"E.T. the Extra Terrestrial"

Title: "E.T. the Extra Terrestrial"
Director: Steven Spielberg
Producer: Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy (Mrs. Steven Spielberg)
Editing: Carol Littleton
Composer: John Williams
Starring:
- Henry Thomas as Elliott
- Robert MacNaughton as Michael
- Drew Barrymore as Gertie
- Dee Wallace as Mary

I submit my apologies to you all for failing to post a review yesterday. I was feeling increasingly ill and couldn't even sit up for an extended period of time. Yesterday we missed "Driving Miss Daisy" but as was the case with that film and "Die Hard" (which we missed on Wednesday) i'll try to revisit those reviews in the future; perhaps on Sundays when i'd otherwise be "off." I'm glad to be feeling better and return to the reviews with a tremendously special picture. I remember watching this movie with my sister who was terrified of the very first sequence in the forest and refused to watch the rest of the film. I hope she's gotten over that fear and is willing to give it a watch for this film is nothing short of miraculous.

Plot and Critical Review: The film opens in a California forest as a group of alien botanists collect vegetation samples. U.S. government agents appear and the aliens flee in their spaceship, leaving one of their own behind in their haste. The scene shifts to a suburban California home, where a boy named Elliott plays servant to his older brother, Michael, and his friends. As he fetches pizza, Elliott discovers the stranded alien, who promptly flees. Despite his family's disbelief, Elliott leaves Reese's Pieces candy in the forest to lure it into his bedroom. Before he goes to bed, Elliott notices the alien imitating his movements.

Elliott feigns illness the next morning to avoid school so he can play with the alien. That afternoon, Michael and their younger sister, Gertie, meet the alien. Their mother, Mary, hears the noise and comes upstairs. Michael, Gertie and the alien hide in the closet while Elliott assures his mother that everything is all right. Michael and Gertie promise to keep the alien a secret from their mother. Deciding to keep the alien, the children begin to ask it about its origin. It answers by levitating balls to represent its solar system, and further demonstrates its powers by reviving a dead plant.

At school the next day, Elliott begins to experience a psychic connection with the alien. Elliott becomes irrational due partly to the alien's intoxication from drinking beer. Elliott then begins freeing all the frogs from a dissection class. As the alien watches John Wayne kiss Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man, Elliott's psychic link causes him to kiss a girl he likes in the same manner.

The alien learns to speak English by repeating what Gertie says in response to her watching Sesame Street and, through Elliott's urging, dubs itself as "E.T." It enlists Elliott's help in building a device to "phone home" by using a Speak & Spell toy. Michael starts to notice that E.T.'s health is declining and that Elliott is referring to himself as "we." On Halloween, Michael and Elliott dress E.T. as a ghost so they can sneak it out of the house. Elliott and E.T. ride a bicycle to the forest, where E.T. makes a successful call home. The next morning, Elliott wakes up to find E.T. gone, and returns home to his distressed family. Michael finds E.T. dying in the forest, and takes the alien to Elliott, who is also dying. Mary becomes frightened when she discovers her son's illness and the dying alien, before government agents invade the house.

Scientists set up a medical facility in the house, quarantining Elliott and E.T. The link between E.T. and Elliott disappears as E.T. appears to die. Elliott is left alone with the motionless alien when he notices a dead flower, the plant E.T. had previous revived, coming back to life. E.T. reanimates and reveals that its people are returning. Elliott and Michael steal a van that E.T. had been loaded into and a chase ensues, with Michael's friends joining Elliott and E.T. as they attempt to evade the authorities by bicycle. Suddenly facing a dead-end, they escape as E.T. uses telekinesis to lift them into the air and toward the forest. Standing near the spaceship, E.T.'s heart glows as it prepares to return home. Mary, Gertie and "Keys" (Peter Coyote), a government agent, show up. E.T. says goodbye to Michael and Gertie, and before entering the spaceship, tells Elliott "I'll be right here," pointing its glowing finger to Elliott's heart.

"E.T." was a film far ahead of it's time. Spielberg had already experimented with the "Human meets Alien" idea with "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." When "Close Encounters..." released in 1977 Spielberg was already renowned in the cinematic world as being a "mover and a shaker" with works like "Jaws" and an upcoming Indiana Jones series. "E.T." was one of the early films that proved to the entire motion picture world that Spielberg was going to do great things with his career.

"E.T." was nominated for 9 Oscars but received 4 - Best Original Music Score, Best Sound,Best Sound Effects Editing, and Best Visual Effects. It was nominated for Best Picture but was beat out by "Gandhi" which won 9 Oscars including every other award for which "E.T." was nominated. When asked about "Gandhi"'s victory in director Richard Attenborough said this: "I was certain that not only would E.T. win, but that it should win. It was inventive, powerful, [and] wonderful. I make more mundane movies."

My Rating: 8/10

The "Reel Revelation": "I'll Be Right Here..."

The final words of E.T. express the same sentiment Jesus communicated just before he ascended into Heaven. Before E.T. got on the spaceship to return home with his family he told Elliott "I'll be right here" and pointed to his (Elliott's) heart. Just before Jesus ascends into Heaven he promises his unceasing presence to his disciples (and us) through the Holy Spirit. I am not drawing a line of comparison between these two people...E.T. is NOT Jesus. But their words are spoken out of love, everlasting, and meant for us.

We've all had to say "goodbye". Losing a person (for whatever reason) can be one of the most difficult things a person can experience. The grief that accompanies the death of a loved one can seem just as difficult to bear as when we lose someone like a friend a lover. Those in working environments based upon a community of people working toward a common goal know how hard it is when even one person is lost. In each instance we say "goodbye" and secretly wonder 'Will I ever see that person again?' More often than not the cold answer is "No." Must it be this way? It is not this way with Jesus, and it ought not be this way with one another.

As I mentioned in the "Reel Revelation" from "CSI" there's no way to escape the fact that people will fail us. So also we must come to accept that people will enter and exit our lives. But do we really have to endure that deep sense of emptiness within when they're gone, the "hole" that they used to fill? I've come to believe that you can get back the time you lose in relationships that fail; likewise with people who you know but end up losing. What you can't get back, however, is the part of yourself that you invest in that person; the love, affection, and trust you take out of your heart and place in theirs. If you want to achieve a sense of confidence that the people you lose "aren't really gone forever" then you must be aware of what you invest in them before they're gone. While nothing can replace their physical presence, what representation of them is left within your life? What representation of yourself do you leave in theirs?

Jesus spoke words of love, performed miracles, taught about the Kingdom of God, and offered himself up to die in the greatest act of love anyone has ever known. You can bet that when he ascended to Heaven (remember, the disciples thought he was really gone but would return shortly) they thought on the things Jesus said and did to remind themselves of his love. It is my deep hope that we would also treat each other with such love and respect that if, God forbid, we have to leave one another (for whatever reason) the "part" of us that remains with those we love is enough to give them the assurance that we're not really gone at all. Not that others might have a "sense" of our "presence" or any of that mumbo-jumbo, but that when we go we will be remembered as we were, in completion, and so always "be right here" with those we love.

See you tomorrow - E.T.