Ping Pong Summer

Released Jun 6, 2014

1 hr. 32 min.

Comedy

List

59%

34 Reviews

Tomatometer

31%

500+ Ratings

Audience Score

In 1985 a summer vacation in Ocean City, Md., changes the life of a shy white teen (Marcello Conte) who's obsessed with table tennis and hip-hop music.

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Critics Consensus

This Summer remembrance is brimming with nostalgic flourishes and easygoing charm, but is as stubbornly weightless as a Ping Pong ball.

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Eric G

This amazing movie has it all and captures the 80s freeze frames, bullies in polo shirts, irocs, and friendship music montages. How did this not win an Oscar or two. Amazing acting and cinematography an 80s masterpiece.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

12/09/22

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Audience Member

The tone and style was there but the jokes weren’t . Fell flat . Watchable and easy tho 2.4

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

08/01/21

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Audience Member

Pretty cool flick bringing back some good memories.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/07/23

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Audience Member

Cute little movie that stuck true to its era!

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

12/22/18

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Audience Member

Here's my time-travel tip for fixing this movie. The family should be modern and Rad should be a typical kid who is addicted to technology. Then when they arrive in this town, it's stuck in the 80's. No cell service makes him ditch the technology and lost luggage leads him to wear clothes found in a dresser. Then this modern kid experiences all the clichés of an 80's summer movie. Without that kind of twist, it's just all the clichés of a summer movie for no reason. Plus it still bothers me that he likes ping pong so much that he travels with his own paddle, but he is so bad at it that he can't score one point against the bully in the first match? I watched this movie because I have Amy Sedaris set to auto-record and she rules. I want to be friends with Amy Sedaris. That's what this is really all about.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

01/31/23

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Audience Member

How Susan Sarandon and Leah Thompson got roped into this debacle is quite the mystery. The best description of this endeavour is table tennis meets the Karate Kid in an east coast resort town during a 1980's summer vacation. A plethora of dilettante actors struggle to deliver on the razor thin script. How this film surpassed it's VHS lifespan is another mystery. In the end even the ping pong scenes are a letdown. So many unsolved mysteries yet so few reasons to watch this homage to 80's summer films.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

02/08/23

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Michael Tully

Director

Marcello Conte

Rad Miracle

Judah Friedlander

Anthony

Amy Sedaris

Aunt Peggy

Lea Thompson

Mrs. Miracle

John Hannah

Mr. Miracle

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Peter Hartlaub

San Francisco Chronicle

The stakes are low throughout the film - even the bullies are mostly bluster - making the big finish an anticlimax.

Rated: 2/4

Jun 19, 2014

Full Review

Justin Chang

Variety

[Tully achieves] a winning innocence of spirit in which performances and production design are all perfectly synched to his low-key comic vision.

Jun 6, 2014

Full Review

Bilge Ebiri

New York Magazine/Vulture

It's so dedicated to the odd textures of its world that it becomes something else - personal, abstract, and strangely honest.

Jun 6, 2014

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Ryan Syrek

The Reader (Omaha, NE)

There's no deeper meaning to be had here. Just a good time, plenty of laughs, tons of nostalgia for the 1980s and the birth of Radical Miracle, who is everything Napoleon Dynamite wishes he was.

Rated: A-

Aug 6, 2019

Full Review

Alex Heeney

Seventh Row

In "Ping Pong Summer", director Michael Tully has managed to distill everything awful about eighties movies - the fashion, cheesy dialogue, political incorrectness and afternoon-special endings - minus the heart.

Aug 15, 2017

Full Review

Kelly Maxwell

Bust Magazine

t all sounds like pretty familiar coming-of-age film fodder, but Ping Pong Summer reinvigorates the genre.

Oct 5, 2016

Full Review

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Synopsis

In 1985 a summer vacation in Ocean City, Md., changes the life of a shy white teen (Marcello Conte) who's obsessed with table tennis and hip-hop music.

Director: Michael Tully
Executive Producer: Marcus Dean Fuller, Julie S. Fuller, Walter S. Hall
Screenwriter: Michael Tully
Production Co: Nomadic Independence Pictures, Epic Match Media
Genre: Comedy
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jun 6, 2014, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Jun 19, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA): $31.9K

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