“Black Friday is possibly my favorite day of the year, or at least it’s in contention for the top spot. Christmas, my birthday, and free Slurpee day are also vying for the spot. As per tradition, I made the wee hours of the morning pilgrimage to the holy land of Best Buy. Grabbed a stack of 20+ DVDs and BluRays, most priced under 5 bucks, and waiting in line for 90 minutes to check out. Add in the early sale movies I got online a few days before and the couple I got at my other traditional shopping location, Target, and I’ve got a stack (actually it’s split into two stacks) of 35+ movies to watch now. I’d better get on that.
After a morning of playing WoW (I still haven’t brought myself to pay for the Draenor upgrade though) and cooking this week’s Blue Apron meals, it was time for yoga and then attacking the pile. While I was lying in shavasana, it occurred to me that Planes, Trains, and Automobiles would be a fun one to watch. Usually the majority of my Black Friday movies are crap that they really just want gone from their shelves, but this year I found a lot of low priced classics that I’d never seen. This included.
Having never seen it, I didn’t know just how apropos a choice it was for this Turkey Day weekend. Steve Martin (are character names really necessary with such iconic actors) is struggling to get home for Thanksgiving. He continues to cross paths with John Candy, and the two try to make the journey together any way they can. As you could imagine from that pair, things don’t always work out quite right. Martin takes on the straight role, fairly uptight with stubborn determination, while Candy is the free spirited spazz, mucking everything up.
Some of the jokes are a bit dated, but even without the aid of present day technologies, it still had a timeless feel to it. As is worryingly often the case with these types of opposite characters, I found myself over sympathizing and relating to Martin. True, some of my frustration was the lack of planning or foresight on his part, but I couldn’t help but be calculating logistics or totaling up the ridiculous amount of money he spent. Candy had an endearing quality beneath that often annoying (on purpose acting wise) exterior.
Either way, I’m just happy to cross another beloved classic off my list. And it only cost me five bucks!”