Everybody Wants Some!!





Directed By: Richard Linklater

Starring: Blake Jenner, Zoey Deutch, Will Brittain, Ryan Guzman, Tyler Hoechlin, Glen Powell, Wyatt Russell, and J. Quinton Johnson

It must be April Fool's Day because I really can't write this stuff.  Oscar-winning director of Birdman Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu starts a winning streak by rolling out The Revenant.  Meanwhile, his biggest competition (and last year's more deserving winner), Boyhood director Richard Linklater goes back to directing party movies.  I can't make this stuff up.  Still, everybody wants some of Richard Linklater's latest feature film.  The Dazed and Confused director may have tackled the 70s in his last film of this nature some 23 years ago, but he's grown since then.  Linklater has moved onto the 80s with his latest movie Everybody Wants Some!!  With baseball, parties, and plenty of sexually promiscuous college students, Everybody Wants Some!! reminds us that Linklater is capable of delivering both engrossing high-brow fare and entertaining mainstream fare.  He's one of the few directors who can seamlessly move between the two, and the latest product of this is his 80s-themed crowd pleaser.

It's 1980.  Jake (Blake Jenner) is moving on from his childish ways from his high school days and getting started with life's next phase — college.  On an athletic scholarship, Jake is a freshman pitcher for his college's baseball team.  With this in mind, he gets to stay in off-campus housing for baseball team members only.  Upon arriving 3 days and 20 hours before classes start, Jake gets to know his fellow teammates, including his roommate Beuter (Will Brittain), fellow freshman Plummer (Temple Baker), the one and only McReynolds (Tyler Hoechlin), ladies’ man Roper (Ryan Guzman), chameleon lover Finnegan (Glen Powell), and cool dude Dale (J. Quinton Johnson).  He learns that baseball isn't the only thing that binds these gentlemen.  They're all trying to hook up with girls.  Fittingly, they hit on some girls, albeit unsuccessfully, while they're getting settled in their dorm on campus.  Jake stays out of this one while sitting in the backseat of their car.  Beverly (Zoey Deutch), one of the girls they're trying to woo, calls out Jake as the one she actually likes.  He takes a mental note of this as well as her dorm number, room 307.  Elsewhere, transfers Willoughby (Wyatt Russell) and Jay (Juston Street) get settled in at the team’s residence.

With the Olympics-themed Eddie the Eagle, the period sitcom The Goldbergs, CNN's docuseries The Eighties, and Republican presidential candidates’ perpetual obsession with the miracle of Saint Reagan, the 80's is a decade in full focus in our popular culture.  From the moment The Knack's "My Sharona" starts, it's crystal clear that Richard Linklater is bringing this era back to life in a way that only someone who partied through it could.  Rocking out to a soundtrack filled with classic tunes and delivering the old school f*ckwithery that fueled the most enduring party movies, Everybody Wants Some!! is the latest addition to our pop culture's nostalgia for the 80's.  With his trademark focus on human themes, plenty of age-appropriate antics, and loads of humor, Linklater makes sure that his ode to the 80's Everybody Wants Some!! lives up to its title in almost every way.

To craft this compelling comedic gem, Richard Linklater focuses on the human element, what makes these baseball players more than just a team.  Though mostly fun and games, Everybody Wants Some!! is a movie about a brotherhood, a kinship that forms in one's college years.  To build these bonds, Linklater gathers a talented ensemble of actors.  Whether we're talking about Blake Jenner's pretty boy Jake, Juston Street's perpetually furious Jay, or Tyler Hoechlin's egotistical McReynolds, this cast offers plenty of colorful personalities that gel well together under Linklater’s direction.  They play off one another with genuine chemistry to deliver loads of laughs.  Ultimately, they are all seemingly having fun making this film, and it translates to the big screen in a big way.

Everybody Wants Some!! is the best comedy of 2016 so far.  If you're looking for some good laughs or some 80's nostalgia, don't miss this one.  Richard Linklater's latest film gets a strong 0.03% rating.  Have some wine coolers with this one.