Taglines: Boy gets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets pie.
American Pie movie storyline. It’s said that most American men think about sex once every two or three minutes, but this statistic would seriously underestimate the horniness of Jim (Jason Biggs), a high school senior in suburban Michigan. Jim is thoroughly obsessed with sex, a fact of which his parents become aware when they discover him performing the sin of Onan with a gym sock while watching scrambled pay-per-view porn. Jim’s buddies Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas),
Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas), and Oz (Chris Klein) are no less anxious to relieve themselves of their virginity, so they all make a pledge: they will go to bed with a woman in the three weeks before senior prom or die trying. Kevin appears to have the advantage, since he already has a girlfriend, Vicky (Tara Reid), but before he ventures into the Final Frontier, Kevin is urged to consult “The Bible,” a hand-written how-to manual possessing erotic wisdom passed down through the ages.
Oz is a good-looking jock who is actually a nice guy — which is part of the problem, since he has his heart set on a nice girl, Heather (Mena Suvari), who does not seem the type to leap into bed within 21 days. Finch has no immediate prospects, though Jessica (Natasha Lyonne) is in a position to know if those rumors about him are true. And Jim is a truly hopeless case — after his attempted seduction of beautiful Czech exchange student Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth) turns out to be a disaster, he ends up going to the prom with Michelle (Alyson Hannigan), an annoyingly chatty band geek who does, however, have a fascinating story about a flute.
American Pie is a 1999 teen sex comedy film written by Adam Herz and directed by brothers Paul and Chris Weitz, in their directorial film debut. It is the first film in the American Pie theatrical series. The film was a box-office hit and spawned three direct sequels: American Pie 2 (2001), American Wedding (2003), and American Reunion (2012).
The film concentrates on five best friends (Jim, Kevin, Oz, Finch, and Stifler) who attend East Great Falls High. With the exception of Stifler (who has already lost his virginity), the guys make a pact to lose their virginity before their high school graduation. The title is borrowed from the song of the same name and refers to a scene in the film, in which the protagonist is caught masturbating with a pie after being told that third base feels like “warm apple pie”. Writer Adam Herz has stated that the title also refers to the quest of losing one’s virginity in high school, which is as “American as apple pie.”
The film’s theme song is “Laid” by James, which is also the theme for the entire franchise. In addition to the primary American Pie saga, there are four direct-to-DVD spin-off films bearing the title American Pie Presents: Band Camp (2005), The Naked Mile (2006), Beta House (2007), and The Book of Love (2009). In response to the success of American Reunion, a fifth theatrical film, under the working title American Pie 5 was announced on August 4, 2012.
Despite insiders claiming it to be a potential sleeper hit, Universal Pictures sold off the foreign rights in an attempt to recoup its budget. American Pie was sold successfully to foreign distributors at the Cannes International Film Festival. The film took in a gross worldwide revenue of $235,483,004, $132,922,000 of which was from international tickets. In North America, it was the twentieth highest-grossing film of 1999. In Germany, it was the most successful theatrical release of 2000 before Mission: Impossible 2 and American Beauty.
Much of the film is based on the writer’s days at East Grand Rapids High School in Michigan. In the film, the town is called “East Great Falls”, and the high school sports the same school colors — blue and gold — along with a similar mascot — the Trailblazers instead of the Pioneers. The restaurant hangout, “Dog Years”, is based on Yesterdog, a popular hot dog restaurant in the nearby Eastown neighborhood of Grand Rapids. The “Central Chicks” and “Central” Lacrosse team that East Great Falls plays against is an amalgam of nearby Forest Hills Central High School and Grand Rapids Catholic Central High School.
The film was actually shot in Southern California, most notably in Long Beach using Long Beach Unified School District area high schools. Millikan High School, whose school colors are blue and gold, was used for exterior shots, and Long Beach Polytechnic High School was used for interior shots. Located in Los Cerritos, Long Beach, California, both schools are within five miles of the Virginia Country Club and Los Cerritos Neighborhood (where Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Donnie Darko were filmed).
The film received mixed reviews from critics. Based on 124 reviews Rotten Tomatoes gives American Pie a score of 60% and a score of 58 (“mixed or average reviews”) from Metacritic based on reviews from 30 critics.[16] The more negative reviews include Stephen Holden of The New York Times who felt American Pie was “one of the shallowest and the most prurient teen films.” Robert Horton of Film.com wrote that American Pie “had a few amusing bits, however the audience should strongly note that the movie is really awful, and that it was not worthy of guilty pleasure status.”
American Pie (1999)
Directed by: Paul Weitz, Chris Weitz
Starring: Jason Biggs, Chris Klein, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Tara Reid, Mena Suvari, Seann William Scott, Eugene Levy, Natasha Lyonne, Jennifer Coolidge, Shannon Elizabeth
Screenplay by: Adam Herz
Production Design by: Paul Peters
Cinematography by: Richard Crudo
Film Editing by: Priscilla Nedd-Friendly
Costume Design by: Leesa Evans
Set Decoration by: Amy Wells
Art Direction by: Paul Peters
Music by: David Lawrence
MPAA Rating: R for strong sexuality, crude sexual dialogue, language and drinking, all involving teens.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: July 9, 1999
Hits: 341
