81 - Wet Hot American Summer

Connection To NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE - Samm Levine as an uncredited voice role here, confirmed by Levine himself if there was some doubt from IMDB.

It's been over 10 years since I first discovered Wet Hot American Summer, it was brought in a budget DVD pack with some other films, if I recall correctly it was one or two of the other comedies was my reason for buying as I had never heard of this film at all - I think that says a lot I can't remember what the other films where but this film as been brought multiple times and I even purchased the American DVD with extras (the British is bare-bones).

This is my 4th or 5th time watching WHAS and it's still as funny now as the first time I saw it, it has a weird tone to it which isn't a bad thing - it's not out and out parody but it's not in a world where everything is completely straight if that makes sense. This film is set in 1981 on the last day of a Jewish summer camp and is about the misadventures of the counselors, the romance of the camp director (Janeane Garofalo) and an astrophysics proffers (David Hyde Pierce) and we also spend some time with the kids.

The plot is basically just an excuse to string the funny moments together and the film features plenty of funny people, practically the entire cast of The State, Amy Poehler, Molly Shannon, Paul Rudd, early roles for Bradley Cooper and Elizabeth Banks.

I don't want to write about too many of the scenes because it gives away the direction but one of the funniest scenes for me was when the camp director goes into town with the counselors just how it spirals out of control is so hilarious, I also like Christopher Meloni and his subplot as the cook and is also a shell-shocked Vietnam vet.

Overall I'd prefer somebody to go into this film without any expectations then you can be surprised like I did as I found this incredibly funny.