'82 Into '12 Does Go

The Summer of 1982 is back in action, courtesy of the Alamo Drafthouse, and getting this cinematic time machine to work is no small challenge.

The series of 20 movies recreates what the Drafthouse calls the best summer in cinema ever, and starts by getting its flex on Friday, May 11 with Ahnuld as Conan the Barbarian. Next weekend there'll be a full-on smash-bash-crash screening of The Road Warrior at the Thunderhill Raceway in Kyle (complete with wasteland-enhanced demolition derby: Read about that in next week's issue.)

Now here's what will get all you celluloid junkies drooling. "All of these are 35 millimeter," said Alamo booker Zack Carlson.

Did you expect anything less from the Drafthouse? No, of course not, but considering how hard it can be to shake a 35mm print from the archives, especially one in good condition, that's no small achievement. What's even harder is getting the right print. Take E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. Carlson said "[Universal] booked the print for us, but we said, 'Well, this is for the summer of '82, meaning that we don't want to show the CGI damaged version you guys released in 2002, where all the guns became flash lights and E.T. had a Jar Jar Binks makeover." Fortunately, one of Universal's vice-presidents heard about the project and opened up the archive. Carlson said, "They are allowing us to show their only non-CG mangled print."

But one film is proving more elusive than most, and that's Blade Runner. That's remaining TBC on the list, so what's going on there? "I'm going to speak about this frankly," said Carlson, "because I'm not making any friends on the legal side."

It seems everyone is OK with the screening, and we mean everyone. The studio, the producers, hell, even the director is on board. Carlson said, "Ridley Scott personally sent an email saying that this screening must happen and he's in complete support of it."

So what's the hold-up? According to Carlson, there's one attorney who "thinks that the only places where movies should be shown and any screening is relevant to the promotion of his property is New York or LA, and so he doesn't think that Texas matters." However, the Drafthouse team are keeping their negotiations up. After all, they have until the end of the summer to win him around. "Hopefully he'll see this in print and decides he loves us and agrees to let us show the movie."

In the meantime, we definitely get 20 of the year's finest, so here's a glimpse of when Max was Mad (before Mel was, well, Mel.)