5 titles suitable for a summer’s film festival

It won’t be long before films for Academy Award consideration play at your local movie house or on cable.

Most of these are released late in the year for word-ofmouth support and ready recall when Oscar voters mark their ballots. “Gone With the Wind,” premiering in December 1939, fit that niche before Hollywood made the practice an art form. By contrast, “The Silence of the Lambs” had legs from its February 1991 release date, as did “Unforgiven” (1992) and “American Graffiti” (1973) from August.

Rare is the summer release so honored, although 2023 was different with blockbusters “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” appearing on the same July weekend. Christopher Nolan’s three-hour tale of the man who built the atomic bomb and Greta Gerwig’s less somber story of a doll’s life appealed for different reasons in a year that trouble in the Mideast and along the Mexican border made the news, plus the ongoing legal troubles of a former U.S. president and 2024 candidate for the nation’s highest office.

I rented “Oppenheimer” and watched it twice during the holiday season, applauding the selection of Robert Downey Jr. (a long way from “Chaplin” and “Less Than Zero”) as Best Supporting Actor among the film’s seven Oscars. I resolved to watch “Barbie” on some really slow viewing night, just for the screen chemistry between Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Barbie and Ken. (I never wanted to see two screen characters, well, scintillate more than Gosling and Rachel McAdams in “The Notebook.”)

Political bios can dazzle or not (“JFK” more so than “Nixon,” even if Oliver Stone directed both). Just in time for the 2024 selection is “Reagan,” a Sept. 1 release with Dennis Quaid as two-time president of the U.S. and Screen Actors Guild. Mena Suvari (think of the scene in “American Beauty” when covered in roses in a bathtub) plays first wife Jane Wyman and Penelope Ann Miller (“Carlito’s Way”) is first lady Nancy; look for 1978 Best Actor Jon Voight. Quaid can play nearly role, even Jerry Lee Lewis in “Great Balls of Fire,” and, I thought, was especially good as Julianne Moore’s conflicted husband in the 1950s-ish “Far from Heaven.” Quaid recently weighed in on the November election: He’s changed his mind and now backs Donald Trump.

“Lee,” a Sept. 27 offering with 2008 Best Actress Kate Winslet as a fashion model who became a war correspondent for Vogue magazine during World War II, co-stars Marcia Cotillard, who won the same award in 2007 for playing French diva Edith Piaf.

Who knows what to expect of “Josephine Baker” about the American-born French chanteuse Ernest Hemingway called “the most sensational woman anyone ever saw.” A Nov. 7 release date is attached, but don’t look for it at your neighborhood bijou right away, if ever.

For now, consider five golden oldies, a couple about to celebrate 50-year premieres. I started with 10, whittling down the list for one whose spare time is limited.

“Chinatown,” from 1974, is the first movie I rented, while in Russellville courting my future wife. Jack Nicholson, not overplaying for once, deserved an Oscar as detective J.J. Gittes, the Los Angeles private eye whose last name the evil Noah Cross (John Huston) never can quite pronounce correctly. In response to Faye Dunaway’s question to Nicholson, yes, there is a woman involved, although whether Evelyn Mulwray was worthy of her screen fate sparked a disagreement between director Roman Polanski and Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Towne. Without giving anything away to those who have not seen the film, Polanski was formerly married to the slain actress Sharon Tate.

Quentin Tarantino casts Margot Robbie as Tate in 2019’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” Brad Pitt winning the Supporting Actor for playing the best friend (unofficial keeper) of Leonardo DiCaprio. Set in 1969, it follows events of the day until a twist ending that restates Tarantino as the most exciting American filmmaker. In this space, I called it the best picture of the 2010s, though in some ways it is also the best of 1969, more watchable than Oscar winners “Midnight Cowboy” and “True Grit” from the same year.

Nashville didn’t know what to make of “Nashville,” Robert Altman’s 1975 work over which opinion was divided (Roger Ebert called it “the best American movie since ‘Bonnie and Clyde’” while others found it verbose). Watching this film for insights on country music is like viewing “The Godfather” for the same reason about olive oil. A movie with 24 listed stars, which is to say theirs were supporting roles, won only one Oscar, but it comes for Keith Carradine singing “I’m Easy” in a Nashville night spot. His audience consists of four women whom he beds in the movie. The look on Lily Tomlin’s face, she a gospel singer in a loveless marriage with Ned Beatty, is something to behold. Altman all but shouts the ending from the opening frame, yet when it plays out on the stage of the Parthenon, the viewer is sure to be moved, even if the director plays the scene a minute too long.

“Moonstruck,” from 1987, is lighter fare with Oscars to Cher and Olympia Dukakis and screenwriter John Patrick Shanley. Nicolas Cage plays the baker Cher marries rather than his mom-obsessed brother, Danny Aiello as Mr. Johnny Camareri. Director Norman Jewison’s touch is felt throughout the movie; who else would superimpose his screen credit over a corpse? One feels in Jamison’s care from the moment Dean Martin warbles “That’s Amore” in the opening shot.

I plan a December tribute for the 50th anniversary of “The Godfather Part II.” Let me say in advance that, upon repeated viewing, no movie has left me more emotionally drained. Ebert gave it a thumbs-down review, for which he received one himself, but said later the film is worth watching solely because of the soundtrack, for which director Francis Ford Coppola (himself a three-time winner that year) stood on stage with composer father Carmine Coppola. Don’t beat yourself up for not easily choosing between the first two “Godfather” films; I can’t, either.