgruntled parents about their children’s strange musical interests at home then off the corner of his eye. Dewey then spots Ned and his girlfriend speaking to a police officer, which distracts Dewey verbally, before the policeman walks into the classroom, where the shit really hits the proverbial fan.

Dewey reveals he isn’t Ned Schneebly but Dewey Finn, before explaining how awesome the kids are, and then in an extremely awkward line he states that “I have been touched by your kids, and I’m pretty sure I’ve touched them”. A moment of silent falls on the classroom, then opens up filling the air with disgust and anger, forcing Dewey to pick up his guitars and race out of the school to avoid the stampede of angry parents.

This scene is a nightmare scenario, even if the cracks were beginning to show already. The real Ned Schneebly had taddled and his gentle nature was manipulated to change Dewey’s fate-at least until everybody got over it and Dewey was able to take the kids to the Battle of the Bands.

Now, after all this preliminary stuff, we arrive at why No Vacancy rightfully won Battle of the Bands. Before digging in, it’s important to highlight that it’s easy to root for Dewey, as he got kicked out of No Vacancy unceremoniously and he built the band who ostracized him. It’s also very admirable that he took the risks he did to become a teacher at a school and amass this huge band full of children, one of them who actually wrote the song ‘Rock’s Got No Reason’, and another who became the band manager. And with all that praise, it’s now time to eviscerate School of Rock and Dewey because No Vacancy absolutely and undeniably won the Battle of the Bands contest, no matter how straightforward they might appear to be.

First things first, No Vacancy wanted to be taken seriously as a band, they wanted to evolve from who they were. This isn’t about “selling out”, this is about changing the band for the better. Yes, it’s easy to think that going more corporate is a bad thing, but if you want to get ahead, you need to do something bigger and better. Dewey says he cared about the music, but did he really? He played around, acted like a showoff and the ultimate stage presence, it seems it’s more about him, not about the music.

Second of all, the song played by No Vacancy was much better than what School of Rock produced. They are both very good songs, Rock Got No Reason is empowering and the performance was all-encompassing and spectacular. However, the lyrics and the message of the song is ass-backwards. The message is that rock is generally more important than learning in a school environment. Take this introductory lyric “baby we were making straight A’s but we was stuck in a dumb daze,” how do you get straight As when you are stuck in a dumb daze? The song is a show-pony, more about the spectacle and the ceremony, not about making sense.

Now flipping over to No Vacancy and their hit “Heal Me, I’m Heart Sick,” it just sounds better, and there’s an emotional and personal heft to it. No, there is no spectacle, no attention-grabbing light shows or big and brazen sense of presence. This song is bleeding with passion and talent-both of which was cruelly undermined by the audience and by Dewey himself.

My final big point here, is that whilst No Vacancy were respectful and reasonable, Dewey was angry and resorted to criminality and exploitation in order to gain revenge, all because he couldn’t see that the band was evolving. It’s crazy that the audience at the Battle of the Bands cheered and celebrated all the illegality and booed a genuine band who wanted to make progress. I guess it’s a parable of what us humans find entertaining, rallying behind it as readily as a thunderous stomping bloat of hippos, with anything genuine but subtly presented cast aside because they aren’t memorable enough.

To tie things together, No Vacancy deserved to win the Battle of the Bands because they had a vision and they wanted to get ahead. There’s nothing wrong with this ideal, we all need to do what is best for ourselves to make headway. Dewey’s actions meanwhile were empowered by seething bitterness, showing this by fraudulently pretending to be his best friend Ned Schneebly, using the children at Horace Green prep school as an armada for vengeance, and lying continuously to keep up the façade. Dewey is a decent and well-meaning dude, but his resentment was his undoing, but instead of the film punishing him for not learning lessons, him and his band are rewarded with an encore and we get a happy ending. School of Rock’s performance was a showpiece, but No Vacancy’s efforts veered towards a masterpiece-thankfully the latter won the show and the lesson is be genuine, upfront and honest and do not date a headteacher at a prep school.

Welcome to WordPress! This is your first post. Edit or delete it to take the first step in your blogging journey.