Panida is hosting a 'Close Encounter'

“Close Encounters of the Third Kind” is having a 40th anniversary with a limited time and limited theater release of the new digitally remastered Steven Spielberg’s director’s cut and the Panida Theater has it.

“Close Encounters”, released in December 1977, stars Richard Dreyfuss who has a close encounter with a UFO and feels an unnatural compulsion to find a location that has come to him in a vision. He can’t stop himself in his obsession to find this place that he knows something important will happen. The film also stars Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon, François Truffaut and of course the ever-present giant soundtrack by John Williams.

Despite all of the visual and musical overload, Spielberg lets the actors rise to the top in this compelling, yet skimming the surface, look into a family dealing with obsession and the outside forces that propel them on their trek. Pulling Dreyfuss and the others front and center was crafted by the thoughtful camera of the late, great Vilmos Zsigmond (with credited assists from William Fraker, Douglas Slocombe, John Alonzo, Laszlo Kovacs and Frank W. Stanley), nothing but the best for Steven.

Which makes this remastered, re-release nothing less than breathtaking on the big screen. Come and be taken away Sept. 16-17 at the Panida Theater.

The Panida is bustling this fall with an entertaining lineup. Rooted in Peace (for World Peace Day), John Corbett’s new film All Saints, the always popular Manhattan Short Film Festival “where you get to be the judge,” The Doors Experience and Creedence Clearwater Revival tribute bands and not forgetting our favorite comic Phil Kopcynski and the Panida Playhouse’s upcoming “Radio Play: War of the Worlds”.