When I was an arts & entertainment editor for an indie paper in LA county, I used to work a lot with the big Hollywood studios to promote their films. At the time, the American Pie franchise was all the rage, and the PR execs in Hollywood contacted me about coordinating a free screening for my readers of the similarly raunchy teen comedy Road Trip. Not exactly the highest form of entertainment, but it just went to prove that there’s a road trip movie for everyone.
As I’ve been working with Paul Maher Jr. on Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, I’ve been thinking about the upcoming film of On the Road and wondering who it will appeal to. Will it be the die-hard Beat fans that pilgrimage out to Lowell Celebrates Kerouac? Will it be a new crop of hipsters in the making? Will it be a bunch of fanged teenyboppers brought in by Twilight’sKristen Stewart, who’s playing LuAnne? Will it be the social justice league brought in by Walter Salles, of The Motorcycle Diaries?
For the wine lover: Sideways
For the BFFs (emphasis on the last F): Thelma & Louise
For the quirky, dysfunctional family: Little Miss Sunshine
For remembering your own family road trips gone awry: National Lampoon’s Vacation
For brothers: The Darjeeling Limited
For the beer-lovin’, truck-drivin’, betting type: Smokey and the Bandit
For the hippie: Easy Rider
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For the revolutionary: The Motorcycle Diaries
For the reader who shuns conventional life and his family: Into the Wild
For the scamming father-daughter team: Paper Moon
For fashionable gangsters in love: Bonnie and Clyde
For bored, hormonal teens whose girlfriends are on vacation: Y Tu Mama Tambien
For quirky con artists and an heiress who like their trips European: The Brothers Bloom
For the spoiled heiress and the desperate journalist: It Happened One Night
There are so many other road trip movies. Which are your favorites?
Stephanie Nikolopoulos 