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National Lampoon's European Vacation Dir. Amy Heckerling Wr. John Hughes Starring: Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Dana Hill, Jason Lively I love the original National Lampoon's Vacation and the Christmas sequel (the first Xmas sequel, that is). I forgot about how horrible the European movie is. Like holy crap it's bad. How does this have a 6.2 on IMDB? The main issue I think is that it relies on a lot of creepy sexual jokes that aren't funny, just uncomfortable. For example, at the very beginning of the film the family is on a game show called "Pig In a Poke." The host of the show (played by Gomez Addams from the TV show, John Astin!) greets each member of the Griswolds Family Feud-style. But when he gets to Audrey, he gives her a very gross, long kiss on the mouth. She's a teenager, by the way. Also, towards the end of the film, Ellen Griswold is almost raped by an Italian charlatan. A running joke in the film when they are in France is that the French people they encounter speak poorly of the Griswolds, which of course the Griswolds can't understand. But some of these include comments on Ellen's chest and that Audrey has "a nice ass." Again, she's a teenager in this movie and the man saying this is like 40-something. There are other examples I could list but won't here. They also rely on fat jokes with Audrey's character. She eats when she's upset that her boyfriend wants to openly date other girls. Ha ha how funny, right. I looked up who wrote this film and was shocked to see that John Hughes did. I was certain someone else was responsible because Hughes was usually so much better than to stoop this low. But I was wrong. Not that Hughes didn't write sex jokes, but his usually weren't so, you know, *shudders*. Eric Idle appears as an English man who is hit by Clark while riding his bike. He reappears several times in the film but the running joke isn't really much of a joke at all. Kind of a wasted use of Idle's talent if you ask me. Don't worry, there is a musical montage of the family trying on new clothes in Italy. The movie was a financial success, with a budget of $17 mil and a USA gross of $49.4 mil. The good thing about this was probably that it green-lit the much funnier, much better Christmas sequel.

I know it's not fun to dissect comedy but I couldn't tell if it's even supposed to be one. I really don't get it. What is its purpose?

This Chevy Chase & Jonathan Taylor Thomas film from 1995, which sports a 14% on Rotten Tomatoes and features the review blurb, "Only the smoldering sexual tension between Chevy Chase and George Wendt keeps Man of the House from being a complete waste of time," is a decent pick for HDTGM. The trailer is here and entire movie is free on Youtube. I would link to that, but when movies are linked to this forum they tend to get taken down right quick. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcW2p8nyrng I remembered it because of this thread: http://forum.earwolf.com/topic/18669-this-is-hilarious/ Wherein Amazon Instant basically predicted it to be the next movie they're going to do based on the movies they've already done. It's a movie about how JTT's dad bangs his secretary and leaves his mom for her. Then JTT's mom starts dating, but JTT hates all men for what his dad did and drives all the suitors away. Enter Chevy Chase in arguably the worst role of his career which is saying a lot; he's a stale, boring dork who is trying to sleep with JTT's mom (Farrah Fawcett). Chevy Chase is a lawyer and while all this is going on, a mobster threatens to murder him for putting him in jail. It's even odder because if I remember, he acts like a prosecutor in court but acts as if he's a regular criminal lawyer when he's not in court. I think he's even a partner in a firm. I haven't seen it in awhile but it bothered me at the time when I was half watching it while playing Game Gear. It was a favorite of my sister. Anyways, JTT gets him to join a father-son bonding group of white people acting like Indians lead by Geroge Wendt, on the actually sound logic that it is so lame that it would drive Chevy Chase away. Mobsters then end up attacking on their retreat...it's a convoluted movie with a ton of random stuff going on at all times. Also, there is a 2005 movie of the same name starring Tommy Lee Jones that looks even worse (9% on RT). I say both movies should be discussed in this thread as homage to the 1995 one which is all over the place and has almost no cohesion whatsoever.