The Griswold clan clearly understands the repulsive monstrosity they have wrought on this earth
VACATION (John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein, 2015)
Opens Wednesday, July 29
vacationthemovie.com
John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s Vacation is one of the most vile, insipid, insulting, mean-spirited, and offensive films ever made, the Human Centipede of comedies. This next-generation sequel to the first four theatrical movies in the popular series — which began in 1983 with National Lampoon’s Vacation and continued as the Griswold clan, featuring Chevy Chase as luckless dad Clark and Beverly D’Angelo as his sexy wife, Ellen, visited Europe and Vegas and celebrated Christmas as only they can — is an unmitigated disaster, a thoroughly repulsive trip through the dregs of nasty humor. Russ “Rusty” Griswold (Ed Helms), originally played by Anthony Michael Hall, is now all grown up and married to Debbie (Christina Applegate), who dreams of going to Paris. But Russ has a better idea — a drive cross-country with their children, the sensitive James (Skyler Gisondo) and the younger Kevin (Steele Stebbins), a cruel little asshole who bullies his older brother relentlessly, to visit Walley World, the ultimate destination of the first film. Russ rents a ridiculous blue Tartan Prancer, the “Honda of Albania,” and off they go on a series of absurd, disgraceful and, most unfortunately, unfunny adventures involving a steer, Debbie’s old sorority, a hot woman (fashion model Hannah Davis) in a red car, white-water rafting with a just-jilted guide (Charlie Day), hapless border guards (Tim Heidecker, Nick Kroll, Kaitlin Olson, and Michael Peña) at the Four Corners Monument, and Russ’s sister Audrey’s (Leslie Mann) very well hung conservative husband (Chris Hemsworth). I have to admit that I did laugh out loud three times, but those extremely brief respites do not make up for the rest of this abhorrent and repugnant monstrosity. Even cameos by Chase and D’Angelo ring false and fall completely flat. There was a sweet, playful charm to the original, written by John Hughes and directed by Harold Ramis and featuring the great Imogene Coca as Aunt Edna and Randy Quaid and Miriam Flynn as Ellen’s in-bred cousins, but there is nothing the least bit appealing about this ill-conceived sequel, written and directed by Goldstein and former Freaks & Geeks star Daley, who have previously cowritten Horrible Bosses, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. At one point, the Griswolds take a break in what turns out to be a basin filled with raw sewage; Vacation will make you feel like you’ve just spent one hundred minutes in that rancid pond.
The husband and wife team of Alexis and Bodine Boling have collaborated on the tender, touching drama Movement + Location, which is appropriately having its world premiere at the Brooklyn Film Festival this week. Director, producer, and cinematographer Alexis and writer, producer, editor, and star Bodine were married in 2009 at BAMcafé and made the film in their home borough of Brooklyn. Bodine plays Kim Getty, a young woman who works for City Hope, an organization that helps feed and house the homeless. Meanwhile, Kim herself is trying to make a home for herself, having returned to Brooklyn from four hundred years in the future. Already hiding the truth from her roommate, Amber (Anna Margaret Hollyman), and work colleague Marcel (Haile Owusu), Kim becomes even more secretive when a pair of cops ask her and Marcel to help runaway teen Rachel (Catherine Missal), who, Kim quickly learns, is also from the future but having trouble adapting to her new surroundings. Kim brings Rachel home with her, and trouble slowly escalates as she considers having a relationship with one of the cops, Rob Sullivan (