Can't Hardly Wait (1998)

A genial “graduation-day house party” movie, the main thread of which concerns an earnest guy who might finally have a chance with the girl he’s loved for four years now that her jock boyfriend has dumped her. That is the least interesting of the plot threads as the lovelorn dude is played as a bit of a nerdy doofus and the girl is played as boobs attached to Jennifer Love Hewitt's generically pretty head.

The house is packed with a who's who of Gen X actors: Lauren Ambrose, Freddy Rodriguez, Eric Balfour (Six Feet Under 3-pack!), Seth Green, Amber Benson (Buffy 2-pack!), Donald Faison, Peter Facinelli, Jason Segel, Melissa Joan Hart & lots of etc.  The non-lovelorn doofus storylines all land fairly well, including a nerd who plans a revenge but gets sidetracked, a band that can't stop arguing long enough to play the gig, and a sarcastic girl and a pathetic guy remembering they used to be friends.

I definitely get why this would be beloved by people who graduated anywhere from 1997 to 2002, but Empire Records gets to keep its “Breakfast Club of the ‘90s” rights.

B