In this Movie Memory Machine: Five For mini-episode, Landen and Truman celebrate the surprisingly tender vibes of The Last Song with five more films that capture the spirit of young love, bittersweet endings, and life-changing summers. From classic dance floor rebellions to indie heartbreakers, these picks offer a full spectrum of emotional rites of passage—and a few lingering regrets about DVDs lost to strawberry-eating potheads.

Films Discussed:

Dirty Dancing (1987)

The Way, Way Back (2013)

The Edge of Seventeen (2016)

Like Crazy (2011)

The Spectacular Now (2013)

Topics Covered:

Dirty Dancing as the ultimate That One Summer movie

The Way, Way Back and Sam Rockwell as a teenage dream mentor

The Edge of Seventeen and Hailee Steinfeld’s underrated greatness

Like Crazy as the bittersweet evolution of young love

The Spectacular Now and the authenticity of young performances

Key Takeaways:

Patrick Swayze carried a watermelon and a soundtrack straight to our hearts

Coming-of-age films peaked hard in the early 2010s indie boom

Miley Cyrus’s earnest performance in The Last Song holds up better than expected

Love can bloom in a summer...and dissolve just as easily when September hits

Listener Prompt:

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