Welcome to 5 Favorites. Each week, I will put together a list of my 5 favorites (films, performances, whatever strikes my fancy) along with commentary on a given topic each week, usually in relation to a specific film releasing that week.
While it wasn’t always the case that Thanksgiving was a big box office holiday, the trend has persisted for the last few decades meaning a lot of films have gotten their release on the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Going back as far as I’m able with finite resources and a lack of easily searchable release dates, I want to take a look at the best films released on Thanksgiving on or the day after. Films that want to be popular, including animated features, often find a lot of space in the frame, but that also means there are fewer non-family films to examine. I settled on a list that has a wide array of styles and productions to give this list a bit of flavor.
Terms of Endearment (1983)
Writer-director James L. Brooks took familial tension to a new level with this adaptation of a novel by Larry McMurtry. In it, Shirley MacLaine plays Aurora Greenway, a somewhat controlling widow who likes to keep interested men at a distance while her complicated relationship with her daughter Emma (Debra Winger) plays out. When Emma marries an English professor (Jeff Daniels) and moves to Iowa, their relationship solidifies as Emma suspects her husband’s infidelity and strikes out with a stranger (John Lithgow) in a grocery store. Meanwhile Aurora lets her neighbor Garrett (Jack Nicholson) into her life and they begin a tepid relationship, neither certain which way their connection will ultimately lead.
The 1983 Oscar-winning Best Picture was nominated for eleven prizes with MacLaine and Winger competing in lead while Lithgow and Nicholson went head-to-head in supporting. While such matchups often result in a split vote, both MacLaine and Nicholson won their categories. The film is richly acted and lovingly crafted allowing the audience inside a dysfunctional, but ultimately loving family. It’s strangely apropos for this to be the lead-off film in today’s article as it stands as testament to the kinds of relationships many families once reconnected with over during the Thanksgiving holiday.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
Although the original series of Star Trek struggled to stay on the air, the series had snowballed into a major theatrical franchise in the early 1980s. The fourth feature film following Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the crew of the USS Enterprise as they work to save Earth from its catastrophic destruction by traveling into the past in order to bring an extinct humpback whale back to answer the call of the strange object orbiting Earth and causing its issues.
The film takes the 23rd Century crew back to 1986 where they must contend with the technologically inferior denizens of their own history while working around the deeply distrustful United States government worried about exterior threats. Although there are some incredibly cheesy interactions on offer, the film is earnest and heartfelt, acting as both a time capsule and an exploration of sociological changes that have developed since the time period in which the crew find themselves. It’s an exciting adventure and works incredibly well in spite of its scientific inaccuracy and implausibility. While much of what came out of the Star Trek franchise has been situated in the distant future, this film reminded audiences why they fell in love with the series. By returning to the past or, as they did on the series, framing the past as an alien world, we are able to examine geopolitical and identity politics from a removed, but no less critical angle.
No original review available at this time.
Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
By the time of its release, comedian Robin Williams had become a major box office draw. He’d played countless characters over the course of his career, but few so delightful as the titular Mrs. Doubtfire. Williams plays an unreliable father whose wife (Sally Field) ultimately files for divorce where Williams is required to hold down a steady job and suitable residence within three months or the potential for shared custody becomes unsustainable. In order to keep connected to his family, he creates a new persona, a nanny named Mrs. Doubtfire and gets hired on as his ex-wife’s housekeeper. Meanwhile, Field is courting a new beau (Pierce Brosnan), which creates animosity and tension between him and the man he’d be “replacing” in her children’s lives.
Williams does some of his best and funniest work here even if he wasn’t properly recognized for his performance in the film. It was a warm, hilarious, and endearing tale of a father who recognizes his mistakes and works hard to resolve them, but not in the most healthy or common sense of ways. Field is dependable, but it’s Harvey Fierstein as Williams’ makeup artist brother who is the only one capable of stealing any moment in the film from Williams. The film is an uncomplicated tale told amicably by Chris Columbus, but it would be nothing without Williams’ passion and formidable talent.
No original review available at this time.
A Bug’s Life (1998)
This was the second feature released by the now-monolithic animation house Pixar and had tough shoes to fill. Dave Foley leads a strong voice cast as Flik, an inventor in a colony of ants who are being harassed annually by a vicious grasshopper (Kevin Spacey) who forces them to present an offering to the grasshoppers. When Flik accidentally destroys the offering, he’s exiled where he comes across a troupe of circus bugs who he mistakes as warriors and enlists them to help save his people from their enemies. Things go well for a time, but an accident reveals their identities, which threatens to upset the delicate balance. Flik and his circus friends go to great lengths to stop the grasshoppers and protect the colony.
When this film came out at theaters, I was in the minority that felt the original Toy Story wasn’t that good. As such, watching A Bug’s Life I came around to Pixar’s strength as a creator. The film has a simple, understandable storyline with plenty of funny dialogue and outrageous situations. Unfortunately, a lot of people who loved Toy Story didn’t love this film as much and so it has become one of Pixar’s least celebrated titles even though it’s still in the upper tier of their output. While it might be just a shade more juvenile than Toy Story, it more than makes up for that with earnestness and heart. I still consider this better than their first film and hope that one day it will receive its just dues.
No original review available at this time.
Bad Santa (2003)
Many people were brought up on the wholesomeness of Christmas films like Miracle on 34th Street, Holiday Inn, It’s a Wonderful Life, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and myriad others. Since at least the 1980s, another type of Christmas-set film has emerged, countercultural ones. Films like Gremlins allowed the holiday to breathe into different genres while Die Hard emboldened the notion that a film doesn’t have to extol the family values of Christmas to be considered a Christmas film. Bad Santa came a bit late to the party, but it no less solidifies the countercultural relevance of the antithetical Christmas feature.
Bad Santa stars Billy Bob Thornton and Tony Cox as criminals posing as Santa Claus and his elf who case the joints they work during the day and rob them blind at night. Thornton’s womanizing and drinking threaten their operation and his vulgarity offends the mall manager, creating trouble for the pair. Thornton and Cox are terrific in the film and its foul language, alcoholism, and frank sexuality help position it well as something that would offend a lot of the traditional families that turned Miracle on 34th Street into an enduring classic. Whether or not you feel the warmth of Christmas from a film like this, it proves that the holidays don’t have to be consigned to Macy’s Santas and holiday meekness. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying A Christmas Carol for the holidays, nor is there anything wrong with celebrating something that feels like the polar opposite.
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