Week in Review: December 17 - 22

Birthdays -  Birthdays this week were Steven Spielberg and Eugene Levy, who both turned 66.

Movies - New movie of the week was The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2, which is my new favourite instalment of the Twilight Saga.  Older movies were Man on a Ledge and The Ledge, neither of which was very good, and two shorts, Paperman and Partysaurus Rex, which were both good.  My favourite of the week was probably Paperman.

Books - Book of the week was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which is probably my least favourite of the Harry Potter series.

TV - Three TV shows this week; the third seasons of Grey's Anatomy, The Big Bang Theory, and Sons of Anarchy.  While I liked them all, I had some mixed feelings about elements of the plots.

Recommendations - This week we actually did two sets of recommendations, one for Friday and one for Christmas Day.  The Friday movies that I'm looking forward to seeing the most are This is 40, Zero Dark Thirty, and The Impossible, while the Christmas movies that I'm looking forward to seeing are Les Misérables, and Django Unchained.

Next Week - Okay, so book-wise we're going to do Diana Gabaldon's Drums of Autumn, and TV-wise we've got the second season of Homeland and the fourth season of Project Runway Australia.  Movie-wise, I'm not entirely sure yet - for sure we'll be doing Love Actually, The Nativity Story, and Bachelorette.  There may or may not be a new movie, we'll see.

Requests - Anything I should watch or read? Let me know!

Birthday: Eugene Levy

Today is the 66th birthday of actor Eugene Levy.

Levy really got his start in the Canadian sketch comedy show Second City Television, which later became known as SCTV.  The show was really a big start for a few notable Canadian comics; the original cast consisted of Levy, John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, Harold Ramis, and Dave Thomas.  Later additions to the cast included Rick Moranis and Martin Short.

What Levy is probably best known for, however, is his appearance in all eight American Pie movies - the only cast member to have done so.  Why he felt it necessary to appear in the American Pie Presents films, I don't know, but then I do question a lot of career choices that he's made.  Beyond American Pie and SCTV, Levy is also known for his appearance in a lot of not-so-great sequels of movies with varying greatness, including Father of the Bride Part II, Richie Rich's Christmas Wish, Dumb & Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, and Cheaper by the Dozen 2.  That being said, Levy has also received two stars on Canada's Walk of Fame, one for himself and one as part of the cast of SCTV - one of only four two-time honourees, the other three being his cast members Short, Candy, and O'Hara - has won five Canadian Comedy Awards, one of the few people to do so, received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award, was made a Member of the Order of Canada, and, most recently, was presented with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.  Which, really, is a lot of recognition and honours for a funnyman who is best known for his thoughts on masturbation with baked goods.

Happy birthday, Mr. Levy!

American Reunion (2012)

Stars: Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, Chris Klein, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Tara Reid, Seann William Scott, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Eugene Levy, Mena Suvari, Jennifer Coolidge
Director: Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg
Genre: Comedy
Rating: B-

American Pie was a coming of age film about a group of boys in their senior year of high school who make a pact to lose their virginity, while its first two sequels (American Pie 2 and American Wedding) follow the same group as they discover what happens to you after you finally come of age.  Now, thirteen years after the original film hit screens comes the latest and fourth feature film in the series; American Reunion.  This film provides the story of what happens when you realize that adult life isn’t all it’s cracked out to be.

Since the wedding of Jim (Biggs) and Michelle (Hannigan), each member of the group has apparently gone off into the world, leaving East Great Falls and rarely looking back.  Jim and Michelle have fallen into a rut in their marriage, Kevin (Nicholas) is happily married and a bit of a housewife, Oz (Klein) is a sportscaster living in LA with a supermodel girlfriend, Finch (Thomas), who has lost contact with his friends, is travelling the world, and Stifler (Scott) is becoming aware of the fact that he’s a loser.  Everyone is brought back to their hometown just in time for their 13-year high school reunion, where they’re each confronted with what they’ve given up in life; Jim and Michelle sex, Kevin Vicky (Reid), Oz Heather (Suvari), Finch his chance at one true love, and Stifler… well, actually, Stifler hasn’t given up anything and has insisted on remaining the same person that he was in high school.  Hilarity ensues as each tries to come to terms with their desires and the way life has turned out for them, and figure out how to reconcile what they have with what they once wanted.

American Reunion is no American Pie.  Had I not seen the original movie I highly doubt I would have enjoyed this one at all; it really offered nothing new or original as a movie and is incapable of standing on its own.  It does, however, pay a nice tribute to the series, and in many ways restores the dignity lost from the American Pie Presents straight to video films.  It has all of the classic elements of an American Pie film: Jim and his dad (Levy) share awkward conversations, Michelle tells band camp stories, Stifler interacts with bodily fluids and throws a party, and of course there’s Stifler’s mom (Coolidge).  The film may not have been exactly original, borrowing a lot from both the previous films and essentially every other reunion-esque film about 30-somethings, but it was funny.  In all reality, it was just about everything you can expect from an American Pie film.