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Post by auntym on Aug 12, 2012 13:12:17 GMT -6
REJECTED E.T PITCHESPublished on Aug 8, 2012 by AboveAverageNetwork SUBSCRIBE to Above Average Network: bit.ly/LlHUTMRejected Pitches: E.T. Like us on FACEBOOK: on.fb.me/MfBtkiRejected Pitches: E.T. The execs just have one little suggestion for Steven Spielberg's little turd of an alien movie. Rejected Pitches: The vast majority of movie pitches are rejected. Even movies that we know and love--or sort of love--were most likely rejected at some point, too. This is a webseries about the movie executives who rejected those pitches. New Episodes Every Wednesday Episode Credits: WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY Dan Klein DIRECTED BY Greg Stees EDITED BY Kelly Hudson STARRING Dan Klein, Kelly Hudson, and Ben Rameaka AND FEATURING Scott Rogowsky as Steven Spielberg CREW: Marty Cramer, Aldous Davidson, Juan Nicolon, Nicole Schilder, Tracy Soren, Matt Powers
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Post by auntym on Oct 16, 2012 12:47:46 GMT -6
www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/10/15/steven_spielberg_breaks_down_the_sound_of_close_encounters_of_the_third.html Spielberg on the Sound of Close Encounters[/color] By Forrest Wickman Posted Monday, Oct. 15, 2012, If you try to imagine the typical big dramatic reveal from a Hollywood film, you’re likely to think of screams and roars and swelling orchestras. We see the dinosaurs, or the monster, or the Balrog for the first time, and if we’re sitting in the front row the brass will blow our hair back. For Close Encounters of the Third Kind, however, Steven Spielberg decided to do something different. Like Alfred Hitchcock filming a terrifying attack scene in the middle of the day, Spielberg wanted to film his big reveal in an eerie silence. For the video below, critic and Slate contributor Tom Shone spoke to Spielberg about the sound design of that scene, when Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) first encounters a UFO. (He made the video for his students at NYU, but posted it on his blog over the weekend.) Spielberg tells Shone how he and sound editor Frank Warner scored the scene with almost complete silence—you literally hear crickets—to enhance the suspense and bring out all the “particulars” of the scene. Since they didn’t mix in booming timpani or a roaring engine, they could focus the audience on details: the clanking of nearby mailboxes, the hiss of the car engine overheating, a dog barking somewhere in the distance. WATCH VIDEO & CONTINUE READING: www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/10/15/steven_spielberg_breaks_down_the_sound_of_close_encounters_of_the_third.html
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Post by auntym on Oct 16, 2012 12:56:23 GMT -6
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2012 21:09:06 GMT -6
I don't care much about his face...but I love his brain
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Post by auntym on Oct 21, 2012 10:52:06 GMT -6
this is great... ET'S 30th ANNIVERSARY[/color] Henry Thomas' 'E.T.' Audition: Watch Young Star, Then Cry (VIDEO) [/color] Published on Oct 14, 2012 by RandomAzzVideos *I DO NOT OWN THIS VIDEO* ALL RIGHTS GOES TO Mr Spielberg* Henry Thomas's Audition For E.T. (Nails It) Henry Thomas's Audition For E.T. (Nails It) Henry Thomas's Audition For E.T. (Nails It) Child Actor Henry Thomas's Audition For E.T. (Nails It) E.T The Movie
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Post by auntym on Sept 12, 2013 16:19:18 GMT -6
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Post by auntym on May 26, 2014 12:04:56 GMT -6
silverscreensaucers.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/the-et-that-nearly-was-creature-designs.html26 May 2014 The ‘E.T.’ that nearly was: creature designs finally revealed for Spielberg's unmade alien horrorBy Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers Back in 2011 Steven Spielberg revealed that his beloved family film E.T. The Extraterrestrial came very close to being a nightmarish horror. The director told Entertainment Weekly of his 1982 classic: "It was going to be called Night Skies, based on a piece of UFO mythology... where a farm family reported little spindly grey aliens attacking their farm, even riding cows in the farmyard. This farm family basically huddled together for survival... It's a story that's well-known in the world of ufology, and we based our script on that story." Spielberg was, of course, referring to the Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter of 1955, which is considered to be one of the most significant and bizarre UFO cases on record. It is also one of the best-documented. Spielberg told Entertainment Weekly that he even went so far as to hire legendary effects designer Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London) to bring the impish Hopkinsville Kentucky aliens to life on the big screen, adding that E.T. only transformed into a family film when Harrison Ford's then-girlfriend Melissa Mathison came onboard to rewrite the screenplay. "Melissa didn't want to write it,” Spielberg said, “I needed Harrison and all of us to talk her into it." Now, Rick Baker has revealed some of his original creature designs for the aborted Night Skies project, and they give us a creepy glimpse of what audiences could have been in for... MORE PICTURES & CONTINUE READING: silverscreensaucers.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/the-et-that-nearly-was-creature-designs.html
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Post by auntym on Oct 21, 2014 12:17:30 GMT -6
Film Crew Comments, Dr. Allen Hynek (Making of Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1997)
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Post by MDaisy on Oct 21, 2014 18:55:10 GMT -6
I just watched Close encounters and it was pretty good for an old movie. Richard drefuss was the lead guy. I liked when he built that big mountain out of mud in his living room and then it showed up on the tv. You just now saw that movie for the first time? Really? Yeah, the mashed potatoes scene tells a lot about how UFO witnesses react, at least some of them, and I sure did go a bit nutty for awhile trying to find the answer. I have since discovered the answer probably won't be found as the UFO phenomena is elusive.
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Post by auntym on Sept 20, 2017 15:28:51 GMT -6
www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/steven-spielberg-close-encounters-of-the-third-kind-richard-drefus-aliens-et-contact-arrival-jodie-a7956851.html Loving the Alien: How Steven Spielberg changed science-fictionNow back in cinemas in a 4K digital print on its 40th anniversary, ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind' captured a generation’s imagination with Spielberg’s loveable aliensby Nick Hasted / www.independent.co.uk/author/nick-hasted9-20-2017 Steven Spielberg's 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' taught audiences to love aliens Steven Spielberg was six when his father made him watch the skies. Arnold Spielberg dragged his son out of bed without explanation in the middle of the night, and drove to a field where they joined New Jersey neighbours in staring at a meteor shower blazing through the dark. That 1951 experience was grandly reimagined in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. After an early career defined by the shuddering menace of Duel and Jaws, Spielberg’s 1977 hit focused on crazed suburban dreamers, cultists and the simply curious in the forgotten Midwest, people like “me, and my parents, and the friends that I knew”, he explained, as aliens make unambiguous, majestic contact. “This particular project had a noble agenda,” its star Richard Dreyfuss reflected on its 20th anniversary in 1997. “That we are not only not alone, but that we have relatively little to fear…Close Encounters was truly the first cultural, iconic moment that said, ‘Calm down, we’re okay. They can be our friends.’” Now back in cinemas in a 4K digital print on its fortieth anniversary, Close Encounters taught audiences to love the alien. It’s a lesson which has been regularly attacked or forgotten. But this strand of wistful, visionary science-fiction cinema has also endured, from Contact to last year’s Arrival. Though the conservative, apolitical Spielberg of 1977 was no hippie, Stephen King noted how Close Encounters tallied with its times. The director had “come to his majority while students were putting daisies in the muzzles of M-1s” and the US military failed in Vietnam, King wrote. When Spielberg signed up for a science-fiction film in 1973, it was to be called Project Blue Book and, like Jaws’ venal mayor, be steeped in the justified paranoia of the then swirling Watergate conspiracy, as it explored government cover-ups of UFO sightings. The military remain untrustworthy in Close Encounters. Army helicopters, so familiar from Vietnam news footage, storm over the night-time horizon, and are evaded by Dreyfuss and Melinda Dillon’s suburban visionaries as they trail UFOs which hide in the clouds, in pursuit of the wondrous truth. “We don’t identify with people in uniform,” Spielberg explained in 1997 (on the set, ironically, of Saving Private Ryan). First contact would not be made by “the face of the government”. Instead, he cast the great French director Francois Truffaut as the “kind and optimistic” scientist who takes charge of our first interstellar conversation. “The film seems less concerned with science fiction than with recapturing the wonder of a child’s first experience of cinema,” Time Out’s critic David Pirie wrote at the time, calling Close Encounters “the first film in years to give its audience a tingle of shocked emotion that is not entirely based either on fear or suspense”. This sense of wonder became a Spielberg cliché, and the prevalent intention of successful Eighties fantasy directors. Pirie’s review shows how new it seemed in 1977. The shark-like shadow and cinema-shaking Dolby rumble of the Star Destroyer in Star Wars’ opening scene just months before was replaced by benign awe at Close Encounters’ mountain-sized Mothership. Spielberg had written the screenplay with his own childhood wonder at Disney’s Pinocchio running through his head, and the smaller UFOs seen early in his film seem made of light, as they dazzle and dance like Peter Pan’s Tinkerbell. Spielberg had grown up enjoying a very different science-fiction tradition, formed during its only previous period of cinema popularity in the Fifties. Then, the Cold War threats of Russia and the Bomb were reflected in countless low-budget tales of radioactive monsters and alien invasion. Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body-Snatchers (1955) was an enduringly sinister, politically potent nightmare of an American small-town losing its identity to alien pods. More typically, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, The Thing and War of the Worlds saw a US Army fresh from World War Two success in pitched battle with the invaders. Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) had introduced the cosmic awe which one of its special effects maestros, Douglas Trumbull, would develop in Close Encounters, and Nic Roeg’s The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976) explored Earth’s enervating effect on David Bowie’s harmless, listless alien. Enduring mainstream audience expectations, though, of both science-fiction and Spielberg, were still played up to in Close Encounters. The toys of Melinda Dillon’s three-year-old come eerily alive at night, before he runs happily into the fields to be snatched from her by a UFO. Even the Mothership’s five-note musical communication ominously hints at John Williams’ previous theme for Jaws. When we finally glimpse the aliens, though, they are mostly child-like. Dreyfuss’s character Roy Neary doesn’t fight these happy, heavenly creatures. He joins them. CONTINUE READING: www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/steven-spielberg-close-encounters-of-the-third-kind-richard-drefus-aliens-et-contact-arrival-jodie-a7956851.html
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Post by auntym on Sept 24, 2017 12:14:59 GMT -6
www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/spielberg-offered-to-aid-in-united-nations-ufo-effort_us_59c5a0afe4b0f2df5e83ae55 Spielberg Offered To Aid In United Nations UFO Effort During Close Encounters Era (Video)by Alejandro Rojas, Contributor Writer, blogger, video and podcast host./ www.huffingtonpost.com/author/alejandrotrojas-64109/23/2017 Steven Spielberg is really into UFOs. This is not too hard to imagine given movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET: The Extraterrestrial and his mini-series Taken, among others. In a recent interview with journalist Lee Speigel, I discovered that he also lent a helping hand in a 1970s effort to get the United Nations to investigate UFOs. Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming.I was recently in Hulett, Wyoming, where I could see Devils Tower National Monument, which was popularized by the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, from the window of my room. I was there to do a talk at the Devils Tower UFO Rendezvous, which commemorated the 40th anniversary of the movie, about Spielberg and his history of interest in the UFO phenomena. In my talk, I played a clip of Speigel describing a meeting with Spielberg who was interested in his effort to display the best UFO evidence at a general session of the United Nations in 1978. Speigel was a young New Yorker at the time who had just put together a record album documentary on UFOs. He realized there were a lot of credible people talking about UFOs and pitched the project to CBS Inc., who liked the idea and sent him around the country to interview these people. Among those he interviewed were scientists, politicians, law enforcement and an astronaut, Gordon Cooper, who recalled his personal UFO experience. A couple years after producing his record, Speigel heard about an effort to get the United Nations to officially look into the UFO issue. The effort was initiated by Grenada’s Prime minister, Sir Eric Gairy. Speigel decided what the effort needed was a presentation with the likes of the credible people he had in his record. So, with the confidence of a young New Yorker, he contacted the ambassadors to Granada and offered his services. The government of Granada liked his idea and the event planning began. Two of the people Speigel enlisted for his presentation were Dr. J. Allen Hynek and Dr. Jacques Vallee. Hynek was a well-known astronomer who acted as a consultant to the U.S. Air Force’s official public UFO investigations from their inception in 1947 to their end in 1969. He then went on to form his own civilian UFO investigation organization, and is arguably the father of modern civilian UFO research. The later, Vallee, was a student of Hynek’s at Northwestern University, and went on to become an author and UFO researcher as well. Hyenk and Vallee also played important roles in the conception of the movie Close Encounter of the Third Kind. Hynek actually developed the “close encounters” UFO sighting categorization system, and was a consultant for Spielberg on the movie. Vallee, being French, was the inspiration for one of the lead characters in the movie, Claude Lacombe, played by French director Francois Truffaut. “It was amazing,” says Speigel. “One day I got a call from Spielberg’s publicist to see if I wanted to go out to Hollywood to meet with Steven, Dr. Hynek and Dr. Vallee.” Speigel’s first response was, “Why do you want me there?” He didn’t think anyone knew who he was. He was told Spielberg had heard of his upcoming U.N. presentation and wanted to talk to the group about it and offer his assistance. According to Speigel, the three men did meet with Spielberg to talk UFOs. Understandably, he says it was an amazing experience. At the end of the meeting, Spielberg said his office would help with anything they needed, and Speigel says they did provide some graphics and information that was incorporated into the U.N. presentation. So what happened with the U.N. and UFOs? Well, on November 27, 1978, Speigel, Hynek, Vallee, Gairy, Cooper and other credible witnesses and researchers did put on a presentation that included photos and video. As a result, the U.N. passed a decision on UFOs, which holds less weight than a resolution, but is official none the less. Their decision included this verbiage: “The General Assembly invites interested member states to take appropriate steps to coordinate on a national level scientific research and investigation into extraterrestrial life, including unidentified flying objects, and to inform the secretary-general of the observations, research and evaluation of such activities.” The U.N. was to follow up on Granada’s UFO request the following year, but by then Granada had undergone a coup that unseated Gairy and the subject was dropped. You can read more about the U.N. event at Lee Speigel’s website, leespeigel.com/ and on various interviews on the Open Minds UFO Radio Podcast. You can also view Speigel discussing the U.N. initiative at the International UFO Congress in 2011 here, and his interview with Vallee in 2016 here. www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/spielberg-offered-to-aid-in-united-nations-ufo-effort_us_59c5a0afe4b0f2df5e83ae55
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Post by auntym on Dec 14, 2017 19:10:12 GMT -6
www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/close-encounters-of-the-third-kind-at-40-in-praise-of-spielbergs-mothership-connection-w514012 'Close Encounters' at 40: How Spielberg Made Sci-Fi's Mothership ConnectionFour decades ago, the director bet everything on an intimate science-fiction epic – and bridged the gap between two eras of moviemakingBy David Fear / www.rollingstone.com/contributor/david-fear12-14-2017 Revisiting 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' on its 40th anniversary – and why it may still be Steven Spielberg's best movie ever. Everett Collection How do you follow up a record-breaking blockbuster about a killer shark? For starters, you get out of the ocean. And then maybe you look up. ************************************************* Related Science Fiction in Steven Spielberg's Suburbia The director of 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' talks moviemaking, UFOs and the night sky www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/the-sky-is-full-of-questions-19780126************************************************* A longtime watcher of the skies, young Steven Spielberg had already been kicking around an idea involving alien visitation, spacecraft "sightings" and government cover-ups – some sort of story, in the gentleman's own words, about "UFOs and Watergate" – before he had started turning Peter Benchley's novel Jaws into a movie. One three-men-and-an-apex-predator hit later, he was a hot Hollywood director who had folks ready to sign on for whatever he did next. That included Columbia Pictures, as well as Taxi Driver producers Michael and Julia Phillips, who gamely took the director's extraterrestrial-visitors story and got him a greenlight. The result both delighted his patrons – Fox had opened a space opera earlier that year, hence the company was thrilled to have their own science fiction movie on deck – and worried them, given this expensive project was supposed to have come out the previous summer before production problems caused delays. Now, the film was going to make or break the nearly bankrupt studio. So, in a moment of bet-hedging, Columbia decided to give Spielberg's movie with the screwy name – what the *bleep* was a Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and why are you driving our marketing department to drink, Steven? – a mid-November opening in two theaters, the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles and the Ziegfeld in New York. Screenings kept selling out. Their confidence had been restored thanks to these two reconnaissance runs. Now it was time to land the mothership. It was 40 years ago today that Close Encounters of the Third Kind opened in wide release and, in quick succession, proved that Jaws was not a fluke, helped put the financially ailing Columbia firmly back into the black, established the filmmaker as someone with a knack for directing kids and grounding the fantastic, dropped that title phase into the popular lexicon and made John Williams' communicative musical motif famous. (Hum those first three notes – Dun-DUN-duuun – then check out the number of people who chime in with the two-note resolution: DUUUNNN-dun.) You could argue that, while Spielberg would go on to make more notable works involving wonderment, aliens, families, paranoia and suburbia, respectively, there are few that distill everything that's great about his filmmaking in such a pure, well-wrapped package. And seen four decades after it first hit theaters en masse, Close Encounters now feels like an incredibly pivotal American movie – the bridge between the intimate, grungy movies of the Seventies and the spectacular eye-candy blockbusters of the Eighties. Seriously, when was the last time you watched this spirit-of-'77 sci-fi touchstone in any of its iterations? (We recommend the "Director's Cut," which blends the best parts of the theatrical cut and the "Special Edition," minus the latter's Pink-Floyd-laser-light-show ending. More on that in a minute.) If it's been a while, the first things that come to mind are probably the climactic interstellar meet-and-greet, the sculpted mound of spuds on Richard Dreyfuss's dinner table, the iconic visual of five-year-old Cary Guffey opening his front door and basking in an unearthly orange glow – an image that Spielberg claimed was one of the first conceptual sparks he'd imagined for the project. You remember the bigger moments, the ones in which those bright lights are whizzing through the air and Gregory Jein's mothership model, hovering over Devil's Tower, inspires awestruck faces framed in the director's customary low-angle shots. It's no wonder these scenes are burned into your memory: Time has been particularly kind to Close Encounters, even if the special effects occasionally carbon-date the movie to the Carter era. What you might not remember, however, are the atmospheric things that Spielberg scatters throughout the movie, the ones that add immensely to its texture. Most of us had probably forgotten that the film starts in the Soanna desert in Mexico, with barely visible figures wandering through dust storms – the same sort of feint that The Exorcist used by kicking off at an archeological dig in Iraq before getting around to the head-spinning money shots. You can practically smell the stale coffee and flop sweat in the air-traffic control tower sequence, and the panic as people pitch coal-mine canaries in the evacuation sequence. Never mind the toys coming to life in a kid's bedroom; it's the extraordinary close-up on Guffey's face that follows, in which he expresses first dawning wonder then outright joy upon meeting his new alien friends, that makes the scene work. Go to the two-minute mark in the clip below. Those 15 seconds are the director's equivalent of the end of Chaplin's City Lights. The gritty touches and grace notes are what really stick out now, the same way that Roy Scheider and his son crushing the Dixie cups in a faux-manly manner in Jaws adds so much humanity to the sound and fury while barely breaking a cinematic sweat. No one does this anymore, not in big movies. Spielberg told Sight & Sound magazine at the time that he wanted Close Encounters to be "about people and not about events," which feels like a very Seventies/New Hollywood conceit. (He also said that the film "does to UFOs what The French Connection said about crime in the street and narcotics and New York City," so keep that grain of salt handy.) And for all of what the director termed "cosmic entertainment" epicness on display, this is also a movie takes place in a very recognizable America, one filled with ratty nightgowns and station wagons and instant mashed potatoes, of harried moms and frayed marriages. Yes, the scene in which our otherworldly visitors try to get Melinda Dillon's son, ending with a tug of war in a doggie door, is terrifying. So is Richard Dreyfuss' melting down in the shower, his son screaming "Crybaby" at him, which Spielberg later admitted came from his own life. No aliens there, just a nervous breakdown. You do not need a Great White or a T. Rex to present audiences with a nightmare. CONTINUE READING: www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/close-encounters-of-the-third-kind-at-40-in-praise-of-spielbergs-mothership-connection-w514012
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Post by jcurio on Dec 15, 2017 8:18:33 GMT -6
Watched that clip.
Yeah, that kid did so very good in his part in the film.
How did the producers keep “the horror of it” from him?? (Knowing it really wasn’t his little legs in the doggie-door abduction scene.... nah; couldn’t have been.
And then, eye noticed a simple, subtle, fact of everyday life. The married woman (Dreyfuss wife) wears pajamas and then a robe. The single woman (the little boys mom) wears clothes to bed. 🙂
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Post by auntym on Jun 27, 2018 13:33:14 GMT -6
mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/06/spielberg-close-encounters-and-conspiracy-theories/ Spielberg, Close Encounters, and Conspiracy Theoriesby Robbie Graham / mysteriousuniverse.org/author/rgraham/ June 28, 2018 Since its original cinematic release in 1977, Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi masterpiece Close Encounters of the Third Kind has been the subject of fervent speculation in the UFO conspiracy community. Many UFO buffs are convinced that the movie was produced as part of an official acclimation program in anticipation of an alien “disclosure” event. This speculation can be traced back to the production of the movie itself. On 23 July 1976, after a hard day’s shoot, around forty of the cast and crew, including stars Richard Dreyfuss and Melinda Dillon, gathered in the sticky night air of Mobile, Alabama, to hear a lecture delivered by the movie’s appointed advisor on UFOs, Professor J. Allen Hynek (the famed astronomer had been flown in for a brief cameo in the closing scenes). Shortly after Hynek’s lecture, actor Bob Balaban (who plays the character of translator David Laughlin), began to discuss with his colleagues an intriguing rumour that had been circulating during the production—“a rumour,” wrote Balaban in his production diary, “that the film is part of the necessary training that the human race must go through in order to accept an actual landing, and is being secretly sponsored by a government UFO agency.” In 2014, I had the opportunity to interview Close Encounters production designer, Joe Alves. I asked him if ever he had heard any such rumours during the shoot, and if there was any substance to them. “There were a lot of rumours,” he told me, ambiguously, before changing the subject. Back in 1977, even Spielberg himself seemed to be dropping hints: “I wouldn’t put it past this government that a cosmic Watergate has been underway for the last 25 years,” the director remarked during a Close Encounters promotional interview, “eventually they might want to tell us something about what they’ve discovered over the decades.” During the same interview, the director spoke with relish of “rumours” that President Carter was due to make “some unsettling disclosures” about UFOs later that year. Needless to say, no such disclosures were forthcoming. Particularly curious is that the Carter Presidential Library contains no record of the film-loving President ever having viewed Close Encounters while in office. However, in a 1977 Canadian TV interview conducted directly after the movie’s theatrical release, Spielberg said matter-of-factly that Carter had viewed the movie “Last Saturday.” Spielberg remarked, “We haven’t heard the direct feedback,” but added, “We hear he [Carter] liked it quite a bit.” The following March, The Phoenix Gazette cited Close Encounters as “Jimmy Carter’s favorite movie,” noting that “The President has seen the movie many times.” This is not the only discrepancy over the official record concerning Carter and Spielberg. Officially, Spielberg never set foot in the Carter White House and had never met the President, and yet a solitary photocopy of a photograph discovered in the Carter Presidential Library proves that the two men did meet. The photo shows Carter and Spielberg engaged in conversation and is signed: “To Steven Spielberg, [from] Jimmy Carter.” An accompanying White House stationary note signed by White House Social Secretary Gretchen Poston and addressed to Spielberg reads: “The President thought you would enjoy receiving the enclosed photograph.” This apparent secrecy almost certainly resulted from a desire among Carter’s staff to keep the Administration from being further publicly associated with flying saucers. Famously, Carter had his own UFO sighting in 1969 in Leary, Georgia, witnessing a bright white round object that approached his position before stopping and then receding into the distance. Carter was with twelve other people at the time, all of whom witnessed the strange phenomenon. Needless to say, a UFO-spotting President viewing the ultimate UFO movie at the White House and having get-togethers with its alien-obsessed director would have been a PR nightmare. By far the most outlandish of the conspiracy theories surrounding Close Encounters relates to Project Serpo—an alleged human/alien exchange program between US military personnel and a race of extraterrestrials from the Zeta Reticuli star system. The story goes that, in July of 1965, twelve astronauts were taken to the planet Serpo aboard an alien spaceship and remained there for thirteen years. In exchange, the aliens left one of their own in the custody of the US government. This story didn’t emerge until 2005 in the form of a string of anonymous emails that were sent to selected UFO researchers, including Project Camelot/Avalon’s Bill Ryan, who created a website dedicated to the “leaks.” The Serpo story lead some in the conspiracy community to speculate that Close Encounters was partly inspired by the alleged alien-human exchange program of 1965, which assumes that Spielberg himself was privy to inside information on the UFO issue. In the movie’s final scenes, a taller alien (designed by effects expert Carlo Rambaldi) is seen to exit the mothership and communicate with the character of Claude Lacombe via a series of hand gestures. Immediately before this we see twelve scientists clad in jumpsuits preparing to board the mothership and take permanent leave of planet Earth. Roy Neary joins the group as its thirteenth member. It is important to note that the Serpo story, which has not a shred of evidence to support it, did not emerge until 2005, twenty-eight years after the release of Close Encounters. It’s probably safe to assume then that former inspired the latter, rather than vice versa. Whether or not there is any truth to the conspiracy theories surrounding Close Encounters, Spielberg’s movie remains hugely significant for the fact that it played a central role in Hollywood’s mid-to-late-1970s economic revival—its $338 million worldwide box-office gross forced crusty studio executives to recognize America’s vast and largely neglected youth market and to adapt their output accordingly. Two other alien-themed movies of the period would also play a key role in this industrial paradigm shift: Star Wars (1977) and Superman (1978). Together, these three films about the wonders of the universe acted as adrenalin, shot straight into the heart of a dying industry (though many critics would argue, perhaps justifiably, that this adrenalin acted as poison in the long-term, stifling creativity and individuality in Hollywood). Spielberg’s film also reignited public curiosity about UFOs as an enduring enigma, and its release closely coincided with the thirtieth anniversary of the Roswell Incident. Just one year later, Jesse Marcel would spill the beans on his first-hand experiences of that event, opening the floodgates for hundreds more closely-corresponding Roswell testimonies. With Vietnam and Watergate still fresh in the mind, Close Encounters came as a reassuring hug for America towards the end of a decade of disillusionment, and Spielberg’s movie would redefine Hollywood’s working relationship with aliens for much of the 1980s, resulting in movies such as E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, Starman, Batteries Not Included, and The Abyss, to name but a few. Thanks to Close Encounters, what for so many decades had come only to conquer, could now come in peace. mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/06/spielberg-close-encounters-and-conspiracy-theories/
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Post by auntym on Jan 28, 2020 16:45:36 GMT -6
definitely one of the scariest movies i've ever watched...
i remember all of us discussing this film and who directed it ...but i can't find the post... well, here it is--- the movie... DUEL...enjoy "DUEL" DIRECTED BY STEPHEN SPIELBERG...STARRING DENNIS WEAVER 10 Things You Didn't Know About Duel•Jan 10, 2020 STEPHEN SPIELBERG'S "DUEL"
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Post by jcurio on Jan 28, 2020 19:14:15 GMT -6
Thanks Aunty! The 10 things.... was interesting too 😉
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starr
Junior Member
Posts: 112
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Post by starr on Jan 29, 2020 22:04:06 GMT -6
definitely one of the scariest movies i've ever watched...
i remember all of us discussing this film and who directed it ...but i can't find the post... well, here it is--- the movie... DUEL...enjoy "DUEL" DIRECTED BY STEPHEN SPIELBERG...STARRING DENNIS WEAVER 10 Things You Didn't Know About Duel•Jan 10, 2020 STEPHEN SPIELBERG'S "DUEL" I’m going to watch this this weekend (probably during the super bowl ) Thank you for sharing🧡
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Post by auntym on Sept 17, 2020 15:35:21 GMT -6
io9.gizmodo.com/why-isnt-close-encounters-considered-steven-spielbergs-1845055582?utm_campaign=io9&utm_content=&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_source=twitter Why Isn't Close Encounters Considered Steven Spielberg's Ultimate Masterpiece? Because It Kind of IsGermain Lussier / io9.gizmodo.com/author/germainlussier9-17-2020 Many people would agree that Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a straight-up masterpiece. That’s not some wild stretch. And yet, ask those same people what the best Steven Spielberg movies are and there’s a very good chance it barely makes the top five. (Seriously. I ran a poll to check this. It’s true.) To make a movie this incredible and it not automatically, without a doubt, be your best film is quite the achievement. And yet, it’s Steven Spielberg so...duh. E.T., Jurassic Park, Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, the list goes on and on and on. As I sat down to rewatch Close Encounters of the Third Kind for the first time in probably five years (it’s now streaming on Amazon), I did so with that thought in mind. First, why is Close Encounters so good, and also, why do people, myself initially included, not consider it the best of the best? The answer starts with emotion. Spielberg’s movies are known for being emotional roller coasters. Some of those are adventures, some are thrillers, others are harrowing dramas. But all of them have huge spikes of emotion throughout. Close Encounters really doesn’t do that, it’s much more even-keeled. Throughout the film, when Spielberg (who both wrote and directed) hits the audience with a jolt of emotion, it’s not just shock and awe, he lets it play out over a longer period of time. For example, when Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) first sees the alien ships flying across town, you really get to see them. It’s not just a quick reveal; they are there, on-screen, for much longer than they need to be. When they go away, it doesn’t take half the movie to see them again, they’re back just a few scenes later. This level of consistency is seen throughout the film partially because never for a second is there a question if aliens exist. Another movie might tease that: “Are they real? Are they in his head?” Not Close Encounters. The only real question in the story is how do these characters, especially Roy, fit into the aliens’ plan. The film is not a traditional mystery—it’s not traditional at all. It’s about personal discovery, finding out what a person was meant for and how deeply they believe. That’s also evidenced by the divisive ending of the film. When I first saw it decades ago I thought, “Wow, it’s pretty *bleep that Roy leaves his family to go with the aliens.” That’s a fairly common conclusion thought among film fans. However, what I realized this time through is it’s not entirely accurate. By that point in the movie, Roy has already left his family. In fact, they left him. After seeing the spacecraft, Roy becomes obsessive about what turns out to be Devil’s Tower, and his wife Ronnie, played by Teri Garr, takes the kids and leaves. He even tries to get her back to no avail. He pushed her away, she left, and now he’s off on his own. All of this happens way before the end of the movie, and in the end he’s not really Roy the dad or husband any more. Roy rejects a normal life because his close encounters have led him to believe in something bigger. That his purpose is greater than the things most people cherish. It’s not an easy concept to comprehend but in Spielberg’s hands, it’s somewhat digestible because Roy is our hero. We are rooting for him to achieve his dreams and become more than what he is, for his purpose to be tied into whatever else the aliens want, and in the end, that happens. CONTINUE READING: io9.gizmodo.com/why-isnt-close-encounters-considered-steven-spielbergs-1845055582?utm_campaign=io9&utm_content=&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_source=twitter
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Post by auntym on Aug 31, 2022 13:26:31 GMT -6
www.space.com/et-the-extraterrestrial-40th-anniversary-visual-history?utm_campaign=socialflowHonor Spielberg's 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial' on its 40th birthday with this deluxe visual historyBy Jeff Spry / www.space.com/author/jeff-spry8-31-2022 Insight Editions releases a special anniversary salute to "E.T." with never-seen images and interviews. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial: The Ultimate Visual History (Image credit: Insight Editions) Cover art for "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: The Ultimate Visual History." (Image credit: Insight Editions)
One of the most treasured movies in Hollywood history turned 40 this summer.
"E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," the innocent sci-fi fable about a lonely California boy and his Reece's Pieces-loving alien friend, still affects kids and adults alike after 40 years.
To commemorate this heartwarming feature that continues to evoke tears, smiles and laughter alike, Insight Editions has just released a prestige-format edition titled "E.T. the Extra-T(opens in new tab)e(opens in new tab)rrestrial: The Ultimate Visual History"(opens in new tab) for fans and cinephiles who can't get enough of the emotional tale that starred Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, Dee Wallace, C. Thomas Howell, Robert MacNaughton, K. C. Martel, and Peter Coyote.Written by author Caseen Gaines ("Inside Pee-wee’s Playhouse," "A Christmas Story: Behind the Scenes of a Holiday Classic"), this impressive 257-page hardcover represents the quintessential guide and companion volume to director Steven Spielberg's iconic film that entranced audiences when it was first released by Universal Pictures on June 11, 1982. This absorbing retrospective explores Spielberg's initial inspirations for the story and screenplay, challenges of the actual shoot, the movie's blockbuster success and endearing longevity, and the invasion of pop culture merchandise it spawned. "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: The Ultimate Visual History" showcases exclusive interviews with major members of the cast and crew that deliver revealing insights into the complex production. Stuffed with a wealth of illuminating imagery, this collectible book book also contains rare and never-before-seen gems from the official Amblin Entertainment archives, including rare on-set photography, concept art, pre-production sketches, special effects secrets, and storyboards. And like the enchanting interiors of E.T.'s strange mothership seen in the opening forest scenes of the $10 million flick, this new book contains a wide array of surprises including removable insert materials like annotated script pages, intriguing studio memos, personal letters, preliminary sketches, and plenty more. A look inside "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: The Ultimate Visual History"A look inside "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: The Ultimate Visual History." (Image credit: Insight Editions) ""E.T the Extra-Terrestrial" is such an important film, not only among Steven Spielberg's body of work, but to cinema history," Gaines tells Space.com. "I have written about a number of significant moments in popular culture history, and it's hard to think of a moment more significant than "E.T." I think the film still resonates because of how heartfelt it is. It still feels incredibly personal and intimate, like we are being let in on Elliott's secret and lucky to be an observer to this special relationship he has with a visitor from outer space. It almost doesn't feel like you're watching a film, but an extraordinary, yet believable, slice of life." Gaines' research process for the book was exhaustive and he interviewed over thirty people, each one providing fascinating insights. "I don't want to spoil too much, but I think people will be surprised by the genesis of the film and the interesting path the filmmakers took before settling on the final design for the titular extraterrestrial," he notes. "It was a small film, but there were so many talented people working behind the scenes on this project. Some of them went uncredited in 1982, but I really made an effort to highlight as many people as possible and share as many never-before-told stories as I could." A look inside "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: The Ultimate Visual History." (Image credit: Insight Editions) Among the many indelible images seen in "E.T.," there is one particular shot that exemplifies the magic of Spielberg's sci-fi classic for Gaines. "My instinct was to try and choose something beyond the iconic image of Elliott and E.T. flying past the face of the moon, but let's be real, that is the only acceptable answer!," Gaines adds. "There are many amazing shots in the film, but that is one of the most memorable moments in cinema history. When you see it, it takes you right back to the emotional heart of the film, and it reminds you that no one can create magic like Steven Spielberg and his collaborators." Insight Editions' "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: The Ultimate Visual History(opens in new tab)" is available now. www.space.com/et-the-extraterrestrial-40th-anniversary-visual-history?utm_campaign=socialflow
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Post by auntym on Mar 4, 2023 21:54:41 GMT -6
“There’s Something Out There” - Steven Spielberg on Alien Visitors, and an “E.T.” Sequel
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Mar 3, 2023 #TheFabelmans #JohnWilliams #Colbert
Steven Spielberg shares an interesting theory about UFOs, and gives careful consideration to Stephen Colbert’s pitch for a sequel to his landmark 1982 film, “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.” Watch Spielberg’s latest Oscar-nominated masterpiece, “The Fabelmans,” in theaters and streaming now.
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Post by auntym on Aug 20, 2023 11:13:33 GMT -6
www.dmarge.com/steven-spielberg-netflix-series-aliensPUBLISHED: Saturday August 19, 2023 Steven Spielberg’s New Four-Part Netflix Series Will Make You Believe In AliensWe are not alone...Written by Ben Esden / Netflix is set to stream a new series from one of Hollywood’s most iconic directors, Steven Spielberg, that centres around real stories of extra-terrestrial encounters from the people who experienced it first-hand. For decades, people who claimed to have met with aliens or had unique encounters with extra-terrestrial beings were disregarded as conspiracy theorists or liars. Often reduced to old tropes of unstable doomsdayers wearing tin foil hats in underground bunkers on the fringes of society. Over the years, Hollywood movies such as E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind have popularised this phenomenon, depicting aliens visiting Earth with both good and bad intentions. There have always been murmurs of aliens; unconfirmed reports from military personnel of strange happenings that are too difficult to explain, and lights in the distance that can move at the speed of light and disappear in an instant. But it’s never been verified… until now. Steven Spielberg is no stranger to alien encounters. The U.S. government all but confirmed the existence of what is now being referred to as Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon, or UAPs, after three whistleblowers, a former intelligence officer and two former fighter pilots, testified before Congress about the strange extra-terrestrial encounters throughout their military careers. David Grusch, a former intelligence officer who served in the Air Force and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency said he was informed of, “a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program” and that “biologics” of “non-human” origin had been recovered from the crafts. It feels as though for the first time in human history, we are not alone. Netflix is the first of the global streaming giants to jump on the UAP mothership, after it was announced it would release an alien docu-series by Steven Spielberg’s production company, Amblin TV, centred around unexplained alien encounters, next month. Whistleblower David Grusch has testified under oath that there has been a multi-decade cover-up of UAPs. Image: AP According to Deadline, “Each episode tells a single story: strange lights in the sky over small-town Texas; submersible space crafts haunting a coastal Welsh village; an alien encounter with schoolchildren in Zimbabwe and non-human intelligence reportedly interfering with a nuclear power plant in Japan.” “Told from the perspective of firsthand experiencers – in the places where the sightings occurred – and guided by scientists and military personnel, the series highlights the profoundly human impact of these encounters on lives, families, and communities.” From War of the Worlds and E.T., to Close Encounters of the Third Kind and even Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Steven Spielberg is certainly no stranger to encounters with extra-terrestrial beings. The legendary filmmaker has revisited the sci-fi genre time and time again throughout his distinguished career, with iconic feature films that have not only shaped cinema but influenced popular culture forever; his new project Encounters set to be released on Netflix on 27 September 2023, will be his latest attempt to make you believe. www.dmarge.com/steven-spielberg-netflix-series-aliens
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