It’s My Own Damn Fault For Eating Stale Pie

By Brian Prisco | Film | January 7, 2010 |

By Brian Prisco | Film | January 7, 2010 |

Baked goods have a shelf life for good reason. I don’t care how good the original pie was, after ten fucking years, it’s going to be shitty and nauseating. Now on its SEVENTH incarnation, I’m praying to the god Flickus, god of direct-to-DVD, and Frattus, god of collegiate antics, that the lame American Pie series be taken out back and given the ol’ double-barrel buh-bye. Bury the remains in hallowed earth, and then salt it so nothing may grow from it again. American Pie is now prepackaged like dollar store cake-mix boxes molded from a warehouse flood. The jokes stopped being funny four movies ago, they’ve run out of things to stick it in or have stuck in themselves, and they’re recycling hit-on/burn lines that were old when the Pie was still fresh. The first film might have been my generation’s Breakfast Club, igniting a few careers with a St. Elmo’s Fire of fame before fading into the $5 bin. Now, the series has become a dull listless repository for careers that once were and never shall be. Let them eat cake. From my asshole.

Three boys want to get laid. Three girls are paired against them: a girlfriend, ol’ whatserface, and the ugly one. There’s also a hot slutty cheerleader and a foreign girl. Antics occur, food gets fucked, someone gets raped by a moose. A character named Stifler — who’s supposed to be a cousin, but looks old enough to rent from Enterprise — treats girls like shit and meat simultaneously. Eugene Levy wags his eyebrows. They find a book full of sexual techniques that don’t work, but then they do. There are giant parties at rich people’s houses with lots of plastic cups. They eventually get laid. The end. I’m sorry. I should have put “possible spoiler” for people who have been living under rocks for the past decade and just finally got out of their dirtholes, crawled into the nearest internet cafe, and by mashing their foreheads against the keyboard accidentally stumbled upon this site. Mea culpa.

Thirty must be the new sixteen because this batch of high schoolers looks the oldest yet. They might have been able to bring back the original cast and had them look younger. Not that I would ever suggest that. Ever in my entire life. Pretend that sentence didn’t happen. Print this page and eat it. There’s not a recognizable one in the lot except the lead kid Bug Hall played Buster Stupid in The Stupids and he was the new Alfalfa, and Brandon Hardesty was in my personal pain Bart Got a Room. Oh, and the foreign girl is British, Louisa Lytton, who played Ruby in “EastEnders.” Other than that, everybody’s got mostly television credits and student films to their cred. For most of the movie, my girlfriend and I tried to determine from which actors’ loins these antibiotic-oops-babies sprung.

The script was penned by David H. Steinberg, who is supposedly one of the 416 other fuckers writing Howard Stern’s Porky’s. This does not bode well. Unless you like the idea that instead of one of the kid’s getting his crank yanked through a hole in a shower, maybe accidentally he sticks it in a donut and a teacher dips it in coffee and then eats it. And while I like breasts as much as the next heterosexual fellow and pretty much every actress in the movie earned her way on to Mr. Skin, I shouldn’t have to sit through 94 minutes of weak jizz jokes just to see them. It’s like reading Playboy for the advertisements.

While most of the movie is the guys either not getting laid or fucking peanut butter sandwiches, the final thrust of the movie involves them trying to recreate the sacred “Bible” of sexual advice. They call the first guy in the book to help, and lo and behold, it’s Mr. Levenstein — Eugene Levy. Then they call the rest of the guys who were in the book, which gives them an opportunity to have a 15 minute montage of chalkboards, highfives, and VH1 Celebretards. Seriously, here’s the cameo list: Tim Matheson, Robert Romanus (the creepy guy who bangs Jennifer Jason Lee in Fast Times), Christopher Knight, Bret Michaels, Dustin “Screech” Diamond, and C. Thomas Howell. Oh, C-Tom, you’re like the Picture of Dorian Grey for Jared Leto. Not to be undone, they also peppered the movie with other bit roles for Curtis “Booger” Armstrong and Kevin “K-Fed” Federline, who was unrecognizable as a Canadian border guard because homeslice shaved the douchetrim and talked normally. But their roles were pretty much relegated to playing “Who Dat? Iz Dat?!”

Rosanna Arquette plays the mother of the hapless nutter-butter-nutter, and she’s an apt metaphor of for this entire series. Back in the day, she was able to be interesting, vibrant, and kind of wild. You weren’t sure if you wanted to sleep with her, because she might cut you, but then you were kind of into that a little. But now, she’s looking a wee-bit haggard. She’s sort of a puffy, worn-out version of her old self. She’s forced to deliver terrible dialogue, holding up a cum-stiffened sock like a shameful runway model. The problem isn’t that Rosanna Arquette is playing a mom, it’s that she’s not playing a mom like Rosanna Arquette. She’s been sanded down suburban style, and it just doesn’t work anymore.

It sure wasn’t as bad as Transylmania, but American Pie’s past its prime. However, National Lampoon and American Pie Presents are going to keep trying to trump each other with gross out gags while Girls Gone Actress pop out their chesticles to earn the screen creds. Directors with names like John Putch are gonna keep firing out these boring abominations because of their brand names. But we can demand better. Kentucky Fried Chicken was guilted into actually serving grilled chicken. McDonalds had to start serving salads and apple slices. But as long as Spike TV has to find ways to fill 24 hours of programming, these movies will keep being made.