It is finally summer and I had a little getaway in Eastern Washington last week. All this Vitamin D got me thinking of movies that perfectly capture that certain tone and feeling that summer has: carefree, joyous, endless and sometimes sweltering. Here are five that I enjoy.
Raise your hand if you know the movie referenced!
1. Do the Right Thing (1989, Spike Lee): Do the Right Thing is about how a city in a heat wave can be like a pot about to boil over; at first everything seems harmonious but look away for a minute and there is a big mess. Taking place over the course of a single day; racial tensions rise in Brooklyn when Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito) asks Sal the white pizzeria owner why there aren't any black people on his wall of fame (which shows famous Italian Americans). As the day gets hotter, the cast of characters, (including Spike Lee himself as pizza delivery boy Mookie and Radio Rahim, he of the Love and Hate knuckles above, shout out to Night of the Hunter!) get more and more frustrated with the inequality they see around them. Though this is absolutely a movie about prejudice and racism; it is also about what a hot day feels like and how even the issues can spiral out of control when you are so hot you don't even want to move.
2. Dazed and Confused (1993, Richard Linklater): This is a movie I definitely remember watching on my summer vacations in middle school. This is the second movie on this list that takes place in a single day, in this case, the last day of school (the best day of the year!). We follow a group of kids on their last day of middle school in Austin Texas in 1979 and of course, they end up having a memorable night with the older high school kids. There are so many people in this movie who would go onto bigger and better things, including Ben Affleck, Adam Goldberg, Parker Posey (love her!) and of course, Matthew McChonaughey as the eternal Wooderson (I have embedded a clip for your enjoyment!). This movie creates a nostalgia for a time that I have never experienced, but I think that the movie perfectly captures the excitement and anticipation of summer vacation and the way summer nights can hold an adventure that you never expected.
Lisa P. K's favorite character.
3. Adventureland (2009, Greg Mottola): This is bound to be a controversial choice since K and I watched this movie together and he promptly declared it one of the worst movies he has ever seen. I found it oddly affecting and funny at the same time. Jesse Eisenberg plays, James, who in the early 1980's has just graduated from college and is planning on going to graduate school in New York City in the fall. His parents tell him they can't afford to send him and he has to get a job for the summer. So he works at the local amusement park, Adventureland. This movie is your typical coming of age story, with Eisenberg falling for Kristen Stewart's Em. Ryan Reynolds also gives a strong turn as the hotshot of Adventureland. This movie captures both the drudgery of working in the summer at a dead end job and the fun and camraderie that is formed in those transient moments.
Bonjour fake out Louis Garrel!
4. Summer Hours (2008, Olivier Assayas): I once heard someone refer to this movie as "Antiques Roadshow: the Movie". And while that is a little unfair, the film does focus on what happens to a valuable decoartive item collection when the matriarch of the family dies leaving her idyllic home and precious collection to her three children. I know that sounds like a total snoozefest, but the characters are so fully drawn and the atmosphere is so perfect, that the movie is completely compelling, you care what happens to the teacups and teapots! This home is a European fantasy, out in the country, sprawling, sun dappled but her three children are of a new, global era, and don't see the same need for the home, to them it is a museum of memories. Melancholy, pensive and spectacularly beautiful, Summer Hours, perfectly expresses the fleeting, ethereal moments that summer can have, and especially the memories of summer, and the memories of childhood. Charles Berling is fantastic and the final scene will knock your socks off.
5. Smiles of a Summer Night (1955, Ingmar Bergman): Delightful may not be the first word that comes to mind when people think of Ingmar Bergman, but this film is exactly that. A Midsummer Night's Dreamesque story of mismatched lovers who will end up properly matched after a summer's night at a Swedish country estate, this movie has a light, sweet tone that I wasn't expecting from Bergman. Starring my absolute favorite Swedish actor of all time, Gunnar Björnstrand, Smiles of a Summer Night deftly swings through the different social strata of early 19th century Sweden, and does so with wit and humanity. It also shows what it is like to live somewhere where summer days literally do go one endlessly (this is something I can definitely remember from the summer weeks I spent in Sweden). This film is simply put, magical.
Enjoy of one these movies on a long summer night (I recommend a Rosé to accompany them)!
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