-But the Demme road trip picture that I
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| Something Wild (1986) |
really like is Something Wild, starring Melanie Griffith, Jeff Daniels and Ray Liotta. In this film from 1986, Griffith and Daniels play a mismatched pair from New York who get together by chance and end up at her high school reunion where trouble (Liotta) awaits. Funny, scary and moving, all at the same time. Watch for the scene where a hand-cuffed Daniels says to his boss: "Yeah, I'm writing this down."
Demme's great Melvin and Howard doesn't quite fit into the road trip genre, but the segment at the start when Melvin the milkman picks up Howard Hughes the billionaire recluse and they travel to Vegas together is one of the most engaging car-based scenes in movie history.
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| Joy Ride (2001) |
-If you want a double-feature of films about road trips that put their characters at great risk, you need look no further than Joy Ride and Breakdown.
In 2001's Joy Ride (written by J.J. Abrams of Lost, Alias and Felicity fame) Paul Walker and Steve Zahn play brothers at different ends of the emotional pole who get into trouble with a trucker before they pick up Leelee Sobieski at college, and things only get worse -- much worse -- from there.
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| Breakdown (1997) |
Breakdown (from 1997) stars Kurt Russell and Kathleen Quinlan as a couple headed out west to start a new life. They have an on-road contretemps with a scary guy in a scarier pickup, and the resulting sabotage at a gas station causes her to fall into the hands of trucker J.T. Walsh, forcing Russell to overcome all kinds of obstacles to save her.
If you want to make it a triple-header film night, try to dig up The Hitcher form 1986, in which Euro-psycho Rutger Hauer makes travel hard for C. Thomas Howell and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Indeed, the talented and eccentric Leigh
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| Easy Rider (1969) |
meets one of the most gruesome ends you can imagine.
-Easy Rider isn't a car movie, but it certainly does feature trips along the American road. Unfortunately, it doesn't hold up at all well, except for the scenes with Jack Nicholson as a lawyer looking for a little excitement. The rest of the film clearly shows the influence of the drugs Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper were using at the time and it shouldn't be watched if you saw it as a callow youth and found it meaningful.
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| Harry and Tonto (1974) |
-Harry and Tonto is largely forgotten today, though Art Carney's Oscar-winning performance as a senior citizen (Harry) taking his cat (Tonto) from New York to LA makes it worth the time. Carney's most famous as Jackie Gleason's friend Ed Norton in the Honeymooners, but he had a great screen presence, as Going In Style (with George Burns), The Late Show (with Lily Tomlin) and A Guide For the Married Man (with just about everyone in LA) prove beyond dispute.
