Pauline Kael unusually OTM:
Steven Spielberg's movie is bathed in warmth and it seems to clear all the bad thoughts out of your head... This fusion of science fiction and mythology is emotionally rounded and complete; it reminds you of the goofiest dreams you had as a kid, and rehabilitates them. It puts a spell on the audience; it's genuinely entrancing.
Why didn't the screenwriter, Melissa Mathison, do much after this? (Maybe investing all that time in a marriage to Harrison Ford wasn't worth it.) She's got six other credits, most notably The Black Stallion (before) and lastly Kundun ten years ago.
Charles Taylor, understanding the film as NOT sentimental:
Spielberg's movies, despite the way they're often characterized, are not Hollywood idealizations of families and the suburbs. The homes here bear what the cultural critic Karal Ann Marling called "the marks of hard use." The furniture is functional and beat-up, and might have a few unmade payments left to go. The garages carry the detritus of a hundred forgotten projects. Toys and laundry never seem to get picked up. The TV jabbers in the background. The phone keeps ringing. Kids and their friends are always underfoot. Controlled chaos carries the day.
Also, the best trick-or-treat sequence since Meet Me in St. Louis. When did you first see it? and don't pretend you didn't love it. Me, at the now-defunct Bay Cinema on 32nd and 2nd in Manhattan with my mom and sis in June or July of '82. Bawled through the last reel (as I have on two subsequent viewings).
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 11 June 2007 13:38 (sixteen years ago) link
It wasn't released in the UK until much later, as was the case in those days. My first viewing was a pretty ropey pirate copy round at my friend's house in, I think, November '82.
― Venga, Monday, 11 June 2007 13:42 (sixteen years ago) link
I first saw it in maybe January or February of 83, I was about to turn 13. We queued up twice to see it, on two separate occasions. The first time, we didn't get in and we had to go next door and see Raiders of the Lost Ark instead (clever cinema), and I distinctly remember sulking all during the ads and vowing to hate this stupid film. I have never been so wrong about anything, ever.
Then we went back a week later and saw ET and I cried and cried, but I remember this small kid who wailed when ET was dying, shouting out in the cinema and everything. His mother took him out and I saw them go past me and then met them in the bathroom afterwards, and I remember thinking how awful it would be to have missed the rest of the film.
― accentmonkey, Monday, 11 June 2007 13:43 (sixteen years ago) link
It wasn't until it was on actual television in maybe 86 or 87 that I saw it, which was really perfectly timed as I was almost the same age as Elliot, and it may have been one of the first films I saw where a child was in the center of the action and danger; it was, at least, the first one that made such an impression on me.
It's sort of sad to think Drew Barrymore has never been as good in any other movie since then.
― nickalicious, Monday, 11 June 2007 13:59 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.reelfilm.com/images/macandme.jpg
― dell, Monday, 11 June 2007 14:02 (sixteen years ago) link
http://image.com.com/mp3/images/cover/200/drf600/f621/f62163lsvew.jpg
― kenan, Monday, 11 June 2007 14:07 (sixteen years ago) link
http://content.answers.com/main/content/img/amg/games/drg000/g038/g03881u5r6u.jpg
― latebloomer, Monday, 11 June 2007 14:16 (sixteen years ago) link
etpr0n.jpg
― Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved, Monday, 11 June 2007 14:16 (sixteen years ago) link
I saw it with my sister (?) and my Dad in the 2-screen (?) place on the West side of 2nd b/w 67-68 that I think had a different name then (where my sister and I also later saw BTTF1 with my great-aunt). I don't remember when, but it wasn't immediately after it came out, and might have even been (late?) Fall or winter. Don't think it made any particular impression, and I don't think I've had any desire to see it since. I guess I liked it well enough and might have gotten a kick out of the flying stuff, but I'm sure I didn't like it as much as The Black Stallion (or The Black Hole). The suburbs seemed about as alien to me as ET.
― gabbneb, Monday, 11 June 2007 14:18 (sixteen years ago) link
I saw it on pirate vid too. and bawled my eyes out at the end.
― Ste, Monday, 11 June 2007 14:22 (sixteen years ago) link
i'm pretty sure i was the one pushing to see it tho
― gabbneb, Monday, 11 June 2007 14:22 (sixteen years ago) link
http://tech.msn.com/products/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1225420
― kenan, Monday, 11 June 2007 14:32 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.seanbaby.com/nes/egm01.htm
― kenan, Monday, 11 June 2007 14:33 (sixteen years ago) link
First movie I saw in cinemas! A+++
― G00blar, Monday, 11 June 2007 14:39 (sixteen years ago) link
i also saw this on dodgy pirate video very early on; my dad sold the movie to me as a space film, like star wars; by the end, as the film had left me bawling and sobbing and generally inconsolable, i felt a little betrayed.
when it came out at the cinema in the UK, my friend and his family took me to see it at the now defunct ABC in wimbledon, which had only one, massive screen (as opposed the three screen odeon over the road). at the end, i pretended to have fallen asleep, so i didn't have to admit the floods of tears it left me in.
― stevie, Monday, 11 June 2007 14:48 (sixteen years ago) link
Me too! First live action anyway - I think I had seen a couple of Disney cartoons. (xpost)
― Hurting 2, Monday, 11 June 2007 14:51 (sixteen years ago) link
This is true, and part of what's so affecting about it is the fact that it deals with a not-so-happy child and home situation.
WOTW was another example of an extremely UNidealized hero and setting.
― Hurting 2, Monday, 11 June 2007 14:53 (sixteen years ago) link
i saw it on pirate video when i was 5 or 6. the aliens arrival, ET throwing the ball back and the the guy in the radiation suit scared me.
― blueski, Monday, 11 June 2007 15:03 (sixteen years ago) link
saw it on opening night, having seen poltergeist on opening night the friday prior. I liked it, but then saw it again during the '85 re-release and distinctly remember being offended by the treacle. that may have been the difference between 11yo me and 14yo me, but in general his films haven't aged well. maybe I should see it again.
and "NOT sentimental" strikes me as an absurd thing to say about a spielberg film. just because he had some talent with suburban mise-en-scene doesn't make him cassavetes.
― Edward III, Monday, 11 June 2007 17:00 (sixteen years ago) link
oh, thank Jeezus, one Cassavetes was enough.
There ARE Spielberg films with treacle, ie his botch of The Color Purple. E.T. is not one of them.
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 11 June 2007 17:06 (sixteen years ago) link
(xpost: as Nick Cassavetes is making clear?)
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 11 June 2007 17:07 (sixteen years ago) link
what about his segment in twilight zone? I thought I saw syrup dripping off scatman crothers' sun-dappled dome.
haha cassavetes zings
― Edward III, Monday, 11 June 2007 17:12 (sixteen years ago) link
I last saw that in '83, but yeah I remember it being crap.
Anyway ... arguably greatest set of juvenile performances ever in E.T. Henry Thomas certainly 'deserved' a special Oscar as much as other kids who got one.
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 11 June 2007 17:29 (sixteen years ago) link
Saw it on opening night too and thought it was an intense pile of saccarin shit. There was nothing more I wanted than to see the Alien alien eat everyone involved.
― Elvis Telecom, Monday, 11 June 2007 17:32 (sixteen years ago) link
I was 10 years old in 1982. E.T. was the first movie I remember seeing at the drive-in; my parents took me and my younger sister and brother. I remember being really tired and also crying at the end. I haven't seen it again since.
― Sara R-C, Monday, 11 June 2007 17:52 (sixteen years ago) link
ah, Alien. In space, no one can hear you snore.
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 11 June 2007 17:57 (sixteen years ago) link
i saw this for the first time in english in 2002 or thereabouts, and i didnt love it. i think you have to have seen it as a kid to love it? before that my viewings had always been in german and i wasnt in love with it then, either.
i am heartless and without a soul
― homosexual II, Monday, 11 June 2007 18:15 (sixteen years ago) link
that's what great about alien! it's so slow. I think there are 10 words of dialog in the first 20 minutes.
once read an interesting interp of alien as extended family incest metaphor (oddly asexual and childlike ship's crew is attacked by penetrating monster whose exploits are enabled by a computer called "mother"). can't remember who wrote it, though.
xpost
― Edward III, Monday, 11 June 2007 18:20 (sixteen years ago) link
first movie i saw in the theater. i had just turned two.
i want little drew barrymore to be my sister.
― gr8080, Monday, 11 June 2007 18:30 (sixteen years ago) link
I rescreened it last year and posted comments on the Spielberg thread. They still apply:
Just rescreened E.T. a couple of hours ago; hadn't seen it since 1991. It appalls me that anyone can accuse this film of sentimentality. The post-'70s malaise has rarely been explored this cogently: kids using Star Wars toys to cope with Dad running off to Mexico with a young tootsie, and their attractive mother, still dumbfounded and barely surviving.
It's got a marvelous rapt quality. There are scenes that defy description (E.T.'s ravaged corpse being chewed on by raccoons; Elliott in the backyard waiting for the alien to appear); others approach comic bliss, like the biology class sequence, with a drunk Elliott kissing his crush in the manner of John Wayne in The Quiet Man.
Henry Thomas gives one of the most intelligent child performances in film history; it's unlikely that Drew Barrymore will ever top her slattern-in-the-making Gertie.
Great one-liners too ("How do you explain school to a higher intelligence?").
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, 11 June 2007 18:54 (sixteen years ago) link
I was 14, and I disliked it intensely; I haven't seen it since.
Also, the best trick-or-treat sequence since Meet Me in St. Louis.
John Carpenter's Halloween to thread.
― J0hn D., Monday, 11 June 2007 18:57 (sixteen years ago) link
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/959/cbgang8sp.jpg
― J.D., Monday, 11 June 2007 19:21 (sixteen years ago) link
I hated it as a kid too; the crying kids in the audience repulsed me. It was a particularly awful example of my trying to be better than the hoi polloi.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, 11 June 2007 19:31 (sixteen years ago) link
maybe I should check this out again. Is there going to be any 25th Anniversary DVD or anything?
― kenan, Monday, 11 June 2007 19:37 (sixteen years ago) link
They did a 20th, so I sincerely hope not. No more digi-fiddling!
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 11 June 2007 19:38 (sixteen years ago) link
yeah good point
― kenan, Monday, 11 June 2007 19:39 (sixteen years ago) link
I've never seen this cuz ET scared me as a little kid. I have been on the Universal Studios ride and seen Mac and Me twice though. I would like to rent it but it may be too late.
― A B C, Monday, 11 June 2007 19:44 (sixteen years ago) link
I just remember as a kid figuring out that the spaceship came back for E.T. on my birthday.
One of the greatest discoveries I have found through the internet is that EVERYBODY hated that fucking video game. I thought it was just me.
― Pleasant Plains, Monday, 11 June 2007 19:47 (sixteen years ago) link
I've not seen Mac and Me, nor the film I noticed playing in an Eighth Ave porn house circa '83: E.T. the Extra Testicle.
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 11 June 2007 19:49 (sixteen years ago) link
Oh man I forgot all about the biology class scene! Every movie needs a moment like that, even if it is completely out of place.
― nickalicious, Monday, 11 June 2007 19:51 (sixteen years ago) link
Ew, digi-fiddling. Distasteful.
I had a pencil case that said "how do you explain school to a higher intelligence" on it. And several toy ETs. I did love that film.
― accentmonkey, Monday, 11 June 2007 19:51 (sixteen years ago) link
and a Quiet Man kiss.
How out of place?
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 11 June 2007 19:52 (sixteen years ago) link
It might be out of place in a movie like Hostel 2 haha.
― nickalicious, Monday, 11 June 2007 19:54 (sixteen years ago) link
fiddle about, fiddle about
― kenan, Monday, 11 June 2007 19:55 (sixteen years ago) link
I guess I was 12, saw it in the theater, loved it. Though that was a tough age to see it in a way because you're just starting to get a little cynical, so it was very easy to feel like you were above a movie like this. I went w/ my best friend at the time and he was crying at the end, and I'd never seen him cry before even though we'd been friends for a long time, so that was pretty uncomfortable. I felt really bad for him b/c I think he was embarrassed. For a 12 year old boy in those days, crying in a movie was not cool!
― Mark Rich@rdson, Monday, 11 June 2007 19:59 (sixteen years ago) link
yeah I liked a lot of stuff that was popular at the time - just not this horrid manipulative movie with its phoned-in jokes ("lol school is dumb!") and total lack of cool shit like aliens that eat your head. fuck a feel-good-movie-of-the-summer
― J0hn D., Monday, 11 June 2007 20:02 (sixteen years ago) link
I didn't really realize that but we don't have feel-good summer movies anymore, do we? Just stuff-gets-blowed up action spectaculars and sequels sequels sequels.
― nickalicious, Monday, 11 June 2007 20:03 (sixteen years ago) link
I don't think I understood the idea of a movie being manipulative when I was 12, but then I was a late bloomer.
― Mark Rich@rdson, Monday, 11 June 2007 20:04 (sixteen years ago) link
appreciate the "the only way you can hate this movie is if you're a snob" bs tho Alf
― J0hn D., Monday, 11 June 2007 20:04 (sixteen years ago) link
oh, 'manipulative' nevah gets old. That goddamn Eisenstein.
I don't recognize the 'summer movie' as anything but a marketing concept.
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 11 June 2007 20:05 (sixteen years ago) link
somehow Dr. I get the impression that nothing could convince you otherwise in the case of this film
― J0hn D., Monday, 11 June 2007 20:15 (sixteen years ago) link
-- Dr Morbius, Monday, June 11, 2007 5:57 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link
...
― latebloomer, Monday, 11 June 2007 20:19 (sixteen years ago) link
still don't know what that ellipses shit means. i'll live.
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 11 June 2007 20:22 (sixteen years ago) link
it means SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND ARRRRRRGGHHH
http://www.feoamante.com/Movies/Alien/images/Alien/Alien04.jpg
― latebloomer, Monday, 11 June 2007 20:24 (sixteen years ago) link
latebloomer I kiss you with aliens
― J0hn D., Monday, 11 June 2007 20:28 (sixteen years ago) link
I love E.T. and it still makes me cry like a baby. I was 5 when it came out and remember seeing it in the theatre. I still have an amazing plush E.T. doll with the tags on that say 1982. I often wonder if it'll be worth something one day.
― ENBB, Monday, 11 June 2007 20:33 (sixteen years ago) link
if i've ever watched this, i don't remember it at all
(this isn't saying something about its quality, i seriously have no idea if i've ever watched ET)
― impudent harlot, Monday, 11 June 2007 20:39 (sixteen years ago) link
i was incredibly indifferent to this one as a kid. that school line is sub-nickelodeon at best.
― J.D., Monday, 11 June 2007 21:22 (sixteen years ago) link
I hated it for the wrong reasons -- I wanted to feel superior to the crying kids. I hated Return of the Jedi even more though: what at letdown that was (laughable Emperor making third-rate cackles, cloddish acting, Han and Lando strangely absent).
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, 11 June 2007 21:30 (sixteen years ago) link
i'll admit i like ET. but i haven't seen it in years, except for catching a few bits while working as an usher during the re-release 5 years ago.
― latebloomer, Monday, 11 June 2007 21:34 (sixteen years ago) link
god, that atari game was shit!!!!!
― lauren, Monday, 11 June 2007 21:50 (sixteen years ago) link
i think you have to have seen it as a kid to love it?
yeah, that might be true. i think if i had seen it as a teen or pre-teen i would have dismissed it. i saw it as a 6 year old when it first came to vhs (around '88 i think?). there was a pretty big marketing blitz for the video release i think, since the movie had been (officially) unavailable since it left theaters.
me and my family were living in Oklahoma then, and we watched it at a neighbor's house. it remains a very vivid childhood cinematic experience for me because it's the first film i remember balling my eyes out at and actually feeling worried and scared how it was going to turn out.
― latebloomer, Monday, 11 June 2007 21:51 (sixteen years ago) link
the Atari game was (allegedly) partially responsible for the big game industry crash of '83!
― latebloomer, Monday, 11 June 2007 21:53 (sixteen years ago) link
My mother went to see it with the guy she was dating at the time, so I had to go see it by myself -- the idea of going to see a movie more than once at the theater was a foreign concept to Mom -- and this would have been the weekend after it opened, at the Mentor Mall General Cinemas Theater in Mentor, OH. Yeah, send overly-sensitive 12-year-old child-of-divorce to see tearjerking broken-home/dying alien movie by himself THANKS MOM.
― Phil D., Monday, 11 June 2007 21:55 (sixteen years ago) link
I re-screened it last year!
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, 11 June 2007 22:01 (sixteen years ago) link
i've never sene ETY is it good
― cankles, Monday, 11 June 2007 22:08 (sixteen years ago) link
-- latebloomer, Monday, June 11, 2007 4:53 PM (Monday, June 11, 2007 4:53 PM) Bookmark Link
In the novel Lucky Wander Boy, a landfill composed of those games almost makes a cameo appearance.
― Pleasant Plains, Monday, 11 June 2007 22:11 (sixteen years ago) link
no, i mean seen it as a kid initially to enjoy it.. because part of me thinks the reason I didn't like it is that i have only seen it as a teenager and/or young adult.
― homosexual II, Monday, 11 June 2007 22:16 (sixteen years ago) link
speaking of movies you had to have seen as a kid to enjoy as an adult: cannonball run anyone?
― homosexual II, Monday, 11 June 2007 22:18 (sixteen years ago) link
hahaha otm! spaceballs also falls into that category, i think.
― latebloomer, Monday, 11 June 2007 22:19 (sixteen years ago) link
Definitely true of Cannonball Run. Which I think I can still quote verbatim.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 11 June 2007 22:22 (sixteen years ago) link
also, howard the duck
― homosexual II, Monday, 11 June 2007 22:30 (sixteen years ago) link
I saw this in the theater when it came out with my grandma and parents and older brother. It was somewhere in the Bay Area, we had made a family trip to visit grandma, I must've been around 9 or 10. I don't really remember much about it except I do remember that I cried at one point and then we went to get lunch with a Vietnam vet/college friend of my parents who I scared the shit out of with my popgun and then the rest of the afternoon went badly.
anyway fuck Spielberg this movie is horrible. I don't think I've seen it in its entirety since I was 12 or 13 tho, when it was screened on one of the last days of junior high school in our biology class.
― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 11 June 2007 22:35 (sixteen years ago) link
eagerly anticipating future rip thread
― A B C, Monday, 11 June 2007 22:36 (sixteen years ago) link
well, I don't think Spielberg's a bad guy (like, say Jack Valenti or Jerry Falwell), just someone who makes a lot of aesthetic decisions I disagree with.
― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 11 June 2007 22:46 (sixteen years ago) link
What about Jaws?
― Mark Rich@rdson, Monday, 11 June 2007 23:32 (sixteen years ago) link
E.T. is good, but Pauline Kael was un-OTM about thinking it was so clearly superior to Poltergeist.
― Eric H., Monday, 11 June 2007 23:33 (sixteen years ago) link
I was 12, loved it. Saw the anniversary edition, and was so annoyed by the changes that I started looking for weakenesses. (I'm not sure the adult-scientist-child conflict at the end ever made sense.) Then saw the original again last year, and was surprised again by how great the scenes with the kids are--most realistic older brother ever. You get used to movies that have absolutely no idea what to do with children, and they keep coming.
― Pete Scholtes, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 01:06 (sixteen years ago) link
I need pictures of Morbs crying.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 01:08 (sixteen years ago) link
yeah, the portrayal of sibling dynamics/kid interaction was very true-to-life and honest.
― latebloomer, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 01:10 (sixteen years ago) link
that landfill is for real! here is the story: http://www.snopes.com/business/market/atari.asp
― J0hn D., Tuesday, 12 June 2007 01:35 (sixteen years ago) link
i was 15 when this came out, and i was primed to hate it, thinking it would be corny kids stuff. and of course it is, superficially, but i ended up loving it anyway. haven't seen it since tho.
― bobby bedelia, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 03:42 (sixteen years ago) link
I NOT LIKE ETEE TOO MUCH BECOS THEY NEVER SHOWED WHAT HE DID FOR A LIVING OR HOW HE WAS MORE EXTRA SPECIAL THAN THE OTHER ETEES THE EXTRATERRESTRIALLS. THEN WHEN HE GOT SICKS AND THE RACCOONS JUST WANT TO EAT HIM AND IT GOT WORSE IN THE MOVIE. AT THE END OF MOVIE. I JUST DONT KNOW WHAT TO THINKED ABOUT ETEE THE EXTRATERRIESTRIAL ANYMORE THEN TO BEGIN WITH. I DONT LIKE HOW THOSED RACOONS WANT TO EAT HIM. BUT MORE THAN THAT. I DONT KNOW. ONE THINK ID LIKE TO KNOW. HOW ETEE LOSED HIS PENISE. I JUST HOPED NOT SOME RACOONS THE EXTRATERRESTRISALS ON ETEES PLANET DIDNT EAT IT. BECOS THEN WHEN ETEE WAS ALMOST EATED BY RACOONS ON OUR PLANET. IT COULD REMIND HIM OF THOSED OTHER RACOONS TOO AND HED FEEL UNLUCKY.
― TIM@KFC.EDU, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 04:18 (sixteen years ago) link
did e.t. go to sbarro's?
― bobby bedelia, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 04:25 (sixteen years ago) link
IF I WAS ETEE. I WOULD GOTO SBARROS SOMETIMES. NOT ALL THE TIME. BUT SOMETIMES I WOULD GO THERE TO ORDER FOOD AND LEAVE THINGS I PRINTED OUT ON THE PRINTER ABOUT RACOONS.
― TIM@KFC.EDU, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 04:44 (sixteen years ago) link
"When did you first see it? and don't pretend you didn't love it. Me, at the now-defunct Bay Cinema on 32nd and 2nd in Manhattan [...]"
I saw it at that very same theater.
I despised it. It was, in fact, the first time I hated a film, wanted to injure it.
I saw the tarted-up version and the same deep, profound loathing was there, except digitally enhanced.
― i, grey, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 06:15 (sixteen years ago) link
hey i still never saw this
― g-kit, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 11:06 (sixteen years ago) link
i was 4 when i saw it. my older brother wrote me a letter and signed it E.T. and i was entirely convinced he was coming to visit me. i had E.T. slides for my viewmaster, and they gave me this recurring nightmare: kinda like a frieze-frame, compiled from my distorted memory of the movie - i'm in a room which has a big window along one wall, with blinds and bright light shining through. there's a family kinda standing in one corner, looking horrified, and there's an arm poking through the blinds with what looks like a plaster cast incasing it. all elements from the movie itself. 23 years later and i still vividly recall that nightmare, and how utterly terrified it made me.
― Rubyred, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 11:19 (sixteen years ago) link
i was 4 when i saw it. my older brother wrote me a letter and signed it E.T. and i was entirely convinced he was coming to visit me.
awwwww!
― latebloomer, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 11:31 (sixteen years ago) link
...and then he took great pleasure in telling me it was all a lie, and that E.T. wasn't real and would never be coming to visit. my brother was (and still is) a cunt bastard.
― Rubyred, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 11:38 (sixteen years ago) link
hahahaha that's like when my mom stepped out one afternoon to go to the store and my sister (about 5 or 6 at the time), not realizing she'd left, came out of her room asking where mommy was. i told her in a somber tone, "Mommy got flushed down the toilet and she's never coming back." and of course my sister started crying uncontrollably until my mom came home and chewed me out for being such a jerk. ah, to be a big brother...
― latebloomer, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 11:55 (sixteen years ago) link
you mean little shit! ;) i bet you gave her the stinkfinger, too. that was one of my bro's favourites.
― Rubyred, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 12:12 (sixteen years ago) link
no, i mean seen it as a kid initially to enjoy it
You could have something there, but I'm thinking in terms of the ILX worship of the likes of The Goonies or Ferris Bueller.
it was screened on one of the last days of junior high school in our biology class.
Hahaha, did you liberate the frogs and kiss a girl like John Wayne?
If I sign a new lease for my apartment in Toddlerland Brooklyn, I'll ask for a camera.
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 13:23 (sixteen years ago) link
Good thread. Last time I watched it was as though I was seeing an entirely different movie than I remembered, as though every last inch of childhood blockbuster hype had been wiped clear and left an oddly humble little movie.
― Eric H., Saturday, 26 January 2008 20:12 (sixteen years ago) link
One of Matthew Wilder's better reviews:
http://citypages.com/databank/23/1112/article10264.asp
― Eric H., Saturday, 26 January 2008 20:13 (sixteen years ago) link
E.T. is good, but Pauline Kael was un-OTM about thinking it was so clearly superior to Poltergeist. -- Eric H., Monday, June 11, 2007 11:33 PM (7 months ago)
(Oh, and the last time I watched Poltergeist was kind of a disappointment.)
― Eric H., Saturday, 26 January 2008 20:15 (sixteen years ago) link
we WILL turn you...
― Dr Morbius, Saturday, 26 January 2008 20:31 (sixteen years ago) link
this is the one film i still can't watch without crying my eyes out.
― or something, Saturday, 26 January 2008 20:37 (sixteen years ago) link
Turn me into a Poltergeist dissenter? Heavy nostalgia and the performance of JoBeth Williams will prevent that from ever happening.
― Eric H., Saturday, 26 January 2008 20:42 (sixteen years ago) link
I rescreened it last year
Just rescreened E.T. a couple of hours ago
― gershy, Saturday, 26 January 2008 21:18 (sixteen years ago) link
i love this movie
― chakles, Saturday, 26 January 2008 21:20 (sixteen years ago) link
fuck "special Oscars" -- Henry Thomas deserved the real thing; he's certainly more impressive than the other nominated performances.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Saturday, 26 January 2008 21:22 (sixteen years ago) link
Eliott over Gandhi any day.
― Eric H., Saturday, 26 January 2008 22:50 (sixteen years ago) link
never mind -- I forgot that this was The Year of the Tootsie.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Saturday, 26 January 2008 23:13 (sixteen years ago) link
this movie is hella crepey
― a mountain climber who plays an electric guitar (gabbneb), Monday, 22 December 2008 19:11 (fifteen years ago) link
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jWNhyMUpjSE/SZSmXf3z6dI/AAAAAAAACtM/x3NMpxhrzTg/s1600-h/et.jpg
― James Mitchell, Saturday, 14 February 2009 21:17 (fifteen years ago) link
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/8146/45577901tk4.jpg
i stll fancy the mum, even more now she's (film age) younger than me.
― not_goodwin, Saturday, 14 February 2009 21:19 (fifteen years ago) link
xp, i'll be right up here etc...
― not_goodwin, Saturday, 14 February 2009 21:20 (fifteen years ago) link
Towards the end of ET, barely able to support my own grief and bewdilderment, i turned and looked down the aisle at my fellow sufferers: executive, black dude, Japanese businessman, punk, hippie, mother, teenager, child. Each face was a mask of tears. Staggering out, through a tundra of sodden hankies, i felt drained, pooped, squeezed dry; i felt as though i had lived out a year-long love affair - complete with desire and despair, passion and prostration - in the space of 120 minutes. _Martin Amis, The Observer, November 21st 1982.
― piscesx, Sunday, 15 February 2009 07:03 (fifteen years ago) link
Referring to people as "black" in the USA
― contenderizer, Sunday, 15 February 2009 07:16 (fifteen years ago) link
I think the "dude" part of that is more questionable.
― O Bama, Up Yours! (The Yellow Kid), Sunday, 15 February 2009 08:18 (fifteen years ago) link
Can't believe they left the 2002 edition's chucking-loo-roll-about Halloween scene out of the original.
― piscesx, Wednesday, 1 April 2009 18:01 (fifteen years ago) link
Rewatching it now on TV: haven't seen it for maybe 20 years? I remember seeing it Brighton with a friend -- who went on to be a minor Hollywood director swank swank (lass swank if i told you what his movies were, but I shall not betray him here) -- in a theatre full of kids. British kids, so noisily cheerful, not weeping or anything. Don't remember my own response in depth -- didn't hate it; thought it was fun; didn't have any "cineaste" type responses in any direction. I was in my mid-20s, and it must have been out for some years -- so maybe I'd already seen it? (If so I totally don't recall.)
The family stuff is of course terrific, kids and mom; E.T. himself is maybe a teeny bit under-imagined in terms of being an actual alien (as opposed to a human-directed/human-compatible being). I'd forgotten what a racket he makes.
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:20 (twelve years ago) link
interesting reading morbs' opening post on this thread; the movie had always carried a lot of meaning for me in terms of family and this sense of warmth, but i wasn't sure if it was viewed that way at large.
― surm, Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:23 (twelve years ago) link
I definitely remember that being discussed at the time, as something really unusual -- just the fact that this was a one-parent family, and the weave of warmth and hurt, and the well-observed details, like the nature of the swearing (when the mom can't help laughing when Elliot says "penis-breath!" even though she's trying to tell him off); also Elliot's knowledgeable investment in Star Wars figurines -- this was actually an element my later-to-be-Hollywood ex-friend was totally knocked out by; he seemed to think it was completely groundbreaking. (Which it may be: it's become a bit of a nuisance, since -- hommage and knowing pop-culture references and etc -- and my ex-friend's one of the people who made it a nuisance, possibly, but at the time it provided a new layer of realism which was really interesting; ordinary people in films as cultural beings, or something).
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:31 (twelve years ago) link
when the mom can't help laughing when Elliot says "penis-breath!" even though she's trying to tell him off
Such a great moment.
― dor Dumbeddownball (Eric H.), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:34 (twelve years ago) link
wow, i'd totally forgotten that mind-meld moment where elliot acts out the scene that ET is watching on TV at that very moment
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:43 (twelve years ago) link
E.T. is one of those movies that was ubiquitous when I was a kid and I've seen at least half a dozen times and can't remember a single goddamn thing about it. Another movie that shares this same trait for me is "Goonies."
― despite all my rage I am still just a Latter Day Saint (Abbbottt), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:53 (twelve years ago) link
Both I've even seen as an adult a couple times and it just falls out of my head right after.
― despite all my rage I am still just a Latter Day Saint (Abbbottt), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:54 (twelve years ago) link
i still remember Elliott calling his old brother "penis breath"
― Neanderthal, Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:54 (twelve years ago) link
I remember Elliot holding the thermometer up to a desk lamp.
― dor Dumbeddownball (Eric H.), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:57 (twelve years ago) link
Which should've made his temperature, what, 185 degrees?
― dor Dumbeddownball (Eric H.), Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:58 (twelve years ago) link
hahahahahaha yea i forgot about that part
― Neanderthal, Sunday, 6 November 2011 19:58 (twelve years ago) link
I had the videogame. Actually a friend had it and brought it over to show me, and ended up leaving it and not really wanting it back. I don't think i played it more than once.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmrQkQsM9FU
The Raiders game was pretty much the same thing. SUCK SUCK SUCK
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:09 (twelve years ago) link
I had it too. Beat it a few times, but only on the easy level. the FBI/CIA agents used to scare me.
if you want a copy there's a landfill with a million copies somewhere
― Neanderthal, Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:11 (twelve years ago) link
RIPhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial
― Number None, Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:12 (twelve years ago) link
KEEP THEM AWAY FROM WALTER WHITE
― Neanderthal, Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:13 (twelve years ago) link
It's in Alamogordo, NM, but they're covered in concrete iirc
― despite all my rage I am still just a Latter Day Saint (Abbbottt), Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:13 (twelve years ago) link
i didn't get why E.T. stretching his neck allowed him to float out of wells.
― Neanderthal, Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:16 (twelve years ago) link
like it wasn't something that the movie exactly...ehm...focused on
Also I'd misremembered it as much more brightly lit and primary colours than it actually is -- more like Star Wars in tone and hue (most be the John Williams effect) (and the trick-or-treat scene). The lighting's actually really sparse a lot of the time, and the colour's all muted browns and greys. Williams is the weak link for me, I know too much of the sources he constantly raids (Janacek!) not to get irritable when he amps it up.
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:21 (twelve years ago) link
If you don't feel a bit emotional when the music kicks in during the bike flying scene i dunno what's wrong with you
― Number None, Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:23 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah, I would've definitely given the Oscar to Goldsmith that year.
― dor Dumbeddownball (Eric H.), Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:25 (twelve years ago) link
"Can't he just b-beam up?""This is reality, Greg!"
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:44 (twelve years ago) link
one neat little dramatic reversal from earlier -- when the house is suddenly menaced from outside, a house that has comfily housed an actual-real alien for days, the intruding "monster" is... a human in a moon-landing-style spacesuit
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 20:56 (twelve years ago) link
Suggested E.T. to a friend for their Friday family film night, but it go nixed because it makes his wife cry. So instead I sneakily recommend The Iron Giant, which is not only also great but which is also basically E.T. Family loved it, wife left halfway because "she knew where this was heading."
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 6 November 2011 21:51 (twelve years ago) link
but it has a happy ending!
― Number None, Sunday, 6 November 2011 21:52 (twelve years ago) link
There's a look on Elliot's mom face when she watches the spaceship take E.T. home that is one of the best depictions of ecstasy in a film.
― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 6 November 2011 21:59 (twelve years ago) link
And a great contrast to the shock and horror when she first sees Elliot and ET in the bathroom. That plus the sadness and disappointment on the siblings' faces -- like, how did you EXPECT your mom to react -- followed by ET'S despairing cry when she takes Elliot away and wont help him makes me tear up just thinking about it
― i couldn't adjust the food knobs (Phil D.), Sunday, 6 November 2011 22:08 (twelve years ago) link
haha when ET says "I'll always be here" I was totally expecting him to say "I'll be back" -- he even sounds a tiny bit like Arnie for a second.
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2011 22:11 (twelve years ago) link
so Spielberg recently announced the fact that he regretted Lucas-ing up ET. hoping we can get a blu-ray of the original film. i love it unreservedly.
― circa1916, Sunday, 6 November 2011 23:21 (twelve years ago) link
Arrg, that fucking game. Played that thing 50 fucking times. I want that part of my life back.
― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Sunday, 6 November 2011 23:41 (twelve years ago) link
i suppose I woulda hated it more if i ever played on the intermediate or hard levels.
― Neanderthal, Monday, 7 November 2011 00:23 (twelve years ago) link
Oh God this movie. Just switched it on and of course it's when they find sick ET and now I'm all in tears and WHY IS IT SO TOUCHING?!
― Airwrecka Bliptrap Blapmantis (ENBB), Thursday, 4 April 2013 03:00 (eleven years ago) link
That scene where Michael is riding around looking for E.T. has one of my all-time favorite John Williams cues behind it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGB3XSa5JtE
― ARE YOU HIRING A NANNY OR A SHAMAN (Phil D.), Thursday, 4 April 2013 16:59 (eleven years ago) link
a while back a fb friend of mine went on a diatribe about how homophobic this movie was. his only evidence was 'penis breath.'
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 5 April 2013 00:35 (eleven years ago) link
Tell him to watch the silly new cut where they change that and the terrorist joke, and replace all the guns with walkie talkies, That'll make him feel better.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 5 April 2013 01:50 (eleven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0TfR9mgOiU
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 5 April 2013 01:51 (eleven years ago) link
ThoughtTraveler 11 hours agoI wonder why this was not included in the film. I would have been a touching addition to the movie.Reply ·
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 5 April 2013 01:52 (eleven years ago) link
Richard Attenborough was a classy guy, by all evidence
“I went to see E.T. in Los Angeles shortly before all the awards and we used language, when we came out, to the extent of saying ‘we have no chance – E.T. should and will walk away with it’,” Attenborough said in a 2008 interview with the BBC. He called Spielberg’s movie “an infinitely more creative and fundamental piece of cinema.”
Of Gandhi, he said: “It’s a piece of narration rather than a piece of cinema, as such. E.T. depended absolutely on the concept of cinema and I think that Steven Spielberg, who I’m very fond of, is a genius. I think E.T. is a quite extraordinary piece of cinema.”
http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/08/24/steven-spielberg-richard-attenborough/
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 25 August 2014 17:04 (nine years ago) link
A sequel! It's a Thanksgiving miracle!
https://youtu.be/Pdgk3ERKdug
― War Crimes Tribunal of the Network Stars (Old Lunch), Thursday, 28 November 2019 17:18 (four years ago) link
fucking hell
― A victim managed to capture evidence of the gimp (bizarro gazzara), Thursday, 28 November 2019 17:43 (four years ago) link
Henry Thomas rn
https://frinkiac.com/meme/S04E01/1244526.jpg?b64lines=CiBUSEVZIERST1ZFIEEgRFVNUCBUUlVDSwogRlVMTCBPRiBNT05FWSBUTyBNWQogSE9VU0Uu
― I don't get wet because I am tall and thin and I am afraid of people (Eliza D.), Thursday, 28 November 2019 18:08 (four years ago) link
https://imgc.allpostersimages.com/img/print/u-g-F85ZFC0.jpg
― War Crimes Tribunal of the Network Stars (Old Lunch), Thursday, 28 November 2019 18:27 (four years ago) link
This is the perfect age for an adolescent boy to have this reaction to this movie!
I saw it in a theater as an adult. I could see how the magic was being done, because in order for it to do its work, it can't be effectively hidden, but I went along with it and experienced all the appropriate emotions at the appropriate scenes. Basically, it's a well-disguised Passion of Christ play, and that story has been tugging at hearts for millennia. In E.T. all the tiny parts fit together beautifully and snugly and operate at very high efficiency.
― A is for (Aimless), Thursday, 28 November 2019 18:31 (four years ago) link
i guess last year's google home alone ad was a success
― wasdnuos (abanana), Thursday, 28 November 2019 18:31 (four years ago) link
whatever they paid him it wasn't worth it
― Pinche Cumbion Bien Loco (stevie), Thursday, 28 November 2019 22:20 (four years ago) link
I feel like people are not outraged enough by this. This is surely way worse than the Cats trailer, right? I guess the young people don't care.
― trishyb, Friday, 29 November 2019 15:42 (four years ago) link
Dave Marsh gave the Michael Jackson-narrated E.T. Storybook five stars in The New Rolling Stone Record Guide. I suspect he was high on Thriller fumes, but I've always been curious to check it out.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, 29 November 2019 15:59 (four years ago) link
this is cuntish
― deems of internment (darraghmac), Friday, 29 November 2019 16:05 (four years ago) link
I don't care about e.t. so i'm not outraged.
It's a bad... commercial? showing off... the internet? It doesn't say anything about xfinity or Comcast, except that Comcast owns a bunch of companies.
― wasdnuos (abanana), Friday, 29 November 2019 21:43 (four years ago) link
"damn, ellliotttttt... you... got... oooooooooold."
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Friday, 29 November 2019 23:51 (four years ago) link
According to the biography Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness, written by journalist J. Randy Taraborrelli, the pop singer had shown an early attachment to the story of E.T. After a publicity photo shoot for the soundtrack album in which an animatronic robot of the extraterrestrial character hugged Jackson, the singer stated with wonderment, "He was so real that I was talking to him. I kissed him before I left. The next day, I missed him."[15] Jackson later revealed in the December 1982 issue of Ebony magazine—in which both he and E.T. appear on the cover—that he felt he actually was the creature during the album recording and shared his thoughts on why he had such a strong connection to the character:
"He's in a strange place and wants to be accepted—which is a situation that I have found myself in many times when travelling from city to city all over the world. He's most comfortable with children, and I have a great love for kids. He gives love and wants love in return, which is me. And he has that super power which lets him lift off and fly whenever he wants to get away from things on Earth, and I can identify with that. He and I are alike in many ways"[4]
― omar little, Friday, 29 November 2019 23:58 (four years ago) link
cf herzog and baby yoda
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Saturday, 30 November 2019 00:40 (four years ago) link
my dad owned a copy, which I inherited. It is creepy AF. I used to cut bits of it into mixtapes back in my youth.
― Pinche Cumbion Bien Loco (stevie), Saturday, 30 November 2019 19:44 (four years ago) link
it's a fucking commercial; I won't see it, so
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 30 November 2019 21:56 (four years ago) link
But a Spielberg-approved commercial!
― War Crimes Tribunal of the Network Stars (Old Lunch), Saturday, 30 November 2019 23:56 (four years ago) link
he's approved a lotta things I don't care for (Hillary Clinton)
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 1 December 2019 00:27 (four years ago) link
saw this at the theater today, pretty amazingly bad. mac and me level! but then again, i guess there was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv-Fcy6Aw10
― tylerw, Sunday, 1 December 2019 00:36 (four years ago) link
really liked this new ET thing that people have been talking about.
― DT, Sunday, 1 December 2019 00:51 (four years ago) link
I imagine (hope) that when I finally show them the actual movie they won't remember this commercial, but I was damn pissed to take my kids to see Frozen 2 today and have their introduction to ET (and iconic images like the flying bikes) be an xfinity commercial.
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Sunday, 1 December 2019 04:47 (four years ago) link
I'm not sure the original iteration of E.T. would really resonate with the kids of today, I mean the '80s version of the character didn't even seem to understand the intricacies of DVR-ing one show while watching another via one of the many streaming apps available to subscribers on the Xfinity platform. Our focus testing shows that young people only relate to fictional aliens that know how to navigate through On Demand menus with alacrity and a little swagger.
― War Crimes Tribunal of the Network Stars (Old Lunch), Sunday, 1 December 2019 06:54 (four years ago) link
does E.T. get HEnry Thomas out of a DUI in this commercial
― Jordan Pickford LOLverdrive (Neanderthal), Sunday, 1 December 2019 08:23 (four years ago) link
Who cares if it's an xfinity commercial or not? lol
― DT, Sunday, 1 December 2019 08:28 (four years ago) link
this commercial is boomer-iagra
― Yerac, Sunday, 1 December 2019 19:45 (four years ago) link
Gen X-stacy more like it
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Sunday, 1 December 2019 20:00 (four years ago) link
boomer-iagra
Why would that be? Boomers sure as hell weren't kids when ET was released in 1982 and a lot of them didn't even have children, yet.
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 1 December 2019 20:00 (four years ago) link
All the people going crazy about it/forwarding it seem to be boomers.
― Yerac, Sunday, 1 December 2019 20:02 (four years ago) link
I never considered ET a kids movie? Wasn't it popular all around?
― Yerac, Sunday, 1 December 2019 20:03 (four years ago) link
hmmm. maybe they're just old, bored, housebound, overly sentimental, and unimaginative, and therefore a perfect demographic for Comcast.
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 1 December 2019 20:06 (four years ago) link
It was nominated for Best Picture.
― I don't get wet because I am tall and thin and I am afraid of people (Eliza D.), Sunday, 1 December 2019 20:06 (four years ago) link
It’s a family movie
― insecurity bear (sic), Sunday, 1 December 2019 20:14 (four years ago) link