Favorite Summer Film Ever

Hey folks, Harry here... That cowardly Moriarty, now hiding under the alias of Drew McWeeny at HitFix.com IM'd me yesterday - and we were talking about all manners of things that webmasters talk about these days. Mainly why all of you lazy fucks aren't seeing DRAG ME TO HELL, thus cursing us all to never having another great Raimi scare fest. And I say, "You Lazy Fucks" with the utmost love and highest level of endearment. But seriously! GO SEE THE MOVIE! Anyway, Drew was having a bad run of days. He was scheduled for a vacation this week, but there was a conspiracy that wasn't allowing him to have a replacement BLOGGER for the week. I volunteered to take over for him, for the week - and instead he hit me back about 30 minutes later with a question. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SUMMER MOVIE EXPERIENCE AND WHY? Well - I looked at the question and instantly realized - this isn't asking what's the BEST Summer Movie Experience. Pretty sure that would uniformly be RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, JAWS or EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. But my favorite. A personal choice. The one that when I think back on, it gives me chills and a warm cuddily feeling all at once. I thought about it at length - and it wasn't easy. Since I started AICN, I've done some pretty amazing events with the summer films - but I quickly dismissed any event that I've attended as an adult, simply based upon the notion that I expected what I got. That was the key divider between childhood and adulthood film going. For me, as a child - there was a period leading up to around the age of 11, where movies HAPPENED to me. I wasn't reading STARLOG yet. I flipped through it looking at pictures at the store, but I wasn't taking it home to read yet, to absorb. For some crazy reason, the title that I wrote about leapt to mind and I couldn't shake it. It was my favorite Summer Movie Film Experience. Drew posted it, along with pieces from JJ Abrams, David Hayter, an exhaustive piece by Simon Pegg. Which you can find: HERE!!! As for my favorite Adult Summer Film Experience. It would have to be PHANTOM MENACE. I know. I know. But camping in that line, playing games with my fellow liners, the fellowship and the joy and hope in that line was astonishing. And the experience of seeing the film? Well, it is one that I feel fairly confident in saying... none of us will forget our reactions... be it positive or negative. And I'm sure we can all express that reaction with a high degree of passion even today... a decade later.