See ‘National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation’ Saturday

Above : Beverly D’Angelo and Chevy Chase star in “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” (Photo/Warner Bros.)

Christmas movies come in all forms, from the gaggingly sentimental to the outrageously farcical.

One of the only movies I have ever walked out of was “Christmas With the Kranks.” It remains the worst Christmas-themed movie I have ever seen.

I’m not familiar with Marc Savlov , who reviewed “Kranks” for the Austin Chronicle. But he had the best line: “Egregiously mediocre and flagrantly ill-conceived in every department, this is, truly, the cinematic equivalent of finding a single solitary Saltine in your stocking and a pair of old tube socks beneath the tree.”

My favorite Christmas movie has to be “A Christmas Story,” which I used to watch with my daughter every holiday. In fact, we watched it so much that bits of the movie’s dialogue became part of our family language.

Our favorite one being, “You’ll shoot yer eye out!” (If not that then “Frah-gee-lay!”)

“National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” ranks in there somewhere. Not as funny as the original “National Lampoon’s Vacation” but funnier than “National Lampoon’s European Vacation” and far funnier than the 2015 reboot titled simple “Vacation.”

But I digress. Because I was talking about Christmas movies. And “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” is the only one that fits the bill.

And wouldn’t you know it? That particular movie will be playing on Saturday at three area theaters. It will screen at 1 p.m. at Regal Northtown Mall and Coeur d’Alene’s Riverstone Stadium, at 7:10 p.m. at the Garland Theatre.

One of the most positive reviews I could find came from Washington Post critic Rita Kempley : “ ‘Christmas Vacation’ may not be a fancy package, but it is a diverting stocking stuffer.”

ReelViews critic James Berardinelli felt just a bit more negative: “One of the great unanswered questions in Hollywood is how Chevy Chase still gets work.”

As always, we the public get the tie-breaking vote.