Great film comedies have memorable characters and incidents, usually showing a knack for brilliant casting, and covering turf previously untouched. In 1999, American Pie did all of the above and was a wonderfully funny bit of fluff. It gave us some fine performances, including a resurgent Eugene Levy, the bit with the apple pie, made band camp sound cool, and of course Shannon Elizabeth’s swell nakedness.

The sequels that followed, both theatrical and direct-to-video tried to cash in on the craze but merely retread familiar turf and got less and less funny. Poor Levy would back the truck to the bank to unload all the cash he got to make appearances to at least somehow connect the series together.

However, here we are nine years after American Wedding with American Reunion and it suddenly feels familiar and fresh at the same time. This time around, writer/directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, allow the original characters to age so we’re perfectly okay with revisiting them. It’s always good at a reunion to see who got fat, who lost hair, who has succeeded and who has never changed and we get that and more here.

While the storyline announces it’s been thirteen years since high school graduation, putting the characters at 31 or so, everyone looks way too old to be convincing, a danger of casting 20-somethings to play teens. So, what’s everyone been up to? Jim Levenstein (Jason Biggs) and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) have the most interesting dilemma: married and deeply in love but burdened with jobs and an infant so their sex life is nonexistent, except in private, solo moments. Chris “Oz” Ostreicher (Chris Klein) is the most successful of the bunch, a sportscaster who gained national attention for appearing on a dance show. And then there’s Stifler (Seann William Scott), who has a lifetime subscription to the Peter Pan Syndrome and is drifting through life.

The gang, with new significant others, arrive for the reunion and everyone reverts to form, including Oz, who sees his ex, Heather (Mena Suvari), and is smitten all over again.

Time has passed, though as we see Levy now a widower still mourning his wife’s death while next door neighbor Kara (Ali Cobrin), who Jim used to babysit is now a gorgeous hot to trot 18 year old. It’s Kara who gets to have the memorable nude scene this time around and they cast well since she’s gorgeous and nicely handled the comedic aspects.

All the old gang including Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas), Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas), Finch’s Mother (Jennifer Coolidge), John (John Cho), Vicky (Tara Reid). And others reprise their roles. Newcomers include Dania Ramirez as the ugly duckling turned into hot swan. As a result, all the old feelings, jealousies and behaviors are brought to the fore in interesting ways. It’s far from brilliant and mostly predictable, robbing the fourth film, out Tuesday from Universal Home Entertainment, of being spectacular. The funniest fresh bit may well be Oz losing the dance competition, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris in a nice cameo, to Gilbert Gottfried.

Like walking into the kitchen and the aroma of Mom’s fresh apple pie and being catapulted back to happier, simpler times, this film is a welcome addition to the series and a good chance to see familiar faces who don’t visit often enough.

The transfer to Blu-ray is well handled so the visuals and sound are sharp, not that the film needs either to be entertaining. The Combo Pack comes with Blu-ray and DVD both sold separately, plus an ultraviolet code. The Blu-ray comes replete with 12 bonus features and a commentary. The DVD has some of the features plus the commentary. Although sold as a package with the theatrical and Unrated version, there’s a minute that separates them so blink and you miss it.

Among the extras is a 10:32 “Reunion Reunion” which is all surface and the gag reel is surprisingly tame. Funnier is the “Ouch! My Balls” featurette focusing on the amount of crotch punching the film relies on. Of the handful of deleted scenes only one with Stifler is missed since it sets up the conclusion of his arc. Dancing with Oz and Hangin’ with Jason B are so-so pieces. Clearly the effort was to be funny on the feature itself. The best of the lot is the interactive yearbook where you can  select a character and trace their history across the franchise with clips, cast discussions , their most embarrassing moment and their favorite activities.

Saw my niece Isabel last week. She’s finished The Complete Bone Adventures, Volumes 1 and II and is now reading a collection of Calvin And Hobbes. She also told me that she’s in love with the Percy Jackson And The Olympians series by Rick Riordian; she had already read The Lightning Thief, and was deep into the second book, The Sea Of Monsters. Although by now she’s quite possibly onto the third title, which is The Titan’s Curse. She’s a fast reader. Based on her critiques, I have ordered The Lightning Thief from Amazon, and expect I’ll be ordering the rest of the series, too.

Last I heard Watchmen had not entered the public domain, so I will not be buying any of the Before Watchmen books. I think the whole idea stinks. I don’t understand how other creators who profess to respect creator’s rights could sign on to a rotten deal brokered on a broken promise by DC to Alan Moore. It’s a slap in the face to Alan, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins. Oh, wait. John Higgins participated in this mockery? Says a lot about your character, doesn’t it, John? If you need money that badly, there are other ways to prostitute yourself. And that goes for the rest of you, too.

John Ostrander’s latest column about “bad things he hates that he loves” caused me to go to my DVD cabinet and pull out a couple of movies that I should despise but actually love:

World Without End (1956), in which a rocket ship returning from Mars breaks through the time barrier and deposits four astronauts on an unidentified planet, which turns out to be Earth in the year 2508, 400 years after a nuclear war. The surviving humans live underground and are dying out because the men are scrawny, weak, and unable to perform their manly duties. In other words, they’re impotent. Which sure sucks for them, because all the women of the year 2508 are curvaceous, beautiful, and very, very horny. The reason the humans don’t live on the surface is because of the “surface beasts” – the descendants of those who did not flee underground during the atomic holocaust – roam the countryside. They look like mutated Neanderthals, and all they want to do – well, the men, anyway – is get their paws on the hot tomatoes living underground. Our brave, resourceful – and, of course, American; this was the 50’s, remember – astronauts reinvent the bazooka (“The good ol’ bazooka!” one of the astronauts says with a backslap to his pal) and defeat the mutated Neanderthals, and help restart human civilization on the surface for the Eloi. Oops. Sorry, wrong story. The horny women get the horny astronauts in the end, so everybody lives happily ever after. Except for the impotent guys, I guess.

Queen Of Outer Space (1958) in which ZsaZsa Gabor plays a Venusian scientist on a planet on which once again all the women are curvaceous, beautiful, and very horny. Except for the Queen, who is curvaceous and very horny, but mysteriously wears a mask. But even though Venus is the planet of love, there’s not a man to be found. The story begins when our brave, resourceful, and yes, once again, American astronauts, on board their rocket ship – which looks exactly like the one in World Without End – and on their way to a space station in orbit above Earth, are hijacked to Venus by a strange red ray, which turns out to be the Beta Disintegrator. The ship crashed into snow-covered mountains that look exactly like the snow-covered mountains into which the ship from World Without End end-crashes. Turns out the Queen hates all men, and she imprisons the astronauts. But she’s got a hard-on for the Captain. “A Queen can be lonely, too,” she tells the Captain. The Captain decides to take her up on her, uh, offer to “get information.” This makes ZsaZsa very jealous: “30 million miles away from the Earth,” says one of the astronauts, “and the little dolls are just the same.” Because she has a hard-on for our Captain, too. (No, his name is not James Tiberius Kirk.) Anyway, just as the Queen goes in for the face-suck, the Captain rips off her mask, and – OMG! Her face is burned and scarred and horribly mutated! “Men did this to me,” the Queen says with hatred in her voice. “Men and their wars.” Then she seductively turns to the Captain. “You said I needed the love of a man,” she whispers as she puts her arms around him. “If you will be that man, I will let you all go.” But the Captain is trying not to vomit. Dumb ass. Put a bag over her head and do it for the flag. So the Queen sends him back and aims the Beta-Disintegrator at Earth. Talk about a woman scorned! You really have to see this movie!

It really sucks when your parents are sick.

Here’s the truth. The only thing I really hate about women’s costumes in the comics is that I’m not buff enough to wear any of them.

Political diatribe for the day: Vote for Romney, and we really will be living in the world of American Flagg! (We’re almost there now.)

I can wait for the Garfield/Stone Amazing Spider-Man to hit DVD. I loved the Maguire/Duns Spider-Mans. Perhaps if TPTB had moved the story forward, merely replacing Maguire/Duns with Garfield/Stone, I would have more interest.

Just finished The Lost Wife, a heartbreaking, “based-on-a-true-story,” and beautifully written story about a husband and wife, both Jewish, separated by World War II. He gets out of Europe, she is first is sent to Theresienstadt and then Auschwitz. Highly recommended!

In the middle of The Hunger Games. Loving it. Have to recommend it to Isabel.

TUESDAY MORNING: Michael Davis

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Emily S. Whitten