Road Trip Movies

I love road trip movies--Little Miss Sunshine, Nebraska, Bonneville, and  Thelma and Louise, just to name the first few I can think of. 

Thelma and Louise, as I recall, didn't end on a happy note.  But shortly after we'd seen it on the big screen, Beverly, Mary Locke and I took a Colorado road trip, and we dubbed ourselves Thelma, Louise, and Burnelle.  At the campsite, we took pictures of ourselves hugging trees.

Tonight I watched Guilt Trip--starring Barbra Streisand. (Happy Valley was last night's pick--but it had nothing to do with travel, except for the fact that it had a yellow Mini Cooper and pretty scenery around Yorkshire.)

Right away, I noted that Guilt Trip wasn't going to be a movie with high literary value.  Nor was it likely to leave a lasting impression.  Nor is anybody in the cast or behind the scenes likely to be nominated for an Oscar.

On the other hand, nobody gets shot or drives off a cliff or anything catastrophic.  The plot is simple: A guy invites his mama to go with him on an eight-day cross-country trip.  He'll pitch his product (an organic cleaner) to K-Mart and Costco; she'll just go along for the ride and stop barely short of driving the poor guy nuts.

Following closely after Happy Valley (six episodes; police story; blood and crime galore), it was refreshing to watch a movie that made me laugh out loud a bunch of times.  My favorite scene was the Tennessee snow scene, in which a stripper comes out of a nightclub to help Andy and his mama with the tires then leaves calling out, "God bless y'all!" in a high-octane sweet Southern accent.