Movie Media Fan's Top Five "Rock That Small Town" Movies

It's no secret that movies recycle plotlines and disguise them with different settings, accents, character traits, and genres. One plotline that comes to mind is the "unlikely person that doesn't fit into this town comes in and changes everything." Suddenly, when our character enters this community, old curmudgeons become warm loving elders, someone learns to confront whomever they are living with to tell them that they want to follow their passion in life of making a career out of something that won't make money (like paint), and two shy people who weren't supposed to fall in love end up falling in love. I had a hard time narrowing down this month's top five list because it's been a such an overused plotline, but here are my top choices.

5) Pollyanna

Based on the 1913 novel, this live action Disney film was Haley Mills' first at the studio. It's more of the 'traditional' version of this storyline, similar to the books Anne of Green Gables and Heidi. Pollyanna's parents die, so she lives with her grumpy spinster aunt in a small town. She's cheerful, prattles a lot, is annoyingly optimistic, and spreads her positivity to everyone in the town. Eventually, all the grumpy citizens of the town fall in love with her, and become happy people because of her presence. An agoraphobic spinster (Agnes Moorehead) makes quilts for the church picnic, a reverend who only preaches sermons about damnation (Karl Malden) uplifts the town to be more joyous, and Pollyanna's strict aunt (Jane Wyman) faces her demons about why she's hated and feared by everyone in the town because she controls it with her money. It's a sappy touching story that's great for family movie night, and every time I see it, I end up equally rolling my eyes and feeling my heartstrings being pulled. I also get very jealous at this huge slice of cake that Pollyanna is eating-- first because I know I could never bake a cake that tastes as good as that looks, and also because I want to take it away from this child and eat it!

4) Tammy and the Batchelor

Same story, but a little more Baptist and silly. Bumpkin Tammy's grandfather is arrested for selling 'corn liquor' (let's just call it what it is: moonshine), so she moves off her house boat and in with the sophisticated family of a man named Peter (Leslie Nielson), whom she had rescued from a plane crash earlier in the movie. While living with them, she preaches the lessons she's learned from the Bible in her 'simple' rural Southern ways, and makes them all see the gratitude for things they have in their lives. Her lack of boundaries as she calls things as she sees them is endured by everyone there, and while she loves Peter, he is engaged to someone else. Debbie Reynolds plays Tammy and sings the hit song "Tammy's in Love", which became a pop hit after the movie was released. 

3) Pleasantville

A brother and sister (Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon) fight over the new remote control they just got for their TV while watching a fictional Leave It to Beaver type show, entitled Pleasantville, and get stuck in its black and white world. This 1998 film was known for its special effects of mixing the world of black and white and color. As the characters, David and Jennifer, try to live a typical 1950s TV show life and keep things as normal as possible, 1998 behaviors and world views slip out. Every time something changes in Pleasantville, it turns from black and white to color. And soon, as David and Jennifer teach the town about new ideas and challenge the way they think, the world of Pleasantville becomes less black and white. This film is very 90s, and oozes with its concepts of idealistic world views, preaching these views on others, and urging people to help change the world. I recommend trying to find a VHS of the film, where the home video company had test stills before the film so that one could calibrate their TV set properly to the movie.

2) Chocolat

Do yourself a favor and buy yourself a big box of chocolate when you throw this movie on. Chocolat should be seen while eating chocolate. This film is everything. Vianne (Juliette Binoche) and her daughter come to a provincial French town in the 1950s, and open a chocolate shop during its lent season. The town's mayor (Alfred Molina) is a reinvention of Pollyanna's strict aunt, writing sermons every week for the priest as she does, and micromanaging the town trying to control its moral fiber. Vianne's shop is a success as patrons secretly go there and she soon wins over the hearts of everyone in the village, making it a battle of control between herself and the mayor over her sharing love and fun through her chocolate, which the mayor finds to be inappropriate and decadent, specifically during the lent season. She also welcomes a gypsy in her shop (Johnny Depp) which pisses him off to high heaven, before understanding the true meaning of Catholicism. 

1) To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar

Saddle up; it's Pollyanna, but the main character is split between three drag queens! Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze, and Dan Leguizamo play drag queens on their way to a pageant on a cross country road trip when they have car trouble and are forced to settle in a small dusty town and take a room with Carol Ann (Stockard Channing) while waiting for their car to get fixed. In the meantime, Noxeema (Snipes) befriends an old woman who has been the town mute for years (Alice Drummond), Vida (Swayze) teaches Carol Ann to confront her fears and stand up to her abusive husband (Arlis Howard), and Chi-Chi (Leguizamo) must choose between tricking the straight man she loves (Jason London) into believing she is a woman or set him up with the girl who adores him (Jennifer Milmore). This movie is a gay classic, and portrays its message just as effectively as Pollyanna.