Two Perfect Summer Movies: Dirty Dancing and In the Heights

The time-worn assumption is that “summer movies” equate to massively action-packed, explosion-filled, superhero-laden movies — the summer blockbuster, the big tentpole manly-man extravaganza.

Obviously I’m the outlier here. And not just because I have no desire to have my eardrums blown out in a sticky-yet-still-freezing movie theater. I want my summer movies to encapsulate the vibe of the season, and to watch them on my couch again and again and again when I want to immerse myself in their world.

So I offer up Dirty Dancing and — lest you think I only watch films made prior to 2006 — In the Heights as the ne plus ultra of summer movies.

You can have your explosions, but I want song and dance in my summer films. The music and dancing are in fact crucial to distilling the vibe of each movie. Do I even need to explain the brilliance of each soundtrack?

Actually, Dirty Dancing had so many great songs in it that they put out a sequel soundtrack, More Dirty Dancing, with all the bangers that somehow did not make the cut for the original. I had both on cassette, obvs. Despite In the Heights trimming songs and streamlining the plot — for the better, I’d argue — you still get more than an hour’s worth of songs to belt out in the car.

Both movies capture a rush of emotion, the sense that everything is fleeting and changing around you. It’s a specific feeling that your body just doesn’t compute the same way in the crisp chill of October or the grey freeze of February.

In food terms, Dirty Dancing is a fresh peach. In the Heights is a bomb pop. (I know, it should be piragua. But this is my analogy.) Dirty Dancing is a moment that you’re already missing before it’s over, knowing that its ripeness can only be savored once. In the Heights is a bright and hopeful moment you’re trying to hold on to even as it melts away.

Each deals in this seasonal sense of wistfulness and nostalgia in its own way: DD with its rearview optimism for the summer of 1963 (with a bonus whiff of summer camp), ITH with its specifically New York City feeling of how neighborhoods are always a mind map of what they used to be when you first experienced them.

Finally, seasons are visceral. You don’t just appreciate them visually, you experience them in a fully sensory way. And you feeeeel summer in these two movies — summer in nature and summer in the city. There’s not just sweat. There’s the scent and tickle of dew in the grass; the chill of diving into a mountain lake; the splash of a fire hydrant and the drip of an air conditioner; the smell of chlorine and sunscreen at a swimming pool; and the way the heat rises from the sidewalk and asphalt.

So if you haven’t watched either In the Heights or Dirty Dancing recently, go ahead and lace up your Keds, practice your mambo, and take the A train to escape into summer ASAP.

P.S. According to this excellent appreciation, Dirty Dancing was the number one video rental in 1988. Part of me believes that milestone came from all of us tweenage girls renting it for every single sleepover that year.

P.P.S. I am still upset that the incomparable Kelly Bishop did not get more dancing time. Nobody puts Emily Gilmore in a corner!

Two honorable summer movie mentions:

In Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, Verona Beach is summer all the time, with the heat of the beach, of fiery grudges, of Gatsby-esque parties on terraces and staircases, and a late-night swimming pool dip with the guy you totally fell in love with at first sight.

And you’d think I would also say The Great Gatsby for those summer soirees, but no — I’m going with the 1995 Sabrina remake with Julia Ormond, Harrison Ford, and Greg Kinnear. I have always wanted to attend a Larrabee garden party, sigh.