Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Best known for movies about kids (Home Alone) and teens (The Breakfast Club), writer-director John Hughes took on grown-up humor with 1987's Planes, Trains and Automobiles, a mismatched-buddy comedy starring Steve Martin and John Candy as traveling businessmen who meet as strangers and end up stuck with one another during a hellish effort to get from New York City to Chicago by Thanksgiving. Martin plays Neal, who exits a marketing meeting in Manhattan to face a series of transportation disasters, made more aggravating by the insistent presence of garrulous Del (Candy), a shower-curtain-ring salesman. Over the next couple of days, the two bicker, share, and rescue one another repeatedly as plane flights are canceled, a train's engine blows out, and buses, rental cars, and pickups get Neal and Del only slightly closer to their destination. Hughes does a fine job of balancing broad comedy with genuinely human, nuanced characters—one a cynic who can't handle life's curve balls, and the other an amiable if reckless loner who secretly harbors fears about mortality. A winning film about what can happen when you go with the flow, this 30th anniversary edition features the same set of extras as the 2012 Blu-ray release, including behind-the-scenes featurettes, a tribute to John Candy, and a deleted scene. Recommended for those who don't already own the earlier edition. (T. Keogh)