Happy summer! This month in movies was defined by summer classics — beach, sing-along, trips to Italy.
When I go to the movies I wanna watch those summer classics. Summer classics. Summer summer classics.
Aquamarine (2006)
Rewatched June 2, 2024
Letterboxd review: “Chunky blue highlights are gonna be huge this summer.”
My darling roommates/best friends/creative muses made the stomach-churning realization that Sunday, June 2, 2024 would be the last night that all four of us would be home, as roommates, ever again. Without getting too emotional, we determined we should do something special, and I suggested watching Aquamarine, a movie none of them had ever seen. My secret plan was that this movie always makes me cry anyway, which could disguise the fact that I’d actually had tears brimming under the surface for the past three days about everyone moving. Ha! They’d never know. It follows two thirteen-year-old best friends during the summer before one of them has to move to Australia. After a huge storm, a mermaid washes up in their pool, and the girls help her acclimate to life on land and garner the attention of her crush, a sexy lifeguard (played by the hot math teacher in Lady Bird). I’ve loved this movie since I was a kid, and it was of course an honor and a privilege to watch it with my gals right before we went our separate ways.
High School Musical 2 (2007)
Rewatched June 8, 2024
Letterboxd review: “YEAH I’VE HAD HER MOM’S GODDAMN BROWNIES.”
On the same track as summer-movies-from-childhood, I determined it would not be summer without watching HSM2. When this movie premiered on Disney Channel in August 2007, my family was on vacation somewhere, staying in a hotel, and I still remember my parents surprising me by getting cupcakes and juice served on HSM plastic plates and cups to celebrate. Obviously this movie is just too iconic to even articulate my thoughts on it. Kenny Ortega is a gift to this earth, and no one will ever compete with the pure charm Zac Efron exudes in this film. 10/10.
Le Bonheur (1965)
June 12, 2024
Letterboxd review: “Men want to have their cake and eat it too, and they so very often get to.”
I was looking for the most summer-y movies on my Letterboxd watchlist one night, and landed on this one, which completely took me by surprise. It follows a married man and father who begins an affair with another woman, but finds he has total room in his heart for both women, and achieves perfect happiness. It is genuinely a horror movie with a sun-soaked, floral, deliciously languid exterior. It is an examination of what an ultimate male fantasy would look like if it actually came true, and Agnès Varda depicts it in a brilliantly sarcastic manner. It is slow to start (it’s French), but once you’re in, you’re in.
Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
June 13, 2024
Letterboxd review: “Warm grape”
My childhood best friend Eva and I visited our other childhood best friend Fiona in Philadelphia for a weekend, and the night before we left, she stayed at my apartment in Boston. We tossed around a few different movies to watch before bed, and somehow, someway, ended up on this one. It follows a recent divorcée who impulsively buys a beautiful old house in Tuscany, and the process of finding herself as she fixes it up and establishes her new life there. This movie is a trek full of false starts and meandering, with some plot lines fully being left open and unexplained (though that could’ve been our fault for missing them since we talked through the whole thing). It is painfully, hilariously boring unless you have someone to share commentary with throughout. It does feature Sandra Oh and Kate Walsh as a lesbian couple though, so I guess you win some, you lose some.
When in Rome (2010)
June 14, 2024
Letterboxd review: “Movies used to have Josh Duhamel in them…back when god was listening.”
While in Philly, we decided we wanted to dive deeper into the woman-goes-to-Italy-to-find-herself cinematic universe, so we landed on When in Rome, which is more of a romantic comedy than the slow-burn dramedy of Under the Tuscan Sun. How do I begin to explain the plot of this movie? Kristen Bell plays an ambitious art curator who travels to Rome for her sister’s wedding, and meets the charming best man, played by Josh Duhamel. Drunk and lonely, she hops into the “fountain of love” and picks up various items people have made wishes on (coins, poker chips, etc), and when she does, the men who originally threw those items in fall in love with her. So she’s surrounded by all these admirers, but has fallen for this best man guy — but when he starts to like her back, she’s convinced it’s because he’s also under the fountain-of-love spell. To be so honest, we did not pay attention at all while watching this. The whole time we thought she was an event planner, and saying “she’s literally the most successful event planner in all of New York” became a running gag all weekend. Lies, lies, lies. Anyway, don’t watch this, it was painful.
Eat Pray Love (2010)
June 16, 2024
Letterboxd review: “This nearly two and a half hour trek ends, the credits start to roll, and my friends and I all shout ‘RYAN MURPHY?!?!??!?!!’”
We were now too far into our marathon to turn back. We were entrenched in linen shirts and burlap fedoras and jokes like “carbs don’t count when you’re divorced! XD”. We had begun to randomly stop what we were doing and just chuckle to ourselves inexplicably. We were eating yogurt with the spoon backwards. The only logical thing to watch next was the ultimate installment in this cinematic universe — Eat Pray Love. Based on a true story, it follows a recent divorcée/writer who spends a year traveling to find herself, going to Italy, India, and Bali. She is entitled, self-aggrandizing, and hinges her entire belief system upon foreign mysticism. This movie is so long and boring, and as someone who usually loves no-plot-just-vibes kinds of movies, that’s saying something. It was probably the most enjoyable to watch out of the three Italy movies, but barely so. Ryan Murphy, what have you done.
A Room with a View (1986)
June 20, 2024
Letterboxd review: “Wasn’t planning on seeing scrotum when I put this movie on, but good cinema will surprise you!”
“I have a theory that there is something in the Italian landscape which inclines even the most stolid nature to romance.” Wouldn’t you know — the saga continues, this time by total accident. Based on a 1907 novel, it stars Helena Bonham Carter in her first ever role as a young woman who — say it with me — travels to Italy and meets a ruggedly handsome gentleman, but must fend off her growing feelings for him as she’s engaged to a more proper, socially-respectable man back in England. It’s slightly slow and stuffy as period pieces are wont to be, but this was the gorgeously floral, scandalously romantic movie I was in the mood for. My Letterboxd review is referencing a scene with some deeply unsexy full-frontal, so process that how you will.
Juno (2007)
Rewatched June 22, 2024
Letterboxd review: “Literally perfect in every way. Diablo Cody, I worship the ground you walk on.”
Freshly packed pints of ice cream in hand, roomie Lauren and I were on the hunt for the perfect movie one evening, and landed on one of those that I always say “is one of my favorites” but have only seen it, like, once. But this rewatch reaffirmed that it is, in fact, one of my favorites! Precocious teen Juno finds herself pregnant after losing her virginity, and finds the perfect family to adopt the baby — but complications arise when the prospective father advances on her romantically. It’s written by my favorite screenwriter Diablo Cody, who also wrote Jennifer’s Body and Lisa Frankenstein, some of my other favorite films of all time. I love her style for the very fact that nobody talks like that. It’s a hilariously quirky, even literary experience to watch her movies. Juno in particular is the perfect balance of funny and heartfelt without ever leaning into cheesiness. I cried tears of joy at the end, because it’s just so damn sweet. It is my hope and dream to write something this funny and poignant one day.
Inside Out 2 (2024)
June 23, 2024
Letterboxd review: “If Big Mouth was rated G.”
I’m not going to say I watched this movie illegally. I’m just going to say that two tickets to the movie theater was going to cost — and I’m not exaggerating — and this does not include snacks — forty-eight doll hairs. It’s like the movie theater industry wants to shut down. Anyway, this follows Riley as she enters her teenage years and new emotions arrive — Anxiety, Embarrassment, Envy, Ennui, even Nostalgia making a brief appearance as a sweet old grandma (who, I do think, is constantly manning the switchboard in my brain personally). But as Anxiety takes the wheel, there’s soon less space for Joy, and all the OG emotions get kicked to the back of her mind. It’s a sweet and clever take on the transition into your teen years, and is touching without leaning into the overly-saccharine tearjerkers Pixar has been going for in the last few years. I thought it was cute and fun and made me genuinely laugh a number of times.
Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)
Rewatched June 24, 2024
Letterboxd review: “Popping, locking, polka-dotting, countrifying, AND hip-hopping it.”
It’s truly not summer without this movie. I didn’t like it for a stretch of time in my pre-teen years because the scene where she’s running back and forth between her date and her Hannah obligations stressed me out too much, but once I chose to overlook it, I’ve come to love it again. I also forgot how genuinely moved I am by “The Climb.” It’s a Brat summer for sure but it is also, in many ways, a Miley Stewart summer.
Mamma Mia! (2008)
Rewatched June 28, 2024
Letterboxd review: “Makes me wanna get #drunk.”
Truly what better movie is there to watch with your mom? I think I’ve written about this movie on this blog a minimum of, like, fifteen times, so I’ll just point out that this time I was particularly captivated by Meryl Streep’s scarf-ography in “The Winner Takes it All.” 10/10 film.
Aquamarine makes me cry too!!!!!!!