June 6th, 2006
If you've seen this movie, you probably either live with me or hate it. Wet Hot American Summer came out to no fanfare at all and aside from a few positive blurbs in movie mags disappeared even more quietly. But I have never, and I mean never, laughed so hard in my life. And I mean probably 20 viewings and counting.
Blow Up is one of my favorite movies—one of those movies that gains prominence in one's mind as somehow more than a movie. It did the same for blossoming young filmmakers in the 1960's, and De Palma's Blow Out is frequently cited as a tribute to Antonioni's film done with sound rather than photography. But Coppola's The Conversation came first, and is both a better film than De Palma's and more true to the spirit of Blow Up.