Review of Adventureland (2009) by Chads — 05 Apr 2009

"The wall around the graveyard says that 'Satin lives in hell'/Though they may love the devil, his disciples sure can't spell," sang Chuck Cleaver, frontman for the Cincinnati-based indie rock band The Ass Ponys on a track called "Shoe Money", back in 1996.

The song is referenced in "Adventureland" when James Brennan(Jesse Eisenberg) points out the same spelling mistake left behind by some, presumably metal fans, on a wall. What makes this pro-Satan message Ass Pony-specific is the giant ass pandas that the amusement park patrons can win, theoretically, on a rigged game.

It's an anachronism hidden from plain view but made manifest through semiotics, a discipline in English that the comparative literature knows a thing or two about. By aggregating the giant ass pandas and the graffiti, a denotation of synchronicity that encompasses both nostalgia and the immediacy of present time can be shown at work in this Pennsylvania amusement park circa 1987.

In effect, "Adventureland" rewrites "Shoe Money" by transforming "graveyard" into a metaphor for the eighties, an era that's been dead for almost twenty years now. Falco has been dead for ten.

Unbeknownst to James, the song that grates on him at work, will someday symbolize the loss of his youth, which would put the comparative literature major on the cusp of thirty, when the vehicle Falco was driving collided with a bus in the Dominican Republic circa 1998.

"Rock Me Amadeus", despite lacking even a semblance of gravitas, has the same emotional impact as any number of songs that happen to coincide with one's youth. My generation, alas, had Falco and Adam Ant, not the Beatles and the Stones(wait, we had the Stones, too).

"...Amadeus, Amadeus," admittedly, is no "...yeah, yeah, yeah," but it's the former sentiment of bacchanalia which will make Leonard yearn for Em(Kristen Stewart) in her prime, regardless if they stayed together or not.