The 90s were a dark decade for fun stuff aimed at teens and tweens. Grunge music and gangsta rap ruled the airwaves, and young people were into acting sullen and disturbed. Any entertainment that could be considered kiddie or corporate was rejected outright in favor of culture stuff that was gritty and dark. But, by 1999, change was in the air. The prevailing trends of the decade had run their course, boy bands and Britney Spears started showing up on the radio, and the first movie that attempted to bring back the raunchy teenage sex comedy, American Pie, became a runaway success that launched a long-lived, multi-film franchise. Kurt Cobain was dead, long live Stifler. In 2005 Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale got a lot of attention in the world of indie and art films, much of it due to the performance of its lead actor, a young kid named Jesse Eisenberg. Over the next few years Eisenberg’s fame rose as he accrued another handful of indie credits, and eventually his career hit a peak when he anchored a mainstream horror comedy in Zombieland, and then got to work with one of the biggest directors in the business, David Fincher, on The Social Network. After Eisenberg played Zuckerberg it was official, the guy was a bonafide celebrity. But, despite his fame, one of his earliest films, 2002’s Roger Dodger, still hasn’t been seen by very many people, and very rarely gets brought up even in film geek circles,

The legendary Cloris Leachman is a salty woman with brass buttons. Her latest conquest is the suspense thriller – working alongside, seriously, Tara Reid in The Fields. Kevin Carr sits down the Oscar winner to discuss what scares her, her work with Mel Brooks and why she owns a porn shop in an upcoming movie. Plus, Eric D. Snider and Rob Hunter go head to head Movie News Pop Quiz-style, and the discussion turns to spoiler sensitivity. Download Episode #130

It’s easy to deride American Reunion for being a needless sequel or cash grab. After all, we’re thirteen years on from the first film and in that time we’ve had bad direct sequels, trips to band camps, and straight to DVD spin-offs (which honestly aren’t as bad as you think they’d be). Fortunately, writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg are at least somewhat aware of the uphill battles they face in making this movie palatable to both new audiences and those of us who remember MILFs and pie sex from the good old days of ’99. For example, the film takes place in 2012 and their 13 Year Reunion. There’s a joke about missing the tenth, which is just a fun little nod to the absurdity of revisiting this franchise now. Returning in large roles is the entirety of the male cast: Jason Biggs as Jim, Seann William Scott as Stifler, Chris Klein as Oz, Thomas Ian Nichols as Kevin, Eddie Kaye Thomas as Finch, and Eugene Levy as Jim’s dad. Also returning in various capacities are Alyson Hannigan as Michelle, Mina Suvari as Heather, John Cho as MILF Guy #2 and…yYou know what, pretty much everyone is back, okay?

Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott, Eugene Levy, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Tara Reid, Chris Klein, Mena Suvari, Jennifer Coolidge. That list of names is eerie. The adults have their own long, strange comedy trips, but the rest of it sounds like a Where Are They Now roster. Not one young actor made it out of the American Pie movies alive? Seann William Scott comes the closest to surviving, but everyone else is relegated to middling indie work or complete obscurity. Hell, I’m not even sure tabloids will run topless pictures of Tara Reid anymore. That’s how bad it’s gotten. Context aside, all of those names will most likely come together for another installment in the American Pie franchise – a franchise that seems to have 3 movies in it, but really has 7 counting all the direct-to-video content with the brand’s name on it. All of this to point out the obvious: that bringing these characters back is tired. According to The Hollywood Reporter, American Reunion has got Paul and Chris Weitz in producer jobs, and sees Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay team Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg writing and directing. That’s all solid talent, so it’ll be interesting if they can take meat that’s been sitting out for a week and make a meal out of it. Hopefully it hasn’t turned rancid before it hits the pan. It also might be an oversight, but I can’t help but notice Alyson Hannigan and Shannon Elizabeth’s names missing from the

There were a lot of bad movies released during the past decade. That’s not anything that distinguishes the aughts from any other decade before it, but then most of these movies were bad in the usual, torturous ways.