Branded

BRANDED
Jaime Bradshaw & Aleksandr Dulerayn, 2012

Synopsis:
An elite group of advertising executives is panicking because the fast food business is dropping since people are eating healthier. They get some dummy to create a reality show for them where an overweight teenage girl gets surgery to become thinner, then dies in the process. The manufactured public backlash creates a portion of society who rejects that you have to be thin to be beautiful, making the fast food guys rich again. The dummy who created the reality show has a nervous breakdown or something and performs a ritual where he sacrifices a cow and there's aliens attached to people and the aliens are controlling everything or honestly I have no idea what this fucking thing was even about. Which is a shame cause normally I'd be all over a premise like this. The elite manipulating the poor who then love being manipulated and aliens are secretly behind everything? What could go wrong! How about literally everything.

Review:
Total fucking garbage.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND
Steven Spielberg, 1977

Synopsis:
Richard Dreyfuss gets brainwashed by aliens and starts building sculptures out of mashed potatoes and garbage. Melinda Dillon's son gets abducted by those very same aliens and starts freaking the hell out. Francoise Truffaut is a government stooge with a heart of gold. They all start chasing UFOs and end up in Wyoming. Adventure, early-Spielberg-style.

Review:
I watched this on a blu-ray that apparently has three freaking versions of this thing on it. I don't know which "version" I watched (original, special edition, or director's cut) but it's definitely the version I watched my whole life. But since apparently the special edition came out on video in 1980, again, I don't know which version this actually was. But here goes:

Why is it that in movies there's always a scene where a couple is in bed and one of them panics and wakes the other one up and goes "WE GOTTA GO! LET'S GO! SOMETHING'S GOING ON!!!" and the other one kind of whines and looks at the clock and goes "mmmphmm it's 3 in the morning." Huh? Is this how people act? Wouldn't you immediately jump out of bed like "WHAT WHAT WHAT'S GOING ON?" No, never in the movies. This is one of those movies where the husband is privy to some weird shit and the plot hinges on his wife being a boring idiot who won't listen. This plot device used to routinely take me out of whatever movie I was watching, but for some reason (probably that I know the movie and watched it as a kid, and as a kid you just kind of "go with it") I never noticed that this movie did it too until it was pointed out to me. I don't know if Spielberg invented this (almost impossible, probably) but he sure has gotten a lot of mileage out of it.

And why do the aliens go through that horrifying abduction scenario then turn out to be just cool dudes who only want to show you their cool ship and play "Simon" with you? On the other hand, why is their leader a giant spider-thing? Maybe that's why. Can't just show up and show people the spider-thing and say "it's cool, we're friendly." No, ten foot tall spider-aliens are scary any old way you slice it.

Oh and also at the end how come they do the light show and play the song and the government doofuses clap, all proud of themselves, and start putting their big keyboard away and turning off the lights, but then when the aliens send out the pilots they abducted from the planes thirty years ago all of a sudden the scientists are all "yup, those are our pilots alright, we got a big checklist right here"?? What the F? If they were expecting the pilots then why, when the light show was over and that particular wave of UFOs flew off, didn't they start screaming "Hey idiots! WHERE'S OUR PILOTS?!" This movie makes no sense. What's Lance Henriksen doing in there, by the way?

The spaceships still look cool, though.