#15- Superbad (2007)

Click here for Commenting Rules and how GOI's final list came together

Who's List Was This On
- Adam Kaplan: #5
- The 'Bright' One: #14
TOTAL VOTES RECEIVED: 33

Directed By: Greg Mottola
Written By: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg
Starring: Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Seth Rogen, Bill Hader, and Emma Stone

The Plot

During one day towards the end of their senior year, Seth (Hill) and Evan (Cera) must prepare for their last party to create one last epic night before they both go their separate ways before heading into college.

Why This Movie Is Great

***WARNING: REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS***

Underneath the Coen Brother porn jokes and all the raunchiness of Superbad is a beautiful story of two long time friends that are struggling to cope with their last days together before they go their separate ways once the summer ends.

While I personally think there are plenty of Judd Apatow vehicles that are MUCH funnier than Superbad (e.g. The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall) there is no BETTER movie than Superbad. Superbad is this generation's defining comedy. Whether you agree with it or not, no movie better has summarized a generation since Dazed and Confused.

We long to be young and care-free. We all have to grow up and evolve but we don't necessarily want to. This youthfulness and exuberance is the underlying motivations for both the Seth and Evan story line as well as the Fogell/McLovin (Mintz-Plasse), Officer Slater (Hader), and Officer Michaels (Rogen) story line.

First we'll talk about the B plot with the police officers and McLovin. Throughout the movie we're presented with this plot of two incompetent police officers who bring a high schooler to a bar and allow him to help apprehend potential suspects. However, as the story progresses and as we get the reveal from the officers when they meet McLovin' back at Jules' (Stone) house, all the officers want to do is show Fogell a good time. They know Fogell was using a fake I.D. the entire time and they know they're not supposed to take him to a bar to bust a drunk and disorderly person. But it's not about that. It's about just showing Fogell a great time. As the officers tell Fogell, they hated cops when they were Fogell's age and they just wanted to show the student that not all cops are bad. Superbad is about having that one epic night and Fogell absolutely achieved that with the help of his new friends.

Now the A story line between Seth and Evan. There's an underlying tension that's exists between the two characters throughout the entire movie. Evan will be attending Stanford in the fall and Seth will be forced to go to a state college. It's hard to say goodbye your best friend and it's even harder when you're as socially awkward like Seth and Evan are and when you haven't made many friends while in high school. This one last epic night will be one of the last times the friends will get to really get to hang out with each other and it truly is one of the last nights each of the boys will get to have a sexual experience while they're young. Seth jokes:

I don't want to talk a lot of shit OK. But [Jules is] gonna be at the party, and she's gonna be drunk, and she likes me at least a little, enough to get with me. At the very least I'll make out with her, two weeks hand job, month blow job, whatever whatever. And then, I make her my girlfriend. And I've got like two solid months of sex. By the time college rolls around I'll be like the Iron Chef of pounding vaj.

This quote is exactly what is at the core of Superbad. It's raunchy and gross but underneath it all is actually a sweet sentiment about youth and sexual yearning. To Seth, Jules is not a "notch on his belt" or someone whom he can brag to his friends about but a potential girlfriend or companion that he can spend his last remaining days before college with.

Seth and Evan struggle with the fact that not only are they sexually inexperienced but soon they not get to see each other every day. The movie slowly builds up these two problems the main characters have until it finally blows up in their face after Seth and Evan first escape from Officer Slater and Officer Michaels. It only seems fitting that they start to come to grips with their solution as they run away from the two officers the second time.

The parting shot where Seth rides down the escalator looking up at Evan on top is a beautiful shot. The boys have to part ways sooner rather than later and luckily they each have a beautiful woman on their side now. It was just a great way to end the movie to sum up all the problems the two main characters suffered through throughout the film.