Overall Rating
  Awesome: 41.16%
Worth A Look: 26.8%
Just Average: 10.5%
Pretty Crappy: 6.91%
Sucks: 14.64%
17 reviews, 260 user ratings
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American Pie |
by LitzaMo
"Go Michigan! Wahoooooo!"

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I saw the trailers to American Pie and got chills. Why? Blue and white lacrosse jerseys with "East Gr..." on the front. This has no significance to most people, but I knew that trouble was in store. Someone made a movie about my high school's biggest lacrosse rival. Then I remembered it was a movie, and dismissed it as conicidence. Well, sort of.But for the love of all things good and holy, it really WAS about our rivals, just with a slightly different name. Not just lacrosse, but to a lesser extent, choir. Trouble.
So I went. I expected to hate it. I truly thought, going in, that American Pie was just another stupid teen flick, and I was going thorugh an extremely cynical stage that's just now winding down. Wary of all things teen-oriented, I went in more than skeptical and expecting, although I didn't know it then, well, I expected about the IQ level of Scary Movie. Something retarded. Boy oh boy.
I was right in some ways. My expectations were validated, every so often. But most of the time, American Pie is a really, really excellent flick. I'm not going to say it's a stand-alone film classic, but it should rank right up there with Ferris Bueller in all-time great teen movies. The only thing I really didn't understand was that in all honesty every last one of the main guys, except maybe Finch, would have had no problem getting tail in my school. None. Especially not that foxy Chris Klein. I've always had a thing for lacrosse players and choir boys. Put 'em together and you've got gold. (Plus, and I really shouldn't say this, but I watched half the boys in my choir do those insane runs from practice or games to performances. It is no fun to dance with a guy who just took off 15 pounds of lacrosse gear and cleats, but often as not, it happens.) Another...small...inaccuracy: What the hell kind of choir festival was that?? (In Michigan, neither lacrosse tournaments nor choir festivals are held at Michigan State. I understand that the character needed to run fro one to the other, but for the love of Pete, the directors had to know that some Michigan choir geeks who either played, or had friends who played lacrosse. They could have had him drive like a maniac from lacrosse-central Cranbrook, outside Detroit, to Kalamazoo, where Youth Arts is held. That's a good three-hour drive.)
American Pie came out between my high school graduation and freshman year of college. I arrived at Aquinas knowing that American Pie was not only written by grads of the high school next door (East Grand Rapids) but written about EGR and partially filmed there. (One of my friends that graduated from EGR told me that he knows the guy who originally said "MILF!") Once I got to know the town a bit, and got a better idea of the East environment--upper middle class, Christian Reform like all of Grand Rapids, and pretty much white--the movie was much, much funnier. For instance, the hot dog place actually exists. In the movie it's called Dog Years. EGR has its very own Yesterdog. All these funny things add up. Eventually my friends and I roared every time we saw a familiar site translated to the screen.
Not something to take the younger sibs to by any stretch. It's much raunchier than Ferris Bueller. The characters are great though. Jessica is possibly the funniest character in the whole thing, but Finch is right up there, especially that last "The Graduate"-esque scene. We all knew a Stiffler in high school. And it's the identification that makes teen movies so popular. We can all point and grab yearbooks and say "That guy is just like _____ that was in my class!" American Pie is great entertainment, especially drunk.Not one for parents, unless they're very open-minded. And you gotta love all those fabulous band camp stories.
link directly to this review at https://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=1513&reviewer=222 originally posted: 07/17/00 00:10:30
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Trilogy Starters: For more in the Trilogy Starters series, click here.
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USA 09-Jul-1999 (R) DVD: 27-Sep-2005
UK N/A
Australia 16-Sep-1999 (MA)
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