A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Oh, God! (1977) Directed by: Carl Reiner Written by: Larry Gelbart, based on the novel by Avery Corman Starring: George Burns, John Denver, Teri Garr, Donald Pleasence, Paul Sorvino, David Ogden Stiers, Dinah Shore, Carl Reiner, Mario Machado, William Daniels, Titos Vandis, Barnard Hughes God: The last miracle I did was the 1969 Mets. Before that, I think you have to go back to the Red Sea. On October 7, 1977, Warner Bros. Pictures released director Carl Reiner's Oh, God!, a delightful and unexpectedly touching comedy starring George Burns as God and singer John Denver as a befuddled assistant supermarket manager chosen by the Almighty to deliver His message to a troubled, even skeptical humanity. Adapted by Larry Gelbart from Avery Corman's eponymous 1971 novel, Oh, God! is, as the late Roger Ebert wrote in his contemporary review, a " sly, civilized, quietly funny speculation on what might happen if God endeavored to present himself in the flesh yet once ...

(C) 1977 Columbia Pictures “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” Steven Spielberg’s 1977 UFO classic, is the thematic antitheses to 1996’s “Independence Day.” While Roland Emmerich’s retelling of “War of the Worlds” is a throwback to 1950s “invaders from space” flicks, Spielberg’s vision of a “close encounter” between humanity and extraterrestrials is more mysterious and, in the end, more hopeful and awe-inspiring. Instead of exchanging bullets and “heat rays,” humans and aliens communicate by using musical notes.   Spielberg’s screenplay divides “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” roughly into three acts, basically corresponding to each of the three kinds of “encounters.”   In the first category, sightings of a UFO, we first see a very strange sight in the Mexican desert: an international team of researchers led by French UFO expert Lacombe (the late Francois Truffaut) and guided by several Mexican “federales” finds five World War II vintage Grumman TBM Avenge...