Anybody who has written him off because of his string of stinkers-or anybody who's too young to remember The Goodbye Girl-may be shocked at the accomplishment and nuance of Richard Dreyfuss's performance in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Here, he plays a man possessed; contacted by aliens, he (along with other members of the "chosen") is drawn toward the site of the incipient landing: Devil's Tower, in rural Wyoming. As in many Spielberg films, there are no personalized enemies; the struggle is between those who have been called and a scientific establishment that seeks to protect them by keeping them away from the arriving spacecraft. The ship, and the special effects in general, are every bit as jaw-dropping on the small screen as they were in the theater (well, almost). Released in 1977 as a cerebral alternative to the swashbuckling science fiction epics then in vogue, Close Encounters now seems almost wholesome in its representation of alien contact and interested less in philosophizing about extraterrestrials than it is in examining the nature of the inner "call. " Ultimately a motion picture about the obsession of the driven artist or determined visionary, Close Encounters comes complete with the stock Spielberg wives and girlfriends who seek to tether the dreamy, possessed protagonists to the more mundane concerns of the everyday. So a spectacular, seminal motion picture indeed, but one with gender politics that are all too terrestrial. -Miles Bethany The Collector's Edition (CE) represents Steven Spielberg's third version of Close Encounters. Created in 1998, this sequence contains most of the judicial edits made for the Special Edition (SE) in 1980, speeding up Roy Neary's first contact with the UFOs and adding a scene of a discovery in the Mongolian desert. The Collector's Edition also reinstates the comical madness of Neary tearing up his own front yard, replaced in the SE by a scene where he breaks down in the shower; both scenes are restored in the CE. [+]

The Year is 2033. Earth has been clobbered with a comet, civilization has been destroyed, and it hasn't rained in 11 years. Nearly all the water on the planet is controlled by the evil Water and Power company, which is in turn controlled by the even more evil Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell). Who stands in the way? Some mysterious mutants called the Rippers and, of course, Tank Girl. Lori Petty plays Tank Girl, the wisecracking, defiant heart of the movie, as kind of an inner child gone wild. Unfortunately Petty can't quite carry a movie on her own-her zingers frequently fall flat and she seems to be continually worried that we still like her. Luckily there's Naomi Watts as Jet Girl to save the day: smart, shy, and inherently way more appealing than Tank Girl. Tank Girl is based on the comic of the same name, and it is visually an eye-popper. It's worth watching for the insane set and costume designs alone. -Ali Davis.

Created to help control the population of Jesus Town, Hakaider was abandoned and left for dead once his uncontrollable nature became apparent. Now, his creator Gurjev has a new cyborg-enforcer, Michael. When treasure hunters accidentally awake Hakaider from his long slumber, he decides to bring his own justice to Jesus Town.