National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)

Summer Movie #4 (Click the link to read my review of Christmas Vacation)

Synopsis: Tightly-wound family man and kin discover America the hard way.

Blurb From the VHS Jacket: “The Griswolds have planned all year for a great summer vacation. From their suburban Chicago home, across America, to the wonders of the Walley World fun park in California, every step of the way has been carefully plotted. Except a few hundred hysterical exceptions.”

What Did I Learn?: Christie Brinkley apparently owns only one outfit.

You Might Like This Movie If: You believe Chevy Chase is always hilarious, even when he doesn’t have a script. (This is painful to watch...)

Really?: 1) When you consider how easily and often suitcases fall from the roof of the family station wagon, it’s tough to believe Ellen would place her vanity case (containing all of her credit cards!) up there. 2) I realize Vacation is a rather wacky comedy...I’ll go along with propping Aunt Edna’s corpse on top of the car and then dropping her off at her son’s place in the pouring rain, but there’s no way a chick like Christie Brinkley would show any interest in Clark, let alone chat him up in a bar and then strip to go skinny dipping...no way.

Rating: National Lampoon's Vacation is the best of the Griswold family comedies, and anyone who has ever taken a cross-country road trip from Hell will easily relate to it. I’m not a big Chevy Chase fan, but he’s perfect as the amoral and slightly-unhinged Clark. By the time he finally snaps, it's a John Cleese-as-Basil-Fawlty meltdown. 9/10 stars.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085995/