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'Superbad'

Two high-school geeks, both painfully aware of their virginity, get invited to a party with the cool kids. So swept up by their good fortune are these dorky best buds — porn-obsessed Seth (Jonah Hill) and shy, Dartmouth-bound Evan (Michael Cera) — that they promise to bring the booze, and ... well, you know where this is headed, right? Into Porky's-by-way-of- Fast-Times-at-American- Pie-High territory.

It's alcohol-fueled, potty- mouthed, gross — and as centrally sweet as you'll expect once you note Judd Apatow's name in the producer credits. The director of The 40-Year-Old Virgin here allows his favorite freaks and geeks to explore the mindset of the 18-year-old virgin. Knocked Up star Seth Rogen and his writer buddy Evan Goldberg reportedly started working on this script when they were 13, which doubtless explains the many penis jokes they've given the on-screen Seth and Evan.

But what makes the film so appealing is the disconnect between what comes from the mouths of these hormone-addled pups and what's going on in their heads, where they're still clinging desperately to the innocence they're leaving behind.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Bob Mondello, who jokes that he was a jinx at the beginning of his critical career — hired to write for every small paper that ever folded in Washington, just as it was about to collapse — saw that jinx broken in 1984 when he came to NPR.