Haradrim

While many people praise Spielberg's CE3K, I find the movie to be an utter mess of a film.

Richard Dreyfuss (Neary), who should have received a "Most Hapless" Oscar for his performance, is slowly driven insane - to the point of destroying his own family - by the titular encounters with alien life. Francois Truffaunt (who, perhaps, should have directed the film rather than perform in it), plays a scientist who is at best a tool of a shadow world government which spends the majority of the film frightening, imprisoning, and then killing those who have had the encounters and are attempting to put their lives back together after the damage done.

We, the viewers, are supposed to believe that the complete horror that encompasses Melinda Dillon's (Guelier) son's kidnapping by forces she cannot hope to comprehend is, somehow, uplifting and that the inevitable anger and confusion and depression other returned abductees will most certainly experience is a positive moment.

Quite the contrary, the movie would have been a good "conspiracy episode" for X-Files.

The film's apotheosis from perplexing extended chase scene mixed with the destruction of a family and one man's mind to some kind of spiritual experience is jarring at best. What this film and others show is that while people in general seem to think Spielberg is good at schmaltz, his best work is truly in visceral action (the gripping opening of Saving Private Ryan, the chilling Duel, and the incomparable Jaws).

Behaving less like a complete film and more like a handful of discarded screenplay ideas collected from the wastebasket and turned in as a rush idea, Close Encounters of the Third Kind does not uplift, it depresses. It does not elucidate, it confuses. It does not thrill, it bores.

A movie that defines the idea of the underdogs rising to meet the challenge of greatness, Hoosiers gives the audience something to cheer for. A tough-as-nails coach with a heart of gold, a team of farmboys with dreams of making it to the state finals, a small town pinning their hopes on their little high school - the movie has it all. It is well-paced, and is not overladen with side-plots and frivolities. There are no doped-up, foul-mouthed players, no need for gratuitous "party hearty" shots of the players behaving like hedonists or abusing their opponents. Some sports movies may trade in that stock and be considered "great" for it; this film doesn't and it's better for it. Superbly cast, superbly acted, and superbly executed. A worthy addition to the library of any sports film fan.