Dec 29, 2017
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Kara (카라) No. 4 album release commemorative conventional regression Showcase held in Seoul UNIQLO AX.
A Critic and his Dad
One of my earliest memories about movies was hearing my dad talk about Back to the Future while we played Monopoly with my mom. I think I was 4 or 5 at the time, and he talked about these time traveling adventures. As a four-year-old that was all I wanted to know about a movie so I asked my dad if I could see it. The following weekend, he bought the Back to the Future Trilogy on VHS and gave them to me. We watched the first together on that lazy Sunday afternoon; and when it was done, I wanted to see what came next. My dad showed me how to use the VCR and I saw the final two films back-to-back. It was around my bedtime when I finished, and I don't think I went to sleep that night because of all the ideas that were swimming around in my head because of that movie.
I relate this story because 20 years later, my love of films have grown only stronger and I still have sleepless nights after watching an amazing film because my mind is so filled with ideas and thoughts about the movie. And to think all of this started because my dad just nonchalantly brought a movie up in a conversation with his family while playing a board game with them.
But the spark for my love of films wasn't the only thing my dad did. He taught me how to mature and how to pursue a dream, impossible and distant as they seemed. He provided me a great home to live in, as he took care of his wife, my two brothers, and me.
When I bombed a test in high school, he just told me to stop worrying about it and try harder next time. When I did poorly on my LSAT and believed I was never going to get into law school, my dad told me that this was only my first loss as an attorney - as attorneys lose some cases and win others. When I was brokenhearted after a breakup, my dad cheered me up.
For this and for so much more, I'm grateful for every day that my dad is in my life. And I am more grateful that I can spend Father's Day with him.
Happy Father's Day, Papi
And I hope you all have a great day with the dads in your life
American Reunion was like watching your dad imitate scenes from a 90's sex comedy...only worse
No one asked for an American Pie sequel. The first movie told it's fucking story of a group of teenagers on a mission to lose their virginity and did nothing else. It's a tale as old as time itself; but this was in 1999, and people getting the chance to see naked boobs on screen was a sort of big deal back in the day. At least it was for me, when I was at the young ripe age of 12. Then a sequel came out about the gang, now in college, on summer vacation. But that movie did everything that was done in a movie about college kids on summer vacation. Then another goddamn sequel came out about young adults getting married which did everything that a movie about young adults getting married did only poorly. So does the fourth movie (discounting that direct-to-DVD bullshit) try something new? Two things: fuck and all.
The plot of American Reunion is the same generic old comedy about a once close group of friends getting back together for a high school. You will see NOTHING new in this movie about adults trying to reclaim their youth with a new generation of kids. What you will see, will be a bunch of actors who were once famous for being in American Pie trying to re-enact their old roles in a new setting. And it just comes off across as just plain sad, and may lead you to want to watch a crucifixion instead.
And by the old actors, I do not simply mean Jason Biggs, Sean William Scott Stifler (he has always been Stifler, he will always be Stifler), Chris Klein, Eddie Kay Thomas, and Thomas Ian Nicholas, I mean the whole fucking cast of the original. Shannon Elizabeth, Mena Suvari, Tara Reid, Natasha Lyonne, even fucking Chris Owen who was only in five minutes of the original. But I list the original cast for a reason. Tell me, do you recognize any of those names? Vaguely remember them? No? That's what I thought. As you can see, none of the above mentioned actors and actresses have really been able to do anything else besides that one teen sex comedy they filmed 13 years ago. It now makes perfect sense that they were able to assemble the whole cast.
But I also listed the names of the cast to give you an idea of the seven plotlines that are all going on at the same fucking time. The film becomes schizophrenic, constantly switching perspective between the cast members, giving no time for setting up jokes and only belting out some profanity for the sake of comedy before the scene changes after two minutes.
You could say that the main plotlines are that of Jason Biggs' character and of Stifler's since they are the ones with marginally more screen time than the others. For Biggs' story, we have the ol' dad who hasn't had as much sex with his wife as he once did and his efforts to relight the old flame in their relationship. It's boring as all fuck, since you never get to feel any sympathy for Bigg's character (I don't remember his name and I'm not looking it up because he's that forgettable) and he's just not funny. His scenes felt like an eternity whenever they came on, and it felt more like being crucified than anything else. Well, that maybe more of Biggs' fault of an actor, since he's just bland and can't deliver a joke to save his life. His scenes only become tolerable when he's with Eugene Levy, who's actually a good comedian and is still doing decent work.
Which leaves Stifler's tale as the most interesting tale by default of the others being so boring, lame, and generally shit. Stifler has one chuckle-worthy bit when he craps into a cooler filled with beers while destroying some jet skis, but that's about it. He still commands the screen, and you start thanking Christ every time he shows up to save you from the monotony. But that's because he's always been the one with the most personality in all these things and being the most memorable thing about the films, hell there's a damn Wikipedia page about the character!
As for the rest of the cast, they're all frustrated with how their lives how turned out, even though their frustrations are nothing to bitch or even write about. The worst part is that all of the characters get "conflict" in their respective stories by being caught in compromising positions while doing a piss-poor job of explaining the situation to others. This is the lowest common denominator of creating a plot in any comedy. As a matter of fact, I'm writing this trope at the top of my Comedy Deadly Sins (to be released later this year).
Then there are the incessant cameos from every, single, fucking, cast member that has ever been in any of these movies. But they're not done in any clever way, they're just sort of jammed in there like peppering a column with crucifixion jokes on Good Friday (sorry about that God). But this tactic only adds another car to the pile-up of bad decisions that all started with poor writing and copying reunion-style comedies.
I didn't realize it when I first saw the first three American Pie movies, but each movie was just hitting off the same beats that every sex comedy before it had done and done better. Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Animal House, and Bachelor Party, all got their movies out first and are still fucking funny, poignant, and memorable to me to this very day. The only thing I remember about the first American Pie was watching Shannon Elizabeth get naked, and nothing else. Don't even ask what I remember about the other two. And now for the fourth entry they pull the ol' reunion gimmick you've seen a billion times before.
I'm not saying a reunion of a film franchise could not work. The last two The Fast and the Furious movies were pretty much that and they were actually better than the first film from over a decade ago. They've become such huge successes that a sixth one is now in production, and deservedly so. But American Reunion pulls the bullshit of claiming "we should come back doing this every year!" No, you guys really shouldn't.
A few asked for a sequel to American Pie, and we got it. Less asked for a second sequel, but we still got it. And no one fucking asked for a third sequel, but guess what? We fucking got it. So now please ask Hollywood of something: can you stop making American Pie movies for fuck's sake? Especially that goddamn direct-to-DVD bullshit!
The only way to ask for such a thing is to pay this film no attention. American Reunion is not the last great hurrah these actors were hoping for, and it really isn't worth your time or money. Avoid this film and maybe we can't let this thing finally die. But I can never count out Hollywood for anything. After all, they've resurrected far worse properties than this.
-Ha-Ra