Last Summer | Through the Shattered Lens

Who doesn’t love Tom Hanks?

Tom Hanks celebrated his birthday this week. Here’s a few of his films that you can find online.

Directed by Clint Eastwood, Sully (2016) features Tom Hanks in the role airline pilot Chesley Sullenberger. The film not only recreates Sullenberger’s famous landing in the Hudson but also the subsequent attempts by the government to scapegoat Sully for the incident. This film features one of Hanks’s best performances, bringing humanity to a man who, on cultural level, was viewed as being almost a mythological hero. Hanks is likable and, this being an Eastwood film, the government is portrayed as being both corrupt and incompetent. What’s not to like? Sully is on HBOMAX.

When it comes to Tom Hanks, it’s hard to pick his best performance. I would probably go with Captain Phillips (2013), featuring Hanks as the captain of a boat that is taken prisoner by modern-day pirates. Like Sully, this film is based on a true story and, as he did in Sully, Hanks brings to life a character based on a real-life person. The final scene is devastating and features some of the best acting that I’ve ever seen from anyone. Somehow, Hanks was not nominated for Best Actor for his performance here. Captain Phillips can be viewed on Netflix.

Punchline (1988) is a bit of an oddity. Sally Field is miscast as a housewife trying to make it as a stand-up. That said, Tom Hanks gives a strong and dramatic performance as a self-centered and self-destructive comic. Punchline can be viewed on Tubi.

It’s Summer!

It’s summer! I just got back from my vacation. (I took it a month early because I needed to be back here to start my summer job of covering Big Brother for the Big Brother Blog.) If you can’t get to the beach this summer, you can at least watch both Beach Party (1963) and Bikni Beach (1964) on Tubi and discover how people used to celebrate the summer months. Yes, both of these films are undeniably dated and a bit corny but who cares? Sometimes, it’s fun to watch something from a more innocent era. Beach Party and Bikini Beach are both on Tubi.

If you want a slightly racier beach party, The Beach Girls (1982) is a Crown International production that features all of the nudity (male and female), raunchy humor, and drug jokes that you could hope for. That said, it also features a very likable and energetic cast. It can be viewed over at the Internet Archive.

If you’re looking for a slightly more sinister vacation, Last Summer (1969) features Richard Thomas, Bruce Davison, and Barbara Hershey as three rich kids and Catherine Burns as the insecure girl who tries to hang out with them. Hershey and Burns both give outstanding performances and the end result is a creepy and disturbing coming-of-age story. It can be viewed at the Internet Archive.

Odds and Ends

Enter The Ninja (1981) features my man, the one and only Franco Nero, as a ninja! This is a film that represents everything that made Cannon great. Plus, how can you resist Franco, literally winking at the camera? Enter The Ninja is on Prime.

Skatetown USA (1979) is the greatest film that “ever rolled!” Okay, maybe not the greatest but can you resist Patrick Swayze cracking a whip while rolling around on roller skates? Skatetown USA can be viewed at the Internet Archive.

Finally, if you want to see just how strange fame can be, check out Ringmaster (1998), a film that “celebrates” Jerry Springer. (Jerry appears as a version of himself.) Bizarrely enough, this film does feature two truly good performances, from Jaime Pressly and Molly Hagan as a trailer park mother and daughter who appears on Jerry’s show. Ringmaster is on Prime.

Click here for last week’s recommendations!

Let’s close out today’s series of melodrama reviews by taking a look at an unfairly obscure film from 1969, Last Summer. Directed by Frank Perry (who also directed at least part of The Swimmer before getting into an argument with Burt Lancaster), Last Summer is a film about four teenagers who make the mistake of hanging out with each other during one fateful summer.

Peter (Richard Thomas) and his best friend Dan (Bruce Davison) meet Sandy (Barbara Hershey) on the beach. Sandy recruits them into helping her take care of a seagull with a broken wing and soon, the three of them are inseparable. The sexually inexperienced Peter and Dan are both attracted to Sandy while Sandy shown proves herself to have a casually destructive streak. The two boys are so infatuated with Sandy that they even forgive her after she gets bored with the seagull and kills it.

Eventually, Rhoda (Catherine Burns, who was Oscar-nominated for her performance) starts to hang out with the three of them. Overweight and shy, Rhoda is, at first, an awkward addition to the group but soon, she and Peter start to grow close. Sandy, who was previously more interested in Dan until she realized that Peter was losing interest in her, reacts by looking for more and more ways to humiliate the insecure Rhoda. Eventually, they set Rhoda up on a blind date with a shy Puerto Rican man, a cruel prank which quickly goes wrong.

When Rhoda eventually stands up to her three new “friends,” it leads to a disturbing finale that it is all the more effective specifically because it is so inevitable.

I have to admit that I have a weakness for out-of-control youth films, largely because — while I never went as crazy as Sandy or made as many mistakes as Rhoda — I still had my moments back when I was in high school. In ways both good and bad, I could relate to the two female leads of Last Summer. There have been times in my life when I’ve felt like the intellectual and naive Rhoda and then there’s been other times when I’ve felt like the beautiful and self-assured Sandy. For the most part, I’m usually prouder of myself when I feel like Rhoda but I have a lot more fun when I feel like Sandy. While the two boys largely remain ciphers, Last Summer is worth seeing for the outstanding performances of Barbara Hershey and Catherine Burns. Combined with Frank Perry’s atmospheric direction (you can literally see the layers of ennui and humidity clinging to some of the scenes), the end result is an effectively creepy coming-of-age film.

For some unknown reason, Last Summer appears to one of those rare Oscar-nominated films that has never been released on DVD or Blu-ray. However, it does occasionally show up on TCM and I would suggest keeping an eye out for it.

(Incidentally, California Scheming — was was released earlier this year — is pretty much an unacknowledged remake of Last Summer, right down to the bit with the seagull. California Scheming is actually not a bad film. It’s certainly deserves better than some of the online reviews that it’s received.)