‘Contact’

Whatever’s out there has always fascinated people down here, especially movie people. But these days, instead of watching the skies (as those 1950s films encouraged everyone to do), people are listening to them. “Contact” tells us what one woman heard and how the world reacted. Starring Jodie Foster (pictured with Matthew McConaughey) in an exceptional performance as the radio astronomer who listened, and directed by Robert Zemeckis,”Contact” is superior popular filmmaking (HBO Tuesday at 8 p.m.).