Wet Hot American Summer

Wet Hot American Summer 
seen @ Movies With a View @ Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn, NY
8.2.12

And now, a few do's and dont's on seeing outdoor movies:

DO get to the venue as early as you can. Free outdoor movies are always popular and tend to be packed most of the time, so you're gonna want to arrive well ahead of showtime. Last year, I arrived to Brooklyn Bridge Park only an hour in advance and I ended up in a spot far off to the side, towards the back. Last Thursday night, I arrived two hours early and got a spot in the middle close to the front. Score!

DON'T arrive a half hour after showtime and go picking your way through the throng trying to find your friends. You'll only block the view and step on someone's sandals or accidentally kick their bag of Cheetos off their blanket. Wait till after the movie to hook up with your crew.

DO bring a blanket to mark your territory. This is especially important at a venue that doesn't offer seating. Some do, like when I saw Persepolis last month, but if not, then take it from me: if you go without a blanket or tarp to lay down on, space will get eaten up around you and you'll have very limited room to stretch out - and you'll want that room as more people arrive!

DON'T encroach on someone else's blanket unless you're sure they're cool about it. Those without one - such as latecomers - will inevitably find themselves twisting and turning to make themselves fit and they may end up with a leg or an arm in your space. That happened with me on Thursday, but it didn't bother me because they weren't in my way and eventually they moved. If you find yourself about to enter someone else's territory, be careful!

DO bring your own food. Not only because you never know what kind of ripoff prices you may get from any concession stands at the venue, but if your spot is in the middle or the front, you don't wanna get up and step around a hundred people lying all around unless you absolutely have to.

DON'T eat all your food before the film starts. I mean, duh!

DO bring a book to read. You're gonna want one as an option when you get tired of playing Uno with your BFFs, and if you're going stag, it's an absolute necessity.

DON'T bring a heavy (as in really deep thoughts) book. On Thursday, I grabbed my used copy of Gulliver's Travels off my shelf because I hadn't started it yet. I didn't even get ten pages into it. It's not the kind of book one should read surrounded by 20-something hipsters and listening to loud 80s music.

DO enjoy the movie!

DON'T enjoy it too much. There's a tendency to think the rules of moviegoing ettiquette get relaxed to a certain degree just because you're watching the movie outdoors instead of indoors. They don't.

I can't complain about the crowd I saw Wet Hot American Summer with on Thursday. Someone about 15-20 feet in front of me was smoking for a little bit (smoking is now banned in NYC parks), but not long enough for me to have to say something, and I didn't get the brunt of it besides.

The movie was okay. It tried to capture the spirit of older R-rated teen-sex comedies like Porky's, but the humor came and went intermittently for me. For a summer camp movie, it certainly was no Meatballs, but it had Janeane Garofalo, and that was enough for me.

We were all treated, however, to quite a big surprise: WHAS director David Wain, co-writer/co-star Michael Showalter, and several cast members, including Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd, happened to be in the area filming a new movie, and dropped in to introduce this one! The crowd, which consisted of many fans of the film, went bananas, as you can imagine. Almost made me wish I had seen the film before!