Summertime is the best season for movies. Many of the biggest grossing films of all time were released in the summer: Star Wars, Ghostbusters, the Indiana Jones franchise, Jaws. Plenty of films that were game changers and audience pleasers have dropped in the warmer months.
Going to see summer blockbusters also has created great memories for many of us. My Dad would take my brother and I to see movies that would become classics in the summer months, and a lot of these flicks were fist pumping crowd pleasers. Some of the most fun moments of my life happened in a theater during the months of May to August when I was younger.
Below are my best summer movie moments.
Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope
I was only four years old when Star Wars dropped in 1977. But, it’s the first movie I remember people cheering for when they watched it. When Han Solo swooped in at the last minute to bail out Luke in the Battle of Yavin dogfight, people clapped. When Luke destroyed the Death Star, they cheered like it was game seven of a World Series. I still smile when I think about this experience to this day.
When Aliens was released in the summer of 1986, director James Cameron, was an up and coming talent. He’d written and directed The Terminator two years earlier, which was an instant classic. But, he was just a promising filmmaker by the time Aliens dropped. Not only that, but the first Alien film, which was released in the summer of 1979, was a smash in its own right. How could Cameron match, let alone top the first movie?
Well, when we all saw Aliens, every question about Cameron was answered. The movie was a nonstop innovative thrill ride that vaporized everyone in the audience my Dad (again) and I sat with. We were blown away and we cowed, cheered, cowed, and cheered again as a collective. At the end of the film, the theater shook with applause. What we got from Aliens was an incredible movie and a new sheriff in (Tinsel)town named James.
Die Hard was a movie that was a dice roll for moviegoers in summer 1998 when it was released. Bruce Willis’ film career wasn't going well at all after he left the classic television show Moonlighting. He had several considerable flops before Die Hard…it looked like he was going to be a washout as a movie actor. So, when my Dad and I went to go see the film, we didn’t know what we were getting.
Much like Aliens two years prior, Die Hard was an unexpected game changer and a top flight audience pleaser. We all rooted for Willis’s John McClane character’s heroics. We groaned at his missteps. We cheered him on when he kept going despite the odds. When the lights went up in the movie house, we all stumbled to our cars in amazement. We’d all been blown away by a kick-ass movie that none of us saw coming. It was and is one of the best surprises of my life.
For years, Hollywood could just never get the tone of Marvel Comics-based movies right. Marvel’s comic books were sexy, funny, funky, and irreverent. It’s films were not. That all changed in 2008 when Marvel produced and dropped Iron Man that summer.
I went to see Iron Man (without my Pops) and was amazed. Not only was Robert Downey Jr.’s performance as Tony Stark/Iron Man instantly legendary, not only was the movie fantastically directed by Jon Favreau, but the film nailed the Marvel aesthetic. Throughout the movie, I was cheering like I saw the Cleveland Browns win a Super Bowl because I’d been waiting for that very moment as a comics nerd forever.
What’s your favorite summer movie memory? Tell me via my e-addy: grgsmmsjr@gmial.com.
