Every film nerd has gaps in his knowledge. I, personally, have quite a few. I don’t really watch a lot of movies, and now that I live in Erfurt and the only cinema is German dubbed, it doesn’t look like that’ll change any time soon.

There’s an upside to this. I can watch a lot of movies all of you have probably seen as a kid without the nostalgia – which, of course, is not really an upside to anything because we all know nostalgia generally makes movies awesome, but whatever!

That’s what made me watch Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. For the first time. As a thirty year-old. And I’m wondering: What gives? I was bored throughout the entire thing, found the story to be incoherent and bloated and other than the pretty effects, didn’t find anything about the film entertaining at all.

For a minute, I thought I might be broken. I might have finally grown out of Spielberg. But then I watched Jurassic Park and, no, I was pretty much all right.

So what’s up with Close Encounters? Why does everyone like this movie so much? Explain! Did I miss anything in the weird characters or the cute kid or the mess at the end?

I gotta know!