Top 10 Movies That Feel Like Summer

Here on the east coast, the weather is taking its time to get moving. As we currently linger on the beaches in sweats dreaming of tan lines, 90 degrees, a cold drink, and praying to find someone with a boat by the time the weather gets nice. If you are already at the point of boredom and have run out of things to do, getting together with friends to watch these Top Ten Movies That Feel Like Summer could be the cure. Movies are a perfect way to ease into summer and get yourself excited for the adventures to come, and could even give some ideas for your future summer plans.

1. The Way Way Back From the beaches of Massachusetts to the water park and being forced to leave your friends and spend time with family, this is definitely one of my favorite summer movies. As the main character's mother has an extremely overbearing boyfriend, he uses this trip to leave and explore the town they are staying in which leads to him creating new bonds and relationships with the people he meets. During the duration of the movie, Duncan struggles with family issues which leads to him sneaking away from his family to spend his time with people he enjoys at the local waterpark.

2. The Last Song Although Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth's relationship will be left in the past, this movie is on replay throughout the summer. Miley plays a rebellious teen who is forced to stay with her father in North Carolina for the summer along with her brother. The movie depicts the struggle of the summer before college, family relationships, and personal relationships. Although there are struggles, the beach, nature, and blasting music with the windows down are the perfect summer vibe. I watch this movie whenever I want to feel like it's summer.

3. Stand By Me This is a great movie about friendship and almost makes you wish you were a young boy in the 80s. The movie follows a group of young boys as they set out by themselves to find the body of a boy who has been killed. Though it sounds gruesome, their journey documents the group's friendship and how it is tested, and the new bonds they created with each other. The adventuring outdoors, being surrounded by nature and close friends gives the movie a summer feeling.

4. Grown Ups A movie I am convinced everyone likes, but let's pretend the second one does not exist. Meeting up with family and friends on a summer vacation is the highlight of some people's years and makes some of the best memories and this movie shows that. As Adam Sandler and his usual crew take a trip down memory, reconnect with each other, and bring their families along. It hilariously shows the best parts of summer, reconnecting with old friends and creating new memories.

5. Mamma Mia! I am definitely not into musicals, but Mamma Mia! is definitely the exception. Everything about this movie is perfect and sets so many goals. Everyone wants to enter their Mamma Mia! era of leaving home to travel and explore Europe with no other cares and relax on the beaches of Greece. How could you not want as exciting of a life as Donna's? This movie feels like it is summer all year round.

6. The Hannah Montana Movie Who would not want to experience a Miley Stuart summer? Filled with cowboys, the countryside, lake swimming, and family, this movie sets a chill and comforting vibe for the summer. Escaping from the city, reconnecting with nature and your roots to take time to discover yourself and grow. This movie brings out the coziness and comfort of summer by hanging out on the porch on hot summer nights with friends and family. (Lucas Till is also nice to look at).

7. The Parent Trap A movie I believe everyone grew up watching and if you haven’t, it is a must-watch. Obviously, with sleepaway camp, this movie is bound to have the summer feeling. It almost makes you feel nostalgic for summer camp by being surrounded by friends all day and night, creating mischief, jumping in the lake, making new friends, and the iconic ear-piercing scene that is engraved in everyone's memory. Even when the girls leave summer camp, the summer vibe continues all the way into California on Nick Parker's ranch with the dream house and vineyard.

8. Cheaper By The Dozen 2 Taking place at the family's summer lake house, the movie shows the rivalry between the Baker family and the Murtaugh family. As they compete in a summer sports competition to see who is the better family, both parties take it a little too far. I feel this is more of a comforting movie with the campfires, lake swimming, water sports, and even the parts of the movie when they start getting sick of being around family, it feels just like summer.

9. The Notebook Although a sad ending, the movie depicts a perfect summer setting. Starting off with the first scenes to come on screen of the carnival, which immediately captures the essence of summer. Throughout the movie, the night scenes of cozy homes and sitting on porches make you feel like you are in the movie. Watching it, you can almost feel the hot humid air and the chirping of the crickets as you sit on the front porch. This movie captures the beauty of a Southern summer night.

10. Hot Summer Nights Honestly, it is not my personal favorite movie but the vibes and aesthetic of the set are perfect. Set in Cape Cod with the beach, high school parties, carnivals, a summer fling, Timothee Chalamet, and drug dealing, this movie has the perfect summer vibe (but maybe scratch the last part). The acting and plot aren't award-winning but it is worth watching for its aesthetic and the rush of summer.

Written by Andie Serrao

Celebrating the Queer Midnight Movies of the 70s

Murder, sexual assault, incest, and homosexuality. Taboo subjects in the 1970s, these acts and identities were celebrated in camp films such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Pink Flamingos. These films proudly displayed queerness in an era where homosexuality was anything but accepted. While revolutionary and successful among fringe audiences over 40 years ago, these films continue to have a cult following in the LGBTQ+ community.

What Actually is Camp?

Rocky Horror and the films by John Waters are frequently described as camp, yet the flexible usage of the descriptor in 2023 might make the meaning unclear. When I describe these films as camp, I mean it in the true, Susan Sontag sense of the word (not in the way Karlie Kloss infamously imagined it). As described in Sontag’s essay “Notes on Camp,” the word describes an ironic and theatrical expression of tackiness or distastefulness. It’s self aware, exaggerated, and intentionally misaligned with appropriate culture. The startling fashion and absurd politics of these midnight movies exemplify the concept of camp in a distinctly queer and rebellious way.

Midnight movies, which are cult classics made popular for being viewed in large groups at midnight, frequently feature queer characters and actors in drag. One of the most iconic examples of this is in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, featuring a “Sweet Transvestite” who alters the lives of a heterosexual couple (O’Brien).

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Girl meets boy, boy proposes to girl, boy and girl get trapped in a sexually devious mansion owned by aliens… it’s a tale as old as time. While unsuccessful upon its release in 1975, The Rocky Horror Picture Show became incredibly successful within queer communities and its popularity has grown exponentially since the 70s. Many cities internationally still host live productions and frequent midnight screenings. It is considered to be a queer masterpiece, with no character idolized as highly as Frank-N-Furter (played by Tim Curry, not pictured). This “sweet transvestite” brings life to a beefier, blonder version of Frankenstein, Rocky, to be his new partner. With the accidental arrival of Brad and Janet (pictured in the center, Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon), things don’t go according to plan. Frank-N-Furter sleeps with both of them, kills the biker Eddie who interrupts the party, and is eventually murdered by alien siblings Riff Raff and Magenta (pictured on the left and right, Richard O’Brien and Patricia Quinn). Much of Frank-N-Furter’s behavior is unsympathetic, but Curry plays the role with a self-aware playfulness that guides the audience into a jovial and rebellious spirit.

The Early Works of John Waters

In the first act of John Waters’ Female Trouble, the character Aunt Ida (below on left, played by Edith Massey) cries, “The world of heterosexual is a sick and boring life!” Released in 1974, it is one of many films created by the filmmaker depicting the lives of the LGBTQ+ community as “filthy.” However, this presentation of filth is a source of pride for the odd characters within these worlds.

Before the charming PG-rated film Hairspray, filmmaker John Waters worked to bring disgusting campy filth to the movies. Working with a consistent cast of queer actors (spearheaded by drag queen Divine, pictured above in the center, who inspired the original Ursula design in The Little Mermaid), Waters made low-budget films that intersected queerness with socially unaccepted behavior. This is exemplified most clearly in Pink Flamingos from 1972 and Female Trouble. Divine stars in both, playing rebellious mothers who take pleasure in robbing, raping, murdering, and essentially any other immoral act imaginable. If it’s violent, sexual, and disgusting, her characters will take pleasure in doing them. Even the actor Divine ate real dog shit on the set of Pink Flamingos to prove that, “not only is she the filthiest person in the world, she’s also the filthiest actress in the world!” While the thought of watching a drag queen gag on dog poop doesn’t sound like traditional queer representation, LGBTQ+ audiences have created a huge cult following for these works.

(L to R, Divine, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, David Lochary, John Waters, and Danny Mills on the set of Pink Flamingos)

1970s Queer Midnight Movies in the Modern Culture

Recognizing the political time these films were released and how the filmmakers have reflected on their work over the course of several decades is very relevant. Despite using outdated terms like transsexual and transvestite, members of the LGBTQ+ community including Lavene Cox (a transgender actress who played the role of Frank-N-Furter in 2016) still reveres Rocky Horror Picture Show as the meaning of these terms had a different context at the time of the film’s release in 1975. John Waters referenced regret in his 2010 memoirs, citing that his real-life fixation on Tex from the Manson murders and its influence on Female Trouble was insensitive. Divine and Tim Curry are cis male actors in drag. However, the nuances of their gender performance in these roles pose unique ideas about masculinity. The success all of these films found have been through fringe and alternative audiences. Divine says in Pink Flamingos, “I'm the filthiest person alive, that's who I am,” with pride.

This pride in devious acts was a form of rebellion against the openly homophobic culture of the era. Putting cannibalism and “lesbianism” in the same sentence describing Divine’s atrocities in Pink Flamingos emphasizes the absurdity of homophobia. Rocky’s heterosexual attraction towards Janet is treated with outrage and disgust similarly to how queer relationships would have been acknowledged in the 70s. These bold and exciting films paved the way for many LGBTQ+ films of the future, even if many of the LGBTQ+ characters of the 21st century don’t commit violent murders.

Written by Mary Leer