On Sunday I watched 4 movies. Each one was impressive and fascinating, and I thought I’d talk about how they connect and how they differ.

The Truman Show

I love The Truman Show. It’s a great movie. But not many people appreciate it. They know the name, but most think it’s a simple comedy. It’s casually referenced in the news, but not many realize that it’s a truly great movie that speaks volumes about modern society.

Jim Carrey is an actor whose roles can be grating due to his over the top nature, but in this movie, he plays the role amazingly, perfectly capturing Truman’s cautious optimism about the world.

Its climax is breathtaking, with unforgettable visuals and Ed Harris as Christoff in another impressive role. It’s a smart, funny, creative, and heartbreaking film that everyone should witness.

Grade: 9/10

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

It’s not often that you hear the words “Steven Spielberg” “80’s movies” and “Underrated” in the same sentence.  All of the movies he directed at that time were huge success, and received huge critical acclaim. Close Encounters was no different: It brought in both. But it’s more famous for a few scenes than it is for the overall content of the movie.

And that’s a shame because it’s a great movie that is possibly Spielberg’s best. The film is difficult to describe, it’s a sci-fi, an action movie, and a horror film all at the same time. The way it executes each is lovely and expertly. It captures a certain feeling, a sense of joy and paranoia, that is hard to execute in words. The horror aspect is one of the most interesting facets of this film. Spielberg uses horror in a way that no other director has managed. It proves that, although he didn’t step into the horror genre often, he still had the capability to, and could have very well become a horror director in the vein of John Carpenter.

The most intense scene in the movie is the genuinely unsettling alien abduction scene. Spielberg reverses common horror movie tropes by making light the villain of the scene. The darkness is in the way the thing that the heroes of the scene strive for, if the house is dark, they are safe. It’s a great scene that is wonderfully done and shockingly intense, unusual for Spielberg. As the decades rolled on, Spielberg never really tried anything new, mostly retreating in some pleasant, but rather somber, historical films.

The climax is what keeps this from being a truly perfect film. It’s rather anti-climactic for a movie that has been building up to the alien arrival. But besides that, this movie is nearly perfect in every aspect.

Grade: 9.5/10

Edward Scissorhands

Tim Burton is a divisive director. You either love him or hate him. Me? I think he has a style that is unique but a bit repetitive, leading to some infuriating moments.

The film has “Burton” written all over it. The Danny Elfman score with lots of oo-ing choirs, the quirky dialogue, the weird costumes. But does it hold up? Well, partially. I wish that the film had explored the darker side of Edward and his origins, instead of exploring the irritatingly mundane aspects of the relationships between characters. Johnny Depp’s performance is naive and can get annoying. The conflict within his character could have been much better executed, with his personality being boring and non-existent. It’s good qualities lie in its final moments, it’s depiction of suburban gossip and life, and in it’s very clever premise. The fairy tale aspects of it that bookend the film are forced and cliche and honestly unneeded, but they are representative of this flawed, but still interesting, movie.

Grade: 7/10

So what do these movies have in common? Well, they all share a single thread of story: A conventional person suddenly discovers or realizes something that changes their lives, and possibly their worldview. Each of the protagonists react in a different way that distinctly alters the plot of the movie. Truman reacts with paranoia towards his newly discovered TV show life, Roy with feverish devotion to find the aliens, and Peg with love and care towards Edward. Of course, the same could be said about many films, but this article is of course just my silly opinion.