National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Published November 25, 2022
Film info
- Title National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
- Director Jeremiah S. Chechik
- Year 1989
- Run time 1hr 37m
- Genre Comedy
- Tagline Yule crack up!
Clark Griswold, the well-intentioned, walking disaster who has dragged his family throguh the horrors of travelling in two previous National Lampoon Vacation films, has decided to stay home for the holidays - and the neighbourhood will never be the same.
Live blog
| Time | Comment |
|---|---|
| 1:23 | Aw, no Lindsey Buckingham this time, different kind of holiday. |
| 3:25 | Oh my god, baby Johnny Galecki! |
| 7:41 | That is a massive tree, it won’t fit in the car or house, surely? |
| 7:57 | “It’s not big, it’s full.” |
| 17:42 | The relative size and apparent age of the children is vexing me. |
| 24:13 | I love it that the ice has melted so they didn’t know what happened. |
| 24:41 | 25,000 LIGHTS? |
| 34:11 | Why was he sitting on the stairs but more importantly why was he still up there when he’d already broken through? |
| 37:14 | Never seen such dodgy electrics. |
| 40:07 | Eddie! |
| 50:26 | Don’t spend it until you’ve got it, Clark. |
| 59:11 | Not much of a surprise if he’s already made a list. |
| 1:01:52 | Very clever the way he wiggles that box as though there’s a cat in it. |
| 1:12:16 | Is he gonna punch something? I like it when he punches things. |
| 1:14:45 | “I didn’t go beserk, I simply solved the problem.” |
| 1:24:50 | “It’s people that make the difference. Little people like you.” |
| 1:29:25 | Play Ball! |
Thoughts
This is the one that we were aiming for, the reason we rushed through the previous two entries in the franchise. It was good! I would say not as good as the first one, but a lot better than the second. It’s a different thing, because they’re not travelling, the family are stuck at home and everything that goes wrong has to happen there. That gave it Home Alone vibes, particularly when he was bumbling around the loft hurting himself.
Obviously Clark’s ambitions are ridiculous but I did feel sorry for him when the lights would repeatedly not work. He put so much effort in!
My only real complaint is with the confusion around the kids. Totally understand changing the actors, but each film they seem to be swapping which is the oldest versus which is the tallest, etc, etc. It’s very weird. But if you watched this in isolation that wouldn’t really matter so can’t hold it against the film as a whole.
Rating: 4 / 5
