John Was Trying to Contact Aliens

This year's Netflix documentary short JOHN WAS TRYING TO CONTACT ALIENS is about the sweetest thing I've seen lately.   I was tipped off to its existence by a Facebook friend who has adventurous taste in music.  So does the film's subject, John Shepherd, who for many years broadcast the likes of Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, and various Afrobeat artists millions of miles into the cosmos with increasingly sophisticated equipment.   His mission: reach extraterrestrial life.

The Northern Michigan native wasn't really connecting to anyone on Earth.  He was shy and nerdy and gay.  But his apparently very patient and understanding grandparents allowed him to take over their living room with oscilloscopes and the like in his otherworldly quest.  Later, they even helped him fund an addition to the house to accommodate more and more hardware.  And a gigantic music collection, of which we get a glimpse.  

Director Matthew Killip gives us just a bit of the science behind Shepherd's cause, gradually seguing into the film's real m.o. - human contact.  The latter part of the sixteen minute JOHN WAS TRYING TO CONTACT ALIENS provides an encouraging present day as we meet that special someone John, a lonely outcast estranged from his mother, was looking for.  How Killip introduces the new love made me laugh out loud - a one shot that turns into a two shot.  Just something funny about it, but awfully sweet and hopeful.  To date, no E.T.s  have responded to Shepherd's celestial D.J.ing, but someone not so alien did respond to him.  This was a nice tonic to some of the bleak movies I've seen of late.