Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) 137 Minutes

The more things change...

The patio has been replaced with an expansive pool deck, our beloved Stucco

replaced with a purple brick wall, and the occasional spider replaced with two

massive raccoons - but Movienight marches on.

Nubs took the SELECTOR reins to march our stalwart Crew into this bold new

chapter in Movienight history. While he suggested in his eloquent and

unexpectedly poetic preamble that ‘Close Encounters’ was an inevitable

Selection, it seemed to be well-received by those in attendance.

Speaking of attendance, despite it being our first week without Eric “MOFO”

Coolbaugh in the local Crew, Jaja backing out for fear of the new commute, Buffy missing her first pick since she joined our ranks, and Wiener predictably absent from our first night in his Back Yard, we still had a very respectable nine person audience for Nubby’s pick. Members Tooda, Nubs, Netti, and WildCard Slim were joined by Bobbi, Amy, Joby, Pat Towne, and first-timer (i.e. chatty-kathy) Lisa.

Much like Nubs very first night as a SELECTOR, we were treated to a Spielberg classic - as well as a problematic set-up. This time around, Nubs was not at fault, as the DVD settings had to be adjusted to get the sound properly channeled through our new (and greatly improved) surround sound system. The delays were particularly bothersome as Nubs had clearly put great effort into his poetic intro to this magnificent film.

Once the film finally got started, we were met with the first of two raccoon encounters. Tooda, famously terrified of the beasties, sat out of efforts to shoo them away. The first salvo from the critters was readily handled by Kentucky bad-ass, Amy, with Lisa backing her up. The second intrusion was managed by Bobbi.

‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ marks the welcome return of Steven Spielberg to the Stuc- um, Purple Brick Wall. He becomes Movienight’s most watched director with this Selection. He debuted with Nubs’ first pick ever, ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ then with our first ever Unofficial Selection ‘Saving Private Ryan.’ After a long absence, Spielberg famously returned helming Coolbaugh’s “Zip. Thud.” ‘Jaws.’ ‘Close Encounters’ marks the third Official Selection from the director.

Richard Dreyfuss also enters the record books with this Selection. He is now the most frequently seen performer in Movienight’s history with this, his fourth appearance after Nubs’ ‘Stand By Me,’ Tooda’s ‘Let it Ride,’ and Coolbaugh’s ‘Jaws.’

Teri Garr returns as Dreyfuss’s shrill spouse since first filling that role in Tooda’s ‘Let it Ride.’ The great director François Truffaut’s work was chronicled in Tooda’s ‘Visions of Light,’ but he appears on screen for the first time with this pick. The great, and sadly under-appreciated, Bob Balaban returns for the first time since MONA’s ‘Midnight Cowboy,’ and the wonderful Melinda Dillon appears for the first time with this pick.

It should be noted that while Joby served as our first Guest SELECTOR, ‘Close Encounters’ marks her first Official Pick shared with the Crew - we hope it won’t be long before she returns.

Next week Tooda brings his first Selection to the New Back Yard, and Movienight rolls on.

“This means something. This is important.”

Written and Directed by: Steven Spielberg

BBD Comments:

‘Close Encounters’ was a pitch perfect pick for our first night in the New Back Yard.

To me the most obvious resonance this wonderful film has for our group is its depiction of a family torn asunder. I have gone through a great many stages of grief about the Coolbaugh’s departure. I have felt sorrow over losing my friends, losing my deluxe laundry set-up, and losing the Back Yard that has become home to all of us. On the one hand, I know that the loss of friends is the most important of these sorrows, but much like Roy Neary, I have become convinced that Movienight means something. It IS important. Though our home and family are gone, we climbed the steps up to the New Back Yard filled with hope and wonder. Nubs chose a film that transports us to a new world, where change is frightening – but ultimately, astonishing in its beauty.

‘Close Encounters’ is Spielberg’s masterpiece. It speaks to almost all the themes that he cared for when he was an artist who cared. In his older years he has leant his name to reality television and re-mastered ‘E.T.’ into a gutless piece of shit. But when Spielberg was an artist, he was among the greatest in cinema, and this is the greatest of all of his achievements.

What separates this from the other Spielberg’s we have enjoyed at Movienight, is that the script is written by the man himself. This is his baby top to bottom, and while it may be less efficient than ‘Jaws’ and less explosive than ‘Raiders,’ it is poetic, lyrical, and filled with wonder. It is that sense of wonder that struck me with this viewing of the film. We are as cynical today (if not more so) than America post Nixon and VietNam was then. With so many real world issues bearing down on us, we have today, as then, lost any sense of hope, of wonder, of a world larger and more mysterious than our petty concerns allow us to see. We are all like Teri Garr is in ‘Close Encounters,’ concerned about appearances and propriety and unwilling to let our hearts carry us in earnest towards any wonderful new horizon (be it ‘Peter Pan,’ or Devil’s Tower.)

Nubs brought us a film filled with imagination and wonder, and it buoyed my spirits at the end of a VERY rough day. We have with this film, stepped onto the mother ship, convinced that there are many new horizons for us to conquer, and that Movienight’s meaning to each of our lives is important.

Thank you Mr. Wiener, for our new home, MOFO for our first home, and Nubs for yet another night of proving you know just the itch to scratch.

Onward.

Brandon Comments:

Aside from this being a great choice of films by Nubs, ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ is also a Selection, unlike the previous three, that I have actually seen before which makes me feel good that the MovieNight menu actually includes some films that I have experience with. I think it’s also ironic that during this film, midway through to be exact, Wildcard Slim suffered some kind of mental malady, which rendered him “zonked out” for the latter half of the film. I’ll spare readers the details of what and how and focus on the incredible timeliness of such a malady during a film which deserves some type of additional accoutrement. I faintly remember Zack explaining that he should have brought mashed potatoes to coincide with the scene of Richard Dreyfuss discovering the secret of the mountain location by sculpting his mashed potatoes into a mountainous pile. I didn’t need any mashed potatoes - I had what felt like a double acid trip creeping inside me, much like what I assume a “close encounter” with an alien intelligence might truly feel like.

After a 4-hour nap in my truck on the side of the road not more than 50 feet from the new Back Yard, I drove home thinking about what a great movie ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ really is. Dreyfuss is in top form here, quickly disappearing into a paranoid world of aliens, symbols, messages, and “encounters,” and we watch him uncover the mystery while we also watch his wife and family dissolve away. Leave it to Spielberg to carefully illustrate both sides of the coin: Dreyfuss, who truly believes the aliens are about to visit and will do anything to be a part of it, and Garr, his beloved wife, who stands by as long as she can before finally taking the kids to her sister’s place to escape the husband that tears apart their backyard in order to build a 10-foot high mountain in their living room.

This is one of those films from the 1970s that still stands up in modern times, much like ‘Jaws,’ ‘Apocalypse Now,’ and ‘The Exorcist.’ I am bummed, though, that the first Official Wednesday Night Selection of the new MovieNight was tainted for me, and that I missed the post-MovieNight party at Tooda’s place, but I had a close encounter with something awful and strange in my noggin. Regardless, it was a super choice, Zack!

Netti Comments:

How often are humans thrown out of their element? How small and comfortable is the world for most of us? This city? 9/11 appears in the mind. With a moment to digest further, I realize 9/11 was more akin to being thrown into our element rather than out of it. A more interesting consideration I think is: How do we maintain our identity when we are shaken loose from our constraints and complicity? So much of our identity is a patchwork of our relationships whether formal or informal, familial or civic and otherwise. When we are alienated and ostracized, we are in effect no longer ourselves; we are stripped bare of various habitual norms and default operating principles so that all that is left is the very core of our being. Is that core reduced to mere survival? An amalgamation of our childhood experiences? The notion of a 'core' might be deficient at the outset.

I have ostracized myself from time to time. As have many of my friends who seek the hermit's life in the city. I like to test a little the boundaries of my identity. In fact, last week the morning of Movienight (that being Wednesday) I had a fancy to wear women's clothing. Not for a gag or a theatrical bit like Giuliani, I've done that. Without artifice, I mean to test the gender roles that we as humans, like bees in a hive, have so mindlessly constructed. I would walk around downtown on Broadway where if I shake my shit, I might get a couple of catcalls. I might have chosen a nice baby blue dress that would show off my feminine hips; dark blue heels with little off-white dots. As I write this two F-15's just flew overhead for the Dodgers opening home game. Perhaps I should buy a Dodgers dress and wear it to a game. I truly love baseball. The season has started. I wonder if my baseball fan brethren would accept my harmless gender bending. It would have been beautiful, really. The tip of our spear jets flying overhead at the end of a heartfelt anthem where we might think of others who are dismembered by forces humans can't withstand. We must remember our war dead and soon to be dead when we get some balls, some sticks, and uniforms together. Caught up in the moment I might let out a war cry: half Dodger's, half American. Me in my Dodger blue dress with a nice satin red lipstick; my black hair quaffed. No doubt would I feel the distance between myself and others even though we would be united in something as strong as the color blue. I might very well get pummeled for it.

For Roy Neary, identity was pursuit. Even those closest to him no longer related. He was an artist I think. I don't think he sacrificed anything. He didn't even know he had lost anything because quite literally his identity no longer included them. There was nothing of remorse, or very little as he stepped into the Simon Says spaceship. He got up in that shit for some Platonic Form-type purity That was his indivisible core: obsession. Who said Spielberg's poppy sentimental offerings aren't food for thought? Lots of people. And they're wrong. But then again they're right. If we're worth our salt, anything could be a source of cerebral sustenance, like condiments or mashed potatoes.

SELECTOR Comments:

‘Close Encounters’ brought one of my Movienight dreams to life. Except for some minor technical glitches, the master of childhood dreams, Steven Spielberg, again shined bright for our crew on Wednesday. Well, not so bright. With gratitude to Mr. Wiener and his wonderful space, there are some problems with the annex that I, being the guinea pig, will force us to address.

Let my pick be a lesson to you future selectors, the play of darkness versus light is a wonderful theme to explore, but until we solve the purple wall, it’s great for Tuesday. I was at least relieved to know I had done all I could do to secure the best available print by pretending like I wanted to hang out with Tooda the night before so I could stealthily steal his digitally remastered copy. The dark wall definitely hindered this Sci-Fi classic. Any scene that wasn’t in the desert left a lot to the imagination. For instance, I had to imagine the “50-50 bar” sunburn on Richard Dreyfuss’s face. We have to put up some kind of light surface or paint on that wall or everyone is going to have to pick movies made in the last 10 years that take place in extremely well-lit settings. ‘Ishtar?’

I really want to thank the audience last night for looking past this and also for being so patient during another start debacle leading to a late night. I really practiced the start and pause at home this time. Who would have thought the last time Tooda viewed it he watched it in Dolby wrong and not Dolby right. If that was my fault, I’m sorry. Last time I try to pre-write a prefect lead-in.

All right, opening night problems aside, Wiener’s new Back Yard is awesome. The raccoons and the strange rustling in the trees in all the right spooky moments of the film is everything I hope for in Movienight. The ability to move around freely without ducking for the projection was both weird and hella-cool. I hoped to indicate in my preamble that I picked ‘Close Encounters’ to celebrate the new distance we have given ourselves in the new space. When I first heard we might move there my mind leapt to the image of the two fanatic intruders, Roy and Jillian, spying the close encounter from their hideaway on the mountain. It was too similar to pass up. And to be able to stand there in the thick of the night, shoulder to shoulder with my Movienight peers when the Mother Ship opens was an experience that I guarantee your previous 26 showings never provided. It was all I could do to stop from shouting, “Oh please pick me, Mr. Aliens! Take me to outer space and far away from my family and responsibilities of this small planet. Please!”

The experience was truly unique. I would say that this movie I know too well and from too young an age to add any insight here, however, with any great piece there is always something new. First off, I’m constantly surprised at how chillingly magnificent this movie is. The weight, the splendor, the awe are felt scene after scene, viewing after dark viewing. This was the first time I realized all the characters have nothing left in their lives except the pursuit of the unknown. Maybe this is the first time I’ve watched since having a family of my own but it’s the first time I got that Roy has lost his family. When he volunteers for departure he knows both he and they ain’t coming back. If Pat is right that the shower scene with all the family viciously screaming, is an addition from the original than that probably made this viewing more powerful. Spielberg is a genius at weaving the ferociously real with the fantastically unreal. We have already seen it in ‘Jaws’ and now ‘Close Encounters;’ perhaps Tooda will bring ‘E.T.’ next week. Though I would advise against it until the wall is lighter.

Thank you Mr. Wiener, Mr. Davis, and Movienight for forever entertaining our childhood dreams.

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