17, if you know what I mean

I went and saw the movie "17 Again" over the weekend with my fiancee. I'm going to be completely honest with you here... I didn't hate it. Was that my manhood that I just saw walking out the door? Probably, but there are some redeeming qualities to the movie despite the fact that it was made to appeal to teenagers. I left the movie with the warm fuzzies, which is pretty much what you're looking for from a romantic comedy. I also found the characters to be very likable. Okay, I should probably grunt, spit, and adjust myself a few times to get some of that man-swagger back. Done.

One of those bright spots in "17 Again" is Thomas Lennon, who plays the short-shorted and sexually-ambiguous Lt. Dangle on Reno 911. I've been a fan of Thomas Lennon ever since he was a cast member on MTV's The State way back in the early 90's. In this movie, he is the childhood best friend of the main character (played by Matthew Perry when he's older and Zac Efron when he's younger). Just like in every high school movie, Lennon's character Ned Gold is the nerdy sidekick of the popular Mike O'Donnell (Perry/Efron's character). Ned grows up to be a computer genius (absolute shocker) who makes tons of money and never really had to grow up because of it. In one scene he's playing multiple video games on his cushy gamer's chair with built-in speakers while staring at 3 flat-panel TVs and manages to talk trash to some middle school kid while he's at it. His obsession with the high school principal is a riot.

I want to be Zac Efron. It's probably a little too late for that, but the guy is just cool. He can dance and play basketball and look good all at the same time. I want to be him. It gets a little creepy when Efron's character kisses his 30-something wife as a 17 year old, and their interactions are a little too flirtatious for my stomach to handle, but I think that was done on purpose... or at least I hope it was, otherwise it'd seem that Zac Efron, like Ashton Kutcher, is into cougars. We'll skip right over the obvious question here (What about you, P@? Are you into cougars? Shut it).

I'm not going to give away the plot in case some of you want to take your girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband/fiancee/fiance/lover/widow/cat, but I will say that it's not a complete loss and you'll probably leave the movie feeling better than when you came in. And I don't know about you all, but that's exactly what I'm looking for when I go to a movie.

Fin.