Bovie Movie

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 was the directorial debut of Paul Weitz, who, along with his brother Chris Weitz (who served as producer), previously wrote several screenplays, including Antz and Madeline (where they presumably worked all their wholesome ideas out of their system).

A hotshot thirtysomething record executive tries to win over the girl who once liked him only “as a friend” in this slapstick comedy. In high school, Chris Brander (Ryan Reynolds) was an overweight, maladroit teen who spent every waking moment with his co-ed pal Jamie Palamino (Amy Smart). On the verge of graduation, Chris is humiliated when his yearbook confession to Jamie — that he wants to be more than “just friends” — is read aloud. Jamie is flattered, but rebuffs his advances, and Chris spends the next decade transforming himself into a buff, callous ladies’ man. Assigned by his boss to sign his pop star ex-girlfriend Samantha James (Anna Faris), Chris finds himself stranded in New Jersey for the holidays, where he promptly sets out to find Jamie. But winning back the love of his life proves difficult, as Chris not only has to get back in touch with the sensitive teen he once was, but also fend off competition from another former geek, the guitar-playing Dusty (Chris Klein).

Independent filmmaker Gregg Araki has probably set a record for low budgets in this current feature The Long Weekend. It came in at around $5,000 and yet was shown in legit moviehouses to respectful (if not overwhelmingly positive) reviews. As with his other movies, the central characters in this one are gay, lesbian or bisexual, and the setting is in Los Angeles. The story concerns the efforts of angst-ridden gay man to cope with his bisexual lover’s antics, and the parallel efforts of a lesbian woman to ditch her dimwitted girlfriend.

Randall Wallace directs Mel Gibson in the Vietnam War drama We Were Soldiers, which comes to DVD with a widescreen anamorphic transfer that preserves the original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Closed-captioned English soundtracks are rendered in both DD-EX 5.1 and Dolby Digital Surround, while a French soundtrack has also been recorded in Dolby Digital Surround. English subtitles are accessible. Supplemental materials include a commentary track recorded by the director, ten deleted scenes with director commentary, and a making-of featurette. This is a strong disc from Paramount.