Went to a special screening of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation yesterday. Holds up pretty well, even though it's more a series of scenes than a movie*, albeit very funny scenes. A few things, though...

a) Angelo Badalamenti was, let's face it, an unusual choice to score the film, especially considering the David Lynch films and European dramas that comprise most of his resume. The music for the scene of Clark putting the lights up put me in mind of the 'Rooney sneaks around' music from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. (Hughes must've loved that xylophone.) Also, I could swear the 'Squirrel!' sequence was temped with Beetlejuice.

b) The whole saga of Todd and Margo just seems to smack of a low-hanging 'Trendy yuppies suck!' spiel on the part of Hughes. Still, those scenes are funny and Nicholas Guest and Julia Louis-Dreyfus are terrific.

c) I'm still thrown that Rusty is Johnny Galecki. He looked really different as a kid. Compare him to Juliette Lewis, who doesn't seem to have aged at all in 30 years.

* - It really leaps out at you the episodic nature of this film, especially in how Rusty completely doesn't take advantage of Clark flirting with Mary.