Last Summer (1969)

With Larry K. after screening of Last Summer. Courtesy of Nic Cage

Paul Schrader

#8 on Top Ten By Year: 1969 at Cinema Enthusiast No piece of fiction disturbs me more than Roald Dahl’s short story “The Swan”, which my unsuspecting kid self read at a very young age. In it, two boys mercilessly bully and torture another boy, menacing him at gunpoint in…

Catherine Stebbins

Last Summer walked on the beach so Challengers could run on a tennis court.  Catherine Burns gives one of the best performances I’ve seen in a long time in this. She got a well-deserved Oscar nomination for the movie. And by 1971 she had made her last film and after some…

Matt Singer

This film was impossible to find for many years and I have to imagine that’s why it’s not regularly programmed or cited as one of the most incisive, disturbing coming-of-age stories of the 1960s. Truly haunting and one the best discoveries for me so far this year. Watch…

bkrewind

This film took me to the woodshed for some real talk and I'm still reeling from it after a night's sleep. It's evocative, provocative, restless but also beautiful, sensitive and so natural that it hits a root nerve. Essentially just four young person performances beach…

Colin the dude

Beautiful Cinematheque event - heartbreaking Q&A with Hershey and Davison - surprise video intro from Richard Thomas - restoration looked stunning - movie retained the power to kick the audience in the head almost 60 years after it was made. Ready to take its rightful place…

Larry Karaszewski

A holy grail of sought films, Frank and Elenor Perry's uncompromising adaptation of the novel of the same name is finally available in a painstakingly restoration. Like Midnight Cowboy the same year it was struck with an X, but Perry appealed and got the R it deserves. I…

Karl

As I was trying to come with ideas of what to write for this review and I as I see how the whole movie came to an end, I couldn't help but to draw comparison with this movie and the end of the 60s, a decade that many remember for its "Season of Free and Summer of Love,"…

Rafael "Mister Movie" Jovine

fire island, new york. where summers are long, hanging out is your day job and the vibes are high. until they aren’t anymore… What starts out as the ultimate hangout movie takes a dark turn and ends in a shocking twist. All summer long Peter, Dan and Sandy have this…

andy