Summer School (1987)

Good characters save it.

The usual formula is: take a shared teen experience and people it with stereotypes, show kids being smarter than the adults...yadda yadda. Summer School has a lot of this fluff but thank God it also has Mark Harmon who gives a believable performance as an aging and good-natured surfer who's forced to teach over his favorite months. And I'm a sucker for any film that portrays this profession with so much optimism.

Never mind the fact that he lives in a million-dollar beachfront bungalow, owns a wardrobe of the coolest vintage Hawaiian shirts ever made...and that all of the kids have their own ready-baked "quirks"... but the actors are mostly quite good and the film keeps it on the level. They range from great acting of the surfer girl to the grating mug of "Chainsaw."

So, while Summer School is no John Hughes film, it's much better than you might think. April 22, 2008

Great film, but a disappointing double-dip DVD release.

Everybody knows SUMMER SCHOOL is an 80's classic, so I'll skip the review and tell you what the "Life's a Beach Edition" features are.

A 2.35:1 widescreen transfer compared to the original DVD's 1.78:1, a trailer, a stills gallery, a boring audio commentary with director Carl Reiner and Mark Harmon and two short featurettes.

The first featurette: "Inside the Teachers Lounge" (14 min.) stars writer Jeff Franklin, director Carl Reiner and cast members Mark Harmon, Patrick Labyorteaux, Robin Thomas, Dean Cameron, and Ken Olandt. The second is "Summer School Yearbook" (10 min.) has some interview clips of the cast. Nothing deep or profound...it's only 10 minutes long.

Is it worth buying if you already have the original DVD? Not really.

Also what's up with the misleading "bikini xing" cover art? The movie's rated PG-13. April 4, 2008

"Hasta luego, Placido Domingo!"

Oboy, I remember this film. Coming out in 1987, I saw SUMMER SCHOOL in the theater when I was a teen, and I remember laughing quite a bit. And even now the movie holds up well. With People magazine voting Mark Harmon 1986's Sexiest Man Alive, Paramount was quick to take advantage by casting him as the slacker lead of this sun-drenched teen/romantic comedy. Of course, it doesn't hurt to also have director Carl Reiner and three beautiful ladies (Alley, Thorne-Smith, and Fabiana Udenio) providing backup. And, for the trivia nuts, there's the early musical scoring work by Danny Elfman.

The plot now: For southern California's Oceanfront High School the regular school semester has just ended. Freddy Shoop (Mark Harmon) is the rather shallow, extremely laid-back gym teacher, and he's rarin' to go on his Hawaiian getaway with his 21-year-old honey. Until, that is, he's tapped to conduct a summer school class (the subject being remedial English) to a pack of "social deviants." Freddy protests vigorously ("I ain't no English teacher!"), and, sure enough, the man shows early on that he's pretty clueless in the classroom.

It doesn't help that his class consists of a loser set of misfits, among whose ranks include a pregnant teenager, a chronic sleeper, a daydreaming surfer girl, a sexy Italian exchange student (Udenio), and a duo of class clowns who worship creature feature flicks like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But, then, guess what? Despite certain miscues (or to quote a nerd's grandmother: "Is going on throw-up rides and rubbing barnyard animals your idea of quality education?"), a surprising thing happens. Freddy starts to care about his students, and his students start to care about more than just slacking off. Following the trend of these school pictures, there's the usual big exam at the finale. So will these remedial students measure up?

I wouldn't call SUMMER SCHOOL a great comedy, but I would call it a good one. It's not as uproarious or as raunchy as PORKY'S, for example (not that I'm calling PORKY'S a great comedy, mind you). With a PG-13 rating, the tone here is often breezy and the humor frequently good-natured and (this is very important) unforced. Most of the credit falls on Carl Reiner, who's been around forever and certainly knows his comedy shtick. Carl helms the picture with experience and precision, giving just enough rope for his young actors to shine yet knowing when to rein them in.

And then there's Mark Harmon. I've always pictured him as a poor man's Kevin Costner, in that there's a physical resemblance there and that Harmon's cinematic career hadn't taken off as well as Costner's had. Other than this flick, the only other films I can associate with Harmon are (2003)Freaky Friday and Worth Winning (a little romantic comedy which I really liked). However, in SUMMER SCHOOL, Mark Harmon shines effortlessly and is funnier than someone who started as quarterback for UCLA has any right to be. When the Sexiest Man Alive has a scene in which he talks while eating and you can see food chunks in his mouth, well, you must give him props for keeping it real.

Harmon is ably backed by the kids who play Chainsaw and Dave. Two classic scenes they're key in involve the petting zoo killer bunnies and the unforgettable classroom massacre. And Courtney Thorne-Smith, gawd, I was crushing on her in this film as fiercely as anyone, and, after this role, you could see that she was going places. Meanwhile, according to the film commentary, Kirstie Alley's icy-cool (but endearing) performance as Shoop's potential love interest earned her a gig at CHEERS.

SUMMER SCHOOL certainly isn't as gripping and message-driven as, say, Stand and Deliver or Lean on Me. But, in its own way, camouflaged underneath the juvie chuckles, SUMMER SCHOOL has some things to say, about teen-aged pregnancy, underage drinking, and illiteracy. But the strongest point it might have made is that success doesn't have to come in leaps and bounds and isn't necessarily defined by straight A's. That, maybe, sometimes, actually putting out the effort and that learning by increments are enough to start with. After all (this is the sappy part), life is built on little moments, which then make up the big ones. So you can watch the film for its underlying message. Or you can watch it for the classroom massacre scene. Either way, it works.

Side note: The film commentary as provided by Mark Harmon and Carl Reiner is, like the film itself, pleasant, easy-going, and even occasionally offers behind-the-scene nuggets. Harmon does most of the talking; remember that Reiner at this stage was in his mid-80's and has moments in which he comments with a "Oh, I forgot about that one." "Inside the Teachers' Lounge" functions as the "making of" featurette, while "SUMMER SCHOOL Yearbook" is interesting in that you get to see what several of the kids who played Shoop's students now look like. And, with that, hasta luego, Placido Domingo! December 5, 2007

Still an enjoyable movie 20 years later

I never equated Summer School with anything remotely raunchy, so I was surprised to see that term brought up in the top review here in regard to this movie.

I loved watching this when it was first on cable nearly twenty years ago and I look forward to watching this again real soon. I enjoyed Mark Harmon's and Kirstie Alley's performances, and seeing the star review reminded me of Courtney Thorne-Smith's performance back when she was an unknown (I always love looking at, or thinking about, movies from the 80s and 90s and having those wide-eyed moments when you recognize someone who's very well-known today, yet you glanced over them back in the day). Dean Cameron's role as one of the main class clowns was memorable.

Even though the plot was funny and carefree, one can't help but think it's possible that kids who can't read, or who are dyslexic, or have seemingly insurmountable personal problems can't succeed if just one person or teacher took the time to show them they cared (minus the bribing - or did that help in the end?).

This is an enjoyable film that hasn't lost its touch after 20 years (wow, how time flies!). It brings a smile to my face just thinking about it, and, perhaps, a few memories for those of us who went to summer school to chuckle at. - Donna Di Giacomo
June 4, 2007

Awesome classic...

Great classic, with some awesome stars in it. Truly a defining movie of the 80's period. May 12, 2007

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