Director: Richard Linklater
Year Released: 2016
Rating: 3.0
College freshman Jake (Blake Jenner) moves in with fellow baseball player teammates in their campus house and together they goof around, drink beer and smoke weed, make fun of each other (out of camaraderie, you see) and chase after girls before the first day of actual classes start. It's Linklater going back to his old Slacker/Dazed and Confused character study days - a film more about tone and atmosphere than traditional plotting (he's one of the great cinematic humanists) - and it ends up, unsurprisingly, a blissfully nostalgic Summer Film that's "educated fun." It's clever how Linklater finds a way to investigate other 'social circles' - aside from other jocks, his baseball bros pal around with the punks, the disco fanatics and the theater kids - and savor their limited time without the pressure of actual tests/deadlines and playing real games against other schools: fittingly, when one character takes baseball practice too seriously he invokes the ire of the entire team (gotta keep it light, gotta keep it easy).
