Movies by year: 1982

(Look out for spoilers, they're already among us!)

Wow, we're already up to 1982! This year we got another great Ustinov Poirot film, Evil Under The Sun; the visually impressive anti-corporateTron; the hilarious Victor Victoria (my favourite Julie Andrews role); Jim Henson's magic fable of a race divided and the Gelfling who must bring them together before it's too late, The Dark Crystal; and Ricardo Montalban's impressive chest coupled with Johnny Cool as Kirk's offspring in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, a mostly-perfect film.

I'm afraid I'm actually torn on this one, so I'm going to have to tell you about TWO movies...

The Thing

My other favourite scary movie. Like Alien before it, what we have here is a small group of people whose numbers are dwindling, cut off from the outside world, with no hope of external rescue, and no way of knowing where the next threat will come from. Like Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, it's also a remake of an adaptation of a Cold War-era story.

Kurt Russell continues his rebirth as MacReady, part of an American team stationed at an Antarctic research station, where things are going just fine until the arrival of a Norwegian helicopter chasing a dog across the ice. That ends badly, and when our heroes go out to the Norwegian station they find evidence of alien contact. It only goes downhill from there - who can they trust? What are they actually dealing with? How can they keep this thing from getting to civilization and killing everyone?

And the effects, oh they are fantastic. This was before CGI, kids, when it all had to be done with puppetry and stop motion animation and makeup.

Blade Runner

Ridley Scott's masterpiece sci-fi dystopian film noir. I'm one of the minority (apparently) who like the narration - adds to the downtrodden gumshoe feel.

Harrison Ford is a replicant killer - the titular Blade Runner - and must take out a group running rampant in the city. Rutger Hauer makes us question whether our hero is doing the right thing and Sean Young clouds the issue with her feminine ways.

The look of this film is absolutely gorgeous, rainy dark grimy streets and gleaming technology and fashion crossing from 40s slick to clear plastic dresses. Just a great, depressing view of the future.

Have you seen either of these masterpieces? What did you think?