It’s been decades since a film with “National Lampoon” in its title has been worth watching, let alone applauding. For the first 10 years of its existence, the humor magazine was my comedy Qur’an, a monthly dose of unrepentant shock and bad taste that merrily went out of its way to offend. It would be impossible in this space to mention the number of entertainment by-products and showbiz careers the magazine spawned. All of them — and many of the artists and writers who followed co-founders Doug Kenney and Henry Beard’s dance inside the volcano — are covered in Douglas Tirola’s admiring documentary. There was a brief period in American culture when society didn’t look down its nose at what went up yours. Never maudlin, the passing parade of drug fatalities blunts many a dark laugh. For NatLamp connoisseurs, nothing less than a Proustian rush of mean-spirited delight; for newbies, reason to scour eBay for back issues (2015) — Scott Marks
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