5-25-77

It’s tough to explain movie fandom to a generation raised on the internet.  Prior to the exchange of instantaneous opinions and cliques of like-minded twitter feeds, a personal obsession with horror, sci-fi or comic books guaranteed you a seat at the nerdy lunch table.  I know, because I was one of the official seatwarmers.  And so was director Patrick Read Johnson, whose autobiographical film 5-25-77 (the date Star Wars premiered nationwide) was just as much a behind-the-scenes struggle to complete as high school.

Struck with the movie bug after a screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Patrick (John Francis Daley) spends most of his youth staging elaborate Super 8 sequels to popular films of the day…like turning the backyard swimming pool red to get a shot for Jaws 2 or creating his own monkey masks for Requiem for the Planet of the Apes.  But life gets complicated when girls, friends and financial responsibilities force him to choose between pursuing dreams of Hollywood stardom or settling down to a life of pedestrian creature comforts.

 

If that sounds a bit like The Fablemans, Almost Famous and Licorice Pizza, mark yourself down for movie bingo.  But Johnson’s film has been a work in progress for nearly the past decade, popping up in a few festivals but never garnering enough attention to a final polish…until now. A personal project that never succumbs to simple vanity, Johnson’s story is relatable to every fan who ever dreamed of following their passion.  And his status as the “first fan” of George Lucas’ space opera (a trip to ILM scored him a private workprint screening) is the stuff dreams are made of.

 

In fact, that Hollywood trip, shepherded by American Cinematographer editor Herb Lightman, is the highlight of Johnson’s film.  Poking around stage, Patrick runs across Steven Spielberg (played by damn good lookalike, Kevin J. Stephens) at work on Close Encounters, bonds with the model makers and finds himself speechless when finally face-to-face with his hero Douglas Trumbull.  It’s a truly magical sequence.  The rest of 5-25-77also has its heart in the right place, even if it struggles at time to be as polished as the films it so obviously admires (the use of copious CGI in a few dream sequences seems particularly out of place).  At its best moments, Johnson’s film captures that unique moment in history when cinema was re-inventing itself…and fandom along with it.

 

MVD deserves a pat on the back for helping 5-25-77 across the finish line in such fine fashion.  The Blu-ray looks terrific despite between pulled from so many sources and includes a commentary, Q & A, trailer and photo galleries.

 

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