![]() ![]() This time it acknowledges its sister trilogy by opening with text that says, “Once upon a time, there was a famous Sheriff. Now we have SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT PART 3 released in the August after RETURN OF THE JEDI. SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT II came out the August after EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and did pretty well, if not as well. Though I’m not aware of a disco version of its theme song, it made more money than CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND or SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. box office that year, and therefore also a big deal? It was SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, the directorial debut of stuntman Hal Needham. Would you care to guess what was #2 at the U.S. One of the biggest and longest lasting pop culture creations so far. I believe we’ve discussed once or twice in this series, and possibly in other contexts, that in 1977 there was this movie called “ STAR WARS” that absolutely knocked pop culture on its ass, and the thing still hasn’t recovered. ![]() It’s a simple movie with very strong execution, and some of the elements involved (killer dog, tiny kid, limited location) are of a high enough degree of difficulty that there aren’t many other movies to directly compare it to. It’s a movie everyone knows about but I’m not sure it’s held in as high of regard as I think it deserves. The movie wasn’t as important to me, and though I saw it on VHS at some point it wasn’t until rewatching it for that 2008 review that I realized it’s a real gem. The dog attacking people just seemed cool. The part I remember vividly, of course, is something about Donna’s sex life with Steve. It might’ve been my first Stephen King book, maybe even my first horror book besides Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and Alfred Hitchcock short story collections. Cujo the book was formative to me because I read it when I was in third grade. Since there aren’t that many horror movies in this summer of ’83, it seemed worth revisiting now. I’ve written about CUJO before, but that was 15 years ago. ![]()
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