Carl Sagan Honorary Site

Jodie Foster deserves the Oscar for Best Actress and the film deserves to get the Oscar for Best Picture.  What a magnificent "role model" for girls. I think Carl Sagan would have been rather pleased on how his novel has been turned into a film.   Considering the quality of Hollywood's normal creative adaptations of books, this is a major achievement.  This is a marvelous film that left me "glowing" for days!

Stuart Kingsley, July 1997

     Holy blockbuster bomb, Batman!
     Summer films offer mixed bag

        Men in Black

Definitely the most commercialized move of the summer, so much in fact, that I kept feeling like they were blatantly trying to sell something.  The best thing about Barry Sonnenfeld's (Adam's Family Values, Get Shorty) super blockbuster hit was that from start to finish it was sheer enjoyment.  The worst thing about it was that it seemed the theater must have lost a few reels.  The story spent the first hour and a half setting up the character development and then reserved the final 15 minutes for the plot. MIB also contained this summer's slickest special effects and the most interesting crime fighting duo ever to be seen in a buddy movie in quite some time.   Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones played off each other with excellent comic precision.

As top secret special agents, Smith and Jones really don't do a whole lot except submerge themselves within the clever effects and attempt to look cool doing it.   Unfortunately, Vincent D'Onfrio hit a career low as a Beetlejuice look alike alien who is more agitating than entertaining, especially as his human skin begins to deteriorate.

MIB is really just an over priced cartoon that would serve as the ideal mindless study break.  If nothing else, one cannot help but appreciate the amazing sets and effects as well as the energetic, suavespunk of Will Smith, the new king of the sci-fi genre.  Not to mention, MIB does pay particular close attention to covering its tracks, for example, the lengths the agents will go through to cover their secrets and the reasoning behind choosing not to disclose information, all makes believable sense.   Well, sort of.


Contact

At least this one has a brain and Jodie Foster plays a decent role as an alien-obsessed scientist whose disbelief in God nearly ruins her chances for space travel and romance. B+

Adam Levine is a Collegian staff member.
Collegian staff member Laura Stock contributed to this article.

        Copyright © 1997 The Massachusetts Daily Collegian
        For questions, comments, or error reports, please e-mail colegian@stuaf.umass.edu

     Letters to the Editor

       Making Contact longer

        To the Editor:

I am writing in regards to the review of the film Contact by Adam Levine in the September 3 issue of The Daily Collegian.

... My problem with Mr. Levine's review of the film is that he gave it a few brief sentences, which made the film sound like a silly SF flick.  Perhaps a film with a brain that did not show naked, stupid women and gun battles isn't very inspiring to write about?  Perhaps Mr. Levine is not a big fan of astronomy and the wonders of the Universe?  Did he read the novel?

I will give... anyone... the chance to read the novel for free by simply linking to the following Web site, where you will find the entire novel available....
hourglass.ml.org:8080/contact/

Perhaps if Mr. Levine reads the novel and delves deeper into Sagan's words... he can have a better appreciation that Contact is much more than just another way to be entertained for several hours and give it the praise that is due.  Yes, I think the messages in Contact are so important that a stronger review of the film is required to make more folks see it.

Larry Klaes
lklaes@coseti.org

 

 

Copyright © 1997 The Massachusetts Daily Collegian
For questions, comments, or error reports, please e-mail colegian@stuaf.umass.edu

Film Review by Larry Klaes (218 kbytes)

Larry's Comments on the Oscar Nominations

 

There is a QuickTime Movie Promo of the film on the official CONTACT site.  Alternatively, you can view the lower-quality streaming RealVideo version below.

Contact Promo

Contact Cast Interviews

The official Warner Bros. "Contact" page giving links to other SETI sites:

http://www.contact-themovie.com/cmp/links.html

or

links

Other "Contact" web sites:

http://greatsci-fimovies.hypermart.net/contact/

http://pages.prodigy.com/contact/links.htm

http://contact.earthlink.net/~faith/

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Lot/3932/

http://contact.earthlink.net/~contactfan/

http://www.apopalypse.com/rev/skeptic/contact/contact.html

http://www.canoe.ca/JamMovies/contact_foster2.html

http://www.pathfinder.com/@@q0n6XwcAdvQOhyeq/ew/970718/features/contact/

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1997-07/15/053L-071597-idx.html

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dimension/6884/

http://hourglass.ml.org:8080/contact/

http://members.aol.com/malmberge/contact.html

http://contact.earthlink.net/~turtlex/

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/2417/contact.html

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/5272/