Episode 116 - Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

An Indiana electrician encounters a UFO and goes insane, a baby is abducted by aliens, and scienists have a battle of the bands against a spaceship. Steven Spielberg's follow-up to the massive success of Jaws turns out to be a blueprint for the rest of his filmography: the dissolution of the nuclear family through parental abandonment; strong religous themes and yearning; aliens and horror; the difficulty of communication. Even specific scenes we find in later films first show up here. It's a skeleton key to his body of work, a fascinating bookened to 2022's The Fabelmans, and arguably his best film. Starring Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, Cary Guffey, and the great François Truffaut. Written and directed by Steven Spielberg.