Top 8 Things About Can't Hardly Wait

Because you loved it then. Because you love it now.

8. The legitimately phenomenal soundtrack.

Ms. Becky Abrams (a dear friend-of-the-blog) directed me to the following Amazon.com review of the Can’t Hardly Wait soundtrack. It’s an exhaustive compendium of all songs featured in the movie. Somewhere, Ethan Embry is grinning an impossibly large grin. You’ve got 90’s staples (your Eve 6’s, your Third Eye Blind’s), classic movie songs (“Romeo and Juliet” and “Paradise City” are in like, every movie ever), and to top it all off, the title comes from a Replacements song. YES. (Also, Yaz. There is a Yaz song. Remember Yaz? Yaz does.)

7. The “Holy shit, she/he’s in this!?!!?” factor.

You’re watching the movie, minding your nostalgia, when all of a sudden, baby Jason Segel is eating a watermelon and talking about Velma from Scooby Doo. Later on, “Oh, hello, Selma Blair. Gee, you have no lines in this movie.” Later still, “Eric Balfour and Freddy Rodriguez!? You guys don’t even get names! Lucky for you, you’ll both be on Six Feet Under.”

6. The feeling of “Wow, so people were okay with the word ‘fag’ in 1998?”

Seriously, they drop it like, six times. We don’t use that word in this house, frankly. Except when Tommy puts on Caitlin’s makeup.

5. Trip McNeely.

Jerry O’Connell has basically the best career of all-time. We can just admit that, right? Someone go write it down, so it’s true. He starts out as the fat kid in Stand By Me, then between the years of ’96 and ’99, he does Sliders, Scream 2, Jerry Maguire, Can’t Hardly Wait, and The muthafuckin’ 60’s! And NOW, he’s married to Rebecca Romijn and shows up on FunnyOrDie.com when he wants to.

4. The eternally quotable script.

I’d give you a top ten of my favorite lines, but as you may have noticed… list ideas are lean these days and I need all the material I can get. This should get you started, though. And I swear to God, if they ever make a t-shirt that says “Scott Baio: We All Have Our Things”, I’d buy it.

3. The goofy-ass scene transitions.

Here’s an example. Nerd’s last line in scene A: “People may even be having sex tonight!” Seth Green’s first line in scene B: “Yo, I gots to have sex tonight!” That feels like such a high school film production club thing to geek out on, but I still dig it. I dig it like a pony.

2. The little things that stick with you.

This is just one of those movies that spawns inside jokes. Ethan Embry’s garbled delivery of “harnessing my chi”… Erik Palladino’s ridiculous “Uh, it’s okay, baby!” after he tries to mack on his cousin… I could go on, but you get the point. I’ve seen this movie a million times and at this point, these are the reasons I keep watching it.

1. The fact that by the end, you genuinely don’t care if Preston and Amanda get together.

I mean, right? Don’t get me wrong, Ethan Embry is totally my boy—and I’m still shocked that Jennifer Love Hewitt didn’t get the Oscar for this—but this is one of those films whose payoff comes from the journey and not the destination.