by Michael Lyons
I guess we can avoid the inevitable no longer. Soon, all the kids will head back to school, the bathing suits will be packed away, and pumpkin spice will be added to everything from a cappuccino to marinara sauce.
Summer, that glorious season of fair weather days and endless nights, is ending. Sure, the summer of 2022 wasn't perfect, as it was filled with travel woes that made vacation almost seem like a four-letter word and weather so intense that it seemed as if the Heat Miser was real.
But, admit it, you'll miss summer. The carefree-no-school-flip-flop-wearing time of year brings a unique sense of relaxation. And it's own form of movies, too.
After two years dormant, Hollywood's all-important summer movie season made a tremendous comeback this year, thanks to hits like Top Gun: Maverick. The record-breaking Tom Cruise "legacy sequel" was an excellent "flashback" to summer movie seasons that brought us some of the movie industry's most famous films.
And during those past summer movie seasons, some late entries hit theaters just before summer took its final bow and provided one last blast for movie fans.
As "Screen Saver" did in 2018, here's another look at some late entries in past summer movie seasons:
Cop Land (1997)
A Western-style story set in contemporary New Jersey, this was an "Eastern" and a compelling, well-crafted one. Sylvester Stallone plays Freddy Heflin, a quiet, mild-mannered Sherrif of a small Jersey suburb, where a number of New York City cops live.
When an internal affairs officer (Robert DeNiro) begins investigating corruption among the residents, Freddy has to decide between his loyalty to the cops who live in the town and doing what's right.
Written and directed by James Mangold, Cop Land (released twenty-five years ago) is one of the most underrated movies of the 90s, expertly made, with echoes of the best of Martin Scorsese and Sidney Lumet.
With a supporting cast that includes Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, Cathy Moriarity, Janeane Garofalo, and Michael Rapaport, Cop Land is bristling with talent and features Stallone in one of the best performances of his career (and one for which he was robbed of an Oscar nomination).
Single White Female (1992)
Thirty years ago, the movie thriller was still "a thing." Audiences flocked to films that showed how evil could lurk in our everyday lives, including a new roommate. This is the premise of Single White Female, in which New Yorker Allison Jones (Bridget Fonda) places an ad looking for a roommate, and she gets Hedra Carson (Jennifer Jason Leigh) answering it.
It turns out that Hedra, who has a disturbing history, wants more than just a room; she wants Allison's life.
Single White Female had shades of the classic Rosemary's Baby, as it creates an eerie atmosphere out of an old Manhattan apartment. While it may not bring with it too many surprises, it's still an effective thriller, thanks to compelling performances by Fonda and Jason Leigh.
Stakeout (1987)
This is a complete and utter '80s audience pleaser. Released thirty-five years ago this month, Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez have great chemistry as police detective partners forced to go on the graveyard shift of a stakeout. Dreyfuss' character then finds himself falling for the woman (Madeline Stowe) that they're watching.
Directed by John Badham (WarGames), Stakeout is the perfect comedy-action-thriller that seems to be a genre that's disappeared. Estevez showed nice comedic skills, and Dreyfuss was at his manic best.
Stakeout was a surprise, late-summer box-office hit, and deservedly so.
The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)
Want to see the trailers for "Catholic High School Girls in Trouble?" or "A Fistful of Yen?" How about a movie that's advertised in the immersive "Feel-a-Round?"
They're all in this irreverent sketch comedy that plays like Saturday Night Live: The Movie. Still funny and fun to watch, this unique comedy is most notable for the careers it launched.
Director John Landis would go on to helm Animal House and Trading Places, among others, and writers Jim Abrahams and David & Jerry Zucker would later bring us Airplane! And the Naked Gun movies. Forty-five years ago, at the end of "Star Wars Summer," they all cut their comedic teeth on The Kentucky Fried Movie.
And so, as we cling to every last sun-drenched day of August and hurtle headfirst into Labor Day, let's remember these films that gave the Summer Movie season its last-minute due.
Soon, those leaves will be changing. And, remember, they're only pretty to look at when you don't have to rake them!
Looking for a good Labor Day Weekend "beach read?" Check out my book Drawn to Greatness: Disney's Animation Renaissance now available on Amazon.
Tired of social media, but don't want to get off of your phone? Head over to my website Words From Lyons for more of my writing and podcasts.
I saw "The Kentucky Fried Movie" in 1977 as half of a double feature with Woody Allen's "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)". Real laugh-till-your-face hurts stuff. I think it owed less to SNL than it did to "The Groove Tube", another sketch-comedy film released in 1974 and rereleased every summer over the next few years. That had a lot of hilarious moments: footage from the Senate Watergate hearings synchronized with Oscar Peterson's scat singing, Chevy Chase getting slapped around while singing "I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover", Ken Shapiro lip-synching to "Just You, Just Me" while dancing through New York in a pink suit. But the funniest part of all was my friend's reaction when the camera zoomed in on "Safety Sam", and he suddenly realised what he was looking at....
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