Review – Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Of course I’ve seen this classic several times, but I notice new things in it each time (due no doubt in part to the fact that I know a little more about the lore of UFOs than I did the first time I saw it). The version that I watched this year was the original (as opposed to the Special Edition), but I think they’re both about equally as good (I like the extra stuff in the second release, especially the ship set down in the middle of the Gobi desert, but then they cut short my favorite scene from the original, where Richard Dreyfus starts throwing stuff through his kitchen window). I must say that I like the ending less and less every time I see it ... it was really impressive in the theater, but on video it just seems to drag on and on. Still, definite thumbs up for masterful exploitation of the whole popular space alien myth. Worth seeing