We can probably say that summer is now officially over. I am thankful in a way- the need for revelry anytime the teasing weather became hotter than 19 degrees was getting a little tiresome, as was the sub-conscious pressure to have life-altering experiences, fall in love and learn something important about yourself just in time to then feel ok about being imprisoned for eight months beneath a sunless sky in a gloomy classroom.
If, like me, your summer did not quite go as you hoped, the best way to take comfort is to put your feet up and watch someone else have a bad summer. So thank god for the fresh batch of filmic meat working it’s way to our cinemas. First for your consideration is Adventureland. Written and directed by Greg Mottola, the director of Superbad, it tells the story of James (Jesse Eisenberg), a shy college grad forced to endure a summer working at a games stand in an unappealing New Jersey theme park to make money for college.
Of course in movies, the worst summers are always also the best summers but Adventureland takes less cliched approach and with great comic turns from Apatow regulars Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig and Martin Starr, raises the stakes in the standard of youth flicks.
10 years before Adventureland star Kristen Stewart was even born came the first movie ever to chronicle a bad summer job. By the writers of Animal House, Caddyshack (1980) follows the misadventures of a boy who has to work as a golf caddy all summer in the hope of making enough money to pay for college. This is screwball 80s humour all over, manic and strange with classic performances from Bill Murray and Chevy Chase. With pleasingly bad plotting and an odd take on ethical values it ends up being a breath of fresh air compared to contemporary comedy.
The summer before Bill Murray spent fighting gophers off the golf course he was in Meatballs couped up as a camp counsellor with all the wrong priorities. Meatballs with its endless sequels (there’s a new one due out next year!), and terrible rip offs became an iconic symbol of the American summer. In 2001 the summer camp movie was relentlessly parodied in the movie Wet Hot American Summer.
Sometimes you can’t quite tell if they’re making a joke or just making a bad movie. With a super cast (oh hi Paul Rudd) much too old for the characters they’re playing, W.H.A.S. goes through every cliché of this type of teen movie with over-the-top absurd humour. The result is comedy marmite. You could love it or you could just be confused.
In The Wackness (2008) loner Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) is having a bad time spending his summer selling weed from and ice cream cart. Set in early 90s New York this film is bit of a different realm from a lot of teen movies. It’s let down somewhat by Ben Kingsley’s hammy performance (I know he’s supposed to be annoying but seriously…) and by Mary Kate Olsen being in it at all. However, forget about that (and maybe the title too), this film is an individual and endearing look at summer in the city.
Hello Autumn/Fall
