DVD Doppelgangers: Standing Still vs. American Pie

It's been a while since I've posted any DVD Doppelgangers, in which I call out deceptive studios and lazy designers who mimic more successful DVD covers in hopes of getting you to buy theirs.

Here we have 2005's Standing Still, the story of an alcoholic actor who reconnects with a group of his college friends at a wedding several years after graduation. So... not a teen sex comedy by any means. The cover reminds me of something, but I can't quite think of what...

Ah, now I remember. Standing Still is practically spraining a hamstring trying to look like the cover to American Pie.

It's got the same crowd of wacky people, topped by an amazingly identical logo. Everything about the Standing Still logo is identical. Same red color, same rectangular outline, same small word topping a horizontally stretched larger word. They even copied the scratchy "distressed" look. I will give credit where credit's due though-- in a burst of creative energy, the designer tilted this logo the opposite way of American Pie's. Bravo sir! Sheer genius!
 For the record, American Pie came out in the far off year of 1999. You remember 1999; that was back before the entire world went to hell. Incredibly there have been a whopping SIX sequels to this movie. Of course only the first three of them ever got anywhere near a theater. The remaining four went straight to home video. None of the original actors, save poor Eugene Levy, have been in the last four either. Apparently the American Pie name is the star.

Although I'm deservedly ragging on the Standing Still cover here, the American Pie one isn't without its sings. Take a look at the girl at the middle right of the cover. That's a pretty sorry example of Photoshopping there. She seems to be quite interested in something only she can see, some distance off screen. Not only was she nowhere near the rest of the cast during this photo shoot, I'm not even sure she was on the same continent. The red-headed girl next to her looks suspiciously plopped in as well, given that she's the only one not touching or overlapping someone else.


Thanks to my pal Keith for spotting this!