Here at Movieline, we believe in summer movies and their ability to cleanse the palate after a humorless Oscar gauntlet. Plenty of our best film memories involve summer, and we decided they were worth revisiting ahead of the coming season. What are your favorite summer moments au cinéma, dear Movieline children? Contribute yours and reads ours.
About 10 years ago, my husband and I were invited to an indoor 4th of July party, in Brooklyn, on one of the hottest days of the year. One of the attractions, along with air-conditioning, was the host's new widescreen TV. He'd put Jaws on, and in the midst of socializing, quite a few of us sat down to watch it. About a half-hour in, most of the others had trickled away, but we couldn't stop watching. By the midway point, we were the only ones. It wasn't as if we'd never seen the thing before -- more than once, even -- but we couldn't imagine not wanting to see Roy Scheider get his shark (and Robert Shaw get eaten). Then the host announced that the party was being moved to the park, so everybody could play Frisbee in the heat and sun. Who stops Jaws in the middle? My husband and I looked at each other, politely excused ourselves, and went back to our own (un-air-conditioned) apartment to watch the rest of it, on our own LaserDisc, on our own crap TV. Bliss.
A week before Eyes Wide Shut opened in July 1999, I requested that Friday off and bought advance tickets for three showings: the first one screening anywhere in town; the next one in the same theater (because I figured in be in a daze for a good chunk of the first one, which was correct); and one that night to attend with my girlfriend. It was an enthralling day -- not because I especially loved Eyes Wide Shut then or now, but rather because it was the last time I experienced that childlike, unswerving feeling of anticipation for a summer film. Never since have I had nothing to do all day but hang out at the movies, and considering my living now, I'm not sure I will (or will want to) again. But I'm glad I can recall a time as an adult when I made that a priority, and I do hope another summer film down the line restores at least some of that magic.
There are two things that define summer for me: Michael Bay and comedies. Of the former, summer simply isn't summer without Country Time lemonade, baseball on the radio, and Michael Bay filming an American flag in slow motion. (Also, massive explosions and stupidity.) Judging from the trailer for Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Bay's 2011 summer blockbuster will feature all the things I love about the season wrapped together in one loud mess of a film. I will see that on opening night with a massive beer can by my side. Kidding, New York City film ushers!
About comedies: A good summer comedy is the type of thing that you can watch over and over again, simply as an excuse to sit in air-conditioned darkness for two hours. As such, I may or may not have seen both Superbad and The Hangover four times in theaters during the summers they were released. 2010 sucked on the comedy front (Don't Get Him to the Greek, please), but this year is overstuffed with potential comedy breakouts. Translation: I will likely see at least one of the many R-rated bad-taste comedies more times than I care to admit.
In the summer of 1998 I was a freewheelin' high school student on the cusp of my senior year. Seventeen was the age when the world was finally about to be mine, a time of restless optimism and adventure; freedom was right around the corner, calling to me from the comfort of my parents' house. Looking back on that time, Armageddon was a perfect movie encapsulation of that feeling -- a film about leaping into the great unknown, feeling the weight and the potential of the future on your shoulders, learning to appreciate family, and the sentimental corniness of letting animal crackers dance across one last perfect afternoon before life as you knew it changed forever. What 17-year-old didn't think of themselves as walking through life in a slow-motion swagger, ready to face the world head-on?
While I'm sure my esteemed colleagues used this space to discuss credible summer films, my favorite cinema memory is of the Bad Movies We Love variety. It was May of 1998 and as the school year drew to a close, my suburbanite best friend and I were looking to get into some trouble. (And by that I mean my mom and I were looking to see a movie on a Friday night, and then score a brownie sundae afterward.) It was an unexciting time in my sheltered life and I was a comfort junkie. So, seeing Sandra Bullock forced to move home (after her husband dumped her on a Jerry Springer-like TV show), find a lovely-but-impractical small-town career (picture developing!), mend her relationship with her dead animal-loving mother (a sassy Gena Rowlands!) and "happen" upon her high school sweetheart (Harry Connick Jr.) while line-dancing appealed to me. Because I was 15 and from Pittsburgh. Sure! Broken marriages, Texan charm and pick-up trucks were my forte. For whatever reason, Forest Whitaker's defiantly award-unworthy film was soothing and enjoyable to us. I can't explain why but that is part of the magic of moviegoing -- sometimes a film knows what you need to see and hear more than you do. It became our favorite Bad Movie We Loved to Watch Together. Regardless of what we are doing or how we are feeling, a screening of Sandra Bullock's second-rate rom com still is the antidote. And even though we are on opposite sides of the country, we still screen the film, laugh at Sandra Bullock's small town dumb luck and smile, knowing that this completely forgettable movie still brings us -- if no one else in the world -- together.
In summer 2005, I was entering my sophomore year of college, which seemed grim at the time. How is a 19-year-old gay dude supposed to feel like a sexual showstopper when he's stuck taking rhetoric classes at a Midwestern state school? Answers weren't immediately clear. My mom helped move me back into my dorm room for year two, and after we finished taping up my seductive Aimee Mann poster, we dropped by the Cinemark to watch Wedding Crashers. I only knew that it was a raunchy adult comedy, but since my mom and I enjoy defying our Catholicism with swear words and Sunday dancing (very Crucible), I figured we'd enjoy ourselves. Right.
What a trashy-ass, unfunny, woman-hating, Jane Seymour-palsying excuse for an even minorly tolerable movie Wedding Crashers is. Like any thinking human, I was mad at Vince Vaughn for being Vince Vaughn -- but somehow, I was madder at Rachel McAdams for tolerating Vince Vaughn. Flee that movie, girl! You are Canadian and feeble! Be Regina George about this! Please! I was even sorrier I'd taken my mom to see the movie, since she's particularly sensitive to idiocy. As we headed back to campus in our dove gray Chevy Astro van and monologued our contempt, I realized something: Bad movies are often more provocative and life-affirming than good ones. What could be more validating than turning to a fellow moviegoer, asking, "We're both better than this, right?" and hearing, "Jesus, I hope so," in response? The dismal cinema lit up my senses like night in a forest and empowered me to do schoolwork. And here I am, six years later, a gay, libidinous showstopper at Movieline.com. Thanks, Vince Vaughn. For nothing and everything. For always.