My favorite summer movies

Who cares if it’s hardly believable and didn’t win any awards? If its only accomplishments were the beach, bikinis and the “Move It Like Bernie” dance craze, I call it a success.

Ben Stiller’s unstable exercise-freak character Tony Perkis was so good in this movie that they resurrected him and gave him a new name in Dodgeball. But this is the original underdog story, and if you’ve seen it, you share my desire to get bounced off “The Blob.”

I’m watching this as I write this list. It’s hard to imagine how horribly this film was received by critics—and it just barely got distribution. Since then it has reached cult status and become an irreverent summer-camp classic with a now-famous cast, including Bradley Cooper and Paul Rudd.

Richard Donner and Steven Spielberg could do no wrong in the mid-1980s, and this is the quintessentially epic kid’s adventure movie that is not just for kids. Of course, it also features the often-imitated, never-duplicated “Truffle Shuffle.”

The comedy by which all other comedies are measured. Too many hilarious parts to count, but I saw the “doodie in the pool” scene as a kid and a Baby Ruth [bar] has never looked the same.