While some people have traditions like where they eat when they drive across the country to visit grandma, I have certain pop-culture traditions I like to follow. One of those traditions is with the novel Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King and Bernie Wrightson. Beginning in January, each chapter of that book takes place over a different month and what I like to do is read the book one month/chapter at a time throughout the year.
But I have a lot more traditions like these around movies than books. Like everyone else I watch A Christmas Story on Christmas every year, but my movie traditions go a bit deeper than this. The movies I’ve listed below are all ones I try and watch each and every year at the time they’re set.
Thanksgiving
There’s not a lot of movies based around Thanksgiving, but the obvious one is Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Obvious or not, the film was written and directed by John Hughes, who also wrote and directed just about every movie kids growing up in the 1980s love, and is superb. While I didn’t much care for this flick as a kid when it was first released in 1987, I’ve come to really like it as an adult where I can now identify with Neal Page (Steve Martin) as he tries to get from New York City to Chicago in time for his family Thanksgiving dinner along with Del Griffith (John Candy) who’s sometimes more of a hindrance than a help. Planes, Trains and Automobiles has an ending that gets me every time.
Christmas
There are loads of movies set around Christmas that aren’t about Christmas I could choose from here; Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Prometheus, Go…, but the one I’m going to go with is Gremlins. Set at Christmastime in the town of Kingston Falls, Gremlins was so obviously shot on the backlot at Warner Bros in hot, sunny California rather than someplace that really sees snowflakes it’s almost comical. That’s not a dig at this fun flick that while the setting might look artificial, everything else from the special effects to the story to the outright SCARES in this PG rated movie makes it a classic in my book.
Independence Day
The easy movie to go with here would be the literal Independence Day, but I like to go with the film Zodiac instead. “What,” you say, “Zodiac isn’t a movie about Independence Day!?” And I’d agree with that, Zodiac is a movie that takes place over many years during the hunt for the Zodiac Killer. But the first scene of the movie takes place on July 4, 1969 and for whatever reason has stuck with me since.
Labor Day
There’s only one movie I can think of about Labor Day, and that movie is Stand By Me. Taking place over Labor Day weekend and ending the morning of, Stand By Me so perfectly captures what it’s like to be a boy in between elementary and middle school as well as what it’s like for every kid on those last few days of trying to stretch out the final remaining bits summer before the start of school.
Halloween
There are a million and one Halloween movies and more than a few of them that take place ON Halloween, not even considering there’s a whole franchise of Halloween movies at this point. But the movie I like to watch every year at Halloween is The Crow. Unfortunately, The Crow is mostly remembered for being the film that star Jason Lee was killed on during production. But it’s also a great movie based on a comic book that has a unique visual style and look that was heavily influential to things like The Matrix. Oh yeah, it also takes place in this hyper-real and dark Halloween that alternates between the fascinating and the stuff of nightmares. Here, musician Eric Draven (Lee) and fiancé are murdered one Halloween by thugs but arises from the grave as a practically indestructible mystical force to avenge their deaths one year later. The Crow is a superhero movie while also being an anti-superhero movie at the same time.
