The Year in Movies

Obviously, the year in movies belongs to Steven Spielberg, the head of that video/film conglomerate known as E.T. & T. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial cost $10,500,000 to make and roughly half that to sell. It opened June 15th and made $11,900,000 the first weekend. Show Business, the Insider's Newsletter said, "Looks good, but it's no Star Trek II." Right. As an aside, we should point out that for most of Hollywood, movies that come quick are good news. Over the summer, we were treated to headlines in Variety that claimed that Rocky III had set a weekend record, selling more than $16,000,000 worth of tickets in the first four days at 939 theaters. (In Hollywood, four days equal one weekend.) Other ads proclaimed Star Trek II the winner, with $14,300,000 in three days. Who cares? According to Show Business, summer ticket sales were 1.4 billion dollars, of which 25 percent was accounted for by E.T. and Rocky III. The top eight films of the summer did about half of the year's gross. For most of you, the summer in movies consisted of E.T., Rocky III, Star Trek II, Poltergeist, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Annie, Firefox and An Officer and a Gentleman. Christmas added 48 HRS., Tootsie, Sophie's Choke and Gandhi, a three-hour movie about the world's most famous vegetarian. If, by any chance, you still had some discretionary income, you could have treated yourself to some minor but magic pictures. Barbarians made a comeback in 1982. We liked The Beastmaster, The Sword and the Sorcerer and Conan the Barbarian, which offers one magic moment when the witch has an orgasm, turns into a fireball and ricochets around A the room. On second thought, that is not magic. Happens in our apartment every weekend. Sure. Then there is a scene in I, the Jury that will go down with the shower scene in Psycho for the Our Worst Fears Confirmed Award: The chef at a Tokyo-style restaurant stops chopping steak and slashes the throat of a woman diner. Neat. There was an increasing alliance between Hollywood and business in 1982. Merchandising was the big word. We're surprised someone didn't start a line of I, the Jury Japanese sushi bars. Or a line of make-up products based on the morning-after face in Poltergeist (right). It was bad enough their premier product, The Fatly Arbuckle Story. Moving right along: It was a great year for foreign films, especially from Australia. Mel Gibson gets our award for Best Hero of the Year (only Sandahl Bergman and Arnold Schwarzenegger came close). The Feral Kid should have a sequel of his own; if they market his razor-edged boomerang, there are a couple of kids in the neighborhood who deserve one. Even the French managed to make a movie that didn't sound like a first-year lecture in psychology. Diva was seeing E.T.'s face in every store window at Christmas. When the folks at Coca-Cola bought Columbia Pictures, there was a rumor that they planned a film that would feature wonderfully weird; it could even play at a drive-in, which is the ultimate test of quality film making. Finally, we'd like to thank A. T. & T. for not using E.T. In its ads. We guess when you're a monopoly, you don't have to have fun.

Real Men Don't

It was a year of confused sexuality. John Lithgow played a transsexual in The World According to Garp; Alex Karras, a gay bodyguard in Victor, Victoria. Paul Newman came out with a sald dressing (right) and plans to marked an industrial-strength spaghetti sauce. Only Harrison Ford stayed true to his school, drinking blood in Blade Runner (left). Hang in there, kid.

You must remember this

Submit it again, Sam

A Script is Still A script

Chuck Ross took the screenplay for Casablanca and submitted it, under its original title (Everybody Comes to Rick's,) to 217 Hollywood agencies. Ninety did not read the screenplay. Thirty-three agencies recognized the script (with such comments as "Have some excellent ideas on casting this wonderful script, but most of the actor are dead"). Eight agencies noticed a similarity to Casablanca. Some thought the script (which won an Oscar) needed rewriting. Three agencies agreed to submit the work to movie studios; a fourth wanted to turn it into a novel.

For a Fistful of Quarters

A few years ago, there was a crop of movies that seemed to exist merely as a vehicle for the sound track: Grease, Saturday Night Fever, Urban Cowboy. Now, it seems, movies exist as elaborate commercials for video games. It was the year of the Techno-nerd. TRON, the Empire Strikes Back, Raiders, E. T.--all were packaged as home games. Most were unsuccessful. But is this the wave of the future? Is it too much to expect a full-length feature based on Defender? Before you English majors slash your wrists, we hasten to note it was a good year for making novels into movies--The World According to Garp and Sophie's Choice worked well--and the reverse: William Kotzwinkle's E. T. novelization was worth its weight in Reese's Pieces.

Déjà Vusion: Hollywood look-Alikes

We were struck by similarities. First, there was the rash of sequels: Grease 2, Amityville II, Rocky III, Star Trek II, Airplane II, Halloween III. Hollywood discovered Roman numerals. But we have to give awards to Aileen Quinn's cheeks (above left) and to Ricardo Montalban's chest (above right) for Best Use of Silicone. Elsewhere: Did anyone notice how much Scott Schwartz, the child actor who portrayed a spoiled rich kid in The Toy, resembled John McEnroe, tennis' enfant terrible? If you thought the submarine in Das Boot looked familiar, you were right: George Lucas rented it for Raiders. It subsequently fell apart and sank. Shades of Twilight Zone. We saw a lot of movies about Moonies (Ticket to Heaven, Split Image) and about divorce (Shoot the Moon, Smash Palace.) Did it strike anyone else as odd that Paradise was a dehydrated version of Blue Lagoon? Did anyone notice that both Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons, who co-starred in The French Lieutenants Woman, went on to play roles of Poles--in better movies (Sophie's Choice and Moonlighting)?

The Joy of sex in Cinema

Early last year, President Ronald Reagan cited the dear, dead, squeaky-clean good old days of cinema, when he portrayed baseball player Grover Cleveland Alexander. When he went to bed with his wife (Doris Day), whatever happened there was not shown graphically, as it might be nowadays. Instead, said Reagan, the film showed a picture of the moon. Ronnie must have had a good year. In 1982, there were three lunar eclipses. For the rest of us, there were the movies. In Quest for Fire (right), Rae Dawn Chong invented fellatio and gave instructions on the missionary position. Hollywood seemed preoccupied with the penis. Mickey Rourke introduces his date to a popcorn surprise in Diner (top left). Hold the butter. The gym teacher in Porky's plays tug of war in the shower room (above left), while another jock, Mariel Hemingway, learns to hold on in Personal Best (above center). Need we bring up what happened to Mary Beth Hurt's lover in Garp when the car in which she was blowing him was rear-ended? Ahem. For straight sex, there was the incredible chemistry between Richard Gere and Debra Winger in An Officer and a Gentleman (above right). As for kinky sex, it was the year that Hollywood discovered bondage. In I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can, Jill Clayburgh was tied to a chair and beaten. Less violent were the lovers in Summer Lovers (left). Daryl Hannah tied Peter Gallagher and dripped hot wax onto his body. In Cat People (right), Nastassia Kinski asked to be tied, in accordance with a city ordinance requiring pets to be kept on a leash.

Bruce Williamson's Hit List

The Ten Best

Das Boot: Life and death aboard a German submarine. Claustrophobia has seldom been so exciting.

Diner: A bunch of the boys whooping it up in Barry Levinson's eloquent ode to his misspent youth in Baltimore.

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial: And possibly the eighth wonder.

Gandhi: Ben Kingsley's matchless as the mahatma.

Mephisto: Shattering stuff, splendidly acted by Klaus Maria Brandauer as a German stage star clicking his heels to Hitler.

Missing: Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek in Costa-Gavras' powerful, unforgettable political drama about Americans in Chile.

My Favorite Year: Vintage farce, with the spotlight on Peter O'Toole, live and wild as a drunken star in TV's golden Fifties.

The Road Warrior (above): Aussie director George Miller's cinematic know-how is breath-taking in a futuristic action movie.

Tootsie: Glorious fun in grand company, topped by Dustin Hoffman in drag as a soap-opera queen for a while.

The Verdict: Maybe Paul Newman's best.

The Ten Worst

Author! Author!: Al Pacino all wrong for romantic comedy.

Cannery Row: John Steinbeck never had it so bad. Cinematic botulism, despite Nick Nolte and Debra Winger.

Hanky Panky: Zilch comic chemistry between Gilda Radner and Gene Wilder (they reportedly mixed better offscreen).

I'm Dancing as Fast as Can: Jill Clayburgh losing her mind, her credibility and her audience. From the book, sort of.

Inchon: Brainwash breeds hogwash. Someone spent tons of the Reverend Moon's money on this turkey.

Kiss Me Goodbye: Eunuchs may relish Sally Field (with James Caan and Jeff Bridges) in a desexed remake of Dona Flor.

One from the Heart: A multimillion-dollar B movie.

Partners: Homocidal is the best word to describe an unfunny farce about an odder couple of cops.

Six Weeks: Mary Tyler and Dudley--Moores the pity--fulfill a dying child's fondest dreams. Reach for your barf bags.

The Toy: Clumsy, profitable comedy, guilty of Pryor restraint.

Best Lines

Our favorite lines came from the strange movie Eating Raoul (below). Most memorable: "You're gonna need some lubricant with that vibrator. We've got K-Y and Lay Orgy gel. You taste it, you buy it. The Lay Orgy gel comes in lemon, mint, cherry or trail mix."

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"Oh, Stingo, you look very nice--you're wearing your cocksucker." "Seersucker." (Meryl Streep and Peter MacNicol, in Sophie's Choice)

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"It was nothing like that, penis breath." (Henry Thomas, in E.T.)

"Stay away from my daughter." (Edward Arnold, in Johnny Eager, recycled for Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid) "Can I use her underwear to make soup?" (Steve Martin, in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid)

I Hate To See A Beautiful Woman

Joe bob Briggs at the Bijou

Revenge of the Jocks