Pretty Lights and Music
Main Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Teri Garr, Francois Truffaut, Bob Balaban
Director: Steven Spielberg
A blast from the past, this amusing offering pulls out all the stops in the special-effects department to give the viewer extreme screen eye candy. Too bad the ending is pretty banal. okay, the whole movie is pretty banal. But it sure do look good!
Our protagonist is Roy (Dreyfuss), a somewhat goofy guy who does cable/electrical work. This allows us that famous scene where he is sitting in his car and a bright light appears behind him, he waves it forward, and instead of passing on the side it rises up and up. I kinda liked that shot. Anyway, it was a UFO, and that’s the point of the movie. Regular folks are seeing UFOs all over the place, including a mother and her son, who is actually kidnapped by the aliens.
Roy and the other folks also have dreams/visions of a special place, which turns out to be Devil’s Tower, a big mountain. He meets up with the mother and they both make it up to the top of the mountain, ignoring the government/military warnings of “escaped nerve gas” or some-such. A ruse to. well, I suppose I’m not giving the plot away to say that aliens do indeed come down and encounter the humans.
I kinda liked Close Encounters, even if I think it’s implausible. It has cool scenes, pretty flashing lights, and good special effects. Bland and certainly family-friendly, if you go for the sci-fi/alien thing.
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