REVIEW: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation [1989]

“Look around you, Ellen. We’re at the threshold of hell.” While I enjoy A Christmas Story‘s 1940s holiday aesthetic like the rest—when it’s not on 24-hour TBS repeat—I prefer my dysfunctional yuletide spirit to hit a little closer to home. This is where Christmas Vacation comes in, National Lampoon’s 1989 classic continuation of the Griswold clan’s shenanigans that takes place the same decade as the one when I was still young enough to awaken every December 25th extra early to see what Santa brought. While the details aren’t exactly the…

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REVIEW: In Time [2011]

“Your mind can be spent even if your body’s not” A watered-down Gattaca from the same creative mind, Andrew Niccol‘s In Time takes his human story of survival onto a global level. Rather than watch one man succeed in following an unattainable dream by taking the charity of another no longer wanting the gifts he was born with, we experience an entire dystopia’s upheaval. This world isn’t about a genetic propensity for excellence; it’s about time ticking down for the poor and being muted for the rich. Living in the…

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“The Big Bang Theory”: Sitcom Comedy for the Mindless or Social Commentary on Genius and Its Idiosyncrasies?

I will be the first to admit that I was brainwashed by the Hollywood machine and never had an interest to check out the CBS comedy “The Big Bang Theory”. Its marketing campaign billed it as another stupid sitcom to bring in money and entertain the mindless hordes of America. Why would I want to sit and watch 21 minutes of a half hour block filled with nerdy twenty-somethings and their lame attempts at getting women? To me this was a show about Sheldon, (Jim Parsons), and Leonard, (Johnny Galecki),…

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