First contact

Like a few million other Americans, I saw The Two Towers during the opening week. I enjoyed it quite a bit, like most people seemed to. This is going to be a movie entry, which I'm sure you can tell already. But I'm already done talking about Lord of the Rings.

I came into possession of various movies for Christmas, all of which I have seen before and loved for various reasons: Life As a House, Contact, Ghost World and Unfaithful. The latter I've already exchanged for something else since the box declared Special Widescreen Version! yet contained only a full-screen rendition.

My parents gave me a surround sound system for Christmas. Dad and I put the thing together and arranged my entertainment room and built a shelf for rear speakers and all that jazz, and we all sat back and watched a few things to get a feel for it. Lots of wide-eyed glances were shared when something previously unnoticed was suddenly amplified behind us, to the right or left. But Contact gave the system its most important test to date: silence.

If you've seen Contact, you must remember the incredible weight of the opening three-and-a-half minutes of film. You don't have to love or hate the movie to appreciate this sequence; all you have to do is sit quietly and focus.

The movie opens with a steel-blue and gray representation of the familiar Warner Bros. logo (which gets defaced more and more with each new WB film). Then the screen goes black, and three credits slowly appear on screen: two production/studio credits, and the title of the film. Then we begin.

The title card fades to black, and by now most of us are expecting the top-billed actor's name to appear. Instead, the black screen lingers for an uncomfortably long moment. Just as we're about to whisper, "Is something wrong?" to our friend, who is fidgeting, we're treated to the scene I'm discussing.

The first shot is not-so-distant shot of Earth, which is so large it takes up about three-quarters of the available screen. (The following sequence is largely CGI, but very good CGI -- in fact, some of the best I've seen, which is surprising given that the film is about six years old.) We're bombarded with layer upon layer of radio noise: rock music, political speeches, static, commercials, et cetera. On any sound system, this is almost painfully loud, but it's important not to adjust the volume.

Slowly, the camera pulls back from Earth, and after a moment of the planet receding, the Moon rolls by as well. The radio noise continues just as loudly as before. We retreat through the asteroid belt, and static interrupts the radio waves for a moment. They resume as we pass by Mars.

The camera gathers speed, moving backwards through our solar system as the radio noise gradually grows quieter and more dated. We're hearing Franklin Roosevelt cry about Pearl Harbor, and the score to The Twilight Zone. In less than a minute and a half, we've left our solar system and are retreating through our galaxy. The radio noise has faded to nothing now, and we're left awash in utter silence as planets and stars and nebulae and various solar events flutter by. And then abruptly, we leave our galaxy, and it fades to a small prick of light in the sky. Other galaxies zip by as well, and the camera moves so fast that the stars and galaxies flash by in a Star Trekian blur of warp speed. By now, some static has returned, and we find ourselves exiting the pupil of young Eleanor Arroway, who blinks and continues scanning frequencies on her ham radio set.

The sequence is enough to make you feel small on any sound system. But for me, listening to it on an enhanced system for the first time, it utterly dwarfed me.

Which may sound a little ridiculous, I know. But anyone who felt a sense of elation when Dorothy opened the slanted door of her farmhouse to see the land of Oz will probably know what I mean. Movies often remind us that the incredible is possible. This particular movie reminds us that we were the incredible possibility, and that we exist is something unique.

It's also just a good movie, a fairly strong interpretation of a very powerful novel. It's also a studio film, which means it's even more rare than just a nice adaptation.

Oh, and I was given the entire series run of Sports Night on DVD as well. Does anybody but me remember this show? It's only two years gone now, and it's still as excellent as I remember it.

It's been over a week -- well, maybe two weeks -- since I've written here, and this is quite a heavy returning entry. Sorry. Lots of buildup requires a big release. It's also quite boring, I'm sure. I'll return to my regularly-entertaining schedule as soon as possible.