Give Thanks: 6 Movies To Watch This Thanksgiving

There is much to be thankful for, this year. For many Americans, this is the first year they’ve been able to be together with their families again in-person since the beginning of the pandemic. Even if you’re not attending a family gathering or observing a traditional holiday, there’s always things to be grateful for. Gratitude is always important to remember – it sustains us through dark and hard times and reminds us to appreciate what we have.

Cinema’s always good as a reminder, showing us our lives, writ large, on the flickering screen. It shows us ourselves, as well as the lives of others, helping to foster greater understanding and empathy towards the world around us.

With that in mind, here are 6 movies to watch while you’re putting the finishing touches on your feast or for when you’re sleepily digesting on the couch.

6 Movies To Watch This Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving means a little something different to everybody. With that in mind, we’ve pulled together an array of different Thanksgiving movies to have a little something for everybody.

From the ever-classic Charlie Brown Thanksgiving to John Hughe’s weirdly dismal Dutch, this cross-section should have something for a wide varieties of moods and festivities.

1. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

This very short and very sweet Thanksgiving classic reminds you to be grateful for the good things in life, especially friends and family, whether chosen or blood.

It’s also a reminder that popcorn and jelly beans is a perfectly acceptable holiday feast!

Watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving for free on AppleTV.

2. Alice’s Restaurant

Based on the popular 70s ballad by Arlo Guthrie (who plays himself in the movie), this funky number is one for those celebrating with their chosen family this year.

It’s also a reminder to pick up after yourself once you’ve finished feasting.

3. Knive’s Out

Here’s one for anyone planning on seeing Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery in the theatre this year, in case you need a reminder to catch up before seeing the sequel.

Plus, always gotta love a locked room mystery!

Watch Knives Out on Amazon.

4. Addam’s Family Values

A perennial Thanksgiving favourite, Addam’s Family Values addresses some of the more problematic aspects of the Thanksgiving myth. It’s also a reminder that, for some, summer camp could be a fate worse than death.

Watching Addam’s Family Values could help get you in the mood for watching Tim Burton’s new Wednesday series on Netflix.

Watch Addam’s Family Values on Netflix.

5. Dutch

John Hughes had a thing for making vaguely depressing, dismal Thanksgiving in the late 80s and early 90s (see also Planes, Trains, and Automobiles). As someone who grew up in the suburbs of Chicago around this time, I have a perpetual soft spot for these movies.

With its depictions of regular, working-class, blue collar people and families and irresponsible child-rearing, Dutch seems like it could never be made today. That’s a shame, as it’s got its charms, particularly the on-screen chemistry between Ed O’Neill and Ethan Embry.

Tragically, Dutch is not currently available on streaming. Maybe recreate the early 90s vibes and seek out a local video store? Bonus points if you watch it on VHS!

6. Garfield’s Thanksgiving

We’ll round out our list with one last short, sweet Thanksgiving classic as a dessert to help you digest. Thanksgiving is, after all, largely all about the food, and no one loves food more than Garfield.

It’s a great choice for anyone with kiddos, as well. If you’re a child of the 80s or the 90s like I am, it’s a wonderful opportunity to share something you loved growing up at the same time.

That’s what Thanksgiving is all about – sharing, coming together, and reminding people you love them.

That about does it for this year’s Thanksgiving movie roundup! Am so grateful and thankful for you all! Hope you’re safe and happy and healthy, wherever you are!

And what’re you watching this year? Leave us a comment and let us know.

If you’re looking for a soundtrack to finish up your Thanksgiving feast, here’s a mix of classic Thanksgiving songs, mostly jazz with a wee bit of old soundtrack music while you finish up your cranberry sauce and stuffing.

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The King Of Staten Island (2020) Movie Review

Pete Davidson‘s The King Of Staten Island is simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking, intimate yet cinematic. It’s one of the best movies of 2020 thus far and one of the most essential comedies in recent memory. 

Pete Davidson as Scott Carlin in The King of Staten Island, directed by Judd Apatow.

There is a scene early on in The King Of Staten Island where Scott (Pete Davidson) discusses his reluctance to label his relationship with Kelsey (Bel Powley) after they’ve just finished hooking up. “I’m scared of myself and I don’t want to, like, scare you or me or like hurt anyone, so I think it’d just be best and really responsible of me if I just backed off.”

It’s a conversation no doubt familiar to anyone who’s spent any time in the confusion of the Millennial hookup culture. Scott’s behaviours are virtually indistinguishable from any emotionally unavailable bro/fuckboy. When called out on it, however, he has a stammering, faltering moment of honesty and vulnerability. He is being emotionally open, he’s just not very good with his feelings, many of which are hard, dark, and painful. 

He is being emotionally open, he’s just not very good with his feelings, many of which are hard, dark, and painful. 

There are countless moments like this in The King Of Staten Island. Scott is a damaged, emotionally-stilted 24-year-old man suffering from failure-to-launch syndrome. And yet, when the chips are down, he always pulls through, does what needs to be done, fumbling through young adulthood in a way that will likely ring authentic to anyone who’s come of age during the 2000s – 2010s. 

The King Of Staten Island begins with Scott driving down the highway, glancing pensively in the rearview mirror and bumping hip-hop. Momentarily overwhelmed, he flirts with death by driving with his eyes closed. He opens them, only to narrowly avoid a car wreck, and causing another one in the process. We get the sense right off the bat that all is not well with this 20-something. 

We’re quickly introduced to Scott’s world on Staten Island, meeting his family and group of going-nowhere friends, who spend all day smoking weed in a dingy basement. We find out that Scott’s troubles begin with losing his firefighter father, who died in a local fire, at 7-years old. He also has ADD and has a hard time focusing, as evidenced by his erratic-but-still-wonderful tattoos, like a bug-eyed Obama and a cat’s butthole around someone’s belly button. 

 

Scott’s aimless bumbling results in his Mom (Marisa Tomei), whom he still lives with and has been single for the last 17 years following his father’s death, meeting a new love interest, Ray (Bill Burr), after giving Ray’s son Harold (Luke David Bloom) a tattoo in the woods. Furious, Ray comes screaming to Scott’s house, in Bill Burr’s iconic ranting brogue, but end up hitting it off and beginning a romance. Scott loses his shit when he realizes that Ray is also a firefighter, bringing up buried feelings regarding his father’s death. 

Scott begins a campaign to break up his Mom and Ray, getting dirt on him from his ex-wife, resulting in a fight that gets them both kicked out of the house. With nowhere to go, Scott drifts around for a while, only to straggle his way to the firehouse where Ray is also staying. Some of the other firefighters, most notably Papa (Steve Buscemi, in a standout performance), knew Scott’s Dad and take an interest in him. They let him stay at the firehouse, offering him a sort-of internship and letting him ease his way into the world of adulthood. 

The King Of Staten Island offers a deep, insightful look into a world that was, and the world that is. Oceans of ink have been spilled over Millennials’ “failure to launch” syndrome, the protracted adolescence, the traumas and hyper-sensitivity. But what do you expect from a generation whose earliest memories were of 9/11, spiralling the world into ever more uncertainty, confusion, and chaos? In fact, The King Of Staten Island is partially autobiographical for Pete Davidson, who lost his own firefighter father at age 7 during the 9/11 attacks. The movie takes an unflinching look at what some of those pent-up emotions can do, like the scene where he smashes his bedroom with a baseball bat after re-awakening his grief over his father’s death.

This behaviour has caused some other reviewers to read Scott as “childish.” Emotions don’t always come out pretty, though, especially grief and trauma. Men are so often given shit for not expressing their emotions, for being closed-up and cold and stoic. They are demonized when they express the “wrong” emotions. Anger is an emotion. So is rage. And, yes, oftentimes they are a mask for fear and sadness. That mask still needs to be shattered to get to the soft, pulpy underbelly. Which Scott is always willing to do, no matter how bad he is at it or how uncomfortable it makes him. 

And, yes, oftentimes they are a mask for fear and sadness. That mask still needs to be shattered to get to the soft, pulpy underbelly.

THIS is the engine that drives The King Of Staten Island, in my opinion. The willingness to grow and change, to confront challenges while simultaneously admitting their difficulty. 

The King Of Staten Island also reminds us of the world that was. Staten Island itself figures prominently, almost as a character in-and-of-itself. Staten Island seems almost locked in another time, a permanent 1970s –1980s. People shout and swear at one another. They get in fistfights and make up. It’s hard to imagine another part of the country, if not the world, where two parents could laugh about a 9-year-old getting a tattoo in the woods. Comedy is notoriously tricky and hard to pull off in the 21st Century, with feelings running so high on a seemingly endless laundry-list of hot-button topics. The King Of Staten Island does not shirk away from these topics, nor does it focus on them. It illustrates a refreshing live-and-let-live attitude that i, for one, miss, as someone who grew up in previous eras. 

Personally, i’d love to see more comedies like The King Of Staten Island. I’m almost tempted to label it a “dramedy”, as laughs and tears come in almost equal measure. It’s also one of the most personal “blockbusters” i’ve ever seen, more slice-of-life mumblecore than big screen spectacle. Some of the best moments are its quietest – Scott walking Ray’s kids to school, the moments bullshitting around the firehouse. It’s got real, actual heart, made by real, actual people instead of by committee. More mumblecore comedies, please!

The King Of Staten Island is available now on all major streaming platforms.

The King Of Staten Island streaming links

Amazon Prime

Apple TV

Xfinity

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Google Play

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We Go Way Back (2006) dir. Lynn Shelton movie review

How would your 13-year old self view grown-up you? This is the question explored in the magically surreal directorial feature debut from Lynn Shelton, We Go Way Back. 

image: Geisha Films

“Hey, grown-up Kate! What’s up? It’s me, your 13-year old self. How are you? Where do you live? Seattle? Paris? Are you happy? Do you have a boyfriend?”

These questions haunt We Go Way Back, underscoring a life that is both eccentric, strange and utterly banal. We Go Way Back tells the story of Kate (Amber Hubert), a 23-year old accountant by day, actress and theater patroness by night. Every year on her birthday, Kate opens a letter written to herself when she was 13. These letters serve as a haunting counterpoint to the confusing, triumphant ridiculousness of adult life. Until the haunting becomes more literal… 

We Go Way Back is a quiet, slice-of-life film following the sometimes interesting, sometimes painful frustrations of Kate-At-23. Kate spends her nights working at a small local theatre in Seattle, where the film takes place. She’s a textbook case of putting everybody before herself. She does the theatre’s bookkeeping, runs every errand by the eccentric theatre director, played by Robert Hamilton Wright, and performs often demeaning roles on-stage, including spending most of her last play as a decapitated corpse. We Go Way Back follows Kate as she undergoes experiences all-too-common for young women – drinking, smoking, having casual sex in the wake of a messy breakup. The words from her 13-year old self are repeated like a mantra underpinning the film, giving a poignant sub-text to these experiences while avoiding heavy-handedness or moralizing. 

We Go Way Back does for local theatre what Steve Buscemi’s Living With Oblivion does for indie film. image: Geisha Films

Much of We Go Way Back focuses on Kate getting cast as the title role of Hedda in Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. There’s one catch – the director wants her to deliver her lines in the play’s native Norwegian. Except Kate doesn’t know Norwegian. Much of We Go Way Back revolves around Kate’s late-night study sessions, while enduring her boringly banal day job as an accountant. All the while, the words from Kate’s 13-year old self continue to underscore her day-to-day struggles. 

13-year old Katie was a real wild child. image: Geisha Films

Katie, played by Maggie Brown, was a real wild child, spending her days roaming the forests with a battered old camera. She is the spirit of pure, primal, unbound creativity, forcing Kate to ask the question – “How did I get here?”

The slice-of-life quietude gets interrupted when things take a turn for the magical. Katie becomes real, dogging Kate’s footsteps. She spends much of the film trying to escape this shadow, only to finally submit and befriend her younger self. The two walk down long Pacific Northwestern roads, talking of life. “What’s beer like? Are you drunk? What’s that like?”

image: Geisha Film

While the magical realism could make We Go Way Back light and trite, instead it allows subtle, unspoken themes to ring out, loud and clear. The image of adult Kate walking desolately down the road, followed by her younger self, will likely resonate with any frustrated artist, or anyone confused about navigating adulthood, wondering where our youthful dreams went.

The back-and-forth between magical realism and the painful mundanity of her day-to-day life makes both threads work. We Go Way Back might not be much if it just focused on the arthouse play rehearsals of Hedda Gabler, with Robin Hamilton Wright playing the flaky director to a T. We Go Way Back does for local theatre what Steve Buscemi‘s Living With Oblivion does for indie film. It offers some humour and levity in what could otherwise be an oppressively heavy film. It also serves as a poignant lens to view the string of casual sex Kate engages in. She’s rarely an active participant, it’s just one more realm where Kate prioritizes others before herself. 

It’s a good opportunity to note a content warning – a number of the sexual encounters throughout We Go Way Back are non-consensual at best. Those who have trouble viewing sexual assault should tread lightly. It’s a painfully clear depiction of what many women have to deal with, their entire lives. We Go Way Back is an important feminist film for that reason alone. 

It’s worth watching for the cinematography, as well. Benjamin Kasulke’s cinematography lovingly recreates young Kate’s wild gaze, lingering on the primordial forests of the Pacific Northwest. It’s a quintessential vision of Pacific Northwestern film, full of rural roads carved out of sprawling, ancient forests; the nearly molecular detail of mushrooms and moss. For anyone not fortunate enough to live in this beautiful part of the world, We Go Way Back offers a welcome window into the Pacific Northwestern wilds.

We Go Way Back is the directorial feature-length debut of Lynn Shelton, best known for 2009’s Humpday. If you follow movie news at all, you may have heard that Lynn Shelton passed away last week due to a blood illness. She was only 54. Watching We Go Way Back, we are reminded of what a great talent we’ve lost. It also offers a depiction of what can happen when mumblecore, a movement Shelton was often associated with, is paired with higher production values, hinting at an indie/Hollywood hybrid that really should be explored further. 

We Go Way Back is an unexpectedly moving experience, especially for creative types who wonder how their life’s turned out the way it has. It invites us all to rediscover the joy, optimism, imagination, and endless possibilities of making art when we’re young. 

We Go Way Back is screening for free tonight via the always excellent NWFilmForum.

It can also be streamed on Kanopy.

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SXSW Movie Review: I’m Gonna Make You Love Me

I’m Gonna Make You Love Me is an insightful, in-depth, loving look at the life of Brian Belovitch/Natalia “Tish” Gervais, a gender-fluid gay man who lived for many years as a trans woman during the 70s and 80s.

image: Amazon

To say that Brian Belovich has had an interesting life would be an understatement, as well as a misnomer. Lives might be more apt, as Brian has had numerous – first as a sensitive, effeminate gay boy; then as a larger-than-life transwoman and personality; then, finally, as himself.

Gender and sexuality have been two of the most hot button topics of the last 10 years. It’s such a sensitive and personal topic for nearly everybody, it’s easy for people to get worked up or their feelings hurt. It’s notoriously difficult to talk about, even when you’re in agreement and on the same side. The absolutist language of binaries lends itself to hurt feelings and black-and-white thinking, where you just end up talking past one another and in heated arguments, even when you don’t want to. That’s what makes director Karen Bernstein’s work with I’m Gonna Make You Love Me such a laudable achievement. She doesn’t shy away from hard or sensitive topics, while remaining sympathetic and empathetic, all the while.

image: Amazon

I’m Gonna Make You Love Me starts off with Brian as a small child, growing up in Providence, Rhode Island. He started showing signs of “femininity” (as in, behaviour which American culture reads as ‘feminine,’ which is bullshit in its own right, but a topic for a whole separate lengthy essay all its own.) He speaks of being misgendered even as a baby, and of getting positive attention for entertaining people by singing and dancing. Some of the onlookers would mistake him for a little girl, much to his Mother’s horror. That’s the first heartbreaking thing about I’m Gonna Make You Love Me. Today’s more inclusive, understanding, celebratory world (even as a bubble) is a recent development. Bernstein’s documentary reminds us of the pain and trauma LGBTQIA+ folks had to endure not very long ago, and are enduring still in probably most parts of the world. It breaks yr heart, when you see what a lovely, loving child Brian was.

Fast forward to the 70s, with Brian coming out, getting into drag and exploring the burgeoning gay scene in Providence. This proved to be of little solace to Brian, an effeminate man when bearish, bullish masculinity was all the rage. It seems Brian couldn’t even find a home in the gay scene. Instead, he decided to lean into the drag and begin living life as a woman.

And thus Natalia “Tish” Gervais was born. As Tish, she even went so far as to get married, to a G.I. no less, and lived for a time as an Army housewife in Germany. She did all of the things an Army housewife did during that era, but she ultimately felt bored and unfulfilled and moved back to the States, relocating to New York City just in time to become a celebrity in the burgeoning Downtown Art scene.

Life wasn’t easy for Tish. A series of events culminated with her de-transitioning in the late 80s and returning to life as Brian Belovitch, a charming and lovely man, sparking with life, generous of heart and spirit. Each chapter of his life is more interesting than a lot of people’s entire experience. In many ways, Brian’s lived three lives, and lived each one to its fullest.

I’m Gonna Make You Love Me is a thoughtful, insightful, and in-depth look at a tricky subject. Some members of the transgender community get touchy around telling stories about detransitioning, afraid it’ll get picked up as ammunition by bigots. To their credit, both Karen Bernstein and Brian don’t shy away from this, but also don’t let it stop them from telling their story. Bernstein remarked to interviewers for The Queer Review, speaking about some of the hard feelings and conversation that might arise, “I think she thought about it a little more than I did, and we had to have a really long talk about it and I did consider whether we should bring somebody else in and finally I just said ‘no, this is one person’s story’. It’s one person, two different lives perhaps, maybe more depending on how you want to count it, but I am not making a polemic here, I’m not making a political film.”

Brian’s very forthcoming about the roles that toxic masculinity and homophobia may have played in this decision to transition. He commented to the Austin Chronicle, “I rejected this idea that in order to be a man this is how you had to act. It was like garlic to a vampire to me. I guess I was just such a sensitive, aware kid that I recognized that there was something wrong about it at a very early age, and it was something I wanted no part of it. Of course now, as a man, an older man, a more mature man, I realize that there are very many facets of what it is to be a man in today’s society. It’s a very different world we live in.”

I’m Gonna Make You Love Me realizes that gender is complicated. Brian sums it up succinctly with the observation “Gender for some people is a destination. For me it’s a journey.”

“Gender for some people is a destination. For me it’s a journey.”

I don’t always like to include my own personality or history when it comes to writing reviews. I’m mostly here for you, merely sharing some thoughts for movie lovers and cinephiles wondering what to watch. This aspect of I’m Gonna Make You Love Me speaks to my personal journey, however. As a gender non-conforming/feminine man growing up in the Midwest in the 80s, i relate all-too-well to the struggles he faced, the garlic revulsion to toxic American masculinity, and the confusion that can come with it. Seeing the peace that Brian discovers brings a certain contentment to my own spirit. I’ve also come to grips with the confusing journey around gender, and come to a similar conclusion that Brian did.

That’s the beauty of I’m Gonna Make You Love Me. This is not a political film, it’s a personal one, and a fascinating one at that. Like Brian himself says, “gender is a destination for some.” May everyone find their way to a gender presentation and identity that works for them, that makes them happy and free to express their own unique spirit.

For anyone interested in such topics and themes, I’m Gonna Make You Love Me is a must-watch!

I’m Gonna Make You Love Me | Trailer from Karen Bernstein on Vimeo.

I’m Gonna Make You Love Me is streaming, for free, as part of Amazon’s SXSW film festival until May 6!

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