After 47 Years, "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind" Still Holds Up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                        To think I first saw this just months after graduating from college.  My father and I went to see it at the then Loew's on Route 18, in East Brunswick, on December 31, 1977--New Year's Eve.  Over the years, I had thought of it many times, but was afraid to see a revival thinking it would not stand the test of time.

                           I was wrong.  'Close Encounters' not only holds up, but it is also better than anything made today.  As my movie friend Chris, who accompanied me, explained, this was one of the last sci-fi films to be made without any computerized effects, so everything seen is real.  And one can tell.  The computerized junk that pollutes our screens today is so obviously artificial I lose interest.  In some ways, the Fifties giant monster movies were better than what is churned out today.

                           But back to 'Close Encounters'.  The heart of this film are Jillian and Barry Guiler, played by Melinda Dillon and Cary Guffey.  Melinda received an Oscar nomination for her work here, and so should have Cary.  I forgot Terri Garr is in the film, wonderful as Richard Dreyfuss' wife, and as for Dreyfuss himself, I think this is his most restrained performance.  Spielberg really and wisely reigned him in.

                          It still has my favorite opening--a haze of sand dust, revealing the lost planes of Flight 19 from 1945.  On my first viewing I had never heard of this, but my father explained it to me, and I was fascinated ever since.  What could have happened?  The Bermuda Triangle?  Or did, as in this film, something happen, that the government kept from us?  It would not be the first time, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                           The visuals are stunning--the Midwestern sky, the stars, Melinda running after Cary as the ship caries him away--all the sequences in this film, leading up to the big reveal are visually arresting, outdoing anything done today.

                             With such a lapse between viewings, it was almost like seeing it for the first time.  It made me long for the days when movies were something to go to, instead of the dreck being turned out today.

                                  Still, I don't think I would have gone on that ship.

                                  For me it's flying away in a house, like Dorothy, or down the rabbit hole, like Alice!!!!!!!!!!!!!