THE WHOOSH, WHOOSH, WHOOSH of lawn sprinklers in the Atlanta spring/summer means that one big indoor event has again arrived: the Coca-Cola Summer Film Festival at the Fox Theatre. You can almost smell the popcorn, can’t you?
The 2013 edition unreels 14 films and two mornings of cartoons, a tried-and-true mix of classics, blockbusters and animation. Take out your smartphones and mark your calendars for Oz or 42, Les Misérables, the Sing-along-a Grease or Leo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, among other tasty titles.
(The Aug. 29 movie was undetermined at press time. And, please remember, the lineup can change depending on the availability of summer blockbusters. Those Hollywood types can be fickle.)
All movies begin at 7:30 p.m., unless otherwise noted. Saturday cartoons on June 15 and Aug. 17 begin at 10 a.m. Doors open an hour before show time and the usual pre-movie activities — the sing-along with the Mighty Mo organ, cartoons and newsreels — begin about 40 minutes later.
Single tickets are $10 (Saturday morning cartoons $5) on the Fox website, at the box office on Peachtree Street or at 1.855.ATL.TIXX. Grease is $15 in advance, $20 at the door. The lineup:
JUNE MOVIES
14th: Raiders of the Lost Ark (PG, 115 minutes). Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg were both much younger when this 1981 adventure, the first (chronologically the second) in the Indiana Jones franchise was made. Here, the U.S. government hires the fearless archaeologist to locate the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis get it. Karen Allen co-stars. Won Oscars for set decoration, visual effects, editing, sound and sound effects editing.
Fun fact: Ford, Spielberg’s first choice for the Indy role, was hired less than three weeks before principal photography began. Also considered: Tom Selleck, Nick Nolte, Steve Martin, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase.
15th: Oz the Great and Powerful (PG, 130 minutes). From March 2013. A small-time magician (James Franco) is swept away to an enchanted land and into a power struggle with three witches. Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams co-star. What would L. Frank Baum think?
Fun fact: Look for references to other Oz incarnations and/or Baum, including the “Baum Brothers Circus,” Oz’s assistant “Frank” and Glinda’s mode of transportation, a bubble.
21st: 42 (PG-13, 128 minutes). From April 2013. Meet Jackie Robinson (1919-1972) and follow his history-making tenure with the Brooklyn Dodgers. As much a love story as a sports movie. Much of it was filmed in and around Macon and Atlanta. Chadwick Boseman is Jackie, Harrison Ford is Dodgers exec Branch Rickey and Nicole Beharie is Jackie’s wife, Rachel. (Pictured, at left: Boseman. Photo by Warner Bros.)
Fun fact: Spike Lee floated a Jackie Robinson project in 1995 with Denzel Washington, but it never got off the ground.
22nd: Finding Nemo (G, 100 minutes). 2 p.m. A 10th anniversary screening. My, how Dory has grown. Or not. This 2003 crowd-pleaser tells the story of a timid clownfish determined to bring his kidnapped son home. Voices by Albert Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres, Willem Dafoe, Brad Garrett and Barry Humphries (aka Dame Edna).
Fun fact: Pixar characters are often planned years in advance. Nemo first appeared in Monsters, Inc. (2001) as a stuffed toy on a couch in Boo’s room.
22nd: Les Misérables (PG-13, 158 minutes). 7:30 p.m. The mega-movie based on the mega-Broadway musical based on Victor Hugo’s rather huge novel follows the travails of anti-hero Jean Valjean in 19th-century France. Winner of 2013 Academy Awards for makeup and hair, sound mixing and supporting actress Anne Hathaway as the doomed Fantine. Remember, at the end of the day you’re another day older.
Fun fact: Fantine runners-up included Amy Adams, Jessica Biel, Marion Cotillard and Kate Winslet. And, yes, all the songs were recorded live and not in a studio.
23rd: The Birds (PG, 119 minutes). Show time: 4 p.m. You’ll get out just in time to see the starlings gathering on the wires and trees. Caw. This 50th anniversary screening of the Hitchcock classic takes us back to that small town in Northern California where winged creatures begin attacking humans in increasing numbers and viciousness. With Tippi Hedren, Suzanne Pleshette and Rod Taylor.
Fun fact: The famous poster art for the film, in which a woman is pictured screaming, is not Tippi Hedren. It’s future Miss Daisy Jessica Tandy, taken from the scene where the birds come down the chimney.
JULY MOVIES
26th: Django Unchained (R, 165 minutes). From 2012. America’s slaveholding past explodes in a bloody reckoning that is part Sergio Leone, part Mel Brooks and all Quentin Tarantino. Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz and Leonardo DeCaprio headline. Waltz won the best supporting actor Oscar. The film was named movie of the year by the American Film Institute.
Fun fact: At a Comic-Con gathering, Tarantino revealed that the Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington characters are meant to be the great-great-great-grandparents of the character John Shaft from the Shaft films.
27th: The Croods (PG, 98 minutes). 2 p.m. An animated prehistoric comedy adventure from Dreamworks that follows the world’s first family on a fantastical journey when their cave home is destroyed. Voices by Nicolas Cage, Ryan Reynolds, Emma Stone and Cloris Leachman.
Fun fact: Over the years, this script morphed from a buddy comedy to a family-themed tale.
27th: Sing-along-a Grease (PG-13, 110 minutes). Poodle-skirt alert! All you greasers and Pink Ladies can dress like it’s the 1950s all over again. This fable of teen love, beauty school dropouts, and doing the hand-jive, baby, begins with a costume competition. Then you’ll be able to belt out the tunes with the help of on-screen lyrics and costumed sing-along encouragers. Tickets ($15) on sale now. $20 day of the show. Visit the Fox website or call 1.855.ATL.TIXX.
Fun fact: Danny Zuko’s blue windbreaker at the beginning of the movie was a nod to James Dean and the movie Rebel Without a Cause.
28th: Lawrence of Arabia (PG, 216 minutes). Show time: 4 p.m. An epic if ever there was one. This biopic details the life of the complex man who has been labeled everything from hero, to charlatan, to sadist, T.E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) blazed his way to glory in the Arabian desert, then sought anonymity as a common soldier under an assumed name. See this classic in a new digital print.
Fun fact: Almost all movement in the film goes from left to right. Director David Lean said he did this to emphasize that the film was a journey.
AUGUST MOVIES
16th: Iron Man 3 (PG-13, 130 minutes). Marvel’s brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man fights an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark (Robert Downey Jr., again) finds his personal world destroyed, he begins a harrowing quest to find those responsible. With Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce.
Fun fact: The ring on the Mandarin’s right pinkie is the same one Raza wears in the first Iron Man film.
17th: The Great Gatsby (PG-13, 143 minutes). America in the 1920s, the Jazz Age, as seen through the eyes of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald and director Baz Luhrmann. Witness the fabulously wealthy lifestyle of Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), and for lavish Long Island parties in an era when “gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession” (The New York Times).
Fun fact: Mulligan was cast over such actresses as Jessica Alba, Anne Hathaway, Scarlett Johansson, Keira Knightley, Rachel McAdams, Natalie Portman, Amanda Seyfried and Michelle Williams.
18th: Breakfast at Tiffany’s (G, 115 minutes). 4 p.m. If 1953’s Roman Holiday established Audrey Hepburn’s star status, this 1961 Truman Capote story cemented it. Blake Edwards directed her turn as young New York socialite Holly Golightly, who has a strange secret and even stranger neighborset.
Fun fact: Holly’s couch is really an old-fashioned bathtub split in half. In some scenes, you can still see the gold handles at one end and the legs on the bottom.
