Contact | Jena Malone, David Morse

Contact | Jena Malone, David Morse | "Contact" Connex

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Contact

	Contact Jena Malone, David Morse Warner Studios, 1997 average customer review:based on 423 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Contact (1997)

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Cast: Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Skerritt, James Woods, Angela Bassett, John Hurt, David Morse, William Fichtner, Geoffrey Blake, Sami Chester, Timothy McNeil.
Running Time: 153 minutes
Rated PG for some intense action, mild language and a scene of sensuality.

All of the greatest work by the greatest scientists has been done while they were very young, when they were stupid enough to believe that two-plus-two-equals-five, and pursued it instead of listening to all of those who were much older and wiser who said Don't Waste Your Time. Einstein, it has been said, asked all of his important questions before the age of twenty-five, then spent the rest of his life working on them. "Contact", directed by Robert Zemeckis ("Forrest Gump", "Back to the Future"), is the story of a young scientist, Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster), who like Einstein and all the greats before her, has been asking questions and seeking answers since she was very young. And now, as a member of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) team, she is able to pursue her obsession with the mysteries of the galaxies and the infinite universe that surrounds us. Her job is to sweep the skies, using the most sophisticated equipment available, for a signal from deepest space. It may be her job, but for Ellie it's a labor of love, for she is convinced that there is something, or someone, out there somewhere, because otherwise, she reasons, what a terrible waste of space it would be. Ellie may be a dreamer, but she knows in her heart that it is the dreamers who over the years have been responsible for making us evolve, making us learn and grow because they are the ones who take insane, foolish ideas and pursue them. And to her, two-plus-two will always be five.

Ellie loves her job and believes in what she is doing, but it's been a struggle over the years, as she and others have had to constantly fight for the funding necessary to keep the project alive, begging for dollars from short-sighted, unimaginative people with vision that goes only as far as the bottom line of their budget book. It's been a tough row to hoe, and she's had to swallow a lot of pride over the years, but then one day it all pays off, when in one magic moment she hears what she's been waiting for all her life: A signal from a distant end of the galaxy-- someone attempting to communicate, to make contact, with the people of the Earth. Ellie and her team soon realize that, whomever it is, they are using the universal language of prime numbers in their attempts at making contact; and when Ellie deciphers the code, she discovers something monumental in the bargain. But it's a message of global importance, something much bigger than she and her team alone, and she soon find herself fighting to remain a part of the drama that is only beginning to unfold-- the first interaction between human beings and an alien life form. And it's only the beginning of the adventure and the wondrous places this film is about to take you.

Jodie Foster gives a performance here that demonstrates what a gifted, talented actor she is. Her Ellie is convincing and believable, and someone to whom you can genuinely relate, no matter who you are or where you're from, because there is something universal in Ellie's passion and longing to discover the truth and to see beyond the veil of our limited mortal capacities. There's a strength to Ellie, born of a combination of intelligence and innocence, as well as tenacity and faith, and Foster manifests all of these complexities of her character beautifully, with a performance that should've landed her an Oscar nomination. In this role, she is simply as good as it gets. The supporting cast includes David Morse (Ted Arroway), Matthew McConaughey (Palmer), Geoffrey Blake (Fisher), William Fichtner (Kent), Tom Skerritt (David), James Woods (Kitz) and Angela Bassett (Rachel). Zemeckis did a brilliant job of bringing this film to fruition, especially in the way he allowed Foster the time to really develop her character, by giving her that extra moment at just the right time that ultimately meant so much in the final analysis. Too often it's those few minutes that wind up on the cutting room floor that make the difference between a good film and an exceptional one; and between Zemeckis and Foster, they took it to the edge by taking some chances to realize that combined vision, which in the end made this a great film. Thoroughly engrossing and entertaining, `Contact' will transport you to places you can only imagine, and it's all done with style and in a way that makes this a truly memorable cinematic journey. It's what the magic of the movies is all about.

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"Contact" Connex

I'm a huge fan of the writings of Carl Sagan, but I found his foray into fiction only mildly interesting. Happily, "Contact" is that rare instance when the movie is better than the book. It is worth the price of the DVD just for the awe-inspiring visuals of the opening sequence. The clever use of media sources for exposition, & the manipulated image of president Clinton (from his "Mar's rock" speech I believe) make it noteworthy. I also enjoyed the remarks by Ellie's "father" at the movie's end, as well as her testimony. In my opinion, this is Jodie Foster's finest role. If you're looking for a space alien shoot-em-up get Starship Troopers because this movie will dissapoint you - which may explain why this movie is often overlooked & under-rated. However, if you're in the market for a relevant examination of a "first contact" scenario, and some commentary on the media, politics, spiritual experience, and faith, then this might work for you.

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Exceedingly good and fulfilling

A very classy movie. What I can write about it is going to understate, how good this film is. Its beginning gives no hint as to what it is about, but it culminates as so much more.

Jodie is great as always, but....

Jody Foster is a wonderful actress and in the film she shines. Too bad there weren't some other actors in the film that could arise to her level of excellence. Her character is a person of intelligence, sensitivity, imagination......What was she doing hanging out with the ex-priest...Matthew what's his name. His character is a person of no substance...very surfacey kind of guy. Jody's character is a mature human being; Matthew plays an angst ridden teenager.
Little too much of 2001: A Space Odyssey for my taste.

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`Revision..Not Concision'..Too Busy Planning the Y2K/9-11 Demolitions (Part I)

`Revision..Not Concision'..Too Busy Planning the Y2K/9-11 Demolitions Part I

Originally, review of this movie found some fault with the short shrift given to the novel's breathtaking resolution. Usually the movie based on a book should at least attempt to preserve that, but it was mathematical, not unlike the computer models so excellently done in the movie--so it's debatable there were other motivations to further dumb down the content. Computer graphics are ok, just don't give people any ideas; and that's roughly the paranoid police state's continuing theme from movie to movie. So paranoid in fact, former head of creativity for Walt Disney Company Eric Hazeltine headed up a Discover magazine round table with American mathematics leaders to discuss no longer teaching long division in the public schools (9/'02). The point is, he was also a figure in the NSA meddling by some `association', thus we have a connected set of reciprocating facts surrounding what Sen. J. W. Fullbright called, "The Pentagon Propaganda Machine", largely channeled through the movies.

So it's all about this idea of using cybernetic controls to pose as an alien threat, or the ultimate hack into human consciousness or tool for propagating torture and psychological conditioning on the population called Quantum Information and Communications (many titles are in the university library). And of course it has to have exclusive control over Artificial Intelligence, rumored to have begun development under DARPA way back in the 50s. Noam Chomsky tries not to allude to it very much, unsuccessfully, in his book "Language and Problems of Knowledge". The brain is sort of a language processor, so better look out for that character. Thus, the public is condescended to in this film quite miserably; I was expecting less overacting and more science. I guess any theater company's rendition of `Trouble in Tahiti' is going to disappoint some of the audience by a wide margin, or fail to capture many important elements of the story. Certainly the effort to push Shakespearian English on the modern drama goes without question as the worst form of retro. So when we go to the movies, expectations should consider anything possible. I guess it wasn't so bad...except for the effort at incorporating docudrama...with news coverage and Clinton's Mars Rock tape. That got off subject by confusing current events with a science fiction story. Of course the San Diego cult's execution has nothing whatsoever to do with any of this, or that viewing technology misrepresented in "Quantum Gravity" by Lee Smolin, or that other industry promo by Spielberg in `Minority Report'.

What can be done? Any book is going to drive the movie projector and production of the imagination about 10 times better than a movie ever will or ever could. This is why motion picture propaganda is so easily filleted. (Take for instance the continent hopping, double murder insurance scam in `Flight Plan'--and other unsophisticated macho pieces) Movies are a kind of opiate for the masses, they're literally feeding off their sponsor's desperate desires to condescend and intimidate, pride in playing everyone for a fool, and more importantly a serious propaganda problem of a warfare level of escalation, such as the movie `The Forgotten' which tries to blame missing persons (like the prior movie) and modern disasters on aliens. Is extraterrestrial intelligence an important question for concern? It certainly is so far as the evasion of crime under such a ridiculous proxy to condition public passivity. Does it lend itself to any practical context with the down to earth? I doubt it. And the reason is actually more curiously redirected to the question...it is comprising more offshoot entertainment themes that posit a different universe or a different consciousness than was expected...movies like `The Matrix', `CUBE', `THX', `Planet of the Apes' or allegorical time travel settings. So who knows? It doesn't interest as much as it used to, the bigger questions of course being the unceasing war on many levels between the various cultures of human beings, and not short of arriving in the American daily life. Science fiction has always been a social prospectus or blueprint for great dreams of beyond even urban planning, as have terrorist political movements always envisioned since earlier in the 20th Century. Then here we are right where it's thinking nothing of clearing the way, i.e. building demolitions and war spawned genocides.

Let's take a look at one thing that was brought up in the earlier review, that being the oddity of the crop circles and elaborate glyphs. That certainly hints at a sign extraterrestrial presence maybe. Because you know, science and technology are not a static thing. In the 1950s diplomacy attempted to shake the earth in the South Pacific with hundred of enormous hydrogen bomb blasts, so called testing that was more a race of saber rattling...and of course its high aloft radioactive fallout disintegrated enough tri atomic oxygen to form the ozone hole...a fact that has to hide behind a courtesy screen in a book title like "Ozone Diplomacy". The `official science' doesn't add up, contrasting the Northern polar region's allegedly intact ozone layer where all the industrial CFCs were produced after all, and by the way, all the ozone from tailpipes of millions of automobiles at the same time.

See the unsettling conclusion to the review on the soundtrack....

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