You know, looking over the list of films that I extrapolate upon
with this Reviews section, I become a bit embarrassed. I mean, I
like to think of myself as a well-cultured sort of guy, but all
the cinema listed here are basically profane indulgences of America’s
lust for either sex or violence. I don’t really come across as the
educated, refined individual that I am, one who would prefer a night
of My Diner With Andre to Cyborg Cop III. However,
I’m pleased to say that it all changes with my review of American
Pie.
\Well, perhaps not. American Pie is, after all, merely yet another
reinvention of the teen sex comedy genre, a class of film that reached
its pinnacle with George Lucas’ American Graffiti and slowly
devolved to less spirited endeavors such as She’s
All That. However, as teen sex comedies go, American Pie
is pretty damn funny. While watching it I found myself thinking,
"This is like Porky’s, only funny." Indeed, American Pie
does owe a lot to such series as the Porky’s and Meatball
trilogies. Following their lead, American Pie focuses on young men
in high school who can’t get laid (the types of young men who grow
up to direct films about young men who can’t get laid… or host self
absorbed web sites) and follows the series of wacky hijinx bound
to decorate their quest for the capital V. Nothing ground breaking,
but it’s been so long since someone has done this plot right that
there’s something refreshing about the American Pie experience.
I must confess that I found some of the jokes either too juvenile
or too cliché to warrant laughter. (At one point, one of the characters
gets even with another by - get this - putting a laxative in his
coffee!) Nonetheless there are plenty of genuine yucks here and
there’s something genuinely heartening about a film based upon the
premise that even in the nineties, guys in high school still can’t
get laid. Amidst the onslaught of coy Britney Spears videos,
Neve Campbell cinema sex fests, and the Columbine massacre
you’d think the only time teenagers weren’t having a ten-way orgy
is when they’re dodging slugs from a Mack-10. But American Pie seems
to report that the state of the American high school is pretty much
as we left it (at least the suburban, upper-middle class sector,
to which these films always seem to narrow their focus) : Guys drool
and chicks rule.
