Volume 16 - Conan the Barbarian and the Heroes of the Past & Future

I want to be a hero when I grow up. I know that's a ridiculous statement, considering I'm already old and the heroes we see in books and comics and movies aren't realistic examples of what we can be in the real world, but I can't help it. I like some people, and I want those people to have someone who can help them when they need it. In my mind (and Bonnie Tyler's, so I know I'm not alone) that means they need a hero.

Growing up in the 1980s, there were a lot of heroes to admire in books and comics and movies. The most admirable of those, to me, is now and has always been Arnold Schwarzenegger. His first major starring role of that decade, though not as highly regarded as some of his later work, might be his most heroic role. It's one I love dearly, and it's the perfect starting point for this double feature.

HOW THIS WORKS
Step 1) I pick a movie.
Step 2) I tell you about the movie.
Step 3) I tell you what we're looking for in a double feature movie.
Step 4) Another movie!
Step 5) Victory!

Conan the Barbarian

1982, Directed by John Milius

Conan the Barbarian seems like a simple movie on the surface. A youngster, trained to believe in a god and a sword, sees his loving father and mother killed by a vicious cult leader. He grows up with vengeance in his heart while slaving away on the aptly named "wheel of pain," which makes him big and strong and angry when he sets out on his own as an adult. 

He's trained as a fighter, and famously indoctrinated that the answer to the question "What is best in life?" is "To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women." In a drunken stupor, he sees a bunch of women of the night against a wall and blurts out "Sluts!" like it's the funniest thing he's seen in his life. He's...not perfect. Stay with him, though. He's going on a journey here.

Conan acts like a brute - because that's what he was raised as - but as he sets out on his own we start to see his character as he meets others who recognize that his heart is still that of the innocent child who had the life he wanted taken from him. These companions - a sly archer named Subotai, a female warrior named Valeria, and a playful wizard who has no name - are crucial in helping Conan work toward his goal, even if his background has made him far too stubborn to ever acknowledge it. He has meaningful conversations about religion with Subotai (allowing Arnold to chortle as he spits out one of the best lines in fantasy history, "Crom laughs at your four winds!") and ends up befriending and loving Valeria, yet he rarely allows himself to show his feelings. When he does, it's hard not to fall in love with him and his cause.

If my opinion of Conan sounds a little different than the consensus, that's because my experience watching the film is a little different too. The first time I really watched Conan the Barbarian in its entirety was on DVD, and I didn't realize at the time I was watching an extended director's cut. When the times changed and I watched the film for about the twentieth time, now on blu-ray, I noticed something odd...my favorite scene between Conan and Subotai was missing from the film's theatrical cut.

I just watched this scene four times. I couldn't stop. Man, it makes my heart soar. If you're not at a video watching location right now, here's a transcript. Yes, I'm THAT in to this scene.

"I remember days like this when my father took me to the forest and we ate wild blueberries. More than 20 years ago. I was just a boy of four or five. The leaves were so dark and green then. The grass smelled sweet with the spring wind...

...Almost 20 years of pitiless cumber! No rest, no sleep like other men. And yet the spring wind blows, Subotai. Have you ever felt such a wind?"

"They blow where I live too. In the north of every man's heart."

"It's never too late, Subotai."

"No...It would only lead me back here another day. In even worse company."

"For us, there is no spring. Just the wind that smells fresh before the storm."

First of all, I think this is one of the very best acting moments of Schwarzenegger's career. And I generally adore the man with all my heart. It's so human. So accessible. Sure, he says "other man" instead of "other men," but he sounds so sincere in the realization that he's spent his whole life on a ridiculous quest that has taken away so much from him. It ISN'T too late - even as he prepares for the battle in which he utters his famous prayer to Crom - and he could just walk away and try to start over. His heart has been broken for too long, and he realizes at the end...he has to face the storm that he's brought on through his choices.

I get why this scene was cut from the film originally - there's a tone shift that doesn't match the character's lack of emotion at other moments. In one of the film's best scenes, Subotai cries at the expense of another character and when asked why, he laments that Conan, the Cimmerian, can not cry. This deleted scene doesn't feature tears from Conan, but it's as close as we can get. It hit me so hard when I first heard it. I probably watch this scene on YouTube more often than any human should; I just love what it represents. The hero who's trying to take on the world realizes, as he prepares to put his well-being on the line one more time, that he's been fighting his whole life and has left the simple things that bring him peace long behind. And Subotai, who's been portrayed as Conan's heart for much of the film, just chuckles at Conan like he's a doofus. He knows what the man means, and he wishes it was that simple.

Conan's journey in the film is long and winding, which is appropriate when you look at the journey to the big screen that the character took. Conan was created by author Robert E. Howard, and first appeared in a story in Weird Tales magazine in December of 1932. It would be 50 years before he made his debut on screen, and opinions on how well John Milius' film represents the character - who had been adapted by numerous other authors throughout those years - are varied.

Having not read the stories that Conan originated from, I tried my best to find sources that compare the film to what the author created. You'll find kind words about the final product on sites like Wikipedia and IMDB, alongside admissions that writer/director Milius took liberties combining elements of different Conan stories. On the other hand, I found a couple of fans of Howard's stories to ask them their opinion about how well the movie captured his character, and their answers were less positive. One admitted to liking the film for what it is, while pointing out that things like the importance of Conan's sword and the role of Thulsa Doom are sharp breaks from Howard's legend, while another simply thought that the film was an embarrassment compared to the author's work.

The film opens with a famous on-screen quote from Friedrich Nietzche, stating "That which does not kill us, makes us stronger," and I think that's a fair statement to sum up how I feel about Conan the Barbarian as a film. The film has some problems as an adaptation, but they're covered up so well by all the things I love about it. The cast is perfect for their roles, and behind the brawn and muscle there's a sweet heart reminding us that Conan's fought hard to get to this point in his noble quest. Though his goal is revenge, he seeks it because he needs to heal his heart. I really love that about him, and this film.

It would be easy to stick with the swords and sandals as we pick a double feature partner for Conan, but taking the easy route is just not what he would want us to do. We're gonna take a leap to another place and time with our next film...but we're also gonna talk about one of the original Conan's contemporaries. Let's take a look at the reasons I picked this double feature.

• Conan may not resemble the details of his 1930s origin tales in this film, but the set up of the film does. Much like modern super hero films, Milius used his film to introduce the character and build him through an origin story, tacking on narration at the prologue and epilogue that would set up a series of films. Only one direct sequel ever got off the ground (so far), but the serial nature of the film feels like something from the era in which Conan was born.
• At the same time, Conan the Barbarian also is at home in the excessive style of early 1980s cinema. In the wake of Star Wars, studios were doing their best to create grand universes that could cover several films, and the sci-fi and fantasy genres were homes to many of them. (In fact, Star Wars creator George Lucas tried to buy the rights to adapt the character we're about to discuss, and only after he failed at this decided to create his space opera.)
• As I noted above, Conan's quest wouldn't work without the cast around him, a diverse and eclectic group of characters who light up the screen when the hero - who was still working on his English - was unable to carry the film's dramatic and comedic load. So I want another supporting cast that lifts the film to new heights.
• Conan the Barbarian's greatest strength might be it's musical score. Basil Poledouris' score for this film...might be my favorite musical score for any film of its type. It's a jackhammer, and it's also got these beautiful interludes that feel like what I think the spring winds in that scene I talked about above would feel like. None of this makes sense because I don't understand music, but I'm still looking for a double feature where the music elevates the film to another level.
• Above all else, we - and by we, I mean you, and me, and Bonnie Tyler - need a hero.

That hero's name is....

Flash Gordon

1980, Directed by Mike Hodges

There's a pretty fundamental difference between the movies Flash Gordon and Conan the Barbarian, just like there are major differences between the characters each of the films are named after. We'll get to those in a minute. First, let's take a look at a rather obvious connection between them.

Producer Dino De Laurentiis, wanting to capitalize on the success of Star Wars on film and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century on TV, brought Flash Gordon to motion picture screens in December of 1980, just over 18 months before Conan was released. De Laurentiis also backed Conan into existence, though he let his daughter Raffaella be the on set producer of that one. The Italian producer gained a level of cult fame with his 1976 remake of King Kong; waxing romantically in an interview with Time magazine that "when the monkey die, people gonna cry." That film has gone down in the history of cinema as something of a miss, but the producer's romantic and kinda charming ideas on what audiences are looking for from big budget spectacle paint a picture of the kind of properties he we would try to create with both Flash Gordon and Conan the Barbarian.

Like Kong and Conan, Flash Gordon was born in the first half of the 1930s, first appearing as a comic strip character in January of 1934. A polo player turned space traveling hero, Flash is kind of an anti-Conan. Where the Cimmerian is pushed into action because of the troubles that plagued his life, Flash just kind of stumbles into a hero role in his journeys by getting caught on the wrong plane and, subsequently, the wrong rocket ship. If Conan represents the everyman hero who has to fight through life, Flash - who the film updates from polo star to "quarterback, New York Jets" - is the white collar hero who's been given all the tools he needs.

Though the real world well-to-do are usually quick to stomp on the little guys, Flash Gordon is fictional, and is thus the rare "pure" rich hero. There's no real motivation for him to act heroically to protect Earth from Ming the Merciless (Max von Sydow, who would also make a brief appearance as the good King Osiric in Conan the Barbarian), he's just a good guy who stands up for us because he wants to. He's a naive and simple character, and the actor who brings him to life, Sam J. Jones, doesn't inspire much applause for his depth as an actor, but looking at him as a product of the 1930s that has been brought forward to the 1980s helps us understand why he is the way he is.

Like Conan, Flash is able to maneuver through his journey to defeat Ming with the help of a unique group of friends. The biggest standouts are Prince Vultan of the Hawkmen, a boisterous bearded character who seems to enjoy challenging Ming because it's humorous, and Prince Barin, the suave ruler of a forest planet who has his eyes on Ming's devious daughter, Aura. They're played by two very different British actors, Brian Blessed and (future James Bond) Timothy Dalton, who play perfect opposites easily. Aura, played by Ornella Muti, is the film's most complex character - which is a low bar to hurdle - because she gets to balance on the line between helping her father and falling for the handsome spacemen who come into his kingdom. The other major standout in the cast is charismatic Israeli star Topol, who's performance as Earth scientist Hans Zarkov is cheeky and winning and full of pop culture references.

Each of these supporting performers help make the film far more light-hearted than the operatic tone of Conan the Barbarian, which is where Jones and Melody Anderson (who plays Dale Arden, his romantic interest) come back into the picture. I made a backhanded comment about Jones' depth earlier, yet he's perfect for reprising a role that was initially played in serial films by Olympic athlete-turned-actor "Buster" Crabbe. A couple of more famous actors were near landing the part of Flash Gordon in the film, including Schwarzenegger(!) (who was rejected due to his strong accent) and Kurt Russell (who rejected the film because he thought the character lacked personality), and though they're two of my favorite stars in the world - I'm kind of OK with Sam Jones ending up in this role. Russell is probably right that he's not right for this role, because the wooden nature of the hero only boosts up the performers around him. Kurt Russell movies are best when he's allowed to be the charismatic scene-stealer. That's not who Flash Gordon is, and Sam Jones is able to slide into the movie, be heroic, and let everyone around him shine without stealing their spotlight.

Conan the Barbarian and Flash Gordon are both films about 1930s heroes made with 1980s mindsets, and it's the difference in those 1980s tones that really makes this double feature pop for me. For example, I mentioned how much I love Conan's booming musical score, and I also love how the musical score takes Flash Gordon to another level. The difference is that the film that keeps its swords and sorcery on an earthly plane has music by an orchestral composer, while the film that takes its swords and sorcerers into space has a musical score by iconic future rock band Queen. (Yes, I believe Freddie Mercury and friends are from the future and that we haven't seen the last of them yet. Don't stomp on my dreams.)

Conan the Barbarian and Flash Gordon are a perfect pairing in how they represent the hero's journey and do so in such dramatically different ways. With a few omissions, you can boil both films down to the same idea - an honorable hero, alongside those who will help him, tries to take down a ruthless oppressor. But unless you think about that point specifically, you'd never think to put Conan and Flash in the same sentence, because the worlds and the tones are so far apart.

Yet here they are. Created less than two years apart during The Great Depression, and brought back to life by a rich producer at the beginning of a decade of excess. They're odd partners - I don't know how Conan and Flash would get along in a time-traveling crossover project, but don't you kind of want to find out? - but they represent the same things. They stand for honor, valor, and love. They stand for the little guy who can't stand up to the oppressor themselves.

Though they stand in different times places, they come from the same kind of hearts. And, as Queen's theme song points out about Flash, they're "for every one of us." That's the kind of hero I think we all need to be, wherever and whenever we are.

Volume 15 - Event Horizon and Being Blinded by Science

I'm not good at science, you guys. I paid a lot of money for a piece of paper that says I'm a bachelor of it, true, but the reality of the matter is that my talents more resemble another meaning for the acronym B.S. Heck, I don't even like science.

I'm not saying I don't like science like how a Republican doesn't like science; I acknowledge that it's out there. I'm just not the person to deal with it. Other people are better at science than me, and that's fine. Those people probably haven't played as much Tecmo Super Bowl as I have. Let's call it even and move on.

Despite my oppositional stance toward it, I spent a lot of time thinking about a movie with science in it this week. So, in the name of science - kind of - let's take a look at that movie and talk about how much of a non-sciencer I am.

HOW THIS WORKS
Step 1) I pick a movie.
Step 2) I tell you about the movie.
Step 3) I tell you what we're looking for in a double feature movie.
Step 4) Another movie!
Step 5) Victory!

Event Horizon

1997, Dir. by Paul W.S. Anderson

I'm not gonna say Event Horizon is an incredibly smart sci-fi movie. But it's got enough science in it to confuse me. Perhaps I should be embarrassed when I admit that, and maybe I am a little. I'm not to proud to admit it.

There are definitely people out there who understand Event Horizon much more than I do. One such person is a great writer named Elbee, who recently wrote this wonderful article celebrating the film's 20th anniversary over at the fine site Cinepunx. I've read this article, which spells out some of the film's science and some of its theory with great detail, a couple of times now. It makes me want to be a smarter person. It makes sense, which is something I gotta fight through like four edits to get to, and it even shows an understanding of the influences and themes at the heart of this deceptively tricky piece of pulp sci-fi horror. It's the kind of insight you readers deserve, yet it's not the type of insight you will get from me when we talk about Event Horizon. I have no tongue for it.

Event Horizon is the tale of a space ship named, you guessed it, the Event Horizon. It was sent to explore the edge of our solar system in 2040 - a place I thought had already been explored when the film was released in 1997, because science and I don't talk much - and disappeared. Then, in 2047, a rescue named "Lewis & Clark" (I understood that reference! It's not science!), is sent to rescue it when its distress signal appears. Accompanying the crew on their journey is the man who designed the Event Horizon, Dr. William Weir (Sam Neill, who apparently was heading to space to avoid dinosaurs), and he's there to explain exactly how much science the movie wants us to think about. My buddy Elbee makes a great point in her article that bears repeating here - you would assume that a bunch of astronauts understood something about science. But what Event Horizon presupposes is - What if they didn't?

I'm fine with that presumption, because I struggle to understand it. I like to think I'm smart, but the more technical terms Neill and friends throw at the screen the more I get a blank stare on my face. You know when your friends are all talking about that TV show you don't watch - in my case, we'll say The Bachelor, and you're not trying to be rude and just leave the party so you just sit there and nod and do one of those "huh" or "ohhh" noises every 27 seconds? That's me when dude starts talking about the physics of space travel...if that even is what he's talking about.

(Off topic, but the 27 second interval is the key to this method of polite disinterest. If you make it 20 seconds, someone else who's not paying attention is gonna be counting and they're gonna notice that it's an even number and they're gonna call you out on it. If you wait for 30 seconds you're gonna seem out of it for too long, and people will know. Trust me - 27 is the perfect number. Try it out sometime. You'll thank me.)

The things we learn when the Lewis & Clark gets to the Event Horizon are:

• Everyone on board is dead.
• The ship is creepy as hell.
• The ship has been to another dimension.

I understand the first two items there pretty well and then all of a sudden WHOA ANOTHER DIMENSION? If this was Twitter I'd throw some cutesy gif about my mind being blown into this paragraph, but this is the real world and I have to use words for my feelings. Apparently, as I understand it, The ship named Event Horizon (inside the movie Event Horizon, naturally) was just chilling out by Neptune, looking around, having a good time, when POOF IT WAS GONE TO SOME PLACE ELSE. And not some place else like Kentucky, but some place else that's not even on the same plane of existence as Kentucky. And not a plane that you fly on either.

When I put it that way it's not too hard to understand, but the more Weir and the confused crew, led by the super fantastic Laurence Fishburne as their no nonsense captain, talk about black holes and how things work with physics...the more I start to doubt myself. And then I see little details in the film that make me question the science even more. At one point a character gets jettisoned out into space and I look at all the little white lights behind him and the only thing I can think is "There's no way there's that many stars grouped so close together out there! It looks like something I would have drawn when I was five and just had my first Mountain Dew and couldn't stop putting dots on the paper so it looked like I used all the space and actually drew something!" Clearly, at this point I'm letting Event Horizon get the best of me and my science-resistant brain.

But, here's the good part. We learn pretty near the middle of the film that this other dimension the Event Horizon (the ship) went to - might just be Hell. And that's good for me. It can't be proven or quantified. I like that in my horror, and I like that in my sci-fi. That's where Event Horizon (the movie) - which has just as many creepy and gory images as it does arguments about physics and other sciences I don't get - works so well for me. 

Sure, it's basically Alien without an Alien (and with a far too spastic electronic musical score), but it does a good job of being that while freaking its characters out in unique ways. I can dig a movie like that, even if I don't feel like I'm smart enough to really understand what it thinks it is smart enough to tell me.

At this point I've said about all I can say about Event Horizon without sounding too stupid. (Well, maybe I'm already there.) So when I thought about explaining what I'm looking for in a double feature to go with it, i thought it would be best if I focus on the things I understand about Event Horizon, and how I can build off of them.

• The characters in the film and the things they are up against belong in two separate dimensions. While I don't quite understand the physics of that, I'm a big fan of movies that pit our reality and the expectations we have about it up against another place that's...to put it simply, quite different. 
• Outside of the seemingly all-seeing Weir, the characters in Event Horizon are kinda normal people who, despite being trained for the predicament they're in, are always playing catch up against the unknown forces they face. They try really hard, and I like that about them. I kind of wish they were more open to the things around them though, but they do their best.
• When things get really icky for the characters in Event Horizon, they come across some creepy black goo. There's something about horror and sci-fi movies with creepy black goo that just makes me smile, so I'm looking for another creepy black goo movie. (I probably won't talk about this again, but I felt like mentioning it here because typing "creepy black goo"is so much fun.)
• When in doubt, the crew of the Lewis & Clark have one of my favorite theories for attacking the evil they can't understand: burn it down. You can science me all you want, but most of the time fire is a great answer. Let's look for people who take on another dimension that way too.

The film I'm about to recommend to you certainly doesn't live in the same world as Event Horizon. But it's a movie that embraces the things I understand about movies like Event Horizon, and it's a movie that challenges reality while not relying on that pesky ol' science that I don't want around. We're making concessions for my inadequacies as a learner with this double feature, I admit it. 

Please stay with me. Because we're gonna have some fun doing it.

John Dies At The End

2012, Directed by Don Coscarelli

Don Coscarelli is my kind of director. When he wants to go to another dimension, he throws the science right out the window. The man made two of my very favorite horror movies - Phantasm and Bubba Ho-Tep - both of which challenge reality in playful ways. Yet his most recent film, John Dies at the End, might be the wildest thing he's ever made. Inside it, alongside two fantastic leads (Chase Williamson and Rob Mayes) and two iconic character actors (Paul Giamatti and Clancy Brown), is a character that understands the whole "other dimensions and evil" problem in a very similar manner to myself.

His name is Detective Lawrence Appleton (no one will ever convince me he's not named after Mark Linn-Baker's iconic character from Perfect Strangers), he's played by Glynn Turman (who starred in an underrated '70s gem, J.D.'s Revenge and deserves much love), and he easily gives my favorite performance in this insane, dimension-hopping, drug-induced vacation from reality. There's a moment in the middle of the film where he confronts the film's central character, David Wong (Williamson), about what's going on in this bizarre situation. His explanation of what he thinks is going on, quoted below, is pretty much the perfect representation of how a non-sciencer like myself thinks when faced with the kind of situations these two films offer up.

"You know, everybody's got a ghost story, a UFO or a Bigfoot story. Now what I think is that stuff is both real and not real at the same time. I ain't no Star Trek fan and I don't know about other dimensions and all that. But I am an old school Catholic and I do believe in Hell. I believe it ain't just rapists and murderers down there. I believe it's demons and worms and vile things; the grease trap of the universe. And the more I think of it, the more I think it's not some place 'down there' at all, that it's here, all around us. We just don't perceive it. Just like how the country music radio station is out there, in the air, even if you ain't tuned to it."

Take out the Catholic part - in the immortal words of Bob Dylan, "It ain't me, babe" - and Detective Appleton just described my understanding of other dimensions and the evils in the world to a T. Which is pretty amazing, since we've never met. I guess Detective Lawrence Appleton and I are (you guessed it) PERFECT STRANGERS.

Like Event Horizon, John Dies at the End is a movie I've seen at least a handful of times - it's a young flick, but it is incredibly rewatchable - and could not explain to you without using the phrase "AND THEN THINGS GET NUTS!" But while Event Horizon tries really hard to explain the science behind its madness, this one embraces a sort of lunatic philosopher role. As the film starts the narrator poses a conundrum, a rambling logic puzzle about undead beings and axe repair that has nothing to do with the rest of the film's plot, and this kind of logic (or lack there of?) never stops coming at the viewer as the characters face some of the most bizarre encounters you'll find in a horror film.

It would be unfair if I didn't list some of those bizarre struggles, so here's a quick run down of just a few of the things we encounter while following these characters:

• Meat monsters
• A flying insect moustache
• "Eyes Wide Shut World

If any of those things make sense to you based on any science class you ever took - God bless that teacher. If you have their number, send it on over to The Mike. I have so many questions.

Another major departure from the first film in our double feature are the two lead characters, Dave and John. Everyone on the Event Horizon - aside from the doctor, who obviously knew more about the titular ship than them - is hesitant when faced with the reality-altering visions they see throughout their film. On the other hand, Dave and John are carefree and open-minded. This horror comedy's best joke might be the presentation of how level headed these two ordinary guys are in the face of shapeshifting monsters and gateways to other worlds. There's very little fear shown by either character, and their calm approach to such a bizarre series of events keeps the viewer smiling throughout the film.

It might seem like a disservice to pair Event Horizon with a film that throws out any of the logic and science that it works very hard to incorporate, especially as I explain just how far the second film's tone deviates from the focus on terror that the first was built around. I'd argue that those departures are what makes this such a fun double feature, because Event Horizon is so effective in its use of science to create terror (even if I don't understand it) that following it up with another film with the same goals would maybe be a bit too heavy for even a horror loving viewer like me.

By the time you see the alternate dimension that John and Dave travel to late in their film, you'll understand that John Dies at the End is not interested in painting the same picture of Hell that Event Horizon did. And that's quite fine. Both of these films are nightmare scenarios that challenge reality and make things pretty gross and gory at times, but some nightmares are just weird and wacky and not as terrifying as some other nightmares. I think we've got room for both kinds of nightmares in horror cinema.

Both of these films will make you think, will make you squirm, and will surprise you. One will scare you more than the other, and one will make you laugh more than the other, even if it relies on a few too many dick jokes. If you want to see some science go wrong, but don't want to spend too much time trying to understand that science, try out this double feature and enjoy the ride through a few unique nightmare dimensions.

Volume 5 - Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Having Faith in Your Double Feature

Fun fact about this week's double feature: When I started planning this, neither of these films were part of the double feature. I started with a movie I wanted to talk about, then I thought of a movie that matched it, then I thought of a movie that also matched it and was more popular, then I started watching that movie....and completely changed my mind about the movie that should pair with it. So, I'd like to apologize in advance to the double feature that was supposed to be this double feature. Perhaps your day will come soon.

In the meantime, I found myself sitting in front of my TV this week taking in one of my favorite films that I've seen dozens of times. And, as I watched it, I started to realize that it shares a lot of spooky similarities with another of my favorite films. And, when that happens, there's only one thing left to do. You know what that is.

What? No. I meant make a double feature. Gosh, have you even been reading these posts?

HOW THIS WORKS
Step 1) I pick a movie.
Step 2) I tell you about the movie.
Step 3) I tell you what we're looking for in a double feature movie.
Step 4) Another movie!
Step 5) Victory!

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

1977, Directed by Steven Spielberg

Last week I talked about Night of the Living Dead, and mentioned how growing up in a rural area of the Midwest added to the dread I felt when watching that film. There's one other film from my childhood that inspired a very similar dread, the difference being that Night of the Living Dead featured a threat coming from below and the other film featured a threat coming from above.

You might have guessed by now that the film I'm talking about is Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which is probably still my favorite of that great director's films. I get why it probably shouldn't be - watching it again reminds me that it's a little bloated, a minor offense but something that shouldn't happen when the same guy directed a film that's as svelte as Jaws - but there's a sense of wonder that comes from this film that just hits me personally. Maybe it's because I watched so much Unsolved Mysteries as a kid, maybe it's because I was so obsessed with aliens that when I was in fourth grade I swore up and down that some lights I saw in the sky (which I'm now pretty darn sure were a radio tower) were a UFO and then I caused a ruckus because I believed it was a UFO and I ended up having to talk to the school counselor because I wouldn't stop claiming it was a UFO and oh my God, Mike, why are you still typing this. They get it. You want to believe. Also, you probably belong in an institution. Get back to talking about the movie.

The dread that crazy preteen Mike felt during Close Encounters of the Third Kind obviously comes from the scene, set in a rural area outside Muncie, Indiana, where Melinda Dillon and her character's toddler son have their own close encounter. It's a scene that absolutely terrified me when I first saw it and even as an adult, when I can tell it's Spielberg at his most playful, it works as a fantastic scene that shakes the whole film at its core. Up until this point in the movie we've mostly been dealing with flashing lights and toys and Richard Dreyfuss being Richard Doofus, but as soon as that orange light shines there's just a fantastic energy that starts dripping off the screen. I've seen it z bunch of times, I'm still a little exhausted by the end of the scene.

Even better, the film really seems to take off once we've seen what happens to that little boy. Dreyfuss' family situation escalates, and his doofusness becomes desperation. The exploits of Francois Truffaut's character, Lacombe, start to seem a little more relevant. Then the film introduces Devil's Tower, and it instantly became the one random out of the way place in America that I now have to go see before I die. The grandiose finale is maybe a little bit overdone, but it's so beautiful and John Williams' score is one of the best of all-time, so I'm willing to forgive any of its wrongs. 

I took a swipe at Dreyfuss' character, Roy Neary, earlier, which was a tad uncalled for. Despite the fact that it's tearing his life apart, he is so caught up in wanting to know what's going on that he sells out for it. Roy gets a taste that something big is happening, something he never imagined could happen, and he wants to help figure it out no matter what. Is Roy a bad person because of that? Maybe. He makes decisions that most people wouldn't and ends up hurting his family (poor Teri Garr, that girl always deserves better!) in the process. But he's committed to what he wants to believe, like a bumbling Fox Mulder, and there's a part of me that just respects that kind of faith.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is one of those movies where I just get so swept up in what it's offering that it's impossible for me to think anything is wrong with it. Like I said - I know why most people prefer Jaws or Raiders of the Lost Ark or some other Oscar winning flick Spielberg has made - but this is exactly what I want from a film. It's a sci-fi film about believing the world is bigger than you and your problems and how small we really all are in the grand scheme of things while we also each have a place in that grand scheme. And those are some themes I just can't get enough of. In fact, those are gonna play in to the double feature we're about to make.

So, it's time to come up with that double feature. Like I said at the beginning, I didn't plan to make this decision. But when I started watching Close Encounters the other day, another movie just kept popping into my head.

The following list sums up some of my favorite things about Close Encounters of the Third Kind. They all have parallels in the film I'm about to discuss..

• First, Close Encounters of the Third Kind starts with a globetrotting, European born expert, who just happens to have found some clues in the Middle Easy that hint at something bigger going on.
• As stated above, the event that starts everything in progress here is a single mother who loses her child to a force most people won't be willing to consider.
• At the center of the film is Roy, a down on his luck character who is having problems at work and home, and who at times seems to be angry at someone. When he shouts at the sky in the middle of the film, it's not a stretch to think that Roy is partially angry at God.
• Roy believes the single mother in peril and seems determined to help her. So does the European globetrotter, once he gets involved. But the bunch of white guys sitting around a table who think they can solve everything with science? Not so much.
• I won't go into spoilers, even though these are two of the most popular movies of all-time, but most of these parallels are tied up in somewhat similar ways in both films. There are some major thematic differences, but if you squint real hard you can see the same ideas.

I look at this list of things, and I think about how Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a film made by an Oscar winning director that was one of the biggest genre hits of the '70s. And then I start to think about another film that was directed by an Oscar winner and was one of the biggest genre hits of the '70s. 

The Exorcist

1973, Directed by William Friedkin

You might think I'm crazy right now. Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Exorcist are wildly different movies, but if you've seen both movies even 1% as often as I have, you'll look at that list of things about Close Encounters above and realize a lot of them apply to The Exorcist.

• Ellen Burstyn, like Melinda Dillon, plays a single mom trying to make ends meet when her child's life is threatened.
• A whole bunch of "smart" dudes - in one film scientists, in the other film doctors - don't have any interest in believing what the mother and others have seen.
• Meanwhile, an outsider with a chip on his shoulder - Jason Miller's Father Karras here or Dreyfuss' Roy Neary - gets involved. The motivations of these two characters are very different - Karras is skeptical, Roy buys in from minute one - but both end up playing a crucial role in helping the mothers.
• Francois Truffaut's Lacombe and Max von Sydow's Father Merrin are two other characters who suffer far different fates, but both start the film seeking the truth in a distant land and end up in America facing what they knew was true.
• Both movies have been edited into enough versions over the years to make it really confusing to remember what happens sometimes. Maybe that's just a personal thing, but it happens to me.

Of course, these are all superficial comparisons. You could pull this kind of trickery to make a lot of movies sound like the same movie. But it's the two male leads - and the faith I talked about with Roy Neary - that makes me really want to double feature these '70s classics.

Father Damien Karras, played by Jason Miller, is one of my favorite characters in any movie. Unlike Roy Neary, I'd never call him a doofus. But like Roy, Damien is losing hold on his life early in the film. He doesn't quite grasp faith the same way Roy does - which makes sense, since he's facing a more sinister unknown force - but when he chooses faith late in the film he chooses it and never looks back. I said earlier that Roy believes there's more to the world and is fighting to find his place in the grand scheme of things, and that's where Father Karras ends up at the end of The Exorcist. 

I've always been a person who believes there's more out there than just us. Aliens, God, the Devil - I just feel like there's got to be more to the world than humanity. Maybe that makes me a sucker, but I love a movie about a potential sucker who's proven right and whose faith is justified. If I did this double feature again I'd start with The Exorcist and end with the film where the lead's faith is rewarded in a more upbeat manner. Any way you attack it, you'll get amazing visuals, great performances, and two of the coolest musical scores in cinema history.

This might be too heavy (or too long) of a double feature for a lot of people, but I think the chance to look at two of the best genre films of the 1970s side by side could provide a lot of good insight for viewers. Youngsters who want to learn about cinema can get a crash course in the works of two of the best directors out there, and people who have seen the films a few times can look at them in a new light. Or, you can just sit back and enjoy two one-of-a-kind films. 

For me, it's all about faith. Thinking about how much the characters in these movies face their own reality and end up being part of something that challenges their reality makes this a double feature that I think I'll come back to again. I've got faith in these movies.