Movies of 1982 Bracket Game

https://lebeauleblog.com/2022/02/01/movies-of-1982-bracket-game-round-two/

Forty years ago, America was in the early days of the Reagan era. An eight-year long antitrust suit ended in a consent decree which ordered AT&T to break up. The actual break-up wouldn’t be completed until 1984. People were afraid to take over the counter medicine after Tylenol capsules were laced with cyanide. And the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in the capitol.

Michael Jackson was officially crowned the King of Pop with the release of his epically successful album, Thriller. David Letterman came to late night television following Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. And Disney World doubled in size with the opening of the ambitious edutainment theme park, E.P.C.O.T. which would eventually become the favorite park of Floridians wanting to get their drink on.

60 Minutes and Dallas were the most watched shows on television. Kids were obsessed with tiny blue creatures called Smurfs. And the San Francisco 49s crushed the Super Bowl dreams of the Cincinnati Bengals for the first (but not the last) time.

The biggest movie of the year and for a while, the highest grossing movie of all times was Steven Spielberg’s E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. If you weren’t around in 1982, it’s hard to explain just how big E.T. was. It got everyone eating Reese’s Pieces and it eventually lead to the video game cartridge that killed Atari. At the Oscars, E.T. lost out to Richard Attenborough’s epic biopic, Gandhi.

This is a big year filled with movies readers are sure to remember fondly. In addition to the movies that were popular at the time, there are a few that disappointed forty years ago that have enjoyed re-evaluations over the last four decades. This one is wide open.

I love making games for movies like 1982. Yes, E.T. was a big movie and it still has its fans today. But I don’t think it’s a lock to win our little competition. Definitely a contender. It will be interesting to see how far this year’s Best Picture winner, Gandhi, makes it in the game. It is possible that we could see a Gandhi/E.T. rematch in the finals but I think it’s unlikely.

We have two science fiction classics which were under-appreciate at the time of their release. I expect both Blade Runner and The Thing to go far. But other movies like Tron and The Dark Crystal have also gained cult followings over the last forty years. And of course Star Trek II is largely regarded as the highlight of the franchise.

It wasn’t a banner year for horror which was still in the early days of the slasher craze. But 1982 gave us Poltergeist and Creepshow. Halloween and Friday the 13th were both in their third installments. There were other horror movies like Basket Case which could have made the cut but I gave a pass to the remake of Cat People.

I also included two star rounds. Sylvester Stallone had a big year with Rocky III and the first Rambo movie, First Blood. And I gave Richard Pryor a bracket even though The Toy is absolutely wretched. Pryor released a concert film, Live on the Sunset Strip and the modestly well-regarded dramedy, Some Kind of Hero in 1982. With three movies, I felt like Pryor needed to be represented. I went with the two scripted movies although arguably the Live was the best of the three.

There were so many comedies to chose from. Tootsie was the second highest grossing movie of the year and an awards season favorite. 48 Hrs. defined the buddy cop genre and made Eddie Murphy a movie star. Fast Times at Ridgemont High struck a nerve with teen audiences just as they were becoming a desirable demographic.

The biggest teen comedy of the year was Porky’s, but I left that one off. In fact it’s the only one of the years top ten grossing moves I excluded. If there are any fans of the Porky’s franchise out there, you have my condolences. The Toy was on the bubble as was The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Both made the cut largely because I wanted some representation for their respective leading men, Pryor and Burt Reynolds. Sadly that meant losing Clint Eastwood who directed and starred in Firefox.