“What are you doing for fall break?” One of the classic college questions. And it comes loaded with the expectation that your answer is something super interesting.
But what if your answer is sitting on the couch and watching TV? No worries. We here at Cardinal & Cream have got your back. Don’t fear the simplicity of the week on your parents’ couch. Lean into it. Fall, more than any other season, is all about the vibes/energy/mood of it all. Fashion gets more interesting with sweaters and layers and boots. Cider makes a comeback, and we wonder why we don’t drink it year-round. The air and the leaves are crisp, and outside gets fun again. And if you look just over the horizon, Thanksgiving and Christmas are waiting to make you feel like a kid again.
Embrace that, embrace the couch and embrace these movies and TV shows that our writers have cultivated using their expertise in Fall Vibes.™
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The Watch: “Over the Garden Wall”
By: Judy Black
A Fall must-watch, this Cartoon Network animated miniseries follows two brothers, Wirt (voiced by Frodo Baggins himself, Elijah Wood!) and Greg, who find themselves lost in a mysterious forest called the Unknown. As they try to find their way home, they encounter several quirky, erratic and sinister strangers who either assist them on their journey or threaten to leave the boys lost forever. If you go into this show looking for the typical kiddy Cartoon Network slapstick, you might be pleasantly surprised (like I was) to find parallels to Dante’s Inferno, an emotionally rich plotline and compelling character development. There are many blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments, leaving much to discover should you decide to watch the mysterious cartoon a second time (though I personally found myself consulting Reddit posts for deeper insight). If you’re looking for a show to make you laugh, think, cry and sing along to some adorable and/or thought-provoking songs (such as the absolute bops “Potatoes and Molasses” and “Into the Unknown”), add this to your watchlist!
Available to stream on Hulu and HBO Max.
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The Watch: “You’ve Got Mail”
By: Ted Kluck
“Don’t you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.” This quote by Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) perfectly captures the spirit of this movie which is very fall and also very 90s. Fall and The 90s are two of my most favorite things. This film is on my Romantic Comedy Mt. Rushmore and also my Movies About New York Mt. Rushmore, and is a reminder that a.) the Internet was once new and not ubiquitous, and b.) New York City was once awesome.
Available to stream on HBO Max.
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The Watch: 1990s New England Boarding School Movies
By: Ted Kluck.
Nothing says fall like a movie about a tony, WASPy, New England boys boarding school, full of kids with names like Chet Danbury and Knox Overstreet. Fall in my house means watching “School Ties” (1950s, boarding school, early-career-Matt-Damon, football, anti-anti-Semitism) and “Scent of a Woman” (1990s, boarding school, mid-career-Al-Pacino, anti-classism). Every New England boarding school movie is going to deliver lots of nice ivy, falling leaves and sweaters, along with a heaping dose of heavy-handed class struggle stuff. I’m here for it.
“School Ties” and “Scent Of A Woman” are available to rent on Amazon Prime Video.
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The Watch: “Meet The Parents”
By: Truman Forehand
The 2000s get a lot of hate on the fashion front (and they deserve it). But “Meet The Parents” has everything that was good about them: plenty of green and burgundy, heavy sweaters and jackets in varying hues of beige. That’s fall in a nutshell. There’s more to this comedy masterpiece than clothes, though. Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro clash in one of the greatest unlikely screen pairings of all time. Stiller is snarky, quippy and a little clumsy. De Niro brings all the gravitas of his reputation as a great dramatic actor, playing the composed, militaristic straight man to Stiller’s sweet spot as the confused man-child. You can feel the little bite in the chill of the air off the coast in Long Island — the scenic backdrop to Greg Focker (Stiller) fighting for the approval of his future father-in-law (De Niro). This is a love letter to fall disguised as a comedy disguised as a buddy movie disguised as a romance. It’s perfect.
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video.
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Maybe we aren’t all feeling like fall. Especially while it’s still 80 degrees outside and our frattier friends remain committed to suns’ out guns’ out. But hey, that’s why we have movies. You might be spending a few days doing nothing, and that’s fine. At least you can spend it with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan and Elijah Wood and Ben Stiller. And you might be waiting for the weather to cooperate with the planned trip to the pumpkin patch. (It is morally wrong to buy pumpkins in a t-shirt). But you can see the leaves in Long Island and New England. And you can always crank the AC down and wear a sweater on the couch.
