Indian Summer

A couple of weeks ago, I took a look back at the Meatballs franchise. I thought for my next couple of posts, I would stay with summer camp theme and take a look back at a couple of forgotten camp comedies. Plus, it's summer. First up is 1993's Indian Summer.

Camp owner "Unca" Lou, Alan Arkin, has a reunion at his camp grounds with his favorite group of counselors. Now approaching middle age, these former campers resort back to their youth and try to forget about their grown up problems. They also must deal with some issues that weren't resolved when they were younger.

The cast of campers is pretty terrific. Diane Lane, Bill Paxton, Elizabeth Perkins, Kevin Pollack, Vincent Spano, Julie Warner, Matt Craven, and Kimberly Williams. The one who really steals the show however is director Sam Raimi, in a basically silent performance as Lou's right hand man. He is hysterical. Intersting sidenote, Craven also played a camp counselor in Meatballs.

This was written and directed by Mike Binder, a filmmaker that I've never been that impressed with, with the exception of this movie. His work seems to focus a lot on middle age, and even though this one does as well, it's not as dreary and has a lot of laughs in it.

Indian Summer is like The Big Chill went to camp. It's a fun film and a great showcase for the ensemble.

It's available on dvd and blu ray.