Ok, so this could be considered a bit of a guilty pleasure…Well, when I say I love the American Pie movies, I don’t mean all the American Pie movies…I mean the original American Pie, American Pie 2 and American Pie – The Reunion. That means I’m ignoring American Pie 3 and the straight to DVD movies such as American Pie: Bandcamp on account that they are shite.

I have watched these movies a fair few times. Are they that good that they warrant multiple viewings? Do you somehow get something from a subsequent viewing that you missed the first time? Not really. Is the comedy such that you can laugh again and again? They have their moments, but they are not comedy classics as such. I’ve never found the scenes of the main protagonist Jim getting his penis into scrapes that amusing and of course his deciding to shag a warm apple pie is where the name American Pie is derived from!

No I love American Pie in the same way as I love the Inbetweeners. Because they are rites of passage movies, which take me back to a different time. I love the TV series Spaced partly because I recognise so many of the references Simon Pegg uses, references to my childhood and teenage years.  But these references are content based – in other words, if you didn’t see American Werewolf In London, you wouldn’t find particularly funny the bit where the evil vivisectionist says “Is there someone there? I can assure you this isn’t the least bit amusing?” I could write an entire blog on why I love Spaced, and one day I will.  But American Pie’s brand of nostalgia tugs at subtlety different heart strings and feelings of nostalgia.

Watching a load of teenage boys try to make sense of their lives, of their friendships, trying to develop their own sense of identity, wanting to be able to talk to girls and not make dicks of themselves…then seeing how these same guys react after a year of being at university away from each other, coming back home to see another generation of teenagers taking their places…and then 10 years later to come back again for their high school reunion to see how their lives have worked out, how marriage and children have affected them… I love all this. Not because it’s particularly deep or insightful, or indeed even particularly well written. But because it reminds me of what it was like to be that young, that naïve, that unsculpted.

Despite how this might sound, I don’t hark back to the past. I have no desire to be 18 or 20 again. God no! Can you imagine being so full of vacuous self confidence again? No thanks.  But I do like to be reminded every now and then about how I would have looked at life then. It’s what allows you to take stock of where you are today – you can only know how far you have travelled if you know where you have come from. It’s a reminder too of just how fast time travels. One of my favourite lines in Fawlty Towers is from Basil when he says in a moment of introspection, “Zhoom! What was that? That was your life, Mate! Oh, that was quick. Do I get another? Sorry, Mate. That’s your lot.” It’s a wonderfully emotional scene in the midst of the usual chaos of Fawlty Towers. Life does indeed zip past you if you’re not careful (another movie reference there of course). So for this reason I enjoy watching movies and TV programmes like American Pie and The Inbetweeners, watching teenagers wrestling with similar issues to those I wrestled with, being reminded of the rites of passage I and my friends went on years ago (and continue to go on, albeit with different challenges). And invariably you end up thinking “Was I also such a dick?” to which the answer is naturally “Of course you were!” You may of course choose to follow that up with a “What’s changed!” Ha ha, very funny.