Nearly 40 years after its initial release, Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind is still capable of eliciting that mixture of wonder, humor and genuinely felt emotion we’ve taken to calling “Spielbergian.” Our Philip Martin shares his thoughts on the film on the occasion of its special, one-week re-release into theaters Friday, and concludes it’s another American escape fantasy — at the end, Richard Dreyfuss’s character is lighting out for the territory just like ol’ Huck Finn.
And speaking of endings, our Piers Marchant considers them — specifically in the movies La La Land and The Graduate — in a thinky piece. And Martin and Dan Lybarger team up to talk about the bawdy nun movie The Little Hours — Martin handles the review while Lybarger interrogates director Jeff Baena. And Karen Martin looks at the week’s home video releases. All in Friday’s Style section in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.