There aren’t a lot of Thanksgiving movies, but these are all good picks for the spirit and history of the day. Note that all descriptions are from IMDB:
Planes Trains and Automobiles (R, 4.5/5 stars)
All that Neal Page wants to do is to get home for Thanksgiving. His flight has been cancelled due to bad weather, so he decides on other means of transport.
As well as bad luck, Neal is blessed with the presence of Del Griffith, Shower Curtain Ring Salesman and all-around blabbermouth, who is never short of advice, conversation, bad jokes, or company. And when he decides that he is going the same direction as Neal….
– Written by Murray Chapman
Pocahontas (G, 4/5 stars)
Capt. John Smith leads a rag-tag band of English sailors & soldiers to the New World to plunder its riches for England (or, more precisely, for Governor Ratcliffe, who comes along for the ride).
Meanwhile, in this “New World,” Chief Powhatan has pledged his daughter, Pocahontas, to be married to the village’s greatest warrior. Pocahontas, however, has other ideas. She has seen a vision of a spinning arrow, a vision she believes tells her change is coming. Her life does indeed change when the English ship lands near her village.
Between Ratcliffe, who believes the “savages” are hiding the gold he expected to be plentiful, and Powhatan, who believes these pale newcomers will destroy their land, Smith and Pocahontas have a difficult time preventing all-out war, and saving their love for each other.
– Written by Joe Sewell
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (not rated, 4.5/5 stars)
Peppermint Patty invites herself and her friends over to Charlie Brown’s for Thanksgiving, and with Linus, Snoopy, and Woodstock, he attempts to throw together a Thanksgiving dinner.
Pieces of April (PG-13, 4/5 stars)
In a very poor zone of New York, April Burns and her boyfriend, the Afro-American Bobby, are preparing to receive April’s family for Thanksgiving dinner. While Bobby tries to borrow a suit for himself, April realizes that her stove is broken.
She tries desperately to find a neighbor that can let her cook the turkey, since she does not want to fail (again) with her family. Meanwhile, in a suburb of Pennsylvania, her dysfunctional family is preparing to travel to New York.
While driving, the relationship between the Burns and their black-sheep April is disclosed through the conversations between her father Jim, her resented mother Joy, her brother, her sister and her grandmother.
– Written by Claudio Carvalho
The New World (PG-13, 3.5/5 stars)
Captain Smith is spared his mutinous hanging sentence after captain Newport’s ship arrives in 1607 to found Jamestown, an English colony in Virginia. The initially friendly natives, who have no personal property concept, turn hostile after a ‘theft’ is ‘punished’ violently on the spot.
During an armed exploration, Smith is captured, but spared when the chief’s favorite daughter Pocahontas pleads for the stranger who soon becomes her lover and learns to love their naive ‘savage’ way of harmonious life.
Ultimately he returns to the grim fort, which would starve hadn’t she arranged for Indian generosity. Alas, each side soon brands their own lover a traitor, so she is banished and he flogged as introduction to slavish toiling.
Changes turn again, leading Smith to accept a northern-more mission and Anglicized Pocahontas, believing him dead, becoming the mother of aristocratic new lover John Rolfe’s son. They’ll meet again for a finale in England.
– Written by KGF Vissers
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