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American Pie
USA 1999
Reviewed by Kevin Maher
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
East Great Falls High, Michigan, the present. Senior student Jim is caught masturbating by his parents. The next day the brash Stifler invites Jim and friends Oz, Kevin and Finch to a party. At the party, Kevin's girlfriend Vicky spits a mouthful of Kevin's semen into a glass of beer which Stifler accidentally drinks. Jim and his friends pledge to lose their virginity by Prom night - three weeks away. Jim's father lectures him about the female form; Oz, a talented lacrosse player, joins the school choir to get close to singer Heather; and rumours spread about Finch's sexual prowess.
Told that 'third base' feels like apple pie, Jim is caught having sex with an apple pie. Czech exchange student Nadia comes over to study with Jim. She changes in his room while Jim secretly watches her. He comes back into the room while she's masturbating; she forces him to strip for her. He has two premature ejaculations.
In school Jim's performance has made him a laughing stock. Shy band member Michelle invites him to the prom. Stifler discovers that Finch has been paying for his own rumours, and tricks him into drinking a laxative. Oz leaves the lacrosse team for Heather. At the prom Jim has sex with Michelle, Kevin with Vicky, and Finch with Stifler's mother.
Review
That debut screenwriter Adam Herz has used Bob Clark's Porky's (1981) as a structural template for American Pie is obvious. From the opening erection gag through to the alternative penetration setpiece, this bawdy account of over-excitable high-school teens who 'just gotta get laid' is surprisingly faithful to the crude episodic pay-offs of its predecessor. But, whereas Porky's crudely celebrated the scopophilic urge of its male leads to view women as strippers, prostitutes or virgin cheerleaders from the safety of hidden peepholes, the actual, naive engagement of American Pie's young protagonists with their objects of desire lends the film an apologetic and often sweetly emasculated tone.
Herz and director Paul Weitz (co-writer of Antz) have dispensed with the usual hierarchy of teen-movie characters, where the smart students are socially maladjusted nerds and the athletes thuggish jocks. Instead, Jim, Kevin, Oz and Finch are a largely anonymous, banal, foursome. The characters are ciphers of adolescent trauma, easy targets that provide this slim tale with its comic centre. There are some overtly Oedipal obsessions - Stifler's mother represents the ultimate in sexual booty, Jim chooses to have sex with his mom's apple pie, and the gang even have a category of desirable women known by the acronym MILF ("Moms I'd Like to Fuck").
On a more conspicuous comedic level, there are inserts from the Something about Mary school of body horror, for instance Jim's two consecutive premature ejaculations and Kevin's accidentally imbibed semen. But surprisingly enough, given the film's reactionary antecedents, it is only in the presence of the female characters that American Pie offers genuine wit and sparkle.
An opening exchange between a nervous Oz and the college girl who announces that she's studying "Post Modernist Feminist Thought" sets the standard. The control exercised by Natasha Lyonne's cynical Jessica, Alyson Hannigan's introverted dominatrix Michelle, and Mena Suvari's virgin Heather over their ineffectual menfolk provides the film's narrative momentum. Jessica's tale-spinning leads to Finch's crisis; Heather's belief in virginity brings Oz off the sports field and into the school choir; even Shannon Elizabeth's thankless role as Nadia, the semi-naked exchange student, is given a pro-active twist when she forces Jim to perform a humiliating striptease.
On a technical level though, banal sit-com shooting style and generic teen performances often make American Pie indistinguishable from the likes of She's All That and Varsity Blues. And even Herz and Weitz's overhaul of the Porky's formula has its flaws - the bullying of an incontinent classmate, the introduction of a college heirloom of secret sexual technique, and the beginning of Nadia's bedroom frolics all seem to be lazily skewed towards a familiar teenage male demographic. An ending that sees our boys return from the sexual front rejoicing in bachelorhood also rings off on a conservative note: "This is the coolest!" says Kevin, as the boys drink shakes together safely beyond the grasp of female interference. For such a shameless re-invention of 80s smut, American Pie is better than we might expect, but in the end it's simply a noble addition to the lower ranks of thoughtful teen comedies.
Credits
- Producers
- Warren Zide
- Craig Perry
- Chris Moore
- Chris Weitz
- Screenplay
- Adam Herz
- Director of Photography
- Richard Crudo
- Editor
- Priscilla Nedd-Friendly
- Production Designer/Art Director
- Paul Peters
- Music
- David Lawrence
- ©Universal Studios
- Production Companies
- Universal Pictures presents a Zide/Perry production
- Co-producers
- Louis G. Friedman
- Chris Bender
- Associate Producer
- J.B. Rogers
- Production Co-ordinator
- Kathleen Keller
- Location Manager
- Geoffrey Smith
- Post-production Supervisor
- Tricia Miles
- Assistant Directors
- J.B. Rogers
- Hal Olofsson
- Ingrid Behrens
- Script Supervisor
- Annie Welles
- Casting
- Joseph Middleton
- Associate:
- Michelle Morris
- Camera Operator
- Dan Turrett
- Steadicam Operator
- Gerry O'Malley
- Visual Effects
- Banned From The Ranch
- Special Effects Co-ordinator
- Ron Trost
- Effects Technician
- Chris Nelson
- Set Designer
- Joshua Lusby
- Set Decorator
- Amy Wells
- Costume Designer
- Leesa Evans
- Costume Supervisor
- Janet Sobel
- Make-up
- Key Artist:
- Rod Wilson
- Hair
- Key Stylist:
- Voni Hinkle
- Title Design/Opticals
- Pacific Title/Mirage
- Orchestrator
- David Lawrence
- Music Supervisor
- Gary Jones
- Music Editor
- Charles Martin Inouye
- Music Scoring Mixer
- Guy Defazio
- Music Recordist
- Rick Riccio
- Soundtrack
- "Anomaly (Calling Your Name)" by Brian Transeau, performed by Libra Presents Taylor; "At Last" by Mack Gordon, Harry Warren, performed by Etta James; "Celebrity Skin" by Courtney Love, Eric Erlandson, Billy Corgan, performed by Hole; "Don't You Forget about Me" by Steve Schiff, Keith Forsey; "Do You Believe in Magic" by John Sebastian; "Everything to Everyone" by Art Alexakis, Craig Montoya, Greg Eklund, performed by Everclear; "Flagpole Sitta" by Evan Sult, Sean Nelson, Aaron Huffman, Jeff Lin, performed by Harvey Danger; "Find Your Way Back Home" by J.R. Richards, Rodney Browning, Jim Wood, Scot Alexander, George Pendergast, performed by Dishwalla; "Following a Star" by Dan Clark, performed by Duke Daniels; "Going to Hell" by/performed by The Brian Jonestown Massacre; "Good Morning Baby" by/performed by Dan Wilson, Bic Runga; "Glory" by Mark McGrath, Charles Frazier, Rodney Sheppard, Matthew Karges, Craig Bullock, Joseph 'MCG' Nichol, performed by Sugar Ray; "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)" by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, Edward Holland Jr; "I Never Thought You Would Come" by/performed by Loni Rose; "I Walk Alone" by Thomas Flowers, Doug Eldridge, Ric Ivanesivich, Fred Nelson Jr, performed by Oleander; "Love Muscle" by Carvin Knowles, performed by The Sex-O-Rama Band; "Man with the Hex" by John Bunkley, performed by The Atomic Fireballs; "Midnight at the Oasis" by David Nichtern; "Mrs. Robinson" by Paul Simon, performed by Paul and Garfunkel; "Mutt" by Tom DeLonge, Mark Hoppus, Travis Barkor, performed by Blink 182; "New Girl" by Stephan Jenkins, Kevin Cadogan, performed by Third Eye Blind; "One Week" by Ed Robertson, performed by Barenaked Ladies; "Semi-Charmed Life" by Stephan Jenkins, performed by Third Eye Blind; "The Sign" by Buddha, Joker, Jenny, Linn; "Stranger by the Day" by Ed Brown, Kevin Lynch, Mark Vecchiarelli, performed by Shades Apart; "Summertime" by Scot Sax, performed by Bachelor Number One; "Super Down" by Jason Bieler, Peter Dembrowski, Richard Sanders, George Fotiadis, performed by Super TransAtlantic; "Sway" by/performed by Bic Runga; "Turn It Around" by Marc Dauer, Jay Schwartz, performed by Five Easy Pieces; "Vintage Queen" by John Feldmann, performed by Goldfinger; "Walk Don't Run" by John Smith, performed by The Ventures; "Wishen" by Ben Brewer, performed by The Loose Nuts; "You Wanted More" by Emerson Hart, Jeff Russo, Dan Lavery, performed by Tonic
- Sound Design
- Gary Gerlich
- Production Sound Mixer
- Cameron Hamza
- Re-recording Mixers
- Andrew MacDonald
- Chris David
- Recordist
- Mike Day
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Richard LeGrand Jr
- Dialogue Editors
- Bob McNabb
- Walter Spencer
- Sound Effects Editors
- William Hooper
- Patrick O'Sullivan
- ADR
- Supervisor:
- Norval D. Crutcher III
- Group Co-ordinators:
- Steve & Edie
- Recordists:
- Greg Lowe
- Diane Linn
- Mixers:
- Alan Holly
- Greg Steele
- David Boulton
- Foley
- Dan O'Connell
- John Cucci
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Russell Towery
- Lacrosse Co-ordinator
- Pete Pallad
- Cast
- Jason Biggs
- Jim
- Chris Klein
- Chris Ostreicher, 'Oz'
- Natasha Lyonne
- Jessica
- Thomas Ian Nicholas
- Kevin
- Tara Reid
- Vicky
- Mena Suvari
- Heather
- Eugene Levy
- Jim's dad
- Jennifer Coolidge
- Stifler's mom
- Shannon Elizabeth
- Nadia
- Alyson Hannigan
- Michelle
- Clyde Kusatsu
- English teacher
- Chris Owen
- Sherman
- Lawrence Pressman
- Coach Marshall
- Seann W. Scott
- Stifler
- Eddie Kaye Thomas
- Finch
- Molly Cheek
- Jim's mom
- Christina Milian
- band member
- Woody Schultz
- party guy
- Casey Erklin
- drinking buddy
- Annika Hays
- party girl
- Eden Riegel
- sophomore chick
- Justin Isfeld
- John Cho
- 'MILF' guys
- Alexandra Adi
- central girl
- Veronica Lauren
- Monica Mcswain
- vocal jazz girls
- Fletcher Sheridan
- Robyn Roth
- Jamar Cargo
- John Cho
- vocal jazz group
- Akuyoe Graham
- vocal jazz teacher
- Katie Lansdale
- enthralled girl
- Jay Rossi
- sushi customer
- Linda Gehringer
- Vicky's mom
- Ashton Dane
- Vicky's dad
- Sasha Barrese
- random cute girl
- Eric Lively
- Albert
- Eli Marienthal
- Stifler's younger brother
- Travis Cody Aimer
- computer nerd
- Mark Hoppus
- Thomas M. DeLonge
- Scott Raynor
- garage band
- Danny Spink
- guy with monkey
- James DeBello
- enthusiastic guy
- Amber Phillips
- Clementine Ford
- computer girls
- Hilary Salvatore
- girl holding out
- Jasmine Stocken
- Jillian Bach
- bathroom girls
- David Kuhn
- prom band singer
- Dan Coronel
- Pete Pallad
- J.D. Doyle
- Lito Coronel
- lacrosse referees
- Markus Botnick
- assistant lacrosse coach
- Robby Murakami
- Addison Krantz
- Alex Nies
- Roger Sewell
- Donald J. Collins
- Ryan Bates
- Joe Park
- Walter Toole
- Travis Petraglia
- Richard Schoenberg
- Amon Button
- Steven Hopkins
- Peter McPartlin
- Sean Elder
- Sean Whitacre
- Jon Mark Fabian
- Ian Televik
- Joshua Mele
- Gian Caputo
- Garret Kellenberger
- Timothy Sovay
- Steven McAfoose
- Kevin Tidgewell
- Jesse Patterson
- Jeff Schwartz
- Chris Loudos
- Lyle Tomlinson
- Sami Atayan
- Kurt Zimmerman
- Tom Christian
- Dustan Beitey
- Chris McGnie
- Tri C. Nguyen
- Kirk Lamitie
- Todd Samuel Parker
- lacrosse players
- [uncredited]
- Casey Affleck
- Kevin's brother
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
- 8,597 feet
- 95 minutes 32 seconds
- Dolby digital/Digital DTS sound/SDDS
- Colour by
- DeLuxe