"We're gonna party and get drunk and rock out, dude." — Fogell in Superbad (2007)

In the spring of 2007, at the age of 84, Norman Mailer, at the Paris Review tribute in his honour, was aked why he was so obsessed with his book The Deer Park. He replied, "Because it's about the trouble men and women always have, dealing with each other. It's a mystery. I still can't figure it out".

Superbad (2007), directed by Greg Mottola (who directed three episodes of Arrested Development), is written by Seth Rogen (Freaks and Geeks, Knocked Up, Fanboys) and Evan Goldberg (co-writer of a new film combo with Rogen, Pineapple Express) and produced by one of the last kings of comedy, Judd Apatow (The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall). The film tells the story of two best school friends, Seth (Jonah Hill, Accepted, Knocked Up) and Evan (Michael Cera, Arrested Development, Juno), who are going to be headed to different colleges due to Evan's  acceptance at Dartmouth.

The plot initially hides that these two socially detached teenagers in fact share a deep fear of their upcoming separation (one of the working titles of Superbad's production was Separation Anxiety). This  separation anxiety is depicted in comical ways throughout the movie, although in the last act it reaches an unexpected level of seriousness and nostalgia from an adult angle not too frequently seen in the teen flick genre.

In fact, the story advances with abrupt emotional changes that have little in common with its hysterical initial moments (see, for example, the first two scenes, when Seth is shown as little less than a sexual obsessive and Evan seems like a sort of textbook passive-aggresive sidekick to his overweight pal). Maybe the first verbose exchanges about porn sites sounds very crude but in the second scene the dialogue is masterfully hilarious, raunchy, and bizarre:

"It's not fair they get to flaunt that stuff... and I have to hide every erection I get."

"Just imagine if girls weren't weirded out by our boners."

"I honestly see now why Orson Welles ate his fat ass to death."

Emboldened by his interest in sex ("The point is to be good at sex by the time you get to college..."), Seth flirts with Jules (Emma Stone) in Home Ec class while they make tiramisu. She announces she's going to throw a party and invites these stay-at-home no-lifers, who see her invitation as a golden ticket to their coveted deflowering.

Add to the easily excitable duo a self-confident, skinny dweeb called Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Little Big Men, Year One), who constantly annoys the hell out of Seth and Evan with his crazy ideas, like adopting the fake identity of "McLovin", a 25-year-old Hawaiian organ donor, in order to buy liquor for Jules' party. The trio's purpose in attending the party is to score with some attractive girls with whom they have been infatuated for years at school, a smiling cutie Becca (played by Martha MacIsaac, The Last House on the Left) whose cleavage has Evan's attention in math class, popular hottie Jules, or in McLovin's case, one random, red-haired chick called Nicola (played by Aviva, Forgiving the Franklins) with whom he barely exchanges some embarrassing words in the hall.