American Pie: Reunion

From previous posts, you may know that I dislike it when people bleed a franchise for everything it's worth, and the American Pie franchise has seen it's fair of bleeding. Namely Band Camp, Naked Mile, Beta House and Book of Love (Shame on you Eugene Levy, even though he apparently did the DVD ones on the cheap).

So excuse me if I was a little blasé when it came to American Reunion, or the 65 other slight variations on that title. It looked generally more of the same as the first 3 (and maybe the DVD ones, I haven't seen anything bar the first), same characters, same setting etc, could work, may not... It was also billed as the 4th in the series, excommunicating the straight to DVD stuff. Ha!

But it looked worth watching, purely for an element of nostalgia, and the wife wanted to see it too so bingo, we're off.

                  

Some of it felt tired (hmm I wonder if Jim'll end up in an awkward situation... oh yeah, there he goes) and to be fair the film was exactly what you'd expect, almost frame for frame. Some of it felt... wrong (no spoilers). However that isn't necessarily an entire negative, as it was easy and familiar to watch and enjoyable throughout. But please don't make any more.

Oh and why was Oz not mentioned in the 3rd film at all, not even a breath, he vaguely mentions it here but still...

Oh and there were tits, of course there were tits it's american pie. Oh and Jason Biggs cock (or stunt plastic variation). No pie though... but well worth seeing.

Avengers

I like my superhero films, and while my first loyalty will always be to DC (mainly due to Batman being my fav superhero by a distance), I've got time for Marvel even though some of the films have hit n miss.

There has been years of build up to The Avengers (or Avengers Assemble if you will as us Brits are too thick to distinguish between it and the horrific 1998 The Avengers or indeed the 60's TV series) in the form of the previously mentioned films, Thor, Captain America, 2 Iron Men and one of the Hulks (I think the first one didn't count) and that mean allot of money spent on it so far, and indeed allot of money taken! This thing had to be good.

They got Joss Whedon to write/direct, always a good sign (even if it has seemingly delayed/killed Dr Horrible 2) got the cast back from the set of earlier films (except Ed Norton, replaced with Mark Ruffalo who was much better anyway) all was set. I paid my rough-value-of-a-kidney for my 3D tickets and myself and the wife ventured onwards.

2 and a bit hours later... result, awesome film!

The whole was greater than the sum of it's parts by some distance, the dynamic between the characters (particularly Cap and Tony Stark) was excellent, it has plenty of action, more humour than the last 3 Police Academy films combined. Joss rarely lets down with a script... ahem and he hasn't here. The acting was excellent, it contains Samuel L. That's always an endorsement (I've had it with these motherfuckin' Avengers on this motherfuckin' helicarrier), Downey Jr if anything was even more smarmy and arrogant here than in his own films, Ruffalo should have the part regularly from here on in, Hemsworth was good, better than he was in Home and Away anyway, Jeremy Renner was excellent as Hawkeye and Evans was... the same. Combine that with Hiddlestone being an excellent antagonist and you're on to a winner.

I rarely think films need 3D but to be fair while there were cheap stuff-blowing-up-at-the-screen shots, most of it was just for effect and actually helped the action sequenced. Supporting the claim it wasn't shot in 3D, but was changed in production. Although that still makes me question where the cheap shots came from, it must've been in the back of Joss' mind at least.

The ending implied sequel and I've no doubt there will be. There's already an Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 confirmed (wow they didn't get killed in the film then, of course they didn't, it's Disney) and I hope there will be. I'm even looking forward to Iron Man 3 a bit, Thor 2 not so much.

No plot spoilers in here, it's not even out over in North America yet (lol) but it's a really good film I'm immensely looking forward to owning the Blu-Ray of (crimbo maybe?).

I'd still rather a justice League film, yes their name is awful, but they have Batman!

Go watch!

The Human Centipede 2

Heard yesterday that the Human Centipede 2 has been officially banned by the BBFC. To be honest I'm not sure what I think of it. The original was a bad bad film, poor acting, dreadful script, didn't actually show any of the detail of what it hinted at, little horror, no suspense... you know the kind of moderate low budget horror that tried desperately to shock I'm talking about. But I watched it, and got through it.

Then the 2nd one came along and promised to fill the gaps in substance the first one left, promising! However, by all accounts all it tried to do was be a gross as it could with even less substance as the first, resulting in the ban. In a way I do think that they BFCC may have a point, but in a bigger way I'm thinking, how dare you fell me what I can watch.

All this ban is going to do is send everyone who wanted to see it + some extra now curious people onto the Internet to find the film and they'll watch it anyway. By banning something with the availability of information on the web, all you essentially do is make people keen to see what the fuss is all about.

Of what I read plot wise, it sounded a little sick (you have to think who writes these things) but compared to something like 'A Serbian Film', which I've never seen or have any desire to see, which was given a certificate as a slightly cut version in the UK, it sounds like nothing. So why ban it?

Things have come a long way in society since the days of cannibal holocaust and the like trying to shock, then subsequently being banned. With the rise of such things as the internet, is it right to ban things anymore, when they will just be freely available to anyone who wants them? Warn yes, but if there can be no real containment... why ban and create an extra stigma and hype? This has potentially created an audience where previously there was none, or at best a quite small one.

It wasn't going to be stinking out cinemas, I believe it was a straight to DVD jobby. No doubt it was awful and so wasn't going to gain popularity through content quality. Censorship is great publicity!