LoC #132 Top 112 Road Movies / Journey Films

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MILE 86

RV ( 2006 )

Studio: Columbia Pictures
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

8 Points, 1 List, #18 Pastor of Muppets

TRAILER

When his planned family trip to Hawaii is cancelled due to his boss sending him on a last minute business trip, suburban dad Robin Williams decides to rents an RV and take his family to Colorado where the business meeting is to take place. But since this is a comedy, every possible comedic trope about a camper happens.

Robin Williams career had been in a downward spiral since his big  mistake Death to Smoochy, despite the success of Insomnia. Looking for a formula comedy to win back his fans, he turned to director Barry Sonnenfeld, director of the Men In Black films.  Sonnenfeld had been facing his own slump with another disaster, Wild Wild West, followed  by the Tim Allen film Big Trouble which also bombed. Also looking for redemption were producers Lucy Fisher and Douglas Wick who had just been responsible for Bewitched.  And as far as I can tell, that is the only reason this formula comedy was made. Because there is zilch on the internet about it's production.

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MILE 85

The Searchers ( 1956 )

Studio: Warner Bros.
Director: John Ford

8 Points, 1 List, #18 Edward J Grug III

TRAILER

Stolen cattle lure the men of a West Texas town away, along with the local Texas Rangers. Realizing the theft was a diversion to leave the town defenseless, they immediately return. Among them is former Confederate soldier and unabashed racist Ethan Edwards who discovers his brother's house burning, and the bodies of his br4other and the family. Two of his brother's daughters are missing, presumed kidnapped by the Comanche's who raided the town. Ethan and a group of men that include Rangers follow the trail of the kidnappers, discovering the dead body of one of the sisters. Determined to find his other niece, Ethan begins what will become a relentless 12 year search.

The screenplay was written by Frank Nugent, a former film critic turned screenwriter who had previously written the scripts for the John Ford directed films Fort Apache, 3 Godfathers, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,  The Quiet Man and Mister Roberts. The script was based on the Alan Le May novel of the same name published two years earlier. John Wayne's character was actually based on Britton Johnson, an African American who spent six years relentlessly searching for a daughter who had been kidnapped by the Comanches. Ford wanted to do a film that explored the racism towards Native Americans by the white settlers. While the Comanches in the film are brutal, it is made clear that they are retaliating for much worse treatment by the whites.

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MILE 84

Crossroads ( 2002 )

Studio: MTV Films / Paramount Pictures
Director: Tamra Davis

9 Points, 1 List, #17 Pastor of Muppets

TRAILER

Three former childhood friends decide to reconnect on a road trip to California. Lucy, to find the mother who abandoned her as an infant. Mimi, to audition for a record company. And Kit to surprise her fiancée at UCLA. 

Former cast member of the Disney Channel  revival of The Mickey Mouse Club,, Britney Spears, became a major recording star with the release of her #1 single ...Baby One More Time, which was soon followed by six top 40 singles, three Platinum albums and four successful concert tours. Which meant she was ready to become an actress. Why not? She had some acting experience by dong those Mickey Mouse Club skits, her numerous music videos, and a cameo as a flight attendant in Longshot, a now forgotten comedy that had the screen debuts of NSYNC, LFO and O-Town. With Britney's acting career a sure thing, and Acadamy Award nominations soon to follow, all her management team needed was the right script.  So they hired an up and coming screen writer named Shonda Rhimes to write what would turn Britney into the next Meryl Streep. The film didn't work out so well. While earning a respectable $60 million over a cheap $12 million budget, it still underperformed to the expectations of Paramount who expected all of Britney's fans to show up at the box office. They didn't. And the ones who did weren't her fans long after seeing it. Critics hated it, and panned Britney's performance. And despite earning  the MTV Movie Award nomination for Best Female Breakthrough Performance, (  MTV Films co-produced the film ), the only award she won for it was the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress. Britbey Spears acting career came to a sudden and abrupt end, with her only appearing in a few gag cameos from that point on. It even managed to do some damage to her singing career, although her increasingly erratic behavior did more of the damage.  This film didn't just sink Britney's movie career. It also ruined the career of up and coming director Tamara Davis. A music video director who's credits included Ton Loc's Wild Thing. Young MC's Bust A Move, Hanson's MMMBop and one of my all time favorite music videos,  Alien Ant Farm's Movies, she had graduated to directing feature films, having directed seven features before Crossroads that included CB4, Billy Madison and Half Baked. Her film career ended after this, and from that point on she was only offered work shooting television episodes. This movie didn't sink everyone's careers. Somehow it lead to bigger and better things for Shonda Rhimes. Zoe Saldana who played one of Britney's friends seemed to rebound. And Britney's younger sister Jamie Lynn Spears, who debuted in this film playing Britney's character as a kid, was signed by Nickelodeon to star in her own series Zoey 101, which is currently being revived by Paramount+ as Zoey 102

[Pastor of Muppets]

It's odd to see some choices and then see my name under them.  About half my list was just filler movies that I don't really like that much.

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MILE 83

The Sugarland Express ( 1974 )

Studio: Universal Pictures
Director: Steven Spielberg

9 Points, 1 List, #17 Stethacantus

TRAILER

Lou Jean Poplin visits her husband  Clovis at prison and tells him that the state has taken their infant son away from them and awarded custody to foster parents,  and she wants him to break out of prison so he can help her take her son back. Initially reluctant because he only has four months left on his sentence,  Clovis is convinced to sneak out of prison and join her. A patrolman tries to stop them, so they kidnap him and take him hostage. This leads to a slow 200 mile chase by the police who are afraid to get too close to the Poplin's vehicle while they are holding a policeman hostage. The caravan of slow perusing police soon grows and is joined by news vans and private citizens looking to cheer he Poplins on.


Universal Studio's Sidney Sheinberg  had signed college student Steven Spielberg to a seven year contract in 1968. But in all that time he had been offered nothing but assignments to direct for Universal's television division. As his contract was nearing an end, Spielberg convinced  producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown to allow him to direct his first feature film. A comedy based on the true life story of Bobby and Ila Fae Dent. In 1969 Bobby Dent had just been released from prison when a patrolman tried to pull his car over for a traffic violation. Not knowing why he was being pulled over, and believing it would result in him being arrested again and going back to prison, he fled  the police with his wife Ila Fae in the car. Their car crashed during the chase and they fled on foot into the woods, eventually taking refuge in an abandoned barn. Believing they were fugitives, the couple came up with the idea of calling the police and saying they were hitchhikers  who had been robbed, and when a patrol car showed up, taking the officer hostage. They thought  the officer could sneak then out of the county, but instead fellow officers realized what was happening, and for the next six hours the patrol car was in a slow speed chase followed by a caravan of police cars, news vans and onlookers. On the radio with the police chief, the Dent's made a deal to set their hostage free if Ila Fae could visit her children from a previous marriage, and then get a 15 minute head start. The house where the kids were to be in  turned out to be a trap, and as the hostage officer dropped to the ground, the police inside the house gunned down Bobby Dent. Ila Fae dropped her weapon and was immediately arrested. Despite having Goldie Hawn as the star, it did poorly at the box office. But by then producers Zanuck and Brown had been so impressed with Spielberg's directing that they hired him to direct Jaws.

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MILE 82

Mad Max: Fury Road ( 2015 )

Studio: Warner Bros.
Director: George Miller

9  Points, 2 Lists, #22 RVRII

TRAILER

And we finally have a movie which was on more than one list. In a post apocalyptic future, Mad Max helps a group of women escape from the leader of a motorized hoard, and gets chased by said hoard.

Deciding to continue the Mad Max franchise, director George Miller decided the next film should address the complaints of fans of the series, that there were not enough chase scenes. Both Road Warrior and Thundrerdome didn't have their big chase until the third act while the first Mad Max film had only a brief chase scene at the beginning of the film. Not that the world Mad Max was set in wasn't fascinating, but these films were promoted for their fantastical chases, and audiences grew impatient waiting for them to happen. So in 1987 Miller decided the next Mad Max film should be one continuous chase for nearly the entire film, with only the briefest of set ups at the beginning of the film. He had a few other projects to attend to first. At the time he had been hired to direct the Hollywod film The Witches of Eastwick  followed by passion project Lorenzo's Oil and then the two Babe films. He also needed to both find a studio to greenlight a new Mad Max film, and also needed to wait for the busy Mel Gibson, who was also attached to the Lethal Weapon franchise, to have time to do another Mad Max film. Everything seemed set up in 2000 with 20th Century Fox as the studio and Mel Gibson signed to reprise his Mad Max role, when the movie was cancelled due to the 9/11 attacks. Miller instead began work on his Happy Feet films. Several more attempts would be made  to make Fury Road, each time the production being cancelled just after pre-production. Eventually Gibson was recast. Miller insisted this was because he had aged out of his role, but it was more to do with him being considered too controversial. The movie was finally made with Tom Hardy as Max, and currently two sequels and a spinoff prequel are in development hell.

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MILE 81

The Fundamentals of Caring  ( 2016 )

Studio: Netflix
Director:Rob Burnett

10 Points, 1 List, #16 Pastor of Muppets

TRAILER

A caregiver named Ben is hired to take  care of a muscular dystrophy patient named Trevor. The two become friends, and when Ben finds out that Trevor wants to visit a roadside attraction called The World's Deepest Pit. Although the real reason for taking a rode trip to that tourist trap, is so he can finally visit his father, who abandoned the family after Trevor was diagnosed with the disease. On the road Trevor falls fora pretty hitchhiker named Dot, and Ben decides to invite her along with them. They are soon joined by a pregnant woman named Peaches who's car has broken down.

Very little background on this film. It was written, produced and directed by Rob Burnett, the producer of The Late Show with David Letterman, and the production company was Letterman's World Wide Pants. And that is all the production information I have on this. It was based on the book The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Johnathan Evison, an author who would in 2021 gain notoriety for publishing a book that supposedly supported pedophilia and was subsequently banned by MAGA controlled schools and libraries across the country, making it the 7th most banned book in America. That book. Lawn Boy, did not have pedophilia in it, but rather a character talks about how he kissed a 4th grader, when he was also in the 4th grade.

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MILE 80

Sesame Street Present's: Follow That Bird ( 1985 )

Studio: Warner Bros.
Director: Ken Kwapis

10 Points, 1 List, #16 Edward J Grug III

TRAILER

Apparently Big Bird was a homeless orphan, and after a social worker sends him to live with foster parents who are also birds, Big Bird decides to run away from his foster home and return to Sesame Street. His running away from his foster home makes the news, and the rest of his friends on Sesame Street decide to find him before the social worker does.


John Landis was to direct this film. However, he was forced to drop out at the last minute due to a production delay on another of his films Into the Night. The movie was turned over to television director    Ken Kwapis. For financial reasons, the production of the film was moved to Canada. Northern Calloway, who played David on Sesame Street, was barred by the Canadian Government from entering their country, due to him having a criminal record. Suffering from what would later be diagnosed as bipolar disorder, in 1980 he attacked and injured the host of a house he was staying in, and from there went on a vandalism spree by breaking into several hoses in Nashville. Since Canada refused to allow Calloway from entering their country, the character of David was written out of the script and did not appear in the movie. With the original Sesame Street set back in New York, a new Sesame Street set needed to be built, which the director decided needed to be much bigger than the original set so it would look more realistic. This meant the additions of several stores not found on the original Sesame Street. During editing, it was discovered that footage shot  on a farm had been badly damaged. The entire cast would need to return to Canada to reshoot the scenes. Due to the production schedule of the television series, this would take place in winter during a artic cold front. The brown leaves on the trees needed to be spraypainted green, and after each shoot was completed, the cast members would race back to their seats to throw on their winter coats. The movie bombed at the box office, nearly bankrupting the Children's Television Workshop and putting and end to Sesame Street for good. Surprisingly, this film got a lot of positive reviews, and has a Rotten Tomato rating of 92%. Surprising because I remembered seeing it reviewed on Siskel and Ebert, and both of them gave it a thumbs way down. I guess they were the 8%.

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MILE 79

It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World ( 1963 )

Studio: United Artists
Director:Stanley Kramer

11 Points, 1 List, #15 Stethacantus

TRAILER

Robber Gogan wrecks his car on a desert road. A group of motorists stop to hell him, and before he dies, he tells them that he has buried $350,000 in cash under a big W in anta Rosita State Park , and whoever digs it up can have it. While the motorists at first agree to share the money, once they return to their cars, it  becomes every man for themselves as they all race across the state to be the first to dig it up.


One of the stories behind this film is that someone bet  Stanley Kramer that he could not direct a comedy. If that bet did take place, then Kramer lost. Kramer was a director of dramas, such as the escaped prisoner film The Defiant Ones (1958), the human race going extinct from a nuclear war drama On the Beach (1959), the school teacher being tried for teaching evolution in the South drama Inherit the Wind (1960) and the Nazi's being tried for genocide drama Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). So basically, he directed the exact opposite of Comedy. So he found a script from screenwriter William Rose about motorists who race through Scotland looking for a hidden stash of loot called So Many Thieves. Kramer wanted something that had the physical comedy of the silent movies he remembered as a kid. After having the script rewritten to take place in America, ( specifically in California ), and many other alterations, Kramer set out to make what would be the ultimate film comedy. He was able to get every living screen comedian to participate, the few exceptions being those who refused to come out of retirement, and Charlie Chaplin who was still barred from entering America. If they weren't part of the main cast, then they had a cameo. Of course the problem was that at the time Kramer had no idea how to make a comedy. While his gads were spectacular, the just were not funny. Fortunately, with such a gifted cast, they were able to take weak material and make it amusing. Was it the greatest Comedy ever made? Spectacle wise, no one had ever made a Comedy that epic. But if you are going by counting the laughs, most of the gags fall flat. Despite that, there is enough action to keep anyone entertained. William Rose would go on to write the classics The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966), The Flim-Flam Man (1967) and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), the other and much better Comedy Kramer directed,  before retiring from screenwriting in 1969.

[Edward J Grug III]

It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was just off of my list. I watched it somewhat recently with my son and we really enjoyed it.

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MILE  78

Midnight Special ( 2016 )

Studio: Warner Bros.
Director: Jeff Nichols

11 Points, 1 List, #15 Edward J Grug III

TRAILER

The father of a boy with supernatural powers removes him from the religious cult he was raised in, and finds himself a fugitive of an Amber Alert.  Not only does the cult want the boy back, but the government is also after them.

I am pretty sure this sub genre has graduated to full genre. I have seen a lot of films where a child with some sort of powers and his/her father becomes a fugitive from the government that wants to study and/or weaponize said powers, This genre goes as far back as 1984 with the film adaption of Steven King's Firestarter. It has even gone as far as being the basis of television series, such as 2014's Believe. There is actually another film coming up in this LoC that is in this sub genre. It is part of a slightly larger sub gene of kids with powers on the run from the government, which includes Escape to Witch Mountain ( 1975 ) and The Darkest Minds ( 2018 ). And all could have easily qualified as a Road Movie. Now, if you are wondering why I am spending most of this write-up talking about the sub-genre , it is because I can find nothing about this film on the internet. Here is all Wikipedia has to say about it's production:

Principal photography commenced on January 20, 2014, and took place for 40 days in New Orleans, wrapping on March 1, 2014. The film was produced by Sarah Green and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, with Glen Basner and Christos V. Konstantakopoulos as executive producers.

Perhaps one of the reasons why so little is written about this film was that it was released the same year Loving was, both being written and directed by Jeff Nichols. Only, Loving had a lot of Oscar buzz, and got a Best Actress nomination for Ruth Negga. Loving has 22 paragraphs in Wikipedia on it's production.

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MILE 77

About Schmidt ( 2002 )

Studio: New Line Cinema
Director: Alexander Payne

1q Points, 1 List, #15 Pastor of Muppets

TRAILER

Suffering from a mid life crisis after a forced retirement, Warren Schmidt decides to drive his Winnebago cross country to his estranged daughter's wedding to convince her  not to marry her fiancée.

After graduating from the UCLA Film School, future director Alexander Payne was signed by Universal Pictures for a writing and directing deal. Ultimately none of the scripts Payne pitched the studio were green lit, including a script about an old man facing retirement and realizing he did nothing with his life. Payne would not get to direct a film until after his deal with Universal expired and he pitched an idea for a comedy about the abortion rights debate to Miramax called Citizen Ruth which got some critical acclaim. Although Citizen Ruth did poorly at the box office, the director caught the attention of MTV Productions, a sub-division of Paramount Pictures. MTV Productions arose from the executives at MTV as a way to further distance themselves from the music genre, after Viacom had purchased Paramount. Convincing Viacom that they knew the teen culture and could make movies teenagers would line up to see, MTV Productions bombed with their first production, Joe's Apartment,  where they took a short one minute bumper for the video channel where talking cockroaches ruin a date, and padded it out to 80 minutes. This was followed by several films that were both critical and financial flops, excluding Beavis & Butt-Head Do America.  Payne pitched to MTV his idea for a film based on an unpublished manuscript that made fun of politics via a high school election called Election. The film made very little money, but gained MTV Studios critical acclaim, and for a while some Oscar buzz., and  even an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay. Despite critical acclaim, Payne found it difficult to get any of his films greenlit. Then he stumbled upon a 1996 novel written by Louis Begley called About Schmidt which, much like his earlier rejected screenplay, was about a retiree in mid-life crisis. Payne acquired the screen rights to the novel,  and New Line Cinema green lit what they thought would be a adaption of a best seller. In actuality, Payne used his rejected script, adding in only a few elements from the novel. The film was both a financial and critical success, earning Jack Nicholson and Kathy Bates Oscar nominations. Payne would follow this film with the Oscar nominated best picture Sideways.

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MILE 76

Borat!

Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan ( 2006 )

Studio: 20th Century Fox
Director: Larry Charles

11 Points, 1 List, #15 RVRII

TRAILER

The  Kazakh Ministry of Information sends reporter Borat Sagdiyev to America to make a documentary about American culture.  Seeing an episode of Baywatch, he decides to take a road trip to California to marry Pamela Anderson, filming the documentary on the way there.


Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen created Da Ali G Show where three fictional characters, Ali G, Borat Sagdiyev and Brüno Gehard, interviewed unsuspecting celebrities and politicians who thought the characters were real reporters. Borat was a reporter from Kazakhstan, who gained national attention when during a segment of Da Ali G Show, he got patrons of a country bar to sing along with an antisemitic song about throwing Jews down the well. With the cancelation of Da Ali G Show, Cohen decided to make a movie with the Borat character. Much like on Da Ali G Show, most of the movie would be unsuspecting celebrities, politicians and average citizens who thought they were being interviewed by a real foreign  reporter, not realizing his questions were purposely silly. The movie was a hit, earning $260 million. Cohen announced the Borat character would be retired because with the popularity of the movie, everyone knew the Borat character wasn't a real reporter. The next film was Brüno ( 2009 ), which featured the Brüno Gehard character, who once again tricked the unsuspecting into doing fake interviews.  ( there had been an Ali G movie, but was a scripted comedy. ) Brüno was also retired because of the exposure of his film. With all the characters from Da Ali G Show retired for being too exposed to do prank interviews any more, Cohen spent the next decade as a comedic actor. Then in 2018 he went back to the prank interview format with the Showtime series Who s America? which introduced a number of new characters. Backlash from Republican victims of his gag interviews complained, most notably Sarah Palin who's threatened lawsuit  had Showtime refusing to allow Cohen to ai the interview on their network. The national notoriety the characters got made it impossible to do a second season, so they were all retired as well. Cohen then moved on to dramas, earning a Best Supporting Actor nomination for The Trial of the Chicago 7. It was shortly after that film was released when Cohen surprised everyone by announcing he had shot a second Borat film during the pandemic, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.  Due to COVID-19 the movie was mostly seen via Amazon Prime.  Cohen insists this time Borat is retired for good.

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MILE  75

Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes
( Aguirre, the Wrath of God )
( 1972 )

Studio: Hessischer Rundfunk
Director: Werner Herzog

11 Points, 1 List,  #15 Charles Castle

TRAILER

Spanish conquistador Lope de Aguirre and his men search for the legendary city of El Dorado in 1600's South America while slowly going mad.


We have reached #75 on the list. This was director Werner Herzog's third film, and his first with actor Klaus Kinski of whom he clashed with on every film they did together. Herzog got the idea for the film after reading a half page article on explorer Lope de Aguirre in a history book. The script, which was completed in two and a half days, was written by Herzog on a bus with a rowdy Soccer team he was traveling with. At one point, a team member got sick from drinking, and threw up on the script, which prompted Herzog to throw the three pages that got covered in puke out the bus window. To this day Herzog has no idea what was on the pages he tossed out. The movie was shot in English with hopes it would be released in English speaking countries. However, the sound recordings were stolen, and ultimately the entire film was dubbed into German.

[Pastor of Muppets]

About Schmidt is an okay movie, but it holds a special place in my heart.  Back in 2003, I loaded up the car with my brother and my two cousins, and we drove to Indianapolis to attend GenCon.  I was 22 years old at the time, and it was the first big road trip I planned on my own.  The day after we got home, About Schmidt was playing on TV and I watched it.  I liked the movie.

Jack Nicholson was playing an old man with a middle aged daughter in 2003.  He must be an absolute fossil by now.