What's better than staying in during a really, really hot day and watching movies that you don't really have to think about while lying in a nicely air conditioned room? Nothing. Well, maybe going to the pool, sipping a margarita, eating a vanilla frosty, walking along the beach. But you get the idea.
Greece, Italy, Spain, Australia, Montenegro, Texas, Cape Cod, California, Arizona; where do you want to go on summer vacation this year? I've compiled a list of my favorite summer movies to watch if you've got a case of wanderlust but can't do anything about it.
1) Adore
Who wouldn't want to live in this movie!? Those colors! The landscape! The houses! The clothes and hats and sunglasses! The boys! Naomi Watts and Robin Wright are fabulous cougars living in some fantastic seaside Australian version of suburbia in this movie. They fall in love with each other's sons and yeah, you can guess that it doesn't go down well.
2) Casino Royale
Nothing says summer like Daniel Craig rising from the greenest of oceans in the tiniest of swim trunks! Casino Royale makes you want to visit Montenegro even more than you did before. But leave it to Eva Green to vamp up a summer setting. If you're not feeling chiffon, linen, and cotton in pinks, whites, and soft blues for summer fabrics and colors, Vesper Lynd makes it okay to wear silk and black and deep red and purple.
3) The Kings of Summer
If you're not feeling the beach or exotic getaways, and are instead feeling summer vacation in the suburbs, give The Kings of Summer a go. It's got deadpan humor, cute high school boys, wanderlust, teen angst, life lessons. It's summer in suburbia and sometimes that's just as captivating as summer in Monte Carlo.
4) Little Children
My favorite summer in suburbia move features a frumpy Kate Winslet and hot dad Patrick Wilson. The movie focuses on three different stories in the same neighborhood and their corruptness in a seemingly pleasant area. One of my favorite affair/romances ever is Kate and Patrick's character hooking up in the laundry room after they take their kids to the community pool. Doesn't get anymore middle America than that.
5) Thelma and Louise
I'm pretty sure everyone has dreams of a summer road trip with their best girlfriend (I know I do). The only way to do it is like Thelma and Louise. Grab an old Chevy, some Levi 501's, band tees, cowboy boots and hats and your sunglasses and head west. Fingers crossed you run into a Brad Pitt cowboy, too.
6) The Way Way Back
Covering all summer vacation spots, The Way Way Back takes us to the east coast to a water park. I love the main character in all his awkwardness and loneliness. It's all strangely relatable. But I love Sam Rockwell wearing a tank top and swim trunks even more, to be quite honest.
7) Dazed and Confused
School's out for the summer. I find that Richard Linklater films are good to watch during the summer because, probably just like you, the characters are always just bumming around, living life and having a good time. The difference from Dazed and Confused and other Linklater movies? This is set in 1976 and features a blonde Matthew McConaughey and the inception of "alright, alright, alright."
8) The Sandlot
Nothing screams summer in America than 4th of July, the 1950s, swimming pools and baseball. As a kid, I wasn't one to go play outside (especially growing up in southern California when the temperature gets to be around 105 degrees at times). But The Sandlot always made me secretly want to take up a sport and have a bunch of friends and play in the dirt.
9) Martha Marcy May Marlene
I've always wanted a summer home on a lake, preferably one that looks like Sarah Paulson and Hugh Dancy's character's home in Martha Marcy May Marlene. While I love the story and the acting in this, for this list's purpose, I'm looking solely at the setting and wardrobe: a big clean house with open windows facing a big blue lake, a massive deck sitting right on the water, trees and trees galore. And you've got to wear crisp whites and crisp baby blues and jean shorts and flip flops. Oh and how does Sarah Paulson get her hair like that??
10) Vicky Cristina Barcelona
A few summers ago, all I wanted to do was go to Barcelona. I wanted to wear khaki shorts, white blouses, espadrilles and not wash my hair. I wanted to carry around a cognac tote and wear tortoise shell glasses and stroll around Spain's capital. Since I couldn't do that in real life, of course I decided to live vicariously through Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The cinematography alone will make you crave some summer sun if the costumes and setting don't do it for ya.
11) Before Midnight
Probably my least favorite movie in Linklater's Before trilogy. I don't think I liked it because it was too real. These characters are perfection and seeing them fight was too much for me to handle. It was like watching two people I hold so high come tumbling down. But this isn't a review of the film. It's a mini-review of the Grecian setting on which it takes place on. A review on Julie Delpy's blue sun dress and how it matches Ethan Hawke's blue button down and how that matches the blue sky and sea.
12) And While We Were Here
I felt this movie was a little try-hard but my god Kate Bosworth knows how to wear clothes. Probably because she's a tiny thing but nonetheless, her wardrobe in this is stunning. Not to mention how stunning the Italian island of Ischia is and how I just want to stroll around a foreign city and meet a cute boy!! (See a pattern here?) This movie has all of your summer plans in one: wear chiffon everyday, go swimming in the Mediterranean, eat authentic Italian food outside by the sea, wander around an island at night with a crush, stay in a fabulous and comfy hotel room. Take me to Ischia!
Greece, Italy, Spain, Australia, Montenegro, Texas, Cape Cod, California, Arizona; where do you want to go on summer vacation this year? I've compiled a list of my favorite summer movies to watch if you've got a case of wanderlust but can't do anything about it.
1) Adore
Who wouldn't want to live in this movie!? Those colors! The landscape! The houses! The clothes and hats and sunglasses! The boys! Naomi Watts and Robin Wright are fabulous cougars living in some fantastic seaside Australian version of suburbia in this movie. They fall in love with each other's sons and yeah, you can guess that it doesn't go down well.
2) Casino Royale
Nothing says summer like Daniel Craig rising from the greenest of oceans in the tiniest of swim trunks! Casino Royale makes you want to visit Montenegro even more than you did before. But leave it to Eva Green to vamp up a summer setting. If you're not feeling chiffon, linen, and cotton in pinks, whites, and soft blues for summer fabrics and colors, Vesper Lynd makes it okay to wear silk and black and deep red and purple.
3) The Kings of Summer
If you're not feeling the beach or exotic getaways, and are instead feeling summer vacation in the suburbs, give The Kings of Summer a go. It's got deadpan humor, cute high school boys, wanderlust, teen angst, life lessons. It's summer in suburbia and sometimes that's just as captivating as summer in Monte Carlo.
4) Little Children
My favorite summer in suburbia move features a frumpy Kate Winslet and hot dad Patrick Wilson. The movie focuses on three different stories in the same neighborhood and their corruptness in a seemingly pleasant area. One of my favorite affair/romances ever is Kate and Patrick's character hooking up in the laundry room after they take their kids to the community pool. Doesn't get anymore middle America than that.
5) Thelma and Louise
I'm pretty sure everyone has dreams of a summer road trip with their best girlfriend (I know I do). The only way to do it is like Thelma and Louise. Grab an old Chevy, some Levi 501's, band tees, cowboy boots and hats and your sunglasses and head west. Fingers crossed you run into a Brad Pitt cowboy, too.
6) The Way Way Back
Covering all summer vacation spots, The Way Way Back takes us to the east coast to a water park. I love the main character in all his awkwardness and loneliness. It's all strangely relatable. But I love Sam Rockwell wearing a tank top and swim trunks even more, to be quite honest.
7) Dazed and Confused
School's out for the summer. I find that Richard Linklater films are good to watch during the summer because, probably just like you, the characters are always just bumming around, living life and having a good time. The difference from Dazed and Confused and other Linklater movies? This is set in 1976 and features a blonde Matthew McConaughey and the inception of "alright, alright, alright."
8) The Sandlot
Nothing screams summer in America than 4th of July, the 1950s, swimming pools and baseball. As a kid, I wasn't one to go play outside (especially growing up in southern California when the temperature gets to be around 105 degrees at times). But The Sandlot always made me secretly want to take up a sport and have a bunch of friends and play in the dirt.
9) Martha Marcy May Marlene
I've always wanted a summer home on a lake, preferably one that looks like Sarah Paulson and Hugh Dancy's character's home in Martha Marcy May Marlene. While I love the story and the acting in this, for this list's purpose, I'm looking solely at the setting and wardrobe: a big clean house with open windows facing a big blue lake, a massive deck sitting right on the water, trees and trees galore. And you've got to wear crisp whites and crisp baby blues and jean shorts and flip flops. Oh and how does Sarah Paulson get her hair like that??
10) Vicky Cristina Barcelona
A few summers ago, all I wanted to do was go to Barcelona. I wanted to wear khaki shorts, white blouses, espadrilles and not wash my hair. I wanted to carry around a cognac tote and wear tortoise shell glasses and stroll around Spain's capital. Since I couldn't do that in real life, of course I decided to live vicariously through Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The cinematography alone will make you crave some summer sun if the costumes and setting don't do it for ya.
11) Before Midnight
Probably my least favorite movie in Linklater's Before trilogy. I don't think I liked it because it was too real. These characters are perfection and seeing them fight was too much for me to handle. It was like watching two people I hold so high come tumbling down. But this isn't a review of the film. It's a mini-review of the Grecian setting on which it takes place on. A review on Julie Delpy's blue sun dress and how it matches Ethan Hawke's blue button down and how that matches the blue sky and sea.
12) And While We Were Here
I felt this movie was a little try-hard but my god Kate Bosworth knows how to wear clothes. Probably because she's a tiny thing but nonetheless, her wardrobe in this is stunning. Not to mention how stunning the Italian island of Ischia is and how I just want to stroll around a foreign city and meet a cute boy!! (See a pattern here?) This movie has all of your summer plans in one: wear chiffon everyday, go swimming in the Mediterranean, eat authentic Italian food outside by the sea, wander around an island at night with a crush, stay in a fabulous and comfy hotel room. Take me to Ischia!