DVD Review HTF REVIEW: American Wedding - Extended Unrated Party Edition (1 Viewer)

[Craig S]

Count me in as one who thinks this is a very bad transfer. It would be acceptable for a bare-bones disc of a low-budget 70s/80s flick, but for a new film it's just atrocious.

I did see AW in the theater last year and I don't recall it looking bad at all. In fact, I remember being surprised at the scope ratio, and the quality of the cinematography at the hotel where the wedding took place. This disc doesn't reflect what I saw at all. :frowning:

 

[todd stone]

why was the football player guy not in this third installment?

 

[JustinCleveland]

Quote:
why was the football player guy not in this third installment? Lacrosse.

Probably because he didn't want to come back, so they wrote him out of the script. Same with all the other notable absences.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Oh yeah, I just realized that both he and that
little "hottie" from American Beauty was absent
from this film.

Smart move on their part.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Here's something that's kept me up nights wondering about- how did they get in Jim's house to throw the bachelor party when nobody was home? (They just opened the front door- why was it left unlocked, and how did they know it would be?)

 

[Carlo_M]

The StiffMeister can accomplish anything!

 

[Scott Temple]

Yeah. Tara Reid, Mena Suvari, and Chris Klein were the no-shows for "American Wedding."

 

[Adam_ME]

Quote:
Yeah. Tara Reid, Mena Suvari, and Chris Klein were the no-shows for "American Wedding."
Don't forget Natasha Lyonne, Shannon Elizabeth, and Chris Owen. And to a lesser extent, Eli Marienthal and Casey Affleck. All of them were in the first two Pie flicks, but sat out the 3rd one.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

I wasn't too bothered by the transfer, though the oversaturated reds were the worst of it---the opening logo is painful to look at.

I did think the cast commentary was the very worst I've ever heard----and I've heard several hundred by now. They have nothing to say about the movie or its making and just comes down to telling the locations where shots were taken and then congratulating each other on their excellent commentating. The final comment about having wasted two hours of your life listening to them was right on the money, though. Skip it unless you are immortal.

By contrast, Seann Allen Scott on the first track was pretty insightful in talking about his acting craft, which isn't exactly what you'd expect from his character, so that was a pleasant surprise.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

I'm guessing that the horrible transfer is probably due to the fact that they have the Unrated and Rated films, plus an hour of extras all crammed onto one side of the disc. This is Superbit taken to the extreme opposite. I guess it was just too much for Universal to make it a 2-disc edition :rolleyes

 

[Kevin Leonard]

In regards to the missing cast members in American Wedding: they addressed this on the documentary.

Screenwriter Adam Herz stated that because the storylines and cast for AP2 got too wieldy, he simply decided to not even write them into Wedding in the first place. He mentioned that the others could have come back for cameos at the end, but conflicting schedules wouldn't allow it (and it looks that way, since they show a deleted scene with Jim saying Oz will make it in time for the wedding).

 

[Carlo_M]

I for one am glad they tightened the focus of this film. With the first one we had a lot of characters and that was fine since we thought it would be a one-off comedy. But with the second one I thought the many-threaded storylines got too bogged down. I didn't laugh nearly enough while watching #2. In hindsight, I think Wedding is my second favorite AP film, right behind #1. Since it's premise was to try and show characters advancing and going off into "adulthood" I'm glad they only focused in on a few characters. Trying to tie up all the loose ends for all the major characters would have taken way more screen time and probably would not have been as funny.

 

[Dave H]

Quote:
I'm guessing that the horrible transfer is probably due to the fact that they have the Unrated and Rated films, plus an hour of extras all crammed onto one side of the disc. This is Superbit taken to the extreme opposite. I guess it was just too much for Universal to make it a 2-disc edition

I wonder if the rated version looks better.

I agree about making it two discs. Actually, branch seeming may have worked for this, but you know Universal would have screwed up that up for sure.

 

[Christian Preischl]

The DVD definitely uses seamless branching.

Indicator 1: I tried the disc on the very first DVD player I bought (now a bedroom backup). This player has severe skipping issues with seamless branching. I checked the bachelor party scene and it started acting up the same way it does on Abyss, ID4, T2 and others.

Indicator 2: On both versions of the movie, the layer change occurs at the exact same spot at the end of chapter 15. Obviously, this could not happen if the rated and unrated version were stored seperately on the DVD.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[John Geelan]

I was glad I didn't pay to see this in the Movies. Other than a few gags, it's really not a funny film. Hopefully that is the end of this series because they have run out of gas.

Stifler gets really annoying in this one. The one saving grace in the film is January Jones....she is gorgeous.

 

[WillG]

Quote:
The one saving grace in the film is January Jones....she is gorgeous.

She ain't bad but....

I didn't like how she went with Stifler at the end because she was won over by his one altruistic act (fixing what he screwed up in the first place) after a whole film series of obnoxiousness. I thought Finch was more due for a true girlfriend other than the occaisional romp with Stifler's Mom

 

[Will_B]

A sensitive question to many but I must ask anyway:

Is the full screen version simply open-matte? Since the Pie films aren't really special effects oriented, can one safely buy the full screen, or is it pan & scan?

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

I thought it was an only ok film, I agree with all the comments about Stifler being a bit too much in this one, and so it is probably my least favorite of the American Pie series. I actually rank them: 1, 2, 3.

Exelent review though...

 

[Bryan X]

Quote:
can one safely buy the full screen, or is it pan & scan?

I didn't think it was EVER SAFE to by foolscreen over Widescreen....:frowning:

 

[ChrisBEA]

Quote:
I didn't think it was EVER SAFE to by foolscreen over Widescreen....

Unless it was shot fullscreen to begin with, you know like films pre-1955, most TV shows...