So, we saw American Wedding this weekend.

I seem to be fairly obsessed with the Pie series of late, as I got the first two on Netflix for my vacation and have been watching everything on both discs (you know you're a dork when you insist on listening to ALL FOUR COMMENTARIES on AP2). I now want to buy the movies AND the "Beneath the Crust" DVD's. So I'm feeling fairly well briefed on the series even before I saw the third and final.

The verdict? It's a damn funny, sweet movie...with a few gaping holes and quite a few surprises.

This entire entry is spoilerriffic. If you want to stay pure and utterly surprised, go read this after you've seen it. I don't plan on hiding a thing.

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The wedding bit has some disasters, but is surprisingly sweet and even a bit serious at times. (Amazingly, the ceremony features no disasters whatsoever. All pants stay on.) One can't help but get a little mushy at our little perv and nympho on the dance floor in the end. But then again, we can't all have mushy throughout the entire movie, and thus we have disasters involving dogs, a "special haircut", one very entertaining dinner/batchelor party, etc., etc. Finch and Kevin are along for the ride, but Kevin the "straight man" doesn't get much to do, and even gets shot down when he attempts another "next step" toast. Finch gets to have some snarky fun (and other fun) though.

However, the movie is maybe at most halfway dealing with Jim and Michelle's wedding and all ofthat, and halfway dealing with what I like to call "the gayification of the Stifmeister." Since Kenny...er, Oz is MIA (see below), Stifler has evidently decided to shove his way in and add himself as the fourth member of the gang, much to the unwilling dismay of the remaining gang and Michelle, who naturally doesn't want Mr. Totally Uncouth at the wedding around her parents. Stifler claims that since he got Jim and Michelle together (ahem), he should be in all the wedding festivities. Not only is he dying to see the disaster that's waiting to happen because it's well, involving Jim, he's also hot to get in the pants of Michelle's sister Cadence (what the heck's with that name?), who's looking for a nice guy.

As we all know, Stifler smacked of homophobia at the start of these flicks, but by the end of AP2 was proclaiming that he was comfortable with his sexuality. Sure, it was to get into girls' pants, as was this here, but now I'm starting to wonder.

After all, Stifler in this movie:

(a) shows off his ballroom dance skills, learned at Mom's insistence,

(b) has a dance-off in a gay bar with a lovely fellow that wasn't named so I'll have to refer to him as "Mr. Belvedere," (Incidentally? FUNNIEST MOVIE SCENE. It's now in my top 3 of funniest scenes ever.) to prove that he can attract gay men or something,

(c) makes himself over in a Finchlike manner (preppy sweaters, sweet manners, trying to discuss philosophy, not saying fuck every other word) to make nicey-nice with the other Flaherty womenfolk- while making obscene faces at Jim and Michelle behind their backs. Naturally, this disguise is not forever foolproof. (Oh yeah, and another hilarious scene? Stifler becomes Finch, and Finch becomes Stifler. "Fuck Voltaire! I'm the Finchmeister!")

(d) gets the entire football team to help him provide wedding flowers. When one of them says this is gay, Stifler just nods and "mm-hmm's" him.

He may have got the girl (shudder) in this one, but one wonders if Stifler'll be bringing a guy date to the next group wedding, if you know what I mean. Damned funny, though.

All right, now for the holes:

1. WHERE THE FUCK IS OZ?! I can see why you'd cut out other characters from the flick- there's not much reason for Jessica, Vicky and Nadia to return. (Though uh, not much reason for Stifler's mom and the MILF boys to either, and yet, there they are.) But Oz missing is a huge fucking hole along the lines of killing off Shannen on Charmed, AND THEY DON'T EVEN MENTION WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM! (Or anyone else, really.) The moviemakers claim they didn't have anything for him to do and it would have cost too much to have him fly in for a cameo, but really, would it have hurt them to drop ONE LINE into the script about his whereabouts? "Oz and Heather joined the Peace Corps and won't be able to get back in time for the wedding." See, was that so hard?

2. Kevin has a girlfriend? He says he has one ONCE, but we never see her, not even as a date to the wedding. The hell?

3. Likewise, there's three other bridesmaids in the wedding besides Cadence (you see them in one shot), and we have many young single horny men in this movie. And yet, none of them are macking on the bridesmaids? It's all about the groomsmen? The last two movies were all about dating, hello?

4.Dude, what happened to the big parties? Stifler can't dig up more than three people for a batchelor party?!

Anyway... for the most part, it's cool, but needed a bit more CYA.

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