This newsletter is arriving late because I needed the weekend to get through “Encounters,” the new Netflix series about UFOs produced by Steven Spielberg. Was it worth devoting a substantial portion of my Saturday to? No. But I thrive best under self-imposed deadlines and imagined obligation. So I watched it. My thoughts on that — plus a new-ish indie sci-fi comedy — below.
“Encounters”
I hate to complain too much about programs like these, because I want more of them, even if it means that some of them must, statistically, be bad. (I feel the same way about movies about gay people!) And for those who’ve spent less time sampling every alien-related streaming offering available than, say, me, “Encounters” might have been a half-decent introduction to some of the more famous, larger-scale UFO sightings in modern history: the lights over central Texas (2008), the schoolchildren sighting in Zimbabwe (1994), another sighting by schoolchildren in Wales (1977), and finally, sightings surrounding the Fukushima nuclear accident (2011).
The events that feature in the first two episodes were covered far more entertainingly by my fave, the filmmaker James Fox, in I Know What I Saw and The Phenomenon, respectively. The latter two episodes are only marginally more fresh. The production value is high, but the series spends an awful lot of time on random civilians with no expertise and little charisma to compensate. There are too many unhelpful reenactments (including a Wes Anderson-ish scene of an alien hoaxer eating beans on toast over a prog rock soundtrack), and too few compelling witnesses. Its worst crime, though, is that it’s BORING — something I should never feel about this subject. Don’t waste your time!
“Something in the Dirt”
This 2022 indie came recently recommended by The New York Times’ “Watching” newsletter, the September 27 edition of which focused on sci-fi. Movie editor Mekado Murphy called it “a meta-commentary on people who really, really want to believe,” and I was sold. “Something” was shot in Covid lockdown, mostly in filmmaker Justin Benson’s apartment, and the story is correspondingly (and fittingly) claustrophobic. I’m no film critic, so here is my review: this is a hangout movie about two LA guys who decide to make a documentary about a haunting (?) in their apartment, and I enjoyed watching it while making oatmeal cookies. The script makes some clever jokes, and I gasped in delight when one of the characters mentions John Keel. I don’t know what happened in the end, and I don’t think you’re supposed to. But please let me know if you watch it and feel differently. I agreed with Vulture’s take!
Odds & Ends
The Daily Mail continues to do what so many won’t: warn the masses about various paranormal phenomena, including the “Alaska Triangle,” a sparsely populated region of Alaska in which (supposedly?) 20,000 people (??) have disappeared since 1970. That is… a lot.
The second-annual Skagit Bigfoot Fest happened this past weekend, which I note because its kickoff event was a Sasquatch Calling Contest, and there is video. Stay for friends Stella and Mallory: feminist pioneers in a male-dominated field.
David Grusch keeps doing YouTube interviews. :(
My old, beloved lifting trainer, Hans, used to joke that certain, less-regular members at the gym were afflicted with ILS — Imaginary Lat Syndrome. For some reason, this tweet reminded me of that.
xo
Katie