Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Yeah, I don't believe it either. But there they are. Two positive reviews of VAN WILDER. And one of these guys is a long-time spy. I would have run these yesterday, but no one would have believed me...
... which reminds me: nothing I ran yesterday was an April Fool's Day joke. The QT story is completely true. I knew you wouldn't believe it, though, so I decided to have fun and run it on the perfect day. Just wait and see, though... it's fa reeeeals. So is DUCK DODGERS. And so are these two reviews. Check out this first one:
Hey there,
I recently just got back from witnessing the resurrection of the National Lampoon name. The film was Van Wilder. Ryan Reynolds plays the titular character. In fact, he plays the hell out of the role. He brings the right amount of humanity to the whole arrogant godlike persona which the character Van Wilder inhabits. He spits the dialogue out to the audience in a furious manner which brings even the most tepid line to life.
I'm not hailing this flick as genius; because it wasn't. It was a great flick that definitely renews faith in the National Lampoon name, but does not quite live up to the superior Animal House. A film that Van Wilder desperately tries to be. In fact it has its fair share of allusions to that icon of collegiate comedy.
There were only a few things that bothered me. One was the "asshole frat guy" character that every college flick must have. He was Stifler from the pastry-porno flicks, only he wasn't played by the real Stifler. He did all right, just not Sean William Scott quality. Another thing was Tara Reid's role. She just didn't do much with the role. It was a fairly shitty role to begin with, but she just didn't seem to be trying. And it seemed unbelievable that she'd be dating the pseudo-Stifler, I mentioned above. There were also a few jokes that just didn't pan out, but I didn't expect perfection.
Overall the movie delivered a highly successful college comedy. In fact, the studio must believe this to be true as well. Apparently, Artisan loves this baby, and according to the director, Walt Becker, they are already planning a sequel. Becker, who spoke after the screening, stated that Ryan Reynolds, and most of the other characters should be back for more. Hopefully Becker, who seemed pretty down-to-earth, can deliver a second helping of the Van Wilder mythos.
This film was rated "R" for "wicked-pisser" humor, brief (not enough) topless action, and of course oversized pit-bull testicles.
Sincerely,
A Goondock Saint
Ryan Reynolds? Funny? Really? Spiceweasel, can you verify this?
Well, last night I finally got around to seeing a sneak preview at the theatres, and the sneak preview of choice was "National Lampoon's Van Wilder", a movie rotating around a man who rules his college with an iron fist wrapped around a cold bottle of beer. He heals the sick, gets the lame laid, and runs the kinds of fundraisers we all never got to see in college, or at least I didn't.
Ryan Reynolds as Van Wilder himself does a great job of portraying the guy having so much fun at college, he just doesn't want to graduate. When his father, a man so involved with his work he has -two- personal assistants, learns that Van is still in school after 7 years, he cuts off the tuition payments, and Van is left to fend for himself. I won't spoil by telling how he raises money, but I'm sure a few people out there will agree it's a damned good idea.
Kal Penn as Taj, Van's personal assistant who happens to be an exchange student from India, is absolutely hysterical. I'd never seen any of his prior work, but I'm looking forward to seeing more of it in the future.
Tara Reid plays Gwen, a writer for the school paper who is tasked with the troublesome project of writing an article on Van, which is notoriously difficult, because he doesn't give interviews. As is the trend with teen/college comedies of late, she also becomes the love interest of the main character, leading to hysterical pranks between Van and her boyfriend, pre-med fratboy Richard(Daniel Cosgrove).
Other cast members include Paul Gleason(a priceless automotive showdown) and a cameo by Erik Estrada, which was....unexpected, if nothing else
One can't help but compare this movie to American Pie, and it shines like I never could have even hoped. It's got clean humor(from time to time), gross-out gags(oooooooh boy. I'm not even going into these), and boobies. BOOBIES.
The movie also had a pretty good soundtrack, but I'm annoyed to note some of the songs aren't on the OST available at amazon.com. Perhaps they'll be released later, perhaps they won't, but that's not for me to speculate.
All in all, the movie gets an enthusiast 4.5 out of 5 slices of pizza in my book, and not only will I be buying the DVD, which will undoubtedly be full of great extras, but I'll probably be seeing it again in the theatres, too.
-Spiceweasel
Oh. Ummm... well... anyone else want to see this and report back to let me know if these guys were sharing a doobie in the parking lot, or if this is actually funny?
I'd appreciate it greatly.
Okay. All I had to do was ask. This review just showed up in my mailbox, and this guy actually seems to know his LAMPOON. I'll be honest... the reason I've been so skeptical of anything stamped with the LAMPOON name now is because I worshipped at the altar of Michael O'Donaghue and Doug Kenney and Tony Hendra and early John Hughes. I have fierce love for the classic run of the magazine. They were THE ONION long before there was an ONION. Much of what I know about humor started there and in the pages of MAD, and I know how hard it is for a corporate brand to embrace real anarchy. The time for both those publications may have passed, and with it, any real value in stamping the name on things. Here's someone who definitely did NOT love the film:
Moriarty,
RENO here with a review of NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VAN WILDER.
*Minor spoilers ahead *
Once upon a time, giants strode the land.
They bore names like Michael O'Donoghue. Brian McConnachie, Tony Hendra, Anne Beatts, Douglas C. Kenney and George W. S. Trow.
They were the giants of comedy and they were assembled under the banner of the National Lampoon. In the first half of the 1970s they tore down the old comedic establishment, and fueled by the social upheaval of the previous decade, created a new, darker, sometimes cruder, sometimes insightful more socially relevant school of comedy. Gone were the tired old "mother-in-law" jokes. These were men and women who wrote advertisement parodies which would feature a Volkswagen Beatle floating in water with the caption "If Ted Kennedy drove a Volkswagen, he'd be President by now." They were fearless.
These giants spread their reign across the land. The National Lampoon magazine created first a live stage show than a radio series and several comedy albums. It helped birth talent like John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Harold Ramis, Joe Flaherty, Richard Belzer and others.
Perhaps its most popular achievement was the Lampoon's first foray into movies ANIMAL HOUSE. Every knows the story of how the off beat members of the Delta House fraternity at Faber College went on to get revenge on both the rival fraternity house and the school system as well.
But hard times fell these giants. Some became victims of their own success, never quite able to capture the spark that drove their comedic sensibilities. Both O'Donoghue and Kenney died and the world seemed a little less funny.
Soon, the magazine failed to be as relevant anymore, and much of its risqué humor was watered down to just stale sex jokes. Films bearing the National Lampoon name went from being funny like VACATION to being embarrassing like CLASS REUNION, LAST RESORT, LOADED WEAPON 1 and SENIOR TRIP.
And then there's VAN WILDER, opening this coming weekend.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen and still can't get up.
Ryan Reynolds, the one who mugged his way through the ABC crap-com TWO GUYS A GIRL AND A PIZZA PLACE, plays Van Wilder, a guy who is intent on being a career student. Enrolled in college for seven years, Van has no interest in graduating. He spends his days at various campus activities and his nights at different parties. But when his emotionally distant father cuts off his money, Van has to use his wiles to pay for college. Thrown into the mix is a pretty reporter from the campus newspaper who has been assigned to do a feature piece on the campus institution that is Van. He falls for her, she starts to fall for him and her boyfriend, the pre-med student President of the student body frat boy, get jealous.
Much like the very unfunny ROAD TRIP took a section of ANIMAL HOUSE and blew it up to feature length, so too does VAN WILDER- this time taking the Otter/Mandy/Marmalard feud and padding it out with some unfunny jokes to just barely 90 minutes.
Many of the jokes are obvious and predictable. When the frat that Tara Reid?s boyfriend is revealed to be Delta Iota Kappa, you can pretty much write the rest of the script to the film yourself. There one particular gross out moment involving éclairs that is not only not funny, but inadvertently draws unfavorable comparisons to gross out moments in THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY and AMERICAN PIE. (There's also a Jason Biggs cameo in the movie too.) So much desperation by the filmmakers to appear funny and hip almost always means that they don't stand a chance in hell of being either.
As predictable as the jokes are, the plot is as well. When we see Van living it up and donating time to various campus causes in his own unique lifestyle, we just know that by the third act of the flick, when Van's chips are down, he's going to get a pick yourself up speech about what an inspiration he's been to everyone. And indeed he does get it, in a poorly written monologue from Tara Reid.
There are a few good performers in the movie that unfortunately are wasted by the material. Kal Penn, as Van's nerdy personal assistant, is good as Tom Everett Scott as the editor of the campus newspaper. (Even though he looks like he's been on campus longer than Van.) It's nice to see Curtis Armstrong get work, but I continually hope he gets offered something that really lets him cut loose and show the chops he displayed in BETTER OFF DEAD.
It has been noted that Tim Matheson's appearance in the movie is to somehow remind us of ANIMAL HOUSE and hopefully draw favorable comparisons. No such luck. If anything, it serves to show how far from the mark VAN WILDER falls.
One suspects that the filmmakers wanted Van to be an Otter for the new generation of kids, so having Matheson as his cinematic father would help ram that idea home. The fact is, Matheson is one of the principal partners in the firm that holds the rights to the Lampoon name.
Where as ANIMAL HOUSE goes for the juggler at the end of the movie, WILDER goes for the warm and fuzzy ending. This is not the Lampoon of old. This is a betrayal of what that mighty institution once stood for. Somewhere, the great Michael O'Donoghue and Douglas Kinney are spinning in their graves.
RENO out.
Harsh words, but convincing. He knows his LAMPOON. For my money, ANIMAL HOUSE and VACATION are both pretty damn great, and the name's never been on anything else of note. Guess we'll see next weekend...
"Moriarty" out.
