50. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)

Steven Spielberg's 1977 masterpiece "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind" stands out as a deeply weird major-studio picture and, for many movie fans and directors like J.J. Abrams and Denis Villenueve, their favorite Spielberg movie of them all.

Podcast Notes: Chris intro (00:01), putting Close Encounters Of The Third Kind in movie context (2:15), Being a Star Wars kid vs. a Star Wars kid (3:00), Aliens (4:00), Spielberg appreciation (4:15), the cute red dot of light UFO is so Spielberg (5:00), the great and naturalistic Air Traffic Control scene (7:20), Teri Garr and Dreyfuss 'Don't you think I'm taking this really well?' scene (12:45), Spielberg origin story of Close Encounters (15:00), the amazing Indian village singing scene w/ Bob Balaban and Francois Truffaut (21:00), J. Alan Hinnick, UFOlogist and his influence on Spielberg's approach to the movie and contribution of the title (24:00), Dreyfuss as Neary and Spielberg stand-in (26:00), Truffaut, Balaban and Dreyfuss in the interrogation scene (27:00), Teri Garr is a colossally brilliant comic genius actor (23:30), Teri Garr's MJB Coffee commercial that got her the part in Close Encounters (34:00), Cary Guffey (Barry Guiler) turned in one of the greatest child performances in film history in his role as the kid in Close Encounters (36:00) Casting Cary Guffey stories by Melinda Dillon and Steven Spielberg (38:00), kids weird sleeping positions (42:00), Duck Dogers cartoon (42:30), casting Francois Truffaut stories from Steven Spielberg and Richard Dreyfus (45:00), Finding the landing zone set in Alabama on a disused military base and shooting on the largest set in film history (48:00), Melinda Dillon motel room set & Truffaut's reaction story (48:30), John Williams and his iconic score for the film (49:45), Matt The Engineer (51:00), John Williams and Steven Spielberg talk about finding the five tones for the Close Encounters Of The Third Kind theme music (52:00), Jason gets model-maker Dennis Muren's name wrong, sorry, Dennis! (55:00), remembering the glass-shattering scene from the Mother Ship landing sequence (57:00), the hidden R2D2 on the mothership (1:00:00), the Close Encounters Theme Disco Version (1:03:00), Alternative Casting stories (1:04:00), Steve McQueen crying casting story from Steven Spielberg (1:05:00), the insane and incredible living room grief scene from Michael Hanecke's 'Funny Games' (1:08:00), Latch Key TV (01:09:40), The Littlest Hobo theme song (1:11:45), Columbo Cinematic Universe appearance of Dukes of Hazard star Sorrel Booke in the Johnny Cash episode (1:15:30), George C Scott as Mussolini (1:18:00), Kate & Allie was a good show (1:19:30), Final Line Outro (1:21:20)