Another busy week in Senor Ortiz's life culminated with my car practically turning into a hovercraft during last Thursday's deluge. (Looks like I'm gonna have to deal with my current car issue a bit sooner than anticipated.) Amazing that I got anything accomplished for work before the flooding got really bad. Now Hurricane Dean has us in his sights. Well, more like Brownsville and parts of Mexico south of there.
I'm giddy with anticipation. Some of ya know how geeked up I get when a super hurricane approaches the mainland. I've got my tracking map out -- something my uncle and I first learned together listening to NOAA radio, trying to make sense of barometric readings and trajectory when I was all of 6 or 7. I'm quickly becoming nostalgic of more notable hurricanes that have struck Texas in my lifetime: Gilbert, Alicia, Allen. It shall be interesting as the week progresses.
In spite of my busy schedule (including a postponed birthday dinner for my aunt), my pimps-in-crime Martin and Raul and I got to view the awesomeness that is "Superbad." So much buzz has surrounded this movie for months. And it delivered. The producers are as notable as the plot itself -- Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen, who brought us the bittersweet raunch with The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up. Rogen and co-writer/friend Evan Goldberg essentially wrote a Superbad "script" in their teens -- some 20 years ago. They updated the gags a bit and bring to the screen what could be this decade's "Animal House," as one local movie critics has given comparison.
The plot is simple and not terribly original. Little wonder the writers provided their protagonist heroes their first names on screen -- Seth played with wild abandonment by Jonah Hill from Knocked Up and Evan by Michael Cera, who is just another jewel in the cast from "Arrested Development," a show that died way too young. Best buddies, Seth and Evan are in their final days of high school and are eager to experience those two familiar rites of passage: partying and sex before graduation.
But Seth and Evan and their pal Fogell (played with hilarious dork-like sensibilities by Christopher Mintz-Plasse) all are nerds. Not exactly the party veterans despite their blabberings to the high school hotties, who actually aren't the air-headed, self-absorbed stereotypes you might expect in a flick like this. Or remember from school, for that matter. Nonetheless our heroes get wind of a party being hosted by girl for whom Evan has the hots. They're given money to buy booze for the party -- that is if Fogell can get away with showing a fake ID. What ensues is an "After Hours"-type evening of mishaps, pratfalls and revelation on an absurd scale. The absurdity jacked up to immeasurable heights by Rogen and Saturday Night Live's Bill Hader playing party-minded cops who make you wonder how they even graduated the police academy.
There's plenty of foul language and sexual innuendo. Lots of bodily function humor. Some political incorrectness. And things you'd just didn't think would ever happen to you in your wildest teen dreams. Sure, it's a guy movie. It's a semi-raunch fest. It's the movie former school social outcasts such as myself can appreciate. But in Superbad's heart is, well, heart. An intelligent look at two friends about two part ways as college approaches, their thoughts fueled by an overload of hormones, an anxious self-consciousness and concerns of the unknown paths of life that lie before them. Just the normal feelings that virtually any teenager grapples with. Is Superbad better than Animal House? Not necessarily. Is it funnier than American Pie? Perhaps. It's probably more on par with There's Something About Mary. Still, Superbad is super funny and adamantly about the good guys.
P.S. Freak yeah. Attached to Superbad is a trailer for -- drum roll please -- Harold and Kumar Part 2! Happy, happy, joy, joy. Seeing Kai Penn and John Cho back together is a wonderful thing to behold. Not to mention, NPH (you should know by now the initials are Neil Patrick Harris. If you don't, shame on you!)
P.S.S. or P.P.S.: Yay to my friend Connie, who presented me last night with a new shark tooth neckchain at her house. If some of you may recall, I had worn a similar neckchain as a good luck charm. That is until I somehow lost it late last spring. Shortly after that my "summer from hell" commenced. Coincidental? I think not. But the new shark tooth is shitloads better! Hells yeah. Props to you, Connie!
