Double Feature

August 2010 - Remember those essays the teachers made us write at the beginning of the school year: "What I Did on My Summer Vacation." Like it was any of their business! Wouldn't it have been much more fun to, instead, watch a movie about a vacation?

Considering that Adventureland is rated R, they probably wouldn't have let us watch this film from 2009. But, you can. It tells the story of a recent college graduate who spends the summer of '87 smoking pot and working at an amusement park in Pittsburgh. Jesse Eisenberg (Zombieland) and Kristen Stewart (from the Twilight movies) star. Wendy Malik and Ryan Reynolds also appear.

Eisenberg plays James, a sensitive young man who plans to go to grad school at Columbia in the fall so he can be a travel writer in the Dickensian style. But, his father gets a demotion at work, so James must find a summer job to pay for said grad school. The only job he can find is as a games operator at Adventureland, the hometown amusement park.

That's where James meets Emily (Stewart), a fellow games operator. She's home for the summer from NYU and is rebelling against her lawyer father and her stepmother. One aspect of her rebellion is an affair with Connell (Reynolds), the married maintenance guy at the park.

Overall review: Liked it. This is a neat little film that does well to capture the emotional and social complexities of young adulthood. Stewart, I think, does especially well with her role. A soundtrack featuring the likes of INXS, Falco, Crowded House, Lou Reed, Wang Chung and Whitesnake doesn't hurt, either.

Another not-suitable-for-school movie is Vicky Cristina Barcelona, rated PG-13. Woody Allen wrote and directed this 2008 comedy and cast his latest muse, Scarlett Johansson, in one of the starring roles. The top-notch cast also includes Rebecca Hall (who also starred with Johansson in The Prestige), Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and Patricia Clarkson.

Hall and Johansson play Vicky and Cristina, two young Americans looking forward to a summer in Barcelona. Vicky is practical and ready to marry her equally practical Wall Street boyfriend. Cristina is a more tortured soul who's not sure what she wants. But, as the film's narrator explains, she knows what she doesn't want, which is what Vicky has.

Soon, they meet Juan Antonio (Bardem), a painter who propositions both Vicky and Cristina even though he still feels passion for his ex-wife, Maria Elena (Cruz). When she enters the picture, sparks and gunshots fly.

Overall review: Liked it. The film has a nice little vibe going. Jaunty Spanish music and narrative interludes move the action from scene to scene. I'm not a big fan of Scarlett Johansson, but she's good here, and Penélope Cruz won an Oscar for her performance in a supporting role. The ending is rather abrupt, but I can't complain because it fits in so well with the movie's slice-of-life format. Allen isn't one for sequels, but I wouldn't mind seeing one titled "Vicky Cristina New York."