1982. I hit my eleventh year. This one always feels to me like the year that pop culture really started happening. In truth it had been on the boil for a while, but with E.T. dominating cinemas, Michael Jackon’s Thriller storming the charts, and the debut of the CD this was a year of huge tentpoles for consumers to latch onto (or to be fed with until they burst). Perhaps fittingly, the first emoticons (the humble smiley) made their appearance this year. Conversely, in another sign of the old guard falling away, ABBA made their final TV appearance.

In the UK the Falklands War kicked off. Naturally I remember this vividly, albeit through the lens of a politically innocent 11 year-old. It’s strange that, in its wake, I can’t think of a single film or TV series off the top of my head that uses the war as a backdrop (note that this doesn’t mean there weren’t any—there were plenty). Perhaps as wars go it was a particularly uninspiring one.
Overall, browsing through Wikipedia, 1982 looks like a very unsettled year—lots of plane crashes, lots of political unrest, Israel once again invading other territories (Lebanon this time) and various other fairly crap things going on. So let’s ignore all that and look at some movies!!

Read more: Top 10 Films of … 1982

This year we see one of the starkest tales told from the two top ten listings above. Take a quick look (if you’re not already ahead of me on this one) and see where the two most highly-rated movies of the year (from the IMDB list) are on the global box office top ten (which shows us what people actually went to see during 1982).

Nowhere.

Both Blade Runner and The Thing were huge flops when released. John Carpenter was riding high on his horror credentials and was on the verge of making a breakthrough as a major director. Ridley Scott had delivered Alien and one can only assume anticipation for his next sci-fi marvel was huge. Then E.T happened and suddenly people wanted to see huggy aliens that enjoyed M & Ms, not ones that tore people apart. Nor did they want to see Han Solo in a dour noir thriller that barely (if you read the reviews of the time) made sense.

It’s one of those things that fascinates me about cinema. Often the big hits of the year are big because they’re genuinely good and they deserve their critical reputations (The Godfather, for instance). And sometimes films just arrive at the wrong time. Blade Runner is up there as one of the most significant science fiction movies ever made, but audiences weren’t interested back in 1982. It’s only when we look back that we can see how important it was and the impact it’s had over the decades since. Somewhat less understandable is the way a movie can get critically lambasted in the year of its release and then be hailed as one of the best movies ever made some years later. It’s the same film, after all. If you can explain that, please do so in the comments below.

Blade Runner

My Dad loved Blade Runner. Still does. So do I. So does my son. It’s a whole family thing apparently. Because 1982 was the year that I was really getting into films, science-fiction, Doctor Who, etc, it was also when I started frequenting Forbidden Planet, the iconic London pop culture store. At the time it was little more than a book shop, but one filled with treasures. Unsurprisingly Blade Runner was everywhere. It might have died at the cinema, but as a landmark science fiction movie it was getting plenty of coverage in the cult press of the day. The point is: I was aware of it right from the start.

My first real exposure to the movie was via the soundtrack—no, not the original Vangelis one; the version that the New American Orchestra released because Vangelis refused to release his. My Dad played it a lot—enough that I eventually got my own copy so it could listen to it at home too (and not just on the weekends I stayed with my Dad). I eventually got to see the movie when it came out for rental on VHS; I watched it with my Dad one Saturday afternoon. I remember being particularly struck by Rutger Hauer’s performance (and who wouldn’t be). I read the Philip K Dick novel sometime later and would eventually have regular screenings with friends. It’s one of those movies I watched so much that the sound of it became embedded in my memory. (In 2016 I hadn’t watched the movie for quite some time and decided to sit down and revisit it–it was a transcendental experience; I knew the film so well that it felt almost as though I was reconnecting a part of myself, reuniting with a dear friend as if we had never spent any time apart).

Going back a bit, I followed Blade Runner through its slightly frustrating history on home video, feeding off all those rumours of deleted scenes, alternate versions. When the director’s cut came out my Dad was able to get tickets for us to see a special screening at the London FIlm Festival (possibly my first experience of seeing the movie on the big screen). The same director’s cut was one of the earliest DVD releases in the UK (in 1999) but frustratingly was not anamorphic (meaning it was lower quality). It would be another 6 years before a better quality version was finally released, to be followed the next year with the release of “The Final Cut” and a glorious set that included something like five different cuts of the movie. Since then I’ve bought it on blu-ray and, inevitably, on 4k. It’s been a long road but we finally got the home video version that the movie deserves.

My son and I have watched it, perhaps, three times together so far (as well as the surprisingly excellent sequel. Last year my Dad sent me a surprise gift from the UK: a Blade Runner t-shirt, which made my son very jealous (it’s fine: he’s got an Alien t-shirt which I’m very jealous of). As I said: it’s a family thing.

The Thing

I was slightly less aware of The Thing around the time of its release, though there was certainly lots of buzz about the various creature and transformation effects that drew my attention to the film. I first saw it a few years later when a friend lent me a VHS copy they had (which I’m pretty sure was long before it got an official home video release). I recall it causing a nightmare—not because of the death and gore but rather from the concept of the alien organism escaping and, inevitably, unstoppably, overwhelming all life on earth. With all the heads exploding and stomachs erupting, that was the bit that got to me!

Like everyone else over the years I’ve steadily re-evaluated it. I always enjoyed the film—through sheer concept and imagination it earned its placed in my list of favoured watches—but it somehow, eventually, has become one of my firm favourite movies. I suspect that re-evaluation started when I was able to see it on the big screen for the first time at the BFI. Again, remember back in those days our only way of watching films was cropped for pan and scan TV viewing, and often cut to bits for broadcast. Seeing it in widescreen, finally, gave the movie scope, size, weight. It moved on from being a small screen entertainment about some people being killed by an alien force and became a tale of isolation and paranoia framed against the unforgiving, unsympathetic arctic landscape.

As a side note, a few years ago I explored some various alternative tellings (such as the novella) and proposed sequels to The Thing. It’s curious that, despite the supposed flexibility of the concept, it’s almost impossible to wrangle a decent story out of it. Maybe once is enough.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

There was no escaping E.T. It was huge. It was wonderful. It was the saddest movie ever made. At the time I had no idea that it was supposed to be just this small, personal tale from Spielberg (and I daresay it’s that emotional honesty which made it such a big success). I saw it multiple times and I probably cried even more than I did when Lois Lane died in Superman. It’s one of those many films that I revisited in later years and realised “oh, this is actually a good film.” 

I’ve shown it to both my kids and they’ve enjoyed it well enough but been largely unmoved by it. I wonder why that is? Perhaps it’s just a film that belonged back in its day—almost the polar opposite of Blade Runner and The Thing, both of which still get talked about now. Does anyone really talk much about E.T now? Other than as something we remember fondly from our childhood?

Tron

Tron was one of the few other movies of the year that I managed to catch at the cinema. There had been a fair amount of hype covering the effects (and also the design, I think it’s fair to say). I’m pretty sure my Dad took me to see it one weekend and it was perfectly good but it definitely didn’t capture my imagination the way other films had. One of my more persistent memories is of people at school playing the various iterations of the games (no consoles or handhelds in those days, barring the Game & Watch). Consequently it makes perfect sense to me to learn that the arcade game actually made more money than the movie did during its theatrical run.

Poltergeist

It’s a strange quirk of the year that while Spielberg was chasing away the likes of The Thing with his cuddly alternative, he was also behind one of the decade’s most popular chillers. Putting aside the debate over who really directed it, you could clearly argue that Poltergeist would never have become the commercial hit that it did without Spielberg’s golden touch. As with E.T the magic here was focusing the tale around a typical suburban family—exactly the kind of people who like to go and see movies.

I enjoy Poltergeist but I don’t love it. There’s a lot to get stuck into here but overall I find it a bit too obvious and cheesy (all of which is probably a big part of the reason why it works). While the horror genre had enjoyed box office hits before, Poltergeist is arguably the first movie that properly bridged the gap between ‘a good time at the cinema’ (which is where the hits are made) and ‘a fucking terrifying time at the cinema’. Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) was a bona fide pioneer of horror cinema, so match him with Spielberg and it’s no surprise you get something new and exciting.

Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Kahn

Considering I saw both Star Trek 1 and 3 at the cinema, it’s a bit odd that I missed seeing this one during its release. I suspect it’s because my Dad had already seen it and my Mum was more interested in taking me to see E.T. Like Poltergeist, this is another movie that I found a little cheesy at first (there’s just something about those try-hard early eighties SFX) but came to admire greatly over the years.

My main exposure to it at the time of release was a paperback format photo novel that I would cheekily flick through at my ‘local’ science fiction bookshop (I say ‘local’ because visiting it required me to get off the bus early on my way home from school, and then catch another bus to get home again). I knew about Spock and naturally I was obsessed with this idea of killing off a major franchise character. Despite the occasional habit of 1970s movies killing off their main characters I couldn’t (and can’t) think of any occasion prior to this when a major franchise character had been killed off … possibly because major franchises were barely a thing back then, excepting James Bond.

It is strange, sometimes, to look back on a time when you couldn’t just watch something when you wanted to watch it. I was too young to go to the cinema on my own, unless it was the Twickenham Odeon at the end of the road. My only exposure to films was books and magazines. There was no internet, of course. There were friends at school who had maybe seen films I hadn’t, and would often delight in sharing the details. You had to pull the details from wherever you could and this would often create some sort of imaginary version of the movie in question that would almost always be twenty times as awesome as the actual thing. (And, no, I didn’t really have an imaginary version of Wrath Of Kahn because I only ever looked at the end of that photonovel).

An Officer And A Gentleman

This is another one of those strange cases where I became obsessed with a movie that generally falls well beyond the scope of my typical interests. I first saw it when it debuted on TV (would have likely been around 1984/5) and as was the standard then, we would also record it. I do recall liking the intro music right from that first viewing—an energetic instrumental version of the “Up Where We Belong”—but the rest of the movie proved compelling enough that it went onto my regular rewatch list. There’s little more to it than that classic tale of someone coming up from nothing and making something of themselves, and getting the girl. Maybe this particular version of it caught me at the right time. One day I’ll rewatch it and see if I can figure it out.

Unseen

This year’s unseen fits into three easy categories: films I have not seen and don’t particularly intend to see; films I should have seen and have somehow missed; and films that I have actually seen but remember so little about that I’m including them here.

In the first category are: Tootsie, Rocky III, Annie and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. I’ll admit I’m slightly curious about Tootsie, given that it’s reasonably well acclaimed, but I suspect it’s aged horribly and would be quite painful to come to for the first time in this day and age. After all this time I’m unlikely to check out The Secret of Nimh either (although I do remember the press coverage at the time touting it as the last best hope for modern Disney: they got there in the end, but it wasn’t with this movie).

I’ve seen almost every other teen coming-of-age movie so I can’t explain how Fast Times At Ridgemont High remains unseen. Perhaps it arrived too far ahead of the others and gets a bit overlooked. With First Blood I remember quite vividly when it was out—or perhaps when it first hit video. I’ve even read the novel of this one, yet I have yet to sit down and watch the movie. Perhaps it’s been tarred by the Rambo-ness of it all?

I’ve seen Porky’s and 48 Hrs. once each and I’m pretty sure I enjoyed them well enough but don’t really have anything of interest to say about either. I have a feeling that I’ve seen Conan The Barbarian more than once but all I really recall about it is James Earl Jones turning into a big snake.

Others

The King of Comedy

I watched this for the first time during my Film Studies years but I think it was actually recommended to me by a friend. I liked it instantly, with Robert de Niro giving the sort of vulnerable yet menacing performance that he excels at, and Sandra Bernhard lighting up the movie in direct contrast. Weirdly, it’s a film that keeps going on my rewatch list at various times but I never seem to get around to watching it again. I will definitely remedy that soon. Maybe. One day.

Creepshow

I rented this movie around when it first became available (so in those early days of video rental when I would rent any horror film I could get my hands on). I didn’t fully appreciate it at the time (although I did enjoy getting to see Stephen King, The Actor in what I still think is a damn good performance). The stories were a bit variable, mostly good apart from the last one (the one with the cockroaches) which I never really found that interesting. “The Crate” has always been the one that gives me chills: the idea that a deadly creature could just be randomly locked up in a crate tucked away beneath some stairs, waiting to be unleashed. It helps that it features Hal Holbrook, my favourite underrated actor from the era. 

Diner

It’s not quite The Breakfast Club, but it is one of the essential coming of age movies from the eighties with a pre-stardom cast that can almost rival that of The Outsiders. I haven’t watched this for many years, but I remember a random selection of scenes, if not the overall plot (if there ever was one—there rarely is with these coming of age movies).

UK Top Ten

1. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
2. Annie
3. Rocky III
4. Star Trek II
5. Mad Max 2
6. Poltergeist
7. Death Wish II
8. Tron
9. Firefox
10. Blade Runner

A fairly routine top ten for the UK this year, matching most of the top global films of the year but … what’s that at number 7 there? Death Wish 2? How did that get so high? I’ve never seen the movie, but it reminds me that UK cinema had quite a brutal flavour at that time. Audiences, perhaps tiring of sanitised TV fare, looked to the cinema for a cathartic fix that wasn’t delivered by the glossy blockbusters shipping over from the USA. This was also around the era of the video nasty which saw a number of objectionable titles withdrawn under the auspices of the BBFC who definitely had a reputation for grabbing the scissors. Growing up at the time I have distinct impressions of our media being somewhat ‘controlled’. Everything had to be certified. TV didn’t have to go too far to be ‘shocking’. British cinema had shifted away from sex comedies towards more violent fare like The Long Good Friday and the two Sweeney movies. Funnily enough, it’s almost a precursor to the Guy Ritchie crime phenomenon that would hit British cinema at the turn of the century.

Next time: Join us next year as we find out whether or not Jaws 3D ruled the box office …