“Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life.” – Animal House
Grok® was feeling grumpy tonight.
1978 starts feels much farther from 1982, for instance, than four years. As I went through the films from 1978, they trend to be more focused on the past. As an example, of the top grossing movies of 1978, two are set in the 1950s/early 1960s (Grease, Animal House) and the third is a callback to a character that certainly hit peak popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, Superman.
11 of the major release films were sequels in 1978, compared to 25 in 1998, and 37 in 2018. Not remakes. Sequels. These are, as usual, excluded from the list.
The list is in the order that it’s in, and for no particular reason. It is what it is.
The Boys in Company C – Movies about Vietnam were popular in 1978, and this is the beginning of Hollywood coming to grips with the loss of that war. This one made the list because it was R. Lee Ermey’s first movie role. The movie then descends into some weird concept that the Marines need to learn to play soccer in order to beat the Viet Cong. In the end, everyone dies because they got bored playing soccer.
This has nothing to do with the movie, but I’m not going to let that stop me.
The Manitou – It’s awful. It stars Tony Curtis and . . . Michael Ansara? It’s also of an era where everyone starring in the movie is now dead, probably because this film was so bad it ended up killing them. It’s about Tony Curtis (a fake medium) coming into contact with actual Native American spirit power. In order to stop this, actor Michael Ansara plays an American Indian shaman. Basic plot: white people are awful and not spiritual and we killed off all the Indians so we had to hire a Syrian, Michael Ansara, to play one so he could use electricity to stop evil.
Grease – One of the big nostalgia pieces of 1978, it stars John Travolta as a Korean War veteran who meets an Australian in a POW camp. They escape through the use of a flying car.
Looks more like Billy-Bob Clooney Reynolds, but whatever.
Hooper – I really like Burt Reynolds. He had, especially after Deliverance, the chance to be a serious Hollywood star. He decided, “Nah, I’m in this for fun,” and spent the 1970s and 1980s doing whatever he wanted. Hooper is the result of that, as is his expensive divorce from Loni Anderson’s bosom. Hooper, though is not a bosom but a light action-comedy that has a plot that could have been written by two guys after downing a case of Schlitz™, which is probably what happened. It’s a silly movie. But it’s Burt’s movie.
“And your Delta Tau Chi name is . . . Dispenser.”
Animal House – Certainly one of the best comedies of all time if not one of the best movies of all time as well. It took Belushi from star to superstar, and grossed $142 million after being made on a budget of $3 million. It, too was a nostalgic look back, as the Boomers continued to consume movies about themselves – almost every movie on this list was made by an for Boomers. Oh, and it references Vietnam. As does . . .
Do two Chongs make a white?
Up in Smoke – There really isn’t a plot to the movie other than Cheech and Chong getting stoned, but it made massive money – $104 million on a budget of $2 million, most of which was probably spent on drugs.
It took my Brazillianth try to get this image.
The Boys from Brazil – The Boys from Brazil was probably the first time cloning hit the national consciousness. The plot is simple: escaped doctor Josef Mengele wants to clone an Austrian painter to . . . well, that’s unclear. Certainly not paint.
I told Grok just to have fun with that one, and I was pleased.
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes – The plot is in the title. Ambulatory tomatoes go around killing people in a comedy horror film that is also somehow a disaster movie. The real joke of the movie is that there isn’t enough plot for a movie, yet it spawned three sequels. I think it succeeded because not because it was so bad, but it was intentionally bad in just the right way at just the right time, sort of like The Gong Show.
This one surprised me for the pun.
The Deer Hunter – Annnnnd back to Vietnam. Is this the darkest movie on the list? Certainly. When the Vietnam dam burst in film, it really burst. This movie is well regarded because it’s got great actors, an intense plot, and is perfectly put together. But it’s bleak. If it’s a movie about America, it’s a movie about a lost America under Jimmy Carter where we looked like the most likely superpower to collapse. But speaking about superpowers . . .
Grok came up with the logo himself.
Superman – It was the most expensive movie made up to that point at $55 million, and made $300 million, so this movie did not kneel before Zod. Was it a movie for kids? Certainly, but plenty of adults had to go see it, too. I think the plot is far too optimistic to be made today, and if Netflix™ were to remake it, Superma’am™ would be a proud black FtM transexual, since Superman™ is already an illegal alien.
Sally doesn’t like being replaced.
Every Which Way but Loose – Clint spent most of the 1970s killing people in places like San Francisco or the Alps, he decided he wanted to do a comedy to “broaden his appeal.” What comedy? Every Which Way but Loose. In it, Eastwood plays a bare-knuckle boxer who roams the United States looking for a girl while accompanied by his best friend and his monkey. It’s sort of like what Smokey and the Bandit would have been if Sally Field was a monkey. Did Clint have a lot of money after all those earlier box office hits? He did. This one made over $100 million on a $5 million budget.
If you know, you know.
Halloween – Halloween is, perhaps, the first modern horror movie that made it big. John Carpenter, who had already done some good movies, decided to make a great movie. It was one of the lowest-budgeted movies on this list, yet made $70 million at the box office. Carpenter was paid just $10,000 to write and direct it, but retained a 10% profit stake. This was the movie that showed what horror movies would become after the Hammer Films Dracula-style movie was no longer the standard.
This is 1978. It’s pretty dark, but America was in a dark place. High inflation, stagnant economy, the Soviets attacking Afghanistan and Americans held hostage in Teheran. It reminds me of Biden’s America, but Carter didn’t have dementia and Obama to blame.
What did I miss?