Let this serve as a little companion piece to my list of five great road trip albums. Road trip films are some of my favorite films, because - like I mentioned in the last article - I mythologize the road trip experience. It's a difficult thing to translate to cinema, but when it's pulled off, the result can be something special.
Pee-wee’s Big Adventure
I’ll be damned if this movie is on around me and I’m not sitting right there in front of it soaking in every second. It’s so many things: a perfect Pee-wee Herman movie, a perfect cult movie, a perfect comedy movie - and a perfect road movie. Its tone is so endearing; it masterfully straddles the line between smug, clever irony and genuine sweetness and sincerity, never leaning too far into one side. It also has The Actual Greatest Comedy Scene of All Time - I’m talking, of course, about Paul Reubens’ barroom dance set to “Tequila” by the Champs.
It’s full of iconic scenes quoted to this day, mostly involving the surreal, almost David Lynch-y characters introduced at different stops Pee-wee makes (“Tell ‘em Large Marge sent ya”) and never, ever falters upon re-watch. Its sequel, Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, just released last year on Netflix, is also a gem, as good as a belated sequel to a cult classic can be.
The Wizard
This movie is primarily known for being awful, a staple of every “worst movies ever” list on the Internet, and I get it; it’s cheesy in all the worst ways (“I love the Power Glove. It’s so bad.”), disgustingly saccharine, and very transparently a 90-minute Nintendo commercial. But it’s not without its charms; in fact, it’s full of them. Jenny Lewis (later of Rilo Kiley) and Fred Savage (not Cory Matthews) are funny and precocious leads, and everything about lame-cool NES guru/villain Lucas Barton and his posse of disciples is hilarious. The American southwest the protagonists travel through has never looked better.
Paris, Texas
Wim Wenders’ 1984 masterpiece may not be a part of his Road Movie trilogy, but it may as well be a part of it, because it epitomizes what makes the genre so great - a sense of atmosphere and a keen eye for scenery. Meditative, passionate, and heartbreaking, it sticks with its viewers, due largely in part to a stunning lead role by legendary character actor Harry Dean Stanton.
Two-Lane Blacktop
Any movie that involves James Taylor, Warren Oates, and Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson driving around is cool as shit by default, so there’s that. Monte Hellman directs it with grace and deliberation, opting for a slow, atmospheric quality in lieu of fast-paced 70’s exploitation. Taylor and the notoriously freewheeling Wilson ooze coolness, and Oates serves as a great frenemy.
National Lampoon’s Vacation
My own road trips are inextricably linked with this movie, in the same way that many people feel like Ghostbusters when they walk through the New York Public Library - because I’m extremely corny, I think of myself as Clark Griswold whenever I travel. I also mentioned in my last article that I always listen to the theme song from this movie on the road - yeah, I’m like that. Not only is the movie, in all its wood-paneled Sedan, 80’s dad fashion glory, sweetly nostalgic - Clark Griswold’s insistence on upholding long-standing family tradition and preserving the good old days of his youth is something to aspire to.