1. Adventureland (2009)
The fact that
Adventureland was marketed as a kind of "spiritual successor" to Superbad, given that they share a director in Greg Motolla and the movie seemed to have found its Michael Cera substitute in Jesse Eisenberg (oh, how the tables have turned) meant that
Adventureland pretty much shocked and probably disappointed everyone who went expecting a raunchy teen comedy and came out having seen a surprisingly candid and depressing coming of age flick. That's not to say that
Adventureland is bad - it's actually a good, perhaps underrated movie, and one that wasn't afraid to move away from the
Superbad 2 that it easily could've morphed into over the course of production. Still, upon checking this one out in the theatre, I can't pretend that I wasn't disappointed to find a lack of period jokes (and I'm not talking about
Pride and Prejudice references) and McLovin-inspired situations. Now that we're all overt the initial shock, though,
Adventureland can be appreciated for what it is: a poignant and surprisingly deep drama about the absurdities of being a teenager.
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