Video review: "Everybody Wants Some!!"

If you’d have told me six months ago that by the mid-point of 2016 my favorite movie would be a plotless paean to college sex, beer and rock ‘n’ roll, I’d have called you a moonbat.

But here we are.

“Everybody Wants Some!!” is writer/director Richard Linklater’s ode to his own college days in Texas, where the members of the baseball team carouse, chase girls and philosophize about their hedonistic existence. It stars a bunch of unknown actors in a true ensemble performance where no one character dominates, but something like a couple dozen each get a share of the limelight.

Set in the four days before classes start, we fellow the players roam from room to room and party to party. They drink, dance, imbibe and partake of other earthly pleasures. There really is no story, but somehow from this aromatic stew of encounters emerges a recognizable theme of young people stepping out into the world and finding themselves.

I hesitate even to name any of the cast, since pointing out one brings up other names that should be mentioned, but here goes. Finnegan (Glen Powell) and McReynolds (Tyler Hoechlin) are senior ball players determined to win the championship come spring, and party hard until then. One is brutish and blunt, the other a silver-tongued cad, but together they’re bona fide leaders who set the tone for the rest.

Jake (Blake Jenner) is a freshman pitcher and our entry point into the bacchanalia. He’s not so much the main character as the locus of activities; we follow him around and discover this world as he does. Zoey Deutch plays the smart, sassy woman he meets on the first day and lackadaisically pursues from there on.

Set in 1980, the movie is so effective at evoking a time and place: coming down the off-ramp of the 1970s, itself a sort of mellowing of ‘60s ideals and chaos, coupled with the upbeat energy of the 1980s and a consequence-free atmosphere before AIDS and hard drugs killed the party for good.

Essentially an unofficial sequel to Linklater’s 1993 “Dazed and Confused” breakout, “Everybody Wants Some!!” is offbeat filmmaking at its best. Grab a brew (or something harder/smellier), kick back and drink it all in.

Bonus features are a bit lacking, probably due to the film’s poor box office showing. The DVD has exactly no extras, so you’ll have to spring for the Blu-ray to get them.

This includes “More Stuff That’s Not in the Movie” -- deleted and extended scenes; “Rickipedia,” based on one character’s fount of knowledge; “Baseball Players Can Dance,” a montage of the various music scenes, “History 101: Stylin’ in the 80s,” a featurette looking at the clothes and culture of the era; and “Skills Videos,” which features some of the abilities the actors had to hone for their roles (beyond chugging, that is).

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Review: "Everybody Wants Some!!"

"This is one of the best days of my life ... until tomorrow."
                                                             --McReynolds

My God, I just loved the hell out of this movie.

Writer/director Richard Linklater is nearly unmatched in his skill at evoking a specific time, place and mood. His 1993 breakout film, "Dazed and Confused," looked at slacker high school kids in Texas circa 1976. Actually, it didn't just examine them, but plopped us right into their midst, attuned us to their vibe, made us feel like part of the crowd.

His newest -- and, I think, best -- film fast-forwards a few years to 1980, as those kids (or ones very much like them) move on to college. "Everybody Wants Some!!" is a haze of partying, drinking, doping, dancing and sex that unexpectedly segues into mystical profundity, as young people grow up fast and start to figure out who they are, even before classes start.

It's also a sports movie, but in the same sense as "Bull Durham," in that the real action happens off the field. We never even glimpse the baseball team at Southern Texas University playing in a game, just a single practice. Yet the sport remains central to the men's identities and outlook.

If it's possible for a movie to be all about sports without actually containing any, then this is it.

This is simply one of the best executions I've ever seen in ensemble acting, both as written in the screenplay by Linklater and played by a huge group of largely unknown actors. Each of the dozen or so players focused upon comes across as distinct and authentic. Even the shy freshman who becomes the target of jokes has his moment in the sun. Even the god-like seniors have instances of shortcomings.

The film is also a tiny bit autobiographical. Linklater played college baseball himself, and knows the rhythms and cadences of the team's speech and behavior like second nature. We see how they constantly bust on each other, turn everything into a competition, chase girls with the abandon of the pre-AIDS era. Yet they're supremely self-aware of their jock-itude, to use a made-up word they would probably embrace if they heard it.

These are the cool kids, but we witness how hard they work to make it look effortless.

You want a summary of the plot? I'm not really sure there is one. Set in the four days before classes begin, we follow the team as they migrant from party to party, prowling for girls, listening to music, smoking weed and dancing to different kinds of music.

They're rock 'n' roll guys in their souls, but disco is what the ladies want to dance to, so they put on their Tony Manero shirts and tight pants and shake their groove thing at the Sound Machine club. After that venue no longer becomes viable (for reasons you'll see), they move their act to the new urban cowboy saloon, and later a punk rock concert and theater student party. They joke about changing their clothes like camouflage to fit in -- wherever there's women, beer and a good time to be had.

I'd like to introduce you to all the characters, but I'd need to start a whole other review. Hours afteward, they're still living inside my head.

Jake (Blake Jenner) is the ostensible main character, a straight-arrow type, pitcher from a small California town. After some obligatory hazing, he's quickly assimilated into the motley crew, though pitchers as a rule are made to stand apart. Their job, after all, is to make them fail at theirs.

McReynolds (Tyler Hoechlin) and Finnegan (Glen Powell) are the seniors who unofficially run the team, different as night and day but united in their mission to win the championship come spring, and have a good time until then. McReynolds is a genuine pro prospect, strong as a bull and twice as intense. Finnegan is the resident philosopher/philanderer, a man without a plan who can talk himself into or out of any situation -- feminine undergarments, mostly.

There's also the insufferable wacko transfer pitcher (Justo Street) rumored to have a 95 mph fastball; the hick roommate with girlfriend problems (Will Brittain); the even-keeled black guy who takes Jake under his wing (J. Quinton Johnson); and Willoughby, the resident hippie who gives spacey ruminations on telepathy, guitar chord progressions and finding your inner freak.

(It doubtless sounds better after a few deep bong hits.)

Beverly (Zoey Deutch) is the smart girl who arrives at college with a typewriter in her car trunk; she blows off the seniors' enticements but favors Jake with a compliment, which later turns into the start of something.

There's a lot more I'd like to say about "Everybody Wants Some!!", but time and space run short. I haven't even mentioned the early '70s muscle cars the players all drive, the diverse smorgasbord soundtrack of period music, the snug T-shirts with piping on the sleeves and collars that show off the lean bodies. So much to experience, and think about after.

Mostly, what I'd like to do is go see the movie again, right now.

Review: "My All American"

I'm indifferent to most sports but have an abiding affection for quality sports movies. When done right, they can evoke universal, almost mythic themes about humans striving toward a goal and finding the best of themselves through games.

Hoosier filmmaker Angelo Pizzo knows something on the topic, having penned screenplays for two of the most enduring sports movies in recent memory: "Hoosiers" and "Rudy." Now he's stepped behind the camera, too, writing and directing "My All American," about hitherto little-known University of Texas football player Freddie Steinmark.

This film is sure to be remembered among the first two in the annals of iconic sports pictures.

This is the sort of unapologetically humanistic, wholesome moviemaking that Frank Capra ("It Happened One Night") used to practice. Pizzo approaches his subject without an ounce of irony or disdain. It's the sort of film that is corny when done wrong, and tugs insistently at the heart when done right. Here, cast and crew maintain an absolute straightforward tone and hit all the right notes.

Freddie (Finn Wittrock) is a straitlaced kid from Colorado. He's the star of the high school football team, despite being undersized. Freddie is from a religious family that believes that hard work and dedication are everyday expectations, not favors to be rewarded. He falls for a smart girl, Linda (Sarah Bolger), and insists that his whole life lies stretched out before him: scholarship at Notre Dame, drafted by the Denver Broncos, a daughter and three sons... maybe four.

Of course, things don't work out that way. Freddie is ignored by all the football schools owing to his diminutive stature -- until coach Darrell Royal comes calling from Austin. Freddie believes his best friend, Bobby Mitchell (Rett Terrell), is the real target: big, strong, a natural athlete. But Royal (Aaron Eckhart) sees something in the scrappy kid and offers a full scholarship.

The middle section is largely occupied with the on-field play, and Pizzo, with the help of cinematographer Frank G. DeMarco, constructs some tight action sequences that are slam-bam thrilling while still seeming realistic. A running back in high school, Freddie transforms himself into a safety and kick returner.

Meanwhile, he befriends fourth-string quarterback James Street -- played well by his real-life son, Juston -- and together they hatch plans to eventually become the respective kings of the offense and defense.

If you've seen the trailers for "My All American," then you know that tragedy befalls Freddie in the midst of a fabulous college career, about which I will speak no more. Suffice it to say that his struggles to establish himself as a football star pale in comparison to his challenges off the field.

Wittrock, with his blue-eyed earnestness and sweet charm, captures the essence of a guy born with gifts and limitations, who made the most of the former and ignored the latter. Eckhart is solid and stern as the wise coach Royal, but I was glad the screenplay also fleshed him out with moments of humor and warmth.

("We fell in love faster than Eggo," is just one of several Royalisms.)

The music by John Paesano swells with strings admirably at just the right moments to enhance the emotions without intruding.

This is golly-gosh-good filmmaking, the sort some will sneer at for its saccharine qualities. But it's the sweet moments that give the bitter parts their bite -- and vice-versa -- just as you can only truly savor victory after becoming intimate with defeat. "My All American" is Angelo Pizzo's threepeat.