1984 (1984)

In these polarized days especially, I've heard many references to the George Orwell book. I came to realize that I shouldn't just rely on what people say about its content. At the same time, I doubted that I would enjoy reading the whole thing. After all, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World succeeded at shocking me, but I gave up when it took too long to show any signs of plot progression. So I chose what appears to be the most popular screen adaptation. Subsequent perusal confirms that it does not deviate far from the source material; there are just a few shifts in Newspeak labels for some reason.

In what had been the future at the time of writing, there are three world superpowers, and the one awkwardly called Oceania extends as far as England. Winston Smith (John Hurt) serves in London's Ministry of Truth but seems less satisfied than the average totalitarian party member. He meets Julia (Suzanna Hamilton), who outwardly presents as an ardent member of the Junior Anti-Sex League but swiftly seduces him into a forbidden relationship. Of course, it's no secret that "Big Brother" (Bob Flag) has eyes everywhere, and Winston is not prepared to pay the price....

Dogville (2003)

Had I paid more attention, I would not have chased the weirdest David Lynch movie I've seen with a Lars von Trier piece. Still, this was one of those culturally significant pictures I'd been putting off for some time.

In what might be the '30s, a stranger named Grace (Nicole Kidman) comes to a remote Colorado town, planning to cross the nearby mountain until local would-be writer Tom (Paul Bettany) sees her and advises against it. Not knowing a better way to elude a gang looking for her, she begs sanctuary. Tom talks all his skeptical neighbors into keeping mum for a period and then deciding whether to send her away. Grace endears herself to them with chores, and for a while, she and the town brighten up each other. But when authorities under the gang's sway announce that she's wanted for crimes, although she couldn't possibly have committed them, the townsfolk become less content with lying to the law and subsequently make life increasingly hard for Grace.

Contact (1997)

Having quickly lost interest in Cosmos, I'm sure I didn't put this movie on my list for Carl Sagan's writing. Instead, I must have noticed how frequently it came up in discussions -- not to mention IMDb searches. Robert Zemeckis directs, and the cast includes Jodie Foster, Tom Skerritt, Matthew McConaughey (who would go on to the similar Interstellar), David Morse, Angela Bassett, John Hurt, James Woods, and Rob Lowe. We also get a lot of public figures as themselves, including controversially altered footage of Bill Clinton. So I went in, knowing little else of what it would offer.

Ellie (Foster) works for the SETI Institute with unstable funding, because too few people have confidence that we'll connect with aliens. Fortunately, a creepily influential yet reclusive billionaire (Hurt) sponsors her. Finally, she discovers a suspicious space noise. You can imagine many of the various reactions, including legitimate fears of a new Heaven's Gate cult. The next hard part is decoding the message, followed by deciding how much trust to put in it. Just about every step of the way is a struggle for our heroine.