Adventureland

Saw Adventureland last night and really enjoyed it. It's about a kid who graduates from college and finds out his parents lost some money and he can't go to Europe for the summer and ease into grad school like he'd planned. Instead, he gets a job at the local amusement park.

The trailers play it up as a Judd-Apatowish comedy, but it's actually much more than that - more like Juno or Little Miss Sunshine than, say, Superbad.

Nostalgic without being corny, Adventureland takes place in the kind of non-corporate theme park that doesn't exist any more, the 1987 of stone-washed, high waist jeans. There's a great soundtrack heavy on the Velvet Underground, and a solid cast rounded out by Kristen Wigg and Bill Hader from SNL who play the ridiculous park managers, but play them straight.

It just goes to show you that there's nothing much funnier than earnestness - which is how Jesse Eisenberg plays James. I thought he and Kristen Stewart were evenly matched, her wiser, more skeptical character was a good contrast to his trusting, virginal one.

The movie also had some gorgeous shots of the amusement park and the rides. I thought it had some simply lovely moments that really captured the romantic idea of young love at the fair at twili... at that certain time of day.