Vacation

If you are planning some 'Stay-cations' this summer, there are no limits to your options, right here in Maine. Take a look at what You Tuber, Tyler Neville enjoyed last summer. Tyler, along with his GoPro Hero 4 Silver, captured beautiful adventures from the mountains to waterfalls, and a lot more...

A few weeks ago, tracking for Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation was supposedly in the toilet. Early reports suggested that Tom Cruise’s fifth outing as super-spy Ethan Hunt was not getting people excited. This would be the end, the experts said, of a franchise that has kept Cruise’s career surging forward for the past two decades. Well, that was apparently a big load of crap because Rogue Nation opened well and opened in the same ballpark as the rest of the franchise. Even with inflation differences, this series keeps on hitting the same box office sweet spot.

Full disclosure: I missed the last 10 minutes of Vacation. Last night’s press screening started 20 minutes late, then began without any sound, which lead to a 10 minute delay to correct the technical difficulties. With an unbreakable engagement elsewhere, I had to sneak out right before the very last scene. So take this review with as many grains of salt as you’d like. If you think those final minutes might recontextualize everything that came before to transform a generally miserable comedy into a beacon of transcendent hilarity, so be it. Having sat through the previous 90 minutes, I’m of the opinion that nothing short of the long-lost missing footage from Orson Welles’ Magnificent Ambersons could have redeemed this dreadful film.

What at first seemed like a silly idea for a reboot/sequel has already proven itself as incredibly promising with just a couple of trailers — a new trailer for Vacation has arrived, and it’s just as funny as the previous ones (although it features less of Chris Hemsworth’s, um, area). A new generation of Griswolds hit the road for Walley World, and the results appear to be even more disastrous than the original gang’s vacation attempts.

The new Vacation may bear the same name as the old Vacation, but it’s actually a sequel, taking place a few decades after the first ill-fated Griswold family trip to Walley World. The first trailer for this new version has arrived and while it has the same title and premise as its predecessor, it bends over backwards to let you know that Ed Helms is the same Rusty Griswold from 32 years ago, all grown up. Can we call this a rebootquel?

I'm going on vacation next week, my first vacation in two years and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself. What would be your perfect vacation?

So we've cleaned up from Christmas, sort of. For some reason candy has become a part of the holidays so there are still wrappers strewn about the house because my kids can't be bothered to clean up after themselves. Oh yeah, my kids. Did I mention they're home from school for another week? I don't have much hair left to rip out.

My 3 year-old posed a question to me this morning (the day after Christmas). He asked where Santa went after he delivered all of the presents to the children. How do you answer that?

I’m not sure why we choose to call it vacation anymore.  My wife and I were locked in a minivan with four kids for hours on end.  I have to say that all of my brood were fairly well-behaved this year, but don’t tell them I said that.