Hillbilly Holiday, 2005: Required Viewing, Part III

May 12th, 2005 at 10:10 pm (East Tennessee and The South, Travel)

And now for the final installment of Required Viewing for Hillbilly Holiday, 2005 — About the South.

Part I, About Appalachia or Nearby Areas, is here. Part II, Connections to Appalachia or Nearby Areas is here. The Required Listening post is here.
About the South
A Family Thing Amazon Info and Reviews Screen It Content Info
Gone with the Wind Amazon Info and Reviews Screen It Content Info
Sweet Home Alabama Amazon Info and Reviews Screen It Content Info
To Kill a Mockingbird Amazon Info and Reviews Christian Spotlight on the Movies Content Info
My Cousin Vinny Amazon Info and Reviews No Content Review Available (but it’s definitely not for delicate ears)
The Beverly Hillbillies Amazon Info and Reviews No Content Review Available
I don’t have much to say about some of these, but I will say that A Family Thing might be the best movie you’ve never heard of. Robert Duvall plays an aging Arkansas redneck who, upon discovering that his birth mother was black, gets in his pickup and heads to Chicago to meet his black half-brother, played by James Earl Jones. The scene with him negotiating the Chicago interstate system in his beat up red pickup is priceless.

Best line from Sweet Home Alabama: “Hey, you just squashed the state bird of Alabama.” (Uttered by a character named Earl Smooter, which is even better than the line.)

Atticus Finch might be the all time best and most memorable name of any fictional character ever created. And it’s just the best of many great character names in To Kill a Mockingbird: Scout (who some say resembles our eldest), Dill, Jem, Calpurnia. And who could forget Boo Radley, played, incidentally, by a young Robert Duvall. A few good quotes from the movie:

    I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. — Atticus Finch

    If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it. — Atticus Finch

    Jean Louise. Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passing. — Reverend Sykes

I liked My Cousin Vinny, but as noted above, it might be pretty hard on delicate ears. Joe Pesci plays a NYC personal injury attorney who travels to Alabama to represent his young cousin and a friend when they are wrongly accused of murder. Joe Pesci in Alabama. Need I say more?

Okay, I’ll add that the stutterer is classic.

Thus concludes the Required Viewing list for Hillbilly Holiday, 2005.

Coming soon: Southern Stuff You Absolutely Must Eat While You’re Here. Hint: this tops the list.