WAKE N BAKE

In which Erin informs you of the best movies to blaze to

Choosing a movie to compliment your high is as serious and refined as pairing a wine with dinner.  There’s a lot that goes into it.  As with a prospective wine, one has to consider the character, vintage, and acidity of any given film.  It should also be seasonally appropriate.  I mean, you wouldn’t open up a 2011 Fumé Blanc in the dead of winter, would you?  (Seriously, I’m asking, would you?  I honestly have no idea.)  With the summer solstice right around the corner, I thought it would be a good idea to kick off the season of fun and travel with the refined…

I’ve always stood behind the idea that summer should mean lighter fare, in terms of clothing and beer, as well as movies.  As we shed our light jackets, so too do we cast off the shackles of Challenging Movies and Thinking Hard About Stuff.  By the way, if you’re wondering what National Lampoon’s wine-analog is, I think I’ve figured it out.

Really, the similarities between the two are astonishing.  Accessible?  Middle-brow (at its best)?  Continually churning out new shit despite barely-existent popularity?  Check-o-rama.

Seriously?  What’s next, National Lampoon’s Tax Return?  And yes, they still make Riunite wine.

(Isn’t it weird that movies all cost the same, but their quality differs greatly?  Why isn’t wine like that?  How come it costs exactly the same to go see Prometheus as it does to see American Pie 2?  And why is it that the most expensive wine ends up tasting like a fucking pine tree, even though it’s supposed to be “better?”  If movies were wine, Babel would have cost $1,000,000 at the theater, which would have saved most everyone from seeing that Oscar-pleading dreck, except Donald Trump, and that fucker deserves what he gets.  Anyway.)

Vacation concerns the Griswolds, a Chicago family driving to Six Flags Disneyland Walley World in California for summer vacation.  Why they would drive in lieu of flying is known only to Mr. Clark Griswold.  He mentions wanting time to bond with his family, but you’d think flying would free up more time to accomplish said bonding away from a sticky station wagon in the middle of the Arizona desert.  And you didn’t bring any peyote.  But whatever.

As you might have guessed, the Griswolds run into some obstacles on their way to Disney Walley World:  their backwoods Kansas relatives forcing the Griswolds to drive the insufferable Aunt Edna to Arizona; Clark’s inability to contain his stupid crush on a hot blonde in a red Ferrari (played by Christie Brinkley, which is weird, because it’s not like she’s any hotter than Beverly D’Angelo, really); oh, and then the licking their car takes when they ask for directions in St. Louis–and feel free to get up and make a sandwich during that scene, since it’s racist and shitty.

Vacation’s accessibility doesn’t mean that it’s devoid of any remarkable characteristics, of course.  Watching Chevy Chase making the fumble into its own sport is one of the finer pleasures of an herbalist’s life.  And, just as wine morphs as it ages, this film has taken on new characteristics in this post-Community world we now live in.  In his embarrassing missteps, we see the antiquated comedy for which Chevy Chase still longs today.  We see the origins of the bitterness and regret that would manifest between himself and Dan Harmon.  We see a young man who has already learned how to dodder, a man who has aged prematurely–a man to whom comedic progress will not be kind.  I mean, he’ll still get hired for shit and make money that a lot of us could only dream of, but whatever, you know what I mean.

And there are other meaningful lessons in the film.  We learn that garbage bags can be airbags.  We see children coming to terms with the fact that their dad is a shithead.  And we learn that Beverly D’Angelo will bear her breasts for the camera, but Christie Brinkley won’t.  Tomayto, Tomahto, I guess.

YourPopFilter contest: Erin will smoke out the first person who can successfully explain to her the origins of, and reason for, this painting.

Mostly though, it inspires the stoner to plan a summer road trip.  You’ll think of all the cool, oddball places you’ll want to stop and see, who you’ll want to go with, and how at the end you’ll finally reach the glory of the Pacific Ocean.  (Unless you’re like me and live fifteen minutes away, suckas.)  I mean, you’ll plan it, I can’t guarantee you’ll actually do it.  Ah well.  There’s always Christmas Vacation.