BB 11/9/15

Good morning Phoenix and welcome to movie Monday! This month, I’ll highlight movies about Thanksgiving. More movies are made about Christmas, but there are some real Thanksgiving gems out there, and I’ll start with one of the best – Planes, Trains, and Automobiles!

Plot: A man must struggle to travel home for Thanksgiving with an obnoxious slob of a shower curtain ring salesman as his only companion. All that Neal Page wants to do is to get home for Thanksgiving. His flight has been cancelled due to bad weather, so he decides on other means of transport. As well as bad luck, Neal is blessed with the presence of Del Griffith, shower curtain ring salesman and all-around blabbermouth who is never short of advice, conversation, bad jokes, or company. And when he decides that he is going the same direction as Neal....

Trivia:

• Steve Martin's favorite film of his own.

• The Marathon Car Rental scene is exactly one minute long from the time Steve Martin starts his tirade, to the time the attendant ends the scene. In that 60 seconds, the word "fucking" is used 18 times, that word is only said in that scene.

• John Hughes, in an interview on the 'Those Aren't Pillows' DVD edition, said he was inspired to write the film's story after an actual flight from New York to Chicago he was on was diverted to Wichita Kansas, thus taking him 5 days to get home.

• At the beginning of the movie, Neal Page (Steve Martin) races a character played by Kevin Bacon for a taxi. Later, Neal phones his wife to tell her that he has been delayed (again); in the background, you can hear the fight from She's Having a Baby (1988) (also directed by John Hughes) between Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern, when she screams that she doesn't like his friend's girlfriend.

• Only rated PG in New Zealand, even though the infamous "19 f-words in under a minute" scene remained intact.

Goofs:

• Del Griffith introduces himself as "Del Griffin" when Neil and Del are first seated on the plane.

• Early in the movie, a BMW stops before running over Neil. When it drives off, it is a Lincoln.

• Neal's plane ticket claims that he'll leave from JFK Airport, but with the information board in New York and the arrival board in Chicago, Neal is actually departing from LaGuardia Airport.

• On the bus the child running up and down the aisle accidentally conks the woman sitting in the front seat hard on top of her head with the handle of the toy he is playing with. Watch her eyes to see both how startled she was and also, to her credit, how determined she was not to let it show.

• The police officer who pulls Del over for speeding has a Wisconsin State Patrol patch on his coat, when they are supposed to be traveling from St. Louis to Chicago.

Have a fangtastic day my friends.  <3 Brock V"""V