![]() Such as Eddie’s cringe gifting of shiny, white dress shoes (“Aw, you shouldn’t have!”), worm-farming as a pastime for boys (not to mention stacks of girly magazines), cough- inferred incest-cough, and also country cousin Vicki’s (a young Jane Krakowski) rebuttal to her suburban cousin Audrey calling her “uncool” for being a farmer-a shoebox full of potent, farm-grown weed. Then there’s the stop-off in rural Kansas to visit Clark’s cousin Eddie and the rest of his extended-family-from-hell, and trotting out, deliciously, every possible stereotype of the things that make us Americans squirm regarding this topic. Cousin Vicki (Jane Krakowski), in “National Lampoon’s Vacation.” (Warner Bros.) Cousin Eddie Such as ending up in an inner city neighborhood and asking for directions while his hubcaps, er, rims, get stolen showing off for his family and annoying a local bartender to the point of getting shot-gunned being so incredibly shallow that he cheats on his gorgeous blond wife by flirting with a different gorgeous blonde, on and off, for at least 700 miles, which triggers his own midlife crisis. The Girl in the Ferrari (Christie Brinkley), in “National Lampoon’s Vacation.” (Warner Bros.) GPS increased my enjoyment of life 1,000-fold).īut as anyone who’s ever gone on such a vacation knows, they’re subject to immediate-onset chaos, and Clark Griswold’s attempt at a vacation becomes a Sisyphean mission to conquer every mishap and Murphy’s Law manifestation that stands in the way. You were either a good navigator or you had no talent for deciphering the little blue, red, and green squiggly lines. (L–R) Ellen Griswold (Beverly D’Angelo), Audrey Griswold (Dana Barron), Rusty Griswold (Anthony Michael Hall), and Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) singing songs on vacation, in “National Lampoon’s Vacation.” (Warner Bros.)įamily songs are sung with enthusiasm! Paper maps are consulted, there being no such thing as GPS. Paying lip service to such wisdom nuggets like “nothing worth doing is easy” in response to his wife Ellen’s (Beverly D’Angelo) mild warnings of potential disaster, he purchases the ugliest puke-green ’70s station wagon imaginable and sets out from Chicago for Walley World, a California amusement park, with children (Dana Barron, Anthony Michael Hall) in tow. (L–R) Rusty Griswold (Anthony Michael Hall), Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase), Ellen Griswold (Beverly D’Angelo), and Audrey Griswold (Dana Barron) get set to go on vacation, in “National Lampoon’s Vacation.” (Warner Bros.) StoryĬlark Griswold (Chevy Chase) is an every-dad whose fond childhood memories of family vacations spur him to bequeath his family just such an experience. ![]() has released the film in 4K for the 40th anniversary celebration. “National Lampoon’s Vacation” is back in theaters, and Warner Bros. Rewatching it for this review, as I somewhat sadly anticipated, I was mostly bored (I might have grown up a little in 40 years), but I was looking for reasons why this movie has become a bit of an American cult classic. I’ll get to those later. ![]() There was supermodel Christie Brinkley in a red Ferrari, a hit song by superstar rock band Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham (“Holiday Road”), and the Americana-nostalgia topic of the ubiquitous 1960s –70s middle-to-lower class, whole-family-crammed-into-a-gas-guzzling-station-wagon summer road-trip vacation. Back then, it had newness going for it, director Harold Ramis was on a roll (“Ghostbusters”), and Randy Quaid created a backwoods cultural “icon” with his hilariously skeevy cousin Eddie. I remembered “National Lampoon’s Vacation” as being fairly hilarious when it debuted in 1983. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |