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| American Pie |
| Rated: | R |
| Stars: | Jason Biggs, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Chris Klein, Eddie Kaye Thomas |
| Score: |  |
I went to see this movie based mainly on word-of-mouth (every production studio's dream) though
I have seen many trailers which made it look like a nicely twisted teen sex comedy. Well,
the trailers certainly didn't lie. It's about as twisted as Something About Mary, but with
more single-mindedness that results in a somewhat less demented film. You following this okay?
Break out the latex gloves, it's time to start the examination.
As you all probably know, American Pie is a story about four hormone-ridden high school
seniors attempting to take the leap into manhood before the year's end. Each of the four have
different plans for going about this, and the movie basically follows their progress (or lack
thereof). Sounds simple, right? Well, it is. But what causes people to recommend this movie
to friends and family is the explicit, no-holds-barred humor.
Something About Mary, and later, South Park, demonstrated without a doubt that shock
value is of tremendous importance to a comedy these days. American Pie confirms it.
Mary has the hair gel, Pie has the beer cup. Mary: the zipper, Pie:
well, the pie. While there are some similarities, both movies are completely different, so I will
stop the comparisons here.
The characters are relatively shallow and stereotypical, but I think that makes it easier for us to
apply their respective personae to people we all knew in high school, enabling a way to
better associate with the movie. Whether that's intentional or not is beyond me, but it bumped
up the movie's score by half a star, so I'm sure the producers won't complain.
The associations between the "main" character and his father provide some of the best sequences
in this movie, but there are certainly some other gems scattered around. While this is one of
the funniest movies of the summer, I still believe the crown goes to South Park. Parts
of American Pie were a little too predictable to make it the champeen.
If you haven't seen American Pie yet, it may be a good idea to put it toward the top of
your list. If you're not deeply offended by this sort of humor, of course. It's like this one
time, at band camp...
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