Science fiction, but only by the technicality of containing several characters who are said to be aliens. They could as easily have been somebody's fairy godparents or genies from a bottle or the sort of lubricious Cupids who used to get things going in Thorne Smith's fantasy novels of the Thirties. The Glorious Pool is the one of those that presses foremost to mind, with the Fountain-of-Youth theme centered in a private swimming pool. The predilection in Cocoon for the mild gamy line (rather milder, to be sure, and rather unfunnier, than the boisterous vaudevillianism of Smith) solidifies the connection. But a still closer precursor would be Steven Spielberg -- closer not just in time, but in painfully sentimental tone. With Steve Guttenberg, Don Ameche, Wilford Brimley, Hume Cronyn, and Jack Gilford; directed by Ron Howard. (1985) — Duncan Shepherd