Summer of Love: All the best movies to get you in that summer mood
It’s summertime, people! That means cookouts, adventuring up mountains with friends, more cookouts, surfing, hanging out in the park (where you can watch shirtless men lay unconscious on the floor while they sizzle in the heat), more cookouts, and kids playing around a fire hydrant as it shoots out water into the streets.
Well, it’s certainly all that for characters in film and TV, but maybe you need a bit more of a push to get you fully summered up. If that’s the case, why not watch one or all of the films on this list of movies to get you in that summer mood.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Summertime is about going on vacation to Hawaii (for the rich elite who can somehow afford that kind of shit). Assuming that you aren’t, you can at least watch someone else go to Hawaii and live a life you’d like to and maybe when you go to Flint, Michigan for the weekend this summer, you can pretend you’re hanging ten.
Mad Max: Fury Road
Why not get ready for summers of the future when all the world is a barren wasteland (like Flint, Michigan) and people have become barbarians willing to decapitate each other for a bottle of water? At least it’ll be hot, if nothing else.
La La Land
It’s always sunny in Hollywood! Get in the mood for the musical extravaganza this summer is sure to be by watching the all-singing, all-dancing La La Land!
Boyhood
Take yourself back to the summers of old when you were young and watch Boyhood. It’ll remind you of lying in the grass thinking of the future, back when you’d say things like, “When I grow up, I won’t be spending my summer going to Flint, Michigan – that’s for damn sure.’’
Life of Pi
Summertime is about adventure and travel, so why not watch Ang Lee’s Life of Pi to get you in the mood? And who knows – you might wind up on a boat at sea with a tiger in it too. But realistically, how long do you think you’d last before it ate you? It’ll make a funny story in your local paper back home if nothing else.
Moonrise Kingdom
If only to remind you of going away to camp when you were a child, Moonrise Kingdom will get you in the mood for more summertime adventures. And although as a kid you most likely just went to camp, hated it, and vowed to never go back, this summer the world is your campsite and you can go anywhere you want. (Maybe you’ll even get to bump into Bill Murray while you’re there.)
Lion
What about a great adventure to India this summer to find your long lost parents? Obviously your parents live in Illinois and they’re definitely your parents – look at your Dad’s nose and your mum’s cheekbones for God’s sake. But why not go to India anyway and meet other people’s parents? You’ll have a blast!
Requiem for a Dream
Remember that long hot summer in the 60s when you couldn’t get any dope anywhere and you ended up doing terrible things to get some? If you do, maybe give Requiem for a Dream a watch just to remind yourself that summer can be about things that don’t involve scoring heroin and losing an arm.
Summer with Monika
Maybe you want a film that reminds you of summer but in that Ingmar Bergman (Casablanca) kind of way. Where you can’t really see the sun cos it’s black and white and the subject matter gets really heavy at times. Either way, it will get you in the mood for summer in some way, even if you just end up playing chess with death on a beach somewhere after watching it.
My Summer of Love
Maybe it’s a summer romance you want? The kind that becomes all engulfing and changes your life forever. If so, give My Summer of Love a watch and that should put you right in the mood for the kind of romance that will make you say, “Better to have loved and lost than to have never gone to Flint, Michigan in the first place.”
