Film Review: Contact
1997, Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Starring Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, David Morse, Angela Bassett

Overall Recommendation: B-
Moral/Spiritual (-5, +5): -1
Artistic (out of 5): ***1/2

Sci-Fi treats of the topic of extraterrestrial life in several ways. They’re either there, or they’re here. E.T. phones home from here, or he phones here from home. They’re either bright-eyed, childlike scientists (E.T.), or benevolent emissaries come to help us progress into the future (The Day the Earth Stood Still, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind), or they’re hostile invaders who want our planet, our service, or whatever (War of the Worlds, Battle: LA). Nevertheless, it always seems that the best sci-fi treatment of extraterrestrial life strives to find a balance between the awe and wonder of such encounters and the crippling fear that accompanies the possibility. Contact, while giving a place for each of these poles, often fails in taking seriously the very real apprehension that rightly flows from the possibility.

[Note: This entry begins the first of movie reviews on the site. It is not likely that new films will be reviewed as released, rather, older films will be reviewed as fits having the time. I've started off with some benchmark sci-fi films, beginning with one of the greatest sci-fi classics Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In these reviews, I seek to view a film according to its merits as a film, and then using it to ask questions pertaining to the Catholic faith. I do not explicitly wish to judge a film according to Catholicism, but rather, from a Catholic perspective, to draw on a film's meaning as a film. My rating system is similar to Steven Greydanus'.]

Close Encounters of the Third Kind
1977, Directed by Steven Spielberg
Starring Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon, Cary Guffey

Overall Recommendation: A-
Spiritual/Moral (-5, +5): 0
Artistic (out of 5): *****

As a child, I held a deep fascination with the topic of UFO’s and extraterrestrial life. I would always check out related books from the local library and watch as many UFO documentaries as I could. I’ve seen pretty much every film devoted to the subject, from the wholesome and friendly—for example, E.T., one of my favorites as a child—to the not-so-great B-list movies (see: the 1993 film Fire in the Sky, starring D.B. Sweeney, and the 1989 film Communion, starring Christopher Walken and based on the best-selling book by Whitley Strieber). I could go on.

I have long been a fan of science fiction stories, though my reading of said stories was curtailed somewhat by my time in college. It is therefore with some pleasure that I was able to pick up one of the classics of science fiction form the last century and read it. I came across Mr Walter M Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz by reading from the blog of Mr John C Wright--himself an accomplished writer in the genre--who mentioned it as a favorite of Professor Peter Kreeft’s. Having grown up in a generation which is at time deliberately isolated from the past--sometimes by itself, sometimes by the so-called adults of our childhood, who had by-and-large consciously rebelled against tradition, authority, history, and reality--I had never heard of this book.

I picked it up expecting something extraordinary, amazing, awe-inspiring, thought-provoking, and entertaining. I was not disappointed. There are several criteria for which I look when reading a science fiction novel. First and foremost, it is a novel, and thus should contain a good and compelling story. Second, because it is a work of science fiction, there should be a sense of wonder; this also applies to fantasy stories. For science fiction, the wonder is in what a future or alternative world might hold, with the development of technology and the discoveries of new sciences; for fantasy stories, it is the wonder of a different world altogether, whether in the enchantment of the forgotten past or the magic of a different reality. Finally, the book should reveal to us something about ourselves, the world, or the ultimate truth which underlies our existence.