Whether the time comes around to nurse a sunburn or simply be antisocial, the local video store is a prime option for whisking away the summertime blues. But not every movie seems as grand during the summer months. “Fargo” just doesn’t have the same punch when you’re sweating in your house downing lemonade to try to beat the heat. On the other hand, some movies just have more flavor during this time of the year, so the Emerald staff members have picked their favorite summer flicks.
‘Goodfellas’
Jeremy Lang, associate editor
The American Movie Classics channel has been showing “The Godfather” trilogy all day to commemorate the Fourth of July, but a true summertime classic came 18 years later with Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas.”
Summer, especially in Eugene, can be pretty slow. Usually, the summer days and nights are slow in a nice, relaxed, good sort of way. But right from the opening scenes, “Goodfellas” takes people into the fast-paced, hot New York City borough neighborhood life in the 1950s. Maybe I’m just a sucker for some good nostalgia, but the games of baseball in the streets and the soundtrack with great summer tunes from the 1940s and 1950s add up to a great summer experience.
“Goodfellas” is also one of the best screenplays ever committed to film, so it’s a great movie for any time of the year. But there’s something about coming home after a long day outside that makes it just feel good to sit down with a drink and watch Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci truly at the top of their games.
‘Army of Darkness’
Darren Freeman, reporter
Every summer I get dumb. I leave school, work for pennies and take a lot of naps.
When I wander into a video store, what I’m looking for is a movie with loads of gore, swearing and catchy one-liners — a movie that allows me to shout out the lines in a dumb frenzy I haven’t experienced since those great kindergarten “The Wheels on the Bus” sing-a-longs.
Typically, that movie is “Army of Darkness.”
The main character, named Ash, is a crass and arrogant man who is whisked, by some sort of time warp, from his humdrum life as a housewares salesman to a horrible medieval Europe.
Armed with only his shotgun, a chainsaw and a brutish temper, Ash must fight belching skeletons, biting books, trash-taking witches and even Lilliputian Ashes. His only goals: to find a way home and to blow up a lot of stuff.
After watching this cult classic half a dozen times, you’ll befriend and impress important and cultured people when you use some of Ash’s most colorful phrases, such as: “Yo, she-bitch! Let’s go!” or “You ain’t leading but two things right now: Jack and Shit. And Jack just left town.”
‘Jaws’
Carol Rink, online editor
Nothing says summer like a few good shark attacks, a resort town uprooted in terror and an epic attempt by three men stop the great white monster.
I’m talking about the 1975 action-packed thriller “Jaws” — one of those movies that makes your heart beat with fear as you watch helpless victims fall prey to a giant shark and even freaks you out at the thought of swimming in the ocean again.
Sure, it has its “campy” moments, but the most impressive element of the movie is the way director Steven Spielberg develops all the characters into human beings we get to know and care about. You feel for police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), who comes to the resort town of Amity to escape the dangers of being a New York City cop, but gets more than he bargained for. You cheer on Quint (Robert Shaw), the weathered mariner, as he sets out to sea in his old, leaky boat to kill the shark. And you pray for Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), the shark expert and oceanographer who knows the immediate danger of the great white, but offers his help and jumps in the water anyway.
If you want to enjoy an instant artifact of commercial folklore, “Jaws” is the movie for you this summer. Plus, who can say no to that menacing music every time the terrorizing shark is near?
‘Armageddon’
Kara Cogswell, reporter
Nothing says summer like the end of the world.
Or at least that’s what Hollywood movie producers seem to think, judging from the release of summer doomsday flicks such as “Deep Impact” or this summer’s “AI: Artificial Intelligence.”
Ordinarily, I’m not a big fan of these types of movies, but there is one exception — “Armageddon.”
Bruce Willis and hunky Ben Affleck star as members of a roughneck oil drill crew charged with saving the world from the inevitable destruction of an approaching meteor.
Along the way to saving the world, Affleck’s character also falls in love with the crew leader’s daughter, played by Liv Tyler.
While it may not be the most realistic — or original — story line, between the eye candy provided by Ben Affleck in an orange jumpsuit and the tear-jerker ending when Willis gives up his life for the good of the human race, it does manage to be entertaining.
And after all, mindless entertainment is what summer movie viewing is all about.
