From Paramount Pictures and director Richard Linklater (Boyhood, Dazed and Confused), comes the 80’s period piece comedy Everybody Wants Some!! Starring Blake Jenner, Tyler Hoechlin, Wyatt Russell, Glen Powell, J. Quinton Johnson, Ryan Guzman and Zoey Deutch, the film hits Blu-ray combo pack July 12, 2016.
In 1980 Texas, a college freshman (Blake Jenner) meets his new baseball teammates (Will Brittain, Ryan Guzman), an unruly group of disco-dancing, skirt-chasing partyers.
Review
Richard Linklater has finally crafted a spiritual successor to his 70’s highschool stoner comedy Dazed and Confused by taking us deep into the 1980’s with Everybody Wants Some!! The film is very much the definitive 80’s experience. The music, the clothes, the comedy, the parties, the mustaches — everything is on point and it’s quite magnificent if I’m being honest and this is coming from a guy who typically thinks the 80’s was the worst era for culture. I loathe most 80’s fashion and music, but Everybody Wants Some!! kind of made me forget all that because it so much damn fun.
After a freshman shows up to meet his college baseball team, the guys wind up getting to know each other and bond over a few days before classes begin through parties, chicks, parties, baseball practice, parties and more parties. There were so, so many themed parties in this movie… There’s a disco one (because unfortunately not all disco died right at the moment the year 1980 hit), a country music one, a punk one and an art-house get-together. As entertaining as these scenes are, they can at times seem tedious after a while because there’s so many and that may in part be, because I’m now in my 30’s so I just don’t understand how these guys could truly party that much… Linklater really did jampack as much from the era as he could into one little comedy, featuring a TON of actors who you may or may not know right off the top of your head. Hell, it took me a day or so to realize that Austin Amelio, who has in my opinion the movie’s most hilarious moment when he swipes the new guy’s records, is also Dwight on The Walking Dead.
Blake Jenner was on Glee (but I never watched that) and Tyler Hoechlin plays the group’s Alpha Male so it’s fitting that he’s about to don the cape as Superman on season 2 of Supergirl this Fall. Linklater’s casting was truly spectacular here and he’s really built a solid foundation of up and coming stars (you may remember him doing the same with Dazed and Confused…) Jenner is our lead and I think he does an admirable job at playing the new cocky kid who is forced to deal with an array of pranks and traditions that are alien to him.
The paralysed – face to the bare-ass taint trick was a winner… My god – I’d almost forgotten such horror existed but was reminded in glorious detail here. Hazing has become the stuff of nightmares in recent years, but Everybody Wants Some!! handles it lightly and never goes too far which is nice. There are no paddles and “please sir may I have another” moments of darkness. This film is really light in tone and seems to always carry a happy atmosphere at all times, even during the competitive baseball scrimmage. Yes there is baseball eventually – it’s just practice, but you will see baseball if that’s what you need.
Everybody Wants Some!! is funny and it made me forget that I hate the 1980’s because it was just so damn pleasant. Linklater is such a great director and his eye for finding young and future stars is unlike that of any other filmmakers on the planet. I don’t even like baseball and I wound up having a great time during those moments too. Injecting your movie with such a sense of fun and in such large doses as this can truly do wonders for the pessimists like myself. The ending is also perfect – I don’t think we could have come to a better conclusion once class finally starts…
Rating: [star rating=”4″]
Special Features
- Everybody Wants Some!! More Stuff That’s Not in the Movie
- Rickipedia
- Baseball Players Can Dance
- Skills Videos
- History 101: Stylin’ the 80s