The "Van Triple Feature" at Cinefamily

This summer I took a lengthy and much needed road trip along the west coast that took a little over a month and put 5000 miles on my auto. I got to see a lot of friends that I hadn't seen face to face in a long time, which was great. Thankfully none of my "bros" "iced" me nor did they make me kill a kitten. I did accidentally commit possum murder but it's ok, I believe he was a neo-con. I've been back a few weeks now and have finally worked up the enthusiasm to write something. I don't believe I will be able to catch up on everything I've seen the past few months, so I will try to post some highlights and then get back to business as usual. I do suffer from being lazy though. The cinematic experience that sticks at the most was the aforementioned Van Triple Feature which served up The Van (1977), Mag Wheels (1978), and Supervan (1977). It started amiably enough with a little slice of cheese known as The Van about a (you guessed it) a van! Nerdy Bobby thinks that all he needs to get laid (or attempt a hundred different date rapes) is a custom van. But not even a sweet ass van can overcome Bobby's grating personality and annoying face. There are some shenanigans with the cool bully (also in a custom van, 'natch), a race, nudity, a bad ass song, and Danny DeVito as Bobby's boss at the car wash. Things really got truckin' (hehe) with the second feature Mag Wheels. In this trash masterpiece we have the kick-ass girls in their custom trucks squaring off with the town douche bags in their custom vans. This confounding cinematic treat shifts from wacky scenes where nerds are spanked, to several attempted rape sequences including a 12 on 1 scene that is resolved with with some old fashioned racism when the only Asian girl happens to know kung fu and takes out all dozen a-holes at once. The ending is so hilariously awesome I won't spoil it but the crowd did jump to their feet cheering. "She's all right!!". So you'd think that after sitting through two of these inept mind-scramblers you would be rewarded with the greatest of all van movies, Supervan! I mean, this thing looks like a spaceship and on the poster it's shooting lasers! Alas, it sucked. There is a laser shooting scene but it's too little too late. After the opening where the hero saves the female lead from an attempted gang rape! (oh those wacky seventies) the film meanders it's way to a custom van show where it becomes a mondo film to fill out it's run time. My partner in crime, Nick, fell asleep pretty quickly (no surprise to me based on other movie outings with Nick, hehe), but I was totally jealous that I couldn't fall asleep. Mag Wheels is avaible on a 4 film DVD set from VCi but under the title Summer School. The other two aren't worth finding.

8/10 for the evening overall