My Favorite Movie of All Time: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

In 1989, the greatest movie of all time (in my opinion anyways) hit the big screen, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, starring Chevy Chase as Clark W. Griswold Jr., Beverly D'Angelo as his wife Ellen Griswold and Randy Quaid as Cousin Eddie.

Clark is planning a big old-fashioned family Christmas. He has invited his parents, the in-laws and his uncle and aunt to come stay with them for the Christmas holiday. A surprise visit from cousin Eddie and his brood help fill the house with Christmas cheer, well at least fill it with more gut busting laughs.

This is one of those movies that you can watch over and over again and notice something you didn't see before. There are a lot of little comedic details in this movie. One that stands out is Cousin Eddie wearing a black dickie under a white sweater. Or when Clark and Eddie are shopping and Clark puts light bulbs in the shopping cart and Eddie puts a huge bag of dog food on top of the light bulbs and crushes them. From the beginning of the movie through to the end there are a barrel of laughs. Chevy Chaise is one of the best comedic actors ever to grace the big screen. His timing is impeccable. Chase and D'Angelo work so well together as husband and wife in all of the vacation movies that it doesn't seem to matter much that they keep changing the kids out with different actors.

What I like about most about this movie is that it is really a wholesome movie, no violence, no mushy romance story line, no horror, ok so there is a few choice words throughout the film but its all in good fun. Pretty much everyone can relate to this movie, whether they had a holiday go bad or just a day in general where nothing seemed to go right. It's a movie you can pop in anytime of the year when you need a laugh or you're feeling in the Christmas spirit.

Some cool sites to check out about National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation:

Christmas Vacation in 30 seconds (and re-enacted by bunnies) http://www.angryalien.com/aa/xmasvacaybuns.asp

Christmas Vacation Movie Mistakes at moviemistakes.com

Christmas Vacation Script on dailyscripts.com

Christmas Vacation Clips on youtub.com

Purchase your copy of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation:

At the Wbshop.com, you can purchase National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation basic DVD for $9.95, the special addition DVD for $18.95 or on Blue Ray for $19.16. They even have National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure (I would only recommend buying that movie if you are a collector. I wasn't really worth watching even once.) There is also a really nice Vacation giftset for $32.95 that includes four of the National Lampoon's Vacation movies: National Lampoon's Vacation, National Lampoon's European Vacation, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation.

You can also purchase National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation at Amazon.com and buy.com.