The most humane, funny, believable, unpretentious yet (hell, there's no other word for it) inspiring film Spielberg has made to date. Epic but not self-important, child-like but not -ish, here he puts technology in the service of a superb quest. Who else but Francois Truffaut could bring such authority to the role of the Spielberg stand-in? Richard Dreyfuss has made a career of using a shotgun to release the energy he dispenses here with laser-like precision. One of my top 10 of all time. One caveat: I much prefer the original release to the "Special Edition" where Spielberg made, to me, the error of taking us inside the mother ship. I don't know if the original is even available anymore. Still, superb!
Review of Close Encounters of the Third Kind
