Harry Elfont
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Filmography
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Booksmart (2019)
Directed by Olivia Wilde
influenced by Can't Hardly Wait (1998)
Plot Themes Characters
Taking the form of other one-day high school-adjacent films like American Graffiti, Can’t Hardly Wait, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Dazed and Confused, and, most notably, Superbad, we follow the best friends over the next 24 hours as they set out to catch up on the fun they missed out on, packing in all the madcap adventure and graduation-induced anxiety one can imagine.
Dazed and Confused, American Pie, Can’t Hardly Wait and Superbad are only a small sample.
Much like Superbad , American Pie or the supremely underrated Can’t Hardly Wait , the bulk of the narrative is concerned with capturing the carefree innocence of teenagers acting up and throwing caution to the wind in those final blissful moments before their lives change dramatically.
“Booksmart” utilizes quite a few teen movie tropes, especially the “one crazy night” structure seen in everything from “Dazed and Confused” and “Superbad” to “American Graffiti” and “Can’t Hardly Wait.”
The Gang’s All Here: Evoking Can’t Hardly Wait in the hyper-modern weirdness of its ensemble, Booksmart pads out its supporting cast with teens that, no matter how big or small their role, brim with personality.
The film heavily mirrors that of the classic Cyrano de Bergerac , but its characters are more modernized versions of those presented in Can’t Hardly Wait .
Dazed and Confused (1993)
Directed by Richard Linklater
influenced Can't Hardly Wait (1998)
Plot Themes
A direct rip-off of "American Graffiti," "Dazed and Confused" and "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," "Can't Hardly Wait" doesn't have the integrity to simply lift the premises and characters from those movies, it steals actual lines.
This teen comedy plays as if John Hughes remade Richard Linklater's "Dazed and Confused" for MTV.
The teen torch passed to Richard Linklater, whose THC-laden love note, "Dazed and Confused," and existential "subUrbia" captured the lazy, crazy feeling of limbo during the last days of the locker years.
“The DUFF” references predecessors like “The Breakfast Club” and “Can’t Hardly Wait” with wit and humor.
To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2018)
Directed by Susan Johnson
influenced by Can't Hardly Wait (1998)
Movies like She's All That , 10 Things I Hate About You , and Can't Hardly Wait were so ubiquitous that a parody of the genre titled Not Another Teen Movie starring Chris Evans was actually released in 2001.
Spider-Man: Homecoming feels like a cross between a Spider-Man movie and Can’t Hardly Wait .
The movie is essentially a teen coming-of-age story (think John Hughes, Clueless , Can't Hardly Wait ) cranked up with a blast of spidery superpowers.
Jennifer Love Hewitt was stalked by Ethan Embry in Can’t Hardly Wait back in 1998 — shouldn’t that have been enough?
It’s determined to make you forget “Animal House,’’ “House Party,’’ and “Can’t Hardly Wait.’’
Where some films (like “American Pie”) feature a key party scene, and other films (like “Superbad” and “Can’t Hardly Wait”) feature an all-night party as the key plot element, they always have more things happening.
The Edge of Seventeen (2016)
Directed by Kelly Fremon Craig
influenced by Can't Hardly Wait (1998)
Themes
Over the past 40 years, Fast Times at Ridgemont High , Dazed and Confused , Can’t Hardly Wait , American Pie , and Superbad have had huge impacts on the moviegoers growing up with them.
The character doesn't need to hate Dublin for the story to work, but it gives the screenwriters -- Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont, who also wrote "Josie and the Pussycats," "Can't Hardly Wait," and "Surviving Christmas" -- an excuse to tell us, later on, WHY he hates Dublin, which of course is that it's where a woman who broke his heart lives.
Like the Can’t Hardly Wait sequel that Peter Facinelli wants to make , American Reunion works best when it’s pointing out what’s changed, and worst when it’s pretending nothing has.
We've seen variations of it in films like She's All That , Cruel Intentions , and Can't Hardly Wait .