The idea of a summer movie is something of a contradiction. Summer is about sunshine and the outdoors. Moviegoing is about darkness and being indoors. Even at a drive-in, that summeriest of movie locations, you’re still inside, only it’s a car instead of a theater.
That very contradiction, though, is part of the appeal. Barbecues and ball games and beach parties don’t just owe their popularity to summer. They owe their very existence to summer. The movies are year round. It’s just that, like so many other things, they’re more fun in the summer.
So what qualifies as a summer movie? Well, it could be a movie with a summer setting, like the beach. It could be a movie that was released during the summer. It could be the kind of crowd-pleasing movie meant to sell a ton of tickets to kids on school vacation — and parents desperate to get out of the house because their kids are on summer vacation. It could be “Jaws,” which is all of those things.
A movie can also have summer status for more personal reasons. You saw it at a drive-in. You simply saw it in the summer (you may not have liked the movie, but you definitely liked the air conditioning).
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With there being no summer movies present (streaming doesn’t count), seven Globe writers look back at some favorite summer movies past. As a bonus, we offer 20 movies with summer in the title. Hey, take your summer movies where you find them, right?
In “Booksmart” (2019), school’s out forever for Ivy League-bound BFFs Molly and Amy (Beanie Feldstein, cutthroat; Kaitlyn Dever, luminous), and they’re feeling confident having shunned partying for their high school years — until they learn that the classmates they looked down on all got into top-tier colleges as well. The determined twosome set out to cram all the sex, drugs, and stereotypical teenage debauchery they missed into one wild night; the result subverts expectations so masterfully that it feels like we expected it all along. Watch if you’re feeling nostalgic for swimming pools and the sizzle of hormones — graduation parties won’t look like that for a while. Available on Amazon, Google Play, Hulu, iTunes, Microsoft, Vudu, YouTube
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ZOË MADONNA
Spike Lee’s 1989 day-in-the-life film about a Brooklyn neighborhood on the hottest day of the summer seems more relevant this year than ever. Lee begins “Do the Right Thing” (1989) with character introductions on a diverse block of Bedford–Stuyvesant. The crushing heat of the day is all that’s needed to light the fuse of long-strained racial tensions between residents, businesses, and the police. Lee is masterful in the build. He matches each tense, sweaty scene with a lighter vignette, crescendoing in a violent end that is all too easy to predict and has become a part of life in 2020. A Black man is killed by the police after a scuffle at an Italian-American-owned pizza shop, and the rioting and fires begin. There is an uneasy truce at the end of the film. But 31 years later in real life, the story is still unfolding. Available on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Microsoft, Peacock, Vudu, YouTube
CHRISTOPHER MUTHER
On the unbearably long list of reasons to grieve this summer, one was the June death of 80-year-old director Joel Schumacher (”St Elmo’s Fire,” “The Lost Boys”). After the news broke, my sister and I rewatched his 1990 psychological horror film “Flatliners,” about a group of med students (played by budding stars such as Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, and Kiefer Sutherland) who “flatline” each other to see if there’s life after death. The story winds up being about forgiveness and how to let go of shame. The production design is otherworldly and sometimes silly; Schumacher loves buildings that look like art museums, and the moodiest steam floating across dirty city streets. The film is campy but meaningful, especially during a pandemic that has many of us taking stock. Just make sure you don’t accidentally rent the 2017 reboot. Available on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Microsoft, Vudu, YouTube
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MEREDITH GOLDSTEIN
A great summer movie isn’t stupid, it’s stoopid — happily disposable junk made by smart alecks. To that end, let me posit “Get Crazy” (1983) as the echt summer movie of all time. From the makers of “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School,” it’s set at a Fillmore-like concert hall, stars Daniel Stern as the nerd hero, and features a tremendous roster of rock parodies, including Malcolm MacDowell as the Jagger-esque Reggie Wanker and Lou Reed as a Dylan-like recluse named Auden. Plus Bobby Sherman and Fabian as villain Ed Begley Jr.‘s bodyguards. It’s dumb, it’s hilarious — and it’s not available on DVD or VOD. But *cough* there’s a passable full-length dub on YouTube if you move fast. Available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-w0z68nFzk
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TY BURR
Summer is the time of returning to nature — and during this pandemic especially, the camping gear has been flying off the shelves. But what does it mean to “return” to a nature from which society has set us profoundly apart? What are the limits of our existential rapprochement with the animal kingdom? Can one ever truly cross the great species divide and penetrate to the heart of a wildness beyond the human? These are the questions underlying Werner Herzog’s beautiful and haunting documentary “Grizzly Man” (2005), a portrait of a man named Timothy Treadwell who spent 13 years living as one with the grizzlies in Alaska, and chronicled his radical Thoreavian voyage through hundreds of hours of extraordinary videotape ultimately used to make this film. That he was eventually killed by the bears he had embraced as family is not a spoiler but a poignant frame for the film as a whole, setting off this tale as at once elegiac, searching, and cautionary. Best viewed, ahem, after the big camping trip. Available on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Microsoft, Vudu, YouTube
JEREMY EICHLER
Southern California is a kind of perpetual summer: warm, sunny, indulgent. That’s not even factoring in palm trees and the beach. So “Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood” didn’t have to come out last year in July to qualify as a summer movie. But its summer quotient goes much higher. There’s Leonardo DiCaprio’s swimming pool. Whiskey sours and frozen Margaritas are the libations of choice; and, yes, a flamethrower is chief accessory. There are convertibles: Brad Pitt’s Karmann Ghia; and, even better, the MG driven by Rafał Zawierucha’s Roman Polanski and Margot Robbie’s Sharon Tate. There’s a bare-chested Pitt up on a roof — almost 30 years after the bare-chested Pitt in “Thelma and Louise.” Talk about aging well! But that, too, is in the nature of both Southern California and summer: the idea of an eternal, wrinkle-free present. Just remember to bring sun block. Available on Amazon, Hulu
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MARK FEENEY
In the dog days of summer, the beach is about the only place I want to be. I go in the early evening and watch surfers command the swells. Maybe that’s why I’m so fond of “Point Break” (1991), director Kathryn Bigelow’s preposterous — and preposterously entertaining — movie about a group of wave riders who also rob banks. Patrick Swayze plays the gang’s sandy-haired overseer, Bodhi, with Manson-esque intensity, and Keanu Reeves is very Keanu Reeves as drowsy FBI agent Johnny Utah. Surfing can be hard to capture on film, but the sequences here are pretty good, and there’s an excellent foot chase through the alleys and backyards of Santa Monica. If the shredders at Good Harbor Beach haven’t seen “Point Break,” they really should. Available on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Microsoft, Vudu
MARK SHANAHAN
10 summer movie titles (and 10 bonus summer movie titles!)
(500) Days of Summer (2009) Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a young man named Tom, and Zooey Deschanel plays a young woman named — yup — Summer.
Corvette Summer (1978) Do titles come more basic? All right, “‘vette Summer” would be, but close enough. This was Mark Hamill’s first movie after “Star Wars.”
The Endless Summer (1966) Two surfers travel the world in search of the perfect wave. It’s a documentary about a fantasy that’s real. Not a bad combination.
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) Or: when very bad things happen to very attractive young people — and lead to two summer-titled sequels.
The Long Hot Summer (1958) Based on three Faulkner stories, it’s set in Mississippi — so the summer is extremely hot. Paul Newman stars.
My Summer of Love (2004) Emily Blunt makes her film debut in this story of young women in a relationship. Directed by Paweł Pawlikowski (“Ida,” “Cold War”).
Summer of ’42 (1971) Beautiful young war widow+smitten adolescent+soupy Michel Legrand score=big hit.
A Summer Place (1959) Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue and . . . oh, who cares. The big deal was Percy Faith’s recording, “Theme From ‘A Summer Place,’” spending nine weeks at No. 1 on the charts.
Summer Rental (1985) John Candy does the renting. Just imagine if there’d been Airbnb back then.
Wet Hot American Summer (2001) Bradley Cooper makes his film debut in this sendup of summer camp. Two similarly titled Netflix series ensued.
Bonus summer titles
Ingmar Bergman triple feature: Summer Interlude (1951), Summer With Monika (1953), Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)
Judy Garland triple feature: Summer Holiday (1948), In the Good Old Summertime (1949), Summer Stock (1950)
Spike Lee double feature: Summer of Sam (1999), Red Hook Summer (2012)
Tennessee Williams double feature: Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), Summer and Smoke (1961)
Mark Feeney can be reached at mark.feeney@globe.com.
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August 14, 2020 at 01:02AM
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Seven summer movies then for a mostly movies-less now - The Boston Globe
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