With summer well under way, it belatedly occurs to me that it would be fun to have an ongoing series of mini-tributes to favorite summer movies, through Labor Day. So here's one of my favorites. Though "summer movies" are most often blockbusters, action movies or sequels -- often all three -- Amy Heckerling's small-scale comedy "Clueless" has a sunniness that makes it one of my favorite summer movies, since its opening in July 1995. I love the way it echoes Jane Austen's "Emma," the way Alicia Silverstone's Cher so squeakily combines vapidness and sweetness, and the lightning-quick wit of the screenplay. Note, just in the trailer, the way Cher is holding gum on her finger throughout her hilarious oral report (on "the "Hate-ee-ans"), Silverstone's wonderfully earnest delivery of the line "This is a really good school," and how there once was a time when we all found the idea of teenagers actually speaking to each other in school hallways on mobile phones outlandishly hilarious. Sigh. Enjoy.

I'll be including more favorites as the summer goes on -- and your favorites too, if you want to share them.