2. The Endless Summer
The Endless Summer is different from the rest of the films on this list in that it's a documentary, rather than a scripted film. The idea for the film came from a chance remark from a travel agent to the film's director, Bruce Brown, that a trip from Los Angeles to South Africa and back would cost more than a trip circumnavigating the world. The travel agent probably thought nothing of his statement, but it stuck in Brown's mind. Brown, an already-respected surf filmmaker due to films like Surf Crazy and Slippery When Wet, was looking for something unique for his next project. The travel agent's remark about a trip around the world being less expensive than most people thought got an idea going in Brown's mind: why not travel around the world, following the summer season, searching for the perfect wave? In order to make money for the film, Brown took a batch of footage from his previous films and re-edited them into a film he titled Waterlogged, which he then rushed into distribution. Once the fifty-thousand dollar budget had been earned, Brown recruited two surfers, Mike Hynson and Robert August, and the three set out on their world tour. The Endless Summer documents their trip. The Endless Summer is a really nice film to watch, especially now, because of its optimism. As August, Hynson, and Brown travel around the world, they meet all kinds of interesting people, including a drifter they hitch a ride with in South Africa and a native tribe in Ghana (whom the three stars teach to surf, which became a major hobby after they arrive and is still huge in the tribe today). None of the three film stars have anything bad to say about anyone, which becomes more and more refreshing as our world seems to descend deeper into xenophobia. All of this takes a back seat, however, to the element which gives this movie its summer flavor, namely, the surfing. It's fascinating to hear about how the surf differs from point to point around the world, from the rough, sometimes deadly waves of northern California to the surprising lack of good surf in Australia (a running joke throughout this segment of the film is Australians constantly telling our three surfers that the good surf left each beach the day before they arrived), to, most importantly, Cape St. Francis in Africa, where the three actually do find the perfect wave. Actually, perfect waves would be more accurate; Brown, in narrating the film, states that each wave was so perfectly formed that it looked like they had been made by a wave machine. The film made Cape St. Francis famous, in fact; you'll see the beach totally empty in the film, but the Cape is now one of the most famous surf spots in the world. The Endless Summer, like The Sandlot, is a perfect summer movie because it depicts a summer of the sort that none of us ordinary people will probably ever experience. The great thing about movies like this, however, is that it allows us to have that experience. It may be only by proxy, but the good feelings remain the same.