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Ping Pong Summer

Play trailer Poster for Ping Pong Summer 2014 1h 32m Comedy Play Trailer Watchlist
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59% Tomatometer 34 Reviews 32% Popcornmeter 500+ Ratings
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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Ping Pong Summer

Ping Pong Summer

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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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Critics Reviews

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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 Full Review 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 Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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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 Full Review 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 Full Review Audience Member Pretty cool flick bringing back some good memories. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/07/23 Full Review Audience Member Cute little movie that stuck true to its era! Rated 3 out of 5 stars 12/22/18 Full Review 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 Full Review 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 Full Review Read all reviews
Ping Pong Summer

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Cast & Crew

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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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Ping Pong Summer

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Movie Info

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
Producer
Jeffrey Allard, Brooke Bernard, Michael Gottwald, Lori Krein
Screenwriter
Michael Tully
Production Co
Epic Match Media, Nomadic Independence Pictures
Genre
Comedy
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Jun 6, 2014, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Jun 19, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA)
$31.9K
Runtime
1h 32m
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