Summer, to me, always meant hours at the movies. We didn’t have a lake house or a summer home. My summer home was the Avco Wilshire in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, plus a hundred other theaters within a 10-minute drive of my house.

When I read stories about how the hits are back this summer or how real family-friendly blockbusters are returning to the theaters for real this time, I just feel sad. The summer movie season has been dead for years. Starting on Memorial Day, creatively zombified movies start showing up in the theaters, and zombie ticket buyers stagger into corporate multiplexes to stare at the latest drivel Hollywood has managed to produce.