Can't Hardly Wait

release year: 1998
genre: high school comedy
viewing setting: home DVD 10/22/23 and 2/7/04 and 2/12/00 and 12/1/98

synopsis: Preston likes Amanda, and always has. Problem is, they're all graduating high school and heading off to different lives. There's a big party tonight and she's just been dumped by her boyfriend...is this Preston's big chance? Amidst all of this, various subplots abound.

impressions: This was like "Sixteen Candles" but for the 90s, with 90s high school kids. It was funny, sad, and sometimes, brutally honest. And it shows that the stereotypical high school types haven't really changed all that much since the 1980s. I enjoyed the various characters: the dumped-but-sensible-enough-to-not-take-him-back quiet cute girl, the white boy who speaks in Ebonics, the nerd who's set up a big plot for revenge on the jock, the weirdo who doesn't quite fit in, the unnmaed kid who appears throughout the movie to steal anything he can get his hands on...and a bunch of others.

things to watch for: When the band breaks up and someone must take the stage to let the show go on.

something this movie has that no other movie has: Hot girls fighting over a total nerd.

acting: Ethan Embry does a great job as a nice, soft-spoken guy who finally gets his chance. Jennifer Love-Hewitt is a non-stereotypical homecoming-queen type. Seth Green is funny yet stupid as the white boy who thinks he's not. Lauren Ambrose and Charlie Korsmo make good geeks. Peter Facinelli is the jerk jock who never learns.

final word: Funny and entertaining.

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