Wet Hot American Summer: Understanding the Review

My very first review on this blog is going to be Wet Hot American Summer (2001), which I think is appropriate, because I'm also going to unpack what it means to 'review' something!


David Wain’s Wet Hot American Summer is a total joy to watch. It wholly encompasses a warm feeling of reminiscence for summer camps gone by, and is irreverent in the best way: it holds absolutely no stakes, and mocks the summer-camp genre to boot. The movie is chock-full of moments that subvert expectations, like the big softball game that never happens, the campers who are left river-rafting for 12+ hours, or Paul Rudd’s ridiculously over-acted tantrum in the cafeteria. These moments, which is exactly what they are- fleeting circumstances- define the movie. More like a string of back-to-back skits than a cohesive narrative, the movie’s small sequences are representative of what looking back on a summer is like, which is what makes the film so familiar and lovable. That, and it has a balls-to-the-walls dedication to getting a laugh from the audience, at whatever the cost, which is kind of commendable.

But how does my review for the film coexist with a seemingly endless void of other reviews and critical appraisals? What purpose does it serve? I think that in some sense, a review is a kind of ‘recreation’. Reviews provide an idea of what the critic was thinking about and grappling with while they watched- what connected and didn’t connect. The review grants a concrete way of reconstructing and interacting with previous experiences, to create new meanings: to dig a little deeper into why we loved or hated the film. Cinema isn’t some lifeless statue, meant to be gawked at for 2 hours in a room by hundreds of people. Well-crafted (“good”) movies are full of life and interact with audiences in a way that no other art form can.

The esteemed movie critic Mark Kermode once said, “…what the reviewer brings to the cinema is every bit as important as what’s up there on the screen.” Effective reviewers should aim to offer a similar kind of interaction with the film through their writing, at the same time utilizing their (hopefully) vast knowledge of the context within which the film exists- and it doesn’t hurt to make them entertaining to read. 

For instance, the “going into town” montage in Wet Hot takes the bright, poppy, optimism of summer fun to its extremes (ending in a crack-house), while also ripping on the montage as a cinematic tool, as featured prominently in the Rocky series of films. This montage sequence embodies what I stated earlier about the film being comprised of mostly disparate, funny moments (the content of which might later turn in to cherished memories), because that’s what the sequence is. An irreverent, funny moment. The events that take place have no dramatic impact on the narrative, and the audience is told only one hour elapsed- it’s episodes like this that make the film so enjoyable. Just from this handful of sentences, one can get a good sense of exactly what I liked about the movie while at the same time understanding that this sequence is referencing a large body of other works- in fact, the film requires you to have a certain set of expectations of what a montage is for the gag to truly pay off, something I illuminated.

Now, this is not to say that reviewers are necessary to ‘explain the joke’ for the layman, but truly exceptional reviewers are able to synthesize their knowledge of cinema with a coherent and thoughtful appraisal of the film. All the while, reviewers maintain a healthy (and what critics like Kermode argues as necessary) distance from the filmmakers to achieve an opinion that is untainted by those who aim to profit on the movie. This honesty is something I find admirable about reviewers, and as the can of vegetables voiced by H. Jon Benjamin says, “If you wanna smear mud on your ass, smear mud on your ass, just be honest about it.”

-Nick, February 25, 2018 11:04 pm, from his parent's couch

What this blog is, and what I want it to be

Hey there, internet.

This is a strange and exciting experience for me- on this day, February 25th, 2018, I'm starting a film blog. Right now, as I write into the vast, dark void of the internet for no one but myself to see, I'm hopeful that this will serve as a tool to help my critical writing flourish, and perhaps even keep me accountable for continuing to publish consistent writing.

I was inspired to start this by my good friend Jonah, who will undoubtedly be the first reader (hey there, Jonah!), but I'm doing a lot more writing this semester, and I think that this blog is a way to have a solid record of my ideas, for myself and others. The first couple of posts here will only be pseudo-reviews. Right now, I'm enrolled in two classes at UIUC that force me to write two critical responses to two very different categories of film (bad movies and horror films) a week, but I think that that's a good place to start for the content of this blog.

In the future, if I can keep up with this, maybe my hot takes will expand to music, literature, and other forms of art. But as it stands, this blog is called Nick Talks Movies, so let's stay on track here, ladies & gentlemen. Let's get this party started.

-Nick, February 25, 2018, 10:24 pm from his parent's couch.