For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Better Late Then Never

best movie i've ever seen.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

There's something about scifi pre-1970s. It doesn't condescend. It doesn't have children exclusively in mind. and in that vein it doesn't treat the audience like high school drop outs by trying to keep both plot and story simple.So it is with "It Came from Outer Space". It's not loaded with CGI, there's no rapid cutting, there's no obnoxious overly loud music, there's little gunplay, and the the emphasis is on the story and characters and not the action.That's not to say that there isn't any action, because there is, but it doesn't overshadow the core of the film; the story. And typical with pre 1970's science fiction, it's not an overly smart film in spite of some good clever story writing with a fairly profound message.On top of that the shooting style is basic. There's one aerial shot that's fairly basic, but, given the time, there's obviously no steadicam nor likewise other camera gymnastics so common with today's scifi-action films. One doesn't want to downplay nor criticize too much modern films, but there is an elegance and simplicity of "It Came from Outer Space" that one doesn't see anymore. And for a black and white film seeing it on bluray with all of the photgraphic detail really makes up for the limits of the technology of the time. Spielberg is said that his Close Encounter's film is essentially this film, but with a bit more of an upbeat ending. I think I can safely say that as remakes go, Close Encounters does this film justice, and this film is a proud father to Spielberg's "son", so to speak.A bit slower than today's scifi offerings, somewhat cliché in terms of the musical presentation along with some of the presentation of the alien visitors, it's still a solid movie.See it if you're in the mood for some classic science fiction from the 50s.Enjoy.

Beautiful long shots of barren desserts. And of cars going down empty American highways. Barbara Rush was easy on the eyes. Richard Carlson was sort of an all American leading man. He plays the only sane person in a small desert town which intensely fears the space ship that has landed in the desert.The bubble like creatures from the space ship were good enough for the time this film was made, I guess.Like other sci-fi movies of the time (eg. The Day the Earth Stood Still in 1951) the film portrays base human instincts as negative and violent. Even the background score is quite similar to The Day the Earth Stood Still. The movie is based on a story by Ray Bradbury.(6/10)

First Contact from the Star Trek series explores a lot of the same issues that It Came From Outer Space Does. Of course First Contact was made presumably in this century when the optimistic Gene Roddenberry felt that man would grow up and mature a bit. As opposed to those humans in this small Arizona town who except for Richard Carlson who is an astronomer and writer believe in the old west tradition of shoot first.It Came From Outer Space is set in the paranoid Fifties and Richard Carlson who is courting Barbara Rush along with sheriff Charles Drake is on an outing with Rush when what he believes is a ship crashes to the earth and leaves a nice deep crater hole as it burrows into the ground.Carlson has his problems first authorities don't believe him, second when people start disappearing, everyone goes into panic mode. What's a thinking scientist to do. Remember it's not the scientists who were working on making First Contact that the aliens will be dealing with.These issues are explored and most carefully by author Ray Bradbury who wrote the original story on which It Came From Outer Space is based. The special effects are outmoded and the issue at times is dealt with simplistically, but the message is as strong now as it was six decades ago. I suppose it comes down to will enough of us on both sides of the First Contact be mature enough to handle it and respond appropriately.

There are two ways to watch this, in fact most any film. This is modeled after the way you 'watch' life. Is life merely a backdrop that you were brought in to 'star'? Do you make any of it happen? Is there a consciousness that narrates and can therefore transcend that narration? Most people carry on living, satisfied by complete dramatic immersion in their story as well as the films they happen to see.The ordinary way is that everything on screen is within hard walls of a single reality, everything clearly mapped. In our case, the monster from outer space is real, its powers real. Everything else in this reality of the film will seem erratic and unbelievable, this is the converse effect. It was probably made that way, but there's no reason why you should let that limit you.Another mode starts with you recognizing the film is not simply events that happen. There's a narrator present. You center yourself to where life is believable enough to be your own, in our case young lovers mulling about marriage and future happiness in the comfort of their spacious desert home, everything ideal. And you let your eye float in the direction of the narrator's world expanding beyond his story.Sure enough, there is a narrator here - the film opens with the man narrating to us about a clear future, a clear story ahead of them.He is a journalist and amateur astrologer, a man obsessed with both the 'story' and 'looking'. She is a happy-go-lucky creature dreaming of a blissful family life. The question that nags at both of them is, will he be able to settle down? Is it going to work between them?That is when he decides to give her through his telescope a glimpse of what his nightsky really is like, maybe he is unsure himself. What happens then? Fire rains down from the skies, the product of vision from (inner) space.He is the only safe witness that there's a ship and creature in the crater, obsessed with the 'reality' of his story which both military and locals wave off as 'science fiction'. The pragmatic sheriff worries, as any friend or relation would, that the girl has fallen for an unstable guy. And in spite of what she knows of him, pursuing the 'reality' of that story reveals him to be volatile and obsessive.So now there is a second self out in that desert, a second eye - you will note the monster in the early stages as a single hypnotic eye surrounded by fog.Compare to that effect the pov shot that opens the film, this is where as our guy narrates about a happy life ahead, we crest a hill to a view of the sleepy small town below, to the monster's pov that later in the film similarly crests a hill to a view of barren desert. The contrast is between settled life and the wilderness of uncharted soul.More: the creature can take on the appearance of any man, but in a way that wives and girlfriends complain to the sheriff that 'they are not the same'. They now have the sullen look of routine, as though drained from all passion. This may be the future of what is still an affectionate relationship between the two lovers.And all these replicated story-selves are kept in a mineshaft, where the protagonist discovers both him and his girl have been replicated themselves. She tries to kill him. He swaps the 'sci-fi' replicas of fantasy for the real persons, which he leads back into the light of day .This is great work, more erudite than perhaps even Ray Bradbury knew. Forget about any 'red menace' readings, the sci-fi trappings about 'making contact'. You will see here a narrator who succumbs into hallucination as he begins to tell his story about a happy life, and that sci-fi hallucination allows him to fulfill his wish of being both the independent-minded journalist and discoverer of new spaceworlds, but coming to realize this is at the cost of love.The only difference with something like Mulholland Dr. is there we have a filmmaker who is conscious about the fluid walls of reality, deliberate blurs and shifts between layers of dreams. This doesn't, which only adds to the improbable charm; they had the same anxious dreams in those times but couldn't quite put them to words.How smart seems Body Snatchers from '56 now: the shift to inner space happens during sleep.