National Lampoon’s Van Wilder

Reviewed by:
Paul Ulane

Gross-out humor got huge in a hurry after American Pie, which spawned countless attempts to up the ante in the disgust department by its many followers—usually forgetting coherent story lines and competent acting along the way. So it was surprising that the college-campus shenanigans in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder weren’t too stale. Now comes the cram-packed DVD, bringing more to the table than just the usual fare and making it something worth watching again.

Among its myriad features is a helpful “Music of Van Wilder” section that serves up 30-second clips of each of the songs that appears in the movie with the artist and song information. Also, “The Van Wilder Files” has Van’s college application (“Languages spoken: English, love”) and an “Ask Van” section in which students write in to quiz Van on the more important issues of campus life (“Is it safe to combine sex and cheese?”). Another section provides TV clips of comedy shows such as Imposter featuring cast members from Van Wilder. The usual outtakes and deleted scenes are also here, but are not particularly entertaining compared to what the rest of this DVD offers. Oh, and did we mention that the menu consists of an eager-to-change-her-wardrobe hostess, wearing hardly more than a smile?

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