June 1982

June of 1982 was an exciting month in my life. A kind of big deal happened - I was born. While I was a young movie lover, I didn't spring from the womb and immediately start going to the theater. If I had, though, I would have gotten to see a handful of iconic movies in their original theatrical runs.

There were nine major theatrical releases in June 1982. Four of them - Hanky Panky, Grease 2, Author! Author!, and Firefox - either bombed or have mostly been lost to time. The other five, though, were either huge hits right away or became widely loved classics in the intervening years. 

The month started strong with Poltergeist and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan opening on June 4th. Of all these June releases, Poltergeist was easily the one I saw first. I have distinct memories watching this when I was 6 or 7 and being terrified by certain scenes, most notably the clown puppet attacking the little boy in his bed. It's a movie that still holds up today. I showed it to my son when he was 7 and he liked it well enough, too. The performances are all solid, plus the writing and direction are top notch. Some of the effects might feel dated, but I normally don't let stuff like that effect my enjoyment of a movie. It's a shame that Poltergeist is mostly talked about today for either the "curse" that supposedly befell several cast and crew members or the tidbit about the production using real human skeletons for one scene. I swear those are the only two things I ever see discussed online, but the movie is still an effective example for a horror film for older kids and families to share together. It's scary, but not too scary.

I didn't become a Star Trek fan until sometime in late 1993 or early 1994. I started with The Next Generation TV show and then moved backwards to the original series movies. I probably watched The Wrath of Khan during the summer of 1994 and it immediately impressed me. It was such a fantastic action/adventure movie - and so, so much more enjoyable compared to The Motion Picture. Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Bones, and the rest of the crew of the Enterprise struck me as larger than life characters. Even without ever seeing any of the original series, the characters and stories made sense. The performances, especially William Shatner, could be a bit broad and hammy, but that didn't deter 12 year old me in the slightest. Khan (the terrifically cheesy Ricardo Montalban) is an iconic villain, not just for Star Trek movies or science fiction movies, but iconic for the history of the medium. The ending is decidedly downbeat, but I think that's one of the best aspects. I've always been a sucker for a sad ending. All in all, Wrath of Khan is generally considered the best of all the Star Trek movies. I don't quite agree with that - I give the edge to Star Trek 6: The Undiscover Country - but it's definitely the most influential. If Khan hadn't been a hit, I don't think the movies would have continued and Star Trek itself probably would have died out entirely. 

One week later, on June 11, one of the biggest movies of all-time opened and took the country and world by storm. Up until two years ago, I had never seen E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It was easily the most well known and beloved movie that I had just never gotten around to. Thanks to Covid-19 (you don't hear that phrase very often, do you?), the summer of 2020 was filled with one of my local theaters playing old movies each week. Seeing E.T. on the big screen for my first viewing just made sense. I didn't expect to be blown away, but I very much was. I loved pretty much every moment. It made me laugh and cry and feel absolute joy while marveling at the spectacle. Steven Spielberg has long been one of my favorite directors and this is just another jewel in his crown of achievements. The music - by the legendary John Williams - was, of course, spectacular. What really surprised me was how great the child actors were. Generally, you don't get these types of performances out of young actors, but Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore were both outstanding. Even with several major plot points and moments spoiled for me by years and years of clips and references, this movie just works. If anyone reading this hasn't seen E.T. yet, don't be like me and put it off for nearly 40 years. It deserves and demands to be seen still, even after all these years.   

On June 25, just two days before I debuted, two of the most well loved and appreciated science fiction films of all-time debuted in theaters. Neither performed well at the box office, but that didn't stop them from gaining critical and cultural esteem over the years. The Thing has been one of my favorite horror films for the last five years. I first watched it in early 2016 and thought it was good, but it's only grown in quality for me with the intervening four or five viewings. There is so much depth - in the story and in the characters - that repeat viewings really pay off. The first time I watched it, I was caught up with the horror/suspense elements and awesome practical effects, but now I love it for all sorts of reasons. Pretty much every negative in my original review is now a plus. I think it's director John Carpenter's best work and is filled with terrific performances, an excellent score, wonderful visuals, those groundbreaking effects, and a nice balance of humor to counteract the terrible sense of horror and dread. One of my favorite subgenres of horror is the "trapped in snow" category and The Thing is just a notch behind The Shining for the best example of how wonderful movies like this can be. 

Blade Runner is a movie that took me a few tries to actually get through. I think I started three separate times and never made it more than 20 or 30 minutes before getting bored or distracted and shutting it off. When I finally did manage to get all the way through, I was wowed by the visuals - it's one of My Most Beautiful Films after all - but left moderately cool on the movie as a whole. Well, I've since revisited it in preparation for Blade Runner 2049 and it went up a couple of ratings points for me with the second full viewing. Director Ridley Scott has a career full of ups and downs, but this one definitely places in the top third or so of his career for me. Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Edward James Olmos, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah, M. Emmet Walsh, and Brion James all turn in solid performances and the neo-noir plot that bored me at first now really appeals to me. Blade Runner famously has several different versions available and I've only seen "The Final Cut", but that is - according to internet consensus at least - the best of all the versions. If you're going to watch it for the first time, buy the Blu-ray or 4K disc and watch it on the biggest screen you have access to. I don't think you'll be disappointed. 

It's incredibly rare for any one month to have this many films that all hold up so well. I looked at other notable Junes - 1987 (my 5th birthday month), 1992 (10th), 1997 (15th), 2000 (18th), 2003 (21st), 2007 (25th), 2012 (30th), and 2017 (35th) - during my lifetime to see if maybe it was a repeating event, but couldn't find any that had more than one or two noteworthy releases. I then opened my search up to any month in 1999 and 2000 (two of my favorite movie years) and still couldn't find any months that came close to June 1982 so I guess there really must have been something special about my birth month. I always suspected as much, but it's nice to have empirical evidence like this to back up my claim. 

Thanks for reading and celebrating my birth month with me! What movies were released the month you were born? Are any of them amongst your favorites?