Reading on the beach, roasting corn, playing baseball. These are summer fun. A movie is also the coolest remedy, especially when it’s blazing hot outside, at home with a movie and a pitcher of cold lemonade.
Summer is fantasyland season, getaway movie season. So we asked our columnists in each genre to pick a streamable movie that screams summer. Blame his 2022 for the pandemonium, but their picks turned out to be less sun-kissed. Instead, it features runaway buses, alien invasions, woodland psychopaths, and sweaty elitists.
Summer is okay in these movies, but life isn’t easy.
Pop Quiz, Hot Shots: Why is ‘Speed’ a fantastic, roaring summer spectacle? What does it have to do with manic Dennis Hopper playing Howard Payne playing Howard Payne planting bombs around Los Angeles? I wonder if there is Or have young whip-smart SWAT officer Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves) in a bus prepared to explode if the vehicle stops, slows to less than 50 mph, or Jack tries to go. It may be the strange, murderous glee he exhibits when manipulating. Evacuate the hostages?
As such, Jan de Bont’s “Speed” is emblematic of blockbuster action thrillers of the 1990s, such as the “Die Hard” series and “The Rock,” which were slain by terrorist foes on a massive scale. An explosion and an epic chase are triggered. But what sets this film apart from others of its ilk is the dynamic, youthful ambiance shared by Reeves as Jack, Sandra Bullock as the low-key wildcat, and Annie Porter as the accidental bus driver. Romance. Jack and Annie’s passion grows with each hairpin turn tightly stitched together by editor John Wright, and with each intimate close-up of Jack guiding Annie through Payne’s multiple bids to destroy the bus. increase.
The film’s signature scene, in which Jack and Annie slip on floorboards across an airport tarmac and escape from a car wrapped in each other’s arms, is the swoon that action movies are made for.
— Robert Daniels
One of my terrifying guilty pleasures is this summer slasher film shot in the wilderness of Northern California in 1981. almost called “Forest Prim Evil”. The film is spooky and atmospheric and boasts an ’80s star cast that includes Daryl Hannah, Rachel Ward, and Adrian Zmed.
The story is pure formula. Young people from rural camps go to the woods to have sex, test their survival skills, and share ghost stories, including tales of crazy women living in the woods. The children should have listened when the bus driver (the blind Joe Pantoliano) warned them not to take this trip. The maniac final episode is a spectacular production, allowing for an abrupt ending.
What makes this a summer horror is that director Andrew Davies (“The Fugitive”) finds beauty and menace at the same time in the natural delights of the seasons. Much of the action takes place in the wild, sweating the thrills and giving it a survivalist edge, but Davis still pauses to paint quiet moments with artistic, haunted spookiness. I’m also a fan of the interracial cast, a rarity in early ’80s horror, with an 83-minute running time.
Stick with “Friday the 13th” for the summer scares you know.
— Eric Piepenberg
science fiction
“Independence Day” (1996)
Twenty-six years ago, Roland Emmerich unveiled the epitome of a summer blockbuster. The timing was perfect too. Not only did the movie come out on his July 3rd, but the action took place over his three days of the title holiday.However, only that period is restricted “independence day,” This one enjoys a fun and silly overkill.
The pitch is simple: Aliens chose an American holiday to attack Earth. President Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill Pullman), fighter pilot Stephen Hiller (Will Smith) and sexy engineer David • Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) is the only one standing among them. “I could have been at a barbecue!” Mankind is grateful for his service.
In “Independence Day” air force one taking off In front of a fleet of RVs crossing the firestorm and salt flats. But the film’s effectiveness lies in its fine balance between oversize and minute. For a split second, a spaceship is wiping out an entire city.Smith is next punch an alien in the faceAnd let’s not forget the memorable character actors that bolster the supporting roles, from Brent Spiner’s Area 51 scientist to Randy Quaid’s crop spray pilot.
Despite being two and a half hours long, ‘Independence Day’ is very active, especially when compared to modern lumber giants. Perhaps we should also thank Emmerich, a disaster autographer with a real flair for entertainment, for her service.
— Elizabeth Vincenteri
International
“La Cienaga” (2001)
to stream HBO Max or reference channel.
Even if you watch “La Cienaga” in an air-conditioned room in the cold of the dead of winter, you may wipe the sweat off your forehead, slap an imaginary mosquito, or reach for a glass of cold wine. prize. Lucrecia Martel’s film overwhelms us with the sounds and sensations of the humid Argentinian summer: the hum of fans, the roar of distant thunder, the snoring of sleep, the sweaty adults decrepit. Fill the country houses. Mercedes Moran) gathers the family for an escape from the city.
“La Ciénaga” does not have a simple narrative arc.instead, sultry teeth The plot, and Martel studies the instincts it unleashes in her petty middle-class character. Others barely even convulse when the mech trips and falls into a tray of glasses, bleeding profusely. The sun and wine bring out the worst of their lethargy and narcissism, and their lethargy permeates the film like smog. I try to go on adventures to save myself, but the adventures often end in injury.
Then there’s the help of the natives, floating on the edge of chaos, enduring crude insults and endless demands for ice and towels. Who gets vacation and who gets vacation? Who gets lazy and thanks to whose labor? In “La Cienaga,” even summer is an unequally distributed resource, and its boredom exposes a deeper social ill.
— Devika Girish
