Mori, this is a great idea, and you chose a real whopper to start out with, both the film and the amazing review. what I love most about this site isn't all the nerd bickering about Optimus' flames (although I do love reading nerdguments...), it's that, at its core, this site is based on an intense love for the medium of film, and at the same time nurtures that feeling in others. AICN tells you, "it's OK to be looking forward to an upcoming movie so much that you feel itchy. it's OK to nitpick sometimes. it's OK to be obsessed with this stuff. it's OK, we all are!"

I was 7/8 in 1982, so my memory is definitely hazy of that year.

BLADE RUNNER

E.T. THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL

THE ROAD WARRIOR

STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN

THE THING

POLTERGEIST

CONAN THE BARBARIAN

STAR WARS rereleased

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK rereleased

I do feel bad for filmgeeks that didn't grow up in the late 70's/early 80's. It really WAS better back then. Every once in a while we get some new classic genre films (JURASSIC PARK, THE MATRIX), but for the most part we get mediocrity. No wonder Uncle Rico wants to go back to '82.

Y'all know where I'll be.

Even at 31, I still go to all the new summer movies on a Saturday afternoon, just so I can walk out of that dark theater into a bright, hot summer afternoon and feel like a kid again.

I have never heard an entire theater crying. That sounds like it would be pretty memorable. You'd think I'd have heard that at Titanic, but I saw it late in the game and I don't think I was paying attention to the rest of the people in the theater.

1999: American Beauty, Fight Club, The Matrix, magnolia, Office Space, and again probably more I am forgetting.

Timerider: The Adventures of Lyle Swann was a regrettable misstep.

...And how cool is it that a movie called "My Favorite Year" (which is a great film) came out in my actual favorite year?

I had the older brother, the divorced mom, the stupid haircut, the Dungeons & Dragons/Pizza parties, all of the Star Wars toys. Between this movie and The NeverEnding Story, my kind of childhood experience was pretty well documented on film...

Well, without the Aliens, Luckdragons or dead parents named Moonchild...

Now THAT was excitement, waiting for TESB. And of course, waiting for those promised "9 films". ;)

Then they show the clip, which was Elliot talking to everyone out in the backyard and them going back in the house--they we see ET's little fingers wrap around the doorframe in the shed...

That image had our family (My Mom, my older brother and I) looking at each other, saying "Oh Yeah" We are going to see that! When we did see it, it was on one of the weekends my dad came to town for his bi-weekly visitations, and he took all of us to see the film.

And, yes indeed--it was the first movie I ever say that made my dad cry like a baby, along with the rest of us. You almost couldn't hear the movie over the sobbing (kind of like the end of "Pan's Labyrinth", recently) and the rest of the summer was jsut as sweet--so many good movies. I still have my old scrapbook of movie ads cut out of the newspaper over the years. And I still have the full-page black and white add for E.T., with the John Alvin painting of the hands and the star. Which I am looking at, right now.

Thanks guys--I needed this today.

Good times. Good times.

And a thank-you to both Moriarty and Nordling for a great, great article.

I would like to add my two cents on the debate concerning how much we know now going into a movie. I don't think any of that stuff matters. A movie is either a great movie, or it's not a great movie, and anything we learn about it before hand is irrelevant. My two cousins saw THE TERMINATOR before I did, and they told me everything. And I mean everything, including the T-800 getting crushed in the press at the end. Didn't take away from my enjoyment of the film one bit. And thats because it's a great film.

Since the corporations took over the studios, the output has steadily gotten worse. That's the real problem. We had this golden age of genre cinema from 1975 to 1985 of REALLY great films. The filmmakers behind those classics wanted to tell a great story, that was their motivation. Since then the studios have been making films that try to copy the success of those films instead of doing what made those films successful. Big difference.

Also remember the fact that in the Spring of 1999, people thought there were only two movies coming out the whole year: "Star Wars-Episode 1" and "Everything Else."

So what I'm saying is, The Matrix slipped in under the radar... and blew the shit out of everyone that saw it. THAT movie was the real defining blockbuster that year, in my opinion. Sure, TPM had all the hype, but The Matrix had the goods. BUT when it came out, we didn't really know much about it. It didn't really have much hooplah prefacing it, until the trailers and the commercials hit. When we all saw the bullet-time effects, we were all intrigued. It captured our attention. And then it was released and sailed into the summertime on great word of mouth.

As for POTC, I could kind of say it too was sort of underestimated before its release, but not as much as Matrix. It certainly wasn't pegged to be the huge blockbuster it turned out to be. So ultimately, when you went in and sat down in the theatre and fell in love with those flicks, I'm guessing that you didn't go in already overwhelmed with information about the movies' productions couching your reactions. Although, I don't know how much you paid attention to them, pre-release. I could be off-base in my assumption.

You also mention the corporate takeovers of the studios in the 80's and 90's. I agree with you that they have turned all the big movies into products, but, just to play devil's advocate, there were also PLENTY of bad, even horrible genre movies between 1975 and 1985. Corporate ownership or not, it's always been Hollywood's style to ape the success of any pop culture landmark. True, Star Wars begat Alien, Alien begat The Thing, but for every contributary movie that worked, there were a dozen that stunk up the cineplex. Hell, more recently, comics movies were DOA after the rotting corpse of Batman and Robin, until X-Men dropped in 2000 and Spider-Man finally got out of the courts and into production. Ever since then, not two months goes by that we don't see another comics hero up on screen - sometimes done right, sometimes Elektra.

The corporate Hollywood machine is most certainly a chronic failure whose rare succeses sustain its tortured existance. If we didn't spend the money we spend on the movies that we DO think are worth it, the industry would crumble. And who knows? Maybe it would just be picked up and resurrected by... I don't know... guys with cameras in one hand and scripts in the other. And then maybe the whole history of Hollywood would start all over again... just like The Matrix.

But good point nonetheless.

About ET- when I saw it when it was released I was about 4 or 5 (can't remember the month it came out in The UK- sorry) and loved it. But as I have got older, I have started to believe that the decline in Spielberg dates from ET. As good as Munich was, it is not a patch on his early work- and represents a blip in an otherwise downward spiral, and War of the Worlds isn't worthy to lick the shoes of Close Encounters. Just an opinion.

Lastly, seriously, whoever said 2005 is going to be a landmark year has got to be kidding. One thing that is certain is that summer of 2006 will be a landmark - it will be remembered as the absolute nadir of cinema- The summer quality finally bottomed out.

I miss the Dollar Theaters. Man, just waiting for new releases to hit the cheapie places and seeing like six films a day was fucking wicked. And late at night, some showed stuff like Rocky Horror or 80s Hong Kong flicks (the "classic" good ones from Chan, Li, and Chow, etc).

1) Contacts. You can learn how to write, direct, edit, etc. on your own. But film school offers the unique tool of early contact building. Your dorm room buddy and you are taking film school at USC. He takes on the business route, maybe ent. law, and you take writing and directing route. You graduate. So does he. Artists struggle more, so you probably do. But there are always room for more ent. agents/lawyers, etc. You've written a script or directed a film, hopefully a good one, but you need a rep to get it noticed. Your buddy is now working at an agency. There's a HUGE in. Film school could have helped me personally on that level alone. You can still make it otherwise, but could take many more years than it needs to.

2) Internships. Film schools like these offer internship access to studios. Kind of like a free pass. I can't tell you how many people I've met in the industry started by interning (if you are female, and hot, intern at the marketing firm of any studio... you've got it made... sad but true. Out of every marketing intern AND executive I've met, I'd say about 90% were atrractive females. It goes for executive assistants as well, who eventually moved onto executive positions.) Weird, sad, but an interesting note. Anyway, internships are KEY.

3) A degree from these schools gets you in the door. Yes, you can do it otherwise... I did... but overall it's an uphill battle. That degree from those schools is taken seriously... HOWEVER, this mostly entails development positions, executive positions, which lead into producing positions. Writing and directing??? You just gotta write a great script or direct a great movie and work it.

4) Lastly, that degree can lead to other jobs in case your fil industry career doesn't pan out, which happens all of the time. Say you graduate HS, skip film school, and work it the hard way, starting at the bottom (my story 100%). You find yourself maybe ten years later, still heading nowhere... not where you want to be. Sometimes you have to face the facts. And that degree can be your savior. You can teach somewhere. You can get a job in broadcasting. Whatever. A degree helps. big time. Sorry for the long post. Just want to give up-and-comers the right info. You can do it without film school, but you may find yourself regretting it, out of luck, and missing out on so many "ins" that could have saved you years of trouble.

Jesus: "Good googly-moogly!"

When I used the expression "but instead they took the old Jesus route" I was only referring to resurrection, not the Christ story. I shouldn't have been so sloppy.

One other thing: is this site ever going to get a proper comment system? I wrote a long post, but in paragraph breaks, and they still went away.

By the way, your parents pissed away a fortune for a piece of paper that's worth less than toilet paper. At least you can wipe your ass with toilet paper.

Since it's gone over your head for 25+ years I'm thinking you aren't smart enough to complete this challenge. I think the only thing you can do is repeat what others have written or said about great films.

Prove me wrong. Make me eat a big shitburger and I'll admit you aren't as dumb as your post's suggest.