Too darn hot!
A personal heatwave film canon
If you’re reading this from the UK / Europe, I hope you’re enjoying a respite from last week. It won’t be the last heatwave of the summer, perhaps not even of this early portion of summer, and certainly not of our lifetimes (unless something changes very drastically and very, very soon, and it’s not just installing aircon). Slightly flippantly, I’ve curated my small personal canon of heatwave films. Some are pure escapism, some look the horrors of my least favourite season squarely in the face. Let me know your favourites and personal picks in the comments!
Kiss Me Kate (1953, dir. George Sidney)
Purely on the list due to Ann Miller’s opening dance.
Do The Right Thing (1989, dir. Spike Lee)
Lee’s film appears on everyone’s list because a) it’s explicitly set during a Brooklyn heatwave and b) it’s very, very, very good. Smart, energetic, funny until it is very suddenly not – the weather is not a character, per se, the film’s far too complex for that, but it is hard to imagine this particular story in another milieu.
Grey Gardens (1975, dir. Albert and David Maysles)
The two Edies offer iconic masterclasses in how to both embrace and bitch about the weather (and any other semi-uncontrollable circumstances) simultaneously, carving out your own path even as time and nature take their toll on their eponymous manor.
Romeo + Juliet (1996, dir. Baz Luhrmann)
Benvolio said it best:
“The day is hot, the Capels are abroad,
And if we meet we shall not ’scape a brawl”
Baz Luhrmann’s version is, of course, the ultimate for sunny weather, with its Hawaiian shirts, swimming pools, and skin on display.
West Side Story (1961, dir. Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins)
To those who would say having two Romeo and Juliet films on the same list is cheating, they’re wrong! These are very different heatwave vibes! Dancing adds a whole new layer of sweat and physicality. Also, a 1960s film interpretation of a 1950s stage musical that aims to capture modern city life at its grittiest (perhaps more stylistically than successfully) is best suited for days when you’re feeling romantic but not so put together.
Thelma and Louise (1991, dir. Ridley Scott)
Southwest USA landscapes and a tale of righteous outlaws make the stifling heat feel full of infinite possibility. Watch with a cold beer and your best friend.
Wake In Fright (1971, dir. Ted Kotcheff)
Technically a Christmas film but an Australian Christmas in the middle of nowhere involves lots of sweaty gambling, beer-guzzling, and gun handling. Do not watch with cold beers. Not recommended for teachers.
Any Tennessee Williams film adaptation from the 1950s-1960s
Suddenly Last Summer, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Night of the Iguana, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof… you can practically see the sweat and desperation radiating off every surface and body as tempers and temperatures rise. Streetcar may be the most overtly heatwave of the lot, but in mood and spirit, they all fit the bill.
Dog Day Afternoon (1975, dir. Sidney Lumet)
Al Pacino sweating and having mental breakdowns >>>>>>>
Y tu mamá también (2001, dir. Alfonso Cuarón)
If you really want to escape, this is the one – and it’s very hot in ways other than the weather.
Jaws (1975, dir. Steven Spielberg)
Because sometimes, despite the horrors, you can’t resist taking a dip.
What I’m reading
I was kind of disappointed by Christian Kracht’s Eurotrash despite the hype. I’m not sure its examination of macro and micro wrongdoings and weaknesses adds up to much. But I am excited to see the stage version with Ben Whishaw and Kathryn Hunter in December.
Hannah Levene’s A Pizza Hut, a Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut is so so so lovely, a semi-futurist utopian ode to finding queer utopias in the least likely places (mainly a Watford Caffe Nero). I reviewed it for The Skinny.
Of course I was going to read Liza’s memoir. I don’t think there are any huge revelations in Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!, which prioritises quantity of scandal over quality of introspection. But it’s Liza! Who cares!
I picked up Nelio Biedermann’s Lázár because it is a fun throwback to a time… at least 100 years before I was born to see the scions of old European nobility hitting their early 20s and publishing big family saga novels about the decline of their own families with the serial numbers filed off. Unfortunately, there is not much interesting here – only the most surface level moral rot and the villainy of ill-defined social movements contribute to this family’s fall from grace.
By contrast, Malina is a much better post-Freudian European examination into paranoia stemming from bad personal choices and recent (largely unnamed but very, very obvious) geopolitical events.
Because I’m unfortunately on brand, I read James Paterson’s (largely ghostwritten) The Kennedy Curse at my in-laws’ house. It unironically and uncritically uses Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon as source material. But I had no idea about the Kennedy who cheated with the babysitter and then died by skiing into a tree because he was playing “ski football”!
I don’t want to give a posh English man the credit but George Orwell was kind of cooking in Homage to Catalonia, and anyone who tries to “gotcha” with his anti-communism has to understand the context and Stalin of it all. Orwell says throughout this book that his is only one perspective and to be wary of it, that his narrative will necessarily be biased by his experiences and beliefs, and that’s true, and I bring my own biases to bear on his account, am radicalised all over again. A damning portrait of how a revolution dies when the status quo is valued about defeating fascism. Visca POUM!
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter has been on my list for years (ever since I saw a biography of Carson McCullers that looked interesting in a bookshop, and then did nothing about it). I finally finished an ebook from the library in the three days before it was due back. This was sold to me as a southern gothic story of misfits, and it is that, but at its heart it is actually about how being a Marxist in the United States of America will drive you and everyone you love insane. It *rules*. I’ve only had time for cursory research into how it has been received since its publication in 1940 (pre-Red Scare) but I’m fascinated to find out more about McCullers and how her books changed – or not – in the subsequent decades.
What I’m watching (aside from Wimbledon)
The Traitors US season 4 has dropped half its episodes on the BBC, and I’m having fun! I know a few of these people (for better and worse) and couldn’t tell you why any of the others are famous. There’s been some predictable racism and two very satisfying early exits, for vastly different reasons. I still think half of the American casts over the past four years truly believe Alan Cumming owns the “castle”.
I finished May by reviewing Erupcja for The Skinny and it’s fun! It’s breezy! The boyfriend is the thickest character ever put on screen.
The Christophers: a very interesting Soderberg to see when he’s (sort of?) embracing AI, because this is a film about humans making art as only humans can. Cole and McKellen are a match made in cinematic heaven but there’s 200% too much James C*rd*n (I’ve seen him in two 2026 releases; what’s going on).
The Glasgow Science Centre IMAX puts on Interstellar every year, it seems, and we finally went (I’d seen it twice in cinemas in 2014; my husband had never seen it before). I bawled through it! It’s so sincere and big-hearted and the space worlds look incredible in IMAX. This might not be Nolan’s best but it is my favourite.
Black Bag is so much fun (Tom Burke excels at the pathetic) but why is the lighting like that?
With a free afternoon in London in May, I went to see Cronos at the BFI. Ron Perlman deploys nuclear levels of charm and swagger.
I Swear has all the hallmarks of a film I’d find saccharine but it’s SO lovely. Even if there’s no budget and they just age up Robert Aramayo by tossing some grey powder on his hair and doing some high school-coded old age makeup.
Inglorious Basterds: narratively, kind of a mess; spiritually, kind of great? Watching
A Spielberg anniversary double bill – Close Encounters of the Third Kind at 40, AI: Artificial Intelligence at 25 – was a great way to spend a warm and sunny night at the Glasgow Film Theatre. I’d seen Close Encounters before but not AI and, as my husband pointed out upon leaving the cinema, watching them back to back was a surefire way to render The Fablemans redundant. Absolutely emotionally ruinous stuff.
Once Upon a Time in the West is a great film but that “story by” credit is a nightmare blunt rotation.
Continuing Coens of the Month at the GFT, we’re into the slightly more obscure ones, most recently A Serious Man and Intolerable Cruelty. A Serious Man is a perfect storm of stress comedy, and there’s one look on Michael Stuhlbarg’s face that’s very spoilery but pure, pure perfection. Intolerable Cruelty is slighter but so much fun. We used to have George Clooney and Catherine Zeta Jones flirting on screen!
I can’t tell you why I watched the Assassin’s Creed movie but alas, I did. I forgot Jeremy Irons was in this and when Marion Cotillard started talking about her father I said “is he going to be played by Jeremy Irons” because this is the type of film he would appear in.
Rewatched Nope, it’s still a banger. Peele gets stronger with every feature and this is a near-perfect blockbuster to me. It’s big, a bit messy, funny, and mean; it looks great; the score goes so hard; and there’s loads going on subtextually. Sure, it’s damn cynical (balanced out by parts that are pure Hollywood), and some of the “Oprah shot” stuff feels a bit boomer... But when the result is this audacious and ambitious who cares. I grew up with farm animals and horses and the first thing you learn is that you cannot count on animals to think, react, or behave as a human would. Nope is one of the best creature features out there for this reason - it’s a horse girl movie for the horse girls who know how stupid horses really are (they don’t give a shit about your feelings). But Nope is also delightful because you can tell every horse on film is super relaxed and a great actor even as the audio effects are overlaying panicked neighs and they’re doing their best trained kicks and prances. It takes a lot of stress out of the horror knowing the horses were having a great time.
I’ve got through the transcendent parts of Twin Peaks s2 and am now onto the silly bits (pine weasel, Billy Zane, Windom Earle). I can’t wait.
The Misfits (seen at GFT on Marilyn Monroe’s 100th birthday) is prime “men will do anything but go to therapy” fodder.
Snowtown: a good Justin Kurzel was in order after the video game greige. This one looked like shit on purpose!
How to Steal a Million is such a fun romp where Audrey Hepburn wears the most stylish outfits known to woman and Peter O’Toole executes one of many daring heist skills scored to clown music. (Also, O’Toole joins the elite list of actors who have played romantic leads opposite both Audrey and Katharine Hepburns alongside Cary Grant and Humphrey Bogart, which is possibly Hollywood’s most elite and excellent list.)
I really wanted to like Unidentified because Haifaa al-Mansour did some great work on The Good Lord Bird but… what??? I reviewed for MovieJawn.
Leonora in the Morning Light: ugh no more biopics! No more biopics about women artists suffering! Otherwise we get something like this, a deeply boring film about a very interesting woman that perves on her trauma instead of celebrating her art!
When on holiday with the in-laws we started watching (for them, re-watching) Slow Horses. I love the grotty fail-agents who all hate each other’s guts! They’re my best friends!
Also on holiday, Widows – a great safe bet to show your parents / in-laws when you need a night in. Perhaps not as magnetic a few years on, but it’s a real shame this was slept on to the point that Steve McQueen hasn’t made a fun contemporary thriller again.
And for a show with a similar name: Widow’s Bay might have been slightly overhyped (perhaps by me, craving some spookums on an island) but the comic beats are so well judged.
Disclosure Day is not at the heights of the earlier Spielberg sci-fi but it has a huge heart and Emily Blunt’s best performance to date. Impossible to dislike.