Seth Rogen throws down the gauntlet, says “no one’s made a good high school movie since” Superbad
Seth Rogen feels strongly about the legacy of Superbad and the cult classic series Freaks And Geeks
Aux News Seth Rogen
Seth Rogen has good reason to be cocky about his place in Hollywood. He got his start on one of the most beloved high school television series of all time (Freaks And Geeks) and then co-wrote one of the most beloved high school movies of all time (Superbad). He’s got plenty of other accomplishments under his belt (including a turn in a Best Picture nominee), but it says a lot about the quality of those projects that he’s still asked about them to this day.
Referencing his Fabelmans co-star, Rogen tells People in a new interview, “What’s crazy is that Gabe LaBelle is like, 19 years old and his and his friends’ favorite movie is Superbad. So it never changed for some reason,” he says of the movie’s lasting legacy. Then he adds a bold claim: “No one’s made a good high school movie since then.”
Okay, okay, we know Seth Rogen is a comedy writer and an offhand comment shouldn’t be held as gospel. But let’s put the assertion to the test anyway. Has anyone made a good high school movie since then? Obviously, yes. A trickier question is, has anyone made a high school movie as good since then? There are some strong contenders, like Dope, Edge Of Seventeen, Lady Bird, or even To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before.
Limiting the category to similarly raunchy, goofy comedies is an even narrower field. Easy A, led by Superbad co-star Emma Stone, is one much-beloved example. Perhaps even more of a spiritual successor to Superbad is Olivia Wilde’s Booksmart. We’ll give him this, though: horny dirtball teenage boys have probably not had representation of that caliber since Rogen’s magnum opus.
The same can probably be said for the stoner outcasts in Freaks And Geeks, but don’t expect them to return any time soon. “I don’t think anyone would do it. It’s so rare that you do something in your career that is actually just viewed as good,” Rogen tells People. “I know enough now not to fuck with that, to just let it be good and not try to go revisit it. And just let it exist.” Sounds like it’s someone else’s turn to step up to the plate.
276 Comments
Fine, let’s throw it back. No one has ever made a good movie about food in a grocery store.
Sausage Party?
Sausage Party is a horrible movie
I enjoyed White Noise (which has a pretty central theme about the grocery store as the true church of American Capitalism) but my wife didn’t really enjoy it so you might be correct.
Not technically about the food, but that grocery store scene in The Fantastic Mr. Fox is so good.
The grocery store scene in “Go” was pretty darn good.
I’ll raise ya one: nobody has made a good golden agouti gerbil movie.
I feel like everyone missed the joke here.
No one has made a better movie where one of the leads takes a shit since Pulp Fiction.
Trainspotting
And Dumb and Dumber… though those scenes were played up for humor. I’m talking about like you never see in a movie where someone just needs to take a shit and that’s part of the movie.
Not a movie, but the Joe Pera Talks with You episode “Joe Pera Takes You to the Grocery Store” is wonderful (as is any episode of that sadly ended series).
That was actually the first episode of Joe Pera that I (randomly) saw, and I was hooked.
You take back that Foodfight! slander.
I’ve had to see it and I shall not. Besides they aren’t food, they’re ikes.
Sausage Party was the single worst experience I’ve ever had in a theater (in terms of quality of movie). It was utterly terrible, I don’t remember laughing a single time. And I actually sort of like Superbad!
As someone who worked in a grocery store for like a decade before waking up and going back to school, I totally second this comment and was really hoping Sausage Party would be the film to do it. Superstore exists but that’s for Wal-Mart and Costco people. I’m talking GROCERIES. It hasn’t happened yet for us. Especially after COVID lockdown.
The bit is Sausage Party about a wise guru being products that get lost in the shelving was pretty accurate tho. They tell us to stuff those shelves to the brim as creatively as possible. Stuff falls down a crack or whatever in the back of the shelving all the time. Working overnight grocery I was once tasked with sweeping out underneath the shelving. We found cans of vegetables that were up to 8 years old underneath the shelves.
I actually saw a pretty accurate “grocery store film” recently. I was intrigued when I learned that there is a black & white version of The Mist. I saw it back in highschool and thought it was hokey (and oddly I totally blocked out the memory of the suicide ending I only remembered that tanks and the military were involved – wild). The Mist is actually a fantastic “grocery store film”. My favourite grocery store moment of the film is when they’re looking for medicine to nurse some of the injured survivors, the older guy who works as a grocery clerk is like “aisle 7″ as tho he’s some kind of hero for knowing that information. That was such a real moment hahahahahahahahaha.
The grocery manager (department head) was this 79 year old guy whose wife passed and he’s the “will be there til the day he dies” type. One day I walked into the back receiving area and he was just basking at how little overstock was piled on the back wall and to himself he shouts “I’M SO GOOD AT ORDERING”. That’s so pure.
I’ve done grocery stocking overnight and dairy/frozen during the day a number of times in my life (adjunct teaching pays shiiiiit) and it is ridiculous how overstock can fuck you up.
I’m picturing that in the same voice Frank Booth uses when he says “I’ll fuck anything that moves!”
The ending of Sausage Party was just so unforgivable.
Bafflingly awful. And yet an amazon series is currently in production…
Punch Drunk Love?
I rewatched “Superbad” for the first time in years recently, and the only parts I liked were McLovin and the cops. I HATED the Michael Cera and Jonah Hill characters and was pissed that they ended up “getting the girls” at the end of the movie. They didn’t deserve them.
I fully disclose that I didn’t like Superbad on my initial viewing, and for the reasons you said. I didn’t even like the cops because I found them to be trying too hard. I just liked McLovin. I’m a fan now, but it took me a few viewings to come around on it. I suspect, however, that it’s aged poorly- probably worse than any high school movie I know.
probably just couldn’t dream up something as inspired as that fucking “McLovin” joke that they beat into the ground like a narc at a biker rally. And those two cops who don’t really act like cops! OMG! Rogen’s the luckiest dude in Hollywood, he should shut it.
Go take a nice walk and clear your head. You’ve got shit on your brains.
Bo Burnham came close a few years ago, but missed by one year.
Lady Bird is probably the most overrated movie in cinema history.
Eh, high school comedies have largely been disposable crap since Fast Times At Ridgemont High.
Yeah, I’ll cop to being dismissive. Clueless endured. Ferris Bueller endured. A good amount do not, even if they have their charms.I name checked Fast Times because it didn’t treat teenage issues as trifling plot points. For example, where American Pie is basically about NEEDING to have sex as a senior male to not be a failure, Fast Times goes into the potential aftermath of that impulse.
aka Superbad But With Boobies
This is definitely one of the dumber things you’ve ever said – which is a pretty high bar to clear. Congrats Also – you’re bald and ugly.
Ok boomer.Sorry, you earned that one. 😉
I’ll cop to being reductive. Clueless was good, and others have their charms. Superbad is…okay. American Pie was always overrated.
U beat me to it
Evidently you were in a coma for most of the 80’s.
Seth Rogen says stuff. Well, that was his first mistake.
I enjoyed Booksmart.
Booksmart… wait, that was a remake of Superbad
Superbad is just that. Super bad.
username/comment synergy checks out
ERRONEOUS
Are you.. proud? Are you proud of the words you just wrote?
I was today years old when I learned that Superbad is apparently a high school movie.Seriously, if someone says that X is a high school movie then I assume that a majority of the scenes will take place *in* high school, and a lot of the plots will involve high school.It’s been awhile since I’ve seen Superbad, but how much of the film takes place in high school? 10%? Or is that being generous? From what I recall, the majority of the film is set in the early evening and night and it’s all about getting ready for the party, trying to get to the party, and being at the party.Or am I being too pedantic. Is Superbad a high school movie?
I think the term high school movie refers more to the stage of life of the characters, not the actual setting.
You mean there isn’t a story about two buildings putting aside their differences and falling in love?
Not only does it take place in high school, Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogan both wrote it together when they were friends in high school. Most of the main cast were barely out of high school themselves when they were filming. I think Mclovin’ was actually still in high school at the time.
It’s undeniably a high school movie in every sense of the word.
I think there should be some component of a high school building or something specifically related to high school for it to be a “high school” movie and not a “teen” movie, but definitely doesn’t need to be most or even a whole lot. Just some substantial connection.
Yeah, this is like saying you don’t understand how American Pie can be considered a sex comedy, since it’s not just people having intercourse for the whole runtime.
It is I guess because the main cast are in high school. I know a movie like Election actually has the setting of a high school but it doesn’t have to exclusively always taking place in there. And I think Dope and Booksmart are good examples. Superbad was one of the best but I don’t you could say there’s been “no” good high school movies since 2007.
The same is true for virtually every referenced movie in the article.
you’re not even being pedantic you’re just wrong.
How can any of be considered high school movies?None of them carefully read the school district’s foundational charter documents aloud for the audience before the start of the film.See, I can make shit up too.
This is one of the most bizarre posts I’ve seen in a while. Are you an AI?
Nope. He’s Jeff Hornacek. https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hornaje01.html
Tragically, there is a dearth of comedies centering around Trigonometry class
Trigonometry is only tragedy.
I really want to see another movie about acute girl falling for a guy too obtuse to notice.
About 20% of the action is in a literal high school and 100% of the movie is about adjusting to post high school life for two friends going to college. It is in every meaningful sense “a high school” movie.
High school movie, the protagonists attend high school and the motivations are generally of the nature of high school kids. Dazed and Confused had few scenes set actually in high school, but is a high school movie.
Maybe it’s just semantics, but I would consider both Dazed and Confused and Superbad as “teen” movies more than “high school” movies.Look at films like Ferris Bueller, Porky’s, and Risky Business. I would definitely consider them “teen” movies, and they all spend more time in an actual high school than Superbad does (well, Risky Business may be close).By contrast, Rushmore is absolutely a “high school” movie.
Nearly every character in D&C goes to the same high school, and most i Superbad do. If this were teens in the woods, or elsewhere, sure. If the way the characters know each other is through high school and it is contemporaneous, I call it a high school movie.
A third of the movie literally takes place inside their high school classrooms and hallways 🤦♂️
Might want to rethink this one.
Ugh, I know, right? I mean, in Spider-Man: Homecoming, he was barely even at the Homecoming dance. More time was spent picking up his date and chatting with his date’s dad on the ride to the Homecoming dance than he actually spent at the Homecoming dance!
I mean, for people of my generation (early 40s) American Pie is probably the definitive high school movie, and most of the movie does not take place “in” the high school. I think this is a level of pedantry that doesn’t really hold up well.
It’s all either on the way to high school, at the high school, or on the way to, attending, and coming home from a high school graduation party. Not sure how much more “high school” it can get. If your criterion is that it has to take place almost all literally in the high school then you’re not going to have very many high school movies indeed. I guess a lot of Clueless takes place in the school? But also a lot doesn’t. Anyway yeah, way too pedantic.
I’ll only let my children watch movies where at least 90% of the footage is lectures that will prepare them for the SATs.
this is the kind of post I’d expect from an NBA player who wasn’t even the best white starting backcourt player on his own team.
You are comically insufferable and daft.
Hang on – do kids these days still use the term “today years old”?
From one pedantic to another, I feel you. High school age doesn’t always mean high school movie, imo. But in this case, the story does revolve around a high school party, and the themes of going off to college, so Superbad more than qualifies.
Here’s a simple test:Are the majority of the characters in high school? If yes, it’s a high school movie.
Take THAT, Booksmart!
Take that, Guernica!
It was fine. But I can barely remember what happened in t, let alone quote it. And have no desire to revisit it.
This, exactly. Superbad has so many quotes and higher cultural relevance. To this day I still use this oneBooksmart just came and went. It was pretty funny tho
Indeed, yes.
Maybe he’s just throwing shade at his sister. Next family meal’s gonna be awkward.
She’s Jonah Hill’s sister, not Seth Rogen’s.
Shit, you’re right. In my defence, I’m a fucken idiot.
they lucked out and basically made the very last possible one before smartphone and social media ubiquity would instantly date it and the problems. the myspace reference, even at the time, was already long in the tooth.above all they nailed the sentiment and feeling of being young, and plus everyone still looks like how kids look. great movie! was screamingly fun in a theatre when it came out.
I think the Myspace reference was intentionally long in the tooth, as it was an adult who hit him with his car and asked them if they were on Myspace, showing he was out of the loop.
i think that’s generous considering it was initially written before myspace existed.my guess is they added it in when it was brand new, during filming it was still right on time and by the time it came out was already a bit dated.that being said it’s a happy accident and works that way now.
I believe the keyword there is “initially”. I agree with the other guy that the reference was intended to show he was out of the loop
again, i think it just worked out that way.
It’s not debatable lmao. The creepy older guy who asks if they are on Myspace is a joke.
It’s not like they didn’t re-write that movie multiple times before it got to the finished script.
No way. That joke making the finale cut of the movie had the purpose of highlighting how old, creepy, and inappropriate it is for an adult to hang out with high school kids.
yeah not disputing that aspect of it. an adult asking teens to be friends on myspace is all of that, i just don’t think myspace being dated is a part of that.
It very clearly adds to the joke. The dude is so old his last teen reference is MySpace which the kids were clearly not using in 2007.
but they only allowed teens to use facebook in 2006, when it was filming. i suppose it’s possible that rogen and goldberg were on the bleeding edge to intuit that, but i think it’s unlikely.but i’ll admit – not impossible at least.
You are exactly right! It is a “hey fellow kids moment” of the movie.
They only made mid budget theatrical comedies for a few more years for the most part. It’s a desert out there
I get that you’re talking about the specific Frat Pack/Apatow era throughout the 2000s, but mid-budget comedies have existed throughout all of film history. I will agree with you though that they have been slim pickings recently. It kind of feels like all the major studios have given up on comedies entirely recently; the only good ones I’ve seen in the past few years have been more on the indie side.
Does it date them? I’m pretty sure kids are still using fake IDs to buy liquor, especially outside major metropolitan areas. I guess with things like Uber, etc. they wouldn’t have as much trouble getting from place to place, but there are ways around that.
All of the movies you mentioned are good, but they didn’t have the same lasting impact Superbad has had. I think that’s the point he’s trying to get across.
What “lasting impact” has Superbad had? McLovin references?? Is that the bar?
Exactly. Like the lasting impact the great 80’s HS movies have had. Nobody is going to rewatch the movies from the list for nostalgia.
Besides the ones mentioned aboveBlockers (2018)
The Hate U Give (2018)Freaky (2020)
Spider-Man: HomecomingChronicleJuno
Lady Bird.
not included, because it was mentioned in the article
These are all good-to-very good… but are you watching a single one of these over Superbad if given the choice?
Yeah but the claim was that there hasn’t been a good one made since Superbad. Just because you prefer Superbad to all of them doesn’t mean they aren’t good, especially since you say they are good to very good. You don’t have to enjoy them more than you enjoy Superbad for them to be good.
Yes, Blockers. I LOVE Superbad, but Blockers is a better movie and just as funny, albeit in a different way.
Yes. The thing about Superbad is that when it came out, it was kind of like Scream, it was the first time in a while that a movie like that came out, and while I liked it, there was nothing in it I hadn’t seen before. If I were to make a list of the best high school movies, I doubt Superbad would crack the the top 10.Breakfast ClubThree O’Clock HighFast Times At Ridgemont HighPorky’sTeachersCluelessHeathersMean GirlsDazed And ConfusedElectionJust One Of The GuysSome Kind of WonderfulDopeAmerican PieNapoleonSky High10 Things I Hate About YouBattle RoyaleTo Sir, With LoveFriday Night Lights
I think the reason Superbad endures is that it was basically the last high school movie where high schoolers are being stupid and having fun, with fairly low stakes. It’s notable that nothing on your list actually came after Superbad, because with only a few exceptions, most depictions of high school try to be Europhia now. Superbad may not have been anything you hadn’t seen before, but we really haven’t seen anything like it since.
Side note… How can you make a list 20 movies deep and NOT have Can’t Hardly Wait? (i’d also put Trojan War on there but the movie is actually not very good but I love it.)
You get a star for Three O’Clock High, and I wish I had another star to give you for Just One of the Guys.
Yeah, Juno is a better comedy than Superbad, sorry. I’d watch that one first.
The Hate U Give is an overall better movie but has a very different vibe.Booksmart isn’t listed there but it’s way better comedy and movie than any of the others listed, including Superbad.
(I secretly hoped There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men would split the votes, cancel each other out, and Juno would win Best Picture. It’s so good)
If given the choice, I’d watch Superbad over all of those except Juno. Superbad is wild, but Juno clicks a lot more with basically all my sensibilities.
Spontaneous is great
I was going to bring up Blockers, but in the context of asking if it qualifies as a high school movie. I would say yes, if only because I’m always inclined to be generous in these silly genre exercises, but you could very reasonably argue that the movie is far more about the parents than it is the kids.
I never saw Blockers…is it actually any good?
Quite good. Arguably a bit overstuffed — the movie tries to fit in arcs for all six main characters, with varying degrees of success, and it might have benefited from being a bit more focused in that regard. But it has my wholehearted recommendation.
I didn’t think I’d like it, but it was funnier than I expected. Subjective of course, but I would recommend it if you enjoyed sleeper comedies like Game Night, Horrible Bosses, or Hot Tub Time Machine. It’s on the level of stuff like that.
IMO the qualifier is whether or not the movie works as a relatable snapshot of that period in life. In your list I would only apply that to Blockers, and just barely.
I agree. It’s kind of like the Christmas movie debate. IMO to be a “Christmas movie,” it can’t just take place at Christmas; it has to incorporate the trappings or traditions of Christmas in a meaningful way (so no Die Hard, Eyes Wide Shut, etc.). In the same vein, “high school movies” are ones that directly deal with the American high school experience in some way. Just because all of the main characters are teens doesn’t make it a “high school movie” to me.
This entire article pisses me off because wasn’t Rogen originally in charge of Blockers? It was going to be called “Cherries” and be about three dads, and by all accounts sounded absolutely dog shit until he handed it over to one of the main creatives behind Pitch Perfect. This is especially annoying because Blockers isn’t just GOOD, it was GREAT. It was my favorite comedy of the year. It was smart and it was funny, it was about both kids and adults, it was kind hearted and gentle but never twee and annoying, it was modern and progressive in a way that never felt blunt or performative. It’s not just a good teen sex comedy, it’s also a really good movie at making a coming of age story from the perspective of both parents and teens and a really fun look at a lot of different ways sex and sexuality can impact your life at any age. Frankly, as funny as Superbad is, Blockers feels like a more ambitious movie that has more to revisit.
How quickly we forget Dear Evan Hansen. (Not quickly enough?)
It doesn’t count as a high-school movie when the lead looks 35 years old.
Superbad was and is fucking hilarious. I’ll raise Seth a college movie and say that Old School was the last good college movie made.
Low bar for “good” there.
Old School was pretty bad though. After the first half hour, it’s pretty rough. And that is a *hard* F-bomb up front
There are many kinds of movie watchers.One of the kinds is the person who really loves big moments, and thinks those big moments make up the whole movie.They’re like sports fans who think an objectively boring game for 58 minutes is one of the best games ever because there was a close score and the game was decided on a last second play.I disagree, but can understand why this type of movie viewer (the kind who still quotes Anchorman every day, I assume) would think Old School was a great movie. It gives him big, fun, quotable moments.
Earmuffs!
In its time, Old School was hilarious. That movie was so funny in theaters. However, I think with most comedies, they just don’t age well. Their brand of humor gets used in a bunch of movies. Will Ferrell’s schtick gets old and repeated in other films. It’s like for a solid decade, every Ferrell movie was basically a slight variation on the same character. And then suddenly Old School just isn’t as funny 20 years later. Like, I hate to say it, but I caught the 40 Year Old Virgin a couple months ago, and it’s just not as funny anymore. I’ve already laughed at those jokes.
I hated Old School at the time, and I consider myself a connoisseur of raunchy, dirtbag comedies. Again, everything was frontloaded. After the first few jokes, it was just pretty boring. My other hot take was that I was bored with The Hangover in the theater. I just felt like I’d seen better versions of that movie already. I felt about The Hangover the way everybody felt about its own sequels.And yet I still love Anchorman to this day. Do not care about Will Ferrell fatigue. My only issue is that I’ve seen it so many times I’ve become numb to the jokes. I think it’s a perfect satire of the buffoonery of the good old days and will die on that hill. But Old School was always mid to me.
I disagree with you on Old School and Hangover (but I can respect your opinion), but I fully agree with your Anchorman take…that movie is a top 5 comedy for me. One fun fact I recently learned after getting deep into Detroiters (Comedy Central show cancelled way too soon after only 2 seasons) was that Will Ferrell based Ron Burgundy off of Mort Crim, the Detroit anchor who is featured in that show. I just got the feeling that Mort Crim was who Ron Burgundy would be later in his career, then looked him up (I was curious if his “Chump of the Week” was ever a real thing, and sadly I don’t think it was) and found that tidbit.
Yeah, I understood very quickly that I was on the outside with The Hangover, and I’ve accepted that. Most people really liked it. I won’t say they’re wrong. I think my main complaint (I have trouble articulating exactly why it doesn’t work for me) is that I don’t enjoy spending any amount of time with the characters in the movie. I found them to be assholes, and not in the way where I can enjoy their antics from a distance. I just really wanted bad things to happen to them. I just didn’t like Bradley Cooper and don’t think I chilled on that until Silver Linings Playbook.
I just didn’t like Bradley Cooper and don’t think I chilled on that until Silver Linings Playbook.
Have you seen Wet Hot American Summer? Like everyone else in that movie, Bradley Cooper is absolutely perfect in his role.
That is good. I didn’t catch it until after though. Very late to the party
Anchorman kind of lives on an island of its own, kind of like Zoolander. A movie that was very self-aware, and was dumb enough that it can survive our evolving comedy palletes. I loved The Hangover in theaters. I also saw it with about 10 other people, and we smuggled in a lot of booze into the theater. Comedies have always been a good film to see in theaters. You’re in a confined space with a few hundred people all there to laugh, no different than a comedy club. How you feel about Old School and possibly The Hangover is how I feel about Wedding Crashers. I absolutely hate that movie.
do they even make college movies anymore? feels like that’s a relic of a bygone era.
College movies were wish fulfillment/fantasy movies for teenagers, who got to see kids a few years older than them enjoy a 4-year party occasionally interrupted by an econ lecture, or discover their passion and be recognized for their talents. Now college is just a looming threat for teens, a waypoint on their way to the “real world” that will leave them saddled with 6-figure debt for decades.
As someone dealing with the aftermath of lowered enrollment, it’s not as looming a threat as it might have been a few years ago.
Not really. I discount anything with Zac Ephron.
Neighbors! And +5 points because Seth Rogen was in that too
The Social Network? Bit of a stretch, to be sure.
well, even if you consider it one the movie itself will be old enough to go to college in 5 years.
Happy Death Day. Even did well enough to launch its own franchise (the director has confirmed that Freaky is set in the same shared universe, and he plans to expand it some more).
I actually liked Freaky well enough when I randomly watched it, but I wish they’d picked a different name, because every single time I see or hear the title, all I can think is, “they probably wanted to name it Freaky Friday the 13th, but got stopped by lawyers so they just went with Freaky.”
Forgot about HDD. Great college movie.
HDD, was pretty good.
Old School is by far the best collage comedy movie to star Luke Wilson.
False. Legally Blonde.
Grad school movie!
House Bunny and Everybody Wants Some (film) and Sex Lives of College Girls (TV/streaming) are probably my favorite takes on college post 2000.
Yes, I liked all three of those. Great choices. Still not Old School.
Undeclared was post-2000 and cancelled too soon, a la Freaks & Geeks.
I think even Apatow would agree that Undeclared was no Freaks and Geeks. Undeclared had some really funny moments but it was quite a bit more conventional. Having Charlie Hunnam filling the James Franco void was one of the key problems. He just operated at a different frequency than all of the more adept comedy people surrounding him.
We’ll always have Back to School
Accepted is pretty good.
I love Neighbors AND Neighbors 2, dammit!
Last good college movie was surely American Animals? Not a comedy, but a great movie.
Join us for the International Pocket Pool Championships!
Booksmart was really good.
Phone call for Seth Rogen…it’s George Lucas calling…
He’s not wrong. Superbad was the last “highschool” movie that really broke through the zeitgeist as it were. There have been many other good or even great highschool movies since then but none have gotten close to the culture touchstone that Superbad was and is.
Sure, provided that the “zeitgeist” you are talking about is yours.
I think it’s the one where it made $180 million and everyone under 35 can quote it
I think you are also way overgeneralizing based on your own POV. That isn’t remotely true, especially when “everyone” isn’t white boys.
You’re a weird fucker. Superbad is an iconic Millennial party film.
To you
To the vast, vast majority in as much a way as humanly possible for any subjective measure.
IT’S IN!
Cool story. Not everyone has the same frame of reference.
You’re clearly fighting an uphill battle over the super controversial topic of … people viewing media through different lenses. I have never felt as old as I do right now being lumped in (by age) with the people you’re arguing with.This comment section sounds like the boomers did when I was a kid, and it’s just as infuriating.Old people suck.
And not for nothing, but for an “iconic Millennial party film” half of Millennials had already graduated from college before the film was even released, and most of us didn’t require a 90 minute runtime dedicated to scoring the booze that was easily available.
This exactly.WTF is his deal?
Why is “not everyone on earth loves this movie” such a controversial take, kids?
it being loved isn’t the issue. it’s like saying ‘borat’ wasn’t important because only assholes quoted it. the important thing is that it was quoted!
The issue is that Superbad was super popular, but largely among young, male-skewing white Americans. Huge in that group, but that is not everyone.
You contain multitudes, and they all suck.
I was not prepared for the fragility of this community with regard to whether their experiences are completely generalizable and universal. Jesus.
God you’re tiresome,
Just tried to make a single super, super mild post. Had no idea that this movie had such religious significance to so many self-absorbed nitwits. My bad.
For what it’s worth (probably not much), I’m a white guy who’s never seen ‘Superbad’. I’m turning 40 this year, so I think I’m still kind of in the age group that would have been into it. I have never heard any quotes from the film. I’m vaguely aware there’s a character who calls himself McLovin, but that’s all I know about it.Contrast that with, say, ‘The Big Lebowski’, another film I haven’t seen (but I will get around to it, I swear!) Even not having watched it, I know several things about it: the lines “That’s just like, your opinion man”, “The Dude abides”, that bowling plays a part, that White Russians are a significant thing. It’s broken containment, as it were. Just anecdotally, ‘Superbad’ hasn’t done the same, at least not for me.
I was not prepared for your multitudes of bullshit, so there ya go.
i don’t think anyone is saying they’re everyone, but it sounds like you’re saying they don’t count as people at all.it’s also coming off like ‘well it wasn’t important to me so therefore it wasn’t important’…which is the same thing as saying ‘because it’s important to me it’s important’.like i get your point – it was a hit with white people, mostly guys – noone is disputing that.also, have you heard how many rap songs reference superbad? there is definitely a not-small contingency of POC who know it.
Everyone is disputing that, my dude. In no way did I ever say the thing you think it sounds like I’m saying. Very explicitly said something different, which is really upsetting to a lot of white dudes in here.Aside from a couple McLovin’ references, I don’t remember ever hearing much love for this movie. Plenty of references to the James Brown song, tho. And while, yes, people of color do explore media outside our lane, this movie is definitely super white-famous but not super famous or seminal for other groups, just as there are tons of black and Latino superstars/household names that no white people know exist.If I’d realized that pointing out that everyone in the world is not like you guys would cause so much drama, I wouldn’t have bothered. Never said shit negative about this movie or these people except saying that there are other people out there who feel different.
Yeah, I remember seeing Superbad theatrically with my friends, and while I thought it was decent enough, it’s very firmly in the “white guys love this” category of movies for me. That this film resonates with a specific group is a totally uncontroversial statement on your part.
but it’s not a matter of opinion. is it truly your take that, overall, this movie isn’t popular and didn’t effect culture at all?i’m not being dramatic (i don’t think) but i’m genuinely trying to understand your point, and pointing out how it’s coming off to me.
i totally get what you’re saying. i watched it after the hype machine had started around it, and it was….fine. i was not the target demographic for it, and that’s cool.that said, i’d watch easy a or booksmart any day of the week.
Nobody said it’s everyone you gooftroop.
Why is “not everyone on earth loves this movie” such a controversial take, kids?Because no one was arguing the opposite. Nice pissy, passive-aggressive shot at the end there, though.
I literally said that and 200 of you boys jumped on me.
Just as you intended
I seriously did not expect saying “different people have different takes” was going to cause you kids to lose your fucking minds.
I think you are way overgeneralizing based on your own POV.
I knew this was a popular movie, and did not think that being like “not everyone feels the same” was going to start a conflict.I clearly did not get the religious significance it holds for a certain type of awful dude, although in retrospect I probably should have been able to anticipate the personality profile of the person who doesn’t merely think it’s a funny dumb comedy but deeply reveres and identifies with it.
You call people awful and dumb and then act like “why is everyone so mad at little ole me”? Gurl please. You got the reaction you wanted.
I didn’t call anyone dumb until 40 pissy incels threw fits.
Jesus christ you are one salty lil crybaby today.Go for a walk already.
Dude, I am not one of the people melting down over the idea that their parochial experience isn’t universal.
Find me someone who doesn’t know what McLovin is from but could reference any of the other movies mentioned lol
This is the Troll Playbook page 1, pretty much. Say something stupid, and then when people call you out for saying something stupid, play the whiny, aggrieved victim.Try to reframe the narrative by claiming how innocuous your post was, while blaming everyone else for “melting down” and being “fragile”
This was not a controversial statement. Just a really weird fucking group of boys.
Just popping in to also reiterate what everyone else has said, that you’re a fucking retard.
Yup, dudes who still say “retard” think this teenage TV is sophisticated. Thanks for reiterating my point.
Holy shit you’re one of those cucks who thinks retard is a bad word? So not only are you retarded, you’re fucking autistic too. Hahahah holy shit off yourself please, for the betterment of the world.
Incels gonna incel, I guess.
Yeah I agree, I’ve thought about this before. I think one of the reasons is Gen Z teenage life is probably a lot less recognizable to Millennials and Gen Xers than the Millennial teenage life from Super Bad was to the adults at the time.Also, are comedy movies even an event to anyone anymore? What’s the last comedy that did big numbers in theaters? Is good numbers on steaming kinda their ceiling these days?
There’s an age thing happening here where people Seth’s age (me) remember when comedies were huge box office successes, and Superbad probably is the last HS movie to fit that description. A movie like Book Smart can be great, but it made $25MM at the box office, so to us olds might as well have left no cultural impact. Easy A was good. It just wasn’t a huge movie. To us, the olds, who probably shouldn’t be gatekeeping HS movies anyway. And I think that’s what he’s talking about.However, somebody born after 1995 probably doesn’t remember what it was like when a massive comedy got released (Maybe? I don’t know. I’m guessing. If you do, good for you), so a movie that makes $50MM probably seems like enough of a success to qualify.Juno was the same year though, and that would be a fine argument. If you want to count Juno, I really can’t argue with you.
This is so accurate. This happened with music a decade sooner, because the channels of access opened up a decade sooner. If all you have is the radio/network tv/ the local movieplex or video store, then you have “blockbusters” because people cannot find what truly interests them. Because access channels are too narrow. Now, you can live in a world never having heard or seen the biggest media hits of the moment, like, easily. This is how you get total world domination by a band like BTS, and it’s just as possible anyone who isn’t in love with them hasn’t even heard them. My boomer parents used to say that modern music (gen x era) was total garbage compared to the big hits of the boomers. Which was true, but only because even in the late 90s, there was a radical broadening of access to niche markets. You wouldn’t get a Jimi Hendrix or a Rolling Stones, because a lot of people just stopped listening or watching mainstream media markets. Which resulted in 10 times the amount of amazing music available to most people, but with far less market saturation than in previous generations. And now that’s what’s happening to AV.
it’s also largely impossible to market movies and music. things COULD be saturated more, but advertising itself has become so splintered and hyper specific/tailored.
Just look at how going by most social media, you’d never know that Yellowstone has become a franchise to rival the MCU in pure amount of eyes watching. There’s a reason Taylor Sheridan has gotten to make shows so separate from each other that they may as well just be their own thing, but they’re still connected back to the same setting.
That’s a great point. “in my day” everybody gathered around to watch Cheers or The Cosby Show or whatever, and if it got that big, everyone knew about it.It’s kind of amazing when you think of something like Mad Men, which had very few actual viewers compared to a lot of things, but seemed to be _everywhere_ because it was a very NYTimes sort of show. Sometimes what gets seen is what’s talked about and vice versa, but not always.
So all Gen X music was garbage compared to boomer music? That’s… that’s certainly quite the claim.
Grain of salt and all that, but the bestselling album of all time by tens of millions is Michael Jackson’s Thriller. The next two are Back in Black and The Bodyguard soundtrack. All released when the earliest Gen X’ers were between 15-27, so it’s safe to say they were major drivers of those sales. The Boomers were a huge generation driving most music criticism during this time, and they worked hard on the idea that their music was The Standard by which all others should be judged, but the numbers just don’t bear that out.
I’d say Easy A comes closest. I think Booksmart is probably the better movie, but it just doesn’t really hit as a “high school movie.” It’s too… nice? Back in my day, teenagers’ anxiety came from internal AND external forces, not just your own neuroses. Every high school movie needs a bully or some real conflict or just fear. Really, what Booksmart told me was the Oliva Wilde had a pretty easy high school life. Which, not surprising.As far as high school movies go, rewatchability is really key, and i’d though I think Booksmart might be the best movie set in high school, i’d never watch it again. Superbad, if i come across it on TV, I’m watching til the end. And probably the same with Easy A.
That’s where I’d say Lady Bird excels beyond both of them in the “not nice” category.There was something affecting in particular where Ladybird is complaining about wanting an expensive prom dress and is more or less chastising her mother (the great Laurie Metcalf) for having the audacity to not be able to afford it, and Metcalf just goes OFF on her because she’s working multiple jobs and third shift just to do the basics. It hit me hard as a kid that grew up poor and had similar fights with my parents on why I deserved the Expensive Thing, and how they “didn’t care” about me, without understanding how they broke their bodies every day to keep me alive. Lady Bird doesn’t hit “rewatchable” but it does hit “real,” and to be honest, the only high school film that has hit both was actually Mean Girls, which was released three years before Superbad.
Yeah I remember when Booksmart came out and I told my friends and co-workers that it was almost exactly Super Bad if it was actually a good movie instead of just a very funny high school sex comedy. And this is why people don’t take my recommendations.
Maybe but he sure didn’t specify the financial success of high school movies. Just the quality.
He wasn’t! That’s very true. However he also wasn’t giving the key note speech at a symposium concerning the state of high school comedies. He was largely humble bragging during a softball interview with People Magazine, mentioning an anecdotal story about one 19 year old and offering a tongue-in-cheek remark. We probably don’t need to scrutinize this that harshly, and can acknowledge that there is at least a kernel of truth to what he’s saying. I don’t imagine he was being that literal or trying to bury the attempts of other creatives as much as musing “why have studios and/or audiences largely given up on the genre?”I’m choosing to give him the benefit of the doubt here
Cultural impact of certain high school films was due more to home video/DVD and endless cable replays than to any box office success. Box office for Superbad was great, but that movie has also replayed endlessly on cable. I think Easy A also benefited from that over the years. This also accounts for the deep impact made by John Hughes movies. Those films were reasonably successful, but home video and endless loops on cable drove those stories into the psyches of several generations. Streaming has really disrupted those channels of exposure, meaning it will be tougher for films to ingrain themselves through sheer repetition.
Well said
The statement is incorrect really. “It should be no one as made a better High School movie since then”
He’s not wrong, and McLovin is one of the most iconic characters in the history of film. FIGHT ME.
It’s not worth fighting over, but.. lol
IT’S IN!
Oh come on, no one under 30 watched Booksmart or LadyBird. Those were teen movies made specifically for aging millennials.
Maybe it’s because good high school films can’t be made anymore.Could you imagine the articles on this website about the toxic masculinity, sexism, and glorification of sexual predation if Dazed and Confused or Superbad were released today?
Because Booksmart was essentially called the ‘female Superbad’ I think it showed us what that kind of movie can look like for a modern audience. They’re still horny, it’s still funny, but it does consider respecting the other gender better
I was going to discuss ‘Eighth Grade’ then realized what I was saying.
Some school districts do 7th-12th grades as high school. You can still bring it up.
This presupposes that Superbad is, in fact, a good high school movie. I think that’s open for debate.
No, it really isn’t.Enjoy your day.
I don’t know, man. Those cops are pretty hilarious…
I found it reasonably enjoyable, but the author’s claim that it is “one of the most beloved high school movies of all time” seems like an almost absurd overstatement. Maybe I’m just too old, and a critical mass of people 10-20 years younger than me think that?
I can’t imagine the ego you have to have to say something like this.
Dope, Edge Of Seventeen, Lady Bird, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, Easy A, Booksmart.So in other words nobody’s made a good high school movie since Superbad.
not for straight white dudes, maybe.
Booksmart is a much better movie than Superbad, but they appeal to different audiences. I can see where someone like Rogen would prefer Superbad, and maybe the “high school movies” made since then don’t quite appeal to him as much. That doesn’t mean Superbad was better than all of them, just that he didn’t enjoy them as much. It’s virtually impossible to objectively rate/compare comedies to one another because different types of humor hit differently for different people.
Easy A sucks gigantic balls, it’s a terrible movie. Even my teenage daughter fucking hated it.Superbad is good, but it’s about 45 minutes too long.
21 Jump Street and Booksmart.
Are both “meh” movies, you are correct.
2007 is my favorite year in film, Superbad isn’t in my top choices, but I still love it. It has a light absurdist touch throughout it, but is still very much grounded in the end of high school experience.
Easy A anyone?
He may be right, but that’s arguably more because Hollywood teen comedies (and comedies in general) are pretty thin on the ground these days. That being said, I thought Booksmart was pretty good.
C. Robert Cargill would like to have a word with you, Seth.
Yeah, but he was an AICN staffer so who gives a shit what he says?
He has disassociated himself from Harry Knowles, but go on, I guess.
Very brave of him to step away from Knowles after charges were made public.
Literally never heard of half of these and have seen like two of them. This direct to streaming shit can’t compete with the old model.
Superbad came out the decade prior…but yeah, Sing Street is dope.
Loved him back in the Spill (now doubletoasted) dot com days, good on Cargill for succeeding in the writing game!
The Perks Of Being a Wallflower is better.
Perks was good, but it loses a full letter grade for the dumb scene in the tunnel where three fairly hip teenagers are completely blown away the first time they hear a song from an obscure artist named David Bowie.Yeesh.
my favorite post-John Hughes high school movie will forever be… Mean Girls
Mentioned in the article but worth repeating: Edge of Seventeen and Booksmart are at least as good as Superbad.But… Rogen saying “No one’s made a good high school movie since then”doesn’t strike me as something he meant seriously.
Unfortunately, “nobody has made a better (genre) movie since the one I wrote” is a pretty common opinion to have. It’s also incorrect in this case, because The Edge of Seventeen is awesome.
My in-laws include two Gen Z-ers, and it’s confirmed: They thought Superbad, indeed, was pretty funny. Mostly just McLovin’s plot though.
How the fuck are your in-laws gen z-ers?
Are you a baby?Edit: I forgot about siblings in law until the moment I posted this.
I’m gonna go with Edge of Seventeen and Brick as the last great high school movies
Seth obviously hasn’t seen Booksmart yet.
That movie where the entire premise is a guy trying to get a girl drunk so he can rape her?
“But now that she can jog comfortably, she’s in the best shape she’s ever…”
I’m glad Mary Kate Carr mentioned Booksmart. That movie deserves to be a cult classic and rightfully so.
Even though it dropped 3 years prior to Superbad, people need to put respect on Mean Girls’ name. Not only does it have a similar, if not greater cultural relevance to this day, but it’s a movie that has simply aged a lot better than Superbad in many respects and doesn’t feel as dated, even though it’s an older movie.
That being said, Superbad came out my junior year of high school, and I can’t describe how big a movie it was for high school age people (particularly boys) at the time. Even if there wasn’t a great deal of cross-cultural connection (I’m a black dude from the South), it did capture a fundamental essence of high school-to-college angst that many of us felt, even though by that age and year (both in-universe and out), the notion that being invited to the “big” party at the end of the year or getting the girl/guy you always wanted before everyone left for college was well on the way to being a tired, discredited trope (especially since social media was already at ubiquity with Myspace, Facebook was available for non-college students, cell phones were no longer limited to rich kids, and Youtube had been out for 2 years and was only getting more and more popular).
Also, high school movies worked primarily because of the limited access to technology that allowed you to literal relive (via video recording) the shit you did in high school, so you either had to suffice with telling stories that were often exaggerated, or have enough money where you were often the only person with a big-ass video recorder (because cell phone videos of that era were notoriously garbage, and that’s assuming they also had audio, which many didn’t). The moment that smart phones with good cameras reached ubiquity, and social media was such that you could easily share those videos, the cultural necessity of a high school movie went down the drain, because you could immediately call out the bullshit exaggerations and/or relive the amazing moments you had with friends without having to do so vicariously through a movie. This is also the reason I think that sports movies have essentially died out: it’s so easy to get your fill of every single sport and every single replay of every single sport from every angle, that the desire to see a movie about it — absent a compelling and non-cliched story — just isn’t there.
I mean, think about the fact the American football is by far the most popular sport in the US, but the last, good football movie we’ve had was Any Given Sunday, and that came out almost 24 years ago.
“I mean, think about the fact the American football is by far the most popular sport in the US, but the last, good football movie we’ve had was Any Given Sunday, and that came out almost 24 years ago.”Just reinforcing your point, but The Replacements came out 22 years ago. And while neither of them were great, I’d put that football movie a couple notches above Any Given Sunday.
Movies like “Booksmart” and “Lady Bird” do not ask the audience to just accept the ridiculous premise, made common by standard Hollywood sexism, that someone like Emma Stone’s character might have romantic interest in someone like Jonah Hill’s character. That compromises the quality of “Superbad,” which didn’t have the guts/realism/self-awareness to have his fat, goofy character match up with a girl who was in his league. No, no matter how unattractive and unremarkable the guy is, the gal must be radiant, and, as they say in the biz, f—-able.
Thank you for saying this.
The actual quote from the article:“What’s crazy is that Gabe LaBelle is like, 19 years old and his and his friends’ favorite movie is Superbad,” Rogen raves, before joking: “So it never changed for some reason. No one’s made a good high school movie since then.”How about that. You know, when this woman did a roundtable a couple months back defending Will Smith for slapping Chris Rock along with the rest of the staff, I started to wonder if maybe we weren’t getting the best and brightest at the AV Club. Thank god that’s been put to rest.
There’s a recent article about Beyonce written by Drew Gillis, and I was trying to remember where I know that name from. He was the asshole who said “I believe there’s truth to the expression “talk shit, get hit””
What kind of maniac journalist is asking the cast of Freaks and Geeks if they’d return to a show in which they already looked too old for the show at the time it was made??
The interviewer ought to be glad to have received any response other than, “Obviously I’m not going to return to playing a 17 year old, are you insane?”
Honestly, I’ll get hate, but 21 Jump Street was funnier than Superbad, so a better high school movie for me.
Best High School movie no one ever knows: Massacre at Central High. Which is SO much better than the title would lead you to believe.
In context he’s very clearly being sarcastic. How is nobody picking up on this?
It’s demonstrably false that there have been “no good high school movies” since Superbad, but I do think it meaningfully deconstructed the genre in a way that impacted what those kinds of movies are like now.It’s essentially a teen boner comedy, an American Pie or Weird Science or Can’t Hardly Wait, but one that pointedly refuses to reward its protagonists and instead challenges the premise: two nerdy teen boys spend a wild night trying to get laid, and instead receive a sobering lesson in valuing their relationships. It’s not actually a sex comedy or a teen rom-com, but a surprise rumination on friendship and maturity and loss. The ending is actually sad as shit.American Pie is just Superbad from McLovin’s perspective. But the movie we actually got is more like Y tu mamá también. It’s a kind of bait-and-switch that rejects the wish fulfillment aspect from a lot of 80’s/90’s teen films, and replaces it with a pretty involved dressing-down of the characters and their personal flaws. This has since become a central component to, say, Booksmart, or Edge of Seventeen, or Eighth Grade, or Lady Bird. (Actually, it’s odd all the examples I can think of since involve a female lead…)