The Lathe Of Heaven

By James Poniewozik

Nineteen years before The Blair Witch Project, this classic sci-fi film showed that you can make an arresting fantasy with hardly more than the change under your couch cushions. Based on an Ursula K. Le Guin novel about a man who discovers that his dreams can alter reality, Lathe has rarely been shown since 1980. (A Bill Moyers interview with Le Guin follows this airing.) Some of the no-budget effects haven't aged well--at one point the earth is visited by alien ships that look like electric hamburgers. The provocative exploration of consciousness, though, is priceless.

--J.P.