Whenever I think of Thanksgiving, I can never shake the thought of watching 2007’s Transformers from my head. Transformers Image: DreamWorks Pictures / Paramount Pictures Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu. coach Bud Hall would say after seeing it, “That was real rough.” Mom turned to Dad and said, “You didn’t tell me I was going to cry!” and I had to get out of there, go to my room, and cry it out for myself. That ending, when Neal adds up what Del’s real situation is, and finds him on the El platform, that’ll take the starch out of you. Mom wasn’t really up for Dad’s brand of pathetic humor, where life sucks for the protagonists and gets worse from there. Dad suggested we all watch it together as a family. And I might have been a decade away from battling rental car customer service for myself, but Neal’s F-bomb barrage to Edie McClurg - and her laser-beam riposte - was a lunchroom favorite for the next several months.īut the meaning of this movie, and its everlasting beauty, escaped me until the next Friday after Thanksgiving, in 1988, when Planes, Trains, and Automobiles premiered on HBO. My brother and I howled at its many Kodak moments - I especially appreciated Steve Martin and John Candy pretending to make manly small talk about the Chicago Bears after Neal (Martin) wakes up with Del’s (Candy) hand between his ass cheeks.
Dad took me and my brother, on the Friday after Thanksgiving 1987, to see this movie and give our Mom a much needed afternoon alone. John Hughes’ uproarious take on the road movie ends with a sentimental gut punch that missed me the first time I saw it. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles Image: Paramount Pictures Whether it’s time-honored classics or recent favorites, we’ve got something that’ll please just about everyone. We’ve pulled together a list of some of our favorite crowd-pleasing movies to watch over the holidays. From heartwarming rom-coms to tense sci-fi thrillers to big dumb action flicks, there’s a good movie for every family gathering around the hearth of a bright television screen in search of some communal entertainment. Thanksgiving is the time of year where families and loved ones come together to gorge themselves on platefuls of delicious goodness before taking a food-induced nap on the living room couch.