Friday, June 03, 2011

The 15 Best Summer Movies, 2

Everyone loves John Hughes, because he made movies that are iconic for people of my generation, movies that showed that every group of rich kids had at least one nice one (and one total sociopath, which guys like me already knew), that every group of poor kids had at least one kid who had a friend who was a bouncer at a bar and could get them in, and that every group of nerds included at least one kid who would get to have sex with the hot girl.

What John Hughes left out of his movies, though, was the group I was in: the group of weird kids. We were the kids who had eye patches when we were in grade school, who played Dungeons & Dragons well into high school, who listened to the Violent Femmes, and who otherwise never fit in, even if we tried.

We were the kids who starred in, and related, to "Savage" Steve Holland movies, like One Crazy Summer:




"One Crazy Summer" wasn't the best Steve Holland movie; that was The Sure Thing, which isn't really a summer movie at all. But One Crazy Summer is, and in telling the story of Hoops, who dreams of love and meets weird rock-star/loser Demi Moore and has to save something of hers or other through machinations that involve a crossbow, a Godzilla-suited Bobcat Goldthwait, and, of course, a rock show, One Crazy Summer tells the story of all the weird kids from high school: Unlike the poor kids who wanted to be rich, the rich kids who wanted to date the townies, or the nerds who got beat up by and then slept with them all, the weird kids stuck to ourselves and hung out with each other, completely not caring about what you John Hughes-ians did.

Here are clips of pretty much the whole movie:

Hoops' animated cartoon:



A bunch of funny moments:




The Climactic Boat Race:




Previous entries:

1. Weekend At Bernie's.
(P.S. To Rogue Mutt: When you say that the sequel was unnecessary, does that imply that the first one was necessary?)

2 comments:

PT Dilloway said...

You're right, neither Bernie movie was necessary, but the second one was even less necessary.

I'm not sure if I've seen One Crazy Summer or not. Maybe if I watch a little bit I'll remember.

Michael Offutt, Phantom Reader said...

I played Dungeons & Dragons. What a fun game. I think it was responsible for me to go out and seek World of Warcraft (also an enjoyable game).