I don't know why, but I decided I wanted to watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind again. I haven't seen this movie since I saw it in the theater in 1977, and I didn't like it very much then. I remember being particularly put off by the ending with the happy-go-lucky & smiling hideously aliens, and the cosmic jam session. Bleh. But it is #80 on IMDb's Top 100 Greatest Movies of All Time list, so that should mean something. And besides, what the fuck do I know? So I picked it up at the library and, after a suitable period of sitting on the shelf and not being noticed and having to be renewed, I started watching it.
And for the first couple of minutes I was thinking, You know, maybe I was wrong, this actually looks like it might be pretty good. One thing that helped is that I watched a Making Of documentary beforehand, and those always make me appreciate a movie more because you see how much work and planning went into the movie, and it's hard not to be impressed by that. But then things started to go wrong.
Like when the UFO pulls up behind Roy's truck and he waves it around, just like he did the car a few minutes earlier on. Just silly. And why the hell would a UFO do that? Same with the UFOs coming down the highway, following the road. What? It reminds me of how in bad science fiction movies they always act like outer space is two dimensional. Nobody ever flies over or under any obstacle, you know? They're always dodging around asteroids and shit like that.
Another one of the things I really dislike about this movie is the way that visual excitement constantly trumps good storytelling. For instance, when the aliens come to the house to abduct Barry, all of the appliances go nuts. I can buy electrical appliances powering up, I suppose . . . though I don't know why that would happen . . . but when the vacuum cleaner starts going back and forth, and when the dishwasher flies open and things fly out of it, and when the refrigerator door opens up . . . well, that's just silly, isn't it? And then there are the other appliances that are affected when there's no "electrical" explanation possible, like the panels flying off of the hot water heater. What the fuck is supposed to be up with that?
And how did all of the people who saw the UFOs get imprinted with the message about Devil's Tower? And if the aliens were capable of imprinting a message, why were they so fucking vague? They weren't vague when they sent the coordinates to the radio telescope guys. [An anguished cry] Consistency is all I ask!
And the music. John Williams has done some great music. Darth Vader's theme. The music that plays when Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi take on Darth Maul. And the Jaws theme. But a lot of his music . . . and I think all of his incidental music . . . just irritates the piss out of me. It's like Aaron Copland on Prozac. Too many bells . . . and not enough cow.
There were some high points, though. For instance, at 1:17 a twenty-nine year old Apollo Creed showed up in a military uniform . . . and that was right after a guy who looked and sounded like Ted Cruz appeared selling chickens who were sensitive to the "deadly mystery gas" which was pervading the area. Speaking of which, one of the best lines in the movie is when Roy is taken into custody by the military and when they tell him that it's for his protection because of the gas in the area, he replies, " . . . the only gas around here is from you guys farting around!" Good times.
But all in all . . . I really didn't like this movie very much. Sorry, Mr. Play Mountain.
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