SUMMER MOVIE LIST
I was surprised at the number and rapidity of comments I got relating to The Prairie Home Companion blog. I didn’t know that movies were such a hot topic. So I thought I would share with you my movie picks for great summer viewing. These are smaller movies which may or may not have been seen by a wide audience. Notwithstanding the huge diversity of topics, they all have one thing in common. These are good people trying their best to get along in life, albeit with various degrees of success.
1) THE MAJESTIC: I mentioned this movie last week. It is about a writer under investigation by the McCarthy Commission who loses his memory in a car accident and is mistaken for a fallen war hero in a small California town. Kleenex Box alert.
2) MY FAVORITE YEAR: This is a comedy blockbuster starring Peter O’Toole as you have never seen him. It is a takeoff on Sid Caesar’s 1950’s television program, with O’Toole playing a washed up actor trying to make a come back. The more times you view it, the funnier it gets. What do suffering and good Chinese food have in common?
3) FANDANGO: One of Kevin Costner’s earliest, it is a coming of age movie about a group of draft age boys driving across the country before facing life issues like……the draft. “To us and that and the privileges of youth.” It has a touching and mystical wedding scene at the end. You will be hooked on the soundtrack.
4) SIXTEEN CANDLES: Cleaned up version is on television a lot. The vulgar original is much funnier, so rent the DVD. Molly Ringwald is at her best as a girl whose 16th birthday is forgotten by her family who is marrying off her older sister. Midst all of the teenage angst and pranks, these people are good people. At its heart, it is a sweet movie.
5) THE BIRD CAGE: Robin Williams and Nathan Lane are boffo as the gay couple trying to cope with their straight son’s marriage to the daughter of a right wing senator. As with Sixteen Candles, the cleaned up version is on television a lot. Rent the more vulgar original.
6) TO WONG FOO THANKS FOR EVERYTHING, JULIE NEWMAR: Wesley Snipes and Patrick Swayze camp it up as drag queens crossing the country to enter a drag beauty contest. Running from a homophobic cop, they take refuge in a small town, and teach the town how to be kind to each other. All that Dirty Dancing has given Swayze great gams.
7) KINGDOM COME: Whoopee Goldberg stars as the matriarch of a black family who has just lost her husband. It is a humdinger of a comedy offering a parody on African American funerals. Although Whoopee plays a straight part, the rest of the cast is hysterical. The southern brogue can be heavy, so you have to watch it more than once, but the laughs are worth it.
8) GARDEN STATE: Extremely off beat film about a 20 something young man coming home for his mother’s funeral. The viewer is blessed with wisdom from a gravedigger, a knight in an ersatz jousting dinner theater, and a chain smoking Jean Smart, who has one of the funniest lines I have heard in a movie in years. (You will have to watch it, pay attention). The first time I saw this movie I didn’t like it. It is not for everybody. But it popped up on cable and it grows on you. At the end of the day, these are nice people dealing with difficult circumstances.
9) THE FLAMINGO KID: A very young Matt Dillon plays a pool boy at a swanky Long Island swim club. He falls for the daughter of a flashy car salesman, and is forced to make decisions between the love of his own family, the dream of riches through his girlfriend’s family, and honesty and honor in a gin game. Great movie for a hot summer night. How much is enough to cover you whole nut?
10) THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE: This is the only movie in the world where the protagonist can walk into the sun setting over the ocean while in Georgia. Think about it (although the producers did come up with a questionable explanation). This is a great golf movie, with Will Smith giving an outstanding performance as a muse for a boozed up golfer making a comeback to save a golf course. Critics called it mediocre, but I enjoyed it…alot. Great way to spend a Saturday afternoon if you are rained out on the links.
11) 61*: The asterisk after the 61 represents how the record books read when Roger Maris beat Babe Ruth’s homerun record resulting from the differences in number of played games. Billy Crystal directed this made for TV movie about the race between Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris to break the Babe’s record, and the universal adulation for Mantle and the universal disdain by the press and public for Maris. Outstanding commentary on how we make heroes. This movie deserves to move up the ranks of baseball movies.
12) SWEET LORRAINE: This movie was so small you still can’t buy it on DVD. You have to watch it on VHS. Can the teenage granddaughter save grandma’s Catskills resort? Watch and see. This movie was not well received, but does an excellent job in taking you to a different time and space. It is a great movie to watch late at night with the windows open. Do any of those old resorts still exist? It is Dirty Dancing without the dirty dancing.
Small Movie Honorable Mentions include: AGNES OF GOD ( you will need a sweater it does such a good job of showing Quebec in the snow); SHAG (get your toes a-tappin’ to Sixty Minute Man); STEEL MAGNOLIAS (Sally Fields overacts, but what the hey); THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS (Halley Mills and Rosalind Russell…what else do you need?) and finally, IN AND OUT (Kevin Kline is gay or not; but you will never dance to I Will Survive again).
1) THE MAJESTIC: I mentioned this movie last week. It is about a writer under investigation by the McCarthy Commission who loses his memory in a car accident and is mistaken for a fallen war hero in a small California town. Kleenex Box alert.
2) MY FAVORITE YEAR: This is a comedy blockbuster starring Peter O’Toole as you have never seen him. It is a takeoff on Sid Caesar’s 1950’s television program, with O’Toole playing a washed up actor trying to make a come back. The more times you view it, the funnier it gets. What do suffering and good Chinese food have in common?
3) FANDANGO: One of Kevin Costner’s earliest, it is a coming of age movie about a group of draft age boys driving across the country before facing life issues like……the draft. “To us and that and the privileges of youth.” It has a touching and mystical wedding scene at the end. You will be hooked on the soundtrack.
4) SIXTEEN CANDLES: Cleaned up version is on television a lot. The vulgar original is much funnier, so rent the DVD. Molly Ringwald is at her best as a girl whose 16th birthday is forgotten by her family who is marrying off her older sister. Midst all of the teenage angst and pranks, these people are good people. At its heart, it is a sweet movie.
5) THE BIRD CAGE: Robin Williams and Nathan Lane are boffo as the gay couple trying to cope with their straight son’s marriage to the daughter of a right wing senator. As with Sixteen Candles, the cleaned up version is on television a lot. Rent the more vulgar original.
6) TO WONG FOO THANKS FOR EVERYTHING, JULIE NEWMAR: Wesley Snipes and Patrick Swayze camp it up as drag queens crossing the country to enter a drag beauty contest. Running from a homophobic cop, they take refuge in a small town, and teach the town how to be kind to each other. All that Dirty Dancing has given Swayze great gams.
7) KINGDOM COME: Whoopee Goldberg stars as the matriarch of a black family who has just lost her husband. It is a humdinger of a comedy offering a parody on African American funerals. Although Whoopee plays a straight part, the rest of the cast is hysterical. The southern brogue can be heavy, so you have to watch it more than once, but the laughs are worth it.
8) GARDEN STATE: Extremely off beat film about a 20 something young man coming home for his mother’s funeral. The viewer is blessed with wisdom from a gravedigger, a knight in an ersatz jousting dinner theater, and a chain smoking Jean Smart, who has one of the funniest lines I have heard in a movie in years. (You will have to watch it, pay attention). The first time I saw this movie I didn’t like it. It is not for everybody. But it popped up on cable and it grows on you. At the end of the day, these are nice people dealing with difficult circumstances.
9) THE FLAMINGO KID: A very young Matt Dillon plays a pool boy at a swanky Long Island swim club. He falls for the daughter of a flashy car salesman, and is forced to make decisions between the love of his own family, the dream of riches through his girlfriend’s family, and honesty and honor in a gin game. Great movie for a hot summer night. How much is enough to cover you whole nut?
10) THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE: This is the only movie in the world where the protagonist can walk into the sun setting over the ocean while in Georgia. Think about it (although the producers did come up with a questionable explanation). This is a great golf movie, with Will Smith giving an outstanding performance as a muse for a boozed up golfer making a comeback to save a golf course. Critics called it mediocre, but I enjoyed it…alot. Great way to spend a Saturday afternoon if you are rained out on the links.
11) 61*: The asterisk after the 61 represents how the record books read when Roger Maris beat Babe Ruth’s homerun record resulting from the differences in number of played games. Billy Crystal directed this made for TV movie about the race between Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris to break the Babe’s record, and the universal adulation for Mantle and the universal disdain by the press and public for Maris. Outstanding commentary on how we make heroes. This movie deserves to move up the ranks of baseball movies.
12) SWEET LORRAINE: This movie was so small you still can’t buy it on DVD. You have to watch it on VHS. Can the teenage granddaughter save grandma’s Catskills resort? Watch and see. This movie was not well received, but does an excellent job in taking you to a different time and space. It is a great movie to watch late at night with the windows open. Do any of those old resorts still exist? It is Dirty Dancing without the dirty dancing.
Small Movie Honorable Mentions include: AGNES OF GOD ( you will need a sweater it does such a good job of showing Quebec in the snow); SHAG (get your toes a-tappin’ to Sixty Minute Man); STEEL MAGNOLIAS (Sally Fields overacts, but what the hey); THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS (Halley Mills and Rosalind Russell…what else do you need?) and finally, IN AND OUT (Kevin Kline is gay or not; but you will never dance to I Will Survive again).
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