95% of the time, I would have zero interest in seeing a movie about college baseball players reveling in alcohol and women. Luckily, Everybody Wants Some!! is more than a typical party movie: it's a party movie directed by hangout auteur Richard Linklater, who has already proved his ability to confound dubious review intro statistics and turn deceptively unambitious premises into quietly transcendent cinema.
Despite following (basically) the same blueprint as Linklater's 1993 70s shenanigan fest Dazed and Confused, Everybody Wants Some!! never feels derivative. This is largely in part due to Linklater's unparalleled ability to pepper in low-key philosophical musings into effortlessly natural settings. Linklater's latest would perhaps feel more thought-provoking if it wasn't following on the heels of his coming-of-age epic Boyhood, but in the unbridled fun department, Everybody Wants Some!! beats Boyhood by a landslide.
The film's exclamation point-riddled title begs the following pair of questions: (1) Is it truly worthy of two exclamation points? (2) Everybody wants some but of what? Luckily, one is not required to ponder these questions to simply enjoy the experience of the movie, which does in fact warrant a tag team of exclamatory punctuation marks.
Within the film's first 15 minutes, a collegiate team of charismatic, booze-swilling athletes attempt to create a makeshift waterbed, nail an in-vehicle sing along to "Rapper's Delight", and engage in verbal jousting against a girl with a typewriter. "We have to meet them at their level!" suggests Finnegan (Glen Powell), the team's fountain of unsolicited wisdom, shortly before being bested.
Rest assured, the fun doesn't stop there. The intimate level of realism that allowed Boyhood to resonate with so many is on full display in Everybody Wants Some!! Regardless of their athleticism, Linklater makes his audience feel as if they are actually hanging out with these guys. Each scene so skillfully immerses us into gemlike moments of male bonding that we are made to feel like bona fide teammates.
We taste the sweat trickling over our lips as the team dances disco at the Sound Machine, feel the crunch of cracking peanut shells beneath our feet while they saunter across the littered floors of a Texas cowboy bar, and, for better or worse, we even tingle with the painful sting of a no holds barred round of knuckles between two particularly competitive teammates (Tanner Kalina & Austin Amelio).
Beyond physical sensations, the conversations between the guys are made to feel so real, that viewers inevitably will be reminded of the social rhythms of the real life conversations that they have had in the past, not to mention the real life emotions that accompanied them. Linklater embeds his audience in these moments to such a degree that even the oft-derided prospect of watching baseball (in this case, a preseason practice) is made to feel as taught as any thriller.
All fun aside, the second question remains. What exactly is it that everybody wants some of? The film's freshman protagonist Jake (Blake Jenner) wants to see the girl from Room 307 (Zoey Deutch) before classes start up in a matter of days, while his fellow freshman teammate Plummer (Temple Baker) just wants to find out what classes he should register for in the first place. Jake's roommate Billy (Will Brittain) wants respect from his team instead of getting called "Beuter Perkins" on account of his rural Texas accent and being further harassed for running up the phone bill contacting his back home girlfriend. Jay (Justin Street), one of Jake's upperclassmen teammates, wants fame; his intensity is apparent from the moment Jake notices him fervently squeezing a hand exerciser on the front porch. Jay even claims to be on the radar of pro team scouts due to his alleged 95 mph fast ball.
So what is the coveted some of Everybody Wants Some!!? Of course, the answers to such a vague quandary are endless, but by the end of Everybody Wants Some!! I wanted one or two more well- developed female characters (But then again, what do you expect in a movie about an 80s male baseball team?), downloads of every soundtrack cut not already on my iPod, and ultimately, to spend a few more days with a platoon of jocks that I previously believed I could never enjoy spending mere hours with.
Grade: A- Reviewed by Ben Pieper on April 10th, 2016
Despite following (basically) the same blueprint as Linklater's 1993 70s shenanigan fest Dazed and Confused, Everybody Wants Some!! never feels derivative. This is largely in part due to Linklater's unparalleled ability to pepper in low-key philosophical musings into effortlessly natural settings. Linklater's latest would perhaps feel more thought-provoking if it wasn't following on the heels of his coming-of-age epic Boyhood, but in the unbridled fun department, Everybody Wants Some!! beats Boyhood by a landslide.
The film's exclamation point-riddled title begs the following pair of questions: (1) Is it truly worthy of two exclamation points? (2) Everybody wants some but of what? Luckily, one is not required to ponder these questions to simply enjoy the experience of the movie, which does in fact warrant a tag team of exclamatory punctuation marks.
Within the film's first 15 minutes, a collegiate team of charismatic, booze-swilling athletes attempt to create a makeshift waterbed, nail an in-vehicle sing along to "Rapper's Delight", and engage in verbal jousting against a girl with a typewriter. "We have to meet them at their level!" suggests Finnegan (Glen Powell), the team's fountain of unsolicited wisdom, shortly before being bested.
Rest assured, the fun doesn't stop there. The intimate level of realism that allowed Boyhood to resonate with so many is on full display in Everybody Wants Some!! Regardless of their athleticism, Linklater makes his audience feel as if they are actually hanging out with these guys. Each scene so skillfully immerses us into gemlike moments of male bonding that we are made to feel like bona fide teammates.
We taste the sweat trickling over our lips as the team dances disco at the Sound Machine, feel the crunch of cracking peanut shells beneath our feet while they saunter across the littered floors of a Texas cowboy bar, and, for better or worse, we even tingle with the painful sting of a no holds barred round of knuckles between two particularly competitive teammates (Tanner Kalina & Austin Amelio).
Beyond physical sensations, the conversations between the guys are made to feel so real, that viewers inevitably will be reminded of the social rhythms of the real life conversations that they have had in the past, not to mention the real life emotions that accompanied them. Linklater embeds his audience in these moments to such a degree that even the oft-derided prospect of watching baseball (in this case, a preseason practice) is made to feel as taught as any thriller.
All fun aside, the second question remains. What exactly is it that everybody wants some of? The film's freshman protagonist Jake (Blake Jenner) wants to see the girl from Room 307 (Zoey Deutch) before classes start up in a matter of days, while his fellow freshman teammate Plummer (Temple Baker) just wants to find out what classes he should register for in the first place. Jake's roommate Billy (Will Brittain) wants respect from his team instead of getting called "Beuter Perkins" on account of his rural Texas accent and being further harassed for running up the phone bill contacting his back home girlfriend. Jay (Justin Street), one of Jake's upperclassmen teammates, wants fame; his intensity is apparent from the moment Jake notices him fervently squeezing a hand exerciser on the front porch. Jay even claims to be on the radar of pro team scouts due to his alleged 95 mph fast ball.
So what is the coveted some of Everybody Wants Some!!? Of course, the answers to such a vague quandary are endless, but by the end of Everybody Wants Some!! I wanted one or two more well- developed female characters (But then again, what do you expect in a movie about an 80s male baseball team?), downloads of every soundtrack cut not already on my iPod, and ultimately, to spend a few more days with a platoon of jocks that I previously believed I could never enjoy spending mere hours with.
Grade: A- Reviewed by Ben Pieper on April 10th, 2016