FOR DEETE + AMY AT USA FILMS PUBLICITY
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TRANSCRIPT OF COMPUSERVE REVIEW
WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER
Reviewed by Harvey Karten USA Films Director: David Wain Writer: Michael Showalter, David Wain Cast: Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Michael Showalter, Marguerite Moreau, Paul Rudd, Molly Shannon
If you've ever been to summer camp you'll see that "Wet Hot American Summer" is not so much a hilarious parody of the annual rites of July and August as much as an actual demonstration of the goings-on in that peculiar institution. Summer is a time for romance, for cutting loose, and what better place to find a season of love and time to go zany than up in the mountains? Filmed at Camp Towanda, Donald Wheeler's Camp and Honesdale in Pennsylvania, Michael Showalter and David Wain's story directed by Mr. Wain takes place in 1981 at Camp Firewood in Waterville, Maine, where on the last day of the eight-week season all the pent up sexual energy and youthful enegy go into making up for a whole season of just goofing off by putting on a talent show and by taking part in a compressed series of the usual camp activities, which include a nature walk, making out, a science demonstration, making out, a talent show and making out.
Wain and Showalter's parody of an American institution that hardly needs to be parodied is not the first attempt by filmmakers to send up a long-standing American institution, one sponsored primarily by well-off parents who need a break from their kids and young adults who get paid for having fun. Ivan Reitman's 1979 Canadian-made feature, "Meatballs," which starred Bill Murray, described the camp season as alternately cruel and sloppily sentimental while Ken Wiederhorn's sequel following five years later with Richard Mulligan spoofed not only Jewish aliens but the classic film "From Here to Eternity." Just when you think the genre would come to a rest after "Meatballs III" in 1987 (George Mendeluk directing Sally Kellerman and Patrick Dempsey sending up a dead porno star who coached a teen on losing his virginity), along comes "Wet Hot," more a series of Saturday- Night-Live sketches except that it's been conceived by two members of MTV's sketch-comedy group the State.
With absurdist comedy that turns reality on its head, Showalter and Wain present a batch of sex-crazed counselors and wide- eyed charges who eschew packing up to go home in favor of doing what comes naturally. Presided over by Beth (Janeane Garofalo is her typically deadpan and often hilarious manner), we look in on Associate Professor of Astrophysics Henry Neuman ("Frazier"'s David Hyde Pierce), hanging out in camp for just that day, destined to have Beth take his mind out of the clouds. While Henry acts frantically to save the camp rec hall from demise by a falling slab from Skylab, counselors in heat make moves on one another vaguely aware that once they back to "the city," the romances would be just a memory. Molly Shannon as Gail bursts into tears at the demise of her marriage only to be comforted by the nine-year-old hands of Aaron (Gideon Jacobs) while the camp chef, Gene (Christopher Meloni), recounts his glorious days in Vietnam in front of a despairing captive audience, assistant cook Gary (A.D. Miles). The nerdy Coop (writer Michael Showalter) makes the move on the terminally sexy Katie (Marguerite Moreau) who's lookin' good in tight shorts, but he faces strong competition from the idiotic lifeguard Andy (Paul Rudd).
As expected from this group, the action moves with MTV rapidity, shifting from skit to skit, some missing of course, some hitting with laugh-out-loud hilarity. Just listening to Beth call out the names of the predominantly Jewish campers (one guy is David Ben-Gurion) is a cause for celebration in a movie that (like any other) is not for everyone but is a winner for kids like me--in my case a guy who can look back with genuine nostalgia to nine years in Camp Kee-Wah, Wingdale, New York, days that I realize only now were the best of my life.
Rated R. Running time: 97 minutes. (C) 2001 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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