JohnCandy Tagged Articles at Cinematical

For the past few years, my friends and I have talked about the potential for a Brewster's Millions remake on several different occasions. Everyone has those movies they're oddly obsessed with, and for us it's this flick. I think it's because the storyline (originally based on George Barr McCutcheon's 1902 novel) is perfect remake material, which is why we've already seen eight versions of it -- the last of which being the hilarious 1985 film starring Richard Pryor and John Candy. Not to mention the film is a great fit for some fun buddy humor, allowing a studio (in this case Warner Bros.) to pair up two of today's hottest comic actors and watch them go to town.

The central premise is that a man inherits hundreds of millions of dollars, but in order to retrieve it he must first spend a smaller amount (it was $30 million in the 1985 film) in 30 days without acquiring any assets and without revealing his predicament to anyone. Newbies Michael Dilberti and Matthew Sullivan have been hired to write the remake, and they'll be up against a premise that may be a tough fit for today's world, where someone can easily spend millions in minutes. Let's face it, the 2009 world is a lot different than the 1985 world, and Dilberti and Sullivan will be charged with making this premise work in the here and now.

But what does that mean? Do you have to up the amount Brewster now has to spend? $30 million was a lot in 1985, but I imagine someone could spend that quite easily in 2009 if they needed to. Will the duo have to add more rules to make it work? And who do you get to star?

How would you remake Brewster's Millions in today's world?

With Thanksgiving coming up, I thought I'd revisit Planes, Trains & Automobiles, one of the few movies directly connected to that holiday and a delightful comedy classic in its own right. It had been several years since I'd watched it, and I assumed that in the meantime it had been released on some kind of special edition DVD. Last year was its 20th anniversary, in fact -- a fine time to put out a handsome disc with lots of extras.

Or so you'd think! As it turns out, Planes, Trains & Automobiles has only legitimately been released on DVD once, way back in 2000, with a poor video transfer and no extras whatsoever. Not even a trailer. Not even the extra scenes that are commonly included when the film airs on television. Deepening this wound is the fact that, as several reviewers noted at the time, Paramount's announcement of the DVD had promised it would have deleted scenes. Why the studio changed its mind at the last minute no one knows, but it sure disappointed people in 2000 who had been looking forward to the DVD.

The film was released again this summer as part of VH1's "I Love the '80s" series, but it still didn't have any extras and was essentially a rip-off in new packaging. The only bonus was the incorporation of one additional scene, of Neal and Del eating food on the airplane, that's often shown in the TV version. That's hardly a good enough reason to re-buy the disc, though.

Why is there no special edition of this movie? It's a perennial favorite. It is beloved. It is oft-quoted ("Those aren't pillows!"). It frequently appears on polls of movie fans' favorite comedies. Its very title has become shorthand for any trip punctuated by mishaps and setbacks, as in, "Our vacation to Mexico was a disaster -- it was a total Planes, Trains & Automobiles situation." You would buy it, right?

This is the perfect time for a road trip -- the sun is high in the sky, the weather is warm, and the roads are clear. But alas, the responsibilities of adulthood and busy scheduling don't always make the open road a viable option. Luckily, however, there's always the movies -- a million different cinematic road adventures to explore.

For this double feature, I'm giving you a little taste of the '90s and then a little taste of the '80s. One is a feature that helped start the careers of two notable actors, and spawned a terrible copy-cat film with Tom Green. The other made soft, warm pillows seem like more than just a wonderfully relaxing safe haven. Sit back and enjoy Overnight Delivery and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

At the age of 30, Jason Reitman has directed a half dozen short films, two narrative features, and an episode of The Office. He has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Directing. He is beyond the usual Hollywood definition of "hot": he is, thanks to the runaway success of Juno, superheated, like the molten core of the sun.

At the age of 30, his father, Ivan Reitman, had directed one short film and two narrative features (the immortal Foxy Lady and Cannibal Girls). At that point of his career, it is safe to say he was as far from "hot" as possible: he was as cold as the far side of the moon, at least as far as Hollywood was concerned. Three years later, the success of Meatballs, especially in relation to its budget and its recognition as the one that made Bill Murray a film star, warmed things up for the senior Reitman, in much the same way that Thank You For Smoking would later warm up his son's career, raising expectations.

Thus it's interesting to compare Ivan Reitman's follow-up, Stripes, with his son's follow-up, Juno. Strictly in financial terms, Stripes was comparable to Juno, earning $85 million in 1981, a year in which only nine films broke the $50 million mark. (To be fair, Juno's budget, at $2.5 million, was only 1/4 of Stripes' reported budget.) Stripes wasn't nominated for any Academy Awards and Ivan has never been nominated, so that gives a leg up for Jason, but that's more a reflection of the Academy's malleable taste than any intrinsic merit. Though Stripes is remembered as a broad, mainstream comedy, I'd argue that it's just as edgy and independent as Juno, and displays some of the same borderline reactionary leanings as the newer film.

Growing up, my two favorite comedians were Steve Martin and John Candy. My favorite filmmaker was John Hughes. And yet I was never allowed to see the collaboration of my three heroes -- Planes, Trains and Automobiles, because it was Rated "R" and my parents are mean. When I finally broke my father down and was permitted to watch it, I treasured every moment. And I still do. Maybe it's the years of anticipation that made the film so special to me, but it easily ranks among my very favorite comedies of all time.

John Hughes was in the midst of an amazing hot streak in 1987. He had written the screenplays for hits like Mr. Mom, National Lampoon's Vacation, Pretty in Pink, and Some Kind of Wonderful. His first four films as a writer/director had been Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, four of the most important films of my youth (and a lot of peoples' youths). Planes, Trains and Automobiles was a bit of a departure for Hughes -- an "adult" comedy, with nary a teenager in sight. Thankfully, Hughes knew the complicated world of adult relationships and feelings just as well as he did that of teens.

Martin plays Neal Page, an uptight advertising man who is trying to get from New York to Chicago in time for Thanksgiving. John Candy plays Del Griffith, a slobby shower curtain ring salesman who is headed the same direction as Neal. For better or worse, they wind up taking the trip together. Tale as old as time. But beautiful writing, pitch-perfect performances, and a surprisingly powerful undercurrent of emotion make Planes, Trains and Automobiles the buddy comedy by which all others must be judged.