This week for the CineTV.blog contest, we are looking at movies with an Alien n it. I’ve already written about a few of my favorite films that would fit into this category, so I asked my Bonnie Bride for her thoughts, tossing out the names of a couple of films I thought would be fun. As luck would have it, she suggested the film I am writing about this time - Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), a film that doesn’t need a plot review as most people are familiar with it. At least most people I know. The version we watched last night was the Special Edition cut streamed from Amazon, which is slightly different from both the original theatrical release and the director's cut. Our daughter, Little Miss, had her own shows she wanted to watch, so she ducked out on it. Close Encounters is a film we have seen together a few years back. More on that a little later in this post.
Close Encounters poster - IMDB
Released mid-November, 1977, the same year as Star Wars and a couple of months after I attended my first Science Fiction convention, Close Encounters of the Third Kind was not as big of a hit as the Lucas film, but it was still a spectacular film to watch. Rather than being an adventure film like Star Wars, Close Encounters was a humanistic story, about people experiencing the unexpected, It is also the kind of story that a lot of my friends at that time, including myself, would have loved to be a participant in, if had really happened.
An iconic shot from the movie - IMDB
There is a lot to like about the film, and the story is KING, as it gets one involved in the lives of two random people, Roy (Richard Dreyfuss) and Jillian (Melinda Dunn) who, along with others, felt compelled to seek out the place where the Extraterrestrials would show up for a visit. Teri Garr, who had a small role in a movie I wrote about last year - Pajama Party - plays Roy’s wife Ronnie, and I get the feeling she was a bit type-cast playing the wife of men who are losing their marbles as she played a similar role in Oh, God. But that’s a different story.
The Mother Ship - IMDB
Steven Spielberg did a masterful job of crafting Close Encounters into a fine film, and, like Goerge Lucas with Star Wars had a cultural impact, especially on Fandom. For awhile there, at both SF Conventions as well as at S.T.A.R. San Diego meetings, people would use the hand signal and tones from Close Encounters for fun. It is still a fun film to watch today, and holds up fairly well, even though technology has changed quite a lot since it was made back in the ‘70s (phones and cameras have changed dramatically since then).
photo of the movie at KOA Devil's Tower - taken by my Bonnie Bride
The motivation for choosing this film goes back to 2017, when we went on a family road trip to Wyoming to see the solar eclipse. We spent a couple of nights with my in-laws at Devil’s Tower. A fun trip. Staying at the KOA next to Devil’s Tower, with that mountain towering over the campsite, it is the only place in the world where you can get a special treat as the KOA shows Close Encounters every night when they are open, with Devil’s Tower in the background. So glad my Bonnie Bride got some pictures of the screen with that mountain in the background, as it was the catalyst for my choice for this week's contest. Sadly, the only shots that looked good were the ones with the DVD menu displayed. And no, we didn’t see any UFOs or E.T.s while we were there.
A picture of Devil's Tower, 2017, photo by me.
It's part of the Mid-West SF Fandom Tour
That’s it for this time around. Thanks for stopping by.
For more information on CineTV.blog and this contest, please check out the contest post at - @cinetv/cinetv-contest-74-favorite-movie-with-an-alien
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