1987 comedy
Rating: 11/20
Plot: A selfish man tries to get home for Thanksgiving while an annoying but likable man tries to help him.
I don't believe I had seen this movie before though every bit of it seemed familiar. Everything, including all the 80's yuckiness, is exactly what you'd expect here.
Steve Martin is the exact sort of straight everyman you'd expect him to be, and he has the exact story arc you'd anticipate him having.
John Candy is the exact sort of buffoon you'd expect him to be. I spent the entire movie wondering if he could have pulled off Ignatius J. Reilly in an adaptation of A Confederacy of Dunces or if he just didn't have the range.
The humor is exactly what you'd expect. I feel like I was raised on this kind of humor and managed to somehow escape with more sophisticated tastes. And yes, I realize that makes me sound like I'm full of myself, but I don't care. Nobody is reading this anyway. There's even the kind of slightly homophobic humor you'd expect ("Those aren't pillows! Ahhhhhhh!") in a movie from this terribly embarrassing decade.
A lot of 80's yuckiness is in the movie's score. It's gross. So is a series of flashbacks near the end when Steve Martin's character goes through nearly the entire movie in his head while changing his facial expression slightly.
It's amazing that the producers decided to include a scene where Steve Martin delivers a monologue filled with "fucking" thises and "fucking" thats, the only thing, I believe, that would have kept this from being rated PG and having a chance at a wider audience.
Maybe the Roy Orbison (I think?) velvet painting would have been enough to get it an R-rating though.
It was shocking to me to see the Chicago skyline from 32 years ago because it looks completely different.
Oh, something from the 80s that I do love--women's hair styles. Laila Robins has cute hair.
Larry Hankin is in this movie, briefly.
Alright, I feel like I covered everything I needed to cover here.
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