The Greatest Summer In Movie History

I’m sure you have heard this over the last few days as we all bask in our post-The Avengers glow, that the Summer of 2012 is shaping up to be the best summer of movies ever. Not surprising to make such a prediction when the summer starts off with such a bang and we can see movies like Prometheus, The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man on the horizon filling up the summer with seeming sure fire box office hits one after another. Of course, the truth is most summers look great going in and it is impossible to say where this summer might end up, but lets take a look at the competition. What has been the greatest summers in movie history? This week I will look at the candidates.

The first candidate is…

The Summer of 1977 – The Original

Just look at that Cast!

In 1975 Jaws was crowned as the first “blockbuster”, but 1977 is generally considered the first real summer movie season, where blockbusters and would be blockbusters were stacked up all summer long. Of course, back then studios didn’t “swing for the fences on every pitch” quite the way they do now, so this line up passed for a summer jam packed with hits:

• A Bridge Too Far – great movie, absolutely jam packed with stars (king of like Valentines Day or New Years Eve except, ya know, good).
• The Deep – this was supposed to be the follow up to Jaws (same author wrote the book, Peter Benchley) but it is now more famous for Jaqueline Bissett coming out of the water in a wet white t-shirt than anything else. What’s really funny about that is that it was considered scandalous at the time. Watch the clip below and tell me you haven’t seen more than that on broadcast TV weekly.

Burt was the King of the Movies in 1977

• The Exorcist II – if you don’t remember the mid 70’s then it is hard to explain how huge The Exorcist was in 1973 and how excited people were for the sequel (which didn’t really come close to living up to the original)
• Smokey and the Bandit – again, for those who may not remember, Burt Reynolds at this point in time was like Brad Pitt, Will Smith and George Clooney all rolled up into one.
• The Spy Who Loved Me – I think almost universally considered the best of the Roger Moore Bond movies

It may not look too stacked given today’s summers where big budget flick after big budget flick hit every weekend (many times more than 1 per weekend), but in 1977 this was an impressive group.

I know what you are thinking, you are thinking there is no possible way that group of movies should be considered for the crown. You’re right, but what if I told you there was one other movie released that summer that might change your mind… Star Wars.

Did I forget to mention Star Wars?

How big was Star Wars. Well, if you adjust the box office numbers for ticket price inflation (rather than merely inflation since ticket prices have risen much faster than inflation, have your family economist explain it) Star Wars grossed $1.4 Billion in the U.S. alone. That is twice as much as Avatar and four times as much as The Hunger Games. Find people in their mid-40’s and ask them about that summer. You will here, again and again, about people who went five times, six times, eight times to see Star Wars. In my life I have never seen anything close to the furor over Star Wars, to the mass excitement and near universal love of a film. Frankly, it didn’t matter what other movies were released in the summer of 1977, Star Wars alone would put that summer on anyone’s list.

The original, 1977 our first candidate for greatest summer of all time. Oh, and by the way, Han shot first.

The Second Candidate is…

1980 – The First “Every Week There’s Something New” Summer

The summer of 1980 was like the summer of 1977 on steroids. Both began with a Star Wars movie and both finished up with a Smokey and the Bandit, but while ’77 only gave you four other movies that would really bring you out to the cinema, 1980 was the first summer to hit you with a different one every week.

Week 1: Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back – most geeks (said lovingly as one) will say this is the best Star Wars movie. Most cine-files will tell you this is the perfect example of what the second movie of a trilogy should be (it both stands alone as a story and acts as a bridge from the first film to the last). And I will simply say that it is awesome.

Week 2: The Shining – there has been this weird Shining back lash of late where people are arguing that it really isn’t that good, that it deviates too much from Stephen King’s novel, that Nicholson is just chewing up scenery, yada, yada, yada. I don’t know what they are talking about because to me this remains one of the great psychological thrillers/horror movies of all time.

Week 3: Urban Cowboy – John Travolta riding a mechanical bull. That is pretty much the entire movie. Still, this will always hold a soft spot in my heart as the first time I ever really made out with a girl was after we went to this movie so, thank you Mr. Travolta.

Week 4: Mad Max or The Island – Take your pick here. The truth is Mad Max is a bit of a cheat. It was barely released here in the U.S. and almost no one had heard of it or saw it this summer. It wasn’t until after Road Warrior that we all got the VHS tape and watched a young Mel Gibson exact some revenge. The Island was another Peter Benchley adaptation (like Jaws and The Deep). This movie was looked at as a disappointment but give it another try and I think you will be surprised how good it is.

Week 5: The Blues Brothers – One of the classic comedies of all time and this was right at the height of the SNL stars making their movies. We miss you Mr. Belushi, we really do.

Week 6: Stunt Man – a forgotten hit starring Peter O’Toole and a very young Barbra Hershey. Stunt Man, Hopper and Fall Guy (the TV show starring the Six Million Dollar Man), this is when every kid thought being a stunt man had to be the coolest job in the world.

Week 7: Airplane! – The Blue Brothers, one week off and then Airplane!, you’ve got to say that is impressive. I’m not sure at what point my parents were the most uncomfortable when they took us to see this movie. It was either the jiggling boobs running across the screen (I was 14, my younger brother was 12 and my older brother was 15, jiggling boobs were a good thing) or when the young girl says “I like my coffee black, like my men.” Truly a classic movie.

Week 8: My Bodyguard or Used Cars – My Bodyguard was a fun crowd pleasing anti-bully flick that was a big hit in 1980, but I’ve got to be honest I haven’t watched since I saw it in the theaters so I have no idea how well it holds up. Used Cars stars one of my two favorite actors of all time, Kurt Russell. It is funny, albeit stupid, and it is also kind of hard to find. If you do find it its definitely worth 90 minutes.

Week 9: Blue Lagoon – Like I said, I was 14, boobs were important.

Week 10: The Big Red One or Dressed To Kill – The Big Red One was a good, not quite great, WWII movie starring Mark Hamill and Lee Marvin. Kind of a movie out of time as hollywood was moving more and more toward Vietnam movies with their more ambiguous morality and away from the good versus evil narrative of WWII. Dressed To Kill on the other hand is a really good psychological thriller starring Angie Dickinson and Michael Cain (his second big movie of the summer along with The Island). This has all the things you liked about Dianne Lane’s Unfaithful and none of the stuff that made you roll your eyes. Brian De Palma directed and went places few movies have gone before or since (particularly the opening shower scene).

Week 11: Caddyshack –  The Blues Brothers, Airplane! and Caddyshack all in one summer. That is 3 out of 5 of THE comedies of that era (Stripes and Animal House being the other two). I am pretty sure over 50% of the words that came out of my mouth in high school were quotes from one of these movies (if you don’t believe me watch the clip below of just the Caddyshack quotes). As great as The Blues Brothers and Airplane! are, neither hold up like Caddyshack. Still one of the top 5 comedies of all time.

Week 12: Smokey and the Bandit II – Burt was still big, not as big as he was in ’77, but still big and everyone was looking forward to this sequel. Honestly, it wasn’t great, but it was popular and a fitting end to the first truly stacked summer.

Conclusion

The three comedies (The Blues Brothers, Airplane! and Caddyshack) alone make this warrant consideration as the best summer. Add to that Empire Strikes Back and The Shining and you’ve got five undeniable classics on the resume of 1980. And I didn’t even list Xanadu!

and the Third candidate is …

1982 – The 30th Anniversary

If you are into movies and enjoy bouncing around the internet you have no doubt noticed a lot of talk about the summer of 1982. Drew McWeeny of Hitflix (my favorite movie blogger) has called the summer of 1982 “the greatest genre year in history.” And if you are familiar with Alamo Drafthouse in Texas then you know that they are showing hits from the summer of 1982 all  summer long (they will be doing screening of all the films on the same date they were originally released), because they believe it is the greatest summer ever. Its not just because it is the 30th anniversary of that summer that we are seeing all this praise, it is because that summer was unbelievable. If you were to make a list of what the perfect summer movie season would have, this is the summer that could check all of you boxes off. The four things I think a perfect summer movie season must have are:

• A Tentpole Movie – that one huge hit that takes the world be storm.
• A Fist Full Of Hits – the summer can’t just be about the tentpole, there have to be some massive hits that play along with it.
• Something For Everyone In Ever Genre – the perfect summer has to have kids movies, action movies, horror movies, adult dramas, comedies, every genre you can think of covered.
• A Couple Of Classics – a truly perfect summer must have one or two films that weren’t fully appreciated in their time but have become unquestioned classics – so those of us who “found them” that year will feel vindicated as time goes by.

The summer of 1982 looks at my list, chuckles and says “no problem.”

The Tentpole – E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial – When I talk to people who are a generation younger than me about how popular a certain movie was when I was young, they usually don’t get it. Sure, they get Star Wars, because Star Wars is still everywhere, but not a lot of other movies and definitely not E.T.. My nieces or nephews get that E.T. was a big hit and is a classic, but what they don’t know is that if they are under 30 years old there has NEVER been a movie as popular as E.T. released in their lifetime. Not Avatar, not Titanic, not the Star Wars prequels, not The Dark Knight, none of them were as big (and most not close to as big) as E.T.. This isn’t just some old guy’s opinion, this is a fact. Only 3 movies in history have had more people see them in the theaters than E.T. (Gone With The Wind, Star Wars and The Sound of Music). Let me put it another way — all week we have been talking about the amazing opening weekend The Avengers has had. After you adjust E.T. box office totals to reflect today’s ticket prices you would see that The Avengers would have to maintain its current pace ($200 million plus per week) for another month before it could catch E.T. (it would take it 7 weeks to catch Star Wars). Other than Star Wars, E.T. is the only movie released in the last 35 years that would make you have to consider that summer one of the greatest of all time on its own. I’m talking about its popularity so much because I never liked E.T.. I was really sick of “ET phone home” and Reeces Pieces by the end of this summer and I haven’t watch the movie in its entirety since the first time I saw it 30 years ago. But, man was it popular.

A Fist Full of Hits – An Officer and a Gentleman, Rocky III, Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn, Poltergeist, Tron, Fast Times at Ridgemont High – Six hits all with “legs” that have carried them well beyond the year they were released. An Officer and a Gentleman gave the world Richard Gere carrying Debra Winger off to live happily ever after and the immortal “I’ve got no were else to go” line. Rocky III is firmly embedded into the psyche of every male; “My prediction… pain.” We all learned the closing lines of Moby Dick from Wrath of Kahn; “with hate’s last breath I spit at thee.” We never saw “snow” on a TV screen quite the same way after Poltergeist; “there here.” Tron looked really cool at the time (goofy now, but really cool at the time); “I fight for the users.” And Fast Times gave us Phoebe Cates and Spicolli; “Aloha Mr. Hand.”

Something For Everyone – Here is a list of some of the releases from the summer of 2012:

• Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid – Funny, if not great Steve Martin comedy
• Annie – My parents met Mohamed Ali at the premiere
• Author, Author – Al Pacino doing Kramer versus Kramer
• Firefox – Clint Eastwood in a really cool plane
• Grease 2 – Michelle Pfeiffer playing the “bad girl” and singing
• Best Little Whore House in Texas – Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds, it did better than you think.
• A Midsummer Nights Sex Comedy – A Woody Allen gem that gets forgotten as it was in the middle of the Annie Hall, Manhattan, Crimes and Misdemeanors genius
• The Secret of Nihm – In a world dominated by Disney this beloved animated movie gets lost and sadly too often forgotten
• The World According To Garp – Robin Williams goes for it in the adaptation of this best seller
• Friday the 13th 3 (in 3D) – Jaws 3 did this too. Somebody thought matching the “3” with 3d was clever (believe me, if you hate 3D now like I do, the 3D then was unbearable)
• Night Shift – Michael Keaton and Henry Winkler are really funny in this Ron Howard directed comedy that has Shelly Long (pre Cheers obviously) playing a prostitute

I’d say that is a list, particularly when paired with all those big hits, that has something for everyone and I didn’t even mention the two best ones – Conan the Barbarian and Road Warrior. I can’t think of Conan without thinking of my high school economics teacher. He loved movies and he and I would talk about them all the time. In one discussion he let me know that he had seen Conan 6 times in the theaters. I was floored because, while I was barely 16 and the gratuitous nudity and violence was enough for me, I could still tell that it was not a good movie. When I asked him about it he simply said “Rob, I can’t figure it out. It is either the worst movie ever made or the most brilliant comedy of all time if the filmmakers were in on the joke – so I am going to keep watching it until I can figure out which one it is.” As for Road Warrior, well no one does post apocalyptic like the Aussies do, that’s just a fact. And no actor could play despondent, possibly crazy person like Mel Gibson. The perfect marriage of actor and genre.

A Couple of Classics – Blade Runner and The Thing – Blade Runner was viewed as an absolute bomb in 1982, that is until everyone who saw it told the world they were dead wrong to have missed it. I think of Blade Runner a little bit like Velvet Underground. It is said that only 10,000 people bought the first Velvet Underground LP in 1967 and all of them started a band. I’m not sure what the number is for people who saw Blade Runner in the theaters, but all of them wanted to make movies afterward. As for The Thing, there is a reason why all of the scifi and horror movie buffs you know love this movie, it is because it will still scare you and mess with your mind to this day. John Carpenter plays with isolation and distrust beautifully and it stars Kurt Russell, always a great thing.

Conclusion

I’m not going to lie, 1982 will be tough to beat. It really does have everything (except a breakout kids movie, unless you consider E.T. a kids movie, which it may be).

and the fourth candidate is …

The Summer of 1989 – When Everything Changed

Sure, the wall came down, but is that as impressive as what happened with movies?

1989 was an impressive year for movies by any measure. It was a year stacked with big movies, not just in the summer, but movies all year long that brought people out in masses that had never been seen before. In spite of all the press that the movie industry puts out about “this is the biggest movie season ever” the truth is movie attendance in any given year is as likely to go down as it is to go up, and it rarely goes in either direction very far (ticket price increases create the “biggest year ever” stories). Since 1980, which is as far back as Box Office Mojo’s numbers go in this regard, there have only been three years where movie attendance has changed by more than 10%. In 1982 movie attendance was up exactly 10% (on the strength of ET no doubt), in 1985 attendance dropped by 11% (just not a great year) and in 1989 movie attendance grew by 16.4%! That is just an insane increase (like a “he has to be on steroids” increase) and it isn’t even the most impressive statistical feat of the year.

Before 1989 what a movie did on their opening weekend was never considered a valuable or insightful number in hollywood. There are a lot of reason not the least of which was most communities only had one theater and that theater only had one screen. So, just because a movie was “released” on a certain date didn’t mean it would be playing everywhere on that date. While that began changing in the late 1970’s and through the 1980’s as multiplexes sprouted up all over a movie’s opening week still wasn’t a great prognosticator of where a movie would end up. In 1982 a movies opening weekend only accounted for an average of 12% of that movies final box office tally, compared to 2011 when the opening weekend accounted for an average of 31% of the final box office. But all of that changed in 1989.

The birth of the second most popular sport in America

On Memorial Day weekend the third installment of the Indiana Jones franchise hit theaters and summarily shattered records, taking in $29.35 million (roughly equivalent to The Avengers box office record this May). The number was so big that The Wall Street Journal ran a frontage story about the success (an absolute first, the box office numbers for a single weekend were never publicized before this outside of industry publications). Business analysts talked about how amazing it was and hollywood insiders said it was a record that would likely never be broken. It didn’t hurt, of course that the movie was a lot of fun and was viewed as a triumphant return for the series to what made Raiders of the Lost Ark so special and away from what some viewed as the disappointment of Temple of Doom (an underrated film in my opinion, it got killed for what it wasn’t and too often not enjoyed for what it was).

Three weeks after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was released came the long awaited sequel to Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters II opened at $29.47 million squeaking by the recently set record for opening weekend box office. Now a story that had been talked about in industry circles and in business journals moved to the arts section of newspapers which had heretofore been the home of movie reviews, movie listings and often the crossword puzzle (there was no internet, there wasn’t that much cable and people still read the newspaper, it was a simpler time). Ghostbusters II was liked if not loved and while I don’t believe I have ever heard a single person argue that it was even as good as the original people like Peter Venkman so much they were just glad to have him back.

One week after Ghostbusters II something happened. What happened? $40.4 million was what happened. Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson happened. Kim Bassinger happened and Tim Burton happened. Batman happened. The opening weekend for Batman was 27.5% larger than Ghostbusters II. If the latest Batman incarnation would like to match that feat The Dark Knight Rises would need to have a $265+ million weekend. The number was so big that a story that had been industry and business focussed turned into a lead story. Kurt Loder was talking about it on MTV News. Peter Jennings was talking about it on the evening news. It was on the frontage of The New York Times and every other paper in America and just like that the second most popular sport in America came into being, the sport of weekend box office (it is #2 because nothing is more popular than the NFL). 

Every Monday morning millions of people hop online when they get to work and read about the weekend box office – hell, my 8 year old son knows that Dark Shadows under-performed by only grossing $28 million last weekend, he can’t tell you anything about the NBA playoffs but he can tell you about that. People even take sides in this strange sport. Batman and DC fans can’t wait because they really thing The Dark Knight Rises will knock The Avengers off its pedestal. And I don’t know who screams louder, the fans that think Tim Tebow isn’t a real NFL QB or the people that believe the Transformer movies are sins against nature in spite of their massive box office numbers. Fans, websites, heated debate and a weekly scoreboard, if that isn’t a sport then neither is NASCAR. And it did not exist before Batman, before the summer of 1989.

And, by the way, Batman is still my favorite comic book adaptation of all time. Maybe only Sin City did as good a job of having the grit of reality while never loosing the surreal feel of a comic book.

If That Wasn’t Enough, How About This

I think launching a great american sport is more than enough to make 1989 a viable candidate for best summer ever, but 1989 has a lot more going for it than that. It had…

Blockbuster other than Batman, Ghostbusters II and I.J. and the Last Crusade:

• Lethal Weapon 2 – fascinating thing about this movie, and it is something nearly all action movies do now but no one did it before this, this movie didn’t have opening credits. Boom, the previews were over and you were smack dab in the middle of a car race. Also, this is the movie that resurrected Joe Pesci’s career (it was pretty close to dead in between Raging Bull and Lethal Weapon 2).
• When Harry Met Sally – I was in college this summer and I don’t think I went to a party or even just to dinner with a girl who didn’t do the Meg Ryan orgasm thing.
• Honey, I Shrunk The Kids – I still miss the Strange Brew and SCTV and even Club Paradise Rick Moranis, but if you are 35 or younger you probably think of him as the Honey, I Shrunk The Kids Rick Moranis.
• The Karate Kid III – This was the Japan one, right?
• Weekend at Bernie’s – undeniably one of life’s great mysteries, how a movie about two guys carrying around a dead body became a hit.
• License to Kill – Timothy Dalton becomes James Bond and becomes monogamous.
• Star Trek V: The Final Frontier – one of the many “this is the last time we will see Kirk and Spock” Star Trek movies.
• Parenthood – a star studded cast and hey, they made a TV show about it 20 years later. That proves it had to be good, right?

Dramatic Classics:

• Do The Right Thing – again, one of those things that is hard to explain if you didn’t see it happen, but the degree to which this movie foreshadowed what would happen in LA three years later is truly one of the most telling occurrences I have ever seen. Spike Lee and many living in inner city predominantly black communities could see the riots from a mile away, and the rest of us had our heads in the sand. This is a great movie regardless, but the fact that it came true should just make it resonate with that much more power.

• Sex Lies and Videotape – this movie actually beat Do The Right Thing at Cannes in 1989 and is a classic in its own right (I’ve had a crush on Laura San Giacomo ever since). Maybe not quite as overtly resonating as Do The Right Thing, but really quite telling and a definite must watch if you haven’t seen it.
• Dead Poets Society – man was this movie talked up a lot in its time. It has kind of been lost a bit in time, but this summer was much more (or at least more broadly) about Dead Poets than it was about Do The Right Thing or Sex Lies and Videotape.

Cult Classics:

• Roadhouse – if there was ever another movie that would deserve the Conan description (either brilliant comedy or just laughably horrible, its all depending if the filmmakers knew it was a joke) it is Roadhouse. If you are ever in LA when Doug Benson does a “movie interruption” of Roadhouse (he and other comics sit in the front row with mic’s and make fun of the movie as you all watch it on the big screen) go just to hear them discuss Swayze’s short-sleave karate shirt. Hysterical!

• UHF – Weird Al Yankovich’s movie about a failing and flailing TV station where you can see Michael Richards pre-Kramer.
• Turner & Hooch – K-9 had beaten this buddy cop movie with a twist (the dog is one of the partners!) and, to be perfectly honest, I have a hard time remembering which plot points went with which dog. Some people have a real soft spot for this Tom Hanks flick though, personally, I’ll take Volunteers as my Tom Hanks under appreciated pre-Gump movie, but that’s just me.
• Uncle Buck – John Candy doing a John Hughes movie. It is harmless and at times funny family fun.
• The Abyss – One of my favorite almost great movies. Like most almost greats this James Cameron passion project was ruined by the ending SPOILER ALERT! If he ends the move with Ed Harris stranded on the bottom of the ocean floor and the last shot, as his eyes are closing and he is about to die, is a bright glow reflected on him (like the poster), the movie is a classic. Instead the sea aliens save Ed, and the whole ship as the come to the surface and fail miserably to live up to what you had expected them to be.

Conclusion

1989 was an amazing year. The spring had Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Field of Drems, The Burbs, Pet Cemetery, Major League and Fletch Lives among other movies. The fall brought Back to the Future II, Harlem Nights, The Little Mermaid, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Crimes and Misdemeanors and Steel Magnolias. And Christmas had Christmas Vacation and Tango and Cash (oh, and Driving Miss Daisy, Born on the 4th of July and Glory). It was a terrific year for popular (sometimes forgettable) movies, for classics (a good number of real classics) and would be classics and a summer that launched Box Office Mojo (in a round about way).

and the fifth candidate is…

1993 – One of these things is not like the others

The top heavy summer but the top is really heavy

If you do a search and read articles about the best summer ever 1993 is a year that comes up. The reason it comes up is because of the top 6 films of that summer. They are (in order of box office):

• Jurassic Park – a technical marvel that moved swiftly and appealed to everyone it was the very definition of what a summer blockbuster should be.
• The Fugitive – the train crash at the beginning, on a big screen, was one of the great WOW moments of movies and the film was terrific, I mean, who didn’t like The Fugitive?
• The Firm – Grisham’s books are all the same basic plot so when you ask people what their favorite was they almost always say the first one they read, which for most people was The Firm – and as the first movie based on one of those books it had the feel of freshness that none of its successors had (“same plot” problem again).
• Sleepless in Seattle – Nora Ephron taught a generation of people what love was – not sure if what she taught was right but man did she teach it.
• In The Line of Fire – a lot of chase movies this summer. Being chased by dinosaurs, being chased by Marshals, being chased by mobsters, being chased by a crazy, desperate, single woman and now chasing an assassin hell bent on killing the President.
• Cliffhanger – and let’s not forget chasing and being chased by John Lithgow using an accent that no human being can place and chewing up scenery with less subtlety than he did in Buckaroo Banzai.

That is a strong top six so I can see why ’93 is put on the greatest summer of movies short list, however the truth is ’93 is like Roosevelt on Mount Rushmore. It’s to that it wasn’t great, but when you stack it up to the others it really doesn’t belong. Let me show you what I mean. Here are the 7th thru 20th biggest movies of the summer of 1993:

Arnold’s first real bomb

• Free Willy – what is there to be said
• Dave – I thought Charles Grodin was funny, but I almost always think he is funny
• Rising Sun – the “other” Michael Creighton movie adaptation of the summer didn’t do quite as well as Jurassic Park
• Rookie of the Year – never could decide if this was worse or if I hated Angels in the Outfield more
• Dennis the Menace – I just know I hated this more than either of them
• Last Action Hero – Arnold’s first real bomb
• Made in America – the Ted/Whoopi movie that also introduced us to Will Smith the actor as opposed to Will Smith the rapper
• Hocus Pocus – unwatchable
• What’s Love Got To Do With It – Lawrence Fishburn was great as Ike Turner, not sure if it was a great movie
• Hot Shots! Part Deux – other than the “I loved you in Wall Street” scene I don’t remember one other thing about this movie
• Son in Law – Pauley Shore need I say more (I am a poet and you did not know it)
• Sliver – if you are going to sell me on sex give me sex and don’t make a voyeur a hero, its just creepy
• Robin Hood: Men in Tights – someday I will make a list of the greatest mysteries of hollywood and near the top of it will be “how did the genius that brought us The Producers and Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles and High Anxiety make this movie?” I love ya Mel, but this movie is awful
• Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story – A bio-pic about someone as cool and talented as Bruce Lee is really impossible. It would be like doing the Carrey Grant story, even if you got George Clooney to star he would still pale in comparison to Carrey Grant.

That is a dreadful list of movies. The closest it comes to having any kind of classic (even a cult one) is What’s Love Got To Do With It and that is a film that is remembered for the two lead performances much more than the movie itself. As a year for comparison in 1989 Do The Right Thing was the #20 movie.

Conclusion

I bent a bit to pressure and included this as a candidate, but truthfully it has no chance of being crowned the best. Love the top six, but even there I’m not sure I see a true classic that will stand the test of time.

and the Sixth candidate is…

1994 – Does the greatest year make the greatest summer?

There is a good reason 1994 is considered the best year ever

If you do a search for what was the greatest year in movie history you will see a lot of articles arguing for any number of different years. The two that are at or near the top of most lists are 1939 (hard to beat with Gone With The Wind, The Wizard of Oz and Mr. Smith Goes To Washington) and 1994. 1994 packs an impressive list of movie like Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, Bullets Over Broadway, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Ed Wood, Dumb and Dumber and Belle Epoque (a brilliant Spanish movie directed by Fernando Trueba and starring a young Penelope Cruz), that were littered throughout the year (this year definitely holds the record for number of small of independent movies that became classics). But none of the movies I just listed were released in the summer. So what does the greatest year in movies of the last 50 years (I’m not ready to give it the title of 1939 quite yet) have as its summer lineup? Some good, some bad(ass) and some REALLY ugly.

The Good:

• Forest Gump – there is no way to talk about 1994 without beginning with Forest Gump. It was everything. It was a drama and a comedy, it was a blockbuster and a very personal story. One other thing it was was a movie of its moment. I remember 2 years after Forest Gump was out in the theaters a friend of mine brought his wife and young brother-in-law over to my house to watch a fight. When the fight ended on HBO Forest Gump came on and we all started watching. My friends wife was younger (maybe 21 at the time) and her brother was younger still (maybe 15). My buddy and I are watching and every time a song comes on we start talking about why we remember that song. Every time Forest goes somewhere or buys something it sparks another conversation of “remember those”. Finally, when Jennie gives Forest his running shoes and Forest says it was the greatest gift you could get, I turn to my pal and start telling him how in high school the Nike Cortez sneaker (the same ones Forest got) were the coolest thing, but we all wanted the red swoosh. My friend says it was true in his school too, but they all wanted the blue. And we look over to his wife and her little brother and they both have nothing but blank stares. Forest Gump is all about nostalgia and inside jokes – the problem is if you didn’t live through any of it the jokes mean nothing and there is no nostalgia. They liked Forest Gump fine, but none of it resonates like it does to a baby boomer, because it is a movie made for and by baby boomers. And one more thing… Run Forest, Run!

The greatest animated feature of all time?

• The Lion King – speaking of things that are often at the top of “best of” lists, go check out how many times Lion King is on the top of best animated movies lists. Disney’s animation department was on a bit of a roll in the early nineties with The Little Mermaid, Aladin and Beauty and the Beast. But as great as those other three movies were The Lion King took the thing to a different level. Simba watching his father, Musafa, die is one of the most heart wrenching moments in movie history. Having a story that deals with family, loss, guilt and responsibility in such deep manner isn’t just hard to find in other family films, its hard to find in any other films.
• Clear and Present Danger – I feel a little bad putting this next to those first two, but while this may not be “classic” it really is quite good. While Harrison Ford’s first turn as Jack Ryan felt clunky and forced and paled in comparison to what Alec Baldwin had done with the character in The Hunt For Red October in his second turn as the professor turned analyst for the CIA Ford and the filmmakers have discovered how he works in this universe. A little long, but well paced and a nice turn by Willem Dafoe makes this movie hum along.
• Crooklyn – maybe not a Spike Lee classic along the lines of Do The Right Thing or Malcolm X, this personal and autobiographical turn is really elevated by the two lead performances from Alfre Woodard and Delroy Lindo.
• Wyatt Earp – yes, this was yet another example of the fact that Kevin Costner takes himself way too seriously and it wasn’t as entertaining as Kurt Russell’s Tombstone which had come out only a few months before, but Dennis Quaid is amazing as Doc Holliday and the rest of the movie is quite good albeit in need of some serious editing.
• The Client – the last pretty good John Grisham movie adaptation which is helped mightily by the always great Susan Sarandon and one of the better child acting jobs by Brad Renfro. I do have to say however that Anthony LaPaglia’s  Berry “the Blade” is one of the least believable characters I have ever seen in any movie.

The Bad(ass):

• True Lies – I have been really glad to see that this is a movie that is starting to crawl back into people’s consciousness. In the James Cameron/Arnold Schwarzenegger film catalog this was too often overlooked but this fun and fast spy action/comedy flick deserves better. In fact, what it really deserves is a sequel. But since James Cameron is now stuck in the Avatar business I doubt we will ever get one.
• Speed – talk about fast and fun movies, this movie flew by and solidified Sandra Bullock as a star. Yes, the sequel is beyond dreadful, but we can’t hold that against the original, can we?
• The Crow – there has been some chatter that they are going to remake this or relaunch this franchise, that would be a mistake. The fact that the star tragically died in the making of it only adds to the creepy feel of the movie and it kind of breaks the heart watching it, realizing that Jason Lee was on the cusp of becoming something.

• The Mask – hello Cameron Diaz, you make a solid femme fatal. Jim Carrey is the only person maybe who has ever lived that could make this movie what it was (if you don’t believe me just try watching the sequels). What should be silly and childish was endlessly entertaining and wildly inventive.
• Natural Born Killers – Robert Downey, Jr. kind of steals this movie for me, but saying that makes it sound like I don’t love Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, which isn’t the case at all. Tarantino wrote it, Oliver Stone directed it. It is out there and violent and funny and the last good movie Oliver has made and may ever make. Check out RDJ’s death if you want to get a feel for how twisted this flick was:

The REALLY Ugly:

Why Billy? Why’d you bring him back?

• The Flintstones – the casting seemed right (except Rosie O’Donnell as Betty which was just all wrong) but I suppose we all should have asked ourselves “why are we trying to make a live action cartoon?”
• The Little Rascals – why did we want to mess with something that endured and yet was so much a product of its own time? Makes no sense now, made no sense then.
• Angels in the Outfield – man, did I hate this movie
• Beverly Hills Cop III – here is a tip if you are ever wondering if an Eddie Murphy movie is dreadful – if Eddie does not promote it it is unwatchably horrific. Pluto Nash, Eddie wouldn’t promote it and it would be on a bottom ten list for any of the very few of us who saw it. The liar movie that was finally released after being “in the can” for 2+ years. And Beverly Hills Cop III, which he begrudgingly promoted but you could almost hear him trying to tell you “don’t go see this, it is horrible!” In fact he has admitted as much in recent years.
• City Slicker 2… – the rest of the title had something to do with Curly and gold and who cares. Jack Palance died in the first one, it was touching and life changing and is completely negated by bringing his twin brother in for this wretched flick.
• The Shadow – Alec Baldwin’s would be blockbuster. Not as ugly as the others on this list, but that is exceptionally faint praise.
• I Love Trouble – Julia Roberts has exceptionally few bombs, particularly when she was still at the height of her powers, but here is one. Another horrible attempt to make a His Girl Friday-esque journalist movie.

Conclusion

So, do the Good and the Bad(ass) make up for the Ugly? Enough to make this a contender but I doubt enough to make it a winner. Let’s put it this way, In The Army Now, that Pauley Shore/Andy Dick Stripes wannabe, looks good in comparison to much of this summer’s fare. Maverick, the Mel Gibson/Jodie Foster/James Garner remake of the popular TV show and as forgettable (mildly entertaining but forgettable) a movie as I can’t remember (see what I did there) almost made the good list. Enough said.

and the last candidate is …

2004 – The Summer of Questions

How Do You Define Best?

Whenever you embark on doing a “best of” list or want to debate “the greatest of all time” in anything you find yourself asking questions and weighing answers. What’s more important for an album to resonate in its time like Michael Jackson’s Thriller or to have long reaching influence like The Clash’s London’s Burning? How much should we consider the years Kurt Warner wasn’t a starter when gauging is Hall of Fame credentials? Do we hold David Beckham’s popularity against him when we talk about his legacy as a footballer? What weight do we give the ongoing social relevance of the Star Wars universe when discussing the merits of the original film? In the end the questions you ask and the answers you give is what your list is about, not some abstract idea of “best” or “greatest” (I always find it funny that we throw out words like “greatest” as if we have all agreed on what the word means when the truth is our definitions of “greatest” within the specific context of things varies wildly). 2004 is a perfect example of what I am talking about. It is a summer with a lot of questions, but if you are inclined to answer those questions a certain way 2004 vaults near the top of anyone’s short list of greatest summers in movie history. However, if you answer those same questions differently, or ask different questions entirely, you will scoff at me for having nominated 2004 as a candidate for consideration as the greatest summer. How will you come down? Well, let’s ask the questions.

Should Movies That Are The Best in a Franchise Carry Extra Weight?

It used to be that we would have the occasional sequel (except for slasher horror movies that added numbers to the end of their titles like they were Popes or Kings). James Bond was the only real movie franchise. By the 2000’s that had started to change and of course now we don’t even bother with numbers with our seemingly countless movie franchises. 2004 when near the start of this explosion but stands apart for putting out the best of some of “the” franchises that defined the last decade.

Did You Know This Is Still The #1 Comedy of All Time?

• Shrek 2 – Shrek 2 is another one of those massive hits that we forget just how big it was. By the end of the summer Shrek 2 had passed ET to become the fourth highest domestic grossing film of all time. While the number isn’t a fair comparison to Star Wars or ET it still shot past a number of movies which it had no discernible advantage over like Spider-Man and LOR: Return of the King. Shrek 2 was huge, even if it never really felt like it. And Shrek 2 was the rare sequel that improved upon the original, and the original was quite good.
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – I don’t feel the need to slam the first two Harry Potter movies and what Chris Columbus did with them the way some do. Maybe it is because I didn’t read the books and went in with no expectations whatsoever. Still, for those of us who hadn’t read the books the world of Harry Potter and the world-wide obsession it had spawned didn’t resonate until Alfonso Cuaron took over the directing helm and brought us the prisoner of Azkaban. The menace of Voldemort suddenly felt real. The pain of the past suddenly came to life. And the scars Harry had and continued to live with felt deep. But Cuaron also brought us the wonder of the magical world in ways that the first two movies (and all of the successive films) haven’t really touched. I’ve enjoyed all of the Harry Potter movies to some degree, this is the only one I loved.
• Spider-Man 2 – In the first of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies he had to get through a lot of set-up, as do all origin movies. In Spider-Man 2 he was able to just tell a terrific story and develop characters (both those that returned from the first film and new ones). Part Frankenstein’s monster, part Frankenstein he is fueled equally by grief and obsession and an alien force that is distorting those feeling into something villainous Doc Oc becomes “the” spider-man villain and his pain and story arc is juxtaposed perfectly with Peter Parker dealing with all that he is giving up to be spider-man. This is such a good spider-man movie that it is hard to imagine there ever being a better one.

How Big a Fan Are You Of Stupid Comedies?

• Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy – When you hear this was originally an SNL sketch character does it surprise you? Me either, it kind of seems obvious once you hear it. I don’t know if Ron Burgundy would have ever fully worked in that shorter form, but in this long form he has just enough variety to hold up and the time allows for Ferrell to play off of his characters stupidity in really funny ways. To me, what puts this movie over the top are all the smaller side characters (I die every time I see the Fred Willard scenes when he is talking to the principal at his kids school) and the fight scene in the middle of the movie.
• Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story – Viewed as a disappointment when it came out in ’04 (as was Anchorman) this is a movie that has shown tremendous staying power on cable. Like Anchorman it is silly and absurd and ultimately stupid, but none of that stops it from being funny. The MVP of this movie is Gary Cole. “Do you believe in unliklihoods?” is one of the best spoofs on a sports cliche lines ever uttered.

• Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle – the rebirth of NPH, who turned his absurd cameo into the breakout role he needed to shed Doogie Howser, MD.

Are You A Democrat?

While spring of ’04 was dominated by The Passion of the Christ and all the controversy that followed the second half of summer was caught up in …

Should Documentaries Start as Wars?

• Fahrenheit 9/11 – I am a man who is torn when it comes to discussing Roger Moore. I believe Roger & Me to be one of the three or maybe even two best documentaries ever made. I thought Bowling for Columbine had some moments of pure and disturbing and sometimes disturbingly funny genius. My problem has been that somewhere in their Michael Moore stopped making documentaries, he stopped letting the story tell itself and he began making propaganda. That may sound harsh, even more harsh than I mean it to be, but I can’t think of another word to describe films that are made, that are begun with a specific opinion already firmly held and the intent of the film is to re-enforce said opinion and to convince others to share it. What ends up happening is that, if you are inclined to agree with the opinion, you like the movies and if you don’t agree with the opinion you don’t. Even that isn’t bad or wrong, where he looses me (and he did in Sicko and Fahrenheit 9/11) is when he makes the issues simplistic, when he makes the world too black and white, too good versus evil, too immovable in his view to the point where anyone who even tries to add layers to it is viewed as enemy.

Or Are You Dead Inside Like Me?

Are You a Hopeless Romantic?

• The Notebook – talk about your polarizing movies. Honestly, I think this film elicits stronger opinions and ensuing arguments than Fahrenheit 9/11. For roughly 50% of the population this is the most romantic movie ever made (or at least right there with Titanic) and for the rest of us it is unwatchably sappy. I know some who love this movie enough that they would crown 2004 the greatest summer ever on the strength of The Notebook alone.

Does “Good not Great” Count As A Positive or a Negative?

I’m not sure I would say this is “the” question when judging this summer, but it has to be up there. The summer of ’04 was littered with movies that didn’t live up to high expectations, but have found life since and are viewed most often now as good if not great flicks.

• Van Helsing – this was to be the new franchise for Hugh Jackman (kind of like Robert Downey, Jr with Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes). It will never be that, but it’s not bad to sit through in pieces on a Saturday afternoon.
• The Dat After Tomorrow – you know you’ve done it. You know you’ve said to someone who scoffs at the idea of global warming on a cold winter day that you now know that global warming will create the next ice age. And how do you know this? Because Dennis Quaid told you so.
• Raising Helen – what can anyone say about this movie? It is EXACTLY the movie you thought it would be.
• The Chronicles of Riddick – he’s making another one. Sometimes I think Vin Diesel just makes the Fast and Furious movies so he can have enough juice to get another Riddick flick made.
• King Arthur – I will argue that this is a massively underrated movie that was hurt because it wasn’t anything like what people expected (kind of the bizarro Raising Helen).
• I, Robot – I still can’t quite figure out why this movie wasn’t a big hit? Will Smith is Will Smith. You have the twisty scifi plot thing with cool special effects that’s not so out their as to turn to many people off. And, again, you have Will Smith. Still, hardly a month goes by when this isn’t on TBS or FX or TNT or some other cable channel so obviously I’m not the only one who thought it was OK.
• The Terminal – ultimately this is a movie that should never have been made because there just wasn’t much of a movie here. It survives because Steven Speilberg and Tom Hanks can apparently make watching paint dry not feel too bad.
• The Bourne Supremacy – yes, the hand held camera thing was over done and made the action feel too herky-jerky, but this was still a fun, fast paced spy thriller.
• The Village – OK, so we all saw the end coming 2 hours away (at least partially because we were all looking for the twist before we even set foot in the theater), it still had its moments and wasn’t half as dreadful as some make it out to be.
• Alien vs. Predator – More like the Predator movies than Alien. So not great, but fun to watch nonetheless.
• Manchurian Candidate – not nearly as good as the original, but not nearly as bad as some of the reviews might have made you believe.

Are You A Gay Man?

It Does Not Make Me Gay To Admit This Is One Handsome Man, Right?

• Troy – do I need to say anything else?

Napoleon Dynamite, The Classic Indy Comedy of the Last 20 Years or Annoying Movie That Makes Fun of a Dorky Kid for 2 Hours?

• Napoleon Dynamite – like The Notebook, this is the kind of movie that can put this summer over the top depending how you feel about it. Some love it, some really hate it. I thought, like many indy comedies that have a penchant for leaning too heavily on a one note joke, it had some good and maybe even great moments but also dragged mightily in parts.

Were You A Pre-Teen Girl in 2004?

• The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement – can’t believe she is going to be Catwoman and I can’t watch these movies without thinking about Welcome to the Dollhouse because of the actress who plays her best friend.
• A Cinderella Story – Hillary Duff is Cinderella, how awesome is that?

Did You See These Five Movies?

• Collateral – just when I am set to embrace a hatred for Tom Cruise he reminds me he is a really talented actor (and so is Jamie Foxx)
• Open Water – you may never go on that scuba vacation you have always dreamed of after seeing this.
• Layer Cake – see why they made Daniel Craig James Bond
• Garden State – even if you didn’t love Scrubs you will like this little dramedy
• House of Flying Daggers – maybe it doesn’t have quite the same level of emotional resonance as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon but it is still spectacular to look out and fun to watch.

How Much Should These Truly Horrid Movies Be Held Against The Summer As A Whole?

• New York Minute – even Olson Twin fans hated it.
• Garfield: The Movie
• The Stepford Wives
• Around the World in 80 Days
• White Chicks
• Catwoman
• Thunderbirds

How Much Can We Count April?

April is a strange month for movies. It can be one of the best months of the year or one of the worst and it almost inexplicably seems to alternate between those two. Take this last April (2012) and April from the year before (2011). Last month was one of the worst months in recent movie history. It was so bad only two movie merit any mention, Cabin in the Woods (which may gain some kind of pseudo classic status in time) and Think Like A Man (the surprise “hit” which is more of a “hit” by comparison than it was in actuality). The third film you might mention is Pirates! Band of Misfits which had its moments but has no business being the third best film of any of month ever. The dreadfulness of the month didn’t get as much press because we were all still Hungry and wanted to play games (my apologies to Doug Benson who does that joke/reference far better than I do). The side effect of an April like that is that it creates an obvious line of demarcation between spring and summer movies, so when The Avengers burst onto the scene it really burst onto the scene and felt like the beginning of something, not merely a continuation.

Didn’t This Feel Like A Summer Movie?

If our 2012 April served as a calm before our inevitable summer storm 2011’s April served as the strong winds that come before the rain. April 2011 went from Source Code to The King’s Speech, to Hanna (one of the top two movies of 2011, if you haven’t seen it go watch it now), to Soul Surfer, to Rio and ended with what was perhaps the most entertaining movie of the year, Fast Five. Those six movies may have been better than the top six movies of the summer of 2011 (I’d stake Hanna over Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2, I’d take Rio over Cars 2, I’d take The King’s Speech of The Help, I’d take Fast Five over Transformers Dark of the Moon or Thor or Captain America). April 2011 was so good that it felt like the summer started early and when Thor was released on the first weekend of May it didn’t feel any bigger than when Fast Five opened a week earlier and the fact is that Fast Five continued to play all through May. If we judge the summer of 2011 do we count Fast Five or Rio as part of it? When you think back on the summer don’t you think of each of those teams as a part of it?

Should This Put ’04 Over The Top?

April 2004 was top to bottom even stronger than April 2011. There were ten movies released in April of 2004 that would merit mention. Four that were not quite big enough to survive a summer release in the minds of the studios but were still enjoyable movies (Walking Tall, The Whole Ten Yards, 13 Going on 30, The Girl Next Door). A better than solid comic book movie (Hellboy). A fun family flick (Ella Enchanted). A couple of indie classics (Kill Bill Vol. 2 and Shaun of the Dead). A tremendously underrated movie (Man on Fire). And a classic high school comedy (Mean Girls). All of these movies played well into May and all of these movies would really add to the depth of a 2004 summer that doesn’t need these flicks to be strong. Some or all of these movies might put 2004 over the top, but is that a cheat?

Conclusion

OK, my answers are; yes (slightly), yes, I’m an Independent, I’m dead inside, counts as a positive, no (but even a straight man can admit Brad Pitt is dreamy), somewhere in the middle, no, yes, every summer has them and no (its a cheat, April ’04 was great but it was Spring).

There is one last question I really have to ask — where is the transcendent movie? 2004 has a lot of depth (I mentioned 27 movies in positive categories above) and some really good movies, but I’m not sure (even with the success of Shrek) that there is a movie on this list that makes you go “oh yeah, that was the summer of X”. Can a summer be the best without that one movie that defines it? (sorry, didn’t mean to add another question). I suppose it can in the abstract, I’m just not sure this summer did, but maybe if I were a hopeless romantic, a Democrat or liked to make fun of dorky kids from Idaho I would feel differently.

oops, I almost forgot, we have one more candidate …

2008 – When It Became Cool To Be A Geek

Comic book movies have been around forever. It’s easy to understand why. Not only do movies based on comic books come with built-in fan bases they also have a visual motif already developed and proven popular. But the success rate for years had been sketchy at best. Sure, if done right you could pull off a Batman movie and by the 00’s CGI was good enough to do Spider-Man well but those were the big guns of the comic book world and weren’t any kind of proof that even high second tier characters and stories could draw a big enough audience to be worthwhile. All that changed in the summer of 2008 when Marvel Studios burst onto the scene not with the big guns of the Marvel Universe (they had already sold the rights to Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four and the X-Men) but with the second string. In fact 2008 is when a number of studios took risks and had to prove they were more than what we had previously believed, but while the solidification of the standing of Pixar and DreamWorks Animation were powerful stories that summer, it was the success of superheroes and graphic novels that in the near term changed what summer movie season would be. Now every summer is the summer of geek.

Geek’s Rule The World

• Iron Man – this was not the biggest movie of the summer, but this was the movie that in many ways changed everything. Tony Stark was a name only the geekiest of the geek had ever heard of before 2008 (don’t believe your friends that say they were big Iron Man fans for years, they weren’t). He wasn’t just not on par with Batman or Spider-Man, Daredevil was a bigger property. I mean Iron Man was in the Black Panther/Hawkeye range of superheroes. But credit to someone over there at Marvel that didn’t look at comic book sales numbers, but rather looked at the character and realized that Tony Stark was destined to play better on the big screen than he ever would on the page (a lesson DC and other comic book companies would do well to learn). Iron Man taught Marvel how to make movies, taught them how to create their world and was the first building block that eventually brought us The Avengers.
• The Dark Knight – this was THE movie of the summer and while The Dark Knight and Iron Man seemed to deepen and perpetuate the ongoing DC/Marvel war the massive success of TDK solidified in hollywoods mind that comic book heroes were the wave of the immediate future. I would also be remiss not to note that while all of the movies over the last four years that have been setting box office record after box office record have had the benefit of even more inflated ticket prices stemming from 3D showings, TDK was not in 3D. So while The Avengers and Avatar appear to be bigger, they really aren’t (or aren’t by very much).
• The Incredible Hulk – this was a much better and truer adaptation than Ang Lee’s Hulk from a few year earlier and while as a screen hero the Hulk will never carry a movie as well as Iron Man or Batman or any of a number of heroes this movie was better and more successful than people seem to remember.

Maybe The Second Most Influential Film of 2008

• Wanted – truthfully, purely from an industry impact point of view, this movie probably should have gone #2 on this list. Based on a barely released graphic novel the success of Wanted was the catalyst for the huge influx of non-superhero comic book properties coming to the screen. Kick-Ass, Scott Pilgrim, The Losers even The Walking Dead all owe their green lighting to Wanted (and really to Angelina Jolie because she was the reason most people went to see this flick).
• Hancock – not actually based on a comic book, but inspired by a lot of them, this Will Smith vehicle was the variation on the theme. A great idea (drunk, nearly homeless, superhero who causes more problems than he solves gets help from a PR guy) brought down a little bit by a mythology that wasn’t great, Hancock has its moments and was much more popular than you realize.
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army – a typical “we were a hit in the spring so this time let’s go for it in the summer” sequel. As is almost always true with those kinds of sequels this movie didn’t play as well when engulfed by the size and scope of summer and when it was bloated in order to “compete” with summer fare. Still, this is a fun movie and another example of a lesser comic book hero making a name for himself on the big screen.

We Will Never Doubt You Again

Maybe Not Pixar’s Best But Probably Their Greatest Achievement

• WALL-E – sure, even before 2008 we all would have said “Pixar can do no wrong” but then they announced they were doing a movie about a little robot who couldn’t speak and would be all alone for nearly the entire first act of the movie, which would contain no dialogue. Oh, and if that weren’t enough it was going to be a movie about consumption and laziness with environmental underpinnings. Suddenly that whole “Pixar can do no wrong thing” thing seemed to waver until we saw WALL-E. WALL-E isn’t my favorite Pixar movie, that would be either Nemo or UP or The Incredibles, but I think WALL-E is somehow Pixar’s greatest achievement and I still can’t believe they made this story work (but man, did it work).
• Kung Fu Panda – while Pixar had easily broadened beyond the studio that made Toy Story in 2008 DreamWorks Animation was still very much the studio that made Shrek movies. Kung Fu Panda changed that. While WALL-E was an idea that did everything but sell itself Kung Fu Panda was one of those things you heard about and almost immediately said “well, that should be a hit”. The only problem was who knew if the team at DreamWorks could pull it off. In short, they could. Since 2008 with hits like How To Train Your Dragon and Monsters versus Aliens and Megamind it seems crazy that we doubted DreamWorks ability to make this kind of movie.

Old Properties Can Still Bring Crowds

• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – no point in droning on and on about the merits and foibles of the last installment of Indiana Jones except to say it proved that the franchise still had legs, that it could still draw crowds.
• Sex and the City – I actually quite enjoyed the TV show (at least the first couple of seasons) but I never saw the point of making a movie. Apparently a lot of other people thought there was a very good point to making this movie.
• Mamma Mia – the first time I saw this I hated it. Now it has achieved some bizarre train wreck like quality that I just can’t look away whenever it comes on. Many of my wife’s friends loved it (as did a whole bunch of other people) so what do I know.
• Get Smart – I LOVED this show when I was a kid and I though Steve Carell was as close to perfect casting as you could get. The problem was (as is often the case with TV show adaptations) is that the size and special effects actually detracted from the comedy and the comedic feel of the original.
• The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian – Like Hellboy this was another movie that did not fare nearly so well in the summer as its predecessor had (the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe had been released in December a few years earlier). But it still drew a crowd.
• The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor – made a good 10 years before it should have been (Brendan Fraiser and Maria Bello just did not look anywhere near old enough to have a 20 something year old son) and sorely missing Rachel Weiss like the rest of the movies on this list, I didn’t love it but it drew a crowd.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars – the TV show has at times been better (and this kind of felt like a made for TV thing when you saw it on the big screen) but I still like the idea of exploring more stories within the Star Wars universe

Ben Stiller versus Judd Apatow versus Adam Sandler versus Will Ferrell – Who Will Be The Comedic Voice Of A Generation

• Tropic Thunder – while this is a film that no doubt had its moments (Tom Cruise is amazing as the studio head) I think it fell well short of great. What was great, however, was the “short” that Ben Stiller, Robert Downey, Jr. and Jack Black made for the MTV Movie Awards that year. I’m glad they made the movie just so they could make this.

This Photo Does Not Do Ms. Chriqui Justice

• Pineapple Express – do you know what I loved about this? Of course you don’t, that is a stupid question. What I loved about this was the entire idea was based on if Brad Pitt’s character from True Romance was in an action movie. I love that because that is one of my all time favorite bit characters in any movie ever (my wife’s too, we always mimic his “condescend me” line). Like Tropic Thunder this was a movie full of moments that didn’t quite make it to great.
• Step Brothers – this felt like a movie that was made entirely off the cuff, like Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly got drunk one afternoon and said to each other “hey man, we should totally do a movie where we are like brothers but we hate each other, it would be awesome” and a week later principal filming began.
• You Don’t Mess With The Zohan – is Emmanuelle Chriqui the best looking human on the planet? If she is not she is awfully close. The movie is what a Sandler movie is. Some love it, some hate.
• House Bunny – in a lot of ways this movie holds together better than any of the other comedies listed above. It may not have the side splitting highs, but it has a full and complete story with characters that stay true to it, I don’t think I can say that about any of the other comedies here (it was produced by Adam Sandler, hence falling into his camp)

The summer of 2008 also proved a few indisputable facts like …

Proof That Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher Can Be Funny

• What Happens In Vegas

Proof That M. Night Shyamalan and the Wachowski Brothers and Mike Meyers Have Lost Their Magic

• The Happening
• Speed Racer
• The Love Guru

Proof That Most TV Stars Will NEVER Be Movie Stars

• Made of Honor
• The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
• The Rocker

GLEE Will Never Be This Good

• Hamlet 2

Woody Allen Can Still Make A Good Movie (Not A Great One, But A Good One)

• Vicky Christine Barcellona

Proof That Vin Diesel Needs Paul Walker

• Babylon A.D.

Proof That The X Files Will NEVER Be Star Trek

• X Files: I Want To Believe

Proof That Kevin Costner Can Only Be Funny When Ron Shelton Writes For Him

• Swing Vote

Proof That Jason Statham Can Do Roger Corman Proud

• Death Race

Conclusion

Truthfully I could have titled this “The Summer I Almost Forgot”. Anyone who has ever attempted to embark on this kind of silly exercise (a best of thing where you compare different years, movies, athletes, teams, albums or what have you) has no doubt had a similar experience. You make your list, first off the top of your head and then with a little bit of research, and start compiling. Then, usually right after you are done, someone says “hey, what about X?” and you proceed to hit yourself because you forgot an obvious one. No doubt someone would have said “hey, what about 2008?” to me but fortunately, just as I was about to go through the years I had already looked at (’77, ’80, ’82, ’89, ’93, ’94, ’04) to determine what was the best year I remembered 2008, the year of The Dark Knight and Iron Man. The summer that spawned a thousand “geek” podcasts and websites (my favorite is geekshow.com, but that’s just me). Thank goodness because I can definitely tell you this much, it won’t be at the bottom of the top 8.

And The Winner Is…

Well, Let’s Count Them Down

First, there are two summers I didn’t write up that deserve honorable mention status:

• 1984 – The summer of Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Natural, Karate Kid, Purple Rain, Sixteen Candles and more it had everything you would want from a summer and was painfully close to making the top 8.

• 2003 – The summer of Finding Nemo, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, X2: X-Men United, The Italian Job, 2 Fast 2 Furious (honestly, one of the greatest comedies of the last decade), 2003 maybe didn’t have quite the depth of 2004 or 2008 but it was also extremely close.

Now, the moment my wife has been waiting for (so I will stop telling her about all this summer movie stuff) the top 8 summers in movie history:

8. 1993 Awesome Up Top With Jurassic Park, The Fugitive, The Firm, Sleepless in Seattle and In The Line of Fire But Not Enough Depth To Compete With The Top 7

7. 2004 It Was A Summer With Depth and With Popular But It Doesn’t Have The Transcendent, The One Movie That Makes The Summer Unforgettable

6. 1977 The First Real Year Of The Summer Movie Has The Biggest Summer Movie Of All At The Top But They Just Didn’t Make Enough Movies In 1977 To Compete With Later Years

5. 1994 Maybe The Greatest Year In Movie History Had A Great Summer, But A Summer Filled With Movies Of Their Moment As Opposed To Movies That Are Timeless

4. 2008 The Summer of DC versus Marvel The Summer of The Geek The Summer of TDK and of Iron Man

3. 1980 Yes, This Was The Summer Of The Empire Strikes Back But It Is #3 Because It Is Also The Summer Of The Blues Brothers, Airplane! and Caddyshack

2. 1982 Sorry To All Those Who Wanted This To Be #1 On Its 30th Anniversary, This Was A Vary Hard Choice. The Summer Of 1982 Produced Two Of My Twenty Favorite Movies Of All Time Blade Runner and The Thing. It Produced Mega Hits And Quirky Classics And I Can Fault No One For Putting It #1, Its Just Not As Good As…

1. 1989 Why 1989? Well, It Can Go Toe To Toe With Any Other Summer In The Hits Department, It Has As Much Depth Of Quality As Any Summer And It Produced Classics Of Every Kind. What Really Puts It Over The Top Is That It Also Produced Two All Time Classic Dramas That Resonate Now Nearly As Much As They Did In Their Time (Do The Right Thing and Sex, Lies and Videotape).

So, there you go. All 10 of these summers were terrific and we would be lucky if this or any summer lived up to any of the years on this list, but for me I think 1989 stands above the rest.