The Greatest ‘Road Trip’ Movies Of All Time + ‘Rotten Movie Reviews’ Grown Ups 1 + 2 Movie Review

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Movie mis Movie Podcast. My name is movie Mike. I am on Twitter and Instagram at Mike Destro That's Mike d e E S t r O. If you want to follow me over there and on this episode, what we're talking about is the greatest road trip movies of all time. I'm not talking about the actual movie road Trip, which will actually make the list, but I'm just talking about movies where the whole plot line of the movie is it's a character trying to get to a different destination and pretty much the entire movie takes place over the course of a trip. It's summertime now, but we probably won't get to take many trips this summer, so I feel like we can all live through some good movies about trips that we wish we were taking. So that's what pretty much the whole basis of this episode is about. I asked a bunch of you guys on Twitter what we're your favorite, so I incorporated that into the list, and if you don't follow me over there, that's the way you gotta do it. You can get in on what the episode is gonna be about. Each week. I'm also trying out a new segment called Rotten Movie Reviews. Well, I will intentionally watch a bad movie with a low Rotten Tomato score rating and see if it is at really that bad. And this week I am going with the king of the lowest rated rud and Tomatoes movies, Adam Sandler, and I'm talking about one that not only has a part one, but it has a part two, and neither of them has above a ten percent rating on Ride and Tomatoes. So I thought that was a good place for this segment to start. We'll find out if those movies were actually that bad after I watched them. It's all part of this experiment I'm trying out. And before we get into that, just thanks to you for hitting download, hitting play on this episode. That means a lot to me. If you're not subscribe to the podcast, well what are you waiting for? Just hit that subscribe button, hit that follow button wherever you're listening to right now, and you get brand new episodes every single Monday. And if you're listening on Apple Podcast. I know I say this all the time, but it really does make a world of difference. Just leave that five star rating, write a quick little review on there. It takes like maybe ten seconds to do. And it helps me kind of compete with some of the other movie podcasts out there, because the higher up I can get on the list the movie podcast, the more people who will hit play when they see my face on the thumbnail. And I mean, I need all the help I can get to be seen my picture on there, Like I hit that five stars. I can really use that anyway, without any further ado, let's get started. In a world where everyone and their mother has a podcast, one man stands to infiltrate the ears of listeners like never before in a movie podcast, a man with so much movie knowledge. He's basically like a walking I MTV with glasses from the Niceville Podcast Network Movie Movie Podcast. Alright, so today we're talking about the greatest road trip movies of all time, and let me explain what that is. So I recently watched the movie Little Miss Sunstine for the very first time, and I thought it was a really great movie. And I kind of had this idea of like, oh, there's a whole category of just road trip movies. And I got to think of just the world we're living in today, We're probably not gonna get to take a lot of road trips, a lot of vacations this summer, and I wanted to think of, like, Okay, what is the best movie I could watch to put me in that situation and think like, Okay, I would want to take that trip from a movie. So I also asked you guys on Twitter what your favorite road trip movies were. We'll get to some of those and I'll give you some of mind. But first of all, let's define what a road trip movie is. If that sounds maybe a little weird to you, you don't really get it. So a road trip movie I would categorize is essentially, I'd say, of the movie has to be about a physical trip being taken. So it's a character or group of characters trying to get from point A to point B, and the whole movie is about their journey. Why I think this concept and plotline of a movie is so interesting. I just like that idea of characters having to get somewhere, and that idea of when they finally get there, what obstacles are they going to overcome or will they finally reach this point in their life where something is complete? And I think a road trip movie is so great because you can really tell and like kind of expand on characters and get to know people how they deal with a road trip. And there's just something so fun to me about a road trip movie because some of the greatest moments and memories of my childhood were taking along road trips. So my parents are from Mexico, and every single summer and around Christmas time, we would take a trip from Texas to Mexico, which is about an eighteen hour drive all the way around without stops and everything. And I always just thought, like, this feels like a movie sometimes, and some of the stuff that happened along the road, it was always so great memorable to me, Like crossing the border into Mexico was always a crazy thing. Coming back to the United States after and seeing like American signs and seeing the first McDonald's. I remember that always being awesome, and I would have loved to make a movie about that entire journey. So I was thinking of movies like that that made me feel a certain way, and I kind of got that feeling when I saw a Little Miss Sunshine, So I'll start with that one first. Now. The movie came out back in the early two thousands, and I remember thinking This movie was going to be a very like indie and kind of stylized movie, and I knew Steve Carell was in it, but I didn't really know kind of how funny it was going to be in a kind of a dark way, because it's kind of a dark comedy. It starts out again, I won't ruin any of these movies, but I do want to explain this movie because maybe if you see this movie, you just see the thumbnail and aren't exactly sure what it is. But it's about Steve Carrell's character, who he plays a gay man who just tried to commit suicide and he has taken out of the hospital essential live with his family. It gets to his family and there's this little girl who was essentially gets a call that's saying there's a big little miss Sunshine padget all the way in California, and they have to drive from New Mexico to get there. And that's the basis of the movie, which I felt was kind of I didn't know that the title exactly translated into what the movie was about. And all the stuff that kind of happens along in this movie I thought was great. This movie also just feels so came out in two thousands six, and it has that really like mid two thousands feel, which I kind of wonder about when we look back on those early two thousands and you getting movies made later along them, like, oh, here's a movie about people that lived in the two thousands. I think if you watch this movie, you kind of get a little time capsule of what times were like then, Like cell phones were becoming more prominent, but they still like in their primitive stages, are being like bulky and weird, and the fashion and all that kind of stuff. Like I just think the early and mid two thousand's are a very interesting time, and I'm kind of starting to see this while going back and watching movies from that time, of how we are defining that movie and defining that part of our culture, which I think is an interesting thing because now when you think about, you know, we think about people dressing like in the eighties, you get what that looks like. You get about what people will dress like if they're doing something for the nineties, you get that. And I still don't really have the two thousands in my head, but if you go and watch Little Miss Sunshine, you kind of get a feel for what that's gonna be like whenever there's two thousand's party here, and maybe I don't know in the next five or tain years. But anyway, I thought this movie was great. It has a bunch of laughs in it, It has some unexpected, kind of off the wall moments within the story, and then the it's pretty emotional. They're like learning Steve carrell story in this movie, the other kids in the family and the dad who's kind of a jerk throughout the whole thing. It really had that feeling that I remember what it was like to take a road trip with my family, Like you get into arguments, then everybody's happy having fun, and then you get into a very low point and then and this one even something tragic happens. So I think it's cool want to check out, especially if you're Steve Carrell fan, if you ever take a road trip with your family, I think this will resonate with you too. Now, the first one I mentioned on my Twitter and I started the whole thread where you guys replied to was Dumb and Dumber, which I feel it is probably one of my favorite comedies of all time, and I think it works so well because it is essentially a road trip movie. It's Jim Carey and Jeff Daniels and essentially they get this suitcase and they're trying to get back to this owner, and the whole time, Jim Carrey in his head has this idea of that he's going to return the suitcase tour this beautiful woman and she's going to essentially fall in love with him. Now, that's what I loved about this movie and the way that it works with being a road trip movie, because the whole time he's just plotting in his head all these different scenarios of how it's gonna work out for him, the things they're gonna do, and then it ends up turning completely the other way around. And I think with this movie in particular, because there's so many funny stops on the way, and there's so many kind of things that happened, whether it's them getting pulled over and peeing in beer bottles and then having to have the cop drink it, or them stopping at a diner and getting in these fights with this trucker guy. I think it makes all these other little elements play out to where it kind of feels like you're taking the road trip with them, and therefore I think it's a very rewatchable movie because you watched the movie again and it's almost like reliving a fun trip that you took with some friends. And as idiotic as they are and as as stupid as this movie is, it's crazy that this movie works so well together and essentially skyrocketed Jim Carrey into being a comedy powerhouse and just somebody who we think is just funny and every single thing we see him in and I think this was probably one of his best roles. And also of going back and learning about this movie that a lot of the little scenes and stuff were just improvising this, like everything from him walking out of that hotel bar and pointing out the sign on the on the wall, I mean like we landed on the moon, or I think my favorite scene is probably when it's just this really small thing when he goes into the seven eleven walks out, he sees two guys who actually weren't even working on the movie, and he's like, oh, big gulps, huh, all right, see you later, Like that was an unscripted thing. It seems like something so dumb to mention to somebody being your favorite part of that movie. But it's things like that that really stick out to me in this and why I had to include it on this list, Okay, And it really wouldn't be a road trip movie list without including the movie A road Trip. And I had to put it in right here because I think this is one of the first movies I watched as a kid, and it being a movie that I realized I wasn't supposed to be watching. So it came out in the year two thousand. I was probably nine years ten years old when I actually got to see this movie. Shout out to a blockbuster VHS my cousin renting it. And I find this movie so interesting now is because this kind of movie was so popular back in the day of the teen drama, which is essentially a bunch of horny teenagers trying to get lucky. Is essentially every movie made after American Pie came out with such a big success that like, all right, we're just gonna dominate this kind of genre of movie. And if you look back in these kind of comedies from this time period, that's pretty much what they're all about, is these horny teenager dudes trying to get with some chicks, but what's different about this movie? And they're like, Okay, well let's take that same concept but make it across Country Tree road trip. So what the whole movie is about is the main character played by Rick and Meyer. He accidentally films the tape hooking up with a different chick and sends it to his girlfriend who lives in Austin, Texas. So he travels from Ithaca all the way to Austin and takes so much of his crazy friends with him. And I kind of wonder how a movie like this would hold up to today, because I was thinking about it, and I really don't see nudity in movies anymore. Like I can't remember the last time I went to a movie theater and saw a movie that just straight up show nudity. It's very I feel like that's the early two thousand things now, And I kind of wonder where that change came from, because while you look at TV has gotten so much grittier and darker, and you look at a show like Game of Thrones and there's just so much nudity in that. Now, maybe it's because just kind of a trend thing back in the day to to market to younger people trying to watch a movie and being like, oh, there's here comes the naughty part. I think that was a little bit of it too, and maybe it just kind of faded away. But even in like major movies where there's usually some kind of nudity or sex sy and I feel that's kind of shifted away from, you know, the way directors and stuff making movies now. And I think even seeing news stories now, how they're gonna have to change how they make movies and where maybe even some of the like c g I kissing scenes will happen where you can't really have two people going at it on a movie screen anymore. I wonder if we'll move away even further from that. But it's just so rare to go back and watch movies like Road Trip, like old school, like American Pie, where it was just like, Okay, here's the scene where this happens. Like it's just not a thing anymore. And maybe it's a good thing, because I think there's nothing more awkward than watching a movie with nudity with your parents, So probably for teenagers now it's maybe a good thing. I remember back in the day we read it a movie from Blockbuster I don't even think it was a blockbuster. I think it was just this random rental VHS place inside of a grocery store in my hometown that we would read movies from and we're just like, Okay, this movie would be good, let's watch it. And there ends up being just a straight on, full onto a nudity scene in it, and I'm like, oh, grab, My mom has never hit stop on the BCR so fast, so maybe it was a good thing to get away from. All right. So one of my favorite road trip movies as a kid was a movie called Over the Top starring Sylvester Stallone. Now if you don't remember this movie, it's a classic from the eighties, and I think why I lived it so much because my dad's a truck driver, and we wanted a lot over him being a truck driver. Sometimes as a kid, I would go with him on his trips. Now, he would only travel in Texas, so it probably would wake up really early, be like three AM, and then we'd be back home before five. But I've never seen a truck driver, let alone a cool truck driver in a movie, And when this movie came out, I was like, holy crap, something for me and my dad bonded over could because my dad doesn't watch movies. He watches zero movies on his own. He will only watch something if it's randomly on TV and involves some kind of gunshot violence or something like that, and he doesn't even watch any kind of TV. But I remember him specifically being like, oh, this is the cool MOE because it was semester salone driving around in a truck with his son right there, shotgun and he goes and competes in arm wrestling competitions, which is as cheesy as maybe a plot line you can come up with a movie, but it was Something's just so cool to finally see my dad enjoy a movie from them, you know, arm wrestling and him doing the thing where he turns his hat around and goes right in for the slam. Oh, such a great movie. And if you're like me of never bonded with your dad over a movie, you gotta find something with his interest. And if it happens to be eighteen Wheelers, well check out over the Top. Now let's get to the most favorite road trip movie from you guys that was mentioned on Twitter, and it goes to Tommy Boy. Now, when you think about David Spade and Chris Farley as a duo, even though they were in that many movies together, I just feel like Tommy Boy. And then Black Sheep later cemented that idea of them being just so good together, it's because Chris Farley is just so out there and commits to every single one of his roles, and then you have him paired with a guy like David Spade. He's a little, small, kind of squirreling guy. You just can't ask for a better recipe for a comedy movie and put that into a funny road trip and there's just so many things in this one that just kind of make it work. And probably the best scene in this movie has to be when they stay at the hotel from David Spade knocking on the door with the housekeeping and then of course the iconic that guy and lettle Go Richer, what's the hell? Some other great ones do you guys mentioned were almost famous, which I felt is a good one. National Lampoon is the original Vacation where there's a bunch of variations of that Pope's Big Adventure. I think you could even classify hy Borat as a road trip movie into the Wild was a really great one. You got planes, trains, automobiles. And then another really great road trip movie is a Goofy movie. Now I did a whole little kind of highlight on this movie because I feel it's a very underrated Disney movie. But the whole thing is a summer vacation road trip with Goofy and his son Max, and I think that's a really good one to watch. I think another really underrated one was We're the Miller's which came out back in ten with Jason Dakas and Jennifer Anniston. So it's Jason Sadakis character who's going to Mexico to essentially bring these drugs back for this drug lord guy, and he assembles this team of these other people and they posed as a family. It's also Jennifer Aniston and Emma Roberts, and I think it's a really funny movie, one that probably got slam more than by critics than it should have been. Like, I think everybody who I know who've actually seen this movie thought it was actually pretty good. I really enjoyed Jennifer Aniston in this kind of comedy space. You can do more movies like this. I think it'd be awesome. So anyway, those are some of the greatest road trip movies of all time, at least in my eyes. If there was one I miss hey, just hit me up on Twitter, Instagram at Mike Destro let me know. All right, So I want to start a new segment this week. I don't know how well or how long I can do this because I am calling it rotten reviews, and I have a theory and I want to do this experiment because I feel like when you go into a movie and you know that people have been saying that it's really a great movie and there's a lot of buzz around it, sometimes you watch that movie with an expectation to be held to that high review, and then you see you'll be like, we, well, that wasn't that great, and you don't enjoy it as much. But I think also the opposite happens. If you are told this movie isn't that great, and you're like, well, I'm gonna watch it any way, and you go into it thinking like, oh, this isn't gonna be great, your expectation is lower and you might actually end up enjoying it more. So. I want to watch movies that have I'd say a ten percent or less rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and I want to see if they were actually that bad because I feel, you know, really highly snooty reviewers, which I don't see myself as I go into movies just wanting to enjoy it and if it brings me any kind of joy or I would get something out of the movie, I feel I can enjoy anything. I have different scales for different kind of movies, especially when it comes to comedy and horror, like you have to look at everything differently. But I feel sometimes critics just go into a movie already wanted to hate it for either the director or the actors in it, or just maybe it's a sequel in they're like, oh, this isn't gonna be great, and I feel they've ripped a shred. Sometimes really good movies and even if you go on Rotten Tomatoes, sometimes the critic score will be so low, but it's like, well the audience score is you know in the eighties or the nineties, there's something wrong there. So what I'm gonna do is watch movies that are called rotten and see if they were actually that bad. Maybe my opinion changes, because I know that critics have already said it's bad, and maybe I'll find it a little bit better. And I decided to start with Adam Sandler, who probably has collectively the lowest rated movies from an actor that he's you know, produced and started. I think over all of his movies that came out in the later part of his career, they have all been pretty low rated. And I've seen a lot of these before I even you know, started this segment. So what I did is watched two movies collectively that had the lowest scores that were actually sequel So I watched Growing Ups one and two because I think his lowest rated movie that he started with the Ridiculous Six, which came out on Netflix, and I remember watching that and actually thinking it was okay. Now, well, I I think that Adam Sandler gets such bad ratings when it comes to Rotten Tomatoes, and I think it started it kind of gets to him too, because he even put out a comedy special that was called Fresh because he wanted to give himself a good title that he knew that he would never get from critics. And I think I don't think he's really changed the way he's done movies, Like if you look back on Billy Madison and have By Gilmore. His early movies were really just as ridiculous as the ones now I think maybe he's just kept doing the same thing year after year and movie after movie, that maybe we've grown up a little bit more and his movies still stay true. I just think he has a whole different kind of comedy style, and he's not essentially making movies for critics or even making movies that are going to be smash box office hits. I think his movies almost worked in a different way to where he's paying and making movies for TV, and they get money through syndication and being shown back a lot. So I decided to watch Grown Ups one and two because collectively they have a combined total of Growing Up one has ten percent and Grown Ups two has seven percent. So let's start first with Grown Ups one. Now, I watched this movie thinking, Okay, this is gonna be pretty bad, and I was pleasantly surprised that it was actually a decent movie. Now, this one actually has a plotline, which a lot of these crazy Adam Sandler movies don't really have one. So it's all these group of guys who played together on a basketball team as kids, they come back and reunite and after the passing of their coach, so they all made this funeral and then they just start hanging out and decided to go on a weekend trip to an old cabin in their hometown. And I think that part of it is kind of fun, Like you just kind of turn your brain off and taking the idea of all these kids randomly meeting after being friends way back in the day and now they're all hanging out together and remembering stuff from their childhood. That part of it is kind of fun. You also have a pretty incredible cast of character. So what I think also Adam Sandler kind of does now is he just hires all of his friends. If you watch his movies, it's pretty much the same cast of characters switched out here and there. Even like his straight up legit real life friends are all in these movies that are really in no other movies than Adam Sandler movies. But this is one. You've got Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Rob Schneider. Now what I kind of picked out Adam Sandler movies now is they're basically live action cartoons. They're almost like taking the Three Stooges from back in the day and applying them to a movie now because all the crazy stuff that happens in this one, it's basically like watching a cartoon. It's watching like a mix of, like I said, the Three Stooges and Looney Tunes put together into these grown men doing these ridiculous things, and it is pretty dumb. But I felt like this one I actually got some laughs at. Now you're looking at a ten percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and I don't see why it gets such a low rating. Like I get it that it's not maybe uh up to part of like a You at Apatl comedy, or not even up to part of like a water Boy or a Billy Madison. But I think there's still just something charming about these movies. I feel they're almost like family type movies in a way that Adam Sandler's kind of put itself into with still kind of being appealing to his a little other fans who watched his movies back in the day. I think it's a weird kind of space to operate in, and when you have these critics kind of going out of these Adam Sandler movies and going right into finding all the things that are bad about them. Yes, the acting isn't great. Yes, the storytelling maybe not completely existed. It probably has the plotline of maybe a twenty minute TV show told over a movie. But I just feel it's so ridiculous and so kind of out there and trying to be dumb and obscure and obscene that I feel it actually works. And it's kind of weird seeing somebody like Chris Rock, who's just such a great stand up comedian and probably one of the best of all time, work his way into movies and almost not being as funny, because in this one he's just kind of delivering like these quick little jabs in these lines, and it's weird how that kind of doesn't translate. Sometimes. I think he's probably the hardest for me to watch in this because I know how funny he is, but in this one he's a little more cheesy. But overall, I don't think it deserves a ten percent. If I were to rate grown Ups too, I would probably give it a sixties sixty five percent rating. I would even give it like a two point five out of five, which I still feel is pretty good for having such a low critique rating, and that's right around where the audience score actually is for this one, So I feel it kind of holds up. So you're looking at about a fifty percent difference about what critics said about it and what actually people liked about this movie. So did the Desert to win awards? Now? Did it Is to win Razzi Awards? I don't even think this one was his worst movie, So I actually say, if you're looking for something so ridiculous to watch and just turn your brain off to you and just like to sit back and maybe have snack and watch a movie, I think this is kind of a great movie for that. And I love movies that exists for that reason. They don't have to be these super high browed movies that get you thinking about something, or even the commune doesn't have to be super refined. I think just having something slapstick and funny has an appeal of its own, and I think that's what grown Ups one does. So doesn't hold up to that ten percent. I think it's way higher than that. I'd say it's possible it deserves the possible grade, and maybe this experiment works of going into it so low and actually enjoying the movie. But next I'm gonna get into Grown Ups Too, where I'm not sure I'm gonna say the same thing about that. So take a quick break and do that. All right, Now, let's talk about Grown Ups Too, continuing this Rotten review segment. So this one has a seven percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and at audience score. Now I said, like I did about Grown Ups One, I actually ended up enjoying it, thought it was a pretty good movie for what it was. I'm gonna say that complete opposite for Grown Ups Too, because while I felt Grown Ups One actually had a plot line they were actually trying for this have some kind of a story in that movie. This one it's pretty much all over the place and goes from scene to scene, and it actually feels like they're making it up as they go. I felt, and Grown Ups Too, it was them just going from scene to scene and basically like, all right, let's start filming off, what do you want to do? Well, how about you do this? Okay, cool, we'll go with that, and they were just filming as they go, Like it was hard for me to believe that there were actually three writers on this movie. Because it was just so dumb and so bad because the grown ups won. The whole thing was they were getting back together to honor and go pay their final respects to their old basketball coach, and this one it's pretty much just everybody back together again and nothing really happens throughout the entire movie. I'd say where this movie really lost me is it was just so cringe worthy, Like the jokes just weren't there, and there were just stuff they were doing that was just so dumb and like, why is is still happening? Like this isn't even remotely funny, But somehow they were able to make a movie that wasn't really funny and even just cringe worthy at moments. I was never actually bored watching the movie, which was the strange thing because while it is all over the place and really makes no sense, they are able to throw in all these kind of random things, kind of like the head in the first one. It's just like, Okay, this is basically watching the live action cartoon again. But I think with the celebrity cameo after cameo after cameo, like there's so many people in this movie, like Shack is in it. Uh, the lonely Island guys are in this stone Cold Steve Boston has a freaking appearance in this movie, and I think they're able to keep it interesting by just throwing all these random things at you. I was never actually bored watching that, even though I was just cringing and be like, ohly grad, this is still going on. So kudos to them for making that happen. So going into it knowing that it had such a low rating didn't really help this one. So I still feel like, yeah, it deserves a pretty little rating. I would maybe give it a little bit higher, Like I would probably give it the grown ups one rating of like a ten a point five out of five stars. They really just kind of phone this one in. There's even just a bunch of jokes in this that I feel like don't really hold up anymore. And I feel like if you probably watched kind of making some another movie like this. The best thing I can say about Adam Sandler is that he keeps all of his good friends around and offers them jobs in the big Hollywood movies and keeps them employed. So shout out to Adams Handler for being a good guy. But grown ups to believe the rating on this one. All right, that's episode for this week. Before I hop out of here, I gotta get my Instagram shout out, which I do every single week. And if you want to know how to get it on this well, all you have to do is tag me your Instagram story, tag me on your main Instagram feed that you're listening to the episode. It could just be a screenshot at your phone or the coolest thing I think to see is when you take a picture of your car and it has it like on the dashboard, Like that's the coolest thing for me to see. So if you do that, I will for sure give you a shout out. But this one this week goes to at the Murphy Mayhem, who posted on actually their main Instagram feed and said, listening to movie mis movie podcast about box office bombs that we hold near and dear our heart. And that means a lot to me that you listen to the episode so much you put it in your main feed, So I gotta give you a shout out for that. Hope you guys enjoyed this episode, And I did get a couple of questions on my Instagram story of that website I recommended to find movies that are streaming either free or the cheapest to rent. And it's called just watch dot Com. Now, they don't pay me to say this. I have no affiliation with his website. I just use it all the time because you put in any single movie that you want to see and it pulls up everything from where you can stream it for free, like if it's on Netflix, if it's on Hulu or Amazon, or if it's not on any of those, it will show you all the places you can rent it from and you can see the cheapest one. So I used that a lot, especially when I know that a movie isn't on Netflix and I'm trying to find either somewhere else I can watch it because a lot of these older movies, they don't really have a home on some of these streaming services. So if you're wondering where to watch an old movie like and Be pulp Fiction and it's not on Netflix, you just punch it in this website and it tells you where you can stream it or the cheapest place to run it. So that's just watch dot Com again. I'll pay it is it is. I just use it all the time, and it's very helpful, especially been watching some of these older movies that I've been watching. Alright, guys, help you have a good week. Thanks again for listening to the podcast. I will talk to you guys next Monday, and until then later