The alien Jeff Bridges

I just watched this movie - Starman - again last week and found it as enjoyable as the first time around. It originally came out in 1984, and stars a delightfully young (weren't we all?) Karen Allen and Jeff Bridges, the latter of whom received an Oscar nomination for his performance.

The movie does not rely on special effects, one of the reasons it may have held up so well. It is, in essence, a road trip movie, with Allen as Jenny Hayden, a young widow who wakes up one night to find an alien in her house.

An alien who looks (thanks to the mysteries of advanced-civilization cloning) exactly like her late husband, Scott.

For reasons involving the big, bad paranoid US government, the alien/Scott needs to get the hell off planet Earth within three days, hence the road trip from Jenny's house in Wisconsin to the prescribed rendevous point, Meteor Crater in Arizona.

One quibble: Much as I loved Starman, which is alternately funny, romantic, touching, and thrilling, I would like to see -- just once - a science fiction movie in which the designated agents of the US government don't act like a pack of gun-happy, testosterone-crazed morons.

On the other hand, we do have one government agent - the wonderful Charles Martin Smith - who becomes our hero. He's been tapped for alien duty because he works for SETI, and is the one person who is truly awed to be in the presence of a real visitor from another planet.

Watching Smith light up a cigar at the end of the movie, with a big smile on his face - he's saved the alien's life, and knows he's about to get fired - is one of moviedom's little pleasures.

Jeff Bridges does a wonderful and hilarious job of existing in Jeff Bridge's body without knowing exactly what to do with it. Karen Allen is beautiful and vulnerable as the widow - but not too vulnerable, which is a great touch. She knows her way around a diner--and a gun. When the moment comes when she needs to use one, she does so with authority.

The scene where the alien brings Jenny back to life is pure magic. It is a lovely movie, with an ending that is happy and sad at the same time. Highly recommended.