Wet Hot American Summer

Wet Hot American Summer **1/2

Directed by David Wain
Written by David Wain and Michael Showalter

Starring:
Janeane Garofalo as Beth
David Hyde Pierce as Henry
Michael Showalter as Coop/Alan Shemper
Marguerite Moreau as Katie
Michael Ian Black as McKinley
Zak Orth as J.J.
A.D. Miles as Gary
Paul Rudd as Andy
Christopher Meloni as Gene
Molly Shannon as Gail
Ken Marino as Victor
Joe Lo Truglio as Neil
Amy Poehler as Susie
Bradley Cooper as Ben
Gideon Jacobs as Aaron

97 Minutes(Rated R for strong sexual content, language and a drug sequence. )
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To the horror of a few of my friends, I have never seen "Wet Hot American Summer," but thanks to a special midnight screening at the famed Landmark Sunshine Cinemas in Manhattan, I finally got to see David Wain's precursor to upcoming "The Ten," which I will be reviewing next Thursday. And I must say, as Michael Showalter told the audience who has never seen the movie before the screening, I kept my expectations rather low, and got quite a bit of enjoyment from it, and even a little bit of nostalgia. "Wet Hot American Summer" successfully depicts the summer camp lifestyle, and even though this was sleep away camp and I went to day camp, the point was still made across.

Here its the last day at Camp Firewood. There are a series of colorful characters-the shy Coop, the camp loverboy Andy, the slutty Katie, the lunch worker Gene, the gay McKinley, and his two friends-the goofballs J.J and Gary. And then there is the camp director Beth, and the astro-physics teacher that she has her eye on, Henry-who is believing that a giant satellite is about to fall onto the camp, killing all life there. And on the last day, with all the camp hormones surging to get some last minute action, everybody is trying to find something of the summer to cling onto.

There are many laughs (mostly involving the gay counselor, a boating trip, and telling time with the sun), a couple of misses (mostly involving the satellite, the outcast camper, an arts and crafts teachers, and trying to locate a telephone), but the real enjoyment I got from this was just the whole camp experience. Summer camp is a fun time, being a camper or a consuler, just because everybody is having a good time just being away from everything. I think one scene kind of sums it all up. It's the talent show, and a kid comes up and balances a broom on his hand for three seconds, and the entire camp just applauds him. And it was times like these that I enjoyed most from camp. And for the most part, "Wet Hot American Summer" got it right, even if it does have moments where the comedy is all wrong. This was a midnight screening from last Friday and Saturday, so you missed the moment to go, but its worth a rental, and I look forward to "The Ten." I really did enjoy seeing this film in "it's element," and the people in the audience who have seen it a jillion times probably enjoyed it more than I did. But that's the fun of a cult film. If I didn't see it with people that got more enjoyment from it, I may not have liked it as much as I did-but the inclusion of people clapping while characters clapped, shouting when they did, or even smelling like weed and booze, really did add to the experience.