When the 30th anniversary Blu-ray edition of National Lampoon's Vacation (which hits shelves tomorrow) crossed my desk, two thoughts went through my head. 1) "I haven't seen this in ages!" and 2) "30th anniversary? Man, I am old." To my surprise, though, the movie itself doesn't feel as ancient as I did in that moment or as many comedies from that era do today. (Seen Meatballs lately? Yikes.) In fact, period fashions, music cues and surprising amounts of casual nudity aside, Vacation is fairly timeless in its comedy. The Griswold clan's ill-fated road trip to Walley World still makes us laugh in large part because the characters' personalities and the madcap situations they become ensnared in remain relatable and funny to viewers past and present.

Despite the participation of a galaxy of stars (Emma Stone! Chris Pratt! Richard Gere! Halle Berry!) and several big-name directors (Peter Farrelly! James Gunn! Brett Ratner!), the feature-length assemblage of skits that's billing itself as Movie 43 arrives in theaters this weekend unscreened for critics. (Imagine spending 90 minutes surfing Funny or Die and you've got the general gist of what it has to offer.) That's almost certainly a terrible sign, but I can't help but hold out hope that maybe, just maybe Movie 43 will be as stupidly enjoyable as the all-star sketch comedy revue it's clearly inspired by. I'm speaking, of course, about 1987's Amazon Women on the Moon, where such then-famous actors as Steve Guttenberg, Rosanna Arquette and Ed Begley Jr. popped up in spoofs of TV commercials, shows and one very bad '50s sci-fi movie.

It's been 15 years since Paul Thomas Anderson became a critical darling with the premiere of his sprawling '70s porn epic Boogie Nights. As widely liked as the movie was then, one couldn't have anticipated the quantum leap Anderson's already impressive skills would take over the next decade-and-a-half, as he crafted films as diverse and challenging as Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love and his masterpiece, There Will Be Blood. Put alongside those titles, Boogie Nights stands out as his most conventional movie; it's a straightforward rise-and-fall-and-rise-again Hollywood narrative that just happens to take place in the adult film industry rather than bright lights of the studio world. Seen today, the film is still a lot of fun -- before it goes to some truly dark places in the second half -- packed with great performances (it's still a crime that Burt Reynolds didn't win that Best Supporting Actor statue he was nominated for) and lots of razzle-dazzle filmmaking, but it's also a reminder of how much richer and complex Anderson's pictures have gotten since.

Let's be honest: once you got past the vicarious thrill of seeing all of the major action icons from your '80s and early '90s childhood sharing the screen, The Expendables was a lousy movie. A passion project for writer/director/star Sylvester Stallone -- who threw his body, soul and bank account into the film, even severely injuring himself in the line of duty (check out the pretty good feature-length making-of documentary Inferno, available on Netflix Instant, for the full story) -- the finished film turned out to be monotonous, poorly choreographed and self-serious to the point of parody. Still, the tug of nostalgia proved too strong for most moviegoers and The Expendables became a legitimate late-summer hit, making a sequel inevitable if not exactly demanded. So here comes The Expendables 2, which, if you're judging a movie by its plot, characterizations and internal logic (you know, the little things), is also pretty lousy. Unlike its predecessor though, this one recognizes its inherent stupidity and goes all-in on being the loudest, dumbest and most comically preposterous action movie of the summer. It's even more of a cartoon than that mid-'80s Rambo animated series... and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Before The Dark Knight Rises closes out the current Batman series, we celebrate the anniversaries of two older Caped Crusaders.

It's been ten years since Sam Raimi showed us a man could swing. How does the original Spider-Man hold up? Quite well, thank you for asking.

Before Prometheus arrives in theaters tomorrow, let's celebrate the anniversaries of the last two films in the original Alien cycle.

Before you see Moonrise Kingdom this weekend, check out these two films from the movie's co-writers, Roman Coppola and Wes Anderson.

Stop me if you've heard this one already: roughly two decades after a popular cop series has gone off the air, Hollywood gets the bright idea to remake it as a big-screen vehicle for two young, likeable stars (one of whom also writes the screenplay), which puts a decidedly comic spin on what used to be a straightforward procedural. At the same time, they also make sure to include a number of shout-outs to the source material in the form of visual gags, recycled sets and cameos from some of the stars of the original show. No, I'm not talking about the new version of that '80s chestnut 21 Jump Street that's arriving in theaters today, starring the unlikely duo of Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. I'm referring to Dragnet, the 1987 Dan Aykroyd/Tom Hanks update of Jack Webb's iconic show, which aired from 1951-1959 and again from 1967-1970. (There were two later revivals as well, but neither of those starred Webb.) It's somehow fortuitous that Dragnet is celebrating its 25th anniversary the same year that 21 Jump Street arrives in theaters, because the two movies really do have a lot in common, except for one key thing... Jump Street is actually really funny. So why did this one succeed where its predecessor failed? We examine the evidence:

This holiday weekend saw the release of The Secret World of Arriety, the 17th film from the revered Japanese animation house, Studio Ghibli.