I Praise You: Summer School

School let out for us this week, which means right now is the perfect time to revisit Summer School, the likably unambitious Harmon-starrer about a goofball gym teacher tapped to tutor teenage
screwups at Ocean Front High.

We open with a Danny Elfman  montage of the last day of school, and from there it's 97 minutes of summertime in 1987:  hot vintage Mustang, Fabiana Udenio in a bikini, Magic Mountain, minor explosions, a song by E.G. Daily, and a really awesome beach dog. My life is actually still a lot like that, except the dog is a cat, and he has riddled the house, which is not near the beach, with fleas.

I make no secret of my feelings about Mark Harmon, who is pure American awesome and handy to have nearby in case you get trapped in some wreckage. But I have praise for the whole movie, not in spite of its sunny languor and good-natured half-assedness but because of them. And because it actually holds up pretty well after 21 years, which may or may not be a good thing.