Wet Hot American Summer

Evey now and again, you need to watch a movie that will just dumb you. After taking finals, this was indeed the case. And the perfect film to watch to dumb your mind is definitely "Wet Hot American Summer."

The movie is based on the last couple of days of summer camp and tells the stories of camp counselors, campers, and camp cooks. Some might think this film is too trite to be called a true comedy, however, a deep appreciation must be shown toward this film.

The film is simply chock-full of teenage sexual tension: tongues being swamped, the quest to score with one camp counselor or another, and making out on the docks in front of all the campers. Even some gay humor comes into the picture when two camp counselors make a passionate retreat to a shed and have a somewhat long "embrace" followed by the camp's embrace of the new gay couple. One of the gay counselors is played by Michael Ian Black, who is pretty solid throughout the film.

The head camp counselor is played, surprisingly, quite well by Janeane Garofalo. I have seen other Garofalo roles and have not been quite impressed, however, this film is really one of her funnier and more well-casted roles.

Saturday Night Live's own Molly Sharron plays a dysfunctional camp counselor who is trying to break up with her fiance of quite some time. When breaking down at camp, it is one of the campers who steps up to the plate to serve as the shrink of the camp, and who ultimately Sharron's character ditches her fiance for.

David Hyde Pierce is stellar in his role as Professor Neuman, a neighbor to the camp who teaches astronomy at the local college. Professor Neuman befriends both Garofalo's character romantically and the nerds of the camp, with whom he saves the camp from destruction by tracking and diverting space trash from crashing into the camp.

Michael Showalter plays Coop, a camp counselor whose aim it is to score with a female camp counselor before the summer is over.

One of the best scenes in the flick is when Andy (Paul Rudd) has to go around the mess hall and pick up plates and such that he just flung on the floor. Beth (Garofalo) acts almost as a mother in this instance and Andy bends over sighing every time she points to another plate. Classic humor, must see.

Gene (Christopher Meloni) plays a Vietnam Veteran camp chef who befriends a can of mixed vegetables that talks to him. Some of the lines he blurts out (I'm going to go hump the fridge) play nicely into the dumb humor of the film.

The by far best part of the film is the talent show scene. I will not divulge much, I don't want to ruin it, but I must say the humor of the master of ceremonies is simply worth the rental price of the movie.

If you watch the DVD version on a computer, I realize this will sound weird, but there is farting noises throughout the movie. This did not appear on the regular DVD Player I watched it on, but when we tried it on two different computers, this was the case. Strange.

"Wet Hot American Summer" will never be revered as being one of the best comedies in coffee shops or academic movie halls. However, if you watch this film, I think that you will agree that this film is one of the funnier films you will have seen in quite some time.