God, Sex & Apple Pie (1998) Reviews

• I've seen this movie twice before...and they were better

  marblehead1002003-11-02

  As I was watching this movie, I kept thinking of how David Spade would review it. I think he would say, "I liked this movie the first time I saw it...when it was called 'Return of the Secaucus 7'." I think he would then have said, "Oh yeah, I also liked this movie the 2nd time I saw it...when it was called 'The Big Chill'." Think of this movie like a copy of a copy of an original...sort of indistinct and hard to read. Add a little pretension and you have an ugly movie. 2/10.

• Why bother?

  groggo2007-09-05

  This movie suffers from an acute case of the derivative blues. I've seen variations on it roughly 100 times ('The Big Chill' is perhaps the best-known -- and far superior -- example). I didn't know anything about this flick and became annoyed early because it was placed in the comedy section of my video store. It's about as funny as a lanced boil. It TRIES to be (briefly) funny, which, of course, only makes it worse. I guess it can be categorized as a drama, a lumbering mass of drama. This is about nine people, most of them suspiciously resembling pure-bred yuppies or yuppie wannabes, who get together for a long weekend and tell us about the terrible woes and the angst they've endured in this brutal quagmire called life. They're desperate to CHANGE their lives in some way (how utterly original); they reveal long-kept secrets, including (gasp) a woman's flirtation with lesbianism (very strange that none of the male characters revealed a flirtation with homosexuality, because, of course, men never consider things like that). In any case, this 'confessional' stuff is all too familiar and has long been overused as a dramatic device. 'God, etc.' is just another 'coming-of-age' flick dressed up to look like something else. The characters are in their 30s, but the dialogue tells us they're still in high school, where most of them apparently met. If this is the point of the movie -- that they really haven't advanced intellectually, emotionally, etc., etc -- then why should we care? This theme has been battered into the ground many times before. Nobody involved in this flick, the actors in particular, went on to do anything worth talking about after 1998, the year 'God, etc.' was released. As far as I can tell from the IMDb board, this was the first, and only, film directed by Paul Leaf. I think that must tell us something. And somebody should sue for false advertising: 'God, etc.' is not funny, there's very little sex (and what we see is pretty juvenile), and God wants nothing to do with these people. The 'apple pie' part is, I THINK, a reference to the American Dream. Unfortunately, it's also a problem here: this film is embarrassingly American, down to hackneyed arguments about Democrats vs. Republicans, as if there were a difference between the two. If American filmmakers are going to distribute a film internationally, they should realize that Americans are universally perceived as the most naive political people on earth. About a billion non-Americans are stupefied when they consider how a nation can elect -- and retain -- a buffoon like George W. Bush for eight years. This is a guy who is challenged when tying his shoelaces, yet he's the most powerful man on earth. How in **** did that happen? When you show a huge slice of this naiveté on screen, it just heats up the giggling cynicism in other countries. A critic of this movie railed about filmmakers who use 'SEX' in titles as a way of luring more viewers. Apparently it's true. But when the sex doesn't deliver, it just makes the filmmakers look pretty desperate (and a little sleazy). I'm really tired of watching 'coming of age' movies, and I'm really tired of watching amateur night in indie land. I want indie films to succeed, but so many of them are flat-out embarrassments. I no longer watch formulaic, predictable Hollywood tripe. I get really irritated when I see essentially the same tripe presented under an indie banner. Because they're 'non-Hollywood' movies, are we not supposed to notice?

• The Big Dud

  wodjam2005-02-17

  Oh my goodness, what a flop! The script was outdated, unoriginal and very very corny. There was no plot, no rhyme, no reason, no charm to hold my interest or make me care about what happened at all. The actors tried, perhaps too hard, which made me uneasy and sympathetic to the challenge they were faced with. Perhaps I would enjoy seeing them in other roles if I could manage to divorce them from this movie! If you saw The Big Chill, you will notice similarities in God, Sex and ApplePie. It was nowhere near the caliber and a very disappointing attempt to say the least.

• A Loser

  noydodd2003-12-17

  What can I say? An amateur try at remaking the Big Chill. They didn't pull it off. No original plot, bad acting, bad directing, bad writing. There is no way I would recommend it to anyone. I am surprised I made it through the whole thing.

• Don't bother

  GiovannaAdria2007-06-16

  That this movie was derivative is the least of it's problems. It could be more aptly entitled: "Dear God, Non-erotic Sex, and No Pie for You Tonight." It's contrived, pretentious, and vapid. Not even the sex was sensual. Writing 10 lines about this flick is a questionable expenditure of time, but here goes....if only to save you from renting it. The characterizations of the 30 something generation do it a great disservice. I know many 30 somethings, butI don't know people like this. I hope it's not just my luck. If I found myself at this party for the weekend I'd have to jump in my car and find the fastest way out. There is no comparison to the films from which this flick was derived. There are similarities in the structure of it to Big Chill, but that's where the comparison ends. Acting was poor, writing was worse, music intolerable. Wait...one redeeming quality...the setting was lovely.