Road Trips are so much fun. Watching them are fun too. Especially in films where there’s a shit load more to happen to the characters than would ever happen to you. Road trips are romantic. Not relationship lovey-dovey romantic, but explorative. Road trips speak to our sense of adventure and/or introspection. For me, I like the idea of being anywhere but here, and having no particular destination in mind. Road trips reaffirm the adage, “Life’s a journey, not a destination.”

Here are some journeys worth watching (in no particular order):

• Y Tu Mama Tambien
  Two teenage boys, bestfriends, one rich, one poor convince a woman, a distant cousin, to join them on a trip to the beach. The boys are looking for fun, the woman, a means of escape from a less than ideal marriage. By the end of the journey, the two boys discover more about each other than they ever expected and the woman discovers more about herself than she ever expected. There are two great surprises towards the end of this film that makes the film just perfect.
• Thelma & Louise
  If you haven’t seen or heard of this film, you’re living under a rock down in a very deep hole. Thelma & Louise is the seminal feminist film, buddy film, road trip film. Two women set out for a weekend getaway from their mates and their lives. But one unpremeditated criminal act later, sends them fleeing from the cops, for their lives, but ironically towards a freedom foreign to them both. It’s smart movie, well written by Callie Khouri, well acted by Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, and well directed by Ridley Scott.
• Sideways
  Sideways is more than your ideal road trip film. It’s genuinely funny with a perfect balance of drama. The drama is subtle and a bit quirky. Miles and Jack go on a road trip through wine country as one last hurrah before Jack’s wedding. Because this film is more independent, I didn’t know where the writer was going, but was happy when he (Jim Taylor) got there. I especially loved a particular scene which I talk about here. And the open ending, synonymous with good independent filmmaking since real life issues aren’t resolved in two hours. Not in myt experience anyway.
• Transamerica
  Felicity Huffman was fabulous in this road trip of transcendence. A man, already living as a woman named Bree, who’s about to undergo a sex change operation discovers he has a son, Toby, who happens to be a prostitute. Bree amd Toby travel across the country to Los Angeles for her operation, but Bree doesn’t let Toby in on her secret that she’s his father. You can only imagine the tension that builds, bubbles and bursts in this situation.
• It Happened One Night
  It Happened One Night is the seminal, the first, screwball comedy and essentially one of the best. Screwball comedy of the 30s and 40s was much funnier, to me, than those since because of the restrictions posed on studios who were not allowed to mention sex in their films let alone have two characters who are not married engage in anything supposedly illecit for an unmarried couple.
• Freeway
  “In this postmodern exploitation flick loosely based on “Little Red Riding Hood,” the uneducated daughter of a drug-addicted prostitute flees the foster-care system in search of her long-lost grandmother but meets up instead with a serial killer.” (from allmovie.com) Could you ask for a better plot thant that? A cult classic, Freeway stars Reese Witherspoon as Vanessa, Keifer sutherland as the serial killer, Brooke Shields has his unsuspecting wife, Bokeem Woodbine as Vanessa’s gangster boyfriend among others. Freeway’s not only a crazy road film, but a solid commentary on the foster-care system and how the low-income are treated by authorities. But, mostly it’s a fun, well plotted, and written film to watch!