Close Encounters of the Third Kind is my favorite movie. I've seen it in the triple digits, so there's no way of gauging my initial reaction to watching the film unfold, other than the fond remembrances I documented upon seeing it the way I remember experiencing it so many years ago -- on network television. But there are over a dozen YouTube videos of people sitting down to watch it for the first time. The first one I ran across while doing my customary scouring of YT for CE3K uploads I hadn't previously seen was by Casual Nerd Reactions . I was somewhat transfixed by the concept and thought it would make a great blog. As I'd already seen his and the idea was to watch a couple for my reactions, I decided to forego that one, but I thank him for a subconscious impulse akin to the one that befell Roy Neary. Upon doing a cursory search for "first time watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind, " I ran across 15 more candidates. I've picked two for this ed...

I took some time out today to organize the ol' Close Encounters of the Third Kind collection and thought I'd start sharing some of the articles. First up: Anyone who was around in 1978 knows a debate sprung up over whether Star Wars or CE3K was the better film. Actually, it's not an argument those who love the latter film more expect to ever win, but there are many of us out there who prefer the adventure and/or the spiritual connotations of CE3K over lightsaber clashes.  It's not as though movie lovers can't appreciate both, I certainly do. And it was never a bone of contention between our writer/director Steven Spielberg and George Lucas on the other side. Of course, diehard fans know R2D2 makes an appearance in CE3K when the mothership appears on the horizon. And the master craftsmen and good friends even made a bet about whose film would perform better at the box office -- they both thought the other would rule the landscape. So Spielberg and Lucas gave each ot...