Obscure Movie Review of the Day: Making Contact aka Joey

In this one, a boy whose father whose father has recently died gains the power to communicate with his father, as well as move stuff with his mind. Ultimately he must decide who to trust--the voice of his father, or the voice of the talking ventriloquest dummy that's trying to convince him it's all a lie.

This early outing of Roland Emmerich (who later went on to direct Independence Day and Godzilla) can be viewed on two levels. The first, and obvious, one is this: A young Emmerich was trying desperately to be like all of his favorite big Hollywood studio directors. The homages are blantant and heavy handed--not only do half the scenes feel directly lifted from Speilberg and Lucas films, but half the stuff in the house has a picture of a Speilberg or Lucas character on it.

There are times where he manages to pull the "homage" off--the early scene where toys are getting buggy while the door starts to glow (sound close-encounters-esque?) works really well--the glowing red plastic phone that's ultimately behind that door does not. In the scenes where boys are in the tunnels underneath the old house (Goonies, anyone?) and have to face their fears, it's pretty cool when Darth Vader comes after one of them (sound like the cave scene in Empire?) but pretty lame when a giant cheeseburger comes after one of them (and it was lame in Young Sherlock Holmes, too).

But on another level--man, it was cool to be a kid. There were times when I was looking at these boys running around with their too-long mop-tops and v-neck t-shirts and their Return of the Jedi bedsheets that I felt like I was watching one of the "movies" my brothers and I used to make in the backyard with my Dad's old video camera.

In a lot of ways, I think that's what Emmerich was here--a kid playing around with a camera. And it looks like he and the real kids had a good time making it. That doesn't neccesarily mean everyone will have a good time watching it, but I did.

Sort of.