Shownotes Transcript
Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi and William Thrasher discuss Vacation, a misguided attempt to continue the adventures of the Griswold clan. Written and directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, this entry keeps the R-rating of the original National Lampoon's Vacation without much of the charm.
Rusty (Ed Helms) and his wife Debbie (Christina Applegate) take their sons James (Skyler Gisondo) and Kevin (Steele Stebbins) on a trip across the United States to Wally World. Along the way, they bathe in shit, explode a cow, and talk about rim jobs. It's not as fun as it sounds.
Keeping the picaresque structure of the original, the family goes from stop to stop along the way while crazy adventures happen. Many of them seem crude just for the sake of being gross while keeping little of the heart the original had. An all too short cameo from Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo reprising their role as the senior Griswolds only makes this remake sting all the more.
Mat felt the more dramatic second half of the HBO documentary Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind was superior to the flat first half. A slick look at the life of the late comedian who blended zany antics with a heavy glob of schmaltz, the documentary only gets great in the last 15 minutes when his close friends Eric Idle and Billy Crystal open up about Williams' difficult final years.
Thrasher went to the cinemas to see the latest Marvel Studios feature film Ant-Man and the Wasp. A light apertif of a movie like the original, he felt it to be a fun bit of entertainment after the heavy Avengers: Infinity War.
Ratings for Vacation:
Mat: Sequel No
Thrasher: Sequel Yes
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