Spielberg's "1941"

And let's not forget that 30 years ago the Japanese invaded Los Angeles....well at least on the big screen.

Christmas 1979 wasn't just all about "Star Trek: The Motion Picture". However, Steven Spielberg's follow up to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" was far from a big hit. Some attribute it to the downward feeling in this country because of the Iran hostage crisis happening at the time. Bah! I still love this movie, even though I can't say it has any really big laughs in it. There's definitely enough fun stuff throughout, and you can't go wrong with the onscreen pairing (if not in slightly separate story lines) of John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd. This was the Christmas before "The Blues Brothers" hit theaters, BTW. Belushi's character, Wild Bill Kelso, is probably one of the best parts, and became a true icon of this big budget comedy.

I only wish they'd release this on DVD in it's original theatrical version. The current issue, which I own, has a much longer cut with extensions to scenes already in the final movie. The problem is you have to watch these as part of the entire film. There's no way to just watch them as deleted scenes. So when the new footage suddenly cuts in, there's a color shift. This is because the footage used was not adjusted to perfectly match the overall look of the rest of the film. Weird. Obviously the budget wasn't big enough to allow for any major color correction work.

Still...looping it up to watch in the 10th Box tomorrow night (yes, I know. Explanation of the name of my home theater is coming!).

Here is the first teaser trailer for the movie, shot specifically for the teaser itself. With a voice over by Dan Ackroyd, it plays like an short enlistment film for WWII. Note that Belushi's character's name here is Wayne Kelso and not 'Wild Bill' Kelso as in the final movie.