Summer Of 1982: E.T.

Alamo Drafthouse is recreating the “Summer of 1982” to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the greatest summer of movies… ever! From May through July, the theater will replicate 1982’s earth-shaking release schedule, screening eight of the biggest genre classics on the same weekends they were released exactly 30 years ago.

Why did we EVER love E.T.? When he first showed up in the cornfield, he scared the hell out of us. Then later, when he was sick in that creek bed, he made us cry like little sissy babies. Plus he looks like something that fell off of Danny DeVito. But something about that gnarled little spud spoke to every tender-hearted moviegoer in the country, filling us with an interplanetary sense of love and wonder. Times have changed, science fiction movies have exploded into a bold new era of inflated budgets and computerized effects…and no spaceborne adventure has ever recaptured the undisputed magic of Spielberg’s incredible, original boy-and-his-alien masterpiece. (Zack Carlson)

“In E.T., I found the first character with whom I could strongly identify. That’s significant because, at the time, the existence of such a thing had never even occurred to me. Nearly ten, already entranced by LucasFilm productions, I was excited to see this new movie about a stranded alien. I got more than expected. The intensity of Steven Spielberg's stylized storytelling, and his faceless, shadowy authority figures, were nearly overwhelming. But in Elliott I found a near-mirror image: small, almost an outsider in a California suburb, dug into a burrow of a room that was a riot of Star Wars toys and space imagery. I wanted to be Luke Skywalker, but I thought I was Elliott. Crucial difference. Identification doesn’t make a movie, but seeing the person I thought I was on screen, and seeing him face the unknown with eyes wide open, was more inspiring than watching any hero save the day. “ (Russ Fischer, SLASHFILM)

Tickets on sale Friday May 25th.