{"id":93378,"date":"2026-09-07T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T06:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/?p=93378"},"modified":"2026-09-06T14:12:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T20:12:24","slug":"sun-screen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/sun-screen\/","title":{"rendered":"Sun screen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Sun<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I saw \u201cE.T.\u201d at a drive-in movie theater on Cape Cod in the summer of 1982. The film itself takes place in fall (remember when they cloak E.T. in a sheet so they can take him trick-or-treating?) but it\u2019s forever suspended in summer for me, inextricable from the sticky back seat and the sticky humidity in which I saw it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But \u201cDie Hard,\u201d which was released in the summer of 1988, takes place on Christmas Eve and \u2014 for me at least \u2014 is a winter movie. I\u2019m sure I saw it the July it came out, but the film\u2019s content transcends its summer blockbuster status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes a movie a summer movie? In 2000, Terrence Rafferty declared in The Times, \u201cSteven Spielberg\u2019s \u2018Jaws\u2019 created the Summer Movie as we know it: the action-heavy \u2018thrill ride\u2019 sort of picture, aimed at sensation-hungry younger audiences, which moves into theaters around Memorial Day and remains there, partying hard, until the school year starts up again in September.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJaws\u201d continues to be as bound up in the mythology of summer as Popsicles and beach balls, though a piece by Stuart Klawans in 2002 blamed it for turning the beach into \u201ca site of isolation, anxiety and horror,\u201d one that foreclosed the insouciance of \u201cBeach Blanket Bingo\u201d and its ilk, and gave way to \u201cCast Away,\u201d \u201cTitanic\u201d and other pessimistic seaborne tales. (Those each came out in December, for what it\u2019s worth.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I think about the movies that unfailingly evoke summer for me, I think of a feeling, a quality of light, an airy mood of expansiveness. The exemplar is the 1988 comedy \u201cMystic Pizza,\u201d starring Julia Roberts, Lili Taylor and Annabeth Gish as three charming, brave, wisecracking pals working at their local Connecticut pizzeria the summer after high school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They each fall in love. They each have their hearts cracked, if not totally broken. They each presented to me, 14 when I first saw the movie, a romantic vision of what summer might look like when I was older, when I would have a job and go on dates and have my own heart broken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I asked people about their quintessential summer films, the answers weren\u2019t surprising, but, aside from \u201cJaws,\u201d they also weren\u2019t Big Movies. They were the ones with an atmosphere of summer, the ones whose mentions fairly conjure the itch of a mosquito bite and the smell of a bonfire: \u201cMeatballs.\u201d \u201cLittle Darlings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDirty Dancing.\u201d \u201cDo the Right Thing.\u201d They\u2019re films that, no matter when you watch them, transport you to some deliciously unattainable past. Unlike songs of summer, which are artifacts of one specific year, movies of summer are perennial, evocative of every summer all at once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I haven\u2019t seen anything yet this year that feels like it\u2019ll enter the pantheon of eternal summer classics. \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d probably isn\u2019t a worthy contender, as entertaining as it is. But I\u2019m planning to see \u201cTeenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma\u201d this week, which seems like it might hold genuine promise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n