Fandango’s Best Road Trip Movies — From “Thelma & Louise” to “Vacation”

Posted on June 2, 2016 at 8:00 am

As families plan their summer schedules, there’s almost sure to be a road trip. You might want to take a look at Fandango’s list of the greatest road trip movies to help you decide what you do and don’t want to include. From “Thelma & Louise” to “Zombieland,” “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure,” “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle,” “Lost in America,” and “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” the list has action and adventure, comedy, and romance. My list would omit “joe Dirt,” “The Guilt Trip,” “Wild Hogs,” “Identity Thief,” “Vacation,” “Crossroads,” and “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Road Chip” but I was glad to see choices like “Sideways,” “It Happened One Night,” “Nebraska,” and “Midnight Run,” four of the all-time greats. I’d add “The Sure Thing,” “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” “The Daytrippers,” “Smoke Signals.” “O, Brother Where Art Thou?,” and the two “Trip” movies with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon (another one is coming!). I often say that the single most popular theme in stories is a journey, from The Odyssey to “The Wizard of Oz,” and “The Jungle Book.” There’s a reason for that — a journey separates us from the usual and familiar and intensifies our responses. And it provides us with unlimited opportunities for risk, adventure, lessons learned, and new friends, sometimes even romance.

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Fanboys

Posted on February 19, 2009 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for pervasive crude and sexual material, language and drug content
Profanity:	Strong and very crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, peyote trip
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic peril and violence, sad death
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	February 20, 2009

“Fanboys” has less of a sense of humor about its subjects than they do about themselves. It is so afraid of offending the demographic that it cannot decide if it is making fun of passionate fans of popular culture or making fan of everyone who is hasn’t spent hours debating the abilities of Boba Fett. Four high school buddies, now estranged, get together for one crazy mission — they want to break into George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch to get a look at the new “Star Wars” movie, “The Phantom Menace,” before anyone else. And the result is just another teen road trip movie, crammed with cameos and many many jokes about body parts and their functions, about mastery of minutiae and saying things like “It’s been parsecs since I’ve seen you” and name-checking things that are oh, so 1998 (Great big Palm Pilots! Chumbawamba!). And isn’t it hilarious that these guys don’t have girlfriends? Yeah, I didn’t think so, either.

The trailer gives away most of the movie’s best surprises including cameos from stars identified with a series of fanboy call signs. Billy Dee Williams is identified as Lando Calrissian, and Carrie Fisher is of course identified as Princess Leia. The real fanboys in the audience will also recognize Ray Park (Darth Maul) and will also appreciate the appearance of the now-indispensable slob comedy utility players Seth Rogan (in three parts), Danny McBride, and Jay and Silent Bob. There are some amusing confrontations between the “Star Wars” geeks and the Trekkers and Kristen Bell (whose brunette bob makes her look like Parker Posey) gives some snap to her lines and wears a Leia harem girl outfit. Someone needs to give the talented Pell James a better job. In her brief and thankless role as a Las Vegas “escort” she lights up the screen with obvious warmth and intelligence.

That is not enough to make up for way we keep getting pulled back to the four bland characters and even blander storylines (you think that conflicts will be addressed? is someone going to find true geek love? will we learn what life is all about?) at what passes for the heart of the movie. It could have been a lot of fun if they hadn’t cheesed it up with a character suffering from Movie Disease — you know, the one where you only have a short time to live but appear and act perfectly healthy — and another character who is struggling with whether he should “grow up” and behave responsibly. It is a shame that a movie about the people who are most passionate about edgy, imaginative stories is itself slipshod and formulaic.

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The Straight Story

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:16 am

Do not let the G-rating and the Disney label mislead you – this is an adult movie in the old-fashioned sense of the word, meaning that its story and themes will most appeal to adults and some teens. It gets a G rating because it does not have any of the usual triggers for a PG or PG- 13 rating. There are no four-letter words or nudity, and there is nothing in the movie that is likely to cause offense or trauma. Still, it is not for most younger kids, who will be bored and restless. Thoughtful middle- and high schoolers and adults, however, will find a lot to appreciate and talk about in this seemingly simple story of 73 year old Alvin Straight, who sets off to visit his estranged brother, after hearing that he has had a stroke.

Alvin uses two canes and cannot see well enough to drive. So he hitches a trailer to his riding mower and sets off on a 300-mile journey from Iowa to Wisconsin, encountering along the six-week drive a range of people, landscapes, and adventures.

Children who watch a lot of television and movies often develop what psychologists call the “mean world” syndrome. Based on what they learn about the adult world from the media, their estimates of the incidence of murder and corruption are distorted way out of proportion to reality. And our cautions about not talking to strangers contribute further to their sense that the world is a dangerous place. This movie is a nice antidote to that. Alvin meets an engaging assortment of people, including a teen- age runaway, a team of bicyclists, twin repairmen, and a man who spent his career working for John Deere, and is unfailingly treated with kindness and dignity. It is good to let kids know that they can meet strangers like that, and even better to let them know that they can be strangers like that.

The essential decency of all of the movie’s characters is a good subject for family discussion. So are his comments on family. Hoping to get to his brother in time, he speaks feelingly to people he meets about the importance of the bond between siblings. This is a point that is always worth raising to kids who think that there may never be a day when they will have more to talk to their brothers and sisters about than whose turn it is to empty the dishwasher.