Adventureland Dvd

A sweet and slap-happy mix of indie coming-of-age drama and Judd Apatow?s scatological but heartfelt manchild comedies Greg Mottola?s Adventureland is a winning look at the pleasures and frustrations of dead-end jobs and teenage kicks as viewed through a filter of mid-?80s pop culture. The underutilized and always watchable Jesse Eisenberg ( The Squid and the Whale ) is a sheltered introspective New York college grad who discovers that his parents' financial woes will not only quash his dream of a summer in Europe (to enjoy its more 'sexually permissive' nations) but require a move to Pittsburgh where he lands a job at a dilapidated amusement park. There he?s thrown in with a motley crew of eccentrics small-town types and a few genuine free spirits most notably co-worker Em (Kristen Stewart) whose complicated past proves irresistible to his repressed psyche. Mottola who directed Superbad and once worked in a similar park as a teen doesn?t shy from the crude laughs that make Apatow?s features so popular but he tempers it with a wistful tone and layered characters that hew closer to his earliest work The Daytrippers . Though ill-matched at first Eisenberg and Stewart make a likable on-screen couple and they?re well-supported by a terrific cast that includes such die-hard scene-stealers as Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as the park?s offbeat owners Martin Starr as a Russian lit aficionado and Ryan Reynolds as a former town tamer now reduced to working as the park?s handyman. A soundtrack performed by underground faves Yo La Tengo and filled with a smart mix of hip cuts (Hüsker Dü the New York Dolls the Replacements) and period faves (Falco?s 'Rock Me Amadeus') underscores the film?s blend of tentative emotions and broad laughs. -- Paul Gaita