Thu & Fri, Dec 3 & 4 / 9 pm
Sat, Dec 5 / 10 pm
Sun, Dec 6 / 7 pm
Thu - Sat, Dec 10 - 12 / 9 pm
Directed by Douglas Tirola
2015, USA, 98 min
Amid the seismic cultural shift of the 1970s, American comedy got a sharper edge when a newly minted magazine named National Lampoon stuck its middle finger up at the establishment. Bound by a passion for the absurd and a mistrust of authority, Lampoon’s irreverence spanked nearly every available social taboo from weak-kneed politics to heated racial tensions. This unique cocktail of high satire and gallows humor exploded onto America’s cultural consciousness attracting visionary talents such as Saturday Night Live alumni Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Bill Murray and Chevy Chase, whose comedic force helped expand the magazine’s spirit to stage and film. Director Douglas Tirola unearths never-before-seen archival footage and brilliantly weaves it together with the magazine’s beautiful and often shocking art, reliving National Lampoon’s meteoric rise from go-to magazine of the counterculture to a brand synonymous with Hollywood’s biggest comedies. Energetic, revolutionary, gently perverted, and often hilarious, this film elevates nostalgia to a roof-raising experience.
