NATIONAL LAMPOON'S CHRISTMAS VACTION (1989) **1/2 I'm not going to spend a lot of time defending the plot, though it does close well, as any Christmas film must. I'm not going to get into the production values much, because they're not particularly genre relevant. But I have to say that the actors make it work. I'm not saying great performances, I'm saying humans glowing with personality: Chevy Chase as Wile E. Coyote, Beverly D'Angelo has his wonderful wife who is miraculously as adoring as adorable, Juliette Lewis as the incarnation of teenage distressed disgust, Randy Quaid as the prince of the trailer park in its most poetic sense...and then there are the side dressings: William Hickey's hairpiece, Julia Louis-Dreyfus' attitude, Nicolette Scorsese's Caroline Munro imitation, Quaid's omnipresent Meisterbrau, Juliettte's GNR poster...classy and elegant visual asides abound. It may not be a classic...ahem, may not be a classic ...but this is more likely to point out something entertaining about your own family Christmases than a classic will...proletarian art for capitalists who think we're a little better than that, then.
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