Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon 2015

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: A frenetic, rough-edged, unapologetic tribute to the Lampoon, featuring some amazing archival footage, nifty bits of animation and dozens of straightforward talking-head interviews that crackle and pop. Read more

Ben Kenigsberg, Variety: A generous and briskly entertaining look at the American humor magazine's legacy. Read more

Mike D'Angelo, AV Club: Director Douglas Tirola and his many interview subjects make a strong case for the Lampoon itself as genuinely transformative. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The movie is an orgy of boomer self-congratulation -- yet it lacks even that movie's ironic notation of how a bastion of white-male privilege managed to pass itself off as radical. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: Douglas Tirola's doc about the satirical bible's rise and fall is fascinating, funny, smart, juvenile, tragic, and likely to offend just about everyone. It's a must-see for anyone who cares about comedy. Read more

John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter: Energetic, laugh-stuffed and very colorful. Read more

Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times: Pack rats of a certain generation will all but run to their attics after seeing "Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead." Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Worth watching if only for the wonderful clips from the various "Lampoon" stage shows, and an almost endless parade of covers and comic strips. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: The film is uproarious, not for what its many talking heads say but for its astonishing procession of brilliant, boundary-breaching illustrations and captions ... Read more

Molly Eichel, Philadelphia Inquirer: What makes Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead feel particularly vibrant is how the Lampoon's specific art direction is put to use. Read more

David Lewis, San Francisco Chronicle: We can only imagine with glee what these comic geniuses could have done with some of today's political and cultural figures. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: If you think there is nothing funnier than putting a sacred cow in a blender and hitting the puree button, this is the movie for you. Read more

Brad Wheeler, Globe and Mail: The tone is sharp and freewheeling, the craziness is infectious and the pace is cocaine-quick. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Douglas Tirola's loving doc captures the anarchic '70s college satire magazine that became a comic force. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Douglas Tirola's upbeat doc on National Lampoon already feels essential for celebrating a hard-fought moment of American comic subversion. Read more

Jim Slotek, Toronto Sun: An ambitious attempt to follow how the various alumni and side projects of one scurrilous publication variously gave us Animal House, The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live and The Breakfast Club. Read more

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice: It's dispiriting that a film about a humor magazine that broke and rebuilt the forms of both humor and magazines is itself so staid - and so lacking in sociologic sweep. Read more

Mark Jenkins, Washington Post: Tirola's documentary is brisk and entertaining, if not especially thoughtful. But then neither was the magazine, whose militant bad taste spawned "Saturday Night Live" and so much more. Read more