I asked Eleanor ( @bloomsdayreport ) to share her five summer movie recommendations this week!

Slums of Beverly Hills (1998)

It’s hot. You’re a teen. You’re horny. Everything is confusing. And you’re Natasha Lyonne starring in Tamara Jenkins’ debut feature film about a young girl navigating her family, class status, and body.

Camp (2003)

It’s hot. You’re a teen. You’re horny. Everything is confusing. And you’re at musical theater camp, where there’s an incredible talent and even more great drama. Plus: the legend himself, Stephen Sondheim, shows up! (Also worth checking out is this excellent oral history.

My Year of Dicks (2022):

It’s hot. You’re a teen. You’re horny. Everything is confusing. And you’re trying desperately to lose your virginity to the right guy, spiraling down a series of beautifully-animated wormholes and flights of fancy and cringe-inducing parental lectures until you land in precisely the right place.

Chasing Chasing Amy (2023)

A sweet and earnest exploration of the weight of the things we become obsessed with as teens. After giving a TED talk about how Chasing Amy saved his life, filmmaker Sav Rodgers embarks on a journey to wrestle with the complicated legacy of Kevin Smith’s film about a straight, cis man who falls in love with a lesbian.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

Nothing says “give us summer Fridays” more than filling your corporate office building with a bunch of creatures who menace your boss via spider webs, electricity, singing “New York New York,” and an evil salad bar.

Eleanor would like you to know that in 1990 her summer birthday weekend coincided with the opening weekends for both Gremlins 2 and Dick Tracy. Can you imagine going to the cinema and having these two masterpieces to choose from? She would like to recreate this double feature someday, where she will dress as the hot lady gremlin.