Wishing you all a lovely long holiday weekend. With all this time off work, what better way than to catch up on some films featuring Thanksgiving family action, and I'm not talking about the dismal comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles, which I've never really enjoyed--too broad, exasperating, silly and didn't make a lot of logical sense. There are some very choice movies to watch On Demand or to check out at your local dvd rental store.
Because Woody Allen is so cerebral at times, one tends to forget that the lovely comedy drama Hannah and Her Sisters(1986) is set at not one but two Thanksgiving dinners a year apart, during which time characters meet, mate, and some divorce or split, and they all have to reconcile their actions and their tangled relationships. The cast includes Michael Caine and Dianne Weist who both won Oscars for best supporting actor/actress for this intelligent comedy.
Director Ang Lee (Oscar winner for Brokeback Mountain) created the superior drama The Ice Storm (1997)which culminates at Thanksgiving time. The children are struggling with puberty and the adults are struggling with the new found sexual freedoms (this is set in 1973) and no one seems very happy, but the actors (Signourney Weaver, Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Elijah Wood, Christina Ricci, Tobey Maguire) are well defined and the direction is intense and assured, especially during the beautifully tragic ice storm sequence.
Pieces Of April (2003) is my favorite feel good Thanksgiving film, starring Tom Cruise's (soon to be ex-?) wife Katie Holmes, who tries to pull her family together in her cramped New York City apartment, spending the day frantically trying to prepare a big dinner with many challenges and disasters in her way. It's funny, charming and endearing in spite of some big issues raised (inter-racial love, cancer, dementia, broken appliances, mean neighbors etc).
For the counter-culture in you all, don't forget Alice's Restaurant (1969), based on the classic 20 minute Arlo Gutherie song of the same name. Hippie Arlo gets into big trouble with the law by trying to clean up after a BIG turkey dinner by dumping the kitchen garbage over an embankment because the city dump was closed for the holiday. Arthur (Bonnie and Clyde) Penn directed this hilarious and insightful comedy.
Finally, even though most of us consider the classic Miracle on 34th Street (1947) a Christmas film, the movie features a big segment at a Thanksgiving meal where young Natalie Wood can watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade from the window, and that of course, ends with Santa Claus at the parade's end, which triggers her skeptical and cynical attitude towards Christmas.
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