The thing about Superbad is that it understands the little moments of sweetness between all the perverse desires and raunchy humor. Naturally, with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg at the helm, there's going to be an abundance of dick jokes (there's an extended flashback about obsessively drawing penises in various settings), but what surprised most people is just how adept this screenwriting team was at delving into the softer side of teenage friendships. It's the little, seemingly unimportant things that really form the majority of our high school memories. Superbad captures those quiet moments perfectly: for instance, when you realize that your best friend is going off to a different college and rooming with your other friend, and you might soon be the outsider in your own friendship. Of course, it's immediately blown up into a ridiculous shenanigan and capped off with an immature one-liner, but that may be the most perfect representation of actual adolescent interactions. We dwell on the sadness, but we act out with aggression and quips about genitalia. Superbad expertly blends the sexual desperation of American Pie, the college-bound anxiety of Orange County, and the naive desire to stay friends forever that made Stand By Me such a classic, and in doing so, becomes one itself.
