A Summer Full of Cinema
A Summer Full of Cinema
Ash Freyer
Harkins is showing a large variety of movies this summer, from new releases to classics, as well as a multi-week event of movies for kids. There are many big releases coming out, including: Toy Story 5, Shrek 5, the live action Moana, Spider-Man 4, The Odyssey, Masters of the Universe, The Mandalorian and Grogu, The BackRooms movie, and a Scary Movie Reboot.
Harkins Theatre, the only movie theatre in Flagstaff, located at 4751 E Marketplace Dr, is putting on their annual Summer Movie Fun. There's 8 movies spread out over 8 weeks, for kids where parents can bring their kids to watch fun kid’s movies for half the price of what it would usually cost. All of the movies start at 9:45 am for those parents who have to wake their kids up early because they have to go to work. It gives them something to do, and gives the kids a fun thing to do that is not very expensive.
Harkins has been doing Summer Movie Fun since 1975. It originally started because they wanted to have a “cool” thing for kids and parents to do together indoors during the hot Arizona summer months. It originally started just as a way to keep kids from getting heat stroke, and has become a yearly summer phenomenon. A Flagstaff local, when asked about Summer Movie Fun said, “My mom had bought a summer movie pass and we went to several shows, they were old reruns like Star Wars or Pete’s Dragon when I was like 11-12 is. We typically went to a couple movies a year, the big ones like Goonies or Indiana Jones. That summer pass was the exception, we went to several that summer.” They had fond memories of using the Summer Movie Fun pass, and they still remember even all these years later.
Overall, there’s a lot of big summer movies coming out, as well as the Summer Movie Fun pass that has created fond memories of movies for children for 50 years, and continues to be a well-known summer activity for the children of Arizona.