April 6, 2012, - 7:09 pm

Weekend Box Office: American Reunion, Kid With a Bike, Blood of Forgiveness

By Debbie Schlussel

I wasn’t all that crazy about the new movies debuting at theaters, this weekend.


* “American Reunion“: This movie is a national class test. If you like it, you have none. It wasn’t different than I expected. Just more disgusting and depraved–rich material to be mined for an Al-Qaeda recruitment video about how decadent and warped the west is. It makes the original, the extremely raunchy “American Pie” look like tame stuff. This is just soooo sick. Defecating on top of beer bottles and then people sticking their hands in it, a penis magnified under the lid of a glass pot, a guy’s penis, that same guy’s penis bleeding because he quickly closes his laptop on it, after being caught by his kid watching porn, etc.–yup, all the usual classy stuff you get from these gross “American Pie” movies (which began with a guy having sex with a pie), chock full of has-been actors with no career to speak of over a decade later. It’s filled with dopey, sick jokes about sex and bodily functions–almost none of which are funny.


The story, if you care (and you shouldn’t) is that all the original, sex-crazed characters from the original movie (three or four sequels ago) are back. Except that, instead of 17-year-old sex-crazed chumps and skanks, they are 30-year-old loser sex-crazed chumps and skanks (and also actors in their mid-30s with no big projects and very much in need of a paycheck), plus the two most prominent–and annoying–parents from the original. The characters are back for their high school reunion and all depressed and bitter about their empty lives that didn’t live up to their dreams. They all want to impress one another, and a few wish they’d remained with their original high school crushes instead of those whom they are with now. I don’t think I need to tell you the different stories of these characters because, hey, I didn’t care. And you won’t either. Just a bunch of has-been and mostly never-been actors as desperate as their characters.

Skipworthy.

FOUR MARXES PLUS A BIN LADEN
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Watch the trailer . . .

* “The Kid With a Bike [Le Gamin Au Velo]“: This should be must-viewing for all men who father kids out of wedlock or who don’t manage to stay in their kids’ lives–and must-viewing for the babymamas like Bristol Palin, who repeatedly shack up and have sex with various guys, giving birth to these out-of-wedlock kids. Except that the ending is far more positive and happier, though, than what would have happened in real life. A young boy is abandoned by his father to a state-run orphanage. He is looking everywhere for his father (and his bike), as his father told him he’d only leave him there for a week, while he looked for work. A kindly beauty shop owner he meets agrees to help him find his father and to serve as a temporary foster parent on weekends. The boy gets caught up with the wrong crowd. Like I said, in real life, the ending would be far, far worse. In French with English subtitles.

THREE REAGANS
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Watch the trailer . . .

* “The Forgiveness of Blood“: This movie was slow, boring, and absolutely pointless. Plus it’s in Albanian, and the English subtitles went by way too fast and were too small to read. An Albanian family (they appear to be Christian) in a small seaside farming town must live in isolation and isn’t allowed to leave their house under the “Kunan”–the law of honor. That’s because the father was part of a murder of a man in the town and is on the lam. He and his brother say it was self-defense, but they must live in isolation anyway, until and unless the family of the murdered man allows them to leave, via mediation. Too slow and not very entertaining. It’s billed as a thriller and suspenseful. But it’s neither.

ONE MARX
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Watch the trailer . . .




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11 Responses

I wish you had reviewed “Dreams of Sushi,” instead.

Occam's Tool on April 6, 2012 at 7:58 pm

My call: as per DS – it’s Torrent and Skyrim this weekend. DOVAHKIN!

The Reverend Jacques on April 6, 2012 at 8:30 pm

    That’s every weekend for me. Aren’t a lot of movies that can top being a 6 foot cat that shoots lightning out of its paws and yells at dragons loud enough to make them fall off of mountains.

    Brian R. on April 7, 2012 at 8:43 am

Thank you; I would have avoided ‘American Reunion’ based on the prequels (which I know of from trailers but have fortunately avoided viewing). Better directors make better movies; if the director is trashy so goes the movie; but I agree. It takes classless actors to appear in that kind of junk. I hope the box office gives them the thumbs down so producers will quit funding potty humor movies.

Kent on April 6, 2012 at 10:02 pm

Spot on about Bristol Palin. Still doing more damage to Conservative credibility than anyone on the Left has done to her Mum.

Love it how Bristol, after saying no more pre-marital sex for her now has a special phrase for her shacking-up….”Pre-Marital Trial Marriage”.

No, you’re a shacking-up skank who can’t walk it like you talk it. She reminds me of the phony Holy Rollers who meet up and get married right away in lieu of two years of dating. They wanna seem holy and have the sex asap so they marry right away and then find out those two years of DISCOVERY mean more than raging hormones.

Skunky on April 6, 2012 at 11:42 pm

I remember hanging with some ex-friends that used to watch this crap back in the early 2000’s. Now I find out ANOTHER sequel just came out and I’m like “just old yeller the damn franchise”.

Squirrel3D on April 7, 2012 at 12:44 am

We watched HUMAN DESIRE with Glenn Ford, Gloria Graham, and Broderick Crawford last night. This movie was made in 1954 and had a great story, acting with actors that you can understand and very enjoyable twists and turns. Black and white and excellent.

I would not waste my time going to any of the new movies.

Fred on April 8, 2012 at 2:48 am

I wonder what Carole Lombard, Clark Gable, John Wayne, or even lefties like Katherine Hepburn would have thought about some of the new movie themes such as those discussed re American Reunion.

They were all talented enough, and had enough respect for their audiences not to be caught up in this garbage (all Communistic themes did infest movies up through the late 40s).

Little Al on April 8, 2012 at 11:50 am

Little Al, Katherine Hepburn didn’t star in crass, juvenile films like “American Reunion,” but she managed to do damage to our culture anyway. In fact, I think the series of comedies she played in with Spencer Tracy written by Ruth Gordon was the most effective assault on 50s conservatism of that decade (particularly “Adam’s Rib” which is a masterpiece of Sotomayor-type liberal-judicial propaganda). There may not have been much raunchiness in films of that decade, but there was plenty to be depressed about.

I saw “American Reunion” yesterday. You nailed it perfectly, Debbie. This really is a disgusting film about characters who aren’t remotely interesting. I did notice something about this film, though. Other sex comedies which have annoyed me over the last couple of years seem to have been pushing the ideological position that promiscuity is cool (e.g., “Friends with Benefits”). This film in contrast was all about a bunch of square burbs and misfits who are constantly embarrassed by gross-out masturbation, defecation pranks, taboo lust, and so on. I’m not sure which is easier to take: one type that promotes frank sluttiness, or the other type that asks you to titter and smirk in the hope you’ll be uncomfortable seeing a lot of “no-nos.”

Burke on April 9, 2012 at 4:32 am

Although Debbie’s seen The Hunger games and I haven’t, in the interest of fairness here’s a quote from the star which I think Debbie can agree with:

“The 21-year-old beauty gutted a squirrel in the most talked about scene for her role in 2010’s Winter’s Bone, (for which she was nominated). The scene was not faked, she told Rolling Stone magazine: “I should say it wasn’t real, for PETA,” she said. “But screw PETA.”’

Occam's Tool on April 9, 2012 at 6:52 pm

Occam, there are two things you don’t do if you want a future in Hollywood:

1) You don’t call Michael Bay “Hitler” like Megan Fox did, and

2) You don’t disrespect PETA. I’m not sure if this comment absolutely ended Lawrence’s career, but I imagine it will cost her a pretty penny. Have no fear, though, she’ll learn quickly enough and be fine by next year’s new batch of promotion interviews.

Burke on April 10, 2012 at 11:31 am

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