You show up with seconds to spare, walking briskly down the yellow streetlight sidewalk; you see the fuchsia lettering on the purple sign, the bright black and white marquee edging out of the storefronts, the impossible throng of people huddled around the box office. A sigh of relief. They’ll be starting late.

You know it’s summer in St. Louis when you can once again see a screening at the Tivoli’s Reel Late film series. Once again, you’re able to exit onto that desolate street sometime in the two o’clock hour: a heavy, wet humidity still hanging in your clothes, a morning chill drifting in, all of Delmar close, even that once luminous marquee.

The series has become a summer tradition at the Landmark Tivoli Theatre on Delmar, in the University City Loop. Every Friday and Saturday at midnight, a different movie runs on the theater’s main screen, then on a side screen the next weekend. It’s more relaxed than, say, the once-in-a-lifetime concert, yet there is still something eventful about seeing so many friends and strangers converge on the same place at the same time for the same show.

In short, one should not spend a summer in St. Louis without seeing at least one of these screenings. Additionally, the Tivoli has been nice enough to dock the ticket price (perhaps as an apology for raising admission to $8 earlier this year) to $6–not bad for a movie like The Matrix or an Akira Kurosawa flick in the best-smelling theater in town.

Unfortunately, this summer’s series doesn’t seem to deliver the way others have in the past. Focusing too much on the quick cult fix–with fringe classics like Army of Darkness and Evil Dead, silly favorites like Wet Hot American Summer and Spaceballs and recent popular junk, like The Ring and Jackass: The Movie–the Tivoli’s staff, which determined the lineup, has missed what should be the meat of the last couple summer series: quality cinema.

Last year’s series was littered with top-tier movies like Rushmore, Brazil, Dr. Strangelove, Trainspotting, Donnie Darko and Blue Velvet, with great films like The Shining and The Princess Bride running a close second. The 2001 series showcased A Clockwork Orange (a series without Kubrick seems doomed from the start, I’ll note), Fight Club, This Is Spinal Tap, Run Lola Run and The Big Lebowski.

To say the least, this summer’s lineup is disappointing. Perhaps I’ll have to make do with Raiders of the Lost Ark and Office Space, and postpone for another year the excitement that comes with staring down a summer full of favorites, classics and near perfect films.

So pick a date, have a late dinner and catch an old favorite back on the big screen. All the regulars will be back, and Delmar will have that magical early-morning feel: tired yet shimmering and alive, on vacation, yet prepared for commotion. It’s the perfect escape for the restless college youth, and you’d do yourself a service to indulge.