5 For: The Last Song (2010)

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:

1. Dirty Dancing (1987)

2. The Way, Way Back (2013)

3. The Edge of Seventeen (2016)

4. Like Crazy (2011)

5. 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:
What’s your favorite That One Summer movie? Tell us using #MovieMemoryMachine.

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