Rental Recommendations: Can't Hardly Wait

 Hey everyone! Welcome back to Rental Recommendations. This week I'm talking about a classic teen comedy called Can't Hardly Wait, which stars Ethan Embry, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Lauren Ambrose, Seth Green, and Peter Facinelli, among many others. The POV for this week's installment is someone writing a review of the movie on home video as soon as it came out in November of 1998. Let's get into it.

If you're a teenager, you're going to love this movie. If you're a teenager at heart, you're going to love this movie. I missed it in theaters, but I watched it last night on home video and it surprised me. I remember seeing mixed reviews for it when it was in theaters earlier this year with Ebert giving it 1.5 stars out of 4. If you recall, Ethan Embry stole the show in Empire Records a few years ago, and while he's been in a few movies since then, I think this is his best performance. Of course Seth Green just came off his sort of successful performance in Austin Powers. The best performance in this movie is Jennifer Love Hewitt. She brings a authenticity to the role of Amanda Beckett. Everyone's favourite teenage witch, Melissa Joan Hart, has a background role as Vicki, who can't get anyone to sign her yearbook.

The movie is available on both VHS and DVD. I recommend giving it a watch. Especially if you're fond of teen movies from the past like American Graffiti, which also takes place over the course of one night. It's fun, not too slow, but also reminds me of people who peaked in high school and had delusions of what college would be like, probably from watching Animal House or Revenge of the Nerds too many times. Definitely check it out.

Here in 2026, I watched the movie on DVD and I'd never seen it before. Katie and Doc reviewed it on the VHS Club Podcast when the show was first starting out (Nat wasn't on the episode for some reason). I thought they undersold it because I actually enjoyed the movie more than I thought I would based on their review. Of course, with the exception of one or two people, I recognized the entire cast having seen them in a number of things, though this was my first time seeing Jennifer Love Hewitt in anything. It's actually interesting that Melissa Joan Hart was able to be in this movie considering filming started while she was filming episodes of season 2 of Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

That's it for me for today folks. I'll be back tomorrow for a fun review of the series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "All Good Things...". Tonight is the 32nd anniversary of that episode's premiere, so I'll be writing the review as if I'm watching it for the first time tonight, even though I'm watching it on VHS tonight, and have seen it numerous times in the last 32 years. Until then have a great day and I'll talk to you all later. Take care.