Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Go To Thanksgiving Movies


Every holiday seems to dust off some old favorites for the season. Two nights ago I watched The Road To Wellville again because it feels like a holiday movie to me (partially because it takes place during Christmas and partially because the first time I saw it was with my father over Thanksgiving) and I think it's just a fantastic movie so I decided to watch it again. I had gotten in a fight with my son that night so the scenes between Dr. Kellogg (Anthony Hopkins) and his son George (played by a surprisingly good Dana Carvey and even better by Jacob Reynolds) brought me some comfort that night. Not to mention the writing is brilliant. Lines like "An erection is a flagpole on your grave" and "the enemas take some getting used to, but, in time, you'll learn to look forward to them like an old friend with a cold nose" are simply classic.

RC at Strange Culture recommends Pieces Of April as a nice Thanksgiving treat. I of course have to watch the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving with everyone and then when the kiddies go to bed, the wife and I like to watch Home For The Holidays. This movie received a lot of criticism and I try to find the nicks and the cracks in an attempt to grasp where this film misses but can't for the life of me find anything wrong. To me, this is what the holidays are about. They are about tension and weird family members and confrontations and it's all wonderful. A sweet holiday gathering is good for Hallmark, but it's boring for the rest of us. This movie tells it like it is and because of that no other movie honestly celebrates family like Home For The Holidays. And seriously, how can you not love Robert Downey Jr. in any role?

Anyway, that's my Go To Thanksgiving movie. What are yours?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's not necessarily a Go To Thanksgiving movie, but for me, no Thanksgiving is complete without Rudy. It feels wintery, it's got football, and it's got a lot of...thankfulness, I guess.

Ah, Rudy...

TALKING MOVIEzzz said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Planes, Train and Automobiles is the classic Thanksgiving movie.