Rhapsodies

I  thought doing a Thanksgiving theme considering the holiday would be a good idea, but in the end I really didn’t get into my selection. Nothing against the films themselves, perhaps I wasn’t in the mood or perhaps it was a sore spot I wasn’t aware of, Considering I haven’t really had the option for several years perhaps it’s something I’m no longer familiar with.

The first on my list,  John Hughes’ Planes, Trains and Automobiles, is a buddy film starring Steve Martin and the late John Candy featuring a race to bet back home for the holidays as Murphy’s Law has a field day with them. Starting with flights being canceled due to the snow, trains breaking down and after that anything else that can possibly go wrong while at the same time two completely opposite personalities being stuck together all the way.

I’ve never been the biggest fan of John Hughes’s work but this is different enough that it’s not really an issue. Martin and Candy have pretty good chemistry with Martin playing one of the ultimate tightness and Candy playing  a genuinely nice but annoying salt of the earth type. Watching the two bang heads together is half the fun watching how they react to the latest bit of bad luck is the takes care of the rest.

You’re expected to love your family… liking them is optional. Jodie Foster‘s Home For the Holidays is an ensemble piece ably led by Holly Hunter. Hunter plays a divorce single mother who is having a horrible day. On the day she is heading out to visit her Parents in Baltimore for Thanksgiving she is fired from her job and her daughter wants to stay (and have sex with) boyfriend which leaves her alone for a weekend with her eccentric mob of a family. Mostly the story serves as a  way to tie together a series of vignettes of human interaction and showing off all of the outrageous cast members for all they were worth. Special credit goes to a very young Robert Downey Jr as her younger gay brother.