Latest news with #AmericanPie
New York Post
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Boring, sex-hating Gen Z has killed the teen movie
A college professor recently told me that every time he shows a movie in class, the kids rip it to shreds. They declare all sex scenes gratuitous. With the surgical coldness of an audit, they scrutinize the characters' power dynamics (say, a boss hooking up with an employee) and deem them wildly inappropriate. 4 Gen Z could never stomach a teen classic like 'The Breakfast Club.' ©Universal/courtesy Everett / Everett Collection These little Debbie Downers are offended by absolutely everything. So, it's no wonder that the teen movie is dead — Generation Buzzkill has murdered it. From the 1960s until just a few years ago, a ton of films were made specifically for the high school and college age cohort — from 'Gidget' to 'The Breakfast Club' to 'American Pie' to 'Superbad.' They were so common, they got their own spoof in 2001: 'Not Another Teen Movie.' The components were summer, sex, hormones, underdogs, drugs, cafeteria stereotypes, cars, fights, comedy and coming of age in various combos. Some wound up classics, some are garbage. But the genre was a frivolous and occasionally naughty escape for all us non-pearl-clutchers. Those films have abruptly ceased to exist. This summer, what used to be a staple is almost entirely absent from the release calendar. The closest, 'Karate Kid: Legends,' which hit theaters this weekend, is a throwback to a more innocent one of them. But the terrible 2025-set reboot also brings to mind the old Hollywood Production Code, which once policed cinematic morality. 4 'Karate Kid: Legends' is no 'Karate Kid.' ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection Next to 1984's 'Karate Kid,' which had edge, the cherubic sequel is a sanitized episode of 'Leave It To Beaver.' And, since its selling point is the nostalgic return of Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan, 'Legends' is barely even aimed at young people. It's for their parents. Real teen movies have been banished to the streaming morgue. We arrive, click 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off,' and tearily say, 'Yeah, that's him.' What happened? Can a person no longer belligerently don a toga or shout the dirty lyrics of 'Scotty Doesn't Know'? Apparently not. Now that Gen Z (those aged 13 to 28) have money to spend, their well-known nun-like traits are finally being reflected onscreen. A chill just went up my spine. 4 Movies like 'American Pie' with Jason Biggs were so common they got a spoof called 'Not Another Teen Movie.' Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection Some of the prudes' biggest dislikes are sex and booze. 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' would send 'em into therapy. A 2023 UCLA study found that 40% of participants ranging from 13 to 24 want less hanky panky and more platonic relationships at the movies. And surveys consistently show that Gen Z drinks far less than their elders. Sex, drugs and rock & roll? More like hugs, mocktails and Billie Eilish. Even friendships without benefits in retro teen flicks will be totally unrecognizable to Gen Z, who enjoy cult-like androgynous outfits and giving admonishing lectures. Hanging out in parking lots? Backyard keggers while the parents are away? Deader than Latin. These homebodies, on average, stare at their phones for more than seven hours a day. 4 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' would send Gen Z into therapy. Courtesy Everett Collection Perhaps the greatest death knell — a Gallup poll discovered that 93% of teens enjoy spending time with their parents. Characters in John Hughes' movies barely even had parents. Obviously teen tales are still around in some form. They have mostly made the leap to TV, meeting their audience where they live. They are not, however, 'American Graffiti.' The shows tend to either be tearjerker explorations of identity ('Heartstopper,' 'Love, Victor') or frightening peeks into their problems ('Adolescence' and 'Euphoria'). Lighthearted rebellion and some filthy, un-PC jokes are no longer an acceptable option. Another survey said Gen Z wants superheroes, violence and sweet friends. 'Minecraft,' I guess. Well, what I want is another offensive, objectionable, no-holds-barred teen movie. Too bad. Hollywood is singin' bye, bye 'American Pie.'
CBC
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
Flashback: A taste of American pie
A taste of American pie Singer/songwriter Don McLean 2 days ago Duration 1:33 A music hall in Prince Edward Island has pioneered a genre that uses "pop songs as a vehicle for historical storytelling," freelancer Hillary LeBlanc wrote for CBC Arts last week. Co-owner Mike Ross calls the format a "docu-concert." Ross and company are about to debut a work that delves into Gordon Lightfoot's The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and LeBlanc says their first docu-concert included "a line-by-line breakdown" of the 1971 Don McLean song American Pie. When he was a guest on the CBC concert series Sounds Good in 1976, McLean ended the show with a performance of that song. In an interview during the program, McLean said most of his work had "some root in my own experience." A part of our heritage Queen Elizabeth drops puck at hockey game in 2002 2 days ago Duration 0:29 There were two days of "pomp and ceremony" across Ottawa fora visit by King Charles and Queen Camilla this week, according to CBC News. Among his other duties, Charles launched a street hockey demonstration with a "ceremonial puck drop." When visiting Canada in 2002, Queen Elizabeth appeared to be pleased to drop the puck at a National Hockey League match in Vancouver. Wayne Gretzky, who had recently retired from playing in the NHL, was there beside her. "Every country's different and we grew up in this one with the Royal Family as part of our heritage," said Gretzky in reply to an American reporter's question at a press conference after the ceremony, according to a Globe and Mail account. Into the twilight zone Role-playing group brings fantasy to life in 1985 2 days ago Duration 3:41 The Fantasy Field Trip Society in Halifax shows a CBC reporter a campaign in live-action role playing. A British man wore a Super Mario costume while running a marathon in Copenhagen this month. According to Canadian Running magazine, he set a Guinness World Record "for the fastest marathon dressed as a video game character." In 1985, a Halifax group calling itself the Fantasy Field Trip Society also put on costumes to evoke fictional figures. A CBC crew followed members through a live-action role-playing scenario drawn from a science fiction novel as a games master (who doubled as a wizard) sent them to "the twilight realm" to seek a magic sword. "It's a lot of fun to get dressed up and see what your imagination will let you do," said a participant, whose role as a 'fire and ice sister' was to confuse the seekers. She said her day job was as a clerk for the federal government. A bigger boat fleet Clothing-optional beach at Hanlan's Point officially approved in Toronto 2 days ago Duration 2:03 In a debate with a few dissenters, Toronto's city council agrees to make clothing optional on a city beach that must be reached by ferry. Aired May 12, 1999 with reporter Adam Vaughan. Toronto city council has approved the purchase of two new electric ferries, said a report last week from CBC News. In 1999, CBC reporter Adam Vaughan said the city might need extra boats after a vote to make a Toronto Island beach clothing-optional. Ice dream The Minnesota Frost have beaten the Ottawa Charge to win the Professional Women's Hockey League championship, reports the Associated Press. Back in 1987, CBC reported on what it said was the first international women's international hockey tournament. Out with outports Resettlement in Newfoundland: is it good for the people? 56 years ago Duration 23:29 When Take 30 goes to Newfoundland to ask former Placentia Bay outport residents if the move to Arnold's Cove was a good one, the responses vary widely. Last week CBC News reported on the town of Tilt Cove, N.L., whose four residents will soon be relocating to a town on the same coastline. In 1969, the CBC show Take 30 examined outport resettlement in the province, calling it "migration on a vast scale." The bird is the word Starting later this year, new episodes of Sesame Street and "select past episodes" will run on Netflix in addition to PBS, the Associated Press has reported. There was a familiar feathered face out of context in 1985 when Big Bird was on CBC's Midday.
TimesLIVE
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- TimesLIVE
Not just a poker face
Natasha Lyonne enters the London Hotel, West Hollywood, looking like Austin Powers. The outfit is designer. Cerise leggings hug her skinny legs, and an exquisite black, collarless jacket of raw silk is embellished with huge diamanté buttons so ornate that they could pass for individual brooches. It's the kitten-heeled ankle boots that take the haute couture ensemble and reshuffle it as '60s cool. Her makeup is minimal, her delicate features surrounded by a riot of auburn curls. The character actress has found critical and commercial acclaim in the television series, Poker Face, now in season 2. It's an inverted detective series, where we know who the perpetrator is and the mystery lies in how to catch them — if at all. Though her name may be unfamiliar, you'll recognise the gravel-voiced actress from a plethora of classics as far back as American Pie (1999). For decades she has quietly been delivering knock-out performances in such varied fare as Russian Doll (2019-22), Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022), Orange Is the New Black (2013-19) and His Three Daughters (2023). Indeed, she began her career at age 6 and is one of the few child actors who appears to have transitioned to adult star unscathed. The conceit of Poker Face is that Charlie Cale (Lyonne) can tell when someone lies. Each week brings a new challenge — murder, fraud or theft — that allows a star-filled cast of guest actors to play supporting roles as Charlie gets pulled in to solve the crime. Oscar-winner Adrien Brody is just one of the recent actors willing to do television to be part of Lyonne's ensemble. So is Cynthia Erivo, who co-stars in multiple roles this season. Lyonne often pulls in stars she encounters in her social life, calling them the next day to ask if they want to be a guest on the show. That's led to awesome names turning up, but with some, such as Jude Law, politely declining. 'No shade on Jude Law,' notes the actress in an aside. The structure of Poker Face is one that was made popular in Columbo (Peter Falk) way back in the '60s and '70s, yet still holds fascination for the viewing public. Charlie comes to each episode trying to find her place in the world, which also gives us more ammunition for what makes each episode tick. It's a show about lying. Each episode, Charlie does some level of character development from the beginning to the end. Each episode starts with a flashback as we see Lyonne get to know either the victim or the killer and form a relationship with them. When things go south, that's what draws her into solving the crime. Lyonne's eyes are like black wet pebbles, but brimming with intelligence; she tilts her head and arcs her hands to ensure the point resonates. 'That connection is important,' she rasps, 'because Charlie's not a cop. It's not her job to solve the crime, so she needs an emotional way in, in every single episode.' She hunches her shoulders, looking over the sea of reporters as she talks, the intonation of a professor giving a lecture. 'I think it's been a lonely journey for Charlie between seasons 1 and 2. It's a long time to not be in touch with any family or friends. It's the loneliness of the long distance runner.' Her commentary is full of insightful, esoteric and lyrical asides. 'We are meeting a little bit of a 'hollow man' at the top of the season,' explains the native New Yorker of her character. 'Charlie comes to each episode trying to find her place in the world, which also gives us more ammunition for what makes each episode tick. It's a show about lying. Each episode, Charlie does some level of character development from the beginning to the end.' Lyonne, along with series creator Rian Johnson, also holds the titles of executive producer, writer and director. Fiercely intelligent, as witnessed by her obscure, informed asides, it's not a surprise to hear the co-executive producers enjoy solving the New York Times crossword puzzle while on set between scenes. Rather than a random activity, the puzzle-solving helps ground the actress. 'Completing the crossword is like Charlie with a mystery,' she grins. 'You've got to finish that puzzle once you start.' After an excellent first run, the sophomore season takes a slightly bizarre turn, including existential scenes of self exploration. 'Charlie's taking a journey and does things that surprise the audience, which allows us to not repeat ourselves and have fun. She's looking for connection, while also being on the run from the police (Benjamin Bratt).' Ultimately, Charlie is an unusual female lead. Strong, wily and singular. When looking for role models as a young actress, Lyonne identified more with Pacino, De Niro and Stallone than Meryl Streep — with whom the young actress worked in Heartburn in her film debut, after a stint on the soapie As The World Turns. Lyonne confesses that she channels Bogart, Betty Davis and Mae West in the role of Charlie, some of the industry's greatest character actors. 'I hate that, for women, success means that you had a kid or you got married. It's a bummer for us because then that means we failed if we don't.' That mindset — combined with maverick character choices stirred with murder — is what makes Poker Face a standout show.
Daily Mirror
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
'2000s pop culture thrived on turning millennial women against themselves'
Feminist author Sophie Gilbert explores the complicated relationship between pop culture and modern women in her book Girl on Girl - and details how the culture turned a generation of women to misogyny Britney Spears 's breakdown. American Pie's hero journey to get laid. Pamela Anderson 's stolen sex-tape. All of these were huge pop culture moments in the 1990s and 2000s. But with hindsight, each was an intrusion onto women's vulnerability played out for entertainment. Looking back now, it's brazenly horrific. Author and staff writer at The Atlantic, Sophie Gilbert's new book Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves explores the myriad ways that the media, from news to movies, was consumed by women and used as a weapon against themselves. Sophie spoke with The Mirror about the process of writing Girl on Girl and how society has moved on to where we are now. That is to say: in an era of OnlyFans and so-called involuntary-celibate ('in-cel') culture. Sophie says that there were many moments that jolted her into writing this book, not least the election of Donald Trump over his opponent Hillary Clinton in 2016. It is no secret that we live in a time where progress in equality is no longer guaranteed, with the recent news of a reductive definition of what the Equality Act definition of a woman passed down by the UK Supreme Court on April 16. Across the Atlantic in the States, Roe v Wade, the historic legal win for reproductive rights in 1973, was subsequently overturned in 2022. But beyond the contemporary political moment, she tells me, 'so much of wanting to write the book was trying to understand why I didn't see Britney's mental health crisis as a mental health crisis [at the time].' It was presented for all to see as a media moment across magazines and gossip forums. Now there is a near-total infiltration of technology into every facet of our daily lives, but in the 1990s and 2000s this internet was a new frontier. Sophie explains that this had a direct impact on pop culture. She told us: 'The internet had infinite space and we clicked on [relentless coverage of celebrities' daily lives]. So they just gave us more and more and more and I think we all got disgusted with ourselves in the process and projected that disgust outwards at the women who we could not stop looking at.' Visibility, both in the pop culture and beyond, is a power tool, wielded by and against women. Gilbert explains: 'The more people gave us of their lives, the more we wanted to see something that they wouldn't give us, something that we shouldn't.' The interplay between power and visibility in pop culture, particularly in depictions of sex, has exponentially increased from the 1990s to now. Beginning in 1990, HBO's documentary Real Sex, that aired until 2009, was symbolic of the heightened voyeurism of the era, where women's bodies were shown naked and engaging in various sexual acts. This context is important as it created an environment of heightened access to the ordinary person's life, with the boundaries expanded into the sex lives of regular people. But how did this translate into pop culture? In one chapter of Girl on Girl, Sophie rewatches and dissects the hit-movie American Pie, in which teenage boys are presented on a kind of hero's journey to lose their virginity. Sophie tells me about how, as a teenager, she went to see the movie with friends. She said that the movie presents sex as a 'right of passage that cements your path from boy to man.' Later, she realised that the boys she was friends with had 'absorbed this idea of entitlement to sex.' In the 1990s an entitlement to privacy was eroded away. Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson had a sex-tape of her and her then partner Tommy Lee stolen and released. The resulting court case in 1997 ruled that due to her work with Penthouse magazine, that these images of her were not private property. Gilbert says of this that it 'signif[ies] a culture that women no longer had authority over what happened to their body and certainly no longer had claims of privacy over their own body.' In recent years there has been a proliferation of sexualised content, not least in the rise of the platform OnlyFans. Punters can pay for access to a woman's body, to view them in ways they would not be permitted to in their regular day-to-day life. Gilbert said: 'I find people like Bonnie Blue so interesting too because they're really capitalizing on the profit that can be made from not just visibility but extreme visibility.' To put it another way, she adds: 'The people who get the most attention are the ones who are willing to do the most extreme things.' However, Sophie says that it is not the 'extreme stunts of sexuality' that is her concern - she says that it is an individual's choice - but rather what these sites do for women as a collective. She says that it can warp 'men's portrayal [and] understanding of women in general when they see sex being commercialized in this way.' But with every extreme trend, there is a counter-trend. Recently social media has been flooded with so-called 'trad-wife' content, where women are presented as wholesome care-givers and providers. To view it, it harkens back to 1950s womanhood, or as Sophie describes it, it is a 'new traditionalist very conservative impulse'. She said: 'What the trad-wife does is appeal to men's desires but through a more traditionalized frame. So acknowledging that what men really want is a woman who caters to them, who is very beautiful but who also is not threatening in the way that other men might find her desirable. So she's willing to stay home to raise the kids to make bread from scratch.' In Girl on Girl is an astonishing text, that speaks with forensic feminist rage against the misogyny that was so normalised in the 2000s. When I finished this book, I felt like I had been truly seen for the first time, as if the 2000s were a collective horror for women everywhere. The aftermath of which we are still contending with today.
Buzz Feed
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
13 Celebrities Who Admitted To Hooking Up With Fans
1. During a 2016 appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Drake admitted that he'd hooked up with a fan while on tour. 2. Jared Leto confessed during the same Ellen appearance that he'd hooked up with a fan before, too. 3. Harry Styles was also caught out on The Ellen Show, hesitantly revealing during the 'Never Have I Ever' segment that he'd hooked up with a fan. 4. Rapper G-Eazy has made multiple references about hooking up with his fans, including in his 2017 hit 'No Limit,' and his aptly-titled 2009 song, 'Groupies.' 5. Jennifer Coolidge joked back in 2022 that she slept with hundreds of people after playing a 'MILF' — aka Stifler's mom — in the iconic American Pie movies. 'I got a lot of sexual action from American Pie…There would be like 200 people that I would never have slept with,' she said, presumably referring to fans of the franchise. 6. Alex Pall and Andrew 'Drew' Taggart — aka The Chainsmokers — casually revealed in 2023 that they've had multiple threesomes together with fans. 7. Back in 2013, Joe Jonas revealed that he'd once gone to the movies with a fan and 'made out' with them 'the entire time.' He told Vulture, 'Yes, I've dated fans. I can't say that I've never put a foot in that world; there were times when I definitely took advantage of the opportunities I had. I remember I invited a fan to a movie, and we just made out the entire time. I don't even remember what the movie was about.' 8. In 2022, Charlie Puth revealed that he lost his virginity to a fan when he was 21. 'This girl came up to me and was like, 'Can you sign my chest?' I was like, 'I feel like a rock star,'' he said. 9. KISS member Gene Simmons claimed to have slept with over 4,000 women — including fans — at the height of his fame. 10. Fellow KISS star Paul Stanley said on Steve-O's Wild Ride podcast that hooking up with 'the women who would come to shows' was 'very' easy. 'The women who would come to shows weren't coming there to be courted. You have tonight and we all know that. You know that and I know that. And it was very simple. And nobody got hurt. Nobody ever walked away feeling disrespected or diminished,' he said. 11. Back in 2008, John Mayer candidly admitted, 'I might have hooked up with people, but as soon as I hooked up, they weren't fans anymore…Do you respect me for my honesty? The answer is, yes, I have. But not in a really long time.' 12. Robbie Williams revealed on The Graham Norton Show in 2020 that he'd once received a sexual act from a fan who snuck into his hotel room. 13. Finally, John Stamos revealed in 2015 that some of the women he's slept with have asked for selfies afterwards. 'One girl really wanted my shirt, like a souvenir,' he shared in Glee writer Ali Adler's book, How To F*ck a Woman. If you can think of any other examples, feel free to share in the comments!
