Favoritest Movies of 1982

The lists are getting shorter, the backlog of this project is nearing completion.  The red letters denoting disliked movies says goodbye, it'll stick to hating newer movies.  I'm actually pretty fond of a little more than the top 20 from this year, and the top 6 are all childhood favorites.  There was a time when I'd say I didn't get to see E.T. as a child.  Theatrically this is true, but I was also still a child when I said it. I only saw Wrath of Khan theatrically, in the same theater my father asked my mother to marry him in several years earlier.  I was a bit emotionally attached to that room myself, as it was where I'd seen Empire for the first time.

I saw Tron, and most other movies on a big screen outdoors at the Union Electric Club, in Valley Park.  It doesn't exist anymore.  It was off of Vance Rd.  After entering  you'd see ball fields, a jet plane, a train caboose! That's the actual caboose pictured to the left.  We'd park on a white gravel lot.  There was a playground, bisected by a slightly elevated sidewalk going back to a large white, homely looking two story building.  The Sidewalks had creatures, mostly bugs painted on them.  When I was very small, I even found them a bit scary.  The playground equipment was far from what we'd consider safe, this entire place was even then a relic of an earlier era, but I didn't know that at the time.  We'd bring our own drinks and snacks.  My parents and grandparents were just that cheap.  We didn't pay to get in, it was for the UE employee's and retiree's and their families.  There was a long area of picnic style tables, end to end.  The floor was halved logs that had been laquered.  It was open air, and lit by yellow light at night.  The big attraction there was the bingo game that would go on, sometimes I believe during the movie.  Movies, baseball, playground, bingo, snow cones, heat, bugs, peeling paint, playground fixtures made of wood and steel.  It was in high ground, nothing but trees in sight.

I haven't thought of it in years.  I didn't plan on going on so long about it.  I had nothing to say when I say when I sat down to slap up this list.  But, I guess digging up old memories was the original point of this exercise.  Hundreds and hundreds of people enjoyed that place, I'd imagine most, if not all the ones who played bingo are long dead.  And nothing remains of it.  It's torn down.  I found one plea online for information, pictures of the place, and that was placed in 1998.  These lists, Facebook.  We're all loading the internet like the Pharaoh's loaded  up their pyramids.  Not morbidly so, nor necessarily with mortality in mind, but as a communal, digital time capsule of not items, but experiences.

1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
2. The Dark Crystal
3. Blade Runner
4. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
5. Tron
6. The Secret of NIMH
7. Koyaanisqatsi
8. An Officer and a Gentleman
9. Conan the Barbarian
10. Airplane II: The Sequel
11. Gandhi
12. The Thing
13. Poltergeist
14. Pink Floyd The Wall
15. The Beastmaster
16. Fast Times at Ridgemont High
17. Tootsie
18. Android
19. The Shaolin Temple
20. Annie
21. Firefox
22. The Year of Living Dangerously
23. Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales
24. Timerider
25. Swamp Thing
26. Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip
27. Evil Under the Sun
28. The Last Unicorn
29. The World According to Garp
30. Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
31. Rocky III
32. Personal Best
33. Night Shift
34. First Blood
35. Megaforce
36. Honkytonk Man
37. 48 Hours
38. Porky's
39. Death Wish II
40. Fanny and Alexander