|
|
Griffinheart
|
Posted: November 8, 2007 at 12:00am
When Christmas rolls around and you want a heartwarming movie, you reach for "It's a Wonderful Life." If you want a little bit of heartwarming along with some humor, you grab "A Christmas Story." If you just want the humor, this is the movie for you.
Christmas Vacation is a hilarious tale of Clark Griswold's (Chevy Chase) attempt to have a nice, big, traditional Christmas with the entire extended family. Of course, even before the rest of the family shows up, everything that could go wrong does. Hicks harass Clark on the interstate ("I'll show them. Burn some dust here. Eat my rubber!"), no one remembered to bring a saw after marching for hours through the woods to find the perfect tree ("It's beautiful, isn't it, Audrey?" "Clark, her eyes are frozen. She'll see it later."), and so on. Things get even more interesting when relatives show up such as the senile Aunt Bethany ("Grace. They want you to say grace!" "But she's been dead for years.") or not-quite-all-there Cousin Eddie ("You surprised to see us, Clark?" "Oh, Eddie... If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn't be more surprised than I am now.") I could go on and describe more scenes and quotes (especially about the cat chewing on the strand of Christmas lights or the squirrel that got loose in the house), but you might as well see it for yourself. Go on, quit reading this review and go watch it!
Overall this is a great movie with a great cast, including a somewhat underused Doris Roberts as Ellen Griswold's (Beverly D'Angelo) mother. Two characters that stand out by far as my favorites have already been mentioned: Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) provides a lot of good lines once he's introduced, and Aunt Bethany (Mae Questel) steals about every scene that she gets more than a single line in. The entire script is consistently funny and never slows down for long. The story ends a little too easily but makes up for it with flying, flaming reindeer.
I'll give this movie a 9/10.
|
Tristan
|
Posted: November 8, 2007 at 7:27pm
Oddly enough, I bought this movie yesterday with the intention of reviewing it soon. Thanks for saving me the trouble. My favourite holiday movie next to Die Hard, and one of the funniest movies Chevy Chase has ever done. 8/10
|
Griffinheart
|
Posted: November 8, 2007 at 8:08pm
Review would have been a bit longer and more detailed, but I wrote it in 20 minutes between classes.
|
Tristan
|
Posted: November 8, 2007 at 8:11pm
Then why bother?
|
Crispy
|
Posted: November 8, 2007 at 8:40pm
Really, it's not like there's a deadline, take the extra time and write something worth it. Especially for a movie this great.
|
Tristan
|
Posted: November 8, 2007 at 8:49pm
My thoughts exactly.
|
Edd
|
Posted: November 9, 2007 at 11:03am
The greatest Christmas movie of all time. Fuck A Christmas Story, Miracle On 34th Street, and It's A Wonderful Life.
I watch this movie every year in June, and I STILL find something new and funny in it.
|
Shakes
|
Posted: January 22, 2009 at 12:45pm
I agree 100 per cent with Edd. One of my favorite movies of alltime. One of Chevy's best. I can watch this so many times (AT LEAST once or twice a year!) and it never gets old. 10/10
|
|
