Movie Review: American Reunion

Yes, they're back.  Again.  For those of you in my age bracket, you probably remember the summer of '99 very fondly and how the original American Pie shocked you and made you pretty much roll on the floor in laughter.  For it's time it was quite the raunchy movie.  And it has now spawned (cause that's what happens when you... um... you know... hey, it's perfectly natural) three sequels (at least three that made it to theatres).  This one continues the story, 13 years on.

Apparently everyone forgot to have a 10 year reunion, so someone decided to hold one for their 13th.  Pretty much all the characters from the first three have returned, even if just for a short while, including some holdouts from the 3rd movie (American Wedding).  All of their lives have changed: Jim (Jason Biggs) and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) have a boy (who doesn't really figure into things), Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is married and pretty much house-whipped, Oz (Chris Klein) is a TV star, Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) is.. well, that's part of the fun of the movie, and Jim's dad is sadly single after Jim's mom passed away.  Stifler is (Seann William Scott)... still Stifler.

As a 4th addition in a series, American Reunion isn't actually all that bad.  It has both raunchy and endearing moments, which is what, in my mind really stood out in the original.  Though it's not really a ground shattering film, it did have me in quite a bit of laughter at times.  For those of you who haven't seen the first three, many of the jokes will likely go over your head.  By 1999 standards this movie goes places that would be shocking, but after movies such as The Hangover and it's sequel this isn't all that shocking - though one part of it made me more disgusted than one part of Wedding.

Eugene Levy really does steal the show as Jim's Dad in his scenes and definitely adds to the awkwardness that really makes this movie.  Way to support the home team, eh? (FYI, check his IMDB page to see his hometown and you'll understand my comment).

So if you want a good laugh and a nice walk down memory lane (a lot of the music is from the 90s as well) this is definitely worth a few dollars or pounds.  If you get offended easily (hahaha, that's two movies in a row I've said this) I wouldn't go see this.  If you don't like full frontal nudity (of the male variety) then I would also recommend you don't see this.

I give this two thumbs up (sorry, that's also an in-joke).

Book Review: Blonde Bombshell

Now, I'm sure that after I put "Blonde Bombshell" as a tag, I'll get a lot of visitors that weren't expected a book review. Ha!

Recently I finished my second book by Tom Holt (the first being Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages). You may notice that the one thing both titles have in common are that they are a bit on the silly side. That is a good indication of what's inside the books. The best label I could put on Blonde Bombshell is that it's a sci-fi comedy. No doubt this is following in the footsteps of Douglas Adams (side note, I saw his grave today) and of Futurama. It's an odd little book, which has a distinctive British feel to it (don't ask me what that is, if you know what I'm talking about, you'll understand) even though none of it is set in England.

The basic plot is that a smart bomb (read that literally) has been sent to destroy earth after the first attempt failed. This bomb then creates a probe which takes on a human form (or dirter, as the bomb initially calls them - think Earth=dirt and then it makes sense) and tries to blend in as a human in order to find out what happened to the first bomb. Strangely enough, things happen to the probe and it starts to become... well, human. We then follow an ensemble group of characters (some of which are definitely not werewolves) in the quest to stop the destruction of the planet against unknown (or are they?) forces. I won't reveal much, but if you liked those two things I mentioned above, you'll surely like this.

There is a lot of "foreshadowing" that is fairly obvious, but that's part of the fun of the book. Things are suggested, but often not fully explained until later. It's like the reader is having a nice "in-joke" with the author. Definitely worth checking out and in the future, I'm going to try to find more of his books to read.

That's all for now. It's late and I'm tired.