Last week, I listed the movies I saw as a 15-year-old during the Summer of ‘79. That was a pretty good summer, but the Summer of ‘80 was way better. I was 16, I had access to a car, and I had busboy money to spend down at the Fine Arts I, II, III, and IV. Here’s what I saw and what I thought at the time:

• June 19, The Shining, “Beautiful and scary.”
• June 28, Fame, “Maybe the best movie in two years.”
• July 1, The Empire Strikes Back, “OK but lacking.”
• July 14, Airplane!, “God, so funny!”
• July 19, Fame again
• July 26, Airplane! again
• August 1, My Bodyguard, “Good but short. Ruth Gordon wow.”
• September 2, Xanadu, “Good music but dumb in places.”

They don’t make summers like that anymore. Sigh. Here we are 28 years later. The Shining was remade (quite unnecessarily). Fame became a TV series, a stage show, a reality series, and will soon be remade. The Empire Strikes Back had four sequels, Airplane! had a sequel and spawned countless imitations, and Xanadu is on Broadway in spite of itself. Around and around we go.