“Even so, there were times I saw freshness and beauty. I could smell the air, and I really loved rock ‘n’ roll. Tears were warm, and girls were beautiful, like dreams. I liked movie theaters, the darkness and intimacy, and I liked the deep, sad summer nights.”- Haruki Murakami
What does the summer mean to you? Does it mean late nights and early mornings, all work and no play, suntanning at the beach, or being hunted by a ravenous shark? Whatever the case, the movies have something for you. With beautiful cinematography, breathtaking locations and vibrant performances, the summer film does not disappoint. With teens adventuring, love discovering, and Bill Murphy blowing up golf courses, summer movies have an enchantment that no other movie has. There are melancholy summers, wild summers, lost summers, and summers that don’t feel like summer at all. Here are movies set in those few precious months, one for every mood.
THE WILD SUMMER
Caddyshack
Watch for a screwball comedy set at a stuffy country club with a gopher taunting a crazed groundskeeper played by Bill Murry. It’s an all star cast that gets more and more outrageous with every second, influencing raunchy comedies for decades to come. For a sport that prides itself on its chivalry and elegance, who knew golf could be so vulgar and explosive. Chevy chase also stars as a strange stoner who happens to be a great golfer.
The To Do List
Before there was Booksmart there was The To Do List, its funnier, less try hard sister. Aubrey Plaza plays Brandy, the class valedictorian and class nerd in Boise, Idaho in the mid nineties. Graduating high school with nothing to show for it but good grades and approving parents, she has an epiphany . She realizes that everyone else has already been having the time of their lives with first loves, first kisses, and getting drunk while she’s experienced none of it. She goes into panic mode, horrified that for the first time she will be the inexperienced chum when she gets to college. Taking matters into her own hands with the help of her two best friends, they create a list of romantic conquests Brandy must complete by the time summer is over. Andy Sandberg and Bill Hader also star.
The Goonies
X marks the spot. Revisit the nostalgia and wonder of childhood through this epic adventure. The kids in the goonies live out every child’s fantasy: getting to look for buried treasure and actually finding it. After all these years the wanderlust has not run out on this timeless gem, and its just as exciting now as it was then.
Everybody Wants Some!!
A spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused taking place in 1980, director Richard Linklater starts where he left off in telling the story of a Texas baseball team partying, disco dancing, and of course playing baseball the weekend before school starts. It has Linklater’s trademark philosophical dialogue, underdog protagonists and sunrise talks about the meaning of life, finding yourself, and the fun in being young.
Also to check out:
What about Bob?
Wet Hot American Summer
THE SUMMER OF WASTED YOUTH
The Kings of Summer
The Kings of Summer has that sprawling, never ending feeling of a summer dripped in quickly fading days of desperate youth. It has elements of Peter Pan finding Neverland, rebelling against society’s idea of what it means to become a man and instead finding the magic of being lost and young. The lost boys in this story take the form of Joe, Patrick, and Biaggio and they find their Neverland amongst the deep woods where they escape to. They are three uncool misfits who finally give up attempting to fit in and pleasing their parents, and instead embrace the strange through running away. But Neverland can’t last forever, and everyone has to grow up sometimes even if for one summer you can be gloriously young.
Dazed and Confused
Remember that feeling of the 1000 books being lifted off your shoulders when that final bell rang at 3:30 pm, signaling your freedom for the next three months? No more deadlines, no more detentions, no more school. This freedom that only the young know is encapsulated in Dazed and Confused, the cult classic set in 1976 on the last day of school. Taking place in one day, it ventures from the last hour of school into early the next morning, depicting wasted youth having the time of their lives with an abandonment you cant have after high school. What makes this film so unlike other coming of age flicks is that it’s an ensemble film that chronicles being a teenager and coming of age at different milestones. It follows a group of kids graduating middle school and the ritual of getting hazed by upperclassmen as they have now become the freshmeat. It shows upcoming seniors grappling with leaving youth behind, avoiding what’s coming next. It’s funny, moving, and definitely wild. And a film debut of Matthew McConaughey marks a star being born.
American Graffiti
Where Dazed and Confused ends American Graffiti begins. Another film that takes place all in one day, American Graffiti chronicles the last day of summer and the last days of youth. It’s a poem with several vignettes, telling stories of the many teenagers inhabiting a small town in the fifties. Accompanied by rock and roll music, the vignettes are shaded in different colors, tones, and emotions as the focus shifts from person to person. Some kids are aching with anticipation to leave while others are petrified at what the real world will do to them. Roger Ebert gave one of his best reviews with American Graffiti, concluding : “George Lucas knows that for one brief afternoon of American history angels drove Thunderbirds and could possibly be found at Mel’s Drive-In tonight… or maybe tomorrow night, or the night after.”
More youth in revolt:
The Sandlot
The way, way back
THE SUMMER OF LOVE
Moonrise Kingdom
How far would you go to be with the one you love? Would you risk drowning or getting struck by lightning in a vicious storm? Sam and Suzie would. Meet a beautiful story about falling in love for the first time, clueless parents, and growing up. Taking place in the late summer of 1965 Rhode Island shot on 16 mm to emulate the time period, Moonrise Kingdom is Wes Anderson at his most sincere and earnest. It all started with a boy falling in love with a sparrow, and the rest is history.
Dirty Dancing
Nobody puts baby in a corner. A timeless film was born when those words were uttered, along with the most famous dance number ever put on screen. Dirty Dancing has become a pop culture phenomenon thanks to its unusual spin on the summer romance. Patrick Swayze was an adventurous actor, taking on roles that challenged the societal norms of masculinity and this is one of them. He plays Johnny, a dance instructor at an affluent summer club called Kellermens where wealthy families come to for the summer. He is consistently objectified by female members of the club, often diminished to being no more than his good looks and he begins to believe it. Then comes Baby, a naive teenager who has always been daddy’s girl. She is instantly taken with Johnny and they fall in love through dance, a modern day much more scandalous take on Fred and Ginger.
Call Me By Your Name
Call me by your name functions as a chaotic and calm dream of falling in love. Taking place in Italy during the eighties, the scenery is all beautiful shades of blue and green with glorious sunrises and sunsets. Teenager Elio falls in love with Oliver, a grad student who has come to Italy to study with Elio’s father, a professor. Passion and secrets ensue, and in Timothee Chalamet’s breakthrough performance he gives one of the best on screen portrayal’s in recent memory, lighting the screen on fire.
Roman Holiday
All a princess wants to be is normal, even just for a day. That princess, Ann, gets her wish in Roman Holiday when she runs off from her strict, lifeless duties and falls in love with the city of Rome and Gregory Peck for a day. At the film’s release, Hollywood was at its most paranoid, holding trials to weed out the communists specifically amongst screenwriters. One of the most famed screenwriters in Hollywood, Dalton Trumbo, was one of 10 writers who refused to testify, thus making him blacklisted during the red scare. Trumbo secretly wrote the script for Roman Holiday, but it was credited to Ian McLellan up until 2003.
more summer romance:
The Notebook
Before Sunrise
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
THERE’S SOMETHING IN THE WATER
Jaws
You may never look at a body of water the same after viewing jaws and your feet may never feel safe again either, dangling in unknown territory. Jaws was a very important movie in the film industry when it was released in 1975. It created what is now known as the Blockbuster, being the first of its kind. People flocked to the theatres to see the film about the killer shark in New Jersey and a franchise was born with several sequels. It also showed how important music could be in horror films. The mechanical Shark named Bruce infamously caused many problems on set, often not working or malfunctioning. Thus, they had to get creative and what’s more scary than a monster you can’t see? We rarely get to view the shark in action, instead we hear those low, ominous piano notes, signaling bites and blood in the water.
Cape Fear
There is something in the water and it’s not jaws, it’s Robert De Niro. The 1991 remake of Cape Fear directed by Martin Scorsese birthed one of the scariest villains to ever grace the silver screen with Max Cady. Cady makes it his mission to torment and stalk the Bowden family once released from jail in the summer after Sam Bowden knowingly withheld evidence when representing Cady, dooming him to a longer sentence. After meeting Cady it’s understandable why Bowden did what he did, the guy is a monster. But some things cannot be forgiven.
It
There is something so wrong about a monster lurking in the sunlight during summer. Schools out and typically that means going to the lake, sleepovers with friends and eating too much ice cream. But the movie It’s idea of summer is a little different. I never understood what was so scary about clowns until I saw this dark, twisted , disturbing movie, and what was seen cannot be unseen. Pennywise the clown haunted my nightmares for a few weeks after seeing this in theaters, so I guess it gets the horror box checked off. Though sometimes I wish I’d never seen it, it was a great scary movie and one of the best in recent years. A bunch of loser kids in 1950s Maine find themselves banding together one summer as they are all being haunted by a demented clown. I commend them for their bravery and stupidity in hunting down this monster to end all monsters.
Blue Velvet
Summer in suburban America is the stuff dreams are made of. With roses blooming, sprinklers running, and white picket fences everything seems like a dream. But, underneath those roses are insects, rot, and death. Hence, Blue Velvet, the creation of David Lynch’s vivid imagination. When college student Jeffrey returns home for the summer he discovers a severed ear amongst the perfectly mowed grass, sending him on a dangerous wild goose chase. This is the catalyst for the disillusionment of the American dream, revealing the darkness and ugliness lurking underneath all that beauty. Blue Velvet also was sixteen year old Laura Dern’s film debut, marking the start of a wonderful career.
THE LOST SUMMER
The Lifeguard
A New York journalist comes face to face with a life crisis after covering a story about a man who kept a tiger chained in his small New York apartment that ultimately led to the tiger’s death. Something about the story strikes a nerve within her, and she can’t continue on with this superficial city life once her boss doesn’t see the significance in this devastating story . At age 29 she decides to move back to her hometown and live with her parents. She becomes a lifeguard again, a job she had as a teenager at the local run down swimming pool. It’s there she meets a sixteen year old degenerate and they enter into a forbidden relationship. Drowning in confusion, Leigh is lost amongst the summers days, trying to grab back onto the fading youth she has lost. It also shows a rekindling with her high school friends who never left the small town, proving how time makes us all strangers. Panned by critics, this film was deeply misunderstood and deserves a second look as it is Kristin Bell’s best performance.
Adventureland
There is nothing more daunting than graduating college and entering what we love to call the real world. But perhaps even more daunting than that is post graduate summer plans falling through and being forced to move back into your parents house and work at the local Adventureland at the ripe old age of 22. This is the reality for James, an awkward kid who never really found his crowd. Not knowing exactly who he is, he’s lost in the haze of summer, trying not to think about his unknown future. Drifting and shy, he begins to come out of his shell amongst all the other misfits who work at Adventureland. Rich with comedy and charm, Adventureland makes getting lost in the summer look like gold.
Stand By Me
Some lost things are better off lost. Four boys will come to learn this as they go off in search of a dead body in the carefree summer days of being a kid while on the cusp of adolescence. What is so great about this film is the story’s dedication to the misunderstood and unseen. Originally a novella written by Stephen King called “The Body,” it got turned into this summertime masterpiece by director Rob Reiner. After seeing the film for the first time, King was moved to his core and supposedly said to Reiner ‘That’s the best film ever made out of anything I’ve written, which isn’t saying much. But you’ve really captured my story. It is autobiographical.”
THE BEST SUMMER FILM:
Do The Right Thing
Do The Right Thing is a battle cry for justice in America. Speaking volumes about racial injustice and police brutality, this Spike Lee Joint was made in 1989 but is just as relevant, if not even more so today. In the hottest day recorded on an ill fated summer day in New York City, beliefs crash and collide, fights are fought, and fires are started that can never burn out. In the words of Roger Ebert:
” I have been given only a few filmgoing experiences in my life to equal the first time I saw “Do the Right Thing.” Most movies remain up there on the screen. Only a few penetrate your soul. In May of 1989 I walked out of the screening at the Cannes Film Festival with tears in my eyes. Spike Lee had done an almost impossible thing. He’d made a movie about race in America that empathized with all the participants. He didn’t draw lines or take sides but simply looked with sadness at one racial flashpoint that stood for many others.” May 2001, List of Great Movies, Rogerebert.com
Alright Movies 