National Lampoon’s Vacation, sometimes referred to as
simply Vacation, is a 1983 road trip comedy film directed
by Harold Ramis starring Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo,
Imogene Coca, Randy Quaid, John Candy, and Christie
Brinkley in her acting debut with special appearances by
Eddie Bracken, Brian Doyle-Murray, Miriam Flynn, James
Keach, Eugene Levy and Frank McRae.
Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase will be 80
on October 8th.
On July 28, 1978, National Lampoon’s Animal House, a movie
spoof about 1960s college fraternities starring John Belushi,
(above) opened in theaters. Produced with an estimated budget
of $3 million, Animal House became a huge, multi-million-dollar
box-office hit, spawned a slew of cinematic imitations and
became part of pop-culture history with such memorable lines
as “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”
Set at the fictional Faber College (the University of Oregon
served as a stand-in during filming).
On July 15, 1988, Die Hard, an action film starring Bruce
Willis as wisecracking New York City cop John McClane,
opened in theaters across the country. A huge box-office
hit, the film established Willis as a movie star and spawned
three sequels. Die Hard also became Hollywood shorthand
for describing the plot of other actions films, as in “Speed
is Die Hard on a bus.”
On July 6, 1994, the movie Forrest Gump opened in U.S.
theaters. A huge box-office success, the film starred Tom
Hanks in the title role of Forrest, a good-hearted man with
a low I.Q. who winds up at the center of key cultural and
historical events of the second half of the 20th century.
Forrest Gump was based on a 1986 novel of the same
name by Winston Groom, who (like his main character)
grew up in Alabama and served in the Army during
Vietnam.
Forrest and Jenny
On June 23, 1989, Tim Burton’s noir spin on the well-known story
of the DC Comics hero Batman was released in theaters.
Michael Keaton (below) starred in the film as the multimillionaire
Bruce Wayne, who has transformed himself into the crime-fighting
Batman after witnessing his parents’ brutal murder as a child.
