[8/28/2002 4:40:26 PM | keith H]
“Three DVDs, a guy and some down time”



Here is a run down on my latest Blockbuster run.

National Lampoon’s Van Wilder
Rated R 2002
Ryan Reynolds, Tara Reid

The guy who wrote and directed National Lampoon’s must have grown up watching Campus Comedies. The movie exists in fantasy college land where big-breasted girls walk around campus constantly looking for sex, Campus parties are huge and only rarely broken up. He also cast three Alumni in supporting roles in the film, The guy from the revenge of the nerds movies, Tom Everett Scott (Dead Man on Campus), and Tim Matherson ( Animal House).

The movie centers on the title character Van Wilder who is in his 7th year of grad. School. What would be the point in leaving? He is treated like a god there, has young girls throw themselves at him, and can throws legendary parties. He is so busy he has to hire an assistant, who takes the job so Wilder can help him get laid before he goes back to India. He is a hell of a guy, and I imagine Ferris Bueller was like this in College.

Wilder also looks after the little guy quite often helping nerds get laid, raising money for struggling school clubs, counseling various other students, and befriending “sick” boy. Of course there are the rival rich kids who want to make lots of money when the graduate and hang out in the frat house all day. Of course the head of the frat is the boyfriend of Wilder’s love interest. Of course they are going to engage in childish pranks.

A lot of the humor works, particularly Wilder’s great one liners, but some of the gross out humor tries too hard, and a hand full of the many slapstick gags are lame. One of most bizarre sequences is when Wilder pays a stripper to fart on a friend. The problem with this kind of movie is when the jokes fail they really FAIL. Perhaps they should have replaced some of the lame gross jokes with funny dialogue the were apparently able to write (at least for wilder) instead. There are jokes about the size of Wilder’s dog’s testicles which work almost every time though.

Since Wilder has been in school so long his dad has cut off his funding, so Wilder has to pay for what looks to be his last semester. Wilder sticks with what he knows being hired to throw parties, and even starting a topless tutoring business.

Tara Reid shows up as the campus reporter trying to get an interview with him, but he tries turning all the interviews into dates. Of course a love story develops, cause you don’t pay Tara Reid to act you pay her to look good and be chased after. Despite some sick gags, the movie ends on a sweet note with Wilder
questioning his future. If you hate movies with potty humor, stay far away. You know who you are. Although its not the best in its genre (two demerits for ripping off American Pie, which ripped off Dumb and Dumber by using the same exact joke) its worth a rental. Its hard to really hate a movie with a character like Van Wilder who zooms around campus in a golf cart. This movie flopped in the theaters but, now that its own DVD it has the potential to find an audience much like movies such as Office Space and Austin Powers did…WRITE THAT DOWN!
Grade:
B-


Mulholland Drive

I never watched a David Lynch movie in my life till the other night. Since this movie had been out for almost a year, I forgot what it was supposed to be about. Apparently, that does not make any difference. I still don’t. To his credit the movie is hypnotic visually, and there are some techniques not used since the 70’s and some great camera angels. However, a good deal of the acting is sup bar, and to say the movie is incoherent is an understatement.

The main plot is about some girl who was in accident staying with a would be actress, and trying to remember who she is. Meanwhile some director is beating threatened by some old white dudes to put a certain girl in his play. Character actor Dan Hedya shows up for two minutes for no particular reason. Eventually the director gets threatened by a random cowboy, and that’s when I pretty much gave up on following the movie.

Other people show up in the movie, like a guy telling a friend about a dream at a diner, and a hitman who’s job goes comically awry (and violently) but that have nothing to do with anything and most of them are never heard or seen again or have anything to do with any other character in the entire movie.

The movie gets even harder to grasp when it changes gears out of no where and becomes like one of those movies Prism used to run late at night when the two girls start getting it on! Than characters change names and morph into other people for no reason, there is a corpse, something to do with a box and blue keys, a 5 inch elderly couple ran around like crazy. People get emotional about stuff. Then the credits roll.

After seeing the movie I thought I was dumb, but I read the reviews of it online, and no one got the movie either. Yet they called it a masterpiece. I admit the movie stays with you a while and is innovative in some ways, but in now ways is it a masterpiece! The more I read the more I had to back it up. Mullhoand Drive was originally shot as a pilot for ABC, but was never picked up. The majority of that it left in the film, but other stuff is added to make it into a movie. I guess when the nudity begins is when the pilot ends. A movie has to make some sort of sense in order to be a masterpiece. You can watch this movie on your DVD play and hit random, and it makes about as much sense. Lynch should get an award for making so many people think he is a genius. I mean I am all for new forms of movie making and it does mess with your mind, but I prefer movies that make sense which I don’t think Lynch ever intended to do. For a good mind trip rent Memento, Dark City, or Vanilla Sky, they actually have a story.


Grade: C


Say Anything

I finally checked this flick out even though its over a decade old. Mainly cause it has John Cusack and was directed by Cameron Crowe. The movie was a bit of a chick flick, but it was really well done so I didn’t mind watching it alone in a dark room. The father from fraiser turns in a good performance. It’s a honest movie a trait anyone who ever watched Almost Famous could easily pick out as a Crowe trademark.
Cusack has a knack for playing the everyman role and is very memorable in this role. The movie is different from most of the 80’s teen flicks, because it is not about sex its an actual love story. That sounded pretty gay, I am going to go out back and build something with my hands….

Grade: B +