Wet Hot American Summer

For their first film outing, the demented minds behind the beloved sketch-comedy show The State travelled back to a time where men donned super-short shorts and striped tube socks, women favored high-waisted acid-washed jeans and Jazzercise, and summer meant camp and casual sex. It's 1981, and Camp Firewood is staffed with a pack of eccentrics, including a bodacious bimbo (Elizabeth Banks), a lovable loser (Michael Showalter), a brooding bad boy (Paul Rudd), a conflicted and kinky cook (Christopher Meloni), and two overly enthusiastic amateur theater directors (Amy Poehler and Bradley Cooper). It's a magical setting where teen sex, capture the flag, bad fashion, and an Earth-bound chunk of Skylab collide to create a comedy that has emerged as a cult sensation. It's easy to enjoy Wet Hot American Summer for its celebrity-spotting allure as well as its nostalgic, yet irreverent, homage to the best and worst of '80s movie clichés, but, beyond its blend of sharp and silly humor, there's also a satisfying amount of heart. Writer-director David Wain manages an impressive balance of poignancy as he skewers a panoply of classic rom-com relationships (May-December romance, opposites attract, underdog gets the girl), which makes Summer a comedy that grows funnier with each revisiting.