Everybody Wants Some!! (2016) Reviews

• self-indulgent and pointless waste

  aapple20012016-08-05

  A film with no plot, no drama, no conflict, a comedy with no laughs, filled with male characters I couldn't care less about, female characters only there for eye candy and sex, and there's a sappy "Frontiers are where you find them" attempt at philosophy in the final scene. So boring the characters themselves fall asleep at the end. By the way, that was the spoiler. Maybe if you like early 80's music and hair styles, and people in their late 20's and early 30's pretending to be be 10 years younger while wearing shorts there's something for you. Otherwise don't be fooled by all the good reviews this title received. This movie goes nowhere and then the credits roll. "Everybody Wants Some!!" is a waste of time.

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• Another rigged set of reviews and ratings...

  jlipin2016-04-25

  I can't stand when ratings/reviews are rigged in order to get people to watch or buy something. If you look at the 'top 1000 voters' for this movie, which are people who actually watch movies, they give it a 6.9. How in the heck did this get an 8+? (Well - it's because the movie producers were smart and got a bunch of people to review and rate the movie ahead of time...) The acting and writing is dreadful. Story goes absolutely nowhere and is pointless. I was at least hoping the water bed had something to do with anything. But of course, it didn't. Actors look like they're 35 years old, and you want us to believe they're college freshmen? Has the director ever been to a bar before or seen how awkward real people interact with each other at that age? Does the director know that people at bars or at parties are usually drunk, instead of the eloquently speaking, perfectly-dressed people in this movie? Really pointless, waste of a good amount of money to have seen this in theaters.

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• Why these choices?

  mmaggiano2016-04-23

  If you're going to make a movie about Texas college baseball jocks in 1980 (especially jocks on the most successful team on campus), you're obliged to do something to let the audience know WHY those players are the most gentle, open-minded college jocks they have ever, ever seen. It can't just go unexplained, or it beggars belief. The movie is not intended to be a farce, quite clearly. Even the two most aggressive guys (the great batter and the manic pitcher) are ultimately adorably harmless. This is not how it works. Their conflict at a practice without coaches should end in a fistfight when the manic pitcher won't shut up after getting beat. You don't run your mouth at a teammate after getting hit on. The manic pitcher's outburst in the bar should also be far, far uglier, and it should end in a real fight. And the stuff that comes out of their mouths most of the time should be filthy as hell. I am NOT objecting to "gentle comedy" as a genre. I'm objecting to the total lack of appropriate set-up in this one, and the ensuing unbelievability. And I'm not faulting the characters for being horny, drunk 21 year olds (played by mostly 30 year olds, for putatively some good reason, but really because 21 year old actors wouldn't be able to handle the house of cards Linklater has set up here). I don't think that young men are monsters for getting laid and drinking on a free weekend before college. (There are complaints about this movie from some corners of the internet that have "liberal puritan double-standard" written all over them. I am not coming from that corner.) But having played college sports myself, and known other college athletes at the time and since, this is the LEAST awful group of 16 college jocks that I can possibly imagine, and the movie is set in 1980 Texas. They may as well be unicorns. I understand that this is supposed to be a gentle, philosophical comedy, and I have no problem with that in theory. I would definitely watch a movie where a given collection of jocks are great human beings, just out of the sheer creative audacity of seeing where that goes, and the things you can do with genres that depict an idealized world. But I don't want to watch idealized college athletes (or any other group) unless I have some damn reason to know why there aren't horrible human beings in that mix of 16 guys. The answer can't just be "because the genre is gentle, thoughtful comedy". Give me something with a piece of verisimilitude that I can hang onto. 16 golfers at Brown in 2016 have worse people among them than this. So, oddly akin to The Revenant or Boyhood, the movie doesn't work as realism, nor does it work as something heightened; on top of that it has 1-dimensional characters. I don't want to see Acclaimed Director, the movie. Every movie must stand or fall on its own. ULTIMATELY MORE IMPORTANTLY, this weekend-before-college movie (like any slice-of-life type of movie) will sink or swim on the quality of the bits, the moments, the character sketches. If each scene or moment is golden, all is forgiven, and it lives on in the way that The Big Sleep or Short Cuts or Day for Night or The Big Lebowski are great movies. In those, perfect scene-by-scene charm wins the day. Truth through Beauty. But in this particular movie, some of the bits, scenes, characters etc. are very good, while others are wholly bland, vague and threadbare. Could 'philosophizing jocks' get it right some times, and wrong some times, and just have some sophomoric marijuana ideas sometimes- sure, yes, why not? BUT EACH one of those scenes of 'philosophizing jocks' has to be somehow really interesting without feeling overly polished, or phony, or done to death, or otherwise uncharming. It's a pure fancy-footwork kind of storytelling art. And half of the bits/scenes in this movie have two left feet. This is the second movie in a row from Linklater that is not about real life or real people but purports to be, while using facile characters and after-lunch philosophizing. The first, Boyhood, was a full-throttle melodrama with a grand gimmick. This one plays one sport with the equipment of another: College Hump-or-Die movie rules, but with handmade character comedy gear. If you don't see this, let me ask you one question: WHAT is it that makes the main character Jake a SPECIFIC person who hits it off with Beverly, another specific person, besides the genre fulfillment of 'the two sensitive people find each other'?? Nothing. Nothing but Blake Jenner and Zoey Deutch saying the lines with talent. Can you say that about Say Anything, or are those two characters specific as hell, and therefore a response to the High School Hump-or-Die movies, and not just a mutant version of one? Heck, college farce Animal House, the ultimate Hump-or-Die movie, has more to say than this movie does. I'm now positive that Linklater is one director when working with actor/writers Hawke and Delpy, and quite another when he's not.

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• Everybody Wants Less!

  sage4112016-04-16

  I would give it a 1 if I didn't enjoy the music. I started college in the 80's so I know what it was like. This is basically totally about some baseball jocks that are getting together and "male bonding" before classes actually start. With all the positive, and I must say idiotic reviews of the film, my expectations were probably way too high. There are a few moments of chuckles and laughter but if you have zero interest in baseball and aren't a past sport jock, this film is not for you. The background music was right on for the eighties and the party stuff was funny. Other than that, it just gets boring and too long. All the actors are "unknown" types and do fine job acting, but the storyline is a total mess. Is this a comedy or some type of sports, jock film or whatever? Many critics say it is a statement about the 80's and will be appreciated later. TO be appreciated later it needs to better at anything. I am only glad that we didn't pay top dollar to see this one and this is one I will never purchase or look forward to seeing again. I just want less of this crap. If you are determined to see this, wait for cable or broadcast. Not worth anyones money.

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• Nostalgic, maybe, but not funny

  dhultgren-594282016-04-27

  Well, I cannot compare this to Linklater's previous work "Dazed and Confused", but, a couple of months ago, I saw the trailer, and thought, "Man, this is going to be laugh out loud hysterics". Was I wrong. The movie starts with Jake, the freshman pitcher prospect cruising in a Cutlass 442, not bad for nostalgia (nice to see cars that still have some gusto for real in films). Jake is a pitcher who lives in a frat house with about twelve other ball players who like to party and talk about getting laid, and playing silly pranks on each other. Yes, there is a decent soundtrack starting with "My Sharona" from the Knack that opens the movie, but, the flaw is here: "Urgent" by Foreigner was not released until 1981. Oops! And it seems a tad out of place for a bunch of rough and tumble kids to be singing word for word to a rap song. The title of the movie is misleading "Everybody wants some!" is a Van Halen tune, that was released in 1980, but, we don't get much airplay from hard rock or heavy metal in the sound track. No "Back in Black?" No Judas Priest? No Iron Maiden? This was the pinnacle of New Wave of British Heavy Metal, and Ace of Spades from motorhead was released the same year. Plenty of hard driving rock to really pack a punch to enliven the film a bit. Back to the plot: there really isn't one, except the countdown to the first day of school, where the ball players go from party to party and meet some strange characters along the way. I'd have to say the most interesting character(s) are Detroit, the introverted, hard throwing, paranoid, humorless caricature that is funny for a bit, but isn't fleshed out enough to really meld in. The bearded virgin who is later kicked off the team, is perhaps the most reflective and philosophical character in the entire cast. He talks about the progression of one song on an album while the others get high. Who put Willis from Diff'rent Strokes in the cast? That isn't Todd Bridges, is it? He acted very well to fit in, but I don't see that happening in Texas. And where are the bell bottoms? We only start to get a glimpse of the underground music scene when Jake stumbles upon his long haired jean jacket adorned friend who wants to take the crew to a punk rock concert. As for the pranks, the knuckle challenge between the thin mustachioed fellow and the long haired shorter guy (who wins the challenge) is the funniest bit, but hardly enough to warrant a great belly laugh. It's a sight gag. I looked at the Tomatometer, and it was very good for this film. Uh, what film were THEY watching? Where's Pauline Kael when you need her?

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