NationalLampoon Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Have you been wondering what happened to Adam Rifkin's caveman comedy Homo Erectus? I've been curious about the fate of the film since it was shot here in Austin back in 2005. Rifkin not only wrote and directed Homo Erectus, but also stars as a "philosophical caveman" yearning for a better life. Other well-known actors appearing in the credits include David Carradine and Talia Shire. (Oh, yeah, and Ron Jeremy.) The film premiered at Slamdance in early 2007, then vanished until last June, when National Lampoon picked up the distribution rights. Now, according to Austin Movie Blog (part of the Austin American-Statesman site), National Lampoon has finally decided to let the rest of us see this movie.

National Lampoon's Homo Erectus, as it seems to now be called, will be released in U.S. theaters in stages starting next month, with a DVD release slated for September. The long wait is definitely ominous ... and the comedies National Lampoon releases these days are generally not known for their subtle innuendos and rapier wit. I can't find a review for this movie online, so if any of you caught the film at Slamdance or elsewhere, what did you think?

Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas! No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here! We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap-hap-happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny f**king Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of a**holes this side of the nuthouse!

-- Clark W. Griswold (Chevy Chase)

After European Vacation, no one had any reason to believe the Vacation series would get back on track. Not to mention, almost without exception, movie series tend to get worse as they go along, right? Well, not this time.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation ranks just slightly behind the original in terms of laughs, and it packs in even more heart without resorting to schmaltz. Again, I'm going to give a lot of the credit to John Hughes, the sole writer this time out. He makes just about every line funny, memorable, and quotable. He gives us a whole lot of characters, each well-defined and amusing. Hughes may have hit his peak here unfortunately, because after the following year's Home Alone, the man never wrote a great script again. (I think Dutch is hilarious, but even with all my Hughes love I can't call it "good.")

It was a "last hurrah" of sorts for Chevy Chase, too. Chase is really terrific here in what is, I'm sad to say, his final funny starring role (although I didn't see The Karate Dog). Oh, Chevy. What happened? Beverly D'Angelo returns, and is typically great ("Clark! Slow down! I don't want to spend the holidays dead!"). And my Lord, does Randy Quaid step it up here as Cousin Eddie. Chase's exchanges with Quaid are some of the film's funniest moments ("Can I refill your eggnog for you? Get you something to eat? Drive you out to the middle of nowhere and leave you for dead?"). If Quaid's delivery of gems like "Merry Christmas! Sh*tter was full!" and "That's the gift that keeps on giving the whole year!" don't make you laugh, well ... lighten up.

Note: Summer is coming to a close, and I don't have the budget to do much traveling. So I decided to take some Vacation time with the Griswolds instead. All this week and next, I'll be reviewing the Vacation movies, one of the most loved (and uneven) comedy franchises in modern film.

I think you're all f**ked in the head. We're ten hours from the f**king fun park and you want to bail out? Well I'll tell you something. This is no longer a vacation. It's a quest. It's a quest for fun. I'm gonna have fun and you're gonna have fun. We're all gonna have so much f**king fun we'll need plastic surgery to remove our goddamn smiles! You'll be whistling 'Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah' out of you're a**holes! I gotta be crazy! I'm on a pilgrimage to see a moose. Praise Marty Moose! Holy S**t!

-- Clark W. Griswold (Chevy Chase)

Clark Griswold is my father circa 1988. The glasses. The Izod shirt. The too-short shorts. The unrelenting and misguided enthusiasm for all things family. The barely concealed rage. It's all there. What makes National Lampoon's Vacation work so well, all these years later, is that everyone thinks Clark is based on his or her father. Some of the funniest comedy comes from recognition, and this movie is almost like watching home movies from my youth. Except for the dead aunt on the roof of the car, but we'll get to that in a moment.

They assembled a real dream team for this movie, three giants of comedy at their primes. Behind the camera, you've got Harold Ramis, fresh off his directorial debut (Caddyshack -- not a bad start!). He clearly came to play here, and I'd imagine he had something to do with keeping Chevy Chase's tendency to overact in check. The script was written and based on a short story (click here to read it!) by John Hughes, unquestionably the finest film comedy writer of the 1980s. Disagree with me? Take a look at this list of Hughes scripts produced from 1983 to 1990: Mr. Mom, Vacation, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Some Kind of Wonderful, Planes Trains and Automobiles, She's Having A Baby, Uncle Buck, Christmas Vacation, and Home Alone. The man was a god.

You knew it was coming sooner or later (personally, I'm in favor of later), and Variety has just made it official: National Lampoon will begin production this fall on National Lampoon's 301: The Legend of Awesomest Maximus Wallace Leonidas. Awesome! Looking to spoof such films as 300, Gladiator, Troy and Braveheart, pic will follow an out-of-shape Spartan general named Awesomest who "fails forward on a path to greatness." Hmm, do I smell Ryan Reynolds and Anna Faris circling this script? Written by Jason Burinescu, the film will be produced by National Lampoon, Dan Farah and Burinescu.

Lampoon, who recently began financing and producing their own films in-house, instead of licensing away their name so that it could appear on the cover of crappy Paris Hilton movies, have just completed work on two new flicks: National Lampoon's Ratko: The Dictator's Son and National Lampoon's Bag Boy (based off a script from someone who watched Employee of the Month and actually thought there were ideas in there worthy of further big-screen exploration). I can't remember the last time National Lampoon actually produced an all-out spoof flick (come to think of it, have they ever?), and so part of me is looking forward to seeing what they do with this. I expect a ton of green screen work and shoddy acting (no cast has been announced yet), but hopefully we'll find a few laugh-out-loud moments somewhere in there. There hasn't been a fun spoof since, well -- do we count the original Scary Movie? Will 301 be the exception? Or will we walk away with a list of 301 reasons why the movie should never have been made?

Could it be that we might actually see a film with the National Lampoon name on it that doesn't have to do with pledging a fraternity and/or sleeping with every girl on campus? No offense to Van Wilder and Paris Hilton, but now that National Lampoon is on their own (buying, releasing and producing films in-house), I'd love it if the quality was taken up a notch. Variety tells us that NL has popped its cherry and officially purchased their first film, Electric Apricot, with intentions to release it later this year under the name National Lampoon Presents Electric Apricot -- Quest for Festeroo. And, after reading the plot description, I'm all kinds of stoked.

Pic, which marks the directorial debut of singer/bassist Les Claypool (Primus), is a comedy set in the world of jam bands, and is said to be in the vein of This is Spinal Tap. For anyone that's ever attended a Grateful Dead or Phish concert (and still remembers the experience), then this film is for you. Running down the cast list, there aren't many recognizable names. Seth Green and Matt Stone (South Park co-creator) apparently play tapers (these guys show up to tape each live performance, and most of them can recall set lists going back 10 years). I assume the film will be told in a mockumentary sort of style, while we follow the band around on tour. Having attended some of these shows myself, I know for a fact that there's a ton of room for comedy ... in the parking lot alone.

Aside from Apricot, National Lampoon is also planning to release its first inhouse feature production, National Lampoon's Bagboy, later this year. That film chronicles the trials and tribulations of a teenager who enters the world of competitive grocery store bagging, and stars Brooke Shields, Dennis Farina and Larry Miller.

All the King's Men -- An all-star cast delivers an all-night snoozer. Sean Penn's spittle-intensive tirades aside, there's just not a whole lot to enjoy here. Extras include five featurettes, some deleted scenes and a really terrible front cover.

American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile -- It's official: "American Pie" is officially the new "National Lampoon." I mean, how creative do you have to be to make an entire movie out of ONE Van Wilder joke? Extra wackiness includes frat-style featurettes, deleted scenes and oh-so-uproarious outtakes.

Fearless and Invincible -- One's a Jet Li kick-fest period piece, the other's a Marky Wahlberg Philly-based football flick. I just like the way the titles sound together.

Lady in the Water -- I really love that he shoots in Philly, but this Shyamalan dude is getting pretty silly. (Six-part behind-the-scenes documentary, featurette, deleted scenes, audition footage, gag reel, trailer.)

Little Miss Sunshine -- One of the year's best indies is slowly turning into a dark-horse Oscar pick. (I'm betting on Best Screenplay and Best Arkin.) Extras include a filmmaker commentary, four alternate endings, music video and trailers.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend -- Underrated rom-com that's sure to find a home on DVD. Uma's dreamy, Luke Wilson is actually funny, and there's some goofy FX stuff too. Extras include a music video and some deleted scenes.

National Lampoon's Pledge This! -- Good god! An American Pie AND a National Lampoon on the same day? And this one stars Paris Hilton? Are we being punished for something??

A Scanner Darkly -- Linklater's finely freaky rendition of P.K. Dick's short story will earn love and scorn in equal measure ... but I'm pretty much split right down the middle. Perhaps the multi-participant commentary track will decipher some of the mysteries, plus there's a pair of featurettes and some trailers.

Step Up -- Wait, is this the one about gymnastics? Volleyball? Girl surfers? No, wait. It's dancing! Yeah, teenagers who step up and dance! Yeah, go dancers. Anyway, extras include a filmmaker commentary, some deleted scenes, bloopers, featurettes and MySpace tie-ins.

The Wicker Man -- Neil La Bute went temporarily crazy and decided to remake one of the all-time cult-classic creepers. Why he did it is still sort of a mystery to me, even if I was one of the very few film critics who actually enjoyed (part of) this remake. Extras include a filmmaker commentary, some trailers and an all-new ending that wasn't seen in theaters ... as if the theatrical-version epilogue wasn't silly enough.

Now that National Lampoon has set up their own in-house shop, the first thing on the agenda is to begin setting up a few projects that a) are actually funny, b) are worth the price of admission and c) will help revive their reputation. They just recently partnered with the Farrelly brothers on a comedy called Bag Boy and, as Variety reports, have announced the first of four projects based solely on National Lampoon properties that the company will co-develop with Half Shell Entertainment.

See, the main problem with National Lampoon lately is that, instead of developing projects themselves, they've been simply lending out their name in order to bring a little familiarity to a film and help boost its box office numbers. However, they now want to control the show and have begun digging through the archives of their now defunct magazine to find something -- anything, really. Seeing as I've been tough on National Lampoon lately (c'mon, Pledge This -- are they serious?), I'll be the first to say that I absolutely love the idea behind their newest project, The Last Night in October. Yes, it's Halloween-related. And yes, it sounds hysterical.

Described as a "Dazed and Confused-style ensemble piece" (I like it already), pic revolves around a town which declares war on Halloween after a thumbtack is found in a piece of candy. Oh, and it takes place in 1986. We're not sure if they intended it to take place in 1986 or if that was simply the year this particular story showed up in their magazine. Either way, it could be hilarious -- I'd love to see National Lampoon bring back a little dark humor. The original Vacation was packed with risky jokes (Clark ties dead grandma down to the roof of his wagon??), and so if they can unearth some more of that -- without Paris Hilton's involvement -- then I will officially be the first one in line for a ticket. You?

Usually with a sequel the big question is: Will it live up to the original? Then there are sequels that probably shouldn't have been made in the first place -- like, for instance, the sequel to National Lampoon's Van Wilder. They had to make the sequel though, because, you know, there were just so many unanswered questions from the first film.

ComingSoon.net has the first look at the one sheet for the sequel, titled Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj. The film picks up where we left off with Taj, (Kal Penn) the sidekick to Ryan Reynolds smarmy party-boy Van Wilder -- who is, sadly, not returning for the sequel. The film follows Taj to Cambridge as he brings the "wisdom" of Van Wilder to what I'm pretty sure will be your usual array of stock uptight Brits. Penn seems to be on a role with sequels lately since he has also just officially signed to star in Harold and Kumar 2.

We can all recognize a cash grab when we see one, so you don't have to wonder why a sequel gets made to a movie that was at best, a guilty pleasure. Most unneeded sequels end up in the "straight to DVD" category -- we're talking about you, Butterfly Effect 2 -- but this one actually has a release date of December 1 (Quick! Go mark it on your calendar!)

I'm sure we all can think of a few totally unnecessary sequels that somehow got the greenlight. What are some of the worst sequels you can think of? And just how bad do you think the Van Wilder sequel will turn out to be?

Supposedly Paris Hilton will not be in the Revenge of the Nerds remake, but she does star in a college comedy called National Lampoon's Pledge This!, in which she plays a senior student in a sorority filled with hot girls. The movie screened at Cannes last week for international buyers and Hilton is reported to have deliberately missed the premiere due to a dispute with the picture's producers. She has been quoted saying that she took the part with the promise that she didn't have do nudity, because she, "wanted to do something where I'd be taken seriously." After the producers supposedly sneaked in extra scenes with other girls getting naked, she was too angry to attend the premiere.

Now I don't want to point any fingers and call anybody a hypocrite, so I'll only comment on the fact that Hilton thinking she'd be taken seriously by doing Pledge This!, nudity or not, is probably a better demonstration of her intelligence than we've ever witnessed before. And, anyway, if she was promised that she wouldn't do nudity but the movie features other girls baring flesh, what is the problem?

Well, other rumors are flying now that contradict her reasons for snubbing the premiere. There is a story circulating that she does in fact get naked in the movie, although from the way she's being quoted in these reports, I don't believe this to be true. It seems she told the British magazine Top of the Pops that there are, "lots of sexy scenes with me." Somehow that is being translated to mean she strips in the role.

Either way, you don't need this movie to see Paris naked -- she did another breast flash while shooting a music video just last week -- so I guess it doesn't matter.