Review: Summer Camp — Movies for the Rest of Us with Bill Newcott | The Saturday Evening Post (2024)

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Summer Camp

⭐️ ⭐️

Rating: PG-13

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Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

Stars: Diane Keaton, Kathy Bates, Alfre Woodard, Eugene Levy, Dennis Haysbert

Writer/Director: Castille Landon

Everyone gets to make their own career choices. I get that. And after long, illustrious decades of seeking out challenging new roles, taking chances, and flirting with creative disaster, it’s hard to blame actors for cashing in their artiste chips and settling into a glide path that ensures continued employment with minimal risk.

Robert De Niro seems to have found the best balance: For every The War with Grandpa and About My Father he still manages to squeeze in a Killers of the Flower Moon and The Irishman (it helps to have a buddy like Martin Scorsese as your personal Jiminy Cricket).

But consider Liam Neeson, long one of the screen’s most nuanced and daring actors, who now seems tragically content to portray Everymen reluctantly thrust into roles of unimagined violence (Retribution, In the Land of Saints and Sinners).

And then there’s Diane Keaton, who redefined the concept of a comedic female lead in Annie Hall, who provided the moral anchor in The Godfather, who courageously explored the dark side of singleness in Looking for Mr. Goodbar — and who, as recently as 2016, shone as the manipulative Vatican confidante in The Young Pope.

Keaton has been at this for more than 50 years, and the undeniable fact is that any female actor over 40 immediately runs into the double-barreled shotgun of Hollywood ageism and sexism. That’s probably why she has taken to producing many of her own films over the past decade. Nevertheless, her recent track record of producer/star projects — Mack & Rita, Maybe I Do, and her latest film, Summer Camp — provides clear evidence that Keaton should fire her producer.

Here Keaton costars with Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard as three childhood chums who attend what is either the 50th or 60th reunion of their old summer camp. The script says both (If you do the math, the longer interim makes more sense), and that lack of concern for detail is emblematic of the film’s ramshackle approach to what passes for a plot.

The background noise of Summer Camp is the persistent notion that it’s just going to be fun to spend a couple of hours in the company of these three endlessly appealing stars. And that’s true, as far as it goes. Not only do we like all these actors, it’s clear they really like each other. But while the stars are having enormous fun on the other side of that screen going river rafting, having food fights, and flirting with handsome, age-appropriate guys (Eugene Levy and Dennis Haysbert), we’re out in the woods somewhere, lost in the dark, desperately feeling tree trunks for some sense of where we’re going or why we’re here.

Much of that disorientation is due to the fact that, in virtually every sense, the characters in Summer Camp do things that no actual human being would ever do. When we meet Woodard, who plays an ER nurse, she interrupts a desperate CPR procedure to answer a phone call from her husband. Bates’s character, a mega-successful author/life coach, kidnaps her two old friends from their respective jobs and whisks them to the camp — the assumption being that essential health care workers and pharmaceutical company executives (that’s Keaton’s somewhat ill-defined job) can disappear for a week on a moment’s notice. And upon arrival at the lakeside camp, Bate’s character reveals that she has somehow managed to defy the laws of physics, having converted what is on the outside a tiny rustic cabin into what is, inside, a multi-story playgirl penthouse with mood lighting and Muzak.

The improbabilities in Summer Camp spread like poison ivy: Upon arrival, every one of these 60-plus campers is unexpectedly ordered to turn over their cell phones for the duration, and no one objects (except Keaton, who unreasonably insists someone at her billion-dollar company might wonder why she didn’t show up for work on Monday). A truly imbecilic camp security officer (Betsy Sodaro, channeling Chris Farley, and not in a good way) observes the campers from behind two-way mirrors and leaps out angrily when they step out of line.

And when, near the finale, the true nature of this camp reunion is revealed, well, let’s just say the plot device stinks worse than the latrines that must be around here somewhere, but no one ever seems to use.

It would be easy to lay the blame at the feet of writer/director Castille Landon (After Ever Happy, After We Fell), who heretofore has specialized in filming earnest young adult romances featuring dewy-eyed maidens and tousle-haired youths whose shirts are missing all their top buttons. But the fact is, there are a lot of grownups in the room here whose accumulated centuries in show biz could have steered the whole project in a more reasonable direction.

Besides, Landon’s resume may well explain why the only scenes in Summer Camp that work at all are the sweetly understated romantic interludes between Keaton and Levy. Here, Landon seems content to simply let the camera run while these consummate pros explore the ageless dance of two people getting acquainted, realizing they like each other, and individually considering the implications of that. At those moments, against all odds, a movie that seems determined to push us away with one unlikelihood after another suddenly draws us in with the most natural turn of events imaginable: Two people fall in love.

That’s a movie I’d like to see, and these are the two people I’d love to see in it.

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Review: Summer Camp — Movies for the Rest of Us with Bill Newcott | The Saturday Evening Post (2024)

FAQs

What is the new movie about summer camp? ›

Summer Camp tells the story of Nora (Diane Keaton), Ginny (Kathy Bates), and Mary (Alfre Woodard), who have been best friends since being inseparable at summer camp.

Is Summer Camp a good movie? ›

“Summer Camp” is a very flawed film and relentlessly predictable. Each woman has a lesson to learn or an epiphany to experience, and their awakening comes right on cue. Rotten score. This, however, is merely designed to give the actors work without harming their images or taxing their abilities.

Where to watch summer camp 2024 in the USA? ›

Summer Camp, a comedy movie starring Diane Keaton, Kathy Bates, and Alfre Woodard is available to stream now. Watch it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV or Plex - Kostenlose Filme & TV on your Roku device.

What 90s movie was about kids at summer camp? ›

Camp Nowhere is a 1994 American adventure comedy film directed by Jonathan Prince, written by Andrew Kurtzman and Eliot Wald, and stars Christopher Lloyd, Jonathan Jackson in his film debut, Wendy Makkena and M. Emmet Walsh.

Where was the new movie summer camp filmed? ›

Most camp scenes were filmed at Camp Pinnacle in Hendersonville, and the rafting and ziplining scenes were filmed at Nantahala Outdoor Center in Bryson City, where the stars don life vests and paddle through rapids. There are also scenes filmed at Blue Ridge Community College in Hendersonville.

What is the number one movie of the summer? ›

Summer Box Office
YearCumulative Gross#1 Release
2022$3,391,665,529Top Gun: Maverick
2021$1,745,734,965Black Widow
2020$70,657,769Tenet
2019$4,320,749,661The Lion King
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What is the downside of summer camp? ›

Here are some of the potential downsides to summer camp: It can be expensive. Certain programs may increase pressure on kids to perform and/or compete. Absence from home and/or separation from family can result in anxiety.

What is the movie about summer camp and aliens? ›

Stranded at a summer camp when aliens attack the planet, four teens with nothing in common embark on a perilous mission to save the world.

How much is summer camp in us? ›

Summer day camp costs
ProgramsAverage weekly cost
Public parks$50 – $200
Non-profit organizations(YMCA, Boys & Girls Club)$50 – $300
Scout camp(Boy and Girl Scouts of America)$100 – $300
Aquariums, Museums, & Zoos$100 – $350
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Feb 1, 2024

How many summer camps are there in the US? ›

With over 12,000 summer camps across the United States, it can be daunting for parents to search for, vet and select the best camp for their kids.

How old do you have to be to go to summer camp in America? ›

Meet the minimum age

To meet visa and insurance requirements, you must be 18 years or older before 15th June of the summer you want to take part in.

Which movie featuring summer camp was released in the 1990s? ›

Camp Nowhere (1994)

A bunch of teens don't want to go off to camp, so they blackmail their no-good drama teacher (Christopher Lloyd) into convincing their parents to pay him to take them to a made-up camp for the summer.

What is the movie about two kids who run away from summer camp? ›

Two kids befriend each other after being left stripped nude in a lake as the victims of an immature summer camp prank. They run away from camp and for three days learn more about each other ...

What 80s movie is about kids at camp? ›

Sleepaway Camp
Production companyAmerican Eagle Films
Distributed byUnited Film Distribution Company
Release dateNovember 18, 1983
Running time84 minutes
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What is the Netflix show about haunted summer camp? ›

Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare.

What is the kids movie about summer camp and zombies? ›

When two trouble-making brothers scam their way into a summer camp and break all the rules, they accidentally trigger a curse that brings a camp fire zombie story to life.

Did they take summer camp Island off HBO? ›

The series' sixth and final season was originally to be released in 2022 on HBO Max. Despite the series being removed from HBO Max in the United States in August 2022, Cartoon Network had informed The A.V. Club that the season would air on Cartoon Network.

What is the movie about fat kids going to camp? ›

Plump kids are lured into joining a posh fat camp with the promise of quick weight loss and good times, only to find that it is a woodland hellhole run by a psycho ex-fitness instructor.

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