cp-webdeskWild Strawberries (1957)
Wild Strawberries, Swedish film drama, released in 1957, that was acclaimed for the lead performance of Victor Sjöström. It was director Ingmar Bergman’s first commercial success in the United States. Crotchety retired doctor Isak Borg (Victor Sjöström) travels from Stockholm to Lund, Sweden, with his pregnant and unhappy daughter-in-law, Marianne (Ingrid Thulin), in order to receive an honorary degree from his alma mater. Along the way, they encounter a series of hitchhikers, each of whom causes the elderly doctor to muse upon the pleasures and failures of his own life. These include the vivacious young Sara (Bibi Andersson), a dead ringer for the doctor’s own first love.
Vagabond (1985)
Vagabond is a 1985 French drama film directed by Agnès Varda, featuring Sandrine Bonnaire. A young woman’s body is found frozen in a ditch. Through flashbacks and interviews, we see the events that led to her inevitable death. It tells the story of a young woman, a vagabond, who wanders through the Languedoc-Roussillon wine country one winter.
Joy Ride (2001)
Joy Ride is a 2001 American horror-thriller film directed by John Dahl and written by J. J. Abrams and Clay Tarver. Paul Walker stars as Lewis Thomas, a college freshman embarking on a cross-country road trip during summer break to pick up his childhood crush Vienna. It’s summer break and college freshman Lewis Thomas (Paul Walker) has decided to embark on a cross-country road trip to pick up the girl of his dreams, Venna (Leelee Sobieski). But Lewis’s romantic hopes hit a detour when he stops on the way to rescue his older brother, Fuller (Steve Zahn), who goads him into playing a practical joke on a lonely trucker, over a CB radio. Now, that trucker, an unseen and terrifying force known only by his CB handle, Rusty Nail, wants the last laugh and revenge.
Death Proof (2007)
Death Proof is a 2007 American exploitation slasher film written, directed, and shot by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Kurt Russell as a stuntman who murders young women in staged car accidents using his “death-proof” stunt car Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) is a professional body double who likes to take unsuspecting women for deadly drives in his free time. He has doctored his car for maximum impact; when Mike purposely causes wrecks, the bodies pile up while he walks away with barely a scratch. The insane Mike may be in over his head, though, when he targets a tough group of female friends, including real-life stuntwoman Zoe Bell (who served as Uma Thurman’s double in “Kill Bill”), who plays herself.
Duel (1971)
Duel is a 1971 American action thriller film written by Richard Matheson, which is based on his own 1971 short story, also entitled Duel. The film marks the feature-length directorial debut of Steven Spielberg and was distributed by Universal Pictures. David Mann (Dennis Weaver), a mild mannered electronics salesman, is driving cross-country on a two-lane highway when he encounters an old oil tanker driven by an unseen driver who seems to enjoy annoying him with dangerous antics on the road. Unable to escape the demonic big rig, David finds himself in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the monstrous truck. When the pursuit escalates to deadly levels, David must summon his inner warrior and turn the tables on his tormentor.
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Inside Llewyn Davis is a 2013 black comedy-drama film written, directed, produced, and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen. Llewyn Davis, a former merchant marine, is a folk singer from Greenwich Village, New York City. He struggles to maintain his artistic independence against the commercial needs of the music industry.
Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
A cheerful comedy-drama about a divorcee rediscovering herself, this memoir adaptation features scenery as charming as the central performance from Diane Lane. Frances Mayes’ pals send her on a tour of Tuscany, where she ends up falling in love with a ramshackle house and buys it on a whim. She meets a plethora of interesting people, including Polish builders and an eccentric old British actor, and becomes a major fixer-upper. The film was shot in and around the town of Cortona, near Arezzo: think gorgeous little houses cut into the hillside overlooking glistening waters.
On the Road (2012)
Based on Jack Kerouac’s novel set in the late 1940s/early 50s, literature’s most famous road trip did not make it onto the big screen until 55 years after the book was published. Sam Riley is the writer who heads to Denver, North Carolina, San Francisco, and Mexico by car and occasionally bus. Head here to vicariously experience a hedonistic road trip with sexually fluid bohemians played by an array of Hollywood’s hottest, including Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Amy Adams, Tom Sturridge, and Kirsten Dunst.
Paris, Texas (1984)
Paris, Texas is a 1984 road movie directed by Wim Wenders and starring Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell, Nastassja Kinski, and Hunter Carson. The screenplay was written by L. M. Kit Carson and playwright Sam Shepard. A disheveled man who wanders out of the desert, Travis Henderson (Harry Dean Stanton) seems to have no idea who he is. When a stranger manages to contact his brother, Walt (Dean Stockwell), Travis is awkwardly reunited with his sibling. Travis has been missing for years, and his presence unsettles Walt and his family, which also includes Travis’s own son, Hunter (Hunter Carson). Soon Travis must confront his wife, Jane (Nastassja Kinski), and try to put his life back together.
True Romance (1993)
True Romance is a 1993 American romantic crime film written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott. A comic-book nerd and Elvis fanatic Clarence (Christian Slater) and a prostitute named Alabama (Patricia Arquette) fall in love. Clarence breaks the news to her pimp and ends up killing him. He grabs a suitcase of cocaine on his way out thinking it is Alabama’s clothing. The two hit the road for California hoping to sell the cocaine, but the mob is soon after them.
