Road Movie Poll (If There's Enough Interest, This Becomes the Nominations Thread)

You just summed up my feelings re: 'Five Easy Pieces as road movie' so much more succinctly than I could have. Nicely done.

It's more like a state of mind for me too, and Goin' Down the Road has the same feel as Five Easy Pieces to me; it starts on the road, it finishes there (as they head west), and even while they're in Toronto, escape from the city seems to be pulling on them. (And more literally, the road--Yonge St.--is their only happiness while they're there.) It's very much a mood thing that is difficult to explain.

Agree with the idea--have said it many times in connection to other polls--that voting takes care of the vagaries of interpretation. I'll make the nomination list as inclusive as possible, and write-in votes are not a problem. (I would like to make this the voting thread, too--I don't like having these things drag out too long.)

Just noticed the AGO has an upcoming series called "Strange Canada: Canadian Road Movies" led by...Goin' Down the Road.

http://www.ago.net/goin-down-the-road

Only two other films in the series.

Would Ben Wheatley's Sightseers count? And, while I wouldn't vote for it, Magical Mystery Tour must count. How about Walkabout? Not many roads but it has the right 'travelling as symbolism'/'exploration of the land is exploration of the self' vibe for me.

A few more Euro candidates on this BFI list.

I'll add those when I get home later. I was looking at the BFI list a few days ago--I'm sure there are more good non-English nominees.

I'm going to figure out nominating and voting deadlines, and then request a title change for this thread (which can take care of both).

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRC0RAO-bB54Z82eeiuEHoQYiKyCVY41TAnG8Qn7jZpC1Q0RXlq

Sightseers definitely - Dead Man too, I mean the specific feel of a road movie is very much a Jarmusch thing, I feel.

Can't remember the title (and didn't see it) but there was some Canadian film about 20 years ago about young folks traveling to see a Dan Hill concert.

Was it science fiction?

This poll specifically has me fascinated with the idea of road movies that don't cover much geographic space, small-scale odysseys which are still full of unexpected encounters and impact the protagonist(s) in a profound way.

― Sort-of like a Hershey's kiss, only it's an anus (Old Lunch), Sunday, April 23, 2017 2:00 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Feels like maybe Bill Murray's "Quick Change" is an example of this? It has a road movie feel but is confined to two boroughs of NY.

Can we just nominate My Dinner With Andre and get it over with?

It's more like a state of mind for me too, and Goin' Down the Road has the same feel as Five Easy Pieces to me; it starts on the road, it finishes there (as they head west), and even while they're in Toronto, escape from the city seems to be pulling on them. (And more literally, the road--Yonge St.--is their only happiness while they're there.) It's very much a mood thing that is difficult to explain.

OK, you've sold me on GDtR's road movie cred. Not hard to twist my arm on that one, really, as I love it and wanna rep for it.

On the tilt towards comedy: I get why the genre finds the road narrative so appealing, given the endless potential for "wacky things happen on the road" jokes, but I think a few of the comedies here do use the narrative in a more meaningful way than that. Lost in America and NL's Vacation tap into something about the stratification of American society in the 80s: Albert Brooks in LiA quits his job in advertising to literally live out one of the definitive American road narratives, albeit with all of the comforts that yuppie privilege affords. Vacation, for all of its slapstick, sends its middle class suburbanites into an inhospitable American landscape of rural grotesques, inner cities (in the film's most uncomfortable scene) and junk-culture tourist traps (I might even argue that while LiA is the objectively "better" film, Vacation is actually far stickier in its satire). Even my other fave road comedy, Planes Trains & Automobiles, while mainly a love/hate bromance via the sturdy It Happened One Night formula, has a notable trace of yuppie anxiety towards the Other. In other words, I get why the preference/association of the road movie with the moody and contemplative, but it makes perfect sense to me that this is the most popular form that this narrative would take in the 80s.

Roadside Prophets never gets enough love

Updated List: http://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Vo7swLaeS1ZCbciqrHKrSzlOm-DozyZBi_lpKIGGtI/edit

I'll post this on the moderator request thread also, but could the title of this thread be changed to:

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Road Movie Poll (Nominations end Monday, May 1; Voting ends Thursday, May 11--say✧✧✧@rocketm✧✧✧.c✧✧)
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I'll figure out voting details in the next few days. If you miss the nomination deadline, don't worry--I'll count all write-ins.

Some of the address gets blocked; it's --

Willie Mays' nickname at rocketmail dot com.

Does Romy and Michele's High School Reunion belong? Haven't seen it since it came out. I expressed my ambivalence about the comedy end of this poll, but I concede such films are a big part of the genre, and I think that might be one of them. (When I'm not sure, I've been searching "(title) road movie," and if two or three links turn up, I put it on the list.)