Culture

If you're looking for some laughs, there's no reason not to see The Other Guys. Writer-director Adam McKay and his MVP Will Ferrell are funny guys, indeed – but maybe not quite as funny here as in some of their other movies.
This one begins big, with some other big-name guys. Samuel Jackson and Dwayne (formerly “The Rock”) Johnson are perfectly cast as a couple badass NYC cops – chewing the scenery in a hysterical display of male-hormone-induced hubris within the first fifteen minutes of the film. The now-open honorary slot of baddest-ass-cop-duo beckons not only the more obvious hot-shots on the force, but perhaps also the “Other Guys” – those familiar, unnamed cop-genre extras who populate the background of the kind of movies this one parodies, uniformly identified as stock-character nobodies by really bad ties.

Every summer there is an array of blockbusters vying for our attention, but only a few resonate with us and are still memorable years later. The Source editorial staff shares our favorite summer movies, which may be some of your favorites, too.
Stand by Me (1986)

Filmed in Oregon, this is one of the greatest coming-of-age films ever put on celluloid. Adapted from a Stephen King novella, Rob Reiner’s cinematic rendering captures the restless spirit of a tribe of young boys on the cusp of adolescence who embark on one last summer adventure – a quest to find the body of a dead schoolmate – before they outgrow such childish escapes. I’m not a fan of voiceovers, but Richard Dreyfuss' narrative is pitch perfect. – Eric Flowers

Through the last two Batman films, Michael Caine has stood in Batman's shadow as his faithful butler and confidant, Alfred. Now, in Harry Brown, Caine steps into the role of the vigilante set out to avenge his friend's death and to clean up his chaotic neighborhood. He may not be a masked avenger, set out to protect Gotham from a laundry list of super villains – but Harry Brown is a citizen who thinks things have gone too far and decides to take matters into his own hands, just as caped crusaders have been doing in film and literature forever.
In Harry Brown, Caine plays the title character who lives in a South London housing development that's been overrun with youth crime. The film opens with a disturbing cell phone video of a gang initiation in which a boy is joyriding on a motorbike and shoots and kills a single mother pushing her two-year-old in a stroller in the park. A young gang has taken over a public underpass and has also taken to bullying Harry's friend, Leonard, by shoving dog feces and burning newspaper through his mail slot. The crime rate is through the roof and it seems the police aren't doing anything to stop it. When Leonard goes to the underpass to defend himself with a military bayonet, he is beaten and killed by the gang.