I'm going there again (Can't Hardly Wait slamdance)
by Matt Worley

There seem to be only two topics for wayward columnists this week. The care and feeding of White House Interns, and the care and feeding of war in Saving Private Ryan. Conspiracies abound when these topics are brought up. Right Wingers insist the Monica issue is not what they are concerned about --which is true, since they're much more concerned with kicking the Prez out of office. And since Ryan's director has come out as a major ally of the President, everyone on the other side of the ball has decided that the movie is cynical and divisive to the interests of the armed forces and war in general. Whatever. I'm much more concerned about the past this week, once again. Because I'm terribly tired of the present, and no one wants to hear about my future visions of holo-cubicles and city-sized apartment buildings.

For a buck on Tuesday, I got to see a big old mish-mash of nostalgia and present-tense pop culture up close. And it was fun. I should point this out, because sometimes people forget that fun movies can be good movies too. Can't Hardly Wait came out in May, but since I rarely rush out to see any movie these days (There's Something About Mary and Saving Private Ryan were my summer exceptions) I waited until the flick was cheap enough to dismiss--just in case it sucked.

The story was a mix of cliché and truth. Big party, everyone shows up, everyone gets wasted. The reason the movie worked was in the details. The nerdy sci-fi freaks on the roof acting out X-Files and Star Wars scenes. The football players and their slutty and stacked girlfriends. The garage band that never gets around to playing one note. The genius who finds true Zen in drunkenness (recanted by film's end for Disney purity). The stoner stroking the watermelon slice. The white guys trying to be black. And the reclusive outcast realizing once and for all that she is all alone in her world (also recanted by film's end, because the rebels can't win). The second cousin hitting on the hottie (played by Jennifer Love Hewitt). And then there's the whole wraparound story of the guy who pined for the hottie for four years but never actually spoke to her. Everyone gets their one or two scenes. And somewhere along the way everyone learns a lesson or two about life. I think.

High school movies are a lot funnier when you're not in high school anymore. I didn't realize how funny Fast Times At Ridgemont High was until college--I just wanted to see nakedness and Spicoli. It could explain why I was the only one laughing at a couple of things in Can't Hardly Wait. Or I'm just a twisted mofo.

Ten years ago this month I began my senior year of high school. My life was planned out as much as a sixteen-year-old's could be. I was on my way to architecture school at Kansas State. I wanted to design my own circular house. I'm sure there were other thoughts in my head about the future, but that seemed to be enough. It certainly got me through a glorious senior year of high school. I was top drummer in marching band, which meant I controlled the heartbeat of the school band. I was in the National Honor Society, the AP classes (where we got extra grade points to boost those averages above 4.0), and I'd seen Guns N' Roses open for Aerosmith during the summer. In essence, all was really neat in my world.

What does this have to do with a teen flick littered with nostalgia dating back at least twenty years, flaunting the paradox of being utterly current and totally out of date at the same time? Nothing. I needed a reason not to talk about tomorrow's Presidential deposition via closed circuit video. The Prez gets to talk about his past, so I get to do the same. And there is a bit of continuity to all of this since the people who wrote Can't Hardly Wait are, most likely, near my age. Why else would a character drag G N' R's "Paradise City" up to the stage for a lip synch? And what was with the Scott Baio obsession voiced by a angel stripper, or the repeated Barry Manilow songs? And then there's the utter disregard of any 90s rap in favor of old school Run-DMC and Tone Loc.

But these pop culture anachronisms are okay in the age of appropriation and constant recycling. I went to a party a few months ago where the music of choice was 70s disco even though most of the people there were just born around 1977. Did I mention the movie was fun? It was. A hell of a lot of fun. I was laughing my ass off through most of the movie.

No teen movie, however, has matched the classic high school films of my personal Idaho time: Heathers and Pump Up The Volume. No one makes movies with a real message anymore. Utterly contemporary, but vastly different films, those two reinstilled a sense of rebelliousness in my soul after the crash and burn of architecture hopes and dreams.

Can't Hardly Wait is of the lighter, comical John Hughes high school flick genre. Out of the chaos of drink, sex and rock and roll, everyone will somehow learn a lesson about life and turn out for the better. It's worth a buck.

I don't think we're gonna get the same message from the Prez tomorrow, but we'll all go down that bridge to the 21st century when the leaks break.

Matt Worley would like to, once again, plead with Winona Ryder not to make a Heathers 2.

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