Director: Penelope Spheeris
Cast: Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Rob Lowe, Tia Carrere
Have I Seen it Before: Oh, please. Or perhaps I should say “Schya?” (which the new Blu-Ray steelbook tells me is the proper spelling) I find it highly unlikely that someone could get through their childhood in the 90s and not catch this one. I’m probably more familiar with “Bohemian Rhapsody” from this than anything else…
Did I Like It: The film is funny, which is more than can be said for really any of the SNL-based feature films (yes, I’m including you, The Blues Brothers (1980)), and it is far weirder than any film based on a recurring comedy sketch has any right to be. That weirdness, too, doesn’t limit it from authentically and affectionately depicting that unique, guileless aimlessness in your 20s which can be bought out entirely for $5000.
We could talk about all of that, but it’s obvious. There’s nothing new to be added to any of those points. Do you want to know where this movie rises above even movies occupying similar types of characters like Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) or Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)?
It’s in a dismantling of toxic masculinity that the film rises above its peers. Yes, its heroes are governed by a shallowness concerning the opposite sex, are dominated by a need for immediate gratification (does licorice go bad if you replace the rear view mirror of your car with a dispenser?), and are more interested in what people like than what they are like. But where other characters are usually terrified by nothing more than the implication of a man telling them they love them.
And yet here, there is no terror when Terry (Lee Tergesen) continuously tells characters he loves the. There’s just an awkwardness at the slightest acknowledgement of any real emotion between people. But in the end (albeit the mega-happy ending), that is all dispensed with to make everyone better people than they were at the beginning, even if it is in service of a joke.