Everybody Wants Some!!

showed this to my dad, who played college baseball in the early 80s, which was pretty dope. he might've dropped more "this is so damn accurate"s during those 117 minutes than anyone else has over the course of any other 117 minute timespan in human history. i liked this movie plenty my first time watching it, but i definitely felt much more this time around. its impossible not to admire Linklater. just in general. i mean his ability to conjure up distinct moments in time occurring at specific places from the perspectives of people who were of a certain age, but then for it all to feel so universal to the human experience? its fucking evocative.

i want to focus on Everybody Wants Some!!, but i want to clarify that im not just referring to this and Dazed. the Before Trilogy films, especially Sunrise, are overflowing with these unique-yet-shared experiences (and they only need to follow two characters over a couple of hours to do it - so good).

um yeah i guess i kind of dug myself a hole here and set the expectation for me to dive deeper on Everybody Wants Some!!. i don't really have much else to say relating it to what i've been talking about just bc i don't really understand how Linklater does it (don't say "the music" obviously we all love the music and admit it helps but we don't have to be that reductive especially nowadays i mean the discourse is so-). the point i want to make about this film is that its not just a great hang. it is that, of course, but one of the things i locked in on this time around was the characters. they aren't just a who's who of college male archetypes from 1980. these guys almost all have depth and grow throughout the film (sorry, guy with the Narcissusian(?) relationship with his own butt; i don’t really know what else you were up to?). not only is there growth in a “welcome to college” sense, but the characters all become more open to new experiences and increasingly receptive to their peers. in a lot of ways, Glen Powell’s character is the catalyst for the team’s collective trend towards acceptance of each other’s idiosyncrasies and, moreso, their willingness to get out of their comfort zone in new environments.

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this thing abt the characters is actually the last section that im writing (u may b shocked to learn i tend to jump around a lot when i write these so i already wrote the conclusion and whatnot), but im pretty tired, so im only going to explore Powell’s character but i really did mean this to be more of a observation on the strength of the characters overall so just take my word on the others being great too (Pink Floyd guy is my favorite obviously - Fearless playing in the background while they smoked was so lit omg whatta banger. pretty early Floyd for them to be listening to its like a decade old at that point but it is timeless of course. ohhh wait lol that actually checks out that the 30 year old would be the only playing it and getting geeked up abt it omg im wasting energy).

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so, many eagle eyed viewers might have been yelling at their phones/laptops when i said Powell helped everyone open up. said ppl might’ve bemoaned my point with obtuse arguments like “dude they literally r all at college bro. this wasn't Glen Powell compelling them all to become better ppl through the power of charisma or some shit? like obviously they're gonna explore new things and stuff just move on to something else”… i get that pov and actually created this mythical mob of ppl exasperatedly talking to themselves abt my writing in order to refute it. sure, college is an opportunity and our main character, for example, would’ve surely spread his wings and tried out new things regardless of his influences (but it did help). the others, however, often push back on Powell’s insistence that they do XYZ and tease him for fully committing to each unfamiliar environment that they stumble into. we know that his character has an incentive to adapt to whatever crowd the group finds themselves interacting with: it’ll be easier to pick up chicks. this incentive has driven men to acclimate to new environments probably more so than any other (which is dope, so thank you if ur reading this and ur a girl which would be insane come to think of it), but i think Powell’s character isn’t solely, or even primarily, fueled by hookups. this is a guy who ran headfirst into the shittiest looking house in texas bc a teammate he met a week ago stumbled into a high school friend who said they could come inside if they want to hang out… and they'd be hanging out with a bunch of 18 year olds they don't know who are one month into a punk rock obsession. honestly, they seemed pretty dope, but that isn't an invitation that most people would embrace as an opportunity to meet some new people with new perspectives - as evident by the two teammates who really don't want to go inside. plus, no hookup incentive! what we have on our hands is a complex character whose just as eager to learn as he is to get laid as he is to get drunk with his buds. he doesn’t directly hide his desire to keep evolving mentally and socially, but he rarely ever grants himself the freedom to act sincerely either. that was badly worded maybe, but what i mean is Powell’s character exhibits a lot of the traits that many guys do at that age in that environment: posturing everything you say as a bit, letting ppl think you only want to do XYZ to get with a girl, and idk lmk if you think of another example i should really have 3 here. this is a very relatable character, yes, but also just like such common methods of protecting yourself for no good reason other than one of the biggest reasons ppl do stuff: in order to look cool and have ppl want to be around you and admire you ya know so on. this is getting a bit long and might be stretching things slash psychoanalyzing myself again, but i really love how this movie’s charismatic group leader is also a people pleaser who kind of just wants to fully immerse himself in anything and everything he comes across but also he really wants to be with his friends so he just says he’s doing it for the ladies bc it’ll get them to go with him and then he only really expresses his intelligence or new interests through bits/insults. at the end of the day, this might have been way too much on this character i hope i wasn't reaching too hard. next time i watch Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, i hope i remember to compare him to Randall “Pink” Floyd in my review. they play a similar role as the universally-liked, open-minded, caring guy at the center of their friend group(s). both not assholes in the slightest when they easily could be given their social status. i think “Pink” is already the genuine person that Powell’s character (still not gonna look up his name idc) is trying to suppress tho. idk there’s something there!

quick sidebar: this is my fav Powell performance he’s so charismatic and such a realistic variation of the kind of guy you love to be around (great writing too ofc, maybe him and Linklater should write something together in the future winky wink)

also i have no real theory on y tf this movie is called “Everybody Wants Some!!”… i guess its referring to sex maybe but that doesn't make sense bc, even tho they’re all horny college kids who always talk abt picking up chicks and r actually pretty successful at it in practice, this movie is clearly exploring the homoeroticism of a close knit group of college guys (i doubt my college besties r reading this, but if i’m talking to one of them rn: i was thinking of you in particular when i wrote that last sentence). just to keep exploring this… in addition to this being abt a group of undergrad dudes, they’re also teammates. i don't think Linklater decided to make them all baseball players for this reason or anything, but its another layer to their relationships with more clearly defined hierarchies and ample opportunity for isolated competition between individuals (i also played baseball so i guess thats relevant context idk). listen. im not just saying all this as a bit. Glen Powell’s character literally alludes to the homoerotic undertones throughout: comments on the groups’ collective desire to compete with one another, talks abt their inclination to discuss sex/women when they’re alone together, and brings up how often they choose to spend their time with each other instead of women when they all go out to a bar/party. i just think its a cool theme for the film to explore, but it doesn’t bring me any closer to understanding the title. if “Some!!” isn't referring to sex, then idk what its alluding to… just like experiences? i can get behind that, but i think this is just a really good movie by a great filmmaker that is just kind of loosely aligned with a title that probably is referencing the sex or sexual fervor maybe idk (plus there's only like 1 boob in the whole movie so ?).