Greg Mottola Talks Adventureland and Superbad
Adventureland is the movie that would result if Porky's and your most heartrendingly tender childhood memory had sex and exploded. In a just world, it would have kicked the crap out of the latest Nicholas Cage crap-fest last weekend, rendering it a mere Nicolas Cage fest. We don't live in that world, unfortunately. We do live in one, however, where we get an incredible interview with director Greg Mottola in today's A.V. Club to swoon over:
The A.V. Club: Adventureland is at least partly based on your experiences. What inspired you to go back to that time in your life?
Greg Mottola: It actually took me 20 years to want to write about my youth. I was definitely always a little intimidated about writing about that part of my life….
Everyone has that first relationship where you look back and go, "Oh, that one was different. I evolved from pure infatuation and horniness. This is when I started to see the person of the opposite sex as a flesh-and-blood human being." Usually that relationship is one that hurt you badly. But it's the first time you'd let them in, the first intimacy that let someone close enough to you to scar you for life. So I thought back to those one or two relationships that were like that, and for better or worse, I decided "I'm going to make fun of my youthful self." I was naive, I was sheltered. I had illusions about who I was going to be, delusions, and a little bit of pretentiousness. And I thought, "I'll write the guy like that. It'll allow me to make fun of everyone else if I make fun of myself."
He also talks a bit about Superbad and his new film Paul, starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Read it, for justice's sake.
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