Today marks the official start of party week here at the Madlab Post. In an attempt to extend The Bumbles’ most recent monday movie meme “Summertime” topic, the first subject up for discussion is summer parties. When thinking of summertime, three parties come to mind.......cookouts (also referred to as barbecues), block parties and family reunions. Here is a list of movies that reference at least one of these various types of summer parties.

Cookouts & Barbecues
In John Singleton’s “Boyz ‘n the Hood,” Tre (played by Cuba Gooding Jr.) attends a backyard cookout hosted by the mother of his friend Doughboy (played by Ice Cube) to celebrate the son’s release from prison.

During the barbecue, there are moments of jealous bickering between girls who are attracted to Tre and become pissed to find out that he has a girlfriend who is in attendance. The guys sit around, play card games and discuss sex and STDs in between Doughboy’s recollection of his activities in the penitentiary.

Block Parties
The documentary, “The World’s Best Prom” is about all that comes to mind when thinking about block parties in the summer. It may not very well fit because the celebration highlighted in the movie is a parade but these things take place on the street, right? So, it works for me and for the purposes of this post. This documentary showcases the city of Racine, Wisconsin and it’s prom mania that is like no other in the country.

The parade kicks of the city’s celebration of their annual mega-prom that includes high school seniors from several schools and locals take to the streets before the planning of dresses, suits, red carpet entrances (yes, they go all Hollywood in this movie), transportation and post-high school goals get underway.

Family Reunions
In “Poetic Justice” (another John Singleton movie), Tupac Shakur and Janet Jackson play Lucky and Justice....two characters from slightly opposite sides of the tracks who crash a stranger’s family barbecue with their friends with plans on getting free food. Lucky even goes so far as to impersonate a fake cousin when approached by one of the family members at this reunion.

While they were able to get the free food and drinks, the friends are also given some unrequested scoldings on marriage and relationships by Maya Angelou. who basically calls the younger generations clueless. Their party crashing ends abruptly when members of the group get into a physical confrontation with one of the relatives.

What other movies fit into either of these three summer party categories?

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