I’m planning a road trip for next month and a vacation for June and in my notebook I found a list of travel films that I have learned lessons from watching. Queue them all up and you have a good on-the-road film festival and prep session while you look at maps and guides and make reservations.
The Wizard of Oz – Pick your travel companions with care. Don’t be concerned with food or lodgings. Do be concerned with witches and flying monkeys. No matter how good the trip, it should also be good to be back home again.
National Lampoon’s Vacation – A road trip with family, as child or parent, will present many lessons. As with life and school, you will fail at some.
Before Sunrise – You should take a serendipitous journey alone. You should meet a beautiful/handsome person along the way. If you go back there at sunset or midnight, don’t expect things to be as good as they were before.
Up – Take that trip you and your spouse have been talking about for years now before it’s too late.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – Take a trip with your Dad. Or son, depending on your age and point of view. (What film could be the Mom or daughter version?)
Broken Flowers – Go on one cross-country search for old girl/boyfriends in search of answers. (Not connected to any 12-step program)
The Darjeeling Limited – Go to an exotic place filled with things that you have never seen and smells that tell you that you’re not in Kansas anymore.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles – Be nice to fellow travelers. You never know.
The Lord of the Rings – Undertake an adventure trip full of possible peril. Once. After that, there is no need for you to do it again. You have nothing to prove. Your home is quite comfortable and there are so many books unread and films unseen.
Lost In Translation – Be prepared to be a stranger in a strange land. Try to have Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson around just in case.
I’m sure you have other films to add to the festival list. How about if you make a comment and give us a film and a short reason for its inclusion.
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Weekends in Paradelle 
Burden of Dreams by Les Blank.
Why: If you have seen it you know. If you haven’t, ask yourself is the road trip moving the boat or trying to move the boat.
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I hope my road trip will be moving the boat. Should people watch FITZCARRALDO before or after BURDEN? Or would that be too much boat?
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Depends partially I guess on suspension of disbelief. Is it deja vue or is there a Monty Python episode that has jungle explorers realize they are rescued when they realize someone is filming them, and then in turn that whole second group realizes they too are rescued because someone is filming them. It does seems to relate to turtles all the way down. But, personally I would see Aguirre, Wrath of God, then Fitzcarraldo and next Burden of Dreams. And Monty Python, or have I already written that? fyi: the boat moves in both films.
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2001 and Solaris
Why? Both are extreme odysseys.
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