1985 Directed by Carl Reiner
Jack Chester, an overworked air traffic controller, takes his family on vacation to the beach. Things immediately start to go wrong for the Chesters, and steadily get worse. Jack ends up in a feud with a local yachtsman, and has to race him to regain his pride and family's respect.
Summer Rental - Ein total verrückter Sommer, Malditas Vacaciones
Been ages ago since last watch.
Always fun and uplifting to watch John Candy on any occasion.
Didn't realize it had a young Joey Lawrence and Kerri Green with those headphones!
Great summer family fun!
Arrrgg!
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There is not a lot to Carl Reiner's "Summer Rental," but it does offer up a respectable amount of fun. The John Candy-starring comedy, all pratfalls and easy energy, is a good-natured, appealing piece of work that does not ask too much of its audience or over stay its welcome.
When Candy's air traffic controller goes on a much-needed family vacation, all manner of comic mayhem ensues. Sun burns, fancy restaurants, exhibitionist neighbors, and snooty locals all present their share of sometimes witty, sometimes silly comic possibilities. The cast, including Candy, Rip Torn, Karen Austin, and Kerri Green, is energetically committed to the goings-on, and Reiner keeps those goings-on trotting at a quick clip. The film is not showy, but…
Formulamatic, goofy, puerile and lowbrow but buoyed by a charming as hell performance by John Candy, and ridiculously(focus on ridiculous) fantastic performances by Rip Torn and Richard Crenna, Summer Rental, while not good, becomes an entertaining piece of comedy on the strength of its cast. Gags hit as often as they miss but charm is the vessel that carries you through. If you don't laugh at Summer Rental, then you don't deserve to touch them.
We've had another heat advisory wave coming through here the past few days (big surprise, right?) and it's feeling particularly sweltering again, which always makes me want to watch something sweaty or summery or both. It would make sense for seeing heat on screen to make me feel more miserable, but it instead has the effect of transporting me, getting pulled into what the characters are experiencing more than what I am, so for a short time I can ignore the oppression of a southern summer. Seasonal viewing is rad like that.
Summer Rental is a favorite I've been revisiting through the years, ever since childhood. John Candy's pretty much always a good time, the 80s are pretty much always…
The guy in John Candy's bed trying to watch The Smurfs is actually credited as 'Fat Man'
Fat Man: "You get out of here fella. I'm trying to watch the Smurfs."
Candy: "You're trying to watch the Smurfs?"
Fat Man: "Yeah."
Candy: "Did you see the one where Papa Smurf took a crutch and smashed the shit out of a guy with a red hat? Did you see that one? You want to see that one?"
With a few exceptions (Back to the Future, The Goonies, After Hours), 1985 was not a great year for American movies. Hollywood turned out a lot of sequels, knockoffs and Oscar-bait period pieces. You could go a long way through a catalog from 1985 without finding anything that stands out or demands attention today. Movies that year seemed made for immediate watchability, with movie companies taking the safest and surest routes they could find to box-office returns.
Summer Rental fit its year well. It's more "movie-product" than movie: It was cheap, fast and targeted to a specific audience. Producers hired veteran Carl Reiner to direct and they slapped this no-frills comedy together in a hurry in early 1985 to get…
It took about fifteen minutes for this John Candy comedy to grow on me. Summer Rental is not a classic or a forgotten gem; it is rightly forgotten. Despite itself, I can't deny the fun I had watching this. Predictable and formulaic of course but there is such a levity to the whole thing, such an easy spirit to it that you can't help but get sucked in.
Rip Torn is bonkers as a sea captain but he makes it work. 100% of the success of the film is the relationship and chemistry between Torn and Candy, without that there's nothing. The wife of Candy's character is obviously doing her best Beverly D'Angelo impression but it mostly works.
This movie…
John Candy's first real starring role in an American movie, and he proves he has the star power to carry a movie without his SCTV buddies. He was well on his way with this middle of the road vacation comedy to becoming the superstar he would become.
Directed by Carl Reiner, but not written by him, so it lacks his usual zaniness. It's basically a family comedy, with the exception of one neighbor obsessed with her boob job and a few words here and there. Richard Crenna plays the nemesis/asshole so well that he steals most of his scenes. It feels like a mashup of Captain Ron and National Lampoon's Vacation. Another comfort food type movie from John Candy, not super funny, but just funny enough and fun to watch.
Karen Austin as John Candy's wife: "I love the way you look in a bathing suit."
Candy: "My mother was right, you're twisted!"
This had me expecting so much better. There were still funny moments, but they get fewer and fewer far between. The final half of the film is just objectively drawn out.
God, what a dull movie, which I can’t believe I’m saying about an 80’s comedy starring John Candy. Apparently, there was a time when you could take your family on a month-long beach house vacation, yet spend the majority of that time away from said family learning to operate a sailboat with a pretend pirate, and plotting revenge against a rich guy who stole your lobster. Vaguely recall seeing this in the late 80’s and the only thing I remember from then was the implied nudity scene that doesn’t contain any actual nudity. Still a disappointment.
Captain Scully can upsell frozen fish to women in a white glove holding a ketchup popsicle stick.
