Movies Big Enough To Fill Thanksgiving Weekend

Have you ever noticed that Thanksgiving weekend just seems to go on forever? We have a feast day and a shopping day (which everybody avoids to stay home and buy things online) and yet the empty hours continue to tick by. There are no decorations to put up or take down. You know a holiday doesn't have much on the ball when you find yourself counting the minutes until you can go back to work.

So here we are with yet another helpful guide, to multi-sequel film series that are perfect for viewing over a four-day weekend. These are deep, involving stories that demand plenty of attention, just the thing when you're stuck inside glued to the couch in an L-Tryptophan coma and it's too cold to venture outdoors anyway.

Viewing time: The afternoon off

Kill Bill

 

A tiny mini-series just the right viewing time for those one-day Thanksgiving stopovers where you have to get right back to work Friday. For those of you who are clerks, the huge massacre scenes where the Bride fights the Crazy 88 will put you in the perfect mood for fighting through those crowds of holiday shoppers. What, did you think you'd get a whole 4-day weekend? Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!

Viewing time: All day and long enough to finish the turkey cannoli

The Godfather

 

The Godfather trilogy is full of heart-warming family gatherings and garden parties, where people discuss business, frolic with the kids, and leave horse heads in each other's beds. There, it's reminding you of when all your relatives visit already, isn't it? If your family is likewise close-knit and free with their opinions of each other, make them all an offer they can't refuse and gather them around the big-screen for this epic series. In exchange, you promise that the turkey will be the only thing getting stuffed.

Viewing time: A proper two days off and a second breakfast

Lord of the Rings

 

As much as those hobbits eat, you'll feel no end of kinship with them as you waddle back from the kitchen with the third helping of squash and stuffing. The fall season just demands a high fantasy epic anyway; a feast day at home is just the kind of old-fashioned Medieval holiday that nobody understands the reason behind, but does it anyway because it's cold and they're starving. No really, hobbits and Thanksgiving go together. That's why there's a Pinterest board called Hobbit Thanksgiving. That's what you need us for, because we think to Google these things.

Viewing time: Three days not counting the recovery from the drinking game

The even-numbered Star Treks

 

You can even shave a few hours off and limit yourself to the original cast only. Go watch the Nostalgia Critic to fill in for the odd-numbered ones, which will still fill you in on the intervening story without having to sit through 7-minute sequences of drifting in space staring at polished pre-CGI models. Star Trek definitely doesn't go with Thanksgiving, and in fact the Star Trek universe doesn't seem to have any holidays at all, now that you come to think of it.

Viewing time: A whole four-day weekend if you beat the traffic coming home on Wednesday

Star Wars

 

Sure, the Star Wars universe has holidays - who could forget Life Day? It's in the Star Wars Holiday special, after all, along with that charming holiday carol "WURGH GUH GWURH GUH URGGUW WURRRR-GHHUR" sung by the wookies. Anyway, the Star Wars series tells the whole story, from origins to death, of C-3PO and R2-D2, two lovable robot scamps who bumble through a galactic war having all sorts of comic-relief adventures. There were other characters too.

Viewing time: Unemployed

Only the worst James Bond movies, including the final Bond adventure inside Zardoz's head.

 

Which Bond movies score as "the worst"? We've been saved from having to answer that question by filmsite.org - just scroll to the bottom of this list and that's pretty much the ones. Although the slide-whistle corkscrew car jump deserved an even lower ranking, many would say. To finish it off, don't miss Zardoz - just load it up after you're watched all the Connery Bond movies and don't tell anybody that it isn't a Bond movie. Hey, it's got Sean Connery, guns, naked women, a convoluted plot, and a setting that hops around to different locations, what's to miss? Let them figure it out on their own.

Or, you know, you could always decide to watch some turkeys for a change...