What were you watching 30 years ago? If you have no recollection what was showing on the silver screen that is just fine because the Alamo Drafthouse has done your research for you. For the entire summer, Alamo has been screening some of the best films from 1982. For those of us who remember the summer of 1982, sorry to remind you that you are old.
On Friday, June 8 the Alamo at West Oaks and Mason Park will honor the year with the celebrated aliens-are-good film, E.T. The "Summer of 1982" festival features 20 films in total ranging from "holy crap that's awesome" to "I've never heard of that movie in my life." For the most part, the line up of films is stellar, with a few choice children's picks such as The Dark Crystal, The Last Unicorn and The Secret of Nimh, all of which scared the crap out of me as a child.
Surprisingly enough, there were a lot of really good movies released in 1982. While Alamo's list is fairly comprehensive, we found a few that we wish they had included. Let us know which one's you would like to see.
10. 48 Hrs. When 48 Hrs. was released Eddie Murphy was just entering the funniest few years his career would ever see. Add Nick Nolte into the mix and you've got one of the best buddy cop/criminal movies of all time.
9. Tootsie "Ron? I have a name. it's Dorothy. It's not Tootsie or Toots or Sweetie or Honey or Doll." Actually, you are a dude, and your name is Dustin Hoffman in a dress.
8. Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid In Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid Steve Martin stars as a caricature of a stereotypical film noir detective. The parody was years ahead of its time and intercut scenes from original noir films such as The Killers, The Big Sleep, The Postman Always Rings Twice and other classics into the movie's plot. In addition to its star-studded archival footage, it is completely hilarious.
7. Plague Dogs I will admit that this is a bit of a deep cut, but is holds its own amongst the excellent and upsetting films that were released in 1982 under the guise of being children's films. I had almost forgotten about this cartoon, which revolves around two dogs that escape from a lab and may potentially have the bubonic plague, until researching for this post. I would never show this film to my children, it might cause them to turn out really crazy. Thanks dad!
