For all of the movies and TV shows that have tried to capture the high school experience, it’s rare that one truly succeeds.  Most come off as brazenly exaggerated, overly simplistic, or too silly to be taken seriously.  Sure there’s a few gems here and there, but for the most part movies that attempt to encapsulate the high school experience are far from authentic and easily forgettable.  Same goes for high school TV shows: there’s a dizzying array of shows set in the high school years, and only a couple are anything close to relateable.  But like that quiet kid in the back of class, Freaks and Geeks rises above the bottomless chumbucket of modern TV shows with intelligent writing, deep and interesting characters, and plenty of moments that genuinely ring true for anyone who has ever been through those four strange years of pubescent confusion.

The show is more or less about two siblings, Lindsay Weir (Linda Cardellini) and her younger brother  Sam, who go to the same high school in suburban Detroit on the cusp of the 1980s.  Lindsay is hyper intelligent but, sick of spending her time with fellow nerd herds like the Mathletes, seeks a new group of friends with whom she can just enjoy herself without judgement.  Her younger brother and his friends are social misfits who know nothing of dating, sports, or even pop culture, but try their hardest to carve out a niche for themselves in the complicated social networks of their school.  A cadre of compelling characters round out the cast: near-dropout Daniel (James Franco) and his on-again-off-again girlfriend Kim (Busy Philips), the pair of slackers Nick (Jason Segel) and Ken (Seth Rogen), would-be comedian Neal (Samm Levine), and hopelessly awkward smartie Bill (Martin Starr).  Throughout the season Lindsay and her friends, the freaks, form relationships, get in trouble, argue, start a band, and try to make it through their junior year of high school.  Similarly, Sam and his friends, all quintessential geeks, experience the ups and downs of their freshman year while bonding over comics, late-night TV shows, and trying to figure out the most complicated aspect of any young man’s life:  girls.

Bill Haverchuck, erstwhile geek complete with gigantic specs. Gotta love it.

This brief description could apply to almost any high school show, but what sets Freaks and Geeks apart is the characters and pitch-perfect writing.  No single individual can be pigeonholed, and every one of the teens in the show has multiple facets that display much more than one-dimensional high school cardboard cutouts.  There’s a scene in 10 Things I Hate About You in which we are introduced to each and every single clique at the school:  the jocks, the cheerleaders, the wannabe rednecks, and so on.  Mean Girls similarly divides the student population of North Shore High School into easily-classifiable bite-sized nuggets of social strata, most notably the antagonists of the film, the Plastics.  Freaks and Geeks is far more subtle, and the creators wisely understand that high school, and life in general, is not so easily classifiable. Even though the title of the show seems to create division and distinction, the lives of these students are as complicated and un-classifiable as can be.  To wit: the “freaks” mostly just want to be normal, have friends, and fit in.  Same with the “geeks.”  They just have their own way of doing it.  Lindsay’s struggles with friendships and her relationship with Nick come across as genuine instead of forced, and Sam’s coming-of-age experiences with his friends, the tortuous 50 minutes of daily gym class, and the perpetual pursuit of the hot girl who is just out of reach are as real as anything anyone could have experienced in high school.

Nick, Lindsay, and Daniel, navigating social perils and locker problems.

But in Freaks and Geeks, as with real life, there are rarely simple answers or happy endings.  When Sam finally goes out with Cindy, the cute cheerleader he’s been longing for, he finds that there is far more to relationships than just physical appearances–a fact the willfully ignorant Neal refuses to believe. Lindsay also realizes through the course of the show that friendships and relationships are much more difficult to maintain than she thought, and struggles to find a balance between her old nerdy friends and her new near-dropout pals. It’s a social melting pot that keeps the focus on characters front and center, fitting in situational jokes and lighthearted moments where there’s room.  But always the characters get front billing, and though nearly all the actors were long past the age of their Michigan-based counterparts, they pull off the role of high school students more convincingly than almost any other show or movie I have seen.

Along for the ride is an outstanding supporting cast, most notably Joe Flaherty and Becky Ann Baker, who play Lindsay and Sam’s parents.  Their depiction of not-quite-clued-in paternal authority is just slightly caricatured, but it’s all in good fun.  Same goes for school counselor Mr. Rosso (Dave Allen) who, despite being a burnt-out ex-hippie, actually comes through in a pinch and, like most school counselors, really does help the kids out when they need advice or a listening ear. And then there’s the brilliant Tom Wilson who appears in a handful of episodes as the meathead gym teacher Mr. Fredericks who, like most individuals in this show, really does care for the kids and at the end of the day just wants to be a good teacher.  For all the wounds of those high school years laid bare in Freaks and Geeks, there’s an incredibly warm center to it all, an acknowledgement that while this time in a young person’s life might be fraught with melodramatic social turmoil, life will go on, people will change, and every little thing is gonna be alright.

Sam and Neal, pondering the mysteries of the universe and striped shirts.

Freaks and Geeks is an immensely entertaining, thoroughly funny show, but there is nary a one-two punchline to be found.  Humor comes naturally from the characters just being themselves, and the few situations in which setups are required or outlandish situations are established, such as when Neil takes the reins as the school’s mascot during a pep rally, come across as forced and a little too over the top.  Life doesn’t have convenient setups and easy punchlines, and neither does Freaks and Geeks, and the charm of the 1980s is on full display, from horrendous interior decorating choices to cringe-inducing everyday fashion, this was also a simpler time before cell phones and facebook updates added layers of confusion to an already complicated time of any young person’s life.  The only major letdown of the show is that it is over all too quickly, a victim of network cancellation and a public audience weaned on schlock like 90210 or Boy Meets World.  But perhaps that’s a good thing.  Freaks and Geeks was a flash in the pan, but it means we never see these kids grow up. And perhaps it really is better to burn out than fade away.

Rating:

TV Shows high school, James Franco, Jason Segel, Judd Apatow, Samm Levine

“Date Night” is everything its trailers don’t make it appear to be–a hugely entertaining, rowdy, wacky slapstick film featuring two comic geniuses.  Steve Carell and Tina Fey, two major stars of the two biggest sitcoms on NBC, have an exciting chemistry that carries this goofy, mainstream film to glorious heights.

The duo plays a middle-aged suburban married couple out for a night in New York City.  After attempting to get a table at a fancy seafood restaurant, they are shot down cold, and decide to take the reservation of the seemingly absent Tripplehorns.  Toward the end of their meal, two thugs arrive at their table and escort them out, quickly waving guns in their faces and demanding an important flash drive from them.  Mayhem ensues as these two spend the night dodging crooked cops, mobsters, and bullets in the midst of a go-to mistaken identity plot.

Luckily for Director Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum II, yikes), this very mainstream script can’t bog down Fey and Carell.  The two make an unstoppable pair when Levy stops the action in favor of their witty banter and improvisation.  Add in some entertaining cameos from James Franco, Mila Kunis and supporting player Mark Wahlberg, and “Date Night” is a very funny, entertaining, action-romance-comedy serving up shameless mainstream hijinks.  With the weight on the shoulders of Carell and Fey, this potential disaster of a movie, turns into the perfect date night movie.  I really enjoyed it a lot more than I anticipated.

Action, Comedy, Romance James Franco, Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Shawn Levy, Steve Carell, Tina Fey

Spiderman 3 is everything Spiderman 2 should have been: fast-paced, hard-hitting, and dazzling. While Spiderman 2 was a testament to just how little you can do with plot and philosophy, Spiderman 3 stands as a shining example of just how much can be accomplished with mindless entertainment.

Spiderman 2 tried to cram about 10 years worth of comic book storyline into two hours, and wound up with so many subplots that it couldn’t do any of them well. Case in point: J. Jonah Jamison’s two radical changes of heart about Spiderman, separated by about 10 seconds. Worse yet, it didn’t leave room for any action.

The kickoff to one of six stellar action sequences in Spiderman 3.

In Spiderman 3, there’s no shortage of action. Whether Spidey (Toby Maguier) is diving through cranes, or surfing behind a runaway armored car, the thrills keep coming. The writers did a good job of advancing Peter’s fighting skill from movie to movie. This one marks the first time he’s fired web bolts and used a few other tactics.

In between scampering over rooftops and shaking off impossible blows, the characters find a little time for 90210-ish sexual tension. Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) falls out of love with Peter, then in love with Harry Osbourne (James Franco), then he makes her… oh, who really cares? This is definitely a busy movie, but it never loses sight of the fact that it’s all about the action.

When you turn evil, you change your hair.

There are plenty of villains, too. Harry becomes the new Goblin (the great Willem Dafoe graces the screen once more in a hallucination). Topher Grace comes aboard as the sinister Venom, and Thomas Haden Church gives a grainy performance as the Sandman, one of those comic book characters who should probably never have come to the big screen.

Church’s acting is not exactly stellar, but then, he doesn’t have much of a character to work with. He’s an escaped convict who stumbles into a particle research zone, where he is somehow atomized without being killed. This enables him to turn into sand, and seems to make him invincible, although, he still winces and grimaces an awful lot when he fights Spiderman. The police suspect him of Uncle Ben’s killing, and that moment is revisited several times in the movie. After slugging it out at the final battle, he apologizes to Peter, after which Peter acknowledges having done terrible things himself and forgives him. Sandman then blows away as a cloud of sand, leaving us with no indication that he intends to give up his life of crime, and the question of why the ridiculous villain gets to survive for another movie, while Spiderman’s evil twin dies.

Oh, well. My friends and I talked for hours after this film debuted, and every

Perhaps no villain is more intimidating than the evil in one's self.

change we proposed raised problems of its own. Venom should have had a bigger role, but the film was too full as it was. Sandman could have been left out, but that would have ruined the two-on-two at the end. Sandman could have been pure evil instead of a sympathetic villain, but that takes a crucial moment out of Peter’s journey with the black costume. Heck, it was fine as it was.

A fourth movie is reportedly in the works. There is no mention of the Sandman returning, thank goodness. The two most popular picks seem to be the Lizard and Carnage, although if the filmmakers can get the rights to the Kingpin from Fox, that wouldn’t be a bad move. Note to Marvel Studios: I’m all for more web-slinging action, but for gosh sakes, keep the soap opera stuff out of it.

Action, Family 2 Stars, Goblin, James Franco, kirsten dunst, sam rami, Sandman, Spiderman, Superhero, Supervillain, thomas hayden church, Toby McGuier, topher grace, Venom