Chris Nashawaty‘s “The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982” celebrates eight landmark films that opened 42 years ago — Conan the Barbarian, The Road Warrior, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Poltergeist, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Blade Runner, The Thing and Tron.
But only three of these were truly stellar and earthshaking — E.T, The Road Warrior and Blade Runner. The other five were noteworthy but problematic here and there.
Poltergeist was pretty good but not classic. I actually sorta kinda disliked The Thing (I prefer the 1951 Howard Hawks version to John Carpenter’s) and Tron. Ricardo Montalban was great in The Wrath of Khan but otherwise calm down.
