American Pie Presents: Band Camp(2005)

Submitted by Tornado Dragon

During the weeks leading up to the final summer-end event that will decide which high school band will win the Tall Oaks Cup, Matt (Tad Hilgenbrink) and Elyse (Arielle Kebbel) slowly develop a mutual attraction to each other until, one day, they share a kiss. However, she randomly finds out about his and Ernie’s (Jason Earles) secret “Bandeez Gone Wild” film project the following night and dissociates herself from him. The next day, Oscar (Omar Benson Miller) takes Matt’s laptop away from him (but not the footage saver) and orders him to not show his face at the final event tomorrow, and Ernie is dumped by his new girlfriend, Chloe (Crystle Lea Lightning), for being Matt’s confederate.

Just before the final event commences (which is a marching band competition that will see each band perform an original musical composition and march, with the winning composer receiving a full scholarship to Robards Conservatory, a prominent music school), Matt tries to help out the East Great Falls band by putting Ipecac into the cooler of grape juice being used by the Beechwood band, who are led by his nemesis, Brandon (Matt Barr). However, shortly after he does this, an oblivious Oscar and Jimmy (Jun Hee Lee) – out of a dislike for the orange juice that their band was given – switch their band’s cooler with Beechwood’s, and they and the rest of their band drink from it. Consequently, when it comes time for them to perform, they all vomit before they can play a single note. This enables the Beechwood band to win the Tall Oaks Cup and give Brandon the scholarship to Robards, and the East Great Falls band quickly come to believe that Matt had sabotaged them. He thus leaves band camp with his reputation worse than it was before the event, but before he goes, Noah Levenstein (Eugene Levy) – who was serving as the camp’s MACRO (Morale And Conflict Resolution Officer) and had to deal with Matt and his various antics more than once – has a private chat with him. He tells Matt that he shouldn’t aspire to be like his brother, Steve, and informs him that the people that Steve thought were his friends actually didn’t like him very much. Noah then remarks to Matt that he thinks that he is different than his brother and that people want to like him; he just makes it hard for them to do so.

When Matt meets back up with his guidance counselor, Chuck Sherman (Chris Owen), just before the beginning of the new school year, he is informed that he just barely managed to avoid expulsion, and he also gets confirmation from Sherman that everybody hated his brother. He then shows that he has changed his attitude for the better when he deletes all the hidden camera footage that he and Ernie shot, and when he goes to school the next day, he tells his jock friends – who knew about his “Bandeez Gone Wild” scheme – that all the footage is gone and that he isn’t going to follow in Steve’s footsteps anymore, much to their disbelief and disappointment. Later on, he and Ernie approach Oscar, Jimmy, and Chloe in the auditorium, and just as the three of them are about to attack Matt, he tells them that they reason they all puked at the marching event is because somebody had switched the juice coolers, and Oscar and Jimmy admit that that was their fault. Matt then tells them that, while he can’t take back any of the bad things he did to them at band camp or help them win the Tall Oaks Cup, he wants to see that Elyse gets the scholarship to Robards, and he needs their help to make it happen.

Sometime later, Elyse gets a letter from Dr. Choi (Lily Mariye), the president of Robards Conservatory, stating that she wants to meet with her. However, when she goes to the school and speaks with Dr. Choi’s secretary, she finds out that the letter is a fake. Suddenly, Matt – who forged the letter – appears outside the front doors playing her original composition on the bagpipes, and when Elyse comes out to chew him out for humiliating her at band camp and then setting her up here, the rest of their school’s band suddenly appears and performs the full composition and march that they were supposed to do at Tall Oaks. Dr. Choi comes out to watch the performance, and when it concludes, she praises Elyse on her composition before inviting her into her office to discuss the scholarship. When Elyse asks about Brandon, Dr. Choi informs her that she earlier disqualified him after discovering that he had plagiarized his composition.

Elyse thanks both Matt and the band for what they did for her, and after Matt returns her long-lost “Picardo” to her (which he finds out is not actually a sex toy, but a metal case containing a piccolo made by that brand name), the two of them kiss.