dir. Taiki Waititi

New Zealand “this small town sucks”/”losers who can’t be loved”-type sadsack twee comedy starring Jemaine from Flight of the Concords, which I watched out of Taika Waititi completionism. The vibe here is kind of like a more minimal Napoleon Dynamite – a “school play”-like miniature leaning into “awkwardness” to compensate for a total lack of chaos energy. The movie is about as sharp as a marshmallow, but it’s sort of a nice break from the constant shouting, spilling, and running around that packs later-era American Pie-indebted or Apetow-related airplane foods like Blockers or Booksmart.

Feature: there’s a scene where the like “computer whiz guy next door” is trying to get his browser open, and he’s plagued by fake movie-style porn “popups,” which he sort of struggles to assert control over and calm about in front of his friends. I love seeing “caught with porn on my laptop” anxiety expressed on-screen, because it’s so obviously a resonant cultural fear, but also because the way it’s inserted into movies is always such an extreme reach. Has anyone since the 90s really had “a virus” where browser popups continuously open?! Anyway I love that this scenario “pops up” every once in a while – I mentioned it in the Wild Hogs review too – please let me know if you ever run across other instances of it.