Project X

[Sabin]

Well, this Board certainly has its use for me! I can't talk about my honest feelings for this film anywhere else.

Project X is the new film produced by Todd Philips. It's directed by a guy whose name I don't know, but he made a pretty glorious commercial this past year, and they brought him on to recreate the party dynamic. The film concerns two friends, Oliver (Oliver Cooper) and Jonathan (Jonathan Daniel Brown) who are losers and try to throw the biggest party of all time for their friend, Thomas (Thomas Mann) who is having his birthday party. And that's what happens. There isn't much of a plot. The early scenes have an enjoyably immature Superbad dynamic to them, and then it becomes a commercial for a party replete with topless, presumably 18+ teenage girls, midgets shoved into stoves, and a party that gets so out of control that the house burns down. Eventually the partiers take to the streets and the force of their own personal awesomeness is too much for the fuzz to handle, so they retreat. The film doesn't warrant any Occupy comparisons, but one or two will happen and they will be utterly unwarranted.

That's. It.

There is the barest semblance of a plot in place about Thomas having feelings for his impossibly hot friend, Kirby, who catches him before he can have sex with the hottest girl in school, Alexa (both of these girls are presumably named Kirby and Alexa as well, but I dunno), and all is eventually forgiven because neither one are really characters. You have never seen a film objectify the female form like this in your life. This is a film for people who liked Superbad, but got tired of hearing the girls in the film say more than one sentence. I keep mentioning Superbad because the film is clearly a soundtrack remixed version of that film, a film which I really like. Superbad has aged incredibly well and remains for me the highpoint of the Apatow era. I feel no shame in admitting that I really love that movie. Then I see something like Project X, and I really don't know what to think. I laughed a lot during the first third, and then the film all but forgoes narrative in lieu of a montage feel that is good for a party surface high, but not much else. The dynamic between the three characters has an honesty to it that lends itself to some very funny, profane humor, and yet unfortunately the word faggot is peppered here and there.

The biggest culprit is Oliver, who has basically been sleeping on my couch on and off for the past year as he waited for this film to open. He's the sweetest kid you'll ever meet, and he's the most amusingly obnoxious presence I've seen in a film in some time, a no apologies horndog who operates at 11 the entire time. He's like Jack Black crossed with Joe Pesci. I'm completely biased, but I really enjoyed him in the film.

...I don't know. It's irresponsibly immature, but I do think it's probably the best thing that Todd Philips, who has a sensibility I don't enjoy, has put his name on. It's really more of a commercial for a party than anything else.