What more appropriate way to recognize the start of summer than to watch (for the first time) the seminal surfing documentary The Endless Summer?
It was dated, sure -- some of director Bruce Brown's narration is hilarious -- but the 1966 film actually felt like a distinctive surfing documentary that I hadn't seen before, even though so many surfing documentaries have followed in its literal wake. (Then again, I've only seen a couple of them.)
It's actually been a surfing-centric weekend for me. Not only did I watch The Endless Summer on Saturday night, but I also read a friend's TV script the next morning that had to do with a bunch of Hawaiian teenage surfers -- mostly girls. I guess you could kind of call it Blue Crush: The TV Show -- maybe that's how he envisioned it. (And if you haven't seen John Stockwell's Blue Crush, you're in for a treat.)
Well, I certainly hope it's not an endless summer for me. When the calendar turns over to September, my wife and I will be expecting our first child, whose gender we have chosen not to find out. The baby is due right after Labor Day, and since Memorial Day and Labor Day are the informal bookends to the summer season, I'm now officially into the last season before my baby's birth. So indeed it will feel pretty endless while we're waiting to meet him/her ...
Who knows -- maybe he or she will even become a surfer one day.
3 comments:
Ahhhhh....The Endless Summer. This is one of my favorite movies of all times, and given your baby-spin on watching this film for the first time, I should say that my dad took me to see it when I was five at a theater near our hometown. It is the first movie that I clearly remember seeing in the theater, and what I remember the most about it was the sort of parental pride my father took over the film...his smiles at my smiles seemed to say 'This is summer in a nutshell, I hope you like it'. I did like it and do like it, and I've ritualistically watched it nearly every summer since...and its on the short list of films that I can't wait to share with my son once he's old enough. Ahhhhh....The Endless Summer.
Nice post. This is one I haven't seen in years and may have to revisit.
Don,
I didn't know you inherited your love of all things surfing from your Dad. Cool. Didn't know they had much surfing in Kansas City. ;-)
Chris,
Yeah, it's quite a pleasant watch, even if the narration feels a little bit goofy.
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