Contact

Review: Contact is the best film about extraterrestrial intelligence since Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Contact stars two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster (Taxi Driver, Silence of the Lambs) alongside Matthew McConaughey and veterans James Woods (Chaplin, Killer: A Journal of Murder, Salvador) and Tom Skerritt (A River Runs Through It). The film is directed by Robert Zemeckis, whose last movie was 1994's box office smash, Forrest Gump. And, until his death in December 1996, Carl Sagan served as a story consultant and scientific advisor. Contact opens with an unforgettable sequence (one of my all-time favorites openings....Kubrick's , The Shining is another great opening that comes to mind) that takes the viewer on a trip of the universe accelerating out into the vastness of space, eventually dissolving into what is a childs eyeball. The concept of contacting other life with radio signals is far more believable than spaceships flying around are atmosphere. It's surprising to find a science fiction film exploring issues like death, love and the existence of God. Most science fiction movies, for example Independence Day (horrible movie...I had to turn off the VCR), forget the concept of a story and script and rely to heavily on special effects. The two lead characters disagree about God and I was surprised that a big budget Hollywood movie had the balls to let them debate the subject (although don't expect any deep philosophical conversations here). In the end, like many good movies, the answers are left up to the audience. -Review by Aaron Caldwell