I went to this film knowing practically nothing about it apart from the title and the fact that I saw Tom Green on the poster. For those of you who are MTV-illiterate, Tom Green is the absolutely crazy presenter of “The Tom Green Show” which is like no hosted show you’ve ever seen before. Ranging from setting himself on the fire in the street to putting a dead cow’s head in his parents’ bed, Tom is the ultimate reaction seeker and his shows on MTV Dark (late at night!) are always good for a laugh if you like that kind of thing.

Anyway, the first face that appears on screen is Tom who plays an eternal student called Barry [Manilow]. He seems pretty normal as he gives a group a guided tour around his University of Ithaca campus, but as he relates his version of the facts about the college it becomes obvious to the tour group and to us that he doesn’t have a clue about the place. They complain to him that it’s the worst tour they’ve ever been on and probably the worst college they’ve seen (they’ve obviously never done a tour of a shopping mall) and he replies that this university was the setting for one of the greatest stories of all time.

[SPOILER]

Of course he then has to tell the story, which revolves around a student called Josh who falls in love with a college girl called Beth even though he has been having a long term long distance relationship with another girl called Tiffany who has moved to Austin, Texas. The basic premise is that Josh has been recording video messsages to post to Tiffany, but a friend of his accidentally mails a sex video of Josh and Beth to Tiffany (who is away for a few days at a relation’s funeral). Josh and a couple of buddies have to make a road trip to Austin to retrieve the video before Tiffany returns from the funeral.

The buddies are E.L., played by typecast Seann W. Scott who gets a cheer as soon as he first appears on screen [no doubt from those remembering him as Stifler from "American Pie" or more recently Billy from "Final Destination"], and Rubin, a regular pot-smoker with a pet snake. They persuade a mild-mannered skinny geek called Kyle to drive them in his dad’s Ford Taurus.

Buddy Barry Manilow (Tom Green) is left in charge of Rubin’s pet snake and is supposed to feed it a mouse every few days - we have some hilarious scenes with Barry showing the non-hungry snake exactly how to eat the mouse, and eventually getting into a fight with the snake.

Meanwhile, the journey is going so terribly wrong for the main characters that it looks like there’s no hope of things ever righting themselves. The buddies total the car after a ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ style ravine jump and then run out of money less than halfway through the trip. But I’ll leave it at that and ruin no more, I’ll just say there’s plenty more memorable moments to enjoy: the viagra-taking grandpa, the mistaken identity incident in Boston, E.L.’s sperm donation, and the over-romantic tour guide.

Fans of American Pie will love this teen flick, and I can honestly say that I laughed most of the way through the film. It could have done with some more of Tom Green’s mad antics, but I’m sure we’ll see more of that on the big screen in the future.

**1/2

“Cecelia was the first to go.” And so starts the first film directed by Sofia Coppola, daughter of Francis Ford and miscast daughter of Michael Corleone in the Godfather III. This was my second time seeing this film, and I enjoyed it even more the second time round. The film centres around the five daughters of the Lisbon family 25 years ago in Michigan - Cecelia [13], Lux [14], Bonnie [15], Mary [16] and Terese [17].

In her disillusionment with the world, more trees being cut down and animals becoming extinct every day, Cecelia attempts suicide but is rushed off to hospital just in time. When a male doctor tries to tell the girl that things aren’t that bad, she returns with one of the film’s classic lines. “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a 13-year old girl.”

The Lisbon parents, a strict Catholic mother (played by Kathleen Turner) and a hapless mild-mannered Maths teacher (an unusually understated performance from the normally maniacal James Woods), decide to try and let their daughters mix more with the boys of the neighbourhood by inviting them over for dinners and parties on the advice of psychologist Dr. E.M. Horniker (short cameo by Danny DeVito - why the credits listed a stand-in for him I’ll probably never know). This does little to lift young Cecelia’s spirits, and she succeeds where she failed before.

The film moves on to focus on second youngest daughter Lux (Kirsten ‘Interview with the Vampire’ Dunst), and her relationship with school heartthrob Trip Fontaine. Unfortunately, the characters of the elder three sisters are left undeveloped and it’s hard to feel much sympathy for them when they are grounded by their parents after Lux fails to come home from a homecoming dance with Trip.

The film is interesting in that it is not narrated by any of the Lisbons or Trip, but rather from the viewpoint of one of a group of boys obsessed both with the sisters and also with collecting anything linked to them.

The second time around you sometimes notice something that perhaps shouldn’t be, like the news reporter who says she’s from ‘Channel 2′ appearing on ‘News Channel 8′, or an error in the number PI over Mr. Lisbon’s blackboard [okay, now I'm nitpicking!]. But apart from the hollow sisters, I really liked this film from the Coppolas [producer was Francis Ford and second unit director was Roman].

It also features a brilliant soundtrack by one of my favourite groups, the French band Air, with songs like “Ce Matin La” and constant reworkings of “Playground Love” which I just had to go and buy afterwards and it’s still vibraphoning in my head as I write! The film is based on a novel by Jefffrey Eugenides.

***1/2