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NAOMI PFEFFERMAN
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles

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Kit Penn, left, as "Kumar and
John Cho, right, as "Harold" in
"Harold and Kinnar Go to
White Castle"

hen The Graduate hit theaters in
1967, a poster depicted Dustin
Hoffman as the quintessential aim-
less college graduate: "This is
Benjamin. He's a little worried about his future."
If every decade has its disaffected-youth films
(think Reality Bites in the 1990s), two unconven-
tional summer movies are adding to the mix with
stories of post-college ennui.
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, current-
ly in theaters, is a stoner gross-out comedy about
roommates on a burger run that transcends its
genre to become a clever spoof on racial stereo-
typing. (The beleaguered protagonists are
Korean-American and Indian-American.)
Zach Braff's Sundance hit Garden State, mean-
while, is a quirky dark comedy about a slacker-
actor who is emotionally reborn after returning
home for his mother's funeral. It opens Aug. 13
in Detroit.
Although the movies drastically differ in tone,
both were written by 20-something Jewish
authors not so far removed from their own aim-
less, post-college years. And both began with the
frustrations of said authors, who felt contempo-
rary films did not reflect their personal experi-
ences.
"I just didn't feel there had been a movie
addressing what it's like to be 20-something
today," says Braff, 29, star of NBC's Scrubs. "I
wanted to explore what it's like being that age in
2004, when you're trying to figure out who you
are."
Harold screenwriters Jon Hurwitz and Hayden
Schlossberg, both 26, had similar criticisms while
bonding over teen comedies at their Randolph,
N.J., high school and later while rooming togeth-
er in Los Angeles. "We couldn't relate to most of

GEN-X on page 38

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