Summer is headed our way, there’s actually a slate of incoming would-be blockbusters I’m excited for this year, and this is also the season when I like to look back thoughtfully and/or nostalgically at memorable summers of the past. As with so many things I get in the habit of doing annually, I’ve painted myself into a corner – I’ve already written about so many movies and so many specific years that it becomes harder to find fresh ground. But on the positive side I’ve been reviewing movies for so god damn long that I can look back at a summer from during my career and realize that enough time has passed that I really could look at most of those movies with new eyes.
Case in point: the summer of 2005. Doesn’t sound like that long ago when I say it. I was definitely a grown adult at the time, and I’d been a self-appointed film critic for 5+ years, even self-published a best-of collection. But I have run the numbers and though of course I’m open to corrections on this I do believe that particular year was 20 (twenty) whole years ago at this time. (read the rest of this shit…)
It’s a crazy story, and it really happened pretty much like this: a group of well-off high school kids in the Valley, obsessed with celebrities and their clothes, decided to start robbing them. Using Google to find their addresses, and TMZ and Twitter to find out when they were out of town to host a party or attend an awards show, they’d show up at their mansions, let themselves in, then have the run of the place like it was the mall in DAWN OF THE DEAD. They stole clothes, handbags, jewelry, cash and (they say) cocaine. They chose Paris Hilton as their first victim because they thought she was “dumb” and might leave a door unlocked – sure enough they say they found the key under the welcome mat. Others (Lindsay Lohan, Brian Austin Green, Orlando Bloom, some reality show people I never heard of) left doors or windows unlocked. These kids chose celebrities whose fashion they admired, and they happened to be people with so much shit that they didn’t even notice when it was gone. Not until more experienced criminals got involved and knew to take the most expensive jewelry. 
