Can't Hardly Wait (1998)

Director: Deborah Kaplan, Harry Elfont

Cast: Ethan Embry, Charlie Korsmo, Lauren Ambrose, Jennifer Love Hewitt

Have I Seen It Before: Never. I was 14 when it came out, so the idea of graduating from High School seemed like a completely different planet. Which is weird, considering that 1998 was one of those summers (there have been a lot of them since) where I insisted on seeing everything I could get my eyes on. I looked up the box office figures from its opening weekend in search of a point I make later in the review, and realize without much doubt I opted to see Dirty Work that weekend, and remember enjoying it immensely.

Maybe I have seen it, and completely forgotten it.

Did I Like It: Which would explain a lot. Look at the film stacked against the great teen comedies, and it is left wanting. It reads like a shopping list of things one might want to include in a teen comedy. Throw in a soundtrack album someone might want to listen to, and you can make back your money as counter-programming to other summer fare (see above). That’s all that needs to happen, and that’s all the studio and the filmmakers are either capable of or interested in.

I’m left with questions after watching this film. No, not questions like one might have after finally seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) on the big screen. There are more fundamental question that betray a film not terribly thought through.

If Denise (Ambrose)—the character I most identified with—never bothered to get her senior pictures taken, why is she showing up to the party? I once got into a verbal argument with a parent moments before my own graduation, when she wanted to stamp my hand for the official graduation party, and I insisted that I was not going, and that she really should not be grabbing my wrist*. I didn’t get my senior picture taken, and I wouldn’t have been caught dead at any party graduation night. One wonders why I didn’t watch the movie for nearly thirty years.

This one is more of a personal note. When X-File #1 (Joel Michaely) and X-File #2 (Jay Paulson) are eventually taken up in a flying saucer**, they should have offered a coda—as they did with other characters—saying that they are still missing, and that anyone with information as to their whereabouts should call the FBI. That at least would have been the right follow-through for that gag. Then again, had I graduated in 1998, I would have skipped the party and gone to see The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) instead.

Here’s the best question: For what precisely are these unable to hardly wait? You let me know, and maybe I’ll get turned around on the film.

*I really enjoy that story. If you’re out there, random helicopter mom: Thank you for one of those sterling examples of my own personality.

**Yes, that is how the characters are credited in the end-credits. Yes, it is the fate of the characters.

Vegas Vacation (1997)

Director: Stephen Kessler

Cast: Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Randy Quaid, Ethan Embry

Have I Seen it Before: The film holds a certain amount of legendary status in our family, although not for any reason beyond the circumstantial. Between 1994 and 2000, my family and I made at least four, and potentially more (I remember one summer alone we made three trips alone) to Vegas. It was that period—Chase even mentions it in the film—when Vegas was experimenting with being a family destination. We could ride roller coasters while Pop engaged in what might be called a gambling addiction if he didn’t seem to be somewhat skilled.

Our average rate of visiting the city was so frequent, that it was almost inevitable that we were there when this was filming. The film itself is sort of weird memory burned into my brain, but the moment I looked across the casino at the MGM Grand and saw the man who once was Fletch and would one day be Pierce Hawthorne between takes near the Keno room, dressed in full Clark Griswold regalia.

The legend continues from there. I had all but forgotten about the film and my brief brush with Chevy. Cut to last fall and I’m visiting the parents. Apparently, they had bought copies of the DVD in bulk to hand out as prizes when friends come over to play poker. Rolling my eyes, I got a copy for free.

Did I Like It: The film is perhaps a perfect example of medium ambitions not remotely fulfilled. Clearly, it would not be a controversial opinion to say that National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983) and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) are the ones we’ll see in obituary b-roll for Chase one day. I’ve never been that enamored of the Griswold’s all together, so while I can’t share that disappointment, I can understand it. The franchise has certainly taken a step down when John Hughes is nowhere to be found in the credits.

But it goes beyond that. Produced by Jerry Weintraub, this feels like the first pass at a commercial for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, before he finally found the right vehicle for such an endeavor in Ocean’s Eleven (2001) and its sequels. I honestly think Chase could have reached for a comeback with a return to Fletch, but given the film on display here, a return to any character at this point would have been similarly anemic.

The film isn’t without its charms, though. There are several points where Chase seems to be emulating my father. A general audience might find a family breakfast interrupted by a sudden trip to the Craps table to be not terribly relatable, but I’m not one of those people. My dad may not have Tarzan-ed his way across the Hoover Dam, but that’s more because we didn’t really go see the sights when we were in the area. We laugh in my house about Rusty’s (Embry) adventures as Nick Poppageorgio, but we laugh because had I found my way into a fake ID, it’s only a mild exaggeration. “I do not require them” is a line repeated often growing up. A film can move beyond the realm of criticism if it can hit a group of people at the right time.

And yet, a couple of laughs do exist. Primarily they rest with supporting players. Wallace Shawn as a pernicious blackjack dealer is worth a chuckle or two, but I can’t help but laugh at the brief moment we’re treated to Toby Huss as a Frank Sinatra impersonator with a plan.