The Perfect American Movie Road Trip - Part One

It is officially summer and summer is the time for road trips. This year, Discovery News put together “The Perfect American Road Trip.” The trip takes you through every contiguous state in America. The route also allows for you to hit a “major” attraction in every state. Discovery News says that the journey would take 9.33 days to drive the entire route. In all actuality, and without murdering your travel companions, the entire trip would take around three months to complete.

Just like the Oregon Trail computer game, there are certain difficulties in travelling across the country. Sometimes you have to ford a river or die of dysentery. Sometimes you have to travel with your family across country with only two CDs, Weezer’s Green Album and Train’s Drops of Jupiter. (I am speaking from experience.) This epic journey is not for the faint of heart. In order to complete the journey, you must have parents with selective hearing and children with strong bladders.

There are other means of travel across the country. Through the power of cinema, you can see all of the 48 states and the District of Columbia! Below you will find “The Perfect American Movie Road Trip.” Each movie is selected for embodying the essence of that specific location. The previous sentence is only partially full of crap. Basically, I just picked movies that I really liked that may or may not be entirely set in that state. So, sit back, relax and travel the states without leaving your couch. The plus side of all this is that you don’t have to listen to “Drops of Jupiter” and you get to sleep in your own bed.

 

State: Kentucky

Actual Landmark You Could Visit: Mammoth Caves National Park

Movie: Fire Down Below starring Steven Seagal, Were you expecting Seabiscuit?

Summary:   Seagal plays an EPA agent who fights to protect the mountains in Kentucky from toxic waste. (!)

Rating: ☆

Most Notable Movie Quote: “If your daddy knew exactly how stupid you were, he’d trade you in for a pet monkey.” — Jack Taggart

 

State: Indiana

Suggested Landmark To Visit: West Baden Springs Hotel

Movie: A Christmas Story, because Hoosiers is too obvious

Summary:   All Ralphie wants is a Red Rider BB gun for Christmas.

Rating: All the stars!

Most Notable Movie Quote: “Deck the harrs with boughs of horry”

 

State: Illinois

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Lincoln’s Home

Movie: Wayne’s World

Tagline:   “You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll hurl.”

Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Most Notable Movie Quote: “Actually, it’s pronounced ‘mill-e-wah-que’” —Alice Cooper

 

State: Missouri

Suggested Landmark To Visit: The Gateway Arch

Movie: Road House

Tagline:   “The dancing’s over. Now it gets dirty.”

Rating: ☆

Most Notable Movie Quote: “Pain don’t hurt.”

 

State: Kansas

Suggested Landmark To Visit: C.W. Parker Carousel Museum

Movie: Mars Attacks!

Tagline:   “YIKES! They’ve landed.”

Rating: ☆☆☆

Iconic Movie Image:

 

State: Iowa

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Terrace Hill, Iowa’s Historic Governor’s Mansion

Movie: Field of Dreams

Tagline:   If you believe the impossible, the incredible will come true.

Rating: ☆☆☆

Most Notable Movie Quote: “Build it and they will come”

 

State: Wisconsin

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Estate

Movie: Bridesmaids

Summary:   Kristen Wiig plays a baker who is always a bridesmaid, never a bride

Rating: ☆☆☆

Most Notable Movie Quote: “There is a colonial woman on the wing. There is something they’re not telling us. She was out there churning butter.”

 

State: Minnesota

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Historic Fort Snelling!

Movie: Drop Dead Gorgeous

Summary:   A mockumentary about all the pageantry behind beauty competitions

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ *my all-time favorite movie

Most Notable Movie Quote: “Are we on cops again?”

Also…”You’d think they’d have the parking lot of America, to go with the Mall of America.”

 

State: Nebraska

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park

Movie: Children of the Corn

Tagline:   “In their world adults are not allowed…to live.”

Rating:😨😨😨😨All time scariest movie

Most Notable Movie Quote: I don’t even want to think about it

 

State: South Dakota

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Mount Rushmore

Movie: Son In Law

Tagline: “He’s a relative nightmare.”

Rating: ☆☆

Most Notable Movie Quote: “Cutting some corn. Cutting some corn. Can I get some butter please?”

 

State: North Dakota

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Fort Union Trading Post

Movie: Fargo

Tagline: “A homespun murder story.”

Rating: ☆☆☆

Most Notable Movie Quote: “You Betcha”

 

State: Montana

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Glacier National Park

Movie: Legends of the Fall

Tagline: “After the fall from Innocence, the Legend begins.”

Rating: Never watched it; 56% on Rotten Tomatoes

Most Notable Movie Quote: “some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends.”

 

State: Washington

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Hanford Site (This literally is a nuclear landfill. I’m not sure of the tourist-y appeal.)

Movie: Black Sheep

Tagline: “There’s one in every family.”

Rating: ☆☆☆

Most Notable Movie Quote: “Dibs on top bunk!”

 

State: Oregon

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Columbia River Gorge

Movie: Kindergarten Cop

Tagline: “Go ahead, tell him you didn’t do your homework.”

Rating: ☆☆

Most Notable Movie Quote: “My dad’s a gynecologist. He looks at vaginas all day long.”

 

State: California

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Cable Car Museum

Movie: Clueless

Tagline: “Sex. Clothes. Popularity. Whatever.”

Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Most Notable Movie Quote: “She could be a farmer in those clothes.”

 

State: Nevada

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Hoover Dam

Movie: Vegas Vacation, obviously.

Tagline: “This time the Griswolds are on a roll.”

Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Most Notable Movie Quote: “Take all the dam pictures you want. Now are there any dam questions.”

 

State: Arizona

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Grand Canyon

Movie: Joe Dirt, not the entire movie, but just go with it

Tagline: “Keep on Moppin’ in the Free World.”

Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Most Notable Movie Quote: “Well that might be your problem, it’s not what you like, it’s the consumer.”

 

State: Utah

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Bryce Canyon National Park

Movie: Con Air

Tagline: “Buckle Up.”

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Most Notable Movie Quote: “On any other day that might seem strange…”

 

State: Idaho

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve

Movie: Napoleon Dynamite

Tagline: “He’s out to prove he’s got nothing to prove.”

Rating: ☆☆

Most Notable Movie Quote: “Tina, you fat lard, come get some dinner!”

 

State: Wyoming

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Yellowstone National Park

Movie: Brokeback Mountain

Tagline: “Love is a force of nature”

Rating: I fell asleep during this movie

Most Notable Movie Quote: “I wish I knew how to quit you.”

 

State: Colorado

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Pikes Peak

Movie: Dumb and Dumber

Tagline: “If they each had half a brain, together they would still have half a brain”

Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Most Notable Movie Quote: “I thought the Rocky Mountains would be a lot rockier.”

 

State: New Mexico

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Carlsbad Caverns

Movie: There Will Be Blood

Tagline: “There will be greed. There will be vengeance.”

Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Most Notable Movie Quote: “There is a whole ocean of oil under our feet.”

 

State: Texas

Suggested Landmark To Visit: The Alamo

Movie: Selena

Tagline: “For one brilliant, shining moment, the American Dream came true.”

Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Most Notable Movie Quote: “Anything for Salinas.”

 

State: Oklahoma

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Chickasaw National Recreation Area

Movie: Twister

Tagline: “The Dark Side Of Nature.”

Rating:🐄🐄🐄

Most Notable Movie Quote: “We got cows.”

 

State: Arkansas

Suggested Landmark To Visit: Toltec Mounds

Movie: Sling Blade

Tagline: “A simple man. A difficult choice.”

Rating: On my movie to-do list

Most Notable Movie Quote: “I like French fried potaters.”

 

The rest of the states to come next week!