lucyharkess I've been watching this film for as long as I can remember and only recently looked it up here. I was correct - it came out in the year I was born.It has everything you could want - mystery, aliens, a good story line and riveting actors!Jessica Tandy is like the grandmother everyone would want to steal and take home for themselves. This was the first film I saw her in (obviously) but from what I have read about her since - she certainly kept up here her fabulous acting career in this role.The twists and turns this movie takes are of course more obvious now that it's 2018 - but I was mesmerised by this film as a child. For me this is up there with the Goonies, Short Circuit and Batteries Not Included!Give it a watch!

bkoganbing The Citizen Kane of Ron Howard's directorial career has to be and still is Cocoon. It's a film that combines fantasy and science fiction better than any ever done before or since and it's the most life affirming item you'll ever see on the big screen or small. It also gives some of our older players some really fine roles and brought an Oscar late in his career to one of the class acts of Hollywood.The citizens of one of thousands of nursing homes are just whiling away the end hours of their lives and in Florida there's more of these homes than most places. Three of those citizens are Wilford Brimley, Hume Cronyn and Don Ameche. One of their activities is to go into an indoor swimming pool in a vacant house next door.But those activities are interrupted when four strangers, Brian Dennehy, Linda Harrison, Clint Howard, and Tyrone Power IV rent the place. It's that swimming pool that interests them. The quartet also rents Steve Guttenberg's boat and they bring up some large size boulder type rocks which they place in the pool.Our senior citizens keep going into the pool even with the rocks there and pretty soon they're noticing some marvelous changes, in Hume Cronyn, the most marvelous of all as his cancer goes into a complete remission, mystifying his doctors. That leads our group now joined by wives Jessica Tandy and Maureen Stapleton for Cronyn and Brimley and companion Gwen Verdon for Ameche that these are some special people.Special they are, humans they're not as the quartet shows them they're aliens in human body suits. And after some heartache and tragedy for both earth people and aliens, the aliens offer these old folks a chance never given to any humans before. For that you see Cocoon for.This is the kind of film that you can watch over and over and still feel good about yourselves and feel good that there are others out there in the vast universe who've played the game of life and have mastered the rules. There are so many other science fiction films that show monsters and other worldly creatures coming to earth with the most malicious of intentions. Cocoon is such a refreshing change.Cocoon got two Oscars in 1985 for special effects and a Best Supporting Actor Award for Don Ameche. In a sense it was wrong to single out Ameche because all the senior citizen players cut some fine characters that you'll remember and enjoy. But Ameche was always a class act in Hollywood, a person you'll not hear an unkind word about written or spoken by his contemporaries in a career that lasted from the Thirties to the Nineties. It was an award for a lifetime more than anything else.One of those characters also was Jack Gilford. There's a famous classic Twilight Zone episode which also takes place in a senior citizen home where the residents there are given the same chance as these people are. With a lot less attention I might add. Gilford fulfills the same function as Russell Collins did in The Twilight Zone, the one who stays behind because he can't bring himself to take the step necessary.Who knows how long or if humankind will approach what these aliens have, but in many ways Cocoon offers a peak into an existence more fabulous than ever portrayed on film before.

zetes Pretty decent light sci-fi, kind of like E.T. except with old people instead of children. Brian Dennehy plays an alien come to Earth looking for cocoons left in the ocean a long time ago by their race. The cocoons they find are placed in an indoor pool next door to an old folk's home, and a few rascally old men (Wilford Brimley, Hume Cronyn and Don Ameche) sneak in and use the pool. The water has become rejuvenating, and the three men, along with their wives on subsequent visits, become reinvigorated. Steve Guttenberg plays a ship captain whom the aliens hire to take them out to sea, and Raquel Welch's gorgeous daughter, Tahnee Welch, plays one of the aliens for whom Guttenberg falls. Don Ameche somehow won an Oscar for his role, most likely for a silly break dancing sequence which he obviously did not perform. In my mind, Jack Gilford, as the guys' buddy who refuses to go into the pool, is the best actor in the film, though I don't think anyone deserved an Oscar nomination for it.

Dandy_Desmond Cocoon could have been very depressing and parts of it are very emotional and sad but beautifully handled. It deals with subjects that are quite difficult to sell - being old, facing the death of loved ones or coming to the end of your own time. However thankfully its also very funny contains great well rounded characters and has some great music from James Horner. Steve Guttenbergs character owns a boat and does crappy tours but is struggling to make ends meet and is down on his luck. Enter four mysterious strangers asking him to take them to a certain point in the ocean with no questions asked. He agrees and while spying on the pretty female played by Tahnee Welch (mmmmm!) he finds out they are actually Aliens retrieving Cocoons containing their friends that have lain at the bottom of the sea for thousands of years. Intercutting with this we have the story of an old peoples home and a group of friends biding their time until death takes them as it takes the people around them one by one. Three life long friends (Ameche, Brimley and Cronin)sneak into a local pool and relax but one day find the pool full of cocoons. After their swim they gain a new lease of life - they all get their libido back, their health and their sense of joy in life. I won't go into detail but what made this an enjoyable film for me was the characters. Each of the friends had their own background, their own questions and concerns as to what was happening and their new lease of life had a different effect on each of them. For example I loved how Hume Cronins character at the beginning was dying of cancer - you felt sorry for him as a sick old man, then when the pool cures him you find out as he gets his sex drive back he has an eye for the ladies and cheats on his wife and that its not the first time as he has treat her badly this way before. I also loved the relationship between Wilford Brimleys character and Barret Oliver. You felt a real grandfather - grandson bond between them. Special mention to the other friend in the group - the eternally grouchy Bernie who refuses to go in the pool or let his sick wife. After the old folks run rampant the energy from the cocoons is drained and the pool stops working its magic - then Bernies wife dies and he Carry's her to the pool begging for it to bring her back. Its pretty heart wrenching stuff for the likes of me. Thankfully though although sometimes I did have a tear in my eye there was some laughter to go along with it. The interplay between the old folks is very funny and its a joy to see them change from old codgers to teenagers overnight and I find Steve Guttenberg amusing as well. Overall I found Cocoon a very entertaining film. Emotional, sad, beautiful, funny and above all memorable. Sadly most of the cast is gone but through their work they live on.