Review of Everybody Wants Some!! (2016) by Dzimas — 18 Jul 2016

Well, you know everybody wants some, but this movie looked more like Porky's than it did Dazed and Confused. Blake Jenner plays the supercool freshman, Jake, who strides into Southeast Texas College as the new BMOC. I thought he might have been the freshman in D&C but that was Wiley Kramer. This movie would have been fine if it was a little more self-effacing, but instead it is a self-indulgent romp where Richard Linklater re-imagines his college experience covering every single musical group of the era with a copious selection of albums that everyone is borrowing from each other.

Like the music, the film tries to be everything at once, with no storyline emerging until about half way through when Jake finally remembers the girl in room 307 that thought he was hot and leaves some carnations taped to her door. By this point, Jake has already scored at least once, but apparently it wasn't enough to appeal to his sensitive side so he goes after the arts school girl with the auburn hair. He even quotes a few verses of Whitman to impress her. Wow!

Linklater wants us to know what he read back then too, having Finn conspicuously show the book covers of Carl Sagan's Cosmos and Kerouac's Desolation Angels. The only problem is that Kerouac cover he showed didn't come out until 1987. I remember since I bought the book at the time. At least Linklater got Cosmos right.

Everyone in this film is just too supercool, except for Jay Niles, who reprises a similar character to that of Ben Affleck in D&C.. Of course, McReynolds hits Niles' 95 mph fastball out of the park and hits an easy double off Jake to show who the alpha male is here. Linklater obviously wanted actors who could swing a bat and Tyler Hoechlin makes it look easy.

But, what to make of all this nonsense? I doubt even baseball players scored that easy in college, but to watch this romp it was like taking candy from a baby. The only time they seem to hit a rough patch is when the football players show up at the Sound Machine, forcing the boys to don cowboy hats and saunter on over to the local country bar, putting on their best "Urban Cowboy" impressions. The country girls eat them up.

What made Dazed and Confused work was that it effortlessly fit around the theme of the last day of school with a big party that night. Linklater introduced us to wide range of characters, the various cliques and the inevitable confrontations that ensued. In this movie, everyone gets along just fine. The baseball team even crashes an arts school party, laying all the girls there too. It's all just so free and easy you'd think no one ever heard of venereal diseases before. The only character to have any concerns is "Beuter" who is worried his girlfriend might be pregnant, skipping out on all the fun to go back to his hometown to calm her down. Who needs a drip like that around anyway?

It would have been better if Linklater had left well enough alone rather than revisit his old haunts. I guess he got bored, like Tarantino gets bored (I heard there is another Kill Bill in the making), and wanted to rekindle a few college memories for us.