highlifer

Last Day of Summer

There's a few movies that I think of as perfect summer movies - like Jaws, or Meatballs. I often like to watch Bull Durham on the night before baseball season. But I don't think any movie captures the melancholy of the last day of summer like Hollywood Knights.

Yes, I mean Hollywood Knights, of Robert Wuhl, and Fran Drescher, and Tony Danza and Michelle Pfeiffer. And Stuart Pankin and Moosie Dreier!! How can you forget them? (And no, I didn't look those names up, but I'm 99% sure I got them right.)

If you haven't seen it, and didn't know the most important piece of trivia, which is that this is where the New Bomb Turks got their name, let me bring you up to speed. it's Halloween, and the last night of Tubby's Drive in. (That one I did have to look up.)One of the regulars is getting ready to go to Vietnam. Most of them are just out of high school and haven't yet figured out what to do with themselves. Some young car club recruits are dropped off in Watts and need to get the soul dj there to dedicate a song to Tubbys. (And, no I haven't seen this movie in over 20 years, but I'm fairly sure the song is Heatwave.)

So, no, Halloween isn't exactly the last day of summer, but they live in LA, so summer never really "ends" like it does in the East. And yes, this movie is a dumb sex comedy, that were comedy gold in the early 80's. But while I can't remember anything about Porky's, other than that Kim Cattrall howled when she had sex, I remember almost everything about Hollywood Knights. I think Stuart Pankin's name was Dudley, and he had asthma, and said "I cannot function without my glasses and my puffer." and I thought that was brilliant. I bet I watched that movie 20 times on HBO.
But what sticks is that melancholy feeling at the end. That this day is great, and was fun, but tomorrow the fun goes away and real life begins. And you're not even going to be able to go to Tubby's and jaw about it. It's gone, and it's not coming back.

I spent this summer at the pool in my neighborhood. Yesterday I learned that after next summer, they are tearting the pool down, and building still more freaking condos. And the first thing I thought of is "this is just like the end of Hollywood Knights." Summer's over, and it might never be like this again.

Granted, all the news has been making me feel a little fragile, the kind of fragile where you cry over heartwarming soup commercials (tm Gretchen) But I can't quit thinking about Hollywood Knights, and I'm going to have to watch it to see if it holds up. And even if it doesn't, it'll just prove my point, that the time in my life where I can be moved by Hollywood Knights is over, and it's never coming back. But I bet I still giggle a little when everyone detemines that the punch has a little "whang" to it.

posted by jamie @ 10:16 PM