Can't Hardly Wait- The Screening!

I want to throw a party with every single person I've ever known. You know the kind of party where yearbooks are signed, the house is destroyed, a full band sets up in the living room, and the police don't break it up until the very end of the night. At 17, I was convinced that this is how high school was absolutely supposed to end. The reality is that high school ended with some sterile goodbyes, a prom with terrible food and an afternoon spent loading my mom's SUV with all the provisions I'd need for college. Where were the love letters to girls I'd always liked? The epic pranks? The most insane party our town had ever seen? 

When taking inventory of the things I'm thankful for, somewhere in the middle of the list, long after family and good health, long after close friends...and somewhere nestled in between Cinnamon Toast Crunch and the ability to grow a decent beard is Can't Hardly Wait, the seminal 1998 high-school party movie.

A few weeks ago, I was home with pneumonia...a gnarly disease that landed me on the couch with 1200 channels of cable to help heal my ailing body. When I found that Can't Hardly Wait was on, I started laughing out loud, then coughing, then laughing more, then more coughing. In many ways, the film is all the best coming of age conflicts rolled up into one sweeping story. There's a transformed loser who's trying to shed his virginity, an artsy girl counting down the minutes until high school ends, a hopeless romantic writer trying to confess his love to the most popular girl in school, a jock burned by a recent breakup, a group of three nerds hell bent on pulling a revenge prank, and every single high school archetype in between. 

My brain started working. Maybe it was the fever, maybe the excessive amounts of Vitamin C, but I got to thinking, "I love this movie...other people must too...what would happen if I got all those people together to watch Can't Hardly Wait in a movie theater?" I wondered if other people thought high school would end with a gigantic rager, only to be disappointed when it went out with a whimper. I wanted to have a screening to make up for that party we never had...the mystical party where everything just ends up right and aligned and good and perfect. The party where a nerd can jump up on a table to lip-sync "Paradise City" and then instantly be swarmed by pretty girls. 

On February 2nd, 2012, the Clairidge Theater in Montclair, New Jersey will play host to this screening of Can't Hardly Wait. I owe so much to my friends and co-sponsors, the artists who helped make this happen. A fever dream centered on one of my favorite movies has turned into a reality we'll all share together. A group of people gathered to celebrate the late 90's and the sense that getting older was just an odd feeling in the pit of your stomach. 

So no matter who you were in high school...from the immensely awkward to the effortlessly cool, let's all get together to share a loveburger ...well done.

-Nick