Lessons of Darkness

Brain Dead

After a grueling work week, I've got nothing to say except that The Box is suprisingly loopy (in a good way), and both games featured in this week's Sandbox column are worth your time and cash.

The Sandbox: Breathing New Life into Old Forms (IFC News)

Out Now:
The Box (Slant magazine)
A Christmas Carol (Slant magazine)
Collapse (Slant magazine)
Splinterheads (Slant magazine)

Adventureland (2009): C+

Adventureland has a potent sense of time (1987), place (suburbia) and setting (a local amusement park, the summer after college graduation). What writer/director Greg Mottola’s semi-autobiographical follow-up to Superbad is crucially lacking, however, is verve, as his story – about James’ (Jesse Eisenberg) efforts to navigate issues of love and friendship while working at the titular venue – too frequently mistakes tameness for restraint. To be sure, Mottola’s preference for humor that springs from character drama rather than easy scatological gags lends heart to his tale, which thanks to Eisenberg’s well-modulated turn taps into the sense of unease and continuing identity definition and reconfiguration undergone by early-twentysomethings. Yet despite Eisenberg’s earnest performance as well as sturdy work by supporting players Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds and Martin Starr, Mottola’s film coasts along on a pleasant but innocuous wavelength, content to occupy that middle ground where insights are authentic but far from revelatory and comedy is more amiable than riotous. Despite the inclusion of a dorky character who likes to unexpectedly punch James in the crotch, Adventureland is a story comprised of likeable bores, and their mildness unfortunately epitomizes the proceedings, which could use far more of Superbad’s authentic-teen bawdiness, and whose nostalgia proves meek and unadventurous.